Critics already observe that 21st-century culture has stalled into monolithism

Evidence

Over a decade ago, music historian Alex Ross lamented that the internet’s promise of a “long tail” of infinite cultural diversity never materialized: “Culture appears more monolithic than ever.” In 2023, New York Times critic Jason Farago declared that culture “has come to a standstill”: “We are now almost a quarter of the way through what looks likely to go down in history as the least innovative, least transformative, least pioneering century for culture since the invention of the printing press.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 15

Categorization

• XREF: Alex Ross’s long-tail lament and Farago’s standstill connect to the concepts behind Kyle Chayka’s Filterworld and the ‘death of the sellout’ frame Marx uses later. — connects to: The twenty-first century has failed to produce a culture of its own — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2285
• SEED: The Farago quote is a perfect hook for an essay or newsletter opening on whether this really is the least innovative century since the printing press.