[SIC] 256: Volvo Chapeau

Volume 5, Number 48

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 / Recommended Reads / Public Announcement / Morning Brew / Motive Unknown / Elevator / The Rebooting / Context Collapse / After School / The New Statesman / The Trend Report / Dirt / The Future Party / Zine

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Hi all,

The links speak for themselves this week. Thanks to Sam, Celeste, Molly, Iolanda, Matt and my dad Hugh for story contributions this week - you all rule.

Speaking of: the launch of [SIC] Volume Six is coming up in a few weeks, and I’m gonna be making tweaks, adding some things, probably subtracting some others. If you’ve got bright ideas for me, let me know in the comments, or reply to this newsletter.

Also, as a reminder: Breakfast Club BK marches on every Wednesday in Williamsburg (8:30am at Le Crocodile). It’s open to all and costs no more than what you decide to order for yourself. Come by sometime - and let me know if you want on the weekly reminder email list. Austin, Texas and Los Angeles offshoots are in the works, too - so if you want to host one in your city, I’ll pass along the (very short) playbook.

Ben

Cibone is the Best Store in NYC, if you ask me (or these little guys)

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Zeitgest / Gestalt

• From Molly Raskin: The weird sorrow of losing Twitter / Vox

• But to cheer you up, just what you’ve been waiting for: Slavoj Žižek takes on Barbenheimer / The New Statesman

• ‘Barbenheimer' meanwhile Takes on the Online Rage Machine and Wins / The Present Age

• Because? This economy runs on Girl Power / Axios

• Related: The Ascendance of Girl Culture / The Atlantic

• Also ascendant, from Matt @TheTechnorati: ‘Bougie broke' is the latest financial trend dispensing advice on living the high life on a small budget / Business Insider

• And “lazy girl” jobs / The Telegraph

• Corollary: the advice column comes to TikTok / Embedded

• And? The dark side of the psychedelic renaissance / The Face

• Apropos of that: when did people stop being drunk all the time? / Lefineder

• From Celeste Blewitt. “Changing times in restaurants, TikTok and Instagram. It really brings some conversations around influencers and restaurants. A weird time, yet still the same.”  [The 21st-Century Shakedown Of Restaurants] / NYT

• The Boys of How Long Gone on Catch, Cartier, and Drake’s Book of Poems / Interview

• Going viral sucks (even more) now. We’ve out-algorithmed ourselves / Embedded

• Self-Made: The History & Future of Self Curation / Zine

• Shoes are going to be real weird this fall. Vogue predicts / Vogue

• Also weird: Rise of the “facekini”  / The Guardian

• The Brightest Minds Have The Hottest Takes / Byline

• What Colleges Are (and Aren’t) Doing for Undergrads Interested in Psychedelics / Double Blind

• More on wild academics: New research is reframing psychopathic tendencies, highlighting "successful psychopaths" / Knowable

• Speaking of from Matt@TheTechnorati: The superrich’s secrets to flying private could make people very mad. “First class sucks in comparison.” / Intelligencer

• The opposite of psycho: The Beige Debate / For Scale

• Corollary: How Larry Gagosian Reshaped the Art World / The New Yorker

• Related to that: Artists Infiltrate LA IKEA in Guerrilla “Residency”  / Hyperallergic

• A recent YouGov survey suggest that younger Americans do a worse job than older Americans distinguishing real news from fake news / Nieman Lab

• The American Evangelical Church Is in Crisis / The Atlantic

• Could the Next Pandemic Start at the County Fair? / NYT

• Corollary, meet me at the Wayne County Fair. And when you go, from Molly Raskin, here’s: How to Take a Photo of Your Girlfriend / GQ

• Important because? Every successful relationship is successful for the same exact reasons / Quartz

• Congratulations to Rotating Sandwiches, the winner of The 1st Annual Tiny Awards / Rotating Sandwich

World Order

• Why it is better to be moderate than centrist / FT

• From Matt@TheTechnorati: breathwork in NYC schools is a new mandate for students / Twitter

