[SIC] 246: Unexpected Sparkle

Volume 5, Number 38

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): Snaxshot / Elevator / Today in Tabs / Nieman Lab / Politico / Motive Unknown / Om Malik / Marginal Revolution / Semafor / Future Perfect / Publish Press / Beats & Bytes / SF/J / Inside Cryptocurrency / Public Announcement / Recomendo / Morning Consult / Micromobility Report / Palm Report / The Unskippables

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Hi all,

Given the years I spent there (‘04-’20), the news this week about the many losers of the VICE bankruptcy (including yours truly), has prompted a lot of requests for my take on things. Not to dodge, but I thought [SIC] homie and Breakfast Club irregular Andrew Courtien’s summary of the VICE debacle pretty much nails it. Like him, I can’t help but hope the proverbial beard grows back. We’ll see.

More positively: occasional contributor and Courier editor Daniel Giacopelli’s Monday Media Diet brought a bunch of new subscribers this week: welcome, everybody, and thanks Dan for the shout, amongst a bunch of other great recos. Likewise, thanks to Iolanda, Celeste, Piers, Peter, Zach and Gordon for contributions this week. And lest it go unsaid, I’m grateful any time somebody recommends [SIC] to friends, family or colleagues, so if you’’ve got any of those, here’s a button:

Other than that: Noah Brier’s recap of his excellent (and packed-with-smart-people) BrXnd.ai conference this week captured some little-spoken truths about the AI discussions we’re all having, IMO. It’s worth reading. The TLDR: nobody knows anything for certain, and that’s what makes it exciting. Noah also announced a second edition of the conference in SF in September - highly recommended, if you are out West or if you can expense the trip.

Now, the links.

Ben

Scene from Tosh Basco’s performance at “Exchange” on Monday night at Water Street Associates

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Zeitgest / Gestalt

• Snapchat influencer Caryn Marjorie made more than $71k in one week after releasing an AI version of herself and charging fans $1 per minute for CarynAI to be their virtual girlfriend / LinkedIn

• Elsewhere: when Did ‘Wholesome’ Become a Gen Z Compliment? / NYT

• And why are so many young Americans adopting fake British accents? /The Guardian

• It’s not just conversation—Gen Z is missing some essential nonverbal skills, too / Quartz

• When you drop the accent: how Friendships Change in Adulthood / The Atlantic

• Related, from Piers Fawkes: I’m a Couples Therapist. Something New Is Happening in Relationships / NYT

• Remote Work Comes With Daytime Drug and Drinking Habits. Cocaine, benzodiazepines and other drugs are no longer after-hours activities / Bloomberg

• But at least flexible work is feminist / Forbes

• Not feminist: Rudy Giuliani Accused of Being a Rapist, Racist, and Really Bad Lawyer  / Vanity Fair

• Also bad and getting worse: The First Year of AI College Ends in Ruin / The Atlantic

• Hence? OpenAI’s Sam Altman urges lawmakers to regulate AI  / NYT

• While TikTok Goes Surrealist With “Exquisite Corpse” Videos / Hyperallergic

• For Gen Z, Playing an Influencer on TikTok Comes Naturally. There's stuff to promote now. The followers can come later / NYT

• The interchangeable millennial aesthetics of new psychedelic spaces / Dirt

• Not interchangeable: How our brains sabotage hybrid work success / Wired

• Skateboard culture is going mainstream in China, winning over new consumers and redefining social norms in the process /Jing Daily

World Order

• The digital euro: a solution seeking a problem?/ FT

• Penguin Random House sues Florida school district over book ban / FT

• How Tokyo Became an Anti-Car Paradise /  Heatmap-New

• Related: SoftBank is bringing self-driving buses to Japan / Bloomberg

• While GM is developing a tiny electric pickup truck for the Chinese market that’s expected to retail in the ballpark of $14,000 / Fox News

• On the other end of the spectrum: Ferrari CEO on AVs: 'we don't care' / The Drive

• Corollary: How to quit cars / The New Yorker

• But can the world make an electric car battery without China? / NYT

• And How are EV battery packs made? / Scope of Work

• How a Disaster Expert Prepares for the Worst / The New Yorker

• IE? New York City May Be Sinking Under the Weight of Its Skyscrapers / Vanity Fair

• Ditto Mexico City and Jakarta, per WITI’s Sinking Cities edition / Why Is This Interesting

• Cities must beware the ‘donut effect’ / FT

• Also donut-shaped: Is our universe inside a black hole? / Physics Astronomy

• Corollary: The crazy plan to explode a nuclear bomb on the moon / BBC

• And why the EU is investing in astral garbage machines / The Dial

• Better astral than plastic: New UN Report Says the World Can Cut 80% of Plastic Pollution by 2040 / Nice News

