The days of the mass media culture are over, says Reed Johnson. “There will be no survivors, except on select reruns of Lost. In lieu of flowers, friends may send checks to the ‘Bring Back Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw Emergency Fund.’ There — that wasn’t so painful, was it? After all, it’s been common knowledge, or at least conventional wisdom, that traditional mainstream mass culture has been clinging to life for decades, like one of Anne Rice’s mottled vampires. But 2005 is when a chronic condition may have turned terminal.”