[SIC] 151: Mysterious Associations

July 29th, 2021

Hi all,

Forgive the delayed delivery this go-round; I spent the week at a kind of creative retreat called Saturnalia in North Adams, MA and my computer died mid-compilation during the drive back. Appreciate your patience.

I also appreciate the amazing bunch of people I got to hang out with this week; it was a sort of extended [SIC] Talk with creative brains from across industries and capabilities, but all super curious and open to possibility. Plus drinks. And food. And a visit to the really amazing Mass MOCA, where the art this week comes from. Both the Sol Lewitt sculpture on the left and the Jenny Holzer sign painting in the middle were new to me and not the kinds of work I knew them for previously, which was really exciting to discover. The unphotograph-able James Turrell wing of the museum is also literally mind-bending. Go see it.

And welcome to everyone I met this week at Saturnalia who joined the [SIC] list this week. Stoked to have you here. I’m also glad as always to have contributions from friends and creative brains Ricky, David, Kevin, Marcella, Larry and Ben. And pleased to be able to feature work of lots of friends and former colleagues this week, too.

To that end, a special shout out to my stalwart buddy and conversation partner Ruba Abu-Nimah, who aside from having the best IG moodboard going, has been setting the luxury and brand marketing world alight lately, with help from friends of her own. Proud of you and your squad, Ruba. Though the new “Not Your Mother’s” Tiffany campaign sparks backlash as Marketing Brew pointed out, it’s pretty genius, and pretty necessary, per Marketing Week. Marketing Dietz agrees. x B

=====[SIC] 151: Mysterious Associations=====

Start Here: 

• From Ricky Engelberg (who was very much missed this week): “[A] banger for SIC:” [Cities of Ghosts Await Their DAO Revival]  (Darkstar) 

Then, In the Metaverse: 

• From David Bloom: “Per our conversation about deletion death … this is a pretty interesting little side take that also suggests our challenges of eternal digital life in future metaverses. (Wired)  

• Related, from Iolanda Carvalho: “Following on the trio of AI + dead personalities + cinema…” [Campari’s Red Diaries] and  [Campari experiments with the future of film] (IBB Online) 

• Via Future Party: Genvid Technologies opened up a new division to create high-quality, interactive video games called Massive Interactive Live Events (MILE). The new form mixes three of the biggest trends in entertainment: streaming television, video gaming, and online chat. 

• Via Jing Daily: New Breed of Online ‘Influencers’ Blurs the Line Between Real and Virtual (Shine) 

• Related: Inside the big business of influencer-built brands. (Thingtesting) 

• Coca-Cola Auctions Its First NFT, As Brands go Metaverse-al (Forbes)

• But, via Marginal Revolution: there’s no consensus on how NFTs will be taxed (NYT)

In Macrotrends: 

• Via Morning Brew: How the Olympic medal table explains the world. (NPR)

• Elsewhere in explainers, via After School: for Gen Z, understanding personal finance begins with the most important question — what is money? (ITK) 

• First Future now Futurism? More future-facing media titles now owned by VCs (Nieman Lab) 

• Corollary: Editors discuss the future of comment sections (Nieman Lab) 

• Garbage Day names our new online paradigm “the Tchotchke Internet” and compares it to Chochkie’s from “Office Space” for good measure.  Key Quote: “The Tchotchke Internet is a social media landscape of digital flair and knick-knacks, a direct evolution of the freemium user experience. It’s the small ways that users can spend money (or make money) to have a better experience on social media.”

• Related? Via Axios: New research shows Americans have fewer friends than in the past, and are less likely to have a best friend. (American Survey Center) 

• And why under-35s are more friendless than any other age group living today (The New Statesman) 

In Social Platforms: 

• From Kevin Johanessen: “Not necessarily for SIC, but something I think you’ll find interesting, particularly the observations about subcultures. Social media has seeming killed subcultures and allowed them to thrive at the same time. Or at least it seems that way to me…” (BBC) 

• Related, from David Bloom: “Here’s the link to part 2 of Wired’s oral history of one of Twitter’s (and social media’s) most consequential communities Black Twitter. This part looks at 2012 to 2016, as it moves into more socially conscious activity:” A People’s History of Black Twitter, Part II “ [All three parts recommended]

• Via Marcus Bosch: The Verge has put together an entire Guide to TikTok. 

