Here we are, it’s August, I’m on vacation and probably you are too – and yet I’m publishing my weekly article, the one that drops every Friday on your tickers and is just as inevitable as taxes, daily shitshows and death.
In doing so, I realize that, however much I may deny it, I am a perfect post-capitalist product, inhabited by a will for both performance and performativity.
The difference, you may ask?
Performance refers to the ability of an individual, a company, or a system to achieve measurable objectives (think productivity, growth, revenue, school grades, the number of likes on social networks, etc.). Performance can be quantified and compared, and in a capitalist or even post-capitalist logic where the human being is also a product, everyone must prove that they are performing, i.e., useful and/or profitable.
Here, nothing is profitable – and that’s intentional, because nothing is monetized. But nonetheless, I still cling to my own little personal performance of publishing weekly. The goal is measurable – one article per week – and I measure and quantify my performance too, since I check the site’s statistics once a week to assess its progress. I hope, in some way, to be useful. I’ve always told myself that I might never convince people whose opinions are diametrically opposed to mine, but at the very least I could provide people with similar opinions the arguments they don’t have time to dig up themselves (because they’re not as psychotic as I am).
I hope to be useful with my words and my photos – and that’s where I am also performative.
Performativity refers to the fact that an act or a discourse produces a reality by enacting or delivering it. In a capitalist or post-capitalist world, performativity lies in the capacity of words, numbers, economic models, or images to create the reality they describe.
What am I doing here? Beyond the fact that I am indeed a perfect post-capitalist product – since the photos of myself scattered across this site are meant to make it attractive, because I am in the realm of performance (oh, the vicious circle) – I am also creating my own reality, made of words and images that I hope extend to you, my dear readers – otherwise I wouldn’t be publishing at all. And because the themes I explore are always more or less the same – digital life, real life, cinema, literature, and museums – because they resonate within me, the collection of articles published here ends up weaving a web which, after ten years, has almost created an autonomous ecosystem where each article responds to another.
One example among a thousand: if I write here about the Versailles castle, that leads to Marie-Antoinette, Stefan Zweig, Sofia Coppola, classism and therefore politics, all unfolded in independent articles, each from a completely different angle.
In short: it’s disheartening to realize that I am a capitalist or even post-capitalist product, both performing and performative, while at the same time believing that capitalism and its post-evolutions are utterly rotten and foul.
It’s time to stop writing, it’s time to stop reading. That’s the best service I can render us today: let’s go enjoy our holidays.
Dolce & Gabbana dress – Chanel clutch – Dior belt – Tom Ford sunglasses – Louboutin heels
August 21, 2026
