[SIC] Weekly is a digest of 50x-ish developments in trends, tech, media, marketing, fashion, food, places and events, compiled for information obsessives and published free on Wednesday.

[SIC] is made possible by its paid subscribers, who also get 20 “[SIC] Day” links on Mo/Tu/Th/Fr, and the weekly [SIC] Sundays mini-digest of 30 freeform links.

Many recipients expense their subscriptions as research in marketing, advertising, entertainment + tech. You can too.[SIC] prospers when you share it, so please do.

New original art and animation each issue is made by Gordon Hull. Special thanks this week for ideas: Geoff Renaud, Piers Fawkes, Iolanda Carvalho and Celeste Blewitt. Comments, questions and contributions are invited from everyone.

This digest was sent free on 12/24/25 to 8151 subscribers. Original source is cited. Corollary sources are listed at the end of each digest.

I’m Ben Dietz, advisor-for-hire to brands, publishers and agencies, interviewer, moderator and occasionally event/exhibition producer. Give a shout: @dietznutz on socials.

Hi all.

It being Christmas Eve (or even the day of, depending where you’re at), we’re keeping things short this week. No talks, no reflections, no delay. Not even (really) the 'corollary’ notations. Just the links. Draw your own conclusions. And accept my thanks and best wishes for the new year.

Ben

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The Current Moment

• When Did Everything Become ‘K-Shaped’? / NYT

• US GDP smashed economists’ expectations, growing at the fastest pace in two years, but consumer sentiment is still down / Quartz

• The stocks that won 2025 — and what they say about the market / Quartz

• From Geoff: A List of Jobs that no longer make sense / Selavy

• Is the Dictionary Done For? The print edition of Merriam-Webster was once a touchstone of authority and stability. Then the internet brought about a revolution / The New Yorker

• ICE uses a social media strategy to make raids go viral / WaPo

• Deplatforming Backfired. Progressive censors failed to suppress our political demons. It’s finally time to confront them / Reason

• Three Ways to Reframe Boredom / Omnia

• This Toy Drive Is Giving Psychedelics to Everyone Who Donates / Doubleblind

• The rise of a new street drug referred to as “rhino tranq / WPIX

• Also rising: The New, Weird Luxury Studio / Curbed

• And, from Celeste: The Booming Business Of Chinese Peptides / Odd Lots

Futures

• The Age of the All-Access AI Agent Is Here / Wired

• Marketers are keen to use generative AI in ad campaigns, but hidden costs lurk / Digiday

• Speaking of lurking: SpyGPT WIll Shake James Bond’s World / FT

• ChatGPT Needs More Cowbell / The Atlantic

Artistics & Stylistics

• 4 Art Trends We Spotted This Year / Artnet

• Some NYC artists are avoiding work about race and gender amid federal arts funding cuts / Gothamist

• The 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World: 2025 Edition / Hyperallergic

• From Piers: “To happier times” [stuart semple creates a watch that smiles at you instead of telling the time] / Design Boom

• The Psychology of Fashion / The New Yorker

• Dressing the Revolution. The Brown Berets and a different kind of militarism / Articles of Interest

• What happens after your little brand becomes Instagram famous? Paloma Wool explains / NYT

• Betting on a Big Year for Mother-Daughter Fashion / The New Garde

• The enduring transgression of Sophy Rickett’s infamous ‘Pissing Women’ / Huck Mag

• It Takes Only Five Paintings to See Helen Frankenthaler’s Genius / The New Yorker

• Wes Anderson recreated artist Joseph Cornell’s Queens home studio / Hyperallergic

• The History of Zippers: Talon, Universal, and Gideon Sundback / Heddels

• Why Swiss Watches Made by Richard Mille, Patek Philippe Are So Expensive / YT

Entertainments

• From Piers: “Dad gaming at the next nuptials we attend“ [Some Newlyweds Are Trading Dance Floors for Video Games] / NYT

• The Tossers: Inside the world of competitive egg throwing / Huck Mag

• More ‘teasing:’ The News Movement’s 2025 Porn trends wrapped / IG

• How Intimacy Coordinators Became Such a Touchy Subject / Vanity Fair

• In Defense of Mariah Carey and Cassette Tapes / Omnia

• Also : Wet Leg On Hovercrafts And Being Sugary Sweet SCary / Monster Children

• Activist hacker group scrapes 86 million music files from Spotify, representing 99% of all listens on the streaming audio platform, and releases them publicly / Ars Technica

• May well be the earliest disco DJ mix recording in existence. Francis Grasso, The Sanctuary, New York, 1971 / YT

• Monster Children’s Best Skate Parts Of 2025 / Monster Children

• The 2025 QS Readers Poll Results / Quartersnacks

• The Best Art Books of All Time (According to [Annie Armstrong]) / Artnet

Media & Marketing

• Rumours of Our Death. A panel of print icons [on] how the medium has fared in the first quarter-century of this millennium / The Fence

• It’s Time to Bring Back the Men’s Magazine. Hear me out: reading, but for guys/ Harry Cheadle

• AI could spell doom for the mid-size advertising firm / Semafor

• The Blackhawks are breaking the ice on prediction market. The Chicago NHL team has reached a deal with Kalshi / Front Office Sports

Foods and Drinks

• “Suckled on Bottarga” Meeting the purveyors of Sardinia’s legendary salt-cured fish roe / SLOP Magazine

• Corollary, from Celeste: A Snob’s Guide To Breakfast Buffets / Town & Country

• From PIers: “Dealing with this with google seems easy vs removing from an llm’s training data” [Restaurants sound the alarm over ‘review bombing’] / Restaurant Business

• Jim Beam Halts Production, as Whiskey Market Struggles. The bourbon giant is closing its flagship distilling operation for all of 2026 / NYT

• Less global: from Piers: Brooklyn bars go global ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, from Little Norway to Panama pride / Brooklyn Paper

• Once an Arbiter of Cool, a 30-Year-Old Nolita Icon Has Closed. Manhattan’s Cafe Gitane has apparently shuttered without fanfare / Eater

The Natural World

• The King of Ozempic Is Scared as Hell / Wired

• Mongolia’s cashmere trade is at risk of imploding / Semafor

• Abandoned Airports Are Becoming City Parks. With great expanses of valuable space, decommissioned airfields are being reborn as fantastical urban havens. / Reasons To Be Cheerful

• Inside the Kit of Global Curator Colin Nagy / Live A Little

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Corollary Sources This Week: Public Announcement / Beat Connection / Line Sheet / 1440 / Morning Brew / Why Is This Interesting / Politico Future Daily