Counterfeit Cachet and BNPL TikTok

"we are baddies on a budget"

Harry Styles' new Pleasing collection, titled "Pollinators," is all about the birds and the bees; Kid Cudi to star in Sam Levinson-directed zombie movie Hell Naw; and Grimes will lend her voice to your AI song, but only if you split the money.

TRYING TO FIND LOVE ON THESE STREETS? BETTER HAVE A BIG ROLL OF TAPE., nyt
One fascinating glimpse into modern dating: The love life of Alex Miller, a software engineer in Brooklyn, was a “mix of ups and downs, with a lot of time spent on Hinge.” When it came time to find a date for his brother’s wedding, he decided to try something different: he posted personal flyers all over the borough. Earlier this month, one flier seen freshly posted in Carroll Gardens on a Tuesday was missing all of its phone-number strips by Friday.

THE NEW 9-TO-5 STARTS AT 6 P.M. FOR MANY GEN ZERS AND MILLENNIALS —AND THEY’LL WALK OUT ON EMPLOYERS WHO DON’T ACCOMMODATE THEIR SCHEDULE, fortune
A study of over 5,500 workers across the globe including the U.K., U.S., and Japan found that the youngest generation of workers is over three times more likely to prefer logging into their laptops to work well into the night than the oldest generation of workers. While just 6% of boomers claimed to be most productive from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m., this percentage jumped to 26% for Gen Z. 

FINTECH FIRM KLARNA OVERHAULS ITS APP WITH A TIKTOK-LIKE DISCOVERY FEED AS A.I. HYPE SWIRLS, cnbc
Buy-now, pay-later meets TikTok — juuust what Gen Z needs. Klarna, the BNPL app with over 150 million users globally, announced a sweeping redesign of its app, adding a TikTok-inspired discovery feed powered by artificial intelligence, customized shops for social media content creators, and the ability to sell secondhand goods. The AI will build a personal profile of shoppers based on their shopping behavior and which brands they like.

NEWS APP ARTIFACT CAN NOW SUMMARIZE STORIES USING AI, INCLUDING IN FUN STYLES, techcrunch
Elsewhere in AI, Artifact, the personalized news aggregator from Instagram’s founders, is further embracing AI with the launch of a new feature that will now summarize news articles in a certain style — like “explain like I’m five,” for example, or in the style of Gen Z slang. They’re trying to put me out of business :/

WHY YOUNG SHOPPERS ARE COOL WITH COUNTERFEITS, ft
At this point, coverage of “dupes” feels as excessive as headlines about “quiet luxury,” but I do appreciate the Financial Times’ take on the counterfeit rebrand led by Gen Z.

“We are baddies on a budget,” says Jada, a young TikTok influencer speaking from behind a stack of fake-branded shoe boxes in a typical example of these videos. She unpacks a pair of shoes that are dead ringers for white Yeezy 350s, priced at $266 on secondary platform StockX. A price appears on screen: $46. She then unpacks pairs of “Nike Jordan” 4 ($45), “Louis Vuitton” furry slippers ($75) and “Dior” canvas sneakers ($71). “We are not even on a budget,” she concludes, satisfied. “We just baddies that’s smart with our money.”

One last thought: