The Culture Journalist

What do Ticketmaster price gouging and widespread journalism layoffs and have in common? They’re both downstream consequences, at least in part, of lax antitrust enforcement. If that sounds obtuse, consider this: antitrust law — the legislation that aims to prevent monopolies from forming and keep business competition healthy — directly impacts how power is being consolidated across American society as a whole. That includes how big a given company is allowed to become, and the types of business tactics it is allowed to use.In a world where artists’ livelihoods have become increasingly intertwined with the actions of a handful of giant tech and entertainment companies, antitrust is a useful lens for understanding why so many things feel broken and inequitable. And 2024, for all its flaws, is actually an exciting time to be talking about this. Lina Khan, the 35-year-old legal scholar currently serving as chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, is on a mission to change the way we think about, and implement, antitrust law. And since she took office in 2021, she’s been updating our understanding of antitrust for the business landscape of the present, expanding beyond a decades-old focus on consumer-facing price to consider how anticompetitive practices also harm workers, communities, diversity, and the environment. Accordingly, she’s already brought big cases against some of the tech giants we regularly talk about on this show, including Amazon and Meta. A lot of this stuff impacts creative workers, so we’ve invited on Kevin Erickson, Director of the Future of Music Coalition, to put together a little primer for us. Founded in 2000, the Future of Music Coalition is a Washington DC-based nonprofit bringing together musicians, artist advocates, technologists, and legal experts dedicated to, as they put it, “supporting a musical ecosystem where artists flourish and are compensated fairly and transparently for their work.” We discuss why many of the problems we ascribe to the actions of private companies are actually policy problems, and why those issues aren’t a larger part of the conversation. We also dig into some of the current big policy fights that stand to materially impact the lives of creatives like journalists to musicians — including the Journalism Conservation and Preservation Act and what’s happening with Ticketmaster and other brokers right now.Support our independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber at theculturejournalist.substack.com. Paid subscribers receive free bonus episodes every month, along with full essays and culture recommendations.You can also follow The Culture Journalist on X and IG. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theculturejournalist.substack.com/subscribe

This week, we’re re-upping our episode with writer Cord Jefferson, who just won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for American Fiction, which he also directed. American Fiction was adapted from the 2001 novel Erasure, by writer Percival Everett. And since Sunday night, the film, and Cord’s comments about it, have been provoking a lot of interesting conversation about Black representation in Hollywood and the publishing industry—which also happens to be the subject of the film itself, and which we encourage you to dig into.  Cord, as you may know, is a former journalist and Gawker editor with very strong opinions about the economics of cultural production. Which is why we weren’t surprised when he used his acceptance speech to offer a pretty candid take about risk aversion in Hollywood—and the need for executives to take more chances on independent filmmakers. “I understand that this is a risk-averse industry. I get it. But $200 million dollar movies are also a risk,” he said. “Instead of making one $200 million dollar movie, try making twenty $10 million dollar movies, or fifty $4 million dollar movies.”   It wasn’t the first time we’d heard Cord talking about this stuff. In fact, this was one of the topics we went long on with him when we had him on the show in 2021 to mark the start of Succession’s third season. Cord was a writer for season two, in addition to working on series like The Good Place, Station Eleven, and Watchmen, for which he won an Emmy. What started as a conversation about Succession’s Roy family—and Cord’s experiences transitioning from a career in media to a career in TV and film—evolved into a deeper meditation on the struggles writers in both fields are facing in a creative economy where culture is evaluated based on numbers, where pre-visibility and remakes trump original ideas, and where what executives believe is “good for business” feels increasingly incompatible with artistic risk-taking.  We recorded this conversation long before last year’s Writer’s Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes, not to mention American Fiction itself, but the issues we discuss have become only more relevant with time. You can think of it as an extended riff on the argument he made on national TV this week—and it’s also a great look into where Cord comes from, the moral dilemmas that result when we allow algorithms to evaluate art, and perhaps some of the seeds of thoughts that inspired American Fiction. Support our independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber at theculturejournalist.substack.com. Paid subscribers receive free bonus episodes every month, along with full essays and culture recommendations.You can also follow The Culture Journalist on X and IG. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theculturejournalist.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comNote: If you are a media worker who has lost work or been laid off, email us at theculturejournalist@substack.com and we'll send you the full episode for free.This week, we explore why 2024 has been such a terrible year for journalists, with so many publications announcing cuts or closures—and in such quick succession—that we can barely keep track of the carnage. Did VICE, Pitchfork, The Messenger, Sports Illustrated, Complex, Buzzfeed, Insider, and The Los Angeles Times, to give just a sample of the companies that have put writers and editors out of work, just happen to all feel the pinch at the time? Or are there wider structural forces afoot, including even a touch of media executive groupthink, that can explain what’s going on here? On this week’s episode, which we like to think of as a sequel to a similar conversation we had last year with Ben Dietz, Semafor media reporter extraordinaire Max Tani joins us to discuss why this particular layoff season is different than others, what the future of the media biz might look like, and what it’s like to be the guy who every journalist follows to find out if they’re losing their job.Support our independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber at theculturejournalist.substack.com. Paid subscribers receive free bonus episodes every month, along with full essays and culture recommendations.You can also follow The Culture Journalist on X and IG.

