The Breads Roundup No. 105

Nepotism Babies, Nike's Endurance and Startup Ideas

Aug 11, 2022

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Hello Archduke Ferdinand Bodyguards,

How goes it? I feel like my sweat glands have gotten a year’s worth of work in the past two weeks. It’s been the type of hot that once you get to your destination you can feel the sweat rolling down your leg like it was a water slide. Walking around recently has been brutal but I did get a treat when I overheard a girl in her early 20s say to a group of friends “so I get up to the casket and it’s not my Nana.” And then she was out of earshot and that’s all I fucking heard. I’m devastated I didn’t get to hear where that story went. We were just two ships crossing in the night, her with an amazing story to tell, me with ears pining for more. I should have posted about this on missed Craigslist missed connections with the hopes of hearing the rest but really I’ll never know what happened and I’m ok with that. Sometimes it is better to not know… it gives the mind infinite directions to explore and feel out. Maybe I’ll write some fan fiction about the encounter one day. Maybe I’ll just forever wonder if that girl ever found her poor meemaw.

Anyways, here’s the linkies. Enjoy.

The Money Is In All The Wrong Places

Just Give Me A Synopsis:
If you're familiar with Gen Z heartthrob Sydney Sweeney (yes I know "heartthrob" is traditionally used for men, but I think we should be able to use it for women too so I am) you would know that she made some comments recently in a magazine interview about how she doesn't make enough money and people (somewhat rightfully) lost their collective minds about it. This column takes down that notion and gets into the real reasons we should be upset by Sweeney's comments, namely that wage inequality is rampant.

And A Quote From The Article Please:

The money produced by art has not disappeared. The issue is not that the people of the world value television less than they did in the 1990s. The reality is that the people with the most money have devised, at every turn, new and more bulletproof ways for them to make and keep more money, and for the people who make things to make less. This is the eternal story of labor and management; it just has hot people in it, in this case.

And Tell Me Why I should Care:
Yes if you read this article it kinda sounds like it is coming from a bitter journalist, which isn't necessarily wrong, but also said bitterness is totally warranted. The vast majority of artists don't make much money and it is not cool! This piece takes a swing at the idea of generational wealth specifically as it relates to the arts, less in the "fuck all billionaires" vain and more in the way it addresses the idea that we need to pay artists and creators (and by association anyone who makes anything at all like cooks, factory workers, etc) more money and pay the people way at the top less money. You've probably seen countless graphics about how the CEO to average worker pay discrepancy has increased astronomically in the past decades. That's only continuing and using Sydney Sweeney, a very rich and successful person, as an example that if she can't make things work enough to live comfortably how are any of us expected to? And while I think she maybe isn't worthy of tons of sympathy because at the end of the day she is still much wealthier now than the vast majority of Americans this article does offer a lot of food for thought and is well worth a read.

How Nike Won The Cultural Marathon

Just Give Me A Synopsis:
This article came out a few months ago, but I finally got around to reading it and wanted to share. Nike has done an almost impossible thing by making itself a brand accessible to everyone while still being very freaking cool. This article goes through the elements that make Nike a timeless and unique brand and how it has captivated the world over time.

And A Quote From The Article Please:

In 1992, Mr. Knight gave an interview to Harvard Business Review in which he said one of Nike’s biggest breakthroughs was — not the waffle sole or the Air Force 1 or the Air Jordan or Flyknit (those were important, of course) but — the realization that they weren’t just selling sneakers.

And Tell Me Why I should Care:
I often talk about how we need to be aware of the subtle ways we’re being marketed and sold to and this piece does a great job of breaking down how the best of the best does it. If you’ve ever been inspired by a commercial or just wanted a pair of Jordans really, really bad, this retrospective on the brand, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary, will explain how it all works.

Eli’s Free Startup Ideas But If You Use Them And Get Rich Please Give Money To Me

New section yaaaaay. Ok this is where I propose ideas for companies that are mostly jokes but also kind of serious in some ways. They’re so crazy they just might work.

Ok I had this idea a while ago but then I hung out with my friend this weekend who works at a buy now, pay later company and it reminded me so I wanted to start this new section. Here’s my shark tank pitch.

