Final Thoughts on 2024: The Rise of a Cultural Dark Age

A collection of links, analysis, and favorites of 2024

I’ve collected some links to help victims of the wildfires in LA. I donated to a few of these, but here is a link to a spreadsheet for displaced Black families, a link for Hollywood Crew Members affected, and one for individual families and businesses near the Palisades.

Mama’s Money

The story of keeping up with the Joneses gone wrong has been deeply troubling to follow: an influencer’s husband went into debt trying to maintain their picture perfect life (giant Hamptons house, chic apartment in the city, lavish vacations) and died by suicide in August.

A few weeks ago, his wife learned he was not $15 million in debt— it was $33 million. She’s now being sued by the building they lived in for back rent, and she’s arguing she shouldn’t be held responsible since she never signed a lease (the husband did) and she had no knowledge of the family finances.

The American obsession with perfection at all costs combined with the one upmanship of a lifestyle dictated by social media… it’s so bleak. I expect there will be a documentary on this before long.

• Original article about his death (July, The Daily Beast)

• Actual debt amount revealed (December, The Daily Beast)

Decentering Men

2024 was the year of “boysober”, or the idea that millions of women are turning away from dating. I’ve heard different variations of this theme— the 4B movement of South Korea and “decentering men” both rose to prominence on social media this year, especially after the election.

In May, Bumble ran an advertising campaign with the slogan “A vow of celibacy is not the answer”, which caused a firestorm of controversy from female users of the app and women across social media. I did research on dating, cohabitation, and marriage in grad school, but you don’t need to be a researcher to know people met for centuries before the apps existed. I’ve talked at length about the apps being the issue, and I firmly believe they’re accelerating the loneliness crisis. You cannot give people the illusion of endless choice while removing their ability to flirt or engage with one another in public without seeing ramifications (the gay community also has this with Grindr eliminating the incentive for people to flirt in bars).

When it comes to 4B, I want to hear more from women in South Korea. It’s not that I don’t think it’ll work, but people are self-serving. We’re seeing swaths of Gen Z return to conservatism as traditional structures crumble around them. So many young women are fantasizing about marrying rich or being a tradwife because capitalism has failed them or the very idea of capitalism is daunting… I just do not believe something like 4B can work in America, but we’ll see!

• Boysober (December, The Guardian)

The Curious Case of Emilia Pérez

Emilia Pérez is a disaster, but it won big at both the Golden Globes and Cannes. Criticisms include the fact that a French director made a movie about a serious issue in Mexico without doing much research, and cast a non-Spanish speaker and “forced” her to sing in Spanish. On top of that, the politics are regressive, and trans activists are upset that this movie is being awarded when more deserving trans films came out this year (justice for I Saw the TV Glow!!).

The case of Selena Gomez is a curious one: I posted on TikTok about how her celebrity confounds me. She’s not particularly charismatic, is a wobbly actress, and definitively not a singer, but the Disney nostalgia has a powerful hold on an entire generation. My personal issues with her aside: she’s really, really bad in the film.

Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez apologized after criticizing Gomez on a podcast, where he said she was “indefensible”. On the podcast, Gaby Meza stated:

“Spanish is neither her primary nor secondary language nor fifth. And that’s why I feel she doesn’t know what she is saying, and if she doesn’t know what she’s saying, she can’t give her acting any nuance. … And that is why her performance is not only unconvincing but uncomfortable.”

Not to incite a war among Spanish speakers, but her Spanish was horrifying. My argument isn’t that she should be arrested for not being a fluent speaker, but at minimum, they should have cast someone who wasn’t learning the lines phonetically.

The acting is bizarre, the songs are odd, the politics are shoddy… I’m sure they’ll win every single award they’re nominated for.

• Eugenio Derbez Apologizes (The Hollywood Reporter)

• The shoddy politics of Emilia Pérez (Vox)

2024 in Movies

2024 was kind of a mid year for film all around. I watched 75 movies, and struggled to think of favorites. I really liked:

• Heretic

• Conclave

• Challengers

• Caddo Lake (Streaming on Max)

  • In the vein of Coherence and Primer, this movie was surprisingly intense. No spoilers, but it made me cry — very well done sci-fi.

• Anora

  • I’m keeping up with the controversies around this, and I’m definitely listening to sex workers who didn’t love the film. I’m watching Mikey Madison’s chances of winning plummet by the day, but I thought it was an interesting look into a world we don’t often get to peek inside of, and the flatness was part of the point for me. I’m reading two articles criticizing it and will share those once I’ve had time to digest them.

• Woman of the Hour (Streaming on Netflix)

  • I know this was divisive, but I’m an Anna Kendrick head. I thought it was well done and respectful of victims in a way that true crime never is.

• Femme

  • Not a lot of people saw this, but I thought it was an incredible exploration of sexual politics when it comes to masculinity, gender, performance, desire, class, and kink. George Mackay and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Misfits alum!) were fantastic.

Like many others, I haven’t stopped thinking about The Substance and I Saw The TV Glow, which were hard watches at first but ultimately grew into favorites. I’ve written about The Substance here. Demi Moore Oscar watch 2025.

My favorite show of 2024 was Industry!

It’s the Phones

Denis Villeneuve doesn’t want phones on his film sets, stating:

Human beings are ruled by algorithms right now. We behave like AI circuits. The ways we see the world are narrow-minded binaries. We’re disconnecting from each other, and society is crumbling in some ways. It’s frightening.

It’s exactly what I’ve been saying (in both The Mainstreaming of Loserdom and Antisocial Goods).

The Atlantic also published The Antisocial Century, discussing how much time people are spending alone and how there’s less community than ever. I first talked about American Loneliness in 2022, and it’s scary how the problem seems to be getting worse— people are ordering takeout more than ever, adults are having drinks or dinner with friends 30 percent less than they did 20 years ago, and most people are watching almost everything at home. This passage chilled me:

Today, the typical American adult buys about three movie tickets a year—and watches almost 19 hours of television, the equivalent of roughly eight movies, on a weekly basis. In entertainment, as in dining, modernity has transformed a ritual of togetherness into an experience of homebound reclusion and even solitude.

It’s an incredible read, packed with statistics and charts about phone usage, car usage, a Bowling Alone mention, and sociological rigor.

• Denis Villeneuve Bans Phones on Sets (December, Variety)

• The Antisocial Century (January, The Atlantic)

American Cheating: Broadway Edition

I started talking about my concept of American Cheating in November 2022, and we’ve seen three cheating scandals play out beat for beat in the two years since.

I wrote about American Cheating in Bad Behavior, but as a quick recap, American Cheating is my term for the cultural reticence around discussing how celebrities who have affairs with one another met. It’s a study of WASP cultural repression and how the media becomes complicit in rewriting narratives, conveniently omitting spouses and partners in order for new love stories to be etched in the stars.

Hugh and Sutton were shocking for a variety of reasons, but the People Magazine official pap walk blew my mind. People exists solely to funnel PR and celebrity approved messaging out to the public, but to have an official photographer on site for their inaugural pap stroll… shocking. The most interesting part of this whole rollout to me is the subheading in the People article: I’ve never seen a relationship announcement lead with divorce dates. By attempting to get ahead of the bad press, they’re calling it out, a Streisand Effect if there ever was one.

Closer Weekly (which I’ve never heard of) makes a point of bringing up the affair rumors. Good for them.

• Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster’s Debut Pap Walk (December, People)

• Hugh Jackman Getting ‘Cut to Look His Best’ for Sutton Foster: She’s a ‘Motivator for Him’ (December, Closer Weekly)

The Republican Ouroboros

I criticized the left in Who Gets to Be Annoying, but the day before NYE, the right exploded. One of the problems with oppositional coalition building (deciding to join forces to destroy the Woke Left, in this instance) is that multiple factions who do not otherwise align on issues will join forces to take down a common enemy before realizing the depth and breadth of their differences —and going to war over it.

