INTAKE #38
GEN Z BLOWS UP THE MARKETING FUNNEL. YOUTUBE NEW THREATS. WES ANDERSON. COLLEGE RADIO. LA HAIN AT 30. SARAH VAN RIJ. STUDIO SEARCH. DANCEFLOOR PHONE BANS. KEN FULK. POWDER HAVEN. GENESIS MISSION.
“Create like a child, and edit like a scientist”
- Tyler the Creator
Since its Black Friday, and I was late, this week’s free. Also, a good way to see the total content in these; they do take time to produce, around 30 hours a week, so if you’ve got the means support, and if you’d like a free subscription, reach out.
Gratitude brings you into the present moment. I’m most thankful for a pause, to literally do nothing for a few days. Thanksgiving arrives artfully at what for many is the busiest time of the year. Take the moment to completely unplug.
I’m not sure if this is a shared experience but the fourth quarter in my world is absolutely insane. Our busiest season, and this year threw me a curveball, having to find a new studio in under 20 days. I write about this below, and through the experience realized there’s a longer article to share with everything I learned, which I hope other artists or anyone in the market for raw commercial space will find useful.
That said, it completely took over, and for that reason I’m a few days late on this weeks’s article.
This week
Gen Z is officially dismantling the classic marketing funnel, ditching mindless social commerce for IRL inspiration and in-store purchases while crowning YouTube the new king of influence over Instagram and TikTok.
Intake #38 dives into that seismic shift, new threats to YouTube’s dominance as a platform, Wes Anderson’s enduring visual language, the 30th anniversary of La Haine, dance-floor phone bans sweeping clubs, Ken Fulk’s maximalist empire, and my own chaotic 20-day sprint to lock down a new studio in Manhattan. Plus Sarah van Rij’s photography, college radio’s stubborn magic, the White House’s new Genesis Mission for AI-driven innovation, and why Powder Haven might be the most underrated ski town in America.
OLD MARKETING TRICKS DON’T WORK ON A NEW GENERATION
If you work in marketing, have a product or brand, or just want to understand the consumption habits of Gen Z, this digital feature in Vogue is a visual breakdown of how they’ve completely broken the old playbook. (It’s a product of a study done by Archival, a youth culture agency.)
The primary marketplace of social media has evolved, as younger generations have grown up inundated; they are savvy to algorithmic feeds. Instagram has actually fallen to 3rd place in influence.
The ‘metaverse’ didn’t hit for them, they see it as something ‘pushed on them’, a generation so used to technology it’s not novel to them, and brands investing too heavily in digital may be missing out on major opportunities IRL.
The area of frictionless social commerce is ending. Youth reject ‘mindless’ shopping and are now looking for Inspiration online and and are shifting to IRL retail and experiences.
Social media like instagram, is evolving into a search platform, it’s where they research products and trends, rather than purchase. Over 70'% of Gen-Z would prefer to purchase in store, this is a big 180 from millennials who overwhelmingly prefer to shop online.
74 per cent of Gen Zs think IRL experiences are more important than digital ones (compared to 66 per cent of millennials).
3 years ago, we took a bet on Experiential Retail and immersion as a counterweight to digital over saturation. We took on 10,000 square feet in rock center, building out a venue that was designed from the ground up to support experiences. We took all the learnings from our own pain points when producing events, from the cost of bringing in AV, to lack of large modular spaces with cutting edge technology and used that to inform the design of HERO.
Mainstream is edging on niche, teens have indexed away from mainstream for generations, however there is a growing willingness with Gen-Z to embrace more ‘mass’ taste, a different directional trend than millennials.
Doomshopping and over extension. 32% of Gen Z say they’re living beyond their means, 84% have used Buy Now Pay Later platforms and 87% believe they buy more than what they need. Doomshopped purchases are giving guilt rather than joy.
There is a LOT of great info, stats and learnings in this research, I highly recommend a deeper read of the whole report.
YOUTUBE’S SUCCESS PUT A TARGET ON ITS BACK
I’ve written a lot about YouTube’s meteoric rise this year, becoming the most powerful platform on earth (See Hollywood Reporters ‘YouTube just ate TV).
