All Caught Up: Caitlin Clark, AI flight attendants, the original content house
“Why would anyone want to read anything no one has bothered to write?”
A quote that’s echoed around in my head since I first saw it on LinkedIn (?), X (?) (questionable!) is “Why would anyone want to read anything no one has bothered to write?” It feels like sludge, in various forms, is everywhere. Matt Klein caught my attention earlier this week when he debunked the notion that 90% of content online will be synthetically generated by 2026.
Talking about the internet being full of sh*t isn’t new, by any means. There have been statistics passed around for years talking about how much of the internet is either purely explicit content, gore, or robots talking to robots. The thing is – there’s no way to be sure, and we fall for human-generated misinformation every single day. The robots are probably a little bit behind us.
One of the first things I ever posted on Substack is about the loss of trust in media systems and a post-truth society.
I came across this tweet this week – a claim that ‘a study’ was done on ChatGPT and terms it overuses; the words/phrases it repeats are due to the underpaid workers in developing nations that are used to train language models. I can’t seem to verify this (ChatGPT employing Kenyan workers for moderation is well documented, but not this notion), but in my experience, I have seen that ChatGPT uses tapestry, unlock and harness far too often.
Believe nothing, question everything. This is a maxim that seems to have captured most of our country when it comes to COVID-19 denialism, election fraud, etc – and yet a useful mindset to have when employing all-too-critical media literacy skills.
We leave you with this: who wants you to believe what and why? Who has the money and where is it going?
This week's picks include Amazon spies, video game adaptations and supervillain Carrie Bradshaw.
Christina’s weekly scroll –
The planet will now receive streaming royalties (see: donations to conservation + preservation efforts) when you listen to nature sounds on Spotify 🌊
noma kicked off their first-ever city tour this week in NYC!
Holly Madison described the Playboy Mansion as the original content house and I can’t stop thinking about how true that is… Pre-social media, we had pretty limited access to the insane shit people were doing; all we had was E! and The Girls Next Door.
A couple of weeks ago we talked about Erewhon smoothies being a part of the new press tour… Looks like maman wants in on this new rollout strategy, collaborating with Grammy winner Laufey on a limited-edition Lavender Latte. Cute! Fun! Probably delicious!
Nikita note: Alfred is the OG in this strategy and what they charge for a collab is… a down payment.
Emma Roberts’ whimsical AD tour dropped this week and consists of the best things: a massive doll collection (including the Blythe doll Evan Peters commissioned for her), Danny Mud Kewpie cups (which I pre-ordered) and a shrine to Joni Mitchell (relatable). The home is like a womb!!!
D.A.R.E. is back and Channel 5 got a 1:1 interview with the President & CEO of D.A.R.E. America, Francisco Pegueros (ex-LAPD). Mandatory viewing!
Marvel Studios is quaking: video game adaptions are primed to overtake comic book IPs. I think video game adaptations are succeeding largely due to their open-world (pun intended) nature; there’s a lot of creative 〰️wiggle room〰️ vs. comic book adaptations which are (mostly) limited by pre-written storylines… Also!!! Superhero fatigue is real. The market has been incredibly oversaturated in recent years and plots are getting harder and harder to maintain tbh!
Inside Retail asked, “What’s behind the slew of beauty brands exploring an IPO or sale?” I’m here to tell you that everyone dreams of an exit. Hope that helps <3
A24 released a set of AI promotional posters for Civil War (from writer-director Alex Garland) this week... Now they’re getting serious heat for grossly misrepresenting the movie.
Nikita’s weekly scroll –
Since we’re on an AI beat, I found
‘s dive into the AI Flight Attendants of Facebook interesting. In the last few weeks on X, I’ve seen tons of screenshots of people upset at their parent’s entire feed being AI-generated images… More to come, I guess. Feels part of a larger trend of… if we can’t talk to one another and we can’t engage with most content, do we turn to synthetic trash and AI dating avatars?And while we’re here, TikTok might enable brands to generate AI avatars to pitch products. Just as the whole ‘hire a TikTok’er to run your brand page’ thing was taking off, I guess.
It feels like the tide is finally turning! In pretty much every single sportswear brand project I’ve worked on in the past decade, a big part of the strategy has focused on (1) taking the female athlete seriously and (2) amplifying the commercial viability of these athletes.
Seeing some cultural momentum at work – Prada dressed Caitlin Clark! Glossier is as always leading the charge, having debuted their WNBA partnership almost 3 years ago. Plus, Angel Reese had 17 sponsorship/brand deals last season.
Record women’s NCAA championship viewership! Now let’s have the money follow the attention, please. It’s crazy that Caitlin will make what a mid-level marketing manager can make… after 4 years. An NBA men’s rookie receives an eight-figure contract. There is so much possibility here for fashion and beauty brands to court these athletes and do some killer work. Call me.
If you haven’t seen him yet, you will soon. GQ wrote a piece on Davis Clarke, the most locked-in man on the internet. Part corporate parody, partially 100% serious. The power of a bit. But also maybe the guru of our generation.
I wonder how people who get famous on a bit (or just a viral moment) like that can make it a long-term play… Or if they’d even really want to?Stage four: the sign bears no relation to any reality whatsoever… Disney+’s big reboot involves… Channels… ok.
These perfume vessels are wild! h/t
for putting these on my radar:
A lot of digital ink has been spilled on loneliness and the loneliness crisis. I like how Toby Shorin is breaking down the players involved in the loneliness crisis and the potential to rethink the language we’re using around loneliness.
The people love to hate Carrie Bradshaw.
Christina note: lmaooo… what
said.A history of taste. Let’s go.
Amazon made fake brands on Shopify to understand how Shopify works.
If your Instagram engagement lately has been cooked (I mean, I saw a huge brand get 73 likes on a giveaway recently), fear not – Palmsy is here.
“The free app — which works on both iPhone and iPad — essentially reads your contact list to assign pretend likes to posts. While the app is reading your contact details, because all posts are local, contact information is not sent to a server.”
No thanks!!!!!!! Christina shared a TikTok breaking down Palmsy and the creator nailed it: “People are not looking for realness. They’re looking for validation and significance.”
rightfully pointed out that this is why AITA is the top subreddit time and time again. Is Palmsy the Light Phone of social media or just another cursed invention?
˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚Little Treat Corner ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
Christina’s weekly report:
READING:
for Bananas Foster Tiramisu 🍌EATING: Sundae Flowers Mochi Gummies 💐 which you can now order online!
PLAYING: Pokémon GO… albeit the hideous avatar changes. Niantic really needs some help.
OBSESSING: #regirocktok
RECOMMENDING: Learning a new language is fun. Add me on Duolingo so we can do friend quests!
TREATING: NEW MANI JUST DROPPED!!!
Nikita’s weekly report:
READING: Honestly! All my reading this week has been research for a forthcoming fashion eComm project 🙂
EATING: THIS PEANUT BUTTER IS SO GOOD (to me)
PLAYING: Club Shy (Extended)
OBSESSING: Ghia ginger spritz 🫚
RECOMMENDING: Sign up for the latest drop from FIRST.
TREATING: Christina and I are on the same manicure cycle lol… so same!!
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Learned a lot :-)
Ah, was chatting about ChatGPT's overuse of the word tapestry lately as well! It's going to become a big red flag of a word, isn't it?!