Author: Thom Fain
The Debt We Owe the Future (Which the Future May Not Be Able to Pay)
The entire global economy is a bet that tomorrow will be better than today. Not in a vague, inspirational way. In a literal, mathematical, load-bearing way. The system requires it. The system was designed to require it. And for eighty years, that design has more or less worked, which is exactly the kind of track record that makes people assume it will work forever, which is exactly the kind of assumption that precedes the moment when it doesn’t.
Shopping Malls Are the Most Honest Economist in Any Country | ショッピングモール万歳
Not many Americans born after the Reagan Administration can afford a house, and American shopping malls look like set pieces from a post-apocalyptic film where the zombies got bored and left. The Duffer Brothers set an entire season of Stranger Things in a thriving 1980s shopping mall, and the scariest thing about it wasn’t the interdimensional monster—it was that the food court was full.
Chinese Democracy and Other Sunk Costs: A Theory of the AI Bubble
By: Thom Fain You wanna know what I think about sometimes: Remember when Axl Rose spent $13 million recording Chinese Democracy over fourteen years, and everyone assumed Geffen Records would […]
Hard Shots in Small Rooms: Tokyo Wrestling Nights (essay)
Originally published in Monthly Puroresu Magazine The sweat hits the canvas before the first chop lands. You can hear it – that wet slap of flesh meeting mat – and […]
My Year At STARDOM
Originally published in Monthly Puroresu …and notes on the Performative Economy of Desire There’s something profoundly weird about explaining to people how you went from getting a degree to LA […]
Touring the American Southwest & New Writing Projects
Wow, it’s been a fast few months. In Tokyo, my fiancée and I continued her visa process (and mine) and we breathed a sigh of relief when I got hired […]
Japan Life and MP Acquired! What’s Next?
After four years, my side hustle turned small business turned globally recognized brand, Monthly Puroresu, has been acquired – freeing me up to pursue other interests. And, boy have I […]
Recently Published in Via Satellite Magazine
As if everything else I produced in 2023 weren’t enough to satisfy my endless curiosity, I followed updates in the AI space rabidly, with surefire social ramifications set to come […]
MP #12, Massive Brand Update, Commentary + Video Game Copywriting!
Producing MP Issue #12, our thirteenth print edition, was an extremely challenging period for me and the team over at Monthly Puroresu. We lost some longstanding team members, and I […]
Thom Fain, Japanese Wrestling Commentator Demo Reel
December 28, 2023
Throughout an incredibly busy 2023, one of many jobs I worked was as a wrestling commentator. I was lucky enough to be paired up with ex WWE play-by-play man Jonny […]
Thom Fain