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[SIC] 316: Partially Sprinkler
Vol. 7, No. 6. [SIC] Talks with Jesse Pearson, 5 Questions for Lindsay Schrupp, and many, many links to be aware of. Presented with minimal introduction. Open in browser for fuller experience.
The [SIC] digest of developments is published free on Thursdays to 5268 subscribers as of last night.
Paid Subscriptions are available. Paying subscribers get a [SIC] Day dispatch every Mon, Tues, Weds, Fri, and the [SIC] Sundays mini-digest. Many paying supporters expense their subscriptions as research for their work in marketing, advertising, entertainment and tech. Hi all,
Notebook LM summarized this week’s newsletter in ‘deep dive’ podcast form. I was impressed the first time I did this (for [SIC] 315) I was really impressed; it was fluent, contextual, almost clever. This go-round I’m less impressed - this one does the same thing; but it also ONLY does the same thing. The model is powerful, but the model is showing, so to speak.
Still, worth a listen - and a thought about where you want your media consumption to be in the future: easily, predictably aggregated and pre- digested for you - or painstakingly compiled with wildly variable results. I prefer the latter as you’d imagine. But your results may vary.
Five Questions For Lindsay Schrupp
Lindsay is the Editor in Chief of Thrillist and was previously EIC at [SIC] favorites Mel magazine and Broadly (where we were colleagues), among lots of others.
1 What are your favorite sources of daily information? Do they overlap with sources of inspiration for your work?
Like many of us, I subscribe to too many Substacks. And I’m a reliable reader of Reliable Sources. I miss Today in Tabs every day. I recently started reading Kate Lindsay’s Embedded newsletter, and I appreciate her thoughtful takes on the internet. And I’m biased but I also read my husband’s Unskippables newsletter every week and it’s the only way I have any idea what new music is worth listening to right now. Since I joined Thrillist, we’ve changed from a general lifestyle site to one exclusively covering travel. So I spend a lot of my time reading my website, of course, but also looking for inspiration from other travel guides, influencers, and sites, both past and present. For example, I love Kareem Rahma’s Keep the Meter Running TikTok show, which uses New York taxi drivers as curators of very New York experiences. And the Roads and Kingdoms archive has also been a major source of inspiration for me lately.
2. What’s one place that you’ve been recently that’s worth mentioning?
I recently went to High Valley Books, a by-appointment-only bookstore run by Bill Hall out of his house in Greenpoint, and it’s just a very special place.
3. It’s an average Thursday afternoon. Where do we find you, and what’s keeping you busy
Probably at work. I try to go into the office twice a week, and we’re located in FiDI, so I’m also probably on the hunt for good lunch spots in the area.
4. Who do you admire? And what for?
We are lucky enough to participate in a nanny share for our one-year-old, and it’s made me so appreciative of yes, our nanny, but also of caretakers more generally. It hurts me physically at times when I think about how, on a typical week, my child spends more time with his nanny than he does with either of his parents, since both of us work 9 to 5 jobs. Trusting someone to show your kid what the world looks like and how to engage with it can feel like taking a huge leap of faith. And I also know how difficult it is to spend all day with a tiny being whose main mode of communication is crying loudly. I have so much respect for the people who take on this work, and I feel like I have a fundamentally new understanding of gratitude.
5. What can [SIC] readers help you with?
I’d love to know how SIC readers plan their trips, and what they wished existed to help them do that. Newsletters, friends’ Google docs, TikTok? If you have any thoughts at all, please shoot me a line! lindsay.schrupp@voxmedia.com.
