Welcome to your weekly brainspark dispatch, the nexialist
hey, you! i hope this message finds you vibing like so. i’m writing this week from concrete jungle, são paulo. here, as the end of the year is approaching, it seems that rushing energy is taking over. so i decided to take a moment and look back through all of this year’s nexialists: 50 weekly dispatches. it’s always impressive to remember so many things that happened, in culture, society, politics, tech… i’ll leave those retrospectives for the experts, and focus here on the brainsparks that stayed with me. i’ll share some this week and some next week, so you can skim through to see if you missed anything. thank you for reading, following, sharing and most importantly, learning with me during another year.
here is what notebookLM said when i uploaded all the 50 issues there, and i don’t think i could describe this newsletter and its contents better:
These sources are excerpts from a weekly newsletter, "The Nexialist," by Rodrigo Turra, which explores cultural trends and technological advancements. Each entry features "brainsparks"—brief observations and links to various media—reflecting Turra's eclectic interests. The content spans diverse topics such as the impact of technology on mental health, the evolving nature of masculinity and femininity, reflections on colonialism and environmental issues, and commentary on popular culture, including music and film. Turra often connects seemingly disparate themes, drawing parallels between seemingly unrelated phenomena. The overall tone is insightful and opinionated, blending personal reflections with cultural analysis.
enjoy 🫀✨
—Rodrigo Turra
1 year ago » 🎄✨The Nexialist #0152 - flashback 2023 - pt.i : thank you! | my favorite nexialists of the year | content that stayed with me | paradoxes | culture, tech and futures | ai | reports
2 years ago » 💯✨The Nexialist #0100 - flashback 2022 - pt.i : thank you | albums that gave me goosebumps | videos i had on repeat | TV, series and films | musical discoveries | experiences | my favorite nexialists | extra: recipes
3 years ago » 🔁✨The Nexialist #0050 - Flashback 2021 - pt.i : Things That Changed My Life This Year | Futures Thinking | Ancestrality and Decolonization | Digital Culture | Concepts | Tools
Buy Me a Coffee? ☕️
a frictionless world is boring as f*ck (tn#163)
the tyranny of the algorithm (tn#158)
reality hunger (tn#201)
culture is the client (tn#203)
cyborg art (tn#179)
the whisperverse (tn#194)
post-individualism (tn#196)
the state of the culture 2024 (tn#164)
dopamine culture (tn#164)
seedless fruit: futureless tech (tn#198)
what memories are made of (tn#167)
artificial intimacy (tn#168)
scientist (tn#169)
artistry + world building (tn#192)
post-modernism, the most creative time ever (tn#183)
online culture curators (tn#177)
the banality of online recommendation culture (tn#198)
social health (tn#179)
social signals (tn#189)
parasite culture (tn#191)
petrichor (tn#192)
melancholic blue (tn#197)
duelo (tn#188)
parallel play (tn#198)
nexus (tn#199)
shifting realities (tn#176)
envisioning cities (tn#183)
the thinking machine (tn#186)
addictive intelligence (tn#186)
risk zones in ethical operating systems (tn#168)
vectors of intelligence (tn#194)
ai & teachers (tn#186)
notebooklm (tn#198)
calculating empires (tn#180)
strategy in the era of ai (tn#165)
quantitative validation (tn#199)
deep doubt era (tn#193)
when images matter more than reality (tn#155)
synthetic data (tn#155)
breakthrough techs 2024 (tn#156)
ai-powered stingray model (tn#157)
fairly trained (tn#157)
public digital infrastructure (tn#157)
a social network taxonomy (tn#157)
laborer, craftsman, artist (tn#161)
artificial imagination (tn#179)
ai to talk to animals (tn#185)
lessons in birdswatching (tn#194)
cybernetics (tn#199)
technologies for liberation (tn#200)
