Date: July 6th, 2026 7:15 PM Author: avocado aromatic stage
the US was SO much whiter in the 90s. an obvious thing to say but it still feels understated somehow. the anxiety and paranoia around globalism was there, but the point hadn't really landed home yet.
In the 90s we had the real, present experience of a totalizing white monoculture. It is not remotely an exaggeration to say that even the bready crust of Pizza Hut tasted better in a social milieu that didn't feel atomized. Now that nothing remains of that monoculture but nostalgiaslop--literally, nothing--we can experience keenly just how powerful the emanation of whiteness was. It elevated even the most quotidian experience into true cultural practice with which we were all en rapport. The whole country was our home, and our neighbors extended family. The psychological experience of that, the safety of that, will never be produced in the West ever again. Ever. We are in the process of negotiating what a 'diverse' pattern of shards of idioculture crammed into the same physical boundaries looks like, and basically it's just Iryna Zarutska being stabbed forever.