From ancient lullabies to modern memes, new hits serve old purposes: to fill the time, to familiarize the strange, to estrange the familiar, to infect with emotion, to create meaning. What’s different today is the means—the ability of small players, like Leslie, to amass large audiences, and the power of large companies, like Disney, to achieve

“My thesis is simple,” he said. “Your network is your power.”

If I had to capture this metatheme in a sentence, this is the one I would choose: Technology changes faster than people do.

Just as some people are too willing to see death in every new thing, some technologists see a simple exponential line stretching toward utopia.

a person’s best work might emerge after years of practice, as artists refine their skill. But there is something more at play here: These artists and teams produced their most resonant work after they had already passed a certain threshold of fame and popularity. Perhaps genius thrives in a space shielded ever so slightly from the need to win a

it is precisely because great stories are persuasive that we should be cautious about which narratives to let into our hearts.

Does great art begin with feedback, or does it start with the opposite—a quiet space, devoid of distractions, where creators can turn the spotlight inward and make something mostly for themselves?

The elite do not just like opera because they have been exposed to it; they are exposed to opera because they think it makes them elite.

Culture isn’t just what people do. It’s also what people say they do.