Severin Matusek

People pay to see others believe in themselves.

Depp vs Heard trial offered a window into the future of media, where content creators serve as the personalities breaking news to an increasing number of viewers — and, in turn, define the online narrative around major events. In this new landscape, every big news event becomes an opportunity to amass followers and clout, and the money that... See more

With institutions, the material support for production is separated from its consumption, audience, and transmission. On the platforms, all of those need to be operating on the same rails to enable the totalizing optimization for the growth of the platform itself.

The cutesy image of the Shiba Inu, the ambiguous volatility of Pepe the Frog, and the militant bravado of Trump meme coins do not contest economic logics so much as offer a cathartic participation within them. They perform precisely what Rieff recognizes as the function of “releasing symbols”—forms of engagement that facilitate emotional discharge,... See more

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

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.

As the rest of the internet gets overtaken by bots and AI-generated content and oligarch-owners livestreaming megalomaniacal presidential candidates, the self-contained publications controlled entirely by professional humans win out.

I believe artists have more helpful things to say than the money guys about how to use and creatively misuse technology.

In fact, this points to something deeper than a mere recession, i.e. a cyclical downturn. Perhaps we’re looking at a secular change: a structural reordering of what “creative work” even means. The trad creative economies of ideas, taste, and differentiation are being replaced by economies of scale, prediction and synthesis. In this regime,... See more