This Baffler review titled “Barons of Crap”, of a book about the wave of direct-to-consumer internet brands we now see everywhere, does a satisfying job ripping this trend to shreds:

Even the central narrative tension of Billion Dollar Brand Club––small upstarts take on the giants––sloughs off in a depressingly quick denouement… In fact, almost every single brand sells itself to a gigantic globe-swaddling corporation over the course of the book.

And Billion Dollar Brand Club contains almost zero analysis of what the ubiquity of this selling out could possibly mean. But the lesson is right there, whether he wants to see it or not. Corporations––who today plow record-breaking sums into stock-buybacks instead of research and development––have outsourced innovation to the wealthy or wealthy-adjacent who have the time and resources to get the ideas off the ground on their own: a squad of elite MBAs who come up with the ideas, and the venture capitalists who choose which of these ideas get funded. The businesses that Ingrassia profiles are, by the end of the book, essentially the same as the ones they were fighting for market share in the beginning. The founders, of course, have gotten fabulously wealthy, but the book never convincingly establishes the “seismic shift” it promises to document.

Which makes the whole thing a bit less romantic, now doesn’t it? But I loved that take on how unimpressive this “shift” really is, and questioning if there’s anything much to admire or aspire to in these examples. Other than the money, of course.

Is selling out to one of the remaining big mega-corporations the only surefire path to success any more?

How is that good or bad for all of us?

And either way, would you still take it if you could?

Inspired by this lovely little visual essay (only partially screen-capped above) about the need to cool down social media, and maybe make it harder to instantly reach millions of people any time you want, a simple tangent:

Should there be limits on how easy it is to “go viral” or have your message spread globally in seconds?

Do we really need that ability? If so, why?

If not, what’s a fair but useful way to limit that power without old-fashioned corporate gatekeeping?

I’ve been participating in the annual Goodreads Reading Challenge since its inception in 2011 (succeeded five years, failed three), in which you set a personal goal of books to read that year. It’s a nice motivator throughout the year, and a fun little badge each December once I’ve sprinted to the finish, usually with a few short story collections or graphic novels.

This Atlantic article digs into why we effectively “give ourselves homework” in this way with books so much more often than other hobbies usually considered leisure:

Other forms of entertainment straddle that line—watching documentaries, for example, can be both educational and fun—but reading seems to inspire this gamification, homework-ification, and quantification to a unique degree. Perhaps that’s because society tends to view reading as an intrinsic good, whereas other media—movies, TV, the internet—are often seen as time-wasters. “Given many [people] feel they’re consuming too much media, the goal is usually to limit consumption,” Ayelet Fishbach, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business who studies goals, told me in an email. “In this sense, for many people reading is a virtue—so you want to increase it—while watching TV is a vice—so you try to limit it.”

Then, it goes a bit deeper into why… but not quite deep enough. Not a single interviewee admitted anything along the lines of, “It makes me feel smart. It’s part of my identity — that I’m a person who reads more than most, which isn’t hard, considering over a quarter haven’t read any and the average is only about 12.” Seems like a reporting miss to not get to why.

Why do you read as much as you do? Or not read as much as you do?

What do you get from it beyond the content of the books themselves, or what do you free yourself up to do by not reading more?

What, if any, inherent value is there in reading books at all?

Occasionally I will see an article like this one in the NYT, or one like it, about a person who dared to return to life in the small town they grew up in to find a different kind of life other than the big city one they chased in their younger years.

A recent Gallup poll found that although most Americans live in cities, if given a choice, they would prefer to live in rural areas. What’s stopping them?

…

This is the rural life that I know exists all over the country: It can be stimulating and rewarding, a place for bold creativity. I am more involved in politics, and more outspoken about social and racial justice, economic development and feminism than I ever was in Portland.

For me, the city (series of cities, really) has been good. Career, wife, friends, good experiences. Still, I’m a long ways from being a homeowner, it’s easy to feel like I’ve made no real mark on this place, I don’t know my neighbors, it’s expensive — it’s hard not to wonder what a different type of life might look like at least sometimes.

If you were to return to your home town, what would you do there?

How would your life be the same? How would it be different?

Is it even possible you’d ever really do it? Why or Why not?

Pro-tip: party with people who also love cleaning up at 7am.

This article on a Margaritaville-themed retirement community makes for an easy-to-smirk-at headline, but raises a lot of interesting questions if you bother clicking through. We’re about to have a massive aging population who aren’t going to quietly get consigned to traditional senior living. Our whole conception of seniors and their role in society — especially as they live longer and longer — is weird and undefined and in flux.

But on the matter of themed retirement communities this… actually sounds kinda fun? And even for those of us who have no particular fondness for Jimmy Buffet, it’s useful to think of what’s really important as we age and what the ideal scenario in which to spend our golden years might be.

What would your ideal retirement community look like?

What kind of space, what kind of people, what kind of activities would make your later years the most enjoyable? Where would it be? What would its theme or name be?