Ultimately, will AI even be an issue when it comes to consumer trust though? “If we fast-forward 5 years into the future, I think it will be an assumption that most media has been altered/generated by AI,” Sean told me. “At the same time, I think phone & camera manufacturers will attempt to standardize hardware features that verify photos produced on device, and likely partner with social media platforms to distribute that standard. Unclear whether people will trust that, or even think twice about AI-free media outside of the context of political/social-economic content.”
Every time I run into a writing block, I think about how using AI to recalibrate my brain or find synonyms feels like cheating. But if I had to get out on my own every time I got stuck, would I even have the patience to keep writing, and therefore, become a better writer? If we compare AI technology to CGI technology in movies, it doesn’t seem like in mass, people care that super heroes aren’t actually jumping off skyscrapers as long as the CGI is good. Obviously, there are cinephiles that care deeply about the craft, but even they have appreciation for computer technology in movies, like Dune, where it lives alongside great acting, impressive camera work, and an interesting storyline. Worst comes to worst, high-quality human-produced content will live on as a premium. We are already seeing that with the hyperrealistic visual social media content produced by brands with the help of technology – first, people loved the giant CGI Jacquemus bag cruising through the streets of Paris, and then they loved the giant Jacquemus bag popup in Seoul even more.
So, what’s next for the image?
The overall consensus is that in the hierarchy of formats, visuals are on the decline. The only points of deviation between the culture critics are exactly how and by how much. Some, like Pyle, are convinced that images and text will morph into a new format – text image – an image that relies on text as the primary marker of meaning. My favorite example of this phenomena, besides Charli XCX’s Brat album cover (which you can read more about here) is a fashion blog STYLE NOT COM. With fashion being an inherently very visual industry, it sounds insane that someone would post about in a text-first format. And yet, this decision proves to be genius every fashion week – while everyone’s feed is flooded with videos and photos from the same shows, STYLE NOT COM text remarks about the overall atmosphere, industry gossip, and guests cut through the noise. If the last time, visual platforms, like Instagram, experienced an in-flux of text content can be traced back to 2020 political activism, today, it’s the go-to format for culturally rich “iykyk” editorials for people working in creative industries, like Perfectly Imperfect, Screen Slate, 1 Granary, and the thing magazine. And whenever “scene cool” culture is produced in a certain format, it tends to trickle down to the masses – for example, Perfectly Imperfect just featured Olivia Rodrigo, Emma Chamberlain, and Omar Apollo.
Other critics, like Ana Victoria Dzinic here, say that images have already lost all meaning and trust from the audience, but are still powerful when used to tell a story alongside other images or media. As she explains it in the context of Instagram, it’s less about trying to produce a single striking image, and more about arranging a grid that follows a cohesive narrative over time.
There is no guarantee that text too won't become overwhelming with tech companies, like Substack and Behiive, growing rapidly. Although heavily reliant on mailing lists and subscriber recommendations for distribution and growth, Substack newsletters also benefit from the app’s internal distribution feed, called Notes, that rewards formats and voices with viral potential. Behiive has an ad network that lets writers buy up ad space in other people’s posts without ever contacting them directly. Newsletters aren’t a radically new format either, and in their current form that combines a mailing list and a website, they look like a hybrid of emails and blogs – both of which were corrupted by a high influx of low-quality content and businesses using them for SEO and retention purposes. “I do think many young people are being exposed to the concept of the personal blog for the first time via Substack,” a youth culture researcher and the writer of After School Casey Lewis pointed out to me. “It’s created a first-person writing boom that reminds me of the early 2000s. As we learned back then, though, this becomes oversaturated quite quickly.”
Still, consistently producing high-quality text content is hard. And if on the consumer side, reading is a more labor-intensive activity than scrolling a video or an image feed, one can argue that it’s only really worth it when the quality of the writing is high too. People aren’t flocking to text because they are craving a format change per se, but because they are craving quality, humanity, meaning, and slowing down, which means that fast, low-quality text entries are closer in spirit to low-quality images than other text. “I don't know if I see text and image as a binary, even though the [032c] article itself talks about the text-image, we are literally in an age of using text to generate images via AI tools,” told me Grace Gordon, a brand marketer and the founder of a creative consulting agency Goodgame. “I see both becoming increasingly codependent. I think our most popular and frequently used channels and mediums are becoming increasingly visual, however I also think with that, the bar for what makes a compelling image is raised.”
Ultimately, this anxiety around the rapid production of text potentially compromising its quality is a signal of a broader shift in how consumers discover and engage with any media. “Maybe this is another reason why print media is having a resurgence – the internet is becoming an increasingly unnavigable Takeshi’s castle-style obstacle course of terrible user experience and useless, nonsensical content,” says a writer and podcaster Georgia Graham in response to an essay about the AI-induced weirdness of the internet. “Finding any real, reliable or quality information becomes like hunting for pearls in a swamp full of garbage.” In the current cultural climate, it just so happens that high-quality text is easier to come by because we’ve prioritized video and image production for so long – there is much more content slop one has to dig through to find a compelling visual. The resurgence of text media coincides with the resurgence of cult-like interest in indie cinema, photography books, and print magazines with collectible covers. So, just because high-quality visual media is getting lost in the abundance of low-quality visuals on the internet, doesn’t mean it can’t regain its status and audience in the context of magazine pages, book stores, and movie theaters. And when the hype around text media reaches its peak, there will still be an opportunity for high-quality writing to gain traction – the go-to channels for it just might not be Substack, Instagram, or digital magazines.
