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We’re a quarter of the way through the 21st century. What do we have to show for it?

How is it possible that our modern society produces so much content and yet so little true cultural innovation? In the 21st century, “the most radical forms of cultural invention have become scarce,” says culture writer Marx. Neoliberalism tamps down creative innovation by “elevating extreme profit-seeking as the highest human goal.” The theory of “poptimism” posits that popular culture should be “appreciated as a complex manufactured product” rather than derided as kitsch; once poptimism took hold, artists who openly pursued mass-market success were lauded rather than accused of “selling out.” The film industry began to rely more heavily on existing IP and nostalgia for low-risk, financially rewarding projects; as Marx says, “Retromania depends on older works feeling more valuable than contemporary ones.” Web 2.0, with its user-generated content and revenue-sharing models that allowed direct monetization, has created a class of well-compensated and highly visible influencers, but this development has not amounted to a “true revolution [involving] a reversal of status” because these individuals “had little influence on mainstream cultural standards.” Pioneering niche movements have been unseated by “the omnivore monoculture,” in which the blending of all tastes and styles is welcomed, even encouraged, as long as the result is maximally commercially successful. (Country music was once seen as a stubborn holdout of monoculture, but then came Lil Nas X.) Now that inclusive liberal politics have largely become normalized, extreme radical conservatives (“a group with no meaningful concern for artistic innovation”) have emerged as the transgressives of the new century; while mainstream culture did not embrace them, the internet has allowed their ideas to flourish unabated, with profound consequences. Marx has written a worthy follow-up to his 2022 book, Status and Culture. He draws on a commendable wealth of examples from disparate realms of culture—from the dominance of Japanese streetwear to Nazified internet memes and the “child influencer” the Rizzler—to ably explain what many citizens of the modern world, especially Americans, have long colloquially felt: that our current culture has grown stagnant.

A wide-ranging, persuasive, readable treatise on a crucial component of modern life.