The podcast discusses the shocking news of Pitchfork's merge with GQ, questioning the future of music journalism. It explores industry challenges, gender stereotypes, and the impact of financialization on media. The hosts delve into the intersection of music journalism, capitalism, and gender biases, while also touching on dystopian realities in the crypto world. Furthermore, they analyze evolving dynamics in the music industry, criticism, and navigate the future of music journalism.

What do TikTok voice, generic “hipster coffee shop” decor, and Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Super Bowl kissing photos have in common? According to Kyle Chayka, a staff writer at The New Yorker, they’re all products of something called “filterworld,” his word for a “vast, interlocking, and yet diffuse network of algorithms that influence our lives today.” His new book, Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture, zeroes in on the rise of algorithmic recommendation systems—essentially, the equations that govern the specific pieces of content that social media, streaming, and e-commerce platforms decide to show us, and in what order—and how they’re pushing us toward a kind of cultural homogeneity or sameness.Kyle joins us to talk about how exactly algorithm recommendation systems produce this sameness, the kinds of culture that rises to the top on the contemporary internet, and the pros and cons of human gatekeeping versus algorithmic curation. Finally, we discuss tactics for escaping algorithmic culture and reclaiming some of our agency as cultural producers and consumers, both individually and collectively.Support our independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber at theculturejournalist.substack.com. Paid subscribers receive free bonus episodes every month, along with full essays and culture recommendations.You can also follow The Culture Journalist on Twitter and IG. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theculturejournalist.substack.com/subscribe

Hey pals. Here’s a development that we never had on our 2024 bingo card: shoegaze is back, and it’s arguably bigger than ever. Andrea first got wind of this in October when she interviewed one of the architects of the genre, which dates back to the 80s and early 90s and is characterized by reverbed-out guitars, heavy feedback, and vocals that sit way back in the mix. On the heels of their fifth album, everything is alive, the U.K. quintet Slowdive is enjoying a level of success that is unprecedented in their 35-year career. They’re selling more music than ever—they recently landed their first-ever Billboard Album Sales Top 10—and their fanbase is skewing noticeably younger. As the band explained to Andrea, a lot of that has to do with one critical factor: Their music has gone viral on TikTok. Slowdive is hardly alone. In December, the Pittsburgh-based music journalist Eli Enis published an exhaustively reported feature for Stereogum called “TikTok Has Made Shoegaze Bigger Than Ever.” While perusing Spotify, he stumbled into a clutch of new shoegaze-inspired artists he’d never heard of — see: wisp, flyingfish, quannnic, and sign crushes motorist — who were wracking up millions of streams. Digging deeper, he discovered that these artists were even more popular on TikTok. Many of them were still in their teens, making tracks on a DAW in their bedroom or between classes at school. And some of them were being offered major-label deals off the back of just a song or two. What is it about shoegaze, a sound that originated roughly four decades ago, that is speaking so much to people in their teens and early 20s? How are platforms like TikTok changing the nature of what a career in music looks like, or what it means to be a fan, or even the sonic elements of a genre like shoegaze that get emphasized or deemphasized? And what do we gain, and lose, in a world where music dreams are made (and dashed) based on inscrutable recommendation algorithms, far removed from the physical scenes and communities that traditionally incubated these subcultural sounds? Eli joins us to talk about what he learned while reporting on the Gen Z-driven shoegaze resurgence and talking to its central players. We also tapped the perspective of The Culture Journalists’s very own Ben Newman, who in addition to being our new audio editor (welcome, Ben!!) also happens to be the drummer in a little band called DIIV, which you probably know in the context of an earlier wave of artists processing shoegaze influences in the 2010s.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theculturejournalist.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comWelcome back to the Culture Journalist. To kick off our 2024 programming, we’ve cooked up a special, New Year’s-themed episode for paid subscribers. Elliot Aronow—a fashion and music media veteran and founder of the minor genius newsletter, which focuses on helping artists unlock their “minor genius”—joins us to discuss balancing the pursuit of creative…

