[SIC] Weekly 284: Algorithm Food

Volume Six, Number Twenty Four

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 5277 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.

Corollary sources this week include: After School/ Public Announcement/ Nieman Lab / Politico / The New Statesman/ Dealbook /Ben-Evans / Jimmy / Beats and Bytes / 1440 / International Intrigue / Marginal Revolution / Retail Dive / Network Notes / Feed Me / Business of Fashion

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Thanks to Elaine Santiago, Piers Fawkes, David Bloom, Ben Young, Hosi Simon, Celeste Blewitt, Molly Raskin and Iolanda Carvalho for contributions this week. Ideas and links are invited from everyone.

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Hi all,

Excuse the late send. I’m writing this one on the Six train, nodding along to DJ Private Ryan’s “Soca Brainwash 2024” mix for Carnival season; as i’ve mentioned before, soca is favored work music for me; uptempo and kinda mindless in the best way. These carnival mixes are a barometer for how the year might unfold: last year’s was flat, comparatively; this one is back to buoyancy. And for at least one artist in the mix edibles have supplanted Run as party fuel; interesting shift. Matches my dry year so far.

No [SIC] Talks this week but I’m looking forward to next week’s chat with Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick from one of my favorite, IYKYK newsletters, The Trend Report. The Substack gods showed up in my inbox this week offering my some free gift subscriptions to give away to it - so if you want me, lmk in the comments. First come first served.

Meantime, embeds of a few of the recent talks with Jeff Carvalho, Daisy Alioto, Ed Cotton, Jason Kreher, Aaron Rose, Sami Reiss and Ryan Broderick embedded throughout - have a listen while you work or something. And if there’s anyone you want me to chat to in the series, would love suggestions.

To that end, I’m coming up on the halfway point in Volume Six - and traditionally that’s meant some midseason reworking of the weekly topic headings, editorial focus etc. Ideas on stuff I could be doing more with or more of, lmk please.

Last thing before the links; as veteran [SIC] Subscribers hopefully know, I chair an open-invite ‘Breakfast Club’ gathering every Wednesday in Williamsburg. Everyone is always welcome to that and so if you’re ever in the neighborhood, give me a shout in reply to this email or leave a comment and I’ll send you details. And if you’re NOT in Williamsburg, some friends are picking up the mantle and staging their own versions closer to home. Next Thursday 2/22, Lillian Brown, Helen Hollyman and Rob Henzi are kicking off Breakfast Club Austin - and the following Weds 2/28 Julie Gerstein is getting Breakfast Club Philly going. There’s even a monthly Downtown Brooklyn version starting tomorrow (2/16) at The Ace Hotel Brooklyn, courtesy of Kat Popiel and Jeff Weiner. Short notice, but as with all of them, you’re invited, it’s free to join, and it’ll be a great vibe. Hope to see you at one or t’other sometime soon.

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[SIC] Weekly 284: Algorithm Food

The Macro Narrative

• Consider the Toilet/ For-Scale

• Tinyhatskatelife be damned, from Piers: Score is a new dating app for people with good to excellent credit /TechCrunch

• The price of clothes is insane right now / Blackbird Spyplane

• The Awfulness of Elite Hypocrisy on Marriage. The privileged classes would never dream of saying one form of family life is better than another. So why are they always married? /The Atlantic

• Becase?! Married people are happier / Axios

• So like, why You Should Get Married / AEI

• Related: Could GenZ Change Sinking Marriage Rates/ CNBC

• Long-ago college magazine colleague Suzy Hansen on why No One Is Prepared for a New Era of Global Migration / The Atlantic

• It was Adland’s worst Super Bowl in years, but everyone is too afraid to tell you / The Drum ‘

• From Piers: ‘There will be elections this year for half the worlds population - a reminder how skew whiff it could all go”: [AI Used To Resurrect  Dead Dictator to Sway Election] Futurism

• Jon Ronson’s Guide to the Culture Wars In his BBC show “Things Fell Apart,” the British-born journalist continues to examine our most heated public arguments with empathy / The New Yorker

• Disrupting superyacht market with giant luxury submarine / Dezeen

• Dictionary.com adds 327 new entries, including "girl dinner."  / Dictionary

• Is boutique a bad word? / One Thing

• How a ragtag band of internet friends became the best at forecasting world events / Vox

• Hundreds of adult dancers want Washington state lawmakers to adopt a "strippers' bill of rights" / Axios

• How to Spend Your Time ‘Poorly’ / The Atlantic

• American Counterculture, Glimpsed Through Zines. Zine-making is a tradition shared by the young and alienated, people enamored with the fringes of culture. Can a museum exhibit capture its essence? / The New Yorker

