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Spice up your life. Move over, Carolina Reaper. The people of the world have a new pepper to call king, and its heat is no joke. Created by the legendary Ed Currie, his latest record-breaking chili (dubbed Pepper X) measures a blistering 2.693 million SHU and is 3x hotter than the previous record holder. Yikes. It looks like we won’t be going on Hot Ones anytime soon.
In other news… LVMH imagines a new kind of fashion house, Big Tech takes a big hit, and NBC bets on high school sports.
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FASHION
Luxury scale model // Courtesy of LVMH
LVMH lifts the lid on luxury experiences
The Future. LVMH is building a luxury destination right in the heart of Paris, giving aspiring artisans and curious visitors a place to interact with the 280 skilled trades that power the fashion conglomerate’s 75 brands. While other fashion houses have launched their own training facilities, the open-to-the-public aspect is part and parcel of a new push to have physical spaces where fans can participate in unique experiences that deepen their loyalty.
Haute HQ
Fashion conglomerate LVMH is building a new kind of fashion house in Paris.
The 21,500-square-foot building will be the home of its vocational training program, Institut des Métiers d’Excellence, which has trained over 2,700 artisans in nine years.
It’ll be open to the public, allowing people to take one to three-hour-long workshops in several different fashion techniques from working artisans.
It’ll also feature a café, store, and exhibition space “all themed around craftsmanship.”
Additionally, there’ll be a focus on showing visitors how technology is transforming these classic crafts — a move meant to woo younger visitors.
When it comes to visitors, LVMH’s hope is access to artisans and the inner workings of how luxury goods are made will increase appreciation of the goods and inspire some to join the ranks. Chantal Gaemperle, LVMH’s Executive VP of Human Resources & Synergies, says the house could fulfill the post-COVID “need to find meaning and make something that they can understand and touch.”
And that’s because the luxury workforce is aging, and there simply aren’t enough skilled craftspeople to replace those positions. As artisans retire, so do their institutional knowledge of making handcrafted products. LVMH hopes to train and/or hire 22,000 skilled artisans by the end of 2025… just as the luxury mecca is slated to open its doors.
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SOCIAL MEDIA
Breached // Illustration by Kate Walker
Section 230 cracks under the weight of social media
The Future. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl refused to dismiss a series of product liability lawsuits brought by hundreds of government officials and parents of minors against Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Google. That’s surely making Silicon Valley sweat, opening the industry up to the same type of multi-billion dollar settlements that kneecapped Big Tobacco and Big Pharma. While a jury will ultimately decide the outcome of the cases on this level, expect the lawsuits to update their way to the Supreme Court.
Liability leakage
Big Tech is on the path to getting a big slap on the wrist.
The heart of the lawsuit is a “public nuisance theory” that purports the design of social platforms, not just the hosted third-party content, has a negative impact on kids.
That includes TikTok’s continuous scrolling feature and the inability to turn off autoplay on videos, Instagram’s filters and lenses that amplify body image issues, and every platform’s lack of robust parental controls.
She also points out Meta’s own buried research on how Instagram’s UX harms teen mental health.
By letting the lawsuits advance, Judge Kuhl is defining the limits of Section 230 — the legal shield that protects platforms from being liable for the content hosted on them. When the “provider manipulates third-party content in a manner that injures a user,” Section 230 no longer applies. She called the allegedly addictive features “defective design.”
Kuhl even refers to a federal lawsuit that said Snap could be liable for damages after a speedometer feature on the app potentially encouraged speeding and contributed to a fatal crash.
Unfortunately, the consequences may be in the code.
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SPORTS
Betting on the kids // Illustration by Kate Walker
NBC bets on high school sports
The Future. NBC Sports Next, a subsidiary of NBC, is rolling out a streaming service focused on youth and amateur sports called SportsEngine Play. It’s already recruited several schools, clubs, and amateur leagues across a variety of sports. If successful, the new service could become a key tool for students to secure NIL deals and overworked parents to catch their kids’ games even when stuck at the office.
Amateur hour
With professional sports rights all wrapped up, NBC is turning to your local rec league for more content.
SportsEngine Play streams on-demand and live matches of everything from high school football games to community soccer matches.
Games can be watched via video feed from coaches or spectators or from the 90 autonomous cameras installed at 85 venues.
It also has video editing tools so players can create highlight reels from the streams and libraries of content centered on player development and training.
There’s even a MasterClass-type offering called The Pros, featuring instructional videos from athletes like Michael Phelps, Shaun White, and Maria Sharapova.
SportsEngine Play has three subscription tiers and will roll out a TV app sometime next year (it’s just on mobile right now).
With the global youth sports market hitting over $37 billion (twice the size of the NFL) and over 60 million American kids in some sort of program, SportsEngine Play could slyly turn out to be the most subscribed-to streaming service in the country — besting Netflix’s almost 76 million users.
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Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Media, Music, & Entertainment
With “First Person Shooter,” Drake has tied Michael Jackson’s Billboard Hot 100 record — 13 songs to hit #1. Read more → insider
Netflix is taking a swing at live broadcasting with a golf match between the stars of Full Swing and Drive to Survive prior to the Las Vegas Grand Prix (this seems like an unfair matchup). Read more → deadline
Michelle Yeoh, fresh off an Oscar win for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once, was voted in as one of the esteemed 107 members of the International Olympic Committee — the body responsible for approving future Olympic host countries. Read more → espn
Fashion & E-Commerce
Leonardo DiCaprio has become a major investor in the independent Swiss watch brand ID Genève, which is dedicated to making timepieces from sustainable materials and methods. Read more → hypebeast
The EU is done with plastic glitter. Read more → highsnobiety
PayPal will track your packages… even if you didn’t pay for them with PayPal. Read more → techcrunch
Tech, Web3, & AI
NYC Mayor Eric Adams has been using AI to make robocalls in languages he doesn’t speak, including Spanish, Yiddish, and Cantonese… but is raising some eyebrows for not disclosing to listeners that they’re hearing an AI-generated voice. Read more → theverge
A study out of Oxford University found wearables are more accurate at tracking the progression of Parkinson’s disease than human clinical observation. Read more → nyt
Honda is testing an autonomous vehicle at the Pearson Airport in Toronto that can take on tasks like checking fence lines for breaches and hauling luggage trolleys. Read more → engadget
Creator Economy
X may start charging all users $1 a year to use Twitter — a move that Elon Musk says is the only solution he can think of to stop bots on the platform. Read more → fortune
Patreon is bolstering its new redesign with the acquisition of the livestreaming events platform Moment. Read more → thr
Snapchat is finally getting more web capabilities by allowing users to embed videos, stories, and lenses online. Read more → theverge
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.