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How artificial intelligence is reshaping the entire music industry, from music creation to streaming platforms: challenges, opportunities and limitations

Artificial Intelligence, Musique,
©Etta Mae Hartwell’s artist page on Spotify

If you arrive on Etta Mae Hartwell’s page on Spotify and listen to a few songs, you have every reason to believe she is a talented living young artist. In her description, it says she sings her own stories with emotion and resilience. Some songs even have the label « (Live Session) ». But when you dig just a little deeper, you notice that the names of her songs are very cheesy and basic and all her works — 5 albums and a single — are from 2025. Impossible you will tell me? Indeed… for a human being. 

In fact, Etta Mae Hartwell is an AI generated artist, like there are thousands on Spotify. If you use the platform, you probably listen to AI generated artists every day without even knowing it. And that is problematic.

Generative AI is impacting artists and the music industry harder than we might think, and it is urgent to act to keep pace with innovation in terms of information, protection and regulation. 

An incredible revolution, making the music listening experience simpler

Artificial intelligence offers music platforms users unprecedented personalization possibilities. Algorithms analyze every song users listen to — the tempo, the mood, the genre, the frequency it is listened to, etc. — to suggest songs they might like or offer them personalized playlists, such as « Discover Weekly » or « Release Radar » on Spotify. They are like Virtual DJs that adapt the selection to the listener’s tastes, making the experience effortless, smoother and allowing them to easily discover artists that match their tastes. Although this seems great at first, these algorithms enclose people in their existing tastes and habits and do not encourage broader discovery and exploration, creating a « musical bubble » from which it is hard to escape. 

The emergence of these algorithms is explained by music platforms’ business model and the fact that they seek profit through streams and duration of listening with advertisement and paid subscriptions.

Important impacts on music-related professions

Algorithms have allowed smaller artists to reach a new audience, but this comes with a great risk of dependence on the algorithm: artists must please it to be visible and thus find new listeners or keep theirs. They often have to make sacrifices to survive and feel limited, since it leaves them less room for creativity and experimentation. We are therefore witnessing a standardization of the format of tracks posted on streaming platforms, with notably shorter songs and intros. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, artists outside the sphere of a listener’s « tastes » have fewer chances of being recommended to them, making it harder to reach a not-yet-convinced audience and thus to grow. 

AI tools have allowed artists to create more easily and thus faster. They can now create with fewer resources, making music making even more accessible than it has been since the revolution brought by DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations, softwares like FL Studio or Ableton). With the simplification of some processes, AI has enabled newcomers to start creating music faster and even create whole tracks through prompts with generative AIs.

There are indeed two types of use of AI in music creation: Assistance in the creative process vs. fully automated prompt-to-output applications. The first option is when a producer uses AI tools to help them create a track they are working on, but they still follow the process of creating it themselves (with control over the arrangement and the position of each element, the effects, etc.). With the latter, people don’t even need to be artists or know anything about music production to fully generate a song with AI. These models, such as Suno or Udio, are impressive: They can generate any genre of music from a textual description and can even recreate specific lyrics and moods. Music producers must now compete with these AI generated songs and find ways to stay creative but relevant. In the 2025 study on AI generated music conducted by Deezer and Ipsos on 9000 adults, they have found that 97% of people cannot tell apart an AI generated track and one created by a human, which is fascinating but also terrifying. In the end, I think these challenges make artists’ life more difficult than it simplifies it. It puts a toll on all artists and threatens their subsistence in the long run. According to the PMP Strategy/CISAC study published in November 2024 on the economic impact of AI in music and audiovisual industries, under current conditions, this market penetration by generative AI outputs could put 24% of music creators’ revenues at risk by 2028 (10 billion €).

Other professions are also affected by these changes: more traditional jobs risk being replaced, like music curators and radio programmers. The independent radio NTS was precisely created to counter this trend. Their selling point? The music played is carefully chosen by humans, not algorithms, creating an authentic and thoughtful journey. 

Data analysts, AI specialists and sound engineers, on the other hand, are of growing importance. So, AI rearranges the existing narrative and order while creating new opportunities for people outside the creative industries. But what about those people whose job disappeared? 

Can we still talk about « artistic creation »?

Sure, AI tools have opened creativity to people without any musical or technical training and have facilitated experimentation. Artists can explore new sounds and new styles easily and even produce other types of content, such as adaptive or interactive music. For artists from other fields like the audiovisual sector, generative AI is finally a budget-friendly option to experiment with sounds that match the mood of their visuals before committing to hiring a composer (if they do).

Artistic possibilities and freedom are quickly limited because of how algorithms work, dictating the survival of the artists. There is less room for originality, slow development, or complex structures. All tracks merge into a uniform ensemble. 

The market is furthermore flooded with cheap AI-generated tracks. Cheap because they cost almost nothing to produce or acquire and because they are empty of emotions, intention, meaning — of humanity overall. They are omnipresent in B2B situations and in advertising. They are also saturating streaming platforms with enormous amounts of content daily, and it is growing at a fast pace. According to the Deezer and Ipsos study mentioned earlier, 18% of all tracks on Deezer were AI-generated in June 2025 for a total of 20,000 new tracks every day, already rising to 34% in November 2025 with 40,000 new songs per day. It is insane. 

This has a crucial impact on the quality of what is listened to on streaming platforms and the overall experience of music listening. It leaves almost no room for originality, since AI creates from what already exists. Even though they combine multiple sources to create something new (not always), no original creations can come from generative AIs. It is already a shared feeling: According to the same Deezer study, people generally agree with the fact that AI will only generate more generic songs and of weaker quality (51%) and think that AI could lead to a loss of creativity in music production (64%).

AI can indeed generate a song with a nice arrangement, but also a lack of coherence throughout the whole track. Without meaning, intention or emotions, there is no real artistic creation per se. Yet, an artist’s objective is to translate their emotions through their work, make people feel a certain way, share and connect with the audience this way. This is one purpose of art. So, for me, we cannot refer to AI generated musicians as « artists ». 

But if in reality most do not make the difference between an AI generated track and one created by a human, why bother taking the time to learn music production and produce songs if you can be successful and earn money thanks to AI generated ones? We can take the example of the fictional rock band The Velvet Sundown, which has accumulated more than one million streams on Spotify in just a few weeks and released three albums in less than a year. This is beyond competition for human producers and without any warning stating that they are AI generated, it should be considered as unfair competition. It thus raises the following question: Do we still decide what we listen to today? Spotify was recently accused of filling its playlists with « ghost artists » by buying sounds from a sound bank and attribute them to non-existing artists, all because it is cheaper than paying royalties to existing artists. They denied the allegation, but we can still observe the phenomenon on the platform, without any mention of AI whatsoever. 

Take a listen to The Velvet Sundown – Rivers Run Free:

There is a clear lack of regulation concerning AI

A clear labelling of AI generated content is needed on music streaming platforms, like it is the case on other platforms such as Instagram. According to the same Deezer study, most people are asking for it (80%). They indeed want to know whether they are listening to a real artist or a ghost one. Deezer has been a pioneer in this field: It is the first streaming platform to have developed a system to detect AI generated songs and label them as such. Alexis Lanternier, CEO of Deezer, said: « Deezer has been avant-garde regarding the implementation of solutions that guarantee transparency and limit the negative impact of the influx of fully AI generated content in music streaming. » 

One major challenge with AI is the respect of copyrights in the way they are trained. As we discussed, AI models do not invent anything new, they find inspiration from existing works. The regulatory framework around AI is vastly still in progress if not non-existent and heterogeneous across regions. Although innovation moves fast and AI models have evolved very quickly, regulations always take more time to be implemented. But there is a real need for it. Right now, AI models are trained from copyrighted works without the consent of the artists or third parties involved (labels, etc.). It is highly unethical to do so and companies should not be able to, as 65% of the respondents of the Deezer study agree. Artists should clearly be better protected. 

Regarding the defense of artists and creators, Deezer is leading the way. It is currently the only platform to have signed the international Statement on AI training, which states that “The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.”  Some labels are also speaking out, like the independent label IDOL, which refuses the use of the works possessed or controlled by them for AI training purposes without their explicit consent. 

A landmark copyright ruling against OpenAI was delivered in Germany in November by the Regional Court of Munich concerning lyrics from well-known German songs that could be generated through ChatGPT. The court stated that the use of copyrighted song lyrics for training generative AI models without a licence violates German copyright law. For the first time in Europe, these questions are being addressed directly, showing the way forward for implementing regulations concerning AIs’ use and training and holding the companies releasing these models accountable for any law infringement. 

AI is weakening culture altogether

A few major streaming platforms — Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music — control the whole market and influence what society listens to. These private companies have a central role in the music industry and create an oligopoly, but their capitalistic approach is often not in favor of the artists. This is especially true for Spotify.

With the algorithmization of streaming platforms and the development of playlists classified by genre or mood, we lost the experience of the album as a coherent artistic work, a journey to follow in the right order. Songs are taken individually, losing part of the intention the artist has put inside it. 

In a way, streaming platforms and their algorithms, by enabling instant access to songs from all over the world, encourage diversity in the listening experience (up to a certain point as we saw with algorithms). Music is now tailored to every moment of someone’s life, classified by mood. But music then becomes a background noise, something we listen to all the time without paying attention to it. It is not listened to anymore; it is heard at best. Spotify’s founder Daniel Ek has stated that their biggest competitor was silence, and that says a lot. We can thus wonder: Has music become too accessible? With new releases every Friday and new songs being published constantly, Terrence Nguea, music producer, feels like there is « too much music and we always have to quickly move on to something else ». 

For me, this is representative of our current society: users’ passive listening reflects people’s passivity in everyday life due to smartphones, social media and algorithms. Attention span is significantly dropping, with a constant need of new stimulation. People are always looking for the next thing to do, watch or listen to, and are always multitasking, never fully focusing on one thing such as listening to a song. I hope this article aroused your curiosity concerning AI generated music and called into question your music listening habits, so you will try to pay more attention to what you listen to and give back meaning to songs.

