[SIC] 220: The Father of Free Association

Nov 17, 2022

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Hi all,

No deep thoughts, just lots of links - make of them your own understanding of what the hell is going on out there, because I don’t know. Thanks to Dan, David, Darren, Iolanda, Celeste and Luke for contributions this week — please keep them coming. And thanks to the whole crew who came through for Breakfast Club this AM - as a reminder; I convene a weekly breakfast in Greenpoint, Brooklyn that’s open to all, so if you want to drop by sometime, reply to this note and I’ll add you to the email reminder list.

Beyond that: it’s the links. They follow.

Ben

From the chandeliers

======[SIC] 220: The Father of Free Association======

Zeitgest / Gestalt

This color-coded conspiracy chart is interactive / Conspiracy Chart
What’s the best way to deal with a flood of misinformation? Maybe it’s time for some deliberate ignorance / Nieman Lab
Related: The way everyone talks about Gen Z is weird / The Atlantic
60% of Gen Z and 56% of millennials plan to shop for holiday gifts on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube / Inside
Gen Z can’t pay the bills as recession strikes / The Future Party
Tho, Duane Olson gets paid to sleep on TikTok / WSJ
Some trends: [SIC] homie Dylan Viner weighs in on: Nihilistic Hedonism, Confused Narcissism + Future's Nostalgia / Zine
In parallel, Dirt pulls up with the week’s rundown of Influencer capitalism / TikTok stores / Girlboss blog / Dirt
Maybe the #girlboss is not so much dead as she is now a career coach. Need career advice? Watch out for the ‘workfluencer’ / i-D
Elsewhere in new trends, from Celeste Blewitt: “This is a great piece delving into customer service, how brands are managing this on TikTok and where it could either go right or wrong. [TikTok's Format Breeds Sassy Customer Service]” / Wired
Monocle explores the new 'home-like' future of the office / Monocle
Related: Volkswagen unveils drivable office chair that can travel up to 12mph / Dezeen
In contrast: for Fitness Buffs and Landlords, Gyms Are Hot Again / NYT
The mascot for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games is… a hat / RFI
Why Not Everyone in Hollywood Is Deleting Twitter/ The Hollywood Reporter
Related: The Case for Sticking it Out on Twitter / Charter
And here’s how to prepare for life after Twitter / NYT
How Math Became an Object of the Culture Wars / The New Yorker
The Internet Has Always Been, and Will Always Be, About Sex /Vanity Fair
Then also, Sex Work and the Gig Economy / Salty

World Order

Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself / The Verge
Corollary: SBF’s deleted tweets / Google Sheets
And the most convincing, complete, and best-researched explanation about what happened at Alameda Research / milkyeggs.com
From Iolanda Carvalho: Another way of looking at our self worth? 🙂 The Dark Web Price Index 2022 / Visual Capitalist
From Dan Bradley: “[Curation via Capital] feels a bit dystopian coming from my new media (which is now old media) roots but gives a really interesting and likely pertinent use case for crypto in the content sharing landscape of the future” / Mirror
Related: Fred Wilson is out with a post titled 'Taking A Long Term View of Web3'. / AVC
Institutional investment in crypto companies is likely to decrease as investors proceed with caution due to the sudden collapse of FTX / Inside Cryptocurrency
Crypto Punk’d. How the FTX fallout impacts creators / The Publish Press
And how the FTX crash reveals the esports industry's crypto partnership problem / Digiday
Meanwhile, brands face new NFT dilemma as marketplaces pull back creator royalties / AdAge
While Coachella NFTs are tangled up in the FTX mess / Bloomberg
Tho elsewhere, in a Bear Market, the NFT Scene Embraces Goblins. Goblins became a fitting identity for NFT enthusiasts, still darkly proud of their fast-paced, albeit often conniving, subculture / Hyperallergic
Peter Zeihan on the The Beginning of the Fall of Crimea / YouTube
From Iolanda Carvalho: “In the coming months the world will have to grapple with unpredictability around the conflict’s impact on geopolitics and security; the struggle to control inflation; chaos in energy markets; and China’s uncertain post-pandemic path" / The Economist
Zeihan again: A Texas Sized Problem: American Electronics / YouTube
‘The Green Steel of the 21st Century.’ Cheap, strong and plentiful, bamboo has been used in Hong Kong for ages as an ultra-sustainable building material / Reasons to Be Cheerful
Imported from Japan in 1876, kudzu strangles forests and farmland throughout the US South. Could it build cities instead? / Reasons to Be Cheerful

