Walk Away

The Illusion of Choice and the Responsibility to Walk Away

A recent exchange online captured a recurring tension in the debate raging around entertainment and consumer culture. One side argues that people don't actually want good products—they want easy products. Ease of access governs most consumer decisions, which is why streaming services, retail giants, and movie franchises dominate the market.…
December 16, 202410 Comments
Mall Comeback

Can the Mall Make a Comeback?

For decades, shopping malls were more than just commercial zones. They were social hubs, cultural hotbeds, and even fonts of information. Time was, if you wanted to know the next hot game's release date or keep up with current trends, you headed down to the mall and marinated in the…
December 10, 20249 Comments
Elon Musk Hasbro

Could Elon Musk Revolutionize Wizards of the Coast?

Back-to-back seismic shifts rocked the tabletop gaming world in 2024: the resignation of Wizards of the Coast president Cynthia Williams and speculation that Elon Musk might be eyeing Hasbro, WotC’s parent company. While Williams’ departure marks the end of a tumultuous era for Wizards, Musk’s potential interest hints at a…
December 5, 202416 Comments
Millennial Phantom Zone

How Pop Culture Trapped Millennials in the Phantom Zone

Spend enough time with Millennials, and you’ll notice their conversations often gravitate toward their favorite pop culture franchises. For many, these brands aren’t just entertainment—they’ve become extensions of their identities. It’s not unusual for people of any age to fantasize about being part of their beloved stories, and that goes…
November 22, 20246 Comments
Third Place Mall

After the Mall: Can We Build a New Third Place?

It's hard for Zoomers to believe, but the mall was once not only the preferred place to shop, its importance went beyond a mere retail hub. The mall served as a gathering spot where people connected, interacted, and shared their lives beyond their homes and workplaces. Malls, which began in…
November 19, 202412 Comments
Adolescent Entertainment

How ACT Helped Kill Adolescent Entertainment

What are kids watching these days? Gen Y's nostalgic myopia for Saturday morning cartoons and PG-13 horror flicks can leave them blinkered when it comes to how their now-adolescent children are entertaining themselves. This piece, wherein Variety indulges in handwringing over teens rejecting smut in movies and TV shows, seems…
November 18, 202425 Comments
Signs of the Times, The Fourth Turning

How the Fourth Turning Explains the Mainstream Entertainment Collapse

In the past few years, the mainstream entertainment industry has been gripped by an epidemic of costly flops. These failures have spread across video games, movies, comic books, and more. Titles expected to be blockbuster hits—like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Skull and Bones, and Suicide Squad: Kill…
November 13, 202411 Comments
ConsumeProduct

Millennial Snot and the Pop Cult: Worship in a Soulless Age

A lengthy post on X by Dudley Newright has brought an ancient truth about human nature back into the spotlight: Everyone worships something. Newright points out that today, this primal need doesn’t always lead us to a higher purpose. Instead, a growing segment of Western society has diverted its energies…
November 5, 202416 Comments
Catholic Horror

The Christian Origins of Western Horror

Halloween is the perfect time to reflect on how Westen horror fiction stands apart from other fiction genres. Whereas other storytelling forms have veered away from their spiritual and moral foundations, only horror has retained a clear link to its Christian roots. From medieval Europe’s tales of demonic possession to…
October 31, 202425 Comments