Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Meta.

Elon Musk has pissed some people off. Granted, that doesn’t sound terribly newsworthy. But this time he hasn’t only pissed off the people who, for reason of politics or personality, are naturally predisposed to dislike him. This time he’s pissed off his own user base on Twitter. The platform introduced temporary read limits this week designed to address “extreme levels of data scraping” and “system manipulation”, restricting the number of daily Tweets free to view to 6,000 for verified users, 600 for unverified, and 300 for new unverified accounts. And people are profoundly displeased about this. Because you can re-platform all the Nazis you want, but don’t you dare get in the way of our crippling addiction to social media (that’s the consensus of Twitter users, not us). And, funnily enough, Meta chose this of all weeks to release their own version of Twitter called ‘Threads’ – a rather appropriate name given all the wicked webs currently being woven by these two maniacs. And, not for nothing, Threads logged five million sign-ups in its first four hours of operation. Squeaky bum time for Elon. Outstanding shithousery from Zuck. But I wish these two would just hurry up and fight or kiss or whatever already. The flirting is unbearable.

Apple Bobbing & Weaving.

Oh good, some more big tech beef. Google have been doing some Apple bashing this week. They dropped a series of ads taking the piss out of the iPhone, with each execution showing an anthropomorphised iPhone 14 Pro and the Google Pixel 7 Pro spending some time together in a number of scenarios, methodically detailing all the ways in which the Pixel is superior. And the ads could even be described as mildly amusing. This creates something of a paradox for us as the viewer and consumer. You likely accept all the information as true, and yet you find yourself no less likely to relinquish your plainly inferior iPhone in favour of a Pixel 7 Pro. And that really makes you wonder: just how brainwashed by Apple are we? Turns out long-term brand building actually works. Who knew? Either that or I’ve massively over-projected and you’ll all find yourselves utterly compelled to make the switch – but somehow I doubt that. Right by the short and curlies.

Deliver-ooo.

The future is so close you can almost taste it. I’m getting hints of nutmeg… freshly-cut grass… and… my word, is that… yes, it must be… dog shit and nuclear armageddon. But soon you may actually be able to taste your very immediate future, as a report predicted this week that takeaways will be available to be tasted virtually by 2040. And before you ask, no we do not know how that is even remotely possible nor how such an outlandish conclusion was drawn. And the fact that this report was commissioned by Deliveroo should have absolutely no bearing on its credibility. It’s not exactly peer-reviewed, but peer-reviewing was basically just a scam created by Robert Maxwell. Look into it. And anyway, we’re dealing with big ideas here; we’ll let the pointy-heads in lab coats work out the details later. Apparently something named BreathTech will be developed, allowing an AI to offer “a deep level of insight” into the foods you should be eating according to your preferences and personal physiology, the report claimed. No idea, mate. Stop asking so many questions and start licking your screen like a good little consumer.

Bag = Secured.

We saw this a couple weeks ago but decided not to include it in coolsh*t on the basis that nobody was going to buy a microscopic bag. What fools we were. Framed as a commentary on fashion’s ludicrously ever-shrinking accessories, MSCHF’s Louis Vuitton-inspired bag, which is smaller than a solitary grain of salt and can only be seen under a microscope, was purchased at auction this week for a whopping £63k. That’s a lot of Yeezys. It must be nice being a hypebeast with more money than sense. This proves that MSCHF have now entered Donald Trump territory in that they could go out and shoot someone in Times Square and their hordes of adoring fans would still eat it up as some sort of avant-garde art performance. And they’ve also just announced their latest release: a pyramid scheme. That isn’t our judgement; they’ve literally named the scheme ‘Pyramid Chat’ and stated that its principal purpose is “to help idiots make a quick buck.” We’ll let Jesse Pinkman say it for us.

Sound, La.

Have you ever wondered what your music taste would look like if personified as a 3D avatar? No, of course you haven’t. But now you can find out anyway, thanks to Bang & Olufsen. The iconic Danish high-end consumer electronics company launched their ‘See Yourself in Sound’ campaign this week, which is intended to move the brand into a new era tailored to the individual tastes of the consumer while putting its product’s main function – delivering fine-tuned audio – at the centre of its relationship with said consumers. And they’ve launched it with a function that connects to your Spotify account and assesses your typical mood, energy and groove in order to render an avatar that supposedly sums you up. And this definitely isn’t just a gimmicky way of harvesting your listening data and advertising to you. And even if it is, it’s a good one, because I was too curious not to give it a go. Although, I should warn you, you might not be thrilled with the results. Turns out my mood, energy and groove are excited, intense and sensual respectively. Suppose that’s what happens when you only listen to jump up DnB and Marvin Gaye.

Pray the Grey Away.

Did you know that the most popular car colour in the UK is grey? No wonder we’re so miserable all the time. Grey people driving grey cars in grey cities on grey roads in grey weather. That’s a maelstrom of melancholy. Plus grey isn’t even technically a colour, it’s a shade. But Fiat have decided that enough is enough, as they vowed this week – or, more accurately, their err, effervescent, CEO vowed – that they will no longer produce grey cars. The decision is part of a campaign to develop Fiat’s reputation as a “brand of joy, colours and optimism”. They’re really doubling down on their Italian-ness, basically. And that makes sense, because their current reputation mainly revolves around making tiny little city cars for hairdressers and spoilt 17-year-old girls who have recently insisted that their daddy upgrade their pony to a 3-door hatchback. I’d like to think this is what Signor Berlusconi would have wanted.