[SIC] 288: Executive Workwear

Volume Six, Number Twenty Eight

This time: [SIC] Talks with Tricia Romano, author of “The Freaks Came Out To Write,” some chunes, the [SIC] Weekly digest of pertinent developments, compiled by me (Ben Dietz) and published free on Thursdays to 5515 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:

Paid subscriptions are also available. 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. Many paying supporters expense their subscriptions as research for their work in marketing, advertising, entertainment and tech.

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Corollary sources this week include: After School / Public Announcement/ The Future Party / Magasin / Ben-Evans / Jimmy/ Feed Me/ Champion Weekly / Nieman Lab / Network Notes / The Unskippables / Business of Fashion / Kottke / Politico / Howard Lindzon / Today in Tabs / Morning Brew / Elevator/ The Guardian / Roca News

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Reader contributions this week came from Hugh Dietz, Molly Raskin, Celeste Blewitt, James Friedman, Jeff Carvalho, David Bloom, and Iolanda Carvalho Send ‘em if you got em, all.

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Hi all.

Straight into it: [SIC] Talks #69: Tricia Romano

Great to catch up with Tricia, whom I hadn’t seen in years, but also whose name was familiar to me long before I met there in the late ‘90s/ early aughts, running around the nightclubs of downtown NYC. Her just-released book “The Freaks Came Out to Write” is about (as the most positive review you will ever read asks) What Was The Village Voice?, captured as an oral history of America’s most important alternative weekly has been widely praised, and this I admittedly haven’t read it yet, it’s on the near-term list. The Voice was an important touchstone for me, and for the world - so I was glad that Tricia agreed to join me.

Our chat was a was a fun one. Full show description on YT, but A Brief Oral History of Wayne Barrett, the First Journalist to Doggedly Cover Donald Trump. gets referenced a couple different ways, for instance. Not to mention the good old days of NYC, and the ineffable chaos of the city. Have a listen. And go get the book!

Separately - we didn’t talk about it, but on the topic of NYC history, The Black Lives Matter mural fave artist Steve Powers  painted with the help of many people needs a home. It’s only 10’x 80’, maybe it will fit the back of your museum. Interested philanthropic entities contact @esposartworld.

On the topic of interest: I have now reached 29 consecutive sends unsubscribing to the NYMag / Vox Media Vulture email. I’m not sure I ever signed up for it, and despite six-week’s worth of consecutive requests, they won’t stop sending it. I am kind of looking forward to the daily ritual of hitting unsubscribe on the stupid thing at this point - maybe that’s Vox’s CRM tactic? I do like the Dinner Party letter they send. Oh look - another one just came in…. #30.

Also on my like list: The Weekly Work from Culturework has been referring a bunch of new readers my way, apropos of nothing. Thanks to whomever likes this digest - I really appreciate it (and welcome, if you’re new!)

Positive Word-of-Mouth is the only way [SIC] ever really grows, so if you happen to think of somebody who’d dig this, please pass it along. I just opened up the archives to my [SIC] Day posts, if you want to peruse for free, too. 101 Days of morning links, sent at 9am ET. “Art direction” today borrows from it.

Last thing. Culture Club Show, my occasional podcast with Ruba Abu-Nimah, Jian DeLeon and Jeff Carvalho is picking up steam with a new Half Hour format that’s just two of us in conversation. So far it’s just been Jeff and me, but we’ll get everybody talking soon too. Like and subscribe, as they say.

Ok? Ok.

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[SIC] 288: Executive Workwear

Pre-order Byline’s second print installment  - “Music To My Ears”.  How Long Gone: Sonic Boom mentions “That Summer” an obscure 1979 Ray Winstone vehicle with a killer powerpoppunknewwave soundtrack that I recreated on my That Summer Playlist. Past that, Song of the Week is Frank Black’s “Headache” Blackbird Spyplane say The sickest album of the year is Kim Gordon’s new one, “and it's kinda rap-rock??” / Related: How To Be Cool With Kim Gordon in Monster Children. But Meantime: Is Noise Cancelled? . Newly excavated by The Unskippables: Ex James Brown band leader David Matthew’s “Arrakis” is the huge, sensuous album opener that begs the question “What if Isaac Hayes was the Kwisatz Haderach?”, while from James Fucking Friedman, [SIC] homie Rich Medina on NYC’s legendary nightclub, APT, where James and I played monthly on Fridays.  Corollary to me bragging: toupees are the newest flex, per [SIC] homie John Ortved. Or is it the Dimepiece tee?  IE, from Jeff: How to Win Friends and Hustle People. Ashwin Deshmukh built a reputation as a nightlife impresario by burning close friends, new acquaintances, big corporations, local bars and even his subletter.

