[SIC] 280: Flesh and Bone Robot

Volume Six, Number Twenty

[SIC] Weekly is a digest of pertinent developments, compiled by Ben Dietz It’s sent free on Thursdays to over 5000 subscribers who’ve individually opted in. [SIC] is a one-person operation that grows via word-of-mouth. Pass it along to people you like. Here’s a button:

Paid subscriptions are also available. Many paying supporters expense their subscriptions as research for their work in marketing, advertising, entertainment and tech. Paying subscribers get an additional [SIC] Day microdigest of 10 links every Mon, Tues, Weds, Fri, and the [SIC] Sundays dispatch. And founding supporters get invited to dinner parties at my home in NYC, with special guests.

Corollary sources this week: Semafor / Feed Me / 1440 / The New Statesman / Morning Brew / Jing Daily / The Rebooting / Champion Weekly / Public Announcement / Network Notes /Politico / Screen Theories / Platformer / The Future Party / Morning Consult /Elevator / Garbage Day / Today in Tabs

---

Hi all,

[SIC] passed 5000 subscribers again this week (this after I ‘fired’ 800 or so non-active subs in November), which is encouraging. Welcome all the new folks who’ve joined in 2024 in particular. One complicating factor to the growth; many of them seem to be funneled in a newly-more-active referral process from Substack, which I am actively investigating departing from (nazis and all that). Thanks to Johnny and Kevin for POV on that btw.

Anyway, interesting to me that the platform’s response to controversy behind the scenes might have been to turn on the jets and drive subs to keep me here - I’m happy to have the support but it seems a little cynical, if true. I wonder if any of you have seen a similar, unexpected uptick on your ‘sletters. LMK.

Apropos of getting help: thanks to Elaine Santiago, Ian Edgar, Piers Fawkes, Iolanda Carvalho, Celeste Blewitt, and David Bloom for contributions this week. I love them from everybody, so please send ‘em!

On the subject of contributing:[SIC] homie PJ Jasienski recently launched Gig Alert, a digest of recently posted marketing and creative industry jobs and the oft-cited Strat Scraps’s Alex Morris created a LIVING “HIRE MY FRIENDS” document, updated constantly with people who he’s personally worked with and [will] vouch for. I love the impulse with both - and am happy to help too. So if you’ve got a freelance need, or a gig open (or a resource to share, send it and I’ll happily include in [SIC].

More support: the folks at Air LLC just produced a Manifesto for Creativity (designed by [SIC] homies Paul Raffaele and Barbie Bertisch at my suggestion), which you can get for free if you do a demo of their creative collaboration software. I liked the paid integration Air did with this ‘sletter for [SIC] 250, interviewing the director Ivan Cash, so sign up, get a book, and tell Air who sent you so they’ll do more. Happy to do similar things with other companies, too.

I promised Music Recs last week, so a few: My Discover Weekly was pretty on point this week. I mentioned Carnival coming up last week: DJ Private Ryan’s Soca Brainwash mix from 2015 is my go-to in the absence of the 2024 edition. Too much fun. And from my OG DJ partner James Fucking Friedman: “Music recommendation of the day: this 6 hour (!) mix of Italo sleaze and slo mo pop weirdness by Detroit DJ Jeffrey Sfire, recorded live at erstwhile Berlin party institution Cocktail D’amore some years back…”

Speaking of listening: [SIC] Talks this week is with Racquet major domo Caitlin Thompson. On the docket [before we had a software glitch that prematurely ended the chat after about 45 mins - sorry about that!] was: the challenge of striking a journalistic balance, Herzog in the zeitgeist, ecstatic truth, ojectivity as a constraint, the plague of superfine, moments of inception, Yellow Springs, Ohio, the Death of Gawker, Michael Powell’s FCC, “The Curious Case of Sydd Finch,” Clandestine Pickleball Clubs, The Monocle Model, Flagrant and The Gist and how content isn’t the hard part. It’s a good one. And per Cory’s suggestion, I’m embedding the YouTube link (you can watch the other Talks over there too).

Next week’s talk will be Dirt CEO Daisy Alioto. Likely important context: Daisy’s 2023 banger The Taste Economy.

Now, the links.

Ben

[SIC] 280: Flesh and Bone Robot

---

Some final 2024 predictions via Iolanda:  what’s around the corner via We Are Social,  the trends shaping travel in 2024 per Condé Nast Traveler, and what the experts see coming according to Visual Capitalist. Meanwhile Molly points us to pods: Can Slowness Save Us?, How to Discover Your Own Taste and The Cult of Cold Plunging. It’s my Year of Tenderness, apparently, per [SIC] Homie Maia Ruth Lee and her 2024 Affirmation Generator. As a corollary: Maia chatted with Martine Syms about "Glyphoscope 2024" too. IDK how I missed Monster Children’s “Analog to Digital” podcast series but WOW, lots of people I love and want to hear from there.  Apropos of that: [SIC] Talks Alum Matt Klein, gave a Minor Genius interview. And elsewhere, said “We’ve Lost the Plot” on the Day One Agency Pod. Presented, therefore, without comment: A furry named Rantis figured out how to move his avatar’s ears using brain waves.

