Culture Signals 1.5.20: The Origin Story

Cheat Codes

I’m very comfortable writing so all of this return to blogging feels like riding a bike. Truth be told I was blogging before it was called blogging and an influencer before the term influencer. (Yes, I am Keyinfluencer on Twitter) In 1996 while I was an executive at Columbia Records I built an email newsletter that I worked on in my office, late at night and in between music video shoots and artist in-store appearances. New York City felt like a big high school to me and my desire was to tell the stories of those of who worked behind the scenes every day. My theory was that we were making the toys that the world played with and as toymakers we should know each other. We were the “Gepettos of culture” with each of responsible for items, icons, movements that were driving the voice or “urban America".” These people were my friends and we shared town car vouchers in New York City, bottles of champagne in Miami and suites at the Nikko in Los Angeles. There would be no Bad Boy, …