Out East Girls and PE Guys

Plus: hot dog supremacy

Welcome to Small Talk, an email I serve out every Monday morning exclusively to our Breakfast Club members in NYC and Charleston. The premise is simple: my top of mind topics for the week’s worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners ahead anytime some chatter is required. From now on, I’ll be sharing it with subscribers of The Supersonic as well. Enjoy, and crib topics as necessary.

Happy Memorial Day, everyone. If you’re barbecue bound, here are some stories with which to dazzle the company gathered ‘round the grill.

For consideration …

• Hot dogging it
  Allow me to redirect your attention to a story that dropped one year ago: between now and Labor Day, Americans will consume 818 hot dogs every second. If that impressive feet doesn’t stoke some bi-partisan patriotism, what will? Although, perhaps you fall in the disgusted camp, in which case I’ll remind you that hot dogs can be classy when they want to be. Case in point: the Jean-Georges “haute dog” cart outside The Mark Hotel, which—though it’s been around for some time—TikTok has recently rediscovered (ofc they’re grass-fed and come with Kimchee). Junk food just might be this country’s greatest cultural export. What’s more American than a cheeseburger? The FT goes in search of some in London. If all this Americana has you feeling nostalgic for the classic summers of your youth, there’s good news finally coming out of Hollywood: the summer blockbuster, and the $4 billion haul that goes with it, just might be back.
  

• Out East Girls
  America doesn’t only do shlock. In fact, we clean up quite nicely. Take The Hamptons, where, yes, Blackbird just launched (open the in-app map, then toggle your location to “Hamptons, NY” to see all the spots you can currently earn and burn $FLY — plus we’ll be adding new joints all the time). At any rate, forget West Village Girls, how about Out East Girls? Getting your Hamptons weekend right for the ‘gram might run you $5k or more — just ask the WSJ, who tallied such expenditures for their itemized “Hamptons Girls’ Weekend.” One such line item—perhaps the biggest—is the hotel bill, which is only getting pricier as the motels of yore are being replaced by design-y luxury hotels (they have bikes!) that cost as much as $1k per night. Even Tom Brady has finally answered The Hamptons’ sirens call, opening up his collectibles store, CardVault, in East Hampton, where the pulls are sure to be as pricey as they are sick. If all this has you pining for a simpler, more wholesome time on the tip of Long Island, consider a subscription to The Ditch Weekly, a newspaper now in its sophomore summer that is exclusively staffed by high school kids. They’re currently chasing a lead on—what else?—an elusive hot dog story.
  

• PE Guy
  From America to the Internet, social media etc. Aka, the ever-evolving new frontier and … a hype coffee shop? This one’s not in the metaverse (remember that place where we were all supposed to be hanging out by now?) but LA — the border of Echo Park and Westlake, to be exact. Couplet Coffee sold 10,000 cups of Joe within the first six weeks of business, and it owes much of its success to founder Gefen Skolnick, who chose to build the brand—and stoke the hype—on TikTok and Instagram long before she’d served her first espresso. Her online storytelling caught the eye of consumers, and investors, like Away’s Jen Rubio. One such storyteller who has caught my eye recently is Johnny Hilbrant Partridge, the Boston-based fitness instructor turned creator behind PE Guy, his hilarious—and sometimes too spot on—send up of the archetype. Even my PE guy friends will probably admit that the impression is, “nnnnyeah pretty decent.” Some folks are less enthused about the Argentinean DJ and music producer Zulan, who is currently everywhere on social. Detractors suspect she might be “an industry plant.” Social media users sure do love a good conspiracy theory — like is whole milk propaganda? And here’s a sad fall from grace: Duolingo and its obliquitous green owl mascot have been scrubbed from the socials. Why? After the company announced that it would be pivoting to AI for certain roles, fans abandoned the brand en masse, causing it to lose some 400k TikTok followers. Others speculate that it could be yet another marketing stunt from the social media savvy app.

Quicker hits …

• Did Omega just inadvertently announce the next James Bond?

• In which a critic gets kicked out of The French Laundry.

• Why cultural elites can't get enough of The New York Post.

• OnlyFans might get sold for $8 billion.

• Mon dieu! Did French President Emmanuel Macron get slapped by his wife?
  

Enjoy your week.

BL

Ben Leventhal
Founder + CEO
Blackbird