A few cultural thoughts

Taking a quick break from economics.

This weekend I was in NYC, to attend some cultural events — a friend’s art show, and also Anime NYC, possibly the largest anime convention on the East Coast. It’s been a long time since people actually watched anime at these conventions; now they’re mostly giant costume parties and art fairs. My friend and I both went dressed as Doug Dimmadome, a minor character from the cartoon show The Fairly OddParents who is known for occasionally wearing an extremely tall hat. Our hats, which were over four feet tall, produced quite a bit of amusement among the convention-goers.

Anyway, I thought I might take a break from economics and give my thoughts on some modern cultural phenomena. I’m not sure why you should listen to an econ writer as an authority on cultural matters, but it’s fun to talk about. Tyler Cowen certainly weighs in on culture from time to time, so I might as well do it too — especially because some of my thoughts are a little unorthodox.

I’ve tried to collect a few of my most unorthodox and iconoclastic cultural takes in this post, purely for your reading pleasure.

Why I don’t like TikTok

I don’t really like short-form video content. Actually, that’s not true — I loved the memorable, silly little vignettes that dominated the short-lived Vine app. And I’m certainly not against video content in general — I love YouTube. But the TikTok style of short-form video just utterly bores me. And this is a problem, because as Jeremiah Johnson has noted, the entire internet is steadily turning into TikTok-style short-form video:

The Carcinization of Content

This weekend, while talking to a friend, I realized that the reason I don’t like TikTok is that it’s optimized for channel-surfing.

Remember those satellite TV systems that people used to get, with the hundreds of channels? I always used to wonder why anyone would want that many channels — you couldn’t possibly keep track of them all, or even monitor whether any of them had any programs you wanted to watch. But after seeing a cousin of mine watch his satellite TV in the early 2000s, I realized the appeal — the purpose of those hundreds of channels was channel-surfing. People would just sit there clicking endlessly through video after video, sometimes lingering for a minute or two, but never being very invested in anything they were seeing. It was a way of relaxing after a stressful day — of turning off your brain and letting it consume the tiny little dopamine hits of discovering what was on the next channel.

Jerry Seinfeld once said: “Men don't care what's on TV. They only care what else is on TV.”

TikTok feels exactly the same to me. When I watch TikTok videos, each one seems a little bit interesting, at least at first, but ultimately not very memorable. Even subjects I really like — rabbits, economics, science fiction, Japan, etc. — tend to have very few interesting videos. And when I watch other people using TikTok or other short video apps, I can sort of see why. Like my cousin channel-surfing on his satellite TV, they flip quickly from one video to the next, never lingering very long. They’re getting a constant stream of little dopamine hits from seeing the next thing, and the next, and the next. One source I found says that on average, viewers only watch to the end of a TikTok video 20-30% of the time — despite the fact that the videos are extremely short.

TikTok videos are optimized to fit within this usage pattern — to provide a short burst of dopamine before people surf to the next little novelty. Making a truly excellent, well-produced short-form video will garner a somewhat higher completion rate and more views, but ultimately it’s a lot of effort for something that will absorb only a few seconds of each user’s attention before it inevitably gets lost in the maelstrom of content. And so there’s very little incentive to apply the kind of production values or ingenuity that goes into a good YouTube video.

Everything on TikTok is just kind of mediocre, because nobody watches anything for very long, so there’s no reason to make anything very good. And increasingly, this endless, relentless feed of bland mediocrity is eating every other type of cultural consumption in America.

Why literary fiction is a little bit of a trap

I read a lot of nonfiction and a lot of science fiction, but I don’t read a lot of literary fiction. This isn’t because I dislike literary fiction — in fact, I enjoy it, and I took several classes in college to teach me how to write it. Instead, I have an odd, unusual reason for usually avoiding literary fiction.

Basically, my theory of fiction is that it’s all some form of exotic travel writing. Whether you’re telling the story of a bitter rich man trying to get his ex-girlfriend back, or a World War 2 bombardier growing tired of war, or a dragon-riding queen battling an army of zombies, or a boy genius waging war against insectoid aliens, the appeal of a novel is that it opens your mind up to vistas of experience never imagined in your daily life. Every novel has something exciting in it to make you want to read it, and excitement comes from novelty. Hence the name.

But exactly how novels produce novelty varies depending on the genre. In sci-fi novels, the exoticism comes from the fantastic science; in fantasy novels, from magic and monsters; in mystery novels, from murders and arcane plots. In some literary fiction, the novelty comes from exotic setting and situations — a war, or the wilderness, or a foreign culture. But in many, the novelty comes from the characters.

As an example, the novelty of The Great Gatsby comes from the character of Jay Gatsby himself. Most people don’t know a guy who gets rich just so he can get his ex-girlfriend back. I know a lot of rich guys, some of whom have some pretty odd motivations, and I don’t know anyone like Jay Gatsby. The novel is interesting in large part because this unusual character, and his unusual desires, are so unusual.

In fact, many characters in literary fiction are so unusual as to be nonexistent — the author just dreamed up a guy who seemed kind of interesting. The best literary authors are typically incredibly skilled at making up fascinating fantasy people.

But this skill is extremely dangerous, because it can give the reader a false impression of what human beings are like. If you read enough literary novels, you can easily start to believe that sex offenders are really like Humbert Humbert, or that whalers were really like Captain Ahab, or that depressed high school kids are really like Holden Caulfield.

Except that’s not usually true — those characters, like most of those in literary fiction, were specifically designed to be different from the average, to keep you interested. Literary authors are so good at their craft — so good at producing verisimilitude in their stories — that they can trick readers into believing a distorted version of humanity is the norm.

