Side Projects Podcast

Liberté, Égalité, Cultural Strategé

This week, Eli, Trey, and Clara are talking about what seems to be a growing existential crisis in the ill-defined world of “cultural strategy:” Who is it really for? Wha

Gentleminions for Tech Dweebs

What’s one thing bringing high-flying Hollywood directors and regular Americans together en masse? Vilifying tech billionaires. Just as anti-tech populism is simmering to

What Exactly Is a “Knowledge Creator”?

Over the past few years, we’ve been seeing a new genre of creators gain prominence. Maybe you've heard them referred to as “knowledge influencers,” “brandsplainers,” or t

Are There Too Many “Social-First” TV Shows?

Clara, Trey, and Eli discuss everything becoming TV, New York morphing into one big content backdrop, navigating Washington Square Park like it’s ABC’s Wipeout, and wheth

One Novelty Popcorn Bucket to Rule Them All

This week on the pod, Clara, Trey, and Eli discuss the Grey Lady’s campaign celebrating 175 years of print advertising, and the quote “advertising reflects the moments th

How to Find Cool Music

Georgia Jaffe is the founder of Indie Hourzz: an online music, media, and culture platform which hosts intimate live sessions, concerts, and more. We spoke with her about

A Whole Earth Catalog for the New Space Age

When you think about space exploration today, it’s easy to scoff at the profligate spending of billionaires drunk on ambition, the vanity trips laced with an impressive l

When Life Gives You Lemons, Drink a “Pink Lemon Drop Suncloud Lemonade”

It’s been a while since we’ve had the full gang together, and there’s much to discuss. Trey gives the run down on Corgi Cafe—and makes the case for Capitol One Café. Clar

The Case Against “Cool Parent” Brand Strategy

Recently, there’s been a lot of anxiety around the health of subcultures: “Subcultures aren’t dead, they’re just not where you’re looking,” “Teen Subcultures Are Fading.

Don’t Hate the Creator, Hate the Economy

The creator economy has officially won, and periodic waves of influencer backlash have become a perennial feature of online discourse. Some recent examples include the “n

How Do You Rebuild America’s Lost Sense of Community?

Is it a fun new beverage? Fast food innovation? Celebrity wedding? A disdain for data centers? An underdog sports story? We’re living through a moment of seemingly calcif

How Sotheby's Conquered the Attention Economy

Phyllis Kao is a senior auctioneer at Sotheby’s. You might’ve recently seen clips of her taking bids for a 67-million-year-old T-Rex named Gus, which sold for a whopping

AI Won’t Get You Laid

Brands have rightly diagnosed a desire for connection and romance, hosting “mixers,” posting personals, and even producing dating shows on social. But what role should th

The FYP Halftime Show, Brought to You by FIFA

Eli and Clara discuss the highs and lows of the World Cup, with an eye toward how brands leveraged big-name talent like Madonna, Messi, the Muppets, and David “the Coca-C

Good Style Requires an Interesting Life

Clara and Trey sat down with Jalil Johnson—fashion professional, writer, and creator of popular Substack ‘Consider Yourself Cultured’—to talk about the changing role of f

“Advertising Is So Highly Hypnotic”

Hypnotist and hypnosis instructor Désirée Eckert joins Eli and Clara to talk about the trance states we enter every day (scrolling on our phones for one) and why building

Is the Rick Rubin Polymarket Ad Good?

As prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket stretch their tentacles across culture, their advertising has become ubiquitous. Ahead of the World Cup, Kalshi

Linking & Consensus Building on the Croisette

For our second special edition pod, we spoke with Mark Stenberg, Senior Media Reporter at AdWeek, to compare notes on what people are talking about this year: AI FOBO, th

Cannes Lions Is an Endless Times Square

This is the first of two special edition podcasts this week, recorded on the ground at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity ™️. Today, we’re joined by breakfast aficio

The Limits of Gatekeeping Fandom

An enduring theme of the Knicks’ historic finals run has been squabbling over who and what constitutes “a real fan,” exacerbated by astronomical ticket prices, the intrus