[SIC] 331: Infamous Kitchen

Vol. 7, No. 21. Nothing but liiiiiinks. And sincere thanks. And a guide to reading [SIC].

Jan 30, 2025

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Thanks to Iolanda Carvalho, Piers Fawkes, Celeste Blewitt, Molly Rasking and Isaac Dietz for links. Contributions welcome from everyone - send 'em!

Hi all,

First of all, a very sincere thanks to all who offered condolences after reading last week’s digest. My mom’s passing was hard for many reasons but I took real solace from all the kind thoughts, stories (of her and of your own moms), and compliments on what I wrote. I’m honored to be able to say those things, and she would have been too. I won’t dwell, but you all made a difference for me. Thank you. I’m holding up ok, and I appreciate it.

Another byproduct of last week’s edition: people apparently want me to write more, which is both flattering and a little mystifying, given the amount of *stuff* that’s typically in these dispatches. I’m taking it to heart - so look out for more opinion and analysis going forward. Not this week, though. Too much volume already.

To that end, though, there’s also sometimes the question from new subscribers of, ‘what am I supposed to do with all of this?’ I think this note I got from Francis Zierer of the excellent “Creator Spotlight” newsletter (and the Tasteland pod, with my buddy Daisy Alioto), captured my thinking pretty astutely:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

“I've only recently learned how to read your link-stream, this is the second or third edition where it's started to click for me. Some quiet alarm bell would go off in my head at the volume of links, alarm at how many there were and how few I could click on, how little time I had to read them. What clicked was that I didn't need to click them all. Have come to appreciate the choose-your-own adventure brevity of your newslettering style.”

Which is to say: you *aren’t supposed to click everything*. Read the flow as a narrative, clicking only the ones that jump out to you. Absorb the rest at a high level, as part of the current context, but feel no compunction for skipping around. Take the value you want, and leave the rest for later. Or for never.

If there’s ever anything I really need you to check out, I’ll say so directly. Like for instance, Jenkem’s pogo-sticking doc [We Took Professional Pogo Stickers To Famous Skate Spots] is a wild watch and IMO you should spend a couple minutes with it, for sure.

Or: If you’re a student of trends and cultural movements, you should be paying attention to 8Ball. I’m talking to Sean who writes it next week for [SIC] Talks - and in advance of that I’ve got 5x paid subscriptions to give to the first five hand raisers in the comments of this post. Raise ‘em up!

Contributions often make the must-list too. From my brother Isaac, high praise this week: “Maybe the best thing i'll ever send you … [Goodbye Horses by Q Lazzarus on Bandcamp] . You can preorder the vinyl for the first time since it was released in 1986. There has never been an official repress. And also never was an instrumental or acapella” [there’s also a listening party on march 5th].

I’ll add to that my own song of the week: Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation by Jasmine.4.t, which I stumbled upon in the Lorem playlist on Spotify.

Also, lest we forget, LA is not back to normal. Case in point: Spring Break Art Show has cancelled its upcoming LA fair, citing the fires that consumed the region and the “trepidation of collectors and participants.” A small thing to help: Slowtide announce the launch of a Limited Edition Artist Series Collection of quick-dry beach towels in support of fire relief efforts in LA, featuring artwork from artists fave artists Geoff Mcfetridge, Jen Stark, Thomas Campbell and others. And Darin Bresnitz’s Supporting LA Restaurants. Five Rules for Having the Culinary Community's Back is a thoughtful gesture from someone who was directly affected. Check it out.

Last bit before the links, a corollary: this weekend is CHA CHA Festival's opening weekend: Feb 1-2, 12-7p @ WSA - 161 Water St, NYC. I’m gonna try and stop by on Saturday. Let me know if you want to meet up.

Now, the links.

