taste long game

The problem here is our obsession with popularity. We’ve been imbued with popularity contests since the beginning of our social lives. We’ve been primed to assess cultural output by how many others liked it. Movie and music studios, fashion conglomerates, publishers, social media, and other cultural industries generate efficient formulas to create... See more

Her call to "redefine cool by championing our otherness" positions authentic self-expression as a political act. The personal rejection of algorithmic determinism becomes part of a larger movement reclaiming human agency in multiple domains.

The curator relationship operates at a fundamentally different psychological level than advertising. An algorithm might know you like blue Oxford shirts, but a tastemaker knows why a particular blue Oxford matters in a lineage of blue Oxfords. This contextual knowing, placing objects in historical and cultural frameworks rather than recommendation... See more

Algorithmic mediocrity has triggered a renaissance of human discernment, with consumers seeking trusted curators, insider communities, and editorial voices that offer genuine discovery.