Dark Culture
Can a cult have no visible leader?
A brand that survives without its founder’s daily presence is an institution. A brand that cannot is a personality cult....
Category
Dark Culture
Dark Culture
Following the money, not the narrative
The first question is never who was right. The first question is always why did this happen. The second question...
Dark Culture
Heartbreak into output
Heart is broken. How do I productivity-max for eventual stunting? That was the actual question, asked the morning after, with...
Dark Culture
Loved. Hated. Feared. Respected.
The four axes of personal brand positioning are not a matrix from a business school textbook. They are the four...
Dark Culture
Studying religion as a power system
Religion is studied here as a power system, not a faith system. The questions are always how did this work,...
Dark Culture
Term limits are the real problem
The real issue with American politics is 4-8 year term limits. It takes too long to make positive change happen...
Dark Culture
The pragmatic centrist in a binary world
As a centrist, it seemed to me that the Democrats wanted this huge influx to create more liberal voters as...
Dark Culture
The promotion role changes your personality
When I was just a raver, I was the most chill person alive. Ever since I got into promoting, it...
Dark Culture
The voice evolution
The journey was: unfiltered, then code-switching, then filtered, then deliberately unfiltered again. The formality skills were not lost. The choice...
Dark Culture
Trump as a tool, not an idol
Certain jobs require a certain type of person. The moral character of the politician is irrelevant to whether they are...
Dark Culture
Safe space language is performative nonsense
A DJ cancelled a 12-hour rave booking because the event refused to adopt safe space language. Not over money. Not...
Dark Culture
Stop marketing an event. Start marketing the calendar.
The standard promoter playbook: create an event, design a flyer, run ads for 30 days, hope people show up. Repeat...
Dark Culture
The alliance of the cancelled
Cancellation creates instant trust between survivors. The people who have been through it bond faster and trust each other more...
Dark Culture
Gossip is Google reviews for the underground
Gossip is a necessary evil and tool. Something to keep us all honest with each other. That is the position,...
Dark Culture
I learned to DJ so I could avoid socializing
That is the most attractive thing about DJing for me — being part of the party without having to socialize...
Dark Culture
I worried therapy would take away my creative energy
I need therapy. I have only been listening to dark stuff for a while. But I am worried therapy will...
Dark Culture
Platforms come and go. Email addresses are portable.
Instagram can delete your account tomorrow. TikTok can get banned. Twitter can change the algorithm and bury your reach. Every...
Dark Culture
Dark taste vs dark culture
Dark culture is the aesthetic category. Goth, industrial, darkwave — it existed as a named genre well before techno absorbed...
Dark Culture
How harm reduction became a brand signal
Narcan at every event is not a marketing decision. It is an operational decision that became a marketing decision because...
Dark Culture
How the only South Asian promoter in Bushwick techno built differently
Me as the only South Asian guy promoting techno in Bushwick. That sentence appeared in two separate conversations with two...
Dark Culture
The serial optimizer: same brain, different domain
The pattern is locked in. Enter a domain. Learn the system deeply. Identify the inefficiencies. Build systems to fix them....
Dark Culture
The rave-to-politics pipeline has a date: 2040
The date is 2040. Not approximate. Not aspirational. Specific. The same way an event has a date and a venue...
Dark Culture
Cancel culture doesn’t work with real techno people
The techno underground has a natural immune system against cancel culture. Not because it is morally superior or politically enlightened,...
Dark Culture
I taught myself everything with ChatGPT and spite
Four hundred and eleven conversations with an AI taught me more about running a business than any degree I almost...
Dark Culture
Spite was the ignition. Infrastructure is the engine.
There is a moment in every revenge plot where the plot gets bigger than the revenge. Most people never reach...
Dark Culture
The cult started in New Jersey, not Mexico
Everyone assumes this started in Mexico City. The timeline supports that assumption — CDMX is where the first events happened,...
Dark Culture
The loneliest profession in the world
Rave promoter is the loneliest profession in the world. You are surrounded by 500 people who came because of decisions...
Dark Culture
75% of the world doesn’t like dark music. Good.
Seventy-five percent of the US population does not like listening to dark music. There is statistically no point in trying...
Dark Culture
Dark music saved my life (and killed a friend)
I was asking myself why I liked dark music, and the answer surprised me. It was not about genre or...
Dark Culture
From rave promoter to political candidate: the pipeline
Running a rave teaches you everything you need to know about running a campaign. The voter is just a raver...
Dark Culture
Spite as fuel: the revenge plot that became an institution
Every founder has an origin story. Most of them are polished. Mine starts with a guest list rejection and a...
Dark Culture
The dead friend who started it all
She died of an overdose after I cut off the friendship. I had hooked up with her and then ended...
Dark Culture
The SLIST doctrine
Every organization has values. Most of them are corporate filler — aspirational nonsense designed to look good on a website...
Dark Culture
About: Why I share curated entertainment lists
Sharing recommendations with like minded people is the best sli.st is a reference to S tier lists. I’ve found that...
Dark Culture
Dark culture across all mediums
Cultures express shared attitudes, values, and practices. Dark culture is a subculture that explores the human condition, prompts introspection, investigates...
Dark Culture
I threw up on the dance floor and fell in love with rave culture
I started raving in early 2021. I was 24, chain-smoking through a quarter-life crisis, looking for parties during the pandemic...