[SIC] 274: Double Blizzard

Volume Six, Number 14

The [SIC] newsletter on Thursdays is free, and will be forever. But you CAN pay, if you want. I’m into it. Monthly or yearly, or founding support. Lots of people expense their subscriptions as research.

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Corollary sources this week: Semafor / Morning Brew / After School / Scope of Work / Public Announcement / Nieman Lab / Platformer / Nieman Lab / Roca News / Simon Owens / Politico /  Champion Weekly / Understanding TikTok / Weak Signals And Other Trends / Marginal Revolution /Elevator / Garbage Day / Fashion Matters

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Hi all,

This is a good edition, if I may say so. I think so, anyway. Thanks up front to Peter Spear, Matt @TheTechnorati, Iolanda Carvalho, Molly Raskin, David Bloom, Tyler McCauley and Celeste Blewitt for story contributions.

I got to meet Celeste IRL this week, all the way from Melbourne, and it was great; she popped into Breakfast Club in Brooklyn yesterday. If you’re in NY, you really oughta stop by. It doesn’t cost anything except what you yourself eat/drink (and next Weds it won’t even cost that, since somebody’s picking up the tab).

One of the big topics in my section of the table yesterday was the confluence of multi-media services around newsletters - we were talking about the Snake Radio podcast about Beanie Babies that I mentioned a couple weeks back. And lo and behold, when I got back to my desk, I got an email announcing Substack is for video. Which is exciting - perfect for the return of [SIC] Talks. But also? Substack Has a Nazi Problem, apparently - so I’d be interested to know if anybody feels strongly about [SIC] embedding more deeply. LMK in the comments or reply directly to this if you get [SIC] via email.

If we DO use Substack for video pods, first show will be sometime soon with my good buddy Jeff Carvalho, who co-founded Highsnobiety (and who, along Ruba Abu-Nimah and Jian DeLeon) I do Culture Club Show with). Keep you posted on timing for that; not sure if I should embed it in the newsletter or send as a separate thing. Again, any thoughts, LMK.

Speaking of Culture Club Show - most recent Ep is here on Youtube and here on Spotify, in case you haven’t caught it yet; it was recorded live at the Ralph Lauren flagship (hence the fits) and featured our friends Lord March, Scarr Pimentel and Michael Williams.

Speaking of friends, I’ll follow Casey Lewis of After School in linking The Gutes List for a little gossipy stuff - and then rip off Casey’s intro style wholesale with a ‘read these’ roundup, to address Aaron Radin’s suggestion recently. To wit:

From Iolanda: “A Manifesto! "Know everyone. Bite down your angst and make your circle wide and weird. Have friends in high places and low places." Hence from Molly: You should have more friends of all ages. And from Celeste: ‘Your Friends Don’t All Have To Be The Same Age.’ Which brings us to Peter Zeihan talking demographics on the NAIOP pod (this is fascinating).

Last thing: I spent a bunch of time on the phone with Adweek yesterday opining about whole Sports Illustrated AI Journalist debacle, but since that piece hasn’t come out yet, I moved the Technopolis section up top this week. Will send the piece around on socials later (even if it doesn’t quote me, haha), and to paid subs in one of the [SIC] Daily emails. If you are feeling flush or can expense a paid sub, you’ll probably like it. Yesterday’s was inspired by Stone Roses and tomorrow’s is about Miami Art Week, loosely. Here’s a button:

Now, the links.

