Stick a Fork in Pitchfork, MrBeast Tests X, GPT Store's Debut, UMG's Big Bet, and The Solo Living Trend
Pitchfork's demise, X is under MrBeast's microscope, OpenAI's innovative GPT Store, the impact of 'Living Alone Vloggers' on the rental market. Plus, insights on UMG's strategy & more!
Stick a Fork in Pitchfork
Condé Nast Is Folding Pitchfork Into GQ.
Bonus Track: Layoffs!
Japanese Import Bonus Track: Lack of Credibility!
I won’t cheer for the demise of the snobbiest, and most pretentious music publication on the planet, but I certainly won’t sob like others.
From Platformer:
Today let’s examine the latest case of platform dynamics reshaping the digital media landscape, claiming as a victim one of the most culturally influential publications of the past two decades: Pitchfork, the venerable news and reviews site that for a time was among the most powerful tastemakers in music.
Cry some more:
“I can’t imagine my relationship to music without Pitchfork,” wrote Jamieson Cox, a former writer for the site (and former Verge colleague), on his blog. “I can’t imagine my relationship to myself without Pitchfork. It was the dominant voice in music criticism when my taste was an untouched ball of clay and it molded me accordingly.”
It gets better more hilarious:
Critics were once our best guides to new music.
For a certain kind of millennial, the news hit like a death in the family.
Who are these people!?
None of my friends relied on
1) a critic of any sort, or
2) a pretentious organization to shape their taste in music.
We were our own tastemakers. Word-of-mouth did far more than any critical endorsement or review. Everything else was gate-keeping, even if I agreed with the review — it was someone else choosing what I was supposed to love or hate. File sharing and, ultimately, streaming democratized all of that noise.
It goes without saying that Pitchfork decided very early on that anything remotely Metal was to be dismissed. They eventually heaped praise on mind-numbingly boring albums in micro-subgenres of Metal that nobody can remember or cares about today. Which very much aligned with their “better than you” contrarian attitude.
That’s why I don’t know anyone who paid attention to Pitchfork.
Especially when that organization has the audacity to claim critical superiority and journalistic merit but decided to change the scores given to albums in the past. There are no do-overs. Stick by your standards and pretend to have integrity.
Especially when that organization decided in 2013 (!!!) to book R. Kelly as the headliner of their music festival.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
MrBeast’s Video is a Serious Test for X
Challenge Accepted
Following Elon Musk’s pathetic public begging to use X, MrBeast uploaded a video on Monday, titled “$1 vs $100,000,000 Car” to X. Despite its previous premiere on YouTube in September, the video’s re-upload to X marks MrBeast’s tentative embrace of the platform, which Musk now touts as “video-first.”
The YouTube version boasts 212 million views, while the X version has garnered 78 million in two days—but remember, though these are views for the post, not the video itself. Notably, the X version played without ads, except for a sponsored segment, and some ads were disclosed in the replies.
MrBeast expressed curiosity about the ad revenue from X, to which Musk responded with optimism for content creators on the platform. However, the revenue is unlikely to match YouTube’s, considering the original video’s estimated production cost of $1 million.
The video also highlights the avalanche of negative responses on X, particularly targeting MrBeast’s friend and collaborator Kris Tyson, a trans woman. This raises concerns about MrBeast’s young audience encountering hate speech on the platform, although such content is prevalent on YouTube, their moderation has thus far been superior.
The differing internet strategies of MrBeast and Musk are underscored: MrBeast meticulously optimizes his content for various platforms, each having its own edit to maximize viewership based on the habits of each platform’s respective audience. Musk expects the internet to conform to his whims and half-baked visions. Musk’s narrative of X as a burgeoning video platform contrasts with its current user base and serves as a transparently desperate bid to retain investors.
Be Careful What You Wish For, Elon…
MrBeast’s engagement with X simply reflects his adaptability to online platforms, which could drastically backfire in Musk’s face because by begging MrBeast to use X, he exposes X to someone whose sole purpose is to convert internet traffic into ad revenue by obsessively measuring how different platforms generate money.
Will Robots Steal the Show in Music’s Next Act?
AI’s Encore
Remember when the internet was just a baby and we thought we lived in the Information Age?
