W. David Marx
@wdavidmarx.bsky.social
Author of Blank Space, Ametora, and Status and Culture. Newsletter at http://culture.ghost.io. Tokyo, Japan.
Lollapalooza sux now. When I was younger, they literally could get the CEO of Goldman Sacks to spin. Now I don't see a single CEO, Chairman, or Board Member of a major financial institution on the artist roster... smh
Warum fühlt sich Kultur heute so gleichförmig an? Es liegt nicht allein an Kapitalismus und Algorithmen, sagt der Autor W. David Marx. Sondern auch an der Linken.
W. David Marx: »Die Nullerjahre waren eine merkwürdige Zwischenzeit«
Warum fühlt sich Kultur heute so gleichförmig an? Es liegt nicht allein an Kapitalismus und Algorithmen, sagt der Autor W. David Marx. Sondern auch an der Linken.
zeit.de
"Jay-Z wants his journey from the Marcy Houses in Brooklyn to the most exclusive boardrooms in America to be rendered as a chapter in the civil rights movement."
Joel D. Anderson@joelanderson.bsky.social · 2w agoJay-Z promised 2026 would be a year of "all offense." I took a stab at figuring out what that really means. www.theringer.com/2026/07/23/m...
Poptimism: "Every billionaire is a policy failure—except the musician I'm writing a hagiography about."
Very sad news. I worked under him during my summer internship at Kōdansha and he was impressive how seamlessly he could move between being a TV talent and a serious magazine editor. I had hoped to run into him again someday...
@mulboyne.bsky.social · 2w agoSad news that critic and commentator Goro Yamada has passed away at 67. He had been ill with cancer for some time. Yamada was a popular figure on numerous TV shows. japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/obit...
TOMORROW I'm speaking at Temple University, Japan Book Talk | Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century Date: Thursday, July 16, 2026 Time: 6:30pm - 8:00pm Register here:
Due to the extended length of this football match, NHK-E is having to delay its normal programming: "Vegetable Time"
In 2004 and 2005 if you went to a Mae Shi show and handed them a mixtape or mix CD to listen to in the van they would give you a copy of the Mae Shi 2004 Mix Tape, a collection of their 3000 favorite songs in about 70 minutes. Now you too can enjoy a copy.
art imagines new things, upends social norms, says the unsayable, builds alternate worlds, designs counterlogics, revels in curiosity+ exercises fundamental human capacity for creative representation this is why art intrinsically sides with freedom, good discoursing on art this morning, everybody!
New issue of Popeye, a Japanese menswear mag, looks great. It's a rare all-English edition and looks at how people from 18 different countries dress. Very aligned with my view of style: diversity and differences are good, and dress is a form of social language. Avail at Kinokuniya.
I will never understand the jump to "you must be an idiot" to people making good faith interpretations to clear changes to the structure of cultural flows in the 21st century. We can all see and hear a *relative* lack of stylistic change in the *narrative-defining* culture of our times.
Matthew Perpetua@fluxblog.bsky.social · 3mo ago"Stuck culture" is the ultimate dumb-intellectual rhetorical notion of the 2020s and I'll tell you why you should be DEEPLY EMBARRASSED to ever indulge it
"Tech companies promised us their apps would free us from the gatekeepers and institutions that lorded over the 20th century only to replace them with basically the exact same thing those institutions offered us, but worse." — @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social www.garbageday.email/p/there-s-no...
There's nothing to watch on YouTube anymore
Read to the end for an Australian town everyone on Reddit agrees is haunted
garbageday.email
American is coasting on its mid 20th century cultural capital www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/o...
Opinion | How American Cool Dies
nytimes.com
Instagram is the creation of a global phone book where virtually anyone can call you and leave a message. Definitely some downsides!
How Western culture and fashion come to Japan: This week, we sat down with writer W. David Marx to talk about the history of fashion and pop culture in Japan. Full episodes on YouTube!
It would have been a lot less confusing for everyone had I become a ceramicist
hampton.@hampton.bsky.social · 3mo agothere's a "woke 2" article floating around on here that more or less argues nothing coherent. however, I'm especially struck by its attempt to engage "Marxist theory" -- something that has nothing to do with Karl Marx and has a sole citation that links to a book by W. David Marx on Amazon 😬
"Most critically, woo-woo aligned perfectly with capitalism, as magical thinking often became a tool for building profitable personal brands and working toward future fortunes." — W. David Marx
If the film Pavements wanted to beat into my head that I'll never ever understand what Malkmus's actual deal is, then amazing work everyone
Culture that outmoded previous paradigms, even when it's centuries old, is the culture that still enjoys extraordinary value today, so yeah
Los Angeles Review of Books@lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 4mo ago"Is the purpose of culture to revolutionize itself? To upend and render outmoded the paradigms of previous generations?" Natasha O’Neill on W. David Marx’s “Blank Space: A Cultural History of the 21st Century.” https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/blank-space-cultural-history-capitalism-w-david-marx
«But they could bond over their shared contempt for liberal decency». God bok!
I’m actually not sure we can come back from “prediction markets for war crimes”, as a society. I think this might be it for us.
Julia Carrie Wong@joolia.bsky.social · 5mo agoDid anyone have a bet on whether we would bomb an elementary school?
I know I brought this upon myself by writing a sprawling book, but I feel like 75% of the debates about BLANK SPACE are people arguing against a summary of a summary of what I actually wrote
Not to go all Harold Bloom, but the stronger artists of the next generation always reshape the history to explain their own emergence. Joy Division explained the subsequent decades of music in a way that Christopher Cross couldn't.
Hari Kunzru@harikunzru.bsky.social · 6mo agoWatching a yacht rock documentary on a flight and wondering once again that Chris Cross won five grammies in 1981 when at the same time, in another cultural universe, music like Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart was being made.
"The biggest story of the last year is that Trump has, in a very short amount of time, squandered most of his political capital by running a belligerent, unlawful, and fascist regime. But the second biggest is that the right has squandered all of the cultural capital his election brought them."
The Hilarious Decline of MAGA’s Brief Cultural Relevance
A year ago, everyone was doing the “Trump dance.” Now the president is too scared to show his face at the Super Bowl, and the right’s “alternative” halftime show features the cringey, washed-up Kid Ro...
newrepublic.com
Interestingly, a similar thesis was made by this book, though not as a positive thing: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/769187... The author's claim was that once you equate fame/wealth with success (above e.g. artistry, insightfulness) many things go to shit.
Blank Space by W. David Marx: 9780593833995 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice · A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2025 · A People Best Book of November 2025 · An NPR Most Anticipated...
penguinrandomhouse.com
Scott Patrick, PhD@neimanmarxist.bsky.social · 6mo agoThis is bleak: Jes Staley, currently CEO of Barclays, reassuring Epstein that popular revolt against financial elites is unlikely because capitalism and pop culture have defanged social movements, leaving people more invested in consumption than justice.
Robin Williams came into Tokion, and was looking at a shirt and I said we also have it in other sizes and he made a very animated WHUZAA sound and gesture and then bought something and left
Adam Rutherford@adamrutherford.bsky.social · 6mo agoOne of my academic colleagues looks a bit like Bob Mortimer. One time near our labs I saw him walking towards me and I warmly said Hey Kevin. It was Bob Mortimer. Please share your very low impact celebrity encounters here.