What is the cultural temperament of this era?

Well, I think it’s got a good two-word summary: “Dark Euphoria.” Dark Euphoria is what the twenty-teens feels like. Things are just falling apart, you can’t believe the possibilities, it’s like anything is possible, but you never realized you’re going to have to dread it so much. It’s like a leap into the unknown. You’re falling toward earth at nine hundred kilometres an hour and then you realize there’s no earth there.

That’s a dark euphoria feeling. It’s the cultural temperament of the coming decade.

It comes in two flavours. Top end and low end. Everybody in this room is sort of schismed between top end and low end. Because that’s the nature of your particular demographic.

The top end we can describe as “Gothic High-Tech” […]

These are Gothic High-Tech figures, people who position themselves in the narrative rather than building any permanent infrastructure. That’s what you’ve been telling each other to do all day. That’s why you love these guys. They’re positioning themselves in the narrative rather than building any permanent infrastructure. They’re cheerleaders, they’re not leaders. They’re cheerleaders.

And if the narrative happens to be poverty, floods, air-crashes, drug addiction, infidelity, whatever, they’re going to be good to go.

[…] What is the downside, what’s the other side of this? The flip-side of Gothic High-Tech? The flip-side of Gothic High-Tech is downmarket, and it’s called “Favela Chic.” Favela Chic.

What is Favela Chic? Favela Chic is when you have lost everything material, everything you built and everything you had, but you’re still wired to the gills! And really big on Facebook. That’s Favela Chic