Creative Studies

Revenge of the Humanities?

Tech bros and their Patagonia vests have reigned for quite a long time in the culture of business. We’re easily past the dawn of the era when Windows 95 debuted some 30 years ago. As we know, this swept in a whole new way to organize, work, live and function in the world of work, and life. It ultimately ushered in social media platforms, online advertising and a number of digital innovations. The fact you are checking your Slack messages in between reading/listening/viewing this is one example of a shift that occurred as a result of tech’s domination for several decades. Usher in on top of this that the hottest religion of late has been the gospel of AI. But are we missing a pull in a different direction that could impact the world of business slowly and ultimately change it in ways we don’t hear about on LinkedIn or CNBC? It feels like the recent AI bubble beginning to deflate shows that there is change in the atmosphere. Mass layoffs, lack of jobs, offshoring, nearshoring and a number of other workplace trends are leading to new ways to organize in addition to new business solutions looking beyond the tech bubble. Much of that taking place in real life (IRL) scenarios again. Could the next wave of businesses being formed now in 2026 possibly be way more balanced than the current model due to an injection of humanist thinking over pure tech solutionism? The Bezos, Musk, Zuck approaches (which were just updated versions of a Jack Welchian philosophy) might be looked at in five short years as “cooked” or performed strictly by “fossil corporations.” Change must occur if labor projections showing a mass shortage of workers [https://lightcast.io/resources/research/the-rising-storm#download-form] are correct. Why? If we understand that the coming years will not enjoy the abundance of workers that past decades did, and yet we have a scarcity of solutions that help us with the how but not the what [https://substack.com/home/post/p-189793289], then everyone’s approach to the labor market will need to change. This is leading to two opposing forces in the business world. One that is THX-1138 meets Blade Runner meets Minority Report themed vs. another Star Trek meets The Orville more humanist approach theme that puts more emphasis on stakeholders over the statistical rank and yank, automate everything, you’re just a human capital asset approach. Tech solutionism failing is possibly a signal we’re at the end stage of 80 years of neoliberalism. The consequences of prosperity it promised has led to austerity. This is now slowly dismantling as we see the beginning of the end of marketplaces. We cannot “spend” or “automate” our way to a free society it appears. As entrepreneurialism gave way to managerialism we are seeing zero innovation to the problems we face. Markets are not neutral and people are fed up with the crushing of the public sector. We need a mixture of humanism meets futurism as we straddle an old operating system with a new one. This means we need more people who understand and study the humanities as a life learning lesson mission. Who use it as a way to unlock curiosity. The humanities will help give us three elements currently missing from present day tech solutionist styled business leadership.1. A better understanding of people.Humanities fields like history, literature, sociology, and philosophy train people to understand human behavior, motivations, culture and context. This translates to stronger insight and empathy,more inclusive and effective leadership andbetter communication across cultures and teams.2. Stronger ethical judgment and long-term thinking.Right now everyone just thinks in quarterly profit motives. The humanities push us to ask should we? Not simply can we?History has constant reminders for leaders of what happens when short-term profit, cough, Enron, cough, overrides ethical responsibility. Just take a look around us right now. Do we really like this world we’ve designed?3. Clearer communication and persuasive storytelling.Writing, rhetoric, and narrative analysis are core humanities skills.A great idea doesn’t matter if no one understands or believes in that idea. The humanities helps ideas make an impact.Note: The humanities don’t replace technical or financial skills. They balance and amplify them by making businesses more human, ethical, and persuasive.We’ve over-indexed to be either all technical and all financial but not at all human. Not at all caring. And that’s showing now in the larger business leadership world. Things ebb and flow and humans seem to be reacting now in ways that are showcasing the need to put people back in the priority column and not treat us like we’re some metric in a P/L spreadsheet.Iceberg ahead. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit creativestudies.substack.com [https://creativestudies.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Keeping it Real: The Moat is IRL, Not AI

