In person
Or, inevitably, out
Listen: Tomorrow by Black Pumas
Since they formed in 2019, the Austin duo Black Pumas have developed a reputation for a slamming live show that they’ve come to refer to as “electric church.” And their second album, Chronicles of a Diamond, is made explicitly to carry the energy of their in-person performance. The record rollicks around palatable soul and psych-rock vibes, hyping and swaying and looping you in so you can easily imagine bopping along in a live venue. Kinda makes you want to buy a ticket, doesn’t it?
Nice office you’ve got there
So the concert hall is an easy sell, but how do you get people to take their bodies to work?
This week I learned that not only does Magic Spoon still exist, but the company appears to have redone its office. Thanks to the firm that designed The Wing, the five-year-old keto enabler now has a rainbow of conference rooms named for protein-powder-based-cereal flavors, appointed with squat, velvet couches and squiggly tables.
According to the (very thorough and good!) reporters who covered this for the New York Times, it's part of a wave of companies instagrammifying their spaces to attract the Gen Z workers they depend on for cultural sensibility and then rail against for having too many feelings for the workplace — or at least to convince them to show their faces enough to satisfy company policy.
But, if you can imagine, post-friendly aesthetics do not in themselves make for a functional workplace; “there are gaps between what workers are getting and what they say want.” Some workers, for instance, want a desk that’s theirs instead of floating around an open floor all day. Others would like some peace and quiet. At M&C Saatchi, also designed by the Wing women, there is gorgeous gallery shelving in the main area and nowhere for employees to leave their things.
I will note that The Wing was notoriously uncomfortable — impossibly low couches; hard, backless stools; likewise no storage. But more importantly, have we not done this office-attraction schtick before? At 23, I joined ZocDoc for the foosball table and when it became immediately clear that the company culture was a disaster,* I lasted all of three weeks. Even that aesthetic was pulled from Google, with their climbing walls and massage rooms, and we see where they are now: laying people off en masse. All I'm saying is, we can see through the purple paint on your walls, and if you’ve gone through the trouble of putting it there to attract workers, you'd better be able to pay them.
*cannot speak to what it’s like ten years later
It’d be a shame if something happened to it
The in-office game may be a pain, but things are even worse outside. In cities around the world, streams of pee are wearing down historic facades, a literal surface-level problem that actually runs deep. From the Baltimore Banner: “Like a yellow Sharpie, it’s highlighting long-standing tensions in Baltimore: the decline of a once bustling city center, dwindling public spaces and the enduring needs of the local homeless population.”
I have to say it: why do these stories never explicitly touch on overpopulation? Maybe we steer clear because who wants to constrain people's reproductive choices (oh wait) but like..... if you've got a bunch of people in your city and can't house or sanitize or pay them, and that's the case in pretty much all the other cities, too, that's too many people, right?
Anyway, at least someone is actually acknowledging the depth of the pee issue — whereas other cities are installing pee guards to protect the buildings, Baltimore is planning to build public bathrooms so people can pee in peace. It’s not housing, but it’s not nothing either.