[SIC] 283: My Bubble is Titanium

Volume Six, Number Twenty-Three

Ben Dietz

Feb 08, 2024

This time: [SIC] Talks with Jason Kreher (former North American Chief Creative at Accenture Song) and the [SIC] Weekly digest of pertinent developments, compiled by Ben Dietz and published free on Thursdays to 5222 subscribers who’ve opted in. [SIC] is a one-person operation that grows exclusively by via word-of-mouth. Pass it along to people you like. Here’s a button:

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Corollary sources this week include: Nieman Lab / The Future Party / Marginal Revolution / After School / Elevator / Ben-Evans / Five Things on Friday / Strat Scraps / Public Announcement / Politico / Beats and Bytes / Network Notes / Feed Me / Morning Brew / Quartz / The New Statesman / The Kicks You Wear / Best Made

Thanks to Robert Harwood-Matthews, Lucy McRae, Soren Wrenn, Dan Bradley, Piers Fawkes, Matt @The Technorati, Campbell Dietz, Ben Pruess, Molly Raskin, Celeste Blewitt, Iolanda Carvalho, Eli Williams and Tom Ramsden for contributions this week.

Hi all,

Developments in my world - Wednesday’s Breakfast Club Book Swap was fun (you’re invited btw - we do it every Weds) and the announcement of Lillian, Rob and Holly’s Breakfast Club Austin on Feb 22.

My ‘movie a day’ goal for Straightedge February brought lots of good suggestions. From Ben, on the Thrasher site: “Thought you might like this- my friend John's movie [Art and Life: The Story of Jim Phillips].” From Robert, on PBS: “Made by a friend of mine, premieres this weekend and live next week I think [Sister Una Lived a Good Death].” From Lucy: “Watch ‘THE KITCHEN’ on Netflix! My buddy Kibwe co-directed; London 2044”. And one that I’ve actually watched, from Robert, on Youtube: “Into Eternity,” “because no one else will send you a documentary about nuclear waste by [Michael Madsen], no chinking of glasses in it either.”

Aside from “Into Eternity” I’ve gotten through Albert Brooks’s “Defending Your Life”, John Carpenter’s “Escape from New York,” Josell Ramos’s “Maestro” (about Larry Levan and the NY club scenes that gave us DJ culture) and Jonathan Glazer’s “Birth” - all on Criterion. And Campbell and I indulged his inexplicable Bills fandom with “Buffalo66” (on Amazon Prime). Gonna make him watch Glazer’s “Sexy Beast” next. Perfect movie.

Apropos of books: Kaia Gerber just launched a book club called “Library Science.” Related: Pulling off the machine assist: Sheila Heti’s Gimmicks on Dirt. Not a gimmick: No one knows what makes good beverage. But maybe it’s the Thom Browne fits? Behind the Snax with Ruby founder and [SIC] Talks Alum Noah Wunsch.

On that note: Andy Enright’s 2003 classic How to Be Fashionable (Or, Consume Like Me) never gets old. Other things to buy: Katherine Bernhardt’s Magic Mushroom beanbag ‘sculptures’ are bonkers and I want one. More stuff I want: [SIC] homie Garrett Colton’s ‘Secret Strategist” edition is a banger. Great for inveterate accumulators of interesting stuff (like me).

My guest on [SIC] Talks is a longtime buddy, Jason Kreher - who until just recently was North American CCO at Accenture Song, and who (given the big game this weekend) won the Superbowl in 2022, aside from many other accolades in the marketing arts. He also wrote the very funny, very non-politic Schaudenfreezers, and has maintained a very special Tumblr for sixteen years, including as recently as a week ago. Anyway, watch it (or better yet, listen while you multitask).

Since our conversation touched on about Bethany Cosentino’s Tiktok rant, Molly pointed me to Therapists Trade the Couch for the Great Outdoors. Also covered: NO you can't do EVERYTHING 🙄 in Trend Report, whose author Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick will join me for the Feb 22nd edition.

Now, the links.

[SIC] 283: In My Titanium Bubble

Spooky Streets in Greenpoint these days.