The Speculative Future

• From Iolanda Carvalho: “Somewhere in the middle? ‘The annihilation of democracy or new age of Enlightenment? Sapiens author and Meta head of research debate.’” Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens) vs Yann Le Cun (Meta) on artificial intelligence / Le Point

• The apocalypse isn’t coming. We must resist cynicism and fear about AI / The Guardian

• But, but: Google’s AI-powered photo editor is so good it might aid devious fakery / The Verge

• Also soon your iPhone will be able to speak in your own voice / TechRadar

• Hence: Another Side of the A.I. Boom: Detecting What A.I. Makes / NYT

• Speaking of fakes: The big business of fake Salvador Dalí art / The Hustle

• Speaking of Dali, he makes a cameo in this Fake Adam Curtis On Corecore video (that you should def watch) / YT

• You should also watch (real) Curtis’ss Hypernormalisation again / YT

• Last AI one: From Peter Spear: “I thought I would share my little experiment in brand listening with ChatGPT3: “What was it like to interview CHatGPT?"

• U.K. lawmakers have argued that retail investing in unbacked cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), should be legally regulated like gambling / Bloomberg

Pop Cultures

• From Piers Fawkes: Locals Only Interview: Hugh Holland on photographing California skaters in the 1970s / i-D

• While i-D travels to Lagos to meet teenage surfers, skaters and musicians / i-D

• Everybody Wants a Piece of The Dare / GQ

• Related: [SIC] homie Tyler McCauley made a Home Sweet Home-worthy remix of Shallowhalo’s “Renaissance Affair” / Soundcloud

• From Gordon Hull: Here is a new Freestyle mix I made that hopefully gets the rhythm into your body without it actually having to move  / Spotify

• Surrender to Steely Dan. How the insufferably perfectionist duo captured the hearts of a new generation of listeners / The Atlantic

• What Bruce Springsteen Learned from Flannery O’Connor / Lithub

• Speaking of stolen valor, from Piers Fawkes : How Do I Upgrade My Carhartt Wardrobe? / NYT

• Girl Gaze: Petra Collins / Palm Report

• How Prada And Miu Miu Became The ‘Hottest’ Brands Of The Year (So Far) / Jing Daily

• And How Philipp Plein Became the King of Lowbrow High Fashion / The New Yorker

• A guide for wearing your canceled sneakers 💰/ The Kicks You Wear

• Oh also there’s a club for the canceled (sounds cool 🤦‍♂️)  / The New Yorker

• Tiktokers’ Growing interest in upper east side style  / Elle

• How luxury giant LVMH built a recession-proof empire / CNBC

• Because actually, there’s no secret to how wealthy people dress / The Atlantic

• Inside the men’s luxury bag boom / Vogue Business

• From Celeste Blewitt:  Fashion Is Basking In Summer Nostalgia Right Now' / Elle UK

• TikTok’s ‘Gamer Girl’ Aesthetic Offers Brands New Way To Score With China’s Gen Z / Jing Daily

• From Celeste Blewitt: Young Design Influencers Are the New Kids On The TikTok Block’] /FT

• What the design hive is buying for home / Magasin

• A temperature check of the big collab industrial complex / GQUK

• Frank Stella to the quilters of Gee's Bend: how Artists Rights Society is working in the world of NFTs / The Art Newspaper

• It’s Time to Rewrite the Canon of Women Artists / Hyperallergic

• Related: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith on Her Life’s Journey in Art / Hyperallergic

• Harder-to-see: A new documentary tracks David Hammons, the art world's invisible man / The Art Newspaper

• Hayden Martin’s ‘Thunderdome’ work involves an AI experiment, recreating the essence of the famous 1997 Thunderdome rave through synthetic club photography / IG

• Corollary: From Hardcore to Hardcore MUSIC Investor: Q’s With Matt Pincus / Pollstar

• A Few Thoughts on Quentin Tarantino’s Plan to Retire / The New Yorker

• Meanwhile, Matthew Barney is  Back in the Game / NYT

• Printed Matter is looking for an Executive Director / Arts Consulting

• On the other hand: The Worst Job in Soccer: ‘It’s 90 Minutes of Hell’ / The Athletic

• Everybody Wants Victor Wembanyama. He Wants to Rule the N.B.A. / NYT

• Also rules: Liz Stip reviewing the top 500 albums of all time /  TikTok

• Spotify’s RapCaviar Releases List Of The 50 Best Hip-Hop Beats / HotHipHop

• While Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “last playlist,” was made to be played at his funeral / The Fader

• Unrelated: Asics is launching a new fashion line with Kiko Kostadinov / BoF

• Rhuigi Villaseñor leaves Bally after less than two years / Vogue Business

• Cannes kicks off with a full embrace of Johnny Depp / WaPo

• Logical, given Hollywood Can’t “Boycott” Johnny Depp Because He’s Not Thinking About Them Anyway / Vanity Fair

