Exploring Cruelty and Luxury in Modern Culture

“Something is happening here and you don’t know what it is,” goes the Bob Dylan track from 1965. That song was directed at the squares who weren’t yet hip to the Sixties. It sounded foreboding then, and it sounds foreboding now, because something is happening, again — something perhaps as great and consequential as the cultural changes of Dylan’s time. For several years now, people have been speaking about a cultural “vibe shift.” The MAGA electoral victory appears to have been the culmination of that shift. The Trumpist victory has ushered in a new political elite and with it, a cultural style that is more transgressive, crude, and rude than the once-liberal American mainstream.

Helping us understand what’s happening is this week’s special guest, Sean Monahan, one of the most perceptive cultural forecasters of our time. If you’ve ever used the term “normcore,” or if you’ve heard someone talk about a “vibe shift,” you’ve been influenced by Sean. And if you haven’t heard those terms, then you’re about to learn a lot about American culture in this episode. Sean is a writer, trend forecaster and brand consultant, whose Substack, 8Ball, is an oracle of cultural insight.

Sean joins Christine Emba and Shadi Hamid and they all get deep about vibes. What is a vibe? Can it be defined? If it can’t, then how is it a useful concept? Is it based on material conditions? How long does a vibe last? But the conversation soon ventures beyond these theoretical generalities. Shadi wants to know whether American culture has fundamentally shifted to the right since the rise of Trump. Christine detects a mean streak to this new culture: a certain cruelty or at least, ruthless competitiveness. Sean puts things in perspective, explaining how generations create, condition, and then abandon trends, and how the weird period of Covid lockdown had a unique effect on trend creation, one that still affects us to this day. He also describes the new aesthetic of the Trump era, which he believes is based primarily on desire for money, and which he has dubbed, “Boom Boom.”

In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Sean discusses why religion has become attractive to young people, especially young men, whether he sees good vibes or bad vibes in the near future, and whether he believes most Americans actually like Trump and DOGE.

Required Reading:

* Sean Monahan’s Substack, 8Ball.

* Sean Monahan, “Anatomy of a Vibe Shift” (8Ball).

* Sean Monahan, “Boom Boom: Anatomy of a Trend” (8Ball).

* Sean Monahan, “The Counter Elite Won the Meme War” (8Ball).

* CrowdSource: “Truth and Vibes” (WoC).

* Famous 2022 article from New York Magazine: “A Vibe Shift is Coming” (New York).

* W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change (Amazon).

* Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (Amazon).

* Mana Afsari, “Last Boys at the Beginning of History” (The Point).

* Saddle Creek Records.

* Bright Eyes (Saddle Creek).

* “Cottagecore Aesthetic, Explained” (Country Living).

* MySpace.

* Matthew Walther on the origin of “Woke Capital” (American Conservative).

* “Dimes Square” (Know Your Meme).

* Alex P. Keaton (Wikipedia).

* Gordon Gecko (Wikipedia).

* Patrick Bateman (Wikipedia).

* Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho (Amazon).

* American Psycho film (YouTube).

* Graeme Wood, “How Bronze Age Pervert Charmed the Far Right” (The Atlantic).

* “Yosemite Locksmith: 'The People Who Fired Me Don't Know What I Do'” (MSN).

* “Garry Tan for mayor? ‘Never, or 20 years from now,’ Y Combinator chief says” (San Francisco Standard).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

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