ON ROAD's Editorial Weekly Roundup
Plus other exciting bits coming up
This week in the Play First series, we explored play as resistance on social media and ways in which bootleg culture is fuelling experimentation among smaller brands. In addition, we covered how rapper Westside Gunn has slowly crafted a creative universe that can inform luxury brands when it comes to worldbuilding.
Play First: Play as resistance on social media
Of the many phenomena that have arisen from social media, algospeak might be one of the most interesting. A sort of coded language made up of emojis and misspelt words, creators use to bypass censorship rules, algospeak follows a long lineage of vernacular born under restrictive conditions.
Constantly evolving, the 21st century dialect includes words such as seggs, unalive, cornucopia and accountant to represent sex, dead, porn and sex workers (respectively). And in other cases, emojis are used as replacements
How Luxury Brands Can Learn From Westside Gunn
We explore how the Buffalo rapper has masterfully synthesised street rap, high fashion, and professional wrestling into a unique, aspirational aesthetic. It’s a powerful lesson for luxury brands: the future of relevance is not in simple product placement, but in becoming an authentic, integral partner in the complex, self-sufficient cultural universes artists are already constructing. The paradigm has shifted to a point where the creative power lies with the artist.
Play First: If you must steal, steal from brands
In an age where corporate legacies are constantly questioned, ripping brand logos signals a playful, anti-establishment approach. It demystifies big brands and reflects a generation unattached to past loyalties, viewing bootlegs as a ‘flex’ against traditional consumer routes.
Brands like Stüssy and Palace exemplify this freedom, succeeding not through one iconic logo, but through constant, agile reinvention and ‘stealing’ cultural codes. For smaller creators, this approach builds efficacy, sparks dialogue about brand meaning, and provides a thrill in a chaotic world by unapologetically taking from the biggest players.
Coming up: Our next webinar with Youth Beyond Borders (Friday 27th March, 1pm)
Working in youth culture today can be conflicting. One minute you’re told Gen Z are drinking less, the next they’re binge drinking. One day, Timothée Chalamet’s cool, the next he isn’t. As the first generation to grow up with smartphones, there is more data about Gen Z than any other cohort, allowing us to monitor and track their behaviours in ways previously impossible. And while it’s important to keep on top of these fluctuating trends, there is really no better way to understand Gen Z today than by talking with them yourself.
That’s why we’re hosting our second free webinar in collaboration with Youth Beyond Borders (YBB), to give you first-hand access to the voices shaping youth culture from the inside.
Sign up via the link here.
You can read all of our editorial over on the website. Look back on our previous Future of Cool report here. If you want to find out more about the Future Of series, please get in touch info@onro.ad