🔴The Death of the Critic: How Cultural Visionaries Were Usurped by the Far-Right The role of the critic, once firmly at the heart of our culture, has been sidelined by far-right populists and clickbait-driven algorithms, reports @iainoverton.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2024/12/09/t... - ThreadSky

bylinetimes.bsky.social • 90 days ago

🔴The Death of the Critic: How Cultural Visionaries Were Usurped by the Far-Right

The role of the critic, once firmly at the heart of our culture, has been sidelined by far-right populists and clickbait-driven algorithms, reports @iainoverton.bsky.social

https://bylinetimes.com/2024/12/09/the-death-of-the-critic/

Comments

treacadelic.bsky.social•90 days ago

Pastiche provocateurs is a great descriptor. We are being dumbed down at an alarming rate. Just hearing daytime tv knocks me sick.

charleswinchester.bsky.social•90 days ago

Tbh, when it's disbelief and exasperation over something "cultural" like the Turner Prize, I'm horrified to find myself on the side of the populists rather than the critics.

iainoverton.bsky.social•90 days ago

I guess that’s partly my point. That good critics would call out Emperor New Clothes when witnessed. We seem to have lost this, too.

charleswinchester.bsky.social•90 days ago

Fair comment.

benscoble.bsky.social•90 days ago

Love the nod to Jonathan Meades. A truly wonderful programme maker and thought provoking person.

pastpresented.bsky.social•90 days ago

But the suggestion that Jane Root's cancellation of one series "Over two decades ago ... effectively ended Meades’s television career" is utter nonsense. Numerous BBC Four series continued that career up to 2019, when he was over 70.

iainoverton.bsky.social•90 days ago

Thanks for the feedback. He went from BBC2 to BBC4 and lost about 8 commissions. It was an ending for him, I witnessed it and heard it from him.

pastpresented.bsky.social•90 days ago

It could be argued that he went from BBC2 to BBC4 because his style was perfectly suited to the BBC's vision for the development of BBC4 in the great shift to Freeview and expanded choice. All viewers had to do was press the button marked "9" on their remote instead of "2".

iainoverton.bsky.social•90 days ago

True. And this siloing has sped up the demise of the dominance of the critic. I appreciate my argument needs lots of caveats. It’s meant to applaud criticism so: fair point.

pastpresented.bsky.social•90 days ago

The real catch is that YouTube, arriving when the broadcast shift was just getting under way, enabled everybody to create their own screen silos, bypassing the traditional gatekeepers (the career of Russell Brand providing a spectacular example of the process in action).

iainoverton.bsky.social•90 days ago

But, on reflection, I should not have cut the word ‘mainstream’ when I had to do the hard edits to meet word count. 🙏

ala8.bsky.social•89 days ago

Just this, bigots trying to cash in

timjenkinson.bsky.social•90 days ago

The news media is to blame in a big way for making them popular. You only have to look at how much attention Trump and Farage get.

iainoverton.bsky.social•90 days ago

Good point.

patyale.bsky.social•89 days ago

But not until almost end of this piece does woman's name appear. There WAS something stale, male and, I'd say, public school and class-driven about the type of criticism that was valued. Yes, we are fast being dumbed down but that sort of criticism only ever spoke to small segment of society.

iainoverton.bsky.social•89 days ago

I had to line up my argument before I offered a solution. There was little point in detailing the demise of highly powerful female critics because they didn't really dominate the British media landscape (a little more so in the US). I was very conscious of this, which is why I wrote "to be clear"

iainoverton.bsky.social•89 days ago

But, and this is more relevant, I was juxtaposing the 'death' of one sort of male critic with the rise of the other - the far-more toxic male alt-right critic that so dominates. I am sorry if this point wasn't that clear. There was much to say in a short article.

patyale.bsky.social•88 days ago

Sorry for grumpiness. Just hard when you're member of the 50% of population that so often simply goes unnoticed. But of course it was a short piece without enough words to cover everything.

iainoverton.bsky.social•88 days ago

Thank you. I was very conscious of the issue. I think the US has a deeper history of female cultural critics that the UK could learn from.

scottkimmel53.bsky.social•90 days ago

iainoverton.bsky.social•90 days ago

And 1980, when Asimov wrote, this, was beginning of a decade where neoliberalism commodified culture, valuing profit over meaning, while mass media increasingly prioritised entertainment over critical thought — so cultural criticism of value began to wane and met its death about a decade late.

watcher49.bsky.social•90 days ago

And I would add “the gullible”!

oskidarski.bsky.social•90 days ago

I remember thinking that critics were just bitter people who couldn't do what they commented on, but this article made me think that we have lost something useful since their general demise.

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