alice smith

In the last ten years, pattern recognition has become a cultural activity. You see that on the bad end, like QAnon, and on the more fun end with the pervasiveness of trend forecasting.

this is interesting bc with the abundance of info, we are now turning to each other and those who we aspire to to see what they’re consuming to get the 'best' and their personal curations. Additionally, as ppl become more comfortable with wanting to know every detail, it's only a matter of time before we start using the 'following' feature on IG

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It’s long past time that we realized these systems are not benefitting culture. Creators and consumers alike are pushed into preset formats that we may ultimately have no organic interest in. By giving in to algorithmic feeds, we are letting tech companies determine our tastes.

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.

In Curators are the new Creators, Gaby argues that this will create opportunities for curators — increasingly, we will pay people with good taste to help us sort through the ever-growing mass of information.

The business of good taste has been well documented. There are plenty of businesses that address the question “what should I read?”; The... See more

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.

Brands are just tools for consumers to describe their personality. If your personality is flat, then you wear obvious things.