today’s column is a guest transmission from minor genius studio, the private counsel arm of this operation, because apparently the commercial wing has developed opinions.

+++

one of the great wonders of the 20th century was the ability of war pigs to turn their death tools into consumer products once the fighting ended.

this battleground-to-home-goods pipeline gave us m&m’s, duct tape, the microwave oven, and the jeep.

on the hearts and minds front, propaganda turned into advertising.

once governments and intelligence agencies realized that the masses are moved more by emotion than logic, they stopped selling facts and figures and started selling lifestyles, identities, and archetypes.

the “we can do it” lady made some changes to her life and became the marlboro man.

what’s shocking to me these days is not that brands are still trying to sell you stuff.

it’s that many of them have quietly replaced their raison d’être — creating desire — with improving metrics.

ironically, the better the tools get at measuring demand, the worse they seem to become at creating it.

metrics are footprints left behind by desire.

modern marketing mistakes the footprints for the animal.

this dashboard fetishism has created a world filled with things that are rational, clear, optimized, coherent, and completely forgettable.

the linkedin personal brand has escaped containment and infected fashion, media, music, restaurants, and nearly every corner of public life.

“our menswear brand is rooted in classic americana with a japanese ivy twist.”

great.

i understand it.

i just don’t want it.

it ain’t ralph.

a lot of people assume the failure mode for their project is confusion.

they think the category is unclear.

the messaging is off. the website needs work.

maybe.

but there are millions of things everybody understands and nobody wants.

conversely, the best businesses are passive in the sense that they just need to say “here it is” and people tend to show up.

there’s no chasing or convincing.

nobody joins a cult because it has a great faq.

people will tolerate an astonishing amount of confusion if they want to be near the thing.

look at a bob dylan show.

understanding explains the object.

desire creates the pull.

and right now we are surrounded by objects with immaculate explanations and absolutely no pull.

+++

minor genius studio works with founders, brands, and public-facing people who can feel the thing getting more visible and less desirable at the same time.

inquiries: [link].

ONE : START HERE

if you are a new-ish subscriber, thanks for tapping in. i created a start here post as a sort of chic lobby that provides entry into the larger world. that’s over here.

TWO : A FEW REASONS TO LEAVE THE HOUSE

still firming up the dates/locations but wanted to get these two on your social radar.

sometime in june we are going to host another minor genius clothing swap. it’s a nice way to move some old pants and more importantly, make some new friends.

we are aiming for 12-15 swappers so if you have great style, around 20 pieces you are excited to pass along, and are based in nyc, drop a line. reply with swap.

also, we’ve got another minor genius reading shaping up for july. more news as it develops.

ok - on with the show.

THREE : TAKERS VS MAKERS

i’m not too much of a pearl clutcher when it comes to the mainstream arguments about ai versus human.

maybe i’m just old and grumpy but what’s really been getting my goat lately is the quieter war happening underneath it all: the one between participants and commentators.

the things that got inside my bones and became part of my operating system all came from a subcultural underground full of characters and scenesters making things, and not commentators offering their take on those things after the fact.

to be fair, i don’t blame anyone for going the yapper route. the last 15 years of internet culture have made hot take personality plays easy to execute, distribute, and monetize. set up a mic, talk your shit, and watch the money roll in.

believe you me, if i were a first mover in that subway car, i’d probably be doing it too.

but because i don’t make my living that way, i have enough distance to notice that underneath my “this is sometimes funny, but also depressing” response sits something else.

grief that the prestige model has shifted.

somewhere along the way, the people explaining culture became more platformed and institutionally-supported than the people risking something to create it.

for most of my life, the people i looked toward weren’t valuable because they had opinions or gave good copy.

they were valuable because they had skin in the game and had to live with the consequences of their work.

most critically to me, they seemed to have figured out a few repeatable ways to make a living in the public eye without moving away from their essence.

watching people like the beastie boys, glenn o’brien, fab 5 freddy, stretch armstrong, malcolm mclaren, or uncle ralph over long arcs of time taught me things that had very little to do with success in the conventional sense.

the peeped game was more: how to become more influential without becoming generic. how to stay recognizable to yourself while moving through larger and larger rooms.

those lessons were never presented as “takes.”

they were absorbed sideways. my friends and i often misinterpreted them many times before they really landed.

this matters more than people realize.

artists, scene-builders, weird entrepreneurs, style icons, and diy operators have always done more than give us something cute for our brains to nosh on while we’re folding laundry.

they help solve deeper questions.

not “how can i be successful?”

how do i get older without becoming calcified?