Corollary to my intro: It’s not a film but Tom’s suggestion of Alan Patridge: Big Beacon: The hilarious new memoir from the nation’s favourite broadcaster on Spotify is a bit of a movie. Corollary, from Molly: Against Disruption: On the Bulletpointization of Books.

The Macro Narrative

Why everyone is talking about polyamory / FT
Because? ‘Enshittification’ is coming for absolutely everything / FT
The Nemesis Guide to Being Early / Nemesis Memos
“The Curse” and the Magical Thinking of the Speculative Economy / The New Yorker
The digital age hasn’t gone far enough. The fuss about AI obscures how many of life’s inconveniences have survived technology/ FT
From Piers: Rise the the “Mommune” / Business Insider
The Working Woman’s Newest Life Hack: Magic Mushrooms / WSJ
The New Leadership Retreat: Taking Psychedelics with Your CEO / Fortune
Employers want to fire workers without getting shamed on Tiktok / Bloomberg
Millions of Profitable Niches: 1,000 True Fans 2.0? / Tim Ferris
Are creators the future of media? And do journalists need to pivot to video? / Embedded
Want to sell a book these days? Better start a TikTok / Vox
From Eli: “We just launched our 2024 Predictionary today—part dictionary part-prediction, six words that define culture in 2024 and beyond” / Day One Agency
The TikTokification of ASMR / Embedded
Ai Weiwei criticises ‘fragile’ state of Western democracy / The Art Newspaper
Meantime: Donald Trump’s Chaos, Straight to Your In-Box …wildly remixing favorite phrases into a fevered Surrealist cut-up / The New Yorker
From Matt: It sure looks like Trump's business empire is about to get hammered. Trump Is Inching Closer to the Worst Legal Defeat of his Life / VICE
From Celeste: GoFundMe Is A Healthcare Utility Now' /The Atlantic
Is Science a Public Good? / Marginal Revolution
Bari Weiss reinvents neoconservatism / NYMag
Dartmouth College is requiring the SAT and ACT again / Marketplace
9pm is The Hottest New Bedtime for 20-somethings/ WSJ

Generationations

Monster Jam Truck events have become faddish with Gen Z-ers and millennials whose attendance began as an irony that has now tipped into genuine enthusiasm / NYT
Gen Z Wants to Smell Rich. It’s driving Luxury Perfume Sales / Bloomberg
Gen Z Are So Lonely They're Posting Friendship Applications on Facebook / VICE
Meantime, welcome to The Golden Age of DINKs / Business Insider

Platformations

Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Disney’s ESPN plan to join forces to create a new sports streaming service / CNBC
So, then: Welcome to the Great Rebundling / Front Office Sports
Speaking of bundles: YouTube now has more than 100 million Premium subscribers / The Verge
Though the ad industry continues to wonder how Google’s ad sandbox will work / Digiday
Bluesky is now open for anyone to join / TechCrunch
While X is investing in original video content / NYT
But TikTok isn’t as popular among users as you’d think / Quartz
Because? TikTok once seemed in tune with individual tastes. Recently, it’s felt like fumbling in the junk drawer / NYT
Plus? TikTok is full of tryhard slang / Vox
Speaking of tryhards: Meta’s Oversight Board found that Meta’s rules on deepfake videos are “incoherent.” / TechCrunch
While Martin Scorsese and daughter Francesca are taking their TikTok act to the Super Bowl / Hollywood Bowl

Stylistics

Where are the punks or Teddy Boys of today? How Britain killed off its musical tribes /Unherd
Corollary, from Piers: The Cultural Clash of Bushwick's Latest Fashion Trend / Untapped New York
Speaking of Culture Clash, from Campbell: [SIC] homies unite at the CSC x Jenkem game/ IG
Related: In Ivory Coast, plastic sandals are the preferred gear for pickup soccer — and almost everything else / NYT
While Carhartt’s new women’s line is making hard-working gear soft / Retail Dive
Swedish cool girls Ganni makes BioFluff bags from "world's first plant-based fur" / Dezeen
But Fewer designers are showing pre-fall collections / Vogue Business
Because? Hype-centric brands are out, quiet luxury brands are in / Jing Daily
Elsewhere: Who Gets to Play Golf? Connor Laubenstein aka “The Bag Bandit,” talks to [SIC] Homies Dan and Jon / Duplex Deli Sandwich Club
The Cool Thing To Wear To the Big Game? Something Old / NYT
From Celeste: How Vintage Won The Grammys Red Carpet /NYT
How to Dress for a Concert in Your Thirties / The New Yorker
And The Bleak Quality of New D2C Furniture and how to Overcome it /Sami Reiss Radio

