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My New Book, Blank Space, is Out Today

https://culture.ghost.io/my-new-book-blank-space-is-out-today/

Published: November 18, 2025 12:38

I wrote — perhaps “inadvisably” — a cultural history of the first 24.5 years of the 21st centuryMy third book, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the 21st Century, is out today from Viking Books. (If you're in NYC, I'm doing an

Our Geniuses Define Our Times

https://culture.ghost.io/our-geniuses-define-our-times/

Published: October 28, 2025 23:56

The superlative adulation for Taylor Swift as an artistic and business genius suggests a shift in the fundamental expectations for cultural excellence in the 21st century📣My new book Blank Space: A Cultural History of the 21st Century comes out on November…

The New Yorker Roundup

https://culture.ghost.io/the-new-yorker-roundup/

Published: August 27, 2025 00:44

Thoughts on "our" culture in three pieces from Kyle Chayka, Kelefa Sanneh, and Joshua RothmanKyle Chayka: "IRL Brain Rot and the Lure of the Labubu"Bloomberg's Amanda Mull wrote about Labubus, prompting me to write about Labubus, which prompted Katherine…

Only Fads: A Culture (and Economy) of Labubu

https://culture.ghost.io/only-fads-a-culture-and-economy-of-labubu/

Published: August 13, 2025 23:35

Fads are nothing new, but an online-first culture has made raw trendiness the primary cultural value, which is moving the base of cultural production away from the U.S.Amanda Mull, Bloomberg: The Social Media Machine is Spitting Out Weirder and Weirder…

The Pro-Pop Ideology, from Ashlee to Addison

https://culture.ghost.io/the-pro-pop-ideology-from-ashlee-to-addison/

Published: June 17, 2025 00:30

The defenses of pop singer Ashlee Simpson after her 2004 lip-syncing scandal set in motion the 21st century’s core belief that the best pop culture is often the most openly manufacturedRecently I got into a Bluesky spat with Jody Rosen, former Slate music…

GenAI is Our Polyester

https://culture.ghost.io/genai-is-our-polyester/

Published: June 2, 2025 23:30

The best way to understand generative AI art and aesthetics is to consider how previous "synthetics" lost value in the long-runFor the first half of the 20th century, white-collar workers wore business shirts made from cotton or linen that wrinkled in the…

The Missing Piece in Conversations about “Cultural Decline”

https://culture.ghost.io/the-missing-piece-in-conversations-about-cultural-decline/

Published: May 12, 2025 23:30

Critics in the 21st century embraced mass culture in a belief that it would liberate audiences — but it's directly responsible for triggering the feelings of stagnationI enjoy Spencer Kornhaber’s music journalism, so I was excited to read his Atlantic…

The 21st Century and Empty Popularity

https://culture.ghost.io/the-21st-century-and-empty-popularity/

Published: May 6, 2025 00:00

Reality TV, data-based editorial decisions, social media, and the principled rejection of exclusionary taste have spawned “popular” things that may not actually very popularWe generally refer to something as popular when it…enjoys support from a…

Earnestness versus Cynicism: Fashion, then Politics

https://culture.ghost.io/earnestness-versus-cynicism-fashion-then-politics/

Published: March 31, 2025 23:55

Today the earnest progressive lyrics of 10,000 Maniacs feel extremely dated, which may help us understand why "resistance" in 2025 has become so bogged down in aesthetic rather than political concernsFor all the Nineties-revivals and frequent cultural…

The Age of the Double Sell-Out

https://culture.ghost.io/the-age-of-the-double-sell-out/

Published: March 18, 2025 00:07

In the last three decades, youth culture has moved from a deep suspicion of commerce to a passionate defense of anti-anti-commerce to an entire generation of "creatives” who leverage the commercial market… to do even more commerceIn the 1990s, there was a…