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W. David Marx
@wdavidmarx
Author of 21st c. cultural history Blank Space (Nov 18, 2025) plus Ametora (2015) / Status and Culture (2022). Newsletter at culture.ghost.io.
Tokyo, Japan
culture.ghost.io
Joined May 2008
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    Nov 17, 2025
    I am the author of three books on culture: • Blank Space, a cultural history of the 21st century • Status and Culture, an explanation of the universal principles behind how culture forms and why it changes • Ametora, a cultural history of American menswear in Japan
    31K
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    May 27, 2024
    HBO Girls doesn't feel *that* dated until this guy shows up
    261K
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    Feb 10, 2023
    Cool new trend in Japan is to wear vintage sweatshirts from summer camps for Orthodox Jewish girls in upstate New York. Here's Camp Spatt
    690K
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    May 3, 2024
    The 1999 film "Go" is not great cinema, due to its obvious ersatz Tarantino quality (i.e. monologues on pop culture, interweaving stories, dry humor about death/injury) BUT it's an interesting historical relic that reveals a few major turning points in culture...
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    Jul 13, 2025
    The timespan between Television's Marquee Moon and The Strokes's Is This It is the same as the timespan between Is This It and the present
    466K
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    Feb 9, 2022
    How A Single Bad Drug Trip Led to Japanese Technopop 🧵 In the early 1970s, bassist Haruomi Hosono of the band Happy End was jamming with his friends at a Tokyo studio, when someone passed around a joint. Hosono thought it would be very cool to take a double-sized hit.
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    May 19, 2019
    Japanese couples out on the town in 1974, some in "pair look" (aka "twinning"). #japanesefashion
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    Dec 8, 2022
    Copper facade, Toranomon, Tokyo
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    Sep 18, 2025
    First-ever all-English issue of Popeye. This took some time
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    POPEYE
    @POPEYE_Magazine
    Sep 18, 2025
    POPEYEの東京ガイドブック・英語版「Hello, Tokyo」、本日発売！　 この本は2018年から2025年までのPOPEYEの東京特集の記事を再編集し、全編を英語に翻訳しています。
    147K
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    Dec 9, 2023
    Once upon a time, there was an incredible bar near Ueno called Once Upon a Time, housed inside of a rare Meiji-era brick warehouse. The landowner long wanted to tear it down, and he finally got his wish this year.
    554K
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    May 29, 2025
    Incredible discipline by the author in not mentioning my book once in an entire article that just plunders it
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    Proper Magazine
    @ProperMag
    May 29, 2025
    The story of how Japan became one of the biggest markets for Americana is wild, and it began all the way back in 1920... Here's: Understanding Ametora - Japan's Americana obsession propermag.com/?p=106642
    96K
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    Apr 22, 2024
    New York streetwear shopping map from late 2001
    109K
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    Mar 18, 2018
    1980s "Pair Look" in Japan
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    W. David Marx
    @wdavidmarx
    Jan 3, 2023
    Vivienne Westwood had (at least) two extremely consequential influences on Japanese fashion: (1) Masayuki Yamazaki's shop Cream Soda (which turned Harajuku into a youth fashion neighborhood) took its core ideas from Westwood and McLaren's shop Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die
    128K