{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title":"Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism  The Value of Selection, Narration, and Expertise in New Media Cultures","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781032023007","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","uuid":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title":"Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism  The Value of Selection, Narration, and Expertise in New Media Cultures","normalized_title":"curationintheageofplatformcapitalismthevalueofselectionnarrationandexpertiseinnewmediacultures","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781032023007","isbns":["9781032023007","9781032023014","9781003182801"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":177,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Curation%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20Platform%20Capitalism%20%20The%20Value%20of%20Selection%2C%20Narration%2C%20and%20Expertise%20in%20New%20Media%20Cultures","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/search"},"page":{"printed_page":105,"pdf_page":115,"physical_index":115,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"fa82823b7b1a4dd7c5f11705bb637e06a5b97caa61e401f186cc4f162ac0d284"},"chapter":"CURATION IN THE AGE OF PLATFORM CAPITALISM","content":"5.2 Experiences and Authenticity in Business Literature\n\nKatya’s mobilization of the babushka as a means to curate an Airbnb Experience is evocative of a business literature that, at least since the late 1990s, has emphatically dealt with the concept of “experience” and its commodification. This literature suggests that economizing experiences is the business answer to the new hyper-informational world that renders consumption homogenous and unexciting (e.g., Lewis and Bridger, 2011; Pine and Gilmore, 2011). The idea of experience as a separate economic unit was popularized in 1999 [2011] with the book The Experience Economy by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, whose influence has been significant in marketing, tourism, and management studies. Pine and Gilmore suggest that businesses need to think of themselves as theatrical settings that can provide experiences to the emerging new customer of the information age, who is increasingly willing to pay for narratives, memories, and unique moments. The atmosphere around consumption, to repeat Böhme’s critical thesis, marks its potential for economic exchange. Pine and Gilmore ofer the example of cofee beans; when harvested they cost 1–2 cents per cup, when sold as a good in a store they cost up to 25 cents per cup, when sold in a fast food chain they costs up to 50 cents per cup, and when ofered in a café in Saint Marco’s Square in Venice the same quantity of cofee can reach up to 15 dollars. This dramatic price diference between a fast-food chain and a café in Saint Marco, the authors argue, occurs because in the latter the consumer has a memorable story to tell; while the actual drinking experience of the two is almost the same, the atmosphere around “Saint Marco” curates a unique moment that increases the experience’s value.3\n\nPine and Gilmore, however, go a step further arguing that the economization of experiences is key for maintaining a global regime of capital accumulation and growth,4 stressing in the updated edition of the book in 2011 that “goods and services are no longer enough to foster economic growth, create new jobs, and maintain economic prosperity” (2011: ix); even more dramatically, they later claim that the focus on goods and services “leads down the road of economic austerity” as experiences hold “the key to promoting economic prosperity” (2013: 20). Companies should be staging themselves “as in a theatrical play” (Pine; Gilmore, 2011: 3), as the consumers should sense, remember, and communicate the products. In a saturated world of sameness and information overload, the capacity to frame a product around memorable stories is a professional skill for winning the hearts and wallets of the consumers. Or, as in the example with which we started this chapter, the consumer does not pay for cooking pelmeni but pays for cooking pelmeni with babushka, which promises the feeling of “cooking authentically”.5 As we shall see later, with the purposeful selection of rare and local ingredients in restaurant curation, the feeling of “cooking authentically” codifies a sense of sophistication and prestige that subsequently negotiates forms of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1987).\n\nThe Babushka–Nonna Experience\n\n105","previous_page":104,"next_page":106}