how do i make real money without becoming a caricature?

how do i participate in institutions without becoming a company goon?

those questions are spiritually and financially expensive. and for a long time, culture produced a reliable output of people whose lives offered clues.

not frameworks.

clues.

providing permission to curse, make fun of bad shoes, or post a spicy opinion on an album rollout is fine. but that’s downstream of the real thing. sloppy seconds.

the real thing is having enough conviction to make something and defend it.

what to create. what to ruin, etc.

the thing i’m sad about isn’t the oversupply of hot takes.

it’s the apparent shortage of participants.

people whose lives contained enough creative risk that you could study them for hints about your own.

they definitely were not perfect (i have not listened to a single beastie boys album post-hello nasty) but they had skin in the game and product in the market.

opinions are nice.

i prefer proof of life.

+++

PS - if you made it this far: minor genius studio continues its private counsel operations for people and projects attempting to survive success without becoming generic. if agency babysitting and creative strategists feel too unserious for your thing, you may like it.

welcome!

minor genius is an imprint, private counsel, and growing cultural institution founded by host/editor elliot aronow.

this is the publication form: a recurring column, archive, and house organ for the larger world — dispatches, field notes, event recaps, artifacts, bits, clothes, spirit, signal, and other signs of life.

new here? start with these.

1. the columns:

short essays, cultural observations, and worldview pieces.

• what’s the real receipt when everything is for sale? [link]

• vulgarity vs visibility [link]

• in the van with michael imperioli, vinnie stigma and eugene from gogol bordello [link]

• what happens when you outgrow your audience? [link]

2. the rooms

readings, parties, events, photo recaps, and evidence that this is not just happening on the internet.

• minor genius winter reading at nightclub 101 [link]

• a field report from alfargo’s marketplace aka menswear eden [link]

• cookies, scribbles, crests, and glory: live from the nyc polo convention [link]

• short king clothing swap [link]

• demo tape for video magazine live in nyc [link]

3. the artifacts

clothes, objects, zines, relics, style notes, and the occasional item with too much symbolic importance.

• a guide/goof on self help: the invisible season zine [link]

• a guide/goof to non-generic entrepreneurship: how to get paid to be yourself zine [link]

• think before printing: poems [link]

4. go deeper

minor genius is not a newsletter business. it is a public record, cultural conspiracy, and growing body of evidence.

if you found the signal, you probably belong.

studio: private counsel for people and projects that can’t afford to become generic. [link]

events / collaborations / useful trouble: [email]

see you soon,

— elz

ONE: minor genius x WHY IS THIS INTERESTING?

the minor genius media tour continues.

this time around, it’s another collaboration with longtime minor genius co-conspirators Why Is This Interesting?

i love writing for these cats because no pitch is ever too specific or far reaching. case in point: i got the opportunity to riff on the connections between motley crüe, nirvana, carl jung, and influencer culture.

that’s over here. def support their stack if you can. great people.

now, on with the show.

TWO : ASHTRAY THEORY

i haven’t smoked anything for over 8 years, but last night, i got served up an ad for a gourmet ashtray company.

since it was floating by on the lazy susan of instagram stories, i mostly ignored it. weird, but not particularly memorable. or so i thought.

but when i woke up this morning, i couldn’t stop thinking about it.

the color was really distinct, a sort of translucent blood red that split the difference between a haunted supreme collab and the cheap plastic cups you would sip watered down pepsi from at the roller skating rink.

the copy around the image was dripped out in that sort of classically overwritten “big idea small word count” style that seemed designed to be ignored by anyone who didn’t write it.

and yet, what i did remember stuck with me: something about old times and going out and asking someone for a light and how we don’t do that anymore, but maybe we should.

okay…

cigarettes and sex (not the band) have of course been linked together since the old days of edward bernays, but cigarettes as anti-loneliness treats felt like a new spin.

i guess if you are going to destroy your body, it’s sexier to not have to do it alone?

it’s been said that the rituals around drugs (nicotine included) are often more intoxicating than the high itself.

i can definitely see that with the smoke break. it’s a chance to be unproductive, shoot the shit, awkwardly complain (i have never once seen someone excited to be on a smoke break) and most critically, maybe make a new friend.

it’s low risk because if nothing connects after you finish your butt, the social contract is complete. no calendly, no awkward unfollows.

the older i get, the more i suspect that people do not actually miss cigarettes nearly as much as they miss having socially acceptable reasons to go off script.

today, most “community” products feel so frictionless and over-designed that they accidentally remove the mystery that makes connection possible in the first place.

compared to the slow death of scrolling alone at home, standing outside talking shit over a few parliaments while decoding a stranger’s outfit choices suddenly feels vaguely wholesome.

which i guess is why that ashtray ad stuck with me.

nobody wants the ashtray.

they want a few moments to not be optimized.

