Are we stuck in cultural quicksand? In this Based Camp episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins explore whether the internet, streaming, algorithms, and AI have collapsed cultural time — making it impossible for new culture to gain traction or evolve.

From the ball pit/avalanche metaphor to living in “the Archive,” they discuss why 1986–1996 felt like different worlds while 2005–2026 barely registers. They dive into Gen Z’s nostalgia-fueled listening habits, the death of linear cultural progress, and surprising pockets where culture is still advancing: anime, Korean webtoons (manhwa), reality fabricators/AI storytelling, VTubers, Roblox as the new Harajuku, SCP Foundation lore, Bronies, dead mall videos, and liminal spaces.

They debate subcultures in the digital age, the role of constrained communities vs. the chaotic global feed, culture hyperinflation from AI, and whether new cultures are dead — or just unrecognizable. Plus: family culture as a refuge, why old cartoons beat modern kids’ shows, and optimistic takes on building traction in walled gardens.

If you’re into pronatalism, cultural evolution, technology’s impact on creativity, or just wondering why everything feels like a remix, this one’s for you.

Episode Notes

* What if we’ve entered an age in which culture can no longer advance and we don’t even know it?

* We’ve already talked about how there’s only ‘one story left’—basically discourse about global politics, technology, and economics—because entertainment media is so fragmented and desynchronized that most shows, movies, and books can’t manage to enter the zeitgeist

* But it may also be the case that the way the internet has collapsed time, from a cultural perspective, has rendered society incapable of advancing culture, because new developments lack the ability to gain traction

* I started thinking about this when we did an episode on “The Modern Audience” and Malcolm found in his research that many of the people writing modern movies and shows primarily consume archival shows and movies, not new ones.

* Our kids are largely growing up watching cartoons and shows from the 1990s.

* We’re seeing an explosion of prequels and sequels rather than new unique properties

Will All Future Generations Grow Up in The Archive?

Choice quotes from Sam Buntz’s post on Katherine Dee’s Default.Blog, Gen Z Lives in the Archive:

* According to a 2019 article from Billboard, Shannon Cook, a trends expert at Spotify, said that Gen Z’s listening habits on Spotify were unusually broad and tended to delve deeply into the past. Tracks by Miles Davis (“Blue in Green”), The Grateful Dead (“Friend of the Devil”), and Joan Jett (“I Love Rock n’ Roll”) were all among Gen Z’s most listened to tracks at the time.

* Albeit, this article was from 2019—but the forces driving the trend, Tik Tok nostalgia and the buffet-like nature of streaming platforms, have only continued or accelerated their effects. The aforementioned 2025 article from Activaire argued that Spotify data showed Gen Z was connecting more with Gen X music on Spotify, beguiled by its apparent authenticity.

* Zoomers, you see, live inside the Archive.

* Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they are imprisoned inside the Archive—a Borgesian labyrinth. Everything that has ever happened exists at their fingertips, assigned equal weight (or assigned whatever weight the fickle algorithm happens to be assigning on that particular day). This is also why they are a uniquely anxious generation, paralyzed by an inability to choose. They are confronted with too many options, unstuck in time.

* We think of time as being continuous, as involving one event following naturally, causally after a preceding event. But living within the digital archive disintegrates our basic, linear perception of time. Since every era is equally available, and all events are potentially happening at the same time, the chain of causality and influence breaks down completely. We think of musicians, artists, writers, and filmmakers as responding to those who came before them, generationally. For instance, Bob Dylan admired and initially imitated Woody Guthrie—but he also rebelled and created his own style, departing from Guthrie’s folksy populism and adding intensely personal and surrealistic touches. Changes in the arts always work this way. One generation responds to the previous generation. (Hemingway and Fitzgerald were reacting to Joseph Conrad, Edith Wharton, and Henry James, while Henry James was reacting to Hawthorne and Emerson, and so on and so forth.)

* Sometimes, I wonder if this will ultimately result in a state of cultural affairs in which fresh artistic creation stops entirely

Key Questions

Do we need a sense of a clear timeline in order to craft new culture?

From Sam Buntz: “In Plato’s dialogue, “Ion,” he describes how inspiration works: the first poet was inspired directly by the muse, like an iron filling attached to a lodestone. The subsequent generations of poets are like iron fillings attached to that first filling. The force of inspiration is still present, but it is exerted indirectly and weakens with every generation. Thus, the influence of the original impetus wanes until, presumably, we culturally reset and reconnect to the magnetic source directly. Gen Z finds itself in a state in which the fillings have all been scattered on the ground, perhaps experiencing some ambient attraction from the lodestone, but unable to really connect with it.”

Does “culture hyperinflation” prevent new culture from being innovated?

Sam Buntz quotes Cormac McCarthy in an interview saying: “I don’t know what of our culture is going to survive, or if we survive. If you look at the Greek plays, they’re really good. And there’s just a handful of them. Well, how good would they be if there were 2,500 of them? But that’s the future looking back at us. Anything you can think of, there’s going to be millions of them. Just the sheer number of things will devalue them. I don’t care whether it’s art, literature, poetry or drama, whatever. The sheer volume of it will wash it out. I mean, if you had thousands of Greek plays to read, would they be that good? I don’t think so.”

What would have to happen in order to enable more cultural progress?

* Luddite communities?

* Sudden loss of data?

* Sam Buntz wrote: “Poets have sometimes fantasized about total cultural destruction—something like the burning of the Library of Alexandria—to escape the sense that everything has already been done, has already been written. I wouldn’t go that far, since everything I love is part of the past. Maybe some brave artist can find a route back to the Original Magnet—a route that would presumably lie through the great works of the past, since the past is where we all start to feel magnetism acting on us. In any case, something needs to give. The links of the chain need to re-connect.”

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] So how different was 1986 from 1996, culturally speak?

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: It was two different worlds. .

Speaker 8: to the.

Oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: But if you go from where we are today to 2005

Simone Collins: mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, it’s different, but

Simone Collins: not really. Yeah. There’s, there’s not, there’s not that much different.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: Hello Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because I’m trying to wrap my head around something and I need someone to talk with about this.

And I, I, what’s getting on my mind so much and I. Can’t work it out is what if we’ve entered an age in which culture can no longer advance and we don’t even know it. And I’m referring kind of to what we talked about in a [00:01:00] podcast before where we talked about there being only one story left that basically discourse about global politics and technology and the economy is the only thing that everyone can really talk about collectively anymore because entertainment media is so fragmented , and desynchronized.

And that not everyone’s really watching the same show or movie or reading the same books at the same time like they used to anymore. But I feel like beyond that, beyond that last show left issue that we discussed, there’s this, it, it could be the case that the internet has really collapsed time from a cultural perspective, which has rendered society completely incapable of advancing culture because new developments lack the ability to gain traction.

Kind of like. Y you, you can, you can walk up stairs, you know, and progress onward and upward by pressing on the step, you know, that you’re standing on and moving up to the next step. But I feel like now we’ve gone from being on [00:02:00] stairs to being like in a ball pit. You know, you put a, a foot down and it just pushes through balls, you know, like a giant ball pit and we can’t, or really

Malcolm Collins: light snow.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or really, yeah. Like, like in an avalanche. Yeah. And we’re just, we’re just buried in the very like light packed snow of an avalanche and we’re not able to move. And I, I really started thinking, so I think that you

Malcolm Collins: make an interesting point here and I wanna pull on it a little bit.

Simon...

Why Did Culture Stop Evolving? (2025=2015 But 1995≠1985)