SIC] 316: Partially Sprinkler
Fits and Starts
Substack is trying to go from platform to payment system / Semafor
So apparently The worst thing to be on substack is a substacker / As Seen On By Ochuko
But if you insist on writing: How to Write Better Captions / Link In Bio
Corollary: Dyslexia in Breif* The Power of Thinking Differently / Unorthodox Blend
List culture In the age of AI, lists are still king of the internet / One Thing
Corollary: Serge Becker & Lisa Anno's one-off List Magazine from the early aughts. Excellent stuff / Idea Books
Elsewhere: Want growth? Kill small businesses / Asterisk
Hence? ByteDance is scraping the internet at blinding speeds. TikTok’s parent company is gathering data 25 times more quickly than OpenAI / Quartz
Should You Just Give Up? Sisyphus couldn’t stop pushing his boulder—but you can / The New Yorker
But in the meantime, It’s an ‘Artist’s Way’ fall / Embedded
More artist’s way: Nan Goldin’s Celestial Sensations. Her new body of work invites us to experience art as nothing short of rapturous, a portal to another dimension / Hyperallergic
Because Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing, an investigation of fake objects. "Value is found through fakeness, not in spite of it, giving the fake object the potential to be even better than the real thing” / Syllabus Project
Apropos: The Viral Performance Artist Who Takes the Form of Trash. Shoji Yamasaki imitates plastic bags and other detritus in his viral choreography series Littered Mvmnts / Hyperallergic
Elsewhere: Has Bitcoin’s Elusive Creator Finally Been Unmasked? The identity of the cryptocurrency’s founder, who went by Satoshi Nakamoto, is one of our era’s great mysteries. A documentarian now claims to have solved it /The New Yorker
Corollary: Oblivia Coalmine. Olivia Colman starred in an ad campaign last year that focused on the relationship between oil companies and UK pension funds / YT
ABC No Rio, once a home for radical art and radical politics will get a new four-story building, thanks to $21 million from NYC — which once fought to evict it from the LES / NYT
And There’s a members-only sex club up for auction in Tribeca. / Tribeca CitizeN
If you’re thinking of buying: Mega Millions said it would more than double its ticket price next year, to $5. It promised larger jackpots and better odds / NYT
The Turf War Between Tennis and Pickleball Is Escalating / WSJ
When and why do girls start forming cliques? / The Conversation
Corollary: Urban elites across China flock to ‘academic bars’, transforming China’s nightlife, by blending intellectual discourse with casual socializing / Jing Daily
TLDR
Once more: Adam Curtis on Culture and Power / Crack Magazine
Crack Adjacent: How Galaxy Gas Became the Defining High of the Brainrot Era / GQ
2024 Culture Next Gen Z Trend Report: Spotify’s annual culture report is here, with insights like 74% of Zs describe their generation as mainstream rather than fringe, up from 59% in 2021 / Spotify
Merriam-Webster adds 200 new words, including Gen Z slang / Merriam Webster
Apropos: Why Influencers Should Pay Attention to Word Choice - “Social media influencers can have a bigger impact by using sensory language.” / Wharton
Also , there is a lot of drama at Wordpress, which was once a movement to democratise online publishing/ The Verge
Elsewhere in democracy: The Snoopy fan account political war / User Mag
The US may have hit peak obesity. the US adult obesity rate stopped its long climb and dropped by roughly two percentage points between 2020 and 2023 / Morning Brew
But there still is “literally no type of vehicle that someone won’t steal” / American Mythology
Corollary: Is the United States a prisoner of its own mythology? a review of “A Great Disorder” by Richard Slotkin / LA Review of Books
SIC Talks #86: Jesse Pearson
Jesse Pearson is a writer, editor, curator and publisher, notably of Apology Magazine and the Apology podcast, which are favorites of mine. I say to people frequently he’s the interviewer and editor I think of when I think of the archetype of those roles. We have known each other two decades now, but every time we talk I take away something illuminatory. This conversation was no exception. Among many other things we touched on:
Shane Smith on Tetragrammaton / Spotify
The exhibition showcasing prisoner-made art. Matchstick models of pool tables and papier mâché cartoon characters to portraits of the Queen, 200 works of art made by prisoners are about to be shown at London’s Southbank Centre/ The FACE
How Many Visionary Artists Are Mentally Ill? / A surprising number of creative people have visions, hear voices, or have strange encounters in dreams / An Honest Broker
Corollary to the conversation: A Phone Number for Confessions. It never mattered whether callers to the Apology Line were telling the truth—until a man who identified himself as Jumpin’ Jim decided to confess his crime / The New Yorker
Other Conversations
Taylor Lorenz’s Plan to Dance on Legacy Media’s Grave / The New Yorker
Case in point: Talk Tuah, the podcast from “Hawk Tuah Girl” Haliey Welch, is #5 on Spotify’s podcast charts / Forbes
Corollary: Richard Dawkins Reads His Hate Mail / YT
And Rachel Kushner the literary titan comes through talking about her existential new spy novel / Blackbird Spyplane
[SIC] Talks Alum Emily Segal in conversation with Oana Stănescu and Jack Self about on mutations in our contemporary perception of space/ Nemesis
Corollary: Paul Goldberger on Architecture as an Act of Optimism / The Slowdown Pod
But also: “Megalopolis” is a reminder that the heroic conception of the architect is an intoxicating one / Dezeen
Speaking of: How Victoria's Secret Lost Its Way: Authors Chantal Fernandez and Lauren Sherman in conversation / Back Row
Unrelated?! An Interview with Chubby and the Gang's Charlie Manning / Zero Cred
FFNY Quick Takes [with] Kazuza Jibiki, owner of NYC downtown stalwart restaurant Lovely Day /Friends from New York
Style
‘Bake-at-home’ totes and meme culture: The luxury brands winning digital / Vogue Business
Can AI help the fashion industry cut back on waste? / The Drum
These New Biomaterials Can Help Decarbonize Fashion and Construction / Wired
Does 3D printing have a place in luxury? / Jing Daily
Petit H, it’s a newer division of the company that takes scrap material from the other 15 metiers that make up Hermes (bags, clothes, home, etc.) and fashions it into the most whimsical—cheeky, even—items of debatable practicality.
