Identity 2025: Cashing In on AI and VR Before It’s Too Late
Why the old craving for food, kin and care has turned into a hunger for identity, and how AI and virtual reality are being built around that need.
The Pendulum of Meaning: Why We Swung from ‘We’ to ‘I’
Part two of the ‘We’ to ‘I’ essays: how the search for meaning swings between the collective and the individual, and why it has swung so far towards ‘I’.
How Social Media Moved Meaning from ‘We’ to ‘I’
The first ‘We’ to ‘I’ essay: how social media shifted meaning from shared causes and greater forces to personal stakes, identity and individual voice.
Identity Velocity: How Myth, Emotion and Technology Fused Buying with the Self
The last Myth & Meaning essay: how cultural myths, fast emotional responses and AI-driven systems have fused consumption with identity since the 1950s.
Choices That Feel Like Ours: How Algorithmic Advertising Shapes the Self
Part five of the Myth & Meaning essays: how algorithmic advertising nudges choices that feel like our own, and what that does to the sense of self.
Why iPhones and Cowboy Boots Are Status Symbols
Part two of the Myth & Meaning essays: how objects such as phones, boots and watches become status symbols through the myths a culture attaches to them.
From Need to Meaning: Could Consumption Become Self-Actualisation?
Part three of the Identity Consumption essays: how buying shifted from need to identity, and whether AI could turn consumption towards self-actualisation.
Staying Yourself When Identity Becomes Currency
Part two of the Identity Consumption essays: how to keep an authentic sense of self when identity is a social currency and technology curates our choices.
From Function to Identity: Where Consumerism Is Heading
The first Identity Consumption essay: a framework for where consumerism is heading, from buying for function and experience to buying to build identity.