carolyn bessette labubu dubai kennedy
How a lack of (cultural) imagination is making the world much more homogenized and trend reporting with one of my favorite LA painters.
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🦿HIP REPLACEMENT🦿 featured LinkedIn queen and Silence, Brand! mama Dayna ⚡ Castillo who joined Ben Dietz and I to talk the war of fast food CEOs against each other and their products, the Staples baddie, and who is doing social right: listen on Substack, YouTube, and Spotify!
Trump’s War With Iran
How long can Iran continue the war?
Trump’s and Hegseth’s awkward comments
The Constitution’s inability to limit war powers
Military Commander: Bombing ‘Part Of God’s Divine Plan’
The war is…obviously bad! And the religious nationalism implications? Insanity! What is our coughing baby resistance party doing about this? “Like I said, some people will die,” will go down in history, underlined by continued job slippage, validating my — and other’s — theory that this is the modern draft.
Claude central to U.S. campaign in Iran
Does this mean Claude killed the school girls? Probably, which further reiterates how AI shit is directly tied to war machines. We non-users will be blessed for our non-using!
Sánchez emerges as chief EU critic of Trump
Why is Sánchez the only EU leader to take on Trump?
The Spain-versus-US thing has been very interesting — and good! Glad to know someone has a spine. But, again: this is another expression of politics. While I don’t not think Sánchez believes this, this is a do-or-die moment for him after years of saying similar things without action. You also have to consider he is deep in election season, thus casting him as a Gavin Newsom style mover who is speaking a specific appealing language to undo his issues. Stay tuned, as this is a test of if such politicking can turn an election around — which is also why Macron is getting on board.
What to Know About Nepal’s Gen Z Election
Is Nepal’s ex-rapper mayor to be PM?
The Nepal elections are a big story to watch as it offers the answer (or direction) of where post-Gen Z revolt sites head. It appears we’ll have an ex-rapper Millennial leader soon! Hmm. Sounds familiar!
Talarico defeats Crockett in Texas
Key takeaways from Texas primaries
A huge win for leftists entering the political conversation, as we saw yet again that the “old” way of doing politics in the modern political landscape just isn’t connecting. Keep! It! Up! (And in more good news: bye bye, Kristi Noem!)
Court declines copyrights for AI material
Meaning: the court sided with human authorship, that AI shit isn’t “an author” of anything. This is big, but likely lost in the mess (and likely to continue on in courts).
Americans Likely To View Citizens as Morally Bad
This went very viral on Twitter and extends another Pew finding: our looking at each other as “bad” is not great, in that it’s not something to revel in but to fix, to rebuild trust. No one else can do that for us but us! This is the context for our dehumanizing now since we’ve stopped seeing each other as on the same level, as capable of change or difference: we can all learn from Canada, where everyone is seen as your friend. The rest of the findings about things like homosexuality and divorce are fascinating too. (Think this is just a thing by-the-right? Think again: “Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party are much more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to rate fellow Americans as morally and ethically bad.” So much for being open minded!)
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There was this thing that always happened in Los Angeles that drove me crazy: the belief that the only acceptable public transportation was the train. Not because trains were available but because — to many, especially transplants and especially post-New Yorkers —trains are the only acceptable form of public transit. Meanwhile, buses rule LA, are more easy to deploy, and generally can move faster than trains if enough pressure is applied to make room for them. But do any of these people take the bus? No. They await trains, indulging a simple fantasy that LA will somehow become NYC instead of becoming even more LA: a lack of imagination by the smartest minds means the city’s public transportation is forced to play a game of respectability politics given that only “poor people” take the bus. I would get this all the time too, as I biked and walked and bused citywide for 90% of travel in my fifteen years there, showing up to jobs in 2012 like in 2022 with people asking “You biked/bused/walked?” with a grimace suggesting my insanity despite the boiling planet. I would tell them how easy it was, that they too should drive less, that they should try it. The response was always the same: “I would, if I could take the train.” To this, I longed to scream “There’s not going to be a swimming pool, you stupid slut.” but instead said something to the effect of “Well, the bus exists today.” and moved on with it.
