The value of arts criticism as a service.
Great post on how arts criticism matters – a way to think, cultivating thinking over reaction/consumption.
Choosing Consideration, Not Consumption
“At a bigger level, another thing that seems clear to me is that arts criticism in general is less important as a service in our day-to-day lives. As discussed in last week’s newsletter ruminating on Kyle Chayka’s Filterworld: How Algorithms Flatten Culture, we have much less need for critics to steer us toward art and media we might be interested in. Algorithms have stepped in to do the ranking and sorting for us, e.g., no need for Siskel & Ebert when we have Rotten Tomatoes. As Chayka argues in his book (which I’ve now read; it’s terrific), this has deleterious effects on our culture broadly and us as individuals, but it’s impossible to deny how things work….
Outside of algorithms, individuals are now more likely to be seen as influencers rather than critics and the individuals who come to our attention do so via algorithms. We are in an era of consumption over consideration, and an influencer is more useful than a critic when it comes to fueling consumption.”