🫀✨The Nexialist #0212

the beating heart | escape economy | capitalists killed the internet | the new rules of youth culture | limitarianism | mono no aware | image hangs still | all you need is love

Feb 13, 2025

Welcome to your weekly cyber-cultural pulse, the nexialist

hey, you! i hope this message makes your heart beat faster (for the right reasons). as different places are celebrating valentine’s day this week (14/02), i decided to bring a bit of content content about love (as usual, take a look at the yearly editions below if it’s your cup of tea). but also, i mixed with other topics like escapism, enshittification, inequality and other things. i hope you enjoy! 🫀✨

—Rodrigo Turra

4 years ago » 🧠✨The Nexialist #0007 : The Right to Party | Non-Carnaval | Reclaiming the Concrete Jungle | Peeking at North Korea

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🫀the beating heart

this lecture was shared recently at the syllabus newsletter and it’s perfect for this valentine’s day nexialist. Robin Choudjury is a Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Senior Research Fellow in Biomedical Sciences and it’s just so inspiring to see someone so obsessed with something in this way. he is a cardiologist, but also has this whole research on the image and depictions of the heart throughout 4 millenia, from pre-history to frida kahlo and banksy. from anatomic illustrations, to sacred depictions, to pop culture sweetheart.

some thoughts that came to mind, is how for centuries people were just replicating knowledge that was not correct (and how we probably still do this today). even da vinci did that in his first anatomic drawings: he drew a tube going from the heart to the penis, as they believed semen was produced in the heart (also the brain had a direct pipe to the penis) —he later gets into dissecting human bodies and offers more correct representations. at the same time, some other artists and anatomists suggested facts that were only recently confirmed with current technologies such as 4D magnetic resonance: the vortex movement of the blood and the helical alignement of the heart.

brainsparks: is the love song dying? (tn#199), censorship?, riding cupids (tn#160), love lexicon (tn#108), scientist (tn#169), art, science, futures studies (tn#46)

🚀escape economy

i saw this at the

Galáxia

newsletter and it’s just not leaving my mind: the us$10 trillion economy of escapism. in a reality with blurred lines between concrete and digital worlds, this goes beyond the travel and tourism industry, and also includes games, audio-visual productions and ~~infinite~~ scrolling. also, it’s quite harsh to learn brazilians are the ones who want to escape their minds the most in this global mccann study.

“Escapism is a fundamental human behavior that has shaped our world for centuries, from ancient Greek theater to the immersive virtual realities of today. It is not just a coping mechanism but a source of creativity, innovation, and imagination.”

and while reading it, i was having conflictive thoughts. escapism is not good, right? it keeps us from achieving what we need, it’s a distraction. especially when talking about climate emergency, trust crisis and political collapse. but also it’s just part of the human experience and the queen of coping mechanisms (which we all need atm), and it does allow space for creativity, innovation and imagination.

brainsparks: shifting realities (tn#176), an apocalyptic meditation on doomscrolling (tn#145), age of re-enchantment (tn#123), imagination as necessity (tn#105), culture is not an industry (tn#203), intention economy (tn#209)

😵capitalists killed the internet

talking about escaping, it seems that everybody is ~~looking~~ running from something. this text by emma garland for huck mag, “have capitalists killed the internet?” is another perspective on the enshittification on social media, and the quote below is what stayed with me.

At the start of the century, the internet was an escape from reality. Now, reality is an escape from the internet -Emma Garland.

got me thinking how the idea of the global village was colonized by capitalists, just like the phisicall villages in different continents. beyond the current hemorrhagy situation at twitter, she also shows how the music industry is collapsing: kate nash opened an onlyfans to help her tour, and lily allen created an onlyfans for her feet (this weekend, chappell roan called the music industry out about their lack of care for the artists).

brainsparks: enshittification lifecycle (tn#106), cranking the dopamine machine (tn#208), deep doubt era (tn#193), technofeudalism (tn#143), nexus (tn#199), superindustry of the imaginary (tn#28), hyperindustry of the atificial imaginary (tn#118), fracking eyeballs (tn#150), critic of technology (tn#121), social media x cults (tn#74), smartphones and rosaries (tn#44),

✨the new rules of youth culture

in december i had the opportunity to attend my first boilerroom in são paulo (they recently uploaded the sets on their youtube channel: and i even saw myself in the crowd 🤭). while there i had the realization how culture was happening there, the amount of bipoc lgbtqi+ the music they were playing, the way they were dressed, the way they were dancing. it felt so authentic to witness that. needless to say i was so happy to see they published the 2025 audience report: the new rules of youth culture, which is worth reading. above are the 5 themes from the report.

brainsparks: life after lifestyle, gen z subcultures (tn#91), anne imhof's youth (tn#96)

💰limitarianism

Els Dragt

shared this book in her 333 presentation the

Futures Friends

event a couple of weeks ago. i found this interview with the author, dutch political philosopher, ingrid robeyns, at the university of amsterdam. the book is titled ‘Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth’ and bases the argument that billionaires (and multi-millionaires) shouldn’t exist. the thought came from: if there is a poverty line, why shouldn’t there be a wealth line? hence the concept limitarianism, the capping of wealth with a wealth limit.

“Extreme wealth undermines democracy, is incompatible with ecological urgency, is almost always undeserved, and harms the interests of everyone, the super-rich included.”

brainsparks: the brazilianization of the world (tn#35)

🍁mono no aware

ali kirby, art director and brand designer, brought this japanese concept at the

Futures Friends

event in amsterdam. i had heard about it before, but had lost the name: mono no aware. it’s always great to have name for things, especially when somewhere it’s culturally relevant and defining.

Mono no aware (物の哀れ), lit. 'the pathos of things', and also translated as 'an empathy toward things', or 'a sensitivity to ephemera', is a Japanese idiom for the awareness of impermanence (無常, mujō), or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.

🖼️image hangs still

i have a crush on the aesthetics of eefje de visser, the sounds and the way she creates her videos. i also love how there are dutch and english subtitles added to the video, as part of the experience. sit back, put it on full screen and enjoy. these part of the lyrics are perfect for today’s curatorship:

there is a time and place for a heartache, but now now and here.

brainsparks: dutch poetry (tn#2), eefje de visser (tn#72), vlammen (tn#166)

💞all you need is love

this song is not new, but on my last trip to brazil i got reintroduced to it at jup do bairro’s concert. it’s cute, sexy, ass-shaking, chill and queer… what else do i want from my music?

brainsparks: amor de carnaval (tn#160), rico dalasam (tn#11), stream trava línguas (tn#29)

see you next week, escapers 🫀✨

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