Posts tagged 'cultural-criticism'

A collection of 3.5-inch floppy disks arranged in an overlapping, flat-lay pattern filling the entire frame. The disks span a wide range of colours — yellow, blue, red, teal, orange, dark brown, purple, and grey — creating a vibrant, saturated composition. The metal write-protect shutters and circular hub windows are visible on several disks, shot in close-up with bright, even lighting.

How has a lack of ownership changed art?

April 8, 2026 · #Social Commentary #Digital Culture #Cultural Criticism #Analog Living #philosophy

On the subscription economy, Walter Benjamin's aura, Pokémon scalpers, the rot of physical media, and the person at the photocopier making what the streaming model cannot touch.

A dramatic expressionist oil painting depicting a figure with long, wildly flowing auburn and flame-orange hair that bleeds into the surrounding darkness. The figure's face is rendered in sickly yellow-green and white highlights, with an intense, brooding downward gaze. One eye caught in shadow, the other luminous. The chest and throat glow as if lit from within by fire. Dark, massive wing-like forms sweep across both sides of the composition, merging with a deep blue-black background. The overall palette contrasts volcanic oranges and golds against cool dark blues and greens, evoking a fallen or defiant supernatural being.

Incels Won the Culture War

March 30, 2026 · #Cultural Criticism #Digital Culture #Social Commentary #Feminism #Politics #Media Criticism

Looksmaxxing. Redpilled. Sigma. Mogging. Cope. Seethe. Malding. Goyslop. Gooning. Memes from image boards became cultural foundation for Generation Alpha. How rich, powerful men have coordinated a harmful online culture for nearly twenty years.

Expressionistic ink illustration of a distorted screaming face, rendered in blue and dark red brush strokes. The eyes bulge in opposite directions and the mouth gapes wide, showing teeth and tongue, while chaotic scribbles and paint marks surround the head, giving the image an intense, frantic energy.

Being a 21st Century Schizoid Man

March 28, 2026 · #personal essay #Mental Health #Neurodivergence #Psychology #Self-Discovery #Disability Studies #Cultural Criticism #philosophy

My personal exploration of schizoid personality disorder and neurodivergence. From King Crimson's prophetic song to global youth withdrawal phenomena, I examine what it means to live with a rich interior life and limited social needs, challenging pathologizing frameworks and questioning whether 'poor outcomes' are about the condition or the metrics.

A 19th-century-style anatomical diagram of the human brain in lateral cross-section, rendered in fine engraving style with black-and-white linework. The brain's gyri (folds) and sulci (grooves) are depicted in detail, with numbers (1–10) and lowercase letters (a–g) labeling specific lobes, fissures, and structures including what appear to be the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, brainstem, and ventricular regions. The image has been digitally processed with a chromatic aberration effect, creating rainbow colour fringing (cyan, magenta, yellow, green) around all edges and a horizontal scan-line pattern across the image.

STORYTELLING Part One: The Neurology of Narrative

March 25, 2026 · #personal essay #Creative Writing #Literature #neuroscience #psychology #philosophy #Indigenous Writing #Cultural Criticism

How do our brains physically process stories? The neurology of narrative transportation, brain synchrony between storytellers and listeners, biocultural theory, and Indigenous storytelling traditions that collapse Western narrative structures.

A early-2000s home computer setup featuring a beige CRT monitor displaying Windows XP with MSN Messenger open, alongside a matching beige tower PC with a DVD drive and blue accent panel. The desk is covered with a striped cloth, and a beige keyboard sits in the foreground next to a metal cup. Small figurines and a photo are propped on top of the monitor. A speaker is visible to the right, and red curtains hang in the background. The photo has a warm, faded green-yellow tint

CHILDHOOD: Hypercapitalist Nostalgia & Unsupervised Internet Access

March 15, 2026 · #personal essay #Cultural Criticism #Digital Culture #nostalgia #capitalism #childhood

My nostalgia is hypercapitalist. My nostalgia is the worst of the unregulated Internet. I cannot decouple my fondest memories from the corporations and the loss of innocence that produced them, and I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that.

A Baroque-style allegorical ceiling painting depicting classical female figures representing virtues or goddesses, including one crowned figure in pink robes and one in blue holding a quill and documents, seated on clouds surrounded by cherubs. Additional allegorical figures appear in the lower register, one holding an olive branch with a molecular diagram drawn on her chest, another carrying a shield and spear. Scattered legal documents float in the lower right corner. Overlaid across the entire composition is aggressive graffiti tagging in black and deep red, with a graffiti rendering of the scales of justice at the top center.

A More Perfect Morality: The Progressive Failure of Ethics

March 14, 2026 · 1 comment · #Philosophy #Personal Essay #Ethics #Social Justice #Human Rights #Activism #Cultural Criticism #Social Commentary

Liberal democracies selectively apply universal human rights, and there is a progressive failure to extend moral consideration to: Palestinians, Congolese, Rohingyans, Uyghurs, trans people, women, Black communities, Indigenous Peoples, the chronically ill, mentally ill, poor, sex workers, the disabled, the houseless, children, elderly, Jewish people, immigrants, gender/sexual/romantic minorities, incarcerated people, Romani and Dalits, and animals. True universal rights require principled solidarity beyond tribal boundaries.