If you live long enough, you’ll spot the patterns. Here’s one I’ve been keeping my eye on. In the 1990s the term Keeping it Real was used by many of us in the hip hop community which was lifted from African American Vernacular English. But why did this term in particular resonate? We have to think of what was happening at that time as a scene which had local roots and a foundation in New York City (Bronx and Queens to be precise) in the 1970s started to really grow and create influence across the globe in the 1980s and early 1990s. With this growth, the era of the “corporate sellout” was in full swing. We could easily spot this “talent.” Pawns of the larger major labels given six-figure record label deals because they had one or two solid hits, acted a particular part, but really lacked a vision for a long tail career that said anything. As more of this talent got signed, an entire underground spawned. Labels, artists, even clothing lines. A backlash to the fakery usually driven by a visual image. And this is where we heard people utter, Keeping it Real more to the point it even ended up as a mantra on a popular reality TV show, “When people stop being polite, and start getting real.” At its heart, Keeping it Real meant and still means: * Staying authentic * Being honest about who you are * Not selling out, fronting, or pretending to be something you truly are not for status or money This idea was deeply important in early hip-hop, where credibility and lived experience mattered a lot. Maybe more than anything for a life long career of artistry. It reminds me I was able to meet RZA when I worked at a record label in the early 2000s. He’s the real deal. A prime example of someone honest about his roots, his passions and influences. A lot of early gatekeepers told him Wu-Tang would never go anywhere. But he heard things others didn’t and went with his gut. The reason I bring this up? It taps into a universal tension: who you really are vs. who you’re expected to be. And let’s be honest (a phrase that came out of keeping it real), authenticity never goes out of style, even when that word gets overused. Fast forward to the early aughts and many bloggers that inhabited the web would write out their entire souls to strangers online. There was something wonderful about this. These were normies, people like you and me who simply had a digital mood board. But instead of using it to try to convert into a career of sorts, many did this from the point of how open source works. They approached their writing from a “What Can I Offer the World” point of view. I remember talking to many of these bloggers. Most of them were introverts uncomfortable with their new found fame. One told me something that still resonates. “If people can learn something, cope better with what I share, and unite with others based on shared experiences, then maybe this will help bring humanity together with a common understanding. Maybe we’ll find more commonality with our universal human peers.” This type of Hopecore continued to spread as online influence grew and social media rose in popularity. Before you knew it, an entire cottage industry of creators and influencers had spawned. Need dating advice? There’s a creator/influencer for that. Need tourism ideas? There’s an influencer for that. Need ideas for an outfit? There’s a creator who does some cool hauls with a style you might like for that. And even how we approached our careers started to transform. “Oh, so and so has 900,000 followers on Insta (ahem, little did anyone know this person bought all those followers), they must be good at social media marketing. Let’s hire them!” This worked for a really long time. In fact in the past 15 years I would note that I have gotten hired from a great social media presence on LinkedIn, TikTok and now Substack. But when people hired me, they also knew my real credentials. I had the portfolio of work to back it up. And most important? I had the lived experiences. When you meet me, I can tell you all the learnings and relearnings from these experiences. I can talk game. This is a huge advantage not being talked about much by those so keen to lean heavily on knowledge engines to give them all the answers. IRL is now the moat in a world where prompt addicts think they can just figure out answers from some Large Language Model and be an “expert.” They’re looking more and more like the Matt Damon character in this Good Will Hunting scene… For the past six years everyone assumed what people tell them they’ve done or even have experience in is all fake quackery. Snake oil. That creative? AI must have made it. The people you