This Week in Dulture…

Approx 4 minute read:

🏒 A much needed victory

🃏 David Blaine is Back

🏃‍♀️ Checks Over Stripes for Kim K

📉 Humane is no more

Dulture weekly mix

This one takes you from day to night out of nowhere - check out how the vibe changes as it gets darker

David Blaine in Search of Real Magic

It’s hard to believe it’s been 28 years since David Blaine was introduced the whole world when Street Magic was aired on ABC, essentially redefining what magic was to the world.

Twenty eight years later and this is still peak magic performance…

Since Blaine’s debut, he’s done all kinds of things…

• Regurgitate a live frog out of nowhere

• Stuck an ice pick through his hand

• Levitated in the street

And beyond magic, he’s put himself in some pretty insane situations…

• Surviving 63 hours in a block of ice

• Trapped himself in a glass box for 44 days

• And my personal favourite, holding on to a bunch of balloons and then dropping 20,000 feet in the air

Now I know where MrBeast gets all of his video ideas from.

In March Blaine will be coming out with a new show on NatGeo/Disney+/Hulu called David Blaine Do Not Attempt.

The six part mini docu-series will see him travel to Brazil, Southeast Asia, India, the Arctic Circle, South Africa, and Japan as he meets with performers and masters to witness their exceptional skills, “through the lens of magic”.

But this wouldn’t be a true David Blaine show unless he himself tried some of this stuff for himself. Expect Blaine to witness things like sword swallowing and kissing king cobras and then go on to try it himself.

The goal of the docu-series is to show the viewer what it takes to become master at these “rituals” - in case you were also wondering how to safely cover yourself in bees and scorpions.

If the guy can hold his breath under water for 17 minutes and live to talk about it, I’m sure he’ll have no problem when he walks around on fire in the show.

Kim K is Nike’s Latest…Ambassador?

Part of me feels like I have no business commenting on this as it’s a women’s fashion announcement. And maybe that’s right? But I’ve also been supporting and following Nike for so many years that I feel like I’ve worked at the company this whole time.

So let me cook.

Earlier this week Nike and Skims announced a new brand called NikeSkims. Upon first glance it seemed like just a collaboration and I thought, hmm, Kim Kardashian is getting a Nike bag now. But then I go check the press release and I see that this is an official global brand announcement on the Nike site with a full collection being released this spring.

Now, I’m all for brands collaborating like this, but what are we doing Nike?  

As the brand continues to lose market share to challenger brands like On, Hoka, and traditional brands like Adidas and New Balance, one can’t help but wonder, WTF are they doing over there in Beaverton??

From continuing to create unnecessary exclusivity with their shoe launches that have already been previously retro-ed SIX TIMES to failing to show the Nike consumer anything interestingly new for what feels like years now, this NikeSkims brand just feels so lazy.

None of it makes sense to me. Nike has been producing women’s athletic wear for just about 40 years now. You’re telling me with all the resources at their disposal, the history of garment innovation, and the countless female athletes and research at their disposal, they couldn’t have just revamped the women’s line themselves?

I get Kim K’s side - she’s about to blow Skims out of the water.

But Nike looking at Kardashian (who has essentially purchased body parts to make herself look the way she does) as a beacon to attract women to an athletic brand literally makes no sense to me. And I hope if you’re a woman reading this you’re also raising an eyebrow.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard Skims is actually a great product, I just don’t see how Nike couldn’t have done this by themselves.

The Universe Remains Undefeated

All you had to do was watch the launch video and that should’ve told you everything you needed to know about the Humane AI pin.

For those of you who don’t know, Humane is/was a San Francisco based startup that raised $230M to build a little AI-powered device that you would clip to your shirt to tell it stuff or have it tell you stuff, instead of using your phone.

When they launched, Twitter went nuts over how bad the video was and how much they didn’t tell the world what the point of the pin actually was. In fact, no one saw the point of wanting to talk to their shirt like they were on Star Trek.

Kids, this is a prime example of building a product without “product market fit”.

The company relied on its two co-founders who were ex-Apple executives to convince investors to give them $230 MILLION DOLLARS back in 2023. And now they’re shutting the thing down after only selling 10,000 devices in 2 years, after projecting to sell 10 times that amount.

Customers who were within the 90 day return window will get a full refund, while the rest of your suckers are stuck with a paper weight.

Speaking of paper! HP is buying their technology and patents for $116 MILLION DOLLARS and subsequently putting it in their printers so that now when you yell at your printer for acting stupid, it will talk back to you :)

For those of you who had purchased one of these devices for $699 (later reduced to $499 for obvious reasons), it will be officially offline come February 28th.

Humane has told people to recycle their pins 😭.