John Frederick Kensett

Daisy Alioto on our hardest Dirt Prompt yet. Plus, a list of what we’re reading.

When we had our lifetime subscribers select the latest Dirt prompt, the winning choice seemed as easy and breezy as past hits such as “worst song ever” and “gas station order.” The prompt: “Which piece of media (music, film, painting, etc.) best captures our present moment?” 

I sent it to a carefully cultivated list of dirtlings and waited. And waited. It turns out that the “present moment” is not something that can be articulated in 30 seconds when one’s ability to define the zeitgeist is on the line. It was, in other words, an intimidating prompt to answer.

Eventually, I was able to coax some additional participants (and for those that answered quickly, we appreciate you as well). That desire to get it right—or fear of getting it wrong—perhaps that says more about the present moment than the prompt itself. — Daisy Alioto

Carina Imbornone

2Hollis's music... to hold contradictions so naturally--rage/nothing, hope/sadness, fem/masc, electronic/acoustic--is the cultural imperative.  

Hartford Gongaware

What to do with the present moment when we are told that the past isn't what we thought it was?  

Roberto Bolano's By Night in Chile (2000) anticipates, if not this moment, the moment we will look back and remember what we were doing when we saw the clouds on the horizon. It is a deathbed memory of what dies in darkness, of what we do and do not do when confronted with what is being done in our name.

In Bolano’s 1970s Chile, a priest and professor, Father Urrita, remembers being buttonholed for coffee by a shady businessman who confronts him in the street “as if he had known me all his life.” 

Father Urrita knows something is off. The man, Mr. Raef, flatters him, saying that he has recommended the priest for a “delicate mission” in Europe. At this first meeting, Father Urrita protests. He tries to refuse. But ultimately, he takes the job. When he returns from Europe, he’s complicit. Mr. Raef et al. convince him to take yet another job, teaching The General and his junta about communism—to collaborate, as it were, informing upon himself, his colleagues in Chile, and their movements. 

Uritta on his deathbed tells himself that, “An individual is no match for history,” and he’s right. As we can, we take refuge in escapism, or in perfectionism, our noses to whatever grindstone. The future is fragile. Tomorrow is no guarantee. 

So while it is tempting to celebrate the grand gesture (One Battle After Another), perhaps it should be the personal, parochial battles—of O Agente Secreto (2025), I’m Still Here (2024), and, yes, By Night in Chile—that we consider as we wonder where we are being taken. Where are they taking us, these monsters who rule the present moment?

Ethan Sawyer

Conner O’Malley’s Pipe Rock Theory skit comes immediately to mind. It somehow manages to both critique and contribute to the conspiratorial nature of the times. Just another example of everyday absurdity. 

Long Vo

In 2015, The New York Times released a video/article on D'Angelo meeting with former Black Panther Bobby Seale in Oakland, California during D'Angelo’s tour for his album “Black Messiah.” You can see the joy and admiration they have for each other as they discuss their contributions to political protest. Seale reminisces on the Black Panther party and how they tried to implement social programs (similar to what mayor elect Zohran Mamdani is trying to implement in New York with accessible childcare and transportation). For D'Angelo, it was the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri that compelled him to release his protest album “Black Messiah,” named after a term J. Edgar Hoover used to describe any black leader who could rise up and upset the status quo.

I’m still mourning D’Angelo’s death in October 2025. We are watching our country go through a full force Red Scare: We see a rise of anti-intellectualism and misinformation; we see the spirit of Hoover rise through our government. But as I listen to the “Black Messiah,” I have hope for the future.

“It’s about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and in every place where a community has had enough and decides to make change happen,” D'Angelo writes in the liner notes of the album. “Black Messiah is not one man. It’s a feeling that, collectively, we are all that leader.” 

Will Gottsegan

robert frost - a hundred collars

David Rudnick (and friend)

my friend kate says conner o malley

which i think is pretty fair

Charlie Baker

'This is America' by Childish Gambino... have you guys seen it?

[Editor’s note: We all saw it]

Rick Paulas

Probably Loops, a serialized walking audio mystery through Prospect Park: loopsprospectpark.com

But I will think up another

I could probably make a good argument for the Museum of Jurassic Technology in L.A.

Daisy Alioto

This tweet:

WHAT WE’RE READING

• Apple and Issey Miyake unite for the iPhone Pocket (Vogue)

• Gaza’s tech community reflects on two years of war (Rest of World)

• on san francisco (Kylie Bytes)

• ‘Big Short’ investor Michael Burry to close hedge fund (FT)

• Why Build-A-Bear is booming (Bloomberg)

• The tragic loss of Teen Vogue (CJR)

• Who got screwed when Vinyl Me, Please went bust? (Stereogum)

• Is avoiding embarrassment the only goal? (Many Such Cases)

• Pope Leo’s favorite films (Variety)

• is new media a term we should still be using? (8ball)

• The coolest girl on Earth seeks God (The Atlantic)

Visit CLONE.FYI for hourly updates on culture and technology.

Tyler Watamanuk on the Sony clock radio that endured for decades. This article originally ran on September 11th, 2025 in Prune.

At one point in time, a Sony Dream Machine clock radio sat on a third of American nightstands. First introduced in 1968, the Dream Machine became a quiet fixture of modern life. Before the poking sound of the iPhone’s “Radar” alarm haunted our psyche, the Dream Machine was our nightly companion: telling us time, waking us up, and playing our favorite radio stations out of tiny, shitty speakers. Then, Steve Jobs unleashed a monster, and we now all sleep inches away from our smartphones.

The Sony Dream Machine’s earliest designs were very much of the late 60s and early 70s. It was housed in warm wood paneling, with silver knobs, a black plastic display, and a charming mechanical flip mechanism for telling time. It was streamlined and utilitarian, but not without character. Over the decades, the design morphed and evolved to better align with American taste but the core functionality remained. In a 2010 Times article on the evolution of the clock radio, a writer noted that “there has hardly been a duller category of consumer electronics.”

I’m not so sure about that. Looking back through various iterations of the Dream Machine, what I see is a product that consistently mirrored the aesthetics of its era. Some dull, yes, but also some magic. Certain models had a sleek, almost high-design sensibility; others were more modest, awkward, and even cheap-looking. But they all tried their best, given the decade they were handed.

