Social-Creature

I noticed something interesting the other day in the trailer for the forthcoming 2012 movie. At the end of the trailer, (which–though the movie stars John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, and Thandie Newton–doesn’t include a single star, instead giving off a distinctly Baraka-like “documentary” feel, depicting only Buddhist monks and a typically [...]

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While trying to track down a quote from Bret Easton Ellis’s The Rules of Attraction, I came across a LinkedIn profile for Sean Bateman. In case you’re not acquainted with Sean Bateman, one of the main protagonists of the Rules of Attraction, here’s his LinkedIn profile: Sean Bateman Student at Bennington College Albany, New York [...]

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“Companies: How to Make Millions By Switching to A Green-Colored Logo” – Headline in The Onion’s “Obligatory Green Issue” I’ve been thinking about this, the third in what’s evidently become a series of posts inspired by Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between Who We Are and What We Buy, by Rob Walker, since I read [...]

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In Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between Who We Are and What We Buy, Rob Walker talks about “underground brands”–lifestyle symbols created by independent entrepreneurs. In fact, I actually think it’s easier to think of underground brands as “independent brands,” (cuz what does “underground” really mean, anyway?) much like independent music: In popular music, independent [...]

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Once you ‘got’ Pop, you could never see a sign again the same way again. And once you thought Pop, you could never see America the same way again. – Andy Warhol It is totally disconcerting to discover a book that pretty much compiles your insights and articulates them back to you. Buying In: The [...]

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…And I can make you wanna buy a product Movers shakers and producers Me and my friends understand the future – The Flobots: “Handlebars” I’ve been trying to get through Matt Mason’s The Pirate’s Dilemma for a while. It’s an easy read, but between digging up mind-blowing historical discoveries from the cultural strata–Did you know [...]

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In Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter explain that really, there was never any conflict between the two to begin with. Counterculture hinges on, and consumer culture consists of, the expression of your lifestyle/identity. Whether you’re choosing to wear Nikes, Doc Martens, or some crazy obscure Japanese brand [...]

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The goal of all human activity can’t be reduced to the leaving of descendants. Once human culture was firmly in place it acquired new goals. – Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee right as i was in the process of rereading the third chimpanzee (i had to read it in college for sociobiology, and recently realized [...]

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it’s kind of hard to write a post advocating a sense of balance. it’s easy to get all riled up and energized on preaching some kind of extreme; is it even possible to create a polemic for moderation? i’ve been sitting on this particular post for weeks, unable to summon up the oomph to do [...]

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“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” – e.e. cummings which is all quite noble and good, but the thing of it is, e.e., [...]

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