A Pop-up City, Only Men, and Detached 🚩

Since 2021, startups selling products specifically for the creator economy (such as editing and collaboration tools) — have raised $8.6B+, per The Information.

In the last two years, the creator economy and the startups backing them experienced an unprecedented golden period. Surely, a lot of investors were supremely optimistic about their futures. 

But that hasn’t been the case lately since funding for the sector is down 90%+ this quarter compared to the same time two years ago. As a result, in the last one year alone, 18+ creator startups have either been acquired or shuttered, and many more are running out of gas to support creators.

What went wrong?

For one, many creators saw the advent of Metaverse as a chance to create more and make more money. But as that excitement died down, creators had to go back to their old methods of entertainment. 

Second, mounting pressures on TikTok have reduced the vitality of its videos. Major countries such as Australia, Canada, India, Denmark, The Netherlands, to name a few, have already placed bans on usage of the app, making it difficult for creators to go viral. 

Finally, companies were betting on the emergence of the creator economy middle class, which sadly, didn’t materialize. 

Young workers in the United States have reportedly grown disengaged from traditional jobs and the “hustle culture.”

According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, older workers tend to have more positive assessments of their jobs.  But among the younger groups, at least half of them are only somewhat happy with their job profiles or workplaces. 

Whether it’s burnout or general exhaustion, we don’t know yet. It could also possibly be a mismatch in personal identity and the nature of their job. Because according to the survey, a majority of young workers believe their job helps shape their sense of self. 

Still, these same young workers are generally quite content with other aspects of their work, such as their relationships with colleagues and their daily assignments. In fact, personal connections stand out as the highest-rated measures of job satisfaction among young workers. 

Surprisingly, this general satisfaction with colleagues comes after a particularly turbulent period in the job market. Most young Americans tend to work in customer-facing industries, such as hospitality and retail, which together employ 25% of the workforce. These sectors were also among the hardest hit during the pandemic. 

Humans have been searching for the fountain of youth for thousands of years. But progress has been slow, to say the least.

Probably because anti-ageing tech is incredibly expensive. Besides, health agencies like the WHO don’t even consider aging to be a disease in the first place. So naturally investment in this sector is not so hot right now. But a group of longevity enthusiasts is trying to change that by creating their own country for “young people”.

Yes, it exists. Welcome to Zuzalu, a pop-up city in Montenegro that is providing a temporary home for the anti-ageing squad. The city’s population is small; only 780 so far. But their dreams are big. And they even have a passport. 

They believe that companies should not be held back by laws that limit longevity drug tests. Basically, they want fewer regulations on such tests. They’ve been brainstorming on how to create a whole country that let’s them self-experiment with unproven drugs, without falling into trouble with international laws. And they are now considering shifting base to Rhode Island or somewhere in Latin America.

Their plan is not all that free-wheeling or random as one might think. It is in fact, modelled on the Free State Project, a movement launched about 20 years ago to encourage 20,000 libertarians to move to New Hampshire. The idea is that once enough people with a particular ideology move to a region, their votes can begin to alter regional policies and state laws. (Ironically, there were reports of an increase in violent crime and bear attacks in New Hampshire after the project.)

🎶 Musical Suits - Twitter got sued for $250+ million by music publishers claiming 1,700 copyrighted songs are widely available on the platform.

⚰️ Post To The Grave - So that you can write letters to loved ones who have died, and process your pain.