Written by Laura Vurpillot

Sources:

Faut-il réapprendre à écouter de la musique ? | Tracks | ARTE (October 6th 2025)

Deezer (November 12th 2025). Étude Deezer/Ipsos : 97 % des personnes sont incapables de faire la différence entre une musique entièrement générée par l’IA et une musique créée par des humains. Deezer Newsroom.

Étude Deezer/Ipsos : 97 % des personnes sont incapables de faire la différence entre une musique entièrement générée par l’IA et une musique créée par des humains

Deezer (June 20th 2025). Deezer déploie le premier système d’étiquetage IA au monde pour le streaming musical. Deezer Newsroom.

Deezer déploie le premier système d’étiquetage IA au monde pour le streaming musical

AI-Generated Band With 1M Spotify Fans Reveals Its Origin (July 9th 2025). Romania Journal.

https://www.romaniajournal.ro/spare-time/ai-generated-band-with-1m-spotify-fans-reveals-its-origin

PMP Strategy/CISAC study on the economic impact of AI in music and audiovisual industries (November 2024)

https://www.cisac.org/services/reports-and-research/cisacpmp-strategy-ai-study

International statement on AI training

https://www.aitrainingstatement.org

Florian Reynaud (August 3rd 2025). Comment les faux groupes générés par IA déferlent sur la musique, de YouTube à Spotify. Le Monde.

https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2025/08/03/comment-les-faux-groupes-generes-par-ia-deferlent-sur-la-musique-de-youtube-a-spotify_6626385_4408996.html

Ronak Kalhor-Witzel (November 17 2025). Germany delivers landmark copyright ruling against OpenAI: What it means for AI and IP. Inside Tech Law.

https://www.insidetechlaw.com/blog/2025/11/germany-delivers-landmark-copyright-ruling-against-openai-what-it-means-for-ai-and-ip

2026 is the New 2016 : Revival or Denial ?

Mode, Musique, Pop culture, Réflexions, ,

Stranger Things is on TV in millions of homes, Taylor Swift and Zara Larsson are at the height of their fame, Instagram and its stories are more popular than ever… No, I’m not describing 2016, but rather the beginning of 2026. This feeling of collective déjà vu, shared on social media and in the press, illustrates a deep need to hold on to familiar cultural references, back to a time perceived as more simple and carefree.

Indeed, 2026 seems to be a year marked by nostalgia, and this collective desire to revive memories from ten years ago now has a name: #2026isthenew2016. On TikTok, more than 55 million videos have already been created around this trend, while on streaming platforms, playlists referencing the year 2016 are experiencing a spectacular rise in popularity. This phenomenon, which at first glance might seem inconsequential, actually reveals a deep need to look back to a past that is perceived as more reassuring, in an increasingly unstable global context characterized by a series of crises that undermine the sense of collective security. From this point, it is worth asking: how can what appears to be a simple trend have a lasting influence on global cultural offerings? And above all, is this surge of nostalgia a way of reviving happy memories, or a form of denial in the face of the uncertainties of the contemporary world, where individuals seek to protect themselves psychologically by idealizing what they have already experienced?

Why has 2016 left such a mark on people’s minds?

To understand the scale of this nostalgia, it is necessary to recall the context in which 2016 took place. The 2010s were caught between two major crises, namely the economic crisis of 2008 and the health crisis of 2020, which makes 2016 seem like a relatively stable interlude in an already fragile world. This impression of relative stability, although illusory, reinforces the idea nowadays that 2016 represents a kind of lost equilibrium. In France, this year has come after a particularly challenging period marked by the attacks of 2015, which largely explains the collective need for cheerfulness and distraction. This desire to escape from an anxiogenic daily life was manifested in particular through the aesthetics of social networks, where Snapchat filters, Instagram boomerangs, ultra-saturated colours, and playful content dominated, giving the illusion of a simpler and happier world, almost disconnected from political and social realities.

This aesthetic has also found its way into music, where artists such as Twenty One Pilots, The Chainsmokers, and Justin Timberlake have dominated the charts with danceable, accessible, and refreshingly light pop music, designed as a soundtrack to an era of carefree living. The band Coldplay perfectly embodied this visual and emotional trend with the extremely colourful cover of Hymn for the Weekend, which was at the top of the charts back then, and strikingly illustrated this collective desire to celebrate joy, partying and letting go.

Cover – Hymn for the Weekend

In the collective imaginary, 2016 was also associated with numerous cultural phenomena: the global success of Pokémon Go, the massive emergence of filters on Snapchat, the first season of Stranger Things, the Euro 2016 football tournament in France, and the creation of TikTok. All these elements contributed to the image of a particularly entertaining and memorable year, which has now become a true generational milestone.

Nostalgia as an emotional escape from an anxiogenic present

If 2016 is back in trend today, it is because this colourful and light-hearted aesthetic acts as a real emotional escape in a world that is considered stressful, marked by armed conflicts, the climate crisis, political instability, and the rapid development of artificial intelligence, which fuels many concerns about the future. On current social media platforms, the search for high performance and perfection has gradually replaced the spontaneity of the early days. Algorithms are shaping increasingly uniform profiles, whereas dull colours and smooth, minimalist content give the impression of a loss of creativity and authenticity. Faced with this standardization, many internet users are taking the counter-approach by deliberately adopting an exaggerated aesthetic, bordering on kitsch, reminiscent in style of 2016.

Zara Larsson is a particularly telling example. Her song Symphony (2017) is currently enjoying a revival thanks to a trend featuring bright colours and extravagant designs as a way of escaping from what is perceived as a gloomy everyday life.

Conceptual Visual – Symphony

In the same vein, Lush Life (2015) has gone viral once again and now plays a central role in her concerts, both in terms of stage design and costumes that embody a sense of letting go. The lyrics also fit perfectly with this fantasy mindset:

“I live my day as if it was the last

Live my day as if there was no past

Doin’ it all night all summer

Doin’ it the way I wanna”

Nostalgia as a marketing strategy: when the past becomes a product

Another important dimension of this nostalgia lies in its marketing impact, because this return to 2016 is no longer limited to a simple emotional expression, but is now part of a genuine strategy to capture attention. In a context where internet users say they are saturated with content that is too polished, too promotional, or generated by artificial intelligence, references to 2016 appear more authentic, more spontaneous, and more human. The cultural elements associated with this period such as retro filters, viral challenges, iconic music or simple formats are now being reused and adapted to produce engaging content that circulates widely on social media and generates strong interactions. The platforms themselves are participating in this dynamic by promoting these types of posts in their recommendation systems, which increases user time spent and engagement, while also boosting the trend’s visibility. Brands quickly saw this virality as an opportunity and began to exploit this aesthetic and these references to connect emotionally with their audience.

This phenomenon is not without consequences for marketing: several companies have already chosen to capitalize directly on nostalgia by launching products or campaigns inspired by this period. The Panera Bread restaurant chain, for example, offered a special “2016” menu featuring dishes that were popular at the time, in order to attract consumers by playing on their memories of a past that is perceived as simpler and more comforting. Similarly, many brands are now reintroducing visual and audio codes specific to 2016—whether filters, jingles, or playlists—because they resonate strongly with online communities and trigger an immediate emotional response. Thus, the use of the past is no longer limited to individual nostalgia: it has become a strategic tool for capturing the attention of an audience seeking experiences that are perceived as more sincere, less scripted, and less dominated by algorithmic logic.

Instagram Advertisement – Panera Bread

When the trend serves a selective, idealized narrative of the past

However, while this idealization of 2016 may seem harmless, it is actually based on a deeply selective memory, which tends to erase the darker aspects of this period and retain only what can reassure us today. In psychology, this mechanism has been studied by Constantine Sedikides, who explains that nostalgia helps maintain a sense of identity continuity and emotional security when the present is perceived as unstable (Sedikides et al., 2008). In other words, nostalgia does not accurately reflect the past, but offers a softened version of it, reconstructed based on the emotional needs of the present.

Thus, when internet users refer to 2016 as a happier and more worry-free time, they are not so much describing historical reality as the comforting image they have reconstructed of it : this embellished memory contradicts the political and social context of the time. The year 2016 was marked by numerous terrorist attacks, notably in Brussels, Orlando, and Nice, which deeply traumatized populations and created a lasting climate of fear. Added to this were major political upsets, such as the Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, which initiated an era of polarization that is even more visible today. Furthermore, this idealized vision obscures certain social realities, particularly for women. Before the #MeToo movement, sexual violence remained largely taboo, sexism in the workplace was even more unpunished, and cyberbullying was rarely taken seriously. In this sense, idealizing 2016 amounts to rewriting the past in a gentler, more reassuring form, at the risk of masking injustices and turning nostalgia into a refuge rather than a tool for critical reflection.

Not a Simple Trend, but a Cultural Pattern.

The return of 2016 aesthetics in 2026 may be part of a larger phenomenon: culture seems to move in cycles rather than in a straight line. Throughout history, fashion, music, and art have often revived past decades. The 1980s came back in the 2000s, the 1990s returned in the 2010s, and now the 2010s are being recycled in the 2020s. This suggests that when society feels unstable, it naturally looks backward instead of forward. Today, this cycle is accelerated by social media and algorithms. Platforms promote what already works, which encourages repetition instead of innovation. Trends are recycled faster than ever, creating the feeling that “nothing new” is being invented, only remixed. This may explain why young generations feel emotionally connected to years they did not even live through: the past is constantly reshaped and sold as something new. Rather than seeing this nostalgia only as a sign of denial, it can also be understood as a creative engine. Artists, brands, and users do not simply copy the past: they reinterpret it, mix it with modern codes, and give it new meanings. The real challenge for contemporary culture is therefore not to escape into yesterday, but to use memory as a starting point to imagine new and original forms for the future.

Written by Noam Zachayus

When « true love » becomes a cultural slogan: Revisiting the classic love film « Love Actually » 20 years later.

