[SIC] #119: Silhouette Dreams

December 17, 2020

Hi all.

I frequently get asked how I make the [SIC] digest each week, and how I discover everything I include. Long story short, I read a lot. A lesson I took from a mentor, Randy Irwin,  was to start the day with a quiet hour or two just absorbing the news each morning. A couple of years ago I started cutting and pasting links into a running list each week, to share with colleagues at VICE. The newsletter was born.

After collecting links throughout the week, on Thursdays I find themes to bucket related items. Stories I find organically credit the publisher directly. Links with “via” means I pulled the story from a newsletter I subscribe to. And links with “from” means a [SIC] subscriber sent me a suggestion - they’re the people I thank in these intros. To that end, thanks to Syd, Dersu, Ben, and Isaac for contributions this week - appreciated as always. Keep them coming.

I was set to do a [SIC] Talks (my video companion to the newsletter) with friend and music legend Walter Schreifels (Quicksand, Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, Rival Schools, Walking Concert, etc etc), but we’ve had to postpone - so I thought I’d point you back to all the previous episodes, in case you’ve missed them. Have a look (or just listen) and let me know what you think and who you’d like me to talk to next. A huge thanks to all who’ve indulged me with their time and opinions so far.

[SIC] Talks in reverse order of appearance:

• Photographer & Skateboard Company Owner Stephen Vanasco

• Entrepreneur, Influencer & Podcaster Pia Baroncini

• Highsnobiety Co-Founder Jeff Carvalho

• Brand Consultant & Podcaster Chris Black 

• Shopify VP of Influencer & Entertainment Jon Wexler

• Revlon ECD Ruba Abu Nimah

• Warner Media Lab VP, Head of Creative Matthew Davis

• Harley-Davidson VP Marketing Theo Keetell

• Clubhouse Head of Community Steph Simon 

• CMO Consultant and author Ana Andjelic

• PSFK & Retail Innovation Week founder Piers Fawkes 

• Manchester United Head of Investor Relations Corinna Freedman

• Apple Design’s Alyse Archer-Coite

• Producer and Director Jauretsi Saizarbitoria

• Lighting Orchard co-founder & Chief Creative Jeff Kling 

• The Front founder & CEO Thalia Mavros 

• Vistaprint CMO Ricky Engelberg

til next week,

Ben

===== [SIC] #119: Silhouette Dreams =====

The Virtual Life: 

• Lil Miquela’s giving ‘live’ advice now. (Instagram) 

• Snap is launching Bitmoji Paint, a new game inside of Snapchat where hundreds of players can contribute to one massive collage. (Venture Beat) 

• While Facebook publicly launched Collab, its experimental app that allows artists to collaborate on short music videos.(TechCrunch)

• And Facebook is coming for Cameo, with a new video product called Super that will enable celebrities and others to charge for live interactions with fans (Fortune) 

• Via Music Redef: How Riot Games Brought Its Virtual Band K/DA To Life & Created Their ‘All Out’ EP (Engadget) 

• Via Axios: I Am A Man VR Experience places participants at the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Worker’s Strike 

• And via Protocol - the best way to play Cyberpunk 2077 probably isn't on your console, but through Google Stadia. In a browser (The Verge)

Making Content Werk: 

• Is The Future of Journalism Is Tiny, Targeted, and Timely? (Medium)

• Related: The rise of the Journalist Influencer (Nieman Lab) 

• Duly, the launch of Substack Reader, a “new” feature that’s just for you and your newsletters. (Substack)

• Because, via Simon Owens: It's never been easier for independent creators to monetize their content, and it feels like we're still at the beginning of the creator boom. (Axios) 

• CCI has an intriguing thought: Content-Commerce Could Be a Lifeline for Universities in Need of Foreign Students

• Case in point: a true influencer program. Inside Walmart's growing army of employee TikTokers (ModernRetail)

• And via the Media Nut: VICE becomes the first media publisher to launch on OnlyFans (Axios)

• Related: hia Branded: How many news articles are labeled as “unsafe”? Umm, a LOT. Ranking by publisher here.  But brand safety tools appear to be unable filter for extremist & white supremacist websites?!! (Adalytics)

• To monetize news differently, Axios is entering into the software licensing business with a new tool (Digiday) 

• While via Future Party: Roc Nation and book publisher Random House are getting in the studio together covering topics such as “music, sports, pop culture, activism, and art.”

• Brooklyn Magazine relaunched (bkmag)

• Boy.Brother.Friend is a London-based men's journal that seeks to investigate – and multiply – definitions of "masculinity," with a specific focus on communities of the African diaspora (032c) 

That’s Entertainment: 

• NYT’s “Future of Entertainment” chat lacked the promised Caramanica appearance but is worth watching. 

• Related: New Samsung TVs are getting a TikTok app (Tech Radar)  

• While elsewhere in Taylor Lorenz, via Public Announcement: The New Influencer Capital of America is Atlanta. (NYT) 

• While “Silver Foxes” Are The Latest KOL Craze In China (Jing Daily) 

• A TikTok Stripper Got 1.9 Million Followers With Her Wild Stories. But Are They True? (Playboy)

• Via Protocol: Andreessen Horowitz published an interesting series on why they think social is back.

• And Wired says The Future of Social Media Is All Talk.

