Traumatized Federal Workers, Michael Jackson’s Unreleased Songs, and the Genetic Startup Making Florescent Bunnies

Dear Fellow Trend Curator,

“Get ready to honor one of the earliest forms of restraint.” Ok, I know that’s an odd way to start this week’s email but I had to do it considering today is National Handcuff Day. You have to love when marketers create random holidays for PR reasons … though I’m not exactly sure who’s winning with this one.

Unnecessary holidays aside, it’s the usual chaos over here as the two week countdown to SXSW in Austin starts. Once again I’ll be debuting a new talk from the big stage and this year it’s all about the secrets of understanding people—a new angle on my usual non-obvious thinking keynote. If you’ll be going this year, here’s a full list of all the gatherings and meetups that we’ll be hosting. I hope to see you in person!

For stories this week, there’s a pretty unique blend of topics from questionable genetic research to the manufactured controversy around 12 unreleased songs from the great Michael Jackson. In other stories, you’ll read about why directors are only casting actors with huge IG follower counts, how Dove is trying to reclaim the universally hated word “moist,” a new startup that lets anyone hire “goons with guns” to guard them and why some people need less sleep than others.

Enjoy the stories this week and stay curious!

Open AI Launched a New Brand Look and Expensive Super Bowl Ad … Made by Humans

Open AI has launched a cohesive new brand identity and look which was also featured in their first Super Bowl Ad last week. The campaign was developed by an in-house team led by a former Creative Director from Mercedes-Benz and includes work from Berlin-based type foundry ABC Dinamo and motion partner Studio Dumbar in Rotterdam. The branding looks excellent and has been getting strong reviews amongst marketing and design critics as well. It’s also inspiring a decent amount of ironic observations that the company which invented the technology that was supposed to make brand design obsolete opted to engage a team of human professionals to redo theirs instead of relying on their own algorithms to do it.

Designer Max Hofert had one of the most entertaining responses, releasing a series of posters on Instagram using the custom Open AI font which he scraped off the internet while quoting Open AI founder Sam Altman’s belief that “on the Internet means fair use.” Conclusion: when you need great design, humans are still the ideal choice to get it done.

This Genetic Engineering Startup Wants to Make Fluorescent Bunnies and Actual Unicorns

In case you needed more life imitating fiction, a startup known as The Los Angeles Project is using gene editing to experiment with doing some “crazy” things to animals—including making glow-in-the-dark rabbits, cats that are hypo-allergenic and maybe, one day, actual unicorns. As founder and biohacker Josie Zayner says, “I think, as a human species, it’s kind of our moral prerogative to level up animals.” The actual motto of the company from their website and social media is “We Build Life.”

Clearly there are Jurassic Park inspired concerns here about the unintended side effects of this experimentation. Particularly because the animals are engineered “without the ability to reproduce” which is quite literally the thing that didn’t work in Jurassic Park.

On the plus side, their work will inspire new questions and debates about what the limits and regulations around this sort of genetic research and experimentation should be. When asked about this, Zayner did have the most John Hammond-esque response: “The crazy thing is, this technology is so advanced, and nobody’s doing shit with it. That’s kind of our motto: Let’s do stuff with it.”

Hopefully that “stuff” doesn’t involve frog DNA which can switch genders so we end up with a world overrun with fluorescent bunnies and experimental unicorns. Then again, maybe the unicorns wouldn’t be so bad.

Why Directors Are Only Casting Actors with Lots of Instagram Followers

A big presence on social media may have seemed like a nice-to-have for creators but in the case of Hollywood films, there’s growing evidence that it may already be a necessity. In a recent interview with Variety, actor Ethan Hawke shared some observations about the growing role a social media platform is taking in casting decisions for projects and even if those projects get the green light from studios and funders in the first place:

“Sometimes I’ll be setting a movie up and someone will say, ‘Oh, you should cast Suzie.’ I’m like, ‘Who is she?’ ‘She has 10 million followers.’ I’m like, ‘OK cool, has she acted before?’ ‘No, but…’ And you’re like, ‘Wow, so this is going to help me get the movie made? This is crazy.’”

