[bGriz]

The 6 corporations "owning the media" concept came out just shortly before, and during, the rise of social media (e.g. I recall it circulating as far back as 2010-'12). In fact, reddit and social media are how a large number of people became aware of it.

Without picking a side or making an argument, it's basically a repeatable factoid that gets people wondering how much collaboration, and potential illicit collusion, is really being applied to the stream of messages they are exposed to on a daily basis.

[eyelidlessness]

This isn't true. Consolidation of (old-) media has been a concern discussed as such since well before AOL was acquired by Time Warner.

[bGriz]

Sure, but it wasn't a shareable meme that could go viral. I'm referring to the comment about it passing the sniff test, my belief is it doesn't pass the sniff test because the concept of it being "6 corporations" is a decade old. And, as you suggest, perhaps much older.. I'm referring to when it was popularized as only 6.

Personally, I think it's naive to blame some exact set of companies... but in reality I never would've thought about it until someone pointed out how severe the consolidating was, and in plain sight.