>>512349689 (OP)Lol stupid.
OMG, I can pretend to paint a wall!!
Favela chic indeed.
Bruce Sterling on "Favela Chic" and "Gothic High‑Tech"
Favela Chic
A future where everyone has lost material wealth, prospects, stability—but remains deeply connected: “wired to the gills” on social media platforms like Facebook or MySpace .
It mirrors digital natives living in a perpetual beta‑state: squatting on emergent structures, like squats or digital huts built of open‑source code, without infrastructure or permanence .
Common slogans: “Action is cheaper than control,” “Just do it,” “Always in beta”—a glorification of informality and immediacy .
Gothic High‑Tech
The luxurious but ominous realm of high‑end tech with a gothic shadow: brilliant devices created by people under existential pressure—like Steve Jobs building iPhones while facing grave health crises .
It’s stylish innovation amid decay: high‑tech forms built over obsolete ruins—digital elegance drifting over analogue collapse .
This is the era of “Dark Euphoria”: powerful, precarious elites navigating instability with flair—but no long‑term durability .
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Why This Matters — Sterling’s Subtext
Sterling sees the world splitting into two aesthetic‑economic regimes:
The bottom‑up improvisation of the disconnected but digitally engaged population (favela chic).
The top‑down spectacle of elite tech‑savvy figures clinging to power and image (gothic high‑tech).
This bifurcation reflects our broader societal fragmentation: flawed infrastructure, absence of stable institutions, opportunism replacing planning, and digital life outpacing material civilization .