[SIC] 264: Phrase Accordingly

Volume 6, Number 4

Ben Dietz

Sep 21, 2023

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Corollary sources this week: Royal Braun / After School / Patent Drop / Public Announcement / The Rebooting / Milk Road / Carbon Almanac / Forefront / Scope of Work / Ben’s Bites / Context Collapse / Snaxshot / 1440 / Ben-Evans / Motive Unknown / Reasons to be Cheerful / Quartz / Simon Owens / Kottke / The Future Party / Today in Tabs / Nieman Lab / Morning Consult / Marginal Revolution

Hi all,

No profound thoughts this week. Kendall, not Tom, actually wins in the end. Which is equally unsatisfying, but even more depressing. Thankfully weird also continues to win: “We're Safety Now Haven't We: Volume 1” a prime example. Our tax dollars at work on a sublime level.

Thanks to Piers Fawkes, Molly Raskin, Celeste Blewitt, Iolanda Carvalho, Ken Miller, Sam Valenti and Jen Amadio for contributions this week. I appreciate and look forward to these - so if any of you see something that you think would fit [SIC] - send it!

Meantime, the links follow. Thanks for being here.

Ben

======[SIC] 264: Phrase Accordingly======

The Macro Narrative

The Instantaneous Universal Translator is Almost Here / The Lindy Newsletter
From Ken: “I’m calling it early: This is the NYT article of the decade” [‘In Italy I Kept Meeting Guys’: The Black Women Who Travel for Love] / NYT
Corollary (and also basically instantaneous): How to kill a trend in two days. The fall of men thinking about the Roman Empire / Embedded
So, from Molly: Why Is Every Internet Trend About Men or ‘Girls’? / GQ
Is it because Men don’t have any mates? / CNN
Corollary? Scenes from the end of the sexual revolution / NYMag
Also, from Piers: “SEO optimization has really jumped the shark if the New Yorker is taking the mickey” [Best Healthy Search-Engine-Optimized Steamed-Carrots Recipe for Healthy Steamed Carrots] / The New Yorker
In any case: All of the Predictions Agree on One Thing: Humanity Peaks Soon / NYT
Hence? Inside the gold rush to sell cheaper imitations of Ozempic / WaPo
Also gold? Some Businesses Make ‘Woke Free’ a Selling Point / NYT
So… Where Is Consumer Spending Heading? Category insights on the future of retail and delivery / Category Pirates
Every rich person needs to go to Costco. Not to one in the tony suburbs, but the inner city, where all classes meet/ Lefsetz
Meantime, the New Status Symbol Is a Full-Body M.R.I. / NYT
Being conscientious is apparently linked to a long life / CNBC
How to Cool Down a City / NYT
Or, make it hot: Everything you need to know about Saudi Arabia's 14 "giga projects" / Dezeen
Corollary: Burlington airport is home to a squadron of $100M F-35 jets. Angry residents voice their complaints about how loud & lethal they are. "Why are our schools getting buzzed by Lockheed Martin's welfare program?" / Kottke.org
Related: Peter Zeihan is going in big on the assertion that China is about to Collapse / Zeihan.org
Can a city really ‘die’? / FT
The Inextricable Links Between Climate and Democracy / The Slowdown Pod
Related: Parts of Los Angeles with “cool pavement” average 10 degrees cooler than areas with regular pavement / Reasons to Be Cheerful
A truck almost completely covered in solar panels reduces costs of operation and local emissions / UU.SE
Also probably ‘ran by solar’ (Greg Nice voice) : Bioharmonizing spas. Gone are the biohacking days, instead welcome bioharmonized balance / Wundermann Thompson
More bio: Michael Bloomberg is dialing up a war on plastics / NYT
From ‘Celeste: “A significant point around the niche moment cigarettes are having currently [Why Artists Can't Quit Cigarettes]’ / FT
From Sam: “New “thought bubble” on experiental music/hi-fi/holograms” / Herb Sundays
Corollary thought bubble: The “Rec Room” philosophy / For Scale
Which (kinda!) leads us to the non-sensical, nowstalgic content from the duo that is 2girls1bottl3 and this incredible deep dive into what the account is really about / The FACE
Of which Rusty Foster writes “It’s so good, honestly, read this and then watch some of their videos and marvel at humankind, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable.” / Tiktok
Taylor Lorenz talks to Matt Klein about The History of Creators, Influence & The Social Internet / Zine
The minor genius Interview with [SIC] Talks alum Gutes Guterman /Minor Genius

