Antidepressant Rx's as a status symbol
Big pharma is drooling.
I’m sick or have allergies or something.
The Biden campaign wants to go viral. The president’s reelection team is formally launching its campaign war room on social media Wednesday. With the handle Biden HQ, it will serve as a rapid response operation aimed at reaching voters by pumping out content — lots of content. One of my favorite cocktail party facts to pull out about the White House’s current social media team is that their Director of Partnerships, Landon Morgado, worked at Instagram for almost five years before heading to DC. Their Director of Platforms, Angela Krasnick? Also worked at Instagram prior to this job. The campaign will be “hotter,” “fast” and “might be a little funny,” said Rob Flaherty, Biden’s deputy campaign manager.
The responses to this tweet about the contents of women’s purses is ASMR to me.
Our friends over at Dirt made their first acquisition with Tyler Watamanuk's design newsletter, Sitting Pretty (which has over 8k subscribers on Substack). Starting in October, Sitting Pretty becomes Prune, a new-yet-familiar design newsletter published by Dirt. Plus, a limited-edition zine. Dirt is a daily-ish newsletter sending the latest insights in digital pop culture and entertainment. Prune will be the new design vertical that Dirt will send directly to your inbox. I texted Dirt co-founder Daisy Alioto about the acquisition this morning, and she told me “I believe there is a billion dollar opportunity to be the A24 of digital media, and Dirt is the first mover.”
Being depressed is now a status symbol. Last year, podcaster Eileen Kelly forayed into fashion with a line of mental-health-themed merchandise. The selection included a “Depressed but Make It Hot” shirt and a variety of antidepressant-themed sweatshirts reading “Lexapro,” “Prozac” and “Zoloft.” Wellbutrin erasure!!! During the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a 25% increase in people suffering from anxiety and depression globally, according to the World Health Organization. Designers and creative directors responded to the crisis through clothes and campaigns. In February, Highsnobiety released a magazine spread with portraits of people sobbing, “It immediately went viral,” EIC Willa Bennett said. I adoooooored this campaign when it came out. It reminded me of late ‘90s Nintendo ads. She said the shoot was inspired by a TikTok trend where users filmed videos of themselves creating makeup looks that mimicked tears streaming down their faces. The success of the shoot, she said, shows how social media has created more space to talk about mental health while also dramatizing and having fun with it — and even poking fun at it. “Fashion is such an outlet,” she said, adding that it made sense that young people would want to use it as a medium to express their mental health struggles
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I think J. Crew Men’s new video series are fun. They’re well-produced, and remove so much of the stiffness that can build up in menswear marketing.
