ICYMI…

• Greta Rainbow wrote about why Thomas Bernhard is suddenly everywhere

• Tyler Watamanuk on Jonathan Anderson’s love of ceramicist Lucie Rie

• Adweek got the scoop on Dirt Media’s second podcast 

Casey Lewis was this week’s Tasteland guest. Casey Lewis is a youth consumer trends researcher whose newsletter, After School, is a must-read for anyone whose work requires selling or understanding Gen Z. She was also our first ever guest! You can listen to her first appearance here.

Francis Zierer: I've been saying a lot recently that the new “learn to code” is “learn to do marketing”. That's the core feature of the creator economy—it's all marketing. And if you’re good at getting a bunch of views or a bunch of engagement, that just means you're good at this specific type of marketing. And maybe increased interest in youth trends is because everybody on the Internet, avid Internet users at least, are essentially some kind of marketer, even if they don't necessarily think of themselves as such. You have to understand marketing to understand any social media. 

Casey Lewis:  I hadn't put those two together, but I have been interviewing a bunch of Gen Alphas for a forthcoming report. And one of them said that they believe that Gen Alpha will be the richest generation of all time because they're so good at marketing themselves. It was an 11 year old who said this! I didn't even make the connection that it's all because of the creator economy. That's how they are so aware of marketing as a concept. Mr. Beast is nothing if not a master marketer. As these kids are growing up, are we going to see an uptick in business school marketing majors because of this new interest? 

Daisy Alioto: This is more of a meta question about youth culture right now. Last time we talked, we were talking about this aspiration to normality, where if you look at the things that people are buying, it's like they want to signal that they are part of the mainstream. 

It seems like youth culture right now is pretty legible because people are broadcasting, “this is what I bought,” and other people are willing to go out and buy exactly what somebody else has. But I wonder if you think the pendulum might swing back to being a bit illegible, where youth culture is harder to discern because people are retreating from the internet. Or they’re being purposely cringe, confusing, edgy, something harder for advertisers to easily capture. 

CL: My thought on this is that the Gen Zers who are seniors in college or graduating are experimenting with style in ways that you aren't when you're a teen. I'm from a small town in Missouri and there was very little individuality. And the kids wanted to keep it that way, right? I was obsessed with fashion magazines, and I would go to thrift stores and find things like kitten heels, things I felt Atoosa Rubenstein from CosmoGirl would wear. But if I wore them to school, then people would be like, why are you dressed up?  And I’d feel like an idiot because I was trying to be different, and I'd decide I wasn't gonna do that again. I think many of those feelings or pressures still exist in high school, and now it's perhaps even worse since there's such a general sameness because of TikTok. Talking to my mom, who still teaches in rural Missouri, so many of the same trends are happening there that I see on Brooklyn teenagers. 

I do think some schools in Brooklyn have more individuality, and not just Brooklyn, but other places too. Missouri is one very specific example, but I do think that once you get to college or get out of college, you feel like you can try on different identities in a way that won't ruin your social standing at your small high school. 

WHAT WE’RE READING

• “The Covid pandemic prompted an unexpected, and enormous, spike in the American appetite for sushi.” (The New York Times)

• Hedge-fund stars are making so much now that they are hiring agents (WSJ)

• OUR SCOOP: Friend spent $1M on those NYC ads, close to half their remaining investment (Clone)

• The publishing industry has a gambling problem (The Walrus)

• What if the Post Office had its own AI model? (Max Read)
  

  
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