Nantucket is no stranger to speculation in the summer months. It’s one of several New England beach towns that swaps whaling history for histironic wealth during the holiday season, and as the temperature climbs, so does the friction between townies and tourists.

This year the smoking gun was hand-carved sign, commissioned by local artisan John Sylvia, shopkeep of a store that sold handmade lightship baskets on Main Street since 1927. It read: No Influencers.

John Sylvia had it made mostly as a joke about foot traffic, tired of watching tourists treat his shop like a backdrop rather than a business. “People are tired of feeling like extras in someone else’s video”. Fair enough, anyone who’s walked down Carnaby Street since 2023 knows that particular fear. Freezers or hoovers? I don’t care. Do not perceive me.

The sign, meant in jest but also reflective of a public mood, went viral in its own right, resurfacing the public discourse on what an Influencer is. John, in his attempt to make light of what he saw as a local affliction in turn became the very thing he lamented. The prescription of modern society is that once you opt into a story, once you opt into content, you become content. You become, for all intents and purposes, a creator.

This puts you under a microscope, and sometimes that scrutiny comes from the same street. Which is why local influencer Paige Lorenze, who also just happens to own a store on Main Street Nantucket, decided to wade in. Her attack was that the sign was not only rude and misjudged, but misogynistic. She argued that Influencer had a very clear gendered perception and that an industry built on the back of women was given an undue amount of stick. It talks to the wider problem Influencer has, and the not so subtle shift to Creators as a catch all when, largely, men with Twitch accounts didn’t want to get the same scrutiny as the ladies shilling teeth whitening kits. The late 2010’s Influence playground was truly a wild and unwieldy place.

Paige’s problem took to global news - first the Boston Globe, then CNN, then any news outlet who’d hear her cry - and they did. A week or so on, there is an unbelievable amount of discourse on The Sign. The Sign as a sign that the world is done with Influencers. The Sign that this madness, whatever it is in the mind of the beholder, must stop.

Except… no, that’s not really how any of this works. We like to dredge back up this conversation because it’s a convenient reflection of modern society and late stage capitalism and also a pretty misguided perception that content creation cannot hold the same worth in society as any other creative endeavour. Hey, I have skin in the game, but I can see both sides of the story. And yet, I cannot prescribe to the prognosis that we’re walking away from the Influence opportunity. If anything, they just became the most important thing we have left in our digital society. Let’s get into it…

THE BOTS ARE BREEDING AND THE PLATFORMS ARE PUMPING

We’re telling this story because it’s a good one, but also because it’s the latest instalment of an argument we have every six months: influence has gone too far, we’re sick of it, the bubble’s finally going to burst.

Except… no, that’s not really how any of this works. We like to dredge back up this conversation because it’s a convenient reflection of modern society and late stage capitalism and also a pretty misguided perception that content creation cannot hold the same worth in society as any other creative endeavour. Hey, I have skin in the game, but I can see both sides of the story. And yet, I cannot prescribe to the prognosis that we’re walking away from the Influence opportunity. If anything, they just became the most important thing we have left in our digital society. The lament has new company.

Somewhere in the last few years, a second, weirder death started doing the rounds: the idea that the internet itself might already be gone. Dead internet theory, in its plainest form, is the suspicion that most of what you scroll past, the posts, the replies, the arguments, isn’t other people at all, just bots talking to bots, occasionally talking to you. Imperva’s latest report puts bot traffic at just over half of all internet activity now. What used to sound like a fringe conspiracy has rather insidiously turned into a fact stranger than fiction.

Writer Kelly Oxford tried to put a face to this affliction recently, and in the process found out the face wasn’t real. Someone accused her, publicly, of using AI to fake a photo of her own homemade minestrone - an odd accusation to be slinging over lumpy soup instead of say, a celebrity photo op. She checked the accuser’s account: no posting history, nine followers, never shared a photo of its own life. When she zoomed into its profile picture, the woman in it had eight fingers on one hand, and the letters behind her sort of looked like CAPTCHA. When she dug further into ten other accounts also accusing her soup of slop, they all possessed the same suspiciously blank footprint. Her point wasn’t that we’re being fooled by some grand deception, but rather no one is checking in the first place - no one seems motivated or to care that the internet is rampant with bots. Platforms need users to sell advertising, and so they might put some steps in place to help slow the slop, but they’re not 100% going to be acting in good faith either. I do believe it will even out to an honourable place, but there isn’t a huge amount of incentivisation either. Meta just last year had to explain to investors why they’d pumped up their user data with bots, and just this week their shares tumbled as Zuckerberg shared his vision for AI agents that was met with huge skepticism.

Which makes John’s sign a bit of a red herring. A fair complaint about tourist etiquette isn’t the same thing as a verdict on the death of influence. But when taken as one, as the news cycle has started to flow through, feels not only inaccurate but also made in a vacuum that ignores the environment we’re actually operating in: an internet where a genuine share of the activity might not be human at all, and where every government is simultaneously working out how to make the humans who are left as identifiable and traceable as possible. In that environment, real, verifiable, human content isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the thing everyone, platforms, brands, and eventually John’s own tourists, needs more of, not less. And the naivety that this can exist outside of the world of “Influencer” is to ignore everything that has contributed to the modern media landscape. I don’t expect people not in this machine to understand that, but I do side-eye those of us who trade in this trying to manufacture a media discourse that’s woefully misrepresentative.

MOVE FAST, BREAK THINGS, EXPECT COLLAPSE

Part of why we reach for “the bubble’s bursting” so easily is that we’ve spent fifteen years being trained for it, by the very industry we’re discussing. Move fast and break things became a whole way of weathering the world: the things you broke were mostly rules, and the technology always came first. RIP Vine. Sayonara MySpace. Onward to whatever AI abomination comes next. So when the foundations wobble under anything, a platform, a format, an entire discipline like influence, we don’t stop to check whether the legs can be secured. We assume collapse, because collapse is practically inevitable in the modern story of the internet.

But when the entire modern internet is built on the shoulders of Influencer, and now rebranded as a more palatable catch all “Creator”, we must understand that anyone who posts anything is technically labelled as that by the platforms that very much benefit over this boom. Even if you don’t claim the title, to contribute to the digital ecosystem in any way beyond ‘lurking’ does, in theory, make you a creator of content. You are creating content that feeds the machines and algorithms. You are being served to service the specific needs of a stranger. It’s weird to feel like you’ve been captured in this bucket without your consent, but again, late-stage capitalism spares no victim.

Take me, for example. I do not identify as a content creator. I know all the tools and tricks of this trade, and I don’t personally subscribe to the idea, despite the fact I have been publishing my writing online since Funny Junk released a blogging function in 2004 (God Bless my first laptop access). If Substack were to move from a subscription model into creator fund model that paid out stipends in exchange for article views, like Medium and the modest dollars I’ve earned since a piece about Glossier community building went semi-viral in 2018, this would change how many people engage or view their place on the platform. I know that by definition I am content creator. And yet, I do not identify as one. And yet, the industry who sizes the value of the creator economy would say I was a member of the outer circle - typically coined the passion economy. Under that definition, anyone who creates content around an interest on a platform that survives on viewership is a content creator. If you resonate with that, you are part of the taxonomy that platforms use to size the market and sell to advertisers. This is exactly why so many creator programmes exist at scale across platforms, and are quick to lure you in with cash credits the moment you start doing numbers on your content, no matter how flash in the pan.

That doesn’t stop at video or long form editorial - it also takes into account you passionately debating your case for Emily Gilmore in the Gilmore Girls subreddit. And when you think about it at that end of the scale, you also need to think about it right up to the other end - the Jamie Redknapp shilling slip on Skechers of it all. For those who lament “Influencer”, I doubt they even consider either end of those spectrums. The person making Day In The Life’s down Main Street is the tip of a very well established and obscured iceberg. And as bot content keeps scaling, the demand for someone real to explain, verify or vouch for something in their own voice only expands rather than shrinks. And through that, it will continue to pull in more people into the content creator ecosystem - whether they’re conscious they’ve been sucked through vortex or not.

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METAVERSE HANGOVERS AND THE PRICE OF PROOF OF LIFE

It’s worth remembering the metaverse tried to sell us a version of this first. I’ll hold my hand up here, I was, for all intents and purposes, a Metaverse geek: steering committee, so many hours at SXSW in keynotes on blockchain and building a safe metaverse, fully bullish. The pitch was one verified avatar as your single, traceable way through the internet, blockchain as the ledger that made you legible. We said no, and only partially because the tech was clunky and not that many people are actually that into gaming, but also because it broke the one promise the web was actually built on, anonymity, and the ability to live a private and unowned way of existing. Nobody was ever going to strap on a headset for anything beyond what they already used one for, and outside that audience there was no one waiting to be converted, no matter how hard Silicon Valley pumped it. Meta burned close to $88 billion proving it. The Metaverse didn’t just have an image problem. It had an attitude problem. Who wanted to adopt the narc tech?

We’re getting the traceability anyway, just without the avatar, one age-verification law at a time. Tech journalist Taylor Lorenz has documented the wave of under-16 social media bans now moving through more than two dozen countries, popular with voters, hard to argue with on its face. The mechanics underneath it are the problem: no algorithm can actually read a person’s age off their behaviour, so enforcing the ban collapses into biometric verification or government ID, tied permanently to your identity. Through a string of individually reasonable policies, we’re building the exact traceable, verified internet the metaverse tried and failed to sell us. The most shiny of the tin foil in my haberdashery drawer has some conclusions about this, but I’ll leave that door shut for today.

And that shift changes the maths on human content too. As identity gets tied more tightly to internet access, age gates, biometric sign-ins, the growing sense that nothing you post is really anonymous anymore, two things happen at once. One: platforms and brands lose a huge pool of genuinely anonymous, organic contributions: the reviews, comments, and small opinions that used to get left without anyone needing to be a “someone.” And two: real, identifiable people who are happy to attach themselves to branded content become more valuable precisely because they’re willing to fill that gap in public, with a name and a face attached. It’s part of why brands increasingly want to partner with people prepared to talk openly about their actual experience, not just for storytelling anymore, but as proof of life in a landscape that’s short on it. It also has generated these huge layers of experts and utility in the creator market - where bigger picture, longer tail advocacy moves down the funnel. It doesn’t completely solve the bigger issue we face: the more identifiable you have to be to be believed, the less candid you might actually be willing to get. Verification proves you’re real, but it doesn’t necessarily make you honest, and an industry built on people vouching for things in public is going to have to reckon with that trade-off rather than pretend it isn’t there.

The flip side is that once you’re pulled into this, deliberately or by accident, there’s no clean way back out, only a slower or a faster one. This week, Ariana Grande’s team announced she’s stepping back from public life once her tour wraps in September, citing the scrutiny that’s followed her. I want to be careful here, because it’s clearly a difficult moment for her, and I’ve no interest in treating it as material. But the retreat itself became a news cycle within hours of being announced, even the act of stepping back gets consumed as content the moment it’s said out loud. Compare that to Zoe Sugg. Zoella and her partner Alfie did their usual cosy Vlogmas together in December, entirely normal, nothing to suggest they weren’t coming back, and then, from the start of January, she just stopped. No goodbye post, no “taking a little break,” nothing, and she’s now heading into month eight of speculation about where she’s gone and why, entire rundowns tracking emoji comments and paparazzi sightings for proof of life, a rumour about a donkey sanctuary planning dispute filling the silence because nothing else would. Grande’s camp owned the narrative whereas Sugg lost control of hers entirely by saying nothing. Two examples of an off-ramp that isn’t built with any structure, when the on-ramp is almost too easy to step onto by accident.

I doubt John will get a clean exit either - though his payoff carries less risk. For now, he’s more in the market of a meme, with people clambering to take photos of the sign. What was that he said about feeling like a backdrop in someone else’s video? It is an unfortunate case of being careful what you wish for. He rallied against a system and then became completely sucked into it.

ARE INFLUENCERS THE MEDIUMS OF A DEAD INTERNET?

None of this adds up to the death of influence. It adds up to the opposite: the job shifting from convincing people to trust a face, to being a real face definitely worth trusting on an internet overrun with bots and bad factors.. What the industry actually needs isn’t a fresh round of panic every six months about the death of it, but further clarity on it’s every shifting maturity journey - better clearer ways for people to opt in, better etiquette and understanding for filming culture, and a solution to a public who want to opt out. These things take time and trial and error, made even harder by an audience keen to hold them in the stocks.

It also needs a shift that isn’t the industry’s to make alone. Consumers still largely think of “creator” as a job someone else has, an aspirational fantasy or a slightly embarrassing hobby, rather than what it actually is now, closer to a utility than a personality type. That perception is doing real damage, because it’s the exact thing keeping “influencer” a dirty word while the underlying work gets more essential by the year.

To be totally honest, and I say this with some awareness: some influencers are genuinely grating. Not every vertical is for you, not every voice is going to land, and John wasn’t wrong that a few of the people filming in his shop cared more about the video than the baskets. But that’s true of every creative discipline going, and we don’t usually treat one bad example as a referendum on the whole format. Nobody’s arguing stand-up should be abolished because they don’t rate every comedian on the bill. Joe Lycett isn’t for everyone, and comedy survives that just fine. Influence doesn’t get held to a different standard just because it’s newer, more visible, and built on a dated perception which realistically is rooted in good old fashioned misogyny - which never helps matters.

We don’t need a man selling lightship baskets to understand the nuance of an industry he’s outside of, and he doesn’t have to. But the same people who found it grating to be filmed against their will are, more often than not, exactly who a brand wants to be reaching and engaging with honestly, through a real person, rather than shouted across a feed that’s filling up with bots talking to bots. If we want an internet actually worth being on, brands choosing real people over advertising into that void is doing more of the heavy lifting than anyone gives it credit for.

John’s sign didn’t spark the death of influence, despite what some thought pieces might say. It’s a real person, in a real shop, saying something real, with a sharp bite of reality that is reflective of the public mood. It’s not proof of the referendum on influence, but demonstrative of different voices and perspectives making the mainstream that shapes the next era of content creation in the face of a dead internet that loves to manufacture bot driven outrage. You might disagree with Influencers, but you may inadvertently actually be one. What’s it they say? Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

“As I was lying there on the sidewalk, I did not think about art at all. I - I thought about people. I thought about life.”

David Cronenberg on a near death experience, as sampled on No One Lasts Forever - Charli XCX feat David Cronenberg

Let us start here. David Cronenberg has been following me my entire life. This isn’t to say I’ve sought him. I am squeamish by trade and don’t engage with body horror willingly, other than my own. But in being someone who loves art, music, fashion, film, someone like David Cronenberg has suprisingly cropped up more often than not.

I used to be very unafraid to say how much I loved art. When I was growing up, I knew I lacked technical skill for paint brush to canvas. But I loved stories, and the stories that came out of those paintings, and soon I learnt there were other ways to show how I loved art - by talking about it, by making my own narratives. I used to sit in my bedroom for hours talking to myself about things. Then somewhere along the way, I think approximately between the 2009-2011, “the bad years” in my head, I realised it was associated with pretension, and people didn’t like pretension. And in 2009-2011, people were everything, even if the people I spent my time with were quite literally the worst.

I lost my way with art. I went from close to top of my class (god bless the rise of mixed mediums) to flunking my AS level. I stepped away from art and retreated away from its possibilities. And then, on the phone ringing around the country hoping anyone would please let me try again, please let me start again after another set of exam results, I got through to a lecturer at the Manchester School of Art. What was meant to probably quite a functional clearing call, an exchange of grades to points, he asked me to start by telling him what I loved about art.

Like a faucet that had been screwed loose, I started pouring. I think I hadn’t slept for a couple of days. We spoke for an hour. We spoke about how I knew it was basic to love Picasso, but I really had never felt more moved than the first time I saw Guernica. We spoke about how I thought I lacked skill so had moved my practice to graphic design and mixed mediums, and he told me that my reimagining of Rauschenberg’s were just as worthy as the perfect still life the girls were painting next to me. We spoke about my fascination with 1970’s New York and CBGBs, and how great Lou Reed was on “Some Kind of Nature” off Plastic Beach by the Gorillaz. I told him that I was staring at my wall where the lyrics were written in thick permanent marker. And then we started talking about film.

I had, that week, seen Crash for the first time. I was disturbed by its arousal. It was probably the first foray into a long lasting love of psychosexual thrillers. He told me to read some JG Ballard and watch Blue Velvet. That provided to be some of the most sound advice from one of the most profound calls of my entire life. We split back to David Cronenberg, briefly, as he asked me how I felt abut surrealism. This, felt like the sign of all signs. I’ve had a postcard for as long as I can remember that reads “if you love love, you’ll love surrealism”. I won’t quote my guardian angel on the clearing hotline precisely, as this is back 15 years almost to the day, but he told me if I liked surrealism, I needed to explore more of Cronenberg’s oeuvre. He then told me I sounded like I might like to explore critical theory further, and that if I was, Manchester School of Art’s Contemporary Art History BA had some spaces, and they’d love to have me. What was more, I was able to do practical modules so I could learn that I didn’t need to be a fine artist to make art.

I remember cradling the house phone in my hand afterwards, starring at my wall with the Lou Reed lyrics written on it, and feeling like someone had put their hand down through the cracks of my literal and metaphorical ceiling, and pulled me out from my bed. The bad years were over. I got to start again. I got to love art.

Fast forward 18 months later, and I am sat in my student house on a Friday night. To really set the scene, me and my friend Laura would’ve been chaining roll ups with the windows open whilst my housemate Dann would, quite rightly in retrospect, ask us to please go outside. Bryn, Elliott and Jonny, Dann, Laura, Celia and me, plus some ex boyfriends and girlfriends, would be drinking red wine we had to warm up on the radiator that went for 2 bottles for £6, and we will have been fighting over what to watch as we WEREN’T going out that night. You did not go out on the weekend at university. That was for old people. Somehow, Dann, now an esteemed filmmaker, convinced us to watch The Fly. I had a crush on Jeff Goldblum so acquiesced despite the fact I couldn’t stomach the horrors of transformation, I sat through 96 minutes of gore. It wasn’t so bad. It made an episode of the Simpson’s make sense. I told Dann I was picking the next film, then almost certainly made him watch Pitch Perfect.

Another 3 years later, and I had just moved in with my boyfriend (now husband), and finally we were living in SOUTH EAST LONDON, rather than the depths of South West London. Miles wise, we’re talking less than 10 - but the distance felt HUGE. Most importantly, it meant we were a 15 minute bus from Brixton’s The Windmill. We spent any chance we could watching what I now realise were some objectively terrible bands. I have probably spent more money on drinking beers at a Fat White Family show than anything else over the last decade. Pit Ponies, The Rebel, Meatraffle, Taman Shud, Warmduscher, Bat-Bike and …. David Cronenberg’s Wife.

We loved David Cronenberg’s Wife. I have this morning tried to listen back to some David Cronenberg’s Wife. I’ve looked up some reviews of David Cronenberg’s Wife. They were called Mangina before that. Enough said. What may have been an overhang of a real type of music that perforated the Windmill music scene, led to more conversations between me and my now husband. We watched the History of Violence tucked up on the horrible Ikea futon we’d lugged up 3 flights of stairs to our flat in Gipsy Hill, and drank cans of beer as we watched Viggo Mortensen do his thing.

But maybe David Cronenberg has never felt more serendipitous in how he’s dipped into my life than this morning, on the release of Music, Fashion, Film by Charli XCX.

This week, there were lots of signs from the universe I needed to spend some more time back with art and creating. An unexpected virus plummeted my mood and my executive function, seeing me turn my phone off for 48 hours - small fry to some but a monumental shift for me. I pulled down “The Hand That First Held Mine” by Maggie O’Farrell, a book I haven’t read in a few years now but love, all about making art in 1950’s Soho. Calm flooded me as I returned to the world of Lexie and Innes.

The following day, I was drawn to my office, a room I don’t tend to go into much in a post pandemic world. I saw a package of silver icons I had hand selected in Mexico City almost 2 months ago. I picked up a canvas I had my husband stretch for me almost 2 years ago. I made a pact that I was going to make the art piece I had been thinking about for months. I was going to return to my Rauschenberg mixed mediums, my 2009 Obama optimism which saw me reimagining his Retroactive I for the HOPE era as my final piece for my GCSE’s.

My agency launched a summer initiative for us to get more out of our reduced summer hours on Fridays, by funding us to go and spend some time with Art, Music, Fashion and Film (the Charli XCX chokehold isn’t just mine, it would appear).

But perhaps most damendly friend Judy wrote an amazing piece for our agency Substack, Bornhub, simply titled “Live an Interesting Life”. I read her words and felt the familiar pinpricks at the back of my neck. Part panic, part excitement. Was I living an interesting life anymore?

Bornhub

Live an interesting life

This year, I attended Cannes Lions for the first time…

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a month ago · 2 likes · Bornhub

This morning, I woke up. I knew I had a very important task: get dressed and take Music Fashion Film for a spin. But when I got to the last track, almost 6 minutes of her 30 minute short and sharp foray, I had to stop and sit down at the bench on the end of my road. The sun started peaking through the clouds, and one of the members of the safe housing project on my road asked if he could take a seat as well. I said yes and we both sat their looking out at the view to Dog Kennel Hill Estate, punching through the South East London skyline. I could already feel that this song was stirring something in me. But then I heard his voice. David Cronenberg’s voice.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but as his words swelled in my ears, I felt the pricks in my eyes. I was starting to cry. My body flushed cold. The song ended. I started it again. Rinse. Repeat. 15 minutes. The last time I felt this way about a song was when Lou Reed performed spoken word in Some Kind of Nature, the song I had written on my walls when I took that call that got me into university. The man, who I see most days, with kind eyes but a troubled soul, didn’t look at me or point out I was crying, but sat there in his own silent reflection too. I am always in a rush. Trot, trot, trot. I will have usually been trotting past him at this time in the morning. But now I was having an existential crisis next to him.

I have been known to feel things too much, and be embarrassed about this. I have known to like art so much, and be embarrassed about this. And despite the fact I hold a degree in the subject, I still don’t think what I like and enjoy is good. Objectively, sobbing at a Charli XCX song with an interview with David Cronenberg talking about a near death experience sampled at the end of it is embarrassing and not good. But in this moment, I felt clarity and connection with the message. It came at an incisive time.

1. Make art

2. Don’t care who for

3. A legacy isn’t the be all and end all

4. People, people, people

5. Life is short

I stood up from the bench and something came over me. Remember how David Cronenberg came into your life? These memories I’ve spilled onto this page in a complete free flow frenzy had all turned up in my brain at once. They were screaming, scrambling, desperate to escape the hatch. So here they are. A potted history of how a man from Toronto who I had a passing interest in seemed to punctuate my life. And how the one art form I’ll never not hold dear is my want and love to open the faucet, and pour it all out.

No one lasts forever.

But, other than another year of England absolute bottling it, there has been other stuff going on. Like what? Well… in the words of Milly Bell, founder of Everywhere Artists and notably the recent signee of Subway Takes UK’s representation, “THEY’RE NOMINATING US FOR EMMY’S NOW.” And, by us, she means that everyone’s favourite distinctive hook content series Subway Takes, by the indomitable and tenacious Kareem Rahma, was shorltlisted for Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series. Whilst web and content series have been eligible for this award since 2011, this is one of the first time a social content series has been elevated. Usually, you’ve got a slew of talk shows hosts segments taking up the limelight (I shuddered at the words “Carpool Karaoke” on wikipedia. This shows yet another fork in the road for entertainment. Without repaving well trodden ground, we’re only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the complete restructure of how we consume and create long and short form content beyond branded partnerships. I also am wondering: if it was this kind of content that brought Broad City off YouTube and directly into my heart, what would a Subway Takes TV show look like?

What else do I want to talk to you about? Well other than releasing my song of the summer (Wink Wink), Charli’s hot takes on the rise of the anti-marketing trend has piqued my interest, and, related, Kylie Jenner released a surveillance sunglass. Elsewhere: It’s actually ok to hop on the bandwagon (if it’s good enough for Terry O’Conner it’s good enough for me!), Coca-Cola have launched a probiotic soda in a slightly bizarre market share grab, it’s been a ‘Tumblr’ summer, that Legally Blonde remix is a masterclass in the future of brand partnerships, Dua Lipa launched her own banned books library, we’re in something called the “Dead Internet”, Baauer released a really fun album, the Odysseus press tours good, actually…. . What else? Oh my god… Taylor Swift got married at MSG. I don’t have time to talk about that but lol bc the gift bag alone would take 2-3k words.

Stick a portable IV drip in your arm and go via the drive through: it’s the summer of fun, a heatwave, and it’s RUSH HOUR!

🌆 SUNSET STRIP 🌆

Shining a light on a Creator moment I’ve loved this week

Can We Discuss… Laura Capon

When it comes to employee generated content, the lines are blurry. Whilst we’re maturing out of blanket assumptions around IP created when in a role, it is still very much a line in most employment contracts that what you create under your tenure with a company effectively is there’s to own. And when it comes to the murky lines of you featuring in that content, or landing a hand to a brand, I suspect we are only at the beginning of the legislative learnings. But what do you do when you exit a company, build your own freelance career, launch your own Substack and IP, and your ex-employee allegedly comes for your lunch?

This is what happened to Laura Capon, an ex-employee of Cosmopolitan where she worked for 6 years up until 2021. As part of her time there, she ran the Cosmo podcast ‘All The Way With’, but since has been enjoying her own brand fame with “Can We Discuss” - both the name of her limited company and the name of 5k+ subscribed Substack. In a very candid video, she revealed her disappointment and due worry on receiving an email from her Editor In Chief to let her know cosmo were launching a new podcast called “Can We Discuss? With Cosmopolitan”. In the email, the EIC said it was a heads up but that the podcast doesn’t touch on Laura’s verticals - in fact it was dating focussed and didn’t dip into the wider lifestyle, culture and society elements Laura’s Substack has built its brand equity on.

But that wasn’t quite the whole truth… when Laura began digging in, she found the listing of it on Podchaser describing it as a weekly society, culture and relationships podcast that poses one big chaotic, culturally relevant question and unpacks it. To Laura, this wasn’t an FYI from her EIC but a damning statement that her ex-employee was ripping her format off and there was very little she could do about it. But… do about it she did. In raising the rightful hell required when you’re given the news that your brand was being infringed, Cosmo reassured Laura that it was an “unfortunate coincidence” that it wasn’t feasible to change and was “Cleary a separate product”. After gaslighting, they proceeded to Ghost. Straight out of the fuck boy handbook.

But someone as versed in dating lore as Laura wasn’t going to take this lying down, despite the legal advice she got saying she might as well given it was a David vs Goliath fight of epic proportions and even fatter paycheques. Despite the clear case, the Cosmopolitan brand seemed gargantuan and impossible to tame - but Laura thought about what money can’t buy and landed on this: a juicy story about an employee wronged sent out to the very people who were ten toes down on Can We Discuss already. Going public post the silent treatment saw Cosmo buckle under the pressure - the Podcast has been renamed, and the blip in brand only exists in one edition of the magazine that had already gone to press.

