Year of the Bunny

Together with

Future Partaaayy… Are you ready for an adventure of a lifetime? Enter our giveaway for a chance to win a trip for two to the beautiful country of Italy! The lucky winners will receive six nights’ accommodation with daily breakfast, free transportation for sightseeing, a gondola ride in Venice, and more. Entering is quick and easy, too. Simply fill out our online form, and you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to win. Boom.

In other news… Bad Bunny is building an empire, Silicon Valley tries to eliminate grief, and celebrities let you crash in their homes.

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MUSIC

Bad Bunny jumps from music-making to empire-building

The Future. Bad Bunny’s cultural empire is just getting started for the 29-year-old Latin artist. Spanning entertainment, fashion, and sports, Bad Bunny may be in uncharted territory for a Spanish-first musician… demonstrating how the globalization of music has deplatformed the necessity to sing in English for worldwide superstardom.

Year of the Bunny
Bad Bunny is leveraging his music success to expand into every corner of culture.

• Entertainment. He’s moved into acting (Amazon’s Cassandro; Sony’s Bullet Train), hosted SNL, and even became a playable character in the wrestling video game WWE 2k23 (after wrestling in a WWE match in real life).

• Fashion. He’s designed 14 shoes for adidas while partnering with Crocs on a glow-in-the-dark clog. He’s also appeared in marketing for Gucci, and he plans to start his own fashion brand. 

• Sports. Besides the foray into wrestling, he became the co-owner of a basketball team in Puerto Rico and started a sports management company, Rimas Sports, to highlight local athletes.

Bad Bunny has done all this while only singing in Spanish, further cementing Latin music’s rise as arguably the most popular and influential genre in music right now. According to Forbes, Bad Bunny has turned that global music success and savviness with social media into $88 million in earnings last year alone… 

…putting him on the path to become Latin American’s Taylor Swift (a one-person marketing machine).

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Silicon Valley codes a new grieving process

The Future. Several AI companies are marketing services that hope to make grieving a thing of the past. These AI-powered recreations of loved ones may have the power to provide a psychological cushion for those spiraling from loss, but they could also become a crutch for people looking simply for comfort, not closure. 

Broken heart bot
Grieving the loss of a loved one is hard… so some AI firms are trying to ease the pain, per Vox.

• “Grief tech” startups like Replika, StoryFile, Seance AI, and HereAfter AI provide services, such as the creation of virtual avatars of loved ones and interactive video conversations.

• These “companions” provide grievers something they can talk to whenever they miss their lost loved one — giving them a gentler way to let go.

• While some have found these services comforting, others have been hit with unannounced updates that totally break the illusion — a phenomenon that could be retraumatizing.

Grief counselors warn that the rise of grief tech could make people reliant on these tools to cope or, worse, avoid the natural human process of grieving altogether. Could the ambition to optimize grief simply postpone the process, prolonging our psychological need for closure?

Whether or not that’s a good thing may be a deeper question about the role death plays in society.

TOGETHER WITH UMOJA

Give like it’s the future

It’s #GivingTuesday, and there’s a new way to give to charity that involves drum roll please… web3. So, yeah, we’re in. 

Meet The Umoja Foundation — they’re reshaping NFTs into tools for a greater cause. And they have 250 unique pieces exclusively on Rarible that you can start giving today!

But first, who are they supporting? Dasom Ministries Orphanage in Uganda with essentials like food, medicine, clothing, and education.

Dasom Ministries extends its arms wide-open to embrace all — from innocent children to resilient widows. They roll up their sleeves, support clean water sources, and offer sustenance to the less fortunate on the streets. To put it plainly, they restore hope where it’s been lost. How can you not take part?

We have more to tell you about Umoja, too.

But first… give!

HOUSING

Celebrities give their homes starring roles on Airbnb

The Future. Celebrities are taking to Airbnb and Booking.com to put up their homes for rent. Don’t worry, names like Martha Stewart and DJ Khaled aren’t hurting for cash — it’s just a new marketing push for short-term rentals. And, the stays are totally legit… which points to a future when rentals are singular experiences in and of themselves.