This is a great example of a very modern problem, one that you know and I know and that you and I both participate in: we fall into the funnel of the dull (The dunnel?) where we have access to every possibility imaginable but only opt for the obvious, for the same, for the thing that everyone knows. We go for the reference, the easy button, the thing that requires no extra thought. This thinking has stained the 2020s as far as consumer culture, in that the matcha/Labubu/Dubai chocolate/Stanley Cup/Letterboxd/Trader Joe’s/A24-ification of it all means everyone falls in line to get the same thing everyone else has, eschewing the advice of our mothers to not jump off the bridge if everyone else did it. Instead, we willingly — And excitedly! — jump head first into the consumer ravine less of conformity and more out of a lazy lack of creativity: veneers and boy bangs, Margot Robbie’s airport fit but also CBK and JFK and 1990s things, all multiplied by the great normalizer that is Uniqlo. These aesthetics get into our bodies, producing the same puffy faces and same slim bodies, whitewashing whatever it can. Our points of reference become the same, where any vérité style shot or corporate reference or general lived experience is likened to The Office as any school or aged site or vaguely “magical” something is now “Harry Potter vibes.” “I was wearing a red wig the other day and somebody goes ‘Very red wig vibes.,’” the prophetess Delta Work explained in 2024, speaking on how the word “vibes” is literally suggestive of an aura, of similarities. But such an if-this-then-that sensibility has been lost: the reference is the object now, no labor or thought done to grab for a simile or metaphor or greater imagination in beholding anything. “‘It’s giving green couch,’” Delta continued, pointing at the green couch before her. “No, it’s a fucking green couch. It’s not giving anything.”
The fault of this is twofold, our two-much-stuff glut clogging meaning as our ability to make meaning is blinded by the same affiliate linked consumerist pathways. Together it makes something we could call “consumer brain rot,” as JD Shadel of anxiety.eco shared earlier this week in a chat we were having, “‘I see that and must have that look.’” they theorized. It’s getting worse too, not because you or any person is getting worse but that the media system too — which is driven by people of similar boxed-in circumstances — have lost the ability to describe or present information without making it a reference, a character, something that is not genuinely itself but a costume, a performance as if not to not to stress your imagination or theirs: all of life a dumbing down, everyone Netflix actors telling you what they’re doing. The White House likens war to video games of war. Fashion brands like Matières Fécales critique capitalists by parading capitalists, Tom Ford critiquing American Psycho archetypes with American Psycho archetypes. There’s the film (and fashion) industry’s “method dressing,” where an actor needs to be a character needs to be the actor, doppelgangers of brands to sell the idea of a performance as much as the performance itself. The AI of it all, everyone seeking novel information and experiences only to be rewarded with the same answers, the same voice, the same references, the same recommendations: everyone is sent down the same porcelain pee hole to more of the same, the same, the same. Little lambs, docile and content, placed under a hydraulic press as they are told again and again how unique they really are. “Everything shrinks,” Zadie Smith observed of a similar feeling — in 2010.
The future we’re walking into isn’t a utopia of novel ideas and breathtaking breakthroughs but recycled ideas that didn’t age well, adaptations of old sci-fi that wasn’t a manual for the uncreative to aspire to copy but were once novel, revolutionary. This is an era of anti-inspiration, of turning life from an essay prompt into multiple choice. It “doesn’t matter” that we’ve stumbled into the Hans Eijkelboom trap of everyone looking the same (Lazy and boring? Sure. Unique and uninteresting? Yes, but also a timeless truism of life under capitalism.), but does get frustrating and complicated when we can’t think or dream or hope for anything bigger than our references, than what the copy machine spits out. Think inside the box, draw inside the lines: walk the same path, come to the same conclusions. The “in a world full of” meme is having a moment not because people are standing out due to difference but because it’s funnier to acknowledge your indifference as a quirk instead of fault.
We are human, we are imperfect, and our sliding down the same slide is proof of that. The salve is something we experienced in the 2010s that is strangely becoming alien: investing in difference, in imperfection. When we speak about brands showing proof-of-work and human hands or people being increasingly interested in craft or the rise of vintage clothing, this is about seeking the unbalanced, to fall out of line, following gestures that aren’t so choreographed. Stories like the human-animal hybrid that are therians and the appeal of someone like Alysa Liu or even Heated Rivalry are just as much about their oddity as they are about being out of the mold. The pendulum will swing again, where others will be fetishized as they/we were in the 2010s: that is more right than wrong as it indulges endless possibility versus everyone walking down the same line over and over and over again. Our differences are only contained by our imaginations, which are surprisingly on GLP-1s too.
