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Together with
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- - August 28, 2022 - | - View Online - | - Sign Up - | - Shop -
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- - Christian Blaza -
-IN THIS ISSUE
-- Break dancing is about to make the Olympics a lot - cooler -
-- The AI rapper no one wanted -
-- And chef Julia Turshen -
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-VIBE CHECK
-- -
-- “I would be bummed if I suddenly started existing somewhere I - wasn’t supposed to exist and everyone started killing me for - it.”—Catherine Bonner to the New York Times regarding the - ongoing Lanternfly War -
-- “You can break your back, on the giant slide. You can even - break your neck, on the giant slide. You can even bump your - head, on the giant slide.”—Gmac Cash rapping about the dangerous - giant slide - in Detroit -
-- “I look down at the face of my sleeping child and I vow: If - this baby’s life is even one particle easier than mine was, I - will burn this whole place down!”—Alexandra Petri in a satirical - Washington Post Op-Ed - regarding President Biden’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in - student debt -
-GREAT DEBATE
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- GROUP CHAT
-- It’s artificial, but is it intelligent? - -
-- - Illustration: Will Varner, Photo: Capitol Records -
-- Tech startup Sanas offers real-time accent removal for - businesses. On its - website, visitors can hear an Indian accent neutralized to be - nondescript, a literal - code switch. It “wants - to make the world sound whiter,” - SFGate - argued. Meanwhile, FN Meka—a virtual, slur-slinging rapper who - bears a striking resemblance to the deeply - controversial rapper - 6ix9ine—recently signed, and then quickly lost, a record deal - with Capitol Records. Both are AI-powered projects that have - been criticized as racist. -
-- “There’s a long history of technology reinforcing racism,” - Dylan Baker, a research engineer at the Distributed AI - Research (DAIR) Institute, told Morning Brew. -
-- Sanas raised over $37 million in funding, including a - $32 million Series A - round. The founders, who met as Stanford undergrads, had a - college friend who was harassed for his Central American accent - during his job in a call center. That’s not an unusual - experience: verbal - abuse and racism - are routine for workers in these jobs. But Sanas’s - pitch deck - isn’t just about protecting low-paid workers. It notes “accent - differences have a profound impact on customer satisfaction,” - but “nearshoring/reshoring” jobs can be more than twice as - expensive. (The 2018 dark comedy - Sorry to Bother You - predicted - the profitability of a white voice in call centers.) -
-- But hiding accents with AI presents a dilemma. “It - does sound like it would - reinforce the idea that call center workers are second-class - citizens who are only deserving of a harassment-free environment - if they sound appropriately white,” Baker said. -
-- While Sanas may seem like digital whiteface, FN Meka came under - fire for a different offense: - digital blackface. Created by “virtual label” - Factory New - in 2021, FN Meka is a green-haired virtual - rapper - whose lyrics are generated with AI, voiced by a Black artist who - claims - he was not paid for his work. -
-- Public criticism mounted after the announcement, especially for - FN Meka’s use of the N-word—his creators are not Black—and an - Instagram - post - making light of police brutality. The nonprofit advocacy - organization Industry Blackout called Capitol’s choice to - support an “amalgamation of gross stereotypes” a “direct insult - to the Black community” in an - open letter. Capitol Records apologized and severed ties with the digital - rapper. -
-- It doesn’t take an industry expert to recognize the - tone-deafness, but an expert might better explain - why it happened at all. - Andrew Barber, owner of media company Fake Shore Drive and - Grammy board member, thought FN Meka was a terrible idea from - the jump. But Barber predicts there are more AI-generated - artists to come, and his explanation isn’t limited to the music - industry. -
-- “FN Meka might be gone, but you better believe that companies - are looking for any way to cut corners to make more money with - less hassle,” he said. -
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- Though AI is heralded as the tech of the future, right now it’s
- raising questions about exploitation and racism in the present.
- Who gets cut out for the sake of profitability? And who gets to
- make a profit?
