This week on Tasteland we're joined by Ethan Sawyer, a field producer at CBC and curator of the newsletter Human Pursuits, a newsletter for navigating modern existence with help from need-to-know names in media and culture.

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Ethan Sawyer

• Human Pursuits
• Twitter/X
• LinkedIn

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Timestamps

00:00 beats to write/edit to

04:08 Writer's block is not real

07:57 Nights in the Gardens of Brooklyn

11:46 An analysis of social climbers

18:40 Olivia Nuzzi did it all for love

24:23 The art of guest selection

32:15 Francis tells a bad joke

32:57 Music for work and focus

37:46 Music is so good

43:16 Defining slop

54:46 Introducing the "content economy"

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

No guest this week on Tasteland so Daisy and Francis discuss whether Frankenstein should've shown hog, the introduction to the polycene and quote tweeting the Pope.

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Daisy

• Dirt
• Twitter/X
• LinkedIn

Francis

• Creator Spotlight
• Twitter/X
• LinkedIn

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Timestamps

00:00 The hog of Frankenstein

09:55 It was all yellow

16:29 Welcome to the polycene

27:15 Gambler's wives

30:24 Don't die, take mushrooms

34:00 Marc Andreessen vs. the Pope

39:29 Vibe shifts are vibe shifts

44:00 Affordability vs abundance in politics

46:50 But I'm not a rapper, I'm mayor

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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 novelist Adam Voith. Adam is the editor and publisher of Little Engines magazine.

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Adam Voith

• Substack
• Instagram
• Little Engines

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Timestamps

00:00 Did Zohran win?

03:14 Dirt’s new podcasts

08:01 Relationship between art and commerce

13:29 Submission culture in publishing

20:29 Conservatism in publishing

26:35 Culture reflected in literature

33:32 Monetizing early support in creative industries

43:29 The rise of freelancing and founding

48:00 Writers are small business owners

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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 Nick Susi, a strategy executive and entrepreneurial builder for 13+ years, exploring the technological, societal and psychological forces that shape our identity, perception and culture.

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Nick Susi

• Website
• Substack
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Twitter/X

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Timestamps

00:00 Creators are consumers of the self

07:51 Posts are the cheetle of your identity

15:19 Presence in marketing

17:11 Start a war, create a monoculture

29:16 Building trust vs capturing attention

36:59 How myths shape modern media and technology

45:25 Separating the technology for the myth

51:45 Ice Cube got it right

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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 startup founder, developer, and runner, Cole Townsend. Cole has been a product designer for over a decade and is the head of tech and co-founder of Sole Retriever.

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Cole

• Website
• Sole Retriever
• LinkedIn
• X/Twitter

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Timestamps

00:00 Jury duty

06:54 Post Tokyo crash

17:20 Every app is a marketplace or dating app

24:49 Running is becoming lifestyle

29:53 Crewing an ultramarathon

34:12 Performance culture

37:17 Founding Sole Retriever

43:36 Never had a New Balance

50:20 Moth tech

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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 NYC based journalist, Claire Landsbaum. Claire is the Deputy Editor at HighSnobiety and has formerly held positions at The Cut, Vanity Fair, and Business Insider.

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Claire

• Website
• HighSnobiety
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• X/Twitter

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Timestamps

00:00 Show and tell

09:02 The bowling alley is the new afterparty

11:27 Writing for magazines

15:06 Finding journalistic honesty

19:03 Fake adult in Berlin

26:53 Are Veronika and Kyle for real?

32:40 I saw this tweet

37:08 Can The Daily Beast be saved?

48:35 Revenue and editorial integrity

54:29 Tattoos and steaks

57:53 The dream profile

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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 Jose Mejia, the CEO and Co-Founder at Scene Infrastructure Company, a software company building better instruments for socialization.

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Jose Mejia

• SIC
• X/Twitter
• LinkedIn

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Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:42 Stress-induced tramp stamp

04:07 Zero-slop pop-up gets pwned

10:44 Daisy bullies Chat-GPT, again

13:16 Addison Rae Iconic Magazine scene report

15:10 Wild soda flavor combos

17:45 Shopify for the experience economy

21:31 World Cup 2026 ticket prices

26:17 The endgame of the attention economy

33:38 The decline of consensus reality

41:34 Rebuilding consensus reality

48:38 Matryoshka doll of meaning

51:08 When did everything become so intentional?

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

This week on Tasteland, Francis and Daisy go guest-free and dive into everything from small farms and soybeans to the future of media and paywalls. Is media all media marketing now? Life is good.

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Timestamps

00:00 Sourdough fatherhood

01:43 Venture agriculturalism

05:34 Soybean political own goal

10:06 All media is marketing

15:40 Not all media is marketing

22:37 Retiring the op-ed

27:46 The future of micropayments and paywalls

35:27 Distasteland

38:11 Nostalgic scent of manure

39:33 AGI is coming, go to party school

42:04 Life is good; drip

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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 Casey Lewis, founder of the After School newsletter and Gen Z consumer trends expert. Casey has been an editor at Teen Vogue, MTV, and New York Magazine, and in 2016, she started a media company for Gen Z, which was acquired by another media company for Gen Z.

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Casey

• After School Newsletter
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• TikTok

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Links & References

• A Taste of Thomas Bernhard

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Timestamps

00:00 Thomas Bernhard renaissance

05:25 Double dogs and doubled subs

08:00 Gen alpha are the marketing generation

10:11 Denim is back

18:51 Individuality vs. conformity in youth culture

26:46 Brand loyalty in gen z and gen alpha

30:45 Mom's influence on tween shopping

34:00 The uncanny valley of fashion

38:09 Refragmentation of youth culture

44:03 You stole my brainrot

51:30 The ethics of child influencers

58:27 I wanna be your billboard

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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 Dani Loftus. Dani is a founder, writer and investor focused on the digital evolution of culture. After founding content platform This Outfit Does Not Exist in 2021, she became a leading voice in the digital fashion space working with brands like Chanel, Dion Lee, and Google and writing for publications such as HUNGER, DIRT and Jing Daily.

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Dani

• Substack
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• X/Twitter

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Timestamps

00:00 Introducing Dani

01:00 Gimmicky martini epidemic

05:10 The return the hipsterdom

17:27 Happy victims

20:28 Fashion is fine art

28:18 Pandemic shopping habits

31:22 The Doji problem

38:58 The commodification of taste in fashion

46:52 Putting a watermark on humanity

51:22 Class structure in the UK vs US

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