The "Rock Star Effect" — the broadcast-era machinery that could turn an unknown into a global phenomenon in eighteen months — wasn't magic, it was infrastructure. Payola, radio, MTV, network TV, and shelf space all funneled mass attention into shared cultural memory. The algorithm dismantled that infrastructure. Social media became interest media, where relevance beats reach, niches beat universality, and two people in the same household can live in entirely different cultures. The river didn't just split — it became mist.
