Menu
Idea

consumer culture

319
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 241–270 of 319 results. Go to first page
A drawing of two speakers resting on clouds and sending colorful soundwaves through the air.

Bluetooth Speakers Are Ruining Music

You have two ears for a reason.
by Michael J. Owens via The Atlantic on February 5, 2025
Gov. Ronald Reagan confronted student protesters in Sacramento weeks before dismissing “intellectual luxuries.”

The Day the Purpose of College Changed

After February 28, 1967, the main reason to go was to get a job.
by Dan Berrett via The Chronicle of Higher Education on January 26, 2025
Meme of white Gen X voters in their ironic cynicism.

We Care a Lot: White Gen Xers and Political Nihilism

Since the 2024 election, liberals, progressives, and the left has been wringing our collective hands over why Trump won yet again.
by Mindy Clegg via 3 Quarks Daily on December 20, 2024

How Jukeboxes Made Memphis Music

When R.E. Buster Williams ruled jukeboxes and jukeboxes ruled music.
by Robert Gordon via Oxford American on December 10, 2024
A boarded-up food center.

The Great Grocery Squeeze

How a federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert.
by Stacy Mitchell via The Atlantic on December 1, 2024
Richard Pryor.

Understanding Richard Pryor's Use of the N-Word

Pryor's use of the word represented something valiant.
by Mark Anthony Neal via NewBlackMan (in Exile) on December 1, 2024
A still of Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan overlaid on the seal of the United States.

The Thin Line Between Biopic and Propaganda

The success of “Reagan” reflects the market demands of a more fragmented moviegoing public—and reality.
by Zach Schonfeld via The Atlantic on November 18, 2024
1937 ad showing three women in underwear.

From Torpedo Bras to Whale Tails: A Brief History of Women’s Underwear

The popular reception of thongs, bras, boy shorts and other intimate items.
by Nina Edwards via Literary Hub on October 24, 2024
Dole pineapple cookbook featuring a pineapple upside down cake and a can of Dole sliced pineapple.

American Food Traditions That Started as Marketing Ploys

Your grandma didn't invent that recipe.
by Diana Hubbell via Atlas Obscura on September 30, 2024
Reflections in a store window of people watching the 9/11 attack on television.

The World That September 11 Made

Richard Beck’s “Homeland” traces the far-reaching aftereffects of the attacks and tries to recover the events of the day, as they happened.
by Ed Burmila via The New Republic on September 9, 2024
Funeral home.

Purple Coffins: Death Care and Life Extension in 20th Century American South

How deathly rituals affect our perception of personal dignity.
by Kristine M. McCusker via Circulating Now on September 5, 2024
Bookstore

Are Bookstores Just a Waste of Space?

In the online era, brick-and-mortar book retailers have been forced to redefine themselves.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on August 19, 2024
A handheld calculator.

From Segments To Pixels

Handheld calculators saw a massive amount of innovation in the 1970s—thanks in no small part to LCD screens and a primitive form of typography.
by Ernie Smith via Tedium on August 18, 2024
Factory cloth samples.

Chinese Production, American Consumption

The convergence of economy and politics in the Sino-US relationship via Jonathan Chatwin’s “The Southern Tour” and Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson’s “Made in China.”
by Kate Merkel-Hess via Los Angeles Review of Books on July 28, 2024
A drawing of a crowd watching a baseball game in 1886.

Before ‘Fans,’ There Were ‘Kranks,’ ‘Longhairs,’ and ‘Lions’

How do fandoms gain their names?
by Elizabeth Minkel via Atlas Obscura on May 30, 2024
Margaret Mead and Joe Rogan.

Turn on, Tune in, Write Code

How psychedelics went from counterculture to grind culture.
by Geoff Shullenberger via The New Atlantis on April 12, 2024
A painting of a farmer holding a hoe behind his back in an open field.

Eyes on the Farm Bill!

