Post-PopCult

The Post-Pop Cult Age

Almost everyone reading this grew up under a largely monolithic American pop culture. Whether it's Baby Boomers' love of the Beatles or the multigenerational Star Wars fandom that originated with Gen X, anyone who came of age in the past several decades could easily navigate the pop landscape by several…
July 23, 202114 Comments
Tarantino

The Tarantino Riddle

If you're a member of Generation X or Gen Y, chances are the films of Quentin Tarantino affected how you interact with pop culture to this day. His status as the last man standing of the indie directors who broke onto the early 90s film scene makes him a black…
July 20, 202110 Comments
U2 Godzilla

Defusing the Pop Bomb 2

Folks seemed to enjoy my previous look at what might have been if Cultural Ground Zero hadn't happened. Today felt like as good a time as any for a second glimpse at an alternate timeline, but instead of vide games, this "what if?" will focus on the music industry. Specifically,…
July 8, 20217 Comments
FF VII Remaster

Defusing the Pop Bomb

Rivers of ink have been spilled in our corner of the counterculture scene about Cultural Ground Zero. For the uninitiated, that's a shorthand description of the abrupt decline that struck Western entertainment right around 1997. The movie moguls, rock gods, and video game wizards who'd spent the 80s and 90s…
June 11, 202115 Comments
Miura Berserk

Berserk: A Masterpiece Unfinished

Some of the most enduring memories from my dissolute youth in the anime scene revolve in some way around Kentaro Miura's masterpiece Berserk. Whether it was crowding around a buddy's CRT monitor to binge watch the visceral anime or blasting the soundtrack on the way to a con, Berserk set…
May 20, 2021
RoosterTeeth

Rare as Rooster Teeth

The internet may finally have found that much sought-after rarity: a company that has gone broke from getting woke. Except this legendary beast isn't a unicorn. It's a rooster. It is of no surprise to anyone that Rooster Teeth has had a very rough couple of months and that is…
May 20, 2021
prestige

Illusionist v Wizard, Part 2

"It is more than entertainment," the stage magician Vinovich declares in Lord of Illusions. "We are bringing miracles back into their miserable little lives." Fellow illusionist Robert Angier, villain-protagonist of the aforementioned film's spiritual successor, echoes that declaration in his parting words to archrival Albert Borden. "You never understood why…
May 20, 2021
Illusionist v Wizard, Part 1

Illusionist v Wizard, Part 1

The illusionist who simulates preternatural feats through sleight of hand and the wizard who actually wields powers not intended for man - both loom large in the human imagination. Since one is a deliberate counterfeit of the other, those occasions when illusionists and wizards share the spotlight in one story…
April 19, 20214 Comments
Gaming Ground Zero

Gaming Ground Zero

In which author David V. Stewart takes the Cultural Ground Zero ball and advances it ten years down the field: Maybe you’ve heard of cultural ground zero: 1997.     Now let’s talk games, because unlike other institutions of culture, the games industry kept on growing and innovating for another…
April 7, 202111 Comments
Backsliding

Backsliding

Any honest man who's found his way into dissident politics will admit that seeing the Left-Right paradigm he grew up with unmasked as kabuki theater was one of the hardest red pills to swallow. With the exception of the Zoomers, every living generation of Americans was conditioned to support the…
March 24, 202111 Comments