So-called genre fiction — sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, and so on — doesn’t have this problem nearly as much. First of all, the settings are often exotic enough where there’s no illusion that the characters bear any similarity to real people. And second, the fact that genre conventions — the spaceships and the dragons and the murderers — provide a novel with all of its necessary exoticism and novelty means that authors are more free to make their characters’ personalities more realistic.

So although this might sound a bit pretentious, I go light on literary fiction because I want to learn what people are really like by observing and interacting with and reading about real people. As I grow older, I’ll probably worry less about this, and read more literary novels.

Why beauty is intellectually respectable

The breakout movie hit of the year, in the U.S. at least, is KPop Demon Hunters, a cartoon about Kpop stars who double as demon fighters (or as demons themselves). It’s action-packed, but it’s also a musical, with some real Kpop singers among the voice cast. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, KPop Demon Hunters shows that the Kpop phenomenon still has legs in America, cementing Korea’s importance as an international cultural superpower. But its long-lasting appeal is making me think about the beauty industry.

One reason Kpop is so popular, frankly speaking, is that the singers themselves are so beautiful. This is not the only reason, of course — there are high production values, hip-hop influences, and innovative marketing techniques. But you’re kidding yourself if you think physical beauty isn’t an important piece of the puzzle here.

And much of that beauty is not natural. South Korea has the world’s most advanced beauty industry, with products, machines, and techniques that are far beyond other countries. Kpop stars get all the best, of course, often including plastic surgery. But most Korean beauty technology is open to the global public; in recent years, I’ve learned about a lot of American female friends who go to Korea for beauty treatments.

There’s a certain impulse to sneer at the beauty industry. To many, it seems artificial and fake; to others, pitiful and try-hard. Some view it as a way of tricking men into thinking women are more attractive than they are (though men use the beauty industry too). Others view people who use the beauty industry as shallow and appearance-obsessed.

I do think it’s possible for cultures to go overboard in focusing on physical appearance. But at the same time, I think that looking good is a deeply embedded, natural human desire. Beauty has a competitive aspect, but it isn’t entirely relative — it’s possible for everyone to look better at once. And like most deeply embedded, natural human desires — the drive to live longer, to do less work, to eat more calories — the desire to look attractive is amenable to the intervention of technology.

As technology advances, the human body will become ever more mutable. What we look like will become less a product of our genes, and more a product of the combination of our choices and our ingenuity. That represents a kind of freedom — liberation from the prison of our DNA.

The technology that produces that freedom is worth our respect. But so are the hobbyists who use that technology to make themselves look more beautiful. People who learn how to use all of the skin care products and spa treatments and dermatological devices are applying their intelligence and dedication to a difficult and challenging problem.

In my opinion, that deserves our respect. Being born with fine cheekbones or a chiseled jawline is no accomplishment; figuring out how to use a bunch of Korean treatments and products to look more like you want to look is a feat of personal initiative and intelligence. As the beauty industry becomes more and more technologically advanced, beauty will become just another form of fashion; people who can put together a good body will be viewed similarly to people who can put together a good outfit.

Why cosplay is the voice of the youth

When Americans talk about the “voice of the youth”, I think we usually think in terms of mass political movements like the Palestine movement or BLM. But I think individual self-expression is also an important piece of youth culture. It defines how people live their lives, and how they relate to each other, and what kind of society they ultimately create.

When I was growing up in the U.S., American kids usually expressed their identity through music — and, to a lesser extent, through fashion trends. Today, music hasn’t disappeared, but visual and interactive media like video games have risen in relative importance.

The shift to video games has been well-documented, but fewer people talk about the rise of cosplay — i.e., dressing up as a character from a cartoon, book, movie, or video game. Some surveys have suggested that about 20% of young Americans have at least tried cosplay; a YouGov poll from last year reports that 20% of Americans under age 45 have dressed up in costume for a reason not related to Halloween. So cosplay is a big deal.

For most, cosplay is just a fun hobby. But for some, it’s an important part of their identity and their personal journey of self-expression. I heard one story of a friend of a friend whose Chinese parents hated Japan, and who dressed up as Japanese anime characters in secret. While that sort of personal risk is rare, many young people — especially young women — use cosplay as a way to grow up, become more confident, and learn to express themselves. Here are some excerpts from an article by the Smithsonian’s Folklife Magazine:

“The main reason why I love cosplay so much is because it provides some sort of escape from reality,” shared Morgan Looney, a special effects makeup artist and cosmetology student who has gained confidence through the cosplay community. “As someone who hasn’t been the strongest person and has often felt alone in the world, cosplay and going to conventions brought me into a whole new atmosphere of supportive and accepting people that I didn’t know existed.”

Cosplaying strong characters whom she looks up to has boosted Morgan’s confidence in her everyday life. “I started not caring what other people thought of me and my interests. If it makes you happy, it doesn’t matter what other people think of you.”

While meeting cosplayers at conventions and through my research, many told me that when they’re with other cosplayers online or at conventions, they find it easier to express parts of themselves they ordinarily keep hidden.

“I consider cosplay as safe—it’s like a shell where I can be attractive, sexual, feminine,” explained Ace, a cosplayer from China currently living in California.

At the convention I went to this week, I definitely encountered a gentle, welcoming atmosphere; plenty of people asked to take pictures of my friend and me, and they were all incredibly polite and friendly. Throughout the convention center, strangers were stopping each other to discuss the details of how they made their costumes, why they chose them, and so on.

Cosplay is certainly a lot less threatening than the rock music of the 1960s, the rap of the 1990s, underground comics, or various other forms of youth expression. But it may end up being just as important to the way young generations of Americans end up defining themselves. It deserves more attention from cultural tastemakers, and more respect from the general public.

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