Ben

[SIC] 331: Infamous Kitchen

Whazappeningnow

The Strategic Chaos of Trump’s First Days. The flood of executive orders and news was designed to disorient the Democratic resistance. It might be working / The Atlantic
Because? It’s Not Amateur Hour Anymore / The Atlantic
And Chapo Trap House Isn’t Going to Save the Democrats/ Vanity Fair
So: The Bernie Sanders Movement Is Finally Dead. When will the left admit it? / Harry Cheadle
Meantime… The far right is going ... green? Something strange is happening inside the environmental movement / Vox
LBH tho: Politicians don’t give the slightest fuck about a sustainable future, so we must / The Drum
Apropos of that: Zeihan’s waterfall realpolitik informs The Geopolitics of Climate Change/ YT
On the topic of climate change: The UK’s hottest wellness trend, contrast therapy, involves flitting between 93C saunas and ice baths. Is this the future of fitness — or dating? / The Times
Romantic Recession: How Politics, Pessimism, and Anxiety Shape American Courtship / American Enterprise Institute
Hence? You should really know a guy / The Unskippables
Corollary: “It’s a replacement for partying.” The art world is obsessed with running. / Artnet
Your FOMO Is Trying to Tell You Something. Maybe you ARE missing out / The Atlantic
A new 'hybrid hierarchy' could mean star workers don't have to come into the office / Quartz
Meet the Gen Z Influencers Who Are Giving MAGA a Youthful Glow / Vanity Fair
Candace Owens is launching a new media platform / User Mag
The Net Worth of Millennials has Quadrupled. But some call it “Phantom Wealth / NBC News

Eating and drinking our ways around the world

Food for your Super Bowl party should cost about the same as last year, unless you’re serving deviled eggs / CNN
But Egg prices keep climbing. The bird flu outbreak has hit supply, no relief in sight / Quartz
So: Expect record-high egg prices for most of the year / CNBC
Because? Like Joe Biden, Donald Trump Does Not Control the Price of Eggs / Reason

Oh also? Trump's Tariffs To Tank Tequila. Tariffs on Mexican imports will mean higher menu prices and reduced availability of specialty tequila / Reason
Hence? Diageo says it doesn’t plan to “split the G” by selling its Guinness brand / Bloomberg
Meantime, Tasmania is now whiskey-making capital of the southern hemisphere / Semafor
Corollary, from PIers: “Chicken and waffle reinvented by American tourists who don’t want to eat that foreign stuff, while somewhere foreign” [7-Eleven pancakes become a hit with American tourists in Japan] / Sora News
Back in the global South: The U.S. Embassy in Peru issued a warning to American tourists to avoid consuming ayahuasca and kambo / US Embassy in Peru
Then Costa Rica’s Ministry of Health issued a strict warning against advertising, consuming, and using ayahuasca and ibogaine for therapeutic purposes / The Tico Times
Davos Panel Urges Immediate Action to Combat Childhood Screen Time Addiction / Worth
But Is Internet-induced Brain Rot a myth? /Dazed
And therefore from Molly: Is the digital detox industry a scam? / Dazed

Creative Pursuits

This year’s "Billboard" Power 100 / Billboard
Related: Is Kai Cenat Music’s Most Powerful Influencer? / Billboard
Evidence of: “A quiet shift is taking place”: On being a creative in the age of content / It’s Nice That
So: [SIC] homie Yolanda Edwards makes A Podcast Attempt. It’s conversation with one of the most interesting travelers [she knows] / Club Yolo
Also travel-related: Gary Shtyengart talks about his love for Capybaras, the South American mega-rodent / The New Yorker
No Cap(ys): The 10 Most Anticipated Sex Movies of 2025 / Esquire
Corollary: The Largely Unfunny History of the British Sex Comedy / Far Out Mag
In contrast: Zodiac Killer Project Is a Parody of the True Crime Genre. The documentary is an incisive critique of how cliché-bound the genre has become, encouraging viewers to ask more from it / Hyperallergic
More true crime: Thieves blow up museum door and steal a golden helmet / BBC
While A detective looking into a cold-case murder and an angry rock star helped uncover a vast art fraud / NYT
Apropos of that: Could This $50 Garage Sale Find Be a $15 Million Van Gogh? / Artnet
Related, from Piers: .. “U could suggest people see something new, or give the old art a special auditorium, like adding lanes on a highway” [Mona Lisa to Get Her Own Room as the Overcrowded Louvre Expands] / NYT
Also expanding, from Molly: Tom Green, Former Provocateur, Is Building Something New / NYT
Unrelated: The weird history of the polka dot / WSJ

