This week on Tasteland we're joined by W. David Marx, an American fashion and culture writer who works and lives in Tokyo, Japan. He is the author of Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style and Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change.

Preorder Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century

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W. David Marx

• Newsletter
• Twitter/X
• Instagram

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Timestamps

00:00:00 Subway tastes

00:02:26 There's no song of the summer

00:09:05 Skinny pants are never coming back

00:12:10 Only Fads

00:17:10 Fad consumerism culture, US vs Asia

00:21:27 The age of the double sellout

00:24:00 The 21st century crisis

00:35:49 Rich enough to not have a smartphone

00:41:25 Cultural roots of contemporary politics

00:51:04 Everyone is a marketer

00:56:37 You can't be unfamous

01:01:04 Capitalism without morality

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

This week Daisy and Francis are joined by Greta Rainbow. Greta is an editor at the Creative Independent, arts columnist for the New York Review of Architecture, and she's the anchor contributor for Dirt's books newsletter, Blank.

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Greta

• Website
• Twitter/X
• Instagram
• Igno-fiction piece

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Timestamps

00:00 Introducing Greta

04:33 Genre + scene = literary movement

08:37 Disney adults of alt-lit

11:03 In defense of perfection

16:44 An audatious literary sandwich

24:22 Literary gnats

31:09 Unfulfiled references come as great surprise

34:51 Books that we hate

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

This week Daisy and Francis are joined Sam Valenti IV. Sam is the founder and leader of Ghostly International, a 25-year-old collective that has grown from a dorm room-based record label to a recognized platform for the work of great artists, designers, technologists, and musicians. The New York Times says Ghostly “transcends its record label roots to sell and ethos.” Ghostly International is the first label alongside upstart drink sum wtr in All Flowers Group, a label unit formed as an affiliate of Secretly Group. An inveterate collector, Valenti also writes the weekly newsletter Herb Sundays, which features a personal playlist by a noted artist or enthusiast.

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Sam

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Substack
• Ghostly

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Timestamps

00:00:00 Igno-fiction

00:05:45 Cultural beatdowns

00:11:18 The knowledge requirement of fandoms

00:18:15 Sycophancy vs. fandom

00:21:50 Community in record labels

00:27:45 Archiving culture

00:33:29 Nostalgia and new media engagement

00:36:52 Preserving artists legacies

00:42:36 New media monetization strategies

00:50:00 AI and the future of media consumption

00:57:31 The best music journalism right now

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

This week on Tasteland we're joined by Reggie James, a writer, product architect and investor.

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Reggie

• LinkedIn
• Twitter/X
• Substack
• Instagram

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00:00

02:09 Best hardware of 2024

06:11 Interviewing Jasper of Teenage Engineering

08:06 The most contemporary city in America

12:07 Secular tech vs spiritual tech

17:25 Heriticon loses its edge

22:30 The tech right and religious right cannot coexist

28:41 Faith and doubt in startup tech

35:31 Private vs public capital in innovation

42:26 Having a startup is a lifestyle choice

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

This week on Tasteland we're joined by Rax King, a James Beard Award-nominated writer and host of the podcast Low Culture Boil. Rax is the author of the 2021 book Tacky, and her new release Sloppy is out now.

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Rax

• Sloppy
• Podcast
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Bluesky

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Timestamps

00:00 Introducing Rax

02:37 Write sober, edit sober

07:26 The goal of personal writing

13:20 Reframing past experiences

20:25 Service industry draft

29:11 Banjos in the sky

31:27 Drink the Kool-Aid but know your dosage

35:21 Reverse abundance mindset

38:00 Nobody does bread anymore

42:59 Didn't make the cut

45:55 Sex tourism and calamari

48:40 Noble savage reply guys

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

This week Daisy and Francis are joined by Jeremy Kirkland, host of the podcast Blamo! — a podcast exploring the world of fashion with the personalities that shape it.

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Blamo!

• Podcast
• Instagram

Jeremy

• Instagram
• LinkedIn

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Timestamps

00:00 I always make my knock a little song

05:36 All podcasts are restaurant podcasts

08:13 Nine years of podcasting

14:47 The business of Blamo!

22:28 The culture of criticism online

29:29 You should do embarrassing things

37:45 The cost of existing in the creator economy

41:08 E-commerce recovery

52:15 There's no runway in Missouri

57:38 Bag check survival instincts

01:01:01 Running up that hill

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

This week on Tasteland we're joined by writer, producer, and podcaster, Mike Rugnetta. Mike is the host of Never Post, a podcast that asks questions about why the world of the internet – and the world, because of the internet – is the way it is.

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Follow Mike

• Instagram
• Bluesky
• Website
• Linktree

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Timestamps

00:00 Sunday summer derangement

03:25 Changing the way the world changes

08:50 The age of the platform has ended

14:16 The rise of the agentic web

17:06 Hentai explains everything

22:50 Bob Geldof's flaming pitchfork

27:48 Attention is a zero-sum game

33:00 You cannot recreate attention

39:18 AI vs. the library

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

This week on Tasteland we are joined by writer and award winning journalist, Cora Lewis. Cora's fiction has appeared at The Yale Review, Joyland Magazine, Epiphany, and elsewhere. She currently works at the Associated Press in New York, and she previously worked at BuzzFeed News. Cora's debut novella, Information Age, comes out on July 15th.

• Pre-order Cora's book Information Age

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Follow Cora

• Twitter/X
• LinkedIn
• Website

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Timestamps

00:00 Reading Information Age

04:37 Book design and unique literary devices

11:46 Title inspiration and influences

14:12 The artistry of fragmented writing

20:14 Composing fragments into a finished piece

26:09 You can't write life to scale

34:42 Honing the aesthetics of a novella

37:36 Cora's lack of social media presence

44:58 The duty to represent life accurately

51:25 A clearheaded view of AI

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

This week Daisy and Francis are joined by Webby Award-winning content creator, social strategist, and meme enthusiast, Ariel Rubin. Ariel is the the head of content at Air and one of Francis' greatest enemies.

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Follow Ari

• LinkedIn
• Website
• Twitter/X

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Links & References

• The Cycle Book
• ick.fyi on Instagram

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Timestamps

00:00 Introducing Ariel Rubin

01:40 Recent icks

07:33 LinkedIn hates Bonnie Blue

11:45 Wife guys, one hell of a fraternity

14:24 SaaS is the most honest industry

20:19 Selling out is compulsory now

28:14 Daisy's ultimate black pill

31:53 You can't get rich in Canada

37:21 Never think again

42:58 Cigs are back

44:54 Ari's SaaS persona

47:38 Startup founder bravado

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

This week on Tasteland, Daisy and Francis are joined by design strategist, writer, journalist, and educator, Nika Simovich Fisher.

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Nika Simovich Fisher

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

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Links & References

• More about Nika's Hard Pack piece
• Nika's piece on Digitizing and Preserving Cyrillic Typefaces in Serbia
• Nika's website, Wildflowers
• Nika's piece on The evolution of the trash icon

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Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:41 Berlin fragrance experience

05:49 The design of modern political campaigns

15:06 The relationship between midcentury design and skiing

22:12 Digitizing and preserving Cyrillic typefaces in Serbia

27:34 The parallels between gardens and websites

33:15 Digital memorializations

42:40 Drawing conclusions from digital footprints

46:01 Data is litter

50:15 The impact and legacy of Kate Spade's death

53:55 Invisible nightlife

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.