[SIC] 383: Cushion Solution

Vol 8, No. 23. Drive to Unsubscribe. HIP REPLACEMENT with Lukas Ferreira. Pods on Pods. And all the liiiinks.

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

[SIC] is made possible by its paid subscribers, who also get 20 “[SIC] Day” links on Mo/Tu/Th/Fr, and the weekly [SIC] Sundays mini-digest of 30 freeform links.

Many recipients expense their subscriptions as research in marketing, advertising, entertainment + tech. You can too.[SIC] prospers when you share it, so please do.

New original art and animation each issue is made by Gordon Hull. Special thanks this week for ideas: Hugh Dietz, Piers Fawkes, Iolanda Carvalho and Celeste Blewitt. Comments, questions and contributions are invited from everyone.

This digest was sent free on 2/4/26 to 8210 subscribers. Original source is cited. Corollary sources are listed at the end of each digest.

I’m Ben Dietz, advisor-for-hire to brands, publishers and agencies, interviewer, moderator and occasionally event/exhibition producer. Give a shout: @dietznutz on socials.

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Hi all,

I’ve been on the road this week and have things to catch up on; will keep this front section short. One thing being pressed for time is good for: serving you reminders of the things in your world that don’t serve you.

I mention it in the context of Resist & Unsubscribe, the ‘targeted, month-long national economic strike’ coordinated by Scott Galloway, which kicked off this week. I appreciate it, notwithstanding Prof G’s typical bombast, for its core message: if you object to a situation, entity or position, don’t support with your money. Unsubscribe.

You can always quit, as Rusty has repeatedly noted in Today in Tabs ( which is a reminder I need to resubscribe now that he’s posting regularly again).

That includes [SIC], obviously. When I accidentally sent the paywalled post to everyone last Friday, plenty of people left. For most of you, once a week is enough. Or maybe even too much. If you don’t find it valuable, it’s ok.

Say goodbye. Better for everyone.

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HIP REPLACEMENT EP.43: Lukas Ferreira

As Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick asked in this week’s HIP REPLACEMENT newsletter (Go ahead and subscribe, incidentally):

Are Gen Z starting to pretend that they’re Millennials? They might be…. people dwelling on the cusp, or claiming to be more Millennial than Gen Z. Might this be an emerging generational trend? Of young people distancing themselves from their peers by claiming to be older?

It came up in conversation with copywriter (and Kyle’s “work son”) Lukas Ferreira and both before and after I had to leave early we dug into the significance of mentorship, the sincerity of compliments, the natural cynicism of Gen Z, high and low status behavior and the practical requirement of pursuing one’s passion beyond the confines of the 9 to 5. Have a listen.

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Last (few) things before the links:

[SIC] Talks will return to regularly scheduled programming next week - Wednesday at 12pm Eastern Time on Substack Live. Set your reminders.

In the meantime, a few other things I’ll be listening to:

• Kyle talking to the Day One FM homies about The Laziness Epidemic / Spotify

• Episode 1 of [SIC] Talks alum Jian DeLeon’s new show “Opening Hours” in which Jian visits Justin Felizarri, owner of Cueva, right around the corner from me / IG

• The inimitable CMO and [SIC] homie Drieke Leenknegt on the Unorthodox Blends pod talking Leadership, tensions, empathy / Unorthodox Blends

Ok, now the links.

Ben

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[SIC] 383: Cushion Solutions

The Current Moment

• The Dark Side of FOMO includes Octogenarians Shoplifting / On My Om

• Also dark, obvs: Sami goes deep on Attia and Epstein / Superhealth

• To the end: Peter Attia’s Fall / The Atlantic

• Cue: A collection of screams / Just Scream Baby

• Apropos: Welcome to the Clicktatorship / The Atlantic

• In contrast: The Architecture Of Ideas. A field guide to the rituals, routines, and workflows of creative thinkers / Adjacent Possible

• Because?! No, the public is not irredeemably ignorant. But there is a disconnect between economists’ metrics and people’s perceptions / FT

