[SIC] 243: Beetlejuice Spare Tire

Volume 5, Number 35

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. And do please pass along to people you like (or people you need to be smarter).

Corollary sources this week (all worth your review, and all easily discoverable):NYT / Public Announcement / Nieman Lab / Motive Unknown / The Art of Noticing / 2pm / After School / The Unskippables / Elevator / On a Good Note / Micromobility Report / Marginal Revolution / Quartz / Metaproof / Publish Press

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Hi again from the plane-ternet, all.

Been a busy week story-wise, so another brief intro. I neglected to shout out Brian Hanly on The Rebooting podcast last week, but apropos of 2023’s continued niche-ification of media voices and enshittification of platforms, it’s a good one to check out. Hanly’s onto something.

Also good listening: Syd Allen-Ash sent along her latest,The Bridge episode of her running-centric Toe Nails podcast, heavily featuring the music producer and running club OG Charlie Dark. It’s a good one. Thanks for sending, Syd. And thanks Iolanda, Ben, Scott, Celeste and Ilirjana for contributions this week. And Courtien for inspiring this week’s title.

Elsewhere in niche voices, I was pleased to see sometime-contributor Zach Sokol’s story as told to Gossamer, both because I think what Zach and friends are doing with Cash Only and the un-googleable Sex Mag are intriguing (and indicative), but also because Gossamer embodies a similar spirit - a kind of middle-out brand building that continues to feel modern to me.

Last tip, on that note: future follow of the week is @bylinebyline. Thank me later. Now, links.

Ben

Found Photocollage.

======[SIC] 243: Beetlejuice Spare Tire======

Zeitgest / Gestalt

• Kyle Chayka on BuzzFeed, Blue Checks, and the End of an Internet Era / The New Yorker

• Distracts us from The stealth campaign that’s getting your kids hooked on chess / NYT

• TikTok stans demanding their favorite musicians release sped-up songs / NBC News

• While Modern Body Horror Is Turning Breastfeeding Into an Act of Terror / NYT

• And a critical reëvaluation of “The Big Lebowski” is perfectly tuned to annoy literally everyone /Unherd

• Speaking of false idols: the ‘Quiet luxury’ trend is likely to prove both shallow and fleeting, argues [SIC] Talks Alum Eugene Rabkin / BoF

• Caveat Emptor, Saverus Maximus: Your $12 Shirt Was Made in Functional Slavery / NYT

• Also depressing (but necessary): Avery Truffleman goes Inside The Factory on the 10th anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse / Articles of Interest

• But Depressing Art Is Good for You, so there / Hyperallergic

• Corollary: why young shoppers are cool with counterfeits / FT

• Also, Highsnob says we should all be dressing like elderly people / IG

• Because? My Taste Is Basic. So What? / Harpers Bazaar

• Pokemon Sleep - a game which you play BY SLEEPING - is coming this year /The Verge

• Elsewhere: Sludge Content is the latest form of escapism on TikTok/ NBCNews

• And. People are reading obituaries on YouTube /Marketing Brew

• Are Text Messages the New Social Media? One Start-Up Thinks So / NYT

• New Gen Z-centered app RTRO launches with ChatGPT and focus on messaging / Glossy

• From Iolanda Carvalho: The Deloitte 2023 Digital media trends survey | “A tapestry of entertainment, community, and meaning” / Deloitte

• IE: “What I learned unsubscribing from 22 newspapers” /Lenfest Institute

• Speaking of trends: The new 9-to-5 starts at 6pm for many GenZ-lennials. And they— walk out on employers who don’t accommodate their schedules / Fortune

• Meanwhile, employers are quiet quitting, too / Charter

• Corollary: A new study finds that remote work is hurting young employees by depriving them of opportunities for professional feedback. / NYT

• Still, Gen Zs are taking over college cities — after they graduate / Insider

• While Small Towns chase America’s $3 Trillion Climate Gold Rush”  / WSJ

• How to defend against the rise of ChatGPT? Think like a poet / WaPo

• Hence? Why you should teach at a community college /Timo Zander

World Order

• How soft power fell out of fashion / FT

• NYC's air is 'as clean as it's ever been,' but that's still pretty gross / Gothamist

• Related: the cleanest and dirtiest air in the US / Axios

• Swimming in the Seine. Paris has embarked on a project to clean up the river ahead of the 2024 Olympics / Monocle

• The ocean is heating rapidly and scientists don’t exactly know why. They do know it’s not good /BBC

• So…?! Researchers created a cyborg goldfish /NYT

• A Heat Shield for the Most Important Ice on Earth. Engineers might be able to protect Arctic ice by coating it with tiny glass bubbles. Should they? / The New Yorker

• California Will Fulfill 100% of Water Requests for First Time Since 2006 /AP News

