It’s 2026. People are no longer buying missions or hustle. They’re buying taste and objects that help them exercise that taste in the world.

We’re entering what I call the Taste Curation Renaissance, a shift away from content-as-advertising toward content-as-world-building.

The brands winning now have stopped shouting into cameras. They’re curating taste universes. They show art influencing their design. Music the brand appreciates. Books that inform their thinking. Collaborators, artists, designers, activists whose work aligns with their sensibility. Cultural references shaping their aesthetic.

They give us worlds to... See more

When a brand builds a universe specific enough, coherent enough, richly curated enough, the right people recognize their own taste reflected. The shouting becomes unnecessary.

The world speaks for itself. And the people who belong there find their way home.

But most brands won’t do this. It’s too slow, too difficult, too dependent on taste as a real... See more

This is why taste is rare. It requires both the skill to develop a point of view and the discipline to defend it against dilution.

Think about walking into a small gallery with a specific curatorial vision. Immediately there’s a shift, the light, the spacing, how each work converses with the others. There’s no selling happening. Just an invitation to experience a perspective. That is exactly how successful brand feeds feel. An invitation to a world, intentionally built.

When brands keep repeating why they exist, what their mission is—yes, it matters. But people don’t need weekly reminders of a mission. They’re buying a way to place themselves in the world. They’re buying alignment with a particular set of references, values, and cultural signals.

Brands that get this understand that taste lives in music chosen,... See more