cultural ice age | silicon valley’s wrong future | lycurgus cup | kishōtenketsu | creative maximalism | let them eat lore | full moon | normaal toen

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Subscribe here for more 🫟✨The Nexialist #0243 cultural ice age | silicon valley’s wrong future | lycurgus cup | kishōtenketsu | creative maximalism | let them eat lore | full moon | normaal toen Rodrigo Turra Sep 18   READ IN APP   welcome to your weekly cyber-foraging basket, the nexialist hey, you! i hope this message finds you well in pure delulu delight like above. let’s, for a moment, ignore the chaos and clownery and celebrate bolsonaro’s conviction, last thursday, for plotting a coup d’etat (among other things). it’s a huge victory for democracy, not only in brazil. now, i’ll leave you to read this week’s nexialist, which hasn’t much to do with that. 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 #0191 : parasite culture | the fordian slip | eusexua | chama | the state of dating | digiphrenia | hoardiculture | dumpster archeology | breathing anus? | ig nobel prize 2 years ago » 🫦✨The Nexialist #0139 : pretty baby | the perpetual infantilisation of millennial women | ella tiene | callipygian | erotic electronic | slut techno | (masturbation) data is beautiful 3 years ago » 🫠✨The Nexialist #0087 : The Creative Process | Chatter Toolkit | Parkinson’s Law | The Big Map of Forbidden Information | The Art of Illusion | The Big [Censored] Theory | A24’s Gift Shop | E-motions | Viola Davis 4 years ago » 🎁✨The Nexialist #0038 : The Perfectionism Trap | Normosis: The Pathology of Normality | Social Cooling | Solar Power | Artist Imperfection Buy Me a Coffee? ☕️ 🧊cultural ice age eugbrandstrat A post shared by @eugbrandstrat Eugene Healey has yet again poked the open wound that is culture atm with his hot take, and it has been on my mind since i saw it (and gasped). “soft clubbing and coffee shop raves are a late capitalist psy-op.” i grabbed my imaginary popcorn when he pointed out that the top tiktok of the summer is jess glyne’s hold my hand, the one that is short-circuiting my brain with the jet2holiday slop. then, i choked: the cultural theorist mark fisher described this sentiment at length in what he termed the ‘slow cancelation of the future.’ as late capitalism shuts down our cultural and political imagination, we're effectively consigned to an everlasting present, in which our futures are just endless remixes and recycles of old cultural forms, hence the pervasiveness of nostalgia. ouch… and then the core of his thought, which really got to me: club culture, at its best, is subversive. it's anti-efficiency. it's when misfits gather in liminal spaces to embrace freedom, abandon and the possibility of becoming both wholly oneself or someone else. soft clubbing feels like the exact opposite. It's a sun-drenched performance of self-optimization. privacy is replaced by hype of visibility, of bodies, of consumption, of social capital. It just becomes yet another opportunity to brand one's self. and that original premise of dreaming what life might be is reduced into yet another simulation of how things are and will always be. brainsparks: hyper-optimization (tn#210), countercultureless society (tn#73), counterculture x counter-futures (tn#10), failures of globalization (tn#236), algorithmic condition (tn#219), imagination as a necessity (tn#15), dopamine culture (tn#164), the state of culture 2024 (tn#164), old music vs new (tn#58), triad of capital (tn#203), nostalgia theory (tn#19), infoxication, content capital (tn#96), program or be programmed (tn#200) 📱silicon valley’s wrong future chikauwazie A post shared by @chikauwazie @chikauwazie shared this, which connects to the unthinkable futures (tn#233) talk i shared recently. why are apps like a “drink-water reminder” getting $3M investment in silicon valley, while a payment app that works offline from lagos raises nothing? chika exposes how silicon valley is “optimizing for comfort for people who already have everything, while ignoring innovations that could change the world.” a call to change perspective. brainsparks: unthinkable futures (tn#233), beyond silicon valley (tn#30), technologies for liberation (tn#200), techno-fascism (tn#215), technocracy incorporated (tn#213), technofeudalism (tn#143), west vs rest (tn#143), digital feudalism (tn#136), plantations, computers, industrial control (tn#125), netocracy vs. consumtariat (tn#18), a frictionless world is boring as f*ck (tn#163), cloud capitalism (tn#214) 🏆lycurgus cup how to explain a 600 year-old roman artifact that changes colors when exposed to light? diatreta / cage cups are already quite impressive (and rare) with their carved glass technique, but this one, the lycurgus cup has been a long-held mystery. i would’ve completely believed it was the holy grail had i seen it back then. but scientists recently found the cup features some sort of nanotechnology: a specific alloy of glass, gold and silver, which allows for its