How Does Gen Z Define Luxury? / Glossy
How Vinted became pre-loved fashion’s favorite Unicorn / The Drum
Many spring collections feature ladylike clothing, suggesting “demure” may be more than just a TikTok trend / NYT
In contrast?! The rise of the daddies / T Magazine
Is menswear on the brink of a vibe shift? / Show Notes
Get Comfortable With It: Pajama Pants Are for Everywhere. Sleepwear has become a fixture at schools and even at work; ‘The only place that I personally wouldn’t wear them is an important first-impression business meeting.’ / WSJ
Madhappy is collabing with the New York Yankees on a capsule collection /
Global skate brands expand in Asia: Wipe out or winning streak / Jing Daily
A Skateboarder’s Guide To Shoe Design With Oliver Clark / Monster Children
The 50 Greatest Sports Cars of All Time / Robb Report
Screen Time
How Everyone Got Lost in Netflix’s Endless Library. Ten years after Silicon Valley remade TV, it’s become clear how the streaming revolution distorted our collective viewing habits — and sense of the culture / NYT magazine
But maybe?! Trapped in the scroll — how wearable tech may save us / Jing Daily
The ‘Typical US Adult’ Follows no politicians or journalists on Tiktok, mashable
BUT - News influencers are growing in popularity on TikTok as more people under 30 turn to the platform for a curated rundown of the biggest headlines / WSJ
Hence? TikTokers are spreading North Korean propaganda to sell supplements / User Mag
And Twitter drama is trending on TikTok / embedded
TikTok’s first US e-commerce summit had livestreaming at the top of its mind / Business Insider
Attorneys general across the country are suing TikTok for allegedly using addictive features to make ad money / AP News
YouTube swears it’s not hiding the skip button on ads / The Verge
The Arc of Technology: From Fun Option to Obligation / The Lindy Newsletter
Microsoft quietly cancelled HoloLens, leaving Meta and Apple as the only companies with serious investment in AR/VR / The Register
In contrast: Will A Revamp Give YouTube TV A Real Competitive Edge? / Hollywood Reporter
Facebook Launhes a Gen Z-Focused Redesign / Techcrunch
Nearly a Quarter of iPhone Users say Green Bubbles are a Red Flag for dating / Mashable
The Marketplace
Chanel’s Première Sound sets a new luxury standard, blending fine jewelry, watchmaking, and audio technology, creating a revolutionary accessory / Jing Daily
Elsewhere: Microsoft looks set to shutter its retail media business / Digiday
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney is doubling down on the metaverse this decade
Chief Metaverse Officers have mostly disappeared from companies’ executive ranks as the technology never lived up to the impossible hype of just a couple of years ago /
Why marketers are all about 'nontraditional formats' now / Digiday
In data-obsessed marketing landscape, Hinge CMO Jackie Jantos talks brand building / Digiday
How Kraft Heinz's new CMO Todd Kaplan is defending creativity in the age of data / Digiday
Corollary: Inside Pepsi’s Market Share Struggle and Comeback Plans / AdAge
Including putting the "mountain" back in Mountain Dew / Today
Inside the rise (and coming fall?) of marketing’s infatuation with sneakerheads / The Drum
But The Fanboys Have Abandoned Joker / Deadline
Corollary to that: How sororities helped Poppi explode / SW Projects
Yet Charli XCX somehow managed to shoot a whole movie during brat summer / Variety
The Weeknd x Harmony Korine Drop Limited-Edition ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’ Vinyl Produced by Korine’s art collective EDGLRD / Hypebeast
Old-School Magazines Are Brands’ New Favourite Marketing Tactic / BoF
British photographer Rankin’s advertising agency files for bankruptcy amid tough 'shift in the creative landscape’ / The Art Newspaper
How to bring back a 90s or 00s brand without coming across all ‘dad-at-the-disco’ / The Drum
Ergo? Simon taps influencers to draw Gen Z to the mall / Retail Dive
Moncler to turn Shanghai into a ‘City of Genius’ / Jing Daily