Whilst it’s pretty clear what happened here, it raises an interesting point on who “owns” the identity a person builds while inside an institution vs. after they leave it. Do employees rebrand as Creators when they are creating ideas that are fair game for co-option when in an institution? What does the future of employee contracts say about IP whilst in post and the statute of limitations after? Are all your ideas an open goal for grabbing? Laura won this one, but something tells me this is just one conversation of millions already happening or soon to happen. Read your contracts.

Dua Lipa Has Serious Shelf Awareness

Dua Lipa continues to mog us all with life. I saw a clip from that Lindsay Lohan film where she’s the luckiest girl in the world the other day with the caption “this must be what Dua’s life is like” and she wasn’t wrong. But let’s not stop at unbelievable talent, aura, and a face to rise a thousand ships - she’s also just great a brand - personal and otherwise.

A couple of weeks have gone since she launched a physical extension of her Service95 Book Club inside the iconic book shop Livaria Lello in Porto, Portugal. But the books that lay in this physical manifestation all have one thing in common - they’re banned or challenged books. Split into four themes of Power, Control, Voice and Memory, you can find iconic tomes such as 1984, Satanic Verses and The Handmaid Tale.

“Here you will find one hundred books that ask questions or have been questioned… in some cases, the author has paid for their words with their life”

I loved this for lots of reasons, but mainly because it reinforces the role of creator as media owner, and also the patience of launching the right thing for your brand at the right time. This physical manifestation of a 4 year running project feels cool and calculated, strategic rather than stunt. And with author interviews and a podcast already under her belt, she can start to bring some of those digital content streams into physical spaces in a way that feels culturally resonant and timely. It’s fresh off the heels of the announcement she will be curating the London Literature Festival this year as well, showing just how much clout she’s created outside of her core offering. Diversification baby!

📈THE STOCK EXCHANGE📉

Big biz moves that effect the culture

Elle of a Partnership

Like all Milennials worth their salt, I grew up binge watching Legally Blonde on VHS hoping to find my Emmett and my law degree AND my orange Macintosh. I also subscribe quite heavily to “angry girl music of the indie rock persuasion”. So there was no way I wasn’t going to be charmed by a Prequel to the film set in Seattle at the height of Grunge culture. I often need something very smooth brained to take my mind off the world, either the Monday crossword from the New York Times, or a big budget chick flick TV show, so I was slightly disappointed by the amazing sponsorship deal brokered by L’Oreal and MGM for making me THINK in my designated switch off time.

But you can’t fault good quality marketing! And here, there was plenty. Let’s unpack it:

1. Product Placement, Periodly Sound

   We’ve seen some pretty awful product placement over the last few years (Nobody Wants This gave my hives), and so when you see partnership of this magnitude, you sort of suspect a close up of the protagonist applying foundation with the bottle facing the camera. But here, they made the placement part of the fun. They repacked real products you can buy now into period appropriate packaging, featuring their Colour Riche Lipsticks, True Match Foundations and Voluminous Markets naturally in shot instead of shoved into the frame. They used product placement to also do an activation of the archive, demonstrating that these products have been around since the 90s and doubling down on the trust and longevity that builds.

2. GRWM format moved into IP
   In the idents and supporting content for the show, we see a young Elle talking to the camera and applying products, repositioning Elle as the inventor of the Get Ready With Me format (which she so would do). They looked at all the creator content formats they could mimic and picked the one that feels the most in the world of Elle - showing her as the pioneer she is. It makes the content format not feel like TikTok bait, but baked into the reality of the show.

3. Split Timeline Ads
   Alongside the show, we have seen so many Elle themed spots running on the social channels, which are showing modern day versions of those vintage offerings for a conversion play. That means we’re seeing the nostalgia pushed to us in era appropriate context on the show, building up awareness, affinity and trust, whilst running a parallel track of the contemporary product in an easy to purchase social ad. We’re seeing 2026 sales through 1995 emotional equity.

4. Brand as a narrative device, not just a sponsor
   L’Oreal USA’s President Laura Branik said it best “By weaving our iconic heritage products directly into her origin story, we are celebrating a character who uses beauty as a tool of self-expression to shatter glass ceilings”. L’Oreal have capitalised on a very realistic aspect of an incredibly beloved character, by bringing the brand as a plot-functional part of Elle’s character development, where beauty becomes ultimately a foundation of her becoming herself. This brings a whole new emotional layer and through line to the brand tagline of Worth It, doing overtime for brand love and connection over just buying reach

5. Full Funnel Presence
   L’Oreal have been there the whole way through the shows marketing funnel as well, showing just how integrated it is to the development of the programme - from their presence at the premier, to their experiential world building of Elle’s world, through to market specific sponsorship, through to a smart paid social campaign, there’s a huge amount of flex and connectivity that works for each region rather than a singular play for global creative.

I don’t think this is a siloed moment of smart spend, but rather endemic of the role of character as creator. Rachel Porter said it best here, but the way to make characters feel real and connected with audiences is by reaching them like a creator would. It’s such a smart shift and excited with the further creativity this unlocks for entertainment marketing.

Kylie Jenner x Meta: Smart Glasses, Dumb Idea?

Just when you thought you’d read enough about the deep state glasses, I’m back to beat a dead horse. The Jenner x Kardashian contingent have put their name to some funny things over the years, and are zero strangers to backlash. But when Kylie Jenner unveiled herself as the face of the Meta Starfire Kylie Edition AI Glasses, aka the surveillance specs now in those little chic oval glasses that everyone who wants a bit of the Hailey Bieber effect goes bananas for, it came at a particularly bad time.

Put aside the genuinely quite creepy nature of these specs, and the fact I now live in fear of being filmed more unbeknownst to me then I already am (CCTV, whenever I’m in the background of a public place, when I’m with my brother bc he fucking loves these things), the glasses dropped at the exact same time several lawsuits were leveraged at Jenner for unfair working conditions. Whilst Jenner struts around her house pointing at things via her POV, a third lawsuit was brewing from a former Chef claiming the overtime required at a Palm Springs party led her to miscarry. Not a great look in the scheme of things, but when you’re normalising recording people without their consent and packaging it up as a cutesie fashion choice, and your a Billionaire, I suppose these things don’t keep you up at night.

Beyond the lawsuits at play, the glasses and huge talent budget from Meta (they even got Terrence O’Connor!) has led to protests outside Meta’s London HQ, where the glossy ad posters were vandalised to read “We’re Always Watching” instead. Other press shots show a man in a crowd at a gig filming as some sort of comment on the fact he doesn’t have his phone up, completely ignoring the amount of harassment women face at male dominated shows as is. And elsewhere, the headaches keep adding up for Meta - a US Class action lawsuit is alleging that Kenya based contractors have been reviewing intimate footage captured by the glasses, completely undercutting the ‘designed for privacy’ marketing bizarrely paired with a subtle recording tech. Meta pushing and monetising a tech category they’re already being sued over speaks volumes to the murky world of big tech.

It wasn’t just her fans raising concerns, but her peers. Lorde took to stage in Madrid to say ’on the record, fuck the glasses’ claiming that they weren’t ‘sexy’. Her simple criticism has picked up a lot of clout from the industry who wonder what the hell the price is when it comes to selling our privacy. Where we’re already seeing a behavioural pattern in the types of content forming around the glasses - prank videos against unsuspecting employees in stores - that lay a ‘humorous’ edge over a content theme that at its best is exhausting and at its worse exploitative.

Creators who are tempted by these glasses may find their Day In The Life footage just got easier, but currently the trust pay off is risky - fans just aren’t picking up what Meta are putting down. But who’s to say whether this won’t change - get enough people on the band wagon and anything can become a moment… just ask fellow Meta Glasses supporter Terrence O’Conner.

🔥🏡 HOT PROPERTY🏡🔥

Who or what is the current Main Character of my internet

Charli XCX says the next trend is Anti-Marketing

Say what you want about her, but if there’s one thing Charli XCX gets its brand. So when she took to Twitter to tell the world that anti-marketing is going to be a thing, it piqued my interest.

“truly believe anti marketing will become a thing soon… still marketing but it’s just a different approach, more intimate, personal, private, one on one. less about the projection of scale. i’m into it xx”

The take got millions of views, and like with many things Charli touches, it divided opinion from genius to out of touch - but it felt like a natural take for a post-Brat world, where the society of the spectacle has left all of us in the panopticon feeling a little bit exposed and a little bit exhausted. She’s known to understand a cultural mood: take her call for last summer to have new stars, or the burning of the brat flag.

You don’t have to look far to see how quickly “intimate” curdles when someone else picks up the same script. While Charli was tweeting about a future that’s more private, more one-on-one, less about the projection of scale, Kylie Jenner was fronting Meta’s new AI glasses campaign, pitched on nearly identical language: closer, more personal, always with you. Except what people actually clocked in her promo clip, filming herself in a mirror, wasn’t intimacy. In fact, the lack of energy and engagement from anyone around Jenner made it feel isolated and creepy, a further demonstration of what the glasses can fully capture when someone is wearing them and pointing toward you. Charli and Kylie are cashing in on something using the exact same vocabulary - private, close, one-to-one - to in theory sell the opposite things. Charli’s version is intimacy as a retreat from scale, whereas Meta’s is intimacy as the Trojan horse for it. Both show something about 2026 and the rise of intimacy as a commodity. We’ve long known an indicator of luxury in the modern age is the ability to be private - but if privacy becomes a commodity adjacent to intimacy and that’s repackaged as ‘anti-marketing’, I think we’re going to be expected to show a lot more time behind the scenes of our true interiors as ‘proof of life’. Which isn’t really what I’ve signed up for, actually.

Many couldn’t see the wood for the trees in her take - anti-marketing under this banner is still marketing. Like Pam in the office, we’re sort of looking at the same picture. The timing of the take could be ready cynically as well - if you’re sharing a big anti-marketing stance just before your album release, is that not a marketing move in of itself?

We know there was a huge amount of discourse about the offline renaissance toward the beginning of the year, where the natural slump to a little detox in mind, body and spirit did seem to suggest analogue was the move. And whilst many factions of that are a reality - the rise of community spaces, listening bars, private whats-app groups for shows and intimate settings to host them - the analogue movement caught some heat when it seemed to exist only in service of creating content that proves you were taking time off. We cannot break the performance. We are all tap dancing monkeys on the world stage. Even Charli’s ‘secret gigs’ this summer have an air of the exclusive but the reality of the exhibitionism - mini shows with Clairo and Kim Petras still racked up viewership and attention ahead of her world tour.

But in Charli naming the post-monoculture fatigue with its bed fellow of algorithmic vitality, whilst embodying the exact opposite with her amplification strategies and post brat ubiquity, the story of her new era lies in that contradiction.

🎛️ NOTES FROM THE CONTROLLER ROOM 🎛️

Things that I’ve been thinking about this week

The New Bauuer Record

Someone dropped this in the work music slack this week and said “Baauer's latest album sounds like being a teenager in the 2010s during the summer hols with nothing else to do but drink tinnies in a park blasting house out of your blackberry” and you know what he was so right. It’s made my week

My Song of the Summer: Wink Wink

sorry for being so in Charli’s aura RN. but I loved Homecoming by The Teenagers so I wasn’t going to not like this 2026 version.

The Marteami Gang

Once every 2-3 months I go out with my friends Pip, Sarah and Jake and we drink Martinis. We rank them based on the following: taste, glass, giddiness, service, snacks, and general vibe. Then we do another whole evening ranking. Last night we ended up in an Italian bar in Knightsbridge called Ciros eating pizza and doing shots whilst someone did a europop cover of Back to Black on the keyboard and photos of Paul McCartney and Bill Clinton with the owner sat across the walls. So yeah it was a 10/10.

6 years of Palm Springs

The ultimate 90 minute movie. Andy Samberg for life

The Make Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness by Hannah Murray

Cassie from Skins is now a retired actress. She’s taken to writing. The first thing? A memoir of how she lost her mind and got sucked into a magic cult where she fell in love with the leader. WOWOOOWOWOWOWOWOWO

Ok that’s everything I love you bye xxxxxxxxxxx

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

It’s clear that the industry is ready to back the growth Influence is bringing. IPA econometrics, vast media spends, and the recent M&A mania has confirmed what we’ve all long been saying: this strategy is more than effective, it’s essential for the future of brands. But for all the patronising calls of a sector ‘grown up’, there is a clear chasm between market maturity and industry love. They’re both accelerating speed, but seemingly in different directions.

WHAT THE SHORTLIST SAYS ABOUT MODERN INFLUENCE

I’m not complaining about any of this shortlist. Quite the opposite. 20 standalone creator-led cases at an industry leading awards? Gorgeous. The cases that earned the biggest love out of the submissions tend to follow a clear pattern. Reactivity in its novelty and insight gets the judges going. Lateral thinking that creates knowing smiles also is a big bet. Instinctive work, well, works. In the organic reach and influence section, Pop Eye’s simple two-word tweet of Pope Yes when the new Pope was instated earned ‘fan led creator noise’ and 16 million views without a brief, budget or agency.

More clearly deserving of a spot in the Creator category was the Dr Pepper jingle from Romeo, a mico-creator in Tacoma - seen and signed by the Dr Pepper team to turn it from TikTok stitch to the theme song at the College Football Playoffs nationally. KitKat’s slightly suss ad buy of pre-roll slot on competitors creator content so they could literally ‘steal the break’ of their rivals isn’t my cup of tea, but I admire the audacity. Reactive moments where speed, insight, instinct and trust can turn into brand building, with creator mindset at the heart earned them spots on the stage.

But the ones that really earned their flowers was the strategy first, long term brand bets on Creator. Vaseline Verified will forever be seen as the watershed moment for Influence - because it truly demonstrated the full stretch and potential of moving from tactic or channel into creative nebula. I was really happy to see campaign longevity be rewarded with the shortlist of Vaseline Originals, an extension of the OG campaign that partnered with the leading Creators behind the hacks to develop IRL products like eyebrow tamers or on the go highlight. Hats of the the Ogilvy team for seeing the system through and letting it truly compound creatively. See also: Leo’s Vaseline Nigerian Prince campaign that tackled their dupe deficit by playing on the old school internet scam trope to help Nigerian consumers verify the real deal with WhatsApp AI Integration. Other insight strong contenders are KFC Australia capitalising on the GymTok gang trend of hacking their menu to be macro friendly and partnering with the creators pioneering this to develop a bespoke gym friendly menu. “They hacked it, we backed it” on their case study is a gorgeous sentiment. These are long term pipelines of community, creators, and co-creation that lets them in properly - equity deals, product development, and responding to consumer demand.

But it begs the question as to whether we’re celebrating creators for their creativity, or the commerciality? This is the tension the industry sits under, and the ones who are truly winning are the ones who create the environment to crack both simultaneously. The shortlist struggled to sign off on much that could meaningfully do both.

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THE BEST WORK PROBABLY ISN’T HERE YET

The US is consistently cited as the most mature market for Creator Influence, despite the media spend in 2025 actually falling about $3bn behind Latin America. It relies on the age of the industry investment outlying that of many markets, strong media x creative buy in, and consumer advocacy. Out of the 159 Shortlisted case studies, the US makes up 46 of them - and the creator economy is seen as the most commercially developed of the bunch, with most brands running systematic creator programmes at scale over small experiments and pokey budgets. RIP to the pay and spray, they’re prioritising always-on, multi-creator ecosystems, building proprietary tech and tools, and creating measurement models that will help with the age old ROI question. What we’re seeing more and more is that some of these programmes being built are now out weighting traditional media channels in investment, with line items prioritising creators over other channels that have had a home at the Lions since 1970.

But what struck me was that this work hasn’t really shown up in this shortlist - but because it’s not built for the confines of a campaign case study. In the constant challenge to creator creativity to ‘work’, those creating impactful work are being penalised by not being ready for a year on year awards. I imagine some of the best work being done right now won’t show up at the Palais until the mature measurement models demonstrate that ROI. We could be waiting a while for the best of the best.

Ultimately, the entry format rewards work that has a clean beginning, middle and an end, that has through line of effectiveness and measurement that can be told in a clean story narrative. This isn’t the reality of a huge amount of work being created in the US and beyond right now - because brands are really scrutinising the efficacy above all else in their rush to invest but their cautiousness of getting it wrong. Does the new category make sense for where the market(s) currently are? Market maturity is accelerating toward systematic and integrated - but the industry is a huge fan of the quite rightly exceptional. Both are moving fast, but potentially in different directions.

THIRTY PERCENT OF NOTHING IS STILL NOTHING

The gaping issue in creator led campaigns is the evolution of measurement models. Whilst we’ve come a huge way, there is still far too much ambiguity over what good creator results look like, and what they deliver objective to objective. Agency’s are getting great at identifying their own proprietary structures, but when it comes to assessing landscape performance, we lack the language and consistency to evaluate real impact with a unified meaningful metric.

This is problematic when thirty percent of the weighting at Cannes is measurement. Of the 20 creator-led cases, only three I could clearly see what I would describe as meaningful metrics. I don’t doubt behind the paywall of these case studies there is a myriad of smart measurement chat and systems developed by the agency to demonstrate that efficacy. But in a clear to find, easy to interpret sense, three feels both disappointing and representative of the industry gap at a large. CeraVe cited 43% sales lift (gorgeous) for their work with Kevin Durant highlighting his dry legs no more thanks to their product. Billie’s call for “Koala Ears” (aka visible bikini lines) back to the beach helped secure them first and second in women’s kits at Woolworth’s. And Dr Pepper have stunning results for their increase on TikTok and regional sales correlation that track to their jingle co-sign. But the rest seem to rely up front on reach, impressions, how talked about the brand are. This isn’t wrong, but its hardly proof of commercial consequence or cultural impact.

This doesn’t make them a creative failure at all - but as we evolve as an industry, we need to put more pressure on bringing that modelling through from the get go - looking at how we’re going to measure commercial outcome if at all and if not, what are we looking at and why. The more the expectation is for creator work to move upstream, the more we need to give the people handling and ideating the campaigns the keys to matching business objectives with outcome. By bringing this measurement up front and being clear about what success looks like, we help elevate the creative opportunity with a clear system to show the work works. If you’re working in this and reading this, think about what you’re doing to bang that drum.

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THE BOUNDARY WE’VE BEEN ASKING TO BLUR IS FINALLY BEING BLURRED

THE DRUM I’VE BEEN ALSO BANGING! We’re finally seeing an evolution from the old mode of Influence - which has a time and a place, but hardly capitalises on the whole opportunity. It’s something like: Brand has a message, creator has an audience, creator becomes the conduit, community reacts. Done and dusted, a lack of cohesion between Creator and Community, and ultimately a campaign that’s measurement gathers more dust.

We’ve long been saying that the old mode needs to make more way for the world in which that boundary is eradicated, that the creator doesn’t sit in silo to the wider opportunity, that the creator becomes the creative when the time is right. Vaseline Originals sourced its creators from their community they’ve been nurturing online for 15 years (and for a very small period of time, I was the community manager of lol). It saw the opportunity to champion community as creators and elevate superfans with varying levels of impact. They used creators as R&D and proof of concept.

BIS built a role-playing game inside WhatApp with the country’s most respected RPG master, seeing 90,000 people enter, and allowing them to bring the choose your own adventure trope to life. The creator work and the community reaction become symbiotic of one another.

Brahma turned fandom into financial investment by getting fans to purchase their beer to fund local clubs. A smart way to show affinity for brand without compromising on your end goal, but the purchase intent was clear to track. This is all symoblic of an evolution of co-creation, smarter partnerships that don’t live or die by reach, and bringing insight upstream.

The shortlist shows the brands that are ahead here, but it also shows the ones still surviving in tactic mode instead of tacit strategy mode. I think there’s still a lot of work from this industry to evolve work from the systemic, systematic and expected into the exceptional.

EIGHT OBSERVATIONS FROM SOMEONE WHO CARES WAY TOO MUCH ABOUT THIS

1. The Age of Creator as Co-Author

   Co-creation can be an annoying buzz word when the brands spouting it have no intention of true collaboration, just expecting to slap a creator onto a product launch and call it quits to satiate their CMO. But the most awarded and documented work on this shortlist is not work where creators distribute brand messaging verbatim, but where creators are at the heart of, and perhaps even invited in, to generate the insight, the product, the creative or the mechanic. Vaseline Originals product development, Dr Pepper’s jingles, Mr Beast’s Salesforce brief and the KFC Australia GymTok ads are all examples of bringing creator insight into the strategy layer, not the distribution layer.
   

2. Social Listening and Creator Insight is your R&D, not just your measurement tool
   Dr Pepper, KFC and CeraVe all started with the same mechanic: a social listening insight surfaced around something already happening in culture, and the brand moved toward it, fast, rather than rejecting it as a fragementation of narrative. The reality is, your community tell the brand story now, and creators are a great vehicle to hold onto that conversation. For CeraVe, they saw tweets about Kevin Durant’s dry skin become memes in their own right and reacted to this in their global campaign. For KFC, they let menu hacks become reality. For Dr Pepper they let a meme make their headline championship spot. Community and creator led insight at the heart of ideas now up for award, which flips traditional campaign mechanics on their head.
   

3. The organic to paid pipeline is the new standard

   Whilst there still is a category for organic reach and influence to encourage that earned conversation, there is always a smart pipeline that lets the conversation coalesce then amplifies it. Pope Yes from Popeye’s, Dr Pepper, CeraVe and the KitKat heist all deployed paid amplfication after organic and earned conversation had begun to swell. As the role of Influence in the media mix consistently evolves, this trend is notable as the partnership between Creator and Media has never been more needed.
   

4. Market Maturity: A Tale of Two speeds

   Whilst US dominated with 46 shortlisted entries, and shows the most sophisticated systems to prove the work works (social listening, established creator deal frameworks, super-bowl level media integration, and measurement reliant on sales lift over vanity metrics), I think the best, most lateral, most innovative work came out of the Global South. The work coming out of Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico and Vietnam does not feel like market executions of the US/UK playbooks, but responsive to their community insight. Brahma’s S.A.B., Vaseline’s Nigerian Prince and HVL by MCK are notable entries that feel culturally inventive and really speak to that local flavour markets need to retain to gain cut through. It’s also worth noting that despite the UK making huge strides in creator marketing, they were responsible pretty much through indirect credits on market support for Vaseline and CeraVe.
   

5. Celebrities still dominate the talent pipeline

   Looking at the top of the shortlist in terms of reach, earned media and cultural penetration that feature creators, and by and large you’re not really talking your at home movie maker. You’re talking NBA royalty Kevin Durant for CeraVe, Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappe and Vini Jr for LEGO (lol what a payday), Mr Beast for Salesforce. These guys aren’t small fry, and its important to note whose coming up top when those are the budgets we’re playing with. The tension the awards is currently surfacing is that the work generating the most ‘verifiable’ results leans heavily on celebrity talent over the opportunity with mid or micros. This probably says just as much about what the jury considers good work. Whilst I’m all for the celebrity top-tier partnership, I hope to see more of a light shone on more traditional creator models in the years to come
   

6. AI and Proprietary Tech is present but not central

   Of the 20 campaigns, only two seemed up front in meaningful AI deployment - Salesforce using Slackbot AI as the puzzle mechanism in the Mr Beast Superbowl Spot, and Vaseline’s Nigerian Prince using image recognition AI in their WhatsApp authenticator. For the most part, AI wasn’t central. The dominant technology story in this shortlist wasn’t Gen AI but actually the involvement and infrastructure generated by social platforms and tech - including using WhatsApp, Twitch and YouTube 360 to deliver. With creators often acting as the antidote and human verification to a world filled with AI slop, this isn’t necessarily hugely surprising, but the nascency of this in the systems behind the works did stand out to me in comparison to other out of category shortlists.
   

7. Measurement is still a real gap

   As previously mentioned, commercially meaningful metrics were thin on the ground. To prove the work works for creator, outside of clear affiliate and/or sales led models is something that takes time and frameworks that not many markets have cracked meaningfully yet. I’m interested to see what pressure this is placed under in the years to come, and where we as an industry can unify on the opportunity.
   

8. The Community is still central

   Work that connects and activates people means more than reach. Not exactly a shocking headline, but a worthy one to remind people. Brahma chose to activate an existing audience and create an easy, no-brainer point of purchase switch for their campaign. Billie capitalised on creator Abbie Chatfield’s audience and messaging around body positivity to be the perfect conduit for the Koala ears metaphor, and MCK’s audience were waiting for that music video for a very long time, it was just a joy Apple could facilitate it. This is what we mean by resonance not reach, btw.

And if you’re still here, right at the bottom, my favourite piece of work was Hellman’s #MainFlavourEnergy, where they cast Jesse Heiman, the world’s most famous background actor (100+ film and TV appearances without a named role) as the face of its Flavours range expansion to show that Mayo is no longer the background ingredient, it’s the star. Love that Edelman Canada <3 <3 <3

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

This morning my Spotify shuffle put on an anthem for my mid 2010s life - the cancelled (and then un-cancelled again) Growlers 2014 hit Good Advice.

Words of wisdom from a man whose bad choices saw him off the touring circuit for a decade. Music gossip aside, the sentiment stands. No one wants to hear it. But, as Rush Hour has been on hiatus for a little bit, I thought maybe I could impart some anyway. Because, I hear quite a lot of you are checking in to easyJet flights and checking your corporate card spend limits about now.

Am I? No. Don’t worry about it. I, am not jealous, at all!!!!!! Truly. Hate rose, what’s the point in a yacht, don’t have an opinion on the ever evolving opportunity and transformation of the beautiful world of creators. But, it’s not all bad. London in 30 degrees, a pub garden, and hometown glory will get me through. If I squint hard enough, the burst water main on West Norwood High Street could be the sea.

So back to the advice you didn’t ask for. Rush Hour aims to give you the skinny on the fat of the industry - creators I’m loving, big biz moves, the big stories across my desktop. So if you’re heading out with some doubt about how you’re going to parlez in the palais, maybe you can keep this in your pocket. Like an Alka Seltzer for your ability to chat shit. Good luck, god speed, and in the words of Baz Luhrman, wear sunscreen.

Rub in the factor 50 and pack your bikini. This Rush Hour’s on a yacht.

🌆 SUNSET STRIP 🌆

Shining a light on a Creator moment I’ve loved this week

I’ve been gone to long to spotlight just ONE moment I’ve been loving. After all, unfathomably my kitchen has 22 spotlights. Horrendous. Here’s my faves…

Laura Jackson x Casamigos - Quarterita

The kind of thing I’m annoyed I didn’t think of first. A perfect collaboration with buzzy tequila brand Casamigos, whose marketing budget and thirst to do cool shit knows no bounds. Hot off the heels of last years Margarita festival which took over Soho with quite some gusto, they’re back with a match made in heaven. Laura Jackson’s homeware store Glassette is a cult classic, and her entire schtick is having a nice time and looking very cool whilst doing it. So - why not collaborate with her to create a nice piece of glassware that you can put her favourite drink in and serve it out of pubs in a quarter-pint glass? You can enjoy it in gorgeously fun hot spots - The Blue Post, Ellie’s, the Copeland Social to name a few, and you can get your own on pre-order. This, my friends, is what we mean when we say handing over the keys to co-creation. It’s not a lazy excuse for brands to siphon of creativity to a creator. It’s a partnership of prime strategic insight, clever casting, and the GUMPTION to actually DO SOMETHING. Take notes.