• Hence? Someone aggregated all the most important evidence based thinking from top experts on how brands and businesses grow into one place / Dropbox

• Also worldwide: Americans are Learning Korean (Because of ‘KPop Demon Hunters) / NYT

• Corollary: Give Your Kid the Gift of Failure / The Atlantic

• Texas Education Board Appears Likely To Require All Public School Students To Read Bible Passages / The New York Sun

• Uncorrelated: Meet The Femcels. These girls have London in a chokehold a beat before the rest of the world / IG

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Futures

• US stocks drop on fears AI will hit software and analytics groups. A new Anthropic legal tool sends shares in companies including S&P Global and Intuit sliding / FT

• Related, from Celeste: The Utilities Analyst Who Says Data Centre Demand Doesn’t Add Up / Odd Lots Pod

• Perhence?! The Unsettling Rise of AI Real-Estate Slop / The Atlantic

• More bad slop: AI meets ICE / Quartz

• Corollary: Into the mist: Moltbook, agent ecologies, and an internet in transition / X

• Moltbook update: it turns out thousands of humans have been hacking the site and steering the conversations / The Verge

• IE: I Infiltrated Moltbook, the AI-Only Social Network Where Humans Aren’t Allowed / Wired

• On that note: What if you could start your own internet? Breadcrumbs towards a new world / The Metalabel Blog

• Some of what might be there: Weird tech patents is a trip to browse / Are.na

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Platforms

• Our Crazy Unhinged Now / On My Om

• Following on that: Elon Musk Is Rolling xAI Into SpaceX—Creating the World’s Most Valuable Private Company / Wired

• Elsewhere: Substack Entrapment Theory. Key Quote: ‘Publishers can’t take their customers with them to their own apps or websites. Sound familiar?’/ PUCK

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Artistics & Stylistics

• Who Killed the Independent Curator? Biennials have become a side-hustle for institutional directors, creating far-reaching consequences / Frieze

• Vernacular Architecture Will Define 20206. Architecture doesn’t travel well – the best work belongs to a place, and also its time / Monocle

• Photographer Ari Versluis and stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek’s new photobook, exactitudes documents 30 years of punks, gabbers, glambots, and more / Hypebae

• A Photographer You Should Know: Alyssa Davis / Monster Children

• Photos from backstage at the Westminster Dog Show / NYT

• From Celeste: The History Of The Westminster Dog Show‘ / Town & Country

• More history: Cardigans: From military uniform to effortless womenswear chic, we look at the colorful history of the most formidable sweater / Heddels

• To match?! Having a Suit Made. Or finding one that looks good / Emilie Hawtin

• Less suited: Blue-collar workwear is now mainstream fashion / WSJ

• Ergo? Our Legacy is plotting a retail expansion fuelled by LVMH as sales top $50 million / BoF

• The Connoisseur’s Guide to Hotel Robe Conduct / Vacation

• Elsewhere: The New Wave of Anonymous Musicians Thriving on Their Own Terms / Hypebot

• Also thriving: The Secrets of Indigenous Art. Major exhibitions are upending the way people understand Native American and Aboriginal artists / The Atlantic

• Where Would Contemporary Art Be Without Plastic? The conundrums and contradictions at the heart of a material the world relies on / Hyperallergic

• Not plastic: Where have all the flowers gone? The new dawn of Corita Kent / It’s Nice That

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Entertainments

• From Celeste: Heated Rivalry: How To Mint Two Stars In Less Than Sixty Days‘ / Vanity Fair

• On minting new stars: Gus Wenner Launches VC Firm, Bets that Social Show ‘Track Star’ is the’ ‘MTV of Today’ / Hollywood Reporter

• Also blowing up: The glamorous sow is having a moment / NYT

• More momentousness: Carnival is serious business as Brazilian cities battle to be the biggest and the best / Monocle

• Closer to home: Tyler Cowen (!!) on The economics of hip hop / Marginal Revolution

• Drew Millard wrote about training the next generation of Roadies / Marketplace

• From Celeste: Why So Many Writers Are Athletes / The Atlantic

• The Wonder Drug That’s Plaguing Sports / NYT

• Corollary, also from Celeste: Is The Australian Open Still The Happy Slam? / BBC

