What a week, amirite?!
I mean, after all we have been through, can you believe it’s only been three weeks since the Dodgers won the World Series? I’m covering a few topics on this week’s ID in a long-form essay because…I just need to get it out of my head. Welcome to my tirade, I guess? And I hope you find value in it of some sort, I mean I'm covering politics and Complexcon (???). I’m losing my mind the more those two words sit next to each other so let’s just get into it.
I spent Saturday morning flying into Las Vegas for the day to attend ComplexCon where The Hundreds’ 1-of-1 collaboration hoodie with LRG was featured in their Streetwear Is Dead art exhibit. But, before that, I spent Friday night debating which book to bring for the plane ride. The flight was a short 45 minutes from LA to Vegas and then another 40 minutes back home. It felt absurd to carry all 1,100 pages of 1Q84 with me throughout the convention so I picked up George Orwell’s 100-page Animal Farm at the airport market and finished it before landing back home in LA.
Think about that: think about reading half of a book critiquing political corruption and class inequality through a fable, then walking into the Utopia of ComplexCon, and then finishing the other half on the flight home. I basically took the red pill before walking in and the pill kicked in 20 minutes into the convention.
Red pill highs (if you can call it that) really make you appreciate the people and brands that make the effort to connect with the youth, educate, and uplift their communities. I’m forever grateful to have my first book published under -ism Publications, a shining exemplified figure of that ethos. S/o to Carlos and Brice – my book made it ComplexCon because of them! Throughout the weekend, more -Ism friends stopped by to leave their mark on the tagged booth. One illustration was a character wearing a flannel, in true streetwear fashion, with a speech bubble saying, “Read More Books!”. Show your support for -ism here and here.
Now, to where the sky is bluer, or however the saying goes. If you’re a Twitter user, you might have noticed a growing wave of announcements declaring an exit from X (formally Twitter) in favor of its rival, Blue Sky. Blue Sky, which originally started in 2019 as an experiment led by Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey to create a decentralized platform, reported a surge in app downloads following the US Presidential Election.
Data pulled from Bluesky’s API - screenshot taken on 11/18/24 at 8:20 PM PST. Let’s see how much this fluctuates from this timestamp.
There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s start with the obvious. Trump’s presidency was one heavily covered by global consumer media that by the time Joe Biden took office, Americans who weren’t as invested in politics finally had the luxury to unplug.
It doesn’t help that the DOGE cabinet-elected, Elon Musk, uses the platform to advocate for right-wing views and Republican policies. Is he allowed to do that? 100%, his views are his own. The question is should he be allowed to do that as the owner of the platform without losing credibility and trust within the platform? Should Bezoz have the authority to pull the WaPo endorsement? Should owners have the final say above the editorial board? Most importantly, when did the neutral stance between our media start to dissipate? I felt like Muriel the Goat rereading the Seven Commandments of Animal Farm and realizing the commandments no longer align with the original principles.
But now, with Trump back for a second term, politics have once again taken over popular media–even showing up in places as random as a (lol) boxing (lol) event (if you can call it that x2) which had a suited trainer visible wearing a suit and a MAGA hat during the promotional videos.
The fight watched by 60 million households (making it a record event for Netflix) ended with a win for Jake as he thanked the police, the military, farmers, and truck drivers during his victory speech followed with, “It’s the era of truth…the truth is rising…I’m honored to be a part of America. It feels like we’re back.”
There’s been a lot of great coverage of the 2024 U.S election–I like what Bobby had to say, I like The Trend Report’s idea of logging off, I like NY Times’s piece on following 13 Undecided Young Voters through their decision-making, and I’m also a fan of those choosing to fuck off for a little while before being thrown into politics for the next four years in Trump fashion (more political SubStack coverage here if interested). I wouldn’t necessarily declare myself a Democrat, though my views lean left, and I often align with democratic policies. This year, I’ve noticed that many of the people I’ve discussed politics with avoid outright endorsements or calling themselves Democrats, even though, by definition, they definitely were. What I’ve learned through this election cycle is that the Dems identity crisis is much more severe than we thought and that’s something the Republicans have managed to sidestep. Donald Trump’s MAGA campaign has built a brand with a cult following and successfully crossed over to culture. It’s cohesive. It’s uniformed. The Dems don’t have that.
Excerpt pulled from Fast Company’s Trump Merch is Outselling Harris items on Amazon
Trump-branded merchandise has outsold Harris merch by a better than 5-to-1 margin on Amazon, according to estimates from e-commerce marketing platform Omnisend. Those estimates are based on a survey and merchandise data from Jungle Scout. (Amazon declined to comment on the study.)
Between April and September of this year, Amazon sellers made $140 million on Trump merch, compared to $26 million earned by those selling Harris merchandise, Omnisend says. Trump, of course, had a big head start, considering Harris didn’t enter the presidential race until late July. But even in the months when both were active candidates, Trump merchandise held a dominant lead.
In a way, that fight encapsulates so much of what it means to live in America. Mike Tyson, who grew up poor in Brooklyn, fought his way into a different tax bracket—his children and grandchildren will never know the struggles of poverty. The quintessential American Dream. Tyson’s career revitalized heavyweight boxing, yet here he is, dismissing the importance of legacy as he cashes a $20 million check to lose to a streamer with a professional boxing record(?) without fighting any professional boxers in their athletic prime.
You can be anything you want in America. Both sides of that truth are on full display. Maybe things will be different during Tyson’s next fight. Maybe there’s room for surprise. What’s more fitting for the American dream than that?