The Speculative Future

S/o Hosi and Kim: a space Travel Company Inches Closer to Creating 'Astronaut Experience' for Tourists to View Earth From the Edge of Space / Gizmodo
While closer to home: AI-generated selfies made it to Tinder. Catfishing, but make it DALL-E /VICE
From David Bloom: “Nike takes an interesting step into a decentralized, immersive future of user-generated content for the Metaverse.” [Nike Will Let People Design and Sell Sneakers for the Metaverse] / Wired
Not to be outdone, Adidas Originals Launches Its Inaugural NFT Wearables Collection / Fashion United
Meanwhile Nike loses another Diversity Chief /BoF
Elsewhere: how AI software will change architecture and design / Dezeen
But "Architects can rest easy that AI isn't coming for their jobs just yet" / Dezeen
Mark Zuckerberg Is Wrong About Meta. Why Luxury Should Listen / Jing Daily
But.. what social media’s meltdown means for fashion / BoF
In the meantime: luxury goods market ‘leaps forward’ in spite of economic turbulence / Fashion United

Pop Cultures

Brian Eno Reveals the Hidden Purpose of All Art/ NYT
Tom Ford enters the fashion billionaire club just as Kanye West is kicked out / Quartz
While Grace Wales Bonner Is the Perfect Designer for Now / WaPo
How Chloé’s Gabriela Hearst Turned Her Climate Obsession Into High Fashion / Vanity Fair
From Luke Taylor: “Was in a Spike Jonze rabbithole, rewatching the unstoppable, irresistible chaos of the Kenzo world ad, and came across an interview with Margaret Qualley- how they clicked and she landed the role. It’s 🔥🔥🔥” / The Cut
From Celeste Blewitt: 'What Is Plazacore? The Tatler-Approved Microtrend You'll Want To Be Wearing This Season' / Tatler
TikTok's Discover List 2022: Meet 50 Creators Who Are Making a Global Impact / Variety
Younger Americans are listening to more non-music (like podcasts and news) than ever / Nieman Lab
So Has streaming killed the one-hit wonder? / Guardian
Karen O on Performing Before the Internet Changed Everything / Vanity Fair
Corollary: The Modern Shag Haircut Is Everywhere Right Now / Allure
Also, Punk Rock Freaks in the Heart of Hollywood / Narratively
The Gen Z stars who’ve made a Stranger Things for toddlers / The Times UK
While Taylor Swift fans crashed Ticketmaster. “Historically unprecedented” demand took down the ticket giant’s website / NYT
Pop the Glock! It’s Uffie x Indie Sleaze / IG
Abel Ferrera explains the Sundance Film Festival /Twitter
From Gerhard Stochl: “HOLD ON EVERYONE. Breaking news alert from the Times: [Palladium Boots x The French Foreign Legion]” / NYT
New Banksy murals spotted in Ukraine / Colossal
Crosscurrent Magazine Issue One. Crosscurrent is a bi-annual print publication and a manual resource for discovery exploring fashion, art, architecture, and ideas / Crosscurrent

Media Happenings

Are fewer people paying for publishers’ subscription products? … although the total subscriptions may be increasing, those subscriptions are increasingly concentrated among a small pocket of “power subscribers” / Toolkits
Related: could BeReal be the first successful social media channel to grow without ad support? Knowing when to introduce ads is the key to growth — or demise — among social networks / Digiday
Which could be crucial because Ad Markets Struggled in Q3 / A Media Operator
Tho: complexity for Marketers Has Meant Opportunity for Ad Agencies. Advertising holding companies have transformed to provide data and e-commerce services/ WSJ
Social Media Marketing Expected to Withstand Looming Recession / AdAge
Meanwhile, 80 Million People Are Paying YouTube for Premium and Music: Google’s turning YouTube into a subscription giant quietly and brick-by-brick… and it’s working / Tubeflter
Corollary: What's next for ad tech? / The Rebooting
The unbearable lightness of BuzzFeed. As social platforms continue to limit its reach, BuzzFeed needs to generate one more neat trick to reinvent digital media — and save itself in the process / The Verge
My PR Day of Yes; accepting every publicist pitch for a full day / Slate
This German news outlet is teaching people about local politics with an in-person game / Nieman Lab
Also teaching: The 25 Best Indie Pop Albums of the ’90s / Pitchfork

