[SIC] 306: Relentlessly Worthy

Volume Six, Number Forty Six

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The [SIC] Weekly digest of pertinent developments, compiled and published free on Thursdays to 6161 subscribers for this edition.

[SIC] grows exclusively via word-of-mouth.Share it with people you like:

You can pay, too. 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.

Also if you’re a breakfast person, Breakfast Clubbing is a [SIC] sister newsletter tracking the free, open-to-everyone breakfast events I started, now happening around the world (NYC, Portland, Milan, London, Austin, Philly, Brighton, Mexico City etc) . Everyone’s invited, especially you.

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Corollary Sources this week:

1440 / Champion Weekly / Public Announcement / The New Statesman / The Daily Upside / Hustle Trends / Dealbook / Upward News / The Trend Report / Network Notes / After School / Marginal Revolution / After School / Feed Me

Contributions are invited from everyone. Send ‘em! Contribution this week from: Piers Fawkes, Kish Patel, Rob Hubbert, Matt @TheTechnorati, Isaac Dietz, Eric Korsh and Ben Pruess.

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Hi All,

I went to High Valley Books to on Monday - the photos today are mostly from there. As detailed in Zach Sokol’s story that alerted me to it, it’s a magnificent mess - the kind of randomized compendium of print collateral (mags, books, collectibles) that I would expect to wallow in - but it gave me a visceral feeling of anxiety instead.

The feeling staring at the stacks was of knowing there’s something beyond amazing in them and not knowing where to start - but also not wanting to give up, for fear of missing something. It is SO awesome but SO chaotic - and I just short-circuited, basically. I highly recommend making an appointment to see Bill and his seemingly bottomless collection if you’re a print person like me, but it’s not for the faint of heart.

I came away with a reprint of Gavin Watson’s seminal coming-of-age photobook Skins, and an Anthology of The DADA Movement (my gift certificate was for father’s day after all haha) . Bill took a photo of me for the High Valley IG but I guess it wasn’t very good since it hasn’t shown up yet.

Anyway, the whole experience has me continuing to think about the shape of [SIC] to come, starting with Volume Seven in August. I’m going to do another round of subscriber culling - meaning, if you’re not opening the Weekly, I’m letting you go.

Beyond that I’m still thinking actions over. I’ll definitely shorten, definitely try to make the paid subscriber tier more valuable and more differentiated, and definitely try to get more people involved. To that end, would love your candid thoughts on some things I’m trying, via this little survey.

Feel free to elaborate in the comments, too - especially if you want multiple things, or want to suggest something different. Today’s post is approx 105 links, to give you an idea; recent editions touch 150x easily. I really appreciate the feedback. This thing is a community effort, truly.

Speaking of community efforts: [SIC] Talks alum Sam Valenti compiled a great Herb Midyear MMXXIV compilation post over the weekend, a “Bouillabaisse of 77 Herbs and spices that hitt hard" this year,” including contributions from a bunch of [SIC] homies and a generally excellent array of music people. And me. Have a look / listen.

Jeff is in there too. We didn’t talk about it, but we got into a bunch of other stuff on the Culture Club Show Half Hour yesterday. It’s here.

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Fits and Starts:

Artists and Mothers kicks off their interview series with [SIC] homie Maia Ruth Lee. Brenda (Hashtag) Weischer on The New Garde. RIP AllTimers.  Supreme sold to EssilorLuxottica. From Piers: “Mainly sharing for that title alone:” Midcentury modern is as American as punk rock’. Corollary: Airport Terminal As Home Decor. And speaking of long-standing good ideas, from Kish: “Deep cut for you. Umair Haque predicted Superformats in 2005” [The New Economics of Media].

Ok, now the links

Ben

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[SIC] 306: Relentlessly Worthy

The Macro Narrative

• It’s the Summer of the Quiet Vacation. Don’t Tell the Boss / WSJ

• Because? from Piers: It’s not just you. Your coworkers really are getting more annoying / Fast Company

• No really, It’s not just you: The internet is really weird right now / Slate

• So … The changes in vibes — why did they happen? / Marginal Revolution

• Case in point… Trump was almost assassinated. Why aren't we talking about it more?/ Monologue

• IE: You May Not Realize It Yet, But You’re Already Forgetting About The Trump Shooting / Garbage Day

• It’s coz: The Internet’s Brain-Rot Era is Instantly converting even the most harrowing news events into misleading tidbits and gleefully empty jokes / The New Yorker

• Hence: Young people are convinced that the White House replaced President Joe Biden with AI during an interview on Morning Joe / Daily Dot

