But that isn’t really true, per se. It depends on your definition of “people” – the mass market? High end collectors and galleries like Gagosian? Very different audiences, and appealing to one is probably the opposite of the other.
The idea that someone is a snob because they dislike generic looking artworks is a hilarious indicator of how far aesthetic discussion and standards have fallen. The word used to mean someone that looks down upon the popular arts in favor of more traditional/expensive/sophisticated art.
Now apparently it means having any standards or metrics of evaluation, period. Either you think everything is equal aesthetically, or you’re a snob.
Thankfully this kind of empty opinion isn’t convincing many people these days.
It's because you're shaming someone else's work that they're proud of. It makes you come off as a knob. So like I said, you might not be a snob, but you sound like one. Chip on your shoulder and all that.
I’m not “shaming someone’s work,” I said 1) they look like generic graphics, and 2) I primarily said someone isn’t a snob for disliking them, which is what the OP comment claimed.
Even then, analyzing a piece of art work is called art criticism. It’s not exactly a new thing, nor is it some kind of personal attack.
But as I said above, the quality of aesthetic discussion has fallen so much that expressing any critical opinion, no matter how minor, is some kind of shaming attack that indicates I have a personal problem or I’m a snob. Which is a totally insane way to view the world.
Snobbery is a spectrum. You might not perceive your words as snobbery, but I do. We just have a different opinion of where you fall on that snobbery line.
I searched for some pictures. The first couple I came across looked like the result of a prompt to an AI: "generate images of plastic honey bears with various outfits and/or accessories":
Yeah I mean, they are cute little graphics and a fun character/brand, but I don’t exactly see how people consider this some masterful piece of artwork. I don’t live in SF, but I can imagine it gets old to see it everywhere.
It depends on your art form and what you’re trying to say. Because once you start optimizing your work for sales, you are deliberately going down a certain path.
I don’t want to criticize that path - because being paid as an artist is a millennia-old thing. The idea that true artists don’t work for money is something that came out of the Romantic era, and many, many world famous historical artists like Da Vinci or Michelangelo were doing a job for rich clients. But it seems to lock you into a path where you need to replicate the same style over and over again, because that’s what you’re known for.
There’s a great little scene in the Basquiat movie about this:
I'm talking about the same kind of work. The same style, so people can recognize you and don’t get confused. Once you’re famous, airborne, you gotta keep doing it in the same way. Even after it’s boring. Unless you want people to really get mad at you…which they will anyway.
I think the Phillip Glass solution of doing a completely unrelated job is probably a better solution, IF you’re trying to focus on expression. It also gives you more material for creating; if you read many writers and artists’ bios, their day jobs directly impacted their work.
My favorite example being Moby Dick - could someone without years of whaling experience even begin to conceive of that book?
Basically I think it depends on your customers. If they’re just regular people, developers, etc. looking for a productivity tool, you should worry.
But if your clients are actual businesses looking for reliable, secure software, I wouldn’t worry too much. A real business isn’t going to trust hacked together, vibe coded solution. At that level it’s better to just pay $100-1,000 a month than deal with unpredictable problems.
I grew up in a snowy place and I still live in one. I tell myself every year that this negative experience “builds character”, that being stuck inside forces one to be more intellectual, read more, etc.
I kind of still believe that story, but as I get older it starts to feel like cope, and the sunny shores of Miami / Spain / Warm Place seem more full of life.
In a way you’re right. All the effort to reduce energy usage, go green, the savings are all negated with energy spent on generating heat and emissions.
It’s interesting that for how successful Jobs was, there really aren’t many young people who seem to emulate his life path. The guy went to an extremely unorthodox college, took some “impractical” courses like typography, dropped out, and basically lived a hippie-esque existence until Apple worked out.
This seems to me like the opposite of the typical ambitious young person’s plan today, over filled with extracurriculars, prestigious degrees, and well-worn paths to success. You’d think that Jobs’ success would lead to more people trying to emulate his roundabout path, at least superficially.
Maybe you could make the argument that Jobs was just too unique to serve as a role model for everyone else. And the labor market is a lot different today vs. back then. But I do think that his apparent lack of institutional hyper-optimization contributed to his success in a fundamental way.
For sure, the vast majority of people taking the roundabout path don't achieve his level of success.
I just mean it's interesting how there don't seem to be more young people trying to emulate his particular route. Many claim they want to be "the next Steve Jobs" or achieve the same level of success, but then just go the same route as every other ambitious person.
That's because the "independent thinker" route (Steve Jobs' route) is going to look different for everyone by definition. Whereas you can look out onto the "yellow brick road" anytime and see who is on it.
Ambition and independent thinking are pretty much orthogonal. Cultivating boatloads of both is rare, but can allow for great moonshots.
> Job's level of success. We never hear about them.
Success != hearing about it.
