Severin Matusek

We’re looking at what’s going on in the world and using words to help people make sense of it. It’s ultimately a service to the reader — here’s what’s happening out there, why it’s important, and what it means for you.

The internet created the false impression that all socializing is authentic and improvisational. We’re discovering social lives are planned once again.

About values and the selfAll of this makes people question who they want to be. There’s a need that’s not being answered in economic terms or about status. It’s about belonging, being seen, recognised.

NFTs offer the promise of scarcity and authenticity for digital goods. NFTs aren’t the only way to create scarcity and authenticity online — trusted, centralized entities such as banks (and platforms such as Twitter and Apple) do it within their verticals, and blockchain tech is evolving to address myriad environmental and security concerns. So the... See more

The canonical example of the 2010s was probably the trend-forecasting agency K-HOLE, which was formed by four art-school friends who, while grifting fashion-industry jobs in New York, became ‘interested in the total collapse that comes with being the thing itself’. As it turned out, they were exceptionally good at ‘the thing itself’ – publishing pu... See more

At Nike World Headquarters, Leenknegt and her team developed a foundation for what they called ‘Energy Marketing’ to build the “unspoken soul” of the brand. Marketing today may seem solely analytical, and performance based, but Leenknegt knows that to reach the consumer most effectively you need to realize that they are human; they desire connectiv... See more

We shifted from cyberpunk manifestos, to corporate networks and the commoditization of the user for economic extraction.

Tech people are not interested in appeals to virtue or beauty or tradition, like most conservatives,” the State Department official said. “They are more like right-wing progressives, and for a long time Moldbug was the only person speaking to them this way.”