We buy too much shit. We’re constantly marketed to and every company now has 8 million data points on us and buy now, pay later makes it easier than ever to buy more things that we really don’t need. How can we resist that name brand jacket an influencer posted about that is now just four easy payments of $250! It hasn’t raised any red flags for anyone that this model is literally what shitty home shopping products would do to make things seem less expensive?
No, rather what we need is the opposite of buy now pay later. We need pay now buy later. It could go something like this: You find that jacket you want to buy and make however many payments towards it (5, 8, 10?). Except instead of those payments going to the brand, those payments go into your own reserve fund that is invested in a mutual fund or some other super safe shit. By the time you finish paying off the item, if you still want that $300 Ed Hardy graphic tee well then you have all the money there to buy it. If you’ve come to your senses and decide you don’t want it anymore, well, you just saved a bunch of money and earned some interest on it.
Yes I know this won’t necessarily work for high demand products that sell out immediately, which are often the things we buy most impulsively honestly. But it will certainly save some people debt and also save them buying more shit they don’t need. Slow shopping, if you will.

Other Interesting Things You May Or May Not Care About

The Livestock Living At The End Of The World
Once upon a time in the early 1800s an explorer landed on an archipelago in the South Pacific (now known as the Auckland Islands) and realized that people were likely to get marooned there at some point. So he did what any rational person would do: he came back a year later with a bunch of pigs and set them free so that stranded explorers could eat them if they were stuck there. And that actually worked and kept some people alive. But it also fucked up the ecosystem because those pigs were not supposed to be there and pigs eat lots of stuff. They're still around but because they've been so isolated they have particular use to the medical community because they haven't been exposed to typical swine pathogens impacting global pigs. Pretty cool history and how it impacts modern day.
The Last Payphones In England
If you've been to the UK you probably noticed that there are a lot of freaking payphones there, and unlike the bombed out payphone shells in America they actually (mostly) work. This piece is a good cultural study with plenty of background research on why these landmarks are so important to the Brits.
Chasing Ghosts: Unlocking The Mysteries Of Human Hibernation
This Japanese dude fell down a mountain and broke his pelvis and survived for over three weeks by going into some primordial state of hibernation that doctors don't really understand. When he got to the hospital his body temp was 72 ºF but he ended up recovering without any real lasting health issues. Shit is like a Murakami novel, nobody really knows what happened or how he survived. The article also gets into how hibernation (or Torpor, which is basically like hibernation lite and what bears actually do) could be a reality for space travel in the near future.
Inside Venezia FC, Football's Most Fashionable Club.
This is simply a masterclass in product design and branding. Venezia is a shit team. They have no players of note and have recently been relegated to the second division in Italy (after just being promoted to Seria A for the first time in 20 years the year prior). However, every hypebeast and soccer fan knows who Venezia FC is. Why? Bomb-ass branding. Plain and simple. They invest in all the creative elements that they know they can control cause they can't really control how they perform on the field.
A 105-Mile-Long City Will Snake Through The Saudi Dsesert. Is That A Good Idea?
This ambitious project from The Saudis feels dystopian in so many ways. It's basically just a 200 meter wide city that runs for 100 miles in the middle of the desert. It's also taller than the empire state building. Um MBS, the future called and they want their city back!
Why The Same Temperature Can Feel Different Somewhere Else
In short, science bitch! But really everything comes down to science so that is just me thinking about the Breaking Bad universe since Better Call Saul only has one episode left. In practice a huge variety of factors come in to play with regard to environmental factors (wind, shade, humidity, diversion from the norm, etc.) as well as individual factors (are you used to shit this hot?!) so when someone complains about being hot just understand that everyone is a unique snowflake and has their own temperature preferences and limitations.
How Do Songs Get Picked For TV?
This article interviews a handful of music supervisors (the people who sort out the music for film and television) to give us a glimpse into how they do what they do. As you probably guessed this article was in response to Kate Bush blowing up after her song on Stranger Things, which, good for her. I’m happy for you Kate. Also I'm pretty sure music supervisor has got to be in the top 5 most given answer to the question of "what would you do if you could do anything" I feel like so many people have given me this answer.

Let’s Just Looks At Art Because Reading Sucks

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The Breads by Eli London

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