Sixian

It’s revealing to think of mimetic desire along a continuum. Certain people and organizational cultures are more prone to mimesis than others. And one thing is clear, on a societal level: any society in which people are no longer struggling with scarcity but coping with abundance will undergo an explosion of mimetic desire. In this universe of... See more

One result of all this attention to e-waste and supply chains is that examples of non-Western improvisation are now often adapted, appropriated, or fetishized in the West. Designers and artists express fascination with “informal” and “entrepreneurial” design practices, or with favela “bricolage” and marginalized “maker” cultures. This can lead to... See more

As Peters writes, paraphrasing Franz Kafka, “Those who build new media to eliminate the spectral element between people only create more ample breeding grounds for the ghosts.”

Both the harsh whispers of the Puritan work ethic and the desperation of children not to disappoint their parents (neither new nor insignificant) emphasize that in exploring their own future, humans have always been stalked by a sense of doing the forbidden.

Looking toward a post-pandemic politics, the problem of over-individuation within the systems we use to model ourselves is compounded by the physical isolation each of us experiences in extended rhythms of lockdown. The situation has brought new cultural and interpersonal realities, many of them unfamiliar and uncomfortable, such as the tense... See more

There are two types of indie consultants. There are those that have created a very clear specialization, you can look at their website and see something like “I help B2B SaaS companies with their content strategy” or “I help brands build audience via email”...Then there are those who are… weirder, less legible, harder to define. Folks who’s website... See more

According to Fisher, the diametrical opposite of the fan is the troll. “Trolls pride themselves on not being fans,” he explains, because they see fandom as naïve or pathetic. The grinchy troll maintains a “posture of alleged detachment, this sneer from nowhere,” always “at the edge of projects it can neither commit to nor entirely sever itself... See more