Maker culture has gained a lot of ground in the last few years. Maybe too much, in fact. We can of course ignore those people who are only, as always, surfing the current wave of hype. They seldom have any clue of the ideas they are selling themselves with anyway. But it also feels as though everybody else is talking about maker culture. Those words are even being uttered by people who have always been opposed to what they should mean. Or is it me? Did I get it wrong all the way?
Repair Culture: Learning to Fix Instead of Replace – Wayfinders Now – Living small to gain abundance.
Repair culture is the growing mindset of choosing to fix what’s broken instead of immediately replacing it. It challenges a habit that has become almost automatic in modern life: when something stops working, we discard it. A new phone, a new appliance, a new chair, a new everything. Repair culture asks a quieter question: What […]
Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record (2026)
DOWNLOAD THE FREE EBOOK: PDFEPUBPURCHASE A PRINT COPY: Buy the book from Better World Books or any online bookstore.Order a copy through your local bookstore!LISTEN TO THE PODCAST (Release dates: July 1 - August 5, 2026): Vanishing Culture Episode #1: What We Stand to Lose with Luca MessarraVanishing Culture Episode #2: The Stories Hidden in Cookbooks with Katie LivingstonVanishing Culture Episode #3: Saving Queer Memory with Brooke PalmieriVanishing Culture Episdoe #4: Keeping African Folktales Alive with Helen Nde & Laura GibbsVanishing Culture Episode #5: A Language Worth Saving with Peter ScholingVanishing Culture Episode #6: What We've Learned with Vida Vojić & Alice BridgwoodABOUT VANISHING CULTURE: In today’s digital landscape, corporate interests, shifting distribution models, and malicious cyber attacks are threatening public access to our shared cultural history. The rise of streaming platforms and temporary licensing agreements means that sound recordings, books, films, and other cultural artifacts that used to be owned in physical form, are now at risk—in digital form—of disappearing from public view without ever being archived. Web sites like MTV News, Gawker, and others are removed from the live web by their corporate owners, leaving only web archives like those in the Wayback Machine as the last remaining public record of their reporting and cultural impact. Cyber attacks, like those against the Internet Archive, British Library, Seattle Public Library, Toronto Public Library and Calgary Public Library, are a new form of digital barrier, impeding access to information at community scale. When digital materials are vulnerable to sudden removal—whether by design or by attack—our collective memory is compromised, and the public's ability to access its own history is at risk. Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record aims to raise awareness of these growing issues, featuring essays from: Digital librarian Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive; Humanities scholar Luca Messarra; Book historian and social media star Allie Alvis; Game designer Jordan Mechner; Journalist Philip Bump; Writer and editor Maria Bustillos; Film archivist Rick Prelinger; Digital humanities scholar Nichole Misako Nomura; Writer and book artist Eve Scarborough; And many more… The report details recent instances of cultural loss, highlights the underlying causes, and emphasizes the critical role that public-serving libraries and archives must play in preserving these materials for future generations. By empowering libraries and archives legally, culturally, and financially, we can safeguard the public’s ability to maintain access to our cultural history and our digital future.
AI-induced cultural stagnation is here - Fast Company
AI-mediated culture is already being filtered in ways that favor the familiar, the describable, and the conventional.
Can we fix it? The repair cafes waging war on throwaway culture
When fixing items is actively discouraged by manufacturers, recycling becomes a political act, say Repair Cafe volunteers
Sustainability is not enough: we need regenerative cultures
By Daniel C. Wahl
Fabrics of Africa: 40+ Fabrics That Weave Culture, Color, and Heritage of Africa - Kenyalogue
Africa’s vibrant story isn’t written only in words—it’s woven, dyed, stamped, and embroidered into cloth. From the sun-soaked looms of Ghana to the hand-pounded bark cloths of Uganda and the geometric raffia of the Congo, African fabrics carry the colors, symbols, and spirit of their people. “Fabrics of Africa” is a curated journey through the...
Our Overfitted Century
Cultural stagnation is because we're stuck in-distribution
Happy, those able to know the causes of things
[This is a guest post by Nestor Guillen, crossposted from his blog. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] Keywords: LLMs, cultural tech…
“Colonial AI”: African Countries Seek Tech Sovereignty But Fear a New Digital Colonialism
Seydina Moussa Ndiaye is a member of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, working on a strategy with the African Union to address the risks and benefits of AI for the continent. African countries face the threat of “colonial AI,” says Ndiaye. “When we talk about colonialism historically, that involves the control of resources, the control of knowledge and the control of terms of exchange, and we see that in Africa when we talk about AI.”
Building a Culture of (Digital) Safety
Black culture is in a lot of ways synonymous with how internet culture exists writ large. From what is now described as “Gen-Z slang” (or as Black people have always known it, AAVE) to our methods of organizing (Black feminists starting hashtag activism and creating movements like #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, and #SayHerName) and even how we […]
Incels Won the Culture War
Looksmaxxing. Redpilled. Sigma. Mogging. Cope. Seethe. Malding. Goyslop. Gooning. Memes from image boards became cultural foundation for Generation Alpha. …
