Throughout the history of human civilization, luxury was premised on being expensive, meaning it resulted from investing an unreasonable amount of work, material or other scarce resources into the making of a thing.

But today’s rich [...] wear $500 cotton t-shirts with inscrutable references and visual motifs pulled from a smörgås-moodboard that mak

Celebrity, even the modest sort that comes to writers, is an unhelpful exercise in self-consciousness. Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being ‘somebody,’ to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his over animation. One can either see or be seen.

It’s been endlessly argued that algorithms influence too much of what we watch, listen to, read, and even think. Personal taste erodes while decision-making is outsourced to the platform. This globalization, platform persuasion, and general apathy has spilled over into all types of homogenization: the look of our coffee shops, cars, architecture, l

The dynamics of cool.

https://www.garbageday.email/p/coolness-just-scarcity

Don’t ask yourself where your true gifts lie. Ask what other people seem weirdly bad at.