[SIC] 360: Fugue Means Escape

Vol. 7, No. 50. Last Thursday Free.

Aug 28, 2025

[SIC] Weekly is a digest of developments in trends, tech, media, marketing, fashion, food, places and events, published free on Thursdays. 

This digest was sent free on 8/21/25 to 7810 subscribers. Original source is cited. Corollary sources are listed at the end of each digest. [SIC] is intended to be read as you would a bulleted list. Feel no compunction to open every item in a new tab.

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I'm Ben Dietz, longtime media/entertainment business guy, and now advisor-for-hire to brands, publishers and agencies. New original art each issue is made by Gordon Hull.

Special thanks this week for stories: Leann Abad, Billy Fowks, Piers Fawkes, Iolanda Carvalho, Celeste Blewitt, Daisy Alioto and Mike Mallazzo. Contributions are invited from everyone.

,Hi all,

Couple announcements to start. First one is a big one, maybe: starting next week (the first issue of Vol. Eight, the free [SIC] newsletter is moving to Wednesdays. That’s reflective of a few things on my side, but mainly that it suits my schedule these days better.

The other thing is that Volume Eight is going to see the free weekly get a lot more tightly edited; I’m going to limit to 50 links each edition (notwithstanding the loosies in the intro), with the hope of making the whole shebang more digestible and less daunting to new readers.

I’ll still be publishing the first 20 links I grab each day for paid subscribers on Mon, Tues, and Friday, and will shift the current Wednesday micro-digest to Thursdays. [SIC] Day posts go out by 9a ET to paid subs ).

Like I wrote last week I’m really grateful to my paid subscribers, so if you want to join the ranks in the meantime and save some money, here’s a link for 25% off on all tiers.

Get 25% off forever

Other updates: as promised last week, [SIC] Talks is returning next week; it’ll stream live on Substack every Wednesday at noon, and then be embedded in [SIC]’s weekly digest later that day. Mark your calendars. Hope you’ll join me sometime.

Speaking of that, [SIC] talks alum Aaron Stern’s putting on a new group show called 1 of 1 that opens September 5th in NYC; I’ll go check it out, so let me know if you want to link up there.

Apropos of art shows NEW INC, New Museum’s Cultural Incubator, Announced it Twelfth Member Cohort for 2025–26, for which I’ll be an advisor. Looking forward to that.

HIP REPLACEMENT EP.24 Cris Cimbora

Cris publishes The Internet Pearl, lives down the road from Kyle, and works as a marketing creative when she’s not newslettering. We talked the my body is my temple/the temple is closed meme, the “boilerfaker”( a full-strength shot followed by a non-alcoholic beer chaser), how Millennials are rewriting the script of lifestages by delaying or rejecting traditional milestones in favor of alternative paths and personal fulfillment and if (American) Millennials are dying at faster rates, among many other things. It’s a good one: watch above or listen below:

A few final things before the links:

Iolanda noted that [SIC] got a shout in The Strategist's Playbook post that

Jasmine Bina

published (the post is great; it’s about 15 mental models to see what your competitors can’t) in The Concept Bureau.

Apropos of that, here’s Jasmine on building personal brands from a couple weeks back, too / Strat Monday

And I talked superformats and Mountain Dew fragrances with [SIC] homie Scott Stedman in Cannes / Imaginarium

And now, the links.

Ben

[SIC] 360: Fugue Means Escape

The Discoarse

W. David Marx had me until the “from..to” constuction in final paragraph in The New Yorker Roundup, his thoughts on "our" culture in three pieces about from Kyle Chayka, Kelefa Sanneh, and Thomas Rothman / Culture: An Owner’s Manual
Here’s (one of) the pieces David’s referring to: How Music Criticism Lost Its Edge Music writers were once known for being much crankier than the average listener. What happened? / The New Yorker
So… Are Critics Too Soft? No!, says critic Ted Gioia/ The Honest Broker
Corollary to that: The Perverse Consequences of the Easy A. In the era of grade inflation, students at top colleges are more stressed than ever / The Atlantic
Speaking of teaching: How creating a club night will teach you everything you need to know about life, art and business / New Methods for Women
Another consequence? “Kidult” culture is getting out of hand. Parents are now seemingly competing with their kids for toys like Labubu dolls and Pokémon cards /The Cut
Also out of hand: A Dark Money Group Is Secretly Funding High-Profile Democratic Influencers / Wired
In contrast, not closeted: Donald Trump’s Big Gay Government. The “A-Gays” of Washington are proud to work for the president — never mind what other gay men think of them / NYT
Aesthetic corollary? Make America Design Again?! Why we should be worried about Donald Trump's National Design Studio / Creative Bloq
More, bigger design: Towards the Cosmopolitan Supergrid. From Subprime Globalism to Cultural QE / Contraptions
Related to that, from Celeste: Why Neighbours Matter More Than Ever In The Digital Age / FT
Why Gen Z is Resurrecting the 1990s as a way to counterbalance digital overload / NYT
Ergo?! The Glorious Future of the Book. It's still the best data center of them all / The Honest Broker
Related: Small Bookstores and the Future of Liberalism / NYT
Apropos of liberalism, from Celeste: “Begins as an investigation into a fintech company, that leads to a conversation on double agents, global workings of geopolitics… [Hot Money: Agents Of Chaos] / Hot Money Pod
More late capitalism: Lafufus, Fake Labubu Dolls, Raise Safety Alarms and Spawn Raids/ The dupes of the cute-ugly toys have left consumer complaints and warnings about safety risks and potentially hazardous chemicals in their wake / NYT
Smartphone Study Authors Say Phones Should Be Regulated Like Alcohol and Tobacco. Parental responsibility? What parental responsibility? / Reason
Ergo: The New Millennial Parenting Anxiety / The Atlantic
Low anxiety option: The new dream guy is beefy, placid — and politically ambiguous / NYT

