Definitely a fun read, I almost spit out my coffee after reading about Gen Z thinking nirvana is a clothing brand.

But I don’t follow with the whole premise. The mobility hypothesis is interesting, that people no longer see rich people as something attainable. But becoming famous through influencing or something on that vain. But famous people have been sellouts for far longer than i can remember. Kate bush did some weird promotion for a Dutch theme park called de Efteling and we have been messing with millennials for the past 20 years that nirvana is headlining the biggest Dutch music festival every year. “Ooh yeah i love that song”. And as far as I know Paris Hilton played half of the world into thinking that she was dumb as a rock.

Think that brands have given up on old school advertising. Just god lazy to give people a big bag of money for exposure. For how long will that work until people get bored of that? Yes, a music artist aligning themselves with Pantone as a color once is novel. But how many times does that really stay interesting? Just lazy advertising what only work for a couple of years until the larger crowed stops caring about the next branded Oreo deal.

Author is way off base. Might as well tell me to stop breathing air, except they stopped selling air 6 years ago and I’ve been gasping ever since.

Chromatica Oreos were absolutely wonderful (as far as mass produced garbage that is unfit for human consumption is concerned) and I miss them dearly. Telling me to stop eating them is like telling me to stop seeing a boyfriend who died tragically years ago.

Worse, it brings up painful memories of when Oreo Coke (actually good, unlike Coke Oreo) came into my life, showed me that true love is possible, then disappeared forever in barely a month. I’m still reeling.

Edit: boo, hiss!

You should try Nerd Clusters!

I like the premise. However i think there's an angle about the death of religion. It happened before most people were ready to stop being religous. Energy went to sports teams, heretical charismatics and celebrities. I do worry that jake paul or mr beast or someone like that will become president. Oprah probably could have if she'd tried.

People read one person's opinion now almost as much if not more than people read the news.

I do think its on the nose about belief, people want to believe they want to be famous and can be famous and people feel less like they can be rich.

I also wonder if its just counter culture though and we're due another cycle. I find it upsetting that so many people aspire to be digital beggars.

I don't know if I buy this. The intro Pearl Jam story is only noteworthy because it's unique. Cobain wasn't one of a million examples of counter-culture; we still talk about him today because it was uniquely his brand (to be incredibly famous while seemingly rejecting the fame).

Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984. Bill Cosby famously hawked Jell-O Pudding. Sports stars were on Wheaties. Ronald Regan (the actor!) was a spokesperson for GE.

Right. If anything, the 1990s were the decade of apex celebrity superstardom? You had singers like George Michael on the covers of mainstream magazines and in TV ads, you had all the boy bands (New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC)... and speaking of Hyundai, the Rolling Stones got paid millions for the promo song for Windows 95.

The author was a teen back then, and teens to be countercultural, but I don't think they're drawing the right conclusions from that.

And in those examples you don’t see any difference to:

>Maroon 5 is covering Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” as a tribute to Hyundai

Because that sentence hits hard in the smh.

A band covering a song for a Hyundai ad?

Michael Jackson did a parody of his own song Billie Jean for Pepsi ("You're the Pepsi generation")

Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" was used in a cruise ship ad in 2003. Not the 90's, but not exactly recent.

Isn't it pretty normal for car commercials or soda commercials to get covers of songs made?

"I'd like to teach the world to sing" was covered as a tribute to coca cola in 1971, that's classic now.

Nobody was doing ads exactly like that decades ago, but celebrity endorsements in some form have been a staple of advertising for at least a century.

> The only thing that’s unprecedented about these craven cash-ins is how well they seem to be working. Selling out no longer carries a stigma—if anything, fans are excited for tie-ins between their favorite bands and their favorite brands, no matter how shameless.

I feel like this only really makes sense in contrast to specifically the 90s? This wasn't some eternal cultural rule that changed in the 2000s, it's just two pretty recent trends in mainstream culture. You can still find people who are snobby about Drake compared to Kendrick or Taylor Swift compared to Chappelle Roan nowadays anyway. That mindset isn't gone?

I also think it's important to distinguish selling out from participating in culture and making things people may enjoy. The pendulum often swings between extremes before settling on reasonable middle ground.

Having fun colors for one of the world's most popular cookie brands is pretty low on the scale of harm compared to, say, actively promoting people to go use online gambling services or buy snakeoil supplements.

For me the issue is that online gambling firms can operate legally at this scale and that they therefore have the money to get commercials like that. The celebrity endorsements are bad too, but priorities

One of the modern problems, is that people can become [in]famous, without being rich.

Not good.

Needing bodyguards, and not being able to afford them, is a problem.

Back then you didn’t want to sell out or be a poser. Now we are a society of posers.

Women drive 75-85% of discretionary spending in 2026. That's why advertising and products are they way they are.

I think the world has bigger problems than Lady Gaga's Oreos. That said, why not say "Stop Eating Oreos" altogether? Although they are certainly yummy, the sugar in them is a lot worse for people than Lady Gaga's association.

I will say, Oreos are one of the better vegan cookies on the market. The ones purposely advertized as vegan tend to be less tasty. But yeah, 100% should not be a regular thing to eat.

> Why don’t the poor people vote to take all the money away from the rich people and redistribute it amongst themselves?

It's because the Powers That Be don't put it on the ballot. If you put "take 99% of the money from the 1000 richest billionaires (about $10 trillion, I think), and nobody has to pay any income taxes for the next four years" on some sort of national ballot, I think there's a very good chance that it would pass.

As a huge fan of Fishbone, who did not make it big, despite being oh so close in the early 90ies... it'd be nice if there were a better balance. They've seemingly struggled over the years and kept going, but you get the sense that the guys don't have a lot of economic security that they might have with a few big hits.