Jack White Is Rewiring Rock
Jack White is not saving rock ‘n’ roll in 2026: he is maintaining it; anchoring music in place instead of letting it drift through networks.
marketing
Are We Branded for Life?
In our age of endless comparison, curated self-images and performativity, we willingly submit to the branding of our fickle identities.
Language Is a Virus, and People Could Die
The COVID pandemic seemed to accelerate the spread of new viral media, but viruses mutate, pop culture replicates, and everything’s a cover song.
What Puts the Pop in Pop Music?
As the Beatles learned, good music, even good looks, is seldom enough to break a band into the American mainstream. So what puts the pop in pop music?
The Idols of the Twilight: AI in Our Age of Inventive Divination
In their pseudo-creativity and occasionally malevolent capriciousness, generative AI programs resemble an order of magical spirits from another age.
The More I Have, the Less I Play
Choice in media sometimes doesn't lead to freedom, just paralysis.
Anticipation and Expectation in Game Marketing: The Art of ‘Anti-Hype’
Watch the trailer for No Man's Sky and then for Frostpunk. There is a clear difference in the kind of expectations each creates in its audience.
Memes and Marketing
Proven memes serve as a marketable demonstration of pure influence, abstracted from the message’s relevance or utility.