[SIC] 253: A Lot of Switch Mongo

Volume 5, Number 45

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): Future of Transportation / Nice News / Recommended Reads / The Information / Quartz / The New Statesman / Motive Unknown / Semafor / 1440 / Understanding TikTok / NYT / Public Announcement / Ben-Evans / Future Perfect / Bens Bites / The Publish Press / Roca News / The Future Party / Dirt / Elevator / After School / The Art of Noticing

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Hi all,

Back in NYC at last, and getting back to normal; great to see so many [SIC] friends in Cannes (and if I owe you an email you’ll get it shortly). Meantime, a busy week got even busier with the launch of IG’s Threads app last night - I dutifully signed up @dietznutz in spite of the wild privacy issues keeping it out of Europe and am keen to watch the chaos. Feel free to drop a line, and to send links you like. I’ll use them.

To that end - thanks to stalwart contributors Piers, Iolanda and Celeste for stories this week and to Paul his deep link masterwork down in the food and drink section. I appreciate them tremendously. And thanks as well to the new bunch subscribers who’ve upgraded to paid support recently - I’m cooking up a surprise for you, soon to come.

Meantime, the links follow

Ben

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Zeitgest / Gestalt

• Why Is No One Having Sex Right Now? Welcome to the Sex Recession. Supply has never been higher, but demand is way down. Will we ever pull out of it? /Esquire

• Is it because Beige-fluencers are romanticizing mundanity, and boring is the new black?/ The Guardian

• Elsewhere: “Affirmative action, in my view, was doomed,” Jay Caspian Kang writes, focusing on how the system treated Asian Americans / The New Yorker

• Related: The moral bankruptcy of Ivy League America. Frenzy over affirmative action is a red herring as long as broader educational opportunity is so limited / FT

• On the subject: Affirmative Action and the Art World’s White Elites / Hyperallergic

• Also: What the End of Affirmative Action Means for Fashion / BoF

• Pride celebrations shrink in China, despite rise of pink yuan / Jing Daily

• Corollary pink: Vietnam banned Barbie over a maritime territorial dispute with China. The movie shows a Chinese map claiming Vietnamese territory in the South China Sea, for some reason, which angered Hanoi / BBC

• A TikToker told 400,000 fans he was a Russian special forces warrior fighting US marines in Ukraine, but he turned out to be a Chinese grifter selling vodka online / Insider

• Related, from Celeste Blewitt: “A piece on the most recent coup in Russia, the western connection to the updates via tech but how little the world still understands about the intricacies of current world events. A worthwhile read if wanting to understand the depths of the war.”  The Revolution Will Now Be Telegrammed' /FT

• Post holiday: Reclaiming Real American Patriotism / The Atlantic

• Meanwhile: Slavoj Žižek argues the left must embrace law and order / The New Statesman

• While Feminism is being infected by generational infighting / The New Statesman

• Related: The dangers of “cool girl” liberalism / Politico

• Corollary? The disappearing lesbian bar / Axios

• Colleen Ballinger’s apology song was the last gasp of old YouTube / Embedded

• The Life Cycle of a Viral Fashion Trend / BoF

• Corollary: "Vegan" is out, "plant-based" is in / Axios

• Also not out? The Idol may get a second season, according to HBO execs /

• Corollary, from Piers Fawkes: “Erm - newsletter fodder : online data has led to crime drama interest”/The Guardian

• Gen Zs had no desire to work in finance before the economy started tanking, but they’ve since changed their minds / / Fortune

• While from Iolanda Carvalho: Eight out of 10 millennials know demographics are horseshit. Millennials are no more similar to each other than they are to Gen X or Gen Z, so it’s time to leave this lazy approach to segmentation behind /

• So … why not have a soak? Thermal celebrates "vast experience and rich heritage" of bathing culture / Dezeen

World Order

• How much damage are French riots causing ‘Brand France’? / Jing Daily

• One indicator: Celine Cancels Menswear Show in Paris as Riots Continue / BoF

• But it’s TikTok, Snapchat, and video games that are responsible for the riots in France, says Macron /  Kotaku

• Related, from Piers Fawkes: As protests spread across the country, Dan Boulton's new book celebrates the famous slogan: "La beauté est dans la rue" / i-D

• July 3 and 4 were the world’s two hottest days on record going back to the late 19th century / BBC

• Why the media too often ignores the connection between climate change and meat / Vox

• From Celeste Blewitt: “A brilliant read into the level of private funding in science and tech R&D as well as where and how of philanthropy in the current world” 'Billionaires Want To Save The World. What's So Wrong With That?' / FT

• Peter Zeihan turns his focus from Ukraine to pronounce that Real Estate is killing NYC / YouTube

