[SIC] 141: Extended Reconnaissance Zone

May 20th, 2021

Hi all,

It being graduation season, we start this week with some head-flexing topics, before descending into generational weirdness, the inevitable NFT offload, fruity art, condor parties and trophies trees. It’s been a wild one.

Thanks to Josh, Kevin, Ben and the indefatigable Iolanda for contributions this week. Love your work. And everybody else - suggestions are always welcome.

In place of [SIC] Talks today, something exciting. May 20th every year is “501 Day” as deemed by Levi’s (5/01 was taken by International Workers Day, I guess) - and the jeans giant is doing a whole day of programming including an hour at 5:01pm (Pacific Time) today in which my Culture Club show colleagues and I will be dungaree politicking with Jaden Smith, Barbie Ferreira, Emma Chamberlain, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and some other very special guests.

It’ll be a fun one. Anybody on Clubhouse is invited to come hang - and if you need an invite to the platform, I’ve got you - hit me in reply to this post. Or, just listen here.

====[SIC] 141: Extended Reconnaissance Zone=====

THINK’ERZ: 

• From Josh Gardiner: “I was sent this [“How to Put Out Democracy’s Dumpster Fire”] from one of the smartest people I know … The piece is 51 mins audio if you prefer to listen to it on a walk.” (The Atlantic)

• Corollary via Maekan: 📊 Ideaspace brings together diverse perspectives to discuss which values get measured and which don't.  (Substack)

• S/o to my Urban Studies majors! Via Lean Luxe: How parking destroys cities (The Atlantic) 

• And to my sociology grads! How the V mask leapt from graphic novel pages to become the face of global anarchism (It’s Nice That) 

• Film School alums! Sasha Frere Jones on Adam Curtis for the NYRB

• B-school squad! Via Lean Luxe: Eight questions with Michael Lewis (Air Mail) 

• Umm, English majors?!: 2021 in a sentence: Now, you can SPAC your SPAC while you NFT your Warhol.  (Bloomberg/CNN) 

NFT’ERZ:

• nft.art.lol is a database of the many platforms and features available for minting / publishing digital art - down to the gas and rates paid. 

• While affiliated polymath artists Ryan McGinness’s NFT primer is full of wild thoughts (Instagram) 

• Polarizing art critic Jerry Saltz will get around to talking NFTs live next Tuesday (May 25th) along with Matthew Schneier, professional baseball player-turned-digital artist Micah Johnson and Joy Shan. (NY Mag)

• While polarizing filmmaker Bruce LaBruce on fucking up NFTs (Foundation)

• Why creatives should care about NFTs: a primer  (It’s Nice That)

• Via Today in Tabs: “Krapopolis,” from Dan Harmon, will be “‘the first-ever animated series curated entirely on the Blockchain’ in the words of Fox’s utterly deranged announcement.” (Hollywood Reporter)

• Also from Tabs; Coinbase is launching what Axios calls “a media arm” and what everyone else would call “content marketing.”

GEN Z’ERZ: 

• Via After School: The fashion archetype is dead - Gen-Z Killed It. (i-D)   Key Quote: “Are muses no more? For young people, aesthetic fixations are fleeting — ‘it’s quite common to adhere to one aesthetic for a few posts before switching to a different one.’”

• Therefore: What the perfect Gen Z-focused store needs from decompression zones to tightly edited collections and super-fast checkouts (Vogue Business)

• Also via After School: Is being a ‘girl boss a bad thing?’ It’s actually not complicated: “Calling someone a girl boss is ironic and also a ‘sincere insult,’” apparently. (LA Mag)

• But since you asked, via Morning Brew: Fidelity just launched trading accounts for 13–17-year-olds. (AP News) 

MILLENIAL-X-Boom'ERZ

• Via Future Party: Back to the lawn: Millenials are embracing sweaty startups. (Business Insider) 

• Via Future Party: Afternoon conversation partner Jaden Smith is giving out free food to the homeless by recruiting the help of housed patrons. (Revolt)

• Dead Hippie’s skate tippers for older rippers has me in my feels. (Transworld) 

• Related: Classic graph of all the skate tricks in one place (Instagram) 

• Arnsberg, Germany’s Department of Future Aging has made it a prototype for how cities around the world can help their older residents thrive. (Reasons to be Cheerful) 

• Meet your dermatologist, Dr. Google. And his nurse, AI. (Daily Upside)

  

FINE ART'ERZ:

• This Jonas Wood edition for Printed Matter is bananas. 

