The Culture We Deserve

Is America capable of creating geniuses anymore, or just technicians who feed the nostalgia for the age of auteurs? Just a few months ago, The Brutalist was being heralded as a masterpiece, but now it's mired in controversy about AI use and accusations of Zionist politics. Both of these attacks are wrong, by the way -- it is simply that the movie is not very good. On the week of David Lynch's deat...

As assisted suicide becomes more widely available, here come the death influencers. Is it wrong to monetize your suicide? Where does all this "normalization" of death end exactly? Jessa and Nico assess the void and the artists whose chosen medium is their own annihilation. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

Predictions! What will the glorious year of 2025 hold for us? Nico and Jessa try to sort it all out. Will Harvard graduates stop referring to themselves as radicals and revolutionaries now that actual assassinations are happening? Will the manfluencers raise an army to invade Canada and install Jordan Peterson as Trump's colonial minister? Will an American ever write a good novel again? Will the r...

Fine, we give up trying to make original content, let's make a list! Jessa and Nico talk about the best and worst films, television, books, art, and music of the year that got eaten by the election cycle.  Full list and shownotes: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

As the stars align for another French Revolution (Pluto in Aquarius, baby), the billionaires and CEOs are quaking. They're upgrading their security teams, they are building compounds. Also, as things escalate with Russia, Jessa and Nico wonder if we're going to get Rocky IV-level propaganda soon. Booker Prize winner Samantha Harvey is getting review-bombed for even having a Russian character in he...

Elon Musk twat that Cancel culture has been canceled. All our bad men are coming back -- Kevin Spacey, Bryan Singer, Armie Hammer. New administration, baby! So what was cancel culture even for? Nico and Jessa discuss grievance culture, how Netflix has monetized the anti-cancel culture grift, and whether anyone is going to learn anything from the last ten years of madness. Shownotes and references:...

Progressive self-flagellation continues this week, as now the left wonders why they don't have a Joe Rogan-like figure to lead the angry young men into socialist politics. Maybe because you guys are all desperately overeager? Maybe because you'd want them to attend a new Columbia University masters program for audio arts before you trusted them to start a podcast? Just a thought. Also: Cormac McCa...

Quick, how do we politically, financially, and culturally exploit the lower classes, now that the politicians admit maybe wealth inequality and the abandonment of class issues has led us to a second Trump administration. There will be lots of solemn talk about the dignity of the working class, lots of PhDs doing working class ethnography, etc. But probably we still won't get healthcare, unless you...

It's the era of the sore winner. Trump voters are feeling emboldened, from racist texts to more Trump flags going up to personal confrontations. And billionaires from Silicon Valley to pop music are bitter they should ever be questioned or criticized about the constant stream of dreck they pump into the world. Jessa and Nico discuss why too much is never enough in the age of infinite branding. Sho...

In DC, Philadelphia, and Portland, monuments to Donald Trump's legacy as a white supremacist and sexual predator have been popping up. Their creator has yet to be revealed (please don't be Banksy). But it does open the door to the question: are we doomed to suffer through four more years of bad anti-Trump art? Or will the pro-Trump guys like Beeple take over cringe creation? And if the bro podcast...

God, this is so boring and please let it be over. Swing state fatigue, billionaire media, and a political sphere dominated by bro podcast hosts.  Show notes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

Is it a contradiction that in this age of trigger warnings people are calling this a golden age of horror? Or is there something cozy and coddling about what is celebrated as prestige horror? Is Longlegs even scary, is The Substance just a montage of better horror films, does Red Rooms even haunt you, bro? Jessa and Nico discuss Variety's 100 Best Horror Movies list, lists as anti-content, and why...

Still dealing with pre-election tension. But some bullying ads ("everyone will know whether you voted!") have us thinking, is it true what they say, that the Democratic party has become too feminized? And the Ta-Nehisi Coates media tour prompts us to ask, is it possible to have a great run in interviews and TV and still have written a not very good book? Or do we have to support bad books forever...