CHAPTER TWO: LITERARY = LUXURY
Climax Books, a curator, seller, and publisher of rare books, founded by Acne Studios CMO Isabella Burley, just opened its NYC store. On the shelves are not only the new Simone Rocha book and the High Times issue with Milla Jovovich on the cover, but also a line of merch, co-designed together with a cult-followed fashion brand Chopova Lowena – a couple of tops, a necklace, and an underwear set. This playful collaboration wouldn’t be the first time a luxury fashion brand came in association with books and publishing. A few years ago, Valentino and Chanel started gifting books to influencers, Peter Do produced his first Helmut Lang show in collaboration with a poet and essayist Ocean Vuong, and the masterminds behind F. Miller skincare just launched an elevated sportswear brand called Literary Sport.
Around the same time, today’s biggest “it girls” Kaia Gerber and Dua Lipa started interviewing buzzy writers for their online book clubs, and young A-list celebrities Jacob Elordi and Kendall Jenner got photographed with downtown’s favorite paperbacks in their hands. The message is loud and clear – reading, and more broadly, intelligence, are chic and sexy – and brands and celebrities want in on it. “When I was doing book exchanges with friends in 2015 to 2019, it felt really niche - there was little to no interest from most people (let alone brands!), it was something I just did with friends and family,” told me Jordan Santos, the founder of a community for readers called Seen Library. “When I started Seen Library (officially) in 2021, a couple of brands began to express interest, which was surprising to me as it never occurred to me that something like a book exchange could be seen as marketable. Fast forward to 2024, it’s changed a lot. I’d say I get inquiries from brands about collaborations at least a couple times a month, compared to just two brands expressing interest in all of 2022.”
So, what’s in it for brands? A few years ago, Dena Yago wrote a piece on the Content Industrial Complex where she talked about luxury brands, like Lexus, casting artists in editorial content: “These advertorials further the notion that it is the brand that facilitates creative production – Lexus as an essential ingredient of the artistic secret sauce.” This sentiment still stands today. Through collaborations with buzzy actors, filmmakers, and craftsmen, Loewe became pretty much synonymous with creativity and playful sophistication, and The Row reached a $1B evaluation by creating a strong association between their stoic designs and minimalist art. The same notion can be extended to the brands affiliated with writers and literature – not only do they design and produce luxury products, they also touch and shape culture as a whole. So, when you buy a jacket or a perfume from them, you aren’t just shopping, you are getting an entry ticket into the creative class.
While reading and intelligence framed as hot and aspirational is certainly a win for culture compared to the heroin chic of the 90s or even the resurgence of the indie sleaze, most of the high-status literature engagements have a certain air of exclusivity to them. From Kaia Gerber’s Library Science Readings at the Newport Beach library to Miu Miu’s Literary Club – one can’t just show up to these things. “The beauty of books and reading is that it’s universal – something accessible (or should be) to most people,” Jordan commented. “But I guess from a brand perspective, especially luxury brands, there’s a certain level of aspiration you want to keep and you can only do that by including some and excluding others and creating that desire – whether it’s for access to a book club or a $10,000 bag. I think this exclusivity can absolutely affect how people think about writing and reading in a negative way – that it’s reserved only for some… those who are well-connected, wealthy, white, thin, beautiful. I say that because that’s who I typically see when seeing some of these branded literary moments online and because I’ve even felt like that myself at times. Some of these branded literary initiatives feel intimidating and super intellectual. I read a lot, but I’ve never felt confident speaking about books in an educated way. I’m not well-versed in the classics.”
With high-quality text content increasingly going behind a paywall on media websites, Patreon, and Substack, there is already a very real possibility that we will see a growing media gap between the people who can afford to pay for print magazines, newsletter, and books, and those whose information sources are limited to the free social media content that’s designed to be quick, lo-fi, and easy to digest. It doesn’t help that most brands still reserve their text media projects and literary initiatives for specific audiences only. That is why brand initiatives, like Miu Miu’s book giveaway Summer Reads, Jordan’s own Seen Library reading rooms and meetups, and Aesop’s Queer Library feel so refreshing and innovative. Curating literature that represents diverse voices and framing reading as a playful community (or solidary) activity rather than a posh hobby, they are able to attract a wider range of people who don’t normally see much representation both in the literary and the luxury worlds. Maybe the reason why text media isn’t spreading through the masses quite like a wildfire is because there is a shortage of brands that deem the masses worthy of high-effort marketing and community initiatives and not because there is a shortage of mass interest in text.