The real Information Age is hitting now, with algorithms learning to play the game of creation, and insanely stunning advancements that seem to come weekly. Anything that can be turned into ones and zeros is fair game, including art. And just like the early days of the internet, when piracy had us downloading music faster than you could say “Napster,” the same rule applies: if it can be copied, it will be—because information wants to be as free as a bird — whether you like it or not.
CDs dominated until they didn’t. Streaming services arrived, offering convenience over ownership, and suddenly, paying for music was back in vogue—because who doesn’t love a good playlist without the hassle of piracy?
Streaming may have been disruptive, but AI’s impact is seismic. Now, networked media doesn’t just distribute—it innovates. It’s not just about replication anymore; it’s about creation without human hands.
The internet’s promise of buying music online? Child’s play. Today, AI platforms like Okio and Suno churn out tunes with nothing but a text prompt. It’s like DALL-E for music, minus the quirky art.
I can’t exaggerate this enough: A year ago, similar tools required a foundational understanding of how to craft a song, now it’s simplified in ways that may be hard to understand without experiencing it.
Can anyone become the next Beethoven with a clever prompt? While the music industry wrings its hands and tries to find an answer, AI will have moved on to its next gig. The impact will be like a sonic boom, and our questions must match the magnitude.
Ethical Concerns
Ethics in the AI era deserves attention that sometimes goes overlooked in this specific space. AI learned to jam using tunes laid down by the pros, but the ethical debate isn’t black or white—it’s many shades of gray. The digital genie’s out and about, and when ethical dilemmas get too complex, most people tune out. Let’s face it, all musicians have ‘borrowed’ a tune or two. The old ‘piracy is bad’ riff didn’t change the game, but it did spark new conversations on reshaping the industry.
Enter Spawning.ai. It’s a backstage pass for artists to say “no” to their work being used to train AI, striking a chord for creative control in the digital age.
The Future is Already Here, Dude
The future isn’t on the horizon; it’s here, unfolding in real time. Our beliefs about tomorrow shape today’s reality. We can navigate the present with foresight and purpose by embracing the inevitable. It’s not about waiting for the future to arrive—it’s about living it now, recognizing that our actions today are already part of tomorrow’s history.
OpenAI Launches GPT Store
From Bloomberg:
OpenAI has launched an online store where people can share customized versions of the company’s popular ChatGPT chatbot, after initially delaying the rollout because of leadership upheaval last year. The new store, which rolled out Wednesday to paid ChatGPT users, will corral the chatbots that users create for a variety of tasks, for example a version of ChatGPT that can teach math to a child or come up with colorful cocktail recipes.
The product, called the GPT Store, will include chatbots that users have chosen to share publicly. It will eventually introduce ways for people to make money from their creations — much as they might through the app stores of Apple Inc. or Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Similar to those app stores, OpenAI’s GPT Store will let users see the most popular and trending chatbots on a leaderboard and search for them by category. In a blog post announcing the rollout, OpenAI said that people have made 3 million custom chatbots thus far, though it was not clear how many were available through its store at launch.
That last sentence is crucial; from said blog post:
It’s been two months since we announced GPTs, and users have already created over 3 million custom versions of ChatGPT. Many builders have shared their GPTs for others to use. Today, we’re starting to roll out the GPT Store to ChatGPT Plus, Team and Enterprise users so you can find useful and popular GPTs. Visit chat.openai.com/gpts to explore.
The store features a diverse range of GPTs developed by our partners and the community. Browse popular and trending GPTs on the community leaderboard, with categories like DALL·E, writing, research, programming, education, and lifestyle. We will also highlight useful and impactful GPTs [every week]…
The GPT Store differs from the iPhone App Store in that it’s not the exclusive place to get GPTs (yes, OpenAI has successfully claimed the term, I think). The iPhone App Store doesn’t have to be the exclusive place to get Apps: Apple forces that to be the case, which is something various regulators are seeking to loosen (John Gruber has a good Article I agree with in terms of the E.U. Digital Markets Act on Daring Fireball). A better comparison is the Mac App Store: developers can both sell apps directly and have them appear in a centralized marketplace that consumers are more likely to check, albeit with more restrictions on the apps technically (they must operate in a sandbox, for example, which means much more limited access to the computer or other apps).