say you know? BS to just get a meeting to talk about investment. And part of this is because instead of Keeping It Real there have been so many faking it until they make it with illusions of grandeur that trust has eroded our social fabric. “Should we believe what they say on their resume?” “I’ll just write anything to get it through the ATS systems.” “They said they did this on their website but I don’t believe them.” “They wrote a book, but anyone can write a book because of AI.” All of this questioning about the truth and about what is real and what isn’t has led to some people, mainly creatives, doing something I never thought would happen. We’re on the fringe edges of it as an eccentric behavior but it mimics what I’m also seeing in current club culture [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/learning/should-some-places-be-phone-free.html]. People are blowing up their online profile. Debranding themselves from the web. Doing what Cal Newport calls “Deep Work” and just going back into making things and doing more IRL instead of telling everybody about those things on these online platforms. Showing people rather than telling them. This has had a profound effect on the entire creator economy cottage industry. There must be thousands of people who do videos talking about brand trends, social media marketing trends or other business trends. Heck, I was one of them with a Top 100 business podcast from 2011-2021. But I also had the resume to back up these discussions. Most of the people now? They’re consultants who have never even held a job at a Fortune 100 but dictating to Fortune 100s what they should be doing. They don’t have any lived experience. But what do they have? A personal brand. In the past few years these people could get away with getting hired for decent sized contracts because they were good promoters of themselves. Good stagetalkers. Good hype artists. They might even have an AI avatar doing keynotes. But more and more when I talk to companies who have hired these folks they realize something quick: business impact, making business results, heck, even coming up with a workable strategy and executing it is very different than making good TikToks, highly viewed YouTube videos or mass shared Substacks. As Kyla Scanlon noted in her recent piece entitled The Great Entertainment [https://kyla.substack.com/p/the-great-entertainment]: “We teach people the only thing that matters is great content. The spectacle. Yet business and life is governed by trust. By realness. The real world doesn’t make for good content.” We’re entering a realness era again. One that only IRL can secure from all the b******t we’re up to our knees in the past 15 years. Mainly because we are seeking real people, real voices that we can trust. Do they have to have one million followers on Instagram when you can buy those? No. Do they have to make snackable short videos with an Australian accent so they look sophisticated? No. Can they be an expert and maybe have 122 subscribers on some underground newsletter? Yes. If anything, we have learned the hard way that people who are a bunch of media elites, podcasters cosplaying in roles they have no business being in, (FBI Director, cough) is what led us to yearn for IRL again. We’re tired of people telling us some narrative we’ve heard time and time again that just gets tired, cooked and washed with time. That only being online will help us feel connected (nope, more alienated). That only tech solutionism alone can build the next wave of business (nope, more humanity will do that). That only the most popular kids online who used pay to play methods should be the people we listen to (nope, quite the opposite unless you love aristocracies). We are yearning for realness again in life, for people who we can look up to as mentors, for people we would want to apprentice with. For older people who can teach and young people who can also do the same. The tech dweebs wanted you to think you could live life locked in a room with a big headset strapped to your forehead and do everything by yourself in the Metaverse while becoming the first solo trillionaire. What? C’mon. Stop faking the funk and Keep it Real. And one more thing… Geoffrey Colon [https://linkedin.com/in/geoffreycolon]is founder of Creative Studies, a business consultancy [http://creativestudies.agency], t-shirt shop [http://creativestudies.store] and newsletter [http://creativestudies.news] at the intersection of work + life + imagination. Find him IRL in Seattle, New York City, Los Angeles, London and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit creativestudies.substack.com [https://creativestudies.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

What's in store for 2026? More turbulence. Fasten your seat belt. Icebergs ahead.