• While BoF’s got its Guide to Bilibili right over here. (Business of Fashion) 

• Artists worry Instagram’s new sensitive content controls will impact the outreach of their work. (Hyperallergic) 

• Meanwhile, Snap is 40x bigger than it was when it went public. (Tech Crunch)

• Speaking of, Snap is rolling out new recommendation features on its in-app Map, allowing users tosource hot spots and share with friends. (The Verge) 

• From David Bloom: “An entertaining piece by Vox about the distinctive way stars on YouTube speak, even down to their preferred opening greeting.”

• Substack bought Letter, a platform for written debate. 

• No debating this, via The Dirt: the YouTube channel, “Unusual Videos is updated each Sunday, with  “a new, deejayed mix of TikToks, “ancient” Vines, Minecraft music, lots of birds, some seals, and online RPGs”

In Print: 

• [SIC] fave editor and publisher Jesse Pearson (of the excellent and highly-collectible Apology Magazine) made a strong showing on How Long Gone (Spotify) and launched a Substack for long-read reviews with a big piece by Bob Nickas.

• Hamburger Eyes new issue The Continuing Story of Life on Earth is out. 

• Worlds Apart is the zine bringing the worlds of hardcore together (The FACE) 

• Recommended: this Ishmael Reed story in the New Yorker. 

• While WITI’s Colin Nagy comes with the book reco: “This is How They Tell Me the World Ends “On hacking, cybersecurity, and geopolitics. One of my favorite reads in recent memory.” (Amazon)

• Corollary, via 2PM: The book that explains Bitcoin’s religious schism. (Bloomberg)

• Unrelated: Eric Wareheim has a cookbook (Instagram)

• And the Dezeen guide to kitchen layouts (not in print, but …) 

In Your Ears: 

• Fave artists and good buddy Peter Sutherland talks on a pod (Instagram) 

• Two decades on, how The Strokes’ Is This It captured the short-lived optimism of the millennium. (The New Statesman)

• Via Public Announcement: The Post-Dirtbag Left. For years, “Chapo Trap House” and other podcasts have paired anti-capitalist ideas with the rhetorical style of social media. Is a new form emerging? (New Yorker)

• Calling Bill Murray: The US government sold the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album previously owned by Martin Shkreli (NPR) 

In Reflection: 

• Big Facts, Big Mad. Via Music Redef: “I Was at Woodstock '99, and Yes, Everyone Was That Angry” (Esquire) 

• A different kind of disaster, via Public Announcement: The oral history of Larry Clark’s cult classic Bully (i-D) 

In Brands: 

• More disaster? The Rise and fall of Reebok (Retail Dive)

• Brands like AB InBev, Nike, Adidas, Puma, Red Bull, PepsiCo, Manchester City, KFC have set up — or are setting up — specialist teams or roles for esports and gaming. (Digiday) 

• Campbell's soup has made the first major update to the design of its flagship cans for the first time since Andy Warhol put them in a gallery in the early 1960s. (Creative Bloq)

• Corollary: What do you get when you combine the world's most iconic logos? (Creative Bloq) 

• Another strange combo: Adam Driver x Burberry is one sexy centaur. (The Drum) 

• Elsewhere in strange combos: Penfolds winery made a record player. But did they make it dutty? (Hypebeast) 

• And from Marcella Farman-Dietz: Pizza Hut’s got vintage tracksuits now (AdAge)

• While via Lerer Hippeau: BarkBox has teamed with Dunkin' on a set of plush coffee cups and doughnut toys for dogs. (People)

• Not to be outdone, Krispy Kreme’s got an XBOX donut (Engadget) 

• Ergo? Via Steve Rodriguez: ASAP Ferg made a ‘corner story’ film for Snapple (Instagram) 

• Related, From Larry Warsh: Ferg also gets interview on No More Rulers (Instagram): 

In Art: 

• Photographing Mulletfest (Its Nice That) 

• Less-coiffed: Marilyn Minter on censorship and bringing back pubic hair (Frieze) 

