WELCOME TO THE·BY·PRODUCT. A WEEKLY RECAP OF WHAT IS GOING DOWN & WHAT IS COMING UP ON THE INTERNET. PUSHING OUT ON A TUESDAY SINCE I SPENT THE WEEKEND ON CAYMAN ISLAND SOAKING IN THE SUN, HOT TUBS, AND THE OCEAN. GOING PLACES CAN CHANGE YOU IN SO MANY WAYS.
“THERE IS A REASON WE ARE DRAWN TO GAZING AT THE OCEAN. IT IS SAID THE OCEAN PROVIDES A CLOSER REFLECTION OF WHO WE ARE THAN ANY MIRROR.” — RICK RUBIN
I HAVE RECOMMENDED MR. RUBIN’S BOOK HERE IN THE NEWSLETTER, AND I AM DOING IT AGAIN. READING HIS WISDOM IN A PLACE LIKE CAYMAN FELT LIKE THE MOST PERFECT TIME AND PLACE. HEARING THE SOUNDS OF THE OCEAN, SEA BIRDS IN THE DISTANCE, THE LOW UNDERCURRENT OF HUMANS ONLY AMPLIFIES THE PATH THAT RICK LAYS OUT WITH HIS WORDS.
SOMETIMES DISENGAGING IS THE BEST WAY TO ENGAGE. LOOK, LISTEN, AND LEARN FROM THE LINKS BELOW. AND IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU LIKE PLEASE DO SHARE.
THIS WEEK’S HOT TAKE
LEARN TO LISTEN. YOU WILL GROW AS A PERSON.
IS THAT TRUE?
Dakota Fink didn’t mean to spread a lie. Honestly, she didn’t.
It was May 2021 and the 23-year-old LA-based model was wearing a face mask. “I was thinking I needed to be more involved with TikTok,” she says. So she decided to record a video as a joke: She’d pull off the flesh-coloured face mask on camera, and subtitle it with a claim that women had to peel layers of their skin off after their period. So why does everyone believe everything they watch on TikTok? / Via Vice
PREP ADJACENT
It can be difficult to tell what’s actually “trending” in fashion and style at any given moment, but if there’s one look that feels truly, compellingly dominant, it’s prep.
There’s a preoccupation, even an obsession, with distilling quality and wealth and heritage. Women are talking about “classics” and what rich people “actually” wear and stealth wealth; they’re showing off Hermès cashmere suits and logo-free bags, and telling their followers that the key to getting a rich husband is reading Paul Fussell’s 1983 book, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System. / Via Harper’s Bazaar
DAS BOOT
MSCHF Sneakers, the footwear-minded sub-label of Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF, doesn't always create sneakers. Sure, plenty of its most popular creations appear to have fairly conventional shapes at first blush but are taken to new heights by ingenious tooling.
But then there's the really wild stuff that pushes the boundaries of MSCHF Sneakers' entire oeuvre — if not the entirely definition of the word "sneakers — MSCHF's big, red Astro Boy-indebted boots are the latest and greatest example. / Via Highsnobiety
ONE DAY
Just when you thought all the trend reports for 2023 were written, Day One Agency drop’s their cleverly titled “Predictionary”. Linked directly to the PDF here, check out some insightful thoughts, predicions, and explanations for the year ahead. / Via [SIC]
WHISPERS OF INTELLIGENCE
As James Somers writes, “I downloaded a program called Whisper.cpp onto my laptop, hoping to use it to transcribe an interview I’d done. I fed it an audio file and, every few seconds, it produced one or two lines of eerily accurate transcript, writing down exactly what had been said with a precision I’d never seen before. As the lines piled up, I could feel my computer getting hotter. This was one of the few times in recent memory that my laptop had actually computed something complicated—mostly I just use it to browse the Web, watch TV, and write. Now it was running cutting-edge A.I.” / Via New Yorker
SET IN MOTION
Runway, the generative AI startup that co-created last year’s breakout text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, has released an AI model that can transform existing videos into new ones by applying any style specified by a text prompt or reference image.
“We’re really close to having full feature films being generated,” he says. “We’re close to a place where most of the content you’ll see online will be generated.” / Via MIT Tech Review
ON THE ROAD
One of the more remarkable things about being behind the wheel of a tour bus for Pavement is that you can easily kill Pavement if you want to. I bring this up with their driver, Jason, who responds only by smiling at me while driving at a professionally breakneck speed on the interstate somewhere between Saint Paul and Chicago at 4 A.M. as every one of the six members of the beloved nineties band lies asleep in their bunks in the cabin behind us. To my left, Jason’s freshly filled coffee mug—personalized to read LORDY LORDY, LOOK WHO’S FORTY above a beaming middle school graduation photo—jangles in its cup holder. Follow the tour diaries as if you were on the buss yourself. / Via The Paris Review
PAID ATTENTION
Last week, Digiday reported that several publishers’ direct-sold advertising businesses were experiencing a slow start to 2023, with their first quarter ad revenues pacing as much as 10-25% behind forecasts. But the programmatic side of the business isn’t necessarily in a better place.
While publishers’ sales teams are busy tracking down clients to get them into sales meetings, the programmatic open marketplace is in a tough spot also. Three mid-size to large-size national publishers told Digiday that their RPMs (revenue earned per 1,000 page views) are down between 20-55%, while two other publishers agreed that they’re seeing declines as well in this business, but refused to disclose the exact percentage. / Via Digiday
JUST THET FACTS
The future of marketing is people.
A) It is about understanding people as people and not just as consumers, customers, members, and users.
B) It is about getting people to advocate for a brand to other people.
C) It is about upgrading the status of marketing people and upgrading marketing people.
/ Via Rishad
WONDERLUST
Finally, the glory of Google Street View that never fails to delight. Neal makes fun things, and this is one of them. Go somewhere else for a few minutes today, somewhere surprising, somewhere delightful, some were weird. / Via Neal Fun