Two weeks ago, a deck made headlines. This deck was about WeWork, and it was not so much presented by Masayoshi Son, the CEO of WeWork-backer SoftBank, as it was cast as a spell against a harsh data-backed reality. In reality, WeWork was wildly unprofitable and famously going down in flames. But in the deck, Son asserted a series of hypothetical affirmations about WeWork’s profitable future, as if he were willing it into coming true with zero proof to back it up. These affirmations came one after the other, over and over, like a chant. While there are decks, of course, that contain charts that predict future results based on data that reflect reality, there are many decks, like the Softbank one, that contain charts that don't reflect the data or the reality. One slide said "hypothetical" earnings, with a comically imprecise arrow pointing straight upwards and to the right. Another slide showed "hypothetical illustration of profitably" with only these two vague and value-less words along its x and y axes: amount and time. The SoftBank WeWork deck was not the first deck to make headlines, and it was not unique in its tenuous relationship to reality.
Because like crystals or astrology have become a salve for social media-soaked souls, the deck has become the business world’s irrational way to perceive order in overwhelming data. For example, for many in media and tech TikTok is an indecipherable threat from an opaque foreign superpower that has used mysterious algorithms to grow rapidly. Its rise is so threatening that Mark Zuckerberg and the federal government are actually aligned in turning it into a shared scapegoat. For the first time in this era, the masters of Silicon valley felt alienated, confused and disillusioned with their own understanding of the way their world works. Into this void came the genre of journalism I will call “Here’s The Deck,” a flavor of digital muckraking that presents decks as tea leaves to read into the mysterious machinations of forces we don’t understand. Leaked TikTok decks are taken as omens like comets were in medieval Europe. It’s the bewildering strength of those forces, economic, social and technological, that have turned decks into the horoscopes of the business world.
Like horoscopes, decks have little relationship to truth but are wielded against the future, believed in with unwavering confidence despite rational proof. No one holds a deck accountable to science. A deck is really just a series of slides that don’t have to contain truth. Because the truth or scientific proof is not really the purpose of the deck. The power of the deck is in its ability to instill a shared belief in a group of uncertain people who’ve been thrust together and tasked with achieving a business objective. Son’s hypothetical charts are the clearest vision we have of the mystical purpose of the deck. If we say it enough times together, it might come true. Maybe the generation who has turned Gwenyth Paltrow’s Goop, which has a section of its online shop called cosmic health that sells five different types of quartz crystals and something called Psychic Vampire Repellent, into a $250 million dollar business in their free time are similarly turning to mystical objects during work hours to thwart uncertainty.
Maybe the generation who's turned astrology and the rest of the “mystical services market” into a $2.1 billion category through apps like Co-Star and Pattern don't even notice the superstitious side of decks, being so accustomed to superstition already. Extinction Rebellion, a prominent climate change protest group, uses pagan, occult and medieval symbols to ward off extinction. What else is there to turn to in the face of such uncertainty and overwhelming change but the supernatural?
The shorter stuff
The funniest show returns: Nick Ciarelli and Brad Evans present Google Drive Deluxe. (Twitter)
This Netflix Ninja Turtles meme is...sad. (Image)
Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot have come out as members of the bizarre #ReleaseTheSnyderCut cult/community/subculture. (Slate)
Did anyone even know there's a new Charlie's Angels movie out? (THR)
I'd never heard of this Sir Philip Green before, but count me in for this movie: "In February, Michael Winterbottom’s satire Greed, starring Steve Coogan as a vulgar, bleach-toothed tycoon based on Green, opens in theaters." (AirMail)
The king of prestige TV, Richard Plepler, will make shows for Apple TV+. (Variety)
Bob Lefsetz called Sharon Osbourne a meeskite, a Yiddish word that was liberally thrown around in my house growing up (won't say by whom) but seems to have been lost to history. Until now. (Lefsetz Letter)
Paul Thomas Anderson alert. (VF)
Big Sean on the food sensitivity and allergy test he took is oddly calming to me. (Ssense)
100 gecs kick ass. (Twitter)
"Protesters in Chile employing Lasers en masse to disorient, neutralize Riot Police." (Twitter)
Rod Stewart is good because he made several great songs like "Maggie May," "You Wear It Well" and "Every Picture Tells A Story" and I think having a hobby is good, too. (Vulture)
NYC moms are now putting up Craigslist ads for social media coordinators slash mother's helpers. (Craigslist)