Why is everything so low quality these days?

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Yes, there’s the movie business that wants to capitalize on the ‘brand’ value of familiar franchises from the past and milk them dry before moving on to new things, but also what about the way music references and recycles older cultural touchstones but in a way that doesn’t point to any larger truth or statement? I think it’s a sign of civilization exhaustion that will prefigure some kind of collapse. Depending on how long we can keep going like this.

In the Simon Reynolds book I keep referencing when we have these conversations he describes in detail the two-tone ska movement in late 1970’s Britain that took a pre-existing music genre - Jamaican ska - and tinkered with it enough to create something new by speeding the tempo up and changing the subject matter of songs to deal with contemporary issues. (In the same way the glam music coming out of the UK in the early 1970’s was very similar musically to 50’s rock but obviously it was altered in ways - I suppose by making it more ironic and knowing - to make it sound new.) Today’s music doesn’t seem to create new reformulations but rather has an overly reverential obsession with the past. Maybe I’m wrong about that but it certainly seems that way. Cue the Apocalypse.
 
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anon1212376 said:
Since at least 2014 or '15, I’ve noticed that pop culture has become noticeably worse. Not only morally, but artistically and in substance as well.
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Not that you’re necessarily wrong, but I’ve been hearing the same thing from people for at least 20 years. I’d venture to guess they’ve been saying it longer than that, but that’s as long as I’ve been paying attention to such things.

I think there are still good things out there. Bear is right about things being more fragmented. With the rise of digital platforms, the traditional means of mass market delivery (i.e. radio, network television, etc.) don’t work as they once did. That’s fine with me. I just look for stuff I like and ignore the stuff I don’t.
 
Rhubarb said:
Ah, so, conspiracy theories. Got it.
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That would’ve been your response to whatever information I posted. Dismiss what you want. I hope it makes you happy. I’m sure you are. I hear ostriches are very happy.
 
Yeah, it’s hard to write with pizzazz when you’re under a deadline but the person grading the assignment might appreciate it (or maybe not).

I’ve read three of Simon Reynolds’ books and the one I enjoyed the most was ‘Rip it Up and Start Again: Post-Punk 1978 - 1984’ which explained for me why the music of the 1980’s sounded like it did (as well as introducing me to lots of bands that I didn’t know like Young Marble Giants and A Certain Ratio and some that I did know like Heaven Seventeen but I didn’t know their influential stuff). The book I keep referencing, ‘Retromania’, is less strong on substance but I still think you’d find it interesting. This guy knows a lot about disparate genres of popular and not so popular music.
 
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I agree that the low quality is not confined to the popular media such as television and movies. There is also a lack of craftsmanship that pervades practically everything, including technology. Even food is not as wholesome as it used to be. And with regard to institutions such as government and academia, don’t even get me started on that. I also agree that this global condition did not originate only a few years ago but rather a few decades ago. Further, the decline continues, a virtual race to the bottom. Why is it so? Probably due to a multitude of reasons, some of which have already been mentioned.
 
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And they were a spin-off of ‘The Human League’; in fact, the two guys from Heaven Seventeen were the founding members of the band, but they got ejected by their singer who came later, if you can imagine the cheek!
 
Saxum is 100% right about the Marxist concept of post-modernism. I did my Ph.D. at a time when it inflitrated the academy, and I’ve worked in higher education now for 40 years and have seen how it has destroyed areas such as the liberal arts, completely and purposely dismantling the beautiful things that got me into the area in the first place. Most people who did not live through the change don’t even realize what has happened.
 
Oh I am not arguing against paradigm shifts in thinking, especially since WW1. There has been radical changes.

What I don’t see is a concentrated cabal of moustache twirling philosophers sitting in their department offices wondering how they’re going to destroy civilization. I also don’t see any evidence that these radical Marxist Legion of Doomers are making serious headway except that their ideas are more well known now. As I tell my students, just because I’m teaching you how X thought, doesn’t mean X was right.

They’re publishing so they don’t perish. Change is the nature of thinking. Just ask Plato and Aristotle.
 
Well, I sure do. Check out, for example, the deconstructionist agenda for literature. That’s just one example.
 
I don’t think post-modernism is inspired by or in cahoots with Marxism, in fact if anything Marxism and post-modernism are opposed to one another.
 
There are far too many analytic departments for me to consider Derrida any real challenge to anything.

And classic literary criticism is alive and well. I don’t see anything concrete that points to a serious concentrated effort to undermine anything.

I’ve been asking for the links. And getting just broad existential statements instead of explanations.
 
No reason really. Lack of talent in both producers and public. You cannot force inspiration really.
Propaganda and politics are the death of art is true. It’s not just Marxism but propaganda in itself. However, true talents would turn dirt into a whip even in such circumstances.
Maybe we are all tired. You know there is a switch OFF button on every device. You don’t have to watch all of this, play all these games, to live. So don’t! If they suck just say no. End of positivity is the power of NO.
 
Won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture in 1976. It’s so sad, the ending.
 
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Truth be told, I don’t unless I am genuinely interested. I ignore 99% of pop culture.
 
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I think the internet has allowed vast amounts of very personalized entertainment. I mean, even when I was 12 and watching YouTube I realized how stupid it is. One guy or gal can make a video on YouTube that can entertain a million people. But on TV there’s nothing to watch besides cringy reality TV, repetitive sports, and yellow journalism.

1 dude in his room > an entire industry
 
The Super Bowl was a super bore, before the New Orleans Saints did not make it to the game.
 
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