alice smith

Digital platforms are largely devoted to making users consume more, faster—think of TikTok’s frenetic “For You” feed or Spotify’s automated playlists. Curators slow down the unending scroll and provide their followers with a way of savoring culture, rather than just inhaling it, developing a sense of appreciation

I’m curious about the way it’s impacting our inner monologues. The constant self-analysis, the picking-apart, the internal work . In collusion with capitalism and social media and the digital panopticon, seeing ourselves through a therapized lens means regarding the self as the ultimate project. It’s easy to forget there are other ways to live.

“We’re moving away from the need to say, ‘These items put together are an aesthetic,’ and moving towards a more fluid state,” Panzoni says. Instead of “grabbing” an aesthetic as a whole, consumers can take elements and incorporate them into their own style. “This shift is why we haven’t seen a micro-trend pop in a little bit,” she says.

Algorithmic recommendations can be formulaic – if a person is creating a playlist, there’s always the potential for chaos, which is kind of fun.

As Shumon Basar put it, we're living in the era of LoreCore: 'a prevalent stage of reality in which we're all characters; characters who are also audiences.' From Coquette to Mermaid fashion, from Doe to Siren Eyes, codified styles are 'guiding' our characters' journey, while optimizing it for digital consumption.

You must choose your way forward. The data shouldn’t tell you how to live—you train the AI to paint a more beautiful future - SSENSE

The problem goes deeper than this. Increasingly our tech also opens us up to new vectors of anxiety. Regardless of whether you’re working more or less, your nervous system is now plugged into a neurotic and hypersensitive globe-spanning information system that’s constantly pushing unnecessary things into your consciousness.