[SIC] 114: Sletter Weather

November 12, 2020

Hi all, last weekend’s warm temps and bright sun were perfect for a long-awaited celebration, so we start this week with some parliamentary procedure, so to speak, before diving into a raft of new developments, trends, stuff to read and listen to as the weather turns colder again. Hope you like it. Thanks for the contributions Tim, Matthew, Kevin and Syd - keep ‘em coming. That goes for the rest of you, too. Almost 1000 people have joined the list since [SIC] moved to Substack a few months ago, and you’re all invited to send stuff that catches your eye.

Meantime, here we go.

Ben

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New President!

• Biden Win Brings Promise of Predictability for Brands-With a Few Caveats (Adweek)

• Marketing Dive on the same (but different).

• 2020 was the first-ever presidential election where people cast votes via smartphone (Fast Company)

• Related, and love to see it: TikTok users troll Trump "voter fraud" reporting hotline en masse(Ars Technica)

• And from Tim Nolan: “MUST SEE” : [https://djtrumplibrary.com/] Key quote: "Let’s just say a small architecture firm has grown exhausted of the turmoil, lawlessness, hypocrisy, and general hopelessness caused by the Trump Administration and our team wanted to go on the record about our feelings on the matter."

New Tactics: 

• Meet the professional memers (Vox)

• Oh, cool: 'Humaning' Is The Latest Marketing Buzzword. Thanks, Mondelez (Ad Age)

• Meanwhile: Chipotle leans into burritos to go with first digital-only restaurant (WaPo)

• Corollary, from Matthew Davis: “And still there is no pickle emoji.”[Miracle Seltzer x Pickle Rick] (Twitter) 

• Adweek on same: Rick and Morty's Pickle Rick Now Has Its Own Pickle-Flavored Miracle Seltzer (Adweek)

• Meet the New Online Luxury Retailer: Sotheby’s (Jing Daily) 

• While Christie’s to Auction off Comprehensive Collection of Rare NASA Photographs (Hypebeast) 

• Via Future of Transportation: BMW plans to offer software subscription for speed traps  (Auto News) 

• Allbirds will raise prices on Black Friday to fight climate change. The shoes-n-stuff brand will raise prices on all its items by $1, while pledging to match an additional $1, with the extra money going toward Greta Thunberg's Fridays for Future. (Retail Dive) 

• While High Snob x Allbirds: present Waves of Change, a collaborative platform to educate consumers on climate change and sustainability

• Electronic Arts is world-renowned for huge video game franchises like "Madden NFL" and "Apex Legends,"  is devoted to making something it's not as well known for: TV shows. 

• Meanwhile, Singles' Day Is No Longer About Discounts, It’s About Entertainment. Key Quote: "To a non-Chinese audience, it's pretty cringy, but it speaks volumes about Alibaba's budget for splashy entertainment, and competitors have had to ramp up their offerings to stay in the game."  (Content Commerce Insider)

• And via Vogue: Snapchat grows on TikTok ban in India (Fast Company) 

• Related; “We will rock you” becomes “we will serve you” during Alibaba’s 2020 gala (Twitter)

New Trends / Movements: 

• Trend seers forecast the Return of Rock @ 8Ball (Substack)

• And via The Future Party: OKCupid’s The Future of Dating report 

• While Colorado’s New Family Leave Law Could Transform Fatherhood (Reasons to be Cheerful) 

• Via Reset Work: Companies are recruiting Black board members at an accelerating pace. The largest publicly traded US companies appointed 130 Black board members since George Floyd’s death, compared to 38 in the prior five months, and Amazon is banning the use of noninclusive technical terms. They include "white/black lists," "master and slave," and "black/white days.”

• Related: The Business of Blackfishing (BoF) 

• Corollary: Brands, it’s time to enter the ring: brand safety automation doesn’t work, and is constantly being re-engineered by AdTech firm; post election it’ll get worse. (Branded.Substack) 

New Media /New Sletters:

• The New York Times’ visual editor Tracy Ma discusses what makes a successful editorial package. (It’s Nice That)

• While The Wall Street Journal’s innovation chief on the future of media in a pandemic (The Drum) 

• Via A Media Operator: Digiday wrote a piece recently about Inc’s strategy of letting subscribers text its columnists.

• While Via Protocol: Bloomberg has launched a new streaming network. (Broadband TV News) 

• And Quartz is back to being independent. 

• Not Boring’s latest newsletter is a 10 for 1 recap of Not Boring newsletters. Lots of digital economy  info to be gleaned if you got down the rabbit hole. (Substack) 

• Design trend gawd Kyle Chayka on TikTok (Substack)

• Via The Media Nut: GroupM North American CEO Kirk McDonald on fixing media (Ad Age)

• On the other hand: Rishad’s new Substack post is a great one for anybody currently touting digital data over intuition / experience. Read closely. And then subscribe to his newsletter. 

