cool stuff i found #30
uncertainty, exp crafters, taste, consumer socials as tv shows, and much more!
on uncertainty
uncertainty is more a fog that envelops you more than anything else. that’s why it sort of bothers me when people say a phrase like “grappling with uncertainty.” it’s almost like punching the mist inside of fog to try to dissipate it. the hell are you on about?
but i do think it’s entirely possible to sort of tether that misty fog. bear/bare (idk which one to use) with me. — sorry quick aside lil adhd moment here, but if we used the phrase “bear with me” it makes me think of we bare bears and it’s just a really adorable thought — i chatted about this idea of tethering with my friend Solom who made this really good point about anchoring the anxiety around uncertainty to time boxes.
for him, he’s had applications due for masters programs throughout the US and that comes with a host of anxieties. he’s been setting aside blocks on his calendar to feel through on one particular anxiety at a time. so he’ll block out two hours to work on a personal statement, that’s his two hours to really feel through all his anxiety around his personal statement. essentially he’s tethering the fog of uncertainty to a very concrete sense of time in that we all have a standard 60 seconds in a minute etc. i try to go about things a bit differently.
uncertainty stems from not knowing. makes me think of that Donald Rumsfeld quote: “we got known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.” look, you’re generally in a good place if you have a solid base line of what you know, you’ll be just fine if you know what you don’t know, but there’s just something about that third thing that’s excruciating. perhaps because the unknown unknowns are that which is outside of our control? so for me, i try to “tether” uncertainty by asking a series of questions. the first question is: “what is and isn’t in my control?” my answers then fall into two buckets. the second question i ask leads me to break items down from my “what is in my control” bucket, where i ask, “of what’s in my control, what are the things that would make me feel more certain?” then i stack rank this list based on priority. and everyday, i take on that list one line item at a time until i have exhausted that which is under my control. the variables of that which are out of my control still exist, but i would have exhausted my energy and capacities on the things that would instill in me a sense of certainty.
does that all make sense? how do you all deal with uncertainty? reply to me via email with how you go about it!
experience crafters: the ones to usurp content creators
a while ago i had this urge to write about the concept of the fourth space, and i felt all too clever while i was writing it. then i spoke about this idea in the midst of an interview with a consumer social startup, and they looked at me like i was manic. and i was like o shit, should i have shut the fuck up??
the fourth space is a simple thesis. but first you must understand the third space, the communal space, to be this place that one frequents that is neither home or work (yes, the coveted secret third thing). we (in the west) have a massive decline in social infrastructure that facilitate IRL experiences (Ray Oldenburg talks a lot about this in the Great Good Place which is worth a read). so where do we all seek connection now? the digital sphere.
human connection is now supplied through complex networks, literally and figuratively, of likes, comments, stories, shares, tweets, reposts, HTTP, RPC, 5G LTE. the digital life is as revered as one’s in real life existence. there’s just things most people wouldn’t do in IRL if it wasn’t somehow rewarded in the digital. people walk around in the real world, but spend their lives simultaneously in a digital one: the fourth space.
we associate the rise of digital identity, often framed as “personal branding” by the worst person you know who for some reason stubbornly speaks in a vocal fry, with this new found role in society called the “content creator.” these are people who make content on a variety of platforms to connect with their audiences.
but people are starting to realize that spending your existence on your phone is a rather depressing lived experience. people want to live! be free! fall in love! all in real life! we hate the apps! we hate the algorithms! so now what? now enter the experience crafter: someone who can create something that addresses the needs of both the physical and digital existences.
earlier this week i got to speak with Jihad over at Forefront. he’s written a lot of essays that i find insightful and inspiring, particularly his thoughts on Luxury Media. we basically shared notes on this emerging trend we’re seeing where we’re seeing a return to an emphasis of real life experience. there’s this sweet new opportunity here where, if the digital realm is championed by content creators, we wonder what the champion of IRL experiences look like?
do we call them scene creators? vibe artists? club promoters 2.0? experience crafters? we have no idea. so i’ll just leave you with a tweet of his, and you can just email me your thoughts if you got them.
Taste is a guide for what is worthwhile by jzhao.xyz
i found this essay in the midst of a rabbit hole that was so incredibly generative. first of all, this is like the second time i’ve seen Alexandre Grothendieck referenced in an essay, so i’m pretty much convinced that i have to read “Récoltes et Semailles” — let me know if you’d be interested in reading it too so we can share notes!
this essay feels like a natural extension, sort of secondary reading material, to Paul Graham’s essay on taste. this excerpt stands out to me because it calls out the core of our collective problem. many of us no longer know how to curate or understand aesthetics because we’ve effectively outsourced our tastes to whatever IG or Tiktok shoves up our asses like a goddamn suppository (this is meant to be an unpleasant analogy btw).
what i really love about this essay, besides being a really good primer providing a solid way to navigate what “taste” even means, is that it’s a rallying cry to allow ourselves to approach the world in a more open way — especially because that’s what we need to do in order to see and introduce beauty in this world.
Multi-Hit Wonders: Embracing Apps With Short Shelf Life by Li Jin
ok before we start, i want to open with Wallahi i was thinking about this even before i read the essay. what was on my mind was that really good consumer social apps today are more akin to interactive TV shows than they are apps we’d traditionally download for pure utility. there’s just no way in hell BeReal, Lapse, Amo, Locket, [insert the next viral consumer social app] is going to replace Instagram and Tiktok. it’s a lot like watching a season of a show, me and my friends are in on it for that length of time: a season. and then we all move on.
then boom, out of nowhere, i come across this essay. it was an incredibly validating read, and i couldn’t agree more.
i’ve been thinking a lot about the camcorder aesthetic as of recent. i was watching a podcast and i noticed they were cutting in shots from a camcorder in between normal shots probably done on a Sony X3 or something. it created this really cool vintage effect. and suddenly i was primed to see it in many different places. the best usage of this vintage footage was on this site called Disguised that’s linked below.
Disguised
found this 1 minute jam from a James Rehwald video. enjoy!
Thanks for reading this edition. Share this with your friends, your grandma, or your neighbor. And if you made it to the end of this essay and you didn’t just scroll, dm me the word “turtle” on either twitter or instagram. or leave a comment! As always,
Sincerely,
Haroon
P.S. Check out my previous newsletter if you’re curious: Cool Stuff I Found #29