Tag: Aesthetics

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Aesthetics Internet Culture

Day 471 and Masculinity

Much as I cannot stand Tucker Carlson, the man has a gift for getting attention. I came across a truly marvelous advertisement for a new special he produced called “the end of men.” Which, sure, well trod territory if you are extremely online but probably new to his older Fox News audience. The ad is being mercilessly mocked on social media for being homoerotic.

I spent probably an hour this morning discussing the semiotics of this video. It’s just a fascinating cultural artifact of based extremely online masculinity. It claims to be about the decline of testosterone. But what it’s really selling me is an aesthetic about what makes a man.

It’s got the back to the land postlapsarian agrarianism. It’s got raw milk. It’s got meat. It’s got raw eggs being chugged. It’s got blacksmithing and lifting tires. There are ice baths. There are infrared saunas. There is infrared on dicks! Ok that last one was aesthetically out of left field, but it makes for a stunning Messiah image where a guy appears to be charging his dick. He is RISEN! Happy Easter folks.

All of these subculture callouts are speaking to specific niches of men online. There are men who promote raw egg. There are men who promote raw milk. There are the biohackers. There are the Stoics. There are the sun on balls advocates. Being based and pilled is actually an extremely complex signaling exercise.

Much of it in service to reclaiming and owning modern manhood in the face of a feminized world. Testosterone loss is it’s defining through line. I’m sure it could be argued that this obsession is part of the wider discourse on gender identity and the fight between it’s cultural and it’s sexual basis. I just don’t really care because men being pussies is kind of endemic and it’s not a partisan issue.

I myself am sympathetic to the based trad masculinity types. Their aesthetics often overlap in groups in which I’m an enthusiastic participant. The voice over in the ad is discussing hard times that are nearing, giving a little call out to doomer culture. I also believe traditional skills will be necessary in a more chaotic world. I think being prepared is a social good.

I am also a big fan of localism in food and am a drinker of raw milk and eater of pasture raised steak. I use cold therapy to manage my inflammation, which yes sometimes means ice baths. I schedule time in the sun to set my circadian rhythm. And yes I care about my own hormonal balance and rhythms.

I’m not a big fan of fascist curious fan boys like Tucker owning some of my spaces. It’s amusing that back to the land homesteaders have gone from being coded leftist hippies to now being coded as conservative and right wing. Rural living is now contested space. So is healthy living. And honestly that’s really fucked up. Health should be for everyone. But sure let’s laugh at how the video is gay.

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Startups

Day 470 and Social Skills

Startups are just as much about social hacking as they are hacking something technical. We worship the archetypal “coding nerd” who is brilliant but awkward, but in reality building shit requires an awful lot of social finesse.

I meet with a pretty wide range of founders. A lot of them are clever but relatively normal people. But many founders are fucking beyond weird. I see a lot of neurodivergence. But it’s not all towards the awkwardly autistic. Plenty of founders, especially in web3, are almost supernaturally charismatic. No literally it’s magic.

And that magic is good for making something new. The ability to empathize and listen is hugely prized in leadership. Being present and able to socialize in any social context is key to bring diverse groups together. We are much more willing to throw in our resources behind a founder who can rally us together. And this is just objectively good for the startup. Of course investors want to back that kind of person.

I think some people are offended by this reality. We see endless pop culture depictions of narcissistic sociopaths raising shit tons of money and then destroying their companies. I’m honestly a little sick of it. It’s no secret that Silicon Valley, but capitalism on the whole, occasionally rewards charlatans. I don’t think it’s particularly indicative of anything but human nature. Like Fox Mulder I too want to believe.

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Internet Culture Preparedness Travel

Day 464 and Miami

Miami is a real American city. You know those criticisms lobbed by conservatives against New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles? It’s not a real American city. It’s bullshit in plenty of ways as our urban populations define America as much as rural, but it’s also true. Places like Miami maintain an essence, a kind of “here-ness” that reveals a thriving ecosystem of all classes, backgrounds and beliefs living in the same place.

It’s a thriving cosmopolitan city with an extremely wealth ruling class. It has welcomed it’s new leadership in the form of startup expats from “fake cities” moving in. The irony is that those are fake places and no one lives there. It’s transient wealth moving in and out for opportunities. Which is exactly what they are doing to Miami. The churn comes for us all. Before it was tech it was drug money and mortgages. It’s a free enterprise kind of place.

But it’s a relief to see mix of people. To see the shitty neighborhoods and the anxiety about crime, reminds you we have to do better for each other. To see the luxury houses and the amenity industry pop up to service everyone rich from yuppie to billionaire. It’s a vibrancy of hustle that isn’t everywhere. It’s a positive thing. For me it smells like America. A belief in the future where things could be better. A sense that capitalism is working.