Zeitchrist

From Iolanda: “What to expect when nothing is certain anymore” [What the expert consensus expects in 2025] / Visual Capitalist
And this!!!! [The 2025 Recess Playbook] / Recess
Not a prediction: Everyone is Horny Now/ Dazed
So, then: Why are these Influencers Weeping? It’s b/c “McVulnerability,” a synthetic version of vulnerability akin to fast food / The Atlantic
At its root? From Molly: Algorithms make people, places, and ideas boring [Kyle Chayka and Michael Easter in conversation] / TwoPct
Giving rise to: The Lost Art of Eye Contact / Time
Also, What Happened to Hanging Out on the Street? / Bloomberg
Elsewhere: The L.A.-to-NYC Migration Has Begun. Brokers are starting to hear from clients looking to get out / Curbed
Corollary: from Piers: “Personally, I think we need better tourist guides vs tourist taxes.” [Bans, Fees, Taxes. Can Anything Stop Overtourism?] / NYT
Charting the countries that speak the most languages / Visual Capitalist
Acronyms are the EU’s 25th language. Europe’s unofficial lingua franca is a plethora of shorthand that even ministers struggle to understand / FT
Modern novels by country, a superb and thorough website / The Modern Novel
Novel corollary, from Celeste: “The spy thriller is certainly booming, it's gotten me thinking about the current geopolitical turmoils we are facing…” [How Spy Thrillers Are Booming In An Age Of Distrust] / BBC
More in movies: Sundance Made Park City the It Town. Not Anymore / NYT
From Piers: Things to see in London [From a mobile pub to a thatched canopy: Japanese architecture and craft explored at AA show in London] Wallpaper
What London can learn from Manchester / London Centric
From Piers: HOME Arches: [a] £3.5m artist development hub opens in Manchester / Creative Boom
More Manchester: The Death of the B-Side Edition On Oasis, Taylor, experimentation (and featuring a Spotify playlist!) / WITI

The Fabulous Stylistics

Phil Oh’s street-style shots from Paris during the couture shows are now on Vogue’s site, and we’re counting more trainers than heels / Vogue
Louis Vuitton and Hermès autumn/winter 2025 menswear shows saw designers doubling down on archive themes / HTSI
IE, from Celeste: The fisherman core trend seems to be appearing everywhere [The 2025 Fisherman Aesthetic] / Town & Country
And the much discussed Lumber Sexual Return / NYT
Corollary: boom boom: anatomy of a trend. The who, what, where, when, why—and how—of the emerging aesthetic / 8Ball
From Iolanda: The Lyst Index is a quarterly ranking of fashion’s hottest brands and products / Lyst
Glenn Martens is named Maison Margiela creative director / Vogue Business
Inside Willa Bennett’s First Issue of ‘Cosmopolitan’ / BoF
Willy Chavarria will make a capsule collection around Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show / Hypebeast
One Minnesota Vikings fan has carved out a small business upcycling old fan gear into unique new game day apparel / Marketplace
Unrelated except by age: The K-Pop Granny Pirate of the Pacific Rim / Hyperallergic
Elsewhere in the region: Is T-pop the next K-pop? Thailand’s celebrity power, high-end tourist appeal and growing population of UHNWIs are helping luxury brands offset slowing growth in China / Jing Daily
China’s beauty market declines after decade of growth / Jing Daily
From Celeste: Intriguing article on the various industries battling dupes. [Duping Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery For Charlotte Tilbury] / FT
Corollary: What if robots ran the beauty industry? Artificial intelligence is poised to transform the beauty industry, influencing product personalisation, consumer engagement and supply chain efficiencies / Vogue Business
The ‘Sephora kids’ aren’t going anywhere. Beauty consumers are getting younger, thanks to easily accessible content and brand buy-in. Is it a good thing? / Vogue Business
Gen Z still prefers in-person shopping / Retail Dive
Stella McCartney & LVMH part ways. The designer is buying back the minority stake in the label held by LVMH but will continue to advise the group on sustainability issues. / BoF
Because? “Design must not get sucked into the age of average” / Design Week
Case in point, from Piers: Love hultén installs custom synthesizer system inside a 1985 aston Martin lagonda / Design Boom
Vintage photos of people at Reñaca Beach, Chile in the 1980s / Vintage.es

