I think Youtube video essays are an overlooked stylistic influence on this new breed of essay. If an American young adult enjoys sitting down for guided explorations of niche topics it’s more likely thanks to Vsauce or Jon Bois or Wendigoon than any writer. Speaking from experience it’s not a huge jump from “I just spent a half hour watching a sarcastic yet sympathetic youtuber share their thoughts on XYZ” to “I just spent a half hour reading someone who writes a bit like David Sedaris share their thoughts on XYZ”.
Truth. For that NBA YoungBoy article mentioned in this piece, one of my main sources was a nearly four hour long meticulously researched Youtube doc by Trap Lore Ross
Was also thinking of this. When Barkan mentioned length (maybe more precisely described as unboundedness) as being a defining feature of this genre, I was reminded of that 15 hour-long scene-by-scene critique of the Star Wars prequels on Youtube. These super-long Youtube analyses are now multiple times the length of the works they're critiquing.
I think I was with this essay until that penultimate paragraph. I assure you there are plenty of blog posts from 15 years ago that have endured! And I assure you that many, many of those bloggers are still around and "saying it on Substack," in part because Substack quite famously paid all those bloggers to migrate over here. What's the meaningful difference between the (excellent!) pieces you call "New Cultural Criticism" and, e.g., Scott Alexander's (equally excellent!) "The Dilbert Afterlife" ? And is "The Dilbert Afterlife" truly all that different in form or content from any given Slate Star Codex post from 2014? Color me skeptical, Ross.
(Not to pooh-pooh all the great culture writing you and your pals are doing; I'm glad there's an ecosystem for that. But there is ample, ample precedent for that ecosystem in the original blogosphere, that you seem to be discounting solely because Roxane Gay isn't your bag and Gay Talese is.)
This is a bit like saying "Modernism wasn't really a thing because Knut Hamsun and Dostoevsky were doing interiority already." There are always antecedents to new movements.
Great points. You are right that there is plenty of enduring internet writing, and Scott Alexander's is a great example. I read this as Ross cosplaying his Norman Mailer fantasies again.
That's good news. Sounds like it is in the tradition of the true "amateur"--a person who does great things for the love of it.
Let me ask you, as someone who reads a lot of this stuff, what do you think of the overall quality of the writing? For instance, how long could some of those 5000-word behemoths be if the writer practiced rigorous craft (concision, cohesion, coherence, clarity)? Would that not help to broaden the audience? I want to read more criticism, but often the writers wear me out.
One of the good things about paper magazines and journals--the world I come from--is the physical limitation of the page. You have to make your point in the copy hole provided. It makes you better.
In theory, a lot of the writers Barkan mentioned (who I've read and adore) could probably have 500–1k words (if not more) shaved off of their newsletters. In practice, though…I think there is something very fundamentally charming to seeing a writer's natural linguistic excesses come out! And I like them at their current length. Magazine-style editing can make for really impressively polished, concise writing, but it sometimes flattens out the writer's idiosyncracies, imo.
I really like that the critics Barkan names can run long on their own newsletters—or in online publications unfettered by page counts—and reveal the distinctive ways they see the world.
It’s always great when writers can stretch their wings, especially when it’s an act of charity. I just worry about accessibility. I wouldn’t say I’m a lazy reader, but I am a very busy reader. I would read more if more writers bit off less than they could chew.
This is probably all being informed by having spent so many years as a magazine, editor and cutting cutting cutting!
I'm not so into this effort to wishcast purported new movements into existence. But it does feel like the last couple of years we've turned a corner. The intellectual culture I remember from pre-2014 or so is returning, like shoots after a wildfire. The wildfire being, of course, being the ten years when our literary culture was hijacked by people with cluster B personality disorders.
I’ve read most of the Substack authors you mention (I will now chase down a couple of them) and agree they’re all talented. Whether they represent a New Cultural Criticism movement is another question. It’s great that contemporary authors are using novelistic techniques, first person, and the long form to describe the world today and to analyze past writers and their work, but as you note, that sort of thing was done decades ago in New Journalism. The two more recent developments, as you also point out, are the medium and that many writers work for the love it now that monetary compensation has shriveled. Journals like yours are important.