Cinéma / TV, Littérature

Every winter during the Christmas season, the film « Love Actually » makes a limited return, holding high the most touching lines about true love and presenting dramatic yet perhaps real love stories. It is labeled as « heartwarming », « healing », and « about love », becoming a nearly default cultural symbol of Christmas. However, when a film repeatedly praised as a « paragon of true love » makes more and more viewers feel uncomfortable, confused, or even repulsed today, the question may no longer be « Is this film good to watch? » but rather: “What kind of « love » are we being moved by? Are all kinds of love worthy of being extolled? ”

In popular culture, love has never been a purely private experience. Whether in the West or the East, it has been constantly written, replicated and disseminated through literature, films and music, gradually forming a set of identifiable, imitable and even internalized emotional narratives. When « love » is repeatedly presented in a certain fixed pattern, it is no longer just an emotion itself, but becomes a cultural consensus – a value judgment that seems to need no questioning. « Love Actually » from 20 years ago was a typical sample in such a cultural mechanism, but now it has been subject to a different kind of scrutiny. 

Figure 1.Love Actually (2003) – Movie Poster © Film production company

Romantic Films as Packaged Emotional Comfort Zones

In Western culture, Christmas often symbolizes reunion, tolerance and forgiveness. This warm festive context itself has a strong emotional guiding function. It imperceptibly lowers people’s vigilance towards the rationality of the narrative, making audiences more receptive to all emotional expressions packaged as « warm ». Conversely, this is precisely why people choose to confess their love during festivals and make certain choices and decisions at a certain zero o’clock moment. 

In such a context, I personally believe that romantic films often do not serve as a guide to reality but rather act as a vessel for emotions. They do not attempt to resolve the conflicts in relationships but merely offer a brief and safe emotional illusion, allowing the audience to believe that « everything will have a good outcome » during the limited time of every second of the Christmas countdown, and to welcome a happy ending together with the countdown. When this function is superimposed with the cultural atmosphere of Christmas, the film acquires an almost « exempted » emotional privilege: certain relationships and behaviors that should be questioned and not well understood in daily life are repackaged as « understandable romance ». 

Fragmented Narratives and the Stereotypical Love Template

The visuals in « Love Actually » are undoubtedly beautiful. The first shot begins with ordinary people. « Whenever I feel frustrated with the world, I think of the scene at the entrance of Heathrow Airport. Many people say that we live in a world of hatred and greed. But I don’t think so. In my opinion, love is all around us. » This is the first narration of the film, which tells multiple love stories in parallel, seemingly presenting the diverse forms of love. However, the apparent richness does not necessarily mean true diversity. There seem to be extremely serious stereotypes and gender inequality. 

In fact, a careful examination of these stories reveals that they are highly similar in structure and perspective to a love story: men have higher power and more stable social status, and they are often the initiators of emotions; women, on the other hand, are more often in the position of being gazed at, waited for, and responded to. The situations of betrayal, crossing boundaries, and ethical ambiguity are casually summarized as « the complexity of human emotions »; while the resulting harm is often masked by the festive atmosphere and gentle background music. 

These stories are not haphazardly pieced together but rather repeatedly vary around the same romantic logic. Love here is reduced to an instant emotional resonance, rather than a relationship practice that involves taking responsibility, commitment and consequences, seemingly only considering the most extreme romantic love.

Figure 2. Selected scenes from Love Actually (2003) © Film production company

Gender Perspectives in the Narrative of « True Love » 

When we further inquire about « who loves and who is loved », the issue is no longer merely about the plot itself, but rather the singularity of the narrative perspective. In the film, desire, action and decision-making are often in the hands of male characters; female characters frequently appear as « emotional responders » or « visual symbols ». The most classic scene in the movie is when the British Prime Minister falls in love at first sight with a secretary from a humble background. The so-called Cinderella story transforms from a fairy tale into a real love story, and in the future, the Prime Minister personally goes door-to-door to search for her. There are countless lines that mock the female character’s « fat » figure, even related to the power struggle and political relationship between two men. In addition, another scene in the film is when the writer Jamie moves to the countryside to focus on writing after discovering his wife’s infidelity. The landlord introduces him to a Portuguese nanny, but one time, due to carelessness, she drops Jamie’s manuscript into the lake. The camera follows a close-up of the nanny from her feet to her chest, along with Jamie’s changing expression. This is the climax and turning point of their relationship. The camera is both language and power. It should have emphasized that love can transcend national culture and language, but it was instead portrayed as a relationship between the viewer and the viewed. From these two stories, it reflects that women’s bodies are given symbolic meanings, becoming the carriers of power, desire and romance; their emotions more serve the self-confirmation and growth trajectory of male characters rather than their own choices and predicaments. The problem does not lie in whether sexiness exists, but rather that when « love » is always told from a single perspective, it gradually evolves into an unexamined cultural habit. In such narratives, « true love » is more like an emotional imagination from a male perspective, rather than a relationship state where both parties are equal participants. 

The Fracture of Happiness – Where Does the Audience’s Discomfort Come From? 

Therefore, when most female viewers watch « Love Actually », what they feel is not happiness but rather aversion, estrangement and discomfort. This is not because they « cannot understand romance », nor is it a denial of love itself. On the contrary, this discomfort precisely stems from the changes in the cultural context. 

With the continuous renewal of gender awareness and social experience, today, 20 years later, audiences have become more sensitive to the perception of power structures and emotional inequality. Plots that were once regarded as romantic may now seem outdated or even distorted. When the old romantic model fails to respond to real-life experiences, emotional disconnection becomes inevitable. 

This sense of discomfort is not the problem itself but a signal-it indicates that some narratives about « love » have reached a point where they need to be reexamined. 

What kind of emotional narrative does a love film really need? 

Just as Benjamin analyzed, the impact of films in the era of mechanical reproduction does not lie in whether the content is true or not, but in that through repetitive perceptual forms, it quietly shapes the way people understand the world and emotions. The issue has never been whether « Love Actually » is still worth watching, but whether we are still willing to accept the « version of love » it offers without reflection. Romantic films still have their significance, but personally, I believe that romance should not be a veil to cover up inequality and injustice. Love is not just a slogan on specific holidays, nor should it be simplified into a cheap emotional consumption that turns into impulsive behavior. Maybe the love in movies can be an impulsive passion, but when popular culture continues to shout « Love Actually », it should at least answer one question: Whose love is this? And at whose expense? “

If we place « Love Actually » within the broader spectrum of romantic films, what it represents might be a kind of love narrative centered on emotional moments: the act of falling in love itself constitutes the condition for the existence of love. In an interesting contrast to this is another classic love film, « The Notebook », which presents a different narrative model. 

In « The Notebook », love is not a one-time emotional confirmation, but a process of relationship that is constantly chosen, rejected, and reconfirmed over time. The man and the woman do not simply fall in love; instead, they are repeatedly pulled between the pressures of reality, class differences, and personal will. Crucially, this relationship is not packaged as « romance that is taken for granted ». Although the male and female leads come from different classes and living environments, their love is always based on mutual choice, without gaze or metaphor. This narrative structure presents a relatively balanced gender position. The female character does not merely exist as an object to be pursued or moved; she has a clear right to hesitate, judge, and reject. Therefore, love here is not the unfolding of male will. Whether to leave or wait, to invite or reject, are all free choices of both parties. 

This does not mean that « The Notebook » offers a more « realistic » model of love, but rather it suggests that romantic films can also choose to depict the complexity of relationships, not just the completeness of emotions. When love is understood as a continuous practice rather than an instantaneous emotional outcome, it is no longer just an immersive fantasy, but becomes a form of relationship that requires responsibility, communication and time. 

If « Love Actually » from 20 years ago was the « Christmas love textbook » in the hearts of a generation, then the hesitation and awkwardness that today’s audience feel when watching this film is not because they no longer believe in love, but because we have different expectations for « how love should be told ».

Especially for today’s female audience, their perception of « romance » has long changed. They no longer simply buy into the passionate emotions, but rather value respect, boundaries, and the right to choose in a relationship. What was once praised as « bravely pursuing love » might now be seen as overstepping boundaries; what was once packaged as overly sweet « deep gazes » now gradually reveals the unequal power dynamics behind them.

This change has nothing to do with « love getting colder ». On the contrary, it is the result of modern people having richer life experiences and a clearer sense of self. In real-life intimate relationships, equality, communication, and mutual responsibility have become increasingly emphasized. Love stories that rely solely on one-sided devotion and excessive emotional manipulation naturally no longer resonate with us. The discomfort that viewers feel essentially stems from their unwillingness to accept such simplified and formulaic expressions of emotion.

So when we revisit these classic love films now, the key is no longer whether they can still evoke emotional resonance, but rather « whether the love logic they present can still align with people’s current understanding of intimate relationships ». Romance is no longer a dream to be mindlessly indulged in, but has become something that needs to be examined, compared, and redefined. 

Revisiting these love classics that have been replayed over and over again is not to deny the emotions they once evoked, but to figure out what subtle changes have been quietly taking place within ourselves. When romance is no longer merely about celebrating festivals and passively waiting for emotional placebos to be fed to us, the kind of relationship we need to deliberate on and choose for ourselves has instead become the norm. The current attitude of the audience itself is a genuine cultural echo.

Figure 3. The Notebook (2004) – Movie Poster © Film production company


Why I Still Love Jane Eyre, but Not Its Ending.

Cinéma / TV, Littérature, , ,

Jane Eyre used to be my favorite book. Back then, I loved it deeply and was completely moved by the love story at its center. I even secretly imagined myself as Jane — learning to be strong, to be brave, to overcome hardships, and then meeting a Rochester who would somehow save my life. Everything felt so romantic.

But when I reread the novel recently, something had changed. I began to notice so many things that felt unsettling. Why does Jane have to inherit a fortune before she can return to Rochester? Why must Rochester be crippled and physically broken before they are finally allowed to be together? And why does the story insist that the man and woman ending up together is the only possible definition of a “happy ending”?

