solana
@solana
solana
i hate when songs i found on spotify get popular on tiktok. my taste is not your tiktok trend! but then again it was probably fed to me on a similar algorithm. is taste obsolete in the age of algorithms?
American culture: simple, pure and truthful = dumb
European culture: pursuit and awareness of refinement = snobbish
It is primarily we intellectuals and elites who culture shop, picking and choosing what works best for us. That's true in Europe and the US, where each group of elites is inoculated from the least admirable qualities. Well-to-do Americans can escape the banal landscapes, either through travel or by living in the exclusive US neighborhoods that share European qualities, and find belonging in communities formed from their careers that cross national and cultural boundaries. Highly motivated Europeans can move to America, or work in a large corporation and escape European provincialism, while not giving up the aesthetic and communal benefits it offers.
Not long ago, America was more than the sum of its parts. Now, it is less. Around World War II, we were proud as a people but modest as individuals. Fewer than two people in ten said yes when asked, Are you a very important person? Today, more than six in ten say yes. Where we once thought ourselves collectively strong, we now regard ourselves as... See more
William Strauss • The Fourth Turning
I’m extremely wary of the cult of contemporary self-making, and the fact that it’s become an expected part of life in the attention economy for middle-class workers.
From the college essay – the first time many of us are required to tell a selling story of ourselves in the service of social capital – to the dating website to Twitter or Instagram,... See more
From the college essay – the first time many of us are required to tell a selling story of ourselves in the service of social capital – to the dating website to Twitter or Instagram,... See more
Tara Isabella Burton • Self-Made ft. Tara Isabella Burton: The History & Future of Self Curation
We live in an era where personal style is increasingly indistinguishable from brand strategy. The aesthetic codes that once belonged to subcultures, regions, or craftspeople have been flattened into algorithms—optimized for compatibility, trend velocity, and frictionless aspiration. When everything looks good, originality becomes the only risk... See more