A newsletter dedicated to how internet-native culture is reshaping business before it shows up in earnings reports. Subscribe for updates. Best viewed on LinkedIn.

Y Combinator just backed a company called Clad Labs that makes Brain Rot IDE, a coding environment incorporating brain rot tools to keep developers focused while AI generates their code. This got funding.

This shift has been building since Trump won in 2016 as the first meme president back when everyone assumed this was an anomaly. Then Musk spent years acting like a billionaire shitposter and it worked, his companies kept growing. This was followed by meme stocks and meme coins, GameStop and Dogecoin, respectively. Suddenly it became clear that markets were running on attention more than fundamentals. By 2024, a memecoin called Fartcoin hit a $1 billion market cap boosted by venture capital converting absurdity into value.

But something different is happening now, we’re not just seeing attention-driven marketing anymore, we’re seeing attention economy arbitrage as the core business model.

Fahrenheit started with a meme making fun of Celsius energy drinks, saying an American company shouldn’t be called Celsius. The meme spread. Then they made koozies to cover Celsius cans with “Fahrenheit” branding. The koozies sold. Now they’re developing an actual Fahrenheit energy drink. The entire company bootstrapped itself from attention alone, no pitch deck required, just a meme that caught on and a founder who knew how to monetize the crowd before building the product.

Old path: Idea → Funding → Product → Market

New path: Attention → Monetize → Product (maybe)

Attention is the venture capital now.

Beyond Elon, Mark Zuckerberg seems to understand this better than most recognizing his need for entire rebrand from reptilian CEO to “bro who does MMA, wears chains, eats steak.” He finally tapped into the zeitgeist and became memeable in a way that helped lift Meta stock (haters will say it was market recovery and earnings growth). Authenticity doesn’t matter—cultural relevance does, and that runs on attention.

We’ve gamified attention to the point where substance is optional. This is just how business works now. The attention economy is already here, and the infrastructure is getting more sophisticated. The companies still operating like it’s 2015 are already behind. Are you paying attention?

Elsewhere

• Torment Nexus1: a16z backed DoubleSpeed lets you control thousands of social media accounts with AI so you never pay a human again.

• Squadware2: Founders with Are.na3 boards and Zora orbs4 are drawing boundaries for a new internet with a post from Kickstarter cofounder, Yancy Strickler. If you can beat ‘em, opt out.

• Mystic Arbitrage: Founders have discovered Project Stargate5. The betting market, Kalshi is hiring unemployed “tarot card readers, palm readers, psychics, fortune tellers, oracles, wizards, and individuals born with divine intuition.”

• Post-Legacy Media Taxonomy: TBPN, the ESPN-styled financial entertainment news media company, has released a Media Market Map fit with in-group networks from “Dark Media” to “Post-Legacy Media.”

This article is best viewed on Linkedin (it’s also free there)

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Between 19-47% of workers now consider their jobs socially useless, depending on which study you trust. When Shopify deleted 12,000 calendar events and freed 95,000 hours, nobody noticed. Executives spend 23 hours weekly in meetings, up from 10 in the 1960s. The performance is the job.

Gervais Principle

For the rest of the article to make sense you should read Venkatesh Rao’s breakdown on the three corporate tiers:

1. Sociopaths at the top: clear-eyed about the game

2. Losers at the bottom: rationally coasting for a paycheck

3. Clueless in the middle: true believers who really care about alignment in meetings

Everyone thinks the Clueless are the biggest suckers. They work the hardest, trapped trying to appease both their superiors and their subordinates.

But what if the Clueless actually were better off?

Why the Clueless Could Believe

They believed their work mattered. Movies like Office Space and Fight Club showed us this reality was starting to crack. It took most normal people several years before the existential dread crept in when the other meaning structures began to collapse.

Previous generations had religion, tight-knit communities, geographic identity, shared culture. Work was work. You did your job then went home and lived. The Clueless could genuinely care about team-building exercises because they weren’t desperately searching for transcendence in a conference room.

But when all other meaning structures collapsed work became the last place to find identity, purpose, status, and community. Now we “bring your whole self to work!” and the result is exhausting performance of authenticity where nobody believes anybody, including themselves.

The Clueless could believe the corporate mission because they didn’t need it to be their entire life’s meaning. That’s gone now.

Online as Accelerant

Too much information destroyed the illusion. It’s hard to maintain belief when your feed is flooded with confessions about working only 5-10 hours per week and quiet quitting the rest. Middle managers discovered their meetings existed to prove meetings were happening. The analysts realized their spreadsheets went into a black hole. The number of posts and essays on this are growing. Just check the engagement numbers on ’s “The Death of the Corporate Job.”

