If San Francisco is the center of the AI boom, then the city's hacker house ecosystem is the heart. These homes and their residents are ambitious, goofy, confoundingly earnest—and key to understanding the ethos of the AI boom. I lived in a hacker house for a week and recount it in The Atlantic:

Understanding the case for openmindedness about AI and art took me from Berlin to Venice, from a nightclub to a hypnosis booth to an "upside-down parliament." Here's my profile of Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, the art world's most compelling anti-doomers— www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

You will never, ever guess who said this: “I’ve faced a lot of adversity. Probably more than any person to ever play a record or become a musician.”

Cowabunga! I recently experienced time travel by visiting Vanilla Ice in Palm Beach to chat about America's 250th www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Vanilla Ice's American dream — excellent from @skornhaber.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Olivia Rodrigo’s biggest asset is her ferocity—and her new album, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” doubles down on those big, messy feelings, @skornhaber.bsky.social writes.

From the fabulous Venice Biennale, a report about artslop wall text becoming propaganda for the Trump admin and other pariah states: www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

The Alma Allen exhibit at the Venice Biennale -- an example of what @skornhaber.bsky.social calls "pariah-state minimalism" -- barely leaves an impression at all: www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Love this piece by @skornhaber.bsky.social about algorithmically mediated culture, authenticity, the dumb (but not so dumb) Geese “psyop” kerfuffle, the confusing melange of signals we all must push ourselves through as a CONSEQUENCE of existing in this TWISTED tech-perverted world

"Michael" is a really interesting movie! In the bad way! www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Worked through many layers of feeling about Bieber giving this soul-drained and shut-in culture the concert we deserve www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Ye wants a place back in the mainstream—but forgiveness is the wrong concept to apply to his situation, Spencer Kornhaber argues.

Personality reset incoming... (hail Neurosis!) www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

The horseshoe theory of the new homophobia—how looksmaxxers, Shia LaBeouf, that bad Wired cover, and other phenomena of late show America is turning on (but also want to be?) the gays. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

This is a remarkable synthesis of our current cultural moment:

Happy Robyn day! Stomp around to "Really Real" and have a fabulous midlife crisis! www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

Wrote about rooting for Yasmin and then getting to... that... finale of HBO's Industry — www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Though I'm glad to live in the world of Charli XCX, I'm getting pretty tired of "worldbuilding" as an artform. My take on The Moment, Wuthering Heights, and our culture's ongoing drought of masterpieces: www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

This is a great piece by my colleague spencer on the bad bunny helftimeshow but of course there’s never been a more divisive idea in American history than all of us being American, we fought a civil war over it and Trump is nothing if not manifest opposition to it www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

You can call Bad Bunny's halftime show many things—fun, meaningful, staggeringly detailed, wholesomely hot, surprisingly Gagatastic—but not divisive. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show was a blast, writes @skornhaber.bsky.social—“a precisely detailed, relentlessly stimulating medley rooted in the good-old-fashioned pleasure principle”:

At the Grammys, Bad Bunny asserted an obvious truth that somehow has become controversial: People like him are American, @skornhaber.bsky.social writes:

The Boss has pierced my shell with this time warp of a protest song for a time-warp kind of crisis. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

@skornhaber.bsky.social: “The president’s aesthetics are wackily fascist—but American culture, for now, remains peskily democratic.”

Nicki Minaj's MAGAfication made me write about Trump's fake golden age of cringe fascism vs. our actual cultural age of anarchy and debate and exhaustion. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

What kind of music geek doesn't have a snobby side? I profiled Zane Lowe, the relentlessly positive pop-star interviewer—and learned a lot about the new music promotional economy, where the lessons of "Almost Famous" have been totally inverted. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

How did a Gen X DJ and former rapper from New Zealand become the record industry’s favorite influencer? @skornhaber.bsky.social explores:

In “West End Girl,” Lily Allen’s “deadpan delivery and gliding melodies land the plot twists crisply; the beats melt dancehall and soul elements into a drooping, numbed dreamscape,” @skornhaber.bsky.social writes. See his top 10 albums of 2025: theatln.tc/SunxPyd7

My favorite albums of this headphones-on year— 10. Model/Actriz 9. Clipse 8. Ryan Davis + the RH Band 7. Anna von Hausswolff 6. .... Lily... Allen... 5. Dijon 4. Geese 3. Rosalía 2. Oklou! 1. Ninajirachi - I LOVE MY COMPUTER!!! ✨✨💖💻💽🎧🛜🖱️💖✨✨ www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

Wrote about the theology, the awe, and the compromises of Rosalía's Lux in the context of this Christiancore cultural moment— www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

I had to make a foray into fashion writing because I could not stop thinking about the fashion diapers all the celebs are wearing!!! www.theatlantic.com/family/2025/...

Chatted about criticism with Kai Ryssdal! Is the next Roger Ebert on TikTok? www.marketplace.org/story/2025/1...

Don't let anyone tell you cultural criticism is dead. But someone does have to pay for it. I toured through the commentary circuit on TikTok, Letterboxd, and other places where the rules of criticism are changing in inspiring ... and depressing ... ways— www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

"Traditional" cultural criticism feels like a dying art, Will Gottsegen writes in The Atlantic Daily. He talks with Spencer Kornhaber about where the medium goes from here:

Like everything else, professional arts criticism has been under attack this year, and Spencer Kornhaber reported a really great piece on what might be taking its place: www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

Taylor Swift’s new chart topper is an achievement of e-commerce, not music, argues @skornhaber.bsky.social:

I am just baffled. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

Reminder: People still do cool shit! (I wrote about getting my skull smashed by this Geese album.) www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

“Swift has pulled off something that’s never quite been done before. The closest comparison might be to show tunes—but for a one-woman play that’s gone 19 years without a curtain call.” @skornhaber.bsky.social

"We all see where this is going, correct?" www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

@skornhaber.bsky.social: “If we are, as is frequently said, living in an era of extraordinary political violence, it cannot be understood as separate from the rising cultural hunger to reach out and touch—or do much worse to—the people on our screens.”

For the magazine, here's my grand theory of Taylor Swift—why her music works, how she's made pop new, and where she might go next. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Long live indie rock!!! Loved taking a tour back through the twee 2000s with @chrisdeville's new book— www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

The summer of headphones-on, lala it's not happening, it's-all-I-can-take easy listening (thank you Bieber) — www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

Wrote about Ozzy Osbourne's antipathy for the devil— www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

Even as Diddy and his supporters celebrate his partial acquittal, the disturbing implications of his case grow, writes @skornhaber.bsky.social: https://theatln.tc/Ntp6gKsJ

@skornhaber.bsky.social: “The conversation about the case isn’t likely to focus on technical matters for very long. Popular culture loves martyrs; it loves comeback stories; frankly, it loves men.”

Has the internet sucked all the fun out of the physical world, or has it merely concentrated it in Washington Square Park? @skornhaber.bsky.social on Lorde: www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

Yes to the yuck, yes the noise, hell yes to "Shapeshifter," but I fear we need to start moving on from memoir pop. Lorde 'Virgin' review— www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

"Down to Be Wrong"—feels so right! (I think the Haim album's pretty good) www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...