FIFA World Cup '26 is the Most Important Event in the History of Modern Society

Upon waking yesterday morning, 350 million different Americans all began talking about one single thing: that red card was BS! Professional pundits, former pros, and people whose knowledge of soccer is barely three weeks old all agree that Flo Balogun's errant squashing of Tarik Muharemovic's ankle was damning in slo-mo, but in real-time it was not a red-card offense. This shared outrage, paired perfectly with the shared jubilation of Team USA's 2-0 victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina, is precisely why FIFA World Cup '26 is the most important event in the history of modern human society.

Pearl Harbor? 9-11? Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction? Surely I am not asserting this year's World Cup is more important than these course-of-history-altering events? In one sense, yes, this World Cup is more significant. It is more significant not because of the extraordinary circumstances the event has led to, but rather because of the everyday circumstances this event has managed to pull us from. I'm talking about our personal feeds. Our curated, individualized digital lives. Our 350 million hyper-customized "daily me"s have been temporarily supplanted by another single story, single event, single life that is playing out on soccer pitches across North America.

When you ask a friend, "Did you see on social media that...?", you are typically met with a blank stare reminding you that their social media is not your social media, is not anyone else's social media. We know this, that our "news" is curated specifically for us, mostly to feed our existing beliefs or enrage us sufficiently to continue clicking, continue scrolling, continue engaging online content and not engage real people in the real world. Slowly, gradually, as the internet has expanded into every part of our individual lives, we have collectively lost shared space, shared stories, a shared narrative and culture.

We have seen this coming for a while. Sociologist Robert Putnam articulated in his landmark book, Bowling Alone, how media systems that alter the ways humans interact have profound effects on the way people build and maintain relationships, and how civic society ultimately functions. He was largely looking at the effects of television, but the insights accurately previewed what we've seen with the internet. We have used technology to construct not a more interconnected and interdependent society, but a radically fractured and individualized one, where each person can exist in their own digital society of one. The tools that optimize or personalize an experience for each user do so inherently by sacrificing the collective, the common, and the shared. Not only do we not know what each other is talking about anymore, but we're eroding the very tools and institutions that allow us to meaningfully communicate, come together, and form connections.

But for these last few weeks, we have been transported back to a connected society with a common story. And what a story it is! Now, when you ask friends, strangers, anyone in any language, "Did you see that BS red card?!", they know exactly what you're talking about. Messi's left foot. The Norwegian row. Diallo's masterful finish. Europeans discovering ranch dressing. Harry-Bloody-Kane. We are living a shared experience once again.

It had to be in the U.S. The World Cup is, of course, not an "American" event, but perhaps the most global one--one whose particular significance now on the world stage is inextricably linked to it taking place in the U.S. (and Canada and Mexico, I know, I know, but I'm after a bigger point here). You need no reminding that for more than three months leading up to the event, the host U.S. has been bombing Iran, only to then welcome the Iranian team to matches in Los Angeles and Seattle. And for much of the winter leading up to that war, Europeans watched with shock and dismay as the U.S. threatened to seize Greenland. Somehow, through the magic of sport in uniting, humbling, and refocusing us (and maybe also distracting us, just a bit), the global community set aside these geopolitical existential worries for concerns about, say, how much ranch dressing and honey mustard they could fit in their hand luggage.

This is possible only in America, though not just because of the size of the American stage. America is showcasing this alternative society not through any kind of political, economic or military power. It is doing it the way we long did: through culture and "soft power." Instead of Americans insisting their country is special, as hosts of the world's game we are letting thousands of converted Tocquevilles share with their friends and family across the globe their own interpretation of American uniqueness. That has produced countless TikToks on the vastness of America and the vastness of its choices of mustard, but also on the kindness and hospitality of its people. This shining of a light on American values and the American way of life comes at an interesting point in societal development, since this is the place after all that produced so much of the internet technology responsible for society's fracturing and hyper-individualization.

And it had to be through soccer. "The world's game." The very name of the sport has something of a leveling, if not quite humbling, effect on America. Here is one arena where America isn't the center of the universe, and it doesn't even call the game by its common name. And through this leveling, by us hosting their game, we all come together. Together just as people. Not as some contrived "global community," but just as people. P eople commonly and equally dazzled by that greatest of humanizers, physical sport. It is no coincidence that the world's most popular sport is probably its simplest. Soccer is in turns frantic and paced, graceful and violent. Its unadorned players are, despite their unfathomable skill, so knowable and relatable. It is all so human. And in its humanity, it couldn't be more opposite from the manufactured, curated, hyper-customized and optimized "content" served to us on the internet. We don't control the game of soccer, it isn't for any one of us. It is there to simply watch, enjoy, and accept.

Sure, the storylines of this year's World Cup feed some fascinating questions about immigration and nationalization and all those big weighty issues. But really, those are issues more the fodder for the algorithms than what we fans are tuning in for each night. We fans are in rapture over what's happening on the field. Mbappé, Messi, and the superstars earning the hype and more; Cape Verde, Canada, and the underdogs proving their mettle. Watching this sport, we are entertained, and we are also moved. Most of all we are alive! We are alive together.

I don't know whether this is a quaint reminder of how we used to live or just a brief detour from our intractable path toward an even more digitized, individualized world. Either way, for these few weeks we've stopped tweeting about AI taking our jobs, or asking Reddit whether to sink our savings into the next IPO. Those are the internet's usual dramas, the ones about me, my career, my money, my future. The World Cup is an event for us, it is not mine or yours (unless you're on the pitch) but ours. Its very meaning comes from being our spectacle, something we behold together. We cannot control it, cannot curate or customize it. Whatever we as individuals may want, we can't do anything but simply watch it. That is humbling, and maybe that's why we can't look away.

Of course, maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe everyone's just riveted because they've got money on the games on Kalshi...