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- —Ashwin Rodrigues -
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SUNDAY FUNDAY
-LONG READ
-- Break dancing is about to get its Olympic moment - -
-- - Christian Blaza -
-- The Olympics may never be the same. Not that they ever are, - given its historic flux. The pandemic-delayed 2020 Olympics in - Tokyo added five sports: baseball and softball, karate, - skateboarding, sports climbing, and surfing. The upcoming 2024 - Games in Paris have already done away with karate and - baseball/softball. Only one addition was made—breaking, a sport - better known by its pop bastardization: breakdancing. -
-- It will debut in Paris not on a mat in a gym, but on a - high-production dance floor with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop. - This won’t just be the Olympic debut of a sport. It will be the - Olympic debut of a spectacle. -
-- Breaking’s inclusion is the latest twist in the long, fluxed-up - history of the Olympics. Badminton is an Olympic sport, but - squash is not. Archery? Sure. Darts? Nah. Curling is in. But not - bowling. For all its put-upon, carved-in-stone institutionalism, - the Olympics can be nonsensically mercurial. Breaking’s debut - will push Olympic eccentricity to its limits. -
-- Ironically, alongside Olympic expansion is its crisis of - contraction. The Olympics as a television program is in ratings - freefall: NBC, which held the American broadcasting rights for - the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, said that the games averaged 15.6 - million prime-time viewers per night, the lowest of any Olympics - in a generation—Summer or Winter—and almost a 50 percent drop - from the 2016 Rio Games. Night by night, Tokyo saw the nine - smallest prime-time audiences since 1992. -
-- And that audience is increasingly older (the median age of - viewers for the 2020 Games was 58). That milquetoast appeal is - reflected in the IOC’s top-tier sponsors, which included - Allianz, Bridgestone, Deloitte, Intel, Omega, Procter & - Gamble, Toyota, and Visa. All brands that scream middle-aged - dad. -
-- Plus, the Olympics isn’t exactly following socially conscious - trends. A scathing 2021 - analysis - of Olympic sustainability found an overall ecological, economic, - and social sustainability score of 48 on a scale of 100 across - 16 Summer and Winter Games, with a marked decrease in the - sustainability of the Games over time (it’s part of why - youth-led campaigns to keep the Olympics out of their cities - have gained traction). “Olympic Games from 1992 to 2008 have a - mean sustainability score of 53 points, whereas those since - Vancouver 2010 stand at only 39 points,” the analysis found. -
-- This is the graying, grim landscape into which breaking—an - intrinsically cool sport for which - a 2012 semifinal has 93 million views on YouTube—will debut. It’s shepherded by Shawn Tay, the president of the - World DanceSport Federation (WDSF). Tay, who is 65 and lives in - Singapore, retired from ballroom dancing in 1994. He isn’t the - obvious cultural ambassador for breaking’s Olympic moment, but - the WDSF has been speaking the IOC’s language for decades. -
-- The WDSF courted IOC power players and commissioned a PwC - assessment on the sport’s marketing prospects. Now the - organization is in charge of overseeing the qualification - process that will winnow 80 athletes from around the world down - to 32 Olympic breaking opportunities (an equal number for men - and women) in Paris. -
-- Tay compared his task to running a restaurant despite not - knowing how to cook. “I will not be the one doing the cooking. - But I’m doing the management,” he told Morning Brew. “And I’m - helping the chef understand how a restaurant works—with - discipline, timetables, and an approach of how to bring ideas to - market.” -
-- “A new generation of people can no longer watch a sport that - goes up and down, up and down, in circles,” he said. “Spectators - want to be stimulated. They want to feel that their bodies are - reacting to what they’re seeing. People want more excitement. In - the internet era, nobody sits and reads the newspaper for hours. - They want quick information. It’s the same thing in sports: They - want something quick. Breaking has that quality.” - Continue reading this story on breaking’s Olympic dreams - by Richard Morgan. -
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Q&A
-- Brew Questionnaire with Julia Turshen - -
-- - photo: Melina Hammer -
-- Julia Turshen is a chef and New York Times best-selling cookbook - writer. Her latest cookbook, - Simpy Julia, - rethinks comfort food through a healthy lens (hello, lemon - ricotta cupcakes). It was picked up by Vice President Kamala - Harris when she visited an indie bookstore in Rhode Island (she - joked that she thought it was a Julia Child book). When she’s - not writing or thinking of new recipes, Turshen talks about food - on her podcast, - Keep Calm & Cook On. - Need a Sunday night dinner upgrade? Sign up for Turshen’s - online cooking classes - every Sunday afternoon, where you can learn how to make rosemary - gin spritzers and sesame chicken schnitzel. -
-- What’s the best advice you ever received? -
-- On a practical note, the best advice I’ve received as a lifelong - freelancer is to think of every dollar I earn as fifty cents and - to open a separate savings account and put half of every check I - receive into it so I’m set for taxes and any other unexpected - work expenses. -
-- On a more emotional note, the best advice I’ve ever received is - to ask for forgiveness, not permission. -
-- What’s the most embarrassing song you’ll admit to liking - publicly? -
-- I have no shame about anything I like! But I guess the first to - come to mind for this question is “Lean on Me,” which my spouse, - Grace, says I sing very frequently... -
-- What fictional person do you wish were real? -
-- As someone who has gotten into powerlifting in the last few - months, I would have to say - Luisa Madrigal - from Encanto. -
-- What real person do you wish were fictional? -
-Mitch McConnell.
