New technology has a remarkable way of showing us invisible human weaknesses. In this month's roundup of Brands & Outliers, we see a few interesting patterns where great potential is also mirrored by great limitation.

This is perhaps most apparent in AI, where generative porn and emotional infidelity between humans and chatbots is already exploding. Yet what's more telling is a new wave of sexting scams aimed at exploiting teen boys, both emotionally and financially.

It begs a big question: can moral trespass only happen between humans, or can it happen between humans and their machines? We are literally writing the new moral code as we live into this future.

Meanwhile, changing values and medical interventions are creating wholesale evolution of the American lifestyle. We've started drinking a lot less, eating a lot less, sleeping a lot more, and keeping earlier schedules. 

Michael Pollan has famously observed that throughout history, our drugs of choice have determined how we gather. It seems today we are trading in the substances that numb us (alcohol) for the ones that make us more aware (psychedelics).

What the beverage industry seems to miss is that this trade is not just about health, it's about people craving something more conscious in their gatherings.  

But one of my favorite parts of this discussion was a brand called Future Society which has just launched "six scents created using sequenced DNA from extinct flowers, formulated by prestigious perfumers".

Another moral code is asking to be rewritten here. What happens when nature becomes limitless? Just because you can resurrect that which has become extinct, should you? And did we all just pick up this moral baggage from watching Jurassic Park as kids?

There's lots of other good brand and culture insight in this discussion. Links and notable timestamps below.

00:20 New tech is already rewriting our moral code

• 00:38 Why we’re ok with porn in relationships but not AI chatbots 

• 04:08 The emotional exploitation of teen boys online reveals how much people will have to change their online toolset in the coming years

• 06:56 Intruders in the group chat show how desperate social platforms are to break into our gated spaces

11:02 Making friends with our medical diagnoses

• 11:29 If Ozempic becomes the new Prozac, we’re going to have to face some uncomfortable truths about how we talk about our bodies

• 13:57 Our social media culture of normalizing mental illness may have just transitioned to capitalizing on it

15:47 The evolving American lifestyle

• 16:10 As our social lives become uncoupled from food and life increasingly happens in the early hours, we’re getting new lifestyle benchmarks

• 19:08 Culturally, we’re moving from substances that numb us to substances that make us more aware

• 27:22 The sweet spot for marriage is now 28-32 years old, and it looks more like a startup than a merger

28:55 Our diversions are getting more sophisticated

• 29:06 BookTok isn’t just about book recs - it’s about creating an afterlife for the characters that change us

• 35:29 Dupes have always existed, but being proud of a good dupe is new

40:24 Odds and Ends

• Renting makes you age, Japan’s geriatric boy band, personal brands don’t let people grow, and a fragrance brand explores what happens when nature becomes limitless

Come Again?

Here's what we've been consuming.

Déjà vu (Aeon): "Déjà vu occurs when there is a hiccup in the system... allowing us to catch a quick glimpse of our memory’s operation occurring in slow motion. What would ordinarily take place quickly beneath the surface – the unfolding process of familiarity-detection followed by inward-directed attention and retrieval search effort leading to retrieval of relevant information – suddenly has a light shining on the spot where the halt occurred, where the retrieval piece was not successful, and we find ourselves in a heightened state of searching our memory."

The Emotional Language Edition (Why Is This Interesting): "And yet, when people visit [Las Vegas]—whether it’s to see me or to attend a concert or conference—I am often a witness to the moment in which their awe of the absurd, outsized spectacle that is Vegas turns inward and grows darker. It seems to happen almost in an instant, as if someone flipped a switch. They stop making eye contact, their energy recedes into their frame, and they become a shadow of themselves. What happens?"

The Girl Codex: a complete guide to everything girl-coded online (Dazed): "From babygirls and bimbos to Pinkydoll and Subway Girl, the internet is feeling kinda girl-coded lately. But don’t worry, you don’t have to be an actual girl to be a Girl Online. As Tiqqun points out in the 1999 text Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl, nowadays, being a girl isn’t a gendered concept, but a symptom of our times; a way of expressing our collective ambivalence and capitalist consumption – and what are we online if not our personal brands?"

The Secretive Industry Devouring the U.S. Economy (The Atlantic): "The publicly traded company is disappearing. In 1996, about 8,000 firms were listed in the U.S. stock market. Since then, the national economy has grown by nearly $20 trillion. The population has increased by 70 million people. And yet, today, the number of American public companies stands at fewer than 4,000. How can that be?"

How many friends do Americans have? (NPR): "According to Pew, 61% of adults in the U.S. say that having close friends is essential to living a fulfilling life — that's more than those who cited marriage, children or money. A slim majority of adults surveyed (53%) said they have between one and four close friends. 38% said they had about five or more. About 8% said they had no close friends. That adds up with what some experts are describing as an epidemic of loneliness for some Americans."

To Be Young Again

Quick hits of insight in socially acceptable places.

• A brutal chart for the humanities 
   

• We've never felt worse about such a great economy
   

• The most popular age to be
   

• Startup contraction

If This, Then That

Creative inspirations for the other side of your brain.

• Causation makes the story
   

• A profound way of looking at community 
   

• Non-dramatized reenactment of the Aesop brand experience
   

• How to practice empathy

Our Brands & Outliers discussion this month reminded me of one of Kranzberg's laws of technology: 

"Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral."

It seems the more I study culture the more I can't deny our obsessive need to assign a moral value to everything. From Ozempic, UBI and AI, to virtual reality, veganism and breastfeeding, we can't engage with a new development without calling it right or wrong, virtuous or shameful. 

But the truth that we all know is that most things have no inherent moral charge to begin with.

To think strategically, don't ask yourself if a technology or concept is good or evil. Instead ask yourself why we are choosing to call it good or evil. That will tell you nearly everything you need to know.

Many think Ozempic and UBI are morally bad for the same reason: because we can't shake the belief that good things shouldn't be "easy".

Many think veganism and breastfeeding are morally good for the same reason: because deep down, we feel there is a natural "intelligence" that we shouldn't run afoul of. 

They're constructed systems of belief, and they're perfect reflections of human behavior and culture.

They tell you nothing about the concepts themselves, but everything about the people engaging with them.

Yours,

Jasmine Bina
Founder & CEO
Concept Bureau, Inc.