On tourism: 80% of people go to 10% of the tourist destinations. If you want to live in and experience the world outside of the GHC, buy a home in Gary, Indiana. Gifu City in Gifu Prefecture, Newark, NJ, rural Italy, way upstate in New York. The world is absolutely filled with places that are cheap and authentic.
ding ding ding ding ding!!!!! the thing that all this gets at is both, say, a failure of imagination and a techno-induced laziness, that business, etc. places one on a track to do something / go somewhere in a specific way versus one truly discovering it. thus...a literal and intellectual traffic jam that leaves everyone frustrated.
On the same wavelength of GHC, I was just ranting about how every city feels like Dubai now. Maybe that’s unfair because I’ve only ever been through the Dubai airport, but I feel like I got the gist.
Makes me sad to think if only those MTV executives had listen to yall…really like how does that channel even exist anymore - either shit the music or get off the air.
Something New York has that nowhere else does is StreetEasy—a real peculiarity given that software’s entire edge is that it can be copied for, essentially, free.
I think this reaches the wrong conclusion. The issue isn’t rich kids buying up all the free space, rich kids have always existed, and I don’t think creatives so easily can lump their names in with that of the local and poor.
The problem lies more in how the proliferation of images on social media in combination of algorithmic aggregation can 1) show huge numbers of people some hot new thing all at the same time and 2) inform brands inform brands about what/where is popular at this exact moment in time. The effort required to hear about and then purchase/visit a trendy item/place is now so minimal as to be a scroll and a tap. There is no engagement or understanding required to be a consumer and be seen as part of a trend. Back to the “creatives”, it is their initial work as social media influencers that is staring this process in the first place. I enjoy reading this Substack, but I sometimes think it is unwilling to interrogate the underlying systems that create the subject matter these essays because they are the same systems that allow this pseudo algorithmic link aggregation newsletter to exist.
i can agree with that, as i did feel like i had trouble landing the plane. that said! i think the tiktok of it all really grossly underestimates the issue, no? tiktok / algos are the least of it, when airbnb, kayak, etc. have made access easier and cheaper — and predates tiktok by some time. entire cities have reshaped themselves around airbnb and, because of that, a lot has changed for the worse. because a place can be so full of outsiders, the door opens to This Cool Boba Shop™ which then alley oops with TikTok to make it This No Longer Cool Boba Shop™. they go hand in hand though!
also! creatives ≠ influencers: those are two very different things, as creatives — in my mind and to me, to the point of Gary Indiana and Guy Trebay — are artists, designers, writers, thinkers, etc., the queers and non-normies on the fringes who create something from nothing just to live. there is overlap, yes, but not the same at all (and very much predates the social world).
Maybe then not just social media but the ubiquity of image based media. Tik tok is an accelerant here, but the images that show you things you want/let you be seen having things people want are the driver. Yes Kanopy and Airbnb have been doing this for a while, but with a higher effort barrier to entry and a smaller scale. With progressively more consolidated platforms, these images can be spread wider and faster.
As for creatives vs influencers, your examples predating the social world is important. In the social world, however, I think it is exceedingly rare for creatives to be successful without participating in the systems of social media influencing.
On tourism: 80% of people go to 10% of the tourist destinations. If you want to live in and experience the world outside of the GHC, buy a home in Gary, Indiana. Gifu City in Gifu Prefecture, Newark, NJ, rural Italy, way upstate in New York. The world is absolutely filled with places that are cheap and authentic.
ding ding ding ding ding!!!!! the thing that all this gets at is both, say, a failure of imagination and a techno-induced laziness, that business, etc. places one on a track to do something / go somewhere in a specific way versus one truly discovering it. thus...a literal and intellectual traffic jam that leaves everyone frustrated.
On the same wavelength of GHC, I was just ranting about how every city feels like Dubai now. Maybe that’s unfair because I’ve only ever been through the Dubai airport, but I feel like I got the gist.
very dubaicore (even if i have not and will not be going there lol) (likely for that exact reason you mention)
That was great!
Makes me sad to think if only those MTV executives had listen to yall…really like how does that channel even exist anymore - either shit the music or get off the air.
sigh...yeah. but alas: they made their bed!!!! and thank you for reading!!!
Something New York has that nowhere else does is StreetEasy—a real peculiarity given that software’s entire edge is that it can be copied for, essentially, free.
and god bless nyc for that!!!!!!
I think this reaches the wrong conclusion. The issue isn’t rich kids buying up all the free space, rich kids have always existed, and I don’t think creatives so easily can lump their names in with that of the local and poor.
The problem lies more in how the proliferation of images on social media in combination of algorithmic aggregation can 1) show huge numbers of people some hot new thing all at the same time and 2) inform brands inform brands about what/where is popular at this exact moment in time. The effort required to hear about and then purchase/visit a trendy item/place is now so minimal as to be a scroll and a tap. There is no engagement or understanding required to be a consumer and be seen as part of a trend. Back to the “creatives”, it is their initial work as social media influencers that is staring this process in the first place. I enjoy reading this Substack, but I sometimes think it is unwilling to interrogate the underlying systems that create the subject matter these essays because they are the same systems that allow this pseudo algorithmic link aggregation newsletter to exist.
i can agree with that, as i did feel like i had trouble landing the plane. that said! i think the tiktok of it all really grossly underestimates the issue, no? tiktok / algos are the least of it, when airbnb, kayak, etc. have made access easier and cheaper — and predates tiktok by some time. entire cities have reshaped themselves around airbnb and, because of that, a lot has changed for the worse. because a place can be so full of outsiders, the door opens to This Cool Boba Shop™ which then alley oops with TikTok to make it This No Longer Cool Boba Shop™. they go hand in hand though!
also! creatives ≠ influencers: those are two very different things, as creatives — in my mind and to me, to the point of Gary Indiana and Guy Trebay — are artists, designers, writers, thinkers, etc., the queers and non-normies on the fringes who create something from nothing just to live. there is overlap, yes, but not the same at all (and very much predates the social world).
Maybe then not just social media but the ubiquity of image based media. Tik tok is an accelerant here, but the images that show you things you want/let you be seen having things people want are the driver. Yes Kanopy and Airbnb have been doing this for a while, but with a higher effort barrier to entry and a smaller scale. With progressively more consolidated platforms, these images can be spread wider and faster.
As for creatives vs influencers, your examples predating the social world is important. In the social world, however, I think it is exceedingly rare for creatives to be successful without participating in the systems of social media influencing.