Zoomers never even formed a real Clueless layer. 43% have zero interest in traditional corporate paths. 47% are openly coasting. Pre-sorted into Losers and aspiring Sociopaths from day one. Perhaps the closest thing to the Clueless for Zoomers are the product mommies posting their daily email job routines while getting company matchas.

What’s Left When the Middle Collapses

The Loser splits two ways: Extract value while “building the real thing.” But most lack the drive to execute. The others coast in quiet desperation.

The Sociopath also has options.

Type One chases memetic achievement. Money for status, the appearance of winning, and podcast appearances. Morning routine achievers and Ed Mylett’s “21 days in a week” lives here. But then there’s Silicon Valley grindcore: 9am to 9pm, six days a week. And while there’s still memetic clout ambitions it also feels more like... religion replacement? Forget 996, why not buy Prophetic AI and work 24/7?

It’s hard to tell who’s performing and who genuinely found their church in the grind. Both are working nonstop. Both appear to lack traditional meaning structures. One plays to an audience. The other found genuine purpose in the work itself, even if that purpose is manufactured.

Type Two isn’t replacing religion or chasing status. They’re calculating escape velocity.

The playbook has been growing since the 2000s: sacrifice friendships now, get rich later, relax in some distant future. Except realistically, only a small percentage make it out.

What’s new isn’t the plan but the intensity of wanting out.

This shift also has its own status. The real flex now is becoming a farmer. Having eight kids, no smartphone, owning land. Pam Anderson without makeup tending her garden. David Beckham as an English countryman on his farm. Touch grass, make generational wealth, and never have to perform again. The internet is for poor people.

The Only Move Left

In many ways, the Clueless were better off. They had meaning through genuine belief, supported by religion, community, and purpose outside work. They showed up Monday believing their work mattered.

You can’t go back and you can’t unknow what you know.

So the only coherent move: extract enough to build meaning outside the system.

Type 2 Sociopaths understand this. They’re working ruthlessly to escape. Most won’t make it because the drive required is rare and the odds are long. But it’s the only path that makes sense once you see the performance for what it is.

The Clueless were right about one thing: you need something real to live for. They just picked the wrong place to find it.

Welcome to my Newsletter where I give quick insights on the evolving culture and business landscape. You should consider subscribing to get insights delivered right your inbox.

Amazon just served me a livestream after checkout. The woman looks like she just rolled out of bed. Zero production value, but she’s 10X-ing the polished ads. Livestream shopping is converting at 30% versus traditional e-commerce’s 3%. Amazon Live has a 17x higher purchase rates than standard product pages. This is the fastest-growing segment of digital retail: 47% annual US growth projected through 2030.

Gaming platforms peaked while shopping exploded. Twitch revenue dropped 12.2% from 2021 as YouTube Live captured 10 points of market share in one year. Pump.fun creators were making $2 million daily before content controversies (I hear they have plans to fix this).

But commerce is just one vector. Livestreaming became the medium for cultural production. Sam Hyde’s Million Dollar Extreme made $1 million on Fishtank — the livestreamed avant-reality show. Indie comedians like William Blake are using the medium as performance art. Harmony Korine called iShowSpeed “the new Tarkovsky.” All signs point to livestreaming.

Real life is more interesting than TV now. I’d rather catch up on Twitter discourse drama than a Netflix show. My wife watches Reels instead of prestige television. The world is becoming stranger, and people want to watch others navigate and warp it in real-time. Immediacy won. The future is live.

In Other News

• Want to help somebody with their Seed Round? PreSeed, a fertility startup needs your seed. Competition is stiff, so if you’re a man in finance, trust fund, 6’5, blue eyes this is your moment.

• Friend—the spiritually devoid AI “companion”—should’ve found 1,000 true friends to flood streets wearing the pendant around their necks, letting curiosity do the work. Instead they burned nearly $2M of their $2.5M funds on ads everyone hates.

  

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If you have interesting stories to share or have advice to make this newsletter better, DM me or email me at t@chevezmathe.ws.

The world you grew up in is over.

Your dad who loves Tucker is about to start ranting about dark forces straight out of C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength. And he’ll mean every word.

Welcome to the post-coherence and the “radical centrist.”

They’re not centrists because they split differences. They’re “centrist” because left/right can’t map them anymore. They’ve stopped caring whether their beliefs form a coherent system and they just want things to be back to the way they were. They’re selecting what feels true in each domain independently.

First moon landing was faked to own the Soviets. The rest were real.

Hates Big Pharma. Still pro-vaccine.

Believes in democracy. Demands business-like meritocracy in government.

Listens to Aleksandr Dugin explain brainrot. Grounds their teenagers for finding a copy of Fanged Noumena.

The most world’s most successful venture capitalist is hunting for the Anti-Christ.

