Blank Space is a sharp, absorbing diagnosis of why our culture feels stuck on repeat—and why it matters. W. David Marx unpacks the last 25 years with clarity and wit, showing how profit-driven algorithms, nostalgia loops, and influencer capitalism have flattened once-thriving creative landscapes. Like a cultural detective, he draws connections between everything from K-pop to crypto, Beyoncé to business bros, revealing the deeper forces shaping our aesthetics and values. As someone who’s long felt the eerie sameness of our current moment, I found this book both validating and galvanizing. It’s a must-read for anyone who’s tired of reboots and ready to imagine something new.

This book looks at the first twenty-five years of the 21st century and posits that culture has become monotonous, recycled and money driven. I cam of age in the 1990's and am one of those obnoxious people that venerates the culture of the time. The music was better, the movies were better and the social media was non-existent. In other words, I enjoyed this book greatly. Each part covers a different era of the past quarter century and demonstrates the slow movement towards money centered entertainment and away from high culture. Even when jumping from example to example, I thought this book well. done. I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

4.5 ⭐️🤘🏻

“Over the past twenty-five years, culture has prospered as a vehicle for entertainment, politics, and profiteering—but at the expense of pure artistic innovation.”

“…we can feel what’s missing—there is a conspicuous blank space where art and creativity used to be.”

This was an incredibly insightful read that I finished in one day! The author takes a look at the “blank space” culturally speaking that we’ve seen in the past 25 years. If you’ve ever wondered how the 2000s and beyond will be remembered, it’s all referenced in this book and I gotta tell you. I’m embarrassed. It’s forgettable and a bit sad compared to previous generations.

Common themes include: Kanye, Kardashians and Trump. Not much to be proud of here. The author does an excellent job citing pop culture, music, movie and political references and gives five steps for rebuilding our cultural innovation at the ends. This is a worth the read!

Blank Space does what I didn't think was possible: to put together a cohesive view of early 2000s culture. Blank space refers to Marx's argument that this is how we should consider these decades of the 21st century. By trying to outdo ourselves creatively, aesthetically, and psychologically, we have created a meaningless, unstructured, undefinable mess. Culture is not easy to describe because we have chosen to neglect it. This is a bit of a postmodern explanation, but Marx argues that it's the only one that works. Postmodernism it seems succumbs to itself.
I get the sense that Marx could be read alongside some other works about recent political history, that ultimate argue somewhat similar lines of thinking: fracture, fault lines, tipping points, breakdown- these buzzwords are all over in historiography of our recent decades. Marx does for cultural history what those historians do for political history. There's a sense of anomie (Durkheim) here that is implicit in Marx's analysis, which would make for some great further study and theoretical writing. The book begins after 9/11 and moves to current day. Perhaps a little too current in some respects- for when does history begin, and when does cultural analysis become harder to do? Regardless, this is a book in which readers will find a connection to, and perhaps meaning in.

Broken up into four sections of time from 2001-2025, Marx recounts the large cultural moments from the 21st century and their impact on culture, or, lack thereof. I agree with the general premise of the book, which critiques our overreliance on recycling past culture to create what serves as our current culture. This serves as a good companion to Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer.

It is mentally painful to realize that 25% of the 21st century is almost complete. What is even more painful is Marx’s thesis, that while there are more cultural products produced and available to audiences (and don’t forget the audiences are now producing their own products), nothing is memorable, leaving a “blank space” where innovation, creativity, auteurs, and just anything different is just… gone. There is plenty of culture out there to consume, from neverending TikToks to an endless supply of ‘romantasy’ novels, and countless iterations of the same reality television programs. Take a minute to think: what culture of the 21st century is something completely new, interesting, fresh? Has there been any cultural earthquake in the 21st century, such as the films of the 1970s, the rap of the 1980s, the non-objective art of the 1950s?

Today, why should anyone try to produce any transgressive art when money can be earned by doing something that has been proven profitable? Why create something if you can’t profit? No one worries about “selling out” anymore because that concept is dead. Remember when movie stars had to go to Japan to film commercials?

Marx suggests five ideologies that created this cultural blank space of the 21st century, which are, briefly:
Omnivorism: all cultural products are an even ground with each other, there is no more high or low culture, everything is relevant.
Poptimism: Popularity is the judge of a cultural item’s quality.
Entrepreneurial Heroism: The hustle is equivalent to artistic brilliance.
Counter-Counterculture: The backlash against liberal ideas and weaponization of “cool”.
Digital Norm Evasion: Using technology to bypass social mores.

After presenting these ideologies, Marx spends the bulk of the book providing many, many examples. At times the number of cultural, political, and social events is overwhelming until you realize: all this happened in the past 25 years. It is A LOT. A brief sampling of things discussed include: Vice magazine, raunch culture, the last gasps of the NYC downtown scene, musical mashups, hip-hop clothing lines, Kanye, Kim Kardashian, Kimye, Pitchfork Media, Paris Hilton, the iPod, the movement of blogging to social media, Millennials, rabid fandom, NFT art, Taylor Swift, musicians doing anniversary shows where they replay an entire album, Instagram, and… again, A LOT more. He then closes with some recommendations on filling the “blank space” - of which the most intriguing is “Don’t Give the People What They Want.”

While a dense book, it could be an interesting choice for a graduate seminar on cultural production or internet culture since most of what is discussed did start on the internet. At times I was overwhelmed by reading about so much of the past 25 years, I just had to put it aside and listen to some 80s college rock on CDs, put time limits on social media apps, and pull out an indie movie from the 90s.

Ultimately, this book is recommended for a distinctive, thoughtful audience – which, perhaps, is precisely Marx’s unspoken goal. Perhaps pair it with readings from Dwight Macdonald’s Masscult & Midcult?

(Thanks to Viking Penguin and Netgalley for the digital review copy.)

Blank Space by W. David Marx is not a light read or for someone only mildly interested in a fairly comprehensive collection of the culture of the last 25 years. The author admits the book covers mostly American culture but there are some interesting global tidbits I learned about. You have to laugh at the realization we're living in the least creative and innovative time in history. Everything is capitalism--not only because we're allowing it, but because we're welcoming it.

Kurt Cobain is out there somewhere super pissed that 14-year-olds are wearing his face on a t-shirt.

Thank you to the publisher and NG!