If everything is a Remix, then everything is filled with uncertainty. I’m approaching 2026 similar to 1976. Why? 1975 was a massive year of turbulence. Just like 2025. So should we assume because of turbulence things will smooth out as we get to smoother air? Not necessarily. It’s difficult to forecast anything in this day and age. Too many changes, too many system flaws, too many human and technological errors. Too many bad hot takes. But it’s good to discuss what is possible to get a better idea of the behavioral landscape. Some highlights we see on the horizon for 2026: * What’s tangible? What can we touch? In a world overwashed in digital and made up metrics, people want what’s “real” again. * There is less risk being taken and a need for managed outcomes. We’ve been seeing this since 2023. This continues through 2026. * Cost-cutting seems to be the bet on revenue model. Until there is nothing else to cut. Then what? More uncertainty. * This year will be slower than 2025. Which means if we think things are going to “get better” we’re in for some heavy future shock. * Being first to market and “FAST” is maybe not the best recipe for success now even though this is what Big Tech sells to customers. Maybe being strategic, deliberate, deep and calculated aka “SLOW” is the better opportunity in a year that looks like a quagmire and uncertain. Why? Going slow allows you to focus. Going fast feels good for dopamine levels until you’re fried. * Are we seeking monocultures again over personalized feeds because the former leads to less alienation? * 2026 will be the first year portfolio careers are finally accepted and not looked upon as “weird” by those in career recruitment. All of us have multiple email addresses now to handle the various outputs we participate in. What are your thoughts for this year? How are you feeling? What are your big bets in business? Feel free to share in the comments. Creative Studies. Creative News for the Creative Class. Join Us at CreativeStudies.News [http://creativestudies.news] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit creativestudies.substack.com [https://creativestudies.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

2026: The Remedy of the Commons and the Revenge of the Humanities

“Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.” This is something we will finally learn in 2026. The year I will dub “The Revenge of the Humanities.” We seem to have a death of permanence. But all of the broken pieces of how our society operated for much of the last 80 years are not thrown away. They are picked up and re-assembled into a new society. This is what we are witnessing as what we undergo for the 2020s is best described as future shock. What is it? Too much change in a short amount of time. We have all suffered from dopamine deep fry. When there is a significant amount of changes in a short amount of time, society undergoes what individual humans undergo when they face high levels of stress: literal shock. Everything we’ve been witnessing since the 2008 financial collapse has been one elongated version of shock. Certain generations seem to be okay with this. Writing new rules for a new world. But those who want to go back and make things great again seem to be trying to keep the beating pulse going on what appears to be a dead corpse. The primary question now for us to answer is, will our society give out and die from that shock or resuscitate and move forward to truly live? This leads to wondering why we believe that just because we have the capital and power to build certain technologies, if we should do so. We seem to think that innovation and the logic of the markets are the only path to perseverance. But are we overdue for adopting a paradigm of the commons approach for the 21st Century? And what would that look like? An alternative that has been tried and tested in practice by communities past and present, the paradigm of the commons goes beyond the state and the market and implies the radical self-instituting of society, allowing citizens to directly manage their shared resources. This isn’t the techno feudal corporatism that exists now. It represents more of a model in which the emphasis is on the importance of self-governance and community stewardship, contrasting with traditional market logic that prioritizes individual profit over shared responsibility. Key aspects of this world to help eradicate future shock could include: Self-organization: Communities that can directly manage their shared resources without external control, fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility. Holistic behavior: The commons presumes that humans can engage in more complex, humane behaviors that go beyond selfishness, promoting social solidarity and cooperation. It is no longer focused on the corporate state. Resilience: The commons can be found in various forms throughout history and organizations including indigenous practices, open-source software, local food production systems, community organizations and city-states where a percentage of all revenue is put toward the larger common wealth and good. This challenges the rational belief that everything that works best is a marketplace, privately owned and monetized like a casino. David Bollier [https://www.bollier.org/healing-logic-commons-0]describes a future by adopting the commons because: “Market enclosure is about dispossession. It is a process by which the powerful convert a shared community resource into a market commodity, so that it can be privately owned and sold in the marketplace. Enclosure preys upon the common wealth by privatizing it, commodifying it and dispossessing the commoners of their autonomy and resources. Enclosures sweep aside the social relationships and cultural traditions and sense of community that had previously existed. It requires the imposition of extreme individualism, the conversion of citizens into passive consumers, and greater social inequality. Money