The media landscape is a cage match with sharks though, and YouTube’s success may have put a target on their back. Other platforms with real money to spend are looking at the creator economy playbook and acting accordingly.
Netflix for example is paying attention, inOctober announcing a partnership with Spotify, to bring video versions to a slate of 16 podcasts which will also prevent those shows from airing in entirety on YouTube (NYT). They are also talking to iHeart and SiriusXM for similar deals. 79% of monthly podcast listeners now watch video versions at least sometimes, per Acast data.
By April 2025, YouTube had absolutely dominated Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge, claiming a record 12.4% share of TV viewing in the U.S. its third straight month at the top and the platform’s best showing ever. YouTube’s ad revenue alone outpaced Netflix’s total haul last quarter ($10.6B vs. $9.8B), and when you add subscriptions like Premium and Music, it’s 1.5x bigger.
YouTube now has to retain top talent they have grown or brought over to the platform. YouTube’s first Creator Premieres showcase to present new programming from top creators like Ms. Rachel (her first holiday special) and Trevor Noah (a stand-up special dropping December 2025) was a film festival style event at New York’s Metrograph theatre. It’s basically YouTube’s version of TV upfronts, pitching to advertisers and showing how creator-led content is the future.
The stakes are high, homegrown talent like Mr.Beast signing a reported $100m deal with amazon for Beast Games is an example of the flight the platform must defend against. The show became Amazon’s #1 single source of new customers in 2024.
Ms. Rachel, with 13.1 million YouTube subscribers, could be a prime opportunity for Netflix to convert a dedicated fan base to a paid audience Fortune. Her videos typically rake in millions of views, with her most popular attracting 1.1 billion hits
YouTube has paid out $70B to creators over three years at a 55/45 split, but the opaque demonetization is something that rivals could exploit.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos sparked controversy at a Paley Media Council event in March when he compared YouTube to the minor leagues, suggesting it’s a place for creators to “cut their teeth or develop an idea” before graduating to Netflix.
“There’s a difference between spending time and killing time. We’re in the how-you-spend-time business”
- Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos
The war for creator talent represents a fundamental shift in how traditional media views YouTube. No longer dismissible as user-generated content, YouTube has become, as one creator put it, “the epicenter of culture” The Hollywood Reporter.
WES ANDERSON. THE ARCHIVES
At The Design Museum London is exhibiting over 600 models, props and costumes from Anderson’s films. Opening this month and running into July of 2026.
Anderson is so practical in his process, he makes real tangible things and thats going to make for an incredible exhibit. One of my favorite Anderson ‘tricks’ is the incredible cross section esque’ cuts he does. Used heavily in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, where the whole submarine was a scale model the camera would pan around with different scenes unfolding.
COLLEGE RADIO STAYS ALIVE
88.9 WERS holds a special place in my heart, and beautifully it’s still live on air.
When I was in high school, I worked at a bike / ski shop, building bikes in the summer and tuning, mounting skis all winter. The beauty of this job was we were in the BACK and got left alone for the most part, to just tinker with tools and listen to music. Radio is deeply connected in my mind with this beautifully bliss time in my life.
Radio provides two things you can’t get with Spotify, banter and curation. Yes you can get algorithmic playlists, but I’ve found they repeat, and rarely serve deep cuts. The New York times has an article on how against the odds, college radio stations are still thriving. The quirky human uniqueness is exactly what makes these stations so compelling, real students playing whatever they like on real records, not algorithms.
The best radio, is student run, because its pure in a few forms. I remember reading how you stop discovering new music after 30, not sure this is 100% but I get the argument. When your young, in college etc, you have TIME, and you used to have a T-1 and limewire, although that’s no longer necessary.
Big radio has advertising and studio adjacent agendas, its why you’ll hear whatever hits are supposed to be hits, 10 times an hour. So let the college stations keep putting you on to the more esoteric, they really are the best stations.
