alexi gunner
@idlegaze
cultural strategist
writes idle gaze; a newsletter exploring the undercurrents of the modern zeitgeist.
founder @ idle gaze consulting
cultural futurist @ RADAR
alexi gunner
idlegaze.substack.com
- Industrial Tourism and Ensouled Consumption : Industrial tourism is an emerging trend in travel where people visit destination factories and production plants. Sure, people travel to Porsche facilities or the town where their favorite chocolate gets made, but this new form of tourism is about fetishizing something quite mundane.
It's about feeling s... See morefrom Inbox (6,480) - tyler.faught92@gmail.com - Gmail
1.3.3 Oppositional taste worlds prefer conventions that are openly antagonistic to the mainstream — e.g. bikers, Bronx gangs, and punks all brandished swastikas in the 1970s.
from Culture Is an Ecosystem: A Manifesto Towards a New Cultural Criticism by Culture: An Owner's Manual
- “It’s not singlehood, dear friend, that hurts; it’s not casual sex, the fluidity of our bonds, nor their ephemeral nature that causes pain.” Rather, it’s the way that power operates in relationships. Desire isn’t a spontaneous, apolitical passion; it’s shaped by the world around us, and by what we’ve been taught to value. Romance operates like a ma... See more
from Why Does Romance Now Feel Like Work? by Hannah Giorgis
- But the image of “Incredible Hulks who push papers,” as Greif describes one type of contemporary gym rat, is absurd—a physical adaptation entirely out of whack with environmental conditions, serving little practical purpose, as if to repudiate the idea of evolution itself, or to suggest that it no longer manifests itself primarily in our bodily for... See more
from Matter
- In Mythologies , Roland Barthes discusses how wrestling (and now, politics) uses kayfabe, the convention of presenting staged narratives and spectacles as real to capture attention and elicit a desired response from an audience.
from magic, online! by Nick Susi
- So next time you feel envious about someone, consider asking yourself:
- Is this my game to play? (does anyone need more carousels about Patagonia's strategy?)
- What's the opportunity cost of playing it? (more time doing X means less time doing Y)
- Why should i play it like they are? (play at the cross-section of what works for the market and your mind)
from Inbox (6,480) - tyler.faught92@gmail.com - Gmail
Luxury Paradox : The more expensive something is the less likely you are to use it, so the relationship between price and utility is an inverted U. Ferraris sit in garages; Hondas get driven.
from 100 Little Ideas by Morgan Housel
- Clearly the cultural pressure to achieve a unique self is old, strong, and not unique to hipsters, so why did the authenticity drive spin out of control after CE 2000? One possible reason is that the hundreds of studies on authenticity in tourism and subcultures have also been read and in many cases sponsored by business thinkers who directly influ... See more
from After Authenticity by subpixel.space
