Sep 30, 2026 · 42 min
America’s soft power faces a global culture test
America Used to Be Cool. What Happened?
The episode examines whether American culture still attracts the world, or whether influence is shifting toward more deliberate and hybrid cultural systems.
- 1Postwar American media gained global reach as other countries rebuilt their cultural industries and audiences embraced its formats.
- 2South Korea turned cultural export into a national strategy, while China struggled to convert state investment and economic power into cultural appeal.
- 3Social platforms and commercialization blur the line between durable cultural movements, short-lived trends, and the national origins of “cool.”
Don't miss
Euny Hong’s account of South Korea’s post-1997 strategy shows how cultural influence can be built deliberately without relying primarily on military power.
The brief
Nadja Spiegelman asks whether America still commands global cultural influence, joined by W. David Marks and Euny Hong, who bring decades of experience living abroad.
The guests contrast nostalgic Americana with contemporary American culture in Paris and Tokyo, then trace how postwar occupation and expanding media industries made American style aspirational.
They define soft power as attraction rather than coercion and debate whether entertainment can carry values such as freedom, individualism, democracy, and equality across borders.
South Korea emerges as a deliberate cultural exporter after the 1997 financial crisis, while China’s centralized efforts reveal that virality and “cool” cannot simply be manufactured.
The conversation ends with a harder question: as platforms and commerce absorb culture, can America still produce the underground movements that once inspired the world?
Books & mentions
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