Before we dip for a short end-of-year break, it’s time for a music streaming check-in. Our own “Wrapped,” if you will. There’s a lot going on. Just last month, Spotify announced that it would stop paying artists completely for tracks with fewer than 1000 streams — just a few weeks before slashing 17 percent of its workforce (about 1500 people) in its third round of cuts this year. And those aren’t the only changes afoot in the digital music space: Back in October, Bandcamp laid off 50 percent of its staff after being acquired by music licensing company Songtrader, casting a pall of uncertainty over the fate of an important economic lifeline for underground and emerging artists. If, like us, you are confused and disheartened about what this means for independent music, fear not. We’ve got just the guy to help make sense of it all, and maybe even inspire a little hope. His name is Tony Lashley, and not only is he just crazy smart, but he has a unique insider’s view on the machinations of Big Streaming and the intersection of economics and aesthetics, thanks to some serious stints in marketing strategy and operations at both Spotify and Frank Ocean’s Blonded. These days, he’s been busy working on an an independent music-focused streaming platform and community called Marine Snow, which he describes as an attempt to be “hypercuratorial in the age of digital abundance,’” and likens to an A24 for music.Tony joins us for a roundtable on the past, present, and future of the musical commodity in the digital age. He breaks down the confusing economics of the streaming giants, why they keep bleeding money despite dominating the market, and what Spotify’s new royalties structure tells us about where the music internet is headed. We also discuss how our relationship with music is inextricably bound up with values like status and community, what Spotify has in common with H&M (and also mainstream radio), and why the future of music consumption may lie in niche-oriented music platforms like Marine Snow.Follow Tony on Twittter and IGSign up for the Marine Snow waitlistRecommended supplemental reading from Tony:Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change, by David Marx “Spotify: Making profits on thin profit margins” by M Value Investing Research“Layoffs won’t solve spotify’s biggest problem” by Timothy Green“Spotify’s big bet on podcasts is failing, Citi says” by Jessica Bursztynsky“China antitrust: Beijing orders Tencent to end exclusive music licensing deals in a first for the country” by Yujie Xue and Iris DengSupport our independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber at theculturejournalist.substack.com. Paid subscribers receive free bonus episodes every month, along with full essays and culture recommendations.You can also follow The Culture Journalist on Twitter and IG. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theculturejournalist.substack.com/subscribe

To celebrate the release of Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion of Big Tech by the great tech journo Brian Merchant (Buy it! Read it! It’s terrific!), we’re reupping our conversation with Brian from back in June — which, between the OpenAI shakeup, Hollywood strikes, and the growing number of Big Tech antitrust cases, has only become more relevant since then. It’s also a great complement to our previous episode on the decline of the digital third space, in which we contrast a certain prominent venture capitalist’s techno-optimist manifesto with some of the ideas from Brian’s book.Brian joins us to discuss how the Luddites were actually an early iteration of the labor movement — not anti-tech, but anti-exploitation — the eerie similarities between the systems of automation these workers were up against and AI, and what a 2023 version of the Luddite movement might look like. Hint: It’s already happening, and it has nothing to do with smashing out phones, though you do you.Support our independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber at theculturejournalist.substack.com. Paid subscribers receive free bonus episodes every month, along with full essays and culture recommendations.Keep it weird with The Culture Journalist on Instagram. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theculturejournalist.substack.com/subscribe

Back in 2012, a YouTube user called @taia777 posted a 59-minute video of some dreamy white clouds obscured by thorny green vines, soundtracked by the music for Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong’s Quest. It was just another example of the popular trend of video game soundtracks on YouTube, but then something strange happened: Down in the comments section, strangers started spontaneously posting the word “checkpoint”— you know, like the “checkpoint” where a player saves their progress in a game — and anonymously sharing incredibly personal stories and updates from their lives. By 2021, when YouTube finally took the video offline, the thread had grown to more than 25,000 comments. According to Ruby Justice Thelot, a designer, cyberethnographer, artist, and author of a new book called A Cyberarcheology of Checkpoints, this particular internet rabbit hole was a stunning reminder of the lengths that users will go to to find community on the internet — and of the fragility of these so-called “third places” on an internet dominated by a small handful of for-profit platforms. (Disclosure: Emilie helped edit the book).Ruby joins us to discuss the story of Checkpoints, why these sorts of digital third places are so important, and the potential bigger-picture impacts of living one update or copyright claim away from our online histories being lost.We also talk about a recent essay he published with writer Rue Yi about what they’re calling the “balkanization and babelification” of the post-Web 2.0 internet, his thoughts about a controversial “techno-optimist manifesto” written by A16z VC Marc Andreesen, and what’s lost when technologists focus on progress and forward motion at all costs.Pre-order A Cyberarcheology of Checkpoints at https://www.irrelevantpress.com/store/pre-sale-a-cyberarchaeology-of-checkpoints-ruby-thelotSubscribe to The Culture Journalist at theculturejournalist.substack.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theculturejournalist.substack.com/subscribe