Sublime

The hipster was an information-sorting algorithm: its job was to always have good taste . The hipster listened to bands you’d never heard of. The hipster drank beers brewed by Paraguayan Jesuits in the 1750s. The hipster thought Tarkovsky was for posers, and the only truly great late-Soviet filmmaker was Ali Khamraev. The hipster bought all his toi... See more

- "To exist on platforms is to be subject to this kind of continual identity reconstitution, to fluidity. Self-branding attempts to hide this inevitability by claiming agency over it, as though by choosing to turn our identity into capital, it becomes a free choice. Self-obfuscation, on the other hand, effectively embraces it through a kind of acce... See more

Fuller is something of a philosopher of digital design; his podcast “Scratching the Surface” canvasses experts in the field. In the past decade, he argues, a “user-centered” approach to design has been replaced by what he has taken to calling a “corporation-centered” approach. Rather than optimizing for the user’s experience, it optimizes for the e... See more

A Substack newsletter is both a product and a portfolio: a way to make money, but also a venue for displaying personality, intelligence, and taste.

I have often heard it said of social media: ‘when you cannot see the product being advertised, it’s because you are the product.’

Our preferences and opinions become part of the programme, encouraging certain types of thoughts and behaviours in others. The ‘like’ button is integral to the function of social platforms and yet what purpose does it ser

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Everyone is overloaded with information thanks to the digital revolution, so—the PKM people tell us—we need new software and systems to survive and thrive. So far, so good. I agree with this intuition.

A personality sketch of the marginal user

Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together about the marginal user. Let’s call him Marl. The first thing you need to know about Marl is that he has the attention span of a goldfish on acid. Once Marl opens your app, you have about 1.3 seconds to catch his attention with a shiny image or triggering headlin... See more

The subversion of this ideal is driven by accusations that the standards imposed by the fashion and cosmetics industries are Eurocentric or patriarchal; doing away with those standards is therefore a political act of anti-racism or feminism. In a similar way, goblin mode can be seen as a revolt against the standards of productivity and self-betterm... See more