Shopping bag.

Indeed, we tend to think of our influencers as being in gilded cages; but Raven cribs from his own life with glee—he has opinions, and a couple of decades working in the fickle world of fashion, from which to pull. “Give me matter, and I will construct a world out of it!”, the philosopher Immanuel Kant once said—Raven’s M.O. is similar, the raw materials of a 2007-era Britney screenshot and a day’s Brexit news being all he needs to take a pot shot: “None of us are above the endorphin hit of a post going off—I’m the same as any other consumer, as well as being a broadcaster.”Raven stands apart from most online commentators for other reasons. There’s his name, with that gothic pull, and then a suburban coda; like the moniker of a Tim Burton character. His laugh is ripe, and comes unbidden from deep within—like a Pharaoh emerging from centuries of darkness to hear the world’s best knock-knock joke. His booming voice and rapid-fire cultural nous bring to mind the dreamy substitute teacher you always wanted (fitting given his role as visiting lecturer at Central Saint Martin’s). Cresting into adulthood and fame as Creative Director for Nowness, the site under Raven became a go-to creative reference point for the industry, with now-notorious hits such as Matt Lambert’s sweat video or Lil Buck’s Fondation Louis Vuitton dance. It may chide other writers to hear the pitching process for Raven’s book happened in reverse; he was DM-d by his publisher, rather than the other way around.