Take the cube era of the 1980s, for example—boxy, futuristic, with glowing blue digits and interfaces that wouldn’t look out of place in TRON. Another model from the time was especially loved for its rich red hue, a surprisingly bold choice for a bedside gadget at the time. (The Japanese lovingly nicknamed it the “Tomato” alarm clock.) The ICF-C30W felt geometric and intentional, with clean two-tone color-blocking and minimal ornamentation. Even if no model ever quite reached the rarefied heights of a Dieter Rams-designed Braun RT 20, the Sony designers delivered quite a few winners.

MORE FROM PRUNE

Stacks and stacks of Martha Stewart

www.prune.dirt.fyi/p/stacks-and-stacks-of-martha-stewart

Jonathan Anderson loves Lucie Rie

www.prune.dirt.fyi/p/jonathan-anderson-loves-lucie-rie

Steel on my mind

www.prune.dirt.fyi/p/prune-steel-on-my-mind

Bring back high-design cookbooks

www.prune.dirt.fyi/p/prune-bring-back-high-design-cookbooks

ICYMI…

• A fresh batch of Prune Clippings 

• A throwback to our interview with Geoff Rickly in honor of his new audiobook

• Our latest episode of TASTELAND with Adam Voith. We talked about being early to Geese, why you should be your own book publicist and Dijon's album rollout strategy.

Ep. 67: Don't forget the reader ft. Adam Voith

open.spotify.com/episode/7t7MfnZCU5bDpOXwKaPcuJ?si=e7c0e9a98f8041ed

WHAT WE’RE READING

• After 101 books, Martha Stewart is re-pitching her first one to Gen Z (The Washington Post)

• The future of advertising is AI-generated ads that are directly personalized to you (404 Media)

• The Louvre’s video surveillance password was… “Louvre” (Yahoo)

• Zohran Mamdani is hiring 👔

• The frantic search for blackmarket mango Juul (Cake Zine)

• The emperor’s new grocer (i-D)

• Joachim Trier’s nostalgic lens (The Nation)

• Alive Internet Theory 🧟‍♀️

Visit CLONE.FYI for hourly updates on culture and technology.

GIRL MOSS CHRISTMAS

Getting a jump on your holiday shopping? We still have a few hats in stock!

THE ORIGINAL Girl Moss Hat

shop.dirt.fyi/products/girl-moss-hat

Your favorite Dirt article says everything about you. But our archive is too extensive for one person to keep track of. If you’re new to the dirtyverse, or simply need a refresher, we asked our close friends which Dirt piece has stayed with them for months (or years) after being published.

Keep reading for some excellent Dirt on everything from ghosting to flip phones to plastic surgery to listening bars.

DAISY ALIOTO

The decay of lying

dirt.fyi/article/2024/12/the-decay-of-lying

Max Blansjaar critiques ‘honesty’ as an aesthetic priority in popular music.

TERRY NGUYEN

Grizzly man

dirt.fyi/article/2023/06/grizzly-man

Amelia K on the paracosm of an abusive relationship.

MICHELLE SANTIAGO CORTÉS

Animal Subordination

dirt.fyi/article/2024/07/animal-subordination

Miri Gordis on vegetarianism, trauma, and a way to “remake the unfolding of the world.”

WALDEN GREEN

That part of Twitter

dirt.fyi/article/2024/07/that-part-of-twitter

Allegra Rosenberg on her months spent trying to fit in at a Brooklyn “techno-commune.”

FRANCIS ZIERER

What was 'replying'?

dirt.fyi/article/2023/10/what-was-replying

Mariah Kreutter on what it means to “reply” in 2023.

GRETA RAINBOW

Flipping off death

dirt.fyi/article/2024/01/flipping-off-death

Daniel Kolitz on grief and the unique aura of flip phone photography.

PAULA MEJÍA

Botched pt. 1

dirt.fyi/article/2024/12/botched-pt-1

Emmeline Clein on a new social category.

BECKY MILLER

Louder in Japan

dirt.fyi/article/2024/11/louder-in-japan

Rob Arcand in conversation with Nick Dwyer about his documentary, A Century in Sound.

SOUNDS OF THE DIRTYVERSE

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025

open.spotify.com/playlist/33PsB88nIVCN7HlHCRlvtv?si=65a3a729f30742d2

Daisy Alioto in conversation with Geoff Rickly about his book Someone Who Isn’t Me, out today on Audible with an original score. This interview originally ran in July 2023.

Some reviews of Geoff Rickly’s novel Someone Who Isn’t Me (Rose Books, July 2023) will probably focus on the parallels between the book and Rickly’s biography. After all, the narrator and author share a name. Like Geoff, the main character works at a record label in Greenpoint, used to front a famous emo band, broke his nose onstage, had dealings with Martin Shkreli.

All reviews will mention the central resemblance: which is that Geoff, the character, treats his opioid addiction at an ibogaine clinic in Mexico through a supervised psychoactive trip that defies description—though Geoff Rickly, the author, has put pen to paper regardless. 

The result is a multi-structured journey through the narrator’s memory and consciousness that sometimes resembles a skyline and other times the smallest domestic spiral. Within Someone Who Isn’t Me, time and interiority have their own structures, and Rickly’s interest in the built environment jumps off the page. 

As his friend, I wanted to ask him about architecture and the inspirations that constructed such an invisible city of a book. 

Daisy Alioto: One of my favorite aspects of the book was the layered architecture. Was there a “room” or episode that you built everything around?

Geoff Rickly: I felt strongly that the ibogaine part should be all present tense. I wanted to give the reader an experiential thrill of “being there,” strapped in for the ride. But it complicated the first section of the book, Inferno, which is closer to natural realism. Having too much memory or reflection in the first part (especially anything in the past tense), made the non-sequential second part so confusing. So we largely stripped memory out of the first part and made it an aspect of the character’s addiction: how can he reflect when he’s constantly lost in withdrawal, getting high or lost in desperation for the next fix?

Instead we had to find a different architecture for memory.  It occurred to me that the dichotomy could also be viewed through the lens of internal life vs. external life. That’s where I started getting interested in architecture. What are the different forms that I might be able to build as my interior life? I wasn’t interested in the “memory palace” device that people use, I wasn’t worried about retaining information. Instead I became hyper-fixated on the idea of a “dream house” as a place that I might build inside my character as an interior space. 

