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Eight hundred and eighty-five editions of yap, sat in one place. One long read every friday morning. Always free.
Eight hundred and eighty-five issues.
Buildings are burning and we’re talking about gas prices.
Oil hit $113 per barrel and gas prices jumped to $3.92 a gallon as war disrupts global markets. The Strait of Hormuz carries 20% of world oil and marine traffic has nearly stopped. Western media discusses war primarily as market disruption focusing on shipping delays and inflation while people die. The disconnect between discussing grocery costs versus literal survival reveals the grotesque privilege of worrying about economic impacts instead of human catastrophe.
8 tips to smash your first 90 days as a creator (according to the platforms themselves)
Platform leaders from Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube shared common creator mistakes at SXSW. The biggest error is jumping on every trend without distinct perspective. Follow the 70% original content and 30% trend rule. Pick a posting cadence you can sustain on your worst week not your best. Follower counts matter less than engagement signals like sends, shares, watch time, and retention. Your profile is your portfolio so showcase exactly the work you want to get hired for.
The lipstick indicator has evolved.
Private purchasing habits signal public financial stress before official data catches up. Classic indicators like the Lipstick Index tracked private comfort purchases during recessions. Gen Z has different patterns with recession blonde, tinned fish as aspirational food, and dupe culture. Modern indicators are about aesthetic optimisation not deprivation. Gen Z turned budget consciousness into community and cultural identity making financial pragmatism visible and aspirational.
ABC just cancelled an entire season of The Bachelorette 3 days to air
ABC cancelled an entire season of The Bachelorette three days before premiere after TMZ published video of Taylor Frankie Paul physically assaulting her ex-partner in front of her daughter. The network filmed everything, completed the press tour, and prepared promotional materials. Influencer partnerships present unique risks because their entire brand is their personal life and years of documented content can resurface anytime. Even thorough vetting can't protect against footage that hasn't surfaced yet.
You can't buy your way into cultural relevance (here’s what you can do instead)
Fashion creates culture, culture is shaped by marketing, and marketing sells belonging in an endless feedback loop. Brands aren't selling products but identity and aspiration. Culture sets what's cool before marketing translates it into visual stories and shareable content. Social media collapsed the distance between seeing something and buying it. Trends move so fast that traditional campaigns launch after cultural moments have passed.
The fall of a giant: How ChatGPT became so uncool no one wants to admit they use it.
ChatGPT went from 87% market share to 68% in twelve months as it lost cultural capital faster than technical decline. Using ChatGPT became a confession of inauthenticity instead of a productivity tool. AI made polish cheap so authenticity became premium. People who can produce quality work without AI signal skill and taste while relying on ChatGPT signals faking competence. The real fall was cultural from revolutionary tool to guilty confession.
Forget influencers, welcome to the "alternatively influential."
The influencer model is cracking as audiences tire of polish and brands drown in vanity metrics. The alternatively influential are experts, enthusiasts, and community builders with small but deeply engaged audiences who trust their recommendations. They live in newsletter lists, Discord servers, and private groups. AI made polish cheap making authenticity the new competitive advantage. Employee generated content works because it's genuine insider perspective without brand voice.
I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it (and it’s saving the mall)
Gen Z is reviving mall culture because they want instant gratification that online shopping can't deliver. Shoppers aged 18 to 24 bought 62% of merchandise in stores last year. They want to see it, touch it, and walk out with it immediately. Malls also provide third spaces for socialising after COVID lockdowns. Physical shopping encourages mindful purchasing and financial accountability that online buying with delayed payment options doesn't.
Taste is the new core skill (here’s how to develop it)
Taste has been a core economic skill since the Industrial Revolution when material abundance shifted consumption from necessity to identity. Now AI can generate infinite content at near-zero cost making curation and judgment the competitive advantage. Anyone can produce but knowing what to make requires taste. Taste develops through exposure to quality work, pattern recognition, restraint, and calibrating instinct against actual results.
Everybody wants to be "alt." Nobody wants to do the work.
Alternative aesthetics like Wednesday Addams and indie sleaze have gone mainstream but the culture gets stripped away. You can borrow visual references without participating in the subculture that created them. Subcultural capital used to require being there and earning insider status. Now you just need Pinterest and Depop. Everyone wants to look alternative without experiencing the alienation and social cost that came with actually being alternative.
The zeitgeist is the wind, your brand is the sail
The zeitgeist is the invisible force behind every cultural moment representing what people care about, feel, and crave right now. It's not trends but the deeper why behind them. Brands that understand this position themselves to ride cultural waves before they fully form. In 2026 the zeitgeist includes AI anxiety, nostalgia for pre-internet simplicity, exhaustion with optimisation culture, and craving genuine human connection.
Agencies are building websites in a matter of hours. Should you?
Agencies are using AI vibecoding to rebuild entire websites and tools in hours instead of weeks. Major agencies like Havas and Broadhead are building bespoke platforms using AI coding assistants with non-developers describing what they need in natural language. Speed and cost efficiency are real advantages but quality control, technical debt, and security vulnerabilities are legitimate concerns that require developer oversight.