TheFutureParty
A Community-based Media Company
Okay, so eSports is already bigger than the national sport of one of the world’s largest countries. Still not enough for you Nike? Well, it’s enough for Toyota, Intel, HP and more. While several leagues like the NBA and NFL are sponsoring teams, it has yet to remain that apparel and athletic brands are following suit. Where are Gatorade, Under Armour, Lululemon etc?
Facebook’s admitted lack of oversight compromised millions of Americans’ data and spread fake news from big cities to the smallest of towns, and Uncle Sam still wants to know what happened.
It’s no secret that Elon Musk is well loved. He’s been in the press since Peter Thiel's Confinity bought
Last year the #metoo campaign swept the film industry. Finally, after decades of terror, predator after predator was held accountable. Last week Spotify brought the fight to the music industry with its new “Hate Content and Hateful Conduct Policy.” Banning hateful content is nothing new, but what’s new is punishing creators for ‘Hateful Conduct.’ To christen this precarious decision, Spotify removed R Kelly and XXXTentacion from it’s playlists with a few strokes of their corporate keys.
Last week “This Is America” took control of our screens. After Donald Glover’s initial SNL performance of his new single “This Is America,” he dropped the visual and the internet went wild. The video has reached over 130M views since it's release on May 5th. Not too shabby for a week and half’s work. The views have been boosted by video embeds in almost every major news outlet one can conceivably think of as everyone and their grandmother rushes to breakdown the details of the symbolism and “hidden meaning” behind the visuals.
You’ve probably heard of Mason Ramsey. In March he let loose the yodel heard ‘round the world from the humble stage of a Walmart convenience store, dubbing himself “The Yodeling Kid.” Fast forward to May and Mason is still yodeling away, but on much larger stages. Having recently performed at Coachella, Stagecoach, and the famous Grand Ole Opry, Mason is in the midst of a meteoric rise to fame. And while the kid himself is a new face, the situation can’t help but feel familiar.
Spring is here and weed is in the air. Literally and metaphorically speaking, cannabis is everywhere we turn. What was once an illegal and underground business has entered into a new era. While on a national level the conversation remains in the court of Jeff Sessions, on the state level we’re seeing a flex of sovereign rights to overrule the law of the land. Shipments still can’t cross state borders, but the merchandise from producers is no longer hurriedly stuffed into ziplocks, it’s on the shelves in dispensaries all over the country.
In 2018, online media publishers are competing for a dwindling share of advertiser revenue. Alphabet and Facebook continue to leverage their magnitude to take the lion’s share of digital ad revenue forcing both smaller and bigger publishers to get creative for their piece of the pie. Currently, most publishers rely on advertisers but many have either built or are starting to build direct relationships to their consumers through paid subscriptions. Already this year, there has been a growing swath of publishers falling into this trend.
The concept of social “identity” has been the center of many discussions over the last few years. Half of the world has an online extension of themselves via the internet. This is shifting the paradigm of how people behave and see themselves. It’s also changing how we relate to our favorite things like brands and characters. Engaging with fake people has been made real by things like twitter parody accounts several years ago. Lately, people have been seeing and interacting with fake characters made to feel real visually. One example is Instagram sensation Lil Mayo’s meteoric rise to fame. His account currently boasts 1.6 million fans who follow his every move as he lives it up in LA. Lil Mayo parties with Rihanna, Dillon Francis and Rich the Kid, but he isn’t the next big rapper. He’s actually a vintage alien doll manned by a guy named Alex Martyn.
In the 1990s and 2000s luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Gucci enjoyed their presence on the public pedestal as the status symbols of fashion couture. Yet the luxury brands of years past were unable to connect with the rebellious millennial spirit influenced heavily by hip hop culture. Recently Louis Vuitton hired Ghanaian-American fashion designer and Kanye west muse, Virgil Abloh to be the Director of Men’s Wear and their cultural savant. This is Louis Vuitton’s first African American artistic director, but not a shocking move when looking at the industry at large. The trend began its upswing when classic French fashion house Balmain had a bright idea: hire a brilliant young black man to guide them into the future.