Whenever I’m driving, I always try to find a local college radio station and just let it run, I promise you’ll get the best curation. Whats great now is their all available online.
suggested read: Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio by Katherine Rye Jewell
LA HAIN 30th ANNIVERSARY
I’m late to this, but one of my favorite films marked its 30th anniversary this year and will get a 4k re-release treatment. This is THE seminal Mathieu Kassovitz film, winning him best director at Cannes that year.
It is timeless, cinematically near perfect and has a banging soundtrack. If you haven’t seen this movie, do yourself a favor.
THE COLLAGES OF SARAH VAN RIJ
The imagery and hand made collages of Dutch photographer Sarah Van Rij caught my eye. Her compositions in her candid street photography, utilization of color in parallel with black and white all are incredibly striking.
The hand made collages for her newest show and books is what really grabbed me. A body of her work will be on view at MEP paris from December 11th where you can see these large scale collages.
I print my photographs, lay them out across the floor, cut them by hand, and rebuild them piece by piece. There is something grounding in touching the paper, in rearranging shadows and silhouettes, in literally reconstructing my own images.
See her books on Note Editions.
NY DANCEFLOOR PHONE BANS
Phone Ban on NYC Dance Floors Is Getting Rave Reviews (NYT)
Berlin’s been on this tip for a minute, take your phone out / start recording anything and you’ll be looked at like a total asshole, people will actually tell you to put it away.
The phone has so absolutely ruined nightlife, by making something meant for connection performative, that many of the more music focused venues in New York are finally banning phones. House of Yes, Elsewhere, Book Club Radio and a lot of parties have taken to stickering phones and making it generally a faux paux to bring them out on the dance floor.
I wrote about the stark difference pre and post 2011 in my nightlife article over the summer, Social media and phones with cameras created a noticeable vibe shift. by 2025 its just a wall of phones for any noteworthy performance. I can only imagine how uninspiring it must be to be on stage looking out at a sea pf phones, theres no energy in that.
Its good to see venues willing to trade off social media and UGC marketing in exchange for a quality experience.
Raw Cuts, and Book Club radio make the point of throwing no phone parties, which are documented by far better content teams and then distribute the assets after, you get to be present and get better shots sent to you the next day.
SPOTTING EMERGING ARTISTS
The Art Bystander’s article on Substack in regards to spotting emerging artists, is valuable for both collectors and artists themselves. The notes apply both ways as either things to be looking for, or if your an artist, aspects to be looking for in your own practice.
Core ingredients: A distinct voice, a visual language that belongs only to that artist, Discipline (consistent production), and trajectory.
Not all exhibitions are equal. A single well-curated institutional group show can outweigh 20 unfocused small gallery appearances.
The Art Bystander
MY STUDIO PRACTICE
Finding a new home for my painting has been a cage fight. This search has been all consuming, well over 50 places, from dawn to dusk the past two weeks, I’ve got so many brokers texting me its all a blur. I’ve run around this city and the surrounding Burroughs so much in the past two weeks it’s actually re-invigorated my ‘New Yorkness’ to a level I haven’t felt in years.
I’ve got learnings, I’m going to share them, its an article’s worth on it’s own. The good sites, the studio buildings, a storage unit in Downtown Brooklyn with secret commercial spaces, I’ve seen a lot in two weeks.
A looming expulsion from my current studio has put positive pressure on squeezing as much as I can out of the time I have left there. I’ve had 3 studio visits over the past week and have been working on two final pieces out of this space.
More of my process and painting practice on my studio site.
ON SUCCESSFUL COLLABORATION
Ralph Lauren’s partnership with TÓPA shows how a major fashion brand CAN smartly navigate cultural heritage and design without stepping on the landmines of appropriation.
The answer is through collaboration at a design, business, and philanthropic level. A first critical step is outward acknowledgment of designers, in Lauren’s case Partners-turned-founders Jocy and Trae Little Sky were brought into the Artist in Residence program. This program creates mutually beneficial capsule collections with artisans and designers, sharing revenue and directing portions of profits to chosen causes.
In this case 5% of the purchase price goes to Thunder Valley CDC’s Lakota Language and Education Initiative.
