“We sometimes forget that stones gather energy. Stones and metal gather energy. That energy is still here.”—NYC Mayor Eric Adams providing remarks during a tour of City Hall

“We stare at walls and drink until they speak back.”—Taylor Swift announcing her 10th studio album, Midnights

“Man can you imagine if I had said that?”—Marianne Williamson tweeting about the mayor’s remarks

—Ashwin Rodrigues

Real estate TikToker Erik Conover toured what might be one of the smallest apartments in New York City: a 55 square-foot micro-apartment on St. Marks Place that has only a minifridge, a sink, a closet, and a loft bed. (Sorry, you’ll have to share the bathroom down the hallway.) The apartment is so small that Conover, who is 6’4”, can easily reach the opposite wall with his arms extended. The price? Brace yourself: It’s $1,400 a month.

With the average rent cost in Manhattan hitting a record $5,000, it’s almost impossible to find a decent and affordable apartment in the city. But it’s a different story for commercial real estate. The average office rent is almost 5% lower in Q2 2022 than it was before the pandemic. As inflation soars and the stock market braces for hawkish Fed policies, companies are looking at ways they can reduce costs, with office space spending as a major chunk.

In June, New York’s office occupancy rate topped 40% for the first time since March 2020. That’s on par with the average occupancy rate in 10 major US metro areas, which is less than 45%—a decline from over 95% prior to the pandemic. After telling its more than 4,000 employees they could work remotely indefinitely, Lyft plans to sublease 45% of its office space across the country. In June, Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman announced the company will permanently close its offices in New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC. “We came to realize that the future of work at Yelp is remote,” Stoppelman wrote in a blog post. Plus, tech giants Meta and Amazon have recently bailed on their NYC office expansions.

That’s great news for workers who want to work from home, but not so great for the commercial real estate market. A new research report shows that NYC office values have lost $55.7 billion in the short term. While no one is shedding tears for corporate office landlords, the more-than-ever empty desks mean that cities will collect less tax revenue and possibly face a budgetary deficit. The amount of taxes property owners pay is based on the value of the property: In other words, how many tenants occupy the building. For cities and towns, revenue from property taxes is used to fund schools and other public services.

What’s to become of all of these empty offices? New York Governor Kathy Hochul and NYC Mayor Eric Adams have shown interest in converting midtown Manhattan office buildings into apartments. One day, your old office cubicle may be transformed into a new mini-apartment that you can barely afford.

—Sherry Qin

Boss Beauties is millennial girlboss culture incarnate. The NFT project’s original collection features 10,000 Gen Y-chic portraits of women avatars in muted pop colors, rendered against a flat background. Some wear the uniforms of firefighters, cops, or pilots. They’re white and Black and pink and blue. Some have hijabs, some have hats or shirts that say “future CEO.” “A Woman can be Everything she wants,” the description of Boss Beauties reads on OpenSea, a marketplace for buying and selling NFTs.

She can also, apparently, be scammed.

In early June, a hacker dropped a link into the Boss Beauties Discord channel. That’s not uncommon: Discord is where the Boss Beauties community chats regularly. But this link was a breach, and it turned out to be a scam that lifted NFTs from the wallets of those who clicked it. One estimate counted around 45 stolen NFTs during the hack (Morning Brew could not independently verify the total number of NFTs stolen). The hackers began reselling the Boss Beauties and other NFTs on OpenSea.

Shortly after the hack, the people behind Boss Beauties said on Twitter they were working to buy back the stolen pieces and return them to their original owners. Owning a Boss Beauty isn’t just about having something of value—it’s about gaining access to an exclusive community that hosts everything from the BB Music + Arts Festival, to a special NFT NYC afterparty in June that featured an acoustic performance by Kesha, and the virtual “BB Clubhouse.” And to the most committed holders, it’s about supporting women in a new financial realm where men still hold most of the earnings, particularly in NFT sales.

“It is devastating that Web3 gets targeted on a regular basis by fraudulent scams,” the Boss Beauties team wrote on Twitter. “We must all come together as a space to educate each other and work together as one to help prevent cyber criminals from attacking not only Boss Beauties, but all of us in the Web3 family,” the tweet continued. (Boss Beauties did not respond to a request for comment on the theft, but Morning Brew found that the project has fulfilled its promise to buy back at least some of the stolen assets for its community members.)