cozy tech (tn#202)
trends are bullsh*t. long live the trends (tn#190)
rebranding trend research (tn#193)
culture is not an industry (tn#203)
polyfuturism (tn#158)
meta trending trends ‘24 (tn#158)
prediction consensus ‘24 (tn#161)
trends 2025 (tn#203)
abba voyage (tn#201)
trajectories for future festivals (tn#187)
sociophonetics (tn#159)
money dysmorphia (tn#166)
risk aversion (tn#168)
noise era (tn#169)
exploiting time (tn#169)
the roots of anti-woke (tn#171)
creative work (tn#165)
madonna’s record breaking concert in copacabana (tn#172)
digital guillotine (tn#173)
all eyes on rafah (tn#174)
meme manifesto (tn#177)
capitalism 2.0 (tn#179)
time of monsters (tn#181)
clowns in the mainstream (tn#181)
recession pop is back (tn#184)
the alchemy of pop (tn#182)
olympic outrage (tn#184)
stop listening to the customer (tn#195)
anti-design (tn#169)
what is post-branding (tn#178)
7 levels of brand engagement (tn#195)
sxsw patterns (tn#186)
make it awkward (tn#190)
the state of community (tn#196)
program or be programmed (tn#200)
hypernormative (tn#200)
mum does the washing (tn#203)
triad of capital (tn#203)
natural intelligence (tn#168)
flying river (tn#154)
arboreal codes (tn#196)
dendrochronology (tn#200)
arqueology of the future (tn#183)
indigenous histories (tn#161)
climate fear fix (tn#187)
great green wall (tn#187)
lontra provocax (tn#163)
sonoluminescence (tn#163)
5000 years of coexistence (tn#170)
shitthropocene (tn#170)
floribunda (tn#171)
patagonian giants (tn#171)
consequences of negationism (tn#172)
natural disaster? (tn#172)
sponge cities (tn#173)
underground cathedral (tn#173)
rose of the winds (tn#181)
bioremediation (tn#187)
fractals in nature (tn#185)
dark okygen (tn#185)
soft cells (tn#192)
toxic influence (tn#195)
more than human aesthetics (tn#200)
ecomodernism (tn#200)
fruity men (tn#182)
on heteropessimism (tn#174)
gay body culture goes mainstream (tn#190)
vanity is a virtue (tn#190)
how big? (tn#184)
prosthetic penis (tn#190)
man-loving (tn#190)
bionic men (tn#190)
camp gaucho (tn#171)
transvestigation (tn#185)
the disappearance of men (tn#175)
maricoteca (tn#176)
queer histories of the piers (tn#176)
loving your friends (tn#182)
medium friends (tn#182)
pebbling (tn#189)
ai and the future of sex (tn#190)
the state of dating (tn#191)
hallucinationship (tn#194)
is the love song dying? (tn#199)
year in swipe (tn#203)
24 universal character strength (tn#154)
the life span of loneliness (tn#159)
recipe for loneliness (tn#202)
invisible epidemic (tn#202)
inner rewilding (tn#164)
brain rot (tn#202)
learning pyramid (tn#156)
social-emotional learning (tn#198)
mental gym (tn#156)
levels of tension (tn#158)
defend your mind against social media (tn#165)
global happiness (tn#166)
encyclopedia - circle of knowledge (tn#177)
flow state (tn#178)
expand your perception (tn#178)
how to do great work (tn#178)
fuel a conversation (tn#178)
maximizing collective intelligence (tn#179)
how sci-fi has changed (tn#186)
digiphrenia (tn#191)
after image (tn#197)
a life without labels (tn#199)
I truly believe innovation comes from bringing improbable areas together, and that’s why I called this project The Nexialist. Some sectors are known to be self-referencing and hermetic. Sometimes, teams are on autopilot mode, focused on the daily grind, which hinders innovation. As a Nexialist, I like to burst these bubbles, bringing references from different areas, and maintaining teams inspired and connected to the Zeitgeist.
I offer inspiration sessions called Brainsparks, creative desk research (Zeitgeist Boost), Plug’n’Play deals for workshops and sprints, and other bespoke formats. If you want to know more about this, send me an e-mail with your challenge(s) and we can figure something out together. Check out my website and some work I’ve done below:
thenexialist.xyz