The Macro Narrative

• A WTF Moment in the Middle East / YT

• From David: “Lots of implications here for social media and shifting metrics for “success:” The word ‘viral’ has lost its meaning. In a world where 20 million views is routine, our understanding of virality has shifted / WaPo

• Nobody cares about being cancelled anymore. / Airmail

• People are setting up ad campaigns to find a girlfriend (it’s weird this is public but fair fucks I guess?!) / Google Docs

• Are Gen Z Men and Women Really Drifting Apart? / The Atlantic

• Did Michelin-Starred Sushi Noz Serve a Female Customer Smaller Portions for the Same Price? / Eater

• 'BNPL Goes From Niche to Normal as Young People Use it for Daily Essentials / NBC News

• First-time retailers are leading the brick-and-mortar revival in New York. More favorable tenant conditions have made the city an attractive spot for new storefront openings / QZ

• 'Wanna help a refugee? Give them a job.' / Desire Path

• Behind nonwhite voters’ drift away from Democrats / Twitter

• From Celeste: "With AI the buzz topic at SXSW, this is a great read. Charlie Warzel dissects this critically, with excellent descriptors of not only the new word society is currently living but also how the British Monarchy will heed to adjust and adapt.” [Kate Middleton And The End Of Shared Reality] / The Atlantic

• Dozens of artists and panelists have dropped out of SXSW over its sponsorship deal with the US Army / The Texas Tribune

• The UK’s National Health Service banned puberty blockers for children / The Guardian

• Trump opposes TikTok ban and calls Facebook the ‘true enemy of the people.’ / CNBC

• In Defense Of The Digital Eavesdropper / Byline

• Some teens want to cut back on social media / Axios

• From Molly: Post-girlhood. Two pathways for the bildungsroman. Chau Pham does a close read of Poor Things and Eileen / Dirt

• But like, Reading books is not an antidote for vanity and self-obsession / Jessica Defino

• I’m a Neurologist. Here’s the One Thing I Do Every Day for My Long-Term Brain Health / Self

• The Great American Novels 136 books that made America think / The Atlantic

• How not to predict the future. Good forecasting thrives on a delicate balance of math, expertise, and…vibes. / Asterisk Mag

• The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood  / The Atlantic

• Why fanfic is Hollywood’s latest obsession / The FACE

• Another Hollywood obsession: The Kassan of it all / The Rebooting

Generationations

• What’s It Like to Work for a Gen Z Boss? Very Different /

• Gen Z Marketing Glossary: Key Words and Terms Brands Need To Know /

• Gen Zs look to influencers for new trends more than they look to brands, according to new Archrival x Vogue Business report /

• Why Gen Z is obsessed with point-and-shoot digital cameras. Interest in the old-school devices is soaring—and so are prices in the secondary market / Fast Company

• Who Put Ye at the Top of the ‘Hot 100’ again? Gen Z TikTokers, mostly / Vulture

• Many Gen. Z and Millennials say just knowing about Ozempic makes them feel more pressure to lose weight / The New Consumer

Platformations

• From Celeste:  Instagram Overtakes TikTok In App Downloads In Race For New Users] / FT

• US Senate will kill ‘divest or ban’ TikTok bill, despite House backing, experts predict / The Drum

• As the US TikTok ban advances, what does it mean for brands? / Vogue Business

• Spotify is starting to make music videos available for Premium subscribers on mobile, desktop, and TV devices, pitting the streamer against one of YouTube’s core utilities / The Future Party

• Airbnb bans indoor cameras / TechCrunch

• Max Adds More Ads, Takes Aim As Password Sharing / Techdirt

• While, from Iolanda: Discord - Developers can now build new games and apps that are played directly inside the chat app / The Verge