HERMES HAS PAID 72 ARTISTS SO FAR THIS YEAR
“Drawing is everything at Hermès, and everything starts with drawing.”
Pierre-Alexis Dumas
2025’s theme was “Drawn to craft”, a genius way for the brand to engage illustrative talent across a broad spectrum. Its awesome to see a commitment to hand drawn artistic craft, and to see a luxury brand at the highest caliber opening their platform of 15 million + to such a wide range of artists.
Thats MORE than an artist a week and a month left in the year.
KEN FULK IN FT
Our good friend Ken Fulk with a feature in FT, on how to artfully spend money for the ultra-wealthy. Fulk is featured alongside Ellidore and Feté, two other businesses with the niche specialty of travel and experiences for the .01%.
It’s an interesting space, that sits adjacent to the luxury work I’m doing with MATTE, we typically work with brands, whereas these companies all work with individuals, or families. Goals change, almost inversely from awareness to privacy, the stakes are high in all cases.
Ken plays in a world of imagination, more specifically he specializes in realizing dreams down to the nuanced detail. From interior design to “meaningful experiences”, Ken has long been a sought after talent for designing the lifestyles, homes and haunts of the 1%. His customer base, the ultra-wealthy share a common scarcity, time. The events and worlds ken builds aim to make the absolute best use of that most valuable thing.
“It’s not about impressing people, but imprinting memories,”
- Ken Fulk
Last year, we had a wonderful time bringing kens physical world digital, creating a playground website that also launched his first ever product collection and e-commerce. The fact that ‘FULK YEA’ is emblazoned across the page sums up how whimsical he was willing to take things.
We also developed this painterly illustration style across all of the categories, allowing content flow to the site without requiting photography of all assets. Big ups to Rei for nailing this aesthetic.
His more permanent touch points have become institutions in themselves, major food groups properties (Carbone, Dirty French, ZZ’s et all), Hotels, and homes (and second, third, fourth…) of titans.
Ken’s love letter to the Beverly Hills Hotel, as he takes on the challenge of creative directing this iconic property.
A favorite call out from the article; “Hot waiters cost more,”
Immediately the comments on FT’s post stood out, there is a noticeable tall poppy syndrome playing out, especially in social media forums. The K shaped economy is real, and people are projecting a real distain for anything tied to wealth or excess.
I’m curious though, how much of this is bot driven to ‘trigger’ conversation, as some light searching shows the average FT readers household income at £239,000 - 32% of readers are high-net-worth individuals (Liquid assets over £1) and 9% are ultra-high-net-worth (over £5 million)
NEW HOMES AVAILABLE AT POWDER HAVEN
Powder Haven has had an interesting trajectory, several developers have tried, fought for the permits and failed to build a new mountain with a stated goal of more seclusion, and less crowds.
I remember when Summit Series bought the mountain in distress for $40 million back in 2011 when we first started MATTE, we helped with some promo videos around the ‘summit on the slopes’ events. It was one of those things, like FYRE, when someone tells your their building a ski resort from scratch, it feels so outlandishly bold it’s hard to take serious, especially when it’s ambition is to be the largest mountain in North America by skiable acres.
The Summit team found out the hard way, facing a multitude of challenges while pushing this rock up a hill. Then in 2023, Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings came up to the plate, initially one of the early home owners in the project, Reed came on board as a major investor putting $100 million into the project.
Since then the project has really taken off, houses are actually getting built, the first batch of homes sold out in 3-4 months, now a new batch of 34 custom lots will hit market starting at $4 Million.
There is an art component as well (NYT), a few years back our friend Alexander Zhang joined as Chief Creative Officer to pursue the vision of creating a ‘storm king’ in the mountains. Matthew Thompson of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art now acts as a consultant and curator with Zhang. They have been acquiring incredible site specific works from blue chip artists such as James Turrell, Paul McCarthy, and Gerard & Kelly.
Privacy, lack of crowds and a close-knit community take ques’ from Yellowstone Club, the OG private mountain. Mountain membership will be limited to 650 families in total.
