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[SIC] 396: Oscillation Obsfucation
Vol. 8, No. 36. HIP REPLACEMENT with Kate Daykin of Pulse Check, a poll for [SIC]s future, meet me at the bookfest and a looottt of liiiiiinks.
[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 Wednesdays. Read like an outline for a sense of the week’s gestalt. Nobody clicks every link, except me.
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.
New original art and animation each issue is made by Gordon Hull. Special thanks this week for ideas: Geoff Renaud, Piers Fawkes, Iolanda Carvalho, and Celeste Blewitt. Comments, questions and contributions are invited from everyone.
This digest was sent free on 5/6/26 to 8514 subscribers. Original source is cited. Corollary sources are listed at the end of each digest.
[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. [SIC] prospers when you share it, so please do.
Hi all,
Getting close to the end of this incarnation of [SIC]; ideas as to what the next looks like (assuming there is a next one) are still germinating. Talking to Kate from Pulse Check this week about her post ShopMy-ification of 9-5ers suggests one direction; recording a special episode of the pod with Deborah Copaken, Mike Bryskier and Kel Rakowski that our buddy Harry Krinsky from Nothing But Respect is masterminding hints at another. The success of the standalone W. David Marx [SIC] Talks transcription edition could be the guideline, too. Maybe a live week from Cannes Lions? IDK, man.
Would love your counsel. People continue to sign up for paid subscriptions (please don’t do this right now unless you’re just trying to give me money for the fuck of it, in which case, go ahead I won’t say no). Engagement numbers are slow to accumulate but show no slowdown. And it’s still fun to feel plugged into ‘the discourse’ (or aware of its peregrinations, anyway).
So… Help me out with a quick reply to a snap poll? I’d be grateful. There’ll still be links. Maybe. Just not as many / not as often.
Appreciate the help. I’m at loggerheads.
Either way, figuring out some special way to mark #400, so look out for that.
HIP REPLACEMENT EP.56: Kate Daykin
As mentioned, The Pulse Check writer and researcher joins us to talk pre-gaming, AI cultural sentiments, and if work ever “stops.” Plus: Detroit as the Mumbai of America, Sam Valenti IV and Ghostly International Journal, college kids and their BORGs, little flasks vs. gallon jugs, counter-indicators to the trending culture of moderation, the woman on TikTok doing the #50DayBenderChallenge and whether I’m therefore always on a bender except for February and October, monitoring health outcomes, getting bullied by Oura rings, pre-gaming trending because of the economy, the Shop My-ification of everybody, renting a 7 story building for $900 (or 9 stories for $700, I forget) and lots more. Kate’s sharp. Have a gander. Or, listen here:
Friends Section
My brother and frequency [SIC] contributor Isaac Dietz launched Diggato, an “open-world collecting and documentation app that turns your [phone] camera into a fast capture-and-catalog tool for anything you want to organize” / App Store
[SIC] Talks alum Katherine Dee’s digging deep in the past with A Klansman Predicted Online Extremism in 1983. Which notes; What Came Next Is Worse / Default Friend
(much) more positively: OG [SIC] Talks alum Camella Ehlke is showing new design work May 15th 4-9p at 32 6th Ave at Lispenard in Tribeca. No Link yet but mark your calendars / IG
Also posi, from Nick Parish: “Your PDX readers will be pleased to know they can learn to fly fish without spending billions and billions, I’m doing a new class with the cool kids at Landdd gallery” / Landdd
[SIC] Talks alum Sami Reiss, writer, on the best book ever written, temporary pain, and moments that become a part of you / Thought Enthusiast
Friend of Sami’s the photographer and running brand founder Ben Rayner interviewed/ Unorthodox Blend
While Running brand Satisfy’s POSSESSED No. 64: The Great Escape Issue (edited by “5 Questions For” alum, Jason Crombie) “is like that song ‘Jailbreak’ by AC/DC, except instead of escaping jail, it’s about running from bad habits and an uncertain future” / Satisfy
Last things before linkage; stuff to check out IRL.
LA Art Book fair: Printed Matter LA Art Book Fair May 7-10
Photobook show: ICP Photobook Fest 2026 May 8-10 (I’m going Friday aft sometime if you want to meet up)
Head Hi Lamp Show May 8-9 at BOOM (NYC)
Ok now the links.