Still from Jane Eyre (BBC). © BBC.

What disappoints me the most is that the novel gives Jane too many shining moments in its earlier chapters, which makes the ending feel strangely weak by comparison. （It almost reads as if the deadline was approaching and the story had to be wrapped up in a hurry — and perhaps under editorial pressure, it was forced into a conventional “happy ending.”）

 I still love this book deeply. The Jane Eyre we meet in the earlier parts of the novel is genuinely brave, almost heroic. What amazes me is that after enduring so much suffering, she never develops a sense of learned helplessness — which, honestly, feels like a miracle. As a child, she is publicly punished after being labeled a “liar,” she loses the only friend she has, and later, even when confronted with the male protagonist’s declaration of love, she remains clear-headed and confident.

Still from Jane Eyre (BBC). © BBC

After all this pain, she can still say, calmly and without self-pity, “I have no tale of woe, sir.”  （It’s as if she’s saying: I don’t need anyone’s sympathy — not even yours, even if you are the person I love.） That level of independence, that emotional self-possession, is incredibly cool.

And yet, she is not always calm or restrained. When faced with Rochester’s testing from a position of power, Jane finally pushes back — in the most direct and fearless way, leaving herself no room to retreat. She speaks without compromise, without self-protection, as if she has already accepted whatever the consequences might be. This is the moment I love most.

“Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?–a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!–I have as much soul as you,–and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;–it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal,–as we are!” 

（Excerpted from the novel Jane Eyre）

Still from Jane Eyre (BBC). © BBC.
Or click the link here to watch the classic clip.

“Testing from a position of power”: must men and women be set against each other?

Jane only attains equality with Rochester after she inherits a fortune and after he becomes blind and physically disabled. This plot device gives the impression that true equality between a man and a woman can only exist if the man is deliberately brought down. It has an almost retaliatory quality — their circumstances are completely reversed, and for the first time, Jane truly holds the upper hand in the relationship.

I’ve also come across a fascinating interpretation: Rochester’s disability was not arranged to make Jane worthy of him, but rather to make Rochester worthy of Jane. It’s presented as a kind of atonement — only after he is injured while saving someone can his past misdeeds be erased, and only then can he and Jane be truly equal in spirit. It may not be entirely convincing, but it’s an interesting perspective. Yet no matter how you interpret it, the core of this narrative still relies on a binary, oppositional mindset. It feels less like a dismantling of power structures and more like the author’s own fantasy or projection.

Moreover, the way the novel depicts Jane gaining wealth, returning to Rochester, and taking care of the children reinforces the idea that “family happiness” is the ultimate, unquestioned form of fulfillment. The ending reads almost like a fairy tale — a prince-and-princess story cloaked in realism. Personally, I would much rather have seen Jane rebuilding the burned-down estate, learning to manage the wealth she has inherited, and sustaining both herself and Rochester through her own competence and agency, instead of being folded so neatly into an idealized vision of domestic life.

Still from Jane Eyre (BBC). © BBC

“That madwoman”: it’s not fair.

Another reason I cannot accept the ending is that the happiness of the protagonists is secured through the death of “that madwoman.” It feels like a bargain struck at someone else’s expense. Bertha’s death is unfair to Bertha herself — and unfair to the reader as well. One can argue that Rochester is unfortunate, that he has his unspeakable burden, that his wife is mad, and that Jane is innocent and refuses to become a third party. But the truth remains: their happy ending is not something they actively fight for. It arrives only because Bertha conveniently disappears. Without the existence — and the removal — of the “madwoman,” how could they ever be together? That is not fair.

I feel sympathy for Bertha because the novel renders her as a savage, almost inhuman figure. But does this portrayal really absolve Rochester of his moral responsibility? It is as if the narrative is saying: yes, he is married, but she is not fully human — therefore he cannot be blamed. Then she is allowed to set the house on fire, and finally to die. This combination — “Bertha’s madness” followed by “Bertha’s death” — carries a distinctly patriarchal logic.

Still from Jane Eyre (BBC). © BBC.

Perhaps Jane Eyre was revolutionary for women of its time. But time has moved on, and so have our expectations of female dignity. Bertha may once have been allowed to exist only as a distant, degraded symbol — an obstacle in a love story. Today, we recognize that she, like Jane, should have been granted the right to seek happiness of her own.

The Meaning of Re-reading: Perspectives Are Not Fixed

Of course, from a feminist perspective, this novel remains remarkable. Jane Eyre is almost the first female protagonist in literary history to possess a truly independent consciousness. Before her, the ultimate destination of many female characters was still marriage and family. Jane is neither conventionally beautiful, nor does she passively wait to be rescued by a male protagonist. Even this alone was radically progressive for its time — and deeply inspiring.

At the same time, we need to recognize that novels grow alongside their readers. I can see this clearly in my own experience.
When I first read the book in elementary school, I treated it, to some extent, like a romantic fantasy. I loved Jane’s resilience and her journey of self-growth, and I even regarded the novel as a “book of life.”
Later, when the novel was recommended again in school, the inheritance plot began to trouble me. That lottery-like turn of fate seemed to erase Jane’s own efforts and struggles.
Now, as a modern woman, I’ve become increasingly aware of the expectations and disciplines imposed on women by society — subtle, silent, yet overwhelmingly pervasive. In Jane’s time, the paths available to her were already extremely limited. And yet she still chose to move forward, to choose for herself. Importantly, the author does not simply allow her problems to be resolved by relying on a man.

Still from Jane Eyre (BBC). © BBC.

For this reason, re-reading is not about overturning the emotions I once felt. It is about recognizing that we have arrived at a new position. I continue to respect the novel’s historical significance, but I also know clearly that today, we hold higher expectations for love, freedom, and female dignity.

Written by Yexing Zeng

Why is the video game industry so complex to understand ?

Jeux vidéos / Technologie, Non classé, Pop culture,

Kaninchen und Ente from the 23 October 1892 issue of Fliegende Blätter


The video game industry has become a juggernaut among cultural industries, but despite its growth and popularity, it remains incredibly difficult to understand 

Financially, it outpaces music and film combined. The outdated perception of games as a niche hobby for teenage boys has — almost — vanished. People of all ages play. You can find Mario and other franchises in books, on stage, and in stores. You can focus on different aspects like their nature or their music. A game mixes references and inspirations and can become one itself. Video game is mainstream.  

Yet when it comes to understanding how this industry actually works, everything suddenly feels like magical cooking. 

And it makes sense: we are never supposed to see how games are made. Games are designed to hide their own complexity. They aim for seamless experiences — you press a button or tap your phone and the game instantly responds with animations, sounds, and feedback. Most games do everything they can to avoid friction. Your questions must be answered, the rules must be clear, and progression must feel smooth.

But if we look closer, that smoothness is an illusion — the result of countless invisible decisions, tests, and compromises. And this complexity doesn’t stop at production.

Making a game is hard

Compared to other forms of entertainment, video games have two major specificities:
interactivity and real-time computing.

Take something as “simple” as the ability to jump in Super Mario Bros. (1985). You press a button and Mario jumps — straightforward, right?

A jump isn’t just a jump.

  • How high does the character jumps ?
  • How fast do they go ? 
  • How fast do they fall ? 
  • How do you want the character to control direction in midair ? 
  • Do the jumps start when you press the button or release the button ?

Players can feel differences measured in tenths or even hundredths of seconds. And that input can arrive at any moment — the game must react instantly. There is no pause, no time to think. Everything must update up to 60 or even 120 times per second to maintain the illusion of control.

And that’s just jumping on flat ground. What about:

  • Slopes
  • moving platforms
  • walls
  • slow vs. fast movement
  • different character states

Changing a single value can trigger a cascade across many teams:

  • animation timing must be adjusted
  • sound effects may no longer sync
  • the camera might behave differently
  • level design may break
  • code must be retested to ensure nothing else is affected

Each new interaction between two elements generates more questions. Interdependencies mean that modifying one tiny aspect affects multiple disciplines at once.

Liz England’s famous example The Door Problem captures this perfectly: even opening a door involves dozens of teams.


And this leads to a second major source of confusion: because everything is so interconnected, every project becomes unique.

The complexity of game production: a gateway to labyrinths

To sum up, a game is complex. It requires the work of experts in different fields, whose work is interdependent. By nature, it is a piece of software with an absurd level of technological constraints. It is an interactive experience that offers a large number of possibilities to the player, and just as many uncertainties and challenges to the production team. 

It has a few external consequences:

Project uniqueness

Good documentation and communication help, and many challenges repeat from project to project. But despite 50 years of video game history and massive improvements in tools and processes, game production is far from solved.

In short, each project is unique ! Every new project introduces:

  • new ideas and inspirations
  • new people
  • new tools or new versions of them
  • new art directions
  • new constraints

A game usually takes around 2 to 6 years to make. Between the start and the end of production, everything changes: engines evolve, tools get updated, the hardware landscape shifts, business models change, new regulations appear, and internal studio policies shift.

Even a well-tuned workflow may break because a tool becomes outdated or incompatible. A studio might adopt a new engine feature that helps one aspect of production but disrupts another.

And the cultural side matters too:
“Hey, this new mechanic in Call of Battlefield: Silksong of Hades 2 is cool — it would be nice to add something similar?”

You simply cannot standardize video game production the way you can in other industries. Too many variables shift at once.

A funny example of this is the words used. Depending on the tools, the projects, the studios, words don’t carry the same meaning ! 

Words are highly context dependent

“Video game developer” © Nick Youngson

Let’s start with “game developer”. In everyday language, “game developer” means anyone who makes games.

Inside the industry, it usually means:

  • A programmer
  • A gameplay programer 
  • Any member of the dev team
  • The studio itself (“the developer announced…”).

Same word, different meanings — depending on the studio, country, and person speaking.

  • A funny one is  job titles. They don’t necessarily match directly their actual tasks.. 