I think Youtube video essays are an overlooked stylistic influence on this new breed of essay. If an American young adult enjoys sitting down for guided explorations of niche topics it’s more likely thanks to Vsauce or Jon Bois or Wendigoon than any writer. Speaking from experience it’s not a huge jump from “I just spent a half hour watching a sarcastic yet sympathetic youtuber share their thoughts on XYZ” to “I just spent a half hour reading someone who writes a bit like David Sedaris share their thoughts on XYZ”.
Truth. For that NBA YoungBoy article mentioned in this piece, one of my main sources was a nearly four hour long meticulously researched Youtube doc by Trap Lore Ross
Was also thinking of this. When Barkan mentioned length (maybe more precisely described as unboundedness) as being a defining feature of this genre, I was reminded of that 15 hour-long scene-by-scene critique of the Star Wars prequels on Youtube. These super-long Youtube analyses are now multiple times the length of the works they're critiquing.
We have the same possibilities now on Substack.
I think I was with this essay until that penultimate paragraph. I assure you there are plenty of blog posts from 15 years ago that have endured! And I assure you that many, many of those bloggers are still around and "saying it on Substack," in part because Substack quite famously paid all those bloggers to migrate over here. What's the meaningful difference between the (excellent!) pieces you call "New Cultural Criticism" and, e.g., Scott Alexander's (equally excellent!) "The Dilbert Afterlife" ? And is "The Dilbert Afterlife" truly all that different in form or content from any given Slate Star Codex post from 2014? Color me skeptical, Ross.
(Not to pooh-pooh all the great culture writing you and your pals are doing; I'm glad there's an ecosystem for that. But there is ample, ample precedent for that ecosystem in the original blogosphere, that you seem to be discounting solely because Roxane Gay isn't your bag and Gay Talese is.)
This is a bit like saying "Modernism wasn't really a thing because Knut Hamsun and Dostoevsky were doing interiority already." There are always antecedents to new movements.
Great points. You are right that there is plenty of enduring internet writing, and Scott Alexander's is a great example. I read this as Ross cosplaying his Norman Mailer fantasies again.
In spite of (or because of) all the bad stuff happening, a new intellectual age is dawning all around us.
That's good news. Sounds like it is in the tradition of the true "amateur"--a person who does great things for the love of it.
Let me ask you, as someone who reads a lot of this stuff, what do you think of the overall quality of the writing? For instance, how long could some of those 5000-word behemoths be if the writer practiced rigorous craft (concision, cohesion, coherence, clarity)? Would that not help to broaden the audience? I want to read more criticism, but often the writers wear me out.
One of the good things about paper magazines and journals--the world I come from--is the physical limitation of the page. You have to make your point in the copy hole provided. It makes you better.
In theory, a lot of the writers Barkan mentioned (who I've read and adore) could probably have 500–1k words (if not more) shaved off of their newsletters. In practice, though…I think there is something very fundamentally charming to seeing a writer's natural linguistic excesses come out! And I like them at their current length. Magazine-style editing can make for really impressively polished, concise writing, but it sometimes flattens out the writer's idiosyncracies, imo.
I really like that the critics Barkan names can run long on their own newsletters—or in online publications unfettered by page counts—and reveal the distinctive ways they see the world.
A fair point! Thank you for writing.
It’s always great when writers can stretch their wings, especially when it’s an act of charity. I just worry about accessibility. I wouldn’t say I’m a lazy reader, but I am a very busy reader. I would read more if more writers bit off less than they could chew.
This is probably all being informed by having spent so many years as a magazine, editor and cutting cutting cutting!
I'm not so into this effort to wishcast purported new movements into existence. But it does feel like the last couple of years we've turned a corner. The intellectual culture I remember from pre-2014 or so is returning, like shoots after a wildfire. The wildfire being, of course, being the ten years when our literary culture was hijacked by people with cluster B personality disorders.
But you are contributing, Ross, and I thank you.
Love your optimism in the face of all the trends that would attempt to negate it: a warm breeze from the core of the Earth. Thank you for the links.
I’ve read most of the Substack authors you mention (I will now chase down a couple of them) and agree they’re all talented. Whether they represent a New Cultural Criticism movement is another question. It’s great that contemporary authors are using novelistic techniques, first person, and the long form to describe the world today and to analyze past writers and their work, but as you note, that sort of thing was done decades ago in New Journalism. The two more recent developments, as you also point out, are the medium and that many writers work for the love it now that monetary compensation has shriveled. Journals like yours are important.