| This dissertation examines changes in American media and culture as brought about the 2008 financial crisis. In the aftermath of such a culture-shift event, television shows and fiction works reflected new ideas about value. This project looks at three such aspects of American life that took on new value in the 2010s. The first is privacy, specifically internet privacy. As social media and Web2 expanded to function in every part of American life, the significance of user privacy also increased. I chart how Silicon Valley (2014-2019) addresses the importance of privacy throughout the seasons and how this corresponds to a greater societal awareness of the forces of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff). The second focus is on public reputation. The #MeToo movement made powerful men more aware of the reputational power they possessed, and how the internet changed the avenues by which that power could be weakened. I look thoroughly at the Netflix show BoJack Horseman (2014-2020), examining how BoJack uses his reputation as a television star to dodge criminal accusations before his past finally catches up to him. I examine how the later seasons of the show work as a #MeToo narrative centered on power dynamics between reputation-enabled men and less powerful women. This chapter also examines Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise (2019) and how its unstable narration reflects the trauma associated with sexual assault. Trust Exercise shows its women characters reasserting their power by changing the narrative, a focus of #MeToo stories. Finally, I address the concept of whiteness as a commodity focusing particularly on how “post-racial” awareness worked in the Obama and Trump eras of American life. I focus on works of Black satire that explore the limits of social climbing possible for Black characters. This analysis illuminates the structures, in television and the world, that limit Black advancement. The conclusion considers the fiction of Jennifer Egan and how it frames the 2010s as a decade of American culture. Egan’s work speaks to the changes that happened in the decade especially as it relates to the expansion of internet as a central force in American life and culture. |