As I’ve said many times before, the Enlightenment’s rationalist project is nearing its end—it got Covid. The hyperreal is here. It’s been here. Now it’s just becoming evenly distributed.

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I’ve accumulated years of false starts when it comes to writing about where culture meets business—spotting what’s coming before anyone cares. My track record is solid. My timing has been bad. I’d see something five years out, assume everyone else saw it too, and decide not to add to the already existing yaddabytes of data. Then I watch someone else package these observations at the peak of the adoption curve and get booked on podcasts about it half a decade later. But I don’t want to go on about regrets. I’m going to properly relaunch my observations but this time for Linkedin—my current obsession.

Linkedin is not a real place.

I’ve been obsessed with LinkedIn for months now. Not because it’s useful, but because it’s become much stranger than where I left it several years ago. It’s always been a place of performative professionalism, but now, the platform appears to have algorithmically optimized humans into content bots using the same templates beyond the standard AI-suggested “congrats” replies. I literally can’t tell the AI thought leader template posts apart. Those are then followed by a deluge of day-old Twitter takes reheated for new audiences. People post for “someone” but really they’re posting for LinkedIn itself. Little prayers offered to Mammon’s admin.

This surreal experience is what draws me to it. Disrupting the flow of the timeline is too easy and the cracks are beginning to show— Someone doxxed themselves as a Milady the other day. But also the increase of memes creeping just outside the Overton window and the meta joke posts. People seem to be opting out of the performance or perhaps attention economy arbitrage is circling its next victim.

Another possible theory is the real Linkedin athletes have moved on to offer fractional C-suite services in the Upwork economy while others stay behind to fight for lightbulb reactions and “need to know what marketing girly pitched this” replies.

My bet: We’re about to watch LinkedIn morph from Facebook for wagies into X-lite.

Since you’re still reading, go and subscribe to my Substack to get this in your inbox and read the rest of future posts. It’s just $5/mo. and I intend to provide cultural insights to help you make sense of this dizzying world that you won’t find anywhere else. Up next: “The Tucker interview” and how this further evidence of a new class of “radical centrists.”

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What I’m Reading: Going Direct

“You are so much more than the media now” — Elon Musk

If you needed further evidence of an “eternal seventies,” Hal Conte analyzes the corporate strategy of “going direct” — a 1970s-era communications approach shaped by circumstances that wouldn’t be out of place today.

"Reporters are not surrogates of the public", [former VP of Mobil Oil, Herbert] Schmertz argued, adding that they were demographic and ideological outliers from the American mainstream, disproportionately educated, irreligious, and Democratic. Add to this a business model based on targeting a professional class audience and the media could not but be woefully out of touch. (Schmertz went so far as to suggest media leaned in to coverage of then-controversial social issues such as sex education so more conservative low-income readers would unsubscribe, and this would boost a magazine's demographic profile for advertisers).

Schmertz concluded that this meant media was just a business, and its self-appointed mission as a protector of the public was unwarranted. He also wrote that the media’s background meant journalists have little understanding of business and are biased towards negative stories and social crusades.

What I’ve Been Thinking About

I recently spoke with internet culture writer Kathrine Dee about the early days of the internet. The full conversation is behind a paywall, but here are a few sections that have been on my mind for a while that I share below. (If you subscribe to her Substack, you may see my name anonymized — a practice she uses for all interviews in this series. But I’m not anonymous, and I don’t mind anyone knowing it was me, obviously.)

Yeah, there’s this joke I made—though it might not be unique to me—that being online is for poor people. Eventually everyone will have access to AI that can generate any Netflix series or cultural product they want, tailored precisely to their tastes. This kind of hyper-personalized, on-demand consumer culture will be perfect for some. But for those who crave genuine surprise and real cultural exchange, it’ll be deadening. If everything is readily available and completely controlled, there’s no novelty. Those people will seek meaning and authenticity elsewhere—offline or in smaller, more unpredictable communities.

I think podcasts already peaked as the main source of cultural energy. They might evolve or become more like background radio. People might prefer offline gatherings, book readings, membership-only meetups—places where we can have sincere discussions without the pressure of online performance. COVID made us realize how important real-life interactions are.

What I’m Listening to

For the past year or so, I’ve had a sense that hip hop is diverging from the trajectory of American culture. So, I went back to rage, jerk, and other subgenres to see what’s changed — and whether I was missing something. What I found is that the wigger renaissance is in full swing. There’s plenty to like, but I still think if these sounds don’t cross over with country or more Americana themes, they won’t stick. The next wave of the White Boy rapper is a fascinating development and more aware of it’s suburban roots, but there’s a dark side to this spectacle. As a friend pointed out, Nettspend has an entire marketing machine behind him, fueled by the allure of the zesty White Boy — a figure that evokes this generation’s Kurt Cobain. Meanwhile, Black rappers in the same space, like Osamason, don’t get the same push. This realization is bleak, but so is watching the industry churn out rebellion fantasies, packaging and discarding them like an assembly line of Lil Peep clones.

