Lost Fabric, The End of Video Games and Bringing Bob Ross Back To Life

This felt like a bittersweet week filled with stories of people looking back on the one year anniversary of when everything shut down. Last year, SXSW was the first event casualty on my speaking calendar - and it's back virtually this year with an overwhelming lineup of topics and talent.

In other stories this week, The Chicago Tribune published a sadly fascinating compilation of 361 businesses lost from the pandemic, someone invented an app to help you escape your next Zoom meeting and a soft drink brand found a way to bring a beloved TV personality back to life for one last episode. You'll find all of these stories and much more in this week's edition of the Non-Obvious Newsletter.

Zoom Escaper Helps You Sabotage a Virtual Meeting With Fake Sounds

What is the best distracting sound that might get you out of suffering through your next Zoom meeting? "Man Weeping" probably wouldn't be my