My New Favourite: Rachel Ojuromi

Give Rachel A Shot! The handle says it all, but I couldn’t agree more. If Rachel hasn’t come across your desk, may I please recommend you stop everything you’re doing and check her out?

Rachel is truly hypnotic, stalking the streets of Lagos with the style and grace of the most seasoned catwalk stars. She is quite frankly addicted to serving. Her TikTok’s gained her a dedicated following, but she’s since been picked up by the eyes of Vogue to I-D to Interview as everyone wants a slice of her inherent charisma and style. She’s being dubbed the Lagos It Girl, and with good reason. Give her a follow.

Some other things that got me going recently

1. Moyo at the World Cup for Airbnb
   Okay, maybe we’re a little biased because this came out of our camp (Josie hi well done again babe), but I have never ever enjoyed content out of a brand trip MORE than the energy Moyo was serving us. Plus, a story he did saying thanks for the opportunity made me CRY. Wish everyone could be more Moyo <3
   

2. Dua’s Holiday List x Google Maps
   Another ‘wish we got there first’ idea - we’ve been long percolating at Born HQ about capitalising on Dua’s holiday obsession, curated lists, and the general joy of Service95. Happy for the Google team to have got it across the line by teaming up with Service95 officially and sharing 12 lists in Maps that are packed with her favourite spots around the world, including pics from her camera roll and personalised recommendations. I may or may not have saved a bunch of her Mexico City recs and ended up 3 margs down buying some more cowboy boots at her fave Mexican leather store. Whoops!
   

3. Kaia Gerber snapped up as Creative Partner in Residence for Uni
   More! Brand! Equity! Partnerships! Kaia Gerber has just joined the LA based beauty brand Uni as their Creative Partner in residence, where she will collaborate with the team across campaigns, partnerships and product development - right at the top of them expanding into 1600 stores in America. Patiently waiting for the first major equity spin in the UK .

4. Back of the Neck - Boots x Dan Burns
   Sometimes it’s just all about the simple smart executions. Boots partnered with England player Dan Burns right ahead of him heading out for the World Cup, rebranding him ‘Dan Won’t Burn’ (lol). The campaign, entitled “Back of the Neck” is all about raising awareness of proper suncream application, calling out that often missed spot.

5. Eli Rallo x NYT
   NYC to Houston Influencer Eli Rallo tied the not with her ‘Scorpio Boy’ Avery Tia last week, a relationship fans have followed from first date to walk down the aisle. As part of their relationship rituals, they play Wordle together every morning. NYT took the opportunity to congratulate the happy couple and reward that morning rite properly with a custom bag of goodies, including hats emblazoned with two great 5 letter words: BRIDE AND GROOM.

6. Jools Lebron’s Profile in the Guardian
   Whilst we may have all moved on from a very mindful, very demure summer, the scars left by hit and run virality run deep for those at the heart of it. Jools Lebron, coiner of the iconic phrase, is proof of that. In a searingly honest and pretty upsetting profile for The Guardian, they talk to the star a year on and hear about how drug addiction, bad brand deals, and not coping with new fame led to a pretty brutal downward spiral. They’re up and at ‘em again, but I would encourage the read.

7. SuBo x Cornetto

   You’ve probably seen this one - but Susan Boyle of X Factor fame came out of the limelight with a very little c***ty bob teasing new music. It caught the internets attention, as we prepped for a SuboSummer (see ya brat!). It turned out, she’d dropped an absolute banger for Cornetto. Subo’s gorgeous voice remixed Just One Cornetto for the dance floors of 2026. Pretty fun, tbf.

📈THE STOCK EXCHANGE📉 AND 🔥🏡 HOT PROPERTY🏡🔥

Big biz moves that effect the culture AND Who or what is the current Main Character of my internet

Don’t we love a double whammy? This weeks main character and big biz news came out of the same camp, because in case you didn’t know already…

KNICKS IN 5!!!!

It’s been pretty fun watching the fever pitch climb and climb, as brands across New York started to see their dreams come true. In the lead up to Game 4, the excitement really built, with New York brands taking over shop fronts and social sites in Orange and Blue. Steve Madden, the MTA, Glossier, Snapple and Malin and Goetz are just a few who’ve gone orange for the foreseeable.

But besides my excitement as a Knicks Fan By Association (my sister in law is a born and bred New Yorker and Knicks fan, and took me to the Bridge at Madison Square Garden for Thanksgiving!!!), I have looooooooveeeeeeeeeed some of the brand activations we’ve seen.

So in the spirt if Knicks in 5, here’s my 5 top ones

1. OBVIOUSLY SLEEP WELL, NY BY NIKE - IT’S SO GORGEOUS
   What a beautiful ad! The star of it really has no tooth, and was found via the Safdie brothers. You can watch him interviewed all about it in Breaking and Entering.

2. CONVENE’S LOGO CHANGE

   SIMPLE BUT EFFECTIVE - a Nicks accidentally pulled down the N on their store during the parade, instead of mad, they got bad. They changed their logo on socials to a wonky N in tribute.
   

   

3. Glossier release I Heart NY balm dotcom

   Who doesn’t love a reactive NPD???? I’m impressed with the speed at which they did this. If they could speedily bring back the original Glossier You formulation I’d be really glad.

   

4. Spotify’s Reactive OOH

   Okay it’s not like they’re not going to capitalise on a smart OOH placement. But it still gets me giddy after all this time! Billboards in the streets of New York saw public playlists like “Songs for Transcending Down 7th Avenue” and “Waiting Since ‘99”

   

5. Frida shouting out Brunson and Hart’s baby Momma’s

   “When the garden chants Bing Bong, they hear Mom Mom Mom” should be hung in the LOUVRE!!! Parent product brand Frida has named Knicks Wags Ali Brunson and Shannon Hart the seasons MVP’s (Most Valuable Parents).

   

🎛️ NOTES FROM THE CONTROLLER ROOM 🎛️

Things that I’ve been thinking about this week

1. Ann Patchett’s Whistler

   Please trust me that this book is cosy and beautiful and warm and will really, really make your week.
   

   

2. HorseGiirL’s New Album
   In other Horse Adjacent news, I am absolutely obsessed with Nature is Healing
   

3. Reformation x Umbro
   I wish I had the body-ody-ody to pull off this dress

   

4. Keke Palmer and Sean Evans
   OMG JUST KISS ALREADY
   

5. These Chocolate Covered Bananas
   You won’t regret giving this one a go even tho they look kinda questionable out of the packet

   

Okay that was fun! It’s nice to be back! See you all soon! Love you! Bye! xxxxxx

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

Around the same time as I published this piece, I also came across the concept of Women in SPAM, a term that came to me via Betches (and therefore when I spoke about it I attributed it to them). I have since found its the IP of a very smart social angel called Lauren Cameron, who has founded a community (!) and dropped merch (!), which is very SPAM and very cool. Before all this, I had reposted an image of Samantha Jones with the acronym (Social Media, PR, Advertising and Marketing) splayed over it introducing the concept to my modest subscriber count. This also grew like wildfire.

Both of these posts are probably small fry to the actual people who have followings and have sustained them for the last decade or so of social. I have always been firmly on the consultancy side of virility. Working, in this order, as follows: responding to people on the internet for brands, to making the content they respond to, to writing the content they respond to, to contracting people to make that content, to building strategies on how brands can make and commission that content, to running teams of people who do that. In all my many wasted years on the internet, I have never had this much heat on one thing, let alone two. Exciting, but exposing. A sort of rush. I get why you all do this now.

Then, crucially, I went on holiday. I spent 11 days in Mexico with my friend Phoebe as we travelled through CDMX and then down to the cost of Puerto Escondido to trade the tube for tacos and tequila, holding up surprisingly well for two pale angels in 40 degree heat. We rode horses in the Oaxacan jungle, we drank Pacificos whilst trying to not our legs touch one another. We traded secrets and smoked thin little cigarettes. It was a much needed complete brain reset. It culminated in my sister in laws wonderful hen do, or bachelorette as I learned to call it (she’s a Long Island Baby, Knicks in 5!!!), back in Condessa, where a booze cruise down Xocomilco gave me some well deserved mild food poisoning and I spent an 11 hour flight back to London questioning my life choices. A step back on these fair shores and straight back into my Real Life™️, where a fulfilling job keeps me busy, and a fulfilling social life keeps me tired, and an overpriced gym membership keeps me guilty, I avoided opening up Substack, or LinkedIn, or really anything for fear of the little counter of expectation in the corner. Yes, the lady who puts more pressure on herself than anyone else, had created a complete misconception in her own head that she really had to get back writing her Magnum Opus. A completely ridiculous fight or flight that left me paralysed. I would have never survived in another era.

This meant: no Rush Hour - if you’re new hear, that’s a weekly newsletter about creators + culture I’ve never had any issue spewing out in the 30 minutes in a Friday morning I’m having my coffee. It also meant: no follow up to the Vogue Literacy Test - a 12 part series I had committed to before I really realised I’d have an audience. I had given myself writers block and was punishing myself for it daily. It was ridiculous. I am many things, and I am not many things, but one thing I’ve never struggled with is to sit down and write about something on the spot. It is the rare flow state I can enter. Anything more useful was lost on me, and now so was this. I realised I had activated my fight or flight over the pressure of a difficult second album. Wanting to ride the wave and momentum. But there was no record label or even fan base to disappoint. And yet, years of being on the phone to clients telling them to engage or die, to react quick or miss the opportunity, had started to wrap itself around my neck like a telephone cord.

But then I woke up this morning and I went on a run and reflected on a conversation I had in Dublin airport on the way back from a work trip this week with an amazing colleague of mine. We spoke at length about spirituality and mediumship and astro-cartography and the act of seeing what’s maybe not obviously there, the very heart of a strategist IMO, and something unlocked in the back of my head and said ‘just get the fuck on with it babe’.

So, here it is, the difficult second album is in production. This is nothing more than a note to say, hello. I am collating stories for a bumper Rush Hour. I have pages of notes for the next edition in the Literacy Test series (it’s going to be about books btw). I am open for observation. There is no point in this piece other than to opine about the open goal in front of us all. You’ve just got to kick it in the back of the net.

The list wasn’t formalised, nor did it exist in a published form - it was hidden, unofficial, and very IYKYK. And much like all great gatekeepers before you, to not know was a serious faux pas. The ability to move through this world of fashion, art, and ultimately be a purveyor of the sacred ‘taste’, was to speak a certain language without any accent. It was to know not just the photographers name, but why they were the photographer, shooting those people, at that moment. Insufferable scenesters would know that Esalen existed, but would they know what kind of person went, and what they were looking for when they arrived? This wasn’t a memory exercise in modern life, but a DNA test. Are you one of us? Or are you pretending?

This paranoid mindset is indicative of feeling out of place during a period where social mobility was squeaking into motion, but class and status stilll rusted the wheels. A pre-internet world feels like it should’ve been a utopia of ideals, but like all generation it had its all pervasive insecurities. Trying to access ‘culture’ was harder when you couldn’t ask an AI friend how exactly you could do that. Every decision you did or didn’t make cast a mark on how you moved through the world. In Caroline Palmer’s 2025 novel Workhorse, our protagonist is plagued by this, in which she tries to navigate the slippery fashion world of pre and post 9/11 New York. Quick thinking on her feet, Clo begs borrows and literally steals from the high society world she’s trying to embed herself in. She’s exactly the candidate for which this test was designed - if you can’t buy your way in through generational wealth, how hard are you willing to work to access what to so many is innate?

So how did the test come back across my desk in 2026? Via Substack of course, via the New York Times, via Michael Grynbaum’s Empire of the Elite a complete history of Condé Nast at its zenith. The test was patched together and retold, and then repackaged into a New York Time Quiz, the sort of mainstream access to codifying culture that Norwich and Gandee were presumably trying to avoid in writing this list in the first place.

I stared at this list for a long time. It confirmed most of my suspicions: that I shouldn’t have been born in the 90s, but rather be thirty flirty and thriving in the 90s. My love of the internet knows no bounds, but I do truly believe I belong in the editorial hallways of some publication, shonky or serious, with nothing but a claw clip and a dream. But it also unearthed more than this longing of a parallel life. I was intrigued, enticed, and comforted by its clear structure, its brutality in its broadness, its complete rejection of objectivity or measuring the multiple modes of cultural codes. It was black and white in its honesty: this was a list designed to gate keep and girl boss. And Vogue’s opinion was quite frankly the only one that mattered.

And so we come to now, 30 years on from the list, resurfaced for all reading in a time where gatekeeping is still the currency we trade. But I couldn’t help but wonder, does the list, or any equivalent list, hold the same weight? Can we even get to writing one given the huge chasm that cuts through culture, making it multifaceted and impossible to control?

In 1993, the gatekeepers had names, offices, and mastheads. Whether you liked it or not, Anna Winter, Larry Gogosian, and the big Hollywood talent agents decided what was worth its salt or not. The institution was upstream of the individual, reflective of the political climate at the time. You were legitimised by association, by where you worked, by who you knew, the rooms you were known to have been in or adjacent to. Cultural literacy meant you knew the full canon produced by those in the know, and you absorbed it deeply. Screw a degree. This was your education.

In 2026, those doors are still locked - but it’s even harder to quantify now. It has become all but invisible. Monoculture has been smashed up into a million different lived realities thanks to the algorithm, whilst at the same time AI is smoothing off huge sections of subculture into one very palatable mush. These days, algorithms decide much more than any magazine ever could, and what lands as cultural fluency for one certainly wouldn’t match for another. Unlike Anna, the algorithm is faceless and lacks all accountability for what it recommends - it lives off signals you didn’t know you were sending, according to criteria you’ll never fully see, toward outcomes that serve interests you didn’t consent to.

And this should feel more frightening than it does - but there is some comfort in the invisibility of it all. You can pick bones with, have beef with, or enter a full blown row with a gatekeeper. You can tell them they’re over and tune out, vote with your money. Editors of huge fashion publications found themselves embroiled in resentment and creativity in equal measure because they were legible people you could project onto - you knew what you were up against. You can't really hold the algorithm accountable in the same way. You can sneer at the usage, you can ‘digitally detox’, but you can’t actually argue or upset or reason with a bunch of 1s and 0s.

But you can hit out at their weakness, the achilles: the humanity of it all. The taste that still exists and has power and operates through exactly the same mechanism it always did, networks, the rooms you are in and the ones you are known to have been in. Cultural literacy nowadays is still a test that we’re all taking every time we try and understand what the hell is going on - its just become a more splintered, multiplied and fragmented existence, that went underground and online and into private DMs. These became outward facing codes that we ‘get’ it. There is no longer a singular test that one can undergo, but rather hundreds of them, running simultaneously, unaware of one another. The hype beast has its own, as does the art world, as does the quiet luxury test. K-Pop fandom has very little reason to interact with literary fiction, and so to be able to do one well and fail at another, you can still be credibly in control of your cultural literacy.

What we also face is the lack of institution to tell us these unspoken rules of culture. At the time of the Vogue test, they were truly at the top of their game, and print media via Conde Nast was the primary institution for cultural canon in America. There may have been equivalent tests being ran out of equivalent networks, but this was the one that really mattered. We lack that singular point of reference now, and taste has never been more personal whilst being so flattened and course corrected.

All of which is to say: what I propose to do next is almost impossible, and yet I will try.

It’s an attempt, partial, incredibly positioned, and very fully aware of its own partiality, to do what Norwich and Gandee did in 1993. It does not hold the weight or the prowess, and is imbued by personal taste and predilections. And yet, it was a fun time to try and find a way that we would compile a test of culture in this fragmented landscape. It’s certainly going to be very wrong to some people, and too right to others, and perhaps the broadness of appeal also talks to the disdain for gatekeeping in a world that still trades on it. It is not authoritative, because it can’t be - I hold literally zero cards in this game. Just like Norwich and Gandee, it is written from the view of a specific person, in a specific place, in a specific stat of mind, but this time the reference points are so scattergun it is peppered with adjacencies and blind spots. It skews toward my hometown of London and the particular cultural seriousness that can feel both pretentious and necessary. It talks to what lives in my interior, but also the exteriors I’ve admired from afar but have no front door access.

But, there are things that have changed between now and then, the 33 years between us now that the list makes visible:

1. Visibility Inversion The original list was initially full of people who operated within the institutions that shaped society. But now, individualism has taken centre stage, and increasingly individuals feel indicative of institutions as opposed to the other way round. This is why the creator economy is so entangled with taste. Everyone can create, but the frame has shifted, and the person becomes the primary unit of cultural meaning.

2. Politicisation of Aesthetics in the original list, PETA felt like an intrusion, the unwelcome inclusion of politics into fashion and art. The phrase ‘the personal is political’ may have began to take steam, but in no way as close to the reality now - where politics is intrinsically at the heart of all our creativity. Telfar is inseparable from queerness and blackness and anti-exclusivity, Grace Wales Bonner’s research practice before she starts her work is a political act. Aesthetic choices in 2026 automatically function as ideological declaration, despite your best efforts. The 90’s list was political too, but like everything in a time where hysteria wasn’t linked to ad spend, it was marginally muted. Different world’s.

3. Canon Fragmentation there is no singular point of truth anymore. We can’t uphold Vogue as the voice of the establishment, where a handful of cities (namely London, New York, Paris and Munich) and critics held the cultural capital. Thank God, quite frankly. It is naive to even try and say there could be a singular perspective of what this list would be - especially not from a middle-class white lady from South London. There are probably 5 lists in my post code, let alone my country. Cultural fluency is circumstantial even with the best intent, and we might share some vocabulary but ultimately the Venn diagrams are getting wider and wider.

All that being said, I’ve given it a crack. 180 entries, twelve categories, as follows: The Page, The Places, The Institutions, The Crossover Figures, Film and Moving Image, The Scene, Music, Art, Tech, Food, Fashion, Sport. How did I compile it? I sat with the original list and tried to do write equivalent names against all of them. I then grouped that into categories. I then went one by one to try and add an ‘obvious’ equivalent and a ‘not so obvious’ equivalent, checked my postcode bias, and spent a bit of time with Google. And then I entered into a back and forth with Claude, where we really dug into each choice. The project has taken about a week all in, and I still don’t think its 100% correct. But! We have to start somewhere.

Over the next weeks and months, I will deep dive each category, digging into why I shaped those lists the way I did, almost certainly making my own edits and arguing with myself, and opening up to you to tell me what you think belongs there. After all, we’ve never needed to crowd source cultural references more than now. And each essay on each category will come with a syllabus, because unlike Norwich and Gandee, we don’t gatekeeper in this house. A curriculum that will tell us about culture at this moment in time, from this brain. Right now, I’m not going to explain the choices anymore than I already have in this lengthy warm up. They are presented, like the original, without comment. But this time, we’re very open to argument.

Enjoy.

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A

A24 / Addison Rae / Adut Akech / Aftersun / Alex Consani / Alex G / Alix Earle / All of Us Strangers / Altin Gün / Amelia Dimoldenberg / Anitta / Anthropic / Ants from Up There / Arca / Arcadia Missa / Are.na / Arthur Jafa / Asma Khan / Atomix / Ayo Edebiri

B

Barbie / Berenjak / Berghain / Beyoncé / Block9 / Bong Joon Ho / Boiler Room / Bottega Veneta / Bottoms / Bowen Yang / Brat / Brenda Hashtag / BTS / Burial / Burna Boy

C

CAA / Campbell Addy / Caroline Polachek / Caroline Walker / Caster Semenya / Celine Song / Chappell Roan / Charli XCX / Chicken Shop Date / Chopova Lowena / Collina Strada / Comporta / Contramar / Corbin Shaw / Crack Magazine

D

Dario and Daniela Amodei / Dave / Demis Hassabis / Dept. of Speculation / Desire I Want To Turn Into You / Deux Moi / Diet Prada / Dilara Findikoglu / Dimes Square / Dorian / Dream Baby Press

E

E/acc vs AI safety / e-flux / Emerald Fennell / Erewhon* / Ethel Cain / Ezra Collective / Extremely Online

F

Fabric / Feeld / Fergus Henderson / Fermentation / FKA Twigs / Floating Points / Fold / The For You Page / The French House / Frieze

G

Gabriella Karefa-Johnson / Gabriette / Ghosts of My Life / The group chat

H

Honey Dijon

I

i-D / Ice Spice / Ixta Belfrage

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J

Jacquemus / Japan / Jia Tolentino / Jim Legxacy / Joachim Trier / Jordan Peele / Julia Fox

K

Kae Tempest / Kara Walker / Karlie Kloss / Kelly Reichardt / Kendrick Lamar / Kiln

L

Lankum / Law Roach / LeBron James / Le Doyenné / Lena Dunham / Leslie Jamison / Little Simz / Loewe / Lubaina Himid / Luigi Mangione / Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

M

Magnus Reid / Margate / Mezcla / Michaela Coel / Michaela Yearwood-Dan / Midjourney / Mitski / Mona Chalabi / Mountain

N

Naomi Osaka / Natural wine / NewJeans / Njideka Akunyili Crosby / Noma / Nose to Tail Eating / NTS Radio / Nubya Garcia

O

Oaxaca / Ocean Vuong / Olivia Rodrigo / Open vs closed source / Ottessa Moshfegh / Outline

P

Palais / Paloma Elsesser / Parasite / Past Lives / Pat McGrath / Paul Murray / Perfectly Imperfect / Petra Collins / Phoebe Collings-James / Polly Nor / Polyester

R

Rachel Cusk / Rachel Sennott / The RealReal / René Matic / Renell Medrano / Richie Hell / Rihanna / River Café

S

Sadie Coles HQ / Saidiya Hartman / Salt Fat Acid Heat / Sam Altman / SAG-AFTRA / The Safdie Brothers / SET / Severance / Shameless Media / Shiona Turini / Simone Biles / Singburi / Skepta / Slow Factory / Solange / St John / Stolen Focus / Stormzy / Substack / Sun Ra / The Summer I Turned Pretty / Synthetic media

T

Tate Modern Turbine Hall / Telfar Clemens / Tems / The Bear / The Bee Sting / The bookable table / The Coming Wave / The creator economy / The dirty martini / The Face / The pickle / The group chat / The oyster / The Row / The smash burger / The tinned fish / Tim Key / Tillingham / To Pimp A Butterfly / Torrey Peters / Toyin Ojih Odutola / Trick Mirror / Trisha’s / TV Globo / Tyler Mitchell

V

Vinted / Virgil Abloh

W

Wales Bonner / Wayward Lives Beautiful Experiments / Ways of Being / Ways of Seeing / The Windmill Brixton / Wizkid / Wolfgang Tillmans / Wuthering Heights

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Y

Yorgos Lanthimos

Z

Zanele Muholi / Ziwe / Zak Polanski / Zohran Mamdani and Rama Duwaji

The Cultural Literacy Test is a Sim City series. Each section of the list will be unpacked in subsequent essays — the arguments, the contexts, the syllabuses. The first deep dive - The Page - publishes next.

Hello and welcome to May! May Bank Holiday Weekend NO LESS! I have bare legs. I have the beginnings of a base tan. I have little nicks all over my feet and toes from reintroducing sandals into my shoe diet. I have hope in my heart and bags under my eyes!

Okay that’s me, what about… all this? The big pixels? The talent landscape? The trials and tribulations of modern day creativity? I’m so glad you asked! They’re here, in this week’s edition of Rush Hour. We have: Sonic Drive In’s Generational Run by getting the Baronies on side, we have Creator Soup from the marketing minds of The Devil Wears Prada 2, we have the teaser for the new Creator Effectiveness Playbook at Cannes (!))!)(!)!)!). We have a little sexy something called the Virality Industrial Complex and how indie music is now victim to spam bot Psyops just like the rest of the creative industries, and we have some v sage advice about how to keep your job from killing your creativity. We’ve also got Fame Sick, The Fall, and Lambrusco season. Does that all sound delicious? Well that’s because it is!

Grab the ice bag and put it in the front seat with the crudites and the spritzes, because we’re going to the beach and its Rush Hour.

🌆 SUNSET STRIP 🌆

Shining a light on a Creator moment I’ve loved this week

Sonic Drive Ins Generational Run

What is Sonic Drive In? This is a serious question. I now know, of course, despite not living in America but very much keeping my eye on its cultural drivers. I did some digging and they’re a serious player in the drive in scene, but as someone who felt they done a fair share of road trips in the US of A, they’ve caught my attention better with this than roadside. Anyway, you know the scene in When Harry Met Sally and they’re in Katz Deli and Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm and the old lady says “I’ll have what she’s having?”. This is me, every time Sonic Drive In pushes another iconic creator creative into my feed. I want their budget. I want their production value. And above all, I want their gumption.

See, I’m not primed to hit up a Sonic Drive In anytime soon, but a friend of Mary Beth Barone is a friend of mine. It did immediately catch my eye when she was resplendent on a sun lounger next to Veronika Slowikowska, another longstanding feed friend. As they sip their heavily branded but heavily aesthetic Sonic Refreshers (?), a small comically time skit between the two and a phone charging solution unfolds, soundtracked by party girl bangers. A quick flick to Sonics feed unveils their Von Dutch partnership at Coachella, soundtracked to a remake of one of my top tens of all time “Totally Addicted to Bass” (there is an interview with me in the guardian from 2001 to prove that even at age 10, I had taste. A further scroll unveils partnership after partnership with ever it girly, lifestyle adjacent, musician/artist/model playing or participating in the east coast party.

It’s neat, the music tie in with the music name. The singularity of product focus on their heavily branded and aesthetic refreshers. The, what I see now, reimagining of a heritage diner chain for the new road trip era. It’s one of the better linear executions of a singular brand springboard into a creator universe. And even if the more produced and scripted cuts, it felt the DNA of the talent was the first pass. Plus, at 8.2% of the market share, you can see the clear cut strategy to build cult status around a hero product that feels like just enough of a differentiator to their core competitor sets offering. But, seriously, if anyone can drop their Coachella and spring summer marketing budget, consider me very interested.