The Big Arch Distraction (while the World is Burning)

March 5, 2026 · #cultural criticism #politics #media criticism #social commentary #personal essay

A CEO took a comically small bite of a burger. The internet erupted. Meanwhile, the US is bombing Iran, Trump is drafting executive orders to seize control of the midterms, and civil unrest is reaching a boiling point. We need to talk about what we're choosing to look at.

A young woman in traditional red and white Asian attire stands with hands pressed together in prayer position (anjali mudra) at a temple altar. She is centered among three bronze incense burners filled with burning incense sticks, with smoke rising around her. The atmospheric scene shows ornate temple architecture with decorative murals in the blurred background.

More Than One Way: On Ritual, Morality, and the Darkness Beyond Knowing

January 23, 2026 · #philosophy #Anthropology #spirituality #Cultural Criticism

What is the meaning of life? Is there more than one correct answer? I've decided to take a rather long-winded exploration of how different cultures approach the sacred, the dead, and the transcendent, suggesting that multiple paths can lead to the same fundamental truths.

A white ceramic plate with a thin blue rim holds several euro coins of different denominations and a folded 10 euro banknote, arranged on a dark gray table or countertop with a blurred background.

How You Can Support Indie Creators—and You Need To

January 20, 2026 · #Creator Economy #Digital Culture #community #Cultural Criticism #IndieWeb

Beyond tipping culture, there are meaningful ways to support independent creators that don't involve money. Here are eight of the best.

A healthcare worker in full protective equipment, including a blue gown, surgical cap, face mask, and gloves, sits exhausted on the floor of a hospital hallway, leaning against a medical cart. The corridor stretches behind them with empty gurneys and medical equipment visible along the pale walls under fluorescent lighting, conveying the physical and emotional toll of frontline medical work.

The Pandemic Never Ended. We Only Pretend it Did

January 19, 2026 · #Chronic Illness #Medical Ethics #covid #Cultural Criticism #political

Six years into COVID-19, the world has moved on while the virus continues to disable millions. An examination of the ongoing pandemic, long COVID, and our collective failure to prevent a mass disabling event.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon travelled to Greenland to see first-hand the impacts of climate change. Together with the Prime Ministers of Denmark and Greenland, he visited the town of Uummannaq, where they hoisted flags, observed a prayer ceremony in a local church, went dog sledding; and met with indigenous people

Greenland Belongs to the Inuit

January 11, 2026 · #Indigenous Writing #personal essay #political #Cultural Criticism

The Greenland debate keeps asking whether the U.S. could take it, or whether Denmark should keep it. The missing question is: What do the Greenlanders want? They’ve already answered: 'We don’t want to be Americans. We don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders.' This is about Indigenous sovereignty and the quiet billionaire scramble for Greenland’s resources.

Upward view of a baobab tree with a thick, pale trunk and sparse canopy of branches with green leaves against a bright blue sky, with power lines crossing diagonally through the frame and a bird in flight visible in the upper left corner.

REVIEW: How do we reckon? On Yiyun Li's 'Things in Nature Merely Grow'

January 5, 2026 · #Mental Health #Cultural Criticism #personal essay #philosophy #review #suicide

CONTENT WARNING: Suicide | A matter-of-fact memoir about the endurance of loss, where Li considers grief to be regarded as having an end-point, as though there could be a finite amount felt when both of your only children choose death instead of life.

Black and white photograph of a misty forest with tall trees. A person in a coat stands alone among the trees in the foggy woodland. Text overlay reads 'taylor swift' in italic script font, with 'folklore' written below in a similar style with an underline.

How a Taylor Swift Lyric Gave Me an Existential Crisis

January 3, 2026 · #creative #Cultural Criticism #philosophy #music

The lyrics 'You know the greatest films of all time were never made' is obviously not about films. It is, somehow, about how we’re living on this planet for a fragile, finite amount of time and we have something inert within us to give, to gift.

A colorful collage of vintage cultural works from 1930 celebrating Public Domain Day 2026. There are movie posters, film stills, book covers, and other cultural artifacts.

What Can We Give One Another? On Public Domain, Preservation, and Living Without Copyright

December 28, 2025 · #copyright #Cultural Criticism #preservation #public domain

Could you only consume public domain work for a year straight? With the new year coming up and various IP being released to the public domain, I thought I'd muse on copyright and the future of art and culture.

Rendering of a modern residential development featuring mid-rise apartment buildings surrounding a landscaped communal courtyard. The outdoor space includes winding pedestrian pathways, diverse plantings with citrus trees, deciduous trees with autumn foliage, ornamental grasses, and colorful flowerbeds. People of various ages are shown enjoying the space

Thoughts on Digital Third Spaces

December 27, 2025 · #community #Cultural Criticism #IndieWeb #philosophy

Can the Internet be a place we can visit again? Can it replace what malls were supposed to be for us? A blog post about what we can do with what we have.