What's on my feed: Spring Edition 🌱
A curated selection of the voices and perspectives around creativity, technology, and culture that have caught my attention.
A flowering of discourse
(just allow me this one cheesy headline)
Over the past month I’ve been immersed in what I’m calling “reading mode”. A period of absorbing rather than writing. Writers have been stepping up their game on Substack and I’ve been taking it all in. This collection of articles features pieces that have stuck with me long after reading them, with selected passages that stood out to me. This roundup reflects what my algorithm serves me, covering areas including:
Design and AI
Art
Internet Culture
Marketing
Brand Strategy
Writing
Beauty and Fashion
Let’s dive in.
Design & AI ⚖️
When it comes to AI-related design content I’m opting to read from a broader set of perspectives. It’s such a new and evolving area that I don’t want to put myself into a corner and only seek out writing that plays into my confirmation bias. It’s uncomfortable at times, but I do believe the only way to form real opinions about this is through exposing myself to a wide range of perspectives.
In the age of slop, craft is rebellion by
Creative freedom is the thing I love the most about being an independent creator. I want to follow my curiosity wherever it goes, even if it’s not the most profitable. If I find a way in the future to have both, I may take a look, but generally I’m skeptical.
The many fallacies of 'AI won't take your job, but someone using AI will' by
Much like the shift in basketball, most jobs are not fixed units. They are artifacts of organizational design, built around coordination problems. A job exists because a system needs someone to manage a specific set of interactions, decisions, or dependencies. When the system changes, the logic of the job can collapse completely, even if the individual tasks remain intact.
This framing misunderstands the nature of architectural change. It assumes the organization is a container that can absorb transformation without being reshaped by it.
This is the hallmark of a frame shift: the logic of competition itself is restructured. You don’t lose because you were replaced by the new technology or even by someone using the new technology. Both automation and augmentation frames become irrelevant.
You lose because the environment stopped rewarding the thing you were all along racing to perfect.
Why AI Will Lead to More “Proof of Reality” Posts by
While writing this, I’ve been thinking a lot about Succession. The series was primarily shot on film. As an average viewer, did I notice it? Not really. Still, I ate up every story about changing the roll every ten minutes and how the film coloring contributed to the mood. These facts contributed to my overall sentiment about the show—knowing how intentional they were with filming made me believe every other decision within the show must be equally exacting. Quality creative has a halo effect. Effort has a halo effect. “Proof of reality” has a halo effect.
The AI Quality Coup by Julie Zhuo
It’s been a month. Ask yourself: how do you feel now when you see an image rendered in Studio Ghibli style as you scroll along your merry way?
Design is Entering its Most Strategic Chapter Yet by
andHere’s the real question: Who is equipped to bridge those gaps between function and ethics, between data and dignity?
Art 🎨
The art industry has always felt like a monolithic wall I’ll never be able to scale as a designer. And while I haven’t seen too many designers speak on this, it feels like a common sentiment to internally debate about whether it’s worth selling original prints or artwork—I know I have. Whether that ever happens, I still found Shagun’s post to be a fascinating read.
How Emerging Artists Can Thrive in a Superstar Art Market by
The gist of all of this is that middle class isn’t buying art because they don’t have the disposable income to do so, and their preferences have changed too.
The art market is shifting toward a landscape dominated by major galleries at art fairs and visibility on Instagram. Meanwhile, the middle and upper-middle classes are increasingly priced out of collecting art as an investment—their typical spending range of $500 to $5,000 feels significant to them but often doesn't yield a return. At the same time, the very concept of owning art is losing traction among these buyers, as they gravitate toward an experience-driven economy and show less interest in accumulating physical possessions
Internet Culture 🖥️
I read Maalvika’s post and was internally screaming “oh my god, YES” the entire time. Third-wheeling someone and their phone while you’re trying to talk to them is truly a special type of modern day humiliation. And it’s something I’m noticing more and more with friends in real life.
we used to say BRB. now we just live here. by
It's a common and unsettling experience: you're trying to have a conversation, but the other person is more focused on their phone, making you feel like you're just talking to yourself or third-wheeling.
