Nostalgia, as Mark Fisher predicted, has never been more potent. We can’t stop longing for the past – and increasingly, even the very recent past, via the “nowstalgia” of rapid-cycling trends – at the expense of creating something genuinely novel.

What’s worse is the deep capitalism poisoning that confuses consumerism with culture: a new water bottle despite having water bottles, simping for and falling for billionaire theatrics, happily welcoming the AI-fication of everything. A loser landscape is emerging, as teens want less sex in movies, as nightclubs close and sober bars rise, as... See more