dancey ads, parasocial marketing, retail sector is bananas, the introversion agenda, some links
sorry for a fri afternoon send but better late than never xx
I’m heading out on vacation next week. you may or may not hear from me. Here you go!
The dancification of mass apparel ads continues:
No notes from me - we love. Music direction is making a comeback.
Brandy Melville & “Parasocial Marketing” + SSENSE’s dystopian take on brand community
I wrote v briefly about my fixation with Brandy Melville’s customer ~persona~ back in April, but saw this post on
recently about Brandy’s contrast to todays ‘parasocial marketing’:Brandy Melville has remained successful because of its quiet, easy ubiquity. There is no sense of urgency from Brandy - no clearance section, no rewards system. Their website lacks a home page - just iPhone photos of clothes and their prices, emulating Depop listings.
In contrast with Brandy Melville, many other brands these days seek a social media presence that’s akin to an influencer’s, attempting to mine a relationship with potential customers that’s as noisy as it is parasocial. It’s not uncommon to see companies tweeting at each other like real people - McDonald’s and Wendy’s beefing one another on Twitter, Letterboxd gassing up movie stars in their Instagram comments, the list goes on. [..] These brands are attempting a version of nonchalance, but it’s a kind of disregard for traditional corporate poise. We’re not a regular corporation, we’re a cool corporation, they insinuate via their casual online presence - typing in all lowercase, perhaps even attempting meta-strategy by referring to the “intern” behind the curtain, or the boss that’s making them type these “cringe” tweets. There’s a kind of overt self-awareness that horseshoes back into calculated strategy.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT. On the same topic of anthropomorphizing Brands, SSENSE have an eyeroll-inducing headline here (Can Brands Have Friends?) which actually made me think more about human social relationships than Brand ones:
As far back as the 1800s, brand connections have been royalty, socialites, musicians, and film stars. Rarely—if ever—do we see a creative director dressing and platforming their childhood friend who works in public education [Note from me: maybe we should 😊]. It is a symptom, Lewis notes, of the fact that “part of the job of the creative director at a major brand is to create a social ecosystem, a network of famous friends and faces.” A relationship with a renowned artist is likely to bring more value to a brand, both in terms of exposure and inspiration, than one with a small-town accountant who wears a bad suit. In Lewis’s view, these relationships are necessarily transactional; whether that matters is another question entirely.
Idk, honestly something about this piece felt profoundly depressing to me … more on that later (probably not). 👍
The stratification of retail in 2024
Such a wild spread of divergent results happening in retail at the moment.
H&M are exiting the ‘value’ race because they know they can’t compete. At the high end, Burbery, Gucci, and Chanel have all been reporting steep declines; Financial Times has a great piece here outlining how luxury is falling from its highs: “By definition, luxuries are not necessities and no one really needs a new Hermès bag or Dior suit. If the industry forgot that, it has been reminded.” The article talks about China cooling down on luxury in general.
On the flip side, Revolve, an ecommerce retailer with a wide range of mid-to-upper-middle party dresses and trend shopping had a massive earnings beat and sales growth in China specifically.
I would love to hear an actual economist with some sort of fashion bone in their body analyze this, but it aint me. If you find it/see it/hear it, please point it my way. I have a hypothesis percolating based on who is winning and who is not winning, but i’m not ready to yell it yet lol.
Maybe she has social anxiety. Maybe its just a recession.
Very provocatively-titled piece over at
called The Mainstreaming of Loser-dom. unpacks in scrupulous detail the phenomenon of people online signaling their preference toward staying in, ‘bed rot’, and the seemingly present “larger societal failing that the activity people crave the most is scrolling on their phones, watching other people live their lives.” The thesis mostly being; is all this normalization of introversion actually okay?I’ve been on the internet for twenty years: I’ve been on fanfiction.net, I’ve been on Livejournal, I’ve been on Tumblr. I was surrounded by people who spent time alone, but they were creating. They were writing, they were generating, they were knitting and sewing and painting and dreaming. The specific activity I’m talking about is a lack of any of this. .. Posting fanfiction online is a bid for community. Scrolling on your phone is not.
I think the writer makes some excellent and interesting points, but i also think there’s a little bit of Occams razor at play in that it might just be that things are also very expensive outside. The tools (clothes, food, drinks etc) required to be social in 2024 are cost-prohibitive for young people. I know I am beating a tired drum here but I don’t see it vocalized enough so i will keep doing it lol. Wdyt?
Time to slow tf down! but actually!!!
Really timely piece from
ahead of a vacation to my beloved Jamaica in 2 days. The entire goal of my trip is slowness. I am going solo and my plans are literally to read books on the beach and then do a little work in the evenings. I worry sometimes that we have sped things up so much that we are just constantly operating in a state of frenetic, sub-optimal exhaustion (at least in NYC). The writer is based in London, and mused: “A few days before leaving for Italy, I asked my brother — who’s been living in the US for most of the past two decades — if he planned on taking a break this summer. As usual, his response was ‘no.’ I often feel like I’ve ‘lost’ my brother to a culture of overwork. He doesn’t even agree with it. He just doesn’t have much of a choice.” She also had a really astute observation around how we engage with what little free time we do have:the scarcity of free time in today’s society together with the culture of haste and productivity also make us feel like the little time we have for ourselves needs to be ‘maximised.’ This is what economists have started to call ‘the intensification of the value of our leisure time.’
Make it stop :’)
The weekly round-up of linkage
So many long essays on friendship recently but i think this one from the New Yorker is my favorite: “The Trouble With Friends”.
A funny + true read on Why All Netflix Shows Look The Same. There is probably some buried insight in here about what optically lures people in for longer periods, seeing as we know that is what drives 99% of Netflix’s decision making.
There’s a gender split in how college grads are handling the painful US job market: spoiler alert, men are opting out while women persevere. super intereresting.
An alarming number of iPad kids are on X/Twitter
90s fashion is about to be back, this will be a catalyst. I’m already seeing some 90s beauty trends spreading.
Roblox is the biggest gaming platform in the world, so why isn’t it profitable? Good primer on how the most simple things can make even an unbelievably popular product not viable.
Some IG stuff
I just love this artwork for anthony edwards/ adidas…
important reminder that tennis + fashion has been a thing for a while…
Loro Piana x NB collab is insane but if the miu miu girlies can have an overpriced NB collab then i guess why can’t their VC guy boyfriend too.
Twigs feels like one of the few ‘originals’ of the moment (still)
loved her talking with Ru Paul in this interview about how the inspo of her upcoming record was the techno scene in Prague, which she encountered on set of her latest film. I loooove that she talks about being obsessed with subcultures and seeking them out. To me this is a mindset i love (and relate to).
That’s all for now - have a fab weekend.
GG x
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amazing read.
language around bed rot language has intrigued me since i first heard of the trend. it's always so strange to me how we constantly rebrand the most basic, primitive functions (sleep/rest) to match what is economically or socially going on.