Are we really stuck?
Nothing, or almost nothing, has changed since 1999. Film director Nacho Vigalondo has shared on Twitter a video in which British comedian Michael Spicer argues this thesis: there have been no substantial developments since 1999 and the early 2000s. It was then when the use of internet and cell phones became widespread. Moreover, many of the great cultural productions of that era, such as movies based on comic books, are still alive and well. And, truth be told, it is hard to disagree with him if we remember that since 2002 there have been three Spider-Man in the flesh and blood, and another animated one.
Spicer's video follows an idea that has been gaining momentum in recent years, that of cultural stagnation. We live in a time not only of consolidation, but also of little novelty and little daring compared to previous decades. One of the decisive factors comes from the big technology companies, as Spicer mentions and as Kyle Chayka details in his book Mundofiltro: much of the cultural content depends on algorithms and platforms that increasingly compartmentalize access to culture.
For example, 25 years ago we all discovered the same music at the same time thanks to the radio, but now Spotify offers us more or less tailor-made lists, from which anything we don't like or don't feel like trying can disappear. We have to make an effort, however small and with very few exceptions, to find out what others are listening to. In other words, we still have the bubble filters that Eli Pariser identified back in 2011 (even that has not changed).
Algorithms also condition our expectations, as happens with those coffee shops and restaurants that seem designed for Instagram. It's what Chayka calls in his book “a generic, flattened, reproducible aesthetic,” which causes this “feeling that nothing new emerges.” There is less room for surprise because algorithmic recommendations have warped everything, “from visual arts to product design, choreography, urbanism, food and fashion,” in pursuit of “an immediate, often superficial response.” That is, a like, a retweet, a quick comment.
These pressures lead artists to fear experimenting and departing from the formulas that work. And artificial intelligence may end up further enhancing this feeling if, as it seems, it simply floods the Internet with cloned, personality-less texts, photos and videos.
In his book Status and Culture, W. David Marx also dwells on this sense of stagnation. In his opinion, cultural evolution comes from our desire to move up the social hierarchy. We are not talking about money, or only money, but about the prestige that comes from knowing what to say, what to wear and where to move.
The Internet has changed this dynamic because everyone has access to niche content - to that group “you sure don't know” - so cultural status is replaced by more obvious markers, such as money and popularity, or your appearance. No one wants to be indie or cult, because everyone more or less is. The hard part is to have a private jet, and that's why success is sought and what works is repeated. The good part: Marx stresses that, by having access to more culture, young people are less snobbish and more open-minded.
All this can be questioned. It is normal that we will not be aware of the changes we are experiencing for a couple of decades. It should also be mentioned that there has been talk of stagnation at least since 2011: economist Tyler Cowen published a book that year on the standstill in U.S. productivity and innovation since the 1970s, no less. But for a few years now Cowen has been advocating that the standstill is coming to an end. So who knows.
It should also be remembered that Chayka is 35 years old and Spicer, 46, and when you enter middle age it seems that everything stagnates because you run out of novelties and firsts. It's not that punk is dead; it's just that we've put it in the storage room, next to the guitar and the amp.
In any case, the solution proposed by Chayka is a good one, even if we think he is exaggerating: resist. He is not alone. Journalist Delia Rodriguez already proposed a few months ago that we have to “navigate better”. We have to make an effort to look for that movie that everyone seems to have forgotten, that blog that no one reads or that bar that doesn't look like the bars on Instagram.
It's not about avoiding the dictatorship of fashion, as they used to say years ago, or throwing the cell phone into the sea, as they say now, but to look for the complexity and ambiguity that escapes automatic recommendations, even if it sometimes goes wrong. Maybe culture, whatever it is, has no choice but to stagnate, but we don't have to.