The key takeaway is this: the GPT Store is an Aggregation play, along the lines of the proposed Plugin store, which was the v1 attempt at building a 3rd-party platform on top of ChatGPT. Tens of millions of users are already accustomed to going to ChatGPT, and now OpenAI can leverage that control of demand to create a marketplace for augmented versions of GPT built by developers.
This isn’t a criticism or limitation, either: a discovery mechanism is critical. Just look at that 3 million number: that may seem unnaturally large, but that’s because creating a custom GPT is very easy. This is a point that OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap made in an interview with Bloomberg when asked if the GPT Store would be like the App Store:
I think it could be bigger. It’s a lot of work to build a single iOS app. If you look at what GPTs are, that can be spun up quickly, configured quickly. We’ll make it easier and easier for them to have accessibility into other services in other parts of your workflow. Some of them will be fun; some of them will be for work. So you get a lot of diversity there. I expect there can be many thousands of GPTs that any individual person ever comes in contact with specific to the things they want to do.
The App Store is definitely an Aggregator, but Lightcap is right that the price of entry for suppliers (developers) is non-trivial. Compare that to Google on the other end of the spectrum: Google’s supply is the entire web, and the price of entry is whatever effort it takes to create a webpage or type a reply on Reddit or whatever. GPTs aren’t relatively that easy, but they are a lot easier than making an app, which means it is plausible or even likely that there will be more GPTs than apps (but not as many as the number of web pages). That makes an Aggregator all the more useful and, ultimately, valuable.
If you’re wondering if you should be exploring how to monetize and/or incorporate custom GPTs into your business, work, or life, yes - you should have started yesterday.
Don’t Do This!
Canva is the #1 most featured GPT in the marketplace.
If you’re familiar with the Canva AI, you know it can’t be used for much.
At best, it’s inspiration. You’ll be presented with two choices (as seen above) and they usually feel generic. Which, I guess, is on brand for Canva.
That’s when you can have it create a graphic.
But most of the time, if you ask it for something, it’ll just send you to the template:
It’s basically a way to talk to the basic features of Canva. So that’s an interesting takeaway, I guess... You can use GPTs to have ChatGPT talk to your product’s features.
But, overall the CanvaGPT is not doing any interesting AI work for you. I doubt it will have much-continued usage.
Things like Midjourney are safe.
Don’t use CanvaGPT for anything remotely public-facing.
Are "Living Alone Vloggers” Influencing the Rental Market?
YouTube’s “living alone vloggers,” creators who romanticize the everyday tasks of living solo, have become a significant online genre over the last three years. Their rise may reflect the desire among young people for personal space and financial independence during economic challenges. Influencers like Michelle Choi lead this trend, captivating millions with their serene, solo living experiences.
Millions? Yeah, millions…
From Fast Company:
In a New York City apartment, YouTuber Michelle Choi makes herself a bowl of rice with tuna for breakfast. She carries it to her living room and eats it while seated on the floor, chatting to the camera all the while. She spends the day at home in her one-bedroom, cooking and cleaning. The video has 4.1 million views.
Okay…
The internet's fascination with videos of individuals cooking, cleaning, and unwinding in their studio apartments, all set to soft piano instrumentals, is more than just entertainment. These vlogs represent a shift from the previous trend of content houses, like David Dobrik’s Vlog Squad, Jake Paul’s Team10, and TikTok's Hype House. Controversies like rape allegations, trashed houses, and unpaid rent surrounding these collectives led to a pivot toward the appeal of solo living.
“Living in a content house is cool but evokes a different emotion, like jealousy, or negative emotions like that, whereas living alone evokes an emotion like empathy.”
Julia Fei, a data scientist at Spotify with 120,000 subscribers on YouTube
The New American Dream?
‘Living alone vlogs’ won’t move the market as a whole, but they do mirror a growing interest in personal space and independence, especially among Gen Z.
More young people are hoping to buy their own place, and want to live independently. But as inflation and cost of living remain high, it’s become more of an aspiration than reality. Last August saw the biggest jump in monthly rent since 1991, according to Fortune. Living alone is no longer about growing past the roommate phase—it’s also now a signal of being financially independent in a time of economic hardship.
