Sixian

These memes are extremely dense cultural talismans that accumulate layers and layers of meaning/allusion over time. Like the jargon of academia, memes look like nonsense to outsiders but facilitate deep communication between members of a subculture.Unlike offline communities, these subcultures aren’t always neatly labeled, and people don’t... See more

It’s curious to want to call an advert ‘objectifying’, because of course it is: its function is to promote an object. Yet this nonetheless feels like the right word, not only in reference to the object of the ad’s intentions, but the kind of gaze that is filming it. The camera, the eye, is fixated on the phone’s ‘thing-ness’: not what it can do,... See more

The sweet spot is probably some sort of middle-class position, with relatively secure and easy kind of work. Like say being a government employee in a sleepy department, or a tenured professor. You’re not so far ahead that you have to work harder than average to generate the collective slipstream potential, but you’re not so far back that all the... See more

Being in the formation need not actually be better than going off solo. It must only seem that way. Weaker classes must view exit as a worse option, whether or not it is actually worse... You don’t need TINA (There Is No Alternative), you only need belief in TINA.

The non-stop comparison game that Maximizers play usually makes them miserable. We could say that maximizers are more driven by mimetic desire than the “Satisificers”—those who are satisfied with finding “the right fit” rather than needing to maximize every outcome.We not only want the things that we can’t have; we don’t want things unless other... See more

So I decided to take fandom as my methodology for writing the book. To write as a fan, guided by enthusiasm, need not mean exalting every topic (art, books, movies, people) with the lust of a pubescent girl spreading saliva over a low-quality image of John Mayer’s face. But it allowed me to admit an appetite, affection, and relationship to my... See more

On the opportunity side, NFTs could unlock special album incentives. You could get access to certain live stream. You can get limited edition albums. That's an interesting kind idea of incremental revenue for these players, but a key role for, as we've talked about, for these labels, is also this VC element to it. Imagine if I was a mid-tier artist... See more

One of the primary anxieties of the digital age is that an online life is a kind of half-life; that time spent on the internet is wasted time rather than lived time. Temporality and rhythmicity is the most popular way to differentiate between the live and the inanimate, the natural and the artificial, even if it is not the most accurate

More than raw distribution though, exposing your style and sensibility is important. Not just for standing out in the networks and generating dialogue and discussion - but also because senior, ambiguous consulting work relies on navigating a trust gap like no other.