Culturations

From Iolanda: “This made-up dictionary captures today’s cultural phenomena in a list of brand-new words" - for wording addicts 😉/ Fast Company
The 'rockonomics' of SoundCloud and its artists / Will Page
'We need jungle' - Amol Rajan on how a University Challenge question spawned a remix craze / BBC
From Molly: Video Games Are Mourning the Old, Weird, Clunky Internet / NYT
What’s Old is New Again (and Again): On the Cyclical Nature of Nostalgia / LitHub
The evolution of trust, the evolution of Star Trek / The Bulwark
One Year! Tracing the visual legacy of the miners’ strike / It’s Nice That
"The Warriors" at 45 / BK Mag
From Celeste: ‘Music Has Ceased To Be Ageist: Pet Shop Boys On 40 Years Of Pop Genius - And Their Hopeful New Album' / The Guardian
CBGB - the Scuzzy New York Club That Ushered A New Wave Of Rock / BBC
History Lesson – Part III: This Bland Could Be Your Life / Metrograph
The Hair Metal Edition. On crimewaves, moral lessons, and decline / WITI
Speaking of Crimewaves: Artists “make LA graffiti history” after tagging over 27 floors of abandoned lux real estate development / Hyperallergic
Graf-adjacent: Highlights from Swizz Beats’s and Alicia Keys’s art collections are opening at the Brooklyn Museum / TAPE
From Piers: ‘Statues are of dead blokes. This is a living woman kicking arse.’ How we made the fourth plinth’s Alison Lapper Pregnant / The Guardian
Hyperallergic’s Spring 2024 New York Art Guide / Hyperallergic
Will the art market rebound? That might not be the right question / The Art Newspaper
India’s art market is booming As the country’s economy speeds ahead / Artsy
From Piers: “Now you see me: from Grace Jones to Francis Kéré, new book celebrates black design” / Design Boom
Using PowerPoint, Artists Ask How Performative Presentations Shape Our Thinking / Art News
Related: Daisy’s Artist as Small Business Deck / Twitter
Also apropos: Benedict Cumberbatch reads Sol LeWitt's letter to Eva Hesse, "You are not responsible for the world, you are only responsible for your work. So just do it!”/ YouTube
Once you have a place to work, that is. From Celeste: “There's something intriguing about property listings and the history that goes with that. What a place to write, to create and workshop all the ideas. Plus the history of the ownership is a story in itself.” [A Writing Cottage On The Upper East Side] /Curbed

Technopolis

Neal Stephenson talks about how he predicted the age of AI / The Atlantic
While, from Piers: Andreesen Horowitz predict an Era of Abundance ushered in by AI / a16z
Less optimistically, a white paper published by Open AI last week poured gasoline on the growing debate over the possibility that terrorists, or scientists, or just mischief-makers could use artificial intelligence to build a world-ending bioweapon / OpenAI
Or, just as bad, more spam. Confessions of a man flooding the internet with AI-generated garbage / Wired
Hence? Meta is calling for an industry-wide effort to label A.I.-generated content / NYT
From Iolanda” On Spatial Computing, Metaverse, the Terms Left Behind and Ideas Renewed / Matthew Ball
But will Apple’s Vision Pro spur luxury's virtual reality breakthrough? / Jing Daily
This is what shopping looks like On the Vision Pro/ Vogue Business
But is the Vision Pro for Everyone, or Just Enthusiasts? / Big Technology
Because, from Celeste: a great piece dissecting the uncomfortable duality of wearing this …'The Apple Vision Pro Is Spectacular And Sad' / The Atlantic
In the meantime: Your Phone Is Not Listening to You. The tech myth has pervaded all corners of society, but its origins show it was never true to begin with/ Gizmodo
Still: Caveat Emptor. From Soren, via Dan: “On February 8th, the Doge Foundation will be launching an airdrop of over 530,000,000 $DOG on Base. As a core part of the airdrop, over 100,000,000 ($250,000) $DOG will be airdropped to creators / Linkedin

