[SIC] 255: Prominent Hip Flexors

Volume 5, Number 47

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): Nieman Lab / Context Collapse / Politico / Roca News / Elevator / 1440 / Morning Consult / The Fader / The Information / Recommended Reads / Semafor / Micromobility Report / Reply Alt / Ben-Evans / Jing Culture & Commerce / The Art of Noticing / Morning Brew / The New Statesman / The Future Party / Metaproof / Public Annoucement / Motive Unknown / The Daily Upside

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Hi all,

Reporting live from BOS at the moment - a quick in-and-out trip. Since I’m mobile I’ll just send thanks to Molly, Celeste, Iolanda, Piers, Syd and Sam for contributions this week (and shout out to Kling for the edition’s title). I say it every week, but I welcome these from everybody; helps me know what you’re interested in and I often uncover new sources from contributions. So don’t be shy, even if you think I might have seen something already. You’d be surprised.

To that end, I’ve been telling friends lately that I’m going to do my annual daily source purge in the next week or so, and then rebuild the list. I find the process helpful, but it’s also a moment to get plugged into new channels of inspiration. If you’ve got any favorites (especially ones from outside the USA), put em in the comments. Would love to know what your favorite sources are. And of course shouts out will be forthcoming.

Ok - off to my meeting. The links follow.

Ben

Brevity: the sole of wit

======[SIC] 255: Prominent Hip Flexors======

Zeitgest / Gestalt

• It's Sock Girl Summer / Byline

• But, from Molly Raskin: We've Reached Peak Girl / Vanity Fair

• To that end, Are the girls okay? / Embedded

• Related: The “Scammer” and the Scammed: The duelling memoirs of Caroline Calloway and Natalie Beach / The New Yorker

• Corollary: Tech companies subsidized millennials’ lifestyles for years — and are now making those customers pay up / Insider

• The Paradox of Gen Z. Addressing the one question [DCDX, an agency] get[s] over, and over, and over again on Gen Z / DCDX

• Also paradoxical: Gen Z flocks to eat bizarre, weeks-old “Medieval Stew”/ NYPost

• More paradox: Aphex Twin has built a cult Gen Z following amongst the nihilistic 'corecore' creators of TikTok/ i-D

• Related to that: inside the secret underground of club music. CloudCore and Two Shell are cultivating scarcity to create underground fan communities / No Bells

• And How PinkyDoll Mesmerized the Internet. Her TikTok catchphrase, “Ice cream so good,” has become a meme / NYT

• Hence?! ‘Being delulu,’ or delusional is the new Gen Z trend for hacking career success / Fortune

• Speaking of success: Finance Is Now the No. 1 Industry Gen Z Wants to Work In /

• Ergo: Why Gen Z is flocking from Twitter to Linkedin / Bloomberg

• Related to that: Threads found another way to copy Twitter. Meta’s app is limiting the number of posts users can see / Quartz

• Meanwhile, Threads Is the New Cool Hangout—for Brands / Wired

• So Is Threads dead? / The Drum

• Maayyyybe: Five reasons Threads could still go the distance / Platformer

• Not going the distance: A funeral for fish and chips: why are Britain’s chippies disappearing? / The Guardian

• Corollary: Avery Trufelman on Trendiness and Timelessness / Articles of Interest

• Speaking of: Dan Frommer’s latest Consumer Trends report is a 102-slide presentation that you can view and download for free / The New Consumer

• Certainly Trendy: Fashion readies for Kencore  / The Future Party

• And from Iolanda Carvalho: Counting the many, many Barbie collabs / Marketing Brew

• So, Is Barbie everything? / The FACE Podcast

• Well, no. Barbie is in fact just one of 45 film adaptations of Mattel’s toy-based properties in development / The New Yorker

• Tho who knows when we’ll see them. The Hollywood strike will last the summer / AP

• Related: Influencers Walk a Fine Line as Hollywood Strikes / The Information

• Even if we’re not getting up for work. From Molly Raskin: America Is Becoming a Nation of Early Birds / WSJ

• Megachurches are getting even bigger as churches close across the country / NPR

