Keely Adler
@keelyadler
brand strategist by trade; time-traveling futurist at heart. core team @ RADAR. find me most places @keels223.
Keely Adler
I think it’s less about the specifics and more about understanding what it means to assert—but not baby—yourself, given who you are and what you need.
Haley Nahman • #95: Are you baby? A litmus test
A meaningful idea might be building a community because you genuinely can’t imagine doing anything else, or telling a story because it’s all you can think about. Not because others have or expect you to. And certainly not because it looks good online. Meaningful ideas reflect what we can’t help but care about, not fantasies of who we could be.
In Defense of Thinking Small
after several conversations with happiness experts and psychologists, I’ve cobbled together a tentative theory. We’re seeing the international transmission of a novel Western theory of mental health. It’s the globalization of Western—and, just maybe, American —despair.
Work in Progress, The Atlantic • America’s Top Export May Be Anxiety
The digital dominance of the 21st Century has sorted us into our own tailored versions of online reality, where we drown in ads and information. It's overwhelming, noisy, and ephemeral. It's hard to have a simple conversation, let alone align the globe on a future worth building.
cameronwiese.com • It's time to build: A New World's Fair
The promise of community begins to feel disingenuous when what’s described is little more than a euphemism for a targeted demographic of interested consumers. Is there any other reason to facilitate community if not for a business to sell more products and accrue more members? Is it possible to find real community beyond the parameters of one’s... See more
Vox • Brands want to be more than your friend. They want community.
“Sometimes life feels a certain way that we call “absurd”: nothing matters, all efforts are for naught, everything seems random and perverse, positive intention is perpetually thwarted. This stance communicates darkness and edginess, which can feel like wisdom. But we don’t live as if life is absurd; we live as if it has meaning and makes sense. We
... See moreInnovation begins with inspiration. Positive visions of the future inject people with imagination, which pulls the future forward.
David Perell • Peter Thiel’s Religion
So the fevered search for the next ever-more-niche revival could be seen as a way for Gen Z to carve out a IYKYK (“if you know, you know”) point of difference and ring-fence a specific look, community or interest. For a limited time, anyway.
The Face • Our obsession with nostalgia is driving a trend revival spiral
The life of a forest is many lives, entwined. It’s also intergenerational.