Infinity America

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Invitation

I’m inviting you to join Saga, a private fellowship of men from the Greater St Louis area dedicated to advancing the platonic ideals of living a good life, individual sovereignty, and economic freedom.

This assembly serves as a corrective force in a region often lacking vision, where fear of retribution or cancellation hinders ambitious projects due to the prevailing ideological culture wars.

You’ll be among the best in business, art, and new thought, gaining access to opportunities, to invite-only events, and a high-trust network for honest feedback, advice, and discussions.

If this resonates with you scroll down for benefits and how to join. Otherwise, continue reading as I make the case for why Saga is important and why you should join.

Join Saga

Politics is slow and frustrating. Most people only see a few developments within their lifetime. If you do not have other interests, or a cultural identity outside of “the movement”, you will soon find yourself defeated, miserable and more than likely alone. Art, music and other cultural forms are excellent places to find joy and meaning. They will also give you something to do once politics is done. If its helpful, think of this as a new challenge called: being-a-normal-person-maxxing.

I lifted this paragraph from Joshua Citarella’s Substack1 because it helps explain part of what I mean by “the platonic idea of the good life”.

Politics is driving too much of the discourse, poisoning our culture and communities. While the ideological battle is not unimportant, it is not generative in its current form. Complaining on X is not building anything. Saga will focus on building.

Though Citarella is to the left of me politically I like what he’s doing because he has convictions and strives to live a good life. Being well-rounded (or a based perspectivalist2) includes honest debate with others holding differing views without being tribalistic.

Similar to his post-ironic challenge, I have discussed with friends the seriousness of being “grill-pilled”. Sharing a meal and drinks over honest conversation is a cure to social media and politically induced brainrot. Obviously, it’s more than just this, but it can be simplified in the symbolic tradition of the cookout or the coffeeshops of the Renaissance — discussing ideas and “having a normal one”. Saga is made up of people who are ambitious, innovative, and balanced in family and social lives, pursuing creative, physical, and intellectual endeavors. Men who can hold discussion without falling into tired ideological scripts. Men who are building a better future by leading the way themselves. (I’ll explain why just men in a future post.) The best way to do this is by creating economic independence, sharpening ideas through discussion, and supporting others who are building a future where the good, the true, and the beautiful triumph.

We are creating a venue for radical candor that encourages ambition and vitality. The ideas developed within this group will guide the types of Great Men3 who will eventually determine the future. Perhaps you are one of these “live players”4.

How do you know if you’re a good fit?

• You realize the rules of the world have changed and new economic realities are available to improve your situation.

• You use technology to improve your life but are not a slave to these tools (heeding the prophetic warning by Marshal McLuhan).

• You want to surround yourself with people smarter than you to grow intellectually, creatively, spiritually, personally, and professionally.

Join Saga

You’ll have access to:

• Monthly gatherings (cocktail hours, grilling, etc.) to build relationships and share important ideas, projects, etc.

• Private group chat

• Annual dinner

• Building a repository of essays on business innovations and new ideas, carving out our own Midwestern flavor of the nascent American renaissance

Saga is a fellowship of men dedicated to building individual sovereignty. Join us.

Join Saga

Questions? Email me at t@chevezmathe.ws

If you’d like to access our first members-only event in September, please sign up as a supporting member. RSVP links to the September meeting will be sent out to members in the coming weeks.

About me

I previously ran Venture Cafe St Louis, a nonprofit that assembled several hundred aspiring and experienced founders weekly to learn how to build and grow new ventures. I’ve also been part of various local and global creative projects, from tech accelerators and underground club shows that received Red Bull funding, to collaborating with the Counterpublic Triennial, advising projects in collaboration with Wikimedia and Creative Commons, the Gray Area Foundation in San Francisco, the Wagon Box in Wyoming, and several other initiatives (you can read more on my website). Over the years, I’ve found a way to make money while also working on culturally impact projects, and balancing all this with my family life. This came through trial and error, several irons in the fire, and burnout before I began to figure it out (I’m still learning). Saga is for building a rich life with others; to achieve economic autonomy allowing for more freedom. I hope you’ll join us.

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Joshua Citarella's Newsletter

Fitness Program & Syllabus: Summer 2024

Advice If you’ve managed to find your way here, you are likely some variety of hoe-scaring political extremist. Or at least, you are interested enough in radical politics that your adjacency to this material raises a few eyebrows (or shadowbans). If you are out at a bar with a charming girl, boy or they/them, and find yourself citing crime statistics or trying to explain the falling rate of profit— you are in desperate need of this program and should urgently acquire a hobby such as fitness…

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2 years ago · 48 likes · Joshua Citarella

Estimated reading time is 7m 58s.