“decided to double down”
“She lost massively”
Tarot influencer must pay $10M to professor
Not enough people talked about this, but this is a huge deal: a TikTok tarot influencer repeatedly — and despite cease and desist notices — kept tying a very localized college-adjacent murder case in Idaho to a college professor for no reason, despite a murderer being caught. This is a reminder that the shit you post online sometimes actually legitimately matters a lot.
Can looking at this painting slow dementia?
Can exercise offset the risks of alcohol?
Get a Dog, Live Longer?
The economy of advice to help dodge the bullets of living life are in overdrive these days, no? I do get the need to, say, log off for your brain and to get up for your desk but I’m also so tired of this shit as much of it speaks to how we’ve forgotten how to be normal. You know this line of thought is also popping when my offline Barcelona pilates teacher has become obsessed with doing squats to deter dementia (Okay, RFK.). This shit feels like the new protein.
McDonald’s, Burger King beef over CEO’s video
“we’re forcing the CEOs to perform”
It’s not just McDonald’s and Burger King but also Wendy’s and KFC and A&W and Gold Star (?) and Freddy’s (??). Another me would have written about how this saga paired with people like Vanessa Friedman having to tiny mic up shows how no one — Not even executives! — can escape having to do this always-on social bullshit unpaid labour…but I actually wrote about this two times in the past few months already.
Netflix Acquires AI Start-Up by Ben Affleck
Charlie Puth ‘chief music officer’ of AI platform
And people continue to blame writers and the writers strike for the fall of Hollywood. Ben…Charlie: if I see you, I will fart on you. That goes for you too, Associated “AI” Press!!
LGBTQ+ Identification Holds at 9% in U.S.
Gen Z males: wives should obey husbands
Queer identification went down .3%, which we can probably attribute to some of y’all walking back your they/them cards — or is it that some have quit to become trad wives? I would not be surprised, as these stories seem to be in different rooms of the same house.
“I haven’t scared anybody”
In case you were wondering what the ginger queer screaming video person’s backstory was, here it is!!
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Welcome to a new bi-weekly interview series called Trend Reporting With™, where I chat with a friend, someone I admire, and general person-of-interest about the trends that they’re seeing and are interested in. Consider these journeys into the minds of trendsetters and tastemakers.
I met Andy Dixon randomly — technically on accident — as I was seated next to him at a dinner at a gallery in LA years ago. Him, his partner Liz, my partner Bobby Aaron Solomon, a few others, and I were clustered at the end of a table, chatting about the city’s art scene and how we fit into it. Andy’s involvement was obvious as he was an artist who worked with the gallery. I was there because I was covering a specific artist for my work with Playboy at the time. His partner Liz looked at me funny and said that we knew each other. Did we? She explained she was a tattoo artist, that I had interviewed her — and it clicked: she was one of the queer tattoo artists I had written about for a feature defining the subgenre of LGBTQ+ artists. It was a wild small world moment, one that spoke to the random kismet that happens from being out and about in LA, or any city: you do enough and are social enough and your circles will overlap with people you’d love.
And that’s exactly it, which is how I came to know Andy — and get several tattoos from Liz — whose work is a collapsing of art history into hyper-colored analysis not only of form but of the fixations of art patrons, art lovers, and art itself. This has yielded meditations on masterpieces and paintings of his paintings in the homes of people who love paintings, all of which has been tapped by brands like Versace via activations and collections that put his visual language in motion. It’s really lovely stuff, work that overflows with color and life and that very much matches the maximalist now: his is a style that puts our more, more, more desires to taste every taste and own every object in focus, lifting up its pros and cons so we may realize that there are two sides to such indulgences.
In my recent trip to LA, I was able to spend some time with Andy and Liz where we bemoaned these being the best of times and the worst of times, that there are so many exciting things happening amidst the absolute worst things happening. An item — or trend — we discussed, that I went on to write about, is how the arts and creative industries from film to music to fashion to paintings are struggling because of their precarious relationship to tech, that so many channels all the way to individual artists have allowed tech bros to write them checks until there’s no there there anymore. It’s frustrating! And a sign of the times, which creative like he and you and I are working through.
