Day One FM

The World Cup is less than one month away. The lead up has been marred by craven opportunism, flagrant price gouging, and worst of them all—a Jelly Roll theme song. It’s the most potent symbol of where global football is headed—endlessly mediated, ultra-exclusive, and heavily commercialized—and what it’s leaving behind: the fans. Our guest this week is Thomas Gorton, the co-founder of unk Studio. We get his take on how to ensure brand collaborations feel generative to the culture rather than extractive, gamified upstart leagues like “Baller League,” how gambling has zapped the viewing experience, and the beauty of lower league football. 

They’ve got Hollywood ambitions, buzzy merch drops, and swarms of loyal fans (and drones). Why is Palantir, a shadowy data analytics company that many view as emblematic of America’s slide into an unaccountable surveillance state, building a brand universe? This week, our guest is Daysia Tolentino. She’s a freelance writer covering internet culture, with bylines in GQ, Teen Vogue, Vulture, and NBC News. She also writes the Yap Year newsletter on Beehiiv. We ask her about Palantir chore coats, her interview in GQ with Eliano Younes, the Head of Strategic Engagement at Palantir, and why tech’s pursuit of “good taste” is in bad faith and won’t work. 

Eli, Clara, and Trey are back together again and talking about what the proliferation of reading clubs reveals about how brands and savvy entrepreneurs are trying to literally capitalize on the analog bandwagon. We cover $1,000 reading retreats, friendship as KPI, and what makes attempts to scale and/or market “analog” succeed or fall flat.

Lauren McCarthy is the Editor-in-Chief of NYLON and the newly-relaunched NYLON GUYS. We asked her about the opportunity she identified to speak to young men at a moment in which the culture around what it means to be a man is often controversial (and a bit American Psycho-coded). We also discuss nightlife coverage, where and how Nylon finds rising talent, and the value proposition of a magazine profile in the age of TikTok.

Max Tani is the Media Editor at Semafor and co-host of the Mixed Signals podcast. He also writes the must-read Semafor Media newsletter every Sunday evening. Max is a longtime friend of the pod (and in real life) and we’re honored to have him on as our first guest. We wanted to get Max's take on some of the puzzling and contradictory phenomenons we're noticing in media. We discuss how long of a runway he gives the “dumb question” interview format, whether MrBeast is just a reskinned version of Home Makeover but with a creepier host, and why CNN’s fake podcast gamut was a misreading of why audiences don’t trust media.

Day One FM is now part of Side Projects: a strategy studio and creative outlet helping brands, marketers, and everyday people think critically about how advertising shapes the cultural landscape. Eli and Clara share some context about what Side Projects is and what this transition will look like for the pod: what’s new (our theme song, a studio revamp, and YouTube Channel) and what’s staying the same (great conversations and your hosts Eli, Clara, and Trey). To learn more about Side Projects, check out side-projects.co where you can subscribe to our newsletter and order our first print issue. 

We’re going on a break for a few weeks! But before we do, we talk about how the most sauceless couple you know are doing Carolyn Bessette and JFK Jr. cosplay, the viral Interview magazine piece about the “Finest Boys in Finance,” and why fashion was better when it was about the clothes, not the business.  Recommended this week:JFK (Dir. Oliver Stone)Angel's Egg (Dir. Mamoru Oshii)The Play PodcastBenjamin Edgar on Navigating Cultural Tipping PointsThe Verge’s Nilay Patel Believes Gen Z Will Revolt Against the “Brand Deal” Economy“Trend Bipolarity” and How Brands Kneecapped Cool

Nilay Patel is the editor-in-chief of The Verge and host of Decoder with Nilay Patel. The Verge is “about technology and how it makes us feel,” and Nilay knows people don’t feel so hot right now. We speak with him about how founders have never been more transparent about the negative impacts of their product, how AI products are actually bad, the poison that is prediction markets on our information ecosystem, why Gen Z will ultimately turn on the brand deal economy, and the moment he realized everything is just fans. Recommended this week:The Conquest of Cool by Thomas Frank

We dive into Greg Ip’s article in the Wall Street Journal talking about how people aged 65 and older are healthier, wealthier, and, essentially, propping up the entire American economy. We also discuss if brands are going to shift their attention towards the “silver economy,” stretched adolescence, rotisserie chicken, books as cultural signals, and the death/end of the mass-market paperback. Recommended this week:The Faltering by Tristan TaylorRonin (dir. John Frankenheimer)Canada - John Beltran and Placid Angels