• Wind Farms and Birds Are Learning to Coexist / Reasons to Be Cheerful

• And UK Police are giving out free weed vapes / The FACE

• While tiny Japanese pickup trucks, also known as “kei” cars, are cropping up across rural America, filling a niche for farmers, building contractors, and other tradespeople that U.S. automakers have ignored /The Economist

• And as stores and restaurants attempt to go cashless, they're installing "reverse ATMs" that dispense stored-value cards in exchange for greenbacks / Axios

The Speculative Future

• From Iolanda Carvalho: Doomsday to utopia: Meet AI’s rival factions. Inside Silicon Valley’s insular AI sector, a small group of strange but influential subcultures have clashed in recent months /WaPo

• From Scott Lachut: "Grimes invites AI artists to use her voice, promising 50 percent royalty split," which raises interesting questions about how a personal brand will be valued in the future, what counts as a usable creative asset and what ownership/collaboration will look like in the near future” / Engadget

• AI is making Limewire look like child’s play / Decode

• Inside the Discord Where Thousands of Rogue Producers Are Making AI Music / VICE

• A supermodel turns herself into one of Epic’s hyperrealistic MetaHumans / The Verge

• Therefore: how to become a game developer using ChatGPT  /Cointelegraph

• Related: How AI could power advertising's next creative revolution / Fast Company

• Not like this tho: AI Spam Is Already Flooding the Internet / Motherboard

• And everybody hates the Snapchat AI bot / Morning Brew

• Unrelated, sneak peak: Bobby Hundreds' upcoming book “NFTs Are A Scam / NFTs Are the Future” /Hypemoon

• Apropos of that, tho: Coinbase has filed a petition requesting the court to force the SEC to create a clear framework for digital assets /Bloomberg

Pop Cultures

• Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney help springboard a Welsh soccer club back into the big leagues / CNBC

• Taylor Swift and the Sparkling Trap of Constant Reinvention / NYT

• Your favorite celebrity street style photo Is Probably an Ad. How "It" girls, publicists and paparazzi conspire to create these seemingly candid fashion moments / Fashionista

• Cool ad tho: Alexis Sablone’s launch film for her pro shoe for Converse / IG

• Meanwhile [SIC] homie Amy Ellington and the story of the KCDC Nike SB Dunk/ Hypebeast

• Elsewhere, Amy interviews [SIC] Homie, artist and seminal gallerist Aaron Rose / KCDC

• IYKYK corollary: Pleats Please is the ultimate IYKYK label / Elle

• Also aesthetically fetished: Six key trends from Milan Design Week 2023 / Dezeen

• More Milan Design Week trends/ Monocle on Design Pod

• Everyone online is calling these Hollywood men 'babygirl' / NBC News

• While On His Podcast ‘Wine and Hip Hop,’ Jermaine Stone Aims to Bridge Cultures / NYT

• On TikTok, life imitates a Wes Anderson Movie / Hyperallergic

• But should brands care about new photo-sharing app Lemon8? / Vogue Business

• Also, why brands are embracing the language of Gen Z / Creative Review

• Because? Marketers may be overlooking a generation of consumers who are neither millennials nor Gen Z: "Generation Zennial." / Digiday

• Related: Ice Spice and PinkPantheress star in the new Skims campaign /Variety

• Corollary: are the Obama sisters the new Olsen twins? / The FACE

• Los Angeles as a Cultural Stir Fry / Hyperallergic

• Elsewhere in LA: Brenda's Business with Jerry Lorenzo / 032C

• Kinda related: Why Trousers Keep Getting Weirder / BoF

• Sneakers too! Li-Ning's No Heel Sneaker Concept Wins IF Design Award / Hypebeast

• Also weird but great: Kids in the Hall Helped Define Generation X, transgressing propriety, gender, sexuality, even species / Hyperallergic

• Corollary: How Fred again.. Jolted Dance Music / NYT

• What’s In Your Bag(lady) – An excellent profile and photo set with Erykah Badu / SSENSE

• Joe Russo & Fortnite's Donald Mustard Weigh In on the Future of Storytelling, Gaming & Entertainment / Collider

• More future: The Big Bang Theory: HYBE’s Chairman on K-pop’s Future, The BTS Model, AI Plans and More / Billboard

• But for RN: The Best Movies of 2023, So Far / Vanity Fair

• Richard Avedon at 100 . In a sneak peek at Gagosian, Tom Ford, Anjelica Huston, Thelma Golden, and more share favorite portraits by Avedon/ Vanity Fair

Media Happenings

• “We’re in the Zone”. [SIC] homie Alex Wagner Isn’t Living in Maddow’s Shadow/Vanity Fair

• BuzzFeed News Never Built the Brand Loyalty It Needed / A Media Operator

• But Simon Owens claims The Creator Economy "middle class" does exist / Simon Owens

• Hence? Why business journalists love Linkedin + Linkedin loves them back/Press Gazette