Platformations

The Unhinged Browser Game That Explains How the Internet Went Wrong / The Atlantic
Hence: The swaglord era of Mark Zuckerberg / Media-Events
And Redditors, once big Elon Musk fans, are now at the tip of the spear against him / Slate
Hence a dream of Seizing social media for the people. Free Our Feeds’ Mallory Knodel on how to escape billionaire-owned social media / Embedded
Corollary: Bluesky is getting a dedicated video tab / TechCrunch
Not just video: “How Fanum Built an Empire Streaming Much More Than Video Games” / GQ
Digital creators — especially those on TikTok — have adopted a unique style of speaking that’s being dubbed “influencer voice” that is proliferating worldwide / Fast Company
Ergo? Why You Should be On Tiktok / Lefsetz Letter
The TikTok ban is reshaping creator recruitment and agency best practices on social media / Digiday
So now it’s Marketing in limbo: the long shadow of TikTok’s turbulence / Digiday
Can Whatnot bring live shopping to the West? The American live-stream shopping app recently reached a $5 billion valuation. It wants to succeed where others have failed / BoF

AI-AI-AI

Ben Thompson’s comprehensive DeepSeek FAQ / Stratechery
DeepSeek hints that China has mastered the art of ‘kaizen’ — the west should be worried. The Japanese concept of continuous industrial improvement helps to explain Beijing’s technological success / FT
ChatGPT vs DeepSeek vs Qwen 2.5: China reacts. Censorship, low pricing, extensive scalability: DeepSeek offers what ChatGPT does not / Jing Daily
But! Is DeepSeek-R1 a good writer? / Twitter
And! Are better models better? Every week there’s a better AI model that gives better answers. But a lot of questions don’t have better answers, only ‘right’ answers. So what does ‘better’ mean and should we change what we expect from computers? / Ben-Evans
Especially since, a new report shows that 85 percent of the ChatGPT app’s users are male /TechCrunch
And Kanye West is hiring “wizards” to join his artificial intelligence team.
And Scammers are using AI to make fake news broadcasts to blackmail victims/ Wired
So what happens in marketing if DeepSeek makes AI 10 times cheaper? / The Drum
For one thing, From Celeste: [Meta AI Will Use Its Memory To Provide Better Recommendations] / The Verge
From Piers: “Maybe only the bad people will live forever” [John McAfee Springs Back From the Grave as an AI, Promoting a New Meme Coin] / Futurism

Bizzyness

Perplexity AI wants to buy TikTok — and give the U.S. government a big stake / Quartz
OpenAI has launched a version of ChatGPT that can only be used by government agencies / The Verge
Microsoft is reportedly in talks to acquire TikTok… but continue to take any of these potential deals with a big grain of salt / The Information
Likewise the question: Will transformative AI raise interest rates? / Marginal Revolution
A good list of articles and guides: Brand Strategy Essentials / First The Trousers Then The Shoes
Speaking of lists: Rapino is #1 / Lefsetz Letter
Related: ‘It’s A Great Time To Be An Independent Music Company – Just Ask Investors.’ / Music Business Worldwide
Welcome Podcasters! The White House wants New Media at the Press Briefing / NYT
Apropos: Paul Krugman left The New York Times after becoming sick of intrusive editing. He’s already got 137,000 subscribers to his Substack / Columbia Journalism Review
Introducing STRUNG.A new tennis publication from Dirt and Court Date/ Dirt
Strung out: Why the billable hour is still king in the legal world / FT
Dezeen survey points to "broken" architecture and design industry / Dezeen
Not broken, tho: College Isnt Dead to Gen Z Yet. Enrollment hits a post-pandemic high/ Fast Company
Which suggests: four College Enrollment Trends to Watch / AEIdeas

