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Culture Is Stuck

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Re: Culture Is Stuck

#31

Post by prohobo »

dbspin wrote: post #26

The culture is here, it's just not evenly distributed. My own view as a writer and artist, is that there's a relatively consistent amount of creative innovation being done at any given time. It's access to it and promotion of it that varies. Whats happened since the 90s is that rents have consistently risen - meaning physical scenes are enormously less likely to emerge, and (as the author rightly points out) algorith…

Can you share some of that stuff? Where are these great movies I've never heard of? Where are the great books - can't people publish on their own nowadays?

I can attest to good music being made, but it's still very slow to evolve compared to the 2nd half of the 20th century.

Re: Culture Is Stuck

#32

Post by skinpop »

dougmwne wrote: post #19

I think this misses this biggest cultural revolution to happen in decades, which is AI assisted art and creativity. It’s been ages since I saw a new paradigm in art that really caught my attention. It seems like elite artists have not had much to say for a few decades aside from navel gazing. Suddenly we have these machines that can produce high quality finished pieces out of our vague whims. With it has come an outp…

all I've seen from AI assisted art is endless variation of what's already out there. form remains the same. maybe it's just me but isn't it weird how technologies that supposedly are democratizing seldom seem to be emancipatory? i fear AI will only make culture and art more standardized, more of an industry.

But I think AI can be a revolution in the sense that it will lead people to think hard about what kind of art AI can't do, and that will hopefully get us back to doing, you know, actual art.

Re: Culture Is Stuck

#33

Post by z3c0 »

Olreich wrote: post #23
samwillis wrote: post #4

I was discussing this with my my wife this morning, she had a good phrase for what's happening - "The homogenization of culture". I think she's right, the algorithmic curation of how we consume media has replaced the self and community curation of before. That "algorithm" has become the homogenising agent. I fear how AI based generative media may continue or even amplify this effect. Imagine a future where the algori…

It only feels homogenous. The algorithm is just giving you the same stuff you’re willing to interact with because it’s working. If you interact or look for different things, the recommendation algorithm will give you that instead.

I believe that the point is that even if they do solicit something new, it will only be within the statistical bounds of everything to have come before. The "different things" will only be different for the given individual, not the culture broadly.

Re: Culture Is Stuck

#34

Post by criddell »

echelon wrote: post #10
samwillis wrote: post #4

I was discussing this with my my wife this morning, she had a good phrase for what's happening - "The homogenization of culture". I think she's right, the algorithmic curation of how we consume media has replaced the self and community curation of before. That "algorithm" has become the homogenising agent. I fear how AI based generative media may continue or even amplify this effect. Imagine a future where the algori…

AI generative media is going to let single individuals create more than all human knowledge to this point. We're entering a Cambrian explosion on a personal level. The real worry is that we may never want to leave.

Sure, it’s possible, but it all depends on who the AI is working for. In the 1990’s many of us thought connecting the world was a good idea. I was certain that the internet meant the end of authoritative regimes. Boy, was I wrong about that!

Personal computers aren’t very personal anymore. The web has returned control over computers back to corporations.

Re: Culture Is Stuck

#35

Post by dbspin »

flappyeagle wrote: post #18

The author is entirely incorrect that you won’t be able to differentiate fashion from today and 2007. There was a clean break even if you compare 2013 to 2023. He’s just not very discerning of clothes. And he doesn’t have the benefit of looking at only archival photos that capture the purest expression of cultural moments.

I don't think this is correct at all. 'Retro' of one kind or another has been the primary focus of mainstream fashion as far back as the 70s. Since the early 2000s retro become so ubiquitous that it's essentially invisible. All mainstream, big brand high street fashion is currently remixed 80s and 90s styles and colours.

It's not that you can't distinguish whats being worn now - it's more that it's a slight variation on what was being worn then. But it's objectively true that you could walk down the street wearing contemporary high street fashion in even the mid 1980 not seem wildly out of place.

