Severin Matusek

For some people, in considering this possibility, the question naturally arises: “That sounds nice, but how is a tiny software company supposed to compete with huge and well-funded companies?” The answer is that you don’t really have to. You just have to get an understanding of the proper pace and scale of whatever your endeavor is. Get there, and... See more

In 2021, Ethiopia actually began building its own social media site as a response to Facebook’s alleged incitement of ethnic massacres. And more recently, Japan funnelled taxpayer money into the dating app Tapple, in a bid to fix the nation’s declining marriage and birth rates.

“The thing is, I can only give what I’m feeling. I’m interested in discovery. If there’s not any discovery, it doesn’t feel real to me. I’ve never considered myself the best producer or the best singer or the best rapper or any of those separate categories. But one thing I do have confidence in is my feeling.”

The center of gravity is missing, so we seek out any foothold, any source of a perspective.

Optimising the personal well-being of the creator vs the creator listing in the algorithm.Making things that feel like they matter vs something that grabs people’s attention.

Geopolitical power once flowed through armies and treaties, but today it courses through silicon wafers, server farms and algorithmic systems. These invisible digital infrastructures and architectures shape every aspect of modern life.

Speculators, in turn, look to charismatic leaders as “social proof” that their risk-taking is warranted, and likely to be rewarded. The ritualism of meme coin culture might be described as what Victor Turner called a kind of “communitas”: a social condition in which individuals, connected by a collective suspension of normative hierarchies, adopt... See more

“You can play games with it,” she said of stardom (in another unexpected place, “The Howard Stern Show”), “and I think that’s a very interesting part of being an artist as well, when you can use that thing — fame, publicity — as a tool.”