Helf & Shafety

Boom Supersonic had a successful test flight in which its demonstrator plane went supersonic and broke the sound barrier; the first time a civil aircraft has been able to do that / TechCrunch
More broken barriers: Humanoid robots are invited to compete alongside humans in a Beijing half marathon in April / Dezeen
So…. It’s Time to Build the Peptidome! / Marginal Revolution
Related: Why is everyone talking about taking Magnesium? / GQ
Corollary: A new study showed 63% of heavy lifetime cannabis users and 68% of recent users experienced reduced brain activity when performing working memory tasks / Jama Network
And, from Piers: “I was hoping that drinking was going to join th e list of all the other things we can do again. i guess we’ll just have to be shitty to one another sober“[Celebrities embrace the alcohol-free movement] / Beverage Daily
Tom Holland’s NA beer, Bero, launched on Amazon about a week ago and is already #1 in the category, ahead of Athletic Brewing / Amazon
From Celeste: “French table wine is making a comeback, with the appeal of pushing boundaries and less pressure to conform to traditional French wine region standards, it gives winemakers the ability to be outrageous, test and try new ideas.” How The Humble Vin De Franc Became A beacon Of Cool / Bon Appetit
Speaking of cool, from Celeste: [Revenge Of The Ski Bums] / NYT

But (PIers again): “Who needs ai when we have interior decorators?” [Eight bathrooms resurrecting pink sinks for the 21st century / Dezeen
Hyundai unveils electric rickshaws "tailored to India's unique environment” / Dezeen
Elsewhere: What’s it really like to stay at the heart of tropical glamour / Tatler

Die Markt

McBaguettes and “ski-through” windows: A new photography book showcases the world’s distinctive McDonald’s locations / NYT
Pirates, wolf howls and roller-skates: New York’s reimagined tiki bars / FT
Inside Fangoria's Three-Pronged Strategy for Horror Success / A Media Operator
Loewe’s CMO Charlie Smith is encouraging the fashion house to ‘behave like a publisher’ / The Drum
Tina Brown on intellectual serendipity, the Elon Musk era and why "magazines are mostly done" / Books and Bits
Louis Vuitton chief is betting that the label’s sole title sponsorship of F1 will help it evolve from a fashion brand into a ‘cultural’ one / HTSI
But F1 needs an American star. At 19, Jak Crawford’s Ready for the Call / Inside Hook
Ford's Jim Farley wants the brand to be the 'Porsche of off-roading' / Car Scoops
Oscar Wang's shaping luxury with Tiffany & Co. / Jing Daily
Sweater brand Quince is getting in the supplement business/ Modern Retail
From Iolanda: “Everything starts and ends with food…”[Netflix to Open Restaurant in Vegas] / Hollywood Reporter
iPad at 15: Hit or a Miss? / On My Om
Bookshop.org, the online book marketplace and Amazon competitor that lets readers support indie bookstores, began selling e-books / Bookshop
While CVS is testing letting customers use their phones to open locked shelves / The Verge
This new camera from Instax is the lovechild of a Polaroid, a digital camera and a digital photo printer / Instax
SiriusXM is eliminating about 100 roles across the organization, less than 2% of the company's workforce / Axios
Alex Cooper is launching a talk show and 24/7 music channel with SiruisXM / Hollywood Reporter
Cheetos just made their own font meant to evoke when your dominant hand is covered in Cheeto dust, so you have to write with your other hand / Fast Company
From Piers: “Might cause a tactical rethink” [Spirit Airlines bans see-through clothing and 'lewd' body art] / LA Times
Why States Took a Gamble on Sports Betting. States bet on sports gambling, but their residents could be paying the price / The Atlantic
From Iolanda: Superbowl teasers ahead of the big game / Slate App
So, unsurprisingly: This year’s Super Bowl will be full of A.I. ads” / The Verge

[SIC] 331: Infamous Kitchen

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