There is no universal standard for game job titles.

A “Technical Artist” can mean:

  • A shader expert
  • A tools developer
  • An animator who knows scripting
  • A performance optimizer
  • Someone who binds art to engine systems

It is similar for Producer, Narrative Designer, Gameplay Programmer, and so on. 

  • Of course, this is also true for development-related words !

Let’s take the word “component” which means “a part of something” in the daily life.

In the video game production it depends on the tools, the programing architecture, the studio, or the project. 

  • In the Unity game engine, it means a piece of behaviour. The behaviour of the sound, of the physics, etc.
  • In the Unreal game engine, it means the visual or physical part of an entity that has a behaviour
  • In an Entity Component System architecture, it means data. An health component can be the number of  maximum life you have for Mario.  

Depending on the studios or the project, it can take on many other meanings.

A new project for someone who works in video game production can mean new words, new tasks, new meanings, new communication challenges ! isn’t it cool ?! 

NDAs and the Industry’s Black Box

Beyond complexity and unstable vocabulary, two external forces make the game industry even harder to understand:

Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and video game media coverage.

The Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) are standards in the industry. They legally prevent employees and partners from revealing project details, whether about gameplay, mechanics, storylines, upcoming releases.

There are a couple of reasons behind NDAs. Both the company and the team want to show their work when it’s ready to be shown.

  • Teams want to show their work only when it’s ready.
  • Marketing follows carefully orchestrated reveal plans.
  • Leaks without context create false expectations.
  • Licensed IPs (Marvel, Disney, etc.) require strict secrecy.

A simple rule of thumb, if you are asked “what do you work on ?”

You answer “I work on an unannounced project” ! And that’s good, it prevents useless sufferings for everybody !   But it also means the public rarely gets insight into the production side of games. Most knowledge stays inside studios, especially when proprietary tools are involved.

“Video games” © Ry-Spirit

Video game coverage with voiceless workers

A game takes years to make, crafted by experts in dozens of disciplines. But when it comes time to talk about it, there are rarely part of it ! It’s not in the industry culture yet ! Sometimes we don’t have all the tools to speak about them ! 


The data, the project information, and the related figures are not public. When a game releases, you have a few interviews given from some directors, the game itself, and the credits. 

And unlike cinema — where directors often explain the artistic vision behind a movie — the “vision” of a game evolves constantly. Core intentions change many times during development. Many decisions come from technical constraints, and the solutions are crafted by different teams at different moments. None of this is visible from the outside.

Because we lack access to real production details, we compensate. We try to make sense of games by creating buckets, labels, and comparisons — even when they’re imprecise.

For budget:

  • AAA means a big budget between roughly 50 millions to 500 millions. The next GTA is in the same category as a game with a tenth — or even less — of its budget. 
  • AA  usually means between 10 and 50 millions 
  • Indies stand for smaller games

For team size: 

  • Solo-dev means one person creates the game
  • Indies may refer to studios of 20 up to 30 people
  • AAA studios have hundreds, if not thousands, of people working on the game

This creates confusion, because:

An “indie” can have a huge publisher.

A “large studio” can make a small game.

A “solo dev game” can be high-tech (e.g., tools or procedural systems).

You have these kinds of label for the business models, for the “type” of game, for the audience, for the platform, etc…

So players and journalists, and sometimes even developers, use shortcuts — labels that oversimplify reality just to make conversation possible.

Currently, there is only one way to tackle this issue, talk with the game developers  — if their NDAs allow it ! 

Video game industry : an endless learning journey 

For all its complexity, the video game industry is also endlessly rewarding. Its challenges are part of the appeal. You work alongside passionate and talented experts that make you discover their disciplines. You never stop learning and grow. 

In the end, the same complexity that makes games hard to understand from the outside is what makes them fascinating to build from the inside. It’s a field where curiosity is essential, and where there is always something new to discover.

That definitely one of the reason that made me fall in love for this industry. This industry is enriching, humbling, and extremely rewarding when things come together ! 
It reminds me of the famous “duck-rabbit” illusion, the industry looks simple from afar, but shifts into something entirely different when you look closer.

Kaninchen und Ente from the 23 October 1892 issue of Fliegende Blätter

Written by Clément Stocco

Sources:

Board Games Bars: The 3rd place that achieved to combine art and popularity

Nantes Culture, Pop culture,

Bar © Anthony LE, Pexels

7 years ago, my sister recommended me to go to a board games bar. By that time, I only knew bars bored me, because you sit, you drink, you try to chat in a noisy environment and cover the blanks of a discussion that are never really blank, paradoxically due to this permanent white noise. In other words, bars have no pretext to gather, they are just this 3rd place where people usually meet. They push people to talk to each other. I don’t pretend to be a moralist, but, honestly, how often have you stated that hanging out at that bar was so cool, actually feeling deep in yourself that something was missing, without ever formulating it.

This was life 20 years ago. Since then, concept bars like speak-easy have popped, but it sort of felt like they followed the contemporary art trend, praising minimalism as a beacon of mindfulness. No, the bar you would want to go to regardless of your small talk energy needed a stronger differentiation. Nowadays, they are reaching an apex, new establishments appearing at a rhythm never matched before. Board Game Bars became this missing place where you can have fun independently from your social energy. Yet, this advantage does not quite sum up this new trend, which also relies a lot on immersion through art. One may not think of board game bars as an artistic place. Paradoxically, this suggests that art succeeded there, being fully integrated to its environment, its spirit, and echoing the player’s ethos. Board Game bars that fully play the card of immersion become sort of undercover museums where artworks, instead of hanging aligned on white walls, contribute to the elaboration of a coherent aura, leading to the feeling of entering somewhere, of entering an oneiric home.

7 years ago, for the first time, I had a sense that I had discovered such a place out there that could be my second home, le K-Fée des Jeux, in Grenoble. I always saluted the old and dusty Daredevil, a dog with such long hair I used to nickname it serpillère (mop), which always greeted me from his narrow corner in front of the bar, staring at me with brilliant charcoal pupils. In such a place you don’t drink casual drinks. No. You drink beverages. And it’s more than just a matter of semantics. There, I drank dragon blood, a syrup derivative. I crawled among the assaulted tables, often to satisfy myself with the narrow underground space located under the stairs, watching out for my head. But there, comfort is a bonus. You could tell by its attractiveness. It was such a success that 6 years ago, they opened an extension and started a restaurant activity. At any time, I remember this bar as gloriously decorated. Paintings, drawings, figurines, plants, false spider webs, mirrors… it felt like, regarding indoor style, the budget was illimited. Most of all, it really felt like all of this was made with heart, passion, dedication and all the sweat that comes along. Ultimately, this is the kind of aspect that differentiates the casual establishment from the reputed and mythic one. Thus, in the long run, it happens to be a winning investment.

To that day, I owe some of my great memories to this place.

The board game bars’ park is catching on all over the country, especially in Nantes. Meanwhile, this trend largely remains underdocumented! So the time has come to question it: how are board game bars becoming this 3rd place that achieves to combine art and popularity? First, let’s start with an overview of the board game bars in Nantes and compare them with some in Grenoble and Paris. Then, let’s try to analyse more thoroughly the correlation between art and popularity in such places.

You can probably count Nantes board game bars on your 2 hands’ fingers. Within this number, 3 categories are to be distinguished: casual bars with a few games, concept bars with a peripheral board game side and authentic board game bars.

Map of Nantes’ board game bars used as examples

The 1st category includes the Do It bar, in Chantenay. From the street you can see a few dozens of games, presumably meant to diversify the clientele.

The 2nd category includes the Atomic’s Café, in the city-centre and the Game Over bar. The first one has a room dedicated to comics whereas the second one differentiates itself with video games.

The 3rd category includes La Fabrik à Jeux (2013), La taverne des aventuriers (2024) and L’indécis (2024). The first one would be the industrious bar, functioning on a basis of one consumption per hour. The second one would be the design bar, counting on story-telling to sell, and the last one would be the chill one.

Joueur de carte © Pavel Danilyuk, Pexels

Those board game bars of different categories do more than waiting for players to grab a game on their shelves. They tease and drain them by organising events, like game presentation, prototypal game testing, role game nights, blindtests, quizzes, costume contests, figurine painting sessions… This dynamism, combined with the augmentation of this type of establishments, leads to an emulation beneficial to the sector as long as the demand keeps growing.

As one can guess, board game bar tenders do not sleep on a stack of gold, unlike Smaug. Those bars tend to be as accessible as the regular ones, but some try to innovate in order to be financially more sustainable. The hourly consumption is a reasonable solution for a bar as popular as La Fabrik à Jeux, but it could hinder its reputation in the long-run by contributing to a bad feeling of being overwatch. On the contrary, La taverne des aventuriers opted for customer engagement in order to normalise high expenses. The monthly mocktail contest epitomises this strategy. It consists in opposing two original beverages: the most consumed one remains the following month, while the losing one is replaced. It works because this duel is represented on a dedicated menu card, with fine pictures and hand-made drawings, which lead customers to pass over the €6,50 price. In Grenoble, the K-fée des Jeux diversified its products by obtaining a licence 4 to function as a restaurant. In Paris, board game bars like Le Nid or Les grands gamins demand an entry price of €5.

Cocktails © Ivan S, Pexels

Once this pricing strategy is established, comes the identity challenge. A natural law seems to stem from board game bars observation: the more immersive, the more reputed. Following this intuition, L’indécis has already made 3 artistic collaborations: @poloarts (fantasy drawings), Tohehaka (patterns linocut) and Harold H. (conceptual drawings). La taverne des aventuriers hand-make their decorations and change them every 2 months. Additionally, they exhibit the hand-sewed clothes of La fée vagabonde, insisting on the intent to collaborate only with local artists.

