Good morning! Did you miss us over the last month? We missed you!
The cultural temperature right now is anger.
You can see it everywhere if you’re paying attention, which unfortunately most of us here are.
Sydney Sweeney, who represents the ‘traditional American’ vision of beauty was at the center of a firestorm this week when her American Eagle remake of an iconic (and creepy) CK campaign became the discourse of the week. The content was just provocative enough to create discourse on both sides: the right wing seeing it as patriotic affirmation and the left seeing it as confirmation of the rising fascist temperature around us.
I’m not going to spend longer on this than that. Here’s a take from the former Head of Social Media at American Eagle.
The tactic is anger. Make something divisive enough to force discourse; bonus if it’s visual and easily memes. Watch it go viral, issue a vague statement. You do not need to ‘stand’ for something, you have to spark something, and what algorithms traffic in fastest is rage. In a healthy cultural moment, anger might be one signal among many; something that rises, gets metabolized, and leads to action. But now, the anger is a doom loop. Something is said, everyone is mad, a few people short a stock, then it disappears.
We’re living inside a cycle. Official government accounts are rage-baiting; brands are quick to make you feel stupid. Attention is scarce but anger is abundant.
I’ve been reading the Empire of the Elite this past week and the empire Condé built in the 80s and 90s felt like this same landscape of excess, anger, and high-low cultural sensibility. This discourse cycle collapses complexity: it removes room for contradiction, confusion, context. And when everything is designed to provoke a reaction, thinking becomes a liability.
So yes, this isn’t the first time that rage and spectacle are the cultural currency. I’d argue they kind of always have been, it’s just the mediums that have changed. Condé’s own empire was a form of high-gloss antagonism; provocative covers, cutting headlines, a worldview that made elitism feel like high-taste. Today we don’t need the glossies to provoke us. Everyone is a media company of one; we have feeds to fill, an audience to maintain, a reaction to incite. The same mechanics are at play: heat, spectacle, polarization but without editors and pause. Rage scales faster when there is no one to slow it down. And can you blame people for leaning into provocation? When attention is the only real currency left, outrage is just efficient.
But what happens when that becomes our baseline? What happens when every campaign, every article, every launch is just a new prompt for polarization? At some point, the outrage economy becomes predictable, cynical, played out.
What does it mean to build, to write, to design, to lead, when the dominant tone is fury? Who does it serve? What does it replace? And how do you not get pulled into the gravity of it all? Not everything needs to be a fight. But that’s not a very shareable take.
This is why I always disagree when people say marketing cannot change the cultural temperature. It is always a mirror of the accepted cultural temperature.
If commerce and consumption are religion, advertising is our scripture. If we see five figures worth of ads a day, it’s only responsible for us as practitioners to be 10% better with each incremental message. I know what it’s like to be in those rooms. I feel for you. Just know each and every campaign will not be able to be the change — but if you can just be better than last time, you will have momentum.
Some housekeeping…
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This week's picks include TikTok detectives, illusions of intellect and gendered CPG.
Christina’s weekly scroll—
THIS is how you use your platform! TELFAR transformed their NYC storefront in solidarity with labor leader Chris Smalls.
Technology is altering our capacity to concentrate, read and reason. As a result, thinking is becoming a luxury good — breeding surface-level illusions of intellect (
waxes poetic about this). Scary stuff here!People are spending $6.3 TRILLION a year on wellness products and nearly 1/3 of that comes from the United States alone, which spends more than the next five countries combined… Insane breakdown of social media’s billion-dollar remedies.
Abercrombie slam dunk.
You’ve heard of Run Clubs and Supper Clubs… Enter: Scream Clubs.
PARTYNEXTDOOR x Fortnite… I’M LMAO!!!! Please read the comments!!!
Big year for Hideo Kojima. First GQ, now SSENSE. Gaming is culture. Period!
TOGETHER and OurRitual partnering is the A24 effect. Lol.
TikTok detectives (no, like actual PIs) truly embody our current private surveillance and social media hellscape.
I looooveeeee when King Kylie makes an appearance.
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Nikita’s weekly scroll—
No notes, this just made me laugh. In general, though, I have to say I love how people on the #internet at large are like, “someone buying a $12 FroYo is a recession indicator.”
Outdoor Voices is back. Controversial, but I say let it be where it always was. I don’t know if you can capture that perfect storm of lightning-in-a-bottle forces ever again, and if they can compete on aesthetic alone when Amazon dupes are spun up in the blink of an eye. And then there’s this.
My only thought on the Skims face wrap is that it looks like it would feel really good on your head when you have a migraine. Viral products are hypersensorial (as I’ve mentioned before), but they’re also engineered to be outrageous and attention-grabbing. Just saying. As
put it, someone’s lying about not buying Skims.
No but really imagine the compression... The IRS is hiring!
Maybe the GLP-1 phenomenon is slowing down. Novo Nordisk cut their full year guidance. The Q3 results across the board are going to be a blood bath and I am scared for people’s jobs.
CNN has finally seemingly caught onto the Doën aesthetic.
If the IB vest set thought they were safe from AI they can join us in the trenches…an AI native investment bank is here.
The infamous Mary Kay pink Cadillac is now available in an EV version. Lol.
This week in the world is boiling hot, we’re building stadiums to protect players and fans from extreme heat.
This week in water is wet and we want an M&A news: Rare Beauty is launching an EDP. The trajectory of launching and selling a beauty brand these days is this: launch with an iconic, viral product, expand into adjacent categories, and then land at fragrance.
If Chloe Gordon is covering something, I’m paying attention. This week she took on gendered CPG.
LVMH has not had an easy go of it of late. Personally, I think it’s time for a luxury market correction. The brands think we are idiots. They’re also trying to sell off Marc Jacobs. I think Marc Jacobs needs another tenure at a major house. He still has the juice.
I lied, I wasn’t done: American Eagle attempts Regressive Nostalgia. Another nugget of genius from Anu!
˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ Little Treat Corner ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
Christina’s weekly report:
READING:
EATING: Egg salad.
PLAYING: Catch-up with AJLT. Charlotte’s birthday party episode is hands down the best of the season.
OBSESSING: Over several creative projects in the works! Including…
RECOMMENDING: Just finished Too Much. Watch it if you haven’t!
TREATING: ARRIVING TODAY!!!
Nikita’s weekly report:
READING: Empire of the Elite
EATING: So much food at my parent’s restaurants. Go! Amara and Rasa.
PLAYING: Does touching grass count as playing?
OBSESSING: Over being reunited with my dog.
RECOMMENDING: Whatever this is
TREATING: 32oz of icy water in my Hydroflask.
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brb gonna sign up for a scream club. 😱
Just a note of praise - I’m more cautious of where I put my money due to our world right now….*waves hand around* however, I would absolutely pay for a Substack subscription for this newsletter. So informative and fun, I feel like I’m actually just getting the news and interesting topics to think on. Cuts thru a lot of junk and noise we have to deal with in today’s times. I’m appreciative!