This is stretching the world "culture" to fit almost any human activity. If you can't spot the difference between a novel and shit-posting, then you're already compromised. The types of "art forms" described in this piece are not descendants of the more serious art we are losing. These people are, if anything, the pamphleteers and street preachers and con men of our times. They are not new Melvilles, Tarkovskys, Woolfs, etc.
Was that Vogue article on Coquetry written by a person? How can you even read that?
This was an interesting take but it doesn't seem like anything 'innovative' for lack of a better term is happening. Yes culture and sharing and storytelling persist but most of what you describe here is art in the same way that stripping is art or being a hooker is performance art. I pay you you hit my dopamine. I know the term is overused but all the "artists" just seem like grifters.
This is a sincere question: I take what you’re saying here to be true, that the cultivation of an internet persona across various platforms (a writer’s novel, for instance, existing to bolster the online identity as opposed to the other way around) is itself a work of art. But can this kind of art achieve what (I think) people have traditionally gone to art for: beauty, awe, wonder, transcendence that can speak across time, that will last forever? Or is that not the goal of this particular style of art?
Have people gone traditionally to art for awe and transcendence though? A lot of what we’d consider art through history has been for entertainment (music, theater, dance), function (architecture, fashion), or propaganda.
I meant to add “always” in the first sentence. Yes, people have gone to art for the things you mentioned, but not everyone, not always and not all art.
If the author agrees that appreciating and understanding past cultural output is key to producing outstanding current culture, I struggle to see how she views the current landscape as doing much of that. From my perspective, younger generations of creators have faced a mix of challenges: some have been shielded from older works by educators and gatekeepers due to perceived harmful heteronormativity (perhaps 15% of the issue); others have been denied the chance to become culturally literate as opportunities in middle and high school have been crowded out (another 15%); and the majority are choosing to engage with the constant flood of content created in the past 72 hours (the remaining 70%).
Dee might argue that remix culture—particularly the kind we see on social media—represents a new form of appreciation that we haven't yet fully recognized. But I would need to hear a convincing defense that digital remix culture isn't largely shallow. Much of it seems narrowly focused on the present, without reaching back far enough to draw on deeper insights about human nature or history.
Take Saturday Night Live, which often reflects current culture. When I compare today’s writers with those of earlier eras, one observation I’ve made is that today's writers seem to have spent most of their lives in improv classes, in contrast to the “Harvard types” who dominated the SNL and David Letterman's writer's rooms in the ’80s. The result feels more ephemeral and disposable, which aligns with so much of the online culture Dee highlights—content that is scrolled through quickly and, if the creator has done their job, rewarded with a simple red heart.
SNL itself might be over, but that doesn't mean comedy is. Remix culture is complicated, but I think largely under-appreciated -- fandom is a hotbed of creativity.
This is extremely insightful—and I often think about the ways 20th century art forms (film, television, which were themselves historical anomalies for their ability to reach the masses and for their reliance commerce and technology) are going the way of theater, becoming niche, after commerce and technology marches past them.
Now it seems this new paradigm (culture born from the intersection of money + tech) is where the magic is, and that doesn’t make the culture any less vital, important, and human than culture past eras. In the future people will look back and realize this was the case.
Reactions to social media influence is a great indicator of our culture, specifically censorship and the manipulation of democracy. American culture was built on independence. It is now characterized by a woke police state that is blind to the sovereignty of individuals and countries alike. Jordan Peterson writes about culture protecting us from chaos. Our culture now creates chaos because it is unconstitutional in every aspect.
I found this at least somewhat enlightening. But I think the bigger problem we have today is not in how we express ourselves culturally, but that many have no recognizable center. People are vehemently 'for' and 'against', yet have little sense of individual identity.
My writing, as my pseudonym suggests, centers around individuality in contrast to social conformity. I belong to a writer's workshop. It is devoted to fiction writing. Personal philosophies are not the topic of discussion, but they show themselves in our writings. I thoroughly respect my peers in that group and take their criticisms seriously. However, they generally don't understand what I'm getting at when I depict a character breaking with the norm and setting their own direction. It's not that they object to it, they just don't get it.
I find the argument that culture is not stuck to be convincing, but that argument is not incompatible with decadence.
In short, if hypothesized that i find forms of culture largely shaped by social media algorithms aimed to capture attention to degrade the range of cultural appreciation that we, and i include myself in this, are capable of.
I did find this piece to be a useful piece of appreciation that gives me better tools to understand what i do appreciate about my own niche of YouTube personalities and such. Not covered in the piece, but consistent, the board game and roleplaying game scene have had years of growth that i do find positive and were encouraged by some social media phenoms that reinforced what is typically a small group activity. (For me boardgame review sites like No Pun Included or Shut Up and Sit Down are cathedrals i appreciate and i suppose a form of consumerism).
That said, with the rise of generative AI and algorithms taking the role of human critics, editors, and marketers, i still consider these shifts in culture to be a net loss that should be resisted by consciously attempting to revitilize longer attention-span in one sitting forms of art, albeit using the tools and afgordances of our present era.
