[SIC] 239: Inspiral Floormats

Volume 5, Number 31

The [SIC] newsletter on Thursdays is free, and will be forever, unless I change my mind. Unlikely.

But you CAN pay, if you want. I’m into it. Monthly or yearly, or founding support. Paid subscribers get an additional [SIC] Sundays newsletter each week. And founding supporters get invited to a dinner at my home in NYC with special guests.

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

Corollary sources this week (all worth your review, and all easily discoverable): Declarative Statements / 1440 / After School / Morning Brew / Garbage Day / Ben’s Bites / PSFK / Understanding TikTok / Jimmy / Roca News / The Rebooting / Ben Evans / Marginal Revolution / 1440 / Nice News / Micromobility Report / Seeking Alpha / Howard Lindzon / Roca News / Beats and Bytes / Today in Tabs / Brendan’s Communication Miscellany / Dirt

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Hi all.

I booked a hip replacement procedure, and smiled when Steve Caputo sent me a message reading: ‘Bookmark this Lord Dietz theme song for hip surgery and recovery.’ I have done.

Also in this week’s mailbag, from [SIC] Talks alum Matt Klein: “Would you be able to share out the ZINE zine which is now avail, in your SIC? Got a few more left at the pre-order price. Also covering shipping like an idiot.” I have now done this too (and picked up a copy for myself in the process).

Thanks for the notes, guys. And thanks a well to (the other) Matt, Iolanda, Celeste and Jason for contributions this week. I really appreciate them and welcome ideas from everybody.

Ok, now the links.
Ben

Taken at University of the Arts, Philadelphia. Artists Unknown. 📸: Campbell Dietz.

======[SIC] 239: Inspiral Floormats======

Zeitgest / Gestalt

• A TikTok Ban May Be Just the Beginning / WSJ

• Banning TikTok will bring on the splinternet The New Statesman

• The “drip Pope” is a warning of what’s to come with AI-generated media / The Verge

• From Matt @thetechnorati: The Only Way to Deal With the Threat From AI? Shut It Down / Time

• Nate make [sic] a thoughtful attempt to define “woke.” / NYT

• Related: Woke Is Another Word for Liberal / What many conservative critics of wokeness actually oppose is the pursuit of equality / The Atlantic

• Corollary: The rise of the IYKYK model / The FACE

• Celine Van Heel photographs her grandfather to prove fashion has no age limit / It’s Nice That

• Also, thee 11 ‘granfluencer’ accounts changing influencer marketing / AdAge

• Leading us to The Momfluencer Trap/ Embedded

• How TikTok’s bad influencers are hurting businesses / Raconteur

• Dumb phones’ are on the rise in the US as Gen Z looks to limit screen time/ CNBC

• Meanwhile, Gen Z turns hunky ceramicists into quirky sex symbols — of course / NYPost

• Because? Have Babies Become a Luxury Item? / Vogue

• More perspective: Gen Z's top car is a Toyota Camry / Business Insider

• Meanwhile the Ford Mustang Is Having an Identity Crisis / The Atlantic

• More split personalities: “The Boyfriend Effect” is a TikTok trend where people show a photo of what they looked like before they got into a relationship versus how they look now that they’re in a relationship / Yahoo

• Soz babes, The New Statesman says you’re just “semicool” / The New Statesman

• Corollary: The “crispy” internet talk shows replacing late-night television/ Dirt

• You'll Soon Need to Show ID to Watch Porn Online / Wired

• But at least? Coffee might save the office / The Future Party

World Order

• Tyler Cowen on Existential risk, AI, and the inevitable turn in human history / Marginal Revolution

• Related from Iolanda Carvalho: Cool piece - "If there’s one thing the advertising industry loves, it’s a shiny new tech trend." Woohoo!!!! [Stop siloing tech trends and start looking at the bigger picture] / The Drum

• Sam Bankman-Fried reportedly bribed Chinese officials with $40M to unfreeze accounts / CNBC

• While Silicon Valley Bank's Collapse Chills Start-Up Funding / NYT

• Related: America’s Zero-Sum Economics Doesn’t Add Up / Foreign Policy

• And, corollary: what retiring in the US with less than $1M looks like/ WSJ

• Walking Paris’s Garbage-Strewn Streets. With France’s trash collectors on general strike, the city is divided in two: the Trashes and the Trash-Nots / The New Yorker

• Corollary: Why SUVs should be regulated out of existence / FT

• But on the other hand? The world “population bomb” might not go off after all / Quartz

• Also positive: The FDA approved Narcan to be sold without a prescription / APNews

• Saudi Arabia’s women’s national soccer team has been included in FIFA rankings for the first time, less than two years after the team was established / FIFA

• Visualizing cannabis legislation in the US / Visual Capitalist

The Speculative Future

• Ethereum developers announced the Shanghai upgrade on April 12th / Ethereum

• From Jason Leavy: great piece here on AI's 'Uncanny Valley' challenges / Kyle Chayka

• GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models / LICDN

• ChatGPT started a new kind of AI race — and made text boxes cool again/ The Verge

• ChatGPT also created a full-on marketing campaign in 30 minutes / One Useful Thing

• Oh and apparently ChatGPT is an anti. An anti is a Type Of Guy (subtype: fandom-specific) who has ~concerns~ about sex scenes in films, age gaps in romance novels, things of that nature / Twitter

• Ergo? AI The Avengers is the most 90s movie never made / Creative Bloq

• Elsewhere, from Iolanda Carvalho: “Sure, it probably won’t be necessary for your AI assistant to identify a bookcase as “medieval” or not, but it should definitely know the difference between a peeled and unpeeled banana. But you never know what might matter." [Enter the Objaverse: 800,000 virtual props for AIs to play with] / TechCrunch

Pop Cultures

• Jonah Spyplane spends an hour in a trippy box with David Hockney (and subsequently breaks the GPT voice of BSSP) / Blackbird Spyplane

• While Dirt goes in for A-list mukbangs / Dirt

• Avery Trufelman enters the Clueless Closet upon her return/ Spotify

• And Desire Paths talks to TRUCK co-founder Tok Kise / Desire Paths

• Tabernak! Dime-rs skate the snows / IG

• A hero’s journey through recent fashion shows and LA Frieze, featuring Cicciolina, Paul McCarthy, and Brigitte Macron / 032C

• Somehow unrelated: how Vince McMahon upended the worlds of wrestling and business / Fast Company

• They Managed to Mess Up an Art Heist Movie / Hyperallergic

• Related: Do We Really Need, or Even Want, a Remake of 'Vertigo'? / Variety

• Can you copyright a rhythm? Inside the reggaeton lawsuit that could shake the pop world/ The Guardian

• From Iolanda Carvalho: The IFPI Global Music Report. Key Quote: “"Interestingly, the transition to digital distribution has both fueled the music industry’s decline and helped stop it."/ IFPI

• The era of the logo is coming to an end /The Future Party

• Oh and Something Odd Is Happening With Handbags / The Atlantic

• Apropos of that: meet the young entrepreneurs making thousands from archival luxury / Vogue Business

• And related: secondhand resale is getting cutthroat as platforms like Depop and Poshmark boom / TechCrunch

• While Gen Z Drives Surprising Boom In Second-hand Luxury In China / Jing Daily

• Hence? These pants are $20,000 — and secondhand / NYT

• Ergo: The Principles Of Premium And Luxury Marketing Are Changing /Jing Daily

• For instance: Timberland has opened a new flagship store in SoHo, NYC. It features a membership program to create a community / WWD

• While Palace and UGG get weirdly cozy/  Hypebae

• Elsewhere: sorry hypebeasts: China Says Gorpcore Is Out, ‘Cleanfit’ Is In / Jing Daily

• Unrelated but also sorry: MoMA apologizes for kicking out a Black artist from the Black Power Naps installation after a White visitor called her "aggressive.”/ Hyperallergic

• Corollary: adidas withdrew its objection to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation’s application for a US trademark featuring three parallel stripes—48 hours after filing it / Reuters

• Also pulling back: “It’s not an obituary!”: [SIC] gear go-to, Manchester’s Oi Polloi on its shop closure / The FACE

• In more positive news, LVMH Prize announces finalists for 2023 / Vogue Business

• Less young, less worried: Justine Bateman Explains Decision to Age Naturally: “I Just Don’t Give a Shit”/ Vanity Fair

• Corollary: Nick Cave on Art as a Means of Working Through Grief and Trauma / Time Sensitive Pod

• More art: [SIC[] homie Jose Parla in the Studio / IG

• More style: And [SIC] Talks alum Jian DeLeon with the light flexing in Mega Mag/ IG

• More Classic: Apple’s New Classical Music App Is a Ton of Fun / GQ

Media Happenings

• [SIC] homie Al McKimm on being the editor at i-D: / IG

• Digital Art Streaming Platform Loupe Raises $3M to Transform Art Distribution / PRWeb

• From Celeste Blewitt: The TV Advertising Market Is Slumping, But Sports Ads Are Booming' / Hollywood Reporter

• Could audiobooks be the next frontier for advertising? / Marketing Brew

• While [SIC] homies ‘How Long Gone' Podcast Inks Ad Sales, Marketing Deal With Talkhouse/ The Hollywood Reporter

• Corollary: welcome to Media's small-ball era / The Rebooting

• Case in point: Substack invites Newsletter Writers to Invest in the business / Axios

• But, but. … How much money do we think Substack lost last year? / The Verge

• Because? The digital media rollup dream is dead for the moment — now it's all about core brand strength / CNBC

