A year ago I tweeted that when Netflix drops a big new show “it feels like a software update is being pushed to everyone's brain.” I’d recently noticed how The Queen’s Gambit had suddenly caused everyone to start talking about chess, as if the game itself was something we’d all just found out about.
Your mention of the virtual middle class reminds me of E. M. Forster's story "The Machine Stops"; sometimes it seems we are all headed in that direction. https://www.ele.uri.edu/faculty/vetter/Other-stuff/The-Machine-Stops.pdf
Thanks for sharing - I gotta read this!