The limit between art and decoration appears to be really thin within those places. Probably because artworks belong there, they are part of the decor, they contribute to a coherent atmosphere. When board game bars were scarce, you would go to the one that offers the content you expect, like La Fabrik à Jeux. Nevertheless, since new ones have popped really close to each other, the form now holds a greater impact on attractivity. You wouldn’t remember La taverne des aventuriers only for the games you played and the chats you had in there. Instead, those souvenirs conjure up a whole atmosphere around them, as if they were folded into a thick blanket. For this very reason, they will forever be remembered in a singular way, definitively distinguishing this topos from any other within the map of your recollections.

In a nutshell, board game bars are popular because they are accessible, affordable and enjoyable for most people. Their progressive settling in the concept-bar landscape reaches a golden age full of promises largely supported by the hard-working, impassioned, nerdy, heart-felt efforts made to create a memorable atmosphere thanks to decorative art among the most motivated establishments. Those are the ones making of board game bars the trendy 3rd place of the middle of the XXI° century, bringing the concept to another level, a level where those businesses become sustainable thanks to impressions, immersion, and reputation. Ultimately, board game bars remind us that when art feels at home, it looks like decoration.

Written by Paul Rocabois

Sources:

Do we still know how to listen to music ?

Musique, Non classé,

Unlimited music, limited attention

Music has never been so present in our lives, but do we really still know how to listen to it ? 

In just a few decades, our relationship with sound has been transformed: from a rare and desired commodity, it has become a continuous stream. The emergence of streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music has revolutionised not only the way we listen to music, but also the way we think of it. Today, all the music in the world, dematerialised, is accessible at our fingertips. From the infinite freedom of choice promised by digital technology to the standardisation of listening, is what was once an aesthetic experience now becoming background consumption ?

In the 1990s, every record is a quest. The music we listened to (on cassettes then CDs) is the result of research or discovery. It is also limited. We could only listen to records we had bought at the record shop around the corner or songs we caught on the radio. 

Source image : https://www.pariszigzag.fr/sortir-paris/les-meilleurs-disquaires-de-paris-2

Then, the digital age disrupted this patient relationship. Downloading, initially illegal but later institutionalised by iTunes, ushered in an age of abundance: songs accumulated on computers, piling up in endless libraries. But with the appearance of streaming, a new era was born, one of access. We no longer buy music, we access it. With just a few clicks, listeners now have access to the entire history of music worldwide, but without really owning anything.

The algorithm as a discreet conductor

Streaming initially seemed like a joyful revolution. For the first time, access to music was no longer limited by financial means, borders or even habits: with just a few clicks, you could switch from Ethiopian free jazz to Berlin techno. This almost infinite availability encouraged unexpected discoveries and offered new visibility to scenes that had long been marginalised.

But there is another side to the coin. From the 2010s onwards, platforms began to assert a genuine editorial line: their playlists, which have become essential showcases, function as media outlets in their own right. Being featured on them can launch a career; being absent from them can condemn a track to invisibility. The algorithm, meanwhile, watches over everything like a discreet master.

Source image : https://dittomusic.com/fr/blog/how-to-submit-music-to-spotify-playlists-directly

This new economy has led to a certain standardisation. Formats are getting shorter, intros are fading away to get to the catchy chorus faster, and songs are adapting to the implicit rules of easy ‘skipping’. The work is also becoming fragmented: we listen to tracks lost in playlists rather than albums as complete and coherent works. The narrative thread of a project is lost in the logic of random playback, a practice that artists such as Adele are trying to resist by getting Spotify to agree in 2021 that albums will be played in order by default rather than randomly.

More profoundly, streaming has shifted music from ownership to access. We no longer own our records: in reality, we rent a changing catalogue. Which means that if an album is withdrawn for contractual reasons, it disappears. This was the case with Taylor Swift from 2014 to 2017 when she decided to withdraw her entire music catalogue from Spotify. This could also mean that we are dependent on the companies or labels that own the music. This invisible dependency calls into question our ability to truly control, or even retain, what we believe we can listen to freely.

Listening again, together

Perhaps it’s not all bad news. While streaming has disrupted our habits, it has also opened up new ways of listening that are more varied, more inclusive and more democratic. Never before has music circulated so quickly or crossed so many cultural boundaries. The algorithm, as questionable as it may be, sometimes allows independent artists to find an audience they would never have reached otherwise. Listening has not disappeared: it has simply shifted, fragmented, reinvented itself. But this freedom comes at a price: that of attention. Saturated with sound, our era requires us to relearn how to listen and to do just that, actively. 

Mino, an initiative to listen to music actively again:

Source image : https://mino.co/products/t-shirt-lmcnscp
https://www.instagram.com/p/CyWIZqDsvmf/?img_index=1

The return of vinyl, particularly among young people, intimate concerts and collective listening sessions testify to a need for slowness, for an awareness of listening as an activity in its own right. It is this need that inspired Terrence NGuea’s project, called Mino. The slogan immediately sets the tone: ‘Music is not something to be consumed’. The aim of this project is to restore music to its rightful place by allowing new albums to be listened to in a cinema with all the comfort that this offers. As the project’s Instagram page explains, ‘Mino is a new venue and will be to music what cinemas are to films, what galleries and museums are to the visual arts: a space where emotion reigns supreme, an immersive experience that is both individual and collective.’ For the moment, this initiative is still in its beginning, but several listening sessions have already been organised, meeting some success. To keep an eye on…

Written by Domitille Proust de la Gironière

Sources :

​​https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/grace-a-adele-les-albums-ne-se-lancent-plus-en-aleatoire-par-defaut-sur-spotify-5006544 

https://www.instagram.com/__mino/?hl=fr

https://mino.co

The Cry of the Invisible: Visconti Still Resonates in Ken Loach’s Cinema

Cinéma / TV, Réflexions

La Terra Trema poster, 1948 © Universalia Film / Lux Film

There are films that entertain, and there are films that uncoverreality.
The kind of films that make you forget the fiction and force you to face the world outside the theater. That was my experience when I discovered La Terra Trema (1948) by Luchino Visconti.Then, when I watched Ken Loach’s filmography it felt like the same cry was still resonating, decades later: the cry of those society refuses to see.

For this article, I chose to examine how Visconti and Ken Loach represent working-class struggles and how, despite distance in time and geography, their cinema shares the same mission. I focus on one Visconti film, La Terra Trema, a pillar of Italian Neorealism, and three films by Ken Loach: I, Daniel Blake, (2016) The Angels’ Share (2012) and Sorry We Missed You (2019).

Both filmmakers use cinema not as escape, but as a tool for visibility. They give a face, a voice, and a space to people who are usually pushed aside.

Luchino Visconti and Ken Loach: two cinemas, one social conscience

Visconti was one of the founders of Italian Neorealism. After World War II, this movement rejected studio artificiality and decided to film real life. Real streets. Real workers. Real poverty. La Terra Trema is the perfect embodiment of that philosophy: non-professional actors, real fishermen, and a brutal depiction of economic exploitation.

Ken Loach inherits this tradition and transposes it to present-day Britain. His cinema belongs to what is called British Social Realism, a genre that focuses on everyday hardships: underpaid jobs, precarious contracts, and hostile bureaucracy. Where Visconti films fishermen struggling against merchants controlling prices, Loach films delivery drivers and unemployed workers trapped in the neoliberal system.

Both directors grant dignity to working-class people through narrative and form: they film them not as accessories to a story, but as the story itself.

When systems replace humanity: two revealing scenes

I, Daniel Blake poster, 2016 © Sixteen Films / Entertainment One

One of the strongest examples in Loach’s cinema is the opening scene of I, Daniel Blake. Daniel, a carpenter recovering from a heart attack, tries to obtain state assistance. Instead of compassion, he encounters a rigid digital system that refuses to listen. Loach keeps the camera close to Daniel, nearly suffocating him in the frame, capturing rising humiliation and frustration. The job center becomes a labyrinth where rules matter more than people.
Link to the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoV-KZKT_Wk

Visconti approaches power from a different visual angle. In La Terra Trema, the fishermen try to sell their fish to merchants who dictate prices. Visconti uses large, distant shots; the characters become small in a vast space owned by someone else. The camera visually shows the imbalance: the fishermen are physically present, yet powerless.

Loach exposes the violence of bureaucracy on the individual,
Visconti exposes the violence of capitalism on the community.

Both reveal characters deprived of agency, trapped in systems that crush them.

The aesthetics of struggle: poetry versus raw authenticity

Visconti and Loach also diverge in their visual styles. Visconti’s film, La Terra Trema has a poetic and grand feel, with scenes of the Sicilian landscape that convey both beauty and hardship, but what struck me first was the quality and grain of the image, despite the fact that this film was released in 1948, which makes it extremely modern. Ken Loach, on the other hand, uses a simpler, raw approach that brings viewers closer to the everyday lives of his characters without aesthetic embellishment.

The Angels’ Share poster, 2012 © Sixteen Films / Wild Bunch

In The Angels’ Share, the scene at the whiskey distillery (link: https://youtu.be/lxwaPSrt0A4) shows how Ken Loach celebrates the humanity and hope of his characters, despite the challenges they face. Exploring the whisky barrels, Robbie and his friends display a childlike curiosity and excitement. Loach films them with a close, unobtrusive camera, capturing their expressions and sense of wonder. This moment of lightness between the characters reveals their ability to dream and escape from their difficult reality. It also underlines the importance of solidarity and perseverance, with a view to a better future.

Similarly, in La Terra Trema, Visconti uses his style to honor the dignity of Sicilian fishermen. In the scenes where they face the sea to pull in their fishing nets, Visconti’s camera lingers on their movements, teamwork, and determination. The wide shots of the vast ocean not only show the beauty of nature but also highlight the fishermen’s inner strength as they confront natural challenges and economic injustices. This poetic approach emphasizes their resilience and courage, turning their work into a noble struggle.

While these scenes are stylistically different, they show a key similarity between Loach and Visconti: both directors treat their characters with respect and compassion, highlighting their dignity even in modest, working-class lives. However, both directors aim to show the bravery of the working class and their ability to find moments of escape and solidarity, even in tough situations. 