---

The Macro Narrative

• Pandemic Learning Loss: Understanding Academic, Mental & Developmental Delays / Zine

• Thankfully Young People Aren’t Completely Anti-Capitalist / Fast Company

• But the unique nature of conversation in a group chat is  redefining what it means to be constantly online / NYT

• Sayeth Lefsetz: Everything’s Inviolate. Key Quote: “Want a standard? Sublime's "What I Got.”” / Lefsetz Letter

• The World Is Falling Apart. Blame the Flukes / The Atlantic

• Hence? From Piers: “erm" [Third of UK teenagers believe climate change exaggerated, report shows] / The Guardian

• Because? From Molly: Our Kids Are Living in a Different Digital World / NYT

• Speaking of Zynfluencers ….  Davos is Good Actually, Gen Z Thinks / Politico

• Srsly tho: Is Davos still worthwhile? The fear of missing out makes the Alpine resort the ultimate networking opportunity / FT

• Still, there’s The humiliation of Davos man. He isn’t taking over the world. He’s begging for it to trust him / WSJ

• World-stage corollary: Who stands to gain from China’s demographic collapse? / FT

• The Creator Economy is Ready for a Worker’s Movement, apparently / TechCrunch

• “Babygirl men” has solidified its place in social media vernacular / Vogue Business

• In the Ozempic Age,  Has ‘Craveable’ Lost Its Selling Power? / NYT

• Apropos: “living alone vloggers” are influencing the rental market / The Future Party

• Related? The office isn’t fun anymore / WSJ

• Further: research from Oxford that casts doubt on the multibillion-dollar corporate workplace wellness industry / NYT

• Somehow I think Bompas & Parr’s Future of Food & Drink 2024 Webinar does too/ Zoom

• From Piers: “I like this because there’s been a forth of ai tools that are simple and are useful. too many focus on a chat experience when there’s so many  more interfaces to build. [Find familiar places in new cities] / Flowing Data

• Less familiar, from Ian: “There’s growing hope that the old internet will come back at some point in some form” [ The Internet’s About to Get Weird] / Rolling Stone

Platformations

• Did a ChatGPT glitch reveal Twitter's huge bot problem? / BoingBoing

• And Bezos’s too? A bunch of products on Amazon had names that include the words “against OpenAI use policy”. / The Verger

• While Google Search really has gotten worse, researchers find / 404 Media

• From Ian: “I’m sad about Aritfact. Not that sad, but still.” [Artifact is Shutting Down] Engadget

• Cause, as per Brian Morrissey: News apps never work. The market isn’t that big, and there’s not much money in it / Medium

• Corollary: The New York Post is positioning Page Six as a stand-alone brand .  [ Key Quote]: “This was not fully motivated by the fact that news has become a pariah for some advertisers.” / Adweek

• From Celeste: This is such a in-depth review of how Netflix draws in the viewer, the tags selected to highlight certain shows…how easily hte viewer can click on 'Watch Now'. 'A Few Words About Netflix's Success. Vivd. Happy. Tags.' /NYT

• Threads users will be able to follow people on rival social network Mastodon later this year, after the Meta-backed platform joined the fediverse/ TechCrunch

• Almost no investors are backing startups in the metaverse and virtual world space / Crunchbase

Stylistics

• Is Skateboarding Still a Subculture? / Pulling Weeds

• How the Happy Slam Remains Undefeated. Decades of upgrades (and some savvy urban planning) have put the AO well ahead of the field / Racquet 

• The Specialist Sneaker Edition. On basketball, injuries, and the changing soles of shoes/ WITI

• Alaïa used selfies to release their Winter 2024 lookbook / Alaia

• Elsewhere: The sales never stop / Marketplace

• One Night Only: André 3000 takes the listening party to IMAX / The Future Party

• ‘The real thing’: Junya Watanabe on making the orthodox exquisite through collaboration / Vogue Business

• [SIC] Talks Alum Brynn Wallner of Dimepiece shares her Internet / Embeddedd

• The [Tuesday] Media Diet with Magasin’s Laura Reilly / WITI

• More Interview: Snake Q&A with Bianca Stilwell of Monte Visión / Snake

• And artist Lauren Halsey x George Clinton on the H&W pod / Hauser & Worth

• Why analogue photography is making a creative comeback / Creative Bloq

• ‘Making rich people look richer’ at Milan men’s fashion week / FT

• TikTok is debating the new trend of “bookshelf wealth” — curating a bookshelf as a status symbol / NYT

• Related:  American style and what it says about class / FT

• Hence, from Celeste: “Great description of 'under 30's old souls' …now the lead players in all the 'core' trends.” [Second-Hand Is The Only Way To Wear 2024's Grandpa Core Trend] / Vogue UK

• Are women are showing double standards in sexualizing Jeremy Allen White, or is there something deeper, and frankly funnier, going on? [We need to talk about Jeremy Allen White’s tighty-whities]   / The Drum  

Culturations

• Amid selloffs and slowdowns, has the music industry peaked? / Network Notes

• Welcome to Laufey Land  - Where Gen Z Meets Jazz/ Billboard

• From Molly: How 50 Cent became the most versatile man in entertainment / Vox

• And “Bold to be sharing a GQ article amidst the Pitchfork announcement, and yet”: What Even Is Coachella Style Now? / GQ

