A series of essays about the mostly American obsession with healthmaxxing, tech billionaire losers, NXIVM, Playboy, teen magazines, etc. I enjoyed this collection but I suspect that that has to do a lot with a deep rooted cynicism against all things Lin Manuel Miranda, especially Hamilton. You’ve gotta read the book to get it but Bolin does a great job of dissecting the cult of Hamilton in one of the many tangents in the book. My favorite essays were “Teen People” and “The Rabbit Hole” as I am the perfect demographic for them as I probably flipped through YM magazine while watching The Girls Next Door understanding on some subconscious level the sadistic subjugation I was being fed. Bolin analyzes so many of the painful norms and aspects of being a teen in the 2000s —I wonder if Culture Creep appeals to people that didn’t grow up in that era at all.

Culture Creep is my first encounter with Alice Bolin's work, and, as a fellow millennial, I appreciate her attention to the ways that pop culture shaped our shared adolescence and continues to echo into our adulthood. My favorite essays in this collection are the ones that excavate Bolin's own cultural hobbies and obsessions: with Animal Crossing, with print magazines, etc. Her insights when she's writing from a place of authority are thoughtful and cutting. In other essays, Bolin is writing about phenomena that she's observed rather than experiences she's had, and her perspective seems more like a synthesis of other people's writing than something really new. Essays about NXIVM and Playboy introduced me to new facts and authors, but they also felt less focused and less personally urgent. One of Bolin's strengths is in her research--I appreciated her references not only to other contemporary thinkers but also to academics analyzing our present moment through a analytical lens. Unfortunately, some of these quotes were strong enough to make me feel like I'd be better served reading through Bolin's Works Cited than through Culture Creep. Overall, the collection is interesting but uneven.

This is a pretty good reflection on technology and how it shapes so many of the problems we have with society and creates problems we see in ourselves from nothing.
I personally just couldn't connect with it at all so I had a lot of trouble making my way through. I feel like the writing was fine but not outstanding.

Culture Creep is an interesting reflection on culture from the perspective of a millenial. Alice Bolin explores our various obsessions in culture including, but not limited to The Girls Next Door, Animal Crossing, and Sex and the City. In various essays, Bolin takes you down memory lane of the 90s and early aughts into what was captivating everyone's time. In reflecting on her own experiences, she is able to recognize the often unhealthy nature of her obsessions and past-times - such as collecting magazines (with one to save and one to cut up), spending long hours gaming, and watching and re-watching shows for comfort.

Although I couldn't relate to a lot of the behaviors of Bolin, I was entertained by her reflections, as they reminded me of my adolescence and early adulthood. This was a purely entertaining read that those interested in pop culture of the past would enjoy.

Thank you to NetGalley, Mariner Books, and the author Alice Bolin for an ARC of Culture Creep in exchange for an honest review!

2.5 ⭐️. i really struggled with this collection of essays bc it felt as though there was no through-line connecting the pieces. it’s marketed as a deeper look into nostalgia, and while the author does provide examples from their childhood and how (very specific) pop culture phenomena changed history, i felt a lack of a personal connection from the author in any of them. i found myself asking at multiple times “why do we/i/ you even care about this?”

thank you to mariner books and netgalley for a free advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review.

As a fan of essays and pop culture, I picked it up Culture Creep. I hoped for some beautiful turns of phrase, some fresh insights, but I was just whelmed.

The essays themselves don't seem to be thematically linked together by anything other than Bolin's Netflix queue, Millennial nostalgia, or pandemic activities (like the essay on Animal Crossing). She tries to connect these things to broader cultural movements, capitalism, and feminism, but the insights often fall short and the points have been made better before & elsewhere.

these essays were close to the topics i would have loved to read more on but unfortunately didn’t come together for me. some were more focused than others but overall i think this is mostly a me problem:

love video games but wasn’t connecting to the animal crossing story

body image/calorie counting valiant critique but nothing new here, and making a connection to the present resurgence of “heroin chic” look and pro ana content was missing.

i should have more knowledge of sex and the city and star trek to make a comment on this essay, but I don’t unfortunately so i had limited interest.

playboy essay was again nothing new and too incredibly long. that we were so deep in the essay and then got a basic bio of hefner structurally was jarring. wish this one pursued the celebrity memoir topic that was discussed with the author’s reading of ex-bunny books.

