The Culture Journalist

Opinionated software: AI and the arts, revisited

20 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience, we recommend signing up ...

Brooklyn's lost indie decade

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Hello! Emilie here. For most of my adult life, Lizzy Goodman’s Meet Me In the Bathroom has been the only definitive book about the New York music sc...

Welcome to the reality exchange

13 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience, we recommend signing up ...

The network state moment

29 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience, we recommend signing up ...

36 predictions about culture in 2026

16 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience, we recommend signing up ...

The agony and the ecstasy of the modern job hunt

23 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience, we recommend signing up ...

Revisiting Hauntology, or the sound of lost futures

04 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience, we recommend signing up ...

Culture enters its plot twist era

28 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comHey pals. On this month’s Weather Report, we’re fol...

Mayor Mamdani and the new image politics

14 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience — including access to o...

How 21st century culture lost its way, with W. David Marx

23 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Just in time for Halloween, we’re hosting a virtual hauntology reading group (specifically, hauntology the music genre) at 4pm ET next Thursday, Oct...

How the job market got so broken

10 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience — including access to o...

Watch: 'One Battle After Another' roundtable with Joshua Rivera and Drew Millard

07 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comThank you ock sportello, DJ Falkor / Random Rules, Tyle...

Welcome to the right's cancel culture era

25 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hey pals. A little housekeeping: We keep full-length episodes like this one free, because we want as many people as possible to be able to hear them. ...

Inside NYC's thriving cinephile underground

11 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience — including access to o...

Machines talking to machines: The future of the internet

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience — including access to o...

How the tattooed foodie bro became the defining person of 2025

01 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What do mullets, SpongeBob stick-and-pokes, and foil-wrapped sandwiches have in common? According to this week’s guest, London writer Clive Martin, ...

Britney Spears and how the media lost its mind

17 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Join us in Philly on Tuesday, 29 for a special book talk with this week’s guest, Jeff Weiss, co-presented by CUJO and Lot 49 Books. The event kicks ...

How A24 turned cinema into a lifestyle

03 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With a catalog full of art house favorites like The Witch, Spring Breakers, Moonlight, and Uncut Gems, it’s hard to deny that A24 occupies a unique ...

How the NBA lost its cool

20 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comThis is a free preview of a subscriber-only episode. If...

The geopolitics of pop culture, with Jaime Brooks of Elite Gymnastics (free)

13 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From tariffs on foreign goods to scaling back on US military and humanitarian aid abroad, it’s clear that Trump is intent on moving the country in a...

How to save the world, with Malcolm Harris

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book, What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis, writer Malcom Harris examines what is probably our most pressing existential...

How to get dressed in America, with Biz Sherbert

09 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

During the pandemic, it seemed like the internet, and specifically TikTok, was coughing up one fringe aesthetic after the next: Cottagecore! Trad Cath...

How culture internalized the logic of the stock market

25 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Franchises, reboots, crossovers, live-action remakes, interpolations… Why does the entertainment industry keep churning out content that is derivati...

"Trump Trad" and the aesthetics of the New Right

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Since Trump took office in January, you may have picked up on a certain, shall we say, visual vibe. Think: AI slop memes, gilded neoclassical decor, m...

What was the yuppie?

28 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today we explore how many of the habits and customs we associate with American bourgeois life — religiously reading the Sunday Times, buying organic...

Disaster media, with Matt Pearce and Emma Kemp

07 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Culture Journalist is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience — inc...

How "process squeeze" hijacked music creation

21 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comFrom AI song generators like SUNO and Udio to “knob-f...

DOGE and the fallacies of techno-utopianism

07 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Folks, it finally happened. After years of trying to “optimize” nearly every aspect of everyday life, from work to fitness to music, Silicon Valle...

Do algorithms make culture boring?

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comAre algorithms actually making culture boring? It’s e...

The great Spotify swindle, with Liz Pelly

24 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Let’s take a step back in time to the halcyon days of late 2011, back when a little Swedish music app called Spotify landed in our app stores.Its ar...

A people's history of Zyn

09 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On the surface, Zyn seems like just another post-cigarette nicotine push from Big Tobacco. But look a little closer, and you’ll find that these litt...

How the Dems became the party of the Professional Managerial Class

15 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

By now, you’ve all already heard the news: After coming in hot with Brat memes and aligning itself with Wall Street and Liz Cheney, the Kamala Harri...

So your song has gone viral on TikTok

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comWhat’s it like when a song you wrote more than half a...

Astra Taylor's age of insecurity

24 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Culture Journalist is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. After disappearing into a black hole of summertime sadness, inflationary he...

How a bill to save local journalism turned into a mysterious AI incubator

30 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comToday, we dive into the strange story of the California...

Tomorrow's music today, with Simon Reynolds

15 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comWhat can electronic music tell us about our past, prese...

Emilie's trial by fire as a Kim’s Video clerk

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comIn the second installment of our Kim’s Video series, ...

Remembering Kim's Video, the world's coolest video store

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comLiving in a city like New York is a constant exercise i...

