The Weekly Roundup (week of 12.18)
as the year comes to an end we reflect on what's important...
1. Nobody Knows What’s Happening Online Anymore
A really good article that builds on the ideas presented in an older article I linked to before about the “evaporating” web. The basic idea, if I had to sum it up in one sentence: people are going deeper and deeper into their own tailored algorithms, and “viral” doesn’t mean the same thing it once did. Rarely are there truly viral moments that everyone sees. And if there’s one thing people love to do, it’s to create moral panics and arbitrarily set the definition of “viral” for political gain. “Netflix’s single most popular anything from January and June 2023 was a recent thriller series called The Night Agent, which was streamed for 812 million hours globally.” What the fuck is The Night Agent???? It poses really interesting questions for brands as they think about their marketing. More importantly, I think it’s honestly a good thing for fashion and the globalization of niche trends that I prefer would stay niche. Read here. Use removepaywall.com if you don’t have a subscription.
2. Do we really need more clothes in the world?
Another profound banger from Blackbird Spyplane.
“The question of whether the world “needs” more clothes has a lot in common with a question you hear people ask, typically in a climate context, about whether the world “needs” more people. We see this dramatized hokily in, e.g., the Avengers movies, where the villain is an overpopulation zealot. And we see it dramatized more complexly in, e.g., Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, where Ethan Hawke’s protagonist obsesses over a climate-activist’s anguish about bringing a child into this world and whether “God will forgive us for what we’ve done to His creation.” The ‘drip anti-natalist’ line of inquiry goes something like, Is it right to bring a new jawn into this world??”
3. How Luke Fracher Went From
Selling Pot to High-End Vintage
Co-founder of Round 2 and the man behind the newly launched Luke’s NYC sits down with Chris Black of How Long Gone for a fun little interview. Read here.
4. Has Balenciaga lost its luster?
Still, the third-quarter report for Kering, the conglomerate that owns Balenciaga, said that sales of “Other Luxury,” which includes Balenciaga, were down 15 percent.
And online, where the brand has always been viewed with a sneering skepticism that Demna was a cynic pulling the wool over shoppers’ eyes, the criticism has only sharpened.
“Someone could just completely change the way that we dress, and the vehicle that they have created can surpass them if they don’t continue innovating themselves,” said Alexandra Hildreth, a fashion commentator who discusses runway shows and trends on TikTok (@guyfieri.superfan). “I don’t know if he’s making an effective enough statement for it to be interpreted as seriousness, as opposed to irony.”