I thought about a lot of your writing that I was reading at the time. Not just on architecture but on the concept of luxury, I understood finally that luxury isn’t always about buying something lavish but about the dream that we all carry with us for free. Anyone who’s ever gotten what they wanted has understood that the desire was where the power was. So I really started thinking about this dream house space: how I desired an interior that was the house of my dreams. 

As for the actual structure of the dream house, I went with a series of nested circles. Feldman Architecture, roundhouses, even early settlements based around round fortifications…these were the shapes that made sense to me. And I patterned this idea through the rest of the book: tree rings, chandeliers, children’s mazes, as well as sound waves in the form of echoes. 

DA: Tell me about the impact Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities had on the book. 

GR: Invisible Cities was a formative text for me. I read it my first year in college and it opened me up to the possibilities of fiction—I used to dream about someday making a comic book out of it. I’ve always been obsessed with the high-brow/low-brow collision. Pedro Almodóvar is my favorite director. I like things that are serious about play and playful with matters of life and death. Calvino is a big part of that sensibility. 

When structuring the episodic “flashback” sequence that grows increasingly surreal in the ibogaine section, I kept thinking of Invisible Cities—gesturing towards the boundaries between reality and fiction, as well as the past and the present, Calvino gave me a road map: what if Marco Polo was exploring his own interior world, instead of the vast corners of a kingdom? That was my starting point for the final chapter of the ibogaine section.

DA: Is it possible to embrace invisible architectures without dissociation? 

GR: I struggled for years with a way to dramatize the experience that I had when I took ibogaine. Every new scene that I wrote felt like I was grasping for a language that didn’t exist. No one writes about ibogaine. Even Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind (the hallucinogen omnibus) mentions ibogaine only as a footnote. It truly is too out there for even the most experienced drug user. So there was a process of building concepts that needed to predate my characters and plots. As the character explores the boundaries of their identity, the thing I kept returning to was: we all have hidden rooms inside of us, and those hidden rooms have magic wardrobes that lead to hidden worlds. 

I remember when I was really struggling with my own addiction, I told my mom “I don’t even know myself.” And she said, “Oh honey, none of us really know ourselves.” I think that is so true. It’s not that I “know myself” now… it’s just a matter of known unknowns.

MORE FROM DIRT

Oct 17, 2025 Hedi Boys "I’ve been a Hedi Boy for almost 7 years now." Aug 25, 2025 Two stories by Luke O'Neil "Undulating is a gross word but it is accurate."

ICYMI…

• Greta Rainbow started beaucoup discourse with her piece on braided essays

• We published Brittany Leitner’s essay on the whale costume that helped her escape poverty. Brittany was the runner up of our “the way we work” essay contest in collaboration with Lux. The story was co-published and supported by the journalism non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project’s James Ledbetter Fund.

• We announced our third podcast THE DESIRE QUESTION. The vibe is what if Esther Perel had a book club. You can learn more here. 💘

TOP NOTES

On October 30th we gathered with a small group of Dirt contributors to celebrate Halloween and conscript our guests into a perfume guessing game. We had two scents by Pearfat Parfum on hand to test, and sent everyone home with samples of Only a Witch Cat and Be Very Afraid.

Visit Dirt’s Instagram for more photos from the night.

THIS WEEK ON TASTELAND

Nick Susi joined us to talk about Cheeto dust, brand wars, and why we can't stop checking our phones. We dive into his viral essay about monoculture and conflict, the friend.com marketing spectacle, and whether going viral is actually good for anyone anymore. Nick also breaks down his obsession with the War of the Worlds radio broadcast.

Read an excerpt of our conversation below, or keep scrolling to listen to the full episode. 

Nick Susi: So some context for those not familiar. Orson Welles in 1938, almost 100 years ago, gave this radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, this adaptation of the H.G. Wells book about alien invasion. And instead of presenting this as a fictional story through the radio, he presented it as if it was live news.

And as the story goes, allegedly people heard it and believed that aliens were invading the earth—mass hysteria and panic, fleeing their homes, jumping out of windows, committing suicide, all the tales. And then Orson was subsequently mini-cancelled by 1938 terms and apologized and then went on to become one of the greatest Hollywood directors of all time. That's kind of the story that I hear a lot.

When I was working on this piece, I was asking a lot of friends and peers, like, are you familiar with the story? And every American said yes.

Francis Zierer: My mother, when I was a kid, told me a story about her father working at a gas station at that time and observing people panicked, coming and buying gas and such.

NS: I still hear this story frequently referenced, even more so now because it is one of these early stories of fake news before we had a word for it. So it feels very much in the cultural conversation. And it wasn't until about a year ago that I was actually doing more reading about this story and came to realize that the story that we've been telling for a hundred years is kind of wrong.

What actually happened was, at this point in time, 1938, it was a very historically significant moment. Middle of the Great Depression, horrible economic times of hardship. It was the year before World War II started—a lot of geopolitical tension and fear, Nazis and fascism spreading across the world. And it was when the radio as this new technology became more of a mainstream consumer object. The radio was invented prior, but it wasn't something in people's homes. Now you see photographs from then where the family's in the living room and they're sitting around the radio and listening to whatever. It was then that that was starting to happen.

And all of those things combined—the newspaper industry was taking a beating. More people were buying radios, listening to the radio for the news, buying less newspapers. Advertisers do what advertisers do—they follow the people to the radio broadcasters away from the newspapers. And it's the middle of the Great Depression. So all those things combined, the newspaper industry was doing worse.

And for that reason, the newspaper industry hated the radio broadcasters and they were doing as much as they possibly could to make the lives of radio people a living hell, especially in government. They were throwing their weight around, trying to get all of these laws and regulations put in place to cancel the radio, ban the radio, destroy the radio. And they were quite successful for a number of years putting real laws in place where the radio broadcasters were very restricted in being able to share the news, basically. They could only share news for like five minutes a day. They had to direct people to buy the local newspaper for more news. These were real laws.

And so it did so happen that Orson Welles gave this radio broadcast of War of the Worlds saying that aliens were invading the earth and people did hear it, but the scale of it was very relatively small. It was out of this CBS broadcasting station in New York. I think people probably around New York and New Jersey and maybe some other places heard it. We're talking like a few thousand people. And then the amount of people that heard it and were genuinely like, "fuck, aliens"—that was probably quite small.