Congress’s periodic battles over the Farm Bill often pass unnoticed, but the document effectively determines what, how, and how much we eat.
by Christopher Bosso via New York Review of Books on March 10, 2024
The cover of "The Deadline" by Jill Lepore.

The Hold of the Dead Over the Living

A conversation with Jill Lepore about the past decade — “a time that felt like a time, felt like history.”
by Jill Lepore, Julien Crockett via Los Angeles Review of Books on January 2, 2024
AR-15 trigger, with banner of AR-15 on Confederate monument behind

How the AR-15 Became an American Brand

The rifle is a consumer product to which advertisers successfully attached an identity—one that has translated to a particularly intractable politics.
by Emily Witt via The New Yorker on September 27, 2023
"Spy vs. Spy" pointy-headed characters facing each other

Rethinking Spy vs. Spy: A Hand From One Page, A Bomb From Another

Like the spies themselves, the image we have of something is often what gets us in trouble.
by Gyasi Hall via Longreads on September 12, 2023
The WalMart Supercenter sign glowing over shopping carts in a deserted parking lot at night.

Charting the Murky Prehistory of the Retail Supercenter

Walmart did not invent or import the idea. In fact, it was among the last of the discount department stores to experiment with the concept.
by Addision del Mastro via The Bulwark on March 2, 2023

Fountain Society

The humble drinking fountain can tell us much about a society’s attitudes towards health, hygiene, equity, virtue, public goods and civic responsibilities.
by Shannon Mattern via Places Journal on February 14, 2023
Fall/Winter 1957 Sears catalog page spread of men's work clothes.

Before Folding 30 Years Ago, the Sears Catalog Sold Some Surprising Products

The retail giant’s mail-order business reigned supreme for more than a century, offering everything from quack cures to ready-to-build homes.
by Leo DeLuca via Smithsonian Magazine on January 26, 2023
Cover of The Silver Palate Cookbook

‘The Silver Palate Cookbook’ Changed Home Cooking (and Pesto Consumption) As We Know It

Published in 1982, 'The Silver Palate Cookbook' taught a generation of American cooks to trust in bold flavors, fresh herbs, and the joys of improvisation.
by Aimee Levitt via Eater on December 7, 2022
Cartoon of several Chinese-Americans holding a sign that says, "Chinatown is Not For Sale"

Dynasty Center: Exclusion and Displacement in Los Angeles’s Chinatown

The original Los Angeles Chinatown, now known as “Old Chinatown,” developed in the 1860s.
by Jean Young via Folklife on October 24, 2022
Shoppers in the indoor mall at the 1000 block of North Nogales Avenue

What Asian Immigrants, Seeking the American Dream, Found in Southern California Suburbs

How new arrivals remade the east San Gabriel Valley — and assimilated in it.
by James Zarsadiaz via Los Angeles Times on October 17, 2022
Mark Wallinger's "Self-Portrait," a painting showing black dripping paint in the silhouette of an unfurled scroll on a grey background

The Illusion of the First Person

The personal essay is the purest expression of the lie that individual subjectivity exists prior to the social formations that gave rise to it.
by Merve Emre via New York Review of Books on October 11, 2022
1928 painting of a girl getting baptized in a pool, surrounded by a crowd on a farm.

Trouble in River City

Two recent books examine the idea of the Midwest as a haven for white supremacy and patriarchy.
by Caroline Fraser via New York Review of Books on September 29, 2022
Illustration of a 1950s woman surrounded by orange flames, pink background

Reading Betty Friedan After the Fall of Roe

The problem no longer has no name, and yet we refuse to solve it.
by Tis Lyz via Men Yell At Me on September 21, 2022
Picture of a calculator and a shopping basket of fresh produce.

What Online Inflation Calculators Can—and Can't—Tell Us About the Past

Most of these tools are based on the Consumer Price Index, a measure of changing prices in the U.S. over time
by Sarah Kuta via Smithsonian Magazine on August 15, 2022
View More
30 of
319

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History