[SIC] 135: Messy Processy

April 8th, 2021

Hi all.

The sun’s shining. Got a shot last week. Got the deck set up. Feeling good.

Lots of great stuff this week. Big topics, great advice, and even a ‘link dump’ from the inimitable Iolanda. Thanks to Eric, Justin, Elva, Ben, David, Mike and of course Iolanda for their contributions this week, too.

Special shout out to Colin and Noah from the incomparable Why is This Interesting for surprising me last Friday with a re-pub of my “Skate Gaze” post from 2019. The fondness for that piece stokes me out, and it helped a bunch of new people find [SIC]. Welcome, everybody new. And for everybody else, feel free to share this with any and everybody.

Oh and speaking of: Thobey obtained the legendary missing page from the declassified CIA document and is sharing it for the first time ever as (what else?) an NFT. Truly a wild story you should share to win the Zoom call with your high school buddies.

No [SIC] Talks today but for those on Clubhouse, tomorrow (Friday 9th) the Culture Club Show I do with Jeff Carvalho, Jian DeLeon and Ruba Abu-Nimah is kicking off a three-part discussion series on Sustainability made possible by adidas that’s free to check out. Ep 1 is tomorrow at 3p.   And if you’re not on Clubhouse, reply in the comments and I’ll invite you. 

xo B

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To Begin With: 

• Have we talked about Dietz.ee yet? A “shopping mall” where every product drawing costs the same as the real life product it depicts. I have no idea if I’m related to this but it’s pretty great. 

• From Eric Matthies in reply to my “skate gaze” column last Friday: A groundbreaking study of skateboard culture. (Pullias.usc) 

• Not Boring is a worthy read each week and Monday’s post explains how it all came together (warning, covid-era mistiness, but in a good way). 

• Corollary, via the excellent The Rebooting: Web Smith has been building 2PM for the past five years. He posted the highs and lows; it’s worth reading.

Arts / Music / Reads (and of course NFTs): 

• Blondie’s original take on ‘Heart Glass’ is some spring 21 type shit (Spotify) 

• Also: via Elevator: Jack White’s favorite Zeppelin songs (Far Out Magazine)

• Corridor’s April Playlist (Spotify) 

• Via Public Announcement: The world is fast. Bad Brains are faster.(WaPo)

• The FRANCHISE Apple Music Curator series is back with Yu Su (Apple Music) 

• Jamie XX posted a new NTS show (Instagram) 

• And fave artist Alex Lukas is staging a weekend-long show of COVID paintings in a really interesting venue (Instagram) 

• The Barnicle Brothers "This Is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist," a four-part documentary series is my weekend watching. (Axios)

• Corollary: Via Sitting Pretty:  Tyrrell Winston “Moving Landscape” sculpture is pretty great.  (Hypebeast)

• From FRANCHISE’s Justin Montag:  “I wanted to share with you the lookbook to the Franchise spring drop releasing this Thursday. The line is coming out in conjunction with a new zine that incorporates images from the shirts, its an edition of 200 aaaaaand an NFT on Foundation that is an animated interpretation of the shirts and zine.“

• Debate: Via Protocol: NFTs are an art project gone awry (The Atlantic)

• Via Protocol: Getting married via NFT. (Twitter)

• David Hammons’s Empty Cathedral Echoes an Old New York (Hyperallergic) 

• Via Jing Daily: Where Do Museums Fit Into The Ever-Shifting Idea Of Home? (Museums + Heritage)

• Via Public Announcement: This collective of Illustration Agents is diversifying a white, middle class industry (itsnicethat)

Bookserton: 

• I mean, Alex Danco’s recommending books to read? I’m in. Have a look. I started “Broad Band” this week.

• Via Robinhood Snacks: Open Education Database’s 50 most influential books of all time. 

• Via Culture Club Show: Jon Moy’s co-sign for 550BC seems right on. 

  

The High Life: 

• From Elva Ramirez: The biggest question after "when can I get a covid vaccine" is…when can I start drinking? (Forbes) 

The Luxe Life: 

• How Luxury Took Over Memes (Jing Daily)

• Related, from Mike Tkach: the only Mulement moving. [Muleboyz x Hartcopy] (Instagram)

In the Future We’re All Robots: 

• Via Kouch Culture: _The future shopper  is called the digi-sapiens. Gen Zs and young Millennials have grown up in the digital era, blurring reality and fantasy, and they number around 3.5 billion individuals globally, with more than 55% of the total purchasing power.

Listening: 

• On Clubhouse, Gen Z is helping define the direction of audio-based networking. (The Drum)  

• And Via Future Party: Clubhouse cuts creators in on the cash rewards a feature that allows users to send money directly to creators. Notably, Clubhouse will not take a cut of the cash; competitors YouTube and Twitch both take 30% and TikTok takes a full 50%. (Tubefilter)

• Can the Gleam of High-End Watches Thrive on Audio-Only Clubhouse? It took luxury brands years to get used to the internet - but just months to start talking on the audio chat site. Are they a fit? (NYT)

• Via Music Redef: Andreessen Horowitz talks The Creator Economy — NFTs and Beyond. (a16z) 

• Jesse Pearson interviewed the author Rachel Kushner for Apology (Instagram)

Eating (Sort of): 

• Ruby Hibiscus’s “Rubyverse" and integrated storytelling approach is pretty impressive (and not just cause they included [SIC] among their ‘friends’ online.