Four stars. Slow to start, but smart and bitey! The essays on teen magazines and Playboy were my favorites.

I received an eARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the ARC of this title.

I read this pretty shortly after Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves, and I really liked how these felt like they were in conversation with one another, using different facets of media to hit some of the same points. The deep dive here on Playboy/The Girls Next Door alone is worth the price of admission, and I loved the way this braided its thoughts on cults, culture, and magazines together.

The issue with essay collections is you can have such different feelings from essay to essay, but you have to rate the book as a whole. Some of these essays had me dropping my jaw at the incredible cultural analysis Bolin was making, while others felt very 'meh.' Some of these essays really could become full books in and of themselves, and I really wanted them to. I'm much more into full, cohesive books than essay collections, so that may be my personal bias. Bolin clearly did an incredible amount of research, and her intelligence and analytical mind shines.

Thank you to Mariner Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really interesting essay collection — personal, insightful, and extremely timely. There was a good balance of vulnerable memoir aspects and social commentary. Sometimes I felt that the thread tying the essays together was a bit weak but they all still worked together well. As always, some chapters resonated more than others, and I think the first chapter looking at dieting apps and body relationships was my favorite.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’m pretty much done with critical collections that are unilaterally focused on pointing out what’s wrong with absolutely everything.

Bolin is a lovely writer and I wish I could enjoy that more, but criticism exclusively focused on channeling hater energy just doesn’t hit for me anymore.

I suppose to Bolin’s credit, she’s not claiming to be taking a balanced approach. “Can’t you let people just have their little fandoms?” she mocks. No, she says, because she’s a “critic” and an “asshole.” Credit for admitting the latter, I guess, but I’m not sure how we got to the place where criticism can exist solely comprised of negative opinions on the material.

The best criticism takes a fair and balanced look at what’s good and bad about the subject. Can any given subject be seen through a lens of all positive or all negative thoughts? Sure, absolutely, but once you’re picking at absolutely everything about absolutely every topic you cover, you’re not acting as a critic, you’re just indulging your own critical thoughts. Which is boring, and quite frankly pretty depressing to slog through an entire book of.

While I generally agree with Bolin’s political stances (which FYI, are present in most of the essays), I’m not sure we need to hold every piece of culture from 20-30 years ago to a specific standard we are now applying to what is objectively unproblematic in the present. I’m also not certain it’s the job of most popular culture to satisfy a specific person (even if they are — gasp — a critic) in terms of the subjective exactitude of morality for that person.

And while this isn’t true of every subject, in many cases yes, you can absolutely “let people have their little fandoms.”

Essays giving cultural commentary. A bit of throwback culture, really. My favorites were Lean In/Bend Over and Stardate.

ooo, I really loved the writing of this one! the themes explored had me hooked - I love anything written at the intersection of pop culture and feminism. this is a book I'd highly recommend, it felt educational but not dense and included enough personal anecdotes that I never felt bored or overwhelmed with information.

This was a really interesting blend of personal with wider cultural/pop cultural topics, and the author does a good job of not making it too much about her. The essays definitely go a bit off course at times and weave in so many different topics that they feel somewhat meandering and unstructured, but for the most part I appreciated the segues. The Animal Crossing/video game one was the only one I had to give up on as it just got too much into the weeds about video gaming. I thought this was much better than her previous essay collection, it felt more mature if still a bit unfocused.