Market-ations

Linktree lets creators paywall… everything / Future Party
Andy Warhol is the Ghost of Christmas Past. And he’s here to help Tiffany & Co / Retail Dive
[SIC] homie Amber Finlay reports on Seoul’s innovative retail scene / WITI
Bored Ape creators Yuga Labs pledged one million dollars towards the arts and sciences in its hometown of Miami / Twitter
As Meta and Twitter Lay Off Thousands in Bay Area, TikTok Plans to Double Staff / The Information
Tiktok builds itself into an ads juggernaut / NYT
Meanwhile “Apple’s ad business is likely doing the company more harm than good” / 9to5Mac
The ad market is worse now than during the lows of the pandemic, according to one media exec / CNBC
Hence Protocol will shutter and lay off its entire staff / CNN
Related: What's next for ad tech? / The Rebooting
The Chinese Consumer Is Clearly Changing. Keeping quiet on the final results of Double 11, China’s biggest e-commerce giants face stiff competition and changing consumer sentiment / Jing Daily
032c on Branding Bhutan / 032c
Steak-umms Launches “Meataversity” of Misinformation / Muse By Clio
Subway is selling premade sandwiches from AI fridges/ Insider
While Kraft Heinz turns to gimmicks and nostalgia to revive its 'dusty' brands / CNN
Coors Light's new nail polish changes color if your beer is cold enough to drink / CNN
While Liquid Death takes on internet haters with their "Blind Taze Test." / The Drum
The outlet mall opportunity / Glossy

Superficial Interest

"Be yourself" is bad advice for getting dressed. Try being someone else / Blackbird Spyplane
Speaking of Big Spyplane, [SIC] homies Jonah and Erin got simultaneous shine in The New York Times and separately in The Guardian / NYT, Guardian
From Dan Bradley: “I’ve really been digging the World Cup team previews from Defector (the ex-Deadspin folks gone rogue). They have more character and humanity than your typical previews and actually give you something to work for or against” / Defector
How to Be Bored, and What You Can Learn From It /NYT
Hence: Michael Bierut on the Enduring Power of Simplicity / Time Sensitive Pod
Corollary - these road signs from a northern India border highway are amazing / IG

Food / Drink

[SIC] Homie and BRUD / FWB founder Trevor McFedries’s Fave DTC brands / Thingtesting
Could offshore aquaculture make fish farming more sustainable? / Quartz
Non-edible corollary: Silkworms are the second-most farmed animal in the world / BBC
Methane emissions from 15 meat and dairy companies rival those of the EU / The Guardian
The meat you eat is already fake / Fast Company
Hence: these frozen beef croquettes have a 30-year waiting list /
Food and beverage branding is getting verrry sleepy. Unconventional Sleep Aids Are in Vogue, and They’re Designed To Chill You Out / Eye On Design-Aiga
How Americans ruined tequila — and the true believers saving it / FT

Useful Diversions

The skateboarding scene in Pakistan / BoingBoing
From Matt @TheTechnorati: “(I’m a Suzuki-trained violinist) What the Suzuki Method Really Taught” / The New Yorker
Corollary: turns out rodents are most responsive to music that has 120-140 beats per minute, just like humans / France24

Listen

From [SIC] Talks alum Darren Hemmings: An incredible dub version of Black Sabbath’s self-titled masterpiece anthem / YouTube

Pavement the Musical? / IG
NYC: an Exhibition Where Works Cost up to $75 / Hyperallergic
Miami: get NFT Now Gateway tix (they’re free), and meet me there. [Disclosure: I’m an advisor to NFT Now] / NFT Now
LA: @beyondthestreetsart are launching a Beastie Boys exhibit of art and ephemera, opening December 10 in LA. Tickets are FREE and you can reserve your space now / IG
That shot again.

======[SIC] 220: The Father of Free Association======

[SIC] 220: The Father of Free Association

Meantime, enjoy. Feel free to share, too. Here’s a button:

Also, feel free to read this on the web instead.

From the chandeliers

That shot again.

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