the whole idea of there having to be a single “capital” of culture or science is euro shit, steeped in colonialism and the need to maintain cultural hegemony. The global south is home to thousands of cultures, more vibrant and alive than s can even imagine, and they all have their centers and reference points, that are looking to the West less and less, as of late.
the british museum, housed in the capital of complaining so much about rain when if you go by the data and compare london to other cities it doesn’t actually rain all that much there
it does create more garbage than any other city. seven days a week, tons and tons of garbage are hauled out of the city by large trucks, some heading as far away as landfills in Virginia and incinerators in Indiana, in an impressive feat of logistics and ecological destruction.
if their sanitation workers go on strike for like a day, the real “cultural” production of NYC starts accumulating.
Exactly my thought too. It’s not. Los Angeles is generally considered the cultural capital of the US. Movies, TV, and Music. New York can probably claim theater, that’s it. Not sure how they compare for art and literature.
It hasn’t been since Tin Pan Alley. There’s only a brief period like say ~1880 to ~1930 where NYC was genuinely the cultural capital of the US. Before the civil war, the US was too divided to have a single cultural capital and NYC didn’t stand out as a cultural capital of the north. The 1930s was the golden age of Hollywood.
When NYC was the actual cultural capital of the US, a typical cultural export would be some vaudeville act by Yiddish-speaking performers or some super early silent film filmed by Edison. The dominant musical genre was ragtime.
What.
No?
While the South has outsized influence in politics, it is a simple undeniable fact that the majority of cultural products of the US are made in or centered around New York or Los Angeles, and that these two cities have a ridiculous influence on world culture.
I was also gunna say LA (for film, music, TV etc.) but defining culture as ‘ways of doing things’ (and not just artistic products) it’s hard to knock NYC from its post
Even accepting the premise I don’t even think it’d be NYC now. If you’re sort of offline movies and shows seem like the last refuge of some semblance of monoculture and that’s hollywood for a western audience. Everything else is just internet now anyways, so SF as per infrastructure and probably some shit like Dubai for the actual people doing it lol.
Wait 10 years and Shanghai will show you what is the cultural capital of the universe
No. I’m sorry that’s just not happening. Not as long as so much of Chinese cultural products exist entirely for internal consumption.
Edit:
Right now if I’m going to consume Chinese media I have to seek it out, and I have to put in some effort if I want to consume it in a way that is legible to me as a person who does not speak Mandarin. If I want to see a thing that is entirely up its own ass about new york I have to turn on the TV, and I am not in America.
And even if that changed tomorrow, there would still be entire generations (In fact, every living generation) that grew up with and were influenced by American media and not Chinese media and it would take years upon years just to change that, and again that is assuming that tomorrow I would turn on the TV or the radio or turn on a popular streaming service and the first results would be Chinese media.
I’m sorry that’s just not happening. Not as long as so much of Chinese cultural products exist entirely for internal consumption.
Not now, but I did say in 10 years.
First, Shanghai is not so much Chinese, but an international city. It is the most Westernized city far beyond anywhere else in China.
What makes NYC the cultural hub is not that it is the epitome of American culture (you can find more authentic American vibes in any Southern city), but that it is an international city made up of enclaves of immigrants who brought their own culture into the mix.
Like NYC, Shanghai is the financial center of the nation. Comparing Shanghai to other major Chinese industrial cities, say Zhengzhou in Henan, is like comparing NYC to, say, Atlanta. Very different vibes.
And like NYC, the rent and property prices are way beyond what most young people can afford, and the people there have a smugness not seen in other cities except for maybe Beijing and Hangzhou, though not at the level of New Yorkers yet.
Second, Shanghai already has the ingredients for becoming an international cultural hub, but it needs time.
How do I know this? First, we need to ask, what is it that makes NYC a cultural hub? I’ve mentioned above that it has a lot of immigrants of diverse backgrounds, but as a metric of cultural centers, NYC has international cultural activities that you simply cannot find in the vast majority of the cities in the world outside of their own places of origin.
This is going to sound funny, but bear with me: let’s say I want to learn a niche African tribal dance (just an example, it can be any form of international cultural activity), I can easily find an expert teacher in NYC. Believe it or not, these days you can similarly find them in Shanghai. You simply cannot find similar dance studios with such world-class teachers in most cities in the world. That’s what makes these cities candidates for international cultural hubs.
It is true that Shanghai does not yet have the immigration numbers compared to NYC, but the shifting in geopolitical power in the coming decades can change that. China does need to relax its immigration policy, and the recent K visas for foreigners can help, but the most important part is that the basic ingredients are already there.
What Shanghai will always lose out to NYC though, are all the stolen artefacts from other cultures and civilizations that you find in the Met.
Wait 10 years and Shanghai will show you what is the cultural capital of the universe
New Yorkers really believe they are the center of the universe lol. And I say this as someone who used to live there for years.
the whole idea of there having to be a single “capital” of culture or science is euro shit, steeped in colonialism and the need to maintain cultural hegemony. The global south is home to thousands of cultures, more vibrant and alive than
s can even imagine, and they all have their centers and reference points, that are looking to the West less and less, as of late.