Big thanks to Mariner Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Alice Bolin’s new collection of essays Culture Creep: Notes on the Pop Apocalypse. I was drawn to this book by its title and the cover. I wasn’t familiar with Alice Bolin’s previous book Dead Girls, but before beginning this book, I read a little about her and her writing, and it will be another book added to my “To Read” list. Culture Creep is an amazing collection of essays that focus on areas of pop culture, including things like films, tv shows, video games, as well as other forms of entertainment and technology. In her essays, Bolin examines the different ways that various factors have accessed in possibly assimilated these forms of entertainment, art, and communication in our lives and how this impacts us. In particular, Bolin is interested in the ways that these forms of entertainment and technology have impacted women, and throughout the essays her analysis zooms in and out to examine both the micro and macro implications of these changes for society, but especially for women. In one of the descriptions I read, an essay was compared to those in Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror, and I agree. I was reminded of many of Tolentino’s themes and observations about how technology, social media, and reconfigurations of feminism and female empowerment have adapted in society to be both more appealing and less demanding. In fact, Bolin cites Tolentino in at least one of her essays, and I appreciated the fact that she is taking some of Tolentino’s arguments and observations and building on them, contributing to the conversation about how social media and technology seemingly offer freedom and an ability for reinvention, but ultimately often leave us feeling more trapped and troubled.
The first essay, “The Enumerated Woman,” focuses on how technology has changed women’s relationships with their bodies, examining her own experiences with Fitbit and food tracking apps. I appreciated how Bolin uses her own experiences to build on her arguments and relate to readers. I hadn’t really thought to much about the idea of fitness tracking. I tend to like measuring my steps, but I can also see how this may send the wrong kind of message about health behaviors, especially when we live in a society that seems to reinforce and police women’s appearances and weight. Bolin also introduces an strain of feminism that Tolentino refers to as “mainstream feminism”. Bolin describes this as “a philosophy co-opting certain elements of more radical feminist politics, like freedom of choice, but using them to reinforce traditional fender roles and other oppressive hierarchies.” It’s an interesting concept she calls “postfeminism” that reoccurs throughout her book in various instances. In this essay, though, Bolin examines how the freedom to track our movement and caloric intake can easily be posted to our social media, “where an imperative to share and consume becomes and imperative to conform, and good health and beauty are ever more thoroughly conflated.” This is a lot like Tolentino’s optimized woman—the modern woman who on social media is expected to live her best life and share it, but is also under extreme expectations to conform to a certain standard of beauty and achievement. For Bolin, these fitness trackers and posting about healthy behaviors, whether it is dieting or exercising, feeds into a social desire to feel productive. What I found most interesting about this essay was her argument that these kinds of trackers are largely part of a neoliberal philosophy to provide for one’s own well-being. That is, health is an individual responsibility, and not one that the state or government should support. This also fits into many of the themes within Bolin’s essays about how these kinds of neoliberal philosophies place responsibilities and labor on the individual and shift the responsibility from the state. While some of us may have access to the means of healthier living, whether it is close proximity to grocery stores with fresh fruit and vegetables or access and time to exercise, others may have more limited access to the means of healthy living. This shift in thinking about health and fitness, which seems to be more of the direction the Department of Health and Human Services is going, puts others at a disadvantage and makes healthy living less accessible for many Americans, yet frames health as a choice, not a service or product. The other interesting conclusion Bolin draws is from the work that we do for social media and technology companies as regular users who ultimately become the products to the advertisers that are the real consumers of these large corporations. Although I don’t see much change happening from this idea, it is interesting to think that these companies are enriching themselves from our hours spent “volunteering” (Bolin’s words) to teach them. This would be a great essay to use in class since it builds on experiences many people have had with both health and technology, but also it speaks to our stress and anxiety over our appearance and weight, and the kinds of social pressure we often experience to conform to social standards for our appearance. It not only builds on many of the ideas that Tolentino uses in her essays, but it also challenges our perceptions about how we think about our appearance, the decisions we make about our healthy living, and how we consume technology and media. I would anticipate interesting and thoughtful conversations from this essay.
“Foundering” is another interesting essay that focuses on some of the recent scammers using social media to get rich, and the television series or documentaries that have resulted from these schemers. Just like Tolentino examining confidence men and how scamming is a part of social media, Bolin examines some high profile scammers and the media representations of their crimes. She starts by explaining her viewing of the Billy McFarland Fyre Festival fiasco and the dueling documentaries that were produced on different streaming services. She ends up also examining Adam Neumann of WeWork infamy, who misled investors by overvaluing his company, yet somehow was given an incredible payout. It is kind of interesting to see how these men are often portrayed in the media, as either eccentrics, geniuses, or comical when they fail. Bolin notes the “boy genius” myth that followed these guys, along with Mark Zuckerberg, and how the media often distorts or lessens the crimes and unethical behavior that they engage in. Bolin also relates these kinds of hagiographies to how we view the origins of the country, often disregarding the awful, criminal and morally corrupt behaviors and actions while mythologizing the work of the founding fathers. It’s an American practice that continues on today. This essay goes into further critiquing Hamilton in humorous ways. I’m not really familiar with Hamilton, but I loved the way that Bolin notes that while Miranda brings in actors of color, the story still focuses on the white people, neglecting to tell the stories of people of color who contributed to the founding of the country.