AIAIAI

Teaching AI What Consciousness Means. [SIC] homie Jenny Nicholson on building bridges between humans and AI, creating pattern poems for music generation, and her experiments with synthetic consciousness / Brxnd AI
Apropos of that: “Vibe-hacking” is now a top AI threat / The Verge
From Iolanda: “And this unbelievable piece of news 🙂”[ Margaux Blanchard, the journalist who didn't exist] / Dispatch
Runway ML’s AI video-generating models have learned to simulate the laws of physics, helping to make their outputs nearly indistinguishable from real life / Semafor
The biggest mistake an interior designer can make right now is ignoring AI / Creative Bloq
While Professional matchmakers in the Bay Area say AI engineers have become newly sought after / Business Insider
From Iolanda: “Getting into the A2A era ;)” [ Furniture.com Shifts From Aggregator to Marketplace With AI Agents] / pymnts
Apropos of that, from Mike: “i wrote a little response to the Profound guys in my last column…..” [Advertising to Humans on the Agentic Web. Or...a rebuttal to my friends at Profound] / Zero Clicks
Related: How an indie agency's over-reliance on AI drove it out of business / Digiday
Speaking of driving, from Piers: Man finds stolen car 2 years later with chatgpt / Motor Biscuit

Platformations

‘RichTok’ and the brands of Asia’s 1% / Jing Daily
Speaking of bleak bling: Inside the Rise of OnlyFans on Campus as a way to pay tuition and living expenses / Town & Country
Related: As Patreon and Substack enter the mix, the livestreaming landscape is dividing creators / Digiday
While beehiiv CEO Tyler Denk, wrote this deep dive into how they built Morning Brew’s referral system / Medium
Apropos of that: Substack creators attribute their boost in subscribers to the platform's community tools / Digiday
And Spotify launches a messaging feature in a bid to become more social / TechCrunch
While Bumble Bets on Love to Revive Its Brand / AdWeek
Speaking of attempting revival: Meta’s Cyber Necrocide. Suspended in the bardo between online death and rebirth… ghosts in the social media machine / Rave New World

Arts and the Artists

A brush with… Jeffrey Gibson—podcast / The Art Newspaper
Perfectly Imperfect: Mac Demarco / PI.FYI
Head Hi invites artists, designers, collectors, creators, and craftspeople of all levels, everyone and anyone to submit a lamp for the 2026 Head Hi Lamp Show Biennial / Head Hi
New London, photographed by Hedi Slimane / The FACE
This Artist Is Famous For His ‘Bad Taste’. In his work, Chinese artist Chen Fei asks: who gets to define taste? / Artnet
This Labor Day weekend is the perfect time to catch Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night before it closes on September 21 / Whitney
How to survive a TikTok hit song. It's hard to be a musician on social media / Kyle Chayka
I think “All I Want” is LCD’s most underrated song / Pitchfork

Fashionz

How Fashion Is Navigating Its Summer of Scandal / BoF
Not without the aid of?! The 2025 Magasin fall shopping spreadsheet / Google
Related: Ssense to File for Bankruptcy Protection / Hypebeast
J.Crew Survived Bankruptcy. Next Up: Cultural Relevance? / Bloomberg
Speaking of relevance: Fashion Is Everywhere at the US Open / BoF
Lacoste replaces its crocodile with a goat to celebrate Novak Djokovic who has been a brand ambassador for eight years, with a new capsule collection / The Drum
Court Date is an apparel brand and racket club wrapped into one / NYT
Meanwhile A newly-engaged Travis Kelce is designing a collection for American Eagle / Variety
Which does not include any Toile de Jouy, france's most evocative fabric / Articles of Interest
Also evocative: Head Hi invites artists, designers, collectors, creators, and craftspeople of all levels, everyone and anyone to submit a lamp for the 2026 Head Hi Lamp Show Biennial / Head Hi