• Also cross-country: Bus travel is back / Nasdaq

• And Young people are increasingly sharing their locations digitally to track or be tracked by loved ones (and sometimes looser acquaintances) / Axios

• But if you’re staying home instead, there’s  A Tarot Platform for the Zoom Era / Hyperallergic

• On the subject of hanging tight: Big Spyplane dropped G.L.A.M. Mode on 'em/ Blackbird Spyplane

• Related, from Sam Valenti: “This one sort of moved me.” The Storm Outside You. It's not just you. Everybody's down bad / Monologue

• And Paul Skallas went in On Relationship Advice / Lindy Newsletter

World Order

• A golden age for medicine may be upon us / NYT

• But College Students Shun Teaching as a career, a crisis for US Schools / CBS News

• Meanwhile, A Vast Demographic Shift Will Reshape the World / NYT

• Hence: Sperm is big business  /NYMag

• And, from Celeste Blewitt: “Changes in the current state of the world. Chunky read, but well worth spending the time” [ New Glut City ] / NY Mag

• Corollary: The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism. The free market used to be touted as the cure for all our problems; now it’s taken to be the cause of them / The New Yorker

• Related: Populism gave elites more power than ever / FT

• Which begs the question: why can’t liberalism build anything? / NYT

• A New Democrat Coalition’s 22-page plan, “The Economic Opportunity Agenda,” includes eight key issues where members hope to “lower costs, fight inflation, and grow the middle class” in the current Congress and beyond /

• Speaking of lawmakers: The Helsinki politician who got caught spraying graffiti: ‘I painted GCM – great career moves – which is ironic’ / The Guardian

• From Celeste Blewitt: “This Simon Kuper piece certainly highlights the need to rethink tourism, destinations and how the world approaches it. Says me as I type this from grey and gloomy Melbourne... [‘Tourists Are Back. Is It Time To Tell Them To Stay Away? ]/ FT

• Climate change activists spray painted Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie’s $300M superyacht /NYPost

• One lawsuit that explains the climate crisis / NYT

• Meantime, Look how hot Tokyo is / Bloomberg

• Perfect time to read The Malqaf Edition, on buildings, heat, and problem solving / Why Is This Interesting

• Elsewhere in the Gulf: The Line architects explain Saudi mega city in Discovery Channel documentary / Dezeen

• The Line will "keep proving" critics wrong says MBS/ Dezeen

The Speculative Future

• Meanwhile, a new study says ChatGPT can match the top 1% of creative human thinkers / CNBC

• And yet: GPT-4 and ChatGPT study shows LLMs are getting dumber / The Register

• Silicon Valley is locked in a race to develop “autonomous” AI systems / Reuters

• The ChatGPT for hackers is here. It’s called WormGPT, and it responds to malicious prompts / Dataconomy

• The cost, infrastructure and capex of ChatGPT4 / Semianalysis

• Hence?! The economic case for slowing down AI / Quartz

• Christopher Nolan says “Oppenheimer,” his new movie about the dawn of the atomic age, is a warning for Silicon Valley / The Verge

• Efforts to Rein In AI Tap Lesson From Social Media: Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late / WSJ

• Apropos: Thousands of authors ask AI makers to stop using their books to make generative content/ TechCrunch

• But You’re going to see more AI-written articles whether you like it or not  / Vox

• It’s time to move crypto from chaos to order / Fortune

• OpenAI will give local news millions to experiment with AI / Nieman Lab

• “A New Job for Electric Vehicles: Powering Homes During Blackouts” / NYT

• Paris City Hall signed a new measure that will charge larger/heavier vehicles a higher fee for city parking. The law is aimed at discouraging so-called “auto-besity” / The Guardian

Pop Cultures

• From Molly Raskin: Is the World Ready for Another Goop? / NYT

• Brand collabs overload: Are solo launches the ultimate luxury? / Jing Daily

• Speaking of collabs: Why Elevated Taste Has Always Been JJJJound's Driving Force Hypebeast