“Lean in/Bend Over” also focuses on scammers, specifically examining the NXIVM cult, and how Keith Raniere used women to attract other women to serve as “slaves” for his inner circle. I tried to watch The Vow, the HBO docuseries that Bolin references in this essay, but it was really difficult to watch due to the graphic nature of Raniere’s exploitation. Nevertheless, Bolin explores how Raniere used marketing and sales techniques to establish and recruit for his cult, exploiting our own needs for personal fulfillment and our insecurities. Bolin explores the “postfeminism” approach that Raniere took to empower women in NXIVM. In a kind of paradoxical way of thinking, female empowerment comes from powerful men like Raniere who believe in devaluing femininity. Raniere’s thinking comes from a long line of thinking that presents men and women as being completely opposite, and thus women are viewed as emotional and men as logical. Bolin later traces this kind of thinking to today’s political thinking where Roe has been reversed and more women have the Trad wife lifestyle pushed on them as an option against liberal values that promote education and careers over childrearing and domesticity. Bolin also presents how members of NXIVM shared the ways that food was restricted as a means of control, similar to the enumerated woman she analyzes in the first essay. This essay also made me think about the various ways that society and politicians seek to control women, whether it is in policing their bodies, limiting their options, or dictating their futures, all with the illusion of choice and opportunities. She also presents how these cults and this kind of thinking operate like multilevel marking (MLM) scams that often prey on people’s vulnerabilities to make money, exploiting people’s insecurities and desires for wealth. This essay would also be interesting to teach, especially because the events are so recent, shocking, and infamous, and have shifted the talk of accountability for treatment of women.
“Stardate” was an interesting essay in that it explored two different television shows that seem so disparate, yet with the influx of television time due to the pandemic were probably made more relevant to many people. Bolin explores the worlds of Sex and the City and Star Trek the Next Generation, finding ways that the narrative structures with journal entries each serve as a frame for the events in the episode. She also notes how these shows are “products of progressive political agendas”, which I found fascinating. As someone who hasn’t really watched enough of either episode, it seemed incredible to find these kinds of similarities, but when we consider how the characters and storylines of these shows challenge many of the more traditional stories and characters, this kind of comparison makes sense. I also appreciated Bolin’s analysis of the kind of future world that Star Trek envisions as a kind of utopia, while other shows are often popular because of our nostalgia and desire for a return to the past. It seems especially hard to escape that kind of market in today’s film and television options, where sequels, franchises, and reboots seem to capture much of the market. Both Sex and the City and Star Trek the Next Generation created stories and dealt with issues and topics in a mature and nuanced way, frequently challenging popular assumptions and the kind of hegemonic thinking that dominated discourse about topics like cultural differences, power, and sex.
The only essay that I didn’t really enjoy that much was “Real Time”, which again focuses on a popular COVID pastime: playing video games. In particular, Bolin explores the world of Animal Crossing on Nintendo Switch. I’m not that into video games, but Bolin manages to bring up some important points about the nature of work and rewards in video games and real life. It was interesting to consider how we spend our time, and how immersive these games have become, especially one where in Animal Crossing, players are tasked with creating a kind of utopia where care and patience are rewarded. In watching my children play a game like Zelda, where they have more control of the character and that involves more strategy, exploration, and patience, I can see how these kinds of games may become more rewarding for players. My kids reacted so differently when they were controlling link, not really looking to solve the game, but enjoying the ability to control what he wears, when and what he eats, and who he can talk to. It was interesting to see how much they enjoyed having this level of control, especially when they have primarily had these aspects of their lives dictated to them. For my kids, this kind of video game is an experience in autonomy, a kind of play responsibility. The main issue, though, that I had with this essay was that there was so much description of the game and the various activities that Bolin was involved with, it took away a little of the analytical eye that Bolin brought to her other essays.
The last two essays, “Teen People” and “Rabbit Hole”, both examine magazines and other forms of popular media specifically targeting women and men. “Teen People” examines magazines, and how these forms have changed over the last century to appeal to women, and ultimately send messages about how women should behave and what they should aim for in their lives and relationships. Bolin explains that when she was younger, she was obsessed with magazines, and these provided her with a kind of cultural awareness and capital that may have been missing in her town when she was growing up. However, she notes that her obsession grew to a point where it impacted her ability to attend class. It is another fascinating deep dive into a form of media that, although has lessened over the past 20 years, still remains popular, even if most of the content has migrated online. “The Rabbit Hole” examines the legacy of Playboy magazine and Hugh Heffner. Bolin explains her interest stemming from Heffner’s reality show about his multiple girlfriends, and how this “reality” show was really a kind of coercive performance to maintain his relevance to a digital world. This was a fascinating look at how Heffner shaped the style and substance of men’s magazines in the 50s and 60s, but also used his power and position to deflect many of the horrible things he did. Like other male subjects Bolin questions their accountability, she examines the ways that Heffner claims to be a feminist, one who empowers women and offers them opportunities that they may have never had, but is seemingly not much different from people like Bill Cosby, Keith Raniere, or even President Trump with his recent claims as being the protector of women. These final essays were the among the most powerful in the book, and I couldn’t put them down easily. These would also make excellent essays to teach in a writing class as they would stimulate much discussion and consideration about the arguments that Bolin raises. Furthermore, I think they would make students question the media they consume, as well as the messages that are often implicit in the medium. I would hope that in reading these essays, students would be more conscious and conscientious about what they consume online and in print.
Overall this was an excellent collection, and it’s made me want to seek out Bolin’s other book about how the media portrays women. Bolin is not just a talented writer, but an amazing cultural analyst and critic, who easily swerves from personal experience to social issues and their implications in popular media. I loved how she shifted seamlessly from micro to macro analysis, closely examining minor details to further analyze how these issues are relevant to others and what they mean for society. I highly recommend these essays, whether you enjoy reading or are a teacher who is looking for some excellent reading to challenge your students’ assumptions and have them rethink their ideas and the media they consume.

