Democratized video production favored natural charisma over trained nerds’ skill

Evidence

TikTok’s emergence marked a seismic shift in cultural production. It ended the long-standing monopoly of nerds—who pursued film and TV careers through years of training and deep study of the medium—on visual storytelling. Now anyone with a smartphone could shoot, edit, and publish their own short films. In this more competitive marketplace, young audiences overwhelmingly gravitated toward the naturally charismatic and conventionally attractive. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 660

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Supports the omnivore-monoculture mechanism chapter — this is the platform-level disruption (internet-collapsed distribution) that flattens who gets to define visual culture toward charisma-driven sameness.
• XREF: connects to: Successful online content creators become instructional models for aspiring imitators — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 40; Grainy low-tech webcams assert that people, not technology, make the network — Theresa M. Senft, Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in…, 304