People born during a dip in the birth rate grow up consuming a lot of culture that's aimed at someone older than them. People born during a boom do not do cultural apprenticeship, because everything is quickly aimed at them; they watch the things that appeal to their age group bloom and succeed, whether anyone else is interested in it or not. This is why some Americans have spent decades clutching their heads as the Baby Boom generation makes big chunks of our world revolve around itself: Large cohorts have a large gravitational pull.

‘One good indicator of this norm’s normalness? The main criticism you hear about this kind of record—even outweighing references to Starbucks and/or the bourgeoisie—is that it is just too dull to even bother producing any more complex indictment of it. These acts, intentionally or not, have won; they’ve taken a lower-sales, lower-budget version of the type of trip Sting once took, from a post-punk upstart to an adult staple.’

"You can try to know, and own the fact that there are things you do not know, or you can be knowing, and hide your own ignorance with sideways shots of been-there done-that familiarity. You can understand that shit happens and try your best to keep things together and accomplish something against all odds — YOU CAN DANCE, as this album begins — or you can blow up the hospital just to show everyone that at any moment anywhere, a hospital can blow up for no fucking reason whatsoever."

Why privacy persists. "Along with new visibilities comes social understanding of those new visibilities." "If the end of privacy comes about, it's because we misunderstand the current changes as the end of privacy, and make the mistake of encoding this misunderstanding into technology. It's not the end of privacy because of these new visibilities, but it may be the end of privacy because it looks like the end of privacy because of these new visibilities."