However, this screen-centric lifestyle comes with a cost. We often find ourselves mindlessly scrolling through our phones while a TV show plays in the background, resulting in a fleeting, fragmented experience where neither the show nor the content on our phones leaves a lasting impression. In an attempt to keep pace with our diminishing attention spans, we speed through media at 1.5x, racing to consume more yet absorbing less.
Marketing 🛒
What I Learned From Elsa Schiaparelli About Art and Marketing by
Schiaparelli approached her products and advertising with a cheeky, irreverent attitude—she didn't take herself too seriously, and it showed. Nothing about her campaigns felt overly literal or contrived, unlike today's fragrance ads, where the overt romanticism and hypersexuality feel uninspired, in my humble opinion. By not taking herself too seriously, Schiaparelli created campaigns that still spark dreams and fantasies decades later—proof that a little whimsy goes a long way.
Brand Strategy 🏺
Ohhhh I’ve been excited to share this one. I’ve come back to it multiple times. The rise in thought leadership, especially in short-form content, also feels like a type of response to generative AI content. If everyone can make content that is “pretty good” then the bar for “really good” content becomes even higher, and thus content creators are turning to thought leadership. Opinions are becoming commoditized.
The Rise of the TikTok Oracle by
Applying Postman’s critique to today’s digital platforms, we observe a similar trend. TikTok’s format, emphasizing short, visually engaging content, encourages creators to prioritize entertainment value over depth. The print era tied authority to expertise and institutional backing. Television shifted credibility toward charisma and visual presentation. Social media has rewritten the rules again: trust is no longer about expertise, but about performance
Writing ✍🏽
The Best Writing Tip I've Ever Read by
You respect the reader by digging deep, by finding tiny incidents that live vivid in your memory. Because every tiny thing that won’t leave you alone holds a larger truth that readers will recognize in their own lives. Think small and you’ll find big.
Beauty & Fashion 💄
This one is for the girls. I’m not in beauty or fashion but I do have a vested personal interest in them and I’m an active consumer of these domains (and I will sell you on the Dyson Airwrap as an investment or buying clothes through sites like The Real Real).
I’m ACTUALLY Beauty’s Nostradamus by
That said: the category I predict is poised to lead the industry’s new era of self-mastery will be hair care, especially as beauty continues to move away from labor and correction.
the dying art of a personal archive by
Forget the highbrow allure of “archival fashion”. Rarity dictated by the market is one thing, but the rarity of a personal archive is another. A personal archive refers to more than just a collection of clothes; it’s the intimate curation of items that tell your story— items you’ve chosen, worn, and loved. It’s yours.
It’s the jacket you buy on a whim and wear for almost every major life moment, or the bag that you finally had the autonomy to afford after years perched on your wish list. These items anchor us, and should teach us how to shop, how to buy for keeps, and treasure what we own. We collect vinyls, books, art, and magazines with care, preserving them as symbols of culture and identity: our clothes are no different.
I Thought I Had Good Style—Then I Hired a Stylist by
Their ineffable sense of composition made me realize that even though I love to shop, I often wasn’t seeing beyond the item. I was collecting, not composing. I wasn’t thinking about how the shapes, textures, layers, and silhouettes come together to tell a story.
Parting thoughts
There are two things that strike me most about this particular collection of posts:
How writers across disciplines—from AI researchers to beauty founders—all are responding to major cultural shifts in their disciplines. Most of these shifts center around authenticity, the attention economy, how we consume and create. But the biggest undercurrent for me is around how AI is affecting every industry in ways that we are only just starting to see.
The most compelling voices are the ones that are critical of their field while also being active practitioners. They’re not just observing what’s happening, they’re also shaping it by sharing their perspectives.
A seasonal experiment
“What’s on my feed” is an experiment in curating the writing and content that has resonated with me this spring. If you found value in this format or if you have recommendations for voices I should be following, let me know.
✻ Until next time, happy reading ✻
Thank you for including my piece on Elsa Schiaparelli!
loved this! good job on challenging yourself and reading a diverse set of things. sometimes its really easy to fall into that i think its so fun to challenge that