color change when exposed to light/fire — the same technology, light-altering metallic nanoparticles, is used dichroic filters in some satellites, space shuttles and astronaut visors to control glare, filter wavelengths and protect equipment from harmful radiation. this is all quite fascinating already, but the possible historical context for its existence is quite cool, mirroring today’s technological power struggle: When the light changed and green became red, the display became more than beautiful. It was unexplainable, like something divine. We can infer that the myth was also chosen with precision. Lycurgus’ downfall at the hands of the god Bakus or the Greek god Dionysus was a warning to enemies, a reminder that resistance to a legitimate power, whether divine or imperial, ends in submission. In the charged political climate of the early 4th century, when emperors rose and fell through civil war, that symbolism carried much weight. brainsparks: ancient computer (tn#48), ancient amazonian root urns (tn#230), out-of-place artifact (tn#126), shipwrecked treasures (tn#219), tarot through the ages (tn#236) 🇯🇵kishōtenketsu whatiamreadingtoday7 A post shared by @whatiamreadingtoday7 in the west, we are used to conflict-based plots, a more manichaean good vs. evil story, the hero’s journey, and all that, which really shapes how we see the world around us. this guy shared a different concept of many classic chinese, korean, japanese and vietnamese narratives, where the story unfolds in a different way, where conflict takes a different shape. Not every story needs a villain. In Japan, stories often follow Kishōtenketsu, a four-part structure built not on conflict, but on contrast and surprise. ✨ Ki (起) — the beginning, setting the scene ✨ Shō (承) — the development, expanding details ✨ Ten (転) — the turn, an unexpected shift ✨ Ketsu (結) — the conclusion, weaving harmony (there is someone in the comments claiming this is oversimplified and the examples are not the best, still i’m keeping it here in case you want to look for other examples) brainsparks: shinrin-yoku (tn#137), climate storytelling toolkit (tn#131), a messiah won’t save us (tn#71), how reality got storified (tn#126), awesome anthropocene goals (tn#76), protopia futures (tn#27), storytelling periodic table (tn#22), lo-tek: a new mythology of technology (tn#43), permacrisis (tn#94) 🫟creative maximalism Dimas Henkes shared this and it gave me a lot of thoughts. a couple of weeks ago i talked how i’m “too latino to be minimalistic” — along with “how minimalism is a colonial/imperialist force “in a systematic process of cultural homogenization.” then this youtube culture & trends report appears with maximalism as a creative force in the platform (which is turning 20 (!) this year). while i loved the format and how they explain it for the audience (probably creators/brands), at times, it feels like they are trying to nicely wrap brainrot as a creative strategy. i’m not mad about it, because it is also decoding some of the brain rot world around us. brainsparks: unmasking minimalism (tn#241), youtuber brain (tn#71), race to the bottom of human dignity (tn#240), culture is not an industry (tn#203), the most creative time ever (tn#183), linear opposites or closely related? (tn#126), the evolution of pop culture (tn#77), rosetta stone for the digital age (tn#9), brain rot (tn#202), the new aesthetics of slop (tn#215), at the height of complexity (tn#49), schizo-fication of the online world (tn#217) 🫠let them eat lore it’s that time of the year we start seeing the 2026 reports, and this one from OK COOL was shared and it’s quite inspiring. “the culture is in the comments and the hot take is currency.” it’s cool to see the comment section having a glow-up: not long ago we were instructed not to read the comment section, and now we go to see people’s witty comments and hot takes: “communal consumption” they call it in the report. i’m still halfway through it, but it’s already one of my favorites. brainsparks: the new rules of youth culture (tn#212), trends are bullsh*t. long live the trends (tn#190), meta trending trends 2025 (tn#211), dark forest theory (tn#10) 🌕full moon marina sena is a nexialist habitué, so i have to share her new video. i get chills when i hear this song and the viuals have made it even better. another song that i wish everyone understood portuguese to understand and vibe with. brainsparks: everything to love you (tn#110), carta de maria (tn#240), fool’s gold (tn#219), inherent vice (tn#119), numa ilha (tn#207) 📺normaal toen another nexialist regular, now from the netherlands, eefje de visser just released another beautiful song/video. i just love the visual universe eefje has been building, i’m here for it. brainsparks: image hangs still (tn#212), vlammen (tn#166), out of sight (tn#175), eefje de visser (tn#76), dutch poetry (tn#2) see you next week, maximalists 🫟✨ 🫀✨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. 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