• Via The Slowdown: “This is Not Africa: Unlearn What You Have Learned,” currently on view at ARoS through October 24, challenges stereotypical Western notions of African-ness (Aros.dk) 

• While Black Artists Are Brightening Detroit With Murals through a Black-led, open-air mural festival (Hyperallergic) 

• Fair Art Fair is a match-making app connecting artists to art buyers (It’s Nice That) 

• And soccer-art bible OOF Magazine opened a gallery in London (The FACE)

In Entrepreneurship (and Food and Events)

• Via Future Party: Carbonfact is building a one-stop-shop to look up the carbon impact of any item available to purchase on Earth

• Elsewhere in welcome utility, via Zine’s conversation with Marie Dolle: There are a bunch of Chrome extensions which replace ads with art or educational material: Inforness, Add-Art, Addendum or Hijack Social. Toucan is another extension that allows you to learn a new language “without even trying.”

• Related: Marie looks at current state of the foodie generation on social (In Bed With Social)

• Related to that: Dirt talks to food photog Noah Fecks about his super-saturated, sometimes surreal images. 

• But somehow fails to acknowledge GOAT image makers (food and beyond) Toilet Paper, long-standing playground of Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari. 

• Which incidentally has an exhibition on now til October in conjunction with Martin Parr, if you’re heading to Rome. 

In Science?!: 

• Scientists are using football-field-sized lasers, warehouse-sized electromagnets and other immense facilities to reveal the deep secrets of planetary interiors (Scientific American) 

• Also wild: via Lean Luxe: Dubai discovers how to summon actual rain. (The Independent)

• Via Amber Finlay’s WITI column about Facebook Marketplace: There are only 25 blimps in the world. (Twitter) 

In Fashion: 

• Apropos of my [SIC] Talks chat with Brynn from Dimepiece, via Lean Luxe: small watches are much, much sexier according to Sprezza. 

• Meanwhile, Gossip Girl’s costume designer goes designer vintage picking at Procell (Instagram) 

• Holy shit, the opposite of vintage. Via After School: “Shein is churning out 700 to 1,000 new styles daily. That’s, conservatively, 255,500 new styles a year.” (Forbes) 

• Also: Crocs launched socks (Sourcing Journal)

• Related, from Ben Pruess: there’s no Yeezy way out of China for Nike and adidas. (FT) 

• And Kyrie Irving apparently hates his new namesake sneakers, saying the new design is “trash" on his IG (Bloomberg) 

• Corollary via Thingtesting: What fashion brands should know about "dopamine dressing (Vogue Business) 

• But who will win the luxury space race? (Jing Daily)

In the Mail From Iolanda: 

• “Hermitage jumps on the NFT bandwagon (but for a good cause)” Hermitage Museum mints Leonardo, Monet, Van Gogh NFTs to raise funds  (The Art Newspaper) 

• “Lots of stats and data on the digital scene - article and analysis on main points here, direct link to deck below (might be useful for some people) (Datareportal)

• Digital 2021 July Global Statshot Report v02. “All the latest stats, insights, and trends you need to make sense of how the world uses the internet, mobile, social media, and ecommerce in July 2021.”

• And McKinsey's take on live commerce - entertaining shopping, what else can we ask for...? (McKinsey) 

Finally, In Things to Do:

• Via Franchise: “If you’re in Los Angeles July 29th - Aug 1, get tickets to the Felix Art Fair. It’s hosting a great group of galleries in an intimate space, with Uncle Paulies on site for nutritional nourishment as well.”

• Via BKLYNER: The Brooklyn Public Library is looking for documentary-style photography or video no longer than 30 seconds by young photographers (ages 14-25) of the following neighborhoods  -Gowanus, Boerum Hill, Navy Yard, Sunset Park and Canarsie. The contest closes Monday, August 16. 

• And Field Mag is doing a photo contest of its own, too: for you outdoorsy types. (Instagram)

• Speaking of photogs:  [SIC] Talks alum Cheryl Dunn’s “Licking The Bowl” is screening at the Everson Museum in my hometown of Syracuse (Instagram) 

• While [SIC] Homie Ryan Duffy’s ‘Untold’ is coming to Netflix August 10th and you should watch it. (Instagram)

  =====[SIC] 151: Mysterious Associations=====