Ted Gioia explains what he calls the “Four steps to Hell” that have replaced the aesthetic values of the past and shows why everything in entertainment is being actively enshittified:
MGM’s lion and the Ars Gratia Artis motto (Art for Art’s Sake). But the lion is screaming in pain today.
Smart people have recently asked: What is the aesthetic vision of the 21st century? What are the stylistic markers of our time? What are the core values driving the creative process? What is our zeitgeist?
At first glance, that’s a hard question to answer. We are more than a quarter of the way through the century, and very little has changed since the 1990s.
- Music genres have barely shifted in that time. The songs on the radio sound like the hits of yesteryear — in many instances they are the hits of yesteryear, played over and over ad nauseam.
- Movies are in even worse shape. Hollywood keeps extending the same tired brand franchises you knew as a child. SoCal culture feels like an antiquated merry-go-round where the same tired nags keep coming around in an endless circle.
- Publishers still put out new novels, but when was the last time you read something really fresh and new? Even more to the point, when was the last time you went to a social gathering and heard people discussing contemporary fiction with enthusiasm?
- The same obsession with the past is evident in video games, comic books, architecture, graphic design, and almost every other creative sphere. Everything is a reboot or retread or repeat.
It’s not aesthetics, it’s just arteriosclerosis.
Even so, I see a new dominant theory of art — and it’s sweeping away almost everything in its wake. It already accounts for most of the creative work of our time, and is still growing. Nothing else on the scene comes close to matching its influence.
So if you’re seeking the most influential aesthetic vision on the 21st century, this is it. It’s simple to describe — but it’s ugly as sin.
I call it Flood the Zone. It happens in four steps. […]
Do read the whole thing, but in case it’s a case of tl;dr, he also summarizes it for you:
The slop and crap is everywhere in the “fine” Art world. The aesthetic is simple and easily achieved: Shock the squares. A clever idea is all you need. Generate some outrage, and you’ve made people think. I see this on Igram all the time. Pile up a bunch of crap in an empty room, call it an installation, There will a long line of seals clapping, posting emojis, and praise for the genius. How many are bots? hard to tell, isn’t it? Use Blender to craft a figure. Plug it into a cgi robot, and bingo. Bernini got nuthin’on you.
But beneath all that there are still artists who produce works of sublime beauty and breathtaking craftsmanship, and there are people who value it. Now, those folks are the ones creating the counter culture. The garbage will eventually decompose. Beauty will prevail in the end. Or so I hope.
JWM
Comment by jwm — March 27, 2026 @ 07:46
If “a clever idea” was actually needed, perhaps there’d be more merit — if not aesthetic value — to more modern art … but so much of it is intellectual copy-paste rather than anything new.
Comment by Nicholas — March 27, 2026 @ 08:19