Ben
[SIC] 396: Oscillation Obsfucation
Discoursing
What Makes Art Great? Some notes toward an answer / Nabeel S. Qureshi
Cases in point? The 2026 Pulitzer winners / Poynter
Including A World War I novel that consists of one long sentence / NPR
Apropos of that, from Geoff: “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” After Greatness: On the Difficulty of Enough. Why modern culture finds it so difficult to stop / Selavy
Trying to stop going?! The youth is trading in cocaine for ketamine / The Guardian
“Speaking of” the kids: The Strange, Multicultural Slang of Toronto’s Teenagers / The Economist
Corollary: Can Listening to ‘Subliminals’ Make You Beautiful? Young women are discovering a world of YouTube and TikTok videos that promise glow-ups through ASMR affirmations / Wired
Meantime, IRL: China thinks America is declining but still uniquely dangerous. It sees Donald Trump as both symptom and accelerant / The Economist
Hence: The “Stupid NYT” is pretty good, gotta say / Walzr
Ok but what if Fisher Price designed the AWS Cloud Dashboard? / X
Related: Defining TASTESLOP. Notes on technological anxiety / Nemesis
More anxiety: The most underrated issue of our time? It’s the Age of Electricity and America Isn’t Ready / NYT
Hence?! Hasan Piker Wants AI to Die / Wired
Platformations
Meantime, Spotify Wants To Verify Humans In The Age Of AI / Tubefilter
While Instagram wants users who primarily post AI-generated content to voluntarily label themselves “AI creators.” / Hypebeast
Music Streaming is a Prediction Market. Platforms like Kalshi, Polymarket and Spotify operate with a vast quantity of participants receiving no financial gain in return. That is their financial model / Dada Drummer
On the topic of new models: Substack launched Open Tab, an interview show with the people building independent media / Substack
And from Iolanda: The clipping economy is real ;) [Netflix Doubles Down on Vertical Video on Mobile, Launches ‘Clips’ Feed] / Hollywood Reporter
LLMinality
We Thought the Internet Was For Us. It Turns Out It’s For AI. / Default Friend
So… Say Hello to the Internet of AI / On My Om
Apropos of that: Model/Market/Harness Fit. Some thoughts about what causes step changes in token demand / BRXND Dispatch vol 111
Noteworthy because: “What an organization writes now gets built, immediately, at scale.” All work is converging on writing / Jihad Esmail
Corollary: Not caring, but harder. When you give feedback written in chatgpt and pass it off as your own, you are showing that you care a little less but you want the recipient to believe you care / Delightful
On the topic of caring about things: The A.I. industry is booming. When will it actually start making money? / The New Yorker
Cause, like, Claude didn’t kill design apps / Ramp Economics Lab
But, like, from Celeste: Deepfakes Are Coming For Your Bank Accounts / The Atlantic
Also, like, Will A.I. Make College Obsolete? / The New Yorker
Maybe not considering, from Celeste: “the days of swapping numbers in the nightclub are long gone, yet the next generation are desperate for human connection.” [My AI Matchmaker Let Me Down] / The Atlantic
Related: I Spent Months with an AI Companion. It Was Worse than Being Alone. I hated the mindless reassurance and generic empathy / The Walrus
The Arts and their Makers
Paul McCarthy: ‘The world is now an extreme absurdity. The work is a reaction to that’ / The Art Newspaper
“I had 3 years to make it”. The high-stakes hustle behind a British photographer’s LA breakthrough / Creative Bloq
Be a Better Poet / The Lindy Newsletter
The best review of Ben Lerner’s Transcription was in Artforum of all places / Artforum
George Saunders on the Power of Prose to Enliven the World / The Slowdown
Love, Magic, & Music: Melissa Auf der Maur on her new memoir. A photographer who plays music or a musician who takes photos? / Monster Children
Speaking of multi-hyphenates: The Happy Capitalism of Richard Scarry’s Busytown. Welcome to the pro-market world of children’s book author and illustrator Richard Scarry / Reason
Capital corollary: The Marcel Duchamps That Got Away: On Collecting His Work and the Sprawling MoMA Show / Artnet
Also: The Price Points Powering the Art Market / Artnet
Mediations
More collecting, media mogul editions: When the going was good - SI Newhouse’s art collection / Christies
Speaking of ‘collecting’ James Murdoch is in talks to buy New York magazine and Vox’s podcast division / WSJ
On the underlying logic of the deal: What 301 CPG Brands Reveal About People Inc.’s INVERSION Bet / The Medium
Related: The economist and pundit Justin Wolfers, founded Platypus Economics, an independent media start-up on YouTube, Substack and other platforms / NYT