• Hence, via Protocol: Discord's new party games feature is going to be a big deal (Twitter) 

Platforming: 

• Via Protocol: Amazon education? The company announced a free cloud-computing training service to train 29 million people in technical skills they need for cloud services jobs. (WSJ) 

• From Isaac Dietz: “In a bizarre display; Google assistant played [this track] in response to [5 year old] Albert requesting to 'play Hanukkah music from long long ago.’ Then I asked what was playing, the Google voice narrated his 'Omniciense' byline metadata description which is 500 words.”

• Related? Via Protocol: Spotify unions staged a work stoppage.

• How Grindr Changed Gay Life Forever (Frieze) 

Music Makes the World Go Round: 

• Via Music Redef: Troy Carter: ‘The music industry has to change the business model (MBW) 

• Related: Bandcampreinvented the end-of-year list. 

• Róisín Murphy and Bráulio Amado discuss their collaboration and the relationship between music and design (It’s Nice That) 

• Roisin adjacent: Your Disco Needs You  (Frieze)

• Speaking of needs, "Divine Chord" is exactly the Avalanches jam I needed this week. The whole new album is a pleasure, too. (Spotify) 

• On The Face you'll find a rave-ready mix from NYC producer MoMa.

• While our buddy, Kenzo Minami made a  City Pop playlist (Instagram)  

• Related, from Dersu Rhodes:  "I think you’ll dig this [new mix of hopeful tunes for dark times]" (Soundcloud)

• Somehow the Clash’s “Magnificent Seven” has never had a video. Now it does. (Youtube)

• And via Music Redef, it’s got an oral history, too. (Consequence of Sound) 

• Elsewhere on in Times Square: Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical to become an actual one-night Broadway-style show (The Verge) 

Arts & Artists: 

• S/o our buddy Leo Fitzpatrick. The Downtown galleries making the scene cool and accessible again. (GQ)

• Via Lean Luxe: A new platform puts London’s emerging art scene. On the map (literally). The Art Newspaper

• Lordess Foutre’s work on IG is cyber gothic greatness. (Instagram)

• Miranda July’s short film translates David Hockney’s painting of Nichols Canyon into something breathless and sweet (Instagram)

• The Contact hip hop photo show  landed in Abu Dhabi. (Instagram) 

Brandalism: 

• Via Protocol: Tesla ditched its PR team, which actually makes sense give the rabid stan culture for the brand. (CNN) 

• While Via The Drum: Burger King is offering up its Instagram account to local restaurants in the UK impacted by new COVID lockdown. 

Fashions: 

• GQ says buy the blob. 

• From Syd: “Woahhhhhh. Have you seen this?” [Khaite’s AR Fashion Experience]

• The Ametora Edition of WITI is excellent for anyone into Japanese brands and trends (David Marx’s book is a must, too) Key Quote: “There are barely any Japanese young people left. Youth have never made up a smaller portion of the Japanese population” 

• Corollary, trom Ben Pruess: The ReBurberry Fabric project takes the brand’s dead fabric stock and redistributes it across the UK to young designers in need. (i-D) 

Gifts, Shopping & Retail: 

• This is fun: Lean Luxe created an open Google Sheets gift guide, and anyone can edit at the link here. Here's the caveat: the gift idea should NOT be most practical––in fact, the more ridiculous and creative, the better.

• This Sample Sale shirt is 📌

• Gift guide:  Timberlands fashion enough to be a statement but easily worn normal under jeans. Plus, made in part from recycled bottles. Also plus, cheap on sale! (Timberland) 

• The Harper’s Book sale is great visual stimuli and a prime spot to find something for the choosiest culturati you know. (Harpersbooks) 

• Related: Give accessible art: Nina Chanel-Abney’s limited edition Uno set is awesome (Mattel Creations) 

• Better yet, give original art: our buddy Andrew Kuo’s “Seinfeld Flowers" are fresh color for an overcast season (Instagram)

More good news 🤦‍♂️:

• Meanwhile, (the other)Andrew Kuo captures Noam Chomsky on the Future of Deep Learning (Towards Data Science)

• Oh and Lack of Sleep Could Be a Problem for AIs. Some types of artificial intelligence could start to hallucinate if they don’t get enough rest, just as humans do (Scientific American)

• The Grinch is bots. (The Washington Post)

• Helpful, as Facebook Say It's Developing A Tool To Read Your Brain (BuzzFeed)  

• While Netflix explains how it uses AI to sell you on a show (Engadget)

• And The Pandemic has turned us all into hoarders (Medium)

Shared Spaces: 

• Midtown Is Reeling. Should Its Offices Become Apartments? (NYT) 

• Dezeen's top 10 US architecture projects of 2020. 

Elsewhere: 

• The Dork Web on The Heirloom Computer. Imagine Apple taking Patek Phillippe’s approach…(Substack)

• Via 1440: Scotland names all its snowplows—and the names are great.

• And Via WITI: America’s Short, Violent Love Affair With Indoor Track Cycling (Atlas Obscura)

• Corollary: Via Future Party: “Fuckin Tubas.” Ts & Ps for Johnny Knoxville & Steve-O. (NME)  

Final Thought: 

• When young men in Chicago were asked what it would take for them to put down their guns, the response was stunning: A legal job paying just $12 or $13 an hour — less than Chicago’s $14/hour minimum wage. It's proof that people often end up involved in criminal behavior out of necessity, and when you give them an exit plan, they take it. (Reasons to be Cheerful). 

===== [SIC] #119: Silhouette Dreams =====