WPP and Roblox strike new global content and advertising partnership / Digiday
Saturday Night Live convinced advertisers like Allstate, Maybelline, and Volkswagen to give up an unprecedented amount of control to be a part of the show’s 50th season / Hollywood Reporter
McDonald’s opened up a “dupe” version of its fast-food restaurant called “McDonnell’s.” / Fast Company
Sustenance
Millions of Americans May Qualify for Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy / Doubleblind
A Food Critic Walks Into A Fasting Spa “How Southern California became the epicenter of hype diets and twenty-dollar smoothies.” / The New Yorker
Quick/definitive ways to avoid seed oils at restaurants. Per Sami: “Not just a list of places but a cheat sheet: cuisines, clean dishes... so you can eat normally with other people” / Super Health
The food dye market is expanding, partly driven by the rise of cooking content on social media / Semafor
Hibiscus shows up on 1 in 10 U.S. dining menus / Nation’s Restaurant News
Chef's Table returns with chefs & from Italy, China, Cambodia, and the US who all work in the medium of the noodle / Kottke
Max Rocha Still Believes in the Main Course. The chef behind Cafe Cecilia on his new cookbook, why breakfast matters and the trouble with trendy sharing menus / Ssense
Tatiana chef Kwame Onwuachi made original recipes inspired by different companies via a partnership with ETF QQQ. “Lululemon Workout Chicken” anyone?! / Fast Company.
Meanwhile “six Michelin Star” chef Thomas Keller is doing a dinner with …. NFT guy Beeple? / Beeple Studio
Friends Section
Fave Photographer Brian Merriam Book and Shirts on sale / IG
[SIC] Talks alum Casey Lewis writes about young people who don’t like drinking, but spend time at wine bars because they like the vibes / NYT
And Casey was on with [SIC] Homie Alyssa Vingan for “The Mallpisode” / The New Garde
Getting Rec’d
Meet me at the Noreen Seabrook Event at Sample House on Friday eve - will be great if you like rugs, textile art, Himalayan craft or … wine / IG
The Hypeart Guide to Frieze London 2024 / Hypebeast
15 NYC Art Shows to See in October / Hyperallergic
“The Way I See It” show of The KAWS collection opens at the Drawing Center in Soho tonight / IG
Playlist
The Lost Promises of Hyperpoptimism / Pitchfork
The New Chaos of Asian Dance Scenes. In the past decade, underground electronic and experimental scenes in Asia forged new connections across borders. Is a global movement next? / Pitchfork
Cardinals At The Window: A Benefit For Flood Relief in Western North Carolina. a 135-track benefit compilation featuring unreleased songs from MJ Lenderman, Sharon Van Etten, Wye Oak, Hotline TNT, among many others / Bandcamp
Wisdom of the Crowds
From Shelley Wright:
“Breakfast Club Athens location? 'Tour The New Ace Hotel & Swim Club Athens’ / Vogue Living
From Erik Lavoie:
Sukeban London (tonight). You should go! / Twitter
Iain S Thomas put out a new book The Secret of You / Simon & Schuster
Early Studies' first Data Drop - #Census27. A free spreadsheet with over 22,000 consumer data points, detailing how people see the world today and their wishes, beliefs and projections for how the world will look 3 years from now. request access to the sheet here / Google Docs
From :
“Playful use of ip” [Mickey Mouse Shoes]” / Towel
From Peter Spear of :
“[writing] to share this link about the worst magazine in America” [“The Atlantic poses as a magazine of ideas, but its writers get away with terrible arguments. Its ascendance is a sign of the dire state of American intellectual life.”]/ Current Affairs
From Kate Lee :
“A couple of pieces from Every that I wanted to put on your radar:”
Writer Katie Parrott's month-long experiment using ChatGPT as a career coach, evaluating it for originality, accountability, structure, empathy, and clarity / Every.to
A guide to becoming a lifelong learner with AI, filled with advice from star podcaster Dwarkesh Patel and Shopfiy's former director of production engineering Simon Eskildsen / Every.to