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Technopolis

• From David: “There are so many things that are disheartening about this headline and its implications and assumptions, but I share it nonetheless…. [Why the CEO of OnlyFans rival Fanvue thinks AI influencers 'will thrive,' especially for adult content]/ Business Insider

• More from David: “…and we’ll soon have an airless loop of stars and writers who don’t exist in the real world, for audiences that may or may not consist of chatbots, all paid for with programmatic advertising generated and propagated by AI tools. [Findings from Futurism suggest Sports Illustrated has been publishing AI-generated content and disguising it by including bylines and photos for authors that don’t exist”] / Mediate

• Which *might not actually be a long-term issue* given The Rapid Rise of Synthetic Content / A Media Operator

• Hence the increasing value of TLDW – Too long, didn’t watch. Get a summary of key insights instead / Eightify

• Which gets taken to the (marketing) extreme with this GPT that can get the attention of anyone by analyzing their social profile / Linkedin

• Apropos of that - David Rozado has now created a service that enables left-wing GPT, right-wing GPT, and what he calls depolarizing GPT / Depolarizing GPT

• So logically? We’ll soon all be gravitating to The anti-SEO of vintage Etsy / One Thing

• But that aside,  why do AI Wrappers get a bad (w)rap? / Ben’s Bites

• Google DeepMind’s weather AI can forecast extreme weather faster and more accurately / MIT Technology Review

• And barring forecasting? The Robots Will Insider Trade/ Money Stuff

• But what happens when your AI girlfriend dies? / Dazed

• And once she’s gone, are real cadavers more useful than virtual ones? / Slate

The Macro Narrative

• Speaking of searching re-assessments: What Did Hip-Hop Do to Women’s Minds? / The Atlantic

• And does it have in anything in common with why dating advice on TikTok is so sexist – and so bleak? / Vox

• Corollary? From Peter: “Saw this and it reminded me of our conversation about climate and personality.” [Extreme heat linked with uneven cognitive decline]  / The British Psychology Society

• To that end - How (not) to do science in a crisis / FT

• Apropos of crisis: Gen Z is turning to the second-hand market because of the cost of living crisis — not climate change /  Fortune

• Ergo: Shoppers turn to buy now, pay later over Black Friday weekend / Reuters

• Must be connected: Inside the strange, secretive life of the overemployed / Business Insider

• And obvs, from Matt at the Technorati: no matter how you’re paying It Will Never Be a Good Time to Buy a House / The Atlantic

• Or, a bag? Facing a labor shortage, LVMH wants to craft the next generation of luxury artisans with a novel apprentice program / The Future Party

• Whole Foods Market is reviving the flagging art of culinary apprenticeships including butchery, cheesemongering, cake decorating and soon pizza-making: / Axios

• Also Lindy: Sweden’s postal workers are refusing to deliver Tesla license plates, the latest action resulting from 130 mechanics who want their union recognized by the car company / CNN

• So … Tesla sued Sweden / APNews

• Apropos of Elon Musk at Dealbook yesterday: Life Really Is Better Without the Internet / The Atlantic

• Related: Supreme Court considers first amendment rights to social media posts / The Conversation

• From David: “‘Authentic’ wins word of the year from one arbiter: Merriam-Webster. I’d love to hear what … marketers think about the word’s ascendance and what it means for the ways they approach various product strategies and tactics.” / Axios

• Hence, [SIC] homie Taylor Lorenz argues that maximalist-YouTube content has reached its peak and the next big creator will be the “anti-MrBeast” /The Verge

• Also anti: Sacre Bleu! France will ban smoking in public areas including beaches, parks, and forests / AP News

• While, oddly, New Zealand is reversing their smoking ban / BMJ

• Elsewhere: Dog Birthday Parties Are the Hot New Invite / WSJ

• And affluent Chinese citizens have moved hundreds of billions of dollars out of the country this year to buy overseas apartments and stocks / NYT

• Hence? Connecticut is a trend / One Thing

• While Detroit is now home to the country's first stretch of road that can wirelessly charge an electric vehicle / Axios

• Related: If U.S. wants more 15-minute cities, it should start in the suburbs / WaPo

• But why? You can’t even pay people to have more kids / Vox

Generationations

• You guys? Gen Z Is Talking and It’s Time for Brands to Listen Up / AdWeek

• Cause: Zoomers to overtake boomers at work / Axios

• Like, ‘Lazy girl jobs’ and viral agencies: Is Gen Z changing the rules for employers? / The Drum

