Severin Matusek

The first recorded use of ‘worldbuilding’ was in an issue of the Edinburgh Review , December 1820.

For one thing, the internet has taken the reward circuitry meant for social conditioning and has begun to replace it with parasocial conditioning; our reward feedback loops increasingly run through interactions with people we don’t know and may never meet, who have very little information about us or investment in our lives and wellbeing.... See more

What if the most game-optimal play in the new system is actually to become relentlessly, unapologetically you?

The belief that the Earth is flat is not in and of itself problematic for most people, since most people will never need to circumnavigate the globe. However, the effects on adherents’ social relationships are problematic. The belief both signals and generates frame shear, the lack of mutual intelligibility, with all except those who share... See more

Institutions embody the collective agreement and fabric of meaning that, above any external forces, builds, as opposed to extracts from, cultural and social value. In the age of platforms, the challenge is to reconfigure and revive institutions, employing “intra-institutional technology” that augments their missions without cannibalizing them,... See more

Now, as the newly minted CEO of the brand, he’s taking the reins as it continues into its next chapter: one defined by IRL spaces, physical products, a community-first token, and a new AI platform called DreamNet.

Taylor Swift, for example, is notorious for generating lore, putting easter eggs in everything she does, and readingand playing into fan theories about herself. She does this both in the ‘text’ of her songs (see: the fandom’s obsession around the Betty/August/James lore in the album /iterallycalled folklore), as well as in her activities... See more

Many anonymous online spaces dedicated to “youthful” activities (gaming, degenerate trading, fandoms etc.) are in fact filled with 40 year olds. Not because they’re groomers, but because they never felt like they aged out of them. 40 year old boomers are colonizing traditionally young cultural spaces with their own youth culture vintage. There’s no... See more