Media Happenings

• Behind the mission to preserve Black Twitter / Nieman Lab

• Related: Black creators say relationships with platforms remain strained / Digiday

• Time CEO Jessica Sibley on taking down Time's paywall / The Rebooting Pod

• Forbes is being bought by a 28-year-old tech exec — and/or the foreign investors behind him / Axios

• Here are Linda Yaccarino’s likely top priorities as Twitter’s new CEO / Digiday

• Musk and Yaccarino are bound to Clash / The Information

• How The Guardian, The Times, The Economist, the FT, and Tortoise became podcasting leaders / Press Gazette

• Substack spam is rising. And so is the annoyance with newsletters / Om

• Newsmax beat CNN in prime-time ratings for the first time on Friday / Mediaite

• AI has striking writers freaked out. Can Hollywood avoid nightmare scenarios?  / LA Times

• CNET journalists, inspired by AI, are threatening to unionize / Bloomberg

• From Zach Mallard: “Hey Ben- as promised- the link to episode one of THE SWIRL _ 01. It’s certainly a WIP, but to begin, begin eh?” / YT

• Media vets launch podcast investment firm / Axios

• The New York Times Goes All In on a New Podcast App / Vanity Fair

• And TikTok will pay creators of viral filters and effects / The Verge

• TikTok isn’t where ‘stars get started’. Stars start themselves. / Music Business Worldwide

• Gaming news creator Jake Lucky and gaming commentator Hunter Grooms launched Gaming World Media (GWM), a news organization that covers gaming and creator updates / GWM

• ON_Discourse's Plan for a new New Membership-Focused Media Company / PRNewswire

Market-ations

• From Iolanda Carvalho:  This is lovely - "The simple act of recognizing that a holiday email might be painful is a step toward building a relationship with consumers." [Opting Out Is an Opportunity for Your Brand to Build Empathy] / Branding Mag

• Another from Iolanda: “CMO talks from THE best brand in the world!” [Coca-Cola's Manolo Arroyo on the future of marketing] / Contagious

• As Late Night Goes Dark During the Writers Strike, Marketers Scramble / The Hollywood Reporter

• Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobile is getting a new name / CNN

• Are you ready for a free flatscreen TV — with ads you can never turn off? / Fast Company

• After last year’s inventory tidal wave, where do retailers go from here? / Retail Dive

• America’s Wildly Successful Socialist Experiment. The NBA lottery illustrates the gulf between the sporting outlooks of the U.S. and Europe / The Atlantic

• Nike faces lawsuit over greenwashing claims / Retail Dive

• Wait, did Van Gogh and Monet unwittingly advertise Stella Artois? / Creative Bloq

• Tesla will 'try a little advertising,' / The Verge

Superficial Interest

• This list of Quaker names is amazing / Twitter

• The Long, Strange History of the Baseball Cap / MLB

• Beer yoga / EuroNews

• The world’s most unusual neighbourhood design in The Netherlands, where residents live in giant concrete spheres / Architectural Digest

Food / Drink

• How TikTok took over the menu and made everything cheesier, saucier, and covered with caviar / Grub Street

• Corollary: Selena Gomez is now a Food Network host / Vulture

• How two friends sparked L.A.’s sushi obsession — and changed the way America eats / LATimes

• Our National French Fry Decline / The Melt

• Corollary: The “McDonalds Broke My Heart” episode of the Revisionist History pod / Spotify

• Food tech startup Pairwise has launched the first CRISPR-developed food available in the U.S / Axios

• How Big Beverage poured empty promises down our throats / Vox

• The FTC states that wellness companies must back up the health or safety benefits of a product — including over-the-counter drugs, homeopathic products, dietary supplements, and "functional foods" which includes things like snacks and beverages— with "reliable evidence" pointing to said benefit / FTC

Useful Diversions

Do:

Tonight: Furnishing Utopia's PUBLIC ACCESS debut exhibit featuring works from 37 international designers, from 19 cities, 12 countries exploring ways in which design can inspire communal acts of sharing / HeadHi

Friday: See work from [SIC] homie Maggie Lee and many others at this group show at Reena Spaulding / IG

Saturday: Meet me on the dance floor at Friends from New York / Partiful

Sunday: Go hear [SIC] homie Bobby Hundreds talk about his new book “NFTs are a Scam / NFTs are the Future” / Eventbrite

Next Tuesday May 23, 2023 at 9a ET: Check out [SIC] homie Stefano Rosso virtually at the Jing Meta X GEEIQ: Is the metaverse enough? Exploring mixed reality, phygital and luxury in Web3 event / Jing

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Noah Brier at BrXnd.ai - and the word of the week: Fingertipfeel