• Tucker Carlson Is Out and the Memes Are In / Hyperallergic

• The World According to Tucker Carlson. Donald Trump had the raw power on the right. But it was Carlson who set the ideological agenda / New Yorker

• But It Doesn’t Matter Who Replaces Tucker Carlson… the stars of Fox News are more or less interchangeable / The New Yorker

• Spotify reported double-digit gains for Q1 monthly active users and premium subscribers in Q1. Daniel Ek told Axios that the blockbuster numbers "even surprised us." / Axios

• Clinging on? BeReal says it has more than 20 million daily active users / Engadget

• Irrespective, How BeReal missed its moment / Platformer

• News app Artifact can now summarize stories using AI, including “fun” styles like emojis-only or “explain like I’m five”  / TechCrunch

• Crooked Media Takes on British Politics. The company behind "Pod Save America" is starting a British version of the popular liberal show / NYT

• While Time is expanding its climate coverage at a time when the publisher is seeing increased investment from advertisers around sustainability content / Digiday

• But Paper Magazine Lays Off Entire Editorial Team / BoF

• Disney is shrinking FiveThirtyEight. Nate Silver (and his models) are leaving/ Nieman Lab

• Vogue launches Open Casting to find diverse model talent / Vogue

• Related, from Celeste Blewitt: “Interesting to read [Edward Enninful’s] thoughts around advertising and inclusivity. The 11 minute clip that accompanies the May cover is well worth a watch” [Editor Of British Vogue Turned Down Ads On Inclusivity Grounds] / The Guardian

• While The New York Times celebrates rabbit holes in new ads / The Drum

Market-ations

• Speaking of holes: How DTC shower brands' influencer and marketing strategies are making a splash. S/o [SIC] homies Ryan and Arjun for this / Ad Age

• From Iolanda Carvalho: No comments on this one 😉 This AI-generated pizza ad is actually kind of amazing

• (I mean, it's also terrifying. Obviously.) / Creative Bloq

• Why intentional polymaths lead businesses to greatness / Business Leader

• Related: Why the Agency of Record Model Needs to Die /

• How social media makes us more susceptible to advertising  / Fast Company

• Also susceptible: Rob Walker on what the Bud Light fiasco says about the state of brand protests / Fast Company

• Britain’s mergers regulator blocked Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover bid for Activision Blizzard / NYT

• While Travis Barker personally signed every single Liquid Death enema kit / LinkedIn

• Consumers love weird, but it’s hard to do well / The Drum

• Luxury Powerhouses Bet on Chinese Shoppers and Invest In Chinese Talent / Jing Daily

• Retail store closures to sharply accelerate going forward / Yahoo

• How cannabis culture is becoming a bigger part of Jack in the Box's marketing /Digiday

• While Chipotle shines on social in support of its superfans / Ad Age

• While McDonald’s adult happy meals used nostalgia to draw buzz and lift sales / Ad Age

• From Ben Pruess: “You ever put a snack in your shoe? 🤦‍♂️” / IG

• Phil Knight, donated $400M to help rebuild a Black community in Portland / WSJ

• And Coty creates first metaverse space to upskill its workforce / Vogue Business

• Puma is asking young environmentalists to critique its sustainability strategy / The Drum

• While tech creator MKBHD (aka Marques Brownlee) released the M251, a shoe collaboration with sneaker company Atoms /

Superficial Interest

• Children deface sculpture with blue crayons / Quartz

• Inside the elite British college for the world’s best nannies /FT

Food / Drink

• How to Start a Food Business from Scratch / The FACE

• So whatcha want?! The Beastie Boys cookbook /Far Out

• From Celeste Blewitt: ‘a great dissection of dairy milk brands trying to lure in new consumers.’ [Aubrey Plaza Is The Unfortunate New Face Of The Milk Wars] / Bon Appetit

• Not vegan: why is the world’s top milk producer looking to import more dairy? / Quartz

• Related: Peter Zeihan on What the New Zealand Dairy Industry Got Right (IT'S CHEESE!) / YouTube

• Corollary? How Philly cheesesteaks became huge in Lahore, Pakistan /Philly Mag

• Were Impossible and Beyond burgers a fad? Is plant-based meat here to stay? /The Verge

• Related: The Pure Joy of Eating at Superiority Burger / The Melt

Useful Diversions

Listen:

• From [SIC] Talks alum Ilirjana Alushaj: “two scores the hubby Bobby Krlic just put out! Beau Is Afraid (Original Score) and BEEF (Original Score) / Spotify

• Zaireeka redux? Dragonchild is a full digital album and a quadruple LP alternately titled BLACK, containing an eight-channel mix of the record’s closer, “Meditation (Ancestor),” that reveals a ‘new’ track when played simultaneously on four turntables / The FADER

Do:

• This Saturday, April 30: Go support Head Hi (or any other indie bookseller) on independent book store day!

======[SIC] 243: Beetlejuice Spare Tire======

More Found Photocollage.