• Not NYC, then: The Most Appealing City for Young Homeowners / CBS News

• Cause its move out or go in for Hotbedding, apparently / News.com.au

• Lithium scarcity pushes carmakers into the mining business / NYT

• The global stock market rally isn’t as narrow as you think / FT

• The US economy grew at a much stronger rate in the first quarter of the year, according to revised figures released Thursday, reporting annualized growth of 2%—a larger-than-normal revision from 1.3% / CNBC

• Case in point: There’s a Factory building boom in Biden’s America / WSJ

• But is Bidenomics a Bust as Few Americans Feel Like Celebrating His ‘Achievements’?/ The New York Sun

• As Trump vs. Biden 2.0 Crashes Into View, Revisionist History Is Rearing Its Ugly Head / Vanity Fair

• White powder discovered in the West Wing that caused the White House to be briefly evacuated Sunday evening turned out to be cocaine / APNews

• Meanwhile, Outrage Over Italian Minister’s Sexist Rant, Pricey Pasta at Mykonos Signal Start of Semi-Normal Summer in Europe / The New York Sun

• A deputy mayor of Helsinki, Finland was arrested for graffiti-ing a train tunnel in his city / APNews

The Speculative Future

• It only took five hours for an AI model to design a functional computer / Quartz

• Hence: AI to wipe out human developers in 5 years, says the Stability AI chief / Decrypt

• This week, New York City will start enforcing a first-of-its-kind law aimed at bias in the workplace: the kind introduced by AI / Quartz

• ChatGPT and generative AI will change how we work, but how different is this to all the other waves of automation of the last 200 years? What does it mean for employment? Disruption? Coal consumption? / Ben-Evans

• But worldwide traffic to the chatbot’s website, which had been spiking since the bot was introduced and spawned a million think pieces, declined 9.7% from May to June, and visitors spent 8.5% less time on the site/ Similarweb

• ComedyBytes, a group of comedians who call themselves an “A.I. comedy collective,” is putting on shows in New York City / ComedyBytes

• Young artists are 'embracing' creative AI/ Musically

• Music with AI generated elements is OK by The Grammys — with some caveats / APNews

• But Is AI generating an ‘averaged’, one-sided, view of art history? / The Art Newspaper

• Elsewhere: Generative AI in games will create a copyright crisis / Wired

• Also, AI "raises all sorts of questions" for animals and the environment / Dezeen

Pop Cultures

• ‘I Sold My Soul, But Warhol Would Be Proud’  Meet the M.F.A. grads pumping out wall art for mid-tier hotel chains and retirement homes / Curbed

• Drake's new poetry book, Titles Ruin Everything, sold out online despite haters saying it consists of discarded IG captions. Read More → highsnobiety

• Kenny Schacter on the NFT Now pod has come choice thoughts about the need for royalties in art/ IG

• Corollary: The Asian digital talent making waves in Web3 / Jing Daily

• This is where a story about How Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav Became Public Enemy Number One in Hollywood used to be/ GQ

• Until GQ removed the article about the Zaslav after the company complained / NYT

• From Celeste Blewitt: Here's The Case For Getting Extremely Into The Tour De France / GQ

• The music industry’s tipping point is Right Here, Right Now / Music Industry Blog

• On the topic of ‘Right Here, right Now” - the greatest ad ever: Blackcurrant Tango versus Sebastian / YouTube

• Oh and the Fatboy Slim song/video it inspired / YouTube

• Matter of fact, the whole Fatboy Slim doc of the same name / YouTube

• More documentary: Mixtape Sites Like DatPiff Propelled Rap. Can They Be Preserved? / NYT

• And more old Rap: Ice-T and KRS-One Reflect on Hip-Hop ‘Youth Culture’ and Its ‘Gray Hairs’ / Rolling Stone

• Speaking of old guys: An interview with Paul McCartney / The FACE

• The minor genius Interview : Writer / Culture Dude Alex Pappademas / Minor Genius

• More tipping points, from Piers Fawkes:  We’re at a Tipping point in decline of magazines as one large printer remains in UK / The Guardian

• Hold on, Piers. Monocle says the death of print has been greatly exaggerated / Monocle

• And The co-founder of luxury art publisher Assouline on why its books ‘are really haute couture’ and how they will ‘never’ go digital / The Art Newspaper

• From Celeste Blewitt: 'This Broadcast TV Genre Continues To Thrive. (What Are Game Shows?) / NYT

• Fashion Without Capitalism. Design from behind the iron curtain / Articles of Interest

• Corollary: How Ukrainian It-girl Mary Furtas built partywear brand Cultnaked / Vogue Business

• Kengo Kuma creates accessories for Fendi from washi paper and tree bark / Dezeen

• Ganni unveils faux leather jacket made using bacteria instead of cowhide / Dezeen

