linguistic:voice_change, information:filtering, linguistic:paraphrasing
Culture and society

The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on popular culture. It was included in the narratives of ongoing pre-pandemic television series and become a central narrative in new ones, with mixed results. Writing for The New York Times about the then-upcoming BBC sitcom Pandemonium on 16 December 2020, David Segal asked, "Are we ready to laugh about Covid-19? Or rather, is there anything amusing, or recognizable in a humorous way, about life during a plague, with all of its indignities and setbacks, not to mention its rituals and rules."

The pandemic had driven some people to seek peaceful escapism in media, while others were drawn towards fictional pandemics (e.g. zombie apocalypses) as an alternate form of escapism. Common themes have included contagion, isolation and loss of control. Many drew comparisons to the fictional film Contagion (2011), praising its accuracies while noting some differences, such as the lack of an orderly vaccine rollout.

As people turned to music to relieve emotions evoked by the pandemic, Spotify listenership showed that classical, ambient and children's genres grew, while pop, country and dance remained relatively stable.