[SIC] 138: AINEEJUUTHMOHS

April 29th, 2021

Hi there,

Trying out the early-day send again, reaction last time was positive. This might be the [SIC] vibe going forward. LMK what you think by reply or in the comments, please.

Also, come hang today when [SIC] Talks returns at 4p ET with special guest @mecyver, the designer / maker / entrepreneur / virtual friend of mine, whom I’ve only encountered virtually via Clubhouse so far. Will be fun getting to talk live ‘in person.’ Tune in @dietznutz at 4p, or find our conversation thereafter in my grid.

Elsewhere in audience interactions, the people at Stir (a new service that helps the creator economy with for their micro-businesses) sent me $20 unsolicited via a new payment service they’ve got. Since I did nothing to deserve it, I’ll pass the money on directly to the reader who replies to this email with the correct (or, best) interpretation of today’s letter title. No cap, as the kids say. And to be clear, I’m receiving nothing for this mention (or any of the others in the newsletter. Tho if you’re a brand and you want to support, I’m down to discuss).

And of course, thanks to David, Rob and Iolanda for contributions this week. More, please. And everybody, feel free to share this with friends. Here’s a button:

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Big Thinks: 

• Who disrupts the disruptors? (Not Boring) 

• Related: what Substack Is Really Doing to the Media; targeting one of news organizations’ weak points. (Slate) 

• Hence, via Marginal Revolution: Why does everything seem so left-wing?

• And ergo: via Protocol:The case for universal creative income (Li.Mirror.xyz)

• Separately, via political strategist Peter Zeihan, what if the population bomb means China’s already over?! (YouTube)

Big Tex, Big Feelings: 

• Platformer's Casey Newton on the Big Technology Podcast  (Spotify)

• TikTok and the Vibes revival (New Yorker)  

• And author Kyle Chayka’s inside story of the Vibes piece. (Substack)

• Following the vibes: ‘The advertiser is no longer in control’ - ie explaining the new Apple privacy settings. (The Drum) 

• But in a cookieless future, half-baked marketing won't do (MIT Technology Review Insights)

• And even TikTokers have to sleep: *Charli and Dixie D’Amelio team with bedding brand Simmons for line of mattresses and accessories. (Tube Filter) 

Puns of the Week: 

• It’s "Coiff Bezos" to you. Via Benedict Evans: Amazon is opening a pop-up hairdressing shop in London, as a showcase for new technology (digital mirrors, AR etc). This is the kind of thing very old-fashioned retailers used to do. 

• Top of the pot: the cannabis growers cornering the luxury market Craft farming, terroir, tasting notes and appellations is the new language of getting high (FT) 

Kits, Kicks & Knits: 

• Brand-Owned Resale Could Finally “Close the Loop” for Luxury (Jing Daily)

• LVMH is launching a new deadstock platform, open to all designers, called Nona Source. (Business of Fashion) 

• While Hermès Is Proof That Gen Z Is Turbocharging The Luxury Recovery (Jing Daily) 

• Separately, Revenge Shopping is happening.  Here’s what that means (GQ) 

• But, but: Revenge Shopping vs Sustainability: Fashion Can’t Have Both (BoF) 

• To that end, IT'S TIME FOR SNEAKER BRANDS TO EMBRACE THE PRE-ORDER MODEL. (Futurevvorld) 

• Speaking of sustainable: Skinny Jeans will never die (Business of Fashion) 

• Via Lean Luxe: The live-streaming market, as much as the media loves to fixate on it, simply hasn’t captured the imagination or interest of first mover consumers––let alone the average consumer

• Cause really if you want to Build a Massive Sneaker Company? Sell to Moms,according to Paul Van Doren of the Vans family, writes (GQ)

• And chefs? And fans of the movie “Cars”? Crocs is now "one of the best-performing stocks in the retail industry," per CNBC.

• Corollary: Via Backseat Freestyle: Jerry Lorenzo and Kerbito connect for Interview.

• Speaking of lasting appeal, Crowley vintage x Brooks Brothers is a Take Ivy vibe I want to see in person.  

The New Way to Spell NFT: 

• This NFT artwork comes with an actual physical house in California (Dezeen)

• On the subject: NFTs, Intellectual Property, and What It Really Means to Own a Digital Kitty (Morning Brew) 

• From David Bloom: This marriage between companies behind some of the most famous viral videos of recent times and a joint venture leveraging the NFT craze seemed inevitable (Forbes) 

• How Cryptocurrency Could Work For Museums (Jing Daily) 

• Via Beats & Bytes; What Does a Live Gig NFT Mean for the Music Industry? Viberate Is First to Test the Concept? (Digital Music News) 

• Also via Beats & Bytes: Doja Cat Becomes First Woman and Artist to Launch NFT Marketplace (V Mag) 

• From Rob Hubbert: [This] First Floor newsletter [about Jacques Greene’s experience with NFT’s] is consistently good as well - some really good, thoughtful writing and interviews around electronic music (Substack) 

Art and Cult, cha? 