The Devils Wears a Press Tour

When it comes to building brand by osmosis, you can spend a lot of time considering the layers upon layers of talent you want to activate. To carefully curate a brand presence that feels found rather than forced. To make your name part of the cultural landscape through carefully selected placement and partnerships. Or you can engage in something I like to call Creator Soup: pay ‘em cheap, stack ‘em high. You can’t really fault the latter over the former. There’s a time and a place and all that, and arguably, it achieves the same amount of noise. But the brand message might feel like fly-posting as opposed to found fondness. When you are laddering up to a bit fat moment in culture, creator soup is the path of least resistance. It isn’t particularly interesting but it gets the job done. All that being said is: The Devil Wears Prada 2 releases today and if you don’t know about it, I would like to trade algorithms. I can’t wait, I will be watching, I don’t know if I needed to be told so many times that even my Pilates instructor was hawking it in Wednesdays Tower class.

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📈THE STOCK EXCHANGE📉

Big biz moves that effect the culture

WPP, TikTok and System 1 Launch The Creator Effectiveness Playbook at Cannes

Oh my God it’s happening! Currently googling EasyJet flights to Cannes to see if I can fan girl over Andrew Tindall and Eugene Healey as they present industry gold dust: The Creator Effectiveness Playbook. The new guidance doubles down on that IPA and Effie’s data around the long term brand effects of creator led marketing, but asks the big question of how we can measure it in 2026 and beyond. To quote Tindall himself: “Why is there no reliable growth in outcomes as we spend more on creators? Why is brand attribution on creator content sitting at 25%? How do we select, brief, and invest in creators to responsibly scale this channel?”. All questions on everyone’s lips, and I’m very excited to see them even vaguely scratch the surface with this playbook. There is so much in this industry that relies on us running before we can walk, and I’m the first on the start line. I’m looking forward to this playbook acting as the Deep Heat to make sure we aren’t all limping across the finish line.

The Virality Industrial Complex: Trend Simulation or UGC Encouragement?

Ever since their second album gained mass popularity, I’ve been confronted with thinkpieces or shitposts citing whether or not Geese were a PsyOp. As a fan of Cameron Winter and the weirdities of Geese in what I would describe ‘a normal amount’ for a London Indie Darling™️, I didn’t pay much mind. I did find it kinda suss that someone like Geese could gain mainstream fame, but I also chalked it up to that BBC6 is for everyone. So I was somewhat surprised to read everyone’s favourite Instagram Magazine Editor Shaad D’Souza in the Guardian this week with his piece “Indie music has been invaded by fake fans and cynical viral campaigns. Here’s how deep it all goes.”

The story goes like this: a marketing agency called Chaotic Good was ‘outed’ for lack of a better word for doing exactly what they promote on their website, trend simulation. The idea is that thousands of coordinated accounts, posting at volume, manufacturing the impression that their clients were at the centre of the zeitgeist. It’s worth noting, whilst the internet claims they got caught out, if anything they old on themselves… they bragged on a Billboard podcast that they can drive impression on “anything at this point, we know how to go viral, we have thousands of pages.” Geese sit on their client list, and so fans of putting 2+2 and getting 10 went wild.

The discourse is split into two camps - those calling it fraudulent behaviour and an affront to fans everywhere, and those who work in marketing. I read the expose and thought: “wait til they hear about McDonald’s”. But all that’s to say is both camps are missing the point somewhat. The labels spent years demanding artists go viral on TikTok as a condition of getting a release date. How often have we seen a board pop star vape to camera to hit their posting quota? When you make virality the price of admission to this circus, you shouldn’t be shocked when you find out there’s someone selling fake tickets out the front. That’s capitalism baby!

What’s interesting about Geese specifically is that the manufactured hype became a ligthnig rod for everything people already wanted to say - about the “rock saviours” narrative, about the aesthetic, and about the fanbase that make it so easy to dunk on. The psyop didn’t create the backlash as such, it just handed over a weapon to an already braying crowd. I suspect this won’t be the only story we hear in relation to this - it’s no secret that politicians, actors, and anyone seeking public favour are using these services to astroturf (use bots to push a singular narrative), to generate fandom (think fanpages en masse) or to generate mass UGC (I mean hello, this is the internet). And for old me, in Creator marketing, I’m thinking… the exploitation of talent is the trend, not the simulation babe.

🔥🏡 HOT PROPERTY🏡🔥

Who or what is the current Main Character of my internet

17 Ways to Keep Your FT Job From Killing Your Creativity

I have a complicated relationship with my Explore page. For every cute outfit, cultural inspiration, or quote that makes it way to my saved, there is slews of before and afters and macro conscious recipes. It frustrates me, but there is something mesmerising about watching a woman walk on a treadmill for a second a day for 6 months. It’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me. But today, it surfaced up a gem: 17 ways to keep your FT Job from killing creativity, a selection of advice from Raf, Prada, Wales Bonner, Simone Rocha, Doechii, creative directors and Kel Rakowski, the creative advisor behind h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y and the Substack Popular.

The carousel dictacted 17 ways to seek inspiration and find fun in the everyday, and it was surfaced to me at absolutely the right time. I look forward to coming back to her every week for a little pick me up…

My top 3:

Raf Simons Three Reference Rule

So much of our time spent on the internet is scrolling and skimming texts. Raf Simons believes better work comes from going deep - rewatching, rereading, and re-listening. The advice? Cap yourself to 3 core references for the next month, and you’re not allowed to dig into any new inspiration references until you’ve gone really deep in on those things.

Prada’s Hate-Watch Brief

Rumour has it, Miuccia Prada gained inspo for one menswear collection by reading a book about golf - a world she found “ridiculous and uninteresting”. Out of it sprung a new way of looking at clothes, through the lens of disbelief and hatred until it became something interesting or subversive. The advice? Pick one visual world you’re allergic to and make one small project from it.

Wales Bonner’s Private Syllabus

Research in all its forms is essential for considered creative output, and this is especially the case for our most prestiged designers. Grace Wales Bonner builds a research world before she makes the work: books, archives, music, history, images and thought. The advice? Pick one idea for 8 weeks and make a tiny syllabus, 3 texts, 2 films, 1 playlist.

I was so inspired by the last one that I am working on a little Substack project that talks to this idea. Expect a syllabus to come your way very soon!

🎛️ NOTES FROM THE CONTROLLER ROOM 🎛️

Things that I’ve been thinking about this week

Famesick - Lena Dunham

I cannot resist her gravitational pull! Lena Dunham you will always be famous. So famous it makes you sick. The last third of this book is a jump scare - the health stuff is crazy town. I guess getting super famous completely randomly at 23 isn’t good for long term health and wellness of a modern day artist? Either way…. there is plenty of juice in here if you like behind the scenes gossip and you wonder “how much sex are other people having?”. If you’re Lena - it’s a lot!

The Fall

My favourite band of all time that I for some reason took a 1-2 year hiatus from. I’ve been digging back into Mark E Smith this week and it’s brought me joy and inspiration and it makes me feel so good. Mountain Enegei is just such a banger.

Bad Days Are Also a Very Good and Sexy Part of Life

I saw this on my aforementioned Explore page and it really spoke to me!

Lambrusco Season

I can’t wait for today to finish so I can get a bottle of fizzy red with my long distance friend whose over from Singapore as the sun in London gets light and hazy and we’ll probably eat some vodka pasta and then maybe a cocktail and oops now we’re at the club and…

OKAY THAT’S EVERYTHING LOVE YOU BYE XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

Hello and welcome to this weeks Rush Hour. As Spring Is Coming With a Strawberry in Her Mouth, so do the brand campaigns from a new financial year. I love this 6 month stretch so much, an abundance of fun and playful concepts to get the people going at Cannes, a push for creative to go live before the holiday slow, summer Fridays!

It’s also when Forbes 30 Under 30 drop, which always triggers an existential crisis. I spent every year of my 20s depressed I wouldn’t get onto it despite doing nothing of note to garner that, and then every year of my 30s thus far being sad I’m no longer under 30. Despite the fact you couldn’t pay me to be in my 20s again and in real term, physical, mental, spiritual, I am in a Better Place™️. This year is no exception but I love the talent shining through. We’ve also had your classic “WHOOPSIE!” marketing mailer from the Lancôme team sending 1000+ incorrect mailers meant for Demi Moore. And I also found the #sponcon Billie Piper did for a medical scan just really funny (medical scans really have the market cornered right now when it comes to big talent. Is this the UKs version of the Royal Kingdom celebrity ads?).

What else? We have Sandy Liang’s Hollywood talent signing showing us what we’ve continued to suspect about fashion for some time. We have the increased prevalence of literary salons (aka elevated book clubs) as that IRL thing keeps marching on. And we have some thoughts about trademarked scents and my recent foray back into vaporwave.

🌆 SUNSET STRIP 🌆

Shining a light on a Creator moment I’ve loved this week

30 out of 30 under 30 Are Creators

If you ever wanted a strong indicator of how far spanning the creator economy is in the foundations of our world, look no further than the Forbes Europe 30 Under 30 list. Yes, the Media and Marketing section that heralds the new era of storyteller is studded with Content Creators, feed favourites Max Balegde, GK Barry and NoelGoesCrazy all feature. But it’s beyond this title and into the other subcategories where you see the likes of Condiment Claire, Corbin Shaw and Sinead Gorey (Arts and Culture), Jim Legxacy, Beabadoobee and Siena Spiro (Entertainment) and Dr Vee Kativhu, Ellie Newton and The Miller Sisters behind Ivee (Social Impact), you start to get the picture. Of course, there is the tangled narrative that big accolades are hard to come by unknown sources, and a social presence is the best way to boost a message, but more so that the skillset behind being a creator supersedes the dated preconception of the influencer marketing industry. It’s the modern update of the “slash” job denomination the arts had in the 90s (artist / model). Now, everyone being a creator is a given. It’s what you do in front of that which tells the story. As always, more respect on Creators names.

Lancôme Mistake Mailers Make a Splash

I want to hate this trick, but it’s hard to not be game on game. Gifting and seeding has become an increasingly tough area for brands to navigate. Gone are the days of simply sending product into the ether and hoping for some earned traction. For larger creators, so often this isn’t even entertained without a contract and fee locked. What’s more, only the best product drops and gifting environments are in with a chance of a review. But I see the tide beginning to change: the adoption of affiliate led marketing into the UK (always waiting in the footsteps of our US counterparts) means we are seeing more creators hustle with brands to unlock the opportunity. Gifting sits adjacent to this, and if a brand can help the recipient out by creating a story for them to tell it’s only going to increase their chances.

That’s why Lancôme’s big mailer mistake, where 1000+ gifting boxes landed in the “wrong” mailbags this week, is part of the new wave of storytelling. Diors Locker last year created a cool environment to visually unpack the story. Lancôme have gone one step further to spark conversation and sent these visually rich mailers with the names Demi Moore and Zoe Saldana attached. And it’s worked. Possibly because their big target wasn’t any old lifestyle creator, but the costars and colleagues of Demi and Zoe themselves. This has seen unboxing from Kate Hudson, Pauline Chalamet and Brooke Devard, which I am sure in no means aren’t orchestrated and paid for given the production quality. Touché, either way!

Billie Piper’s I Am inflammation

Sorry just a quickie to say Billie did some sponcon for a health scan with Prenuvo today where she just posted a picture of her inflamed brain and a load of pics of her looking hot in a hospital gown with the caption “I AM INFLAMMATION”. It’s giving us nothing and at the same time giving us everything. She didn’t give a fuck. Dystopian!

📈THE STOCK EXCHANGE📉

Big biz moves that effect the culture

The Hollywood talent agency responsible for the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Olivia Rodrigo and Mark Ruffalo has signed a more unconventional name to their star studded A List roster: alt fashion designer Sandy Liang. Sandy has built a name beyond her output over the last few years, known for blending nostalgic femininity with the more raw bleeding edges of New York counterculture, partnering with everyone from Gap to Target to bring high fashion to the masses. She’s been praised for not just creating clothes but fantasy, and it paints an interesting picture for the new world storytelling and where talent partners are placing their bets.

It also talks to the renewed role of fashion houses in the entertainment and content industry. Speak to most social marketers you know, and they will reference Jonathan Anderson’s Loewe as a best in class example of surreal, playful and engaging social storytelling. The budgets and boundary-less nature of the fashion industry means storytelling is finding new avenues, and the faces behind them are geniuses not just in garments but in engagement. Lighthouse placing a bet on Sandy Liang talks to the transcendence of creative craft and the creator economy, and paves the way for more alternative representation and avenues for creative leaders.

🔥🏡 HOT PROPERTY🏡🔥

Who or what is the current Main Character of my internet

What’s With All the Book Clubs?

When everyone and their dogs (me) started banging on about third spaces and the return to IRL about 2 years ago, a big part of that narrative was housed in book and run clubs. And now, we stare down the barrel of a million brand activations in trying to drum up community, from cocktail making to nail shops, but ultimately the two things that have prevailed as “stuff people are willing to give their precious time to” is: book clubs and running clubs. Perhaps it’s because both sit at the perfect intersection of betterment and accessibility, both require very little actual skill and more the result of gumption, and the price point is low but the social clout can be high. Regardless, they have stuck.

But even I, a book lover who runs, who is all for operating at the intersection of betterment and accessibility with a third curve for attention, feel inundated by the book club (at best) and the literary salon (at worst). Yes, algorithmically I am primed here. I don’t want to lead the witness. But it feels like there’s a big book boom we’re riding. Miu Miu’s latest literary club opened applications last week, inviting you to register to a 3 day event in Milan about the Politics of Desire. This isn’t their first foray - Miu Miu dont follow crowds - rather their fourth, and their star studded literary line up promises poetry and prose in an event that “further explores Miu Miu’s ongoing relationship with culture”.

Equally, The Read Room, “where literature meets late nights”, has gained cult following from the culturally curious, and now earned a spot on Selfridges Book Club roster. Hosts Sophia Wild and Kya Buller currently have earned their spot as a Window Display promoting the partnership. Stylist just ran a 28 strong campaign with creators who love to read for their summer splash. And I-D just hosted a deep dive into The Whitney Review of New Writing - the “hot literati reshaping criticism”.

Dubbed a group of hot smart people, there is a healthy dose of heavyweight critique, but the emphasis on the attractiveness of this cohort is noted. In fact, in all of these examples, the prototypes at the face of the programmes are objectively hot. With the proliferation of Substack Pinups, The Hot Girls Who Write Community, and the ongoing aesthetics of literary taste being driven by dark academia - which just so happens to be the patron saint of slutty little tartan kilts - there is something we can’t seem to untangle around the aesthetics of being well read. I’m all for it, there isnt a mini skirt I don’t like and a paperback I won’t purchase, but if the only way to consume culture is through the lens of aesthetics then… oh wait… never mind… same as it ever was.

🎛️ NOTES FROM THE CONTROLLER ROOM 🎛️

Things that I’ve been thinking about this week

My Colleague Judy’s Article About Being Nice

My agency runs a Substack called Born Hub and my friend Judy wrote an amazing piece that I can’t stop thinking about. Nice Isn’t A Dirty Word. Judy is nice, but she’s also a million other things and one of the best people I’ve ever met. It’s such a good read you gotta go and get it!

BornHub

'Nice' isn't a dirty word

‘You’re too nice’ is feedback I’ve received on more than one occasion in my career…

Read more

5 months ago · 9 likes · 5 comments · BornHub

The Drama

Run don’t walk! How long has it been since we’ve found a movie that gets the discourse going beyond ‘good’ and ‘bad’ - but an old fashioned tale of MORALITY and ETHICS and where we stand as a culture. I’ve had just as much as fun since the movie discussing it with anyone who will entertain it as I did in the theatre watching it with popcorn and Pepsi. Go watch it!

4 Morant (Better Luck Next Time) - Com Truise

This is a great song to listen to on repeat when you need to lock in and align with a deadline btw!!!!!!!

8 Trademarked Scents

Mind is blown that there is only 8 Trademark Scents in the US??????? And they are very average???

Saunas

In my sauna era and it is worth it I fear xxx

Okay that’s everything this week LOVE YOU BYE XXXXXX

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

Hello and welcome to this weeks Rush Hour. I fell into the Matrix at some point during March Madness, and like a Sim in a swimming pool, there was no ladder out. But never fear! I am back, with opinions as sunny and strong is the current London weather forecast. So, what did we miss? As always: lots! But we also found: Performance art or bonafide passion from Kiki Nociarova, the future is Nineteen and Green with deputy mayoral candidate Dylan Law, Pinterest’s new creator series, Forest Bikes reviving the £1 fish fella, A24 + SKIMS are bedfellows, and RIP to SORA. Sounds like a lot? I’m also thinking about the perennial question posed by i-D - Are Gen Z Fucking? (well, are they?), the double standards of gender-affirming care, and also how good that Daft Punk album is 25 years on. Plus: special guest feature from the sun!!!

Pull down the car visor because you lost all your sunglasses last summer and this weather crept up on you: IT’S RUSH HOUR!

🌆 SUNSET STRIP 🌆

Shining a light on a Creator moment I’ve loved this week

Unclassifiable Content with the Unknowable Kiki Nociarova

I see my life in two lanes: before Kiki and after Kiki. BK/AK, if you will. And AK is a nicer place to be on the internet. This could speak to the specificity of my algorithm, in the same way my husband told me to go all in on GymSkin about three to four working weeks before burn the bean became part of my lexicon, but Kiki Nociarova has my heart and soul. Kiki, self proclaimed fashion styling creator, enters into what feels part performance art, part pastiche. She struts towards the camera in fits that feel manufactured to generate attention (good and bad) and doubles down on Windows Movie Maker ass transitions to support the looks. A quick google reveals that her trade beyond threads is as a Social Media Manager, which leads me to think the chaotic energy of her content is one crafted by years in the game. But ultimately, she’s hard to categorise. The uncanny valley of her stare down the camera lens as subtitles pop up around her head stating ‘if the fit hits, everything hits’, ‘street vibes ACTIVATED’, and, dressed in a sweater vest, the more bizarre “once you go old money, you don’t go back” soundtracked to Dido’s seminal hit Thank You. Slovakian based in location, but spiritually living in front of some plywood doors and a wardrobe, Kiki drops hip hop themed fits on the regular. All of this is to say that her audience are tapped in, stating their fascinated and confused - and despite a modest following, her engagement is strong with her views racking far passed arbitrary follower counts. I think what’s taken me the most is that its truly unclassifiable in theme, despite trying to fit itself into lots of boxes, and that’s what’s grabbing the attention of fans trying to figure out if its fact or fiction. Regardless, its refreshing to see non homogenised, genuinely weirdo content is still cutting through algorithms, and I hope she never changes.

The Future is Green and Nineteen with Dylan Law

The Green Party has generated several gifts in its approach to candidates over the last few months, but none so bright than Dylan Law, the 19 year old running as a deputy mayoral candidate. He runs alongside mayoral candidate Zoe Garbett, and in his plight is hoping to gain Hackney Downs’ vote for councillor in the May elections. Whilst you may think his green credentials aren’t just down to the party but to his experience, he’s been on Hackney Youth Parliament from a young age, founded his own small business, and is regularly slamming council policies on TikTok to his small but mighty 4.5k following. His content supersedes his follower count, and there is a real sense that he is going to be one of the defining faces in the era of creator to candidate pipeline. This idea isn’t necessarily net new: we’ve seen fringe success of this pipeline pop up globally and locally, but there has been a level of disdain for younger candidates in general in which their dissuaded to put their personality to out there for fear of political subterfuge. Zohran Mamdani’s swiping success to New York Mayor through a spanner in that works - populist platforms spread well on social even on the left, and Dylan doubling down on content to get his platform beyond his local council could serve him very well. With patronising local politics being a well known trope, I’m wishing Dylan all the luck - not that I think he needs it.

@dylan_marley_law @dylan_marley_law ♬ original sound - dylanmlaw

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Forest Bikes x £1 Fish Man

I am an aging millennial who spent an inordinate amount of time at University watching YouTube videos with men with little to no interest in me. So: I am VERY well versed in £1 Fish Man. There was a time I could’ve recited it word perfect, over the ability to hold down the attention of grotters with nose rings. I hold it dear as an artefact from the early internet, the local market man who held my heart. I was pleasantly surprised to see him pop right back up again on Forest Bikes, who are targeting many, but also probably people just like me who loved watching SNL and Weird Al Yankovich adjacent autotune content in the early 2010’s. Reimagined and reinstated as £1 Rides man, he takes to the lyrical beat to tell you all about how quality and cheap a Forest ride is in. Its yet another big gorgeous swing from Lime challenger Forest, and I love to see it. More of this, please - though I don’t imagine we’ll see a please to Save KONY or a reflect of the Schmoyoho Charlie Sheen Winning Song coming up in any brands millennial marketing strategies anytime soon.

@forestbike_ukThe £1 Fish Man sang our song. Here's how we did it. #onepoundfish #onepoundfishman #behindthescenes

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🔥🏡 HOT PROPERTY🏡🔥

Who or what is the current Main Character of my internet

Are Gen Z Fucking?

I don’t want to rehash everything i-D have to say in this week’s edition, but they are doing some real boots on the ground journalism I have to admire RN. Most notably the most compelling headline of the year so far: Is Gen Z Fucking??? Well. Are they? i-D seems to think kind of neither… but more so that the benchmarks of what a good and healthy sex life is constantly shifting. This came hot off the tail of the Guardian US taking to the streets of Austin this SXSW to ask the same question. The overwhelming consensus is that a life spent online isn’t necessarily conducive to in person intimacy - which is hardly shocking. But with The Atlantic posing that we’re in a Sex Recession and the Kinsey Institute suggesting half of Gen Z haven’t had sex at all, there is a concern about the wellbeing of a generation. But is that the only angle at play here? Everything from incel popularisation through to the death of heteronormativity have been thrown up by researchers to point towards this trend, but there is an all pervasive worry about declining birth rates and the systems Gen Z will fail to reproduce.

The metrics defining all this in their own right feel off based - the sex recession data is built on penetrative, partnered and heterosexual sex as the benchmark for intimacy. Through the frame, of course it looks like a great drout plaguing the globe. But Gen Z is also the most openly queer generation on record, and the age old yard sticks we’ve used to measure what sex and relationships mean are quite rightfully being left in the dirt. And the i-D piece that’s been donig the round opens at speed dating night in New York ran by three 25 year-olds who got sick of Hinge and so are trying something different: god forbid IRL connection. This isn’t recession behaviour, but rather a shift back to the before apps world where intimacy wasn’t so transactional. Gen Z aren’t necessarily fucking less, but perhaps are being more intentional about how they spend their emotional energy after watching Millennials burn to the ground in their dating app hellscape. Also: big fan of consent, compatibility and emotional labour being factored into dating behaviours.

📈THE STOCK EXCHANGE📉

Big biz moves that effect the culture

A24 and Skims are owned by the same VC

I just think this is interesting!!! Queen MJ Corey of Kardashian Kolloqium posted this week about the connection between the two marketing giants and their backing from Thrive Capital, a fund founded by Joshua Kushner, Jared’s brother and husband to Karlie Kloss. Whilst the two brands feel aesthetically different in who they market to and how they go about it, there is a huge amount of crossover in both their cultural standing and the swings they take to achieve it.

Both brands have built equity on being “not like other brands” - from A24’s artistic integrity that often slips into memery and mockery of the systems it surround itself, and SKIMs on body first, say the quiet part out loud shapewear for women who can’t afford the Kardashian BBL procedure and subsequent reversal. Both are arguably selling an identity as much as they are as a product. Its worth noting that Thrive also fund Stripe and Open AI, and that capital doesn’t necessarily have aesthetic allegiances - but there is something strong in the marketing potential and return of investment of these two cult favourites and their business trajectory.

🎛️ NOTES FROM THE CONTROLLER ROOM 🎛️

Things that I’ve been thinking about this week

The Double Standards of Gender-Affirming Care

In this house, we are stands of Post-Culture and everything Sibling Studio does. But I particularly loved the latest piece on the double standards of gender-affirming care. The central provocation focussed on the rise of “hair systems” going viral with millions of adoring views from men who are hoping to grow a little more on top, through to breast reductions being up 64% since 2019, and how these types of surgeries are central to gender-affirming care - just not the type that supports non-cis people feeling at home in their bodies.

We celebrate confidence, restorations and glow ups all the time - but rarely afford that joy to those who want to seek outside of their biological makeup. The same internet that cheers the toupee reveal is legislating against trans healthcare, and this double standard isn’t hidden in the dark but front and centre on our FYPs every day. Read it!!!

Post-Culture by Sibling Studio

The double standards of gender-affirming care

It was about 2am on a school night when I realised I’d been watching toupee content for an hour. Emily Alexis Ann Cheney, aka @toupeequeen, is a toupee specialist in California. She has 800k+ followers on Instagram and nearly a million on TikTok. Her videos regularly pass the million-view mark, and it all feels resolutely organic. Which says something…

Read more

5 months ago · 28 likes · Post-Culture by Sibling Studio and iza

Daft Punk - Discovery

I’ve been smashing Discovery on repeat recently and just realised it turned 25! Thought this was an original thought but turns out I missed Fred Again… brought out Thomas Bangalter at Ally Pally, so maybe this has seeped into my consciousness some how, but I am HAPPY TO HEAR IT. I love that the album was produced with the idea to make music that feels the way things did when you were ten years old with no pretention or attempt to be cool. Think this should be a yard stick for more creative content as a whole!!!

The Sun in LDN

Its here for a good time not a long time but I am obsessed with feeling the sun on my skin again. God bless London in the sunshine <33333333

Ok thats everything this week love you so much bye xxxxxxxx

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

Working in the field I do, Influence for advertising and marketing purposes, I spend a lot of time watching surreal over cerebral content on my iPhone. My sister, who has worked in comedy for over a decade, is constantly recommending me up and coming talent that I should get off and said phone and see. But like much of the way culture is consumed now, 99% of my comedic diet has been beamed straight up to my eyeballs in between targeted ads for body dysmorphia, as opposed to in a crowd of people passing the electricity of live content between each other.

It’s in this unhealthy diet that I consume, and in turn recommend brands to work with, a swathe of talent of varying degrees of bizarre in how they interpret the banal. It is here I first found sometimes comedy duo Toby From Bath and Al Nash, got served up slices of Ania Magliano and found comfort in Jack Shep’s Diana impressions during the height of the pandemic. Algorithmically sound, if I wasn’t watching Starstruck and Black Ops on the big screen, it sure as hell was coming to me in snippets sandwiched next to live streams of catastrophe. All that’s to say, when I saw the cast drop of SNL, I was both surprised and excited that the talent was seemingly crafted for comic excellence as opposed to big name draws. Either that, or my taste was so stereotypical anyone could swallow it down. (A little of column A, a little of column B?).

But, like all of the UK, I come from a long line of haters. Not really, in the sense that I try and be as supportive and optimistic as possible, but really really in that it’s in our DNA to expect anything new or different to fail even if you want it to win and succeed (see also my voting history). And that’s why, despite trying to not give into our predilection to hate, I really suspected that SNL UK would die on its arse. Every single piece of content I saw either directly from the show or indirectly referring to it had a braying mob of people desperate to tear it down before the house lights even came on. British scepticism threatened to end the attempt before it even started, and my hope that British comedy was being given a good platform and funding was starting to feel naive. Tina Fey, inaugural host, announced in her opening monologue that whilst it was odd she, an American, was hosting the first episode, that actually nobody else in the UK would host it - a self referential nod to the naysayers.

