this failson is not a cannibal
and he's writing a screenplay to let you know
QUICK HITS
Cambridge students have been told to stop flirting with academic staff, effective immediately. Apparently this was getting to be so much of a problem that the University has had to explicitly ban relationships between staff and the students they’re directly responsible for. (Forgive my ignorance, but shouldn’t this have already been a thing?) Anyway, everyone involved remains unconvinced this won’t do much to change things—after all, “people bond in the intense and intellectually demanding environment of the university over shared interests and similar ways of looking at the world.” Lol, sounds horny to me.
Nara Smith only drinks Whole Milk, which is another reason I’m obsessed with her. Those who read Sunday’s special edition collab post with
know I love me a trad wife.
Are people actually finding dates at Running Clubs, or are we all just writing about it? I couldn’t tell you. But what I do know is that my generation needs more meet cute stories, and it’s up to you to go out and get them. (I’ve done my part). Last week, The Times published a list of places in New York to meet single people IRL, and I just know there are going to be many more of these stories over the next few months. I support it, and I hope men (Gen Z men in particular) take this as an opportunity to re-educate themselves on the dying art of talking to women without a screen. God knows they need to.
Separately, I love how much about culture is being oriented around hobbies right now; around ‘clubs’. I think this is a function of brands doubling down on ‘community’ over the last few years, post-COVID behaviour, and of course dating apps being in their flop era. More brands are going to start targeting consumers based on their hobbies and interests, and with clubs becoming more of a thing, we’ll be socialising more along these lines as well. This means some of you will start getting annoying and territorial about your hobbies, which I’ll forgive you for- but it also means when people ask you what you do for fun, you’d better have some hobbies lined up. And if you don’t have any, I suggest you go find some.
Addison Rae is having a brat summer, and Hailey Bieber is apparently ‘Obsessed’.
22% of Disney theme park attendees have gone into debt for the trip, and that number goes up to 45% for parents with children under 18. If you know these people, if you are these people, please reach out. I promise I’m not even judging, I just want to talk!
Recession this, vibecession that, but Gen Alpha’s parents must be thriving, otherwise we wouldn’t be having these conversations about Sephora tweens, fragrance bros, and now Sol de Janeiro’s $48 Bum Bum Cream. Because I know its not babysitter money these kids are spending.
It’s open season on the Washington Post, and everyone wants a piece of the action. Last weekend, The New York Times published a report claiming that Will Lewis, The Post's publisher, and Robert Winnet, who was recently announced as the next executive editor, had used stolen records while working on a story for The Sunday Times years ago. The story in question involved Mercedes, Nazis, the “Dark Arts” and Rupert Murdoch. The fallout was massive. People in the comments seem more upset by Murdoch’s involvement than anything else. If they are to be believed, Murdoch is the great enemy of democracy and Will Lewis is his lap dog. They are all canceling their subscriptions post haste. Semafor reported this morning that The Post is in talks to bring on legendary admaker David Droga (who made The New York Times’ “The Truth is Hard” campaign) to help redefine its image “as it seeks to broaden its audience and find a space beyond presidential politics”. Lewis is probably somewhere right now wishing he had been nicer to his newsroom.
Scooter Braun, who managed Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, and Justin Bieber, is ending his career as a talent manager. Taylor Swift is throwing a party somewhere.
Alleged cannibal Armie Hammer comes out of hiding to say he is actually not a cannibal, and that he’s in fact writing an autobiographical screenplay to prove just that. Of the Hollywood powers that be, he said, “even though I’m not welcome in their sandbox, I just decided I’m going to make my own sandbox. If you won’t let me play in yours, I’ll go play in mine.” A true failson if there ever was one.
Not surprised that Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger won the Women’s Prize for Fiction; it’s been everywhere. I hadn’t heard of the other winner, Brotherless Night, before the longlist came out, and I still haven't seen it much around Bookstagram. Can’t say I’m particularly excited about either of these, but let me know if you’ve read them and if you’d recommend!
