An interview with Noemi Charlotte Thieves
I had a chance to interview Noemi Charlotte Thieves on January 10. We were at a going-away party in Brooklyn and fell into conversation. The conversation was SO INTERESTING…
Author: Grant
The rise of a celebrity culture
These images are from the Pantheon database at the Macro Connections group at Media Lab at MIT. They map what the Media Lab calls “historical cultural production” and the relative…
Craig Young: an interview in SF
I did this interview for a project called Automated Anthropologist. (I went to San Francisco and let it be known that I was prepared to do anything anyone…
Bud Caddell
Whenever I have the chance to talk to Bud Caddell, I take it. This’s because while I know the future is badly distributed (in Gibson’s famous phrase), I fervently…
Use All Five interviews Grant McCracken
This is an interview that Zsa Zsa (left) and I did recently with Ryan Ernst at Use All Five. Thanks, Ryan.
Screw the gift economy, a reply to Clay Shirky
I came across a post today by Gaby Dunn called “Get rich or die vlogging: The sad economics of internet fame.” Dunn gives us YouTube and Instagram celebrities…
The Grinder and the perils of celebrity culture
The Grinder is a show from FOX about a TV actor (Rob Lowe as “Dean”) who leaves his hit series, a courtroom drama, to spend some time in…
My Tribe Is an Unsophisticated People
This is a photograph of Sara Little Turnbull (1917–2015). Sara was an designer and anthropologist. In 1988 she founded, and for 18 years she ran, the Process of…
Who is the next Frank Sinatra?
I spent the last couple of days in Palm Springs. (I was giving a talk to NBC.) I gave myself a day to wander around. Palm Springs does…
Remove Killers from Memory and the Human Community
Last week Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin asked us not to name the man responsible for the killings at the community college in Oregon. And the debate begins.…
Donald Trump is a fireship
The question in yesterday’s post was: Why has Donald Trump survived our discovery of his flaws and deficiencies? Normally, a new candidate has his or her moment in…
Donald Trump defies the Dorian Gray effect. Why?
I found this wonderful image at the train station in my hometown in Connecticut. Scratched into an ad on the platform, someone left us a “Dorian Gray” treatment…
Less public knowledge, more private meaning (lessons for politicians and brands)
This is a part of a map of London drawn by Fuller (aka Gareth Wood). Wood says that he created a map to show his relationship with the city over…
Cultural Leaders and Laggards, the problem with beer ads
I love this ad. How quickly bashful behavior gives way to full-on performance. And how this disappears (when the woman enters the store). And then reappears (when it occurs to our…
Narrative captivity: Losing Orphan Black for want of a half-fan
I am a long standing fan of Orphan Black but this season they lost me. I tuned in for the opening episode of the new season, and it…
American Music. Listening with numbers
Thanks to Thomas Ball, I am looking at a wonderful article that uses big data to examine American music over 50 years. Here are a couple of excerpts.…
More thoughts on vocal fry
Thanks to Laura Fullton, I have a clearer fix on vocal fry. Laura found the very interesting work by Ben Trawick-Smith on the topic. Ben calls it a “creaky…
William Bunsen Professor of Anthropology at Hudson University
I am so sorry to be a day late making this announcement, but I want to share with you the exciting news of my new appointment as the…
Capitalism and the exquisite choice: anti-economics from Alice Waters and Steve Jobs
Alice Waters opened her restaurant Chez Panisse in 1971. Steve Jobs started selling his Apple I computer in 1976. From these beginnings, and in a relatively brief period,…
Vocal fry, and what we can do about it
Many people have remarked on the inclination of some young women in the US to use “up-talk” in everyday speech. You’ve heard this, I know. It’s that rising…
Santa Massive (an anthropologist proposes a cultural reform)
The December holidays recede gently from view. We are now 3 full months away from them. We can visit the “Christmas” issue with some objectivity. It’s a problematic…
The real message of advertising?
If the art of advertising (one of them anyhow) is closing the distance between the brand and the consumer, you can’t do much better than this. Do we…
Creativity, innovation, and the space between cultures
Anthropologists are drawn to places where culture is a little shaky. Normally, culture supplies the meanings and rules with which we understand and navigate the world. And normally,…