LUXURY GROCERY INSANITY
Yes I’m excited meadow lane finally opened in my neighborhood. No I wouldn’t wait 2 hours for it, although I’m pretty sure my wife did, or she met someone who waited and then cut everyone, using our infant as a deflector shield of cuteness, something like that.
Groceries as luxury items is nothing new, I’m pretty sure New York had Dean & Deluca (RIP) before LA had Ehrewon, it just seems things have gone full tilt. Dean and Deluca and Zabars were packed to the brim, whereas these new iterations are aesthetically sparse, selling scarcity more akin to The Row. We have entered the era of ‘hypebeast grocers,’ grocery shopping has become a performative act. In 2023 the cut ran a dark article on people going into debt to shop at Ehrewon.
Sammy Nussdorf (@brokebackcontessa) has become a mini star just documenting his journey of opening Meadow lane on Tiktok, he’s kept us waiting a year, or the city has with ‘the permits’, but the hype is a real driving force.
Is the food that great? I’ve head the prepared items are, and theres a lot of them, I’ve also head the produce isn’t anything you can’t get at whole foods. Right now their winning on presentation, hype and quality prepared food, I want them to succeed.
The question is Does New York need another luxury grocery store (new york times). The success of Happier Grocer and Rigor hill shows there IS appetite for extremely high end, expensive food. Rigor hill on any given Sunday has about 50 people outside.
As with the Ken Fulk article above, the comments go OFF, people love a billionaire family target, exorbitantly priced food is a hot topic when some are struggling to eat.
Further reading: I-D magazine’s The Emperor’s New Grocer.
WERE GETTING NEW SCAFFOLDING!
“For too long, hideous scaffolding has overshadowed the beauty of our incredible city.”
- NYGOV
The sidewalk shed, ubiquitous with New York City, is finally getting a glow up. This is something that can find bi-partisan support, tearing down the ghastly scaffolding that plagues our city. NYC has unveiled new scaffolding designs, along with new laws going into effect in 2026 to enforce the ‘timely façade and construction work’
SALONE RARITAS
The organizers of Salone del Mobile Milano have announced the launch of a new collectible design platform named “Salone Raritas” which will debut at the 64th edition of the trade fair this April.
The focus will be on Curated icons, unique objects, and outsider pieces. Raritas is another example of the rising interest in collectible design. Luxury purchase intent is shifting from bags, clothing and accessories into the design object space. We’ve seen this with the growth of Basic Space (Vogue), Design Miami, and now a new player with Raritas.
GENESIS MISSION
On November 24th a new executive order was signed launching Genesis Mission, a National AI program on a scale not seen since the Manhattan Project. Lead by the department of energy, the core of the project is to create a central repository of scientific knowledge, then link that with the “best supercomputers, AI systems, and next-generation quantum systems with the most advanced scientific instruments in the nation” (DOE).
Our knowledge system is fragmented, scientific papers, research and progress is spread across a multitude of universities and private sectors. Access to supercomputers and rich datasets is equally fragmented. Genesis Mission aims to focus our scientific pursuits, and power them with breakthrough tech.
“Genesis Mission will unleash the full power of our National Laboratories, supercomputers, and data resources to ensure that America is the global leader in artificial intelligence and to usher in a new golden era of American discovery.”
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright
From energy.gov: The Genesis Mission will focus three key challenges of national importance:
American energy dominance: Advanced nuclear, fusion, and grid modernization using AI to provide affordable, reliable, and secure energy for Americans.
Advancing discovery science: Through DOE’s investment and collaboration with industry, America is building the quantum ecosystem that will power discoveries—and industries—for decades to come.
Ensuring national security: DOE will create advanced AI technologies for national security missions, deploy systems to ensure the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, and accelerate the development of defense-ready materials.
The official website, one of the first products of the new National Design Studio looks so refreshingly modern, its not at all what you’d expect from a government website.
This is a product of another national initiative, “America by Design,” to improve the design and usability of federal services lead Airbnb Founder and RISD Grad Joe Gebbia. He’s building a design studio with a mission statement of “Modernizing the interfaces that serve everyday citizens”.
