meritocracy killed culture pt. 1

what's wrong with culture? everyone is dissatisfied. but why?

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the metaconversation

What’s wrong with culture?

There are a few metaconversations floating around the ether right now, each seeking to pinpoint the exact reason why culture has changed.

1. Culture is different because it's moving faster than ever.

2. Culture is different because it's stuck and less dynamic than in the past.

3. Culture is different because there are less young people than ever in America.

4. Culture is different because cities (especially New York and Los Angeles) are more expensive than ever.

5. Culture is different because established distribution channels consolidated.

6. Culture is different because social media fragmented distribution channels.

7. Culture is different because new formats are displacing older formats.

8. Culture is different because consumers prefer old products to new products.

9. Culture is different because politics replaced culture.

10. Culture is different no one cares about culture.

But even if we concede that something as amorphous as 'culture' can't be redirected by a single cause, many of the explanations put forward are seemingly contradictory. Can culture be stuck and fast? Can it be overly consolidated and overly fragmented? Too beholden to novelty and too obsessed with the classics?

The reason the conversation feels confused is that over the last decade and a half we shifted from a class-based to a consumer-based understanding of culture.

If by culture you mean new art movements, then things feel very stuck indeed. However if you mean memetic AI slop, then yes it's moving faster than ever.

If by culture you are referring to film and television, then yes the culture industry has consolidated into five media conglomerates: Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Universal, Sony, and Paramount. If you mean the creator economy, it's quite the opposite.

There is more content than ever, but fewer institutions; more noise, less signal. The novelty never sticks so we are stuck with the past.

But the real question is: what lead to this state of affairs?

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class-based culture