I was originally excited about this book because I’ve loved similar books, like Cultish by Amanda Montell. But whew… This might be my least favorite book of the year so far. These were some of the most rambling essays I’ve read in a long time. So much so that it was often difficult to trace the author’s thoughts back to the overall theme. It was so unfocused that even when I was interested in the topic, I couldn’t keep my head in the book.

Reading this gave me a whole new outlook on so may things from my past. It's so smartly done, I feel like I learned things about topics I previously felt so knowledgeable on.

This kind of essay collection is catnip for me, covering a wide swath of Internet-age media, events, politics, and social movements from a feminist, anti-capitalist lens. The first essay, "The Enumerated Woman," breaks down the ways tracking our data and using apps to compile statistics flattens our lives and robs people, especially women, of agency. Bolin covers cultural fascinations like documentaries of Fyre Festival and WeWork, cults, millennial nostalgia, Sex and the City and Star Trek, Animal Crossing and capitalism, and the gross heroificiation of Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Mansion. If these topics sound disjointed, they are, a bit. Still, this is a thought-provoking collection of essays that millennials will especially resonate with. I would recommend it for those who liked Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror.

DNF @ 49%

This felt like a book that could not decide, in terms of focus and tone, what it wanted to be. Critical or allowing concessions? Personal or academic? Not saying there aren’t great collections that do all four, but this was not it, and I tired of pulling threads of narratives that were not paying off.