But if we don’t have a single capital of culture where do we take the stolen artefacts??
the british museum, housed in the capital of complaining so much about rain when if you go by the data and compare london to other cities it doesn’t actually rain all that much there
Didn’t they only get the revolutionary new sanitation technology of “trash cans” this year?
that one was pretty far down the New York tech tree
I don’t think new york is even cultural capital of usa lmao
of course, it’s actually Hitlerville, Oregon
it does create more garbage than any other city. seven days a week, tons and tons of garbage are hauled out of the city by large trucks, some heading as far away as landfills in Virginia and incinerators in Indiana, in an impressive feat of logistics and ecological destruction.
if their sanitation workers go on strike for like a day, the real “cultural” production of NYC starts accumulating.
Exactly my thought too. It’s not. Los Angeles is generally considered the cultural capital of the US. Movies, TV, and Music. New York can probably claim theater, that’s it. Not sure how they compare for art and literature.
I don’t know how you could possible come to that conclusion, it is very obviously the most important American city in basically every single respect
It hasn’t been since Tin Pan Alley. There’s only a brief period like say ~1880 to ~1930 where NYC was genuinely the cultural capital of the US. Before the civil war, the US was too divided to have a single cultural capital and NYC didn’t stand out as a cultural capital of the north. The 1930s was the golden age of Hollywood.
When NYC was the actual cultural capital of the US, a typical cultural export would be some vaudeville act by Yiddish-speaking performers or some super early silent film filmed by Edison. The dominant musical genre was ragtime.
like it’s obviously texas/south, dunno what they are smoking
What. No? While the South has outsized influence in politics, it is a simple undeniable fact that the majority of cultural products of the US are made in or centered around New York or Los Angeles, and that these two cities have a ridiculous influence on world culture.
on the world maybe, inside usa tho, i dunno, isn’t usa in the country phase in music and tv shows?
how?
California is a state ,NYC is definitely the USA’s most well known city and also on of the biggest producers of cultural output
what would you say is the cultural capital of the USA ?
Los Angeles ?
to anyone outside the USA it looks like it is NYC
I am not American but california seems more important from here
I agree but California is a state not a city
I was also gunna say LA (for film, music, TV etc.) but defining culture as ‘ways of doing things’ (and not just artistic products) it’s hard to knock NYC from its post
Even accepting the premise I don’t even think it’d be NYC now. If you’re sort of offline movies and shows seem like the last refuge of some semblance of monoculture and that’s hollywood for a western audience. Everything else is just internet now anyways, so SF as per infrastructure and probably some shit like Dubai for the actual people doing it lol.
Shenzhen is the global capital for digital tech. SF has nothing aside from a collection of digital landlords.
Don’t think there’s to many westerners on Douyin for it to be relevant to culture, unlike say Instagram or Tiktok
IDK if Tencent and Mihoyo are based in Shenzen but they have a huge amount of influence outside of China.
No. I’m sorry that’s just not happening. Not as long as so much of Chinese cultural products exist entirely for internal consumption.
Edit: Right now if I’m going to consume Chinese media I have to seek it out, and I have to put in some effort if I want to consume it in a way that is legible to me as a person who does not speak Mandarin. If I want to see a thing that is entirely up its own ass about new york I have to turn on the TV, and I am not in America.
And even if that changed tomorrow, there would still be entire generations (In fact, every living generation) that grew up with and were influenced by American media and not Chinese media and it would take years upon years just to change that, and again that is assuming that tomorrow I would turn on the TV or the radio or turn on a popular streaming service and the first results would be Chinese media.
Not now, but I did say in 10 years.
First, Shanghai is not so much Chinese, but an international city. It is the most Westernized city far beyond anywhere else in China.
What makes NYC the cultural hub is not that it is the epitome of American culture (you can find more authentic American vibes in any Southern city), but that it is an international city made up of enclaves of immigrants who brought their own culture into the mix.
Like NYC, Shanghai is the financial center of the nation. Comparing Shanghai to other major Chinese industrial cities, say Zhengzhou in Henan, is like comparing NYC to, say, Atlanta. Very different vibes.
And like NYC, the rent and property prices are way beyond what most young people can afford, and the people there have a smugness not seen in other cities except for maybe Beijing and Hangzhou, though not at the level of New Yorkers yet.
Second, Shanghai already has the ingredients for becoming an international cultural hub, but it needs time.
How do I know this? First, we need to ask, what is it that makes NYC a cultural hub? I’ve mentioned above that it has a lot of immigrants of diverse backgrounds, but as a metric of cultural centers, NYC has international cultural activities that you simply cannot find in the vast majority of the cities in the world outside of their own places of origin.
This is going to sound funny, but bear with me: let’s say I want to learn a niche African tribal dance (just an example, it can be any form of international cultural activity), I can easily find an expert teacher in NYC. Believe it or not, these days you can similarly find them in Shanghai. You simply cannot find similar dance studios with such world-class teachers in most cities in the world. That’s what makes these cities candidates for international cultural hubs.
It is true that Shanghai does not yet have the immigration numbers compared to NYC, but the shifting in geopolitical power in the coming decades can change that. China does need to relax its immigration policy, and the recent K visas for foreigners can help, but the most important part is that the basic ingredients are already there.
What Shanghai will always lose out to NYC though, are all the stolen artefacts from other cultures and civilizations that you find in the Met.
well that’s not happening anytime soon