Severin Matusek

There are four trends accelerating the demand for curation.

I was motivated to write Antimemetics in part because I felt dissatisfied with how we’ve unthinkingly glommed onto memetic warfare as a terminal explanation for why people do what they do. Memes and mimicry might explain some of our behavior today, but they aren’t an excuse to roll over and accept things exactly as they are.

“Like we’ve created a really positive space on the internet,” Wylie added. How many people can really say that? A place where earnestness was a function not a bug, while managing to retain its cool. An almost impossible task, in other words, which Blackbird Spyplane continues to make look easy.

Early on, a lot of collections felt intentionally off-tone, skewed toward a narrow demographic. My art had already proven to resonate across global cultures and big brands. So we focused on making a collection that was far-reaching and universally loved.

In other words, instruments can surprise you with what they offer, but they are not automatic. In the end, they require a touch. You use a tool, but you play an instrument.

But cognitive atrophy - that can happen instantly. Someone can start reflexively outsourcing their thinking today, and the degradation begins immediately. No approval process required. No implementation timeline. No procurement cycle. Just a quiet erosion of capability, person by person, decision by decision. And it compounds. Every month of... See more

The real breakthroughs that enabled the revival of the 1,000 True Fans model are better understood as cultural. The rise in both online news paywalls and subscription video-streaming services trained users to be more comfortable paying à la carte for content. When you already shell out regular subscription fees for newyorker.com, Netflix, Peacock,... See more