February 18, 2021
Whose Your Granddaddy?
The hype-beast super swagginess of just a few years prior looks to have been dethroned by ‘Gray-core’ – fashion seemingly styled by the senior set. Flashy feet have taken the biggest hit, with ‘advanced clogs’ and Merrell’s Jungle Moc bringing a whole new creaky beat to the street. It would appear that fashion is experiencing a Grunge 3.0 moment. OG Grunge, circa 1991, swelled into being on the heels of the Savings and Loan Crisis of 1991, when young people turned their backs on fabricated fashion. We saw the re-emergence of flannels and the thrift thrill during the dark days of the 2009 Recession. The past year’s pandemic and economic downturn has reinitiated a disdain for pre-packaged panache, with comfort and ugly-style winning the day. Oversized, pieced together, and handmade is already ruling MFW2021. No doubt, senior stylings are in our future!
Cover Me
At a loss for style inspo? Tik-Tok has you covered – literally! The latest trend on the beloved app follows the current dovetailing of retro-futurism by pairing vinyl album covers with ‘fits. Players are diving deep and dreaming up all sorts of fresh looks fueled by dated discs. This low-fi funk trend also speaks to the urge to make the virtual textural. Get your beat on!
Cover Me Twice
Y’all ready for 6 more months of lock down? Actually, no one knows that wretched number, but either way, multiple networks are racing to keep you covered. With WFH and home schooling subtly chipping away at parental TV viewing guardrails, streaming providers are gearing up to serve as surrogates in the months to come. As part of a massive new content campaign aimed at attracting kids and their parents, Cartoon Network inked its first-ever kid musician-in-residence deal with 10-year-old viral music sensation Nandi Bushell to create a spectrum of multiplatform content. Known for her covers of hard-core rock classics, this rad British drummer will no doubt bring a whole new beat to the kid viewing party. Check out her incredible musical stylings below:
All the Feels
Jacob Jackson gets you! The Toronto-based developer has launched an incredibly timely and simple visual search engine that’s particularly adept at gathering results with similar patterns, compositions, and textures. The designer believes that search should integrate a rich visual understanding, capturing the artistic style and overall mood of an image, not just the objects in it. Aptly named Same Energy, the tool is minimal by design, with a focus on the image rather than keywords. At a time when so much of our world feels all about mood and emotion, this one just hits right.
Tiny-Tok?
Et-tu, Lego?? The block building bastion of analog play has crossed the digital divide! Lego and Universal Music have announced the creation of a music video app for kids too young for TikTok. Vidiyo, set to launch this June, will give children the tools to shoot and edit music videos set to tracks by Universal Music artists. Kids can also use the app to scan Lego mini-figures and tiles to serve as characters and special effects. Lego calls this combination of physical and digital ‘fluid play’, and purports to simply serve the changing trends and behaviors among children without abandoning its much loved plastic bricks. Hmmmmm… if Minecraft and MTV had a baby…
Streamin’ with the Oldies
Like that Old Time Rock ‘N Roll? Then fire up your Twitch account! Rolling Stone magazine will start producing original videos for Twitch, in an arrangement that makes the famed music and pop-culture magazine the first mainstream publication to sign a long-term content deal with Amazon’s Inc.’s live-video streaming service. Labeled “Rolling Stone on Twitch”, the service will go live March 1, and broadcast several hours a day, five days a week. The deal helps Rolling Stone, founded in 1967 and built covering the biggest rock stars of the baby boomer generation, to appeal to younger audiences and deepen its position in the digital media space. It also helps Twitch, favored by videogame enthusiasts, to broaden its reach. Time and space are indeed shapeshifting as we hyper loop into a bold new dimension!
Bro-Quets?
In a touchingly bold move, Australian florist Fig & Bloom partnered with the mental health charity Gotcha4Life over Valentine’s Day weekend to launch a range of bouquets created for men to gift their male friends. The hope is that these gestures would spark badly needed conversations between men around mental health, and subsequently strengthen social connections. “Most men don’t want to admit when they’re having a rough time”, shared Gus Worland, founder of Gotcha4Life. “We hope that more men will be empowered to reach out to their bros.” This is the kind of flower power we would like to see spread around the globe. Man up, everyone!
Pokemon – I Choose You!
With nostalgia coursing through our veins like never before, we are all seeking out the sweet, fuzzy and familiar. Kinder-core is a theme on repeat, as we eat cereal for dinner and binge-watch Full House. Fortunately, Levi’s hears your cries. This past week, the brand announced a new collab with Pokemon, timed to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the brand. (Yes – I know – I can’t believe it either!) A full range of agender tees, caps and more allow you to share out your anime partner-in-crime of choice to the world. We can all use a new pandemic pal right about now – so why not Picachu?
Strong Colors
As is tradition, Google is once again inviting K-12 students in the US to create a Doodle for their Search homepage. Each year, the theme seems to strike the truest chord for the mood of the times. Doodle for Google 2021 is looking for artwork that reflects “I am strong because…” During a year when kids have seen their world and the adults that populate it, fall prey to a multitude of fears, it’s an excellent challenge to ask them how they themselves are strong. There is only one week to go, so get those crayons crackin’!!