• Meanwhile Morning Joe was pulled off the air on Mondayn due to concern that the hosts would say something “inappropriate” about the assassination attempt / CNN

• So let’s think about How Culture Got Stupid / The Free Press

• Maybe it’s that Congress Accidentally Legalized Weed Six Years Ago / The Atlantic

• Or?! The decline and fall of Hooters. A dispatch from the last vestige of pre-internet America / The New Statesman 

• Either way, The New Golden Age of Pro Wrestling Is Here / The Melt

• Corollary, from Piers: “If we need evidence of massive consumption change here it is… Britain sees low-alcohol beer sales boom during Euros soccer championship / CNBC

• And Pernod Ricard is selling off a portfolio of wine brands to focus on spirits and champagne as people drink less vino / CNN

• And Young Women with Eating Disorders Feel the Pull of Energy Drinks/ WSJ

• At least? Euro 2024 beer price may have saved grocery inflation/ Sky News

• Or it was Desperately seeking Swiftflation. Tay Tay keeps Britain on target, maybe

• Either way, from Matt: Protests will spread if European cities don’t address overtourism, says UNESCO / CNBC

• Related: Can the French Lead the EU into the Future? / YT

• Meantime,Sweden Paying Grandparents to Babysit / Marginal Revolution

• Important bc UN says the world’s population will peak in 2080 / The Future Party

• Meantime, The pool industry in the US is shrinking / Sherwood

• So…. Scientists are exploring an audacious idea to cool the planet: making clouds brighter / WITI

• Corollary? Philadelphia’s airport got (actual) snow during a heatwave. The National Weather Service recorded the peculiar pattern over the weekend / QZ

• So bookmark The Climate Zone, an interactive map showing how the climate is expected to evolve / The Pudding

• Because …. The MAGA Plan to End Free Weather Reports / The Atlantic

• Related: How JD Vance and the Trump Era Shaped Hollywood / Frieze

• And The President Who Hates the United States. Revisiting the prophecy that was Selina Meyer / Frieze

• Brat Summer: Is the Long Era of Clean Living Finally Over? The Guardian

• A rejoinder, per Kyle: “the Brat era is over imo and this expansive interview with Charli feels like a fitting end.” Charli xcx Forever / Resident Advisor

• Irrespective, Are We Becoming Too Domesticated? Colonel Sanders was a wild man.  / The Lindy Newsletter

• Speaking of trends, from Rob: “SLOP. Or more specifically, “the dastardly duo of slop and algorithms.” [Make the Internet Fun Again] / Not Boring

• Hence: “Just put the fries in the bag bro” is the “worst insult you could get hit with in 2024.” / Dexerto

• And: Those new Strava jockey service sector jobs / Channel News Asia

Generationations

• We have entered the age of the “Rap-O baby” / Dazed

• Meantime, The Broccoli Perm Became the Definitive Zoomer Hairstyle / GQ

• Corollary: The Millennial Effect: How millennials got the reputation of being "cringe" online / Cocomocoe

• And from Celeste: “The ever present discussion of ownership and provenance … when artefacts, pieces of art and even stories are recovered from hundreds of years ago. [What Happened When We Found Medieval Swords In The Attic]  / FT

Platformations

• It’s The End of ‘Unfiltered’ TikTok / BoF

• Speaking of filters, YouTube Music now lets you search for songs by humming, singing or playing a tune / Music Business Worldwide

• Related: Why longer videos are becoming more commonplace on YouTube / Digiday

• Corollary: Nvidia, Anthropic, Apple, and Salesforce have trained their systems on copyrighted YouTube videos / The Future Party

• And Record labels are suing Verizon over $2bn over ‘hundreds of thousands’ of copyright infringements/ Music Business Worldwide

• Elsewhere: 'We're watching the war': Tubi hits growth spurt, but isn't part of the streaming wars/ Digiday

• While noplace, a mashup of Twitter and Myspace for Gen Z, hits No. 1 on the App Store / TechCrunch

Stylistics

• On unveils sprayable trainer made with textile "there's not even a word for" / Dezeen

• While over the Alps, Adidas raises guidance again as Q2 sales surge / Retail Dive

• Not selling, just suing: Nike has sued The Shoe Surgeon for $60 million in damages for infringing on its copyright / Hypebeast

• Corollary, in ‘man bites dog’ type news, Skechers is suing LL Bean for allegedly stealing two of its design patents / Reuters