• And like, How Gen Z is breaking free of the 9-to-5 / WePresent

• Hence? companies are trying a new family leave—for grandparents / Quartz

• Meanwhile, Maggie Smith, an influencer at 88, cements a new creative standard normalizing age / The Drum

• Apropos… what’s my creativity age again? / WePresent

• Back to the youts: This Gen Z journalist is doing shoe-leather reporting  from a conservative point of view / Politico

• Because, like, Is Gen Z the most conservative generation in history? / The New Statesman

• Possibly, judging by this: Golf carts give teenagers a taste of independence / NYT

• Also not on my bingo card: Gen Zs on Tiktok are quitting vaping in solidarity with Congo /  Screenshot

• Definitely could have predicted this, tho: ‘Millennial Core’ is the latest wave of Gen Z pointing out how Millennials are hilariously cringe / Insider

Platformations

• Apropos of Millennial Core: Google is launching a dedicated “.meme” URL as a go-to domain to host online jokes / Engadget

• Not joking, tho: will livestreaming be TikTok's Amazon-killer? / 2pm

• Because? TikTok users are more likely to go to concerts, pay for a music streaming service, and purchase merch compared to non-TikTok users (According to TikTok) /  Business Insider

• And ‘Get Ready with Me’ videos take over TikTok with over 150 billion views (but I haven't got a stitch to wear) / Fortune

• Apropos: TikTok reports that users who post videos longer than a minute now gain five times more followers than those who post videos under a minute — call it the YouTube-ization of TikTok / Tubefilter

• Meanwhile, TikTok has called “game over” on its gaming division, Nuverse, after two years / TechCrunch

• While in contrast, Youtube is getting into games / The Verge

• And McDonald’s and Coca-Cola Still See Gaming as an Experimental Marketing Channel / Digiday

• Related, from Iolanda: “In 2023, mobile gaming revenue will amount to $92.6 billion worldwide or a 49 percent share of total revenue with video games, triple that of PC games and almost double that of console titles” / Statista

• Speaking of mobile: Uber is testing a service that lets you hire drivers for chores / The Verge

• While London’s Black Cabs Can Soon Join Uber / NYT

Stylistics

• The winners of the Dezeen Awards 2023 / Dezeen

• Corollary: How "Color of the Year" has moved from Pantone to paint / Modern Retail

• And related to that: the biggest trends in graphic design for 2024, as predicted by the creative industry / Creative Boom

• A Beautifully Mundane Index of Nothing. Former colleague Bobby Doherty’s photography captures the vividness of the everyday / The New Yorker

• While longtime fascinating disaster, the Megaupload Founder Kim Dotcom is getting a TV biopic / The Fader

• Also a disaster: Diddy steps down as Revolt chairman amid sexual assault claims / The Fader

• Corollary: Is fashion ready for an accessibility overhaul? / Vogue Business

• Related: meet the brands setting a new blueprint for supply chain traceability / Vogue Business

• Film merch is big business for fashion brands. But will the hype fizzle? / Jing Daily

• On the topic of hype: On Running vs Allbirds. Both companies set out to take on Nike and Adidas.  But what ultimately set one shoe brand up for international dominance ($8+ billion market cap) and the other into survival mode ($100 million market cap) came down to this: comfort / 2PM

• Related, from Piers: the race to create the ultimate running super shoe / Dezeen

Culturations

• Question, from Molly: I Wanna Be Curated: Can You Really Put Punk in a Museum? / NYT

• Answer? From photographer Jim Goldberg: "When you’re in the moment, you get it/ The FACE

• More ‘curated lifestyle’: Bad Bunny jumps from music-making to empire-building / The Future Party

• And Emma Chamberlain is “open to the idea [of acting]” / Youtube

• While Billie Eilish and brother Finneas are backing a new vegan restaurant in LA’s Silver Lake / Argento

• Since we’re all getting out of music: Here’s how to download all your music from Bandcamp / Linux Impact

• Unless you’re still in it, in which case there’s: “I Bought The New Seven-CD Garth Brooks Box Set From Bass Pro Shops (A True Story)” / Uproxx

