Prologue 000 - How My Father Became a Ghost
My Origin of Sameness
LifestyleCulture
10 min read
Half Mad andWholly Interested.Hunting "The Uniquely Human" in thisMachine World
Let's make an even trade. You give me your attention. I give you a rip-roaring ride into the jaws of 'Non-fungible' life through entrepreneurship, taste, lifestyle, tech, culture, risk, reinvention. This is a survival epic for the creators who refused to be clones.Shapeshyfter is a story-based, character-driven studio following a Cultural Bounty Hunter's search for sovereignty, uniqueness, taste and meaning in the age of machines.If we're still on speaking terms, a manifesto named The Hunt awaits your eyeballs. Step inside.
Currently Hunting
Exploring the Japanese philosophy of MaBuilding a science fiction novel called ShapeshyfterInvestigating what makes human creativity irreplaceableLearning Brazilian PortugueseDocumenting the art of slow living in fast citiesExploring the Japanese philosophy of MaBuilding a science fiction novel called ShapeshyfterInvestigating what makes human creativity irreplaceableLearning Brazilian PortugueseDocumenting the art of slow living in fast cities
The Map
Every path leads to different adventure. Pick your poison. Choose well.
Maison Shapeshyfter
Highly whimsical. Character-led. Designed to entertain and upgrade you mentally (knowledge) and soulfully (taste). Shipped twice a week'ish. Hunting craftspeople, makers, and uninterchangeable lives across the globe at great expense to myself. While the world laments over A.I doom and gloom, you'll find me inside digging my teeth in fun bits like Tech, Lifestyle, Creativity, Design, and Philosophy... filtered through Neflix style narrative. What fun!
Subscribe→The Deep Woods (Apollos)
How about a confession? I have more swinging moods than reckless teenagers. I blog mostly when the mood strikes. Once a week. Three times a week when I'm feeling uncharted. For readers who want a closer relationship with Shape and his ideas.
Read Apollos→Thrillz Skillz and Mail (Paid)
I have it on good authority A.I will completely change the creator economy, solopreneurship, entrepreneurship as we know it. A.I will turn brands you know and love into relics. I'm racing ahead of it by hurling a massive astroid at traditional business, brand, media, and creative studio building. Doing so with the garage door flung wide open. Maybe, just maybe, this cockamamie idea will thrive in the age of machines.
Join TS&M→Before the hunt, I drowned in sameness
Before you dive into the main quest, you need to understand where Shape came from, and why he's hunting what he's hunting.
Prologue 001 - I Don't Know You
The Night I Decided to Become Uninterchangeable
LifestyleCulture
8 min read
Prologue 002 - The Illegal Sausage Operation
Bucharest, Strawberries, and What It Means to Be Seen
LifestyleCulture
6 min read
Meet Shape
I'm Alexander "Shape" Dolly, a Shapeshyfter. By day I help brands escape sameness on multiple fronts - futurist, worldbuilder, storyteller. My work is grounded in the interplay between culture, creativity, technology and humanity. By night, I develop taste by collecting stories, ideas, and artifacts that remind us what it means to be irreplaceably human. This space is my attempt to curate the uncommon - moments, creative work, people, and ideas that machines can't replicate. If Anthony Bourdain, Virgil Abloh, Leonardo da Vinci, and Lara Croft raised an inner-city kid, you'd have me. I don't fit in boxes. I tried to. Then I stopped.
Learn More About MeWork With Me
Hire a Shapeshyfter
We have a common enemy - sameness. Brands, creators, and entrepeneurs find their way here when they have a disposable problem. Interchangeable. Like every other key player in their space. I work with visionaries who refuse to be a dead ringers. Let's shake a few trees and find what makes you irreplaceable.
Get Clear
Define your world, discover your narrative, curate your worldview.
Get Building
Build your world one layer at a time.
Become Uninterechangable
Build a brand AI can't touch and communities can't leave.
Join the Uninterchangeable
When I was young I looked like a bucktooth aardvark. I wanted to be good at everything like my best friend Drew. I still remember going to high school parties and watching him make the jocks skedaddle. The girls belly laugh. Drew could charm a rattlesnake. Won every pick up game. Killed every talent show. Ace every test. Cook. Swim like a Sturgeon. Throw a football 70 yards. We lost touch for almost two decades. Then, summer of 2018, I saw Drew at Trader Joe's. Looked lobotomized, mummified and strung out. Waiting for his next social security payout. I footed a week's supply of food. Turns out Drew excelled at everything except timing. He couldn't keep a job. Pay a bill on time. Take advantage of opportunity. Keep relationships. He had skills but no strategy. How much time do we have until A.I takes the jobs, our identity, makes us all the same? Six months? A year? Two? How long will you wait until you realize your future sovereignty needs to be built now. In an era of algorithmic sameness and artificial intelligence, the most radical act is to become deeply, uninterchangebly human.
No spam. Just dribbles from the frontlines of human creativity.