• Museums: step up your merch game (Jing Culture & Commerce)

• Related: fave artist David Shrigley made iPhone cases (It’s Nice That) 

• [SIC] homie  Maia Ruth Lee’s Artworks Pick Up Where Language Falls Short (Hyperallergic).

• Elsewhere, the artist and designer Maya Lin has installed 49 dead cedar trees in Downtown Manhattan's Madison Square Park to raise awareness of ecosystem die-off due to climate change. (Dezeen)

• Mind the Gap: why Hockney’s Piccadilly Line roundel uproar signifies a deepening disconnect between art and the public (It’s Nice That) 

TIKTOK’ERZ: 

• Via After School: Did Gia Coppola make the first masterpiece of the TikTok era? And why is Town & Country, of all places, covering it?  (townandcountry)

• Still, it seems possible, via Garbage Day, given”incredibly sharp pieces this week about the blandness and algorithmic mediocrity of TikTok celebrities” in Vox and The Kids Aren’t Alright this week.  

MARKET’ERZ: 

• Lego announced its first set developed with the LGBTQI community in mind. The "Everyone is Awesome" set includes 11 minifigures, each in a different color and with their own hairstyle. (Yahoo) 

• Skinslusivity: the end of normal beauty (Wunderman Thompson) 

• What Dior’s “Nose” Knows About Premium Branded Content. Key Quote: “After premiering at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, Nose became available for rent or purchase on global streaming platforms Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video and Google Play in February, [departing] from the standard practice for brands to give away the content they produce for free.” (Jing Daily) 

• Via Nieman Lab: Why Reddit is building an in-house agency to work with brands (Digiday)

• From Kevin Tachman: “Best 360 execution of 80's retro Ive seen.” From Poolside FM - the makers of Vacation, the joke sunscreen, comes “Vacation” by Vacation, a new scent that will make you smell like …. sunscreen…. 🤷‍♂️

READ’ERZ: 

• Vanity Fair with the coffee table books for spring

• Via Marginal Revolution: Somebody in China created a libertarian icecream brand called Atlas Shrugged (阿特拉斯耸耸肩). The message, according to its Wechat account, is to “celebrate the individual and reward yourself - with an icecream” (Twitter). 

EAT’ERZ: 

• The big money is going vegan (The New York Times)

• Paging Tipper Gore: there’s a study that claims listening to Heavy Metal can lead to unhealthy eating (Hypebeast) 

• Not the sort of music played in the 50 greatest food stores in the world, then. (FT)

• Fave outerwear brand Snow Peak now has a restaurant in Portland (Highsnobiety)

CREATE’ERZ: 

• Discord Is Offering Creators Ways to Get Paid (The Information)

• Want to understand the Substack craze? Think of it as evolution (The Drum)

• [SIC] homie John McSwain’s got a pod about [video] editing that looks great. (Instagram)

• Via Future Party: Will Onyx Collective get invited to Hulu’s Onyx Collective, a new curated content brand? Hope so. Or at least they get a buyout. (Deadline)

WEAR’ERZ: 

• Elsewhere: Not Boring dives deep into what any 11 year old girl could tell you:  the Chinese fast fashion brand Shein is an under-the-radar giant. 