-- How would you explain TikTok to your - great-grandparents? -
-- An infinite number of miniature home movies that you can watch - on a handheld device. -
-- What always makes you laugh? -
-- All of our pets, but especially our dog Winky, who is - particularly comical. -
-- If you were given a billboard in Times Square, what would you - put on it? -
-- Diet culture sucks. You are loveable. -
-- —Interview by Sherry Qin -
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TOGETHER WITH BABBEL
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- - How do you say…sweet deal! You could be speaking a new language in just 21 days with - your Babbel subscription (now up to 55% off for a limited - time). With bite-sized, 10-minute language lessons from - Babbel, users report being able to have a basic conversation - after just 3 weeks of daily practice. - Save up to 55% on your subscription here. -
-BREW'S BEST
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-- The future of drunk texting is here: Another brain-computer interface company became the first to - implant their device into a patient in the US. Synchron beat - Elon Musk’s Neuralink (among others) to implant chips into - patients’ brains. Those implants allowed them to control digital - devices via brain signals to help them text, shop, and more with - no reported serious adverse effects after 12 months. [Emerging Tech Brew] -
-- Kaboom cats: Nora chats with Elan Lee, game designer and the co-founder and - CEO of Exploding Kittens, a card game that became the - most-backed project in Kickstarter history and has since sold - over 11 million copies. Lee talks about how he and his - co-founder turned a single piece of intellectual property into a - multiplatform brand. [Business Casual] -
-- Invisible finger syndrome: Be careful putting your phone face down on a table anywhere - near the University of Florida. Researchers have developed a way - to make screen-clicks on your phone through a table using - electromagnetic interference from an antenna to mimic a touch - from a finger. Maybe pick a password more complicated than - 1-2-3-4! [IT Brew] -
-- Don’t listen to Mark Zuckerberg (ever). - Don’t move fast and break things. The MFABT ethos epitomized - Facebook in the early days, and was a way to justify taking big, - audacious swings regardless of collateral damage, which meant - it…broke a lot of things. And when it comes to protecting your - company’s assets, moving fast and breaking things is a really, - really bad idea, experts say. [CFO Brew] -
-- The best thing we read this week: The iconoclastic film studio A24 has bred superfans, dropped - swag, and perfected a unique house style. It’s also teetering on - the verge of self-parody, and New York Magazine’s in-depth look - at the studio explains the hows and whys. Read it and then watch - Bodies, Bodies, Bodies - anyway. [New York Magazine] -
-- Achieve thicker, fuller hair: Meet - Revela, the only non-Rx brand that helps you tackle hair loss at the - root. It shows results up to 4x faster than traditional - solutions. - Learn more.* -
-- *This is sponsored advertising content. -
-THE END
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- Written by - Rohan Anthony, - Stassa Edwards, - Amanda Hoover, - Sherry Qin, - Ashwin Rodrigues, and - Holly Van Leuven - -
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Biden goes for a “moonshot” on cancer. Referencing JFK’s famous speech on its 60th anniversary, President Biden 
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On Business Casual: Nora chats with Alex Ma, the CEO and co-founder of Poparazzi, an app that allows you to build your friends’ profile pages instead of your own. 
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