However, the newspaper people heard this story and were like, "Aha, what a golden opportunity," and ran the story across every newspaper around the country, saying that this new evil magical radio technology was brainwashing people into believing that aliens were invading the earth as another step in their attempt to ban the radio.

And so that is the story that went viral by 1938 standards and is the story that we've been repeating and remembering a hundred years later to today.

I'm so fascinated by the story for so many reasons, because it says so much about our current relationship with media specifically, but also just—every level of this story, every layer of the story mirrors so much of today. Are we heading towards a recession or economic depression? Are we on the verge of World War III? Is TikTok going to be banned? People are worried about people believing everything they hear on social media and podcasts, widespread panic and hysteria about AI psychosis. It's all the same shit over and over again.

And I'm so tickled by the fact that there's so many lessons in this story and the only thing that we remember and keep repeating is that aliens were invading the earth. I think that says a lot about human beings. To me, this is a story about the human condition.

Ep. 66: War of the worlds ft. Nick Susi

open.spotify.com/episode/4Qmla9efSKm4B7BBo4Y5hy?si=bed30d13f6694a81

WHAT WE’RE READING

• Mrs. Meyer’s is finally on the fig train (Good Sillage)

• Sharks scale geometrically (Quanta)

• Andrew should answer Epstein questions in US, Democrats say (BBC)

• The witch economy is booming (WSJ)

• Woody Allen’s New York—and mine (The Nation)

• Weatherizing Salem (The Paris Review)

• The Interview Assassin (CJR) 

Visit CLONE.FYI for hourly updates on culture and technology.

ICYMI…

• Read Gillian Goodman’s essay on selling baby food and the American dream. Gillian was the winner of our “the way we work” essay contest in collaboration with Lux. The story was co-published and supported by the journalism non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project’s James Ledbetter Fund.

• Tyler Watamanuk talked to decorative arts influencer Alexander Widener about his newly acquired trove of vintage Martha Stewart Living magazines.

• Clone passed 160,000 visits!

THIS WEEK ON TASTELAND

Daisy Alioto and Francis Zierer chat with Cole Townsend, co-founder and lead developer of Sole Retriever and curator of the running and culture newsletter Running Supply.

They covered everything from Cole’s recent trip to Tokyo—complete with 7-Eleven egg salad sandwiches—to his reflections on the evolving intersection of running, fashion, and technology. Listen here.

Ep. 65: Run club ft. Cole Townsend

open.spotify.com/episode/6HmQLMfv62zZSRcXLYOxhL?si=ab40f57cf9d04559

Twitter tweet

WHAT WE’RE READING OR WHATEVER

• Michelle Branch covered Addison Rae (TikTok)

• Japanese convenience stores are hiring robots run by workers in the Philippines (Rest of World)

• My Internet: Alison Roman (Embedded)

• New York names a street in honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat (New York Times)

• The average cost of a family health insurance plan is now $27,000 (WSJ)

Visit CLONE.FYI for hourly updates on culture and technology.

ICYMI…

• We interviewed Fort Worth indie bookstore Recluse Books for Blank

• Highsnobiety’s deputy editor Claire Landsbaum came on Tasteland to talk about “radical legibility” and lo-fi magazines

• We released our October issue with Cab Broskoski on building a personal business, Ruby Justice Thelot on wearing Hedi Slimane, Daisy Alioto on what comes after the divorce book and Evan Collins on the brief design reign of Factory Pomo 

Twitter tweet

WHAT WE’RE READING

• Running a local paper? In this economy? (The New York Times)

• Lost Jack Kerouac story found among assassinated mafia boss' belongings (SFGate)

• Everyone is a strategist and no one is a writer (Gen Zero)

• Peanut allergies have plummeted in children (The New York Times) 

• AI data centers, desperate for electricity, are building their own power plants (WSJ) 

• How Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails changed the sound of movies (GQ)

Visit CLONE.FYI for hourly updates on culture and technology.

ICYMI…

• Drew Austin wrote about slop as a way of life

• Andy Bourne wrote about John McEnroe for STRUNG

• We still have some Chipped nail sets available on Metalabel if you’re looking to bump your Halloween costume up a notch

THIS WEEK ON TASTELAND

Francis and I talk with Jose Mejia, co-founder of Scene Infrastructure Company (SIC)—a startup building tools for the experience economy (or, as he puts it, “Shopify for events”).

We start with beverage talk and end somewhere between indie media strategy and the future of democracy. Along the way: Claude vs. ChatGPT, Anthropic’s “thinking caps”, Addison Rae at Iconic Magazines, Diet Coke theology, and whether you can still have consensus reality in a post-consensus world.

Ep. 63: Load-bearing leisure ft. Jose Mejia

open.spotify.com/episode/1dfDLaQdVHyXe9prnMoFUd?si=440c51188c1e4e47

WHAT WE’RE READING

• “THE DEATH OF THE COOL” (Chris Marino)

• IMF and BoE warn AI boom risks ‘abrupt’ stock market correction (Financial Times)

• Cafe Gitane was ‘a vanguard of cool.’ Now employees say they can’t get paid. (Grub Street)

• I used to dress to piss people off. Then, I grew up. (High Snobiety)

• Oldschool Rave Flyer archive 1989-2000+ from all over the US & Canada <3 (Flickr)
  
  Visit CLONE.FYI for hourly updates on culture and technology.

Drew Austin in Kneeling Bus. This piece was originally published in July 2025. Keep scrolling for headlines we’re following.

Yesterday morning, I walked past the small grocery store on my block and heard REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” emanating from inside. I’d usually ignore that kind of thing but here it suddenly struck me as absurd—it was 9:30 am on a weekday and there was absolutely no reason for that song to be coming out of an empty grocery store.

Not even annoying or dissonant, it was just the least appropriate accompaniment for the moment, in its own subtle way. And of course there was no reason for it—no person had chosen the song and the process that led to it playing then had no audience in mind. Music fills the aisles of retail businesses so reliably that it’s more notable to encounter silence, and usually the playlist is sonic wallpaper of the proto-Spotify Top 40 variety, but here the mismatch was just enough to nudge me out of my sleepwalk and make me smile. It was slop.

