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Highlights
Digital norm evasion, initially a progressive effort to disrupt stifling conservative morality, eventually empowered conservative forces to fight civility and avoid accountability for “cancelable” offenses
Where there is no value other than money, honor is meaningless; and where there is no honor, there cannot be shame. And without shame, infamy and esteem become indistinguishable
The rejection of liberal values that empowered the MAGA movement did not begin in government; it first took on contemporary relevance in the deep cynicism of downtown fashion scenes and nihilistic online forums. And this long-term project to rebrand conservatism as cool and transgressive succeeded precisely because we removed cultural invention as a potential countervailing force.
the new century’s key ideological trends had already taken hold. Downtown New York scenesters and anonymous forum posters found thrills in a new transgressive, nihilistic form of conservatism
disdain for traditional morality
Trump took a page from Paris Hilton’s playbook: Doing loathsome things had no downside as long as the ensuing outrage won the news cycle
Meanwhile, the right mocked these harm-reduction efforts: They derided the woke left as fragile “snowflakes” while simultaneously getting bent out of shape when their own illiberal views weren’t given proper respect.
Morozov also predicted that the internet would destroy common knowledge—the shared understanding that citizens not only have the same information but know that others have it too. This dissolution went beyond lifestyle fragmentation to create entirely oppositional realities
As Morozov put it, “The logical end of this ever-increasing personalisation is of each user having his or her own online experience…. Instead of the internet, we may as well start talking of a billion ‘internets’—one for each user.” This splintering left the liberal professional classes unaware of shifts in public opinion that enabled Brexit and Trump’s election
By 2018, Shoshana Zuboff coined the term surveillance capitalism
The twentieth-century content industry’s former strategy of investments in auteurs and innovators as the potential hitmakers of tomorrow gave way to full algorithmic optimization. Teenagers were filming amateur videos in their bedrooms that repeatedly drew larger audiences than the work of professional studios. And so there was no need to invest in the creation of content; platforms only had to pay creators after the video was a hit. This invited a flood of bland, search-optimized materials from speculators with little interest in art or culture
The techno-optimistic worldview had promised a renaissance of creativity, in which niche creators could flourish and global connections would expand human knowledge. By the late 2010s, the opposite had occurred: Platforms incentivized people with little interest in culture to clog public spaces with low-quality, ad-driven content. Rather than a hub of innovation, the internet had become an engine for mediocrity
But a true revolution involves a reversal of status—one in which outsiders don’t just bypass gatekeepers but seize control of the establishment
Jean Baudrillard’s 2001 warning echoed loudly: “When computer technology and the automatism of machines are all that is needed for production, work becomes a useless function.”
If culture shapes how we perceive reality, they argued, AI’s flood of pseudo-culture might distort our collective understanding and push civilization toward collapse.
Moreover, the early stage of AI-generated art wasn’t offering anything very competitive—it merely copied existing tropes, pumping out clichés and stale kitsch at lightning speed. In fact, its greatest contribution was illuminating how creation was the easiest step in the process of cultural invention. Every day, thousands if not millions of people proposed new ideas and practices, but only a tiny sliver ever won recognition, attracted adherents, or forged collective meaning. Those distraught over AI’s impact on culture offered little explanation for why computer-created pseudo-art would receive widespread interest and reverence, when 99.99 percent of old-fashioned, human-made symbolic output failed.
AI companies vowed to end the evil monopoly of pernicious creators who dared take the time to make things with a sense of craft and intention.
The omnivore monoculture’s inclusiveness created the odd situation in which the most fervent, distinct subcultures exist on the political right. Yet because these groups are largely motivated by revanchist nostalgia rather than forward-thinking creativity, their cultural influence is stunted. Right-wing memes like Rare Pepes are toxic rather than generative
To move forward, we need to study the past, so thoroughly that it becomes boring—as boredom is one of the most reliable catalysts for innovation. The goal should be a disciplined engagement with historical works, paired with a futurist drive to forge entirely new creative pathways.