What is this pathology we suffer from on the miserable isle? We have a specific mindset in which we root for the underdogs the whole way through, right up until the point the underdog might actually get itself out of a bad situation by some proper backing. This immediately transfers the underdog into a big dog and our anti-establishment radar turns up to 100. Yes, I am not ignorant to the fact the Sky backing means we aren’t talking about some indie grassroots comic endeavour with measly arts funding. But in the very sense that the entire cast and writing team are made up of some of the most talented, fresh, and notably NOT notable individuals, spiritually the underdog is barking.

In this particular scenario, I can’t help think the mirror we hold up against the Atlantic is playing a part in the party pooping. The UK is currently importing some of the absolute worst of the worst of the policies and culture of our special relationship. We are seconds from being dragged into another geopolitical hellscape in order to preserve this long lineage of getting each other out of mess. Our new political landscape, one built on the foundations of culture wars and turning politics into entertainment, is straight out of the playbook of the two-party state. Hate speech laws are being used as bargaining chips for favourable trade deals, in further concerning signs of control. There are plenty of imports we don’t need right now. But much like The Office took itself across with little to no expectations, Lorne Michaels trip across the pond has been lamented with little evidence to support its predetermined failure. All we had to do was wait and watch the car crash unfold.

But… it didn’t? Ok, full disclosure, I came home from the pub where I had been for 7-8 hours. I watched it under a heated blanket with a plate of noodles and 2litre bottle of water as I tried to flush the vinho verde out of me. I was expecting at least 20 minutes of awkward silences before a smirk broke out. But as 10 Downing Street flashed up onto my screen, I felt the sudden rush of realising I was watching real, live television in a way I don’t think I have for years. Suddenly, scepticism or concerns for cringe were swept away as George Fouracres took aim and claim of Keir Starmer. “Nail it” a voice said in my head “don’t fuck it up”. And with Hammed Animashaun’s Lammy, the lament lay to the sides. Live, from London, it was indeed Saturday Night.

The next hour sailed by, with each sketch putting its hands out to the public and hoping we held on. Some elements faltered, some jokes didn’t land, but the collective consensus was this was … good? Michael Cera and Graham Norton in the same universe was a subversion that held interest, Nichola Coughlan held a camp quality to the proceedings, and the live audience seemed to be having a ball. It’s almost as if you put a bunch of talented British writers in a room for a week and don’t censor them, you might end up with something worth its salt.

So, if you haven’t strapped in, or you did and didn’t like it… here’s 5 reasons why I think this is going to work - and actually, why we need it to:

1. Ania Magliano & Paddy Young’s Weekend Update

   Star. Power. The cheeky asides, the tongues so firmly in their cheeks for fear of full corpsing, the non watered down and tepid takes, these two took the screen with the charisma and charm of all my favourite Weekend Update stars before them: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, Colin Jost. Ania looking dead down the camera and asking for Andrew Mountbatten Windsor to not get too excited, she’s older than she looks, is permanently etched in my brain. All the cast did a sensational job keeping content topical and top of mind, but some segments will inevitably not be for me week in week out. Unfortunately, the Weekend Update will reign supreme. This alone is the sauce.

2. Live TV. Real, Actual Live TV
   I guess it was a luxury of the early 2000’s that we used to be able to watch the Big Brother house round the clock. A masterclass in unethical voyeurism, I’m sure. But when it came round to Friday Night and Davina McCall was outside that studio, it was a rush. “You are live on channel 4, please do not swear.” Besides sports, I can count on my fingers the live experiences of any meaningful stretch I’ve seen streamed to television. And one of those is Boris Johnson addressing us in the peak of the pandemic, so hardly a good time go. That braying tension of supporting the underdog but also expecting them to fail really gets amped up when you realise its an hour long sketch show with a captive audience. You want them to succeed, but there is also the sick glee of a potential fluff that acts as the undercurrent. It’s, electrifying stuff. And, pretty good post pub fodder. Plus, they could swear… which you know helps.

3. Political Accountability and Art as Politics

   Art and culture have always been political, but the panopticon of social media and the obsession with perfection means that hot takes are watered down into something more tepid. Fear of being deemed too controversial is a real concern, especially for comics who are up and coming and will rely on either mainstream success or to subsidise their art with brand deals. But the political landscape is in dire need of critique, and the UK masses should be able to access this critique in ways that don’t require huge amounts of research. Sure, watch the news everyone, but also, can’t we poke a little fun at a situation and get educated on it whilst we go? I’ve missed the Mash Report, amongst other political commentary entertainment that has disappeared of the television in recent years for this very reason. SNL America has never shied away from the big topics and taking aim at the nonsense of the political circus. The UK now has a mainstream platforming of this critique, and if the first episode is anything to go by, there is a good chance we’ll continue to take aim and call out the ridiculousness for what it is. Whilst I doubt SNL UK is going to become the thing that radicalises us, nor do I think its responsible or wants to be the educator on all things diabolical politically, it is refreshing to see establishment based jabs unfiltered and unedited. And with just one week to craft responses to the stories, we’re unlikely to dilute the craft that comes with ripping those due a new one exactly that.

4. Hosts That Stand for Something

   We’re early doors, but I think the hosts in their own right say quite a lot about the direction the show is going in and the amount of political satire we’ll be served up. Riz Ahmed has built his storied career on telling it like it is when it comes to critique of the systems and how they fail us. Jamie Dornan has some pretty open minded views politically and is on the right side of history when it comes to supporting Kneecap. Tina Fey, in her own right, was there to hand the torch over to the UK - but also her support as the inevitable successor from Lorne’s legacy suggests there is serious intent to make this more than just a fringe success. The investment is one thing, matching it with hosts that will actually do something is another. Also, nice to have a bit of live music on and all!

5. Mainstream Reach Matters
   It matters to comedy, a cultural art form that like so many lacks funding, time, space, money. Creativity is becoming a privilege and that is the most dangerous things to an open minded and politically healthy climate. Creating more eyes and attention on this type of art is essential at a time where creativity is being seen as a nice to have on a nation that has been built on that very passion. Whilst I doubt its going to row back on the cuts, it creates more space for this type of art to flourish. And by pushing it out via mainstream channels to audiences not necessarily seeking political comedy, it also stops it becoming counterculture and allows it to start bedding itself into the mainstream mindset. This not only allows different views to be surfaced, it encourages us to play with and stretch out the concepts being presented to us, rather than absorbing them in binaries.

The real underdog isn’t the scrappy thing we already love, it’s the new thing fighting to exist in a cultural climate that wants to see it dead before its even taken its first breath. But the stakes here are so much more than just whether or not a sketch landed - they are essential at a time where political rhetoric is narrowing what’s sayable in public life in real time. The very essence of Saturday Night Live means that its structurally required to be on the nose about how power is being dispersed in this country. A one week turn around to take on the biggest topics happening to us right now in a nuanced but accountable way will dissect the diatribe in a digestible way. Yes, live TV is fun, Ania Magliano & Paddy Young are really hot and funny, and we all love to laugh at a little British in joke - but above that surface level we need it to succeed in the way we need a free press to succeed. Not because every week needs a knee slappingly hilarious, pitch perfect line up, but because this type of critique is the healthy back bone of our nation that has mysteriously been zipped up, turned off and axed across all our favourite channels, especially that one we pay our TV license for. In the UK, hating something is an easy target. But I think SNL can put up a shield and fire those shots right back to the people who gain a lot from seeing it fail. Also: Al Nash.

Last week, I closed Patrick Ryan’s Buckeye for the first time in as many days. The book, a multigenerational saga of ordinary lives bent out of shape by historical horror (aka my personal catnip) had wedged itself into my brain and refused to budge. In 1920’s Middle America off the back of war and destruction, things promised to get better. And maybe they did, in the way all history undulates. Ships burned in the Pacific in senseless acts of war that gripped the psyche of men like the oil in their lungs, but a baby boom exploded in the towns of those lucky enough to return. And then just as everything settled into a sense of stability, the Vietnam draft ripped through the same families who rebuilt. People kept going, not because the world had become good, or fair, or comprehensible - but because in the face of abject horror, optimism for what’s to come is sometimes the only tonic. It struck me because as history is doomed to repeat itself, some of the horrors on the page, fictional only by the merit of the man who wrote them, still shook me. Ultimately, I was grappling with a strange sort of comfort, that I’ve come to realise is an offshoot of Declinism - the belief that in any era, we are living in the absolute worst of times, and the feeling we are at the end of something that simply cannot be recovered.

Parasocial Friend of the Stack Benedict Anderson (aka long dead political scientist) wrote that every era can’t help but construct itself as the precipice of all time. It’s not our fault. We are, after all, always on the front line, staring out to the rest of history in front of us. Collectively, our consciousness has had us teetering on the edge. But it’s what we do with it that’s more interesting. Do we let the world happen to us, or do we happen to the world? In this lies the glass half full/half empty debate - can we look at the world around us and seek optimism without accusations of stupidity or oblivion? To be positive or seek optimism as a solve is tarred. Despite the data showing that in many real terms, the world has tangibly slowly got better across its existence, acknowledging that risks you seeming unempathetic, clueless, ignorant. But by naming Declinism when you see it you aren’t dismissing the horrors of the modern day. The world is a terrible place, this is clear. But, crucially, as obsessed as we all are with our own mortality, we have ALWAYS believed the world is a terrible place. Much like every generation thinks they’ve invented sex, they also think they’ve invented death.

The particular flavour of dread we are currently marinating in leaves more than a sour taste, one of political violence livestreamed to our phones, systematic dismantling of rights that were so hard fought for the first time round, and the environmental clock ticking closer to midnight - a sample selection of societal horror. We should never downplay these as minute issues of first world problems, when in real terms we are watching the demise of humanity in a way never so available to us. But in understanding fear through the lens of a temperament, rather than a diagnosis, we are able to put the brakes on our current cultural death drive - this odd obsession we have with aestheticising the end. The horrors persist, but so do we.

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THE IT GIRL IS A GHOUL

In i-D’s Nicolaia Rips recent essay The Great Cultural Death Drive, she observed that this season’s it girl is a ghoul. From the runway to the red carpet, the doomed heroine has been exhumed and aestheticised dead are having their moment. In Collina Strada’s New York Fashion Week show, Hillary Taymour wrote in her show notes “The world is a vampire, sipping slowly on our warmth and wonder, leaving us pale with longing for a better place. It’s draining out there. As the metaphorical and literal weather worsens outside, we withdraw into self-made sanctuaries.”

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The Great Cultural Death Drive

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6 months ago · 133 likes · 12 comments · Nicolaia Rips

Concrete proof of this lives in my current pop culture fixation, Love Story, the retelling of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and some guy called JFK Jr. Despite dying (tragically of course) 26 years ago, she has never been more influential. And like the long line of dead it girls before her, she remains a muse because she has been frozen by her tragedy, at a time where gamine thinness was the absolute (and history does after all repeat itself). It’s not just Carolyn catching cultural heat. Emerald Fennell’s gaudy reimagining of Cathy in Wuthering Heights has us romanticising a plot that pursued themes of incest and necrophilia. And it doesn’t start with the 1840’s and leapfrog to the 1990’s. Where would we be culturally without the canonisation of Princess Diana, the voyeurism of Marie Antoinette, the revisionist history of Amy Winehouse’s demise. In feminist critic Elisabeth Bronfen’s Over Her Dead Body, she unpicks this not as a new fascination, but rather a structural compulsion to aestheticise the deaths of beautiful women. Because a dead woman is permanently beautiful, and permanently unable to disappoint. In modern times, the obsession with icons from the past is driven by more than just nostalgia, but also the acute sense that these individuals never knew what Twitter was and couldn’t log on and say something disappointing. They lack iPhone face. That, and smoking wasn’t a taboo.

Long readers of Sim City will know I am obsessed with Mark Fisher’s reimagining of Hauntology, the cultural condition that we have lost the imagination of the future and so we just loop back obsessively to excavate the past. “It doesn’t feel as if the 21st century has started yet,” Fisher wrote in 2014, “We remain trapped in the 20th century… cultural time has folded back on itself, and the impression of linear development has given way to a strange simultaneity”. Tangentially, he wrote in Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? that we find it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of Capitalism, which, well… yes. In both these scenarios, we don’t see the dead as restless, but rather ourselves - and therefore we draw ourselves back toward the dead, constantly exhuming them. Why? Because the present day keeps offering us a reality we literally cannot bear to inhabit, whilst simultaneously serving us a future that feels impossible to imagine. The death drive, it turns out, isn’t just an aesthetic fashion ideal, but a philosophy with a lifestyle to match.

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NOTHING MATTERS SO NOTHING MATTERS

Fashion might be the symptom, but what lies beneath is our old friend neo-nihilism, the bedfellow of post-irony in our villain era. Speaking of: ironic clothing company Prayer recently released a tank top that I’ve toyed with buying more than once after approx 2-3 Spritzers. It reads: “A cigarette takes ten minutes off my life but a working day takes hours”. That statement is doing more for cultural theory per square inch of cotton than most academic papers right now, because it looks at neo-nihilism square in the eye. It asks: if the long game isn’t going to happen, if it’s been structurally foreclosed, if we can’t get the house, the pension, the habitable planet, then why would we perform compliance to the system that promised all this? Lauren Berlant called it cruel optimism: the condition of remaining attached to objects of desire that are structurally no longer in a place to deliver what they promised. So many people now understand that the contract is broken, and genuinely ask: what is the point in a rainy day fund if the forecast is a permanent downpour? This is the founding logic of the YOLO Economy, an economic structure that suggests young people are more fiscally irresponsible with day to day spending than in previous generations due to not really seeing the point in saving for a house they’ll never actually be able to afford. And much like Cigfluencers was the hottest IG account of 2025 and how Vogue’s are served at weddings over cake, our risks aren’t just monetary now. They are taking down our very vessels and leaning into pleasurable self-destruction. This isn’t necessarily despair as such, but a rational response to the irrational. Isn’t life a little more fun when we take it less seriously?

In this, neo-nihilism isn’t an abstract philosophy, but a lifestyle that encourages risky behaviour in the pursuit of happiness. In a world where conservatism tries to strangle with control of clean and polished aesthetics, a reckless self abandon isn’t seen as uncool but rather symbolic. It’s the ultimate case of a plan backfiring - in incentivising individualism, hedonism becomes the very thing we coalesce around. What are we living for if not the long game?

THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE

So, with the rise of neo-nihilism and YOLO economics, it can be hard for a political compass that grounds itself in governance and control to actually have much of it. And this is where the body becomes the last jurisdiction, the final boss of biopolitics. Foucault wrote in Discipline and Punish that disciplinary power works best when it has been so thoroughly internalised that it no longer feels like discipline. This is perhaps the most apt framing for the push/pull in culture right now - because for all the neo-nihilism and give a fuck attitudes, there is the crushing conservatism of toeing the party line and following orders. And yes, this can manifest in suddenly voting for a party you used to swear against, or espouting family values after hanging up your party girl crown. But culturally, it’s all about control. SAME AS IT EVER WAS!

Looksmaxxing and mogging, courtesy of incel culture influence hero Clavicular, are the practices of a new wave of hyper masculine beauty standards in which online personalities do extreme acts - like taking hammers to their jaw line or consuming crystal meth - in the pursuit of ultimate attractiveness. If you read that sentence and came close to an aneurysm I do not blame you. I hate that I understand a quarter of that sentence. Whilst it sounds bonkers, these overt and dangerous methods for beauty aren’t exactly strange in a world in which restriction and ‘optimisation’ has been the bread and butter (or lack thereof) for women for decades. When you pair this with the high and mighty return of heroin chic dressed up as subversion, and new fresh ways to market male insecurity, you start to wonder where these cultural pushes are coming from.

In Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, she intoned the role self destruction plays in self improvement. We would very happily steal from our future to pay for our present, and whilst we aren’t currently injecting ourselves with a Death Becomes Her style substance, we’re pretty happy to inject literally anything else in for the pursuit of youth and a snatched face. What is genuinely new about where we are right now is not the compulsion to control the body (as Naomi Wolf says, every decade is the same with a different silhouette). Instead, it’s the aestheticisation of the damage, where harm is the hook and the decline is the point.

And you can see it in the cold, hard eyes of the people pedalling optimisation. Fashion commentator Mandy Lee recently made the observation that across the biggest month of fashion we’ve had for a while (thanks to the Fashion Week’s hosted globally and the Oscars), there was a distinct lack of sex appeal. This wasn’t for a lack of trying - every person on those red carpets shone in sheer, with rock hard abs vying to glint in the camera flash. But actual sexiness cannot be performed, only felt. The vacant lots that are the eyes of celebrities and models alike is an articulation of this – everyone is trying to look free and sexually liberated whilst structurally being the opposite of it. Jabbed or restricted into an impossible thinness is all consuming, and with that Lee argues you lose your freedom. If the body keeps the score, this one’s a bum note. Lee also makes a compelling case for our constant nostalgia and hauntology here. Is fashion’s obsession with early noughties Sleaze & Twee actually a full blown yearning for an era of sexual promiscuity and the beginnings of a brief spell of body autonomy? Cigs, pints, chips and less life in the social media panopticon. It sounds pretty good right? (Uh oh… there goes Declinism again…)

This is, inherently, political. There is a direct line between the rise of conservatism, the erosion of freedoms for women and minorities, or anyone who doesn’t fit a prescribed mould. Fashion is a direct mirror to culture, and the lack of sex appeal feels like a warning sign of what’s to come. The body politics of this moment do not live completely separate from the geopolitical horror - they are the same mechanism, operating at different scales. Distraction and control, oscillating between one another, is a strategy. Weaponised thinness is conservatism’s most insidious aesthetic achievement.

LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

For all those jagged hip bones and sexless sexual beings, there is a counter movement happening that isn’t so loud as the cultural death drive. When individualism is the system’s factory setting, choosing a collective response does feel increasingly rebellious. Love thy neighbour is a covenant the collective are tuning into in the face of introspection and doom and gloom being sold to us as the only solution. In Rebecca Sonit’s book A Paradise Built In Hell she posed this. “The possibility of paradise is already within us as a default setting”. Disaster, as she sees it, actually produces unexpected solidarity, and we find that the social fabric we assume will tatter and dissolve under pressure actually does the opposite and weaves tighter. The mutual aid networks that emerged out of the pandemic (6 whole years ago!!!) have set us up firmer for the future than we might think. When we look at the horrors of ICE in America, we see the positives of protests from American communities who usually wouldn’t engage with civil action. Our collective intrigue for AI is mapped just as fervently by our rejection of it - yes, everyone wants to send less emails, but we ultimately agree that human-made art is good and that’s evident when you look at actual intended usage of AI platforms amongst huge swathes of society. People, collectively, refuse for this to be our end times, our end precipice, our extinction. Whilst algorithms feed off your solitude, humanity thrives off your collective care. Who knew hanging out could be a protest? Who knew we were sliding toward a society in which this solidarity felt revolutionary?

PESSIMISM OF THE INTELLECT, OPTIMISM OF THE WILL

Gramsci gave us six words that are basically a complete philosophy for navigating the next world: pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. No matter how bad things are, this is not incompatible with the will to change them - in fact, it’s actually the precursor to the change itself. Under this, being optimistic isn’t naivety, as much as those who thrive on turmoil might suggest. Instead, this is an optimism that looks at everything: the Fourth Turning, the billionaire land grab, AI obliteration, and still moves forward and gets on with it. We are currently living through the death of the world we were promised, and the grief we all feel toward that is real. The postwar settlement and dream of infinite progress is being dismantled in front of our eyes with as much of a shrug. Hauntology, of course, haunts us. Culturally, we are experiencing that death drive. Our grief is proportionate, and deserves to be named before we reach for anything else.

But when has mourning been the end of any story? Hope isn’t blind or shrouded in simplicity, but actually a revolutionary and intellectual act, an honest and thought through response to the unfinished and deeply imperfect world we inhabit, a defiant act despite all odds. The world has unfinished business, and so I’d argue we aren’t on the precipice, about to fall off the side, but holding the tools to build a bridge out to the next era. The end of the world has been cancelled, rescheduled and put off so many times that there’s not much use predicting it anymore, but rather deciding how we construct it. What is it we used to say at school? Build a bridge and get over it.

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

So much has happened since we last spoke. The sun has come out more than once. Yesterday, I ran in a tank top and finished outside a pub, where I proceeded to drink a cold frosty pint whilst condensation ran down the glass and my cheeks reddened. Outside of weather events, the world stormed colder, as its hard to open a newspaper, or lets face it, a social media app and not feel the impending crush of the world suffocate you. And there was that monkey. Thank you, Punch.

In the online world, divisive rhetoric and live streamed devastation aside, so much was pooling and dripping down the side into reality, much like that gorgeous pint. To celebrate Ramadan, Footlocker launched its campaign celebrating the best of British Muslim culture, starring creators from all over the UK. A24 have launched a wedding chapel. DVD’s are SO back. Talking of physical media: the day has come where your DVD Collection is worth something again, with movie rentals storming the US. Young people are yearning to be pub regulars (a further blow for the ‘they don’t drink’ brigade). Climax did that gorgeous promo with founder Isabella Burley to launch their new US site. And lord and saviour Taylor Lorenz took to the Guardian to plea with the world NOT to enforce the social media ban globally, because actually, weirdly I guess?, internet surveillance isn’t that great a concept for mankind RN. Plus big week for the reckos, from Buckeye to Lou Reed to The Moment to Michael Imperoli. And piglets.

So much to chat about! So much to chow down! Let’s take these stories to go baby because it’s Rush Hour!

🌆 SUNSET STRIP 🌆

Shining a light on a Creator moment I’ve loved this week

Footlocker Launch Ramadan Debut Built On Creators

Footlocker UK have partnered with Future Culture X, a community creative collective, to launch their Ramadan debut showcasing how young British people engage with the holy month. In a beautiful social-first film starring Muslim creators big and small such as Ameena Roshae, Entry Level Mums, The UGC Babe, Ilhan, Face Liss, Khadija Mellah, and narrated by writer and comedian Safro, ‘Share the Moment’ beautifully illustrates the reality of Ramadan, with scenes of young people playing basketball at golden-hour, iftar with family and friends, and the insight itself of a corridor full of shoes by the front door. Speaking to LBB, founder of Future Culture X Amran Abdi said “We did not research this community from the outside. We are the community”, which felt palpable as I peaked behind the curtain at the world 4 million UK Muslims are currently experience. I really love the focus on smaller creators who are shaping and navigating culture, beyond their immediate community and into the wider world of modern British culture. Footlocker focusing at being the first major retailer to go this specific in Ramadan led content feels surprising, but in focussing on spotlight the creatives and community leaders shaping up British identity amongst Muslims I really hope they set a precedent for how else we can tell stories that stick out beyond the tokenistic cultural content calendar. Last year, a study from Sosher Media saw that 77% of Muslim Creators reported no Ramadan brand partnerships, with 82% feeling like existing marketing strategies utilising Ramadan were doing so as a “bolt on”. One campaign with Footlocker doesn’t solve the problem, but shows a step in the right direction for how to do it better.

Isabella Burley’s Climax Books Launches US Site

London/New York based creative consultant and IT girl du jour Isabella Burley launched Climax Books in 2020, with storefronts in both New York City and London, and also spent some time doing some pretty great gigs like, I don’t know, being the youngest editor-in-chief for Dazed, being CMO for Acne, that cute collab she did with Chopova Lowena. Now she’s taking e-tail with the launch of Climax Books in the US. Normally, this wouldn’t catch our eye enough, but the old school Habbo Hotel with a heartbeat promo vid is one of my favourite creations I’ve seen this year <3. I love a little art with the artist! The book with the leggies!

Commentary on Creators and Dubai is Gauche and That’s All I Have to Say On It

I have decided for my sanity not to dwell on the news-cycle in Rush Hour unless absolutely pertinent, and it feels obtuse not to reference the wider conversation happening around Creators who relocate to Dubai on great incentive programmes and tax breaks in the wake of the last week. I just want to say: making jokes about people’s livings in the context of warfare is gauche and I don’t really have time for your take on it. You can find people annoying, find yourself morally superior, look down at their careers, AND KEEP IT TO YOURSELF IN THE CONTEXT TO WAR. Hope this helps! <3

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🔥🏡 HOT PROPERTY🏡🔥

Who or what is the current Main Character of my internet

Taylor Lorenz against Social Media Bans: “There is little evidence that social media is driving any type of widespread mental health crisis in children.”

Divisive internet truther and journalist Taylor Lorenz has often come under fire for counterpoints to populist rhetoric around how we navigate the internet. Love her or loathe her, her recent comments in the Guardian warning us of the danger of a world banning children from social media is something everyone should read as potentially sleepwalk into further surveillance. Lorenz’s measured take is that social media age-verification laws, brought into consciousness with Australia’s ban late last year, risk creating a further surveillance internet that undermined anonymity, free speech, and the ability for fringe small platforms to surface non mainstream news. Whilst none of that feels too surprising, the argument that this will still fail to protect children really pique my interest. With the proposed bans and verification laws spreading across Germany, France, The UK, Greece, Japan and more, and bills popping up all over the US, she suggests that the presentation of child safety is a trojan horse toward the global shift of tighter control of free speech.

The introduction of Age Verification on mass requires mass surveillance including the mainstreaming of biometric scanning or AI age estimation, the procurement and delivery of Government IDs, and forcing people to link their online accounts to their identity - further pushing toward a digital panopticon. Not only is this a potential threat to free speech for all, it could very actively damage activists, journalists, and vulnerable groups, which would suppress the ability to whistle blow at one end of the spectrum, and to explore alternate identities in a safe way on the other. Rather than weakening big tech, they actually strengthen themselves by taking on this expensive and complex systems they can afford to absorb the costs of, whilst erasing smaller fringe platforms that have less political and financial interest. And it’s not like these platforms are reliable when it comes to protecting civilian data. It adds even more risk and power to data breaches, with the catastrophic potential of losing biometric databases to the wrong hands the stuff science fiction couldn’t even ideate.