How groceries got gentrified, with Snaxshot's Andrea Hernández

02 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Like most people on the internet, we here at the CuJo love a good food-centric social media account. But our arguable favorite at the moment is Snaxsh...

The broken promises of neo-leftist crypto

20 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comThis week, we’re traveling back in time to explore a ...

Inside the bill that could (finally) regulate Big Streaming

06 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Hey pals. We’re back with the first of five new free episodes that we’ve cooked up for your listening pleasure. If you want to keep getting episod...

Welcome to music's shitpost modernism era

09 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comThis week, we are joined by music journalist Kieran Pre...

Coachella 2024 trend report

26 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comHey pals. The 23rd edition of Coachalla wrapped up last...

How the hipster economy went mainstream

11 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The problem with talking about hipsterism is that the term is almost impossible to define. Hipsters, whether they can still be said to exist as a subc...

Antitrust 101 for culture workers

28 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What do Ticketmaster price gouging and widespread journalism layoffs and have in common? They’re both downstream consequences, at least in part, of ...

Oscar-winner Cord Jefferson on how Hollywood became so risk-averse

14 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we’re re-upping our episode with writer Cord Jefferson, who just won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for American Fiction, which he ...

Digital media's pivot to nothingness pt. 2

07 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comNote: If you are a media worker who has lost work or be...

The fall of Pitchfork

29 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Hey pals. In January, Condé Nast shocked the entire independent music world when it announced it was laying off most of Pitchfork’s staff and foldi...

Escaping algorithmic culture with Kyle Chayka

15 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What do TikTok voice, generic “hipster coffee shop” decor, and Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Super Bowl kissing photos have in common? According t...

Inside the TikTok shoegaze revival

01 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Hey pals. Here’s a development that we never had on our 2024 bingo card: shoegaze is back, and it’s arguably bigger than ever. Andrea first got wi...

New Year's special: How to make creative work when you're busy with other s**t

18 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comWelcome back to the Culture Journalist. To kick off our...

The past, present, and future of the musical commodity

14 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Before we dip for a short end-of-year break, it’s time for a music streaming check-in. Our own “Wrapped,” if you will. There’s a lot going on....

ENCORE: Lessons from the Luddites for the digital age

30 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

To celebrate the release of Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion of Big Tech by the great tech journo Brian Merchant (Buy it! Read it! I...

The decline of the digital third space, with Ruby Justice Thelot

16 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Back in 2012, a YouTube user called @taia777 posted a 59-minute video of some dreamy white clouds obscured by thorny green vines, soundtracked by the ...

Chronicling the early days of social media, with Taylor Lorenz

02 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Six months ago, Goldman Sachs published some research valuing the creator economy at $250 billion — a number they say could roughly double over the ...

A survey of post-pandemic nightlife, with Shawn Reynaldo

05 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, our regular programming resumes with a survey of the state of post-pandemic nightlife, from ubiquitous Britney Spears remixes to artists gr...

Bringing back hyper-local media with Hell Gate

15 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If you grew up reading publications like The Village Voice and LA Weekly, you probably remember flipping through pages and pages of edgy, hyper-local ...

MrBeast lays bare how the internet really works

27 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For most of the so-called “content creators” we know, marketing is a necessary evil. You make the work you want to make, then wait until the last ...

There's a lot of ways to lose your house

21 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comWith Hollywood actors and writers joining forces on the...

Inside the VICE bankruptcy files

14 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hello everyone. We’re interrupting our regular programming this week to bring you a taste of something different: On Monday, the journalist Max Tani...

Jobflation is real

06 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comIn this week’s subscriber-only episode, Andrea and Em...

Anatomy of a scene

29 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hi gang. You ever notice how every generation, in every big city, seems to have a moment when the scene that defined them — the music venues, artist...

Is it time to bring back the Luddite movement?

16 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hey friends. Have you ever fantasized about smashing your phone or throwing your computer into the sea? If so, you’re in good company, because today...

Towards a theory of the pitch

08 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comThis week, in response to a question from a listener, E...

How Big Streaming decimated the screenwriting profession

01 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since May 2, the Writers Guild of America has been on strike, shutting down film sets across the country and demanding a fair shake in the face of a c...

Why everyone's into golf all of a sudden

18 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Spring is here and the outside world is beckoning. So we’re taking a break from talking about evil billionaires, digital surveillance, and shadowy f...

What the hell is happening

04 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comNote: If you are a media worker who has lost work or be...

What is chokepoint capitalism?

23 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How did tech giants like Spotify and Meta and TikTok get so good at separating us creative workers from the value we generate with our work? According...

Spotify and the End of Human Curation

17 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit theculturejournalist.substack.comIn the hours before Silicon Valley Bank imploded last w...

Why modern work is so chaotic and exhausting

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Just a little over a year ago, everyone was talking about the Great Resignation — a trend of workers across multiple different sectors resigning fro...

