Curating Curators

When everyone is a curator, who's worth your attention and time?

I haven’t stopped thinking about Drew Austin’s piece about ”The Brazilianization of the Internet” ever since I read it last week. The core idea here is that the more garbage and promotional content fills the internet, the more users start utilizing filters and spam blockers in attempt to separate themselves from all of it and create a “cozyweb” — a curated version of the Internet that contains only the content and people they enjoy interacting with. On the macro level, this leads to the creation of “in” and “out” groups of digital creators — the visible elites that have your attention and the invisible crowds of people making content for no one in hopes of making it big.

What strikes me the most is this line: “Everyone assumes that spam filters exist to shield them from spam and rarely consider that they might be the spam other people need protection from.” Cuts deep when you are an avid user of the mute and block buttons but also write a weekly email that people graciously let me put inside their already cluttered inboxes.

What I keep telling myself to keep my self-esteem healthy is that in a sense, I am a curator — a hot buzzy word for someone who selflessly subjects themselves to an abundance of (not only digital) information, pulls out the gems worth your attention, and provides the broader context necessary to help you make sense of them.

The job of a curator isn’t new. Many established professionals are essentially curators — from merchandisers and buyers, deciding which products to stock in retail stores to doctors prescribing you the right treatment and pills. Any sexy creation-focused job, like a fashion designer or a fragrance maker, also starts with an obscene amount of research and curation — it’s where all the good ideas begin. The only recent development in the curation and research biz is that the work of curators may be more important than ever because of the sheer amount of information we deal with every day, but at the same time, requires more time and effort to create real value.

Initially, my own research and curations funneled mostly into my work as a marketer and even when I started writing this newsletter, I thought it could only be interesting to other people in my field, founders, and investors. What I am realizing now though is that my reach goes far beyond that because of how overwhelmed we are as consumers of products, culture, and content, and how deeply intertwined consumerism and culture are.

SSENSE, an already curated online retailer, has 349 pages of just women’s products — a number that’s impossible for any one fashion enthusiast to make sense of on their own without the help of shopping newsletters, fashion critics, and stylists they trust. As a woman, I hear about a new beauty product, procedure, and tool so frequently that it’s hard to make sense of what actually works and what I actually need without consulting a professional hairdresser and esthetician. Even when I go to a grocery store to fulfill my most basic human needs, I see new drinks, protein options, and snacks that promise to make me healthier, hotter, and happier but a lot of times, end up tasting and making me feel like shit (s/o Andrea of Snaxshot for helping me make my way through Erewhon and Whole Foods aisles).

via The Atlantic

Having lost trust in digital curation, powered by mass ratings, influencers, and algorithms, we’ve come a full circle, asking professional researchers, curators, and critics for help, and for the most part, I think it’s a positive thing. Consumers get to shut out the noise, save time and money, and get good-quality information without sacrificing discovery, brands and talent get instant street credit, and curators…get to have a fun job. What sounds like an ideal information ecosystem is actually far from perfect though. With the number of self-appointed curators who don’t put enough time and effort into their work and let ulterior motives affect them, finding a curator you can trust and learn from is a science in and of itself.

via New York Times

The first thing that turns me off about most “curators” is the lack of depth. Easy access to digital content made far too many people think that research and curation is a passive, almost recreational activity you can do on the go. The reality is that high-quality research and curation aren’t meant to be all fun and easy. You are supposed to dig through the archives, travel to not always glamorous places, meet people who aren’t always pleasant, and practice being extremely observant and present to get to the good stuff. Instead, what I see a lot of is people scrolling through feeds and repackaging links served to them by the algorithm into newsletters and TikToks. If you saw it online, odds are I’ve seen it too — give me something that will make me go “where the hell did you find this?” or connect the dots in a way I haven’t thought of before.

And that isn’t the only pitfall curators should watch out for. While some curators are just genuine enthusiasts, putting together lists, moodboards, and reports for the love of the game, others are business people (and there is nothing wrong with that). When curation is your primary business though, you start noticing all the hacks you can use to optimize your curations for revenue or growth — like mentioning a product or person that’s popular or trending to ride the wave of an exiting convo or compromising your integrity in exchange for a brand deal. What frustrates me the most is that this behavior isn’t exclusive to independent curators — big media and businesses have a long history of doing it too. i-D likely got more traffic from Rachel Sennott’s repost of their list of the best movies of the year than her movie Bottoms got from being featured on the list.

