Severin Matusek

This is Vibe Theory: an expression of elite anxiety masquerading as a politics of resistance. It is also exemplary of what the tragic ur-European philosopher Walter Benjamin once called the “aestheticization of politics,” which in this case is the result of the odd incentives that ensue when the art world makes the invitations, pays the speaker... See more

The last three decades of being online have shown us over and over again that lasting culture cannot be automated and meaningful creativity cannot be manufactured. Both must be given the proper time, space, and tools needed to blossom organically and of their own accord. From cavemen to hippies, the core of our cultures have revolved around shared... See more

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

Executives, meanwhile, increasingly believed that they’d found their best bet in “IP”: preexisting intellectual property—familiar stories, characters, and products—that could be milled for scripts. As an associate producer of a successful Aughts IP-driven franchise told me, IP is “sort of a hedge.” There’s some knowledge of the consumer’s interest,... See more

I do aspire to be more careless, even in daily life. I’m always down on myself for not being serious enough as a writer, because when I talk to serious writers they write every day, and I’m like ugh, I’ve never done that. Am I really a writer? But when I look at the books that I get the most enjoyment from, they don’t feel that serious. They give... See more

—or for the putatively spontaneous expansion of support for campaigns that were coördinated in darkness.

So how is it that we have entered into our most digitally connected age ever yet loneliness is at an all-time high?

A few things come to mind:

• The new ways we connect lack depth


• We face information overload from too many people we don't care much about


• We move locations and jobs more often


• Information is decentralized: we go to technology for

... See more

n the vacuum of this interim period we're offered up a brief window of reflection. Before another cycle of froth and evangelism sets in (cough cough AI), perhaps it's a good time to ask ourselves about what we just went through?

If you’re twenty-three and entering creative work right now, you could theoretically go your entire early career without ever building the foundational cognitive muscles that create senior creative excellence. Pattern recognition. Conceptual synthesis. The ability to tolerate ambiguity and sit with discomfort. The instinct for when something is... See more