What’s more damning is Taylor suggests that some of the orgs supporting these policies look to be ideologically motivated, with the likes of the Heritage Foundation or the National Center on Sexual Exploitation being known to have power in restricting what they consider “obscene” or controversial speech online, regardless of how that is packaged or who the audience is, far beyond that of child safety. And if there aren’t political agendas being pushed by groups, there are definite concerns around government political agendas and the usage of this data to suppress dissent, with early indicators including the investigations over insults to German Leadership and the US government attempts to identify anonymous activist accounts the canary in the coal mine. All this might be easier to swallow if there was more definitive evidence of how this might protect children, but Lorenz says there is overwhelming evidence that the link between social media and the youth mental health crises can be contested and there are myriad other factors at play, where the bans misdiagnose the problem. Better solutions exist, in her eyes, such as data-privacy laws levelling up, breaking up the monopolies of big tech, and stronger consumer protections or social policies that are put in place to improve the young people’s lives. Regardless of your stance on the matter, I’d urge you to spend some time with the piece - especially if conspiracy theory lite is your playground

Young People Yearn to Be Regulars

In lighter news, my bar fly adjacent heart swelled when I saw a headline that young people are absolutely yearning to be regulars at their local dive bars. First thought: as they should! Second thought: another blow for the ‘they don’t drink brigade’! Third thought: economic systems are ruining the sanctity of the bar hang :(. We know it, you know it, devices have stopped being the default for connection and rather the conduit, with more and more young people wanting to chase intimacy for IRL experiences. No news there. But as Business Insider penned last week: the hottest club for Gen Z right now is your local dive bar. As a proponent of dive bars, or their more British equivalent, a proper pub, I bristle at my culture as someone else’s costume. But a regular spot where everyone knows your name and your order, where you don’t need no airs and graces, where your face can be bare and your clothes can be comfy - these are the foundations of modern humanity and we must protect them! Open Table data backs that half of people who eat out describe themselves as regulars at a bar, which totally debunks the argument that no one drinks or goes out anymore FURTHER. Post pandemic and economic crash behaviours have skewed data and generations for far too long and I am thrilled to announce: we’re so back baby.

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📈THE STOCK EXCHANGE📉

Big biz moves that effect the culture

DVD’s On The Rise Thanks To Gen Z Analogue Revival: Criterion Closet Found Shaking

It’s no secret that people are sick of the subscription model, with multiple logins and steep pricing models making streaming feel like a slow death for shared cultural identities. So with the rise in physical media making a comeback, it shouldn’t be surprising that DVD and Blu-Rays are back on the bouncing multicoloured menu, but yet I was surprised to see the headline!

DVD sales have declined steadily for the last few years, but this has started to slow substantially since 2025. The digital entertainment group says that DVDs, Blu-rays, and 4K ultra HD’s sales fall off has dropped to 9% compared to the 20% decrease it saw in the years prior (24/23). More so, watch parties at bars (see above section) are on the rise as we try and collectively coalesce around media moments. Pockets of promise have shown for this, whether it’s Traitors obsession on the BBC, the Summer We All Turned Feral, or simply the Wuthering Heights of it all, it’s not just the footy that gets us feeling friendly anymore. I am sat, waiting for the DVD Extras and Blooper Reels to come streaming back, and to never look at that Netflix subscription again as long as I live.

Glossier Lays off a 1/3rd of its Work Force

The holy grail of Millennial Make Up and Skincare Sorcery has hit hard times, with a company restructure earlier this month seeing 50 of its staff let go (1/3rd of overall headcount). Whilst the brand still has a stronghold commercially in market, especially with its cult fragrance Glossier You featuring as a staple in most cosmetics cabinets globally, its once consumer chokehold has ceded with mass competition entering the market and its struggle to maintain and scale its DTC offering, something they tried to see off with its integration into Sephora back in 2023. The brand says the reshape was a much needed shake up to improve agility and help get it back on track to brand leader that “moves with the speed of culture” and allows investment where it drives the business most. Watch the space…

Can I Get Remarried at the A24 Chapel?

Apparently: YES! I’ve long loved Movie Marketing, in fact I wonder whether it should have its own permanent section in this newsletter, but as we gear up for Robert Pattinson & Zendaya’s The Drama release, it’s not just their ad in the paper that’s got tongues wagging. Now, as part of the promo, next Saturday lovers can head to Vegas and tie the knot at the indiest altar known to man: The A24 one. You and your loved one are promised a ceremony that “feels spontaneous, glamorous, and just a little bit dangerous.” I’m researching flights, btw.

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🎛️ NOTES FROM THE CONTROLLER ROOM 🎛️

Things that I’ve been thinking about this week

So much!

Michael Imperoli at Salford Lads Club

This man can do no wrong in my eyes. On a date that turned into a decade plus with my now husband Alex King we made this same pilgrimage and the photo I have of him in the same spot makes my heart so warm and I’m just so happy to see Mr. Imperoli is as basic as us <3

The Moment

Could easily have been 30 mins shorter but this was the world’s best diss movie of Taylor Swift ever

Love Story

I’m 2 episodes in and considering quitting food for cigarettes. Carolyn Bessette the woman you were!

Buckeye

I’m 1/3rd of the way in and this is already my favourite book of the last 5 years please don’t let me down Patrick!

Some Kind of Nature

Someone said this week the new Gorillaz album is the best since Plastic Beach so I listened and I don’t really agree but I do love Plastic Beach so I popped that back on and now I have listened to Some Kind of Nature, my top 10 song of all time, 52x this week and will be listening more, which probably matches the first time I heard it and I wrote the lyrics to it on my bedroom wall in permanent marker, not even a good one, like a horrible blue one I stole from my dads office?

The Pig at Hackney Farm had Piglets

I just think with everything going on that is something we should be talking about more.

Okay that’s all this week I loved writing this I hope you liked reading it, yours always xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

Hello and welcome to Rush Hour! The horrors persist, but so do we! The all encompassing noise of the news cycle is r3l3nTLe$$, but that hasn’t stopped the creator economy standing on business. You’re not getting it. It’s not getting clocking to you. In the last ~14 days we’ve had: our first middle school skincare CEO, eBay purchasing Depop (remember her?), more narrative objects: the Lidl trolley bag and the Adidas sneaker ravioli. In a time where Wuthering Heights discourse is loud, Coach dropping those mini books was inspired. Ben Lippett’s got a new music/food club in the works. Jake Shane is the latest Creator to get in on the equity partnership flex with… GERMAN CANDY BRAND KATJES OF COURSE! And Amelia Dimoldenberg has a ROMCOM in the works, bc ofc she does!

Put some fresh screen wash in because the chances are its probably still raining: IT’S RUSH HOUR!

🌆 SUNSET STRIP 🌆

Shining a light on a Creator moment I’ve loved this week

Jake Shane Named Candy CCO for Germany Confectioner Katjes

People say the Creator Economy moves too fast, but really the foundations are all at our disposal. Brand equity partnerships are no longer novel in mature markets like the US, and I imagine the UK will start to snowball in this space pretty quickly, the moment the ROAS starts to drip feed out of some of the bigger deals brokered across the last 12 months. But Jake Shane’s latest news (he’s on an all time run RN), sees him taking the job of Chief Creative Officer at German candy company Katjes. On the surface: this feels… random? But as the European gummy brand sets to come to the U.S., they’ve doubled down on the bet of offbeat comic timing to cut through a crowded market. In the Forbes piece, they talk to the brand not engaging with a traditional creator strategy and going straight to the source. And whilst I don’t disagree this is the strategy at play here, and that we will start to see so many more brand to creator partnerships at this scale, I am sure that this is just one part of a multi-faceted approach to break into a new audience. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this move as the macro PR hook that sits atop a complex comms system that holds the gravity needed to push into new territories.

Jake’s cultural relevance is undeniable: he will bring the energy and storytelling to their target consumer with trademark humour and cultural relevance. The fact he’s an actual real life fan whose been importing the gummies over and referencing them in videos for 3 years only helps the genuine match of the partnership. Bringing this kind of first person creative strategy into the board room isn’t for every brand, but I’ll be damned if this doesn’t start to make it into playbooks US and world over.

Ben Lippett’s “Pears for Lunch” launches next event edition

Husband and wife duo Ben and Louisa Lippett have made a name for themselves in the food and music scene (their professions, respectively), with their first Pears for Lunch event. Deliberately underselling an event at Skehans, where they got The Pogues to turn up to perform, is a nice little page out of the smash hits success playbook. Their general scene respect helped with the noise, sure, but now it’s time for their second event and London’s food scene are waited with baited breath, ready to be sated. The series was ideated to look at the collaborative nature of chefs and museums to reflect their passions, and to move the symbiotic nature from the tired (think: ambient jazz and a steak) to the wired (big party energy with platters).

Their next venture at the end of March will see them take over Peckham’s Bar Levan, with The Orielles soundtracking the event, amongst other breakout artists looking for their spotlight. They’ve echoed bigger, bolder plans in this space they see as ripe for the taking, but for now they want to keep Pears for Lunch an intimate affair. Enjoyment is key.

Amelia Dimoldenberg Rom Com COOKING

Her star is pretty shiny as it is, but the only way is up for UK Creator royalty Dimz. Whilst she’s made a name for herself interviewing on the red carpet and creating some pretty steamy connections (whilst we’re in the mood for yearning: her and Andrew Garfield when!!!), it’s unsurprising her next venture puts her back in front of the camera no longer in scripted reality. She is developing a romantic comedy with Orion Pictures, in which as well as producing, she will star as a “by-the-book journalist whose carefully planned life unravels when a routine celebrity interview unexpectedly turns into a romance that makes her question everything she believes about love”. As a longstanding stan of Starstruck, and a big believer in the global pull of Amelia’s awkward but endearing charisma, I can’t wait to see her in her acting era.

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🔥🏡 HOT PROPERTY🏡🔥

Who or what is the current Main Character of my internet

BRANDS KEEP MAKING THINGS AS PROOF OF LIFE

Do you remember, say, 2 years ago (?) when we were obsessed with creating those big CGI stunts? They had the mascara at the tube station and then everyone just went fucking nuts for making giant beer bottles float through Oxford Street? I am so glad we’re out of that. Instead, as I’ve written here before, we’ve collectively pivoted to the tangible. The ‘make stuff’ brigade started with a small but steady collective, but you’re now hard pressed to go a week without someone else dropping a product. And whilst the more cynical among us a few years back may have said that this was consumerism gone mad, the fact that so often brands are now creating and making not for profit, but for creativity, scarcity and hype, is refreshing in the age of all encompassing AI SLOP. So, semi-regularly, I will be giving the flowers to the best of the best. See, this week:

Lidl Supermarket Shopping Bag

I’ve long been a proponent of the kitsch community. It was the first lecture I did in my Art History degree. I grew up in the era of Indie Sleaze. Super Super had me in a chokehold and I used to wear cassettes round my neck (my face folded at typing that…). So I was always going to love the playful and ridiculous Lidl Trolley Bag dropped this week. Nik Bentel, artist and designer, was approached by Lidl to develop a confident piece of work. He took the iconic logo, colours and typography, it’s instantly recognisable style, and turned the mundane into the surreal and desirable. Enter the Trolley Bag, a limited run from next week, that takes the distinctive elements of the trolley right down to the token slot. It’s gorgeous and impractical and kind of stupid, much like his previous collab of the croissant bag - a leath purse that fitted into a leather replica of the Lidl bakery bag. It sold out in minutes. I give the Trolley Bag seconds before its snapped up.

If any Lidl PRs are interested in helping me out here, I am in the market for this ridiculous narrative object.

The Coach Bag Charm

I love the work the Digi Fairy have been doing promoting the Coach Mini Book bag charms, as seen on Elle Fanning! Minibookmaxxing sees subway surfers reading their tiny little books, which feels VERY on brand when everyone is seemingly a literary critic following the Wuthering Heights fall out :))))

Adidas Sneaker Ravioli

Perhaps inspired by the Nike Swoosh Soup Spoon seen in China last year, Adidas has served up limited edition trainer pasta to those fuelling for a Marathon in Dubai.

Partnering with Sagra Italian pastificio and Careem to launch Adizero Pasta, runners were given a chance to eat these delicious parcels of branding the day before the marathon, making Adidas part of their carb loading process. Another surreal and delicious brand entry.

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📈THE STOCK EXCHANGE📉

Big biz moves that effect the culture

Are we ready for our first Middle School CEO? Skincare says yes.

In a move that’s terrifying but an unsurprising evolution of the Tween Skincare obsession, 13 Year Old Coco Granderson is our first Middle School Skincare CEO. Casey Lewis brought this to my attention in her deep dive of The Cut’s profile of Coco and her brand Yes Day, a partnership with “skincare alchemist” and Rhode product developer Ron Robinson. The piece follows a day in the life of Coco, and the sophistication of her marketing nous is, in the words of Casey, both impressive and terrifying.

Coco, who has developed skin care that smells like Jolly Ranchers, is following the age old right of passage of product and play. When I was growing up, my friends and I loved to make our own beauty masks or try on our own make up. The noise and fervour about kids loving skincare isn’t necessarily misplaced, but perhaps sensationalising a habit that has existed for quite a long period of time. What’s different about Coco’s era is that it’s no longer just mashing up a banana and yogurt, its using the act of skincare and play with an end goal to get “glowy and snatched” - words you don’t really want a 13 year old saying.

It’s also the marketing angle that brings a whole new level of panic to how our Gen Alpha’s are going to navigate late stage capitalism. Coco laments the fact she’s 13. She says she wishes she was 16, so she could be in high school and target 14 year olds. Much like kids have always used skincare and ‘adult’ applications as a form of play, kids have always wanted to use stuff that’s targeted just a little bit older than them. Hell, this method is how I had my first cigarette at 14 after all. I’d rather the kids got into SPF then nicotine, but I’m sure that’s a whole other story for a whole other time.

Of course, there is the inevitable other concerns: teens feeling the pressure to look older, adults actively encouraging language amongst them to look ‘snatched’ (ew), and the controversy of who this is for (hellooooooo male gaze you’re so popular around here!). But I suppose whats stresses me out isn’t that Coco is getting her bag at 13 (good for her I guess). It’s more that at 13, she’s too young to run the brands social media, but is central to the strategy and calls out her mom, the COO, for not using the right language or emojis to sell. When did our 13 year olds get the know how to market? How is the internet fuelling mini MBA’s for the minors? Either way, I fear and revere the next wave of CEO’s that haven’t graduated high school yet.

eBay wins Depop bid

I have to admit, I had forgotten about Depop and her clunky interface since Vinted took a chokehold on me about 3 years ago. But eBay has always been my one consistent, a partner in purchases that remains eternal. It makes sense then, I guess, for eBay to gobble up the remainder of the competition and consolidate it to take on their biggest rival. With Etsy also under their belt, it will be interesting to see how they navigate this 3 brand trifecta as Vinted, Vestiare and Vinteriors sweep up the everyday, luxury and homeware brackets of second hand selling. Watch the space!

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🎛️ NOTES FROM THE CONTROLLER ROOM 🎛️

Things that I’ve been thinking about this week

I found this horseshoe of consumables from Snaxshot genuinely v funny

The Correspondent - Virginia Evans

If you want some low stakes cosy reading in an unexpected format, read the letters of Sybil Van Antwerp and try and figure out what the hell your girls hiding!

Magda!!!

A brilliant team member has just brokered an incredible deal with Magda and I cannot wait for the work to roll out. It is so next level good. But in the mean time, I’ve been obsessed with everything she’s ever made…

This Sacred Heart Jumper

In the smallest chance that someone from Coco Fennel’s PR team is a subscriber of Sim City, please can you send me the link to the presale of this Sacred Heart Jumper. I need her!

Okay that’s everything this week I love you bye xxxx

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

Good morning and welcome to Rush Hour! When I decided to shift this to a Monday drop, I had failed to consider that the Superbowl would in fact be the night prior, and almost certainly there would be quite a bit of creator led news to lead with. But, I defer to the news on British soil the two weeks prior to a Seahawks slam (did that sound convincing?). But obviously… Viva La Bad Bunny 5eva.

Because boy do we have some news. The Business of Fashion dropped that big fat report on the Creator Economy, Mam Sham are back with an Asahi collab, Morleys dropped a campaign with Strut Safe which brought a tear to my eye, the UK’s launched its own SNL, Runner + Stunners got its first race signed off, Mac’s relaunched its zine, and Shameless won Australia’s favourite podcast and that matters to me in London.

I’m a passenger princess and my husband had an accident at work which has rendered the use of his left hand temporarily impossible, so we can’t get in any cars right now. Therefore, put you arm out and hail the no2, it’s Rush Hour.

🌆 SUNSET STRIP 🌆

Shining a light on a Creator moment I’ve loved this week

Wham Bam Thank You Mam Sham

I’ve long admired the work of Mam Sham, a food production led creative duo made up of Maria Georgiou and Rhiannon Butler. Their concept of pairing comedy, creativity, and chasing it down with some delicious food has long served them amongst London’s food scene. Tickets to their iconic supper clubs sell out in quick time and I suspect they held the weight of the “connection and community is the new currency” think pieces for much of 2022-2025. After a couple of months of radio silence, they teased their return with their trademark spin on the mundane, the pair waiting for a bus as the ticker said “supper club, delayed”

But when they announced the drop, it was all killer, no filler. Sponsored by Asahi Super Dry 0.0% (goated partnership btw!!!), their 3 course dinner prepared by 3 iconic chefs inspired by 3 comedy acts performing on the night sold out almost immediately. I for one am waiting for a ticket to drop by singing up to a brand led competition like its the middle of the pandemic or something. All proceeds going to Praxis, a charity helping migrants, is exactly what we love to see. Plus, the art direction goes CRAZY on the poster, and I love the carousel that Asahi pulled to promote the partnership. Excel chic!

Runners & Stunners Get A Race

jennyyyy_fit only recently came across my desk, but as a woman whose for a decade and still doesn’t ‘look like a runner’, I was charmed by her fuck it attitude toward the more complicated (read, body shaming & elitist lol) side of the community. The day I followed Jenny, I was out training and clocked her leading 100 runners through Richmond in the pissing rain. It felt serendipitous, and also motivating, to see I was not the only psycho on the footpath on a Sunday. Jenny is the founder of Runners and Stunners, a female only run club across London, Bristol and Manchester, that focusses on running at ‘slower’ more attainable paces to encourage more people to break into the sport and get into exercise. Nice right?

All this is to say that when she announced that Runners & Stunners will be hosting its first ever race in Battersea Park, thanks to her partnership with Science in Sport, I was elated. Whilst Run Clubs (much like the above Supper Clubs) have been diluted for their use cases as proof the “IRL is happening over URL” in every agency strategy deck for the last 36 months, it is genuinely nice to see a smart partnership used and elevated into a production and event. These are my favourite kind of Creator/Brand connections and whilst they obviously take a lot more planning and production, the pay off for the connection and brand lasting effects are so much stronger due to the emotional drivers and the huge brand cue opportunities. Also I just think… good for you Jenny!

📈THE STOCK EXCHANGE📉

Big biz moves that effect the culture

Business of Fashion launches its deep dive into the Creator Economy

This was suuuuch a juicy little read this weekend. BoF have done a series of short snappy articles to promote their big old case study on The New World of Influencer Marketing. I couldn’t help but not sign up for the whole thing. Whilst some of the headlines facts & stats won’t be surprising to those of us who live in the industry, there is plenty of thoughtful fodder that only doubles down on what we all know: CREATORS ARE THE FUTURE… but also, why is there still these quite strong pockets of resistance? In the piece “Why is Influencer Still a Dirty Word?”, they begin to unpack some of the core drivers that those in the industry are always chatting about. Misogyny being one of the top barriers is no surprise to me: an economy that is largely built off women’s labour (hello the ‘mummy bloggers’ who are disparaged despite starting this whole thing) is likely to receive disdain and dismissal.

Some of the other more fascinating elements that surfaced:

• The death of the follower - again, no news to those of us operating within the realms of Influence, but more and more emphasis is being placed on effectiveness over reach. Sites like ShopMy have made conversion led Creators more powerful regardless of their following, but equally every partnership needs to look for its own metrics of success as the platforms and performance diversifies even further.
  
  “As an industry, we tend to look for a silver bullet, whether it’s a channel or a metric or a content type that we’re like, ‘ this is a thing everyone needs to be doing now.’ The big shift that we’ve seen from five years ago is that there’s no silver bullet.”
  Maggie Hickey, Executive VP of Marketing at Dash Social

• Partnerships over pay to play - Influencer spending has doubled in the last couple of years and a huge amount of that is pointing towards longer term partnerships and productions with Creators over one off brand deals and partnerships that mean nothing. If you are still hoping to do a “one and done” partnership and see those big effectiveness results, you’re throwing good money after bad.

• From side hustle to main event - for a long time, Creator work could peacefully co-exist against your core job, a way to supplement your 9-5. The demands of partnerships now are making that harder for a somewhat successful Creator to achieve, and therefore there is a real struggle for Creators to weigh up the longevity of what they’re doing vs their existing careers. This is a symptom that plagues Millennial partners more so than younger Gen Z and Alpha Influencers, who see the creator opportunity as a launchpad for their careers, not a side hustle.

You can get the whole report here.

🔥🏡 HOT PROPERTY🏡🔥

Who or what is the current Main Character of my internet

Morleys x Strut Stuff

I’m a huge fan of all the creative work coming out of Hot Sauce at the moment - truly culture first creativity that makes total sense for their brand partnerships. So I was rightly gagged at the launch of their Strut Stops, a partnership with Morleys and Strut Safe to turn some of the brightest places in London, Morley’s chicken shops, into a safe spaces for people who need a spot to call a cab or wait for a mate with no pressure to buy anything. It’s insight based, super sticky, and helps out our community. 5/5 :))))

British Style Lives Where You’re Not Looking - Radge Mag

I loved this piece from Radge Mag where writer Maia Olusanya talks to the role regional style plays in fashion, and how there is an obsession to push sub-cultures that bleed out of London over anywhere else in the UK.

“When people talk about UK fashion, the focus almost always lands in London. Trends are expected to start there and move outward, which leaves everyone else feeling like they are behind or catching up. But what happens within the M25 is not even close to how most people in this country actually dress. Regional style keeps being treated as a watered-down version of what is happening in the capital, rather than something with its own weight, meaning, and cultural value.”

“This is not about romanticising the rest of the UK and turning it into a gritty aesthetic playground for people who do not live there, or pretending it exists in opposition to London. It is simply about recognising that style can and does exist outside the heavily gatekept, tightly controlled bubble also known as the London fashion industry. Climate, class, work, music, transport, housing and history all shape the way people dress, and those experiences differ massively across the country. Because of that, the creative scenes that emerge from them are different, too.”

Craft in the Era of Excess

Shameless plug for where I work, but my favourite thing I’ve read in a really, really long time is “Craft in the Era of Excess”, a 10/10 social-first perspective on creativity, experimentation, and earned attention from Born Social’s Chief Creative Officer Paddy Smith. It talks to the importance of distinctiveness, co-creation, truth and personality to cut through the noisy, sloppy landscape we live in. You will quite simply, not regret spending 30 minutes with it.

Craft isn't dead; it's different.
In a world increasingly dominated by urgency, mimicry and the occasional monsoon of slop, it's fair to ask, 'is their still space for craft?'.
We believe craft is alive and well; it just looks a little different. We explore this in depth in our new report 'Craft in the Era of Excess'.
Think of this as an elbow in the ribs, a sharp jolt to remind us to recode timeless truths to suit a modern audience. To invest properly. To experiment bravely. To explore creatively in the space - and to finally, mercifully, kill #NationalPancakeDay.

🎛️ NOTES FROM THE CONTROLLER ROOM 🎛️

Things that I’ve been thinking about this week

This week, I read a book I’d seen a lot of hype about and found it deep disappointing with an ending so infuriating I wanted to throw my Kindle out the window (Everything You Every Wanted - Luiza Sauma) and I watched 16 times Oscar nominated smash hit “Sinners” and felt like I was on glue (it literally felt like a Marvel movie imbued with Vampires?). So I think maybe my cultural compass is off a little… but I did enjoy some of the following:

Cheung Fun in Chinatown

Whoever said, lets just roll up rice noodles into a big gelatinous ball and serve it with Satay sauce deserves the biggest snog on the mouth

A Horse Walks into the End of the West

I wrote a Substack all about how the Year of the Horse has embedded itself the Western cultural conversation and why I think that may or may not be and you can read it here.

Wondering if I copped this shirt where I could wear it

In other predictable moves: I love the brand praying

Mich & Zaz win Australia’s Favourite Podcast

Longterm lover of Shamless, I am thrilllllleeeeed to see the gals get some recognition (whilst looking 10/10 may I add) at the AACTA’s <3

Okay that’s all this week love you bye xxxxx

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

I have had this essay in my notes app since last December. “Year of the horse and the fall of the west??????” It loomed, as I piled more references into the unstructured note. “Wood fuels fire!” “Dylan goes electric” “Jim Jarmusch”. But now, as we sit one week out from the Lunar New Year, the official-real-time start of the Year of the Horse, it’s time to release the tapes.

Whilst algorithms are inherently personal, I have never known so much Western noise around Chinese astrology in all my years as a woo-woo adjacent woman. It was in the pub garden, 3 glasses of Beaujolais deep when my friend Rosy pointedly explained it to me.

“Last year was the year of the snake. It was all about shedding. Next year is the year of the horse and we will all be galloping into abundance”

I took those words from her mouth, and put them in my own, repeating them for weeks to come. A promise that just like that D:Ream song, things can only get better. And it wasn’t just me. Suddenly, I saw horses everywhere. That galloping emoji stamped all over the internet, memes and montages that moved with the promise of propelling forward. Maybe it’s recency bias. But I suspect, as I always do, that there are compounding factors at play.

The Lunar New Year historically, of course, is not a motivational framework for modern wellness to obsess over. It’s ritual, not content, around community, reunion and renewal rather than an excuse for personal transformation. But the way the Horse is currently circulating online says far more about the Western appetite for symbols than it does about the tradition itself. The Year of the Horse is a pretty sticky concept for the West to hang its hat to. Who doesn’t like the sound of success? But when you dig in further, the particular configuration of a Wood Snake (2025) into a Fire Horse (2026) holds even more weight: wood, famously, fuels fire. Wood is potential energy. Fire is unrealised potential.

Looking at the last iteration of this combination, 65-66 saw the tipping point into the Swinging Sixties that defined the era. It laid foundations for the Summer of Love. Civil rights action, protests against the Vietnam War, and big cultural fashion and music shifts all played in this period. If you subscribe to the belief that life is just the same 80-100 year period on rinse and repeat (more on this later), you might look at these two parallels of civic unrest and political injustice and feel cautiously optimistic of the clearing the Fire Horse may bring in 2026.

Or you might think: I don’t believe in this. Why am I seeing this? What does it even mean? But this isn’t just an aesthetic ideal or a niche idea transformed to TikTok trend. The Horse has taken the reins because it offers more than just symbolism of hope, but layers of context that have led to its moment in the hay. I want to tell you why. Why now. Why we’re backing this proverbial horse.

The Workhorse and the Wagon Wheel

The Horse is at home in a bed of c(hay)os. It’s not controversial to take one look at the world around us and think: none of this is making any sense. Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar frontrunner One Battle After the Other was filmed in early 2024, and though the signs then were pointing toward a near distant dystopia, nobody could have thought this hyperreal exposé into a morally fallen western power was going to become a documentary by the time it was released. Equally, when we were begging for them to release the Epstein files, we were expecting to expose some of the more troubling names that were being floated - not unveil a complete cabal of every powerful person’s links to a paedophile ring. When the world stops making sense, it’s not unusual for us to start pattern matching and try to find comfort in what we can meaningfully observe. When facts become brutal, seeking symbols is a great way to find rhythm amongst noise. When the world feels like it’s less governed and more glitching, we look for narrative geometry to guide our crises.