In this update:

1. Important events of 2022

2. Reflection and introspection

3. Listicles 

1. Silicon Valley to Main Street

Having been in the shadow of the Silicon Valley umwelt for several years the transition back to Main Street, as expected, was a bit of a culture shock. Everything, as you can imagine, from pace, how problem-solving is approached, to meetings and emails, is done with a completely different set of norms. In some respects, this is refreshing and in others, frustrating. The greatest challenge for me has been to build trust, learn the language, and perceive the social mores. Coming from Tech and having an MBA comes with suspicion, and rightfully so. Main Street views Silicon Valley with more favor than Wall Street but understands it as well as most Americans understand Chinese business culture. 

I can’t understate the opportunity in Main Street. The vast majority of the vendors and partners I work with lack the infrastructure and methodologies to create efficient businesses. Help with creating simple systems is greatly needed to free up operators to build machines that require adjustments and fine-tuning instead of reinventing what should be repeatable or automated. But here lies what I also admire the most about Main Street— it's not completely driven by utilitarian logic and optimization. To better understand where I’m coming from, I recommend reading Luke Burgis’ Wired article “Three-City Problem of Modern Life”.

Nonetheless, in the time since I’ve been with the company, we’ve seen steady growth.

• Created a holding company

• Added a second “friends and family” franchise making this our second location in Illinois

• Opened our first retail location in Huntsville, Alabama, our first location outside of the Midwest

• Cost savings of up to $70,000 through bringing some functions in-house and from strategic purchases

• Introduced better reporting for financial clarity and operator improvement opportunities. This has allowed us to make decisions in half the time.

• Grew enough to be able to provide health coverage for full-time employees at our restaurants

• We adjusted well to recession and inflation without layoffs or labor shortages in part due to strong relationships with our teams and customers. More than anything, the culture of the company — that it’s intentionally personal, family-run organization — is the core of the business and why we are not struggling for talent like other restaurants. This also drives me to be conscious of how much Silicon Valley we let in the company.

• Several new projects coming in 2023

2. Cultural Projects

This year I’ve been working toward eliminating side projects — a first for me in more than a decade. But on the way to zero I dabbled in a few things:

1. Curated SCALE: Sensorium, the Q4 2022 release of SCALE. This is the second on-chain edition which includes poems, essays, and artworks from eight contributors making meaning of what the late-St Louis theorist and theologian, Water Ong, called the new sensorium. It was initially released at the Creative Commons Summit in San Francisco and is now available online to access with the purchase of an “NFKey” at scalepublishing.com.
   

2. Supported PaintLouis’ 25th anniversary through my involvement as a board member of the Fabricatorz Foundation. This globally recognized graffiti event takes place every September at the largest graffiti wall in the world. We secured sponsorship for KRS-One, paint supplies, and national artists, and we threw a party at the City Museum to celebrate.
   

3. In January I co-hosted the Twitter Spaces event, GODPILLED. The four-hour-long discussion looked to uncover why the sudden interest in God was appearing in avant-garde and emerging art scenes. The event included dozens of participants, a handful of “infamous” online personalities, more than 700 active listeners, and more than 3,300 replays as of November.

3. Reflection

The first half of the year was a sea change. I learned a great deal about patience as I acclimated to a foreign business culture. In the latter part of the summer, I began the process of learning how to disengage from the Current Thing, or the Maelström as Marshal McLuhan references metonymically to the Edgar Allen Poe short story. Removing myself from The Discourse has afforded me more time for contemplation. My Solomon-everything-is-vapor moment has me reorganizing my priorities. Though, like the author of Ecclesiastes, I don’t take life too seriously nor too carelessly, but more intentionally. My key takeaways for the year:

• A re-evaluation of why I choose to work on the things I choose to work on. Many of the people in this country have the opportunity to decide what they want to do in life. I’ve taken the time since 2020 to reassess my motives—- do I work because I enjoy it or to satisfy some mimetic desire of accomplishing what I think others identify as success? I know I don’t work as a necessary evil because I enjoy and find purpose in my work (perhaps too much). My original goal in my twenties was to climb the ladder through a non-traditional route. This led me to the startup ecosystem. Originally my goal was to run Venture Cafe for four to five years and then after setting it up for success, join the C-suite of a fast, growth-stage startup. But a global pandemic and the realization that some of my children are only a few years from leaving the house can really change your plans and make you reevaluate your path in life. Now, I’m focused on how to merge the Silicon Valley mindset with Main Street culture and remove wheat from the chaff in the process. I no longer work for the culture of work, but in balance with my family. In the professional circles, I ran in before this would be seen as a sign of taking a graceful L i.e., not being able to handle the demands of “real work.” And perhaps that’s partly true as the allure of that pace is not as appealing at the moment. I still have more drive than most, but I am now selective about when and where to use it.
  

• Becoming counter-modern. I never had a problem being both on the fringes of the art world and also a believer in the necessity of the market and technological progress. I thought this made me well-rounded, self-aware, and realistic about our world. However, removing myself from the Zeitgeist over the last several months has me questioning things about the invisible structures of our modern world. Like a fish in water, I had no idea how much modernity shaped my desires. As a person who was Extremely Online and active in The Discourse, I highly recommend disengaging from all media for at least one month but preferably more. Like an ex-smoker, I was wondering what to do with my hands (and mind) after disengaging. This current arc has allowed me to grow intellectually and spiritually in a deeper way. For the first time, I have time to think about what I’m thinking about. I’ve created much more time for growing closer to my family and for thinking about what trajectory I want to take in life based on my own desires free from the influence of others.

4. Reading and listening

Over the last year, my reading and listening habits have changed significantly. I’ve moved on from consuming 3-9 articles and podcast episodes per day to reading whole books (mostly on philosophy and theology). For those not looking to disengage, here’s what I was listening to and reading:

Professional

• Scale newsletter
  A newsletter by Scale VC, written by Brett Calhoun, covering startup and growth-stage companies in the midwest. I was in process of building a similar newsletter last year before making the jump out of startups. This is one of the last regional-focused newsletters I allow in my inbox.

• Results Junkies podcast
  Hosted by tech entrepreneur and VC, Paul Singh and small business owner Ed Pizza. Similar to my path this podcast covers the opportunities and lessons learned from applying tech to small businesses.

• Permanent Podcast
  Self-described as real talk about private equity and buying, selling, and operating small businesses from Brent Beshore’s Permanent Equity. They also have a newsletter covering similar topics.

• First Round Review
  This newsletter has been around for a while now, but it’s one of the few I’ve never unsubscribed from.

Culture, philosophy, etc.

I’ve consumed more media than ever this past year, but here are the ones that stuck with me: 

• Contain podcast, including the book The Spectre of Finance Punk (also one of the few podcasts I paid for)

• Covidian Æsthetics newsletter by Mónica Belevan and Alonso Toledo

• Ecclesiastes by anonymous (though, most likely Solomon, the monarch of ancient Israel)

• Violence and the Sacred by René Girard

• Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise

• Art of Darkness podcast

Music

Earlier in the year I nearly stopped listening to music altogether and replaced it with a handful of podcasts that seemed more culturally defining than any music subculture for at least the past five years. But now that I’m not listening to podcasts for the moment, I began enjoying music again. Here are the top four albums I’ve been rotating this last quarter that are, in my opinion, contenders for getting into the flow state. (Plus three bonus albums that I had on rotation earlier in the year in between podcasts.)

Q3-Q4

1. Evangeline by Loren Connors

2. Wenn der Südwind weht by Roedelius

3. Tablua Rasa by Arvo Pärt

4. Vernal Equinox by Jon Hassell

Q1-Q2

5. As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls by Pat Metheny

6. Crest by Bladee

7. 唱着那无人问津的歌谣 / Chang Zhe Na Wu Ren Wen Jin De Ge Yao by Organ Tapes

If you made it this far, thank you for your time. If you ever want to talk shop — whether business, music, podcasts, theory, or theology, you can find me at t@chevezmathe.ws or nostr: npub1glm3vwld80dcphyt29rfx2fatzr3qcrsrzz4edd98a9mdhd6sdmsq0k5m0 ⚜️

I have the honor of curating the November 2022 volume of SCALE Publishing, a curious online publication on cultural technology that’s been around since 2004.

Access and own your unique edition here →

In short, I asked artists, writers, illustrators, and technologists to contribute insights on how to reorganize our sensorium to better understand how to navigate the cultural and technological landscape. Poems, essays, and artworks are unlocked with your purchase of the NFKey.

Contributors include:

• Andrew McLuhan
  A poetic exploration of the classic art of rhetoric

• Andy Hartzell
  A surreal visual cautionary tale

• Jon Phillips
  A diaristic memorial as modus vivendi

• Luke Rollins
  Illustration and essay for masters of their environment

• Makio135
  Generative artwork and code

• Paul Guzzardo
  A mythopoetic history

• Petra Cortright
  Digital paintings constructing new visual languages

• Tyler Chevéz Mathews
  Mixed psalm for navigating troubled waters

The prompt is pulled from Walter Ong’s Presence of the Word (1967). Ong was a cultural and religious historian, philosopher, and protégé and friend of Marshall McLuhan.