• How the Porn Bots Took Over Twitter/ NPR

• Why a 23-Year-Old TikTok Influencer with a Million Followers is Ready to Leave it All Behind for a 9-To-5 Job / Fortune

Stylistics

• Bomb the Golf Course / The Early Majority

• Outdoor Voices will shut all its physical outlets / NYT

• Allbirds Names New CEO as Sales Slide Continues / BoF

• On Running Disappoints With Sales Forecast, Results / BoF

• RIP Sneakers? 💸 Is sneaker culture really dead? / The Kicks You Wear

• Cause, like Seeds are the new streetwear  / One Thing

• A handful of [SIC] Homies including Them Jeans and Solomito weigh in on outfiffery / Secret Strategist

• Corollary: What the hell is a Stylist and where did all these stylists come from / Articles of Interest

• Nordstrom opens BODE pop-up at NYC flagship / Retail Dive

• Who’s Afraid of the Big Black Suit? / NYT

• AirTox x Batman / IG

• Tyler, the Creator's le FLEUR* and Pharrell's Humanrace  Unveil New Nail Polish / Hypebeast

• Hypebeast has brought back the Business of HYPE show / Hypebeast

• A conversation with designer Benjamin Edgar Gott / Sprezza

• “Tell Us About Crotch Magazine” / Monocle

• Real book designer Catherine Casalino designed the real covers for the fake books in American Fiction / IG

• Some of the best looks at Paris Fashion Week weren’t on the runways / NYT

Culturations

• Playboi Carti’s new video “Ketamine” takes place in a trap house with a stained mattress, a machete dangling from the ceiling, and a shirtless dude jamming hard / IG

• Matthew Perry’s Death Proves We Don’t Know Much About Ketamine / Doubleblind

• Neil Young Returns To Spotify / Lefsetz Letter

• Local music is way more popular on streaming than the industry expected / Music Business Worldwide

• What If I Don't Live Taylor Swift Anymore? / Byline

• How to Hate Bad Art (Responsibly) [Feat. Craig S. Jenkins] / The Nersey Guide to Ethical Hating

• ‘The worst film ever made’: how Sex Lives of the Potato Men broke British cinema / The Guardian

• Brooklyn’s best friend Cord Jefferson breaks down how he wrote American Fiction / Script Apart

• From Celeste: “The red carpet that turned champagne, but lo and behold, it’s back. [And The Oscars Carpet Colour Goes Back…..To Red ]” / NYT

• For SS24, Rachel Comey worked with its SoHo neighbor, multimedia artist Joan Jonas  / Rachel Comey

• From Molly: How Waxahatchee Made the Album of Her (Second) Life / Pitchfork

• How ‘Liquid Modernity’ Shaped Art and the World. What if art institutions acted like water? / Frieze

• Listening bars commonly found in Japan are cropping up in New York and London / Nylon

• Redesign Yrself to Suit Yrself, Part Two / Apology

• Art World Resorts with Charlotte Diwan / 032C

• First Impressions From the 2024 Whitney Biennial / Hyperallergic

• Inside Athens’ Thriving Creative Scene: The Artists & Places To Know / Service95

Technopolis

• StockX brings sneaker culture to the Apple Vision Pro / Jing Daily

• Cognition surprise-unveiled Devin, an autonomous programming tool it bills as “the first AI software engineer,” / Twitter

• Hence? The big design jobs freak-out. A generation of design leaders grapple with their future / Fast Company

• Pulitzer-winner Mona Chalabi on telling stories about Gaza through data / The Verge

• From Molly: What to Do About the Junkification of the Internet / The Atlantic

• From Celeste: Interesting discussion on apps creating alternatives, options that are easy to use, creative and have different concepts to perhaps the main apps the world is using.  ‘I Did Not Expect to See So Many Games About People’s Pets. Why Downpour Is A Great Alternative To  Doomscrolling’ / The Guardian

• ‘It’s terrifying’: songwriter behind Robbie Williams hits out at AI in the music industry / The Guardian

