The prestige recession

Rather than prestige, this cultural moment is dominated by metrics, as George S. Trow predicted in a 1980 New Yorker essay called “Within the context of no context”:

“That movement... from wonder that a country should be so big, to the wonder that a building could be so big, to the last, small wonder, that a marketplace could be so big—that was the

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If I think back to those corporate meetings I was part of early in my career, it’s easy to see today’s decision-making. A decade ago cultural criticism was a sparkly pixie dust you could spread over a business to give it a veneer of prestige. But in a world where TikToks dwarf all over forms of consumption and a video that someone spent a day makin... See more

It’s only when we establish ourselves on our terms — as Pitchfork , RIP, once did — that we build durable worlds of our own.

The past hundred years a canon that defined modernity, post-modernity, and our world was established, celebrated, illuminated, and constantly revised by critics and appreciators who used the pen to make their case. They’re the ones who helped establish cultural significance. They’re the ones who remind us to marvel not at demographics, but at indiv... See more