This is stretching the world "culture" to fit almost any human activity. If you can't spot the difference between a novel and shit-posting, then you're already compromised. The types of "art forms" described in this piece are not descendants of the more serious art we are losing. These people are, if anything, the pamphleteers and street preachers and con men of our times. They are not new Melvilles, Tarkovskys, Woolfs, etc.
Was that Vogue article on Coquetry written by a person? How can you even read that?
This was an interesting take but it doesn't seem like anything 'innovative' for lack of a better term is happening. Yes culture and sharing and storytelling persist but most of what you describe here is art in the same way that stripping is art or being a hooker is performance art. I pay you you hit my dopamine. I know the term is overused but all the "artists" just seem like grifters.
I say this with respect Ms Mcluhan.
This is a sincere question: I take what you’re saying here to be true, that the cultivation of an internet persona across various platforms (a writer’s novel, for instance, existing to bolster the online identity as opposed to the other way around) is itself a work of art. But can this kind of art achieve what (I think) people have traditionally gone to art for: beauty, awe, wonder, transcendence that can speak across time, that will last forever? Or is that not the goal of this particular style of art?
Have people gone traditionally to art for awe and transcendence though? A lot of what we’d consider art through history has been for entertainment (music, theater, dance), function (architecture, fashion), or propaganda.
I meant to add “always” in the first sentence. Yes, people have gone to art for the things you mentioned, but not everyone, not always and not all art.
If the author agrees that appreciating and understanding past cultural output is key to producing outstanding current culture, I struggle to see how she views the current landscape as doing much of that. From my perspective, younger generations of creators have faced a mix of challenges: some have been shielded from older works by educators and gatekeepers due to perceived harmful heteronormativity (perhaps 15% of the issue); others have been denied the chance to become culturally literate as opportunities in middle and high school have been crowded out (another 15%); and the majority are choosing to engage with the constant flood of content created in the past 72 hours (the remaining 70%).
Dee might argue that remix culture—particularly the kind we see on social media—represents a new form of appreciation that we haven't yet fully recognized. But I would need to hear a convincing defense that digital remix culture isn't largely shallow. Much of it seems narrowly focused on the present, without reaching back far enough to draw on deeper insights about human nature or history.
Take Saturday Night Live, which often reflects current culture. When I compare today’s writers with those of earlier eras, one observation I’ve made is that today's writers seem to have spent most of their lives in improv classes, in contrast to the “Harvard types” who dominated the SNL and David Letterman's writer's rooms in the ’80s. The result feels more ephemeral and disposable, which aligns with so much of the online culture Dee highlights—content that is scrolled through quickly and, if the creator has done their job, rewarded with a simple red heart.
SNL itself might be over, but that doesn't mean comedy is. Remix culture is complicated, but I think largely under-appreciated -- fandom is a hotbed of creativity.
Sorry -- will return to this in a bit, got side tracked, I have a longer response LOL
This is extremely insightful—and I often think about the ways 20th century art forms (film, television, which were themselves historical anomalies for their ability to reach the masses and for their reliance commerce and technology) are going the way of theater, becoming niche, after commerce and technology marches past them.
Now it seems this new paradigm (culture born from the intersection of money + tech) is where the magic is, and that doesn’t make the culture any less vital, important, and human than culture past eras. In the future people will look back and realize this was the case.
Reactions to social media influence is a great indicator of our culture, specifically censorship and the manipulation of democracy. American culture was built on independence. It is now characterized by a woke police state that is blind to the sovereignty of individuals and countries alike. Jordan Peterson writes about culture protecting us from chaos. Our culture now creates chaos because it is unconstitutional in every aspect.
I found this at least somewhat enlightening. But I think the bigger problem we have today is not in how we express ourselves culturally, but that many have no recognizable center. People are vehemently 'for' and 'against', yet have little sense of individual identity.
My writing, as my pseudonym suggests, centers around individuality in contrast to social conformity. I belong to a writer's workshop. It is devoted to fiction writing. Personal philosophies are not the topic of discussion, but they show themselves in our writings. I thoroughly respect my peers in that group and take their criticisms seriously. However, they generally don't understand what I'm getting at when I depict a character breaking with the norm and setting their own direction. It's not that they object to it, they just don't get it.
I'd actually push back on this -- I don't think people have less of an individual identity in the present day.
I find the argument that culture is not stuck to be convincing, but that argument is not incompatible with decadence.
In short, if hypothesized that i find forms of culture largely shaped by social media algorithms aimed to capture attention to degrade the range of cultural appreciation that we, and i include myself in this, are capable of.
I did find this piece to be a useful piece of appreciation that gives me better tools to understand what i do appreciate about my own niche of YouTube personalities and such. Not covered in the piece, but consistent, the board game and roleplaying game scene have had years of growth that i do find positive and were encouraged by some social media phenoms that reinforced what is typically a small group activity. (For me boardgame review sites like No Pun Included or Shut Up and Sit Down are cathedrals i appreciate and i suppose a form of consumerism).
That said, with the rise of generative AI and algorithms taking the role of human critics, editors, and marketers, i still consider these shifts in culture to be a net loss that should be resisted by consciously attempting to revitilize longer attention-span in one sitting forms of art, albeit using the tools and afgordances of our present era.