• How New York Has Changed Over the Years, as Told By Pizza With Untitled Pizza Movie, David Shapiro spotlights a slice of NYC life. (Hyperallergic)

• Via Future of Transportation: Unpacking Europe's remarkable 10-minute grocery delivery ecosystem (Outline)

• From Ben Pruess: Students developed a system to turn chewing gum into colorful skateboard wheels (Design Boom)

• Elsewhere in things that want to be other things: Impossible Foods Declares 'We Are Meat'  (Adweek)

Trends. 

• Amex Travel’s Global Travel Trends Report is out. 

• And so is Jamie Dimon’s annual report -slash-fortune telling for JP Morgan Chase. (Dealbook)

The Marketing Arts: 

• [SIC] Buddy Corbin Brown asks brands to let their internal culture out (Campaign) 

• From David Bloom: "Video of my Tuesday conversation with @teamwhistle & @tinyhorse executives. We talked why European sports franchises are so far ahead of US teams in online video and social media, how TV shows such as Love Island are using online video, and much else."

• Also in soccer: via Lean Luxe: Soccer superclubs that act more like sportswear brands. (NYT) 

• Nordstrom Partners With Dover Street Market To Highlight Emerging Designers (Hypebeast)

• Tinder created an apocalyptic, choose-your-own-adventure love story for Gen Z (The Drum)

• Getting paid means some work for brands — and it’s O.K. to talk about that It is only the latest, though perhaps most complicated, chapter of the marriage of convenience between advertising and news. (Nieman Lab)

• The omnichannel age is here — and it's expensive. Store pickup of online orders grew by triple digits amid the pandemic. Retailers are now scrambling to become more efficient sellers across channels. (Retail Dive)

• Related: Via Morning Brew: Around 80,000 retail stores, or 9% of the total in the US, will close their doors by 2026 if e-commerce sales continue their upward trend, a new report from UBS projects.

  

Gezundzeistgeit: 

• The Intersection of Popular Culture & Luxury Is Here to Stay (Jing Daily) 

• But, Sean Monahan’s interview with Joshua Citerella is a great “oh, so that’s where we are now” type beat. And has a link to Citarella’s “Radical Content” report. (8Ball) 

• Related: Trump’s War On Jon Bon Jovi Could Could Smash His Empire (VICE / YouTube) 

• Corollary: The Squandered Promise of White-Boy Summer (The New Yorker) 

• We’re here, we’re queer, get... better at representing us already (It’s Nice That) 

• What Can We Learn from a Return to Witchcraft? (Frieze)

• Why Silicon Valley’s most astute critics are all women (The Guardian)

• In France, Accents Are Now Protected by Law (reasons to be cheerful) 

• Via Music Redef: The truth about lying. You can’t spot a liar just by looking -- but psychologists are zeroing in on methods that might actually work. (Knowable) 

• Before we go: Mallcore and nostalgic retail design: reflecting on the vaporware aesthetic. (Sabukaru)  

• Corollary: Low-rise jeans are back. Don't panic. (Vox)

Fashions: 

• Umm, anyone born 1973-1980, Skidz is still a thing and it’s very (end of) pandemic-friendly. 

• The Biggest Sneaker Company You’ve Never Heard of Is Capitalizing on China’s Nike and Adidas Boycotts (Fortune)

• Via BoF: Kim Jones edited the new issue of Vogue Italia. Ferdi keeps winning.

Cool brand stuff: 

• Following on the collab with Nina Chanel Abney, Uno got a new (fashion-y) makeover from Vivetta. 

And last but definitely not least" Iolanda’s ‘link dump:’ (All from rom all-star contributor Iolanda Carvalho: )

"wheel of human emotions - and bits on happiness and depressionculture, content, platforms & brands - what influences what, who brands who and Alan Turing - in a league of his own…"

• A Visual Guide to Human Emotion. Despite vast differences in culture around the world, humanity’s DNA is 99.9% similar. There are few attributes more central and universal to the human experience than our emotions.

• Speed Summary: World Happiness Report 2021.  The WHR picked up a significant increase in the day-to-day experience of negative emotions in 2020, such as anger, worry and sadness.

• Optical Illusion Study Suggests Depression Affects How People View The World. According to the study, people experiencing depressive episodes tended to view contrasted images differently.

• Global Searches For Vegan Seafood Skyrocket As Seaspiracy Hits No.1 On Netflix (Plant Based News) 

• “Cultural Impact” Is Not What You Think It Is (The Fashion Law)

• From Absolut to Volkswagen, Blending Is the New Branding Volkswagen’s shift from branding to blending was more than hinted at in its corporate statement: “The aim in future will not be to show a perfect advertising world. (Bloomberg) 

• Louis Vuitton’s Airplane-Themed Bag Costs More Than An Entire Plane (DesignTaxi)

• GCHQ releases 'most difficult puzzle ever' in honour of Alan Turing. 12 riddles linked to new £50 note featuring the codebreaker may take seven hours to crack Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor GCHQ has released its “most difficult puzzle ever” (The Guardian)

• With LEGO x Adidas Buildable Shoes, Stepping On Bricks Has Never Been So Comfy - DesignTAXI.com

• You'll want to walk on LEGO bricks with these Adidas UltraBoost x LEGO shoes.

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