Lately the idea of slop has fascinated me. I’ve started seeing it everywhere and grasping for a more expansive definition of it. Slop is probably the definitive term of our current digital experience; it increasingly functions as shorthand for all of our vague frustration with digital technology. Although most people wouldn’t call that REM song slop, its appearance in that context fits my working definition: content as environmental filler, a choice that’s not quite right (but also not quite wrong), which nobody really wanted, probably unnoticed, meant to only register at a subliminal level, and put in place to negate a worse alternative: silence.

The popularity of “slop” as a concept points to something significant about how we experience digital culture in 2025, just as “algorithms” did last decade. In each case, the term’s usage gets less precise as it’s overloaded with everything we hate about the internet. And while the word itself becomes less meaningful, it reveals more about how we feel.

It’s tempting to define slop as Potter Stewart did pornography (“I know it when I see it”) but that would just further obfuscate an already murky concept. Today, “slop” implies AI more than anything else, and primarily refers to the AI-generated content that is flooding the internet. The subtext is that slop is being dumped on us against our will—that it’s something that happens to us—but that lets us off the hook far too easily. Most of the slop we see is still made and distributed by real people, often with no AI assistance.

WHAT WE’RE READING

• Instagram Story Likes and Markers of Digital Affection (being-on-line)

• Man who became popular in Blinking White Guy gif raises over $300,000 for multiple sclerosis research (The Guardian)

• The best place to eat Cypriot food in the UK (Vittles)

• Dashboard Culture vs. Camouflage Culture (Matt Klein)

• The Life and Death of the American Foodie (Eater)

Visit CLONE.FYI for hourly updates on culture and technology.

Smoky perfume, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, big wigs, fox skulls, The Sims…it’s fall in the dirtyverse. Here are some favorite stories from our archives.

Aug 27, 2025 Life and death at Balthazar

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Jul 23, 2024 Animal subordination

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Aug 8, 2024 Bad Witches

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Sep 24, 2024 Ways of peeling

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Oct 31, 2024 The Fox Skull

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Oct 29, 2024 Friday the 13th in Blairstown

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Apr 4, 2024 Ephemeral cities

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Apr 19, 2024 Ralph Lauren's very modern club chair

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Oct 11, 2021 Paparazzi hauntology

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Sep 22, 2021 Sim(mortality)

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Dec 7, 2021 Ephron interiors

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Aug 5, 2022 Prints charming

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Jul 29, 2022 Les Vampires

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Aug 26, 2022 Blair Waldorf, Patrick Bateman

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Sep 30, 2022 Sterling Cooper Draper Pierpoint

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Oct 8, 2022 Where there's smoke

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Oct 19, 2022 On Spookiness

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Nov 17, 2022 Expensive haunted houses

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Dec 15, 2022 The Real Housewives of Tilling

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Feb 8, 2023 Burning up in orbit

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May 9, 2023 Big wig

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Jun 12, 2023 Lonely heart

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Jul 31, 2023 Big swinging axes

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Oct 23, 2023 Hair Horrors

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Oct 19, 2023 Celebrity Death

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Oct 27, 2023 Straitjacket fashion

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Nov 16, 2023 What type of lurker are you?

ICYMI…

• Greta Rainbow wrote about why Thomas Bernhard is suddenly everywhere

• Tyler Watamanuk on Jonathan Anderson’s love of ceramicist Lucie Rie

• Adweek got the scoop on Dirt Media’s second podcast 

Casey Lewis was this week’s Tasteland guest. Casey Lewis is a youth consumer trends researcher whose newsletter, After School, is a must-read for anyone whose work requires selling or understanding Gen Z. She was also our first ever guest! You can listen to her first appearance here.

Francis Zierer: I've been saying a lot recently that the new “learn to code” is “learn to do marketing”. That's the core feature of the creator economy—it's all marketing. And if you’re good at getting a bunch of views or a bunch of engagement, that just means you're good at this specific type of marketing. And maybe increased interest in youth trends is because everybody on the Internet, avid Internet users at least, are essentially some kind of marketer, even if they don't necessarily think of themselves as such. You have to understand marketing to understand any social media. 

Casey Lewis:  I hadn't put those two together, but I have been interviewing a bunch of Gen Alphas for a forthcoming report. And one of them said that they believe that Gen Alpha will be the richest generation of all time because they're so good at marketing themselves. It was an 11 year old who said this! I didn't even make the connection that it's all because of the creator economy. That's how they are so aware of marketing as a concept. Mr. Beast is nothing if not a master marketer. As these kids are growing up, are we going to see an uptick in business school marketing majors because of this new interest? 

Daisy Alioto: This is more of a meta question about youth culture right now. Last time we talked, we were talking about this aspiration to normality, where if you look at the things that people are buying, it's like they want to signal that they are part of the mainstream. 

It seems like youth culture right now is pretty legible because people are broadcasting, “this is what I bought,” and other people are willing to go out and buy exactly what somebody else has. But I wonder if you think the pendulum might swing back to being a bit illegible, where youth culture is harder to discern because people are retreating from the internet. Or they’re being purposely cringe, confusing, edgy, something harder for advertisers to easily capture. 

CL: My thought on this is that the Gen Zers who are seniors in college or graduating are experimenting with style in ways that you aren't when you're a teen. I'm from a small town in Missouri and there was very little individuality. And the kids wanted to keep it that way, right? I was obsessed with fashion magazines, and I would go to thrift stores and find things like kitten heels, things I felt Atoosa Rubenstein from CosmoGirl would wear. But if I wore them to school, then people would be like, why are you dressed up?  And I’d feel like an idiot because I was trying to be different, and I'd decide I wasn't gonna do that again. I think many of those feelings or pressures still exist in high school, and now it's perhaps even worse since there's such a general sameness because of TikTok. Talking to my mom, who still teaches in rural Missouri, so many of the same trends are happening there that I see on Brooklyn teenagers. 

I do think some schools in Brooklyn have more individuality, and not just Brooklyn, but other places too. Missouri is one very specific example, but I do think that once you get to college or get out of college, you feel like you can try on different identities in a way that won't ruin your social standing at your small high school. 