• What was The Village Voice? / NYT

• From Hosi: “When i saw this pic on your instagram or newsletter i thought to myself how epic of a photo you took, and was wondering how you did it. I guess this explains it!!” [And Action … Filming is Back in New York] / NYT

Generationations

• CDC Report finds teens use drugs - often alone - to ease stress and anxiety. The majority — 84% — have used a form of marijuana, while less than half (49%) said they drank alcohol / CNBC

• Meet Generation Stay at Homen ‘You don’t need to pay to go clubbing: You can sit at home and watch it on your phone’/  The Guardian

• ‘Reading is so sexy’: Gen Z turns to physical books and libraries / The Guardian

• Gen Zers’ whole lives are their resumés / The Future Party

• The Slack generation can’t communicate with the email generation. Why more platforms are dividing the workplace/ Fast Company

• Related: Slackers - “A decade later, it’s clear that Slack changed work culture, even at companies that don’t use it.” /The Verge

• The Future of Work Depending on Understanding Gen Alpha Now/ Fast Company

Platformations

• YouTube is secretly Hollywood’s biggest threat / The Future Party

• Why Snapchat is pitching its platform as an alternative to social media / Digiday

• Naked Truth. How Our Biometric Data Could Transform Social Networks / In Bed With Social

• Corollary: The Pink Stuff was an obscure cleaning paste — until TikTok effectively became its marketing department / NYT

• From Ben: “GitLab posts their internal Zoom call recordings on YouTube, and some have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of views...

• because people use them to pretend like they're working” / X

Stylistics

• “Metrosexual is back”: Behind the scenes of Luar’s big New York moment / Vogue Business

• New York Fashion Week needs a mom / Vogue Business

• How Depop became an incubator for new design talent/ Service95

• The other other American style. “Urban sport” is expanding fashion's aesthetic vocabulary beyond prep and workwear / The Sociology of Business

• How Alfargo's Marketplace is changing secondhand shopping / Sprezza

• Also changing: [SIC] Homie Alastair McKimm Is Leaving i-D Magazine / Bo

• The Sneaker Resale Market Is Broken / BoF

• Yet: Kanye West: “I CLEANED UP AFTER CRAPPY SB AD” $19 Million in Yeezy $ales!!!  /TMZ

• Corollary?  What happened to the codpiece? / BBC

• How AI is disrupting the luxury experience / Jing Daily

• Speaking of disruption: MSCHF launches leather handbag designed by factories of Hermès, dior, balenciaga & celine / Design Boom

• Louis Vuitton turns to blockchain for new fine jewelry collection / Jing Daily

• If Anyone Can Bring NFT Merch Back, It's Pharrell. But Can He? / Highsnobiety

• Meantime, Miami Steps Up in the Watch World / NYT

• Tiger Woods unveiled his new lifestyle brand Sun Day Red / NYT

• Whose new logo has a hidden meaning/ Creative Bloq

• And LeBron James is launching a men’s grooming line via his multimedia brand, The Shop / Business of Fashion

Culturations

• Jon Stewart knows he can’t save democracy / The New Yorker

• From Elaine: “After reading [SIC] Day Eighty Four’s, “The music business is going country”…Rewriting Country Music's Racist History / Rolling Stone

• From David: Michael Jackson Catalog Stake Sold to Sony, Valued at $1.2 Billion / Rolling Stone

• Saint Laurent’s latest retail venture, which sells rare books, magazines and out-of-print records, has opened in Paris / Monocle

• Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz want you to see the 'Giants' of art in their collection (NPR)

• Corollary: The I.P. ouroboros of “Argylle” / The New Yorker

• I went to this and it was interesting: Bradley Cooper Takes Maestro “Full Circle” / Vanity Fair

• Meanwhile, fave author Bret Easton Ellis is making a movie. Obviously it’s about the fucked up city of LA /

• Related: Six Love Letters to Los Angeles / Frieze

• Susie Essman is a comic genius / NYT

• Corollary: The latest Dune: Part Two ad is making me uncomfortable/ Creative Bloq

• Related to that, from David: Inside the Censorship Scandal That Rocked Sci-Fi and Fantasy's Biggest Awards / Esquire

• And maybe also: Tortured Tales of Love from the Victorian Era / Sothebys

Technopolis

• Apple fans are starting to return their Vision Pros / Vox

• AI as Fuzzy Interface. On web scraping, net new ideas, and AI as glue / BRXND

• The University of Pennsylvania became the first U.S. Ivy League school to offer an undergraduate degree in AI/ The Daily Pennsylvanian

