What is Across The Culture?

Across The Culture (ATC) is a cultural engineering site. More simply, ATC looks to redesign conversations about global pop culture with the goal of improving how people think, feel, and act toward each other.

CULTURE (as defined by Across The Culture, rooted in the sociological definition) (noun):

  1. the sum of what is commonly said, done, and believed in a society. 
  • Examples of what is said: NY Times op-eds, interviews, blogs, tweets, rumors in the streets
  • Examples of what is done: tv streaming, raves, memes, ridesharing, getting the COVID-19 vaccine
  • Examples of what is believed: Immigrants can be illegal, the American Dream, carbs are bad, the college experience is essential

Global popular culture, then, is the highlight reel of culture. It is the collection of our most-widely shared activities, conversations, and beliefs that many refer to as “the culture.”

ATC strongly believes in the give-and-take relationship between “the culture” and the people. There are moments where people bully the culture into awkward corners (e.g. hip-hop’s musical boundaries). There are also moments where the culture stands its ground and makes people do shit they never thought they’d be doing (e.g. everyone yelling “fake news” at each other). From short-lived Twitter trends to climate change and global politics, we do our best to track this ebb and flow between people and the big shapeless mass of norms, values, attitudes, current events, and trends we call culture.

Content Principle

ATC publishes non-hateful content that adds value to existing conversations or starts new ones altogether.

“Even a piece by a Trump supporter? Or a conflicted homophobe?”

Yes, contributors with controversial perspectives who are not actively promoting oppressive forms of discrimination in their content can publish on ATC.

Engaging with ATC Content: Dos and Don’ts

DO (for readers):

  • Write comments relevant to the article you’re commenting on
  • Respectfully challenge an author or commenter
  • Use our work to reevaluate your social beliefs and practices
  • Submit a draft in response to our work for publication consideration
  • Keep the conversation going—sharing links to your social media feeds, private online chats, or in person
  • Subscribe to our mailing list
  • Bookmark the ATC homepage

DON’T (for readers)

  • Write irrelevant, disrespectful, and/or hateful comments—we reserve the right to reject comments we find to have any of these qualities
  • Share or comment on our work without reading, watching, and/or listening to it

DO (for publishers)

  • Repost an ATC article with reference (e.g. disclaimer, backlink) to its original publication
  • Share an ATC article on your social media account(s) related to your topics of authority and/or interest
  • Ask Zander to link back to content of yours relevant to a specific ATC piece
  • Email Zander (zander@acrosstheculture.com) with further questions about collaboration, citation, and use of ATC content

DON’T (for publishers)

  • Repost an ATC article without reference to its original publication
  • Email Zander offering to pay for backlinks
  • Email Zander with a vague request—the more specific, the better

About Zander

Founder and editor Zander Tsadwa is passionate about words, humanity, and cleaning up messy conversations to help people see each other clearer.

Reach out to him with questions, comments, or guest writer pitches at zander@acrosstheculture.com

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