There are directors who are being told by producers that they need to only cast actors who have a certain number of followers in projects. The most disconcerting part is that in some situations a follower count may be more important than talent. In a world where engagement, real connection, training and even the truth take a back seat to that one number in your profile … having a high follower count can directly affect someone’s livelihood. Reading this, I wonder if there are other industries beyond entertainment that will experience this same effect. What do you think?

The Manufactured Controversy Around Michael Jackson’s 12 Unreleased Songs

Michael Jackson recorded 12 songs with his longtime producer Bryan Loren that were never released to the public. According to multiple sources, the songs have been collecting dust in the archives of the estate run by MJ’s family. Recently cassette recordings of these songs were found in the bottom of a box somewhere and now an auction house wants to sell the recordings to the highest bidder. The estate wants to block the sale, noting that the original copyright belongs to them so even if someone were to buy the cassettes, they wouldn’t be able to release them. The controversy is likely to drive the auction value even higher, and the auction house is planning to go ahead with the listing anyway. The question of whether the recordings will ever be heard by the public is still uncertain—so for now there is no news for Michael fans about whether the songs will be released.

The interesting thing about this story, aside from the fact that there have been unreleased songs sitting around somewhere for this long, is how easy it would have been for this whole story and “controversy” to be manufactured. The estate could have a part in the profits of the sale, the songs could be released any time and the price could be driven up just through the backstory of the disagreement. This isn’t meant to be a cynical take on the whole story, but I do find myself sometimes using this thinking process to see the story behind the story. Often, that’s more illuminating than the main headline everyone is watching anyway.

The Non-Obvious Media Recommendation of the Week

Teen Vogue

I have been reading Teen Vogue magazine since it was in print (which they ended back in 2017 when they went digital only). As well, it is an example I often use from the stage of a media publication that I have no reason to read other than engaging my own curiosity. Teen Vogue challenges me with perspectives I haven’t seen elsewhere, products I didn’t know existed and celebrities I’ve never heard of.

In short, it’s the perfect publication to help me have empathy for a world that is different from the one I usually see. Teen Vogue does that for me and if you’re anyone other than a teenage girl, it will probably do that for you too. Beyond the advertising and pop culture coverage, some of their long read articles are also illuminating about everything from politics to history to business. While recommending a fashion magazine for young people may seem like an odd choice for my Non-Obvious Media Selection of the Week, I guarantee you that this one might just surprise you.

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week

The Long View by Richard Fisher

What will it take to transform the way the world views time? Richard Fisher, a senior journalist with BBC Global News, explores this question and shares ways to expand our minds into deeper time scales in his book The Long View. While it seems like this would be a book just about time, what’s fascinating about Fisher’s writing and research is that he looks at it from many different dimensions. In this wide-ranging book you’ll learn about linguistics, architecture, global cultures and why the way that we often talk about time is missing a lot of detail. When I first read this book, it was so intriguing that I invited Richard onto my podcast to talk about some of the biggest ideas in the book. You can listen to that episode here >> 

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Bookshop.org

About the Non-Obvious Book Selection of the Week:

Every week I will be featuring a new “non-obvious” book selection worth sharing. Titles featured here may be new or from the backlist, but the date of publication doesn’t really matter. My goal is to elevate great books that perhaps deserve a second look which you might have otherwise missed.

Even More Non-Obvious Stories …

Every week I always curate more stories than I’m able to explore in detail. Instead of skipping those stories, I started to share them in this section so you can skim the headlines and click on any that spark your interest:

How are these stories curated?

Every week I spend hours going through hundreds of stories in order to curate this email. Looking for a speaker to inspire your team to become non-obvious thinkers through a keynote or workshop? 

Watch my 2024 speaking reel on YouTube >>

This Non-Obvious Insights Newsletter is curated by Rohit Bhargava.Copyright © 2024 Non-Obvious, All rights reserved