• WTF is AI!!? Can we please address the elephant in the room? / Decode

• How news orgs are starting to use generative AI / CJR

• people are using ChatGPT to write performance reviews / Business Insider

• AI is driving a mania for cost-cutting in finance / Bloomberg

• …And it’s starting to come for white-collar jobs, as well / WSJ

• AI Could Actually Help Rebuild The Middle Class / Noema

• So here’s your chance to generate your voice clone and get paid when people use ii/ Ben’s Bites

• Cause, like, Some People Actually Kind of Love Deepfakes / Wired

  

Media-tions

• The most civilized place to look at news online? It might be Reddit / CJR

• So … is the media prepared for an extinction-level event?  / The New Yorker

• The future of news will require fundamentally rethinking the press’s relationship to its audience /The New Yorker

• Dow Jones CEO: "Not going to be a lifestyle company" / Axios

• Where are all these journalists going to get a sense of self from now? / Hazlitt

• Six months in, journalist-owned tech publication 404 Media is profitable / Nieman Lab

• The Cut is expanding at a time when many media companies are cutting costs / Digiday

• Substack-based Ankler Media eyes $10m annual revenue next year/ Press Gazette

• “Nobody solves media except temporarily”: Four indie media owners on money, sustainability, and “making cooler, weirder things” / Nieman Lab

• From Piers: this is like a year old but sometimes it takes a while for the news to get thru. A shop front newsroom, that aims to bridge the gap between journalists, their audience and contributors / Greater Govanhill

• Trevor Noah’s relationship with Spotify has already soured after only six months / Semafor

• R.I.P. Bob Edwards, host of NPR’s Morning Edition for nearly a quarter-century 

Market / Influence

• From Piers: the return of projection mapping… midjourney style [AI Artwork Projected on Historic Gaudí House Draws Nearly 100K People] / Hyperallergic

• With Disney’s Magic, Fortnite Is Poised To Win The Metaverse / TechCrunch

• Esports veterans are split on the future of the industry / Digiday

• From Elaine: “ Participating employees can earn $1,000 from Delta to fund a rainy day account, along with individualized coaching and a host of tools from Operation HOPE and Fidelity to enhance their financial literacy and well-being.”[Delta CEO on the importance of financial well-being] / Delta News Hub

• BetMGM is officially X’s “exclusive Live Odds Sports Betting partner.” / TechCrunch

• While From Piers: Versace and Roc Nation Announce Multi-Year Partnership / Numero

• From Piers: Too Hot to Cuddle? Build-A-Bear’s Adult Line Leaves Some Blushing / WSJ

• Five Transformational Marketing Trends Converging in 2024 / Advertising Week

• adidas tells athletes of all types: ‘You got this’ / Retail Dive

• Gatorade Fuels Digital Transformation With Free Membership Platform / Marketing Dive

• The story of BYD / NYT

Eats, Drinks and Ephemera

• What’s that fish - Click a picture, and cook a fish (or any other seafood) / What’s That Fish

• From Piers: Your body as a processing plant, digesting a hot wing / Flowing Data

• So.. Why Don’t Americans Eat Lamb / The Lindy Newsletter

• From Elaine” U.S. Cattle Inventory Smallest in 73 years /American Farm Bureau Federation

• We're Not Eating Enough Bacon, and That's a Problem for the US Economy / WSJ

• From Piers: here  you go… you can do this forever now, not just feb [Veganism Recognised as a Protected Belief by Danish Court] / Vegconomist

• How Melrose Hill Became LA’s Hottest Culinary Boom Town / Eater

• From Piers: "with climate change, i guess cali will need to choose 1 : wine or coffee” [Will Southern California be the 'Napa Valley of coffee?] / LAT

• From Piers: Noodles of opportunity: how an Oregon law boosted a small food business and built community / The Guardian

The Natural (?!) World

• His Best Friend Was a 250-Pound Warthog. One Day, It Decided to Kill Him / Texas Monthly

• Wondering How to Kill a Trip? Some People Use Trip Killer Drugs / Doubleblind

• The East Coast is sinking / NYT

• Ski Resorts Are Turning Wastewater into Snow / Reasons To Be Cheerful

• Photos revealed The Line megacity progressing in Saudi Arabia / Dezeen

• Archaeologists Find Evidence of Hallucinogenic Drug in Ancient Rome / Hyperallergic

• How the French lost their sex drive

• Fighting the smartphone ‘invasion’: the French village that voted to ban scrolling in public / the Guardian

• Hungry sea otters are helping save California’s marshlands from erosion by eating the crabs that threaten it /AP News

[SIC] Weekly 284: Algorithm Food