Cozy Tech and PDFed Brainrot
i need your help
My annual holiday trends research — in which I watch hundreds of Christmas wishlist TikToks to determine the most-desired gifts — is underway! This year, I thought it could be fun to add a crowd-sourced element: If you have Gen Z or Alpha kids and would be willing to share their Christmas lists (can keep you anonymous!), please email them to me at hi@caseymorrowlewis.com. 🎁
Alessandra Codinha profiled model (and tradwife icon) Nara Smith for Who What Wear; Miley Cyrus announces a "psychedelic" visual album; Kit Connor and Kaia Gerber top The Hollywood Reporter’s hottest young stars list; and the 24-year-old son of Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland is making alt-pop music.
INSIDE AMAZON PRIME’S SPONSORSHIP OF GEN Z-FAVORITE SOCIAL MEDIA SERIES BOY ROOM, adage
I’m extremely obsessed with Boy Room, as I’ve mentioned here before, so I’m overjoyed that Gymnasium’s short-form video series — in which comedian Rachel Coster bravely tours the often dirty and occasionally demented apartments of young men — is not only back for another season but is now also sponsored by Amazon Prime, who will be supplying furniture and decor for the room makeovers. The idea is “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” reimagined for Gen Z; in other words, it lives on TikTok instead of ABC.
HOW THESE MEN LEFT THE MANOSPHERE — AND WHY SOME MAY NEVER, teenvogue
Speaking of demented: Many young men enter the “manosphere” — an online community that promotes ultra-right wing, misogynistic, and racist views — through the realm of self-help. “On the surface, it’s all under the guise of self-help, dating and relationships, looks-maxxing,” says Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a sociology professor at American University who specializes in extremism. Young men can be drawn in through something as simple as looking for workout plans or a good cologne, Miller-Idriss says. Impossibly dark!
‘PDF TO BRAINROT’ STUDY TOOLS ARE A STRANGE ITERATION ON A TIKTOK TREND, techcrunch
AI-based study tools like Coconote and Study Fetch are capitalizing on the “PDF to Brainrot” trend, which involves reading text from documents over “oddly satisfying” videos, like ASMR clips or gameplay footage from Subway Surfers. Why read a textbook if you can listen to an automated voice read aloud your history lesson set to the backdrop of a brainrot video?
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THE FANTASY OF COZY TECH, newyorker
Perhaps the direct opposite of digital brainrot is “cozy tech,” a trend that “suggests that the Internet and artificial intelligence can lead us ever inward,” writes Kyle Chayka. “In the cozy era, our screens and the related accoutrements of digital life fulfill all of our emotional and sensory needs.”
Friend, the creation of Avi Schiffmann, a twenty-two-year-old entrepreneur, is a necklace hung with a plastic orb, with a light embedded at its center to represent its “soul,” Schiffmann told me recently […] “I do think the loneliness crisis was created by technology, but I do think it will be fixed by technology.”
WHY SO MANY FAMILIES ARE “DROWNING IN TOYS”, vox
I don’t particularly care about toys, but I do care about Gen Alpha consumer preferences, and today’s kids are apparently in toy overload: U.S. toy sales jumped from $22.3 billion in 2019 to $26 billion in 2020, and then to $30.1 billion in 2021, as parents struggled to entertain their kids at home during the pandemic. “I don’t think we’ll ever go back,” said Juli Lennett, a vice president and industry adviser for toys at the market research firm Circana.
PARENTS ARE STRESSED ABOUT PLAYTIME. THEIR ANXIETY IS A GOLDMINE., wsj
More on Gen Alpha consumers: Lovevery, a toy company — excuse me, a child-development startup — based out of Boise, “has wedged its way into the psyches of anxious parents across America” with its “startlingly high prices and strongly worded marketing.” Hundreds of thousands of families in 60 percent of U.S. zip codes subscribe to the brand’s Play Kits, which cost $80 to $120 per delivery and are designed to engage children from birth to age 5. Proudly low-tech and screen-free, the company brought in $226 million in revenue in 2023 and says it expects to reach profitability within the next year.
One last thought (“did a five-year-old make this setlist?” made me laugh):
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