Lord of the Memes
Congratulations, David Brooks, you've finally made it onto Fimoculous: Lord of the Memes. My favorite part: "It was necessary to have a record collection that contained 'a little bit of everything' (except heavy metal)." I was with ya up until the parenthetical! Okay, here's the thesis statement: "On that date [the release of the iPhone], media displaced culture. As commenters on The American Scene blog have pointed out, the means of transmission replaced the content of culture as the center of historical excitement and as the marker of social status." And then: "Today, Kindle can change the world, but nobody expects much from a mere novel. The brain overshadows the mind. Design overshadows art." Pareene asks: "It's not a bad column at all, except that we cannot figure out why the hell it's under David Brooks' byline. Are people really trying to sell him on some hot new indie band? Did he get caught up in the Black Kids hype?"