+++

PS - if you made it this far: minor genius studio continues its private counsel operations for people and projects attempting to survive success without becoming generic. if agency babysitting and creative strategists feel too unserious for your thing, you may like it.

ONE : HOUSE NOTES

hi there,

a few things to share:

i talked to jesse cannon from musformation about marketing, mystique, distribution panic, and why trying to optimize culture usually makes it worse.

the interview is on youtube now. paywalled for now but parts will be shared via his free newsletter soon. support if you can. great dude.

i also talked to t…

Read more

ONE : HOUSE NOTICE + UPCOMING PROJECTS

house notice: minor genius is looking for a serious patron for the next chapter: storefront, video magazine, print objects, international gatherings. someone who understands that culture occasionally requires supplies, airfare, and a little unreasonable faith. drop a line if this is you or someone you know. bless.

Read more

they say three makes a trend so i guess these minor geniuses lit readings are now trending.

potential investors: we are putting up real numbers.

for this third installment we did what we always do: set the standard, open the room, and let the voltage take care of itself.

turns out, an hour and change is plenty of time to establish an autonomous city-state…

Read more

as far as i know, i’m an only child.

my healer dad era is closed so i’m not going to dig too far into how this has affected my life but i would be remiss to not share that being a lone wolf in my formative years has always left me in search of a pack.

anti-loneliness is the not-so-secret operating system behind minor genius. being around people isn’t the …

Read more

as some of you may know, i used to host a renegade underground talk show called OUR SHOW at santo’s party house back in the mid-2000s.

it was criminally underfunded, but guests like james, pat, and nancy from lcd, chromeo, tv on the radio, mndr, and das racist still came through. for a few hours at a time, we built an alternative city-state in a basement.

the camera has a way of making the right kind of wrong feel very right.

i missed thinking inside of a camera, so i called my friend miles to see if he’d be up for experimenting with a short-form minor genius property.

the result is above, courtesy of substack’s new video feature.

attention economy — ep. 01

editor / host: elliot aronow @minorgenius.xyz
filming + editing: miles miller @milesmiller_19

also: the minor genius lit reading + mixer is this thursday in new york. another temporary city-state if you dig those sorts of rooms.

yours,

elz

ps - sorry if you got this twice today. had to clear some dead podcasts from the feed and nuclear option was the only viable one.

ONE : WE’RE HOSTING A LITERARY READING THAT COULD BE A COCKTAIL PARTY NEXT THURS 4/23

you’re invited.

the rsvp is here.

this time around we have alphonse pierre (pitchfork), gary lippman, hannah berman, sam wagner and myself reading.

doors at 7PM and it’s at nightclub 101 in the city.

we’ll have minor genius zines for sale + an IRL reading of “live classifi…

Read more

ONE : STUDIO ROOM TONE

to kick off this week’ issue, a few snaps from the glamorous administrative and research wing of minor genius studio during normal business hours.

no foosball but we do have a near mint copy of the first edition of bruce boyer “elegance”

Read more

ONE : FIELD REPORT FROM ALFARGO’S MARKETPLACE

if minor genius is its own independent city state of taste, @alfargosmarketplace has always been a companion scene.

same philosophies, different cuffs and collars: keep it real, make it fun.

all are welcome. it is what it is and you can decide if it’s for you. for me, it’s heaven.

over at the mg ig (minor genius…

Read more

ONE : the minor genius dispatch from tasteland

minor genius was invited to speak on the always excellent tasteland podcast and we got into the hidden life of taste: legibility, scenes vs audiences, class anxiety, menswear as social language, and why the fun of a reference is never just recognizing it — it’s the messy longings and tribal codes inside.

a fe…

Read more

quick field report:

i went to look at clothes and accidentally found a functioning third place.

the best retail experiences are the ones where you can buy nothing and learn everything.

back in the golden era of third places, spots like bookstores, record shops, and flea markets were basically free idea factories.

you could hang around for hours, spend a few…

Read more

hi there,

a few cool things to share.

one : nowhere fast podcast, round two.

i was really happy to be welcomed back to the nowhere fast podcast (home to many minor genius studio alumni and co-conspirators including nick marzano, danny kurtzman, and tony hartman) to catch up with host wesley o’driscoll again.

you can listen here.

the first time i was on i w…

Read more

if you don’t have quality bullshit time with friends, you’re not living right.

as we grow up and get jobs and start families and get divorced and whatever else, it’s natural that time with friends gets eclipsed. that part is real.

but it shouldn’t be a death sentence for your social life. i’m especially talking to you dudes out there.

you don’t need my yap…

Read more

it’s been said that collectors are just hoarders with better taste.

hoarders have appetites the size of the ocean and mouths the size of a pinhole. if it exists, they need it.

collectors, on the other hand, live for specificity — and for what doesn’t make the cut.

hoarders move in verbs: stack, schlep, lift.

collectors traffic in nouns: shirt, album, poster.

