Contemporary image culture is often described through excess, whether through Guy Debord’s conception of the spectacle, Jean Baudrillard’s simulacra, or contemporary discourse surrounding the endless recursive circulation of algorithmic media.
media theory
Crude Semiotics: Absurdity as Cultural Exhaust
There comes a point in any saturated system wherein meaning no longer accumulates. It combusts. Contemporary culture functions less like a cogent symbolic order and more like a refinery under pressure, endlessly processing images, aesthetics, affect, and identity into liquid form.
My Genes Are Blue: How American Eagle and Dunkin’ Are Selling Whiteness
Something uncanny has procured itself in the cultural consciousness of American media in the past week, a tonal shift that, although unsurprising given the current political climate, feels jarringly regressive and reactionary; the tipping point, undoubtedly, being American Eagle’s latest campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney as the white all-American temptress clad in denim.