Everyone is eager to turn themselves into a robot these days. Deepak Chopra has created an AI spiritual guru version of himself, Laura Kipnis botted herself up to help Silicon Valley bros read books, and the dead are returning and walking the earth and reviewing art again for UK newspapers. Who will restore our humanity? Well, the Department of Defense is now hiring writers to help us kill people...

The Lunar Eclipse brought America some moral dilemmas. Too bad America doesn't believe in morals anymore. Should a reporter sext with the people she profiles? If she writes things we like, why not. Should we elect someone who calls himself a Nazi and questions the Holocaust? If he angers the right people, why not. Should we in the media alert people that a rapper blew up someone else's car? If he...

People are fed up with the United States (again), and are threatening to leave if the election doesn't swing their way. American expat enclaves are popping up in Costa Rica, Portugal, and France. But is this a real response to political instability or a childish tantrum that you might be expected to live among people with whom you disagree? Jessa and Nico look into the role social media is playing...

Google Books wanted to scan all the books of the world to digitize and hoard them and, potentially, monetize them. OpenAI wants to scan the history of human intellect to teach its computer program to think. The Internet Archive wanted to make books that weren't accessible accessible for no charge. Guess which one the court system shut down? As long as your plan is to make money, the American gov w...

We are apparently so nostalgic for the Obama years that we are happy to forget whatever lessons we may have learned in the last eight years. New York Magazine declared Obamacore the time of Broad City, Hamilton, and Bad Feminist (like these were good things) -- ignoring what he truly gave us, which is Silicon Valley disruption overlords, girlbosses, and Hamilton (as a bad thing). Plus: Robin DiAng...

In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, when a scrappy crew of kids tries to save America to get the truth out about a corrupt businessman, the businessman swarms the state with pamphlets, newspapers, parades, radio broadcasts to maintain his power. Controlling the narrative sometimes just means out-talking your opponent, and many of our most pernicious new media stars just overproduced content until the...

Just a small town guy, beloved by children, sent to Washington to do the right thing -- is Tim Walz our chance to live in a Frank Capra film? Jessa and Nico watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and read Nancy Pelosi's new memoir to talk about the two archetypes of American public service, the aw shucks good guy versus the professional power player. But after Obama and the bailouts of the big banks,...

If your idea of a woman is small, frail, vulnerable, and weak, how do you look at women in sports? Well, by assuming that every woman who is strong, competitive, and accomplished might secretly be a man. Some people decided to spend the week Transvestigating athletes instead of any other thing in the world they could be doing. Jessa and Nico talk about women in sports, Michele Kang's comment that...

There's trouble in the tradwife multi-verse, restarting the convo about whether tradwives are Nazi bait or helpless babies who need saving from their own marriages. Also: are the Democrats running Kamala Harris as a candidate or as the symbol of womanhood crushing the patriarchy? That didn't exactly work for Hillary Clinton, but Harris has less baggage. From cat ladies to tradwives to white women...

How did a guy with as little charisma and charm as JD Vance end up as Donald Trump's running mate? Because of his authenticity. He symbolizes the American Dream -- the dream to transcend where you come from and then destroy everyone who disappointed you along the way. As one of the only real bootstrap men remaining, he is a potent symbol that is useful for both the right and the left. Jessa and Ni...

Congratulations to all the TikTok astrology girls, you were right about someone trying to shoot the former president mid-July. Please enjoy life under government surveillance. There's a slogan from the American Evangelical community, God Doesn't Call the Qualified, He Qualifies the Called. It's used to justify everything from sending teens off to do missionary work in countries they know nothing a...

The elites are feeling weird again. Biden blames the Elites for pushing him to retirement, Marine le Pen and other populists are claiming to protect the little people against the Elites, the New York Times keeps hiring Harvard Men to write op-eds about how the Elites have failed us.... Everyone wants to go to Yale, but no one wants to be caught out as an Elite. Jessa and Nico talk about a new leve...