Media-tions

From Molly: Over Three Decades, Tech Obliterated Media / NYMag
So now, a billionaire roofing family is in talks to buy Graydon Carter’s Air Mail newsletter for $50 million / Semafor
Which maybe Semafor learned about by launching a breaking news feed called Signals, in which journalists use tools from Microsoft and Open AI / Semafor
But Semafor's AI Partnership Is The Same Old Shit / Defector
Corollary: Fake Pitchfork Nostalgia / Salieri Redemption
But You’ll Miss Sports Journalism When It’s Gone / The Atlantic
The spectacular collapse of The Messenger is a lesson on how not to do journalism / The Guardian
Related: “Ineptitude bordering on cruelty”: A roundup of recent news and takes on The Messenger / Nieman Lab
In parallel, from Iolanda: a reliance on data has robbed advertising of its taste for the unpredictable / Contagious
In contrast: taste gawds ‘Another Man’ To Relaunch as Bi-Annual Print Magazine / BoF
‘Meme-lord’ Litquidity reveals his true identity / FT
I’m signing up: Brian Morrissey launched The Rebooting memberships / The Rebooting
While Ghost is offering laid-off journalists a free year on their newsletter platform / Ghost
And Rusty Foster keeps Tabs on his migration from Substack to Beehiv / Today in Tabs

Market / Influence

With $7 million price tag per Super Bowl ad, brands are 'hacking' the system/ Digiday
To wit: Will TikTok replace X as the top second screen during the Super Bowl? / Digiday
Toyota announced record profits Tuesday, thanks to incredibly strong sales of gas-electric hybrid vehicles / Daily Upside
McDonald’s put the seasonal treat back on menus nearly two weeks earlier than last year/ ABC News
Deckers CEO Dave Powers teased an upcoming brand being developed in the same innovation lab as Ugg, Hoka and Teva products / Footwear News
Related: Inside Under Armour’s Plan To Make The Next Viral Sneaker / Footwear News
Snoop Dogg almost didn’t do his Skechers deal because a member of his team was blocking. I think I know who. And that member was correct. Terrible Partnership. / Afrotech
Also terrible, sorry: ‘adidas Just Samba-Fied David Beckham's Iconic Cleats' / GQ
New Balance Introduces Its "Reconsidered" Resale where people can trade-in or shop pre-owned New Balance kicks starting today / Hypebeast
H&M’s new store concept features a secondhand shop-in-shop / Retail Dive
Rick Rubin is bringing his creativity to website design via a partnership with Squarespace / Fast Company
Corollary: Tinder CMO shares plans to show up in the real world, starting with fashion line /The Drum
Speaking of IRL: Vacation’s collabs with “World Class Leisure Brands” / Vacation LLC
From Piers: Limited Edition Pasta / Retail Times

Eats, Drinks and Ephemera

Fashion buffet confidential. What do models really eat on set? / FT
German beer consumption is declining steadily / Twitter
From Piers: “I’m unsure if there’s any reason to believe in the return of the spudnut but the more i read about this gem, the more there should be” / Peoria Journal
The Cooking Time Edition / WITI

The Natural (?!) World

UK to wave through animal products from EU if ports are overwhelmed / FT
Smoked Monkey and Whole Sharks: The Suitcase Smugglers Feeding Europe’s Hunger for Bushmeat / The Guardian
Speaking of rough trade: How To Throw An Illegal Warehouse Party / Monster Children
The ‘Shopping Wonky’ Movement Isn’t Just for Fruit Anymore /Reasons To Be Cheerful
Come on, Flora! Will Plants Ever Fertilize Themselves? / The New Yorker
Conserve the Sound is a wonderful repository of sounds that will soon become extinct / Conserve the Sound
From Matt: Nikola Tesla Lived 24 Years Longer Than He Should Have. Did He Solve the Secret to Longevity? / Popular Mechanics
Finally: Austin, Raleigh, Boise, Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah, top the Milken Institute's latest annual list of the Best Performing Cities / Axios

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