[SIC] 263: Melons Twisted

Volume Six, Number 4

Ben Dietz

Sep 14, 2023

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Corollary sources this week: Quartz / The Future Party / Dealbook / The Medium / After School / Kottke / BoF / The Daily Upside / Storythings / Snaxshot / Seth Godin / Public Announcement

Hi all,

Back from the UK just now and a little fried, TBH, so will keep the preamble to a minimum. Great to see friends in England, and getting to the Goodwood Revival was a true trip. More on that soon, along with some other announcements.

Thanks as always to everyone who contributed this week: Celeste Blewitt, Piers Fawkes, Molly Raskin, Iolanda Carvalho, Ed Cotton and Jeff Johnson (with a great funny/sad link to end the proceedings today).

And thanks to everybody on the paid tier, who’ve been getting daily micro-digests (10x links on M/Tu/W/F and 30x on Sun), and who seem to have been digging it so far. Think about expensing the upgrade if you’d enjoy that. New quarter coming up, and all. Here’s a button:

Ok, now the links.

First person to name source of this re-photograph gets a comped place on the paid tier

======[SIC] 263: Melons Twisted======

The Macro Narrative

Dating app Grindr loses nearly half its staff after trying to force a return to office / CNN
Because? The Transformation of Work is major / The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past
Hence: Corporate Culture is the real culture war / Dirt
And offices are becoming weirder and weirder / WSJ
Its not just because of The Doctors Who Do MDMA and Cocaine Every Weekend , either / VICE
From Molly: “Someone had to send it: Can Parents and Childless People Be Friends?” / NYMag
Related, from Iolanda: Families are factories for the manufacture of insanity.” 😉 [ The Truth About Modern Families] / McCann Worldgroup
And from Piers: “whether you like it or not” Everyone Is a Girl Online / Wired
Ergo? We're all lurkers now. No one's talking online anymore / Embedded
Except for? The voice of a generation. Teen girls' voices are changing due to excessive vaping, making them sound “less like kids and more like Tom Waits.” / Airmail
Corollary: can we blame Gen Z for the Southern accent disappearing? / WCNC
Also, have you noticed that everyone’s teeth are a little too perfect? / WaPo
The AI “clones” of politicians are coming. And they’re not half bad. / Politico
Conversely, bad all the way ‘round: FUCK YOUR BURN: An interview with the climate protestors behind the Burning Man blockade / Rave New World
Elsewhere: Betty Crocker's Egg is a Myth. Embrace Unknowing / Zine
IE: “I have a confession to make: I have no idea what placemaking is”. Discussions about planning and urbanism are awash with talk of "placemaking" but the term remains strangely and troublingly opaque / Dezeen
But, corollary: Just kidding about affording a home. About 18 percent of millennials say they’ll never own a home, according to a new study by Redfin. Gen Z is a bit more optimistic, with only 12 percent saying so / NYMag
In contrast, tho: ‘Girl math’ is pushing consumers to buy luxury / Vogue Business
Plus Sizes Why they get the cold shoulder / Articles of Interest
From Ed : What Happens When a Brand Dies (re: Twitter): the merch goes to auction / HPG Auction
Corollary, from Piers: Birds aren't real? How a conspiracy takes flight / TED
Sooo…. how worried should we be about the uptick in covid cases? A Johns Hopkins scientist explains / Quartz
‘Ardworking, they are: Brits are the least likely to say work trumps leisure / The Guardian
A Concrete Crisis Has the UK Literally Crumbling / Wired
Also a crisis? Peter Zeihan says The Greatest Threat to US Economic Security is … Processing / Zeihan
While also, western security depends on rebuilding Morocco. Ukraine has shown that we cannot afford to be complacent about the threats spreading from the region / FT
Also spreading: Finland Is Testing the World's First Digital Passport Screening / Conde Nast Traveler

Generationations

[SIC] Talks Alum Casey Lewis on Fat Mascara, talking Gen Z trends, Y2K nostalgia, and why she’s a Glossier stan / Spotify
Generative AI Generation Gap: 70% of Gen Z use it while Gen X and Boomers don’t get it / Forbes
Then again, according to Gen Z, millennials have been wearing sunglasses all wrong / The Independent
And oddly? From Molly: Gen Z loves the newspaper (on TikTok) / Embedded

Platformations

Tiktok took over social media with it’s uncanny algorithm - but at what cost? / The Guardian
TikTok is hiring marketing influencers to help creator influencers make money using its livestream features / Insider
After selling to Commentsold, Popshoplive is shifting its focus to live shopping for creators / Modern Retail
Can fashion week help the industry crack social commerce? / Vogue Business
Speaking of which: TikTok says advertisers are undervaluing impressions on the platform by as much as 73% because reach and influence don’t convert to sudden clicks / Tubefilter
Elsewhere, Tiktok has been inserting Wikipedia snippets into search results / The Verge
For those who the newly ‘cool’ LinkedIn isn’t cool enough: Purple.space is apparently new community for professionals to “connect without hustle” / Purple.space

Stylistics

From Piers: “I don’t think the criticism is necessarily timely. sameness probably trends back and forth every few years - i do like the defense of trendiness : it works because it sells. for a while” [Why Do All Rebrands Look the Same] / It’s Nice That
On the topic of re-freshes: the iconic Barneys New York has been raised from the dead thanks to an unlikely collaborator: Forever 21.
Corollary, from Celeste: [The New Trend At Fashion Week Is Old Clothes] / Fast Company
Which I guess supports the case for updating your signature scent in a piece on the ‘granarchist fragrances’ trend? / Service95
And maybe why Men Are Buying Womenswear / The Guardian
While Apple Ditches Leather for New Products / BoF
Corollary, from Celeste: “A great read into the bow trend. Brilliant comparisons between luxury brands with and without a bow addition in pricing” [They Put A Bow On It. The World's Awash With Ribbons And Its Costing Us] / The Cut

