internet culture

NON NEGOTIABLES

Of the place
Less is more
Vibrant collaboration
No repeat ingredients
Consolidation + speed
Confidence + competence
In + out service
Pursuit of excellence
Details matter
Know your shit!
FOCUS
Service
Time
Not about you
Perfect means perfect
No excuses
Respect tradition
Push boundaries
Clean as you go
Break down boxes
Shirts perfectly pressed
Personal

The one thing I thought was funny about Anu’s piece is that it claims “no one owns taste” but then sort of poo-poo’s the anticipated reaction of people that views the subject of taste as their “special territory”.

You can’t have both of these things. And it’s what tech people broadly get wrong about many other intersectional dialogues. Either no... See more

Reggie James • Product Lost by @hipcityreg | Reggie James | Substack

For all the hype that surrounds them, neural networks can’t reflect or explain anything deeper about cultural or societal phenomena any more than sharing a favorite character from The Office can predict long-term compatibility with a Tinder match. These systems can only instrumentalize taste; they turn any expression of self into a reductive data... See more

Alex Vuocolo • Nameless Feeling — Real Life

The spectator-buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product. She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself. One could put this another way: the publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her

Over the years, I have written a lot about commercial (and domestic) spaces becoming more “logistical.” The degraded customer experience may be worthwhile from a cost-benefit perspective—and we can at least hope to recoup our losses in other domains, such as convenience—but the plight of physical space is real. The less pleasant it is to spend time... See more

Drew Austin • The Amazonification of Public Space

Here in 2025, however, Blueprint appears to be humming along and building an ever-growing following.

Two years in, the mainstream critiques of Johnson’s health regimen remain the same, simple and amusing. It’s either that he’s too rich or too exacting in his lifestyle for any regular person to emulate and/or that he’s doing so much to his body in an... See more

Bryan Johnson and the Birth of the Blueprint Religion

The vibes are off, but they’re off fundamentally because they focus only on feelings and emotional connections that have already existed. They don’t provide or imagine pathways to new futures; they allow only for an understanding of what feels good or bad based on experiences that have already happened, things that have already been seen.