Last week I published “Becoming Chinese,” about the trend that should have gotten cancelled but didn’t. Chinese creators invited the internet to adopt their daily practices, and the internet said yes. No accusations of appropriation. Something closer to communion.

Writing it, I realized the piece had a framework buried inside it. The line between cultural participation and cultural extraction isn’t intent. Everyone has good intent. The line is structure.

I wanted to see if I could map what that structure actually requires.

The diagnostic is where most brands fail. They design elaborate guest experiences for communities they want to reach without anyone to answer the door.

No hosts, no invitation. No invitation, no exchange. Just tourism with a media budget.

Perhaps this framework is useful to you. If so, please use it and pass it along. I'll keep exploring how frameworks emerge from the deeper work on participation. This one struck me because I have experience with a brand built on hosting in a completely different context. Yerba Madre (formerly Guayakí), the leading yerba mate brand, was founded on service and sharing. In the language of this framework, they were hosts long before they were marketers and it is a core reason why they have such a passionate community built around their product.