The style industry exists to keep producing new styles, to keep everyone thinking that they have to buy a new wardrobe each year to keep up, to bring shame to everyone uncool enough to wear last season’s colors .
A celebrity, someone once said, is a person well known for being well known. But the half-life of fame is extremely short, and to keep yourself in the public eye you have to be willing to make yourself over again and again in order to keep ahead of the game.
Styles live, and styles die. Celebrities sit on top of the world for a week, but then are forgotten, and show up, pathetically attempting to regain a bit of lost notoriety by going a few rounds on Celebrity Boxing.
This too is vapor and shepherding wind.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
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