Media-tions

• Reddit disclosed yesterday that it plans to raise up to $748 million in its initial public offering / Axios

• Reddit’s Long, Rocky Road to an Initial Public Offering / NYT

• Beware the threat of an all-consuming “answer engine” / The Walrus

• Top Editors, Media Execs Discuss How Magazines Could Thrive In the Digital Age at SXSW  / The Observer

• To that end? Ernie Smith tried to figure out who Deadspin‘s new owners are, and it’s probably an online gambling thing / Tedium

• But, but! In a bleak media landscape, start-ups like Puck and Semafor have found some success / NYT

• From Iolanda: “We’ll see a continuing shift from traditional concrete forms of cultural output with hard boundaries — the song, the book, the film — towards hazy clouds of content that diffuse at the edges and are constantly shifting shape” / The Media Leader

• So, like, Is Honest Writing the Next New Thing in Journalism? / An Honest Broker

• The Associated Press is launching an e-commerce site powered by Taboola → “It’s part of a broader effort by the AP to diversify its business by adding more consumer revenue.” The site will be called AP Buyline / Axios

• Former colleague and Semafor comms boss Meera Patni working on a database to make sure available talent is getting connected to those hiring in the media now and in the future: https://lnkd.in/e3-haj62 /Google Docs

• The Interior Design Newsletter FOR-SCALE is printing a newspaper version / For-Scale

Market / Influence

• Formats Unpacked: Sesame Street How a format changed children's TV forever / Storythings

• From Molly: What’s the Price of a Childhood Turned Into Content? / Cosmopolitan

• Advertisers don't see new, immediate value in Snapchat's ad offerings despite its brand marketing campaign / Digiday

• Why marketers are not deterred by TikTok's uncertain future / Digiday

• Cause? Is Net Promoter Score the Ozempic of Metrics? / Mostly Metrics

• National Cinemedia to offer guarantees on business outcomes this upfront / Digiday

• The Dangerous Seduction of the Lifetime Value (LTV) Formula / Above the Crowd

• The Astonishing Cost of Dull Advertising / LinkedIn

• Of Course America Fell for Liquid Death / The Atlantic

• ‘Tap water is boring, so they invent new products’: how did humble H2O become such big business? / The Guardian

• Not Dull, from Hugh Dietz: When the Star Wars films aired in Chile, instead of cutting away from the movie for commercial breaks, the TV station “seamlessly” inserted ads for Cerveza Cristal beer / Kottke

• But like, How much have you thought about casino carpets? There’s an entire psychology behind the dazzling design of them, mostly focused on the idea of seduction. A great essay on the importance and deliberateness of design / Cabinet

• S/O Noreen Seabrook for  making amazing carpets tho. / IG

• The creative industries still have a gender problem / Creative Bloq

• Vox Media, MilkPEP and Gale Ink Multi-Million Dollar Media Partnership / Digiday

• The Unbearable Sadness of the Health Influencer / The Lindy Newsletter

• From Molly: What’s Driving the Influencer Subscription Boom / BoF

• Coke vs. Pepsi—How The Cola Wars Are Changing and Who’s Winning / AdAge

• Is Apple’s 19-min manga ad worth the runtime? 19 top creatives discuss / The Drum

• Razorfish launches in-house creator offering as agencies grow content practice / Digiday

Eats, Drinks and Ephemera

• Dan Frommer’s Food and Wellness Trends PDF / The New Consumer

• Who Wants Non-Alcoholic Beer? Everyone, Apparently / WSJ Podcast

• Hence? The world faces a wine glut / Semafor

• And? Detroit’s Third-shift Bars Were a Lifeline. Now They’re a Dying Breed / Punchdrink

• Massimo Bottura on Ethics, Aesthetics, and Slow Food / Time Sensitive Pod

• Not slow: Kentucky∼Fried. A perfectionist in an imperfect world, he dreams of fried chicken so golden and delicious that it will bring tears to the eyes of a grown man /The New Yorker

• Everything can be meat  / The Atlantic

• Oodles of noodles: how a global favourite became an economic red flag. Cheap and calorie-filled, the rapid foodstuff tells us about the state of the world / FT

[SIC] 288: Executive Workwear