Welcome To The Matrix

ISSUE 15 [606g Per Serving]

Start Spreading The News

I’m a sucker for a Goalhanger pod. Leading from The Rest Is Politics is particularly good. I come away from most listens with a little tidbit—some piece of advice that stays with me. Often, I learn something entirely new about a guest. Like when Anna Wintour revealed she cut her teeth at New York Magazine in the early days of her evolution into fashion’s most feared (and revered) overlord.

Such is the pull of New York Magazine—a publication synonymous with the cultural lingua franca of eras past and present. From coining the term foodie in 1980 to nepo baby more recently. A place where the zeitgeist is elegantly filtered into highbrow, lowbrow, brilliant and despicable via its renowned Approval Matrix.

That last bit—the Matrix—is how Lucinda Bounsall and I first crossed paths. I’d just finished waxing lyrical about the ethics of hiring an Etsy witch (following that Charlie Kirk x Jezebel furore) at a Future Friends event, and we got to talking about her studio’s work—and the crazy-good matrices she puts out into the world (inspired by NYM’s very own version).

It was great to see Vox Media’s cultural capital so deeply appreciated by someone whose career reads like a greatest hits of the smartest brands, agencies and publishers in youth culture over the last decade.

So when she invited me to contribute to her studio’s Substack series, Working Theories, it felt like a real privilege.

You’ll find a cheeky teaser of that conversation below—and the full shebang here. Enjoy.

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Working Theories From Post-Culture by Sibling Studio

What’s a working theory you hold right now about the industry, culture, or creativity?

I think a lot about metamodernism (MM). I’m a fan of Brendan Graham Dempsey’s work, who suggests MM isn’t just a reaction to post-modernism (like post-modernism was to modernism), but a larger cultural logic that contains all iterations before it.

This is why so much of what’s happening now feels paradoxical or counterintuitive — because culture is effectively oscillating between all these modes in real time. It’s a paradigm shift younger generations understand intuitively, which is why they’re better placed than most to make sense of it, even thrive in it.

What’s a working theory you hold right now about the industry, culture, or creativity?

I’d love to see brands commit to spending more of their advertising budgets with quality publishers and broadcasters. Sure, whack a load of money across the big social platforms if you must. But ring-fence a pot for proper partnerships with outlets that actually value things like accuracy, accountability, and transparency.

What are your absolute go-to cultural resources?

Like you (probably), I subscribe to an inordinate number of Substacks...So, for brevity, here are three I just read this morning: One Thing, Cultural Capital, The Intrinsic Perspective.

What’s a cultural shift brands haven’t fully understood yet?

Imperfection. Whether brands like it or not, the era of controlling comms with an iron grip is over. You just can’t do it. There are too many places and spaces that matter. The only way to be meaningfully present in so many worlds at once is to relinquish a bit of ownership — to hand the keys over, at least at the edges, to the communities, creators and lore-builders.

That means embracing the messiness that comes with it. Because that’s where the magic really happens — in those liminal spaces between the brand itself and the actual humans who interact with it.

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