curating obscure social medias

It seems that most people can remember only a few high-level details of a book weeks later—if that. A typical reader might spend hours finishing some serious non-fiction—then maybe it comes up at a dinner party, and they find you can remember like three sentences. Basically no detailed recall.

When you choose whom to follow on Twitter, you’re choosing what types of mindsets and aesthetics to expose yourself to on a regular basis. You’re choosing what types of conversations to have. You’re choosing to be reminded regularly of certain things, and not of others. This is a kind of Programmable attention.

To be transformed by a book, readers must do more than absorb information: they must bathe in the book’s ideas, relate those ideas to experiences in their lives over weeks and months, try on the book’s mental models like a new hat. Unfortunately, readers must drive that process for themselves. Authors can’t easily guide this ongoing sense-making:... See more

As a writer and culture critic, I operate at the intersection between these corporations and the mass audience. My influence is limited, but if I don’t play a part in trying to revitalize and refresh our artistic idioms, I will have wasted much of the potential of my vocation.

This is why, for example, I listen to so much new music and read so many... See more

The bike rides. The sleepovers. Your first cigarette. Gossiping about your latest crush. Being consoled when they break your heart. Discovering a new city. Re-discovering your own (at 2AM). The hungover brunches. The tears. The laughs. The love. So many of the moments that shaped us were shared with friends. And then those moments started happening... See more

I spend a lot of time seeking out music from different countries and regions, and with each passing year the challenge of finding something distinctively local increases.

This is a tremendous loss for everybody—akin to losing a species or an entire ecosystem. I feel I’m fighting a losing battle, but I refuse to walk away from the challenge.

From my Instagram, what you might see is a series of outfit posts, glimpses of a trip to New York, Seen Library happenings, favorite spots in LA, and brand events and partnerships.

But what you don’t see are the spontaneous hang outs with my cousins, watching my best friend’s baby take his first steps, the weekly walks I take with my 80-year-old... See more