• Vintage posters from pioneering NYC performance / art venue The Kitchen (Printed Matter) 

• Why Culture Is Key To Hong Kong’s Future As A World City The Art Newspaper

• Via Marginal Revolution: Bruised banana peels as art (CBC) 

• Behind the powerful serenity, spirituality and sexuality of Carlota Guerrero (It’s Nice That) 

• Nouveau York talked to fave gallerist Kathy Grayson

• Elsewhere in Kathys: Kathleen is apparently not a person.  Kathleen’s insider guide to Los Angeles (The FACE) 

• Sculpture, design, mathematics music poetry: the many loves of Fausto Menotti (Christie’s) 

Eats Different: 

• Via Snaxshot: Sustainably-marketed products drove more than half of all growth across CPGs in past five years. (Food Navigator) 

• And Beyond Meat Telling Customers Faux Chicken Is Coming This Summer (Bloomberg)

• More via Snaxshot: Plant-based food is now a $7B industry, growing 27% last year.  (Food Dive) 

• Even pet food manufacturers are working on lab-grown meat. Fido’s kibble could soon be made from cell-cultured rabbit or chicken. (Smithsonian) 

• And this is only the beginning of the war on meat (What Went Wrong)

• Makes a certain sense, given a new Adweek-Harris Poll survey shows 4 out of 5 consumers are concerned about pollution and animal safety. So fast food brands have a lot to gain from reducing single-use packaging waste (Adweek)

• An argument features into the argument for why the Filet-o-Fish is the gold standard of fast food (NYT) 

• But, (s/o Ari Forman): If you love McDonalds so much ... why don’t you marry it? (Instagram) 

• Besides, the real reason fish sandwiches are suddenly everywhere is the Pope (Marker)

Required Reading: 

• Buffalo’s “Viral” E-Zine is a truly twisted PDF mag (and a true coffee table statement). Highly recommended for the Douglas Coupland x Hans Ulrich Obricht interview alone. But really recommended for everything else, too. 

• Via Marginal Revolution: Good, short non-fiction books (Fergus McMullogh) 

• Grand is a new journal of original fiction, essays, poetry, art, and photography published by fave bookstore OneGrandBooks. 

Tunes: 

• Brainstorm Radio is a twice monthly updated station featuring mixes by some of creativity’s greatest names, largely from the global illustration scene (It’s Nice That) 

• Via Beats & Bytes: Warner Music Group Launched an Advertising Division (Music Business Worldwide)

• Corollary via Music Redef: Kurt Vile was completely unqualified to produce Dinosaur Jr’s new album, but they asked him to anyway. He and J Mascis catch up about it all. (Loud & Quiet) 

• OG selector Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide FM launches creative platform Make Art Work (Its Nice That) 

• Old joke, but Cousin Greg’s (Nicholas Braun for those who don’t work in media)  new viral jam about Antibodies is not not funny. (Instagram)

• Related, Dylan Brady’s “I’ll Make You Miss Me All the Time” continues to be the gold standard for power punk made on a computer. (Spotify) 

• And Brady’s 2018 mix for Noisey is the Hyperpop ur-text to set the weekend off. (Soundcloud)

  

Sportz Zone:

• The Association is an NBA-focused newsletter covering the biggest stories, personalities, and trends in the league — while shining a light on the unheralded players and social media chatter.

• Netflix is creating a documentary series about Bubba Wallace, NASCAR’s only Black full-time driver, as part of a push into sports storytelling. (Front Office Sports) 

The Iolandaverse (all links from superstar contrib Iolanda Carvalho), editorialized by me: 

• The Digital 2021 April Global Statshot Report – published in partnership with Hootsuite and We Are Social – reveals that more than 6 in 10 people on Earth now use the internet.. Global internet users have grown by more than 330 million over the past year, reaching a total of more than 4.7 billion at the start of April 2021. (Datareportal) 

• NYT Uber Alles. Visualizing the Most Popular Paid Subscription News Websites (Visual Capitalist)

• Accounting gawds PWC identifies four fault lines show a fracturing among global consumers

• While yr boys Deloitte Insights project  life after the pandemic 

• “Whether destroying the original Basquiat helps ensure its eternal authenticity on the blockchain remains to be seen. In the meantime, it is hard to view its “deconstruction” as anything but iconoclasm.” Basquiat work worth $120,000 was going to be auctioned as an NFT with the winning bidder given the option to destroy the original (The Art Newspaper) 

• Until the Artist’s Estate got involved. No burning on their watch, guys. Sale withdrawn. (The Art Newspaper) 

• Do you miss sitting next to your office best friend but still care about their safety?  Or, just really value that time with Peloton? Zoom Replicates In-Person Meetings With Feature That Puts Everyone In One Room (Design Taxi) 

• [Here’s the] first house to be 3D-printed from raw earth. The process coined Tecla (standing for technology and clay) is eco-sustainable and environmentally friendly due to the production being zero waste and needing no materials to be transported to the site as it uses local soil. (It’s Nice That) 

• "The prospect of an Olympic gold medal being won from someone’s living room or garden shed moved a step closer on Thursday after the IOC announced it was moving into esports and virtual sports." (The Guardian)

Life Lessions of the Week: 

• Gen Z women are breaking into the VC club (WaPo) 

• Friend / Idol Michael Williams’s tips for new dads is typically astute (acontinouslean) 

• Old buddy Nick Parish on fermenting your trash for WITI (Substack) 

• Former colleague and Rave New World honcho Michelle Lhooq was on TV talking about sobriety as a spectrum rather than a binary. (LX) 

• Via Quartz: A scream of black holes? A crush? A silence? (NYT) 

• Finally: Installing sails on cargo ships would greatly reduce their emissions. It’d be more effective than switching to alternative fuels.

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