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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 +
+TOGETHER WITH APPLE CARD
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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
+
+ 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. +
+
+ 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?
+
+ —Ashwin Rodrigues +
+
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+
+
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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+BREW'S BEST
++ +
++ 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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