Severin Matusek

Changing attitudes toward social media created another breakthrough for the 1,000 True Fans model. In 2008, few people seemed interested in venturing beyond the social-media ecosystem, because this was where much of the excitement about the Internet was concentrated. As I learned from personal experience, to have expressed skepticism about these... See more

Speculation. The token acts as an investment into a project that might increase in value as it becomes more popular.

Being raised by TV is a walk in the park compared to being raised by apps.

At the same time, we are often told these systems are impossible to fully comprehend and are far beyond our control.

The arrival of AI slop is simply the culmination of a long process of cultural slopification, and one of AI’s unexpected functions has been to launder the human slop so we can pretend we didn’t create it.

I’m mostly here in Edge Lanna on a mission myself: To help run a week-long event called Protocol Worlds, a part of the Summer of Protocols program I help run. The event is a simulation focused on the idea of holographic cities — digital city-like social realities (ideally crypto-flavored of course, and preferably Ethereum-flavored) projected onto... See more

The internet solved distribution for many types of creative work but it never solved monetization. Media was distributed at scale on ad-based platforms and streaming services, so in that sense it was monetized, but not in a way that meaningfully accrued to artists themselves.

The Slowdown is also a collective of editors, writers, photographers, filmmakers, producers, creative directors, and strategists who work on special projects for major companies and brands, from a podcast series with soundproof booth company ROOM to a short documentary film for Van Cleef & Arpels and a book with Molteni (as featured in PIN–UP 37).