Before the internet demanded our attention 24/7, television, radio, and lifestyle magazines had a very specific grip on the zeitgeist, combing youth culture to determine the next craze. Now, gauging cool is a far more democratic endeavor, and the escalating speed of digital culture means that fads can come and go before they even peak. Mediated... See more

Still, I think something more fundamental has been lost for all of us as social media has evolved. It’s harder to find the spark of discovery, or the sense that the Web offers an alternate world of possibilities. Instead of each forging our own idiosyncratic paths online, we are caught in the grooves that a few giant companies have carved for us... See more

This shift towards a global sameness, driven by digital platforms' algorithms, challenges the very notion of personal taste. As these platforms prioritize content or products that resonate on a mass scale, they nudge us toward a homogenized cultural landscape. The result is a world where diversity of thought and creativity often gets drowned out by... See more

It seems as though they are looking, hard, for identity, for validation, for the dignification of their taste. It’s just that they are being presented with these thin cultural planes that barely exist outside their devices.

“The Big Flat Now is the infinite space on which our culture operates today. Its frictionless surface is composed of the obsolete hierarchies that have been melted by the Internet. Its shallowness belies a seamless texture that allows for the rapid collision of ideas,” write Thom Bettridge and Lucas Mascatello in 032c. “Raised by a global chorus of... See more