As art would no longer respond to itself, and no longer had any constraints, other human activities could be drawn from the world into its hungry maw. Art was no longer moving forward. Individual artists were free to consume the present, swallow other cultural forms, and twist them into new experiences.

It makes sense that norms are shifting in this direction as Gen Z’s influence spreads. Raised on social media, with access to once illicit bad-taste touchstones like Rocky Horror just a click away, they’ve largely replaced IRL subcultures with a constellation of aesthetics—cottagecore, dark academia, Y2K—to be performed, then discarded or demoted... See more

New pod: The rise of "dopamine culture" and the decline of pop culture in America First, I discuss the Ted Gioa's argument that pop culture is being turned into a virtual casino of the mind that is better at producing reward-seeking behavior than quality art. Then, I talk to @skornhaber... See more

But this obviously contributed to a feeling of decline in the long-run, because mass culture continued to do the thing it always does: avoid artistic innovation in order to maximize profit. But once poptimism established that only the mainstream "mattered," it set up audiences to judge the health of culture on its least artistic output. If we have... See more

Young romantics working at the "intersection of art and technology" launched endless criticisms of big tech's overreach and in the process created the foundations for an entire scene of left-field internet aesthetics.