You don't hear or know about most people success, or failure, for that matter; even huge ones. You know about a very small subset of these. That's fame.
And I'm just not sure that "being a found of a billion+ dollar company" was what Jobs considered his own success; but a consequence or aside part of it. Actually, no one knows but him.
What you're saying makes sense, I just think GP wanted to say something else entirely and borrowed the word "success" for that.
You do hear about people making it big and creating profitable companies (one possible definition of "success")... But how many of these founders nowadays are hippie-like figures with a multidisciplinary education? Not that many, if any.
I think perhaps more people are attempting this path then back in the late 60s through 70s. However, as opposed to the mainstream vs counterculture, we have influencer culture mixed in, e.g. vanlife or travel bloggers.
It's sort of conceptually hard to be an independent thinker/doer, and also emulate others, even if emulating someone like Steve. For all those that drop out of the mainstream yet still let themselves be known via social media, probably even fewer probably drop out completely; I suspect there are still many. I hunt for obscure artists on Spotify/Youtube, and if I find a small concert, this sort of community still seems within reach.
Ultimately, it's the devices Steve had a hand in innovating that are obscuring aspects of the old school vibes of being off the grid in the present. However, perhaps our current variation of hippie vibes will feel event more quaint to those looking back from 2060 or so.
Right, but the van life people aren't aiming to build a billion dollar startup company.
I specifically mean that young people today - that are deliberately trying to be world-changing entrepreneurs, and claim deep inspiration from Jobs - don't typically wander India, take typography design courses, or go to Reed College. They aim for prestigious universities and prestigious accelerators/VC firms.
I think there is probably a lot of value in that young person doing something like Jobs (not the exact same thing), even if it's not optimized for the credentialized society. Maybe it puts you a few years behind your peers on the credentials track, but the experience will be worth it in terms of having a novel/well-rounded/expanded viewpoint.
> I specifically mean that young people today - that are deliberately trying to be world-changing entrepreneurs, and claim deep inspiration from Jobs - don't typically wander India, take typography design courses, or go to Reed College. They aim for prestigious universities
Reed is a major brand name as far as higher education goes. People have heard of it.
It's currently ranked 63 on the USNews ranking of "national liberal arts colleges", but it has much better name recognition than most of the schools ranked above it.
It was probably the opposite of an ambitious person back then. Become a surgeon or top dog on wall st or start a large fast food franchise. Always been well worn paths. If you have a million hippies some will get rich!
You can luck your way into being a super Type A manipilative boomer with good taste before personal computers became a thing, before everyone was effectively required to have degree, and knowing a hobbyist electrical engineer who's capable of making a computer from scratch and not Type A.
Luck was required, but not sufficient. What are the odds that, while bumming around, you'll meet a guy who singlehandedly built an awesome home computer, and needs someone to market it? Jobs took initiative he wasn't the only one who knew Woz, but was the only one to use that opportunity. But, on the other hand, if he never met Woz, there'd be no Apple - so, lots of luck was required.
He did treat Woz terribly in many ways, but without SteveJ, Woz's inventions would never have found the audience they did. I think Woz is OK with how things turned out.
I think it probably just comes down to social pressure. There really isn't any social pressure to have kids, and in many places there is pressure against having them.
After all, people have been having kids since the dawn of time in much more uncomfortable situations with uncertain futures.
Have you been to the barbican? I haven’t been in an apartment myself, but I have been in the outdoor areas multiple times.
It’s very cool, and feels very well designed. It’s also consistently in demand as a place to live. So I’m not sure why you think it hasn’t increased the residents’ quality of life.
I've visited a flat/appartment in one of the Barbican towers. It was comfy, pleasant. The lifts and hallways were well maintained, well lit, generous dimensions (compared with many London apartment blocks I've seen). It felt like a "good" tower block, rather than a "bad" one.
The arts complex is amazing (slightly confusing, but very functional and fairly pleasant to be inside). The outside spaces create a buzzy calm.
I used to work next door to the Barbican and occasionally visit the site on my lunch breaks.
The old decaying concrete, monolithic construction, dark alleys, stagnant algae-filled lakes, dirty windows around a tropical plant space, pretentious art installations - it was all quite interesting to my morbid curiosity. But I always left the Barbican feeling lonely and bleak.
I cannot imagine the misery of living in that environment and having it seep into your soul.
I moved out of London, and live in the countryside now. There is something transcendent about being surrounded by natural beauty, and being far, far away from urban over-development.
1. They go really well with greenery. There is a book and social media account that covers this called Brutalist Plants. The contrast works exceptionally well and reminds me of nature-integrated architecture. I’d almost even say that brutalist buildings without the exterior greenery are incomplete.
2. They are buildings created with a visually coherent philosophy, even if we might disagree with it. That makes them more interesting than most contemporary buildings, which are basically just generic shells made for the smallest budget possible.
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