Also, can we just settle this once and for all? The moodboard is dead, and so are the businesses built on the back of the moodboard. Platforms, like IG and Pinterest, made curations based solemnly on aesthetics ubiquitous — something teenagers can accomplish on their phones. Divorcing imagery from context makes powerful visuals hollow and meaningless. Using aesthetic curations in any creative process leads to one-for-one replication of what already exists or existed without giving birth to anything new, anything you can call your own.

I don’t think the answer is to gatekeep curation. Curation and research is something you get better at the more you do it, and ultimately, the audience knows who is taking it seriously, challenges themselves and does it consistently, and who is in for a buzzy ride. All I am saying is that if you aren’t honest and careful, you may be creating more noise for the sake of individual accomplishment rather than serving people trying to piece through it all.

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IN THE MARGINS:

This week’s margins are essentially all the interesting curators I came across while doing some unrelated research — a curation of curators!

CURATED WEB DASHBOARDS

There are a couple of creative consultancies whose home pages are essentially their custom edits of the web — here is one by Public Announcement (by James Ellis and Chris Black of How Long Gone) and here is one by Global Advisory (found it through one of the partners - AJ Lacouette, ex-marketing at SSENSE who wrote this Anatomy of Trends piece I still think about sometimes).

via publicannouncement.org and global-advisory.co

It looks like the Public Announcement edit has been out of date for a while but I did sign up for the one from Global Advisory. Can’t reveal everything you’ll find there, but if you are looking for actionable, well-researched content and opinions on creative business strategy, what you get is well-worth $5 a month.

I am really intrigued by curated dashboards as a member perk/product. The curations I like and use mostly live in the form of newsletters which are fun to keep up with but inconvenient to use when doing research for a specific project. A dashboard also seems more user-friendly than a daily email that clutters your inbox, and much more flexible for the curator than an IG/Twitter feed.

Content is usually seen as a marketing channel that funnels into professional services rather than a product worth paying for, but seeing where the traditional media and social media is moving….I am intrigued.

CURATORS IN HOSPITALITY AND FOOD

Lots of curation is happening in the hospitality space — from tableware and food art to tips on hosting and gathering. If you ever tried putting together a thoughtful brand event or a dinner, you know that even though it’s expensive to outsource it, it’s even more expensive and laborious to try and do it yourself. You have to think of everything — from the venue and the menu to chairs and forks. So, it’s no surprise that curators in hospitality turn their research and knowledge into lucrative businesses. Here are a couple that seem to be doing really well:

via @tables__tables__tables and @tab.ili on IG

• Tables Tables Tables is a collection of images and videos of beautiful platters, stunning cocktails, and mouthwatering desserts curated by Karii Arreola. What started as an IG account celebrating the artistry in hospitality and food turned into collaborations with of restaurants on set design for special events.

• tabili is another beautiful concept in the hospitality and event space. I believe it’s co-created by Hannah Adanna, Gloria Van Geerestein, and Joy Iheoma van Geerestein who host thoughtful gatherings around tables and food and share their process and references here and here along the way.

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Fair warning — clicking on any of the links below may send you down a rabbit hole you didn’t know existed, from home appliance design to various elements of storytelling in cinema.

via @syllabusproject, soft_electronics, and @flowersincinema on IG

• Syllabus is a non-commercial project (if you enjoy it, I encourage you to make a donation) by Julia Gunnison and Gillian Waldo that invites contributors from all walks of life to create an academia-style syllabus on a topic of choice. The syllabi cover everything from How to Eat Alone by Elissa Suh of MOVIEPUDDING to How to Come Home by the writer of Long Live Erika Veurink.

• Soft Electronics is an online museum of small appliances for kitchen, bath, and home made between 1960 and 1990, curated by an electronics collector Jaro Gielens. I wish the photos in the online museum included the photos of the actual products and not only packaging but you can see them on IG.

• Flowers in Cinema is a curation of shots from popular movies and shows that contain flowers by Iris Diane Palma. Honestly, until I came across this account, I didn’t pay much attention to flowers in cinema besides maybe that scene in Gilmore Girls where Max surprises Lorelai with a thousand of yellow daisies. If you zoom out of the focus on the flowers, you can take away more about how production elements can be used to tell a story. Iris also writes a Substack about florals and film!