Digital media's pivot to nothingness

16 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week’s episode goes out to the journalists in your life. (Or you, if you happen to be a journalist). According to one estimate, nearly 130,000 ...

Why everything is getting worse all the time, with DIS

02 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Do you ever just look around and get the feeling that everything is just… worse? This week, we’re joined by Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman, a Los Angeles-...

Bunker, Mars colony, or seastead?

19 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered why the Silicon Valley oligarchs seem so obsessed with preparing for the end of the world? In our first episode of 2023, we joi...

Is A.I. good or bad for art?

22 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

AI image-generation tools like DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion are creating something of a moral panic in the worlds of art, media, and des...

Inside the new digital musical counterculture, with Mark Redito

11 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the spring of 2021, we recorded an interview with artist, technologist, and Interdependence host Mat Dryhurst about a then-little-known technology ...

We are all outsiders, with Eve 6 Guy

26 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If you were alive in the late ’90s, chances are there was an entire chapter of your life that was soundtracked by Eve 6’s “Inside Out” — you...

The Boomer Ballast effect, with Kevin Munger and Joshua Citarella

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Hey pals. We’re going to kick things off today with a quote from the great Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci: “The crisis consists precisely in ...

The tricky business of reporting on the New Right

12 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What do billionaire Peter Thiel, Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance, and edge-lordy, art-kid podcasts like Red Scare and Wet Brain have in common? Acco...

Coachella Vibes: A Serious Investigation

27 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Flower crowns. Culturally appropriative costumes. Dead-eyed influencers snapping selfies in front of branded activations. If you have never been to Co...

What is a metalabel?

11 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When you're an artist navigating the 21st century creator economy, it can be hard to feel like you have a support system to fall back on. Which is why...

Who owns Mac Miller's story?

28 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Especially in the internet age, it’s hard to say who an artist’s story belongs to. Musicians can communicate with audiences directly, fan armies r...

Is it time for platform socialism?

14 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Is it possible to imagine a future where the platforms that circumscribe every aspect of our online lives *aren’t* owned by the same handful of for-...

The secret history of dark academia and post-pandemic aesthetics

28 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to season three of The Culture Journalist, a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. We’re excited to kick things off today with an e...

Neil Young vs. Spotify Emergency Roundtable

02 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We know we said that we were taking a pause from publishing as we cook up Season 3 of The Culture Journalist, but we couldn’t resist jumping back in...

Teaming up to buy the Constitution is so 2021

27 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Back in September, Sotheby’s announced it was auctioning off one of 13 surviving original copies of the U.S. constitution. Given the rarity and hist...

The Logan Roy School of Journalism

09 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Get ready to hide under a napkin with a fried song bird while shouting “f**k off” in a thick Scottish accent, because this week we’re talking ab...

Tonight we're gonna party like it's Woodstock '99, with Craig Jenkins

31 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It’s 2021, which means that us millennials are in for a parade of 20-year anniversaries of things that informed our understanding of culture and the...

Five Days in a TikTok Mansion

22 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On this week's episode of The Culture Journalist, we talk about collab houses: The McMansion-sized influencer incubators where young social media cele...

Has music journalism lost its way?

17 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Has music journalism lost its way? Earlier this week, the debate bubbled up on music Twitter after a user named @cllnsmith posted a viral joke about ...

Parasocial Anxiety

21 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we'll be digging into a phenomenon that has been on our mind a lot lately: The rise of the so-called "creator" economy, and the possibiliti...

The rise of the clickbait restaurant

16 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

While scrolling on Doordash one night last year, co-host Emilie Friedlander made a strange discovery: She stumbled upon a listing for a restaurant cal...

What are NFTS? And can they save independent music?

12 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What does the unfolding NFT craze mean for the future of music—and particularly, for independent artists? To help us make sense of this strange new...

Is counterculture still possible?

25 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Hey everyone. We’re excited to kick off our second season today with a conversation on a subject that is near and dear to hearts: counterculture.It'...

What is creativity worth?

20 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Hello there. Welcome to the last installment of our first season. From musicians adjusting to an industry that has moved entirely online, to journalis...

Every story is a labor story, with Kim Kelly

30 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This week’s missive, our ninth, is the last you’ll be hearing from us before Election Day 2020. And because it’s pretty hard to think about anyt...

The digital hustle

16 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier this season, we examined the live music industry’s fight for survival in a pandemic that has put concerts indefinitely on hold. This week, w...

Is TikTok a cultural propaganda machine?

01 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Confused about what’s going on with TikTok? So are we. But it’s probably the most “2020” story of 2020 — a perfect storm of geopolitics, nat...

How 2013 changed music forever

24 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This week on The Culture Journalist, we’re taking a break from 2020—who doesn’t need one?—and traveling back to a time in music and culture th...

When the last venue closes

18 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For independent artists who rely on touring as their primary source of income, the pandemic has been financially devastating. For independent venues w...

Localize it, with Jeff Weiss

09 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Los Angeles native Jeff Weiss is no stranger to the heartbreak of watching the newspaper the shaped your understanding of the city where you grew up, ...