A tall order but when you get into it, a very important one. Currently there are 26,000 websites run by the government, they are clunky, extremely dated and riddled with wasteful contracts and old code. If this design studio can chip away and modernize our UX on everything taxes to passport applications I’m all for it. Anyone who’s tried to renew their drivers license can attest to the bad design experience.
GEMINI 3
Every time a new model drops, it “blows everybody out of the water”, this is true while also showcasing how exponential the growth is in this space.
Last quarter it was Grok, now its Google’s Gemini pulling in front. At the beginning of the year there was a lot of conversation around Google’s search getting decimated by chatGPT, google’s done a solid job of staying in the game, now pulling ahead.
Google has a massive dataset to draw upon as well, by offering products like Gmail for free in exchange for data they have a major advantage.
The benchmarks are interesting, I was familiar with humanities last exam but not vending bench;
Models are tasked with making as much money as possible managing their vending business given a $500 starting balance. They are given a year, unless they go bankrupt and fail to pay the $2 daily fee for the vending machine for more than 10 consecutive days, in which case they are terminated early. Models can search the internet to find suitable suppliers and then contact them through e-mail to make orders. Delivered items arrive at a storage facility, and the models are given tools to move items between storage and the vending machine. Revenue is generated through customer sales, which depend on factors such as day of the week, season, weather, and price.
It shows how versatile agentic use of AI is becoming, this isn’t just about search query and writing anymore, this is about completing complex tasks such as running a business, for a duration.
Google has also been using video games to train its agents, placing them in complex 3d worlds and having them attempt to complete complex tasks. Game worlds are a perfect environment to train on complexities of spacial physical worlds where they can rapidly game out various scenarios.
“We’re asking it to actually understand what’s happening, understand what the user is asking it to do, and then be able to respond in a common-sense way that’s actually quite difficult,”
Jane Wang, a senior staff research scientist at DeepMind
A Japanese woman married an AI persona, using augmented reality so she could see her digital partner which she built. (Independent)
BOOK RECCOS
Macnally’s fresh soho window update for November is a great example of the importance of curation and your local independent bookstore. Every few weeks they update this, and its a constant inspiration across photography, art and design. Yet another reason I love working in SOHO. This glance put me onto Archigram Magazine, Devin Allan’s Baltimore, and William Eggleston: The Last Dyes.
Cooper Union’s Archigram Magazine. A thought experiment from the 1960’s the publication was a call embrace experimental technologies and paradigms for living. It evolved into 10 issues of frontier design from a global network of architectural avant-gardes. Influences run the gammet from comic books to sci-fi, the materiality and structure of the issues were wild. Everything is composed in this book along with a supportive exhibit at cooper union which ran through November.
Last week Fairchild from Abri Mars put me onto Mutt art review. We stopped by the opening last Friday at White Columns. It’s a print only quarterly, zine format of critical opinions on contemporary art shown in and around New York. Basically a field guide for New York’s contemporary art scene.
Cultured’s best design books of the year. Into gifting season, this is a wonderful round up of everything from design forward cookbooks to the sketchbook of Muji’s iconic art director.
I wholeheartedly agree with “Technology is the story of daring optimism,” humanity time and again has gotten ourselves out of sticky situations via transformative advancements. Artifacts, is a visual journey through human ingenuity spanning five eras from 1965 to present. Its one part time capsule, another part inspiration and education on the incredible things we have invented in just 60 years.
Everything from semiconductors and barcodes to space exploration, personal computers, the internet and our current advancements in AI is brought to life in a beautifully visual way in this hardcover book.
My next read will be Against the machine, On the Unmaking of Humanity. It’s been recommended over conversation in a bar in paris last week. It’s about techno-capitalism, division by design and the forces driving humanity apart in our modern age. Fun light reading for sure, but important.
It takes effort to remain truly human in the age of the Machine
- Thats it for this week.
Love the La Haine shoutout.
That film is probably my biggest stylistic reference point. And yeah the YouTube/TikTok shift is real from the Gen Z side. The no-phones movement in clubs has definitely improved the vibes as well.