The Weekly Roundup (Week of 6.24)

Apologies for the two-week hiatus... but we're back!

1. Social Media Broke Slang. Now We All Speak Phone.

An obvious, but important point about how slang has picked up and spread through the internet. Gone are the days when slang was confined to specific subcultures or geographies. I remember when I was growing up in LA, Santa Monica kids had a specific way of saying cigarettes, and if you went a few miles east those kids had a way of saying it too… We’re all starting to sound, talk, and think the same with the global interconnectedness of the web and the atomization of modern societies. Read here.

2. Jonathan Anderson Reaffirms Radical Silhouettes Through Opulence for LOEWE SS25

My favorite show of the week, aside from Kartik Research. The beauty of the collection comes from its pure focus on creating interesting shapes, playing with volume and texture, and inserting novelty into simplicity. It wasn’t a big fancy runway show with performers or other theatrics, it was a display of creative excellence in what everyone at Paris Fashion Week should expect from a great house. Bravo Loewe. Peep all the looks here.

3. Why Men are Rawdogging Flights

This has to be one of the more hilarious and lighthearted trends I’ve seen pop up in a bit. The amount of coverage it’s getting by the press is also funny to me but that’s a separate topic. I recently had the opportunity to Rawdog a flight last night and I can honestly say it was a pleasant experience, one in which I got the opportunity to reflect and be alone with my thoughts. Though it’s functionally a pointless challenge to yourself, the act of Rawdogging a flight sends one into a forced meditative state. You are sitting there alone, with no phone, no headphones, no TV except for the screen in front of you (the journey map is ok). Just you and your thoughts. “I’m gonna Rawdog this shit…” I muttered to myself as the person sitting next to me looked at me in abject confusion and seeming concern as I stared into a welcome screen with a QR code for over an hour and a half. Thankfully I also had a window seat to keep me entertained, and though I was tempted to document the experience and type down some notes on my phone, I knew deep down it wasn’t a pure Rawdog experience to do so. I sat there for over an hour and a half and thought about all of the things that were bothering me. That I was happy, concerned, anxious, and excited about. I thought about an embarrassing time in college when I rear-ended someone and caused a chain-reaction collision where two more people in front of them got hit. I thought about what I was going to wear the next day or what I was gonna do for the 4th of July. But for a few brief blissful moments, I thought about absolutely nothing at all…

4. Can Democrats Replace Biden? As Long as He’s in the Race, the Answer Is No.

Yeah, we’re all gonna need a basic debrief on the legality and process of replacing Biden. Here’s a good summary from the NYT.