• Elsewhere: How Substack became home to big-name journalists who felt “the Youngs” in newsrooms were putting wokeness ahead of important ideas (Airmail)

• And its long-read sister piece about The NYT’s generational reckoning with itself (NYMag)

New Reading / Viewing: 

• For those venturing out-of-doors, there’s a new issue of Forget Art Mag, which you can find IRL at places like Rough Trade (Instagram) 

• Season Tickets is  a weekly visual dose of cultural inspiration from the minds at the excellent, NBA-obsessed Franchise magazine. Get a feel for the vibes with their playlist here. (Substack / Apple Music)

New Music / Listening: 

• Speaking of playlists: how my favorite PLHyperpop grew into a big deal (NYT)

• Bonus for the unfamiliar: my song of the week/ hyperpoption genre example. Yes, I sincerely like this.  (YouTube)

• What the kids are listening to: Apple Music added 10 new playlists aimed at Gen Z, including one with TikTok hits. (TechCrunch) 

• How Long Gone Radio is what last week’s [SIC] Talks guest Chris Black and buddy Jason Stewart are listening to, from Wilco to Nav to Kylie Minogue to drum n’ bass. Episode 2 here (Spotify) 

• Via The Fader: Techno is now officially music in Germany (Instagram)

• Tangential to that: The Carry Nation's day-long Fall Feature 2020 DJ set goes one and on (Early and Late) in the best way. (Soundcloud)

• And Christine Renee’s two-hour tribute mix to Balearic club legend Jose Padilla for The Lot Radio is great too. (Soundcloud) 

• Via the Slowdown: Max Richter’s epic eight-and-a-half-hour-long musical cycle titled “Sleep,” which he described as “protest music against this sort of very super-industrialized, intense, mechanized way of living right now,” is now an app of the same name. (maxrichter.com) 

• A new series from Morning Consult takes a deep dive into the world of podcasting to gauge listeners' attitudes on everything from the impact of host-read ads to their favorite podcast genres. 

New Cool Stuff (Design/AR/VR)

• Via 1440: The internet can now be delivered via light beams (Ars Technica)

• Speaking of Chris Black, he called a moratorium on these jokes but…. the internet's hottest new club is Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Via Protocol, @Coopertom recreated the Trump campaign's bizarre press conference locale in VRChat and held a furry party outside. Coming next: the crematorium and sex shop that are next door to the real FSTL. (Twitter)  

• Related: via The Future Party: Upland, a digital property buying and trading game that contains real-world addresses, is letting users buy and sell virtual properties. Buy your neighbor’s house using bitcoin and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which can then be converted into U.S. dollars via Paypal. (Venturebeat) 

• Judy Chicago’s latest work is AR that virtually recreates the effects of her “Atmospheres" series from the late 1960s (It’s Nice That) 

• Roblox is getting into the virtual concert game with Lil Nas X first up. (TechCrunch)

New Histories: 

• The life and fabulous times of Babs de K, the quintessial 70s “It Girl”(Christies) 

• Via Public Announcement: The McCarren Park Pool Parties: An Oral History. For a short time, a dry and run-down community pool in Brooklyn was the center of the creative cool-shit universe. (we’llhavetopass)

• Via Music Redef: This mini-documentary on HÜSKER DÜ, part of an ongoing TWIN CITIES PBS series on1980s Minnesota hardcore (tptoriginals.org)

New Food Type Face Ass:

• Inside McDonald's bold-but maybe not bold enough-strategy to turn customers into super fans (Fast Company)

• In parallel: The Death of the $15 Salad from old buddy Moe Tkacik for Marker (Medium)

• Via Future Perfect: Meat alternatives are tearing down the idea that eating animals is normal, natural, and necessary. A Q&A with Melanie Joy (Vox) 

• And Via Elevator: Five Lies you’ve been told about meat (Mel Magazine)

• From Syd Allen-Ash: "Hi hi hi, for SIC - just watched this film [Gather] about indigenous communities in the States reclaiming & rebuilding their relationships with food, super beautiful. A NYT Critics pick” (gather.film)

New “Kouchural" Initiatives: 

• Via Kouch Culture: UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has partnered with the Museums Association and The Liminal Space to launch a new £200k Digital Innovation and Engagement fund for museums (OpenAccessGovernment)

New Events: 

• On Nov. 17-18, DealBook is holding its first Online Summit with newsmakers in business, policy and culture to explore the pivotal questions of the moment — and the future. Watch for free from anywhere in the world (NYTimes) 

• From Kevin Johanessen: investor guy Jason Calacanis has a book club. Next up: Monday, November 16th at 6PM PST, they’ll be discussing & sharing insights on No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings. (Launch.co)

New Ways to Look at The World: 

• Researchers have developed facial recognition for bears (NYT) 

• Which begs the question, has AI finally closed in on human intelligencing? (FT Magazine) 

• But seriously, via Protocol: want to make AI work? Do it at a tech giant, DeepMind investor Humayun Sheikh says. (CNBC) 

New Conversation Starters for Millennials: 

• Via @Richard_Quintero:  [SIC] buddy Todd Jordan interviews the Glue Skateboards gang, charting the origins of the queer-centric company (Thrasher) 

• How UK Rap and Grime helped make Cafe East the best brunch spot in London (The FACE) 

Finally, New Piercings: 

• Up the puns! 032c gives adidas Originals' Campus a "Prince Albert"(Hypebeast)

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