As I write this my Uber driver is complaining about the local cops. How unfair their targeting is of everyone going too fast. A real class solidarity moment against the fuzz. Lambo owners and ride share drivers. I feel like that doesn’t happen in striated societies where the top use the police to torture their plebeian neighbors.

I didn’t really enjoy my time here. It’s way too hot. It’s facing intense pressures from climate change so I’d like to come more often before it’s too late. It it’s already too late maybe.

There really are issues related to inequality and the challenges it manifests via societal issues. It’s got crime and infrastructure issues and intense political culture war currents.

If I’m honest I’d rather be in a colder less populated state where some of the existential risks of the future are better mitigated. But I admire the optimism of people who do. They are the optimistic people we need for a better future.

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Emotional Work

Day 457 and Pedicure

I did something today I haven’t done in two years. I got my nails done. And it felt so luxurious and yet also somehow normal. This regular act of grooming had once been a staple self care activity but today felt transformed into a ritual of joy.

I feel free and lucky in this moment. Getting a pedicure done means I have someplace to be where someone will see me. It means I am healthy enough to be going somewhere. It means I have a desire to be somewhere. All this cascading luck mixed to show me that my life was ok. I felt so much gratitude and self love in that moment. I am ok. The ok-ness of the universe in an act.

I know it sounds heady and existential and also a bit ridiculous as I elevate the act of a pedicure. But truly I feel so good about where I am in life that I can get my toes painted coral.

Also it’d worth noting that less glamorously cutting my toenails is hard for me to do on my own because of my spondylitis. So a necessity and a luxury in its own physical way. It is a quality of life improvement. So I’m grateful that this is where I am. May we all get little joys of normal in this chaotic world.

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Aesthetics Media

Day 456 and Timing

I always get a kick out of my writing days with good numbers. I celebrate every hundred posts. I notice the palindromes even if I don’t log them in posts. I revel in the repetitions. So naturally today’s numerical sequence tickles at my limbic emotional responses. My conscience mind says “oh patterns” and I feel capable and intelligent.

Noticing shit is nominally my job. I was obsessed with William Gibson’s Cayce Pollard in Pattern Recognition. The trend spotting cosmopolitan consultant with an allergy to brands inspired my foray into fashion. I wanted to be her so much that I once bought a Pilates reformer because she practiced it. I remain dedicated to the craft of knowing what is coming around the bend.

There was a time when I wanted to be the sort of person who capitalized on each and every shift in mood, zeitgeist or vibe. I’d be sure I could be queen of a given wave. But in truth I’ve come to think I’m better at spotting “the thing” early than being the person that manifests it’s adoption. I prefer to notice early, place my bets, and watch “it” unfold now.

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Aesthetics

Day 450 and Editor Pants

I was chatting with one of my favorite girlfriends about this and that today when we stumbled into a strange revelation.I was bemoaning the lack of serious writing on style and she was sharing good TikTok accounts that get into the type of fashion analysis I might find enjoyable. You know, shoot the shit with girlfriends texting. And somehow we stumbled onto how we both became fashion girls. And well I’m just going to share it.

On my way to become a fashion girl I had some awkward phases but none more awkward than when I was quite sure that Express was actually stylish.

And nothing did more to convince me of this than their absolutely iconic Editor Pants. If you are an elder millennial you know this pant. Black and mid-rise with a mostly straight cut, it’s form fitting hug was the definitive silhouette of its era.

Now mind you they were polyester and not terribly high quality. I once set a pair on fire in my dorm room by attempting to try it on a lamp so I didn’t have to go to a fraternity party in damp pants. Couture this was not. But in my teenage head these were the kind of pants that serious professional women wore.

Now this has some consequences for the trajectory of my life. I absolutely thought being an editor was a serious job based on the marketing of these pants. Sure Banana Republic tried to convince us that architect was the sexy creative job. But for me it was the Editor Pant that inspired my imagination. It put the idiotic notion that I could work at a magazine right as magazine publishing culture was at its zenith. I remember standing outside of Condé Nast on a visit to New York and telling myself I’d work there one day.

So yeah fuck those pants. Being an editor is a grueling shitty line of work where you are constantly in financial jeopardy. Thank fuck I god over it when Condé Nast wouldn’t hire me after college. They rightly told me I wasn’t qualified having done something asinine like study economics at Chicago.

And to be fair I had an amazing career in fashion and I owe a lot to those pants. They were a generational staple and Express deserves a place in fashion history for it. I hope someone with actual skills in this space writes something serious about it and published a back catalog of their advertising. Maybe I’ll do it one day. And if you’d like a lovely internet friend my friend is Alexis Hyde. We have similar tastes though she’s much more visually literate than me. She’s an art curator in Los Angeles and if you ever want to buy art look her up.

