Brian Thomas Clark
@btc
Strategist/Producer/Collector
Digital Experience Director @risd
Brian Thomas Clark
Most people lack focus, not motivation.
I write Tiny Thoughts like this in my weekly newsletter.
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instagram.comBy contrast, when “everything is at our fingertips” — when art is compressed into the same omnipresent and infinite digital non-time as every random piece of internet garbage — I think that we’re left feeling incomplete on some basic human level, like we’re the practitioners of a vibey old religion whose rituals were all but erased, and whose... See more
Streaming is an affront to God
making-meaning and
And so, when people valorize these kinds of outmoded media, and outmoded acts of endurance and devotion, I don’t think it’s just about empty nostalgia. Because these are touchstones and processes — precisely in their inefficiency — by which people can open themselves up to transformative experience, and honor the depth and fullness of what art means to us.
Both responses miss something important, though. They both assume that what we know as “culture” is the only type of culture that could ever exist.
There’s a third possible response, and that’s that there’s a new culture all around us.
We just don’t register it as “culture.”
There’s a third possible response, and that’s that there’s a new culture all around us.
We just don’t register it as “culture.”
Default Friend • No, Culture is Not Stuck
The stasis debate is actually just about two specific topics: (1) whether 21st century culture offers the feeling of artistic progress, where new styles/practices devalue previous ones, thereby creating clear chapters in the historical timeline, and (2) whether there are new techniques in symbolic activity that expand how we perceive the world and... See more
Why It's Hard to Argue about “Cultural Stasis”
Media & Culture and
n this sense, Labubus do seem to be a defining moment of 2020s culture. For those interested in moving culture away from fads such as these, resistance requires much more than a refusal to consume. If fads are narratives as much as products, they need to be starved of engagement, as well. We haven't figured out how to do this yet.
W. David Marx • Only Fads: A Culture (And Economy) of Labubu
attention and
intentionality
In writing this history of the 21st century, Blank Space, I noticed that one important marker of our era is the cultural success of widely loathed people , such as Paris Hilton, Kanye West, and Donald Trump. They all figured out a powerful media hack for which there is no known antidote: Sociopathic behavior spurs the media to write lots of... See more
W. David Marx • Only Fads: A Culture (And Economy) of Labubu
attention and
My optimistic take is that the faux-culture ecosystem will drive more people towards small-scale, humanistic culture. But this brings us back to the “we” from Chayka’s piece. The vast majority of people on earth are going to drown in a lukewarm bath of AI gruel, and there is probably no effective means of mass resistance on their behalf. The... See more
The New Yorker Roundup
taste and
Educated people feel a duty to know these trends as part of cultural literacy. They don't buy Labubus, yet they join the "we" and descend into introspective angst about what Labubus mean for the state of "our" collective psychology.
As a general strategy for cultural consumption, omnivorism was very smart: Erecting artificial barriers against “low”... See more
As a general strategy for cultural consumption, omnivorism was very smart: Erecting artificial barriers against “low”... See more
The New Yorker Roundup
culture-2526 and
Boredom is when you do the things that make you feel like you have life under control. Not being bored is why you always feel busy, why you keep “not having time” to take a package to the post office or work on your novel. You do have time—you just spend it on your phone. By refusing to ever let your brain rest, you are choosing to watch other... See more