Searches for one-bedroom apartments surged 15% from 2022 to 2023, as reported by Zillow. While it’s challenging to draw a direct link between social media influence and rental market trends, the correlation is hard to ignore. The staggering viewership numbers of #livingalone have reached over 1.3 billion views on TikTok, and #livingalonediaries have reached over 429.4 million.
Young adults, inspired by these vloggers, are increasingly seeking personal space and independence. The rise of "living alone vloggers" not only changes the content landscape but also subtly influences housing preferences in a time of economic hardship.
UMG’s ‘Artist-Centric’ Strategy
A New Tune or Just Lip Service?
Universal Music Group’s chief, Sir Lucian Grainge, has promised an expansion of their ‘artist-centric’ strategy. The plan? Carve a bigger slice of the streaming revenue pie by tackling fraud and other profit-draining issues.
UMG also vows to amplify the artist-fan bond with ‘superfan experiences and products,’ hinting at a future filled with exclusive offerings.
Grainge’s note also talks of investing in in-house tools for artists to craft immersive experiences and merchandise for their fans, dubbing it the ‘blueprint for the labels of the future.’ It begs the question: Is UMG genuinely orchestrating change, or is it merely a rebranding of old ideas?
Skeptics might note that this isn’t UMG’s first rodeo with the ‘superfan’ concept. Thirteen years ago, Topspin was already preaching the gospel of superfandom to Universal.
The specifics of the ‘artist-centric’ plan were opaque initially, but they have largely boiled down to getting streamers to crack down on fraud and give top artists a larger share of revenue.
That campaign has started to work, as many streaming services have adopted some measures. Spotify Technology has adopted new rules that may disqualify more than 80% of the songs on the service from making money.
Data from Luminate suggests that over 150 million tracks could cease earning recording royalties under Spotify’s new compensation model.
But these adjustments are limited. They don’t help the music industry grow. They reallocate 5% to 10% of sales to professional artists from fraudsters, amateurs, and white noise. That amounts to a couple of billion dollars industrywide. Good, but not transformative.
Year over year, UMG’s sales growth has slowed five quarters in a row.
If you adjust for currency fluctuations, growth in 2023 was about half of its growth in 2022. It's better, but still slowing.
Their playbook looks similar to what we see across industries, especially Hollywood.
They fire staff. (Warner Music Group already fired staff last year.) And they raise prices. Or, in the case of a record label, you ask streaming services to raise their prices, while trying to juice a few more pennies out of those superfans.
AI’s Talent Revolution: Over 70% of Firms Gear Up for Hiring Overhaul
The world is on the cusp of a hiring revolution, with AI as the catalyst.
A recent Deloitte survey, which gathered insights from 2,835 business leaders across Healthcare, Technology, Retail, Non-Durable Manufacturing, and Transportation, reveals a staggering 70% are bracing for AI to reshape their hiring strategies within the next two years.
Generative AI is the game-changer here. It’s not just about automating tasks; it’s about generating new ideas, solutions, and even code from scratch. This technology is rapidly being piloted and implemented across industries, signaling a seismic shift in the job market.
The implications are profound. As AI takes on more complex roles, organizations are rethinking the skills they seek in employees. The focus is shifting towards creativity, problem-solving, and adaptability—traits AI can’t replicate (yet).
Hint: Learn to be an expert in crafting complex prompts!
But it’s not all about displacing jobs. AI also promises to enhance human capabilities, creating new roles and opportunities. The key takeaway? Companies are not just preparing for change; they’re actively shaping a future where AI and human talent co-evolve.
The message is clear: adapt or be left behind. The AI-driven talent landscape is emerging, and it’s time for organizations to rethink, retrain, and reboot their approach to hiring.
Creation, Community, and the Challenge to Streaming Giants
A recent webinar by MIDiA titled “The algorithm is not listening” (it should still be available here) sheds light on the shifts expected in 2024. While the webinar covered a broad spectrum of topics, the insights into the music industry were particularly striking, especially in the context of Spotify’s waning editorial influence and the decline of social media’s allure.
