One year ago I was in a meeting with Kanye West at the Soho House in Chicago. Off to one side of us was a handful of graphic designers with laptops open on digital ideas-in-progress that sporadically commanded Kanye’s attention. One of the digital items on screen was a blue hat. The blue hat had a very familiar font. But the slogan on it was one word away from the iconic original it was clearly referencing. “Make Earth Great Again,” the mockup of the hat read. The very next day, Kanye gifted one blue hat that said "Make Earth Great Again" to Ivanka Trump inside the Oval Office. The only trace of this idea ever having existed physically, as far as the public is concerned, is one social media image of Ivanka wearing the hat and one first-hand account that spread on social media of Kanye standing on a table at an Apple Store the day after his Oval Office visit waving his phone to a stunned crowd of customers showing said photo of Ivanka wearing the hat. The hat never actually existed. You can't buy it. You can't wear it. Well, one did exist, but maybe Ivanka threw it in some walk-in closet somewhere.
That one hat is obviously much less important than the digital hat that Kanye waved in his hand on his phone in the Apple Store. That one hat, in a way, is less real than the digital one. In the early hours of Monday morning, Kanye tweeted a presumably digital-only image of a vinyl LP as a way of announcing the latest supposed release date for his upcoming album. Kanye has mastered the zero-touch cultural product. Over the weekend, the Times published a story about Trump's digital advertising advantage and the campaign's use of zero-touch merchandise. This is when "T-shirts, posters and other paraphernalia are printed on demand and sent directly to buyers, with the campaign not required to make bulk orders or risk unsold inventory."The zero-touch technique "allows the campaign to move fast — it was able to start selling T-shirts that say 'get over it' a day after the president’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters to do just than when it came to Ukraine." Kanye's biggest innovation since the album-in-progress idea that was The Life of Pablo has been the zero-touch cultural product.
They are cultural products that are intended to never be held or even consumed in the way depicted in the images he shares. They are objects more important as photoshop jobs meant to float around as pixels than as a polyester thing meant to be worn or a plastic thing meant to be held. And like the Trump campaign's dumb shirts and trigger straws, Kanye's do zero-touch products do their job. There was the fake billboard campaign that never existed depicting text messages that never existed for an album that never existed. There was the cover artwork that never existed for the same album that never existed (Yandhi) featuring a minidisc that never existed. No one ever saw those billboards. No one ever heard Yandhi. But the billboards and Yandhi happened. Kanye doesn't make the only zero-touch cultural products. A very simple example is skins. Fortnite skins generated the majority of the $2.4 billion Epic pulled in from the game last year and digital clothing is already a buzzword in fashion and tech circles.
Then again, people are already buying clothes for their Instagram pic and then returning them.A Zack Snyder movie that has never come out and will never come out has a rabid following that created a bit of a moment this year. Playboi Carti and Lil Uzi Vert both have two of the most talked about albums of the year. Neither albums exists. Grimes has an album that doesn't exist but has a famous concept, an exercise regimen that doesn't exist but definitely fooled a lot of people and she a plan to never physically tour again that may or may not be true. These are all examples of zero-touch cultural products that people love, and in the case of the Snyder Cut and the Playboi Carti and Lil Uzi Vert albums, have even shaped their identities around. But I think the most interesting example is one that people hated even though it never really existed. And that is the version of the movie Joker that existed in our collective imagination between its premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its actual release in theaters. The Joker that was in theaters was not the movie that started a panic. That movie never really existed.
Anyway, we all know there's little chance Kanye is releasing a vinyl LP on Friday. But by releasing the image he's signaling something about the music he's making and the context he wants it received in. If it's ever received at all.
The shorter stuff
The mishegas surrounding Lizzo's monster hit and the tweet that was ripped off for its most famous lyric is only made better by the hilarious photo of the songwriting team suing her. (NYT)
These "Why Is Your Skin So Good" pieces in The Cut have to be made for us to hate the people featured in them, right? This reads like a gigantic troll. And if you can get through the Instagram video, then, wow. Good for you! (The Cut)
Vox publishes more than 200 podcasts. That's a lot! (Axios)
Netflix is cutting back on standup comedy specials. Great. Just when I was considering making one. (Bloomberg)
Future group chat flex? Sure, you’re verified on Instagram. But are you verified on iMessage? (Twitter)
The only way to get through Friends. (Vulture)
Rosalía reached a billion views for one video in 2019. (Twitter)
This review reads like it's April Fool's Day joke but it's a real movie apparently. Anyway, John Turturo is good. (Variety)
Mike Isaac's book about Uber is being made into a TV show by the same guy who does Billions and I will watch it. (Gizmodo)
I think it would be pretty funny if the '20s are one day remembered as the decade of the K-Pop Invasion the way the '60s are remembered for the British Invasion. Why not! (The Ringer)
Matthew Schneier says the Entertainment Weekly re-design looks like a "a 30lb. independent London fashion biannual." (Twitter)
This week's "I can't believe people really like Friends this much" moment. (NYP)
And this week's "I can't believe people really like The Office this much" moment. (Twitter)
At risk of sounding like Bob Lefsetz, I really liked Ezra Koenig's interview with Huey Lewis on Time Crisis this week! I'm at the very specific moment in life when "Hip To Be Square" rings true, so I really needed this Genius-like dissection of the lyrics with commentary from the man himself. (AVClub)
Great news about "New Sounds" on WNYC. (Twitter)