Sublime

This utopia was short-lived. It was being replaced by a late-capitalist hellscape, my friends reported. Rents were spiking. Art galleries and music venues were closing. Bars were overrun with men in their twenties wearing corporate-branded T-shirts, men who never finished their beers and complained whenever anyone on the sidewalk smoked a cigarette

ritual: A piece of sushi, or a glass of wine, can seem “more expensive” by virtue of the actions we take and the movements we make when we consume them.

Most clubs make the bulk of their profits from smaller and more reliable table bills, the $1,500 to $3,000 sums spent by groups of affluent tourists and businessmen—your run-of-the-mill banker, tech developer, or other upper-class professional with a disposable income. While on the lower end of importance compared to whales and celebrities, they ar

human tastemakers,

It had been aggressively filtered in advance to appeal to me—or at least myself as a generic consumer—with abundant reassurances that other people did like the books on display.

Ringo,

Algorithmic taste, in Peter’s case as a consumer, was both boring and alienating. On the creator side, by contrast, ubiquity can be profitable.

xenia?’

Yet, despite spending ungodly amounts at restaurants and bars, in just a couple of years John has saved more than almost any of my friends.