Severin Matusek

oft clubbing speaks to the shift in our social needs in a post-pandemic world, the very same needs that have led to a rise in run clubs and hobby clubs such as chess and bowling. Previously the club was an adequate provider of your weekly dose of social interaction, a space to dance, socialise and, for many, get intoxicated too. However, for a... See more

There is a competition going on for authority online — not just authority in a particular subject matter, like politics or finance, but the authority to provide a comprehensive view of what matters on the internet, pointing out what to pay to attention to.

There’s a missed opportunity to create culturally relevant moments and platforms to help young people struggling with loneliness. In the 21st century, brands and agencies have the chance to uplift communities and equip individuals with the tools to live a flourishing life. Examples include Dove’s self-esteem project, Hershey’s helping teens build... See more

Philip Rieff’s The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966) theorizes how modern societies undergo cultural transformation through moments of “engineered symbolic release”—structured breaks from normative social controls that absorb disruptive impulses rather than confront them. Every culture, Rieff argues, functions by organizing moral demands into... See more

the ‘collaborative play’ (as Default Friend phrases it in the above tweet) aspect of TikTok really becomes apparent.

For 90 days, I’d meet one new person every day. By the end of each conversation, I’d ask them to introduce me to at least one new person relevant to where I was trying to go. And then I did it. By the end of the summer, I had almost 100 new contacts. Every person is an open door, a potential opportunity, even if it’s not obvious at first. So many... See more

brands like Rare Beauty and Poppi reward subscribers with early launches and discounts, while using their communities to gauge new ideas, get feedback and build loyalty. Loyalty driven by sincere participation compounds, creating brand evangelists whose influence can’t be bought.

Spawning is different. Instead of lifting fragments, you train a model on an artist’s entire body of work and generate new material in their style. Clear lineage, but fuzzy origins. Sampling dealt in citation. Spawning touches the DNA. This distinction matters because spawning raises the stakes in ways that sampling never did. When your work trains... See more