An age old way we’ve coped with this is looking backwards to look forward. It’s almost certainly why we’re seeing some pretty patriotic and nationalistic views resurface globally - because when we panic about our present, we seek comfort in the past. In Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, he talks to the rise of nationalism being built on the backs of rose tinted glasses. When it feels like we’ve lost control, it’s the easiest thing in the world to look back at a perceived period of greatness and pride and say “look how much better that was”. Even if “that” was a time bridled with poverty and insecurity and reaction to the most senseless acts of violence seen on a world stage. 1940’s narratives seemingly neglect the war that sparked the society.

It’s deeper than an urge for nostalgia, although we know that is all that anyone can feast on right now. I cannot see another throwback to 2016 without simultaneously wondering where the time went and wondering who this trip down memory lane serves. It’s closer to parallel seeking - finding patterns we can mimic to make sense of the present. In Neil Howe and William Strauss’ The Fourth Turning, they outline a theory of cyclical history, where society is constantly passing through four 20-25 year stages per generation, totalling out at 80-100 years. By this books theory, we are at the very tail end of ours. This isn’t necessarily a good thing - we start high (order, post WWII west), move to awakening (rebellion, think 1960s counterculture - feminism & civil rights), then push toward unravelling (distrust - the cynical, neoliberalism of the 1980s), and then… well… crisis (upheaval, system failure - think the great depression, both American and English civil wars, and… right now).

9/11 marked the beginning of this particular Crisis turning, and it’s been a 25 year slow burn of intense polarisation, rising inequality, moral panic, severe conflict - with the only way out being a unified mass of collective sacrifice. Eek. This doesn’t mean enlightenment is around the corner, for all you optimists out there - but it does mean there needs to be a reckoning and reconstruction to lead into the new ‘high’. It requires movement, energy, labour, and mobilisation. Almost a like for like replica of the symbolism of the Year of the Horse. If we are at the tail end of our crisis, the Year of the Horse isn’t symbolic of this, but rather the exit, galloping out of the flames.

Forgive Me Father, For I Have Optimised

As I say, it’s useful to look at patterns and parallels to help us understand what the hell is going on. When you think of the significant parallels between our perceived Western decline and the Chinese astrological calendar, it’s hard to not get carried away. The aim here isn’t to be ‘woo-woo’, but rather get under the skin of why it makes abstract sense. Societally, we’ve always needed something bigger than the rational to guide the masses. Where secular religion took this role since the dawn of time, the recession of Church in mainstream narratives means for huge swathes of people there is an absence of a God to perform guidance, community, ritual, even absolution. I’ve long suspected this is why wellness is such a lucrative industry. People deeply crave spirituality to self regulate, even if they can’t put their finger on that being the cause. Wellness, and its subsidiaries of astrology, mysticism, and mind body connection, act as a form of absolution for lost souls. What can feel irrational on paper is simply a sense of guidance in a society that has lost its centralised institutions of moral compass and community. Sociologists have been tossing this theory around for quite some time - Durkheim understood ritual wasn’t a belief, but a glue - something that helped people synchronise emotionally. But ultimately, there’s a danger in how this has diluted - we track and we optimise, and we weigh instead of pray.

That’s why there’s a little crack that astrology often slips through - it’s less demanding, it doesn’t require full submission, it’s a little less puritanical. It requires research and curiousity to guide, rather than extremity, and it helps you use your own critical thinking skills and internal compass to make sense of the madness. As a meaning structure, its entry level is easy (everyone knows their sun sign), and it sits universally as an accessible way to attribute understanding of one’s self. With this in mind, its completely unsurprising to me that the mid10’s started obsessing over Costar - a clear sign of clarity seeking in our crisis period. But our sojourn into signs has transcended the birth chart, and we’re now looking back at alternate and even more historical structures of symbolism - the Chinese Lunar Calendar. After all, we’re here to talk about the Horse. But what’s striking is how individualistic this reading has become - everywhere you look, the Western Horse is frames as my momentum, my abundance, my year - an almost opposite framing of the collective, relational, family led thinking of the traditional Lunar Year.

Shanghai Seduction: The West’s Obsession with China

One of my favourite pieces of last year was from Patrick Kho, writer of The Chow.

THE CHOW

Why Is the Internet Fantasizing About China?

This essay is part of an ongoing series on “Orientalism chic,” which maps new forms of Asian cultural expression in a multipolar world…

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9 months ago · 144 likes · 11 comments · Patrick Kho

In his piece, he talks about the decline of the west’s soft power and the rise of Chinese related memes as a form of alternative world building. I lapped this up, as I had noticed an interesting shift in Western narratives that looked far more towards the East as guidance for both the old (Chinese medicine and astrology) and the new (the promise of the endless future that China appears to offer compared to collapse on our side of the patch). You yourself might have noticed your TikTok feed taking on “Chinese Grandma” discourse - discussing congee, acupressure and tongues with the same precision often given to a surgeon. And whilst what trends can be seemingly random on platforms like TikTok, I do strongly believe that this is a gateway into how China circulates symbolically Western feeds - both as a threat and future, as fantasy and as foil. The Horse’s current prominence sits directly adjacent to a wider Western fixation.

Back to Kho, he talks of the “feigned desire” to be Chinese consolidating online, and Bea Xu’s theory that this is a desire for emotional release from the West. He uses the phrase “libidinal catharsis” - the idea that we don’t just study and look on to China, but actually that the internet fantasises about it - much like how you might fantasise about leaving a job or moving to another country - less about the known, more about the idea. This isn’t a new obsession, and nor is it a clean one - it is caught up in orientalism, projection, desire, fear, and our obsession with memeification. Where western soft power is clearly having its big wobble - America is no longer the safe, rational and saviour complexed partner it has been for the last century - our attention begins to orbit elsewhere.

It’s funny to think that just 1 year ago we really thought that TikTok was about to get banned in America, and how quickly thousands switched to RedNote, the Chinese social platform that wasn’t facing the US imminent ban and saw swathes of users learning Mandarin. Whilst that in itself became a meme, the panic spread as a cultural moment, a rehearsal for the inevitable shut down of social media in the West. This isn’t the only sign pointing toward our Shanghai seduction. To quote direct from Kho:

There is a growing collection of memes across platforms that fantasize a life that is Chinese. Westerners are “disappearing to China” at “9am on a Monday morning,” biking around cities like Shanghai to the sound of Mao Zedong’s propaganda song “Red Sun in the Sky.” European male models, scantily clad in cropped tops, raise their shirts to expose their stomachs and smoke cigarettes in a manner à la the Chinese uncle. The parody hip hop news account Daily Noud announced—and celebrated—the rapper Young Thug becoming Chinese.

It’s no wonder under these circumstances that we’re starting to see a rise in prominence of Chinese astrology in Western feeds. It arrives as a new take on an existing meaning structure (your regular schmegular sun/moon/rising) and is made more culturally legible by a broader fixation: China as a place where the future is already happening.

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Whose Holding the Reins?

I’m aware, at times, that I am susceptible to conspiracy theory. I think it’s because I have an overactive imagination and enjoy a good story. But I am so cautious to not give in to these too easily. However… I am aware that the next few sentences feel conspiratorial in their nature, so entertain me…

Platforms are the new newstand, this is not a modern or exciting statement. However, their involvement - how they weight what matters, what they push and pull on, the divisiveness of algorithms - is something we’ve all become so used to that I think we sometimes forget how much they push the ‘common’ in our universal common sense.

That’s why when it comes to who owns what, we have anxieties. If the pipes are controlled, the water can taste different tap to tap. Public opinion is as easy to shape as an algorithmic tweak. If you can cast your mind back to a year ago when the public panic over Chinese ownership of TikTok meant that Trump issued an executive order to ban it in the US, you can see the fear runs straight to the top. Which is perhaps why it’s so interesting that since the negotiation for the US to take ownership of the platforms running, there have been far more concerns about censorship and extreme moderation than seen in its previous ownership. When power wobbles, extremes are taken to control the narrative, after all. Allegedly.

Comedian Meg Stalter posted to Instagram last week that she was downloading all her videos from TikTok and deleting her account, as since the shift in power, she was unable to upload anti-ICE content, and when it did upload it sat in 0 view jail. This is just one case of many airing the concerns. People spent years worrying about Chinese ownership of TikTok and the discourse that could flourish there, but are now faced with a parallel anxiety that the suppression might be happening on home soil.

We used to say that data was the new oil, but ultimately data is inert. What matters more is social context, the ability to define what counts. What symbols get more oxygen in the live feed. And that’s one of the many reasons the Year of the Horse is running so freely through our feeds.

Exit Sign Energy

It’s worth naming the split that makes the Year of the Horse feel so powerful and all encompassing, yet also so easy to misunderstand. It also helps to remember within the zodiac itself, the Horse isn’t a saviour, but a phase - related directly to what comes before, and what comes after. On the surface, the Western interpretation of the Year of the Horse feels like an aesthetic ideal, an optimistic, Instagrammable, promise of abundance and the glow up of all glow ups. It can also be deeply misunderstood as luck, fate, destiny, something we can march through.

But beneath the surface, we can see heavier sets of forces doing the real work - because optimism alone isn’t driving this mass adoption of the Horse. Societal fatigue of crisis on a perma-loop, platform and political anxiety, and a sense of foreboding that control is in decline all precede it. The Horse has such cut through in the West because it allows for two readings: aspirational and feel good wellness, and explanation for those who need to anchor some meaning to madness. It’s a symbol that spreads so well because it’s sharable, but also on a deeper level articulates the answer to the crisis.

The last Fire Horse, in 1966, can shape behaviour at scale - but with lasting effects. Beyond the family, food and connection the Lunar New Year holds for millions, belief systems have historically shaped how cycles are received. In Japan at the time, there was a widespread superstition that girls born in the year of the fire horse would be headstrong and could harm their husbands. As a result, there was a huge dip in the birth rates that year as couples avoided procreating for fear of the female. And whilst its unlikely such beliefs are going to impact our already falling birth rates in 2026, it is interesting to note that if at the end of the Crisis turning mass mobilisation is required, that a year historically associated with collective behaviour change sits right at top of the calendar.

And I think this is where there is some power: the Horse offers movement and motion, acceleration and velocity, the ability to push through - rather than the answer to the problem. We are living under these conditions, and we’re desperate for a narrative to channel our public anger. But The Horse isn’t leading us anywhere, really. It’s just running alongside us to the EXIT sign - out the doors, into the light.

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

WE ARE SO BACK. After a slow few days defrosting, we’ve now reached that time of year when people start sharing that Brian Blessed poem on instagram stories about January being 3249559 days long and I feel like I’m stuck in Groundhog Day. “I can’t believe it’s still January” and yet, here we are. No one’s been resting on their laurels, straight out the gate big biz moves. January 2026 has shown us one thing to be true: Creators are coming for all media <3. Mr Beast sent a tweet last year which sees him directing Salesforce Superbowl ad this year, Alix Earles got her own TV show. Speaking of, Substack’s launched a TV Vertical for some reason and the Dr Pepper jingle has been acquired.

Elsewhere: notes app chic is roaming free, and I have seen 3 Oscar nommed films, 2 made me sob and 1 made me fall asleep bc it was so relaxing. Ok, pour the green juice into the shaker and get in the car. It’s Rush Hour.

🌆 SUNSET STRIP 🌆

Shining a light on a Creator moment I’ve loved this week

Mr. Beast for the Superbowl

Okay, this section is usually reserved for ‘thing I’ve loved’ and I’m afraid my feelings toward Mr. Beasts entire vibe is probably best described as “unsettled”. But, this is about as unprecedented as things have got to date in this silly little economy and it must be reported on. Mr Beast is making his big time directorial debut at this little thing called the Superbowl, because he sent a tweet out last year about having a good idea and the CEO of Salesforce replied. No, I haven’t subliminally laced you through the screen, that is a real sentence and probably late-stage capitalisms final boss. Without getting into the murky ethics of a CEO signing off on the creative for the biggest advertising moment of the year via a tweet (and I hear a private jet to pitch down the line), this is definitely one of those “wake up and smell the roses” moments to where big business is putting its money when it comes to the future of brands + creator relationships. Long have we spoken about the move to equity based models and IP for big ticket partnerships, but this foray for Mr. Beast to be behind the camera and bring a concept to life is a huge shift. He’s insinuated that you can be in with a chance to win a million dollars as well, so I am wondering whether his idea is really ‘big creative genius’ or more ‘cashing in and out on a well known personal brand gimmick’ - but roll on Feb 8th. Watch the below at your peril bc it’s really annoying :(

Netflix signs Alix Earle for Reality Show

The internets princess Alix Earle is bringing her FYP to the big(ish) screens via a Netflix acquisition that sees her candid takes transformed into a reality show. Rather than Alix being the sole star, she’s bringing along her friends and family for this unscripted foray into TV. She wants it to be an even more intimate look into her life, that goes beyond GRWM’s and into the boardroom as she builds her empire, her travels and her navigating fame and family. Whilst this isn’t exactly revolutionary content, Alix has the relatable IT girl candour that is addictive, and whilst she isn’t small fry either - Netflix tapping into transcending TikTok to TV in this way paves a smart path for the future of streaming. I, unfortunately, will be tuning in.

@alixearleLmk what you want to see 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🥰🥰🥰🥰 AHHHHHH

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Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a Mincefluencer

My sister and I are best friends, in the way all your favourite best friends are best friends - our relationship consists on bursts of intense time together followed by periods apart, and text exchanges of such rapid fire exchange for 2 hours before falling off the face of the earth for a month. I suspect, we both have some sort neuro-divergency which insists we communicate in this way, but we will not spend too long looking inward at our wiring as that is SO not what a Wedderburn does. Cut to: 2 weeks ago, Saturday morning in bed, and us having a cackling and crackling exchange over anything and everything, when she sends me a New York Times article written by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (my favourite author) about Operation Mincemeat (the musical she has poured her blood, sweat and tears into as a publicist from when it was in the Southwark Playhouse to its now sold out run on BROADWAY BABY!). Taffy has written an unhinged and brilliant essay about how she is totally, unashamedly, addicted to Operation Mincemeat. In the article, which is SO fucking good!!!!!, she refers to herself as a Mincefluencer. My sister and I have long bonded over this term, because unexpectedly our worlds began to collide as the Mincefluence epidemic started spreading in London a few years back. Our jobs are same same but very different (she is the most impressive and high powered comms + media professional I know, leading on publicity for an absolute industry powerhouse, and I… well… love Influencer marketing + the internet), but when she started speaking to me about identification tools (shout out Klear I love you baby!!!!), it was a new neural pathway in our relationship. Not that we need anymore connection. We share the same brain + heart. She just has better hair and skin and has the sort of aura that makes you feel calm and safe within seconds of meeting her, and also - crucially - is so hilarious I sometimes can’t breathe in her presence. Anyway, the point is - you should read Taffy’s article, because its probably the best modern account of fandom and hysteria I have ever read. And if you haven’t seen Operation Mincemeat yet, what the fuck are you doing with your life? Enter the lottery now!

@mincemeatbwayThank you, Broadway, for giving #OperationMincemeat a home 💛 Watch the full talkback with our ally and self-diagnosed #Mincefluencer Taffy Brodesser-Akner on our YouTube page 🫡

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📈THE STOCK EXCHANGE📉

Big biz moves that effect the culture

Substack launched Substack TV

There is a corner of this brilliant writing community who turn their nose up at Substack’s incessant push for video content. Many view coming to this app as a safe space to find long-form well written content and a feed that resembles Twitter kindness from the early 10s. Buuuut… whilst my opinion somewhat falls into this camp (I like to read more than I like to watch), I do like the video explainers alongside the deep dive cultural essays, and I have thought on more than one occasion this year that I ought to really think about how to engage with it. But the big launch from Substack yesterday, that a TV app is coming to Apple & Google TV, is an interesting play. For so long I’ve wrongly attributed the push for video content to wanting to keep up with the wider social media landscape, and only now I realise that it was a longer play for getting more considered creator verticals onto the TV space and continue to elevate Substack as a premium kind of social media. One that focusses on long-form, art, and craft.

In their press release, Substack say, and I quote:

Today we’re launching the Substack TV app for Apple TV and Google TV. Substack is the home for the best longform—work creators put real care into and subscribers choose to spend time with. Now these thought-provoking videos and livestreams have a natural home on the TV, where subscribers can settle in for the extended viewing that great video deserves.

Alongside this, they have a pull quote from former CNN Anchor Jim Acosta, who so wonderfully said “I’m excited to report the Substack revolution will be televised.” He himself hosts a daily news show, and sees this move as a “game changer for the rise of independent media”. And now I’m thinking: what client can I pitch to do some long form on Substack? Coming to an inbox near you @brands.

On Substack

Introducing the Substack TV app, now in beta

Today we’re launching the Substack TV app for Apple TV and Google TV. Substack is the home for the best longform—work creators put real care into and subscribers choose to spend time with. Now these thought-provoking videos and livestreams have a natural home on the TV, where subscribers can settle in for the extended viewing that great video deserves…

Read more

7 months ago · 1063 likes · 541 comments · Zach @ Substack

Romeo Done for Dr Pepper, Good & Nice

So Solid Crew references aside, I love it when a brand taps into real opportunity on social. It’s something we all promise and hope for, but gets so often lost in the dreaded red tape of bureaucracy. So when RomeoShow (full name Romeo Bingham) posted their ‘Good & Nice’ jingle for Dr. Pepper, I’m sure a big brand deal and full blown virality wasn’t on their expectation list - but its what she got. With over 30.7million views and accounting on the original video, Dr. Pepper were straight in the comment section looking for a moment to band together and build on this natural brand moment.

Not only have they licensed the jingle, but they’re putting it to work in quick time by featuring the audio in live TV ads for the college football playoffs. I suspect that this won’t be the only big brand audio use, and its so wonderful to see a creator get their flowers, and a brand act on an opportunity, all in a timely window before the moment goes stale. The excitement of the Creator industry is that it moves with speed, and this has what’s outpaced so many brands trying to follow up on the moment. Building processes and workflows that let’s the work work is the best way to carve your way into culture. Take. Note.

@romeosshow@Dr Pepper please get back to me with a proposition we can make thousands together. #drpepper #soda #beverage

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🔥🏡 HOT PROPERTY🏡🔥

Who or what is the current Main Character of my internet

Short and sweet, but a build on the increased urge toward the analogue, I am loving that the Canva Design Report talked to the nuanced spot between the two: Notes App chic. This is a realistic application of the urge for more ‘friction’ in the content we consume and put out to the world. It doesn’t completely shift to offline modes, rather than acknowledges more old school methods for making that don’t exist within the big 2 app interfaces.

Maria Vestkina, the Creative Lead at Canva, so succinctly explained the allure in her above note. Its not about the polished end product, but more about the proof of the journey. Sign me, the fuck up.

🎛️ NOTES FROM THE CONTROLLER ROOM 🎛️

Things that I’ve been thinking about this week

Oh my God, so much to say, so many thoughts!!!!! Distilled down to 3.

Hamnet Dance Breaks

I saw Hamnet last night. Hamnet broke me last night. I have a saying round these parts (the 2 people who have asked me my opinion on it) that Hamnet is my least favourite book by my most favourite author, but that wasn’t going to stop me from going to see its film adaption. Because even your least favourite book by your favourite author is sensational. BUT WOW. The tears. The emotion. Jessie Buckley needs to win Best Actress. I said what I said.

The thing thats got me going this week though is director Chloe Zhao sharing how they broke the tension and the emotions that came with one of the most silently devestating stories ever brought to the silver screen. Dance Breaks. A release of emotion and movement. See here to the entire cast at the Globe Theatre dancing to Rihanna. I’m crying all over again watching it

The Workhorse - Caroline Palmer

Okay, I will preface by saying this book is 500+ pages long and it probably didn’t have any business being that. But… WOWOWOWOWOW. Its like if the Safdie Brothers directed an adaption of the Devil Wears Prada written by Otessa Moshfegh via Patricia Highsmith. In fact I say so here:

Dark! Twisted! 00’s! Its triggering and tense and ultimately very funny and if you have body issues I would say tread carefully (you will accidentally calculate the ‘chubby’ protagonists BMI and have a minor melt down, allegedly). BUT, its a debut novel with an unreliable narrator and a New York City backdrop. I was brought up on Brett Easton Ellis baby. This. Is. My. Beat.

Oscar Nominations

I think this is probably my favourite run of Noms ever. There has been a wealth of great cinema. I lowkey want Bugonia to take it, but would be very happy with One Battle After Another. But lets face it, as long as it isn’t F1 we’re all winners. My favourite movies from the awards series that I’ve seen in 2026 are:

Sentimental Value even its for the Joachim Trier nailing the needle drop with Cannock Chase by Labi Siffre (he also altered my brain chemistry a few years back when he included The Waters of March by Art Garfunkle in the drop for Worst Person in the World).

Hamnet see above, sob fest

The Mastermind I actually fell asleep 3 times watching this but it’s not because it was bad - it’s because it was so relaxing. I had ran 20km that morning, there was a fire on, I was having a red wine. I actually think falling asleep is a compliment in this context.

Aphex Twin takes over Taylor Swift on YouTube

As a long time fan of ambient to work to (I am listening to AT’s …I Care Because You Do album as I type this), I’m awed by this funny little anomaly from YouTube’s streaming figures. According to them, Aphex Twin is currently drawing more monthly listeners than Taylor Swift, at 448mil vs 399 mil. Aphex Twin has had bursts of virality on TikTok, and I guess now YouTube shorts, with the likes of Alberto Balsalm mash ups going crazy 2 years back and now his 2001 track QKThr having similar hype. This is likely behind the big time boost, and I know it won’t last forever…. buuuuut… wouldn’t it be good if it did?

Okay that’s all this week love you bye xxxxx

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

Hello and welcome to not only the first Rush Hour of the year, but the first in a month. If you’re new here, Rush Hour is a newsletter from Sim City, which acts as a drive by of the week in the internet, but also crucially, my head. It’s existed in a weekly(ish) form, but as we move into 2026 I want to put a bit more into the cultural long reads, so I expect this to drop down to a bimonthly read. LOGISTICS! BUSINESS PLANNING! Someone’s got a New Year spring in their step.

As marketers emerge from their Christmas hibernation, which ears on the ground say was more of an endurance event of tanking pints in the town you grew up in trying to ignore the trauma tread into its pavements, there hasn’t been an overwhelming amount of campaign action. But if I had to pick: I really like those Christopher Walken Miller Lite ads about in person connection. I don’t want to, they’re sort of cheesy and built of the strategy sin bin insights of “loneliness epidemic” and “people aren’t hooking up IRL anymore”. But perhaps it’s my predilection for American dive bars, and specifically drinking beers from the Miller portfolio (I’m really fond of a High Life), or maybe the fact True Romance is my favourite movie, or even that I saw a Substack saying its arrival means “bars are so back” - but it struck with me. But also maybe I’m starved of anything that isn’t BBC The Traitors or my current Sopranos rewatch (both good actually!).

We persist! As always, I’ve pulled out the best news I can find from Creators and “The Biz”, pulled out a little something I’m ruminating on right now, and given you some thorough notes from the controller room. Oh! And this was written on my phone this week, so expect a MULTITUDE OF TYPOS X

Bin the coffee cup that’s been on the passenger seat since December 23rd and turn the heating up: it’s Rush Hour.

🌆 SUNSET STRIP 🌆

Shining a light on a Creator moment I’ve loved this week

Joseph Gordon Levitt is the face of the new Creators Coalition Against AI

Joe's Journal

Announcing the Creators' Coalition on AI

Today we’re announcing a new organization called the Creators Coalition on AI. This was sparked by Daniel Kwan of The Daniels, who made Everything Everywhere All at Once, and who has produced a really great documentary about AI. It’s coming out next year, and a lot of us have rallied around Dan’s vision to unite creators together throughout the entertai…

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9 months ago · 539 likes · 70 comments · Joseph Gordon-Levitt

This one is a BIGGY. In a video posted, amongst other places, on Creators fan favourite Substack, JGL announced the launch of an organisation several months in the making that acts as a union against the ever pervasive inclusion of AI in creative industries. Whilst the existential threat of actors obliteration thanks to big studio bets on AI talent remains the forefront of the conversation, CCAI wants to be a protective force against all Creators, explicitly calling out traditional Influencers in the mix, as well as anyone who exchanges their creativity for public consumption.

In the video and in the mission statement on their website, they talk to all the amazing things technology AI can contribute to our industry, whilst firmly posing its threat.

“technology should strengthen human creativity, not undermine it”

On the site, they outline their goals as follows

1. Transparency, Consent, and Compensation for Content and Data

2. Job Protection and Transition Plans

3. Guardrails against Misuse and Deepfakes

4. Safeguarding Humanity in the Creative Process

And whilst it’s frightening they need to outline this so clearly, it shows a much needed covening between all the major unions, with a call for more to join. Knowing the full impact the writers strike had, this is hopefully a very real warning to studios looking to shortcut above connection.

You can pledge your support here

2026: Are We Human, Or Are We Creator?

I’ve read the million monotonous trends reports so you don’t have to! No, you really don’t - most of them continue on this Sisyphean task of applying macro industry drivers that are years in the making onto smaller internet led signals and hope something feels revolutionary. Long form! Not short form! Personalisation! Community! And of course, lots of people claiming that this is the year of the Creator. Plot twist: it’s been their year for quite some time. This economy is over a decade in the making. But, for all the eye rolling, it’s worth noting that the trends do be saying that this is the year everyone becomes a creator.

I live by the mantra to be cringe is to be free because years of worrying what other people thought did nothing for me. But it does feel when it comes to talking outwardly about what you care about, the most unexpected people are coming out in droves. When sharing who you are moves from the aesthetic approvals era of 10s IG, or the overshare with abandon 20s TikTok, into more considered executions of craft and taste, we all find new areas of self expression. And when expression brings joy, and joy is in short supply, it’s our duty as humans to muster it wherever we can.

🔥🏡 HOT PROPERTY🏡🔥

Who or what is the current Main Character of my internet

Go Analog, Baby, You’re So Postmodern: The Future Belongs to Those Who Notice

I started the new year with a bag: a big old essay over my long ruminated topic of the new modes of analogue. Everywhere you look people are talking to the offline renaissance, but this essay argues that this is actually the MO of the last 5 years. The real cultural shift we are experiencing is phase 2: where instead of stepping out of cultural moments and focussing on objects as a point of difference, phase 2 is about stepping back in with intent, paying attention, collaborating and creating unexpected moments through the collective. It’s a hope that we shift from consumerism to solve our ennui (buy vinyl to never play) to rebellion in the form of collaboration (the return of classical music). If that’s something that could do it for you, you can read it here:

📈THE STOCK EXCHANGE📉

Big biz moves that effect the culture

Last year we saw celebrities move to Substack as a response to filter breakdowns and a craving for long form expression. There have been mixed reviews: I for one like Charli XCXs casual candour to talk about the decline of cool, but my newsfeed is full of people claiming that she cannot write and should set fire to her computer. Either way, it’s clear Substack is acting as the digital medium between more superficial elements of social and the more cost intensive return of print media.