Looks like Meta VPs are next in line for layoffs. According to Business Insider, the number of VPs peaked to about 300 last year, and Zuck, who said he no longer wanted a company of “managers managing managers,” is trying to get that number down to 250. A source told Business Insider that "the overall goal is still to reduce the people in the middle and at the top and increase people on the bottom." I’m seeing a lot of large corporations make similar plans, and I think this ‘unbundling and rebundling’ of talent is just one of many recurring corporate cycles that will never go away. Give it a few years, and the conversation will pivot to bottlenecks and career mobility. Managers will start managing managers again, until someone calls that off too. And on and on and on…
More authors are hiring independent marketers and publicists to support their book launches. This is in addition to the efforts of their publisher’s in-house teams and can cost up to $100 per hour. One reason for this trend is that authors increasingly need to do more than just write to promote their books; “they’re expected to have a website, a newsletter, be active on social media, and have a plan for how they’re going to talk about their book.” Another reason is the shrinking size of publishing houses. For those paying attention, it seems like every year there are more layoffs and tighter budgets in the publishing world. This means many smaller and ‘non-priority’ authors have to take on more of the legwork themselves. It also means that, contrary to popular online discourse, reading and book buying are far from being over commercialized. Thanks
for the tip!Jhené Aiko launched a self-care brand, but I have nothing good to say about it, so I won't say anything at all.
Just to clarify, I’ll only stop talking about Rhode when they stop being great—which may never happen. I knew they’d be dropping new phone case colors and lip tints soon, but launching them together, and in matching colors, is stuff of genius. According to Business of Fashion, their most searched products are the “Rhode Lip Balm” and “Rhode Phone Case,” with 40,500 and 14,800 monthly searches, respectively. So this was a very strategic move- sell those pocket blushes and increase that AOV! Love. A source close to the company said they expect to hit $100 million in revenue this year and plan to enter wholesale in 2025. (But we know it might not be Sephora because of a certain someone. Do we think this has anything to do with Orebellla going to Ulta as well?!) Looking forward to seeing how the NYC pop-up goes. Lmk if you make it!
New data from The Vitamin Shoppe’s 2024 Health & Wellness Trend Report showed that the weightloss boom is pushing consumers to spend more on protein supplement products, which makes me want to play this game I call “connect the headlines”:
we know that people who use GLP-1 drugs often experience muscle loss and nutrient deficiencies. In response, many gyms are creating specialized offerings for users to address the former (we’ve talked about this), and supplement brands are seeing increased demand as a result of the latter.
which makes the news of vitamin brand Care/of shutting down all the more startling. Their email made it clear that they’d run out of funding. Personalization is an expensive business, and my best guess is that, not unlike other DTC brands, customer acquisition costs got too high and they could never find a way to make the unit economics work. They also did a pretty poor job of customer retention- I had my subscription paused for 2 years and only realized this weekend. Could they not have tried to reactivate a girl?!
while we’re on the topic of vitamins, does anyone know how Kourtney Kardashian’s supplement brand lemme is performing? I feel like it gets almost no coverage, even though the branding is actually pretty great. Are the products not good, then? They launched a juice with Erewhon in March that I heard nothing about, and they just released another supplement called ‘lemme smooth’ that “visibly reduces cellulite in just 28 days with our science-backed formula.” Sounds sus, but would love some reviews.
Back to GLP-1s: WSJ published a story yesterday about how retailers are seeing early sales boosts fueled by people switching to smaller sizes. Industry executives are saying “it's like nothing they’ve ever seen” and that people aren't just restocking their wardrobes as they lose weight, but gravitating towards more “body-hugging shapes and risqué designs.” Saw this one coming, but just wonder how it’ll affect the size inclusivity movement…
and this is just the beginning because pharmaceutical companies are going full speed ahead. Eli Lilly, which created Zepbound, already has about half a dozen other obesity projects in the works. “Some of them will work, some of them won’t,” said CEO Dave Ricks.
People are paying up to $3,500 for Dimpleplasty, so they can look like me.
TikTok rolled out image search capabilities in TikTok Shop, so I guess it’s time to have the ‘TikTok is coming for Google’ conversation again. Might be a hot take, but I think the panic around this conversation is way overblown. Anyone who’s used the search feature on TikTok will tell you it’s not great. They will also tell you that when they do use it, it's to search for very specific things that exist solidly within the TikTok ecosystem. In fact, they’ll probably add that TikTok search is great for two things and two things only: trends and reviews. These can be book trends/reviews, makeup trends/reviews, wellness trends/review, fashion trends/reviews, restaurant trends/reviews… you get the picture. Google has never been great at either of these, but Google has something that TikTok doesn’t, which is trust. And that’s a big one. So no, I don't think TikTok will be replacing Google anytime soon- not for Gen Z, not for anyone. I do think TikTok should double down on improving search for those two categories- trends and reviews- because that’s a space they can win in.