Ep. 61: First day of school ft. Casey Lewis

open.spotify.com/episode/057vQHj1Uo6OaFvRXFEvUw?si=1486c5f5313648e1

WHAT WE’RE READING

• “The Covid pandemic prompted an unexpected, and enormous, spike in the American appetite for sushi.” (The New York Times)

• Hedge-fund stars are making so much now that they are hiring agents (WSJ)

• OUR SCOOP: Friend spent $1M on those NYC ads, close to half their remaining investment (Clone)

• The publishing industry has a gambling problem (The Walrus)

• What if the Post Office had its own AI model? (Max Read)
  

  
  Visit CLONE.FYI for hourly updates on culture and technology.

ICYMI…

• We released our September edition of Dirt. Read Zach Schonfeld on the long tail of Destroyer’s Kaputt, Francis Zierer on farming startups, Madeleine Adams on Jordan Castro’s Muscle Man, and Emily Jensen on the smell of matcha. 

• A new short story in Blank about feeling embarrassed while your wife buys you a birthday present. 😳

• A playlist of songs crowdsourced from our Discord.

Dani Loftus was this week’s Tasteland guest. In addition to editing Ick, she is a founder, writer and investor focused on the digital evolution of culture. Below is an excerpt from our conversation, keep scrolling for the full episode and links to what we’re reading.

Daisy Alioto: Dani, you told me about this book that I had actually never heard of that's being reissued with Apartamento called Happy Victims. Tell us about the book, because it’s an interesting consumer story.

Dani Loftus: First of all, I have a problem where I have to buy clothes all the time. Well, I'm not always buying clothes, but there's something that I find incredibly cathartic and stimulating at the same time about understanding where everything I want is, bidding on it and seeing how cheaply I can get it. It's what I do when I need to switch my brain off. The process of looking at clothes and then finding them very cheaply, there is no mental energy exerted there. It's a bit like going on Tumblr, with some type of financial component.

I also think clothes are an art form, which is the reason this book is very appealing to me. It's called Happy Victims, by photographer Kyoichi Tsuzuki. It starts with a beautiful quote:

“There is a kind of accepted hierarchy of collecting in society. At the top are books and fine art, then music, cars and so on. Clothes and shoes come at the bottom. Collectors of clothes don't command much respect, but I have great admiration for these people. That's why I call them happy victims. Many are shy young kids and this is like a salvation for them.” 

Because fashion is, or has been, inherently tied to the body or physical form, it's seen as inherently superficial in a way that fine art collection is not. And I disagree with that—I think there are insane quantities of craft and fashion at the top end. Just because buying fashion at the bottom end is common because there is a degree of physiological necessity to wearing clothes that there isn't with other art, it doesn't negate the fact that you could go to Times Square and pick up a $15 painting as well, or grab something in Soho for $15. And that is still art.

But fine art collection is so much more common, and as such fine art collectors have developed so much more of a narrative around themselves. This is not to mention the fact that historically, fashion collection and consumption has been seen as a traditionally female collector form, and thus has been further denigrated.

Francis Zierer: If you're comparing it to fine art, a fashion collection is like a photography collection in that there's usually multiples in fashion, usually much more multiples than in photography. Whereas with a painting, there's only one of each painting. 

DL: I think it is, but then I also have a couple of pieces where there are only three of them. And for me, the kick with anything is that I like to find stuff that I know is worth a bunch of money that nobody else knows about. And as my mum always said, I'd be a great vintage dealer if I wasn't obsessed with keeping everything. I have stuff from early John Galliano, when he was at Dior. And obviously whoever was selling it didn't know how much it was worth. In the same way as when you're collecting a fine art piece, it's imbued with the history of the piece and then the trajectory of the artist or creative who made it. 

There's also a difference because, in general, the way that you display fine art is static. If I have an art piece hanging on my wall, it being on my wall probably does not mean that it's going to be broken or atrophy over time. Every single time I wear a piece of clothing, though, it is in some way being ruined.

Ep. 60: Class and collection ft. Dani Loftus

open.spotify.com/episode/6gJ4ZmlQ9dG8B0FpZUbXJv?si=c78470fc73744730

WHAT WE’RE READING

• The Good Pervert (Harper’s)

• Natasha Stagg’s tour diary (The Paris Review)

• OpenAI’s research on AI models deliberately lying is wild (TechCrunch)

• Starbucks workers sue over company’s new dress code (Associated Press)

•  Syria’s quest to build its own Silicon Valley (Rest of World)

• Condé Nast to launch influencer storefront platform (Business of Fashion)

• Pomegranate Ice Box Cake (Cake Zine)

Visit CLONE.FYI for hourly updates on culture and technology.

Le Sortie de l'opéra en l'an 2000 by Albert Robida

In case you missed it…

• The state of Dirt, an update from our headquarters

• A new book about the rivalry between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner

• Clone is publishing scoops! Reach us at hello@clone.fyi or on Signal with the username "clone.25" 🐑

Last week’s Tasteland podcast guest was Ben Dietz. Ben is a consultant to brands, publishers, and agencies and founder of the weekly Breakfast Club series. Previously, he spent 16 years at VICE. He authors the newsletter [SIC]: A Digest of Developments, which has prompted many open tabs.

Below is an excerpt of our interview, keep scrolling to listen to the full episode.

Ben Dietz: I’ve worked closely with Ruba Abu-Nimah who is a very senior art director, creative director, and creative advisor to luxury brands. And we had a big fight one time about whether a luxury brand could be less than 100 years old. 

Francis Zierer: I think you could maybe bring it down to like 10 years or something like that, but there has to be some demonstrated history of who's buying it and how they're using it. But it doesn't have to be a hundred.

BD: I don't want to mischaracterize what she said, but it had to do effectively with the idea that you can't have luxury without demonstrated history of craft and demonstrated heritage. Like the history of craft has to unfold over time. You can't invent it, you can't buy it. It has to develop over the course of that long period of time.

Daisy Alioto: Yeah, I think luxury is like cars. It's not based on what the first buyer is willing to pay for it, because I 100% believe that you can have a new watch brand and sell it to the first buyer at luxury prices. It's what is the destiny of that thing once you drive it off the lot.

And you could even have a really good secondary market for, say, a Tesla. But if you conjure in your mind's eye what is an antique Tesla, a heritage Tesla, you can only come to understand that once you see what the third or fourth person to encounter it is willing to value it at.