Characters as political acts: the individual vs. the collective

Sorry We Missed You poster, 2019 © Sixteen Films / StudioCanal

In Sorry We Missed You, Loach tackles the brutal reality of the gig economy. Ricky works as a self-employed delivery driver, supposedly “free” and independent, yet in reality trapped in a system that dictates every aspect of his day. Despite suffering a severe back injury, he continues to work, driven by pressure and fear of losing income. Loach films him up close, almost painfully close, letting us feel the strain in his body. His suffering is not metaphorical; it is visible, tangible, and relentless. Through Ricky, Loach shows how contemporary capitalism consumes bodies – not theoretically, but physically.

In La Terra Trema, the struggle takes a different form: the collective rather than the individual. The fishermen work together, pulling nets with a rhythm that reflects their solidarity and shared hope of breaking free from the merchants’ control. Yet when a violent storm destroys their boat, Visconti shatters this dream. The sea, which once symbolized possibility, becomes the force that pushes them back into the exploitative system. Their attempt to escape collapses, not by lack of courage, but because the world they live in leaves them no choice.

Loach films how capitalism breaks bodies.
Visconti films how capitalism breaks communities.

In I, Daniel Blake, Loach again focuses on personal humiliation as a direct consequence of systemic failure. One of the most distressing scenes occurs when Katie, a single mother, is caught stealing basic hygiene products at the supermarket because she cannot afford them. Her shame overwhelms her; she breaks down, and Loach refuses to cut or divert the camera. The spectator cannot look away, just as society should not look away from poverty. The scene is available online (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoV-KZKT_Wk), and watching it makes the emotional violence of bureaucracy almost unbearable.

Visconti responds not through individual emotion but through symbolism. The storm destroying the fishermen’s boat becomes the visual representation of an entire social class sinking under the weight of economic exploitation. Different methods, same violence.

When all is said and done, through their respective works, Luchino Visconti and Ken Loach demonstrate the long-lasting power of social cinema to give visibility to those the world prefers to keep silent. Visconti, in La Terra Trema, films a collective tragedy, a noble defeat shaped by forces larger than any individual. His wide shots, his attention to the community rather than the isolated character, show how an entire group can be crushed by economic determinism. Ken Loach, on the contrary, chooses to focus on the individual, on bodies and faces under pressure, on the visceral urgency of the present. His camera stays close, never allowing the viewer to escape the emotional or physical consequences of precarity. Both directors expose systems that refuse to see the working class as human — whether that system is the post-war merchant economy or the modern gig economy ruled by algorithms.

In his Palme d’Or speech in 2016, (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r4hYF71Atk)  Ken Loach declared that cinema must remain a cinema of protest, a cinema that puts people against the powerful. This sentence could define both filmographies. By choosing to film fishermen, delivery drivers, unemployed carpenters, and young men one mistake away from social disappearance, Visconti and Loach never film fiction alone: they film the political. Their images carry the same conviction: that the working class has a voice, and that cinema can amplify it. They remind us that social struggles are not abstract themes but lived realities, imprinted on bodies and destinies.

The legacy remains alive. In On Falling (Laura Carreira) a film backed by Sixteen Films under Ken Loach’s aegis, we follow warehouse workers whose bodies are timed, scanned and quantified. Just as in La Terra Trema and Sorry We Missed You, workers are reduced to numbers until they reclaim their right to exist. The cry of the invisible does not fade; it transforms and returns, from Sicily in 1948 to the distribution warehouses of the 21st century. As Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt once wrote, “Why did we invent cinema? To show the visible what remains unseen.” In this sense, social cinema will never disappear so long as its essence remains to depict reality. When cinema listens to the invisible, they stop being invisible.

Written by Tess Michellon

How “AI Slop” is shaping the music industry

Jeux vidéos / Technologie, Musique, Non classé, Réflexions,

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer only playing a major role in the tech and startup industry – it has also entered the heart of many creative industries. In recent years artists tried to figure out how they can utilize AI in order to enhance or implement in their music. This has sparked a debate among music artists, critics and fans. Some declare AI as the next step in a musicians toolkit; others are concerned it is undermining creativity, eroding artistic rights and flooding streaming platforms with soulless content.

The phrase “AI Slop” has emerged among critics and fans on multiple social media platforms, who use it to describe low-effort, mass-produced and uncreative AI music and visuals. Moreover famous artists from Billie Eilish to Sheryl Crow, cultural institutions like the Artists Rights Alliance and academics studying ethics in AI have also joined the conversation. Together they are pointing to a central question: can AI coexist with music as an art form, or will it reduce creativity to an algorithmic filler?

What exactly is “AI Slop”?

“AI Slop” is a slang term for the phenomenon when music created by AI feels cheap, uncanny or exploitative. Slop captures both the quality and the underlying ethical problem:

  • Low quality: AI tracks lack distinction, coherence and emotional depth
  • Disrespect: AI mimics voices or recreates artistic identity without consent
  • Deception: AI is not properly declared to bypass listeners criticism

In a short period of time, the use of AI has evolved from a potential small tool for fine adjustments to fully autonomous music productions.

“Anna Indiana” for example is the world’s first AI singer-songwriter, which was trained by multiple algorithms. The result is “creatively unimaginative” (Business Insider, 2023) and struggles with genuine emotional depth (Fantano, 2023).

Screenshot of the music video for “Betrayed by this town” by Anna Indiana.

Unfortunately AI is also being embraced by already powerful and famous musicians. Legendary superproducer Timbaland, who worked with many talented artists like Nelly Furtado, Jay Z or Justin Timberlake conquering the 2000s music landscape, is taking a new path by generating music with a new AI pop artist called “tata”. Simultaneously he founded a record label “Stage Zero”, which is signing only AI Artists. While already facing huge backlash for this creation, rumors of him emerged, allegedly training “artists” without the permission of the original musicians.

Screenshot from the music video “Glitch x Pulse” by tata.

Aside from the tacky and spiritless sound AI-generated music usually delivers, it also hits another nerve:

In order to generate music with AI, it has to be trained on previous data. But music is not just data, it carries identity, memory and a cultural meaning. Using AI to mimic these voices blurs the line between homage and exploitation. In the hardest case, “deepfakes”, they become a tool of manipulation, creating confusion for listeners, disrespect for the original artists or even pain for families of deceased artists.

In addition to the problems AI brings to the musical side of the industry, it is also slowly infiltrating the visual sphere of music, including music videos, album artworks and promotional materials. This development is troubling for several reasons: First of all the visuals produced by AI also often appear uninspired, repetitive and emotionally flat, lacking the intentionality and artistic touch that human designers can bring to the table. Secondly this trend undermines professional illustrators and designers, whose work has long been essential to the music industry. As record labels and artists turn to AI tools for quick and low-cost imagery, human visual artists are increasingly getting overlooked and therefore not paid.

For example the acclaimed producer Alchemist and R&B legend Erykah collaborated on a properly created song but utilized AI to animate a music video. The result is a messy conglomerate of tangled depictions and strange proportions. In one frame a boy seems to be very dislocated, because he has a shiny aura around him. In the same frame a girl holds a blunt, which has the same length as her forearm.

Screenshot from the music video of “Next to You” by The Alchemist and Erykah Badhu.

At last the ongoing problem is infiltrating album artworks, in the case of the newly released album “Songs for a Nervous Planet” by the well known band “Tears for Fears”. It was also produced by partly using AI in the creation process. The result is an astronaut in a field of sunflowers. The band itself described it as an “vibrant artwork that evoked a sense of sci-fi, futuristic themes, and an escape from what is known”. However the result, despite attempting to engage with such grand and nourishing themes, feels very dull and uninspired, failing to offer a meaningful or compelling representation of surrealism. 

Album artwork for the new Tears for Fears album “Songs for a Nervous Planet”.

The music industries perspective:

The Flood of AI Content:

One of the most visible consequences of the AI boom is the sheer flood of AI content on music platforms. Streaming services like Spotify or YouTube are already saturated with countless AI-generated tracks. These are frequently built from the same datasets, resulting in endless variations of unimaginative variations of background pop or ambient music. Additionally they are often uploaded under generic names, often indistinguishable from real artists. It creates an ecosystem increasingly defined by quantity rather than quality. What makes this development especially concerning is not just the quality drop off, but the way AI songs are now blending in with human artists.

An entirely AI-generated “band”, called “The Velvet Sundown” has managed to become a verified artist on spotify, gaining real traction with the help of playlist placements and algorithmic promotion. The “band” mimics an indie flair, using certain buzzwords and illustrating a 1970s inspired aesthetic. They even got a lead phrase: “you drift into them”, having a marketing language like a human artist.

The Velvet Sundown encompasses the troubling moment when synthetic, unauthentic art stops pretending to be artificial and instead passes as authentic. Apart from dissolving into one indistinguishable and boring feed of sound this development also dilutes the visibility and diminishes the earnings of real artists.

Public Criticism by Artists

In April 2024 more than 200 musicians signed an open letter against “predatory” use of AI in music. Signatories include Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj or Stevie Wonder. The message was clear: the usage of AI trained on artists voices without consent risks destroying livelihoods and disrespecting human artistry. 

Later on in the same year, a larger community, including ABBA, The Cure and Radiohead joined another statement protesting against using creative works to train an AI without permission. They declared such practices as unjust appropriation of cultural labor.

Journalistic Takes

Mainstream news outlets have also amplified these concerns. The Financial Times called AI tools as potential “theft machines”, harvesting copyrighted material. The BBC examines fears that unfiltered AI will trigger a “race to the bottom” in terms of music quality and economics.

These outlets stress that the problem is not of the future, but highlight the importance in the present. They publish many cases of big AI scandals, lawsuits and new appearances.

The Academic Perspective on Ethical and Cultural Risks

Beyond established artists and journal critics, academics began collecting musicians’ ethical concerns about AI. Common themes in interviews are: fear of displacement, anger about unlicensed data training and anxiety over recognition. Some acknowledge potential useful applications but most artists point out the lack of a proper industry framework that offers safeguards.