Social platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are increasingly seen as polarized “Threataverses,” leading to user fatigue and a general retreat from these spaces. Artists, in response, are carving out new community spaces with more control, such as Discord. However, the search for an ideal platform continues—one that caters specifically to music and offers a user-friendly interface akin to Reddit’s threaded conversations.
A notable trend highlighted in the webinar is the significant increase in time spent on music creation, up by 42%, contrasted with a 13% decrease in music listening.
This blurring of lines between audience and creator roles is exemplified by TikTok, which not only fuels music discovery but also provides tools for fans to create and interact with music. The platform’s participatory culture is changing the game, with artists leaving space for fans to remix and collaborate, sometimes even without a formal invitation.
This shift also poses a challenge to traditional streaming services like Spotify, which lack interactive features and are relegated to being mere “dumb pipes” for audio. The industry is also grappling with the influx of newly created music and where it should be hosted. Universal Music Group’s two-tier approach to ‘premium’ versus ‘DIY’ music indicates a potential split landscape, risking the alienation of ‘DIY’ artists and their communities. It’s no surprise that a dinosaur like UMG is taking this archaic approach.
The golden age of streaming may be reaching its peak, with no definitive answer as to what comes next — which has been the theme throughout this week’s newsletter. The industry might gradually shift towards more curated, qualitative spaces prioritizing selectivity over quantity. What remains certain is that the music landscape is undergoing a profound transformation, one that will redefine how we engage with and appreciate the art of sound.
Feature Idea
Reveal private Spotify playlists
For a small fee, of course
THE NEWS DESK
Media, Music, & Entertainment
Pitchfork neckbeards are being assimilated in ways they never imagined. The company is being folded into GQ amid a reorganization at Condé Nast.
Read More → varietyThe Emmys broadcast, despite praise from the same industry that celebrates itself, hit a record low of 4.3 million viewers — down 27% from last year’s record low. Read More → thr
Bobbi Althoff, known for making celebs uncomfortable and pissing off the internet, returns with Season 2 of ‘The Really Good Podcast,’ ready to fuel more internet debates and defy expectations. Read More → rollingstone
The NFL is in advanced talks with ESPN to take a majority stake in the network; say goodbye to any remotely critical reporting of the NFL at ESPN.
Read More → deadlineUniversal Music Group reportedly plans to make ‘hundreds’ of layoffs this quarter (Q1 2024). Most of the firings will be in the recorded music division.
Read More→ bloombergMadison Square Garden Entertainment has officially canceled the London Sphere project, citing political contention as the reason, and plans to sell the designated land while seeking global alternatives. Read More → billboard
Motley Crue loses the battle in the ongoing war with Mick Mars. "Finally, somebody, somewhere told these guys they can’t bully Mick," the rocker's lawyer said in a statement. Read More → rolling stone
Fashion, Art, & E-Commerce
Uber is shutting down alcohol-delivery service Drizly after acquiring it for $1.1 billion just three years ago. Uber said that consumers prefer using a single app to get multiple types of products delivered. Now that’s an expensive A/B test.
Read More → wsjThe Van Gogh Museum is set to reissue its coveted Pikachu promo cards this March, following the frenzy they sparked last September, with enhanced security measures for the Pokémon event. Read More → hypebeast
Michael B. Jordan is getting into the beverage business with the launch of MOSS — a sea moss drink made with organic juices, botanical extracts, and herbs — all in minuscule amounts that cost a lot and do very little. Yay, celeb health experts! Read More → hypebeast
Tech, Web3, & AI
Sonos has poached a high-ranking Apple finance veteran to be its new CFO.
Read More → bloombergMicrosoft inched past Apple to become the most valuable company in the world — a major milestone propped by its investment in AI.
Read More → theinformationApple’s Vision Pro will launch with 150 movies capable of being watched in 3D and documentaries presented in Apple’s new “Immersive Video” format.
Read More → techcrunchElon Musk accidentally revealed Tesla’s Optimus robot to be capable of doing certain tasks not autonomously (as originally suggested) but via a direct link to an engineer mimicking the motions. Elon Musk lies? Shocking.
Read More → forbes
Pitchfork always seemed like arrogant snobs. So much that I wasn't gonna check out anything they did praise.
Which is really fucked up now that I really think about it.