Blockbuster rentals
If you’ve ever wanted to crash at a celebrity’s home, now you can.

• Martha Stewart put up one of her seven homes for a one-night rental for a Thanksgiving-themed stay that included a guided-tour of the 150-acre farm, a wreath-making classroom, and brunch with Stewart.

• Gwyneth Paltrow’s Montecito, CA, estate was on Airbnb, giving renters a plethora of Goop products and guided transcendental meditation.

• Mariah Carey put up her Beverly Hills rental home and NYC penthouse on Booking.com… yet the penthouse was only available to reserve for a cocktail hour.

• DJ Khaled takes the cake for wildest offering, though, putting his studio-sized sneaker closet up for rent — guests couldn’t touch the walls of sneakers, but the stay did come with a shoe-shopping trip with chauffeurs.

While you may think these stays would be insanely expensive, they’re all actually priced under $20. Why? Expert marketing from Airbnb and Booking.com show the one-of-a-kind experiences those platforms can provide — a savvy pushback against the anti-short-term-rental narrative. You can almost hear CEO Brian Chesky taunting, “Try to beat that, hotels.”

Of course, the companies are paying the celebrities what they’re really owed — a number as locked down as the NDA that guests have to sign to stay at these A-list listings.

TOGETHER WITH UMOJA

Where to give this Giving Tuesday part 2

Ok, so you know it’s Giving Tuesday, and we shared where you can give, but it’s worth knowing a little bit more about the people behind the cause, too — Umoja.

Umoja is more than just a charity organization. It's a community-driven platform that leverages web3 technology to create social impact. 

By utilizing NFTs as social tokens…

• Umoja is able to bridge the gap between traditional philanthropy and the exciting world of cryptocurrency.

• Each NFT sold provides immediate aid to those in need…

• …and creates lasting impact through community-led initiatives and investments.

• Basically, they’re a web3 company with a heart.

When you support Umoja, you’re not just donating money, but you're also becoming part of a community that’s revolutionizing the way we give.

So, why not make your Giving Tuesday truly impactful? Explore Umoja’s collection of NFTs and be a part of something bigger than yourself.

Head to Rarible where you can find 250 exclusive pieces and join the web3 philanthropy movement.

Highlights

The best curated daily stories from around the web

Media, Music, & Entertainment

• The open casting call to lead of the new Karate Kid film, set to star Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan, racked up 10,000 submissions in a single day. Read More → thr

• Billie Eilish and brother Finneas are backing a new vegan restaurant in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood called Argento. Read More → deadline

• TikTok has called “game over” on its gaming division, Nuverse, after two years. Read More → techcrunch

Fashion & E-Commerce

• Business of Fashion has crowned Burberry, Bottega Veneta, and Valentino as the big winners of the fashion race at the Las Vegas Grand Prix — all thanks to suiting up star Lewis Hamilton. Read More → bof

• Louis Vuitton’s $2,500 Illusion Ankle Boots gives the illusion that the customer is simply wearing a pair of high heels — giving major A Christmas Story vibes. Read More → highsnobiety

• Black Friday sales hit a record $9.8 billion, thanks to online shopping, per Adobe Analytics. Read More → fastcompany

Tech, Web3, & AI

• Just prior to last week’s OpenAI drama, the firm reportedly had a major breakthrough — the creation of a model called “Q*” that finally gave AI the ability to solve tasks that involved reasoning, like math problems. Read More → theinformation

• The Kingdom of Bhutan has secretly been running a major, state-owned Bitcoin-mining operation — potentially the largest in the world. Read More → forbes

• Peri 3D Construction is printing an entire apartment building in Germany, with each 872-square-foot unit costing no more than $530/month in rent. Read More → insider

Creator Economy

• Taylor Lorenz argues that maximalist-YouTube content has reached its peak and the next big creator will be the “anti-MrBeast.” Read More → theverge

• Noice is taking on Twitch and Kick for livestreaming glory… and is introducing in-stream minigames to differentiate itself from competitors. Read More → tubefilter

• Creators Rhett & Link are getting into the cereal game with MishMash. Read More → fastcompany

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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Boye Fajinmi. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.