Generationations

Dumb phones are on the rise in the U.S. as Gen Z looks to limit screen time / CNBC
Gen Z’s main career aspiration is to be an influencer / Entrepreneur
Gen Zs’ relationships with brands are akin to “situationships” — they’re keeping it casual while continuing to play the field, per this trend report/ Archrival
More Millennial College Grads stayed in Philly. Will Gen Z follow suit? / Philadelphia Inquirer
Britain’s “sandwich generation” pays for everyone else / The Telegraph
Hence, from Iolanda: “'Cos I'm a GenXer 🙂” … Wavemaker today unveiled research into marketing mishaps and bias towards over-45s in social. The report, 'Finding the Gen X Factor', investigated 45-60 years old audiences or ‘generation x’ often ignored by brands and the advertising industry, particularly across social media advertising" / Wavemaker

Platformations

How the TikTok Shop pitch has gone down with marketers While marketers have been excited about the prospect of TikTok Shop, the pitch itself has left a lot to be desired / Digiday
Tiktok will fund Black Friday deals to take on Amazon/ The Verge
TikTok is reshaping the cookbook industry / NYT
From Celeste: The Rise Of The Chefluencer / Airmail Morning Meeting Podcast
Substack’s redesign makes it feel like a more traditional social media app / The Verge
Even the most successful Substack newsletters are adding advertising into their revenue mix / Platformer
Related: How brands and influencers are diving into YouTube Shorts / Glossy
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on why he's deep in the product details / Big Technology
Threads is currently blocking searches for a number of “potentially sensitive” words, including “vaccines,” “covid,” and other variations of words that have previously been linked to misinformation on Meta’s platform / Engadget
The Cultural Tutor: From McDonalds to the most famous writer on Twitter. The man started writing online ~15 months ago, and has ascended to 1.5 million Twitter followers. Until now, he's been anonymous / YT

Stylistics

How Thom Browne’s Gray Suit Conquered America / The New Yorker
Kiltish corollary from Piers: DMTV Milkshake: Exploring All Things Tartan With the V&A Dundee Museum / Design Milk
London Fashion Week kicked off with a Coco Chanel exhibition at the V&A / Jing Daily
JW Anderson created clay-moulded hoodies and shorts at London Fashion Week / Dezeen
While the rest of London Fashion Week hits the ‘wearable but interesting’ sweet spot. Independent designers have brought their energy and individuality to the party but with a nod to what customers want / FT
Not what they want: tourists and Londoners alike were perplexed when the Bond Street tube station was temporarily renamed “Burberry Street” as part of a sponsorship deal / NYT
Apropos: The Burberry Blues. For his second show, Daniel Lee focuses on life in the trenches / NYT
While back at Lee’s old home: Matthieu Blazy has changed Bottega Veneta and material expectations / NYT
More change: The Trailblazing Black Model Who Changed the Fashion Industry / Hyperallergic
Also changing: LA is emerging as a major new fashion capital – plus five up-and-coming LA brands to have on your radar / Service95
Super shopper: Magasin’s Laura Reilly compiled a database of her community’s fall shopping practices and it’s incredible. Here’s the spreadsheet. / Google Sheets
H&M is the latest brand to charge for returns / The Verge
As to what customers want: Thanks to the viral “Tabi Swiper,” Margiela’s iconic split-toe shoe shot to the centre of online conversation. The Meteoric Rise of the Tabi, Explained. / BoF
Elsewhere on feet, from Iolanda: “Getting better..." The [Crocs x Levis] All-Terrain Clog arrives with denim decorated by Sashiko, a traditional form of Japanese embroidery used for mending or reinforcement. " / Footwear News

Culturations

TUSC’s eBay auction has become the talk of the town. Actors put themselves up for auction. Aubrey Plaza will straight up kill you / Hollywood Reporter
Meantime from Piers: Mistercap’s is a grow your own mushroom kit by Wiz Khalifa / Mistercap
How Jeremy O. Harris Became an Institution / The New Yorker
[SIC] Talks alum Chris Black on Sofia Coppola’s Enduring Cool / Pulling Weeds
From Celeste: ‘a [$1.4MM] insight into the grand scale of the Princess Di movement ‘ [What Princess Diana's Sheep Jumper Really Means] /BBC
From Piers: The Nettle Dress review – a husband’s grief becomes a thing of beauty in lyrical documentary / The Guardian
Documentary Corollary: The Humans of Daniel Arnold’s New York. The photographer chronicles the interstitial weirdness of the city and the people in it / The New Yorker
Corollary: The Man Who Discovered Warhol / Frieze
Court Orders Danish Artist to Repay $71,000 USD for Sending Blank Canvases to Museum/ Hypebeast
Meet the Bros who Love Olivia Rodrigo / The Daily Beast
The young women turning Slipknot into feminist anthems / The Guardian
Video games are re-igniting a love of classical music in wider culture / Fast Company
From Jen: “I read a recent article in Wired on Doug Rushkoff … it mentioned a Frontline segment he produced in 2001 called Merchants of Cool all about how brands, media and marketing companies and MTV worked together to market to teens. I watched it and it was a real throwback to the early 2000s and some folks we knew at the time (Cornerstone, MTV, TRL, Cool Hunting, etc) … a good watch and interesting to see the start of a lot of what we all do now” / Wired, PBS
Another throwback to the early aughts: The Music Keeps Me Young. Nocturnal Wonderland flows eternal / URB
Speaking of throwbacks: From Piers: obvs this - Netflix Looks Back on 'One Piece's' 26-Year Influence Across Pop Culture Following Its Live-Action Debut / Hypebeast
A Multi-Generational Gee's Bend Story, Told by One Quilt / Hyperallergic
Unrelated: The rapid downfall of Jann Wenner was years in the making / WaPO
From Celeste: Are you A Mick Or A Keith? / FT
London takes action to help hard-pressed artists / The Art Newspaper
Speaking of pressing: Haptic lingerie uses AI to craft erotica based on the user's touch. Designer Summer Chen has combined artificial intelligence and sensor-embedded lingerie to create a "touch-to-text" system generating erotica / Dezeen

