All Caught Up: Boy Smells, Girl Beer, Pepsi Smart Can
La Leyenda Puchaina for Jacquemus
Happy Friday! That one Boy Smells post has gone viral this week and Christina and I both feel weird about it. Here’s why:
Let’s settle this now. Yes, this “works.”
But is this what we want for things to work?
What sat weirdly with me was the idea of this being a work-sanctioned Zoom. I probably wouldn’t have been cool with it as an employee (do we need to mine employees for content?) and when I was younger I’d have gone along with it and not said anything at all... IDK, there are various ways to share how this came to fruition that are fun, and maybe not this.
Friend of the ‘stack, Tasha Gideon felt similarly – ”I am peering into the faces of the employees and trying to divine what consent looked like. Unless everyone in that Zoom call has the same proximity to power, it's a real question.”
Some housekeeping before we dive in – no All Caught Up next week for the holiday and because BLANK is closed from 7/1-7/9!
This week's picks include unschooling, rawdogging flights and new Snapchat safety tools.
Christina’s weekly scroll –
Tracy Anderson… fragrance?
King Charles III wished Hello Kitty a happy (early) birthday in his speech at the Japanese State Banquet!!!!
Christina note: Her birthday is actually November 1st, so consider that next time you want to slander a beautiful Scorpio woman.
Snapchat is rolling out new safety tools to protect teens from sextortion.
Revolve acquires majority stake in Alexandre Vauthier.
MSCHF is playing Venmo(?) For $10, you can join the lottery-style Survivor game.
Nikita note: As a note, word on the street is that this is a rip of Crypto the Game . I do not know how Crypto the Game fully works, but I know a lot of Web3 friends and clients who were REALLY into it and were decrying this.
Hero Cosmetics taps global ambassador Alix Earle for new Mighty Patch™ Mini Invisible+ launch.
Who asked for Girl Beer? Girl Beer (formerly Hurray Beer) is a nod to “girl dinner/girl math" but doesn't quite… hit the mark (for me). First and foremost, girls cannot buy alcohol. Two, I hate that the trend of self-infantilization is now touching adult substances… When does it end?
The cost of living is not just hurting our bank accounts, but it's also changing the way we live and grow up.
“According to data published by the Financial Times in January, in the 1980s, almost half of 18-to-34-year-olds lived in a property they owned – with their children. Now, for around 40 percent of the same age group, the most common living arrangement is to have moved back in with their parents – that’s if they ever moved out at all.”
Amazon is taking on Shein and Temu with a new discount store. Yuck.
Stumbled upon Persil's “Wardrobe Refresh Hotline” on TikTok Live with... Christian Siriano?
Tunnel walk outfits have been a thing for a ~minute~ but the WNBA’s insane popularity this season has many brands (beauty, retailers, etc) wanting a slice of the pie. Hot take from Alex Hancock, graphic designer at BLANK:
“I’m pretty indifferent toward the Tunnel Pic Industrial Complex. It’s been interesting to watch the hypermasculine shift toward a more culturally feminine mode of fashion, but there are moments of lucidity where I realize that I’m essentially clapping for rich guys being able to afford Our Legacy.
That said, the increase in WNBA tunnel outfits this season has been a nightmarish experience of accounts 1. 95% posting conventionally beautiful and/or femme players—certified hegemony moment—and 2. the comments being full of guys with two kids and a wife in their profile picture saying “uppies.” Sports media is rancid across the entire ecosystem and this is a smaller doll inside of a larger, vexing Matryoshka created by the WNBA’s expanding coverage and more fans being brought in (through Cameron Brink, Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, etc.). But this particular phenomenon does feel uniquely reflective of the current moment’s flair for the absurd.”
Nikita’s weekly scroll –
Unsurprising but grim capitalism update – delivery drivers got higher wages, apps passed the ‘cost’ onto customers as a ‘regulatory fee,’ and now drivers aren’t getting enough orders.
Buzzfeed thinks selling Hot Ones will help them out of their debt mess. And they can’t seem to sell it for the listed price ($70M). Technically, they’re trying to sell off the entire First We Feast vertical, which makes $30M a year from licensing deals on Hot Ones.
Pepsi released a smart can which isn’t even a can for beverages on their quest to regain market share. No comment is enough of a comment here, I feel.
Forget homeschooling, unschooling is here. This is a dangerous and more chaotic Montessori(?) Listen, I as much as anyone am not a fan of what the government is doing to schooling (aka dismantling it! Public education is important for progress!!!! And also the leak of fundamentalism into schooling!!), but come on. The literacy rates are looking dire, anecdotes from teachers are not good and misinformation is everywhere. I am not a fan of this macro trend. And also the entire macro trend of wellness and spirituality into the right wing. Scary, scary times.
- reports that Gap is Gen Z’s most improved brand, thanks to collabs, the new creative and Zac Posen.
Collina Strada’s Baggu collaboration was designed using AI… it’s not selling because people are mad about the designer using AI to generate patterns. However, Collina Strada has been using AI in their design practice…
M.I.A has launched a clothing line to protect you from 5G. The poncho is pretty hot (not going to lie) but… lol.
Rivian, the EV brand that notoriously loses money on each car sold got a fresh round of funding from VW.
Whatever happened to Googling information to verify it? Oh yeah, Google went to the shitter. Supposedly, Gen Z relies on influencers and the comment section to vet information for them.
I am famously bored of tiresome gender discourse.
Rawdog flights or don’t. The commentary about treat culture in here is so asinine. There’s a longer tail essay here about weird gendered commentary, the backlash against women and LGBTQIA+ people, and us reinventing the wheel on regressive concepts but I do not have the patience or knowledge to write it.Girlhood is easy to sell, womanhood is a bitter pill to swallow
·Jacquemus went deep with this one. They dropped a TikTok promoting the Le Chiquito bag utilizing a FlopTok meme, La Leyenda Puchaina. The potaxies are pleased. But also… (1) proof of the fact that every team needs someone very online (hire me!) and (2) my longer-tail theory that everything online that works is stuff that’s niche and weird that gets blown up because the community you’re over-servicing is thrilled and drives conversation.
Paramount is not doing well. As a part of this, they’ve seemingly sunset a ton of digital properties like MTV News, Comedy Central, etc. Entire 20+ year archives of information just gone and I’m feeling very miserable about it. I hate that the Internet is not forever and that our access to information is stewarded by the suits. On a conspiratorial note, I feel that (1) this is not great and especially not helpful as Google search degrades and vetted information is harder to find and (2) maybe an attempt to take these sites out of consideration for training LLMs?
Nike made a zine. I WANT TO MAKE A ZINE.
Christina note: Can we make a zine?
˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚Little Treat Corner ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
Christina’s weekly report:
READING: Sooo many Slack messages…
EATING: An air-fried Hot Pocket. F*ck it.
PLAYING: MEGAN!!!
OBSESSING: OVER MEGAN!!!!!!! OTAKU HOT GIRL! 超いい女!
RECOMMENDING: Airfrying your Hot Pockets.
TREATING: Getting a mani this weekend. I’m thinking about a pink French set.
Nikita’s weekly report:
READING: Let’s not talk about it.
EATING: This dense bean salad. I made mine with blackened chicken thighs.
PLAYING: This FIFTEEN-hour-long playlist I lift to.
OBSESSING: I really want the mesh Alaia flats…
RECOMMENDING: Taking your dog for a long walk.
TREATING: Myself by taking some real time off.
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