race to the bottom of human dignity | self-destructing reality | storyterra | magic realism for designers | continent of play | tanzlinden | ácido brasil | obession

͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­

	Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more 🛝✨The Nexialist #0240 race to the bottom of human dignity | self-destructing reality | storyterra | magic realism for designers | continent of play | tanzlinden | ácido brasil | obession Rodrigo Turra Aug 28   READ IN APP   welcome to your weekly playground for your brain, the nexialist hey, you! i hope this message finds you. this week, i’ll keep the intro short, maybe the shortest ever, as the content inside is so juicy. enjoy! 🫀✨ —Rodrigo Turra 🙏🏻the nexialist is a free newsletter, but consider going paid (or a one-time contribution) if you find this content useful for your life, soul or work. or invite me for a collab. read more at the bottom of this e-mail ✨ Upgrade to paid 1 year ago » 🐦‍🔥✨The Nexialist #0188 : duelo | imaginal disk | bread | galina | phrogging | lucifers | amsterdam archive | interrobang 2 years ago » 🎠✨The Nexialist #0136 : past lives & in-yun | implicate order & math tiling | quantum entanglement visualized | how tech changes the way we speak | power to peasants | digital feudalism 3 years ago » 🤘✨The Nexialist #0084 : Relax, Don’t Do It | Boy Harsher | Electronic Body Music | Post-Punk | ____Punk | The Quagmire | Popcorn 4 years ago » 🇧🇷✨The Nexialist #0035 : The Brazilianization of the World | Being Black in Brazil | Greengo Dictionary | The Guarani Language | Pão de Queijo | AmarElo | Propaganda Feud | Brazilian Beauty Buy Me a Coffee? ☕️ 🤳race to the bottom of human dignity Matt Klein and brooks miller are giving us a wake-up call (and some great learnings) about the current state of the creator economy. as trust in our instituitions keeps being corroded, influencers are still more trusted than the government, legacy media and religion. however, with the ways corporations and algorithms are commoditizing influencers and their humanity, even that trust is at risk. hence the title: The Creator Economy Is a Race to the Bottom for Human Dignity. in brazil, this scenario is true: influencers were jailed for 12 years for being racist for likes/engagement (recreational racism); because of a creator’s exposé (felca), the topic of sexualization/adultification of children/minors on social media (and how big tech/algorithms favour that) has reached the mainstream (and the senate); The creator economy didn't invent exploitation, but it made it aspirational, wrapping it in entrepreneurial flair, and convinced our youngest to do it to themselves. At the end of the day, all creators — or the people — must realize that individuals here have the upper-hand. Corporations need them, more than they need corporations. In this realization is power. And in power is change. While the creator economy is celebrated as a democratizing force by lowering barriers for anyone with a smartphone and story to participate, success is not equitable. Time, equipment, financial cushions, subsidized employment and any other form of resource support create a lopsided playing field. Opportunity may be democratized but outcomes are not. brainsparks: mechanomorphism (tn#118), deinfluencers (tn#111), financialization of you (tn#47), productizing yourself (tn#68), humiliation rituals (tn#235), rituals of suffering (tn#59), schizo-fication of the online world (tn#217), surveillance as love language (tn#209), panopticon aesthetics (tn#218) 👁️self-destructing reality “Our Shared Reality Will Self-Destruct in the Next 12 Months” by Ted Gioia echoes other ideas i’ve been sharing here (the chunk of brainsparks below shows it). what happens when we can’t trust the reality of the virtual world around us? i think i’m pretty good at detecting ai-generated stuff, and i’ve been deceived a few times (the bunnies jumping on the trampoline, for instance— though quite harmless, gives us a hint of what’s to come.) this slide he shared is quite a(nother) wake-up call. “In the near future, people might work as custodians of reality—a kind of high-powered version of today’s notaries. Their job will be validating the actuality of events and media.” brainsparks: the moving image (tn#237), the death of a fantastic machine (tn#231), when images matter more than reality (tn#155), chatgpt psychosis (tn#238), schizo-fication of the online world (tn#217), the great chiasmus (tn#216), deep doubt era (tn#193), fracking eyeballs (tn#150), super industry of the imaginary (tn#28), personal machines and portable worlds (tn#132), how reality got storified (tn#126) ✨magic realism for designers i finally started watching the netflix adaptation of gabriel garcía márquez ‘one hundred years of solitude,’ and i’ve been enjoying it so far. then, this text appeared in my inbox: what designers can learn from magic realism by anthony dunne and fiona raby. it’s an excerpt from their book ‘not here, not now: speculative thought, Impossibility, and the design imagination.’ it’s great to see this latin-american genre expanding its recognition and potential in other areas. also, it’s a great complement to the simon höher’s talk about unthinkable futures (tn#233). As Mark Twain remarked in “Following the Equator,” “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” Magic realism could offer pathways forward that leave behind the problem of reproducing existing mindsets through material and visual reification. Allowing us instead to constructively undermine them, creating room for new possibilities and imaginaries to emerge. Once we leave behind the overly rational that defines much of Western speculative fiction in design, many other forms of speculation begin to emerge. Moving from questions of “How do we get from here to there?” or “Is it plausible?” to ones of “Is it interesting, and what new thoughts does it make possible?” brainsparks: unthinkable futures (tn#233), thick imagination (tn#223), time for indigenous futurism (tn#65), polyfuturism (tn#158), protopia futures (tn#27), decolonizing foresight (tn#21), polyfuturism (tn#158), can solarpunk save the world? (tn#97) 📺storyterra storyterra is a time-machine for movies: you can choose a place and a period and check out a list of movies, books, games an tv shows that tell stories from that time/place. it reminded me of an old obsession: radiooooo, a musical time-machine. (via Galáxia) brainsparks: how reality got storified (tn#126), iconographic search (tn#25), google earth time travel (tn#19) 🛝continent of play this weekend, juan and i joined some friends with kids to a playground 2 blocks from my house, and it was so nice to watch the kids playing. i see so many stunning playgrounds here in amsterdam, and it makes me a bit jealous: growing up we didn’t have such well-done playgrounds around the city. also, i’ve been hearing how young kids are unlearning how to play, to imagine, make-believe and create their own games/toys due to screen overreliance. match that with the adultification of children i mentioned above. so when i saw this post by report/bluepring by 21st europe i had to click (via Creative Destruction). it’s quite inspiring how they inspire with their argument about childhood, play, exercise and social infrastructure, along with more practical elements of governance. At a time when war has returned to Europe, it may feel counterintuitive to talk about play. Yet investing in what binds us together is as urgent as investing in defence. Infrastructure is not only roads and railways, it is also the public spaces that shape daily life and future generations. More than leisure, play in moments of crisis represents stability, continuity, and hope. While nations often turn inward, focusing on defence, Europe’s strength lies in what it builds together. Playgrounds and civic spaces send a clear message: we are preparing for the future, not retreating in fear. brainsparks: drops of joy (tn#16), play-full future (tn#121), culture is not an industry (tn#203), social infrastructure (tn#15), third places (tn#90), imaginals vs imagination (tn#19), playscape (tn#67) 🌳tanzlinden talking about social infrastructure: messy nessy chic shared the tanzlinden and it sounds right out of a fairytail. the linden trees at the center of many german villages served as gathering places for. centuries, often called tanzlinden —dance lindens. some were even grown in the shape that allowed people inside. brainsparks: ancient amazonian root urns (tn#230), dendrochronology (tn#200), arboreal codes (tn#196), sumaúma(tn#122), ask nature (tn#86), shinrin-yoku (tn#137) 🇧🇷ácido brasil thank you, Dimas Henkes, for sharing this. paulete lindacelva is a brazilian dj from recife, based in são paulo and her new album gave me so many chills and the desire to go party and dance. she brings a brazilian/organic twist to acid house, with poems written by her. in the track above, heliogábalo à brasileira, i had to look up who that was. to my surprise, i had posted about elagabalus a few years ago: a transgender teenager roman emperor (tn#55) of syrian origin, who was ostracized, punished by death and conveniently forgotten by historians. paulete is a trans woman, so this gives it extra significance. brainsparks: transgender roman emperor (tn#55), polygendered brazilian music (tn#24) 🏳️‍⚧️pajubá etymologynerd A post shared by @etymologynerd i love etymology nerd, and recently he shared about pajubá, the made-in-brazil queer “dialect,” and i have to share it with you: it should be recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage. pajubá originates from trans/travesti communities and spreads to the rest of the lgbtqia+ community (and even to the mainstream in some cases). it has great influence of west-african and indigenous terms (because of religions like candomblé and umbanda), mixed with camp/exagerated terms, stretching meanings to the max. during our military dictatorship, it was also a way of protecting the community and speaking in code (i shared the polari (tn#92) some time ago, a “dialect” with the same goal). i also found the pdf of aurélia, the first gay dictionary of brazil. brainspark: the queer code (tn#92), queering the future (tn#24), syncretism (tn#44), dyke camp (tn#24), same gender lyrics (tn#27) 💌carta de maria i got chills listening to this new song by rubel and marina sena. the lyrics are so beautiful and poetic, a man and a woman with opposite views. he is romantic, in love and wants to get married, she does not believe in that and wants to be free. brainsparks: fool’s gold (tn#219), inherent vice (tn#119), numa ilha (tn#207), céu azul (tn#3) 🚬obsession oliver sim is the only artist i “know” that was born exactly the same day as me, so i like paying attention to what he is releasing. his new song, obsession, got me so obsessed. also a bit of discussion duet between an obsessed guy and a woman trying to deescalate his thoughts. love the more pop sound of this one. see you next week, obsessives 🫀✨ 🫀✨thank you for reading The Nexialist. This post is public, so feel free to share these brainsparks 🧠✨ Share ❓Wait, what is a Nexialist? 🔎If you want to see what I’ve already posted, visit the archive and use the search engine. Even I do that a lot. 💌I want to know what you think/who you are! Your feedback is highly appreciated; you can e-mail me or fill in this short survey. Thank you! 🙏🏻 🔌Let’s Collab? 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 You're currently a free subscriber to The Nexialist. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. Upgrade to paid   Share     Like Comment Restack   © 2025 Rodrigo Turra Amsterdam Unsubscribe