Brian Niemeier's Blog: Kairos - by Brian Niemeier, page 5

How ACT Helped Kill Adolescent Entertainment

What are kids watching these days? Gen Y’s nostalgic myopia for Saturday morning cartoons and PG-13 horror flicks can leave them blinkered when it comes to how their now-adolescent children are entertaining themselves. This piece, wherein Variety indulges in handwringing over teens rejecting smut in movies and TV shows, seems like a positive sign. But left unexamined is the pressing question of…

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How JRPGs Made Anime Mainstream in the West

Japanese roleplaying games and anime share a symbiotic relationship. And that symbiosis transformed global entertainment. While anime gave Japanese media the potential to capture international audiences, JRPGs provided the crucial delivery system for popularizing anime aesthetics and storytelling conventions in the West. Together, they established a cross-cultural phenomenon that continues to…

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The Rise and Fall of the Western Anime Scene

If you are reading this, it’s a near certainty you’ve encountered Japanese animation, or anime. It’s also a good bet that your introduction to the mediuam came through the Pokémon craze of the 90s, Toonami’s afternoon lineup, or a Studio Ghibli film. It’s hard to conceive of now, but anime was once a niche import relegated to a small counterculture. Its growth into a pop culture phenomenon took…

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How the Fourth Turning Explains the Mainstream Entertainment Collapse

In the past few years, the mainstream entertainment industry has been gripped by an epidemic of costly flops. These failures have spread across video games, movies, comic books, and more. Titles expected to be blockbuster hits—like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Skull and Bones, and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League—instead faced staggering losses. Many keen observers…

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Trump’s Higher Ed Plan: A Template to Relieve Student Debt?

The student debt crisis is a ticking economic time bomb that threatens everyone from young borrowers unable to start families to older Americans facing financial hardship well into retirement. Regular readers know I’ve outlined a two-step plan to defuse the student usury crisis through government debt cancellation and seizing university endowments to pay down remaining balances. Related: Finding…

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Why Hollywood’s Collapse Is Inevitable: What It Means for Entertainment’s Future

For years, Hollywood has been a dominant force in entertainment. But behind the glitz, signs of its impending collapse have been growing. Recent insider accounts, including that of former actress and filmmaker Justine Bateman, reveal a disheartening picture. The industry is not only facing economic strains and labor issues but also undergoing an existential crisis that could signal the end of…

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Are Kids Really Reading Less, or Are We Just Measuring Wrong?

Hot on the heels of sensationalist fake news claiming that men hate reading, a recent piece in the Guardian breathlessly reports that reading is about as popular with children as spinach and homework. But are kids really reading less, or are they just measuring wrong? Like the “Men hate reading” meme, the Guardian article’s claim that children’s reading enjoyment has reached a record low…

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How Nostalgia is Shaping Generation Y’s Role in Society

As Generation Y reaches middle age, their nostalgia-driven outlook is distinctly shaping their social and political decisions. This cohort, with formative years before smartphones and social media, contrasts sharply with Millennials and Generation Z, who are more attuned to digital trends and progressive social movements. The 2024 election underscores this divide, with a notable majority of Gen…

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Why Materialism Holds Back the Right’s Next Great Storytellers

Over on X, Isaac Young posted an insightful thread in which he sought to answer why the new counterculture has not yet produced a successor to J.R.R Tokien or Gene Wolfe. It’s definitely worth a read. Young touches on something profound in his critique of how modern storytelling, particularly on the Right, is ensnared in materialism at the expense of creativity. I agree that this fixation on the…

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Millennial Snot and the Pop Cult: Worship in a Soulless Age

A lengthy post on X by Dudley Newright has brought an ancient truth about human nature back into the spotlight: Everyone worships something. Newright points out that today, this primal need doesn’t always lead us to a higher purpose. Instead, a growing segment of Western society has diverted its energies into a strange secular devotion. Revolving around worshiping youth…

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