Brian Thomas Clark

“Authenticity”, I think, looks like the power to opt in or out, perform or not, when you want to—in other words: freedom. So when it comes to the Internet, if switching off entirely isn’t possible any more, then surely the words of MGMT can be useful: “control yourself, take only what you need from it.”

Taste isn't some mysterious gift bestowed at birth—it's simply what happens when you pay close attention to what moves you.

A decade ago, you paid for a smartphone to get 24/7 access to a world that, while demanding of your attention and full of advertising, was made up of a greater share of pleasurable, novel, or at least elective stuff: social media; entertainment; communication with friends; a bit of freedom from your desk at work, if you wanted it. (It provided... See more

The hard parts are still stubbornly human: deciding what is worth doing, inspiring people to care, the last mile of building high craft products, the slow work of building a community. The people-y things.

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Websites that were supposed to be owned experiences risk becoming dinosaurs, static commoditized destinations in an age where attention is dynamic and personalized.

Thirst and clout-chasiness aside, there’s no question that the ‘modern media brand’ need multi-modal expression through published content, social syndication, IRL experience, consumable goods and active community.

3. Maintain a standard

Jalen yelled at me a few times for not getting my eyes on coach Jay Wright. We used to have this thing at Villanova: When the coach was talking, we would yell “eyes” so everybody would quiet down and look at him.

I was a freshman, so I didn’t really understand how important it was. Jalen really got on me one time. “Eyes, eyes,... See more

Trying repeatedly to do something so potentially devastating requires being finely attuned to other people, tapped into your own ability for intimacy. And our culture of extreme individualism and extreme alienation, our culture of loneliness, doesn’t exactly make that easy.

If I sometimes feel like my hard drive is full, then it doesn’t matter if what I’m adding to the drive is, on its face, soothing. It’s just more stuff, more data, more things to process. By adopting my friend’s elevated standard for what’s allowed in, I decreased the number of inputs, the number of demands for thought and work and reaction I was... See more