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Life After Lifestyle
All in all, product marketing businesses can only do so much to situate their goods in these broader cultural worlds without eating into their margins.
Toby Shorin • Life After Lifestyle
The origin of the term “culture” is best documented by the comparative literature scholar Raymond Williams, who charted its appearance in his book Culture and Society, 1780-1950 . At the beginning of the 18th century, “culture” was still only a verb. It meant to cultivate the land, to encourage natural growth: the culture of leeks or potatoes or ga... See more
Toby Shorin • Life After Lifestyle
In the new cultural economy, the culture is the product. It is composed of practices, ideas, and discourses. Products are auxiliary, supportive, but not the main event. And most importantly, people now opt into these designed cultures with full knowledge and awareness that these cultures might change who they are. The authenticity-driven culture o
... See moreToby Shorin • Life After Lifestyle
So to me, the problem is not with the buying, nor even with the culture-grifting of brands, but with some kind of insufficiency on the part of the companies themselves. If the meanings they have on offer are starved versions of cultural membership, then perhaps, I started to feel, the brands aren’t going far enough. Could we imagine a version of a ... See more
Toby Shorin • Life After Lifestyle
As a consumer, you subscribe to one vision or another: what’s your version of hiking out doors? What type of vibe are you about? Purist? Gorpy? High intensity? Meditative? But in all cases, the branded subculture itself is the main thing, while the role of physical goods is diminished. Their job is not to drive value, but to add another layer of de
... See moreToby Shorin • Life After Lifestyle
The Lifestyle era was not about creating culture; it was about attaching brands onto existing cultural contexts. It was not about shaping people; it was about sorting consumer demographics into niche categories.
Toby Shorin • Life After Lifestyle
In the 2010s, supply chain innovation opened up lifestyle brands. In the 2020s, financial mechanism innovation is opening up the space for incentivized ideologies, networked publics, and co-owned faiths.
Toby Shorin • Life After Lifestyle
No matter how great the list of product recommendations in your favorite nootropics or skincare subreddit, the practices and the moral premises of a subculture always are deferred when put in company hands. Deferred in the way that buying the hottest running shoes don’t mean you’re fit. Deferred in the way that buying books from Verso isn’t an adeq... See more
Toby Shorin • Life After Lifestyle
Across food, across fashion and accessories, legal cannabis products, beverages, athleisure, skin care, supplements, and other permutations of consumer packaged goods and apparel, every manufacturing and last-mile strategy has become possible, from dropshipping to just-in-time, from small-batch to make-on-demand. Products begin their life as an unb
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