Year Of The Brat

PRESENTED BY NATIVE PATH

Halloween’s approaching, FutureParty people. And with it, the battle for the ultimate scary experience. Disney, Universal Studios, and Six Flags are all rolling out new and improved versions of their staple spook fests — a $12 billion industry during the season. Are you going to any? Let us know.

DAILY TOP TRENDS

Gen Z Dishes For Snacks

Snacks are the new flex. Gen Zers are splurging on their grocery-store hauls to signal luxury, go viral online, and of course, treat themselves.

The Big Bite: Inflation may be starting to come down, but the cost of living is still out of control. So, young people — who can’t afford things like luxury handbags or nice cars — are looking to things like celebrity smoothies, tinned fish, and breakfast cereal as tastemaker items.

Beneath The Bag: Insider has the scoop on just how much Gen Z is spending on their grocery runs.

• A February McKinsey study found that Gen Zers and millennials plan to splurge more on groceries than on eating out, travel, and fitness.

• A June Bank of America study found that Gen Z spends more at premium grocery stores like Erewhon and Bristol Farms than any other generation.

• The spending is driven by a desire to eat healthier, with a YouGov poll finding that 70% of Gen Zers are willing to pay more for “high-quality foods.”

Last Taste: The uptick in grocery spending has been a boon for grocers — Erewhon made $171 million in profit last year and claimed to make 4x the amount of revenue per store than competitors (driven by digital creators hoping to go viral for their hauls). So, of course, celebrities are also getting in on the action, whether it’s collabing on $19 smoothies at Erewhon, hawking new brands like SmartSweets and Olipop, or launching a Lunchables competitor. With tastes changing, prepare for a massive amount of M&A in the snack space.

Go Tastier: Erewhon, so hot right now.

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The Album Never Ends

Artists are ensuring that they stay in the conversation all year long by releasing remixed and expanded albums that increase their lifecycles.

Why It Hits: The ease and immediacy of streaming is turning album rollouts into strategic plays, allowing artists to time releases in an effort to juice tour sales and game the Billboard charts.

Behind The Cover: Charli XCX is ensuring that brat season never ends.

• The artist released Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat last Friday to keep the album of the summer playing even as the weather chills.

• It’s a similar strategy to Taylor Swift, who released three dozen versions of The Tortured Poets Department, which helped her to top the Billboard 200 chart for 15 weeks, blocking artists like Billie Eilish and Zach Bryan from hitting #1.

• Future and Metro Boomin have also been playing the game, releasing We Don’t Trust You in March and their follow-up, We Still Don’t Trust You, a month later.

Closing Track: The album-release-and-rerelease trend is likely here to stay, potentially overtaking what the single was last decade. Call it maximalist publicity. We wouldn’t be surprised if one truly ambitious artist decides to release only one more album in their lifetime, constantly iterating on the same record for the rest of their career to create the most epic album ever recorded. A life’s work, if you will.

Deeper Cut: Album releases aren’t the only aspect of music that streaming has remixed.

DEEP DIVES

• Watch: SpaceX completed a successful “catch” of its reusable Super Heavy booster — a potential game-changer for space travel.

• Listen: Book Review chats with actor and travel series host Stanley Tucci about his new food-travel book, What I Ate in One Year.

• Read: NYT explores why there’s renewed interest in President George Washington… but now as one of the funniest characters across entertainment.

91% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Have you ever attended an IRL event hosted by an influencer?

“Nor could I ever imagine myself doing so.”

“LOL, a what now? No, thanks.”

“I’m my own influencer (or not).”

“This concept is so foreign to me that I had to read the question multiple times to understand what was being asked.”

“We are ALL influencers! The only difference is that some are getting paid for it.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

QUICK HITS

→ Entertainment / Media

🎤 Deadpool & Wolverine duo Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are in the mix to host the next Academy Awards… which may look like a very different gig moving forward.

🎮 Rare studio head Craig Duncan is taking the reins at Xbox Game Studios following Alan Hartman’s retirement after 30 years at the company.

🎞️ It’s finalized: Legendary Studios independently bought Dalian Wanda Group out of its stake, making Legendary and Apollo Global equal co-owners.

→ Technology

🎓 Adobe is expanding its Digital Academy in an effort to teach 30 million people AI and other digital skills by 2030.

🚀 NASA launched a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa to see if it’s habitable.

👨‍💻 Europe may not have a Silicon Valley, but it may be making a Silicon Valley-like network with cities in England, France, Scotland, and the Netherlands.

→ Creator Economy

📱 TikTok set aside a billion dollars to settle future European data privacy fines, signaling that, yeah, they’re going to break some rules.

🇨🇭 Switzerland partnered with Creator Camp to bring 80 influencers to the country in a bid to boost tourism.

📷 Fujifilm has another new camera… which means digital creators are about to make it go viral.