This is why I wanted to talk to Andy about his thoughts on ~trends~, to understand what he’s seeing and what he’s enjoying and what he’s over. To kick off this new series — while hyping his participation in Opera Gallery’s “Dreaming In Colour” show in London — we chatted over email about how he’s taking on this moment. This is Trend Reporting With™: Andy Dixon. Come for the big art trend analysis, stay for lusty television praises. Enjoy!
Tell me about a trend you’re following that you’re really into.
Let me preface this by saying current trends are generally not aligned with my tastes right now. We seem to be in a kind of rock n roll, drab, serious, gritty moment culturally and I like colour, dandyism, lightness, irony, and humour. With that said, I love how everything in LA has passionfruit and guava in it right now. Passionfruit pie, guava cocktails. It definitely ties into the juicy tropical aesthetic of my work. I’ve been sampling a lot of vintage Hawaiian prints lately.
What are your thoughts on trends-in-art?
On one hand, I don’t like the idea of an artist chasing a trend but on the other I like the idea of the collective consciousness moving us together. My work is all about culture and the performance of taste and my favourite artists have that drag queen-esque lightning rod for culture thing.
What I’m excited about is this feeling of artists finally feeling fed up with safety. The market hasn’t been great for a few years and during these kinds of times, an artist’s initial instinct might be to play things safer, appease the market with pastoral or easy to digest works. It’s understandable but so boring. I can sense a wave of risky work coming!
Has technology and internet trends infected the art world?
Even more than tech itself I think tech money is partly to blame for the above mentioned boring trend. Before the slump, tech folks rushed the artworld with ungodly amounts of money and no real refined tastes and we, the artists and galleries, kinda fucked up by handing over the keys to them. Things got turned upside down. The art galleries conceded their role as taste-makers to the client, essentially becoming art stores. And, again, I finally feel an exciting moment of reclaiming our own artistic voices coming, of taking the keys back. Bring back gatekeeping!
What’s a trend you hope never dies?
Reality TV, specifically what I guess you’d call dating competition shows. Are You The One and Temptation Island are my absolute favourites although the latter got a little soft when it moved to Netflix. I don’t think there’s a better place to watch the dark comedy of the human condition unfold than in a secluded location with a bunch of hot horny people trying to navigate lust and love.
What’s a trend you are so over?
On the same Reality TV tip, it drives me crazy how media trained everyone sounds now. Something about tech and social media has made people sound too loud and confident. Bring back shame! Bring back bullying!
Catch Andy’s work up now at Opera Gallery’s “Dreaming In Colour” in London, on view through April 6. You can find Andy on Instagram too.
“This is frying me”
“checking the news”
“killing the dork brigade”
“God’s will is.”
“You’re not crazy”
“I got recruited”
“WHO is responsible”
“magic is real”
‘South Park’ writer sets up ‘DraftBarron’
All the best going-to-war memes and thoughts from the past week of the Iran-US conflict.
“cackling out loud”
“as one of the best actors”
If anyone can save Hollywood it’s Meg Stalter. My queen of all queens! Versus the very dark-sided Timothee “I hate opera” Chalamet 🙄
“never seen him with sound”
I didn’t know the 17-year-old-37-year-old could speak, and I definitely wasn’t expecting him to say any of this. (fwiw, it has a very Brazilian context)
“wasn’t as tough as this”
“kind of like a straw”
“how useless male nipples are”
There was no better content this week than Doctor Mike collabing with the Basement Yard boys. The gift that keeps on giving!
“Thank you, French people”
“I always do this”
“in the present”
This is exactly the vibe I brought to Paris this weekend.
“name of that dog”
“my dog falls for”
Best dog posts of the week — and the last one is very good.
“I thought I could sing”
Maybe…no one should be allowed to sing the National Anthem?
“babies discussing music scene”
Do you have better music taste than a baby? Probably not.
And, finally, how I feel getting any text, email, or call.
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tbf i'm not sure the average person ever had much cultural imagination. this mindset basically describes the people i grew up with in the george w era suburbs, and probably a lot of normies in every generation previous. now there are just infinitely more ways to commodify one's conformity
Canadians will hate me saying this, but that pew research is a self fulfilling prophecy. I think it works against us and we don't deal with issues and things get downplayed a lot.