BD: It's interesting you should say that Daisy, because one of the big conversations that came out of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance last year was what in today's auto market would be viewed in the future as a classic.

The consensus was the Cybertruck is the only thing in the current market that can be viewed as a future classic. I thought it was really fascinating that this thing that is so in my mind, like objectively ugly and ridiculous, satisfies the qualities that people identify as being a new classic. 🚗

Ep. 58: Generational luxury ft. Ben Dietz

open.spotify.com/episode/5TK6FrJBjjIDaVmwl3fXlS?si=d9b1de2f42984ec3

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SPONSORED BY LIMOUSINE

“I went home and I was just like, ‘Everything they say about Iowa is true. It’s just going to be me against them for the next two years.’” — Tony Tulathimutte

“Women’s stories matter. They just do.” — Jamie Hood

“And that little girl grew up to be J.K. Rowling.” — Stephanie Wambugu

Dying to hear more from these literary legends? Listen to Limousine, a literary podcast from Heather Akumiah and Leah Abrams, interviewing today’s best writers on their work, their process, and how they make their lives as writers. New episodes every other week, plus bonus episodes on Patreon. Or, if you live in New York, stop by one of Limousine’s bi-monthly readings.

WHAT WE’RE READING

• How anime took over America (The New York Times Magazine) 

• Mulberry Street Radio is the sound of Little Italy (Mulberry Street Radio) 

• The number of unemployed people in the US surpassed job openings in July (Quartz)

• “The charge of being consumerist piggies at the trough now only sticks to the rich. Good. The rest of us are free.” (Mike Pearl) 

• Bad Bunny’s residency gives Puerto Rico’s economy an estimated $196 million boost (WSJ) 

• The zinesters of San Francisco (Gazetteer) 

• Pope declares 'God's influencer' first millennial saint (Le Monde)

• Is Mary Oliver Embarrassing? (The Yale Review)

Visit CLONE.FYI for hourly updates on culture and technology.

Brands pay a lot of money to get into Dirt, but it costs nothing to ask 10-15 of your favorite contributors what they would be buying right now if money were no object.

In the words of Colleen Kelsey: “I’m not ashamed to be a material girl.” Best read while shoveling leftovers into your mouth.

Paul Dalla Rosa

I’m in the wrong hemisphere, coming into Spring, but if I were to enter fall again; taut, lambskin YSL gloves. 

Caroline Reilly

This property in Harpswell which comes fully furnished with some of the most beautiful antique furniture I've ever seen. The new Rolex 1908 with the gold Settimo bracelet and white dial. A fully loaded Range Rover in navy with tan leather interior

A private tour – as in, have the place to ourselves – of the new Grand Egyptian Museum and Hatshepsut's Temple. This Edwardian Pink Tourmaline Ring. An original Jamie Wyeth. Everything on my Barnes & Noble wishlist:

• Permanence by Sophie MacKintosh

• Wax Child by Olga Ravn

• The Unwilding by Marina Kemp

• A Shining by Jon Fosse

• The Blueprint by Rae Giana Rashad

• House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk

• The Snares by Rav Grewal-Kök

• Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix

• A Good Person by Kirstin King

• Nymph by Stephanie LaCava

Natasha Hoskins

The Davis Boot from Khaite in Black Leather 

Marlowe Granados

I would like the knee high Miu Miu rose boots from the SS 2012 collection, but because I am at the age where when I like something I want it in multiple colours, I would like two pairs. 

OH also I would like an afghan hound, borzoi or silken windhound to add to my menagerie… basically any of the dogs that look like they are two dimensional or oddly skewed 

Leah Abrams

I went upstate this weekend and stopped in a gorgeous home goods shop called Little King. If money were no object, I'd buy everything in there... but for back to school season I'd especially have my eye (and nose) on this scent from Stora Skuggan. It's so woody and rich, and I love the forest green orb that snaps on top as a lid. Imagine going back to school doused in that, and then leaving the bottle on your sun-faded dresser every morning as you live your dark academia fantasy. Agh! I covet it!

Tyler Watamanuk

The North Face Geodome 4 tent. I've never been camping. It would be an indoor tent. I'd put it in my living room to give houseguests some privacy. I'd also use it as a reading nook for days when I feel like shutting the noise of the outside world out, which is increasingly often. 

Akosua T. Adasi

I try not to subscribe to buzzy keywords (eg. Coastal cowboy goth; office siren ballerina) to describe my style but this year I’ve finally embraced that my preferred look is more on the cottage/princess/girlycore spectrum than on the CBK/sleek minimalism spectrum or the one-of-the-boys/2009-model-off-duty one. To this end, I bought a pair of Simone Rocha heels (on mad sale) in hot pink and it’s only made me want to go feral snatching up Simone Rocha pieces. On the list is: this skirt and these shoes and DEFINITELY this top and skirt set that Chloe Sevigny just wore to the Venice Film Festival. 

Also, this top anddd the very popular but still gorg rose dress that SJP wore on AJLT recently. I’d top it all off with the “Wanda” hat from NYC-based brand, Emily Dawn Long—versatile, cool, and a little out of place. 

Colleen Kelsey 

I’m not ashamed to be a material girl, and if fashion magazines still properly existed, they’d tell you this is the time to spend on a new coat, bag, and shoes that will last forever. For me that’s a round-shouldered, nipped-waist FW1986 Alaïa black wool, an Alaïa Teckel in black leather, and a pair of new season Prada heels that look like Hitchcock's Marnie went through the car wash. Whoever is paying for this (not me) will match the cost with a donation to Zohran's mayoral campaign. 

Daisy Alioto 

These midcentury ballet saucers, this cross-body bag from Campomaggi in blue, a vintage L.L. Bean throw inspired by seed packets, Dandelion Butter by Clue, and striped sheets by Hommey in Sienna.

In case you missed it…

• Life and death at Balthazar by Amelia Granger

• Court Date, a digital platform for the next generation of tennis enthusiasts, launched with early access for STRUNG readers

This week’s Tasteland guest was W. David Marx. He is the author of Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style and Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change. His next book, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century, is now available for pre-order.

We talked about the song of the summer (or lack thereof), why fads are so prominent now, why everyone is a marketer, and more. Listen to the full episode below or keep scrolling for the headlines we’re following this weekend.

