The 20-year nostalgia cycle, climate-change nihilism, information saturation, streaming-era content overload, and our collective Long COVID of the soul have converged in a tidal wave of tackiness.

What we’re dealing with is a full-blown cultural moment. The 20-year nostalgia cycle, climate-change nihilism, information saturation, streaming-era content overload, and our collective Long COVID of the soul have converged in a tidal wave of tackiness. What TikTok teens, white collar workers marooned in home offices, and the gatekept super-rich... See more

And nothing kills numbness like a sensory onslaught—color, sound, hedonism, melodrama, sleaze.

what’s remarkable about this particular pendulum swing is that after centuries of wrestling with hierarchies of taste, the cultural stigma that has always come with indulging in bad taste has disappeared.

what we’re witnessing goes far beyond cool teens and the extremely online to encompass anyone with free time, disposable income, and internet access.

Where good taste is demure, bad taste is bawdy. Where good taste is minimalist, bad taste is maximalist. Where good taste whispers, bad taste screams: “Look! React! Feel!”

Where good taste is demure, bad taste is bawdy. Where good taste is minimalist, bad taste is maximalist. Where good taste whispers, bad taste screams: “Look! React! Feel!”

We have entered an era of exuberant, even apocalyptic, bad taste. Call it a vibe shift if you must.

The upshot of taking mass culture seriously has been a growing awareness that much of what we call good taste is merely an aesthetic like any other.