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Aesthetics

Day 444 and Equinox

There is a brand of luxury gyms called Equinox that was started in Manhattan. I didn’t have enough money for a decent apartment when I first arrived in the city, so I showered at the gym. There was a time when I lived in a shithole on the Bowery that barely had working hot water but I could always rely on the sanctuary of the spa-like bathrooms at the Equinox. Apartments then were two grand a pop but an Equinox membership could be had for $150.

I loved that place so much my friend Rob swears I manifested a job at the corporate headquarters. I only lasted a year in the marketing department before I got headhunted out but I loved working there (until I hated it but that’s another story.)

One of the big events the gym would throw for marketing purposes was their biannual seasonal Equinox parties. They’d make a big to-do about both the fall and spring Equinox and encourage members to bring friends for free classes and workouts, and somewhat inexplicably an open bar. I never got how mixing drinks and spin class worked but whatever.

I always thought there was something beautiful about a fitness brand centering its marketing around the change of seasons. The Equinox logo plays on the balance of day and night aesthetically. But I’ve always preferred to think of the brand as a promise that all things change. It’s a powerful one for marketing aspirational luxury fitness because the origins of its earthly seasonal reality is so visceral.

The solstice may get all the glory what with midsummer madness and orgies and the Swedish horror movies and the whole winter solstice getting adopted by Christianity thing. But it’s the Equinox that has always spoken to me. Maybe it’s because I gravitate towards extremes that I crave the balance of the equinox over the solstice. I aspire to the rhythms promised by a day perfectly split by light and dark. The equinox says to me that it’s possible, even if it’s only twice a year, to get it all perfectly balanced. And then we get back to change. We move back towards extremes as we tilt towards the solstice.

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Internet Culture

Day 439 and Pop Culture Illiterate

I wasn’t allowed to watch television as a kid. Waldorf schools kinda frown on it. I could watch some stuff, mostly Star Trek, but I really didn’t consume the vast majority of pop culture from the nineties.

I even attended a school called Dawson during the height of the Dawson’s Creek craze and never bothered. So I’m basically a pop culture illiterate for most of the shit they regurgitate in pop culture nostalgia trips.

I am trying to catch up a bit though. I’m finally watching Friends for the best time. I’m kind of enjoying it. I cannot stand Rachel. But at least I finally have some context for the whole Ross and Rachel shit. Finally I understand where a generation of nice guys come from.

I wonder if I should be catching up on another content but I’ve got to admit being outside of the nostalgia circle jerk has become the regurgitation of the nineties pop culture I never consumed.

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Internet Culture Startups

Day 413 and Don’t Believe the Hypebeast

My early twenties were heavily influenced by streetwear and sneakerhead culture. I lived in the Lower East side and hung out with all the kids who would go on to dominate what is now a multi-billion dollar industry.

It feels weird listing out my bonafides as it’s pretty name drop-y but at the time it was like yeah my friends at Alife or High Snobiety or even god forbid Supreme meant basically nothing. I was in the absolute epicenter of hypebeast mania.

So I’ve got a gut sense of what a genuine upswell of obsession looks like. The kind of irrational social capital driven cool mania of the sneakerhead world has a specific vibe to it. Almost illegible to anyone outside. But to the in group? It’s powerful chaos magic binding geas shit.

That’s what EthDenver felt like today. A kind of disorganized overflow of true believers converging into a space about a quarter of the size required. It’s like if TechCrunch disrupt accidentally got overrun by the entire readership of HypeBeast. Honestly it kinda sucks.

You’ve got a number of accomplished teams and founders and investors all trying to figure out how to navigate long lines and complete chaos with no clear programming goal or event schedule. And then you’ve got thousands and thousands of NFT weirdos just shilling and excited and ebullient about stuff they freely admit they don’t technically understand. It’s going to be a wild ride for crypto.

Categories
Aesthetics Emotional Work

Day 410 and My Own Valentine

I’m quite fond of Valentine’s Day. I like flowers and chocolates and cards. I like wearing bright pink. I like all the hyper feminine consumerism around the entire Hallmark holiday.

I’ve got my own rituals and routines for the day. I used to go to White Castle for their white tablecloth service with my friends. Yes that’s a real thing they do. It’s an absolute blast to get table service when the food is sliders. It’s a wholesome experience that somehow no one does ironically. They once let me take home all the balloons when I had the last reservation of the night.

But I am particularly enjoying Valentine’s Day this year because I’ve made a commitment to self love this year. I came into the day with a spirit of accepting myself in whatever condition I arrive in. It’s a glass half full approach in a time where it’s easy to look for downsides and depression.

I hope if you are considering committing to more love in your life that you start with yourself. That on Valentine’s Day you focus on giving yourself the love you’ve always wanted. Maybe it sounds as silly to you as having sliders with table service at White Castle. But I promise both experiences are far more than a critical ego will allow. Go ahead, open yourself up. To love and little hamburgers. Happy Valentine’s Day!