becomes the coin of social legitimacy and participation in a society.” For all this to happen there must be events that occur that we are not ready for. Future shocks. This will result in collapse and reform. Disruption and destruction. Which clears the way for a new canvas to paint on again. A new social contract. New collaboration. New collectivism. Public spaces and the commons, both online and off, are counter attacks to entrenched private power strangling society currently. It’s also a human reaction, a counterculture to the robotic-ism and cold and plastic solutions that have been shoved down our throats by big tech the past two decades. This is the only true path to creating real possibilities and new forms of social organization without being dictated solely by profit, markets or revenue. I hope you will use 2026 to learn, unlearn and relearn what will make you happy, curious and challenged to become a more well rounded and complete human being in a world over washed in technology. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit creativestudies.substack.com [https://creativestudies.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Revolution Calling

Creative Studies is made possible by Dropbox Dash. Search the way you think. Dropbox Dash is your AI teammate that surfaces the content and context you need to stay focused and on track. Cut through chaos with Dropbox Dash, your AI teammate             In 2008 James Surowiecki wrote the book “Here Comes Everybody.” In it, he made the case that digital connectivity has democratized organization and communication, reshaping how communities form and how collective action happens in the modern world. We’re now seeing that play out 18 years later as the book reaches a maturation state moving from merely a hypothesis to real life case studies. Shirky documented what is now showing up in every human state of affairs including politics, business and education. And we’re just at the beginning state of this tipping point. One of the biggest real life case studies happened recently that may actually dial all of this up to eleven to use a terminology from Spinal Tap. Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City as a Democratic Socialist. Many point out he did this solely using social media. But what he really did was utilize organizing without organizations. And using something usually not talked about in our heavy technocratic narratives. He got people talking with one another in real life spaces again in one of the biggest cities in the world. And they did this without any formal organization. He copy and pasted Shirky’s hypothesis into real life. Mamdani relied heavily on a decentralized group of volunteers who canvassed for him around progressive policies and a vision that is long overdue to be implemented in a city that has become the playground of billionaires. As The New York Observer review of Shirky’s book stated, “For the first time in history, the tools for cooperating on a global scale are not solely in the hands of governments or institutions. The spread of the internet and mobile phones are changing how people come together and get things done - and sparking a revolution that is changing what we do, how we do it, and even who we are.” While the internet is not new, how we are finally using it seems to be rewriting outdated playbooks and systems from a big media monocultural era [https://youtu.be/AGZSWdh17l0?si=vLsEL25yO0M3NGX3]. This is leading to a reform revolution right before our very eyes where how we viewed the world the past 40 years is no longer how it will function for the next 40. Mainly because the past worked like a military hierarchy. The present? Like a flat collective where everyone has equal power to contribute and be a participant more than a witness. This, along with an economic system in need of a Nu “New Deal” is making us teeter on the edge of a reset. So what is holding back the complete overhaul of outdated organizational design systems? Is it technology? Probably not, as technology is all around us. Is it the lack of vision to implement new ways of thinking? Maybe, but we’re seeing those cracks now showing as more progressive candidates get elected into office using crowdfunding techniques. Most likely it is the hoarding of power by old systems unwilling to simply give up power. It’s a classic tale of a power struggle. New vs. Old. Future vs. Past. We know through history how this all plays out. There are 8 stages of collapse. [https://youtu.be/gMojqr9zZ-k?si=kjfNB_sCcxZsQ1ml]We’re in stage 7. What’s stage 8? Reform or revolution. Note that there is a possibility of reform OR revolution in stage 8. Not everything has to be violently destroyed to be rebuilt. Reform only happens when we can pay attention to what truly matters when it comes to disruption. Things that are “outside the lines” of our purview. Today we note that AI or the Intelligence Age will be the largest change on our society moving forward similar to how many believed the Space Age and the Atomic Age would make the most important impact on eras of the past. And yet if we look at the past from the present we realize quickly that it was the transistor and birth control pill that were much more revolutionary than either rockets or nuclear bombs. As Shirky notes: “They changed society precisely because no one was in control of how the technology was used, or by whom. That is happening again today.” Technology tools are not simply technology tools. Technology tools are social change agents. Mamdani showed exactly this when he went from a 1% nobody one year ago to a 50% voting mayor-elect majority ushering in the dawn of a new era on organizing without organizations. He is not the first to run an organization without organizing and most certainly won’t be the last. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit creativestudies.substack.com [https://creativestudies.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]