What does Lady Gaga mean? What does she stand for? Very little, argues Camille Paglia. But that's precisely the sort of cultural icon this generation relates to. Gaga=flashy lights, bright colors, pleasing sounds, funky beats, shocking vaudeville clips, "what is she wearing?" hyperlink viral fodder, and bits and pieces of politics thrown in for good measure. In short, Gaga is a million little pieces of random amusements that clutter our feeds, walls, channels, apps and inboxes in this gleefully Google-Gaga world.
The Social Network
The Social Network is more than just a Fincher film. It's a time-capsule for our time—a document of a curious revolution in social communication, economics, and the shifting notion of "status" in a world where roots, tradition, and familial privilege are less important than the ability to navigate media and manipulate tech-enabled perceptions of one's digital self.
Autumn Playlist
Medium: Cool
Imagine you are a visitor to a church, and you walk in to find that nearly everyone around you is a well-dressed, fashionable, “indie”-looking twentysomething with skinny jeans, stylish hair, and a clear sense of cutting-edge fashion. You look at yourself, and you don’t fit in. You feel self-consciously excluded, unfashionable and awkward. We all know what this feels like. Whenever you’re around a bunch of hipsters and you are clearly not as hip, you feel uncomfortable. You can’t help but feel that way.
Homecoming
Returning to Wheaton this weekend will be a celebration of time gone by, of blessings given, and of the immense joy both before and behind me. And it will also be a time to celebrate the life of my dear grandmother Marilyn McCracken, who died today. She was my last living grandparent, and she also went to Wheaton. This week is a different sort of homecoming for her.
The Challenge of Belief
In the end, very little knowledge in this world is ironclad. Very little is absolutely proved or exhaustively understood. Vast mystery inheres in every moment of our lives, in all the minutia. But that doesn't debilitate us; we have faith in the functioning of the world. Faith is inescapable, even if we don't often recognize it as such.
Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go is a film that sticks with you, packing a punch perhaps more in remembrance than in the actual experience of watching it. It's a startling, unexpected film, mostly in the matter-of-fact manner of its genre-bending exposition. It's a love story set against a sci-fi backdrop, with the elegance of an Austen novel and the quietly somber mood of an Ozu film. It's a jarring experience, and a profoundly moving one.
I'm Still Here
It's doubtless a strange thing to routinely bear witness to an external version of yourself in the media—watching yourself on YouTube, seeing yourself on Access Hollywood or in tabloids. Throughout I'm Still Here we see Phoenix watching himself on his laptop—glued to the screen like Narcissus looking into the pond. But is what he sees a familiar self? Or is it something as foreign as Commodus or Johnny Cash? Or is it ultimately all the same?
10 Albums That Shaped My Youth
The Poetics of Late Summer
I've always loved this time of year. Late summer. For whatever reason, it is just incredibly poetic. The end of "vacation" season, an acute sense of both loss and hope, the onset of such wonderful things as Football season and apple picking. It's a great moment of transition, and some far more perceptive writers than I have captured it beautifully in verse.
To Change the World
James Davison Hunter's new book, To Change the World, has been stirring up buzz since it came out this spring, and for good reason. It's an intellectually robust, complicated, nuanced treatment of a crucial, continually difficult subject matter: The relationship between Christianity and culture. How do Christians relate to culture? How do they transform it? Is this even the right question to ask? For those familiar with this blog and my prevailing concerns as a writer, you know that this is a subject near and dear to my heart
College Never Ends (Or Shouldn't)
The world is far too complex, troubled, beautiful and dynamic for us to ever just exist in. It beckons us to make sense of it. To carve at least some comprehension out of the vast incomprehensibility of existence. This is what education is about. For anyone who cares about the destiny of this world, education is a high calling: a pursuit without end that is never wholly futile and never fully satisfying.
My Ultimate Christian Hipster Playlist
Anatomy of a Christian Hipster
Confused about what a Christian hipster looks like? Fear not. There are interactive photos on the official Hipster Christianity website designed to describe (in great detail) what Christian hipsters look like. Click on the names below to see the images.
Marketing a Noncommercial Message
What does it mean to package Christianity in a methodical manner so as to make it salient to as wide an audience as possible? What does Christianity lose when it becomes just one piece of a consumer transaction? These are questions that the brand managers of “cool Christianity” would do well to consider.
"Now ... This"
In America particularly, we are obsessed with the "next." We want to get something done and move on to the next thing. Perhaps this is why we consume media at such a breakneck speed and with such dizzying efficiency. But what does this do to our ability to 1) dwell on something for a long period of time, 2) discern what is worth thinking about and what isn't, and 3) value depth rather than breadth?
Thoughts on the Release of Hipster Christianity
It’s a strange and wonderful feeling, to see one's idea come to fruition. I never really thought during the summer of 2005 that I'd write a book about hipster Christianity, but I'm glad I did. Looking back I marvel at how it all came together, how so many of my experiences and interactions and relationships all fed into this idea, and how the people in my life during this season were so absolutely instrumental in the whole endeavor.
Arcade Fire, The Suburbs
Christian Hipster Music: A YouTube History
Last week on the Hipster Christianity Facebook page, I posted YouTube videos from the last 4 decades of "Christian hipster" music, or music that was at least pivotal in the ultimate development of today's culture of hipster Christianity. Here they are, in chronological order... Enjoy!