Despite the hack, Boss Beauties remains unrelentingly positive about the prospect of NFTs and the new place women will hold in tech. The hack hasn’t slowed them down: They’ve since released “Power Gems,” other NFTs that can be combined to make each Boss Beauty NFT “super.” Similar NFT projects touting opportunity and education for women have become nearly ubiquitous. They’re part of a larger movement made up of people who are all-in on Web3, an evolving part of the internet defined by decentralization, blockchain technologies, and crypto.

In Web2.0, money and power coalesced around a few companies, like Facebook and Google, turning a small set of founders into untouchable billionaires. Under Big Tech’s watch, privacy was compromised and data was exploited. Web3’s believers argue that they must build a more equitable future, an internet that will be more accessible and fair. Its architects embody earnestness and confidence that NFT projects will climb in value until they go “to the moon.”

The sunny mindset is toxic positivity reinvented, a concept that pushes people to keep going and find silver linings—and to be less frank about how badly things may actually be going. It doesn’t allow any room for criticism, let alone dissent. Leaders in Web3 projects, including those at the top of several women-focused collections, have made millions. They have also made promises that ooze positivity and echo a rejected feminist archetype (even after the death of the girlboss has been widely declared)—that if individual women hustle and wrest power from the patriarchy, others can follow in their shoes. That framework overshadowed the groups of people exploited so the girlboss could shatter the glass ceiling. There’s just no way they’re all going to make it. Continue reading this story on Web3’s toxic positivity by Amanda Hoover.

Alyssa Limperis is a comedian known for capturing the essence of well-meaning but relentless moms in her hysterically funny videos. When she’s not doing a dead-on impression of moms, she can be seen in her Showtime series, Flatbush Misdemeanors. Her first comedy special, No Bad Days, is available for streaming on Peacock.

What’s the best advice you ever received?

This is a large theme in my solo show No Bad Days on Peacock, but my late dad’s advice to me and my family was always, “If the sun’s out and you have another day on this Earth, what’s there to be worried about?” I try to remember that when I am stressed and it helps me zoom out and see the big picture and find some joy, even on a difficult day.

What’s the most embarrassing song you’ll admit to liking publicly?

I’ll tell you what...“Baby Shark” is a damn hit.

What fictional person do you wish were real?

Kids close your ears—you gotta go with Santa. Waking up Christmas morning in your 30s just like, “Woooohooo he got me an air fryer and a gift card to Bed Bath & Beyond let’s gooooo.”

What real person do you wish were fictional?

Whoever decided to discontinue the barbeque popped ridge chips at Trader Joe’s.

How would you explain TikTok to your great-grandparents?

You can watch tiny movies on your phone and you can make tiny movies on your phone. Also, your phone lives in your pocket. And you can send emails on it. We will cover emails next week. XOXO

What always makes you laugh?

I’m a sucker for blooper videos. I love watching a cast break and get stuck in uncontrollable laughter. In particular, I love the clip of Julia Louis-Dreyfus breaking in the scene with Jerry Stiller. It’s a very infectiously funny video.

If you were given a billboard in Times Square, what would you put on it?

A: One that says “bring back the barbeque popped ridge chips” and another [for No Bad Days].

—Interview by Amanda Hoover

Weaponizing FOMO: Franchises like Only Murders in the Building and House of the Dragon are turning to pop-up experiences to drum up FOMO. For fans of the shows, in-person events can strengthen fandom (as though George R. R. Martin fans needed more encouragement), but they can also help cement franchises into the cultural conversation. [Marketing Brew]

Begging for doge? As cryptocurrencies lick their wounds following a steep sell-off, some HODLers are turning their attention to the nonprofit sector. Can you actually donate crypto to your favorite charity? Yes. Crypto and NFT philanthropy have exploded over the last two years, but crypto critics still have their concerns. [Morning Brew]

Channel your inner #RichGirl: Figure out exactly how you can set yourself up to pay no taxes or penalties in early retirement on any of your pretax, taxable, and Roth funds, even if you retire in your thirties. Katie also digs into how much a couple would need to save and invest to retire early and then breaks down how they can strategically access those funds for the most optimal tax-free outcomes. [Money with Katie]

Old scam, new tech: Crypto has a pump and dump problem. Telegram is full of groups of thousands of people who pump different coins to make astronomical profits and then sell, leaving innocent people holding the bag. In 2021, crypto investors lost more than $2.8 billion to such schemes. It’s sketchy but it’s not illegal. [Morning Brew]

The best thing we read this week: A jeweler. A plastic surgeon. An OnlyFans model. They and others received a blue check in likely the biggest Instagram verification scheme revealed to date. After ProPublica started asking questions, Meta removed badges from over 300 accounts. [ProPublica]

—Ashwin Rodrigues