We live in an aggressive media environment. Everything we see advertises for our attention. Information is constantly pushed onto us.

As the torrent increases, it devalues more and more information that comes our way. All social media is advertising. Even my posts are essentially ads for my work and point of view. Newsletters have become overwhelmi... See more

Popular culture seems to agree with this view. Morning routines, writing routines, exercise routines—these are the blueprints of modern self-actualization, shared online one after another for a perpetually searching public. We study them like clues that may lead us to the correct way to be. The correct way to repeat ourselves.

Fiction Lag (aka Experience-Taking)

When people are captivated by a work of fiction, they unconsciously adopt the traits of their favorite characters. We develop our identities by copying others, and perhaps one reason we enjoy fiction is that it gives us ideas on who to be.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a group of humans tagged as a bowl of olives and a mezcal negroni. I'm not even hurt when this happens; it feels societally accepted at this point and I’m actually a little camera shy. But if you really think about it, doesn’t that say something about our priorities?

To paraphrase Marx, we might hunt for jobs on LinkedIn in the morning, fish for compliments on Instagram in the afternoon, criticize each other on Twitter after dinner, and be as lascivious as we like on Tinder in the late evening, without letting any of these identities define us...  Nevertheless, something is lost in this fractionalization o... See more

“Wellness culture encourages people to view their health as a perpetual work in progress and to be constantly monitoring how they feel — two things that can heighten anxiety and preoccupation with illness,” she explains. “Rather than being able to appreciate the health and capabilities that we have, we are encouraged to always strive for more, to b... See more

At its best, cultural criticism is love and art that exists to give love to other expressions of art. It's beautiful in its indulgence.

The highest form of leverage is reputation.