Severin Matusek

To distribute content via email, message boards, blogs and social media users must act as nodes in the network, filtering feeds and pushing their own and others’ content into the network. They are the circulatory force that moves content around the network. Because of this, networks favor viral and memetic media. In this sense, network media... See more

On TikTok, as The Washington Post has reported, some creators are making $5,000 a month using AI tools to write scripts and animate extremely dumb viral videos where old men talk about soiling themselves.

Swift's genius status also demonstrates how little tension remains between art and business. In my new book Blank Space , I discuss the rise of what I call entrepreneurial heroism : “the glorification of business savvy as equivalent to artistic genius.” Avant-garde artists never made billions, because ostranie is a bad strategy for securing... See more

One of the keys to NFTs will be portability across mediums. A Twitter blue check can’t exist on Instagram, but the NFT equivalent of a Twitter blue check can — and deliver credible authenticity, thanks to that NFT deed. This is the metaverse vision of interoperability that could help make digital belongings feel similar to physical belongings.

Scarcity and authenticity are powerful, and not always forces for good. Our instinctual craving for scarce sugar and fat has produced an obesity crisis, but we aren’t going to throw out the industrial food system and live off the land. Amidst the scams and bubbles, credible scarcity and authenticity will unlock real value in digital markets.

Labubu and Fartcoin are the economy people can actually participate in.

In movies, TV, and video games: cinematic universes. Studios have finally figured out that once audiences fall in love with fictional worlds, they want to spend lots of time in them.