• More questions: Why do gay men not flock to worship at the altar of Olivia Dean? A theory emerges / X

• Corollary: The mess of masculinity “Rob Doyle is just another figure lost in that labyrinth of fictions.” / Blank

• More talking books: Dua Lipa & Jean-Baptiste Del Amo Talk The Son Of Man / Service95

• While THR sits down with legendary comedian and filmmaker Mel Brooks to discuss the new documentary about his life and career / THR

• Also there’s a Hailey Benton Gates SSENSE interview / ssense

• Corollary, from Celeste: “What a dream to listen to, the history of the Beverly Hills Hotel, with Richard E Grant and Jules Perowne at the helm.” [Beverly Hills Hotel] / Hotels With History Pod

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Media & Marketing

• The Asymmetric Upside of Super Bowl Ads / Trapital

• Also asymmetric: Here’s what else a $8M, 30-second Super Bowl budget can purchase in 2026 / Digiday

• Corollary: What’s a losing team’s ‘Super Bowl Champion’ merch worth? / Yahoo

• Also ‘champs’: The New York Times is giving prizes to itself now / NYMag

• Corollary self-confidence: The Quietest Loud Luxury Brand in Fashion. What do you know about Chrome Hearts? / Back Row

• More branding success: Laundry brand Eat Dirt shakes up the shelf with gorgeous illustrations / Creative Bloq

• On the topic of illustrations, [SIC] homie Alex Morris of Strat Scraps has started collecting the purest art form: 2x2s / Are.na

• From Iolanda: Totally lovely! [Fortnum & Mason turns chocolate into music with multi-sensory ‘Bars of Chocolate’ by Otherway] / Creative Boom

• Why are blind boxes everywhere? From Labubus to Le Creuset, blind boxes are rapidly emerging as a popular retail format / Jing Daily

• Collectibles corollary: Lego is building out an in-house programmatic team / Digiday

• Apropos of that: The Metrics That Matter in Today’s Creator Economy / BoF

• Bringing us to: The tyranny of targets. Not only is quantification changing our behaviour, but we’re failing to notice this has happened / FT

• Because? AI Bots Are Now a Signifigant Source of Web Traffic / Wired

• Related: Washington Post announces sweeping layoffs amid financial distress / Axios

• More on the The Murder of The Washington Post / The Atlantic

• To that end: How to avoid getting laid off from your digital media job. By someone who just got laid off from his digital media job. KEY QUOTE: “If you want management to change what they’re doing, that requires you to persuade them they’re wrong, and insulting them publicly won’t help” / Harry Cheadle

Foods and Drinks

• The weight loss drug giants are going in opposite directions / Quartz

• Hence?! Pepsico announced yesterday it will cut the cost of its most popular snacks “up to 15%” / NPR

• Not cutting back: Emily Dawn Long was able to bring back Wildair donuts / IG

• In praise of the Tuna Melt, the ultimate NYC sandwich / Gothamist

The Natural World

• Climate change challenges the Winter Olympics / The Carbon Almanac

• Also challenging: The hideous curbside piles of frozen slush blocking New York City streets have a name. That doesn’t make them any less gross / NYT

• Snowpile corollary: ‘Stockholm quite literally piled up its leftovers and called it a ski slope. And it worked.’ A Landfill Gets Turned Into an Urban Swedish Ski Destination / Monocle

• Meanwhile: Cheap hydrogen could determine where data centers are built / TechCrunch

• Last, lovely one, from Hugh: Birding on Attu, 1998: Off The Charts! Written by a guy known to my grandmother Susu. She lived next to his grandmother Aunt Ann is Syracuse. I went cave exploring with him one time / Hiswilliwaw

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[SIC] 383: Cushion Solutions

Corollary Sources This Week: Feed Me / Off The Fence / Marketplace / TBPN / Catchdini / After School / Strat Scraps / Aontas Intelligence / Beats & Bytes / The Future Party / Cosmos / Morning Brew