By contrast, if you wore high street fashions of the late 1970s in the early 1960s, and so on, your outfit by contrast would seem outré and theatrical - perhaps even shocking, depending on the decade and the prevailing norms for concealing the female body.

Re: Culture Is Stuck

#36

Post by xmcqdpt2 »

mach1ne wrote: post #30
flappyeagle wrote: post #18

The author is entirely incorrect that you won’t be able to differentiate fashion from today and 2007. There was a clean break even if you compare 2013 to 2023. He’s just not very discerning of clothes. And he doesn’t have the benefit of looking at only archival photos that capture the purest expression of cultural moments.

I disagree. When watching How I Met Your Mother, I am always astounded that it was filmed in 2005. Practically nothing has changed in daily lives since then.

Well, I for one think it's very easy to tell that it was filmed in 2005. Men are wearing "baggy" pants by todays standards, are close shaven and no one is wearing athleisure.

Re: Culture Is Stuck

#37

Post by te_chris »

dbspin wrote: post #26

The culture is here, it's just not evenly distributed. My own view as a writer and artist, is that there's a relatively consistent amount of creative innovation being done at any given time. It's access to it and promotion of it that varies. Whats happened since the 90s is that rents have consistently risen - meaning physical scenes are enormously less likely to emerge, and (as the author rightly points out) algorith…

Auckland had the same thing with art and a fun party and music diy scene from the late 2000’s through early 2010’s. Extinguished by the property bubble by about 2015. Lots of fun at the time.

Bit of a wasteland now.

Re: Culture Is Stuck

#38

Post by prohobo »

NoraCodes wrote: post #28
r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things which existed in the 90s. Zines. Check. Micro fiction. Check. Demo scene. Check...

Sure, and big hairdos and synthesizers existed in the 60s, but we still associate them with the 80s.

But I associate everything you listed with the 90s...

Anyway, yes and no. Yes, create your own culture, but no I don't see much of that happening right now.

Re: Culture Is Stuck

#39

Post by mablopoule »

This is such a silly take.

Yeah, you can look at current blockbuster movies, and mostly see Marvel stuff, except that now there is a thing called "superhero fatigue" because it's not 2010 anymore.

In the meantime, the clothing has changed, the music has changed, the zeitgeist has changed, and new medias are Twitch, Tiktok and discord.

Re: Culture Is Stuck

#40

Post by throwaway4aday »

prohobo wrote: post #31
dbspin wrote: post #26

The culture is here, it's just not evenly distributed. My own view as a writer and artist, is that there's a relatively consistent amount of creative innovation being done at any given time. It's access to it and promotion of it that varies. Whats happened since the 90s is that rents have consistently risen - meaning physical scenes are enormously less likely to emerge, and (as the author rightly points out) algorith…

Can you share some of that stuff? Where are these great movies I've never heard of? Where are the great books - can't people publish on their own nowadays? I can attest to good music being made, but it's still very slow to evolve compared to the 2nd half of the 20th century.

> It's not the culture thats stuck, it's the media.

Movies, books and widely played music are all closed avenues for 99.9% of artists. There's no way you'd get any kind of distribution worth the effort to produce such a large artifact. The most creative writing I've seen in the past 15 years has all been done as a series of posts or articles. The best genre bending music all seems to fly under the radar of most people because it only gets hosted on SoundCloud, obscure YouTube channels, and sold on indie online commerce sites, the same for short films which seem to be exclusively on YouTube or social media sites. Everything has to be DTC now, due in large part to the increase in gatekeeping by some of the platforms I mentioned like YouTube. You won't just show up in someone's feed because you're a good match for their interests anymore, at least not unless you've heavily monetized and sanitized your content to be acceptable to ad sales. So instead it all has to work on the indie model where you build your community along with your art. You have to be your own PR, run your own Discord, build your following, host your own events, etc. It's a struggle and it means your reach is just as limited as it would have been pre-internet when you were trying to do the same in your city using flyers, gigs, and word of mouth.

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