• Facebook helps Zara owner sell clothes via video games (Business of Fashion)

•  “Streetwear” redeemed luxury. THE MASS MARKET IS UP NEXT (Highsnobiety)

• From Ben Pruess: “Now this is interesting: Netflix’s first high-end fashion line [with Halston] bodes a stoppable future for the streamer “(Fast Company)

• Q&A: Telfar Aims to “Exit” the Fashion Industry (Jing Daily) 

• Don’t call it wearable art: Fave artist Geoff McFetridge teamed up with fave clothing brand Norse Projects for a new capsule (Hypebeast)

• Speaking of reinventing the retail experience, NYC cool guy haven Antithesis is really upping the ante on their webstore with a randomized selection of really awesome / random video inspiration from the Owners’ formative years. To say nothing of the weird emote mannequin things they’ve got going on.

LISTEN’ERZ: 

• “Sports Men” by Haruomi Hosono is [SIC] 2021 song of the week despite being from 1982. (Spotify)

• Though Claire Rosinkranz’s “Frankenstein” is a close second (Spotify)

• Related: via After School: How the “Lorem” playlist became Gen Z’s “TRL”. Key Quote: “Generation Z decides for itself what the next big thing is, whether anyone who owns a suit notices or not.”

• Spotify will auto-transcribe podcasts over the coming weeks (The Verge) 

• [SIC] Talks veteran Stephen Vanasco’s video for Evidence (Instagram) 

• While [SIC] homie Justin Staple bought his way in and then killed it on How Long Gone (Spotify) 

• Discord takes on Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces by pointing users to audio chats (CNBC)

• Meet the Beexles: Ruby Hibiscus recruited Jacques Greene to spin the span of a planet into this 25 minute mix. Which he apparently created for Jarbwha-3 is "a planet built of mostly bluish gases with sentient beings [called Beexles] that give off the vibe of radiant auras or ghosts - just floating through a radiant cloud." (Ruby.fun) 

• Related via Music Redef: Robloxcore is tunes your 9-year-old cousin knows about (but not you). Hyperpop fans salute. (NYT) 

• And this “Closer” video remade shot for shot in Animal Crossing: Nine Inch Nooks. (YouTube)

GAM’ERZ: 

• You can Speedrun anything (The Dirt) 

• Gaming Influencers Are the Future of Esports(Wired)

• Via Vogue Business: The gaming industry is altering attitudes towards fashion (Highsnobiety)

• Via After School: A study from Deloitte and Snap found that three biggest contexts in which consumers used AR were gaming (55%), media and entertainment (52%) and shopping (41%). (Adweek)

BIRD’ERZ: 

• Via Marginal Revolution: “There are only about 200 California condors in the wild — and one tenth of them are having a non-stop party at Cinda Mickols's house.”

• Meanwhile via Garbage Day, Martha Stewart is more of a Pea-hen. (Twitter) 

IOLAND’ERZ: 

“Hard to decide if this is the best of times or the worst of times, sometimes...

• Big Brother is controlling you...The app that lets you pay to control another person's life (BBC) 

• This one because my Cristiano is number one 🙂 [Top 50 Influencers across socials] (Visual Capitalist)

• "Creators have never been hotter: The social platforms want them, and marketers want to work with them. But creators also have more ways than ever to monetize, many of which bypass brands and social media." (eMarketer)

• Choose only one: The Passion Economy and Its Hidden Currency. Creator economy, attention economy, passion economy, like button economy... (NFX) 

• This one is worth buying 🙂: A michelangelo becomes an NFT, the uffizi gallery sells for $170,000 (Design Boom) 

• Gucci brings digital items and experiences to Roblox in new partnership (TechCrunch)

• Maybe you can try this and host several rooms at the same time... 😉 Veritone launches new platform to let celebrities and influencers clone their voice with AI (The Verge)

RANDOMIZE’ERZ: 

• Via Lean Luxe: This, ladies and gentlemen, is the ultimate flex: a trophy tree. (WSJ)

• And finally, via Marginal Revolution: How to cook cicadas (Washingtonian)