Entertainments

What Do We Really Want from Basketball? Revisiting AND1 Mixtapes, Hot Sauce, and Duke Tango in the Era of Generalized Discontent / Cookies
More questions: Can A24 make blockbusters? / The New Yorker
From Leann: “Have been going down an avalanches rabbit hole and now going down one on the history of sampling, not sure if you’ve seen this but have been showing all my DJ and producer friends their stuff!” [How The Avalanches Built a Classic Using 1000+ Samples] / YT
From Daisy: CLONE SCOOP: According to SEC filings, the romance fiction company 831 Stories has raised a $4M seed round / X
From Celeste: Love the stories of being the location scout for Succession and White Lotus, [Travel Secrets - Emily FitzRoy] / Travel Secrets Pod
Tarantino on what is the best Tarantino movie / The Guardian
Oral History Of The 40 Year Old Virgin / The Ringer
A New Reality Show About Virgins Highlights Why Gen Z Isn't Having Sex. Hulu’s Are You My First? joins a string of shows about virgins, as more young people open up about how the gender divide is impacting their sex lives / Wired
Meet Iraq’s First Female Skate Community / Service95

Marketeering

Seeing 90s-era payphones around town? They're part of a marketing stunt for Darren Aronofsky's new film, “Caught Stealing” / Gothamist
Nike has minted Caitlin Clark as a new signature athlete / Fast Company
But Nike’s ‘walking encyclopedia’ of company culture to retire after 52 years / The Oregonian
S/o to [SIC] homie Jim Mollica: Inside Bose's paid search advertising reset / AdAge
Related: Bose jumps on 2025's most viral colour trend with ingenious packaging design / Creative Bloq
Why Most Brand Activations are Hollow Cultural Experiments / Future Commerce
Case in point?! Netflix’s first experiential “Netflix Houses” will open in Philadelphia on November 12th and in Dallas on December 11th. / Variety
Speaking of openings: A Huge Mall Allows Shopping on Sundays. Is That Illegal? / NYT
Speaking of hollow: The Kong Edition. On accidental design, incessant chewing, and the brilliance of the VW axle stop / WITI
From Iolanda: On the countdown to World Cup 2026... [Culture in Play: How to Win World Cup 2026] / We Are Social
Not winning: Advertising group Dentsu explores sale of international business / FT

Medias

Perplexity says it’ll share 80% of revenue from its newest product with news publishers / Bloomberg
Alexis Ohanian’s Next Social Platform Has One Rule: Don’t Act Like an Asshole / Wired
Apropos of that: Digg’s new app is basic, but a great start. “New Digg operates similarly to Reddit: people submit links that others can comment and vote on / The Verge
What’s left of tennis journalism is struggling to keep up / CJR
while NASCAR launched its first-ever Substack newsletter, becoming the first major sports league to partner with the email platform / Axios

Foods and Drinks

From Billy: “You’ve probably already seen it but this feels like your wheelhouse. It references the 6 7 meme” [I Launched A Viral Water Brand In 8 Weeks] / Spotify
Apropos of ‘viral’: Mountain Dew Baja Midnight’s new purple soda is a big “screw you” to MAHA / Fast Company.
The MAHA Trend in Groceries Will Backfire Without real reform, Americans might just end up eating more junk food / The Atlantic
Ergo? Fanta wants to own Halloween with horror movie icons on its cans / AdWeek
While Swinger Energy makes craft energy drinks for golf days and court time / Thingtesting
And a 9-year-old TikToker helped turn a joke into Arizona Beverages’ next drink / WSJ
Corollary: The snack brand that’s roasting influencers / Embedded
Also roasted: London’s sexiest star produce is a cabbage / NYT
Elsewhere in England: Meet the ‘Banksy of fast food ads’ subverting McDonald’s posters in broad daylight / The Drum
Closer to home: Life and death at Balthazar. The hostess with the least / The Dirt
From Celeste: Now this is an interesting business model to focus on to fight over tourism, gentrification and inclusion [Eat What You Want, Pay What You Can] / BBC

The Natural World

With Magic Mushrooms, Small Businesses Lead, Hoping Laws Will Follow / Bloomberg
Speaking of smalls: Modern Dentistry Is a Microplastic Minefield / The Atlantic
Larger, from Celeste: “39 acres could be all yours for £5 million. Seems a bargain.” [Royal Alma Mater Queen Margaret's School For Girls Is For Sale] / Tatler

[SIC] 360: Fugue Means Escape

Corollary Sources this Week: Retail Dive / Royal Braun / Dinner Party / Nieman Lab / After School / The Future Party / A Media Operator / Jimmy / Catchdini / Rave New World / American Enterprise Institute

[SIC] 360: Fugue Means Escape

Vol. 7, No. 50. Last Thursday Free.

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