We often remark on the state of modern media, pointing to its decline in quality and creativity. Much of it openly advances Left‑wing politics, whether through Progressive ideology or Pop Postmodernism. Yet despite this slop, Leftists continue to dominate the media, and audiences still turn out in droves to consume it.
Why is this? Are people simply ignorant? Foolish? Has quality itself died?
The answer is not the easy assumption many make, that people consume slop because they are mindless normies who must be shown what true quality looks like. In reality, quality (or the lack of it) has little to do with why modern media is consumed at all.
A Ritual of Belonging
Modern audiences do not flock to media because of its narrative excellence. The stories themselves which are often shallow, derivative, or openly propagandistic, are not the true draw. What compels people to consume modern media is the participation in a ritual of belonging. Media has become a sacrament: a liturgy of shared consumption that binds individuals together in a common identity, even when the content itself is slop.
William T. Cavanaugh’s Being Consumed offers a framework for understanding this dynamic. He argues that consumption in late capitalism is not primarily about the intrinsic quality of goods but about the act of consuming itself. Desire is detached from satisfaction; products are consumed not because they fulfill but because they perpetuate the cycle of desire. Applied to media, this means that audiences are not seeking narrative fulfillment or artistic excellence. They are seeking the act of watching, streaming, and sharing because it is ritual. They are a part of what “everyone” is consuming.
Secular Communion vs. Eucharistic Communion
According to Cavanaugh, the Eucharist is not merely symbolic or individualistic; it is the act by which the Church is constituted as the Body of Christ. In Being Consumed, he stresses that true consumption in the Eucharist is radically different from consumer culture: in the Eucharist, we do not consume in order to possess or exhaust. Instead, we are consumed into Christ — drawn into a shared body that transcends individual desire and unites us in genuine communion.
In Migrations of the Holy, Cavanaugh explains that secular societies migrate religious energies into political or cultural rituals. Communion, in its true form, is meant to indicate participation in Christ’s sacrifice, a unity that is not manufactured by human desire but given by divine grace. It is the act by which the “many” become one body, not through conformity or trend, but through incorporation into Christ’s life.
By contrast, when people consume modern media “because everyone is consuming it,” they enact a hollow imitation of this Eucharistic reality. The ritual of watching the latest show or film signals belonging to a cultural body, but it is a body without transcendence. It is communion without Christ. It is a secular liturgy where the sacrament is slop, and the unity achieved is merely the conformity of mindless normies to the churn of mass culture.
All of this is a just a brief explanation as to why audiences tolerate slop. The story is not the point. What matters is the ritual of participation and the sense of being included in some greater congregation. To get hyped for next product, to watch the latest blockbuster, or play the latest video game, or to binge the trending series is all part of a communal act that signals membership within a cultural body.
By controlling the liturgy of secular communion, the media industry ensures that participation itself becomes an act of ideological formation.
Obsession with Rituals
The point of contrasting secular media consumption with Eucharistic communion reveals something deeper about human nature: mankind is inherently ritualistic.
Even when people protest against ritual, mocking it as outdated, unnecessary, or impractical, they cannot escape it. They invent new rituals constantly: streaming the latest show at release, gathering for sports spectacles, repeating memes, or participating in political liturgies. These practices may lack transcendent utility, but they persist because ritual is woven into the fabric of human existence.
Cavanaugh’s work helps us see why. In Being Consumed, he shows that desire in consumer culture is detached from fulfillment, yet the ritual of consumption remains indispensable. In Migrations of the Holy, he explains that secular societies migrate religious energies into new forms of ritual because the longing for communion cannot be eradicated. Ritual is not an accident of culture; it is a structural feature of humanity.
Ritual as Evidence of Divine Creation
Why do human beings, across cultures and eras, instinctively create ceremonies, liturgies, and communal acts? Because mankind was created by divine hands, and ritual is the imprint of that origin. The Eucharist reveals the true purpose of ritual: incorporation into Christ’s body. Secular rituals mimic this form but lack its substance. Even when rituals are emptied of God, they testify to humanity’s longing for something beyond the self. The universality of ritual (whether sacred or secular) shows that humans are not random consumers of experience. We are creatures designed for worship.
Thus, the persistence of ritual, even in degraded forms like media consumption, is evidence of divine creation. It shows that mankind cannot escape the liturgical structure of existence. Even when people deny God, they cannot deny ritual, because ritual is the echo of the Creator’s design.
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I see your point. People consume to fit in, but I think, they also consume because society teaches that consumption leads to happiness. They consume in "pursuit of happiness" and distraction. They don't want to exist--like really exist--in the real world. They want an escape. An amusement. An entertainment. They want to not live their own lives but better (read: more powerful/beautiful/fun) ones in video games and on TV.