So new post-#MeToo theory of the ‘90s is that as institutions from businesses to the Senate and Presidency of the United States “grappled with sexual harassment” and started reorienting against it and trying to sort practitioners out the NY and LA culture industries held out effectively, relying on tight internal relationships and captive legal and para-legal institutions (“privilege” meant “private law”).
Other norms too \u2013 I cannot emphasize enough how in the 90s fucking teenage groupies was accepted and celebrated as definitional of rock stardom \u2013 this was where you first saw “new economy” companies generalizing “rockstar” to “elite and valued employee”
This differential sorting left the culture-shaping industries of the time consisting of, and thus the culture guided by, a cohort that was significantly higher in both desire for human exploitation and skill at human manipulation than the rest of society, over and above the dynamics you would normally expect pressing in that direction, and this is critical to understanding '90s culture in retrospect.
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