Have We Reached Peak Brand?
Another few decades later, in 2024, it’s difficult to even remember the world that came before this. No Logo feels dated in 2024 because it’s a dispatch from the twilight of the (comparatively) unbranded world that has since been overwritten, the logic of branding having escaped its traditional corporate confines, now internalized by subcultures, i... See more
Drew Austin • Learning from the Virgin Megastore
This is peak Lifestyle. Easier than ever to launch a brand. More goods than ever. Software-enabled, integrated supply chain driven business models. An explosion of online social media cultures. These elements have become omnipresent, splashed across our lives like the patterned splotches of a magic eye book. Stare long enough, and you begin to see ... See more
Toby • Life After Lifestyle
Hype became a dirty word, and longevity increasingly feels like a myth.
Virality got conflated with relevance, while relevance comes with the curse of becoming imminently passé. Whist new gen brands like Corteiz are propped up by persistent presence, institutions such as Apple resist exploring their own hype, choosing omnipresence instead.
This beg
This is also only my perception but I felt like every time I opened up Instagram, brands were starting to push out way more content because they had all this shit to sell. Sure, there’s been a lot of content for years but this felt like a lot more than usual. We’ve just never been built like that, to be a content machine.
we consume so much, now, that perhaps we don’t know what it means to exist as something unsellable. i had to give up journalling because i couldn’t stop writing for the people who would read it after i was dead.