• Less tasty: John Wilson’s Sewage-Treatment-Plant Adventure / The New Yorker

• Corollary: Evangelizing the “Television Set” / For Scale

• Interesting BBC radio doc about “fast furniture” /BBC

• Unrelated: Invisible architecture: Daisy Alioto talks with Geoff Rickly about his forthcoming book Someone Who Isn’t Me / Dirt

• Corollary: auteur Wes Anderson Talks Up Some of His Favorite Movies in a Parisian Video Store / Kottke

• On the subject: the worst movie poster of 2023 (and possibly all time?) / Creative Bloq

• Elsewhere in design: How Meow Wolf turned a Texas mall into dystopian Disney World /

• The Birkin bag: Gen Z’s new love for old luxury and the art of storytelling / Jing Daily

• From Celeste Blewitt: How Jane Birkin Changed French Girl Style Forever / BoF

• Corollary: Billionaire and luxury king Francois-Henri Pinault is reportedly in talks to buy Creative Artists Agency / The Future Party

• Vintage Gap is so hot right now / The Future Party

• While Ralph Lauren Will Keep Raising Prices to Boost Brand Prestige / Bloomberg

• A new line of Vans Vault sneakers come already beat up, dirty, and duct-taped / Highsnobiety

• Related: Skater Girls Are Having All The Fun / Byline

• Elsewhere, tho: Loafers are the new sneakers /

• From Piers Fawkes: No Ones Likes Us: Photographs that take a second look at Millwall football fans / Creative Boom

• Another from Piers: Putting the Rich World of Philadelphia’s Public Art Online / NYT

• NewJeans are taking over, one viral song at a time / Elle

• Fifty years after the birth of hip-hop, The Times asked 50 artists to recount their time in the genre / NYT

• Brooklyn Public Library Has 99 Problems but Jay-Z Ain’t One. But should a struggling public library be used as a shrine to a billionaire’s glamorous life? / Hyperallergic

• Apropos: the Travis Scott concert in Egypt isn’t cancelled / Music Ally

• But Dead & Company – the Grateful Dead’s successor band – played their final show / NYPost

• Trying to stay alive: Alexander Wang’s Bid for a Do-Over / Puck

• A third from Piers: “Maybe fodder. My nostalgia for sure” [That was hardcore: Pulp in the 1990s – in pictures] / The Guardian

• At Wimbledon, Carlos Alcaraz Defeated Novak Djokovic by Being Himself / The New Yorker

Media Happenings

• Please enjoy this video of news outlets as glass jars rolling down the stairs /Nieman Lab

• Movie theaters are especially vulnerable to a protracted Hollywood writers' and actors' strike / Axios

• But Sports Could Play Hero Role For Media Companies During Hollywood Strikes/ Front Office Sports

• Hence: Media Is at a Unique Inflection Point / A Media Operator

• The media industry’s summer of discontent: Hollywood is shut down for the first time in generations. Lurking in the background is, of course, the application of artificial intelligence / CNBC

• Media execs keep promising AI will benefit journalists. But reporters aren’t the ones using the tools /

• Local TV stations form new coalition to urge streaming reform / Axios

• The worker-owned Hell Gate on one year of publishing in New York City / HellGate

• With tens of thousands of podcast subscribers, Vox Media is exploring how to differentiate its direct and third-party subscriber acquisition approaches / Digiday

• And BandLab parent relaunches long-running music media brand NME as global print magazine /Music Business Worldwide

Market-ations

• Holiday 2023 on Reddit: Insights & Marketing Guide / Reddit

• More marketing: General Motors hired a CVS executive ([SIC] homie Norm DeGreve) as its new CMO/ AdAge

• While a new Volkswagen advert brings a much-loved singer back to life. It's powerfully emotive, but is the deepfake ethical? / Creative Bloq

• Meta will open-source the code underpinning its latest large language model, LLaMA 2 / NYT

• But, corollary from Piers Fawkes: Did anyone ever really need a smart display? / Wired

• A squishy identity for Nike Kids embraces the way young people play / It’s Nice That

