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Consumption Diary #19
April 6, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
Meets An Immovable Object (Seeing Like An Affiliate Marketer Part 8)
April 2, 2021
Product reviews constitute the most popular mode of cultural criticism. Susan Sontag suggests as such: film reviews, she alleges in "Notes on Camp," serve as...
Consumption Diary #18
March 30, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
Consumption Diary #17
March 23, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
Ownership and the NFT
March 23, 2021
In 2015, when I was in the middle of transitioning from an art history major to an econ major, I told one of my comp sci friends that I thought of Bitcoin...
How Do Affiliate Marketers Assess Themselves? (Seeing like an Affiliate Marketer Part 7)
March 17, 2021
All other works in this series have been my interpretation of the affiliate marketer as a cultural phenomenon. Yet, as initiatives of large corporations,...
Consumption Diary #17
March 17, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
Go Outside And Pick Up A Rock (Seeing Like An Affiliate Marketer Part 6)
March 17, 2021
I have claimed before that affiliate marketers have a habit of inventing problems where none exist in order to recommend products that might solve them. The...
Burnout Is Our Life
March 14, 2021
Burnout has become our era’s disease. Anne Helen Peterson ascribed it to an entire generation, while pandemic burnout has generalized the pathology across...
The Good Products: My Rice Cooker
March 13, 2021
I often talk about products and their discontents. Anti-consumerist analysis must highlight oft-ignored faults in products: that we buy to self-soothe, that...
Against Bulk
March 13, 2021
I snack. In this habit, I wander closest to any of the seven deadly sins, Gluttony. As far as sins go, as far as things to feel bad about, I grant it’s not...
But Where Did Affiliate Marketing Come From?
March 11, 2021
Affiliate marketing lives at the intersection of many of my interests: the economics of media, the world of grifters and scammers, lifehacking, consumption...
Consumption Diary #16
March 10, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
The Sauce of the Problem
March 5, 2021
The Strategist believes in expertise, and aims to supply its readers with experts for all purchases. While not an insidious desire, its attempt at...
An Intrepid Quest Through Fraudulent Medical Licenses and Pillow Reviews
March 5, 2021
This blog was going to be about expertise, or the idea of expertise, and its specific relationship to affiliate marketing. I have covered already how The...
The Tom Sawyer Economy
March 4, 2021
Journalism has always turned to its readership for content: letters to the editor, caption contests. This indeed benefited civil discourse and built a...
I Post A Lot About Affiliate Marketers, So Here is Me Stealing an Infographic Telling You How They Work
March 4, 2021
If the image doesn’t load, here’s me relaying it verbally. The affiliate, like The Inventory or The Strategist, publishes an article about a product.That...
Consumption Diary #15
March 2, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
What Can't They Live Without?
March 2, 2021
As I’ve stated elsewhere, the twin fantasy of celebrity endorsements is that the celebrity’s dependence upon goods and services humanizes them and brings...
Bad Buys: Super Pusheenicorn
February 26, 2021
Bad Buys is a series exploring things I bought that I regretted in some way. In it, I hope to highlight my favorite theme in this blog, the fact that the...
You're Simply The Best
February 24, 2021
Note: the words pocket pussy will be included in this essay because I am going to be talking about the economic incentives of sex toy advertisers and...
Consumption Diary #14
February 24, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
Inadvisable Adverts: "Very Positive" Studios
February 23, 2021
Inadvisable Adverts is where I wax poetic on an ad that I find to be distasteful, or ineffective. Previous Entry: Shaq Keeps You Steady “Very Positive”...
Inadvisable Adverts: Shaq goes Steady
February 17, 2021
Inadvisable Adverts is where I wax poetic on an ad that I find to be distasteful, or ineffective. Previous Entry: TriNet vs. Maternity Leave The twin fantasy...
Consumption Diary #13
February 17, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
A Right To Leisure
February 17, 2021
In response to my piece on Anne Helen Petersen and the hollowed middle class, a friend of mine noted that she had never considered “money for a hobby” as...
Bad Buys: The Pink Cowboy Hat
February 15, 2021
Bad Buys is a series exploring things I bought that I regretted in some way. In it, I hope to highlight my favorite theme in this blog, the fact that the...
How Cheap it is To Feel Poor
February 15, 2021
Prelude on Empathy I’m going to start off with empathy, because there will be little empathy in what follows. This is intentional. While exercises in empathy...
The Toy Story Rule
February 12, 2021
In 2019, when decluttering superstar Marie Kondo met the inevitable backlash every popular woman must endure, a friend of mine with a Korean immigrant mother...
Inadvisable Adverts: TriNet Sticks it to Working Moms
February 12, 2021
Do you hate the person you hired to run HR? Do you think that women are suspicious characters who only have babies to score family leave? Do you have...
Seeing Like an Affiliate Marketer
February 11, 2021
I think this is the funniest headline I’ve ever seen. That’s right folks! Spike Lee, Oscar winner and accidental matchmaker for a future First Couple, has...
Bad Buys: Every Unplayed Game in my Steam Library
February 10, 2021
We’ve all bought very stupid things before. So, I am introducing a series called “Dumb Things I’ve Bought,” where I talk about purchases I’ve made that I...
Consumption Diary #12
February 9, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
Lesser Known Deserts and Oases
February 9, 2021
It’s not a part of the Nothing New challenge, but increasingly I have felt the need to purchase things locally, and to eschew giving my money to large...
Consumption Diary #11
February 3, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
The Crying Game(Stop)
January 31, 2021
The GameStop phenomenon is a game of villains mistaking themselves for heroes, and one million marks getting fucked over. Let’s introduce the key players,...
Consumption Diary #10
January 27, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
Sidewalking
January 24, 2021
There are four Christmas trees on my sidewalk. There’s an old, 1990s fat-screen TV down the street, propped up against a mattress. Rare LA rain soaks these...
Consumption Diary #9
January 19, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
The Bullshit Knowledge Base
January 17, 2021
This newsletter normally focuses on consumption and consumerism. This blog post is different, and is instead directed at other IT professionals. I have...
You Can't Buy Good Habits
January 17, 2021
This is no grand contribution to the literature of habits, but a simple connection I’ve made, one related to shopping. Every year I would purchase a...
Consumption Diary #8
January 12, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
Consumption Diary #7
January 5, 2021
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
Flavors of Regional Advertising
January 3, 2021
Madison, Wisconsin The advertisements in the Dane County Regional Airport, which services Wisconsin’s capital, are not for you or I. In the Dane County...
How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The No Buy
January 2, 2021
No Buys are a shopping detox. In a No Buy challenge you try to drastically reduce your spending. No Buys have been on my mind since starting this blog. This...
Consumption Diary #6
December 30, 2020
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
Consumption Diary #5
December 23, 2020
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think...
The World of Swag
December 21, 2020
Dear Metrolink Rider, Just in time for the New Year, Metrolink has launched our new online store, filled with Metrolink-branded merchandise for you and your...
Finally, a Shopping Guide About Stupid Impulse Buys
December 19, 2020
Welcome to the Strategist, a new site for helping you shop the internet. It is edited by people (not robots), and is designed to surface the most useful,...
Why is purchase pleasure? (Part 3)
December 17, 2020
More similar to the second entry than the first, this post will explore something that doesn’t quite live in purchase itself, but that purchase has found a...
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