• Skirts, blouses, and purses: How menswear is blurring gender boundaries / Jing Daily

• Elsewhere in fabrics: Henry Taylor Unravels the Fabric of White Supremacy. The artist’s show at the Fabric Museum and Workshop in Philadelphia features works that investigate the racist history of tartan plaid / Hyperallergic

• Welcome to Bodeworld / The Cut

• Related: W. David Marx on authenticity anxiety and luxury “super-dupes / Dirt

• Oh, also: “Why consumers buy counterfeit luxury brands,”, from 2009 / Journal of Marketing Research

• Pickleball is taking off — and fashion brands are cottoning on. Devotees of the hybrid sport have embraced a wackier style beyond the standard crisp tennis whites / FT

• In response? Wimbledon updates its 146-year-old dress code / WWD

• SZA’s moody, enigmatic music made her a megastar. Can she learn to live with success? / NYT

• Daniel Kaluuya’s Barney film will be a ‘surreal, A24-type’ work of art / Dazed

• A collection of pictures of hand-written signs around NYC / NYT

• Fave NY/LA gallery The Hole staged a show to “highlight art that has long been boxed up and tucked away,” collected but not displayed / LATimes

• Meanwhile down the road, More than 1,500 Disneyland collectibles, from old ride parts to costumes and trash cans, will soon go up for auction in California / APNews

Media Happenings

• Meta's Twitter rival Threads has launched/ Digiday

• And TweetDeck to Become a Verified-Only Feature / The Information

• The Reddit AMA as we know it is dead / Quartz

• Snap now has 4m paying subscribers (far more than Twitter, FWIW) / Axios

• After 10 years of consistent uploads, education creator Tom Scott will take an indefinite break from YouTube at the end of this year, Scott said in an announcement video last weekend / YT

• So where are we all supposed to go now?  / The Verge

• One place: Social news startup Brut gained 700,000 new TikTok subscribers after coverage of French riots went viral  / Bloomberg

• Netflix quietly shelved an anti-racist video project / Semafor

• While Roblox wants to shed its ‘metaverse’ label / The Drum

Market-ations

• Barbie, Mermaids and Taylor Swift: Welcome to Tween Girl Summer/ Fast Company

• But Barbie vs Burberry is 2023's most unlikely brand battle / Creative Bloq

• New study reveals best words for brand slogans / Phys.org

• TikTok Sells a Lot of Books: Now Its Owner Wants to Publish Them Too / NYT

• Magic Spoon builds millennial, Gen Z following on TikTok, Instagram as social media behavior and algorithms change / Digiday

• Why ad agencies are launching entertainment units / AdAge

• MediaMath’s bankruptcy exposes ad tech’s cash flow and credit management challenges / Digiday

• FIFA Women’s World Cup marketing—everything brands need to know / AdAge

• A major trucking company is advertising for long-haulers in a video game, with the theory that the game might breed good drivers / Axios

• Apple has made drastic cuts to the number of Vision Pro headsets it expects to produce next year/ FT

• How Sephora Reinvented Beauty Retail / WWD

• By adding human review of AI content, Shutterstock expands indemnity to enterprise clients / Digiday

• From Iolanda Carvalho: Love this one!!! "The form, colours and movement of each avatar are dictated by users’ listening habits, making each one completely unique."In Bang & Olufsen’s latest campaign, listeners are given avatars made from their favourite music / It’s Nice That

• And the world's largest spherical structure unveiled in Las Vegas / Dezeen

Superficial Interest

• California’s salmon stocks are crashing / NYT

• A New Cloned Horse Offers Hope for Endangered Species. Black rhinos and bumblebees still have a shot / Wired

• While Colombia’s ‘Cocaine Hippo’ Population Is Even Bigger Than Scientists Thought / Scientific American

• Corollary: The U.S. considered a hippo ranching industry. Dig into the strange history / Smithsonian

• Also deep: the Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading / Monocle

• And Fiat’s New Tiny Car Has a Shower In It / Micromobility Report

Food / Drink

• From Paul Wallace: [10 links asking]: If you aren't eating in queens, are you living ? / Various Platforms

• The ultra-American treat? American cheese-topped apple pie / Brand Innovators

• The Most Mysterious Sandwich in Brooklyn / Bon Appetit

• Related: Kevin Kline's Great American Sandwich / The Melt

• How Cereal Transformed American Culture / Mental Floss

• Maggie Harrison’s War on Wine. Her painstaking blends are dazzling diners and critics — and upending long-held notions about how winemaking is supposed to work / NYT

• Bold Bean Co, Brina and Italian rosé on the Monocle pod / Monocle

• But What’s the Point of Beanless Coffee? / The New York Sun

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