Summary of Life After Lifestyle

Follow the Rabbit is a (video) podcast that invites you into the messy, interconnected world of cultural research. Join Igor and Johannes in Season 1 as they use Toby Shorin's essay Life after Lifestyle to explore cultural rabbit holes, connect unexpected dots, and uncover insights that shape our world, all while working with the garage door open.

This episode of Follow the Rabbit provides an overview of Toby Shorin's essay “Life After Lifestyle.” The host summarizes the key points and concepts from the essay:

1. Cultural Production Service Economy: The essay traces the evolution of lifestyle brands and consumer culture from 2011 to 2022, highlighting how various trends and products defined each era.
2. Lifestyle Triangle: Shorin presents a Venn diagram showing lifestyle as an intersection of brand, subculture, and supply chain.
3. Brand Development: The essay discusses how brands evolved, influenced by events like the Obama campaign, and how they communicate with consumers.
4. Subculture Acceleration: It explores how platforms like Reddit and Pinterest sped up the development of microtrends and subcultures.
5. Supply Chain Changes: The rise of direct-to-consumer brands and easy access to manufacturing through platforms like Alibaba.
6. Cultural Production as a Service: How culture is now created to serve brands and monetize available technologies.
7. Vibe Economy: The institutionalization of drawing on subcultures to promote brands, sometimes referred to as "culture washing."
8. Post-Lifestyle Era: Shorin questions what comes after the lifestyle brand era, noting that these products often feel empty and disconnected from their purported values.
9. Cult-like Brands: The essay explores the concept of brands becoming more like cults or religions, providing examples like CrossFit.
10. Culture as Product: A shift where culture itself becomes the product, with physical products becoming secondary (e.g., running clubs that produce merchandise).
11. New Cultural Formations: Examples of new community-driven cultural phenomena, including Christian Bitcoiners, mental health-focused fitness concepts, and effective altruism.
12. Future Prediction: Shorin suggests that financial mechanism innovations in the 2020s will lead to "incentivized ideologies, networked publics, and co-owned faith."

The host uses quotes and diagrams from the essay to illustrate these points, providing a comprehensive overview of Shorin's analysis of lifestyle brands and their evolution into more culture-centric entities.

You can also watch this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/AspoRUG3qT8?si=sUWSnMh6Hkl10hWZ