A quirky story about how a change in sovereignty of islands in the Indian Ocean could spell the end of the .io domain, by historian Gareth Edwards / Every.to
From Stella Belt:
“Just sending some pieces we've published recently in case you're interested. See the (slightly robotic) list below”
The intriguing rise of death cafes and what they reveal about our death-averse social worlds. What would it look like if we could talk about our death wishes as frankly as (some of us) talk about our sex lives? If we could decide when it was time to die and how we wanted to do it? / Broadcast
Investigating the human history of the microchip. "Microchips brought us color television, portable calculators, computers, hearing aids, mobile phones, GPS, video games. They launched rockets into space and missiles into homes. They enabled wars, coups, and genocides that now pass swiftly beneath our fingers with the same ease, the same strokes, the same format as updates on the weather or a note from a loved one." / Broadcast
From :
What is reality, anyway... 😉Meta Competes With OpenAI, ByteDance With New AI-Powered Video Generator / Mediapost
It's a fascinating topic, MCS [ Main character syndrome] Why romanticising your own life is philosophically dubious, setting up toxic narratives and an inability to truly love
From :
here's some of my reading and listening - I tuned into Kamala Harris on Call Her Daddy, in-depth subject matter discussion, although perhaps lacking a little energy, difficult to be upbeat with the topics being discussed.
'Richemont To Sell Struggling Yoox Net A Porter to Mytheresa' / FT
Big fashion/ online retail moves over at Net-A-Porter, although for those of us on the island here in Australia -the supply chain and shipping logistics are still beyond brilliant, most items arrive internationally in days. Makes choosing which retailer to purchase from an easy choice, will be interesting to see the changes in purchase options.
How A Kitchen Porter’s Zen Was Ruined By The Group Chat / FT
The thought process behind a chat channel, the complexities abd conversations that occur in instantaneous moments. Loved this observational piece on hospitality, night owls and managing a chat channel that’s first come first serve.
'Ina Garten Stops By' / This Is Taste Pod
Loved listening to In Garten share her rise to fame as a 90s/ 00s era tv cooking show host, business owner, cookbook writer and shop owner. Such wise words and insight, warm storytelling, in the similar vein to Ruth Reichl, excellent listen post Call Her Daddy.
What Going On Call Her Daddy Did For Kamala Harris / The Atlantic
Linking in with your Morning Brew piece from SIC Day on Tuesday, this piece certainly delved into the entirety of the Call Her Daddy episode with Kamala Harris. A succinct observational piece that draws on the podcast episode, but also the choices as to why podcasts are becoming the norm for presidential candidates, rather than say the tv news anchors Matt Belloni talks about in the below podcast link.
The End Of The $20M TV host Era / The Town with Matt Belloni
Insight into the rapid changes of the big TV host era, does it exist anymore and the realities of large paychecks. As Belloni notes, in the current era where influencers and content creators are far more prominent than ever, the era is moving away from tv hosts to different mediums and genres.
Inside The English Countryside Home Of Lee Miller /BBC
Custodianship, preserving historical homes and stories that are part of these homes is always intriguing to me. While this article is certainly about Lee Miller's home, it's also a focus on the release of the new biopic of her life, alongside the stories of being known as a war photographer, and also the Vogue war photographer.
[SIC] 316: Partially Sprinkler
Corollary Sources this week:
Storythings /1440 / The New Statesman / The Future Party / Culture Work / Nieman Lab / Garbage Day / After School / Champion Weekly / Blazer / Quartz / Wired / Ben-Evans / Feed Me / Jimmy / Kottke / The Material Review / Elevator / Future Perfect / Magasin / Nieman Lab / Public Announcement / Brendans Communication Miscellany