• From Ben: adidas reimagines the Stan Smith as a cycling shoe / Footwear News

• From Iolanda: Lewis Hamilton has guest designed a winter collection for Dior Men / Wallpaper

• The Euros may be over, but fashion’s football fever lives on / Vogue Business

• Why ‘tenniscore’ is here to stay / Jing Daily

• RC Outdoor Supply is a new line from Reese Cooper x PacSun / RC Outdoor Supply

• The Secret to Sézane’s Success / Town & Country

• The Ultimate Cultural Artifact. Creation, consumption, and the complex meaning of merch / Vik’s Busy Corner

Culturations

• Jesse checks in with Portrait of the Author. An Archival Post and a Few Current Reading Notes / Apology

• While Errol Morris talks about truth, documentary filmmaking, and AI / Nieman Lab

• From Isaac:  Tricker's Cabin: The Oral & Visual History of Online Ceramics  is the final project from Funk and Ross under the original Online Ceramics banner

• The next Frida Kahlo? Exhibition lifts the lid on legacy of Leonora Carrington / The Art Newspaper

• A Look Inside Yoshitomo Nara's Mid-Career Survey at Guggenheim Bilbao / Hypebeast

• Why Native Artists Are Reclaiming the Whirling Log, suppressed for decades by a market that conflated it with the Nazi insignia / Hyperallergic

• Oscar Murillo to hand visitors the brush in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall / The Art Newspaper

• Richard Moore On Skateboarding, Art, And Retinitis Pigmentosa. Moore is a skateboarder and artist who lives in Melbourne. He also happens to be blind / Monster Children

• Jenny Holzer grapples with the post-internet world she helped inspire / The Art Newspaper   

• The vibrant black market for artwork stolen from the walls of Taco Bell / Semafor

• The Techno DJs and producers shaping the genre’s next wave / Soundcloud

Technopolis

• “Using This iPod For 30 Days Changed My Life” A thoughtful take on why having a finite, offline music library to enjoy deepens connection with the music itself / YT

• There’s a Market for ‘Dumb Technology’ - and it’s Young People/ Morning Consult

• The Hong Kong government is making its own version of ChatGPT / Semafor

• From Celeste: What Messing With Chatbots Tells Us About The Future Of AI / NY Mag

• From Iolanda: What is AI? - Everyone thinks they know but no one can agree. And that’s a problem / MIT Technology Review

• Ergo: Good FT story on just how premature the EU AI regulation was / FT

• But: Dude, where's my AI revenue? AI's money-making promise will take much longer to materialize than today's investment frenzy suggests/ Axios

• And corollary: Where is the big museum blockbuster on AI? / The Art Newspaper

Media-tions

• Taboola – the adtech company known for placing clickbait-style ads at the bottom of articles – has teamed up with Apple / The Drum

• Motorsport Network Aims to Capitalize on F1 Fervor / AdWeek

• And New York Magazine’s The Cut will publish its first magazine this fall / BoF

• The Daily Mail Group has held talks recently about buying the Skimm / Semafor

• Meantime BDG Lays Off Staff, Consolidates Parenting and Lifestyle Portfolios, is also delaying Nylon's recently relaunched print magazine / AdWeek

• And BuzzFeed is the reason it can’t sell “Hot Ones” / Defector

Market / Influence

• Skate, sound and Sacré-Coeur. How Vans found the perfect recipe for cultural relevance / Sociology of Business

• Because? Culture Marketing Is Marketing / Creative Brief

• Ergo: Louis Vuitton: Building brand loyalty via cultural investment / Jing Daily

• And Luxury Brands Are Investing in China’s Art Scene / BoF

• Corollary from Iolanda:  “if there is a scientific framing to marketing, however, it is likely to be quantum" Quantum Advertising / WARC

• From Eric: “Postsecret - was new to me which is part of the point [ Postsecret unlocks GenZ for marketers who don’t have a clue]” / LinkedIn

Eats, Drinks and Ephemera

• Breaking down every penny in the cost of martinis in five US cities/ Morning Brew

• So… Let’s appreciate anchovies / NYT

• Who Wants To Sit At A Communal Table? “A lot more Americans than you might think.” / The Atlantic

The Natural (?!) World

• Dogs identify people suffering from PTSD with 90% accuracy / Good News Network

• Africa has a “sky island” rainforest with dozens of new species / QZ

• And finally, From Celeste:  “An intriguing insight into the art of mathematical equations, data sets, laws and formulas and how they are utilised in the everyday.” [The Mysterious Maths At Work In The Tour De France] / BBC

[SIC] 306: Relentlessly Worthy