Kat Rosenfield: after the vibe shift

Today on Unsupervised Learning, Razib talks to Kat Rosenfield. She is an American novelist, journalist, and culture critic known for both her fiction and commentary on contemporary political debates. She began her career in publishing and as a reporter for MTV News before branching out into broader cultural criticism, contributing to outlets such as The New York Times, Wired, Vulture, Reason, and UnHerd. As a novelist, she has written You Must Remember This (2023), No One Will Miss Her (2021), Inland (2014) and Amelia Anne Is Dead and Gone (2012). Rosenfield also co-authored the New York Times bestselling A Trick of Light (2019) with Stan Lee. She is currently a contributor to The Free Press and a co-host of the Feminine Chaos podcast.

In the four years since Rosenfield was last on Unsupervised Learning the "culture wars" have seen a changing of the front lines; the woke ascendancy is no more, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, and Donald J. Trump is back in the Whitehouse. After the recording of this podcast Rosenfield was the target of a "cancellation" campaign due to her making light of white liberal gushing over the prose stylings of Ta-Nehisi Coates. But this being 2025, Rosenfield seemed more amused than afraid of the concerted attempt to "drag" her online and notify her employers. The first portion of this podcast discusses where we are now in the culture wars, how things have broadly changed, and which institutional pockets of the old woke ascendancy remain. Rosenfield and Razib also discuss the rise of gender polarization in online culture, and in particular, among Gen-Z.