Traditional Criticism Is in Trouble. Here’s What’s Replacing It.
Demand for cultural commentary is higher than it’s ever been—but now that commentary is coming from unconventional new sources.
Justin Tranter, a 45-year-old musician who has co-written smash hits by Chappell Roan and Justin Bieber, was annoyed. Social media, in Tranter’s view, had been overrun by music listeners (especially gay ones) acting a little too opinionated.
“What do we have to do to stop my fellow homosexuals from thinking that they are music critics just because they’re gay and have a phone?” Tranter asked on TikTok earlier this year. “You know nothing about a song. You know nothing about this industry. Just be a fan.”
The video—which Tranter later took down—seemed like yet another sign that the art of reviewing the arts was in a strange state. This year has been grim for criticism: The Associated Press stopped reviewing books; Vanity Fair winnowed its critical staff; The New York Times reassigned veteran critics to other jobs; and Chicago—the city of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel—lost its only remaining full-time print-media movie reviewer when the Chicago Tribune’s Michael Phillips took a buyout.
A wave of recent essays has laid out the concerning implications of these developments. Social media, streaming algorithms, and AI are undermining the role that salaried experts once played. With the humanities and free speech under threat nationally, critical thinking itself can seem endangered. Pondering the things that entertain us—and what those things say about our world—requires a resource that’s in short supply: attention spans.