• Hence: Wirecutter tests new content on different platforms to increase affiliate revenue / Digiday

• Gen Z and Millennials Haven't Completely Abandoned Linear TV — Yet/ Morning Consult

• How BuzzFeed's Creator Score is grading the impact of its creator network / Digiday

Market-ations

• Hollywood, music industry brace for a TikTok ban / WaPo

• Where TikTok users may go if the app gets banned / CNN

• Influencers take stock of life and dreams in anticipation of the ban/ Reuters

• Unrelated but also existential: Godard’s 1991 Nike ad for the Air 180/ Vimeo

• Rewards programs deliver in a down economy / The Future Party

• Meanwhile, Tech Companies Are Testing How Far They Can Slash Staff / Vanity Fair

• Corollary: Alibaba will split into six different units covering e-commerce, media and the cloud / Seeking Alpha

• Related to that: Apple continues to creep into everyday financial services with Apple Pay Later / Apple

• Because?! Despite Inflation, Gen Z Consumers Are Still Shopping Online / WWD

• TikTok and Amazon Bet on China's Ecommerce Model. Selling over livestreams is a $40 billion business in China. But Americans just aren't responding / Wired

• Related: a16z Marketplace 100 2023 edition was published this week, and it is always worth a browse. Key Quote: "If we were to break it out as its own category, mental health would take the crown in terms of year-over-year GMV growth." / A16z

• Hence? Social media's new pay-for-play rules. Social media is getting pricier for users who want to unlock special features and privileges / Axios

• Elsewhere, the Latest marketing trends in consumer packaged goods / Retail Dive

• And related to that: Secret Deodorant inexplicably wants to help anxious Gen Z build financial literacy / Glossy

• While L’Oréal is social listening, in-house teams to tap into beauty trends 'at the speed of culture' / Glossy

• Gabriela Hearst’s Chloé has introduced a digital ID system to revolutionize the fashion resale industry with authentication, traceability and repair information / Retail Boss

• And Banana Republic Enters Home Category / WWD

• Muslim Hikers and adidas TERREX developed the first-ever prayer mat specifically designed for outdoors use / Hypebae

• While in China, Gen Z, Kidults Fuel Luxury x Anime Collabs In 2023 / Jing Daily

• Related: How gaming creators are moving into corporate roles and bringing brands with them / AdAge

• Ergo: MSCHF is back with a new project called Tax Heaven 3000, which is a tax-themed dating simulator. Here’s the official site for it. The game is free to play but for $90 you can get the “collector’s edition,” which comes with a body pillow / MSCHF

• Related: the people in sexual relationships with cartoons / Dazed

• Web3 isn't dead! Here are 3 brands building on the blockchain in 2023 / The Drum

• And! NFTs are dead either! Amazon’s Gallery Could Prove It / Creative Blow

• Case in point: Tommy Hilfiger is taking a step towards metaverse interoperability / Vogue Business

• CMOs Can't Defend What They Can't Define. New data suggests the struggle to prove ROI persists. AdWeek

• 'I hate advertising in games': Q&A with Epic Games' Tim Sweeney and Saxx Persson / Digiday

• Levi's says it will use AI models for the right reasons / Creative Bloq

Superficial Interest

• Researchers have discovered a new shape / Creative Bloom

• From Nick Dodziuk: Never realized what we were missing at the county fair [The DelCo Demo Derby] /Nowness

• How GPT-4 saved a dog’s life / Twitter

• Whatever the Problem, It’s Probably Solved by Walking / NYT

• The Mental Health Benefits of Spring Cleaning / Vogue

• While custom-designed museum programs are alleviating depression, fostering connection and even lowering cortisol levels in people with dementia / Reasons to Be Cheerful

• Woodio develops toilet made from wood chips / Dezeen

Food / Drink

• From Celeste Blewitt: Great read, but also a deep dive into Tiktok search functions, content features and following the lead of TikTok on a daily basis. Interesting to think how the algorithm continually moves, while also considering the everyday meal. [‘I Spent A Week Getting All My Recipes and Restaurant Recommendations From TikTok.’] / Bon Appetit

• An Australian company created a woolly mammoth meatball by combining mammoth DNA with elephant DNA, inserting that into sheep stem cells, and then growing ~20B cells / The Guardian

• But… the meat industry blocked the IPCC’s plant-based diet / Quartz

• So for now? 5 Benefits of Lemon Water, Explained by a Nutritionist / Vogue

• New research found that E. coli bacteria from meat likely cause hundreds of thousands of UTIs annually / Science Direct

• Also painful: Uber Eats is purging its app of thousands of virtual storefronts, citing that the inflation of same-menu, different-name brands is clogging the app and hurting customer trust / Future Party

• An Italian professor from the University of Parma is stirring the pot with his claim that carbonara is an American dish / The Guardian

  

======[SIC] 239: Inspiral Floormats======