Other scholars raise major cultural concerns, arguing that AI music datasets are in favor of global northern traditions, ignoring much of the global south. This could potentially lead to a culture erasure, where AI not only imitates but narrows musical diversity.

In order to frame the current development ethical frameworks are suggested in academic literature. Researchers propose guidelines around transparency, explainability, fairness and regulation.

Constructive Uses of AI in Music

Despite all the negative examples, the question arises whether there is way to use AI to leverage or simplify creative processes without losing the fundamental spirit of artistry. Some artists are experimenting with AI as a creative partner. A leading example is Holly Herndon, who uses a type of AI “clone” of herself in her Holly+ project. 

With the help of AI she let others remix and reinterpret her voice, while simultaneously having control and establishing transparency rules. Instead of stealing someone else’s likeness, she shares her own. Therefore AI becomes a tool for empowerment, not an instrument of exploitation.

Similarly, some AI tools assist with production (e.g. drum machines or mixing assistance) without erasing human creativity. In light of this application, AI could become an ally rather than an imitator, if the listeners can easily grasp whether a track is AI-generated or performed by a human being and smaller artists are not repressed in the streaming landscape.

Conclusion:

The debate around AI in music is ultimately not just about technology, but primarily about the presented values. The tools themselves are neutral, what matters is the intention and framework behind their use. As the examples of AI artists and algorithmic streaming content show, the danger does not lie in innovation, but in exploitation: when technology is used to imitate, deceive, or replace rather than to inspire.

Ultimately we should ask ourselves:

Do we want a music culture defined by quantity, imitation, and profit, or one that continues to celebrate authenticity, originality, and human emotion?

Written by Linn Rietschel

Sources:

  • Article about public letter against AI misuse:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/02/musicians-demand-protection-against-ai

  • Article about Anna Indianas first song:

https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-artifical-intelligence-musician-anna-indiana-pop-chatgpt-spotify-music-2023-11

  • Article about potential good use of AI:

https://www.artbasel.com/stories/ai-holly-herndon-mat-dryhurst-data-training-art-making?lang=de

  • YouTube link for Anthony Fantanos opinion about Anna Indiana:
  • YouTube link for “Next to You” music video:
  • YouTube link for “Glitch x Pulse” music video:

The Disco Myth: Why Studio 54 Still Matters in 2025

Musique, Non classé, Réflexions

A Legendary Door Reopens

I decided to write about Studio 54 after watching the recent documentary Love to Love You, Donna Summer (2023) by Roger Ross Williams and Brooklyn Sudano. 

It reminded me that disco was never just a musical genre: it was a social movement, a way of being.

And this year, the mirror ball spins again: Valentino Beauty will reopen Studio 54 for one night during New York Fashion Week 2025 (Mixmag, 2024). Forty-three years after its closure, the club that once defined the 1970s returns as a luxury brand experience.

But beyond nostalgia, this revival raises questions. What did disco really mean to America then? And in a world obsessed with documentation and self-image, could a place like Studio 54 even exist today? 

Steve Rubell surrounded by Studio 54 guests © Bill Bernstein

Studio 54 and the Disco Era

When Studio 54 opened in 1977, New York City was broke, dangerous, and dazzling. Inside a converted CBS television studio on West 54th Street, founders Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager created a new universe – equal parts stage and sanctuary. The door policy was ruthless: celebrities, drag queens, Wall Street brokers, and unknown dreamers mingled under a sea of strobe lights.

The club became a living artwork. There were horses parading across the dance floor, snowstorms made of confetti, moon installations that winked at the crowd. Bianca Jagger famously arrived on horseback wearing white satin, instantly entering pop-culture mythology (PBS American Experience, 2019).

Bianca Jagger rides in on a white horse at during her birthday celebrations at Studio 54 in New York, May 1977 © Rose Hartman/Getty Images)

Yet behind the velvet rope, Studio 54 carried the rhythm of something deeper. Disco had been born in Black, Latinx and queer communities in underground clubs like the Loft and Paradise Garage. It was a rhythm of liberation, a celebration of bodies long excluded from mainstream stages. Studio 54 simply amplified it, turning subculture into spectacle.

Studio 54 was more than a nightclub; it was a laboratory of identity, where the beat itself became permission to exist.

Parallel Lights: Paris Is Burning

Yet while Studio 54 translated queer and Black creativity into mainstream stardom, other communities built their own stages. A few blocks and a decade away, Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990) captured the underground ballroom scene where Black and Latinx queer people competed in “categories” – performing the glamour and status denied to them elsewhere. Both spaces celebrated transformation, but with opposite economies: Studio 54 traded on access and fame, while the drag balls of Paris Is Burning invented glamour from the margins.

Watching those ballroom dancers “walk” executive or model categories feels like a reply to the velvet rope of Studio 54 – a way of saying if you won’t let us in, we’ll build our own club. The same city, the same yearning for light, but radically different routes to visibility.

The Social Pulse of the 1970s

To understand disco’s power, we need to picture its world. America in the late 1970s was emerging from Vietnam and Watergate; feminism and gay liberation were reshaping public life. The dance floor became a kind of refuge, a temporary utopia where politics dissolved under strobes and sweat.

As historian Tim Lawrence notes, disco was “a collective experience of self-transformation.” Underneath the glitter was a social message: joy can be political.

For queer communities, disco offered a freedom rarely found elsewhere. It was both rebellion and therapy, a sonic space where difference turned into rhythm.

Studio 54 translated that radical energy into mainstream glamour. Its decadence fascinated America – a mix of money, desire, and inclusivity that mirrored the country’s contradictions. Much like the drag balls later captured in Paris Is Burning, it was about performing who you could be, if only for one night.

Excess, Glamour and Collapse

Every myth needs its fall. Studio 54’s success was as outrageous as its parties. Rubell once bragged that the club made $7 million in its first year (Britannica, 2023). But by 1979, the fantasy cracked: the founders were arrested for tax evasion, and the dream of endless freedom met the reality of capitalism.

At the same time, the “Disco Demolition Night” in Chicago (1979) revealed the cultural backlash. What began as a radio stunt to destroy disco records turned into a riot charged with racism and homophobia. The message was clear: not everyone wanted liberation on the dance floor.

Yet disco never died. It morphed into house, pop, and electronic music; its pulse survived through artists like Madonna, Daft Punk, and Beyoncé. The mirror ball simply kept turning in new forms.

From Underground to Heritage

Fast-forward to 2025, and disco’s ghosts dance again. When Valentino Beauty chose to reopen Studio 54 for Fashion Week, it wasn’t just a party, it was a statement. Brands now trade on nostalgia; they monetize cultural memory.

But nostalgia can be double-edged. The original club was about anonymity and experimentation, not curated selfies. Today’s luxury version risks domesticating what was once wild.

Still, disco’s Black and queer roots are finally being recognized. In the past few years, Beyoncé’s Renaissance (2022), Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia (2020), and countless fashion collections have re-embraced that heritage. The Valentino event might be commodified, but it also reminds the mainstream where disco came from and who built it.

Jamaican-born singer and model Grace Jones embraces producer Allan Carr at ‘Grease’ premiere party at Studio 54, New York, June 13, 1978 © Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images

Freedom in the Age of Surveillance

The question I keep returning to is simple: Could Studio 54 exist today?

Our nights are now lived under the glow of phone screens. Every dance, every kiss, every fall becomes content. The sense of danger, of losing control, has been replaced by performance for the algorithm.

Studio 54 thrived on mystery. You didn’t film it; you lived it. That intimacy is what made it sacred. Today, nightlife is more inclusive, safer, and often more political but perhaps less spontaneous. Freedom is filtered; privacy is a luxury.

The ballroom culture that Paris Is Burning immortalized hasn’t vanished either; it has evolved through shows like Pose and the global vogueing scene. What began as an act of defiance is now part of pop culture, just as disco’s beat echoes in today’s hits. Both remind us that freedom on the dance floor is never guaranteed. It must be reinvented, again and again, by those brave enough to perform it.

And yet, the need for spaces of collective euphoria hasn’t vanished. You can still find them in Brooklyn warehouses, queer bars, summer festivals, or even in Nantes in clubs like Macadam, where phones stay in pockets and strangers dance like it’s 1977. Maybe that’s the true legacy of disco: the constant search for moments that feel unrecorded but unforgettable.

Canadian activist Margaret Trudeau (left, in white) dances at the Manhattan nightclub and disco Studio 54 in New York, circa 1978 © Oscar Abolafia/TPLP/Getty Images

Why Studio 54 Still Matters

Studio 54’s myth endures because it speaks to a universal desire: to be everything, if only for one night. It was a place where art, hedonism, and identity collapsed into pure rhythm.

For cultural-management students like us, it’s also a reminder that culture is cyclical. Every generation rediscovers freedom, packages it, and sells it back. The dance floor teaches us that creation and consumption are never fully separate; they spin together like light on a mirror ball.

Personally, what draws me to that world isn’t just the glamour, it’s the courage. People danced as if no one was watching, because for once, no one was. In a world obsessed with visibility, that kind of invisibility feels radical.

The Light Still Spins

Forty-three years after its closure, Studio 54 still captures the imagination because it was more than a club. It was a manifesto. A belief that joy, diversity, and excess could rewrite social order.

As the doors reopen for one glittering night in 2025, perhaps the lesson isn’t nostalgia but renewal. Every era needs its dance floor, its soundtrack of freedom. The forms change (from vinyl to streaming, from drag balls to TikTok) but the impulse remains.

From Studio 54’s velvet rope to the community halls of Paris Is Burning, New York has always danced between exclusion and creation, proving that when culture closes its doors, art finds another entrance.

In the end, the mirror ball keeps turning, reflecting who we were, and who we still dream of becoming.

Written by Aliona Ousviatsev

Sources: