🧺✨The Nexialist #0203

doechii | culture is not an industry | mum does the washing | culture is the client | triad of capital | pinterest predicts | year in swipe | serendipity seekers | trends 2025 | luigi mangione

Dec 12, 2024

welcome to your weekly content-catcher, the nexialist

hey, you! i hope this message finds you groovin’ like so. this week i’m writing to you from santa rosa, rio grande do sul, where my parents live. last weekend i had a blast: i had the opportunity to go to boiler room in são paulo and it was incredible to experience the vibrating culture of brazilian funk (i saw mc tha live, it was beautiful) <3 on saturday i went to the first edition of zig festival and it was cathartic. i used to dj in this club in são paulo before moving to amsterdam, so it’s always cool to see how it keeps becoming a growing part of the paulista lgbtq life. both experiences felt like witnessing culture right in front of my eyes, it left me feeling excited and inspired. now, i’ll leave you to this week’s content, which there is plenty of. enjoy! 🫀✨

—Rodrigo Turra

Buy Me a Coffee? ☕️

🐊doechii

in case you haven’t seen, doechii’s tiny desk has been flooding my timelines, and this time rightfully so. doechii ~~swamp princess~~ is a delight to watch, and the tiny desk concert is not the only case: the late show’s routine is hypnotizing, with the perfect looks, group, choreo, and rapping live with such flow. it made me think:

the vibe: she knows it’s all about the vibe, but the storytelling is not left behind. i mean, she is sharing stories with us, and we are like kids watching it.
authenticity: yes, overused word, but there is no other way to define what she is doing. it’s original, it dialogues with culture while moving it to another level.
irl: isn’t it amazing how a great tiny desk concert adds so much value to the artists? this concept embodies irl: intimate cozy vibe, unplugged, craft, full of books. it’s such a joy to watch and doechii really delivered something unique.

brainsparks: artistry + world building (tn#192), alter ego (tn#168)

🏭culture is not an industry

last month i had the pleasure of visiting tate modern in london and spent some time in their library and this title has not left my mind. “culture is not an industry: reclaining art and culture for the common good” by justin o’connor is now in my reading list. i did find a short review by dan hill and i have to share it here because i had never framed culture like this, and it touches on so many things that interest me, including futures thinking, imagination, urban futures and community

In ‘Culture is not an industry’, Justin O’Connor makes a powerful case for seeing culture as the foundation of democracy, as the ultimate goal of the city, the way we work towards “new forms of shared prosperity” — and not a mere industry. Here, culture is seen as both the vital life force of everyday life, and the way we collectively imagine, articulate and form possible futures.

he also included a quote a by brian eno who puts imaginative culture as our antannae. i love that image.

“Imaginative culture — art, stories, decoration, styles — is how we anticipate the future and feel our way into it: our antennae. Treating culture as an industry subject to the crude rules of neoliberalism doesn’t make any more sense than treating healthcare the same way. Justin O’Connor’s brilliant book argues for a holistic, ecological vision of culture in which it is seen as an essential part of the maintenance of a functioning society.”—Brian Eno

(quite timely to read this comparison on the week of luigi mangione’s happening—more on that later.)

brainsparks: hyperindustry of the artificial imaginary (tn#118), super industry of the imaginary (tn#28)

🧺mum does the washing

thank you,

Tássia Frossard

, for sending me this. joshua idehen is a british-born nigerian based in sweden, and he teaches us a full class in a spoken-word song: the world according to your mum doing the washing. the video and the choice of imagery adds another layer of genius.

brainsparks: rules of techno (tn#133)

🛹culture is the client

we love people who are making sense of culture and translate it in visual ways. we also love a good slap on the face of brands/companies “extracting value from a culture, without providing value back.”

Nick Susi

from

objects of

(i shared his multitude of the self essay a few editions ago), shared this amazing sort of manual more than a year ago, but only now it reached my eyes: culture is the client.

starting with the “How do we tap into culture?” question, he takes a step back to define culture, and how tapping into culture is more often than not an extractive practice. he brings some examples of cultural extractionism which quickly become brand-archetypes: the gentrifier, the tourist, the plagiarist and the looter. he then brings some ideas and examples of how things could be done with collaboration, mutual cultural exchange, consent, co-creation and co-economics.

