Algorithmic platforms cannot explain cultural stagnation because it predates them

Evidence

Others have pointed to structural shifts in how culture is created and disseminated. Critic Scott Timberg attributed much of the “culture crash” to the decline of middle-class media jobs, which traditionally supported cultural production. Yet there are now more than three hundred million people worldwide who consider themselves “content creators.” Meanwhile, Kyle Chayka, in 2024’s Filterworld, blamed algorithmic platforms like TikTok and Instagram for “flattening” culture. But the blank space emerged well before the advent of these apps. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 19

Categorization

• XREF: Marx dismissing Chayka’s algorithmic-flattening mechanism opens space for his own thesis; connects to the reader’s need to trace his actual proposed mechanism. — connects to: The current platform disillusionment is a cultural-bubble hangover — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms,…, 624; Internet hyperspeed produced a paradoxical cultural stasis — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 31
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: is Marx’s claim that the flattening ‘emerged well before’ these apps actually right, or is he collapsing a longer-timescale monoculture with a distinct algorithmic acceleration?