Decoder Ring Is Culture Stuck?

It’s a weird time for culture. There is more of it than ever before, it’s more accessible than ever before, but so little of it feels original. New movies are based on old stories, new songs are recycling old hooks, and fashion trends are cycling so fast that everything’s in. Has our culture grown stagnant? The author and culture critic W. David Marx thinks so. His new book, Blank Space , argues that there is a “blank space” in the 21st century where cultural innovation should be. In this episode, David explains to Willa how culture change worked in the 20th century, what changed after the turn of the millennium, and what we might do about it. This episode was produced by Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by Willa Paskin, Katie Shepherd, and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts.

You can listen to Decoder Ring Is Culture Stuck? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Decoder Ring Is Culture Stuck? is an episode from Slow Burn: A Podcast About Watergate by Slate Audio.

This episode is 37:06 long.

This episode was published on Jan 28, 2026.

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