Here’s what you missed in marketing, media, and tech while you were wondering why celebrities wear such bad clothes to the Met Gala…
In “#VanLife, The Bohemian Social Movement,” Rachel Monroe chronicles the rise of #VanLife, the millennial phenomenon whereby twenty and thirtysomethings quit their jobs and make a living by curating sponsored social media images of their experience on the road. In the story, Monroe becomes a character in one #VanLife journey, traveling with a young couple and their dog through Southern California.
As I read Monroe’s opening passages about Emily King and Corey Smith, the central couple in the story, I felt a strong sense of envy. #VanLife—traveling to beautiful locations with my partner and dog in the comfort of a VW home—sounded like a pretty good gig. Yet as Monroe paints a picture of living in a cramped space that takes on the smells of the humans, animals, and trash it hosts, I started to feel the claustrophobia of that lifestyle choice.
What’s more, Monroe details the way “lifestyle” images are a carefully contrived representative of the type of bohemian life many millennials and middle-aged hippies lust after. In reality, King and Smith spend hours curating images and analyzing engagement analytics to appease the very sponsors that support their journey. It’s capitalism through the lens of those who reject it, told from a gilded cage on wheels.
Selected by Dillon Baker, technology editor
As advertisers use Google’s recent controversies to leverage better prices and better placements, YouTubers are suffering. Many—some with controversial content, some without—have taken major hits to their revenue as advertisers pull out and YouTube’s algorithm demonetizes videos with little explanation.
I have no doubt that many of those hurt by this produce content I don’t agree with or would support. But it’s one more step towards an internet controlled by the whims of sensitive brands and detached algorithms, rather than people. Some will survive thanks to services like Patreon, but as Amanda Hess writes, “it puts the wild, independent internet in danger of becoming more boring than TV.”
Selected by Brian…
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