Hey, how you doing? Went for walks, found a skull. You know. This and that. Hope you’ve been well. Right, let’s go.
“Visible things always hide other visible things.”
René Magritte, The False Mirror
culture // counter culture
The most dangerous thing in culture right now is beauty. US art critic Dave Hickey thought this in the ’90’s. Because beauty is anarchy, freedom and rebellion. It’s individual. Beyond control or manipulation. Beauty matters, a lot. But we’ve come to undervalue it. The mere mention of beauty makes us uncomfortable. We live in a world where people “are devoting half of their waking hours to the consumption of culture. Yet the cultural institutions are all in crisis.” Big and efficient, is swallowing small and beautiful. In the past indie movie houses, indie book shops, indie video rental stores etc, were in plain sight. Now they exist as sub-cultures on Tumblr, Patreon, TikTok, Substack etc. But the author believes that “A refusenik indie culture is returning, although it may look different from the bohemian micro-cultures of the past.” First time I’ve seen counterculture written about in a long time. Let the rebellion begin ✊.
brands // zombies
Direct to Consumer brands were indestructible. VC darlings. Re-writing the rules. Now, they’re out of cash and ideas. Brands like Blue Apron, Allbirds are still alive, but they’re zombie brands. Consistently earning less than they owe (zombies are 11.5% of the US stock exchange). One of the pioneers Dollar Shave Club, is now being sold by Unilever to private equity. Bought for $1bn in 2016, it hasn’t worked. As someone said "They bought an ad. A great ad, mind you.” A reminder, not all that glitters is gold. Like Lululemon, who bought connected fitness brand Mirror for $0.5n. It's now worthless. Fidget spinners are just that aren’t they? Good brands though, built meaningfully over time, aren’t popular because of tech. They just stay popular with it.
creativity // stagnant
Something’s been happening. Accenture refer to the rise of meh-diocrity and the stagnation of culture. Creativity too. This piece on the vanishing designer, discusses the standardization of design. How every link of the chain ensures predictability. And how a future without diversity is fundamentally stagnant: imagine designs so standardized that you can’t tell them apart. While every design is guaranteed to be good, none will be great. Packy McCormick wrote about Riskophilia and a culture of safetyism that we’ve all allowed to seep into every corner of our lives. And how we can build a more vibrant, alive, and vigorous world, when we embrace risk with eyes wide open. And I wrote about meaning-less and how we've sacrificed meaning for convenience and arrived in a meaning vacuum. You can join the dots pretty easily.
technology // exponential
Chat GPT launched Nov 2022. Now, pre IPO, Open AI is valued at $80bn. Crazy. But it’s everywhere and everything right now. From dating apps like Teaser AI where, before you swipe on someone, you can chat with their AI likeness to get a feel for their personality. To translation apps that also match your mouth movements. It’s all happening. Quickly. Midjourney launched in the Summer of ‘22. It now has +17m users and revenue +$200m (only 11 staff). Now the release of DALL-E3 begins the next phase of vision and AI. It lets you just talk to the AI about the art you want, and it creates prompts for you. If you appreciate exponential growth, you’ll know this is only the end of the beginning. We’ll all be under water soon.
five random (ish) things:
An amazing list of life learnings 📝.
A house of bricks 🧱.
Springwise futures 2043 report 🔮.
When life gives you lemons 🍋.
Vulnerability is power 🦸🏻♀️.
watching // desert:
On April 26, 2016 Toro y Moi traveled to the Trona Pinnacles in California and recorded a live concert film. It’s very nice. Enjoy.