• Not to be confused with Pharrellowstone in Paris / GQ

• Dua Lipa started a book club / Service95

• From Molly: The Anxious Precision of Jacqueline Novak's Comedy / The New Yorker

• What killed the fight scene? And is it finally coming back? / Fast Company

• The Forgotten Postures of History / The Lindy Newsletter

• From Ian: they made the tables smaller for the THR roundtables / YouTube

• Video game developers are increasingly selling unfinished games — a practice known as an “early access” release — which helps them finance their work and identify bugs / NYT

• Young people are giving up on BBC News. A podcast is try to get them back / Nieman

• While in Why Do You Hate Me?, Marianna Spring, one of the broadcaster’s most trolled correspondents, tracks down conspiracy theorists, impersonators, deep-fakers, as well as the people they harm / BBC

• Corollary: Shepard Fairey’s Subversive Civic Discourse / Hyperallergic

• Related: NYC Is Seeking Artists to Transform Unsightly Scaffolding. The City Canvas program will commission designs for temporary protective structures/ Hyperallergic

• Have You Heard of Emily Mason? Long overlooked, the painter was an American genius, turning color into its own form of storytelling / The New Yorker

• A unique new museum is opening in NYC where Century 21 used to be / Time Out

• From Iolanda: “From reimagined bathhouses in Tokyo to dinner theatre in Singapore, Time Out editors share 2024’s most exciting global cultural trends" / TimeOut

• FKA twigs says she’s working on a “deep but not sad” techno-inspired album / The Fader

• From Piers: “I know IP is all the rage but timing maybe could be better / sooner” [ Patti LaBelle Moves From Stage to Stove With a Recipe for Success ]/ Bloomberg

• Thom Browne Curates ‘Visions of America’ Sotheby’s Sale / Galerie

• Nick Saban’s Retirement is Costing College Football over $100M/ Front Office Sports

Technopolis

• From Piers: “A good overview of how a creative team is using ai for creative works but i’m left wondering, who owns the work if it has no copyright protection?" POV > AI - by Rei Inamoto / The Intersection

• Is AI the end of copyright? / The New Yorker

• Anthropic is warning of malicious “sleeper agent” AI models / Ars Technica

• From Celeste: Celebrities Already Live In AI Hell / NY Mag

• Can We Free Ourselves From Algorithms? / Hyperallergic

• How Much of the World Is It Possible to Model? Mathematical models power our civilization—but they have limits / The New Yorker

• A grad student disproved Bitcoin’s so-called anonymity / Wired

• From Elaine: John Deere Tractors Will Soon Come With Starlink Satellite Internet / Business Insider

• From Ian: - $5k birdwatching binoculars are a considerably less frightening side of AI. The Next Web

Media-tions

• Apple Podcasts ends automatic downloads; podcast numbers shrink / Semafor

• Corollary, from David: “Here’s one of my own pieces from the weekend, so forgive my  forwardness, but this is a going to be a big deal.” [Why The NFL’s First Streaming-Only Playoff Matchup Is A Game Changer]/ Forbes

• Will people pay to watch CNN videos on their phones?  CEO Mark Thompson wants to find out / WSJ

• Pitchfork will be  folded under GQ / Twitter

• A D.I.Y. Fanzine, Fifty Years On / The New Yorker

• Are you ready for the beauty newsletter boom? / Feed Me

• Digiday’s definitive, if not exhaustive, 2024 Google Chrome third-party cookie deprecation glossary / Digiday

• What Would You Do With BuzzFeed? / A Media Operator

Market / Influence

• Snoop Dogg’s stove stunt proves no one knows what marketing is / The Drum

• Like for instance? When is it OK to swear in an ad? / The Drum

• Uber shuts down alcohol delivery service Drizly, which the rideshare company bought three years ago for $1.1B / Axios

• While Burger King will spend $1 billion buying its own restaurants. The company is swallowing its largest US franchisee as part of a turnaround plan / Quartz

• Corollary: What it takes to build a private label / Retail Dive

• Related to that: can Mike Tyson become a heavyweight in the New York marijuana industry? / NYT

• And From Piers: Is HBO Behind "Mob Wife Aesthetic”? / Milk Karten

Eats, Drinks and Ephemera

• Abergwyngregyn dispatch: Few know Wales for its whiskey, yet the country is experiencing a revival in production / NYT

• ‘Plant-Based’ Has Lost All Meaning. A label once intended for meat replacements is now used for shampoo, booze, and nearly every other product imaginable / The Atlantic

• Goodby to that App [Seamless] / The Melt

The Natural (?!) World

• The United Nations Development Programme (UNEP) has put together an interactive guide to pollution / UNEP

• The business model behind resurrecting the woolly mammoth / Semafor

• The Early Universe Was Bananas / NYT

• And now, We Have No Bananas. Can scientists defeat a devastating blight? / The New Yorker

• But What Does Space Smell Like? / Space.com

[SIC] 280: Flesh and Bone Robot