Man's sensory perceptions are abundant and overwhelming. He cannot attend to them all at once...It is useful to think of cultures in terms of the organization of the sensorium...the entire sensory apparatus as an operational complex.

Get SCALE: Sensorium →

This is a snapshot of an evolving subcultural moment centered around Christianity. I briefly cover what we’re seeing right now, how we got here, share examples, and further reading. If you’re interested in exploring this more DM or email me.

We’ve been in a moment of cultural exploration and appreciation of Christianity in both sincerity and post-sincerity. Not in the 2000-2010s ironic/post-ironic way but something less self-referential. It’s more bottom-left and right quadrant than what the church is used to.

Memes, imagery, art, music, and creative projects are cropping up all over Twitter, Instagram, and Discord.

when will the blockchain give its heart to jesus christ

— dame.eth (@jacksondame) December 28, 2021

Several projects and a slew of podcasts inspired by turn-of-the-millennia CCM and 1990s Christian bookstore culture have already come (and gone)

Like many who subscribe to the Contain podcast, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, the leader of the “transcendental black metal” group Liturgy, features a traditional religious painting as a Twitter banner

Why is this?

The recent trend is one of a handful of cultural trends in the West

• Pentecostalism is considered the fastest growing Christian denomination, second in size only to Catholicism[1]

• Existing ebbs and flows of Western “cultural Christianity”[2] combined with politicized Evangelicalism, and “majority church culture”[3]

• The recent subculture development (see below)

With the traditional and the marginal interests converging — even if ideological opposed — this makes for an interesting time, which is, in no doubt, accelerated by very public conversions from artists like Ye and Bieber. However, I believe the so-called Twitter accelerationist Christianity will ultimately evolve into something more like religious syncretism. My bet is a merger with late-2010s magick considering the lowercase-A art world’s interest in it[4] and the more general growing interest in witches. The other path is abandonment altogether.

More on the current moment.

The current moment is like a 100 gecs song — a mash of everything at once. Sincere, pastiche/satire, and otherwise. While Xers were ashamed of their faith and Millennials tried to hide it behind irony, Zoomers are openly exploring. Sometimes with a wink, but more often with a pastiche that follows the footsteps of ADR’s Chunky Monkey[5]. That said, there is a gradient of subtle differences between monker178’s Total Annihilation DJ mix[6], the provocative nature of I Need God clothing, and the thinly veiled disaffection for a VBS homelife of Chester Lockert’s Girlboss project.

The moments that makeup today’s climate are:

• Jay Tholan’s Odd Church Discord

• Milady Maker PFP NFT

• The DC Talk Pitchfork review

• The network of podcasts from Boy’s Bible Study, Trans Regret Snoopy, Justin Murphy, Bible Buddies, and Christlover2000 (rip)

• John Mause

• Cath-pilled

• Buum’s “Vibe Check”

• I Need God clothing

• Angelicism Twitter network

• Justin Bieber

• Ye

• Revised gospel sounds from IAMNOBODI, Peter CottonTale, Budgie, and Sango to Blood Orange’s cover of the Clark Sisters, and Tyga’s newest 2021 single “Lift Me Up”

• Floorplan

• The global rise of Pentecostalism

• Chip & Joanna Gaines, Selena Gomez, and Chris Pratt

• Chester Lockhart’s “Our God is an Awesome God”

• Lady Gaga’s “Sine from Above”

• Mary’s “Oh My God”

• Discovering that The Rapture’s 2011 album “How Deep is Your Love” is a worship album

Where things are going.

While the current mix of ideas, art, and projects are far from 20th-century mainstream Christian culture it makes me wonder what the late-1960s and early-1970s looked like just before the Jesus People movement. Perhaps a confusing confluence of hymns and psychedelic rock; New Age and Christianity; people looking for eternal peace and others looking for respite. For a moment David Axelrod, Black Sabbath, Bob Dylan, White Witch, Polly Niles, and several other “worldly” artists began exploring Christian themes in their music. At the end of the 1970s and early-1980s the integration happened, Christian rock became institutionalized, xianpsych outsiders like All Saved Freak Band became toxic but now in a religious way, and a majority culture developed into the next couple of decades (but not without some minor bumps). It’s unclear when we can expect to see another Jesus People-style movement, but the dots seem to be creating a trendline.

I believe the confluence of cultural Christianity, sincere alt-whatever fringes, and new Pentecostals will continue to create new and very unexpected mutations in the search for finding something greater than ourselves. I anticipate all sides to be as surprised like I continue to be while I watch from my corner of the world.

If you’re interested in exploring this world more, please reach out on Twitter or email.

