Even before a stream of wide-eyed World Cup visitors arrived in the U.S. this summer to marvel at the square footage and enjoy the free samples, it’s been a busy year in the Costco cinematic universe. Alongside predictable viral hits of influencers curating store offerings for the Super Bowl and Lunar New Year, viewers were treated to TikTok and Instagram updates about date nights in the warehouse club, in‑store surprise birthdays, marriage proposals and even Costco‑themed house parties.

With Mardi Gras season in full swing, a local brass band performed at an Alabama warehouse, and not long after opening day, one intrepid Colorado Rockies fan brought an entire Costco rotisserie chicken to Coors Field to feast on inside the stadium. In another era, the sheer ubiquity of true believers spreading the gospel about the big‑box retailer might have been gauged in box‑office sales, Nielsen ratings or albums sold—the old metrics of monoculture that popular wisdom now says are ether dead or dying.

But in a high‑friction America, with two competing Super Bowl halftime shows and a fractured, contentious politics, the common ritual of Costco suggests that monoculture hasn’t disappeared. It’s just been reformatted. “Costco seems to me to be kind of like the heartbeat of America culturally, in a way,” said Noah Rinsky. “It seems to be one of the last places that, across the aisle, we can all agree is good.”