Please help me to understand this sentence. I think it is talking about readers.
This was before the era of television talk-show best sellers fashioned their follow-the-leader tastes into a drab society of the mutually hip.

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Thank you both.

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Interesting sentence...  a bit nonsensical.

Essentially, the television talk show people have created a dull society in which everyone is hip. And they have done this by fashioning their “follow the leader taste” in a certain way. The author is talking about a period that happened before this. 
   
The thing that makes this sentence hard to understand is the presence of the preposition “of” - Which is a mistake.  They should have used “when” or “during which”   (this was before the era when…)

Unless I am mistaken !  : )

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It's nonsense.  There are two main (finite) verbs in the same clause - a cardinal error of grammar. Forget it!  You won't learn anything from it.