• The IRS will no longer make unannounced visits to taxpayers’ homes or businesses / CNBC

• Modern Tourism is getting weird / The Lindy Newsletter

• Corollary: enter the Hidden Discos of the Arab World / Frieze

• Skift’s state of travel report / Skift

• The SEC thinks platforms like Robinhood and Fidelity gamify stock trading too much / WSJ

• Purified Wastewater Is the Drink of the Future / Reasons To Be Cheerful

• Seven global automakers joined forces to create an EV charging network in North America, reducing their dependency on Tesla’s network / Quartz

• Inexpensive electric cars from China have quickly gained a toehold in Europe — and could be taking over American driveways next / Axios

• Japan recorded a population decline of 800,000 in 2022 — its largest ever. All 47 prefectures — Japan’s equivalent to states — lost people / Reuters

• Tech companies hungry powered a boom in New York City office real estate. Now they’re pulling back, leaving the city in an economic hole / NYT

• Related: how College Towns Are Decimating the GOP / Politico

• From Hugh Dietz: A Soap Maker Cracks the Code to ‘Made in America’ / WSJ

• How and Why Illegal Border Crossings Have Dropped So Dramatically / NYT

The Speculative Future

• Gen Zers are using apps to turn selfies into A.I.-generated professional headshots / Fortune

• Learn how ChatGPT can improve your writing without doing it for you /Wired

• But, but: the contractors who moderate ChatGPT pay a heavy psychological toll / WSJ

• But setting that aside… 10 Best ChatGPT Plus Plugins Worth Paying For / How to Geek

• AI is already reconfiguring the entire gaming industry / Bloomberg

• Related: Fandom Reimagined, Through the Power of A.I. / Muse By Clio

• And The Future of Generative AI for Luxury / Jing Culture & Commerce

Pop Cultures

• The creator economy was already exploding. Then Hollywood went on strike / WaPo

• And these Hollywood strikes could rearrange the creator economy / The Future Party

• But in the meantime Hollywood Strike Leaves Influencers Sidelined and Confused / NYT

• Corollary: How writing for Hollywood became a dead-end job  / NYT

• And stylists and emerging designers brace for the Hollywood strike’s impact / Vogue Business

• Corollary to that: Style Strategies with [SIC] Talks Alum Michael Williams, founder of A Continuous Lean/ Valet Mag

• Big up to [SIC] homie Tim Nolan and co at AireGan. Now, would you wear these new sneakers designed by AI? / Fast Company

• Travis Scott’s Pyramids of Giza 'Utopia’ Concert Has Officially Been Canceled / Hypebeast

• Elsewhere in cancellation: Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 after the video was pulled from CMT and critics said it referenced racist violence / AP News

• Also, The Complicated Legacy of Barbie in Art / Hyperallergic

• ‘How To With John Wilson’ Is Ending. What Will He Do Now? / NYT

• Elsewhere: Meet the Man Who Broke Professional Bowling / GQ

• From Molly Raskin: After the Podcast Gold Rush, Is Audio Too Corporate to Be Cool? / Vanity Fair

• Ten Releases That Explain Hip-Hop In 2023 / Backseat Freestyle

• From Sam Valenti: “This is fun” [Del The Funky Homosapien On Gorillaz’s “Clint Eastwood”]/ Spin

• Speaking of Sam, he rolled out The Herb Sundays Weekend Magazine: An interview with Suzanne Ciani and it goes / Herb Sundays

• Also going: Can Gucci find its way back to the top? / Jing Daily

• Three photographic visions of New York / FT

• Related: Essx wants to be New York's coolest fashion store /Fashionista

• This is cool: Longchamp’s Collab with TOILETPAPER / The Fox Is Black

• Corollary: Loewe’s on top and, surprisingly, Uniqlo isn’t on the list anymore: The Lyst Index: Q2 2023 / Lyst

• And yet, The end of the luxury ‘It’ bag: 2023’s must-have accessory is a Uniqlo crossbody or a grungy tote / Jing Daily

