It didn't start with a bang or a nuclear winter. It started in the server farms. At exactly 12:00 PM UTC on 23/08, the global algorithm—the invisible hand that guided popular media—stopped updating. The great recommendation engines of the world, usually churning with the ferocity of a thousand suns, simply locked.

The phenomenon was officially dubbed the a quirk of a failed software patch intended to optimize bandwidth. Instead, it trapped the world in a perpetual loop of the morning’s entertainment content.