Further exploration:

• House and Minimal House legend Robert Hood

• UK Garage originator, Todd Edwards

• Foolishness of God — Outsider Spirituals, a playlist of spirituals from artists Daniel Johnston, Wesley Willis, and Wild Man Fischer (Jandek is not on Spotify)

• The Misfit’s Jerry Only created the Christian metal band Kryst the Conqueror

• Witch house’s brief interest in the sacred (see: BLOWN, SALEM)

• Zaytoven playing church organ

• Around 2019 CCM-inspired Y2K pop music from Mary and tracks produced by Ash Nerve and Chester Lockhart (see: Oh My God, Our God is an Awesome God, Sine from Above)

• The Pitchfork review of Jesus Freak was accompanied by a comprehensive CCM Spotify playlist

• Jeff Hatrix from Mushroomhead sharing his testimony

• The Soft Pink Truth’s Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase

• Horde’s holy unblack metal album, Hellig Usvart

• James Ferraro Christmas album

• Richard Souther, the Jesus People musician who made it on the New Age Billboard charts, helped start the 1990s chant craze with Vision

• “Where else did they copy their styles but from church groups?: Rock ‘n’ Roll and Pentecostalism in the 1950s South”

Something I’ve been interested in for several years now is the tension between art and capital. I find it peculiar that art has become an industry and investment vehicle that is capitalistic and also as opaque as the healthcare costs. MFAs have the same odds of making a career or their art as do entrepreneurs of launching a unicorn startup. How did we get here? Is it simply the market screwing up the life of the creative genius? As a free market-minded, entrepreneurial individual whose formative years were steeped in underground music and netart I see multiple paths for artists. On the right is pure market-driven activities and on the left is diy, and somewhere in between is where the opportunity exists.

My hope through this newsletter is to find other artists whose views are not so dogmatic regarding the artist’s options to create a sustainable practice. There are more ways available than the art gallery route (do these exist in 2020?), patreons, and not making any money. In subsequent newsletters, we will explore various ways artists are creating sustainable practices today.

Also in this Report:

• 🎵 Music recc

• 📦 Product recc

• 🗞 News

• 👀 Highlights

What I’m listening to

imho, this should be a contender for one of the best music videos. enjoy:

Product reccs

I recently stumbled on Quotebacks.net which is created by @tobyshorin (academic art twitter) and @tomcritchlow (quirky entrepreneur). It’s a fun and easy way to quote anything on the internet and easily embed it into whatever. Doesn’t seem like I can embed it in substack yet, but it does allow to have the quoteback embedded as an image:

News

dump.fm is dead 💀

but, but netart gets a friendly nod in nyt and sock.chat is alive 🧦

Highlights

Good 🧵 on remote onboarding, but what is a YELLING room?

Discovered that Soulja Boy has some good startup founder energy tweets

Chloë Bass’ work isn’t something I’m personally into but I wish we would’ve seen more outdoor art while the weather was nice

Come across some ♨️ ⛓, art ‘n tech news, 🌶 opinions, or neet products? Send them my way for inclusion in an upcoming Strictly Business Report.

Sincerely,

Tyler

Welcome to my semi-weekly update.

The last thing I read

The image above is from https://memory-metadata.livia-foldes.com/ which is easy to read/scroll. A couple pull quotes:

My iPhone’s photo app has trained itself to recognize the people I photograph most often. According to Apple, it does this by executing 1 trillion operations.

[M]y niece and sister are rendered unknowable, even as they are intimately known.

What I'm listening to

Staying on theme of work and tech.

Business News: Accelerate Edition

I have a Question for you:

What are the odds you'll get back to your office this year? Reply to this email to lmk.

[ ] Not likely

[ ] Very Likely

[ ] I'm already back in the office

Thanks for reading. If you found my Report interesting, please leave a comment.

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Twice in one week, I’ve heard from other ESO leaders that they feel like there are too many ESOs running things and not enough entrepreneurs running things. I fully agree.

I run Venture Café which is considered an ESO — an entrepreneur support organization. St Louis is full of ESOs — perhaps too many. St Louis is filled with nonprofits — perhaps too many.

Why is it important for entrepreneurs to run things? Because they actually know what they need. And if they run a thing it will directly help the people who need that thing.

ESOs are constantly making deals with funders to get paid which serves their funders more than it does the entrepreneurs. Whoops.

There’s a reason ESOs are called feeders in Brad Feld’s book Startup Communities. They’re necessary but shouldn’t run the community. I’d love to see ESOs figure out ways to support entrepreneurs to let them run supportive (or tangential) programming. Can we be platforms or even backups? When an entrepreneur needs to move on can ESOs be backstops? (See: 1Million Cups STL.) Or, can we be used as platforms for entrepreneurs to plug into?

I’m willing to lend Venture Cafés platform to support more entrepreneur-led initiatives without having to run them.