W. David Marx

I quote people saying some vulgar things unfortunately

Each issue will go deep on a specific region. We started with the most remote area from Tokyo but one of my favorites: the Yaeyama Islands of Ishigaki, Iriomote, Taketomi, and Yonaguni etc.

THE NEW JAPAN “THE NEW JAPAN” is a new magazine that highlights regional cultures throughout Japan. We’re in search of inspiring innovations, the successful preservation of tradition, and the creation of new hybrid...

I'm editing a bilingual magazine about the wonders of Japanese regional culture for NOT A HOTEL called THE NEW JAPAN. We just released our first issue on the Yaeyama Islands.

thenewjapan.com/en

It works extremely well until you get to the end of all possible blending

The “first major zeitgeist” of the 21st Century, writes @wdavidmarx.bsky.social in his new book “Blank Space,” was coolness as “raw, decadent, and a little dumb.”

"The end of movements isn't the end of value." I want to believe this is true, but it seems like aesthetic displacement plays a silent role in value creation. Noël Carroll's entire definition of art is based on *narrative* and the field feels limp without narrative change

My first book, The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region is officially out today (Dec 2). It’s an urban history of empire, an imperial history of urbanization, and contains the histories of many people who moved across the Tsushima Straits btw 1876-1953.

I do what I can

Blank Spaces, Radicalized Offlineness, Curious Protagonists — Roden newsletter issue 109 David Marx' new book, protesting being online all the time, thinking about good films and books

"There’s a ruthlessness that’s taken hold across all cultural making. Everything turned into a casino, 'traps' galore. Billions as the only goal. Leave “nothing on the table.” Epicurean maximizing. That sort of thing. AI now turning solid ground liquid for the next decade."

craigmod.com/roden/109/

21st-Century Culture Has Hit a Wall. Here’s How to Break Through. Even failures and half steps will be more interesting than the boring stuff.

Restoring cultural invention doesn’t require upending the current industries—it just needs a small vanguard to change its direction, writes W. David Marx:

YCDTOTV is how I know Ottawa exists

Finally a movie about The New Republic

Good example of, damn, I wish I knew this book existed...

But never too late to catch up, I guess

23 of the best book covers for fall 2025

Blank Space cover

Judge this book by its cover

www.printmag.com/book-covers/...

As I've said a million times, the point is not that nothing's happening. A lot is happening! The point is that the innovative stuff is not getting properly valued so that it shifts aesthetics more broadly like in the past. Don't judge a book by hate-read summaries.

I actually once went through Harold Bloom's American Literary Canon. 40 authors included. Only 10 could be said to have 'made it' through hard work and hustle. The rest came from wealth or had influential friends.

21st-Century Culture Has Hit a Wall. Here’s How to Break Through. Even failures and half steps will be more interesting than the boring stuff.

Restoring cultural invention doesn’t require upending the current industries—it just needs a small vanguard to change its direction, writes W. David Marx:

Is the Blossoms Shanghai theme song a Succession soundalike?

Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century (English Edition) Compre Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century (English Edition) de Marx, W. David na Amazon.com.br. Confira também os eBooks mais vendidos, lançamentos e livros digitais exclusivos.

Este é um dos livros que mais esperei no ano. Pirei no anterior do @wdavidmarx.bsky.social , "Status and Culture". Neste, logo nas primeiras páginas, já toca em como a comercialização de tudo, acelerada pelo neoliberalismo, congelou a ideia cultural de vergonha. Se é malfeito mas vende, é sucesso.

Anti-anti-poptimists rushing to Google to locate random negative reviews of a book they haven't read to feel better after hate-reading a mildly-positive review of the book they haven't read

That review in extreme bad faith, selectively pulls from book, hasn't done the reading (of Natasha Degen or Anna Kornbluh among others), but since it's replaces you having to read my book yourself or have to say more than "Nuh-uh" as a defense it's "good." What's important is that you feel good.

Nope

Pop Culture Got Stale. Counterculture Went Right-Wing.

Read @jenszalai.bsky.social quote @wdavidmarx.bsky.social “This long-term project to rebrand conservatism as cool and transgressive succeeded precisely because we removed cultural invention as a potential countervailing force.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/b...

This was highly anticipated.

The part that drives me crazy about Gladwell and Harari is their total dedication to never correcting errors nor ever acknowledging that counter arguments could possibly exist.

My New Book, Blank Space, is Out Today I wrote — perhaps “inadvisably” — a cultural history of the first 24.5 years of the 21st century My third book, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the 21st Century, is out today from Viking Books. (I...

BLANK SPACE: A Cultural History of the 21st Century

OUT TODAY 11/18/25

culture.ghost.io/my-new-book-...

chicago pope been reading up

Your larger point stands

Not even Star Me Kitten???

Why is 21st century culture so bland and stale? And why does it matter? - The Boston Globe The top two pop artists in 2006 — Beyonce and Taylor Swift — were still the two top pop artists in 2024. That's a problem, Marx says.

I really enjoyed BLANK SPACE by W. David Marx, a look at how barren and repetitive culture has been in the first quarter of this century. My column is in Sunday's print @bostonglobe.com but you can read it here now. Please subscribe! www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/13/a...

I, too, grew up in non-urban regions of the South. If you think provincial is too loaded of a word, we can say "anti-cosmopolitan" instead.

All pop music is built around conventions, but country has always taken elements from the other genres AFTER their creation. Most recent example is trap drums