Culturations

What Do the MTV VMAs Mean in a Post-Monoculture World? / Vanity Fair
And What Does $100K Get You at the Armory Show? / Hyperallergic
Gallery Night Proves the Lower East Side Is Still Hot / Hyperallergic
But the art world still favours the rich—how do we fix that? / The Art Newspaper
Corollary: Art Law & Art and the Law / The Brooklyn Rail
And The Seduction of Systems: A Conversation with [SIC] homie, the artist Jill Magid / The Brooklyn Rail
Which dovetails with Mark Leckey and his Supreme collab / YouTube
Which reminds me to recommend chaos edit king Malt Disney as a must-follow / IG
More recos: the new Ryan McGinness Drawings Book. A 302-page paperback reader featuring charcoal drawings from the past 3 years / Quint Gallery
It’s been Bad Bunny’s Year of Rest and Relaxation / Vanity Fair
Conversely, Studio Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki has once again failed to retire / The Verge
And Graydon Carter showed up on How Long Gone / Spotify
Corollary, from Celeste: “A great piece that really highlights luxury and the parodies that lie within. Add in the luxury brand partnerships and social media platforms and it becomes a multilayered conversation on the future of both” [Gstaad Guy, The Man Who Turned A Lifestyle Parody Into A Luxury Brand'] / FT
Not a parody: Virtual creator Noonoouri recently signed with Warner Music Group, making her the first “digital popstar” to sign with the music label / The Publish Press
Creators Once Dreaded the Pressure of Ratings, Now They’re Fighting for the Data / The Hollywood Reporter
No more fighting: Nickelback knows you hate them, and they want to talk about it / WaPo
Corollary: The website surfers love to hate / The Atlantic
Unrelated but somehow corollary: the Origin of “You’re twisting my melon, man!” / Twitter

Technopolis

Fascinating: The Arabic LLM Edition / Why Is This Interesting
Closer to home: College-educated workers have a “fear of becoming obsolete” / The Future Party
Corollary: The Paradigm Shift in Crypto That Wasn’t / The Information
And a bad week continues for Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis: NFT project "Stoner Cats" they backed charged by the SEC and required to pay back NFT buyers/ Hollywood Reporter
Ergo: 4 Big Threats to Crypto / Milk Road

Media-tions

The Byline gang lined up their first big brand partnership, with Urban Outfitters [Disclosure: I’m a Byline advisor] / Byline
Meantime, FaZe Clan Went From Cool Kids to Penny Stock / Bloomberg
As if in response: Epic Games' new chief creative is an intellectual property expert — here's why that matters / Digiday
Related from Iolanda: Nintendo, Barbie and the age of the multifaceted entertainment machine | WARC
Also tied to IP: Barstool allegedly controlled over 40 more anonymous Twitter accounts that have effectively laundered “incalculable amounts of copyright-protected sports and entertainment videos” and racking up “billions of views over at least the last four years.” / Daily Beast
In contrast: there seems to be no evidence to suggest that audience erosion in linear TV will reach some point where it will level off and still remain viable / Mediapost
Hence: Scenes from the rebundling ESPN's predicament is an HBR case study / The Rebooting
Which leads into Brian Morrissey’s: State of Publisher Video Monetization Report / The Rebooting
Meanwhile French gaming creator Lucas “Squeezie” Hauchard hosted his second annual Formula 4 (F4) racing competition on Saturday, inviting 24 creators to compete in front of a sold-out crowd of 60,000 fans / Youtube
Giving us a way into Ten major trends in news consumption publishers need to be thinking about / Press Gazette
Like: [SIC] Talks Alum Andrea Hernandez’s Snaxshot launched a Spoonful of News that you should subscribe to/ Snaxshot
And The Economist is launching a podcast subscription tier / Axios
Corollary: Dwell editor William Hanley on Media That Adds a Bit of Whimsy to the Everyday / The Slowdown
Lindsay Peoples Made The Cut More Diverse. What’s Next? / BoF

Market / Influence

A case for portfolio growth: Why a lot of small bets are better than a big one / The Sociology of Business
Marketers are ditching influencers for TV talent / The Drum
Related? Imperfectionist influencers: brands shouldn’t sleep on the ‘rat girl’ trend / The Drum
Coca-Cola’s CMO on Sidestepping the Culture Wars, Navigating AI and Boosting Events Over Ads / WSJ
Hence? AI created Coke’s new mystery flavor dubbed Y3000 / CNN
How Champion shifted its brand name from a noun to a verb with new campaign / Marketing Dive
Elsewhere: Brands are betting on Gen-Z Olympic athletes / Glossy
While from Piers: “Someone needs to open a house number shopify site” / WaPo

Eats, Drinks and Ephemera

Frozen food sales have boomed, and continue to grow post pandemic / AFFI
Ice — in exotically shaped cubes, boozy popsicles or suffusing your coffee — is having its moment in the zeitgeist / Axios
From Piers: How umami overcame discrimination and took its place as the 5th / NPR
A recipe to make sriracha from scratch / Serious Eats
Also ingredient obsessed, from Molly: Who Deserves to Eat at Noma? / Taste
Not the potable kind, but corollary: Can Golf Cure Its Water Addiction? / WaPo
And finally from Jeff: “Now that NFL is back”Super Bowls as Dissected by the First Name of the Winning QB, (there won't be an Aaron this season) / NFLWeakly