Napoleon understood early on that clothing is never just clothing. As Frédéric Godart recounts, in a calculated gesture, Bonaparte would dress in the simple uniforms of his soldiers while simultaneously wearing the insignia of an emperor. That contrast allowed him to project both proximity and authority. It wasn’t fashion—it was power.

“We are not told what to think, but how to overthink.” This phrase—a sharp synthesis of how media operates in the era of narrative capitalism—captures the way symbolic structures shape not only our desires, but also the boundaries of what we believe is possible.

Every culture produces symbols, but not every individual has agency over them. In an era where power has shifted from volume to representation, mastering the symbolic is not aesthetic frivolity—it is an ontological strategy.

This year marks a decade since I stepped into a university classroom—not as a student, but as a professor.

I was 26. Fresh out of my second degree in Graphic Design, I was invited to teach Editorial Design and Print Production at UJMD, my alma mater and the place where I had just finished a beautiful double academic journey in Communications and Design.

Ugly on purpose, sad on the feed, and spiritually glittery: welcome to the new aesthetic order.

Let’s face it. A new wave of aesthetic standards has taken over, and it’s not here to please your mom, your design professor, or even your inner minimalist.

Sometimes ideas arrive in the quietest moments—on a random Tuesday when I’m calm enough to notice them. They don’t wait until I’m sitting at my desk, though that is where I prefer to be. My office is my refuge, a place where I can lay out the words like small offerings. But more often than I’d like to admit, I end up writing on my phone, collecting sentences before they slip away.