Goop launched a mascara, which is great for them, but it made me curious about the state of ‘clean’ beauty. Do people even care anymore? These days it seems like all beauty is clean beauty, and those that aren’t are incredibly popular products, such that people couldn’t care less. We know beauty’s ‘vegan’ reign is behind us, so I’m very interested to see how brands choose (or don't choose) to interact with the ‘clean’ conversation moving forward. This also applies to the ‘skinification’ of makeup- not in the sense that it’s irrelevant, but in the sense that it's ubiquitous. Everyone wants to look healthy- but healthy like an infant- so brands are all trending in this direction. (Side note: when asked why she decided to create a mascara, Gwyneth said she didn’t see anything she liked on the market, so she “decided to make her own”. Can we all agree that this is code for ‘money grab’, because wow what a ridiculous thing to say!)
Speaking of all makeup being clean makeup, and all makeup being skin makeup, Camp Saie is looking great.
Kim K clearly didn't get the memo though, because why is she launching highlighters? That would be like launching an eyeshadow palette. In this day and age?! Honestly, this lady confuses me because sometimes she’s so on the ball, and other times she seems almost defiant of popular wisdom. Everyone in the comments is asking her to bring fragrance back. I suggest she listen to the people.
Poppi partnered with PopUp Bagels on a limited edition orange cream cheese available in all their stores. You know it's always bagels or coffee collabs with these brands.
Eater reviewed that $20 Algae cooking oil and concluded that it's not discernibly better than normal cooking oil, and therefore not worth your money. Sounds about right. Algae Cooking Club is one of the brands being incubated by Squared Circles, which I told you guys recently raised $40 million to invest in science-backed brands in food, beverage, and health & wellness. A friend shared some interesting details about them that I can't write about, but now I’ve taken a special interest in this company that aims to turn “science into culture.” More to come soon.
Here are some interesting facts for you: Shein’s revenue is expected to hit $5 billion this year, up from $3.23 billion last year. Americans make up 28.2% of Shein’s sales, followed by Germany at 6.6%. This means a few things. But for me, it means I am surrounded by people who love cheap stuff (fair) and habitually lie on surveys (not fair). The way you guys talk about sustainability, you’d think it was ghosts buying up this stuff. Anyway, Shein has been raising prices in preparation for their London IPO, and as of June 1st, their average price exceeded those of Zara and H&M. I’m thinking this is less about Shein’s own brand products getting more expensive, and more the effect of third-party retailers joining their marketplace. Still, I’m interested in seeing how this goes down with customers, who they’ve literally trained to buy t-shirts for $5.
Meanwhile, Walmart is launching a Gen Z-focused fashion line, with the majority of products priced at $15 or less. It’s always a great day when there’s a new player in the race to the bottom. God help us all.
OCHUKO’S BOOK RECS
I’m going to try to be more consistent with this. I may or may not succeed.
I love quiet, introspective books- stories about women who spend a lot of time in their heads, who live alone and think dubious thoughts; who harbour secrets and regrets. I know everyone is all about the summer read right now; but I've never been one for seasonal reading. So you’re looking for something different, and enjoy dizzying, delirious stories, of women come undone, these books should be on your tbr.
Hearts & Bones by Niamh Mulvey
In eleven stories, friendships strain, families break apart, love fades, love warps, and love endures. Moving between Ireland, London and the South of France, from the turn of the century to the present day, Niamh Mulvey asks in Hearts & Bones who we are now that we’ve brought the old gods down. Each of the stories is pulsing with vitality, immediacy and humanity, and from the first page, when we’re introduced to an tense, charged mother–daughter reunion, the characters grab you by the heart and don’t let you go.
In Falls Landing, Florida—a place built of theme parks, swampy lakes, and scorched bougainvillea flowers—something sinister lurks in the deep. A gang of thirteen-year-old girls obsessively orbit around the local preacher's daughter, Sammy. She is mesmerizing, older, and in love with Eddie. But suddenly, Sammy goes missing. Where is she? Watching from a distance, they edge ever closer to discovering a dark secret about their fame-hungry town and the cruel cost of a ticket out. What they see will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives.
YOU’RE WELCOME. ENJOY!!
that Eater article is embarrassing for the writer-- they really missed the point. Algae's value prop is that it's not a seed oil! There's a huge anti seed oil movement now that there has been so much substantive research that shows how unhealthy seed and vegetable oils are... Zero Acre Farms and Algae are the only two brands making a high heat cooking oil (that isn't coconut or avocado oil) without that health risk.
There are also so many layers of sustainability issues to unpack with seed oils-- making that article about high heat cooking is so lazy... this is why media is dead is all I'm saying.......
This newsletter is like if I actually cared about the biotech business comings and goings that are a constant topic of conversation at my job… oh so you mean business could be interesting! Who knew! Thank you Ochuko for compiling all of these headlines and discussing them in such an interesting way :)