• The Talks talks to Christopher Nolan / The Talks

• Painter and [SIC] homie Jose Parla on coming back to life through art / Time Sensitive Pod

• Why My Album Won't Be On Spotify / YouTube

• ‘Oh God, I envied his voice!’: Andrew Ridgeley on ego, angst and loving George Michael / The Guardian

Media Happenings

• Brian Morrissey’s advice: Fragment yourself into niches and do things platforms can’t. AKA: The pivot to events /The Rebooting

• What If other media companies thought about brand equity the way Elon Musk thinks about Twitter’s (er, X’s)? / Nieman Lab

• Counterpoint: here’s why Elon Musk’s rebranding of Twitter to ‘X’ is good, actually / TechCrunch

• Taylor Lorenz chats about her upcoming book, “Extremely Online,” on the history of online platforms and the rise of creators / TechCrunch Pod

• TikTok now supports text-only posts, signalling the video-sharing app’s intention to compete with X, aka Twitter, and Meta’s Threads / TechCrunch 

• And NME Relaunches Print Magazine, with a ‘High-Hype Model’ With Limited Drops and Emerging Artist Focus / Variety

• While New York Magazine Launches E-Commerce / BoF

• But on the commerce tip, could any institutional media brand have the kind of impact Barstool’s Dave Portnoy has on pizza places? / Slate

Market-ations

• Twitter's rebrand to X is more than the end of an era — it's yet another headache for marketers / Digiday

• Barbiemania: How Warner Bros. and Mattel Painted the World Pink and Created Marketing Magic / Hollywood Reporter

• Why Barbie fever may inspire the future of marketing movies / Digiday

• Agree: “If I never have to see another piece of ‘Barbie’ pink merch, I will be happy.” / NYT

• Related: Sex Toys, Financial Crimes, and the Origin of Barbie / Vanity Fair

• adidas raises guidance after successful Yeezy drop / Retail Dive

• Fanatics’ new live shopping platform, Fanatics Live, wants to bring social shopping to collectibles/ Fast Company

• Kick off? Estée Lauder taps Asia’s male beauty market with Manchester United partnership / Jing Daily

• TikTok is shaking up fast food, just ask Grimace / The Drum

Superficial Interest

• From Matt @TheTechnorati: Experts say ‘cocaine sharks’ may be feasting on drugs dumped off Florida by passing traffickers / The Guardian

• Was the Rolled-Up Painting in the Dog Walker’s Closet Worth Millions? / NYT

• From Celeste Blewitt: “Fascinating to read of the art ideas and stories that travel along with ancient remains. Intriguing on all levels.” [Is The Loch Ness Monster Actually A Plesiosaur] / Sothebys

Food / Drink

• Charting Americans' beverage preferences  / USA Facts

• Also preferred, from Celeste Blewitt: Olives Were Always Invited To The Party. Now They Are The Party / NY Mag

• 6:19pm. That’s peak dinnertime for the biggest share of American households / Flowing Data

• No-kill chicken tastes like chicken. Because it is. Star chef José Andrés is piloting a lab-grown chicken dinner/ Vox

• Meantime, tho: Wingstop UK is  'leveraging youth culture,' including music, sport, influencers, and TikTok, to create an image of a 'Gen Z-esque aspirational lifestyle — and it’s working / Insider

• Related to that: The Perils of Highly Processed Food / The New Yorker

• Also bad eating: Trader Joe’s is recalling two of its cookie brands because they could contain rocks / AP News

• More edible, from Iolanda Carvalho: “Food is life!” 150 Most Legendary Restaurants in the World & Their Iconic Dishes / Taste Atlas

Useful Diversions

Listen:

• [SIC] homies The Brothers Macklovitch (A-Trak & Dave 1) Summer 2023 DJ Set  / YouTube

• GOLFCORE, VOLUME ONE, golfcore music from [SIC] homie Drew Millard, which accompanies his book How Golf Can Save Your Life / Bandcamp

Do:

NYC: The 12^th Greenpoint Film Festival August 2-6th / Greenpoint Film Festival

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