Top all-time · #6218
W. David Marx
Personal blog · culture.ghost.ioculturewriting
W. David Marx writes Culture: An Owner's Manual, a personal blog at culture.ghost.io about culture and writing. Since 2022, 13 different Hacker News readers have linked it 18 times, most often “Why haven’t internet creators become superstars?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-21, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link W. David Marx's cultural criticism, which argues that incentives since the 1990s have pushed artists away from bold, dateable aesthetic choices toward stability and less experimentation.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A newsletter covering pop culture and the hidden mechanics behind it from W. David Marx — author of Ametora, and an upcoming book from Viking Press.
Most-linked posts?
- Why haven’t internet creators become superstars?4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-07-11
- The Age of the Double Sell-Out3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-03-18
- Forget Gladwell2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-10-02
- Culture is made of humans, and generative AI can't change that2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-08-09
- Cultural Stasis Produces Fewer Cheesy Relics Like Rocky IV2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-04-02
What Hacker News says?
Pair with this complementary piece by W. David Marx: https://culture.ghost.io/cultural-stasis-produces-fewer-chee... He writes about incentives since the 1990s that have pushed artists to shy away from making bold aesthetic choices that might seem dated a few years later. The result is more stability and a longer shelf-life for culture, but less experimentation and fewer ways for new styles to break out.
Comment linking /cultural-stasis-produces-fewer-cheesy-relics-like-rocky-iv/
on “Why is the world losing color?”Submitted GenAI Is Our Polyester as a story · 76 points
HN discussionBUT, I think the author is looking for deviance in some of the wrong places In the section at the end, he does admit that possibility: The internet ethnographer Katherine Dee argues that the most interesting art is happening in domains we don’t yet consider “art”, like social media personalities, TikTok sketch comedy, and Pinterest mood boards. https://culture.ghost.io/why-its-hard-to-argue-about-cultura... I think…
Comment linking /why-its-hard-to-argue-about-cultural-stasis/
on “The decline of deviance”Submitted Forget Gladwell as a story · 20 points
HN discussionSee here: https://culture.ghost.io/forget-gladwell/
Comment linking /forget-gladwell/
on “Malcolm Gladwell Holds His Ideas Loosely. He Thinks You Should, Too”Submitted The Age of the Double Sell-Out as a story · 14 points
HN discussionSubmitted Forget Gladwell as a story · 11 points
HN discussionSubmitted Culture is made of humans, and generative AI can't change that as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Age of the Double Sell-Out as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Age of the Double Sell-Out as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Cultural Stasis Produces Fewer Cheesy Relics Like Rocky IV as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why haven’t internet creators become superstars? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The 21st Century and Empty Popularity as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Our Natural Human Defenses Against A.I. Culture as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why haven’t internet creators become superstars? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why haven’t internet creators become superstars? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why haven’t internet creators become superstars? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Notes on Our Tasteless Era as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