While The NYT is using Games and Cooking to win over ‘never news’ advertisers / The Drum
And Vice News Is Being Resuscitated With Fresh Ambitions / The Hollywood Reporter
Entertainments
In Praise Of Chick Lit / Vanity Fair
Related: ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ Is the Definitive Film of the Fashion Media Hellscape / The New Garde
Cause, like, actually? The Devil Wears Primark / The Guardian
More hellscaping: Trainspotting is being made into a musical / Trainspotting The Musical
Related: The Music Video Is Dead, Long Live the Music Video / YT
Hence: AMC Theatres and Arena One have announced a new partnership that will bring live concerts to movie theaters / Variety
From Celeste, The Hottest Trend In TV: Get Generations To Fight Each Other / BBC
Corollary to that: A conversation with Konrad Kay, co-creator of HBO’s Industry / Sprezza
Perfectly Imperfect: BJ Novak / PI.FYI
Also imperfect: Being Bad with the Bouzingos: The First and Naughtiest of the Bohemian Subcultures / Messy Nessy
Elsewhere: Colombian Drone Mafia Is Imagining New Futures for Ambient Music / Futurism Restated
On the subject of futures: My Internet: Sam Kriss The writer thinks giving up smartphones is completely doable / Embedded
Performative corollary: Douglas Gordon by Douglas Gordon. In a new biopic set entirely in his studio, the archetypal Berlin artist plays both subject and saboteur / Spike Art
Apropos: A 55-minute mix of Boards of Canada B-sides and rarities / YT
Fashionating
Yet Another Wasted Met Gala. The evening squandered an opportunity to really make the case for fashion as art / The Atlantic
Cause, like, The Met Gala Was All Money, No Soul / Back Row
To that end: The world is furious. Here’s what luxury should do about it. From Loewe’s joyful rebellion to Miu Miu’s sky-high escapism, the most culturally intelligent luxury brands are learning to read the emotional room / Jing Daily
Because: Price architecture = perception architecture. Paying the price / The Sociology of Business
Apropos: Meet the Retailers Succeeding by Ignoring the Internet / BoF
Not ignoring the internet: Is Demna bringing nu metal to Gucci? / GQ
Also ‘nu’: F1’s high fashion moment is just getting started / Jing Daily
More sportstyle: Meet the NFL’s First Fashion Editor / Vanity Fair
And the attendant Aesthetic Study: Blokecore / Cosmos
Dudebrollary: So You Want a Canadian Canadian Tuxedo? Every brand and artisan making jeans in Canada today / Nolan Daniel White
On the subject of Denim: Blowout pod goes deep on Mount Vernon MIlls acquisition of the illustrious White Oak Draper X3 looms and its plan to resurrect American selvedge for good / Spotify
Marketeering
The world belong to the yappers. How to yap, advanced influence and recreating relevance in the aggregate / Hyper
Corollary: A Fanthropologist Explains the Biggest Mistake Brands Make About Fandom / Yahoo
Mattel CEO: ‘Consumers are buying toys’: Ynon Kreiz said that the toy industry is healthy and the company is continuing to see demand / Retail Dive
Also seeing demand: The number of drinks sold by Anheuser-Busch increased last quarter for the first time in three years / CNBC
Not buying it: Sabalenka, Gauff Suggest Grand Slam Boycott Over Prize Money Share / Front Office Sports
The ‘Natural’ World
Another argument against living under a rock… Hear the one about the 500 meter tall tsunami … last year? /BBC
Since we’re immersing: What’s it like to be a pearl? Sci-fi documentarian Stephanie Comilang taps into the non-human mind on show at Frieze NY / FT
Corollary: A cement battery in a grain silo? What if a key to long-duration energy storage wasn’t a cutting-edge lithium cell, but a pellet of cement and a bit of water? / The Carbon Almanac
But, like, Could This Fish Be a Notebook? / Reasons to Be Cheerful
More waves: Passage to Perfection. Indonesian Diaries via Longboard Magazine Sep/Oct 2000 / East Coast Special
Indian mangoes are such a delicacy in the US that devotees are paying “lobster prices / WSJ
Elsewhere, at Meatstock, carnivores shared their beliefs about the benefits of an all-protein diet and got up close with their favorite meatfluencers / NYT
Corollary from Celeste: Inside The Booming Market For Dinosaur Fossils / Odd Lots
Also booming: The Cost of ‘Natural’ Womanhood. Hormone hype is out of control / The Atlantic
Also “natural”: I Got A Crystal Shoved Up My Ass At A Erykah Badu Concert & All I Got Was This Lousy Sweater / Badu World Market
Meantime, Wyoming Women Are Having the Best Sex in America / Playboy
[SIC] 396: Oscillation Obsfucation
Corollary Sources this week: Champion Weekly / Public Announcement / Marginal Revolution / As Seen On / TBPN / After School / Feed Me / Ben Evans / Off The Fence / Delightful / Semafor / The Future Party / Kottke / Gift Guide