Technopolis

Apple may be working on a new way to identify you. The company filed a patent application for “user identification using headphones.” / USPTO
Dead NFTs: The Evolving Landscape of the NFT Market / DappGammbl
Hence? Why Puma Sees a Future in Virtual Products, Despite the NFT Bust / BoF
Nouns DAO has completed a successful fork / Etherscan
Jacob from ZORA wrote a piece exploring the Nouns Fork through a variety of lenses. His conclusion? Forks are good / Jacob.energy

Media-tions

Elon Musk said Monday he's moving to require all users to pay a monthly fee to use X / Axios
Michael Wolff Foresees the Fall of Fox News: “It Will Cease to Exist in Its Present Form” / Vanity Fair
The long, slow death of the TV schedule / Measuring Ghosts
Hollywood is paying a steep price for never really figuring out the streaming model / CNBC
Sports and music agency Wasserman’s acquisition of Brillstein Entertainment is adding film and TV to its repertoire / The Future Party
Ergo: mapping media’s new era. Evan Shapiro has updated his media universe map, a handy way of seeing how tech has swallowed the media business / Media War & Peace
And hence: With Fairgame, Hodinkee’s Ben Clymer and pro golfer Adam Scott Started a Golf Platform / Hypebeast
Time announced a new editorial platform called Time100 Voices that is dedicated to elevating editorials from global thought leaders / Axios
Elsewhere: Apple’s expanding ad ambitions: A closer look at its journey toward a comprehensive ad tech stack / Digiday
Hearst Magazines’ Lisa Howard says advertiser requests for 2024 are on the upswing / Digiday
Hence: The Sporting News Embrace of Affiliate / The Rebooting Pod
We’re constantly optimizing for ads. But what does optimization for art look like? / Zine

Market / Influence

‘It should have worked, but it flatlined’: the product launch that haunts New Balance / The Drum
Pentagram explains how it rebranded The Conran Shop / Creative Bloq
More rebrand: From Piers: Tinder Helps Singles Remove Their Old Couples Tattoos / Hypebae
Corollary: Why Johnson and Johnson just ditched one of the world's oldest logos / Creative Bloq
Megan Thee Stallion is collabing with Flamin’ Hot snacks on Flamin’ Hot University — an online education program that features “snackable” classes on fashion, food, and lifestyle/ Hypebeast
Speaking of education: A supermarket chain is shaming suppliers like PepsiCo over ‘shrinkflation’—by labeling examples on shelves / Fortune
Another from Piers: In Praise of Shoppy Shops / Millennial American Dream

Eats, Drinks and Ephemera

You Can Now Purchase 3D-Printed Salmon. The vegan, fully edible “salmon” is created via “extrusion technology,” which allows a 3D printer to integrate fats into a fibrous protein matrix / Hypebeast
The Backyard Farmers Who Grow Food With Fog / Reasons to Be Cheerful
Watering holes in England and Wales are disappearing. Two pubs a day have been shuttering since the beginning of the year / BBC
Radical Vegans Are Trying to Change Your Diet / The Atlantic
Is Organic Milk Worth the Extra Cost? / Bon Appetit
You can turn lead into gold using nuclear transmutation! It’s just not very practical or economical / Wikipedia
The Wikipedia list of different shot glass standards / Wikipedia
Surface of wikipedia. Unlike Depths of Wikipedia, this page highlights wikipedia mundane surface-level articles: Stuff like “Hat” /IG
More surface, from Piers: Evolution of Lego brick colors / Flowing Data
Surface, but different: Getting the Soil Right: How ‘Carbon Farming’ Combats Climate Change / Reasons to Be Cheerful
Yet Many Gen Z Farmers will never touch dirt. The industry is undergoing a “technological and cultural transformation,” with most young farmers “becoming farmers of their own volition — not because they inherited a family legacy”/ Bloomberg