Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
This is ultimately what I like about the Born-Again Lifestyle: Even though I see fundamentalist Christians as wild-eyed maniacs, I respect their verve. They are probably the only people openly fighting against America’s insipid Oprah Culture—the pervasive belief system that insists everyone’s perspective is valid and that no one can be judged. As
... See moreChuck Klosterman • Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
Sociologically, Mad Men says more about the mind-set of 2007 than it does about the mind-set of 1967, in the same way Gunsmoke says more about the world of 1970 than the world of 1870.
Chuck Klosterman • But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past
“Over time, critics and historians will play a larger role in deciding whose fame endures. Commercial factors will have less impact,”
Chuck Klosterman • But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past
marry?” If you’re a Celtic Person, you should try to marry the most beautiful woman willing to sleep with you. In all likelihood, you are not attractive, Celtic Fan. Your haircut is ridiculous. You need to marry the equivalent of a model, lest your kids will almost certainly be repulsive.
Chuck Klosterman • Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
Chris Anderson published his hit book The Long Tail, arguing that the breadth of the Internet made it possible for niche businesses, products, and content to thrive. Popularity was a curve rising exponentially toward the left side of a graph; Anderson predicted that the long, flat part of the curve, with diverse but relatively unpopular things,
... See moreKyle Chayka • Filterworld
the Internet slowly reinvented the way people thought about everything, including those things that have no relationship to the Internet whatsoever.
Chuck Klosterman • But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past
A recent surge of human-curated guidance is both a reaction against and an extension of the tyranny of algorithmic recommendations.
By Kyle Chayka
October 30, 2024
Illustration by Ariel Davis
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In the 2010s, affiliate marketing became a dominant strain of online business models. The... See more
Kyle Chayka • The Banality of Online Recommendation Culture | the New Yorker
Even when the Internet appears to be nostalgically churning through the cultural past, it’s still hunting for “old newness.” A familiar video clip from 1986 does not possess virility; what the medium desires is an obscure clip from 1985 that recontextualizes the familiar one. The result is a perpetual sense of now.
Chuck Klosterman • But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past
When any novel is rediscovered and culturally elevated, part of the process is creative: The adoptive generation needs to be able to decide for themselves what the deeper theme is, and it needs to be something that wasn’t widely recognized by the preceding generation.