Seeing Vivek Ramaswamy criticize the party that elected Trump—“American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long”—and watching Musk battle with Laura Loomer and other assorted Republican villains was entertaining but also telling. There is a rot at the heart of the party. The issue of H1B visas (highly skilled labor working for much less than what these companies would pay an American worker, locking them into contracts and preventing them from leaving) is a clear impasse for the forces who want no immigration at all.

The Vox article did a fantastic job of detailing the barbs that flew between the two groups.

• Elon Musk is on a collision course with Stephen Miller (December, Vox)

The Radicalization of Mark Zuckerberg

Something deeply concerning is happening with Zuckerberg. The announcement that Meta will “work with President Trump to push back on the government going after U.S. companies” feels ominous in a post Twitter world. My friend was just called the n word willy-nilly on X, red pill content is everywhere, and misinformation runs rampant.

Millions of people are planning to migrate to Instagram post TikTok, and I worry about what the (already vile) user base will do to people who are accustomed to some level of content moderation.

The obvious answer is that Zuckerberg is furious with the Biden administration for its enforcement of antitrust laws and is aligning himself with the upcoming administration in a very major way. It’s even more worrisome that he’s now on the Joe Rogan podcast talking about how “culturally neutered” companies need more “masculine energy”. Bloomberg tugged on his wig with:

Zuckerberg, who launched his career by rating the attractiveness of women at Harvard University, added that he grew up with three sisters and has three daughters, and wants women to succeed in corporations.

Additionally, Amazon is also cutting back on internal DEI programs. It feels like we’re on the precipice of something sinister: the end of #metoo, the loud disavowal of diversity, corporate CEOs parroting TikTok woo-woo (in addition to the radicalization of young people and rising conservatism)… I’m deeply worried about the cultural dark age we’re about to enter.

• Mark Zuckerberg: Meta Will End Fact-Checking Program, Says It’s “Too Politically Biased” (January, The Hollywood Reporter)

• Zuckerberg Says Most Companies Need More ‘Masculine Energy’ (January, Bloomberg via Yahoo)

• Meta will face Antitrust Trial over Instagram, Whatsapp acquisitions (November, Reuters)

• Amazon is cutting back on DEI (January, CNBC)

Finally, this piece on the slow spread of the bird flu is terrifying. I try not to doompost but… I wish I hadn’t read it. (December, PBS News)

The Trend that Should Stay in 2024

“i’d die for this mf. I cry over how much I love him. everything he does is funny to me. I love him. girlfriend brain.” THIS IS A CRISIS

If we leave anything in 2024, it should be the grip of Boyfriendland. I know my algorithm is fucked but… so many young women on TikTok (and Instagram) are obsessed with posting about their boyfriends. A woman dedicated her entire account to smiling softly while he sings showtunes. Dozens of women came forward to say they love sitting in their partner’s cars while they work full eight hour shifts. This is madness! As the brilliant Moira Donegan said: we need feminism back NOW. The tradwife adjacent “my boyfriend/husband is my king” stuff has moved beyond funny and is starting to seem terrifying, especially with the grip conservatism has on culture right now.

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It looks like TikTok is officially going down on Sunday. I saw a few others patting themselves on the back, so I’ll state on the record that I’m so proud of creating a space for longform discussion on an app full of dancing children. I made it to 125K followers in two years, and have met so many incredible people: the app changed my life, tbh. Uploading all my old videos to YouTube slowly but feel free to subscribe: my next move will be announced both here and there!

The one regret I have is that I wanted to be taken seriously so desperately that my “brand” is deathly serious and now no one can ever tell when I’m joking, but that’s fine. I would rather be taken seriously than not. Thank you all for being here.