Ep. 57: Fad World ft. W. David Marx

open.spotify.com/episode/4VmpiONUgWqzFRolp0HGpq?si=bc80a4653d534416

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SPONSORED BY SERVIETTE

Serviette is a fine fragrance brand dedicated to exploring notions of an empirical “good” taste in an era pervaded by AI slop and microtrends that feel more like corporate drivel than honest means of personal expression. Serviette aims to offer respite from a culture that is becoming algorithmically uniform: scents designed not by algorithm, but by sensibility.

Serviette’s core collection of fragrances includes unexpected note pairings like diesel exhaust with damask rose, or white florals with an ice accord. Everybody wants a means of distinguishing themselves from the masses (and one that aligns with their aesthetic sensibilities), so let’s give them one.

WHAT WE’RE READING

• Robin Westman and the unstoppable tide of ‘slop violence’ (The Spectator)

• Giorgio Armani on his 50-year reign (FT)

• The last untamed writer in America (WSJ)

• Coco Gauff vs. Coco Gauff (The Second Serve)

• What women’s baseball will look like (The Atlantic)

• Fallingwater is leaking (The Washington Post)

• Spirit Airlines is bankrupt…again (Axios)

• Astrophysicists find no ‘hair’ on Black Holes (Quanta)

Visit CLONE.FYI for hourly updates on culture and technology.

In honor of the US Open, we’re sharing some of our favorite tennis reads from the STRUNG archive.

STRUNG is Dirt’s monthly tennis newsletter, and if you’re not subscribed you should subscribe now. We have an exciting announcement from our partners at Court Date coming soon…

May 15, 2025 In defense of the underhand serve

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Mar 26, 2025 The Djokovicverse

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Sep 11, 2023 TennisTok

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Jan 27, 2025 Social game

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Jun 27, 2025 Pope Leo serves

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Jan 31, 2025 Attack racket

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Follow Dirt and Court Date on Instagram.

In case you missed it…

• We made our first piece of Clone merch with Night Gallery. It’s a t-shirt throwback to the early 90s. They are 𝙇𝙄𝙈𝙄𝙏𝙀𝘿 𝙀𝘿𝙄𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉 so you should order one now. 

• Ick, our Instagram magazine for creative complaining, has a new video series. We cold-call our friends and make them tell us their icks on the spot. Our first victim was post-hardcore prince, Geoff Rickly. 

• Greta Rainbow published the second part of her series on where the next literary movement will come from

This week’s Tasteland guest was Sam Valenti IV. Sam is the founder of Ghostly International, home to such artists as crushed, Hana Vu, Shigeto and more. He also runs Herb Sundays, a weekly playlist series by different curators like Panda Bear, Laurel Halo, and Jeff Weiss. 

Keep scrolling for a portion of the interview, followed by the headlines we’re following this weekend.

Ep. 55: Herb Wednesdays ft. Sam Valenti IV

open.spotify.com/episode/0KbAD6p7P5QQ3mBFqReAXL?si=045b39f3b3634bb4

Francis Zierer: You joke that Herb Sundays is like a prayer for fandom. Being a fan is competitive—you have to have this fanatic commitment to a thing to seem valid. But once you're that committed, you can't critique it. 

Sam Valenti IV: It's a great point, you come in as a noob and you just follow the leader. I think film is really accelerated, and it seems like there's a general level of knowledge of film that feels more universal. And the rise of the indie studio reminds me of the 90s when indie studios were record labels. 

There's no record label now that's as cool as A24. It's interesting because film and books are actually super time intensive. So I don't buy the, “We have no attention span” thing. It seems like there actually is a lot of appetite for good stuff. I think you need a leader brand to bring people in, like “now I feel comfortable having some language with film and I'm gonna go into Criterion.” I think it's like a playbook now that people could follow. And music could learn now from some of its own playbooks that it's let go of. 

I also have a sneaking suspicion that what I'm reading on social media is not actually the truth. It's its own prism of light. You perform your fandom in different ways. It just shows how we’re deeply in need of connection. I know community, the new C-word, is like super hard to bandy about these days without sounding inauthentic. But maybe community isn't as online as we thought it was. 

Daisy Alioto: Toxic fandom is really a combination of knowledge-based fandom plus this sort of let people enjoy things, criticism is violence emotional posture.

SV: You show your fandom, you perform your fandom in different ways. And I think the Oasis thing is interesting. I have friends who went and who are not given to hyperbole and they want to go back. People are deeply in need of connection. I talk about Insane Clown Posse often. I’ve never been to an ICP show, but I’ve always loved the idea that there’s this sweetness to it. 

DA: What has been the evolution of community as it pertains to Ghostly, and what's your involvement like today? 

SV: It evolves. There's me and my roommates or me and the crew in the first office, which is someone's bedroom. I think most labels and most good cultural enterprises come out of groups of friends. It's my unexplored thesis. 

Then there's obviously a growth phase, with different people for different times. I think some labels lean stronger into live or have a booking agency or have a festival, that's where the energy is. That's never been our stock and trade.

FZ: How did you guys end up publishing the Minecraft soundtrack? 

SV: We ended up not doing other games. When you get successful at one thing, you're like, “Oh, we can make a whole label.” We thought about it. I don't really know the gaming industry. It's also some of the most annoying fans of all time. 

Anyway, a friend of mine in Ann Arbor said, “Hey, I know Daniel, or C418.” And I was like, “Yeah, we should chat.” The game was popular, but it wasn't the level it is now. He had the digital rights. And it was just like, “Hey, can we press this on vinyl?” That game just hoovers up every generation. There's this endless growth curve. 👻

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WHAT WE’RE READING

• An inside look at Power Slap, Dana White's next big bet. (Derange)

• Class-action suit claims Otter AI secretly records private work conversations (NPR)

• Bigger Than Fashion: How "Streetwear" Conquered Culture by Tyler Watamanuk is now available for pre-order (Simon & Schuster)

• Inside the world of “blind tennis” (The New York Times) 

• How Helsinki cut its traffic deaths to zero (Fast Company) 

• Microsoft storing Israeli intelligence trove used to attack Palestinians (+972 Magazine)

Visit CLONE.FYI for hourly updates on culture and technology.