alice smith

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.

Despite all the crises we face – the cost of living, climate change, AI – any of which should surely be enough material to inspire real and meaningful art, the overwhelm of information paired with exhausting post-capitalist forces has created an atmosphere that is nihilistic and excruciatingly mid.

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.

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

Computers can see us as large groups, but they’re glum and only aggregate us to sell us stuff. In reality, the computers give great insight into the power of common identity between groups. No one’s using that. What’s sitting with the computers is a way of seeing new groups, new common identities between people.

One way to monetize curation is through a paid newsletter, with the Everything Bundle as a great example. Other opportunities include blogs, ebooks, e-commerce stores, and consultations/speaking gigs. I even came across ReadBase during my research, which allows curators to monetize their bookmarks and reading lists. In any case, curators can find... See more

For thousands of years, Earth’s resources have been extracted by bodies, most of whom were not free. But now it’s our bodies and ourselves being extracted.

- Hans Ulrich Olbrist

My perennial thought will always be, if the internet didn't exist in the state that it did now, we would have so many rich, interesting scenes, because people have to work to share that.

I don’t think the tools themselves are the problem; it’s how the entirety of human culture has been digested and regurgitated by them.