Nobrow : The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of Culture

John Seabrook, The New Yorker's "Buzz Studies" writer, deftly conveys the hubbub of modern pop culture, the blending of highbrow and lowbrow tastes, into a new sensibility he dubs "Nobrow." In Nobrowland, nobody can sell out, because art and commerce have fused like colliding electrons. America used to be split between "stark intellectuality and the plane of stark business," but now, as Puff Daddy observes, "It's all about the Benjamins [$100 bills]." It's not just that an Oxford-bred guy like Seabrook is a connoisseur of Biggie Smalls, it's that everyone, high and low, wants to feel part of the Buzz, to soak up the power of celebrity success. Puffy's rap hit constitutes "merchandising, advertising, salary-boasting, and art all at once," says Seabrook. Nowadays, "commercial culture has to do the work that both high and folk culture used to do--not only enlighten and teach but bond families and communities."

Nobrow is itself a work of Nobrow art, shape-shifting like a Beck tune: it's art appreciation, memoir, social history, high-altitude academic theory, and shoe-leather reporting all at once. Seabrook captures world-historical figures in action: George Lucas, MTV's Judy McGrath, music exec Danny "Nirvana" Goldberg, and kabillionaire David Geffen, who helped bring you Tom Cruise and DreamWorks. The big book on Geffen may be The Operator, but Seabrook can nail him in a phrase: "The boredom in his eyes, which seemed on the verge of spilling over into other parts of his face, was held in check by his lively eyebrows." And no one has outdone Seabrook's jaunty account of his elite magazine's Nobrowification by Tina Brown, who established "a hierarchy of hotness."

Seabrook doesn't score on every shot, but it's fun to watch him play. He's like a kid brother to his cult idol, George W.S. Trow, author of the prescient 1978 classic Within the Context of No Context. If Eustace Tilley, The New Yorker's famous monocled snob icon, got zonked on "chronic bubonic" pot and gangsta rap, he might have written this dizzy yet erudite book. Indeed, one might not be altogether amiss in calling it "da bomb." --Tim Appelo, Amazon

...Seabrook is at his best in dryly sending up the artificiality and arbitrariness of life in the culture ministries. --- The New York Times Book Review, Alexander Star

Geheimtipp! Der Untertitel erklärt es: "The culture of marketing - the marketing of culture". John Seabrock, Reporter beim "New Yorker", analysiert, wie die Kulturlandschaft sich verändert: Aus highbrow wird nobrow. --- Tagesspiegel (Berlin)

Welcome to nobrow, the new culture zone in America. High brow and low brow are gone along with high culture and low culture.
Nobrow is a megamall, megabucks emporium where everything is hot, fresh and new. And nothing lasts. Culture is marketing, marketing is culture and youth culture rules.

Nobrow is Elton John singing "Candle in the Wind" at Princess Di's funeral and making a hit record out of it later.
Nobrow is the MTV awards at the Metropolitan Opera. It's a BMW commercial set to hip hop.


Nobrow is the New Yorker magazine guest edited by Roseanne Barr.
Las Vegas is the capital of "Nobrow Nation" and Times Square is its Eiffel tower. What's different in Nobrow Nation is that the old arbiters of taste and style are gone and with them the only real class distinctions America ever had.

The culture wars now are the fights over market share. Nobrow - in the first hour of the Connection. --- The Connection


About the author


John Seabrook is a staff technology writer for The New Yorker whose books include "Deeper; My Two Year Odyssey in Cyberspace," and "Deeper: My Adventures on the Net." His articles have appeared in Vanity Fair, Harper's, and The Nation. He lives in New York City.