We need to operate like culture is the client. If a culture is our client, are we talking to the right people? If we’re talking to no one, that’s definitely not enough. Could you imagine working with a client that you’ve never met or talked to before? American society in particular pushes us to compete as individual experts of cultures. But our role is better served as collective advocates, especially if there’s a power imbalance or if a culture is not entirely our own.

brainsparks: multitudes of the self (tn#191), life after lifestyle (tn#91), rebranding trend research (tn#193), post-branding (tn#178), biopiracy (tn#97), hypernormative (tn#200)

🔼the triad of capital

i don’t usually do this: recommending something i haven’t read at all. but this triad of capital image shared by

Sean Monahan

for

8Ball

ties in perfectly with the post before and the brainsparks were real.

brainsparks: content capital (tn#96), natural capital (tn#122), financialization of you (tn#47), three elements of innovation (tn#75)

📌pinterest predicts

pinterest: the golden retriever of the internet. i love their yearly report, it’s visually tasty, succint in the descriptions and data, and this year it has 20 trends, some of which i was already noticing and some of which i had no clue.

brainsparks: social signals (tn#189)

🤳year in swipe

tinder’s yearly report is also out and full of insights. first, the app (as well as other dating apps) have lost tons of users, as people are growing tired of the whole game. some things make me giggle (golder retriever is the most looked type of person), others gave me brainsparks. i loved the new terms and the navigation of the report. i chose some terms to show how tech infiltrates dating.

Phonezoned: You're vibing on a date, but there's a third-wheel stealing the spotlight: their phone.
D-AI-ting: Using AI as your dating wingman to craft the perfect text, build out your bio, or to practice online conversations to boost your confidence. Love at first byte: 68% of surveyed singles say an AI feature for photo selection assistance would be a game-changer in 2024.
Nano-ships: In 2024, no romantic connection was too small to define. From "eyecontactships" to "textuationships," singles are embracing even the tiniest interactions as meaningful. It's about reclaiming romance, whether serious or not, and recognizing that even micro-moments can count as a "thing."

brainsparks: the state of dating (tn#191), social health (tn#179), hallucinationship (tn#194), non-monogamy (tn#57)

🚶serendipity seekers

got this great piece of data from trendwatching, matching the reality hunger i mentioned recently:

Turns out, Gen Z and Millennials are swiping less and strolling more. According to the 2024 American Express Shop Small Impact Study, 90% of young consumers in the US have discovered a small business simply by wandering their neighborhoods — outranking the 80% who find new favorites via social media.
This post-pandemic shift to IRL discovery reflects a craving for deeper, more authentic connections — a contrast to the endless scroll of social commerce. It’s a welcome trend for small businesses: 86% of owners say they rely on community support to thrive, and 68% of Gen Z and Millennials plan to shop at small businesses this holiday season.

brainsparks: trendbaby (tn#193), reality hunger (tn#201), artificial intimacy (tn#168)

🔭trends 2025

after all these reports, it’s time to share that link we go back to all year long: the 2025 trend reports, which aggregates 100+ global trend reports in one open-source, paywall-free file. even if you don’t work with trends/advertising/innovation, it’s worth taking a look to find reports in your area. thank you, Amy Daroukakis, Ci En Lee, Gonzalo Gregori, and Iolanda Carvalho 🫀✨ i’m already thinking how i’ll use some of them with notebookLM for my next projects 🥹

brainsparks: trends are bullsh*t. long live the trends (tn#190)

💥luigi mangione

herreraimages

A post shared by @herreraimages

i couldn’t finish this without talking about luigi mangione. when i think everything about this situation had to be said, new memes, fancams, fake news, fake nudes and real news keep emerging. i mean, a ~~hot~~ suspect killer of a US healthcare-CEO becoming the internet’s boyfriend/hero, it shows there is a lot to unpack.

i was writing a long-ass text, but realized i don’t have much to say, so i’ll share this quote from

Leo Herrera

Luigi's popularity is communal grief masked as humor and lust. We feel so abandoned by this healthcare system-and, by extension, this "great" country, where people choose groceries or medicine and go bankrupt in a car accident. We need victories and heroes so deeply, we'll settle for a murder and cheer for an unwell young man. He is hot as f-ck, though. Let's hope we can unpack this catharsis of solidarity into more than just memes.

brainsparks: the other vibe shift (tn#102), parasite culture (tn#191), gay body culture goes mainstream (tn#190)

see you next week, cuties 🫀✨

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