• But What on Earth is Nike doing with its wild new branding? / Creative Bloq

• Corollary: Brands shouldn’t sleep on the Women’s World Cup / The Drum

• Related: Dezeen's guide to the football kits of all 32 teams at the 2023 Women's World Cup / Dezeen

• An escalation of an ongoing legal saga between Shein and Temu claims that Temu hired influencers to criticize Shein on social media / Reuters

• Related: an Interview with Shein’s head of strategy. They list 10k new items a day, but only make 10-100 units and wait to see what demand looks like /

• From Piers Fawkes: “on unexpected brand extensions…” [Montblanc introduces its first ever in-ear headphone] / Numero

• Related: How A24-backed Half Magic blends beauty and entertainment / Vogue Business

• Sean “Diddy” Combs created an online marketplace for products exclusively sold by Black-owned businesses / AP

• Corollary: Stone Island’s new Munich flagship is part retail store, part community center / Highsnobiety

• Elsewhere in design-forward casualwear: How Allbirds Lost Its Way / WSJ

• From Piers: “Despite the hype, the mobility co failed in part because it didn’t lean into the #righttorepair trend!!World's "most well funded e-bike brand" VanMoof goes bankrupt.

• Related: Luxury car brand Bugatti sells an electric scooter you can buy at Costco / Apartment Therapy

• Jameson is readying a brand refresh to make it ‘cool’ again / The Drum

• A Blessing and a Boogeyman: Advertisers Warily Embrace A.I. / NYT

• Case in point, from Iolanda Carvalho: Coke helps festival-goers drop a track with generative AI music studio / Marketing Dive

• TikTok creators are raking in cash and scoring millions of views from its shopping affiliate program. Will it last? / Insider 

• Twitter tweaks its new revenue-sharing policy for creators to expand access, increase rate limits/ TechCrunch

• Canned cocktails are having a design moment/ Creative Review

• Hence, from Syd Allen-Ash: “Liquid Death thinks it's provocative but Gay Water is the real rebel lmao” [Gay Water, a new canned cocktail, wants to be the anti-Bud Light] / CNN

Superficial Interest

• [SIC] homie Vivian Rosenthal on the Profound Power of Holotropic Breathwork / The Slowdown

• Also profound: The psychological effects of growing up with an extremely common name / Quartz

• Astronomers detect an "ultracool" brown dwarf star burning at roughly 800 degrees, or cooler than a typical campfire / Sydney.edu

• From Piers Fawkes: Anton Corbijn’s fascinating snapshot of rock art history tells the story of Hipgnosis, the British design firm behind some of the most iconic album covers of all time

• 20+ dog breeds that don’t shed (and not a single doodle among them) / Good Housekeeping

• The pleasures of urban fishing / The New Yorker

• Daytime Naps May Help Slow Brain Shrinkage/ Nice News

Food / Drink

• Most ‘classic’ Italian recipes were only invented or codified in the 1950s or even the 80s, and most of the ‘rules’ were made up / FT

• Apropos of food rules: What Is Old Bay Seasoning, Anyway? / Mental Floss

• And speaking of local delicacy: Chipotle Is Bringing Burritos to Small Town U.S.A / WSJ

• AND Chipotle signs first-ever franchise partner to open locations in the Middle East / Convenience.org

• Elsewhere in QSR Mexican: Taco John’s has given up its Taco Tuesday trademark. But the fast-food chain is not going down without taking a jab at Taco Bell / Quartz

• While back in “American” food: In-N-Out Burger is requiring employees in five states to provide a doctor’s note to mask up at work / Quartz

• While dairy ice cream consumption is likely getting squeezed by all the new competition in snacking. The average American consumed just 12 pounds in 2021, down from over 18 pounds ~50 years ago / Axios

Useful Diversions

• Read: St. Vitus Bar: The First Ten Years

• Do: From Piers Fawkes: Timothy Goodman’s “Every Time I Fall In Love It’s Summer" opens tonight (Thursday, July 20th, 6-9pm). Richard Taittinger Gallery at 154 Ludlow St /Richard Taittinger

======[SIC] 255: Prominent Hip Flexors======

Collage: Still the greatest of all the arts