• 90s icon corollary from Celeste: ‘The grunge era revisited- Kurt Cobain still has the resale market ready to spend. His pack I of cigarettes also selling for a wild amount.’  [Kurt Cobain’s Battered Jeans Just Sold For A Wild Amount Of Money]  / Dazed) 

• Related: Aughts NYC Streetwear queen turned Real Housewives of New York star, Leah McSweeney, is selling her most notable looks in aid of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City (NAMI-NYC) / Basic.Space

• Speaking of RHONYs, from Molly: Jenna Lyons Doesn’t Care What You Think Of Her Style / Bustle

• More cult of personality, from Celeste: “another piece on resale and history, of a different kind, desks of those who have created. Intriguing to think how it feeds into the future of ideas and creating, with people wanting to refer back to points in time. [The Desks Where Geniuses Scrawled Command A High Premium] /FT

Media-tions

• How Bloomberg Media got to 500,000 subscribers  — and how it plans to reach a million  / Press Gazette

• Reddit is talking IPO in early 2024 / Bloomberg

• Paste Magazine bought Jezebel and could begin publishing as early as yesterday / NYT

• While in contrast, Lapham’s Quarterly, the successor to a certain era of Harper’s, is going on ice / Semafor

• And after 151 years, Popular Science will  no longer offer a magazine  / The Verge

• Meanwhile, the podcast industry remains tiny outside of the US. The UK podcasting ad market is just over a fifth (22%) of the size it should be compared to the US. Australia (37%), Canada (32%) and New Zealand (7%) likewise lag behind / PodNews

Market / Influence

• What luxury brands can learn from Zara’s new China livestream concept: amid the flurry of fast-paced, hard-selling livestreams, Zara is rolling out a more calm and choreographed concept / Jing Daily

• Elsewhere, many influencers are expanding into food content because it's extremely advertiser friendly / Digiday

• Corollary: A Chipotle in Kansas City is renaming itself "Chipolte" in honor of Travis Kelce / USA Today

• And from Tyler: “this feels very sic (humbly) [The sound of crunching chip is annoying. Doritos made a silencer ] WaPo

• On the topic of superfluous innovation, KFC has designed a perfume / Creative Bloq

• And Kraft is debuting a dairy-free mac and cheese/ Quartz

• How Fanta made consumers ‘wanna’ again / Marketing Brew

• Ikea and Lego bet big on the future of the store. Scandinavian companies to expand physical presence to buck gloomy trends in their industries / FT

• Related: Madhappy opens first store. The 2,800-square-foot location is in West Hollywood, California, and features an assortment of its apparel as well as an on-site cafe / Marketing Dive

Eats, Drinks and Ephemera

• But Why, Oh Why, Are People on the Internet Munching on Sticks of Butter? / IFL Science

• Unrelated, I think: The unstoppable ascent of tequila. Can it conquer the world? / FT

• But, related to that, from Piers: “Maybe Related” Drinking habits shift as UK changes from beer to wine / Drinks Business

• And Chile is abandoning vineyards as sales decline /  Drinks Business

• An interesting piece by Michael Pollan about the apple’s role in early US culinary and agricultural history / Slowfood

The Natural (?!) World

• Oh, excellent: Dubai Police launch interactive video game ahead of COP28 “to spread awareness about environmental issues” 🤦‍♂️ / Khaleej Times

• But at least? A new form of geothermal energy is making data centers a little greener / Wired

• Related, from Iolanda: “For nearly a week, Portugal met electric power needs with wind, hydro and solar — a test run for operating the grid without fossil fuels” / Canary Media

• Speaking of fossil-power: How Godzilla became Japan’s most put-upon worker. The latest in the monster series can be seen as an allegory that lets the country move on from past traumas / FT

• And on the topic of relatable leviathans: Fans follow Minnesota’s most famous moose everywhere he goes  / NYT

• While back in the City, from Piers: Art for birds: Apocalyptic Birdhouses Touch Down in NYC / Hyperallergic

  

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