Read more

minor genius field report 1.15/new york city

nightclub 101 looked like it always looks: coats, perfume, that half-light where everyone’s cheekbones get promoted.

lots of discreet ralph lauren “crest of excellence” embroidery on oxfords and hats and blazers.

then the mic came out.

you could feel the room do the thing it almost never does anymore: commit.

doing real things in public is hard. but also really fun.

our esteemed readers chris jesu lee, ali weiss, adi eshman, and gogol bordello frontman eugene hutz really held it down.

between sets, dj dahyo kept the air and feet moving — tom tom club, micro funk, MJ. wordy rappinghood.

miles miller caught the photo evidence.

at the merch table: index cards. pens. a low-key invitation for people to leave a truth, a joke, a line back. little dispatches from whoever felt like signing the night.

oh, and limited 1/1 copies of my new poetry zine : think before printing (get one here.)

we created an autonomous city state with its own codes and standards.

very flattering line told to the host: “my coolest co-worker told me i could not miss this. he was at the last one.”

super warming.

below: the artifacts, a few key excerpts from our readers, the proof-of-life.

the next one will be on march 18th (rsvp), once again at nightclub 101.

if you felt something move, you’re one of us. roll up.

“What’s the biggest, longest-running lie you’ve ever told mom and dad? I’ve told my fair share of alternative explanations of reality to my parents. But if I had to choose the worst one, it’d have to be when I lied to them for 3 years about being employed.” - C.J.L.

“Since the two hours were mine to use however I pleased, I often ran my civilian business — a communications consultancy — while using Anthony's entire body as furniture. I lounged on his quivering back while assuring a chocolatier that a great truffle could, in fact, disrupt the market; smothered his face with my ass while helping an Emmy-winning sports journalist write Instagram captions about Mike Tyson; kept him handcuffed and leashed beneath the soles of my Louboutins while advising an Alexander Technique teacher on how to convince C-suite executives to “surrender to the floor. The choreography eventually became comfortable, and the absurdity was addictive – I even granted Anthony’s request to feed him teacups of my pee. But I never felt at home in the role of Dominatrix: it was a costume, a novelty. A job, really.” - A.W.

“The scholar Adin Steinsaltz isn’t really who I’m named after, but he was an inspiration. The guy had some great quotes, let me tell you. My favorite one of his is this: “If anything is clear, it is that a rigid, unchanging way is wrong.” He’s basically saying, when you think you’ve found an answer to one of life’s questions, you’ve never been more lost.” - A.E.

“As the first song of our set, “Sacred Darling,” came to an end I was standing in the middle of the stage shaking from adrenaline when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said:

‘OK Iggy. Let’s go to the hospital.’

It was Jim Sclavunos, who was sitting in on drums with us that night. As I looked down at my shirt it was no longer white, but red. As adrenaline was rapidly leaving my body, pain was emerging from my left cheek. It was split open from a brawl that just took place with someone who jumped onstage, provoked by the song and clearly unacquainted with the punk rock school of thought.” - E.H.

INFLUENCERS ANONYMOUS

“my engagement / was tanking / so i joined / influencers anonymous / the meetings / sucked / nobody knew / who i was / and i received / zero / free shoes” - E.A.

looks like our test worked.

put on something cute and come see what happens for the next one.

social change begins with socializing.

enjoy yourself.

- elz

hi there,

TLDR version : we are hosting another minor genius lit reading this thursday at nightclub 101 with a bunch of great readers. i will also be launching and reading poems from my new zine “think before printing.” this one is limited edition, a soon to be mg grail of just 50 hand stamped copies.

dress up, socialize, come take part in our cultural …

Read more

this week’s felt off-kilter in that familiar, end-of-year way.

nothing dramatic. just the sense that a bunch of things quietly expired and no one sent a memo, so i’ve mostly been listening to jim carroll and tracking envelopes instead of doing a big “year in review” monologue.

so instead of an essay, here’s the logbook — and if you want help making your o…

Read more