This is why it’s so interesting to see E.L.F. cosmetics launch their first Substack. It’s not unusual for the brand to be on the front foot of culture, they often act as first movers in the space. Zero Distance is the latest execution of that, a behind the scenes look of the 6 brands under their umbrellla. What I love about it is that it acts as a full curtain reveal, surfacing points or view from the CEO to the product developers. This shows intent, strategy, and editorial - and I’m all for brands entering spaces where they’ve got the chops to do so.

Zero Distance with e.l.f. Beauty

What exactly is Zero Distance? A note from e.l.f. Beauty's CEO

Zero Distance is more than a mindset at e.l.f. Beauty — it’s our operating system. It’s how we innovate fast, build with our community and democratize access to everything we do…

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8 months ago · 37 likes · 5 comments · e.l.f. Beauty

🎛️ NOTES FROM THE CONTROLLER ROOM 🎛️

Things that I’ve been thinking about this week

831 x Wuthering Heights

I’m not a huge romance girl. Fourth Wing and ACOTAR are yet to grip me, despite genuine efforts (hate to be left out). But over Christmas I was recommended Exit Lane, an imprint of 831 Books. I went in knowing nothing, and came out the other side enjoying a short but sweet will they won’t they giving serious When Harry Met Sally. In digging, I found out 831 are an alt romance publisher, with many more like this in their locker. Their branding and publishing experience feels vastly different from what I’ve come across before - being driven post reading to the merch page is new! - and it’s easy to be cynical of that. But honestly I respect the fresh approach and I’m sure I’ll go back for seconds.

So it really delighted me to see they’ve also launched on Substack, and are paying homage to the genre they’ve built from, are hosting a group read of Wuthering Heights ahead of the cinematic screening next month. I myself read Wuthering Heights for the first time this time last year and I was shook - so I am very jealous to not have had this club, but you can join in here.

Niche ID with Laura Markwadt

Niche ID was put onto me by my lovely colleague Josie last year and it’s fast become my favourite way to spend half an hour. Laura has such a gentle but considered interview style that disarms her array of wildly impressive cultural commentators as the delve into their careers and how they found their niche. I couldn’t recommend it more. It obviously skews more into the field of research of creator strategy just by the merits of the topic, but I think anyone who would describe themselves as cautiously curious would get a lot out of this. Unpretentious, clear and inspirational. Read it!

Niche ID with Laura Markwardt

Niche ID, a podcast and newsletter about the modern creative niche. Conversations on the choices we make when we build for a creative life.

Okay that’s all for this week, see you very soon xxxxxxxxx

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

PART 1: GO ANALOG BABY, YOU’RE SO POST MODERN

In 2004, pop-punk band Say Anything released their second album …Is A Real Boy. Originally it was devised as a Rock Opera, but the lead singer Max Bemis had a nervous breakdown during recording. The script was dropped, but the album still got made, including myriad bad taste, innuendo laden songs that tarred most of the genre at the time. But one track, Admit It!!!, stood out to 12 year old me like a sore thumb, and has stuck with me ever since. A searing take down of early 00’s internet posturing, the record compressed the whole cultural era into one sneering sentence to rule them all: “go analog, baby, you’re so postmodern”. Bemis looked right down the camera and rinsed a generation for their mass cultural rejection of shared stories of progress and truth.

In postmodernism, the idea that everything can and could get better is the punchline. Irony isn’t just humour, but proof to the world that you can see through its construction. This is what recent generations have been built up and fed on: the home soil of superiority complexes worldwide. This isn’t to say it’s futile. Without this lens how could we effectively challenge propaganda or power structures that often fail to benefit the everyday person? Toxic positivity and radical optimism may help us get through the drudgery, but without a healthy dose of cynicism, we cannot see reality. But, this tool can be the very thing that tightens the bolts on our own cages. When this idea of postmodern detachment becomes the default mindset of a generation, you get lots of people who are great at noticing patterns, but terrible at feeling anything with any depth of joy, or pain, or anything in between.

This is the very path that led us into dark mode. One year ago this week I wrote “Welcome to your Villain Era”, a piece all around neo-nihilism and a world devoid of meaning. We’ve become so self-aware of the constructed realities around us, we’ve inadvertently built up our own walls by not engaging with the future, rather living with the consequences of the past. This mindset has produced a specific kind of nostalgia, not one that is warm and fuzzy for the past, romanticising the pretty rancid, but a more restless sense that culture keeps looking backwards because it can’t look forward anymore. Mark Fisher called this out in Ghosts of My Life, describing a world haunted by futures that never arrived, trapped forever in replay and remix.

The current grasp towards the analogue grows out of this very same condition. It isn’t simply about wanting to be ‘retro’, it’s not driven by aesthetic ideals or even “living slowly”. Instead, it exists as a response to a world that is constantly in commentary mode - always picking at the seams of every story, even if it will destroy the fabric. We want to stop living under symbolism and start participating in the literal. We no longer want to be living ghosts, hovering above reality and hoping to understand it from above.

RIP to the Offline Renaissance

You and I both can’t bear it. Another take on offline as luxury? Another take on the need for friction? I’ve written about these things, but then so has your dad’s dog at this point. Cultural commentary becoming too iterative is so on the nose for where we’re at societally, this essay would tear itself apart if it had the hands to do so. That doesn’t make the insight any less true, but it also shows that it is no longer enough to comment about how time away from screens is both a societal and mental flex. We have exhausted this angle, and are ready for the next wave.

The first wave of the offline renaissance was largely driven by nervous system fatigue. We now call it high-cortisol, or burn out - but when it first started creeping into our consciousness it was this collective idea of being sick of being reachable. Suddenly, the chicest thing a girl could do was hit DND on her iPhone and turn off read receipts. This was the beginning of the implosion of our algorithms, because suddenly the cost of keeping people hooked in and playing the digital slots was a lot more than a proverbial free drinks voucher. Rehabilitation was at hand: all hail the digital detox. Screen time limits, touching grass, and deleting your Instagram, once lived as very real concepts of health - before naturally devolving into a social media aesthetic. Let me tell you something about a rebellion: if Oliver Bonas can create a mug around it, it’s more revolting than revolt. Anarchy isn’t a content pillar.

This isn’t a regurgitation of the first wave, nor an essay to tell you simply 2026 we’ll be “craving offline experiences”. This is a line in the sand to introduce you to phase two: analogue as cultural differentiation. So, if phase one was focussed on stepping out of culture to reset, phase two is about stepping back in through the lens of intention, engaging with it through cues that are more discerning: taste, judgement, and selectivity. Are you ready? Let’s go…

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Not Another Nose Job: Why Everything Looks the Same

In Alex Murrell’s The Age of Average, he wrote with clarity about how we’ve been living in an era of cultural homogeneity, driven by algorithms optimising everything for best practice: fashion houses, cars, coffee shops, fonts. This was no doubt inspired by Jia Tolentino in her cult article The Age of Instagram Face, which tells us how FaceTune has created a cyborg that walks among us. One can dissolve their lips or get rid of their BBL, but the impact this optimisation has had on society is as dark as it is all encompassing.

Despite both these references being a few years old now, the sentiment stays true through all society. Most notably, a Christmas Day drop of Subway Takes where Luke Manley talks to Kareem about wanting his “girls to look like Gonzo again”. “America has become a monotone hellscape” he yells into the Metrocard Mic “9/10 of your buddy’s have the same bathroom. Grey and white, real original”. Kareem hits back “every person out here’s looking the same”, to which they decide therein lies the problem. The top comment on the video with 19k likes agrees. “This man is tapped into the soul of this country and knows how we can bring it back. Listen to him.”

Of course, it’s not really about noses (you do you!). More, that we’re sick to the back teeth of peak performance, how we’re consistently replicating what’s getting the views in an economy that pays up only in attention. Of course, AI only exacerbates the issue because it makes the copying not just rational, but effortless - zero labour required. And this in turn drives the lust for analogue - that sweet, sweet variance and unpredictability.

If you write a letter, the art of decent forgery is lost and it’s impossible even for me to repeat my strokes day in day out. A party can have the perfect aesthetic peppered throughout, but ultimately if you don’t feed the guests, the liquor runs out, and a speaker blows - you’ve got yourself a bad vibe. What once was seen as an inconvenience (”You can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather” - Andre 3000) is starting to feel culturally valuable again. You might think that the opposite of analogue is the digital, but really, the inconsistency makes it more the opposite of sameness.

From Vinyl to Violins: The Pervasive Cool of the Collective

When we talk about phase two of analogue, I must impress: this is not an aesthetic choice anymore. Vinyl will still get sold and never be played, and disposable cameras will still turn up at every alt wedding under the sun. This next phase of cultural differentiation is about moving from objects into structures. Instead of communicating an understanding of pushing out from under the weight of the internet through tools, it’s looking at how we collectively use those tools together to rebel.

We’re coming back off a strong era for the solo output. Have you ever in your life met so many DJs? My early 20’s were defined by hanging out in sweaty pub backrooms listening to the synthesised bedroom pop of a Danish wunderkind over in London because his loop pedal got picked up by The Quietus. Hell, my entire career is built on the Creator Economy, the largest definer of the solo output in history. Solo performance and production is why social media exists in its modern form. Individual output has been the backbone for both creativity and algorithms for years. This is why AI’s sudden arrival was so galling - we were shocked because it directly attacked the place where “authenticity” (sorry!) was being bastioned. Pretty much overnight, we saw AI generate “good enough” replicas of solo output and immediately started to tank the cultural value of anything within that.

Artistically, that’s led to some brilliant breakthroughs (you can read at length my thoughts of this here), but most notably it has had seismic shifts in collective making. And this is why, after years of threatening to break into mainstream cool, classical music is back on the menu as almost the most punk form of music making left. Whilst other genres fall into its virtues, the time and effort of the group synchrony of classical music is actually very anti-optimisation. The audible imperfections, the unpredictability of multiple individuals music making together, the stylistic idiosyncrasies of individual musicians (and, at that, their instruments!), all means that every moment you experience amongst that music live is unrepeatable. Even when classical isn’t literally what people are listening to, its founding logic is returning: the idea of ensembles, of orchestration, of disciplined rehearsal and group performance. With more and more people seeking this type of unpredictability and “room where it happened” exclusivity, discipline becomes the demigod of the analogue.

The etiquette of effort is perhaps the biggest anchor of this next phase, because our collective embarrassment around the use of AI shows that if speed and efficiency were the only values left, we’d have left all art and culture in the fires of the old world. Instead, we apologise for using it, because the output has become cheap. Suddenly, there is much more weight and care attributed to the process. What counts as cool is care and collaboration.

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PART TWO: THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO NOTICE

This brings us to part two of the essay: the future belongs to those who notice. So what does this make way for? Well, good news to those of you sick of negativity, we’re starting to emerge from the darkness to make new behaviours and re-evaluate joy. Classical music resurgences aren’t the only indicator of this by any stretch. In their latest Pinterest Predicts, the solo media platform saw a huge uptick in searches around letter writing, stationary, and Pen Pals. This moves beyond the solo idea of journalling as a form of digital detox, a tell-tale sign of phase 1, but rather the bigger behavioural appetite to push back to snail mail as an art form.

Letters coming out the gate as their big time prediction for 2026 demonstrates a huge pendulum swing, because they’re everything that the internet obliterated. They live under latency: undefinable timelines with unpredictable interferences. They lack the ability to be edited, or even re-read in mania by their author, which creates this sense of freedom and ephemerality that Instagram Stories WISHES they could replicate. But also, there is this sense of materiality and care - these are physical objects that can be stored and kept and tended to and reread and torn apart - and no matter what your emotion is when you receive that letter, you know that someone else’s hand had to make that effort visible.

And because of that, you’re forced to be deliberate, and intentional, or even spontaneous. Online writing lives under the luxuries of live edits and the ability to delete a bad take. Letter writing feels intimate, personal, inherently romantic, as well as risky. This is a form of joy that doesn’t rely purely on optimism, but more little stubborn pleasures - intentionally choosing something slow and static because it brings tangibility to a world that’s hard to touch the edges of. The piece of paper is not a product, but a proof of life itself.

When Community Becomes a Subscription

or years, people have been products too. And I doubt that this will change in any meaningful way, despite all my hopes and dreams about a return to collective creation. But this idea of community being something exclusive you had to seek and apply for, seems to be circling the drain. Members clubs, social houses and curated networks have started to shed their stock in droves as the monthly fee no longer seemed to deliver the promise of creative community, but rather a gatekept room of the same people from the same socioeconomic backgrounds and the same job talking about the same things. Culture cannot exist in a community that only caters to one tax bracket. It needs the natural porosity that newcomers and unexpected combinations can provide, and therefore these previous hubs for hospitality lose their appeal.

This isn’t to say the third space is dead - quite the opposite. It absolutely thrives in the new realm, where instead of the “if you know you know” mindset being “who can get you on a guest list”, it’s just knowing where you want to be in the first place. Soho House may have lost its sheen, but we know well and good that listening parties, exercise communities, artist collectives, DIY nights, and more weird and unexpected collaborations are making up the corners of capitals and beyond.

The Return of the Paid Party Voyeur

And in this lies perhaps one of the most interesting returns of cultural commentary: the party writer. Ironically, members clubs tried to keep the documentation mindset at bay with no phone policies, but in wider society, everything being so documentable meant that the ability to interpret, add nuance, flavour, or a little imagination, died a little. Evidence was everywhere but there was no singular narrative or witness to help add flavour to the proceedings. All but the society pages of high end magazines had lost the narrator, who offered a perception of the vibe and energy of an event rather than a mundane evidential recall. They saw who was kissing who, and could convey a room’s energy. This social columnist got lots to the sands of time, but as we see more new media come to the fore, we’re also seeing snippets of party life documented in a fabulous way that feels very Gatsby. The ones who notice hold the cultural currency, because noticing has become a scarce commodity. The ability to synthesise information beyond stock evidence (a snapshot of the room, a close up of the invite, a boring Instagram Carousel) and into a sense of feeling (the ability to perceive, select, interpret, articulate) becomes irresistible to the consumer.

In our new phase, we know that the future belongs to those who notice, because being able to author this whole sorry affair with real guts and feeling is what has defined every generation that ever sat before us, every era and eon has been told through the first hand witness with associated emotion. It hasn’t been an empty photo dump of a lip gloss launch with a caption simply reading ‘slay another day’ next to an alien emoji. That might tell you something, but it won’t tell you much. All hail the return of the human touch.

Wishing to be the Friction in Your Jeans

We opened with one 00’s pop punk lyric, so why not close with another? Much like Pete Wentz’s realisation that it was messed up that he was dying to be him, it’s messed up how much we’re all craving that friction we smoothed out, watching it from the proverbial cupboard, praying for analogue times like the sick voyeurs of nostalgia we are. Again, in my Return to the Interior piece, I talk at length about all the ways friction is making a comeback, but in the context of everything above it plays an explicit role:

1. It prevents everything from turning into content (not everything will be captured)

2. It creates conditions for memory (same as the above)

3. It reintroduces selection (not everything is equally easy)

The rise of phone-free or phone-discouraged spaces, in partnership with the rise of the cultural commentator telling the story of the evening through the lens of a 5 drink fuzz, are so important. Proper clubbing on the return isn’t just about the feeling in the room, but putting quality back into the music experience. No phones isn’t just a hail mary for 90’s hedonism, but rather creating a governance framework, a space that allows people to be who they want to be without the confines of content. The more we introduce moments of friction by design, or grasp onto analogue concepts, we make the moment even harder to replicate. A complete antidote to Instagram face.

I Want It Darker

I seem to have a habit of quoting Leonard Cohen a lot in these articles and for that I can only say- he resonates with me lyrically babe! But, the closing note is this: we haven’t left dark mode completely, and neo-nihilism is still here for you if you want it.

The unstable rock, speeding forward, soaked in nihilism and anxiety, is still the atmosphere we’re all existing in. A new year hasn’t magically lifted this. But, rather, people are starting to build points of resistance through friction. Analogue is helping us feel where we are through little textures - the letters, the parties, the phoneless rooms, the processes and collective discipline - and they help anchor us rather than letting us float aimlessly through the madness.

Attention is becoming status because it resists being comfortable with everything being the same. Noticing creates room for taste, for judgement, for opinion. You can call something boring without being boring yourself. It lets you be critical without collapsing into cynicism. It even lets you be a bitch on main, when done with intent.

If go analogue baby, you’re so post modern is the diagnosis, where irony is the default, then the future belongs to those who notice is the response, where perception is power. Taste is a skill we can all practice.

SIM CITY: Tales from the Algorithm is a Substack all about the internet, social media, and the cultural anthropology of the digital world. Subscribe for more 😇

This does not mean that I have any form of authority or taste here, mainly that: I know what I like, I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on what’s good within that subsection, and I get through just about enough books wise a year to give a bit of clarity on what’s yay or nay. So, this year, we evolve from the Instagram screenshots saved as a highlight reel (though realistically I will also do that), and we make space for it within my Substack despite it sitting firmly outside its usual themes.

So how did this year fair? Well, it hasn’t been my favourite when it comes to new releases. You’ll note that the top book for me this year actually came out in 2019. But amongst that, I found it hard to whittle down the top 10, making space for a new ‘honourable mentions’ section. I also ready two books that perplexed me so much they’ve entered a very uncharacteristic section called “books I feel personally affronted by”.

So, let’s get into it. My unscientific, entirely subjective list of the best spines cracked in this year.

#1 Fleishman Is In Trouble - Taffy Brodesser-Akner ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Last year, Taffy Brodesser-Akner also reached the top of my list with Long Island Compromise, which is to say: I absolutely love chunky tomes about dislikable people poisoned by money. The novel centres around Toby Fleishman’s new reality: anonymous rabid sex with a whole host of women thanks to the internets numerous portals to profanity. But whilst Toby loves this new lease of life, he still has to pretend to worry about his job as a liver specialist, and his kids he gets every other weekend, and whether his ex-wife of 13 years is constantly trying to ruin his life. Then, she disappears. And he doesn’t know whether that’s because she’s teaching him a lesson, or that she’s been kidnapped, or that she too is having wild and depraved sex for the first time in her adult life. You can’t like a character in this book, so if you need to root for someone to have a good time in the literary salon, I’m afraid you’ll fall short. But if you like to have your jaw drop a few inches for the depravity of man, you’re in for a treat.

#2 Atmosphere - Taylor Jenkins Reid ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Me and Taylor Jenkins Reid just get each other. I mean, she’s never met me or knows of my existence, but I like to think if she did, she’d say ‘she just gets me!’. Because each and every layered complex interpersonal story she tells with expert precision in new fields of speciality knits me closer into her rabbit hole brain. But, Atmosphere, a love story set in 80’s NASA just as women were being allowed into space, surpassed all expectations. The detail! She really knew what she was signing herself up for when she managed to unpack the complexities of astronomy through the lens of love. The research and care in getting this book made is a marvel, but the ambition from our protagonist leaps of the page as she overcomes obstacles to get into space, but also to find her place in a world that is changing. I sobbed the entire last 20 pages.

#3 Ghosts of My Life - Mark Fisher ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Mark Fisher is the greatest cultural theorist of our times, despite the fact we lost him in 2017. He was prescient about so much of modern culture, and whilst I’m sure he would have got some satisfaction around his oracle like premonitions, it would have only depressed him more to see our great cultural flatlining. I owe a huge amount of my own personal research and interests to his books, namely Capital Realism: Is There No Alternative? But this year, my favourite was Ghosts of My Life, Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Futures. Fisher argues societally we are haunted by the very futures that failed to happen, because we stopped innovating and started looking backwards. Nostalgia was the death knell of our progression. He uses culture, namely music, to illustrate the traces of lost futures, via Joy Division and Burial. READ IT!

#4 Heart the Lover - Lily King ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One sitting books! There needs to be more of these! Heart the Lover is a strange love triangle spanning decades, starting in the close confines of the college campus and expanding into the thorny interiors of middle age. Heartbreaking and tender, this book acts as both a prequel and sequel to Lily King’s first novel, Writers & Lovers, though I don’t really remember that book imprinting on me at all, bizarrely. Rather this book draws you into the intensity of first loves, where you want to climb beneath the sheets and never come out, and then the inevitably of life’s cruelty, when you never leave the bed side of a sick one you love, no matter the history.

#5 The Safe Keep - Yael van der Wouden ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Set in Holland in the 60’s, we are met by reclusive and hard Isabel, a complex character who struggles to let any light in as she holes herself up in her late mothers house, fated to live and die there alone - despite advances of a local man looking to take a wife. This is thrown into flux when Isabel goes to meet her brothers one day and finds that lothario Louis has taken another girlfriend, and he swears this time he’s serious. The optimistic Eva crashes into Isabel’s existence, and when she unexpectedly moves into Isabel’s inner sanctuary, peculiar happenings start to question Isabel’s sanity. Despite Isabel’s best attempts to shut her out, Eva begins to bed herself into Isabel’s home and heart, with a familiarity that unsettles the reader.

#6 Loved One - Aisha Maharrar ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A love triangle, but this time one of them is dead. Julia’s life long love, ex-boyfriend and best friend Gabe, dies unexpectedly slipping in the shower. He also just happens to be a famous indie musician, loved and revered by many. At the funeral, Julia meets Elizabeth, Gabe’s recent ex-girlfriend herself. British, beautiful, and endlessly cool, Elizabeth is deeply suspicious of Julia and Gabe’s relationship, and makes this clear in a curt and cruel interaction in the bathroom. But when Julia gets set on a quest by Gabe’s mother, Leonora, to find some of his missing items and return them to her, Julia can’t quite shake the feeling Elizabeth might be the keeper of the keys. As Julia enters a side quest that sees her trying to put together the pieces of Gabe’s life in London, the two unlikely love rivals appraise their position as joint widows.

#7 Dream State - Eric Puchner ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Whilst initially this looks like another love triangle (2025, the year of the love triangle! Who knew!), there is actually a fourth lover in this epic novel that again spans decades of love and loss: the state of Montana. We open with Cece, a woman in love and in Saskish, Montana for the first time to marry her gorgeous doctor fiancé, Charlie. But in her time preparing the home for the lavish backyard wedding, she is introduced to his best friend Garrett, a man she is repulsed by - the complete opposite of Charlie - a traumatised baggage handler with poor health and hygiene. But fate intervenes in the form of a stomach flu, and throws the wedding out of shape - as well as the future of these three lives. What I didn’t expect was this: 50 years of love and torment against the backdrop of climate change. Tragic interpersonal storylines that break your heart. An ending that made me weep for the loss of nature and the sands of time stealing from us all. It’s character driven not plot driven and pretty long so if this is not your thing you will struggle but it really sticks with you.

#8 Deep Cuts - Holly Brickley ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I read a lot of books this year that have clearly been written to be turned into other forms of media, so I’m unsurprised to learn that Deep Cuts has been picked up by A24 to turn into an indie darling dream movie. That being said, this is a charming novel set in a time I think a lot about: early 2000’s New York City. Percy Marks loves music. She loves to analyse every little moment in a song, from the lyrics to the melody to the key changes. She notices what other people do not. And that’s just how Joe Morrow notices her, when she’s pontificating about the significance of a Hall & Oates song at a Campus bar in Berkeley. Joe, a songwriter, needs someone like Percy to help him understand his own music, and thus a partnership is born. The next few years, Joe finds fame and Percy still partners with him, but as love, ego, talent, and obsession crash around them, Percy finds herself wondering who this collaboration really benefits, and why?

#9 The Names - Florence Knapp ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

How much weight can a name really hold? Does what we’re called set our history? Or are we doomed to be the product of our upbringing? This is the interesting premise for this novel, but it is unexpectedly very traumatic - so do not read if domestic abuse storylines trigger you. Cora is losing the grips on her reality after a catastrophic storm sees her holed up with her daughter Maia and her new born son. She goes to register his birth name, intending to call him Gordon after her husband - but when it comes to doing this, she finds herself hesitating. This is the sliding doors moment of the novel, where three different realities unfold and are told across the next 35 years, as we find out who the boy could and would become. Whether he was destined to follow in his evil father’s footsteps, or if he forges a new reality suited to his name but crafted by the cruel outcome of Cora’s act of defiance.

#10 Piscium - Peter H Wedderburn ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

How could I not include my very own Father’s novel! My dad has been writing this book for almost 20 years in some iteration or the other, and it has become the b-plot to our family’s lives as we delved into different storylines and structures. This is the final product: Piscium, a geopolitical, ecological, science fiction novel. A plan to introduce more sport and game fish into the UK lakes, a billionaires backing, and a town long cursed are the backdrop to this urgent and eerily prescient novel of greed. “Ambition is the hook you hang your dreams on” is the byline and perfectly sums up this razor sharp exploration of how wealth can ruin us all. Piscium has you by its jaws from start to finish.dr

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Honourable Mentions

Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan

Claire Keegan is a generational talent and this novella set around Christmas in Ireland pulls back the curtain on the depths of depravity held by the laundries.

The Favourites - Layne Fargo

For fans of Taylor Jenkins-Reid, an underdog story of how two rough and ready athletes navigate the murky waters of professional figure skating.

The Husbands - Holly Gramazio

A solid beach read consumed in January, a woman somehow develops a magic attic and when one man goes up it, another one comes down. And they just happen to be all the different husbands that protagonist might want to keep.

I Hope This Finds You Well - Natalie Sue

For fans of office gossip. I recommended this for my work book club and they did not love it so maybe I’m off but can you imagine if you could read all your colleagues emails and slacks lol.

Greedy Guts - Gina Tonic

Gina is a sensational writer and this selection of essays about bigger bodies in the height of 2000s fat shaming is such a sharp and smart perspective everyone could benefit from.

Reservoir Bitches - Dahlia de la Cerda

Interconnecting short stories about women living in Mexico was a revelation around the realities of life under cartels and poverty - but there is also some mad magic realism in here that through me for a loop

Book I Took an Personal Affront To

Consider Yourself Kissed - Jessica Stanley

Whoever decided that telling a love story against the miserable backdrop of UK politics over the last 10 years was a good idea was, I fear, wrong. Brexit and boning.

Slags - Emma Jane Unsworth

Much like the above, the contrived marketing campaigns for books for millennial women must be stopped. Severe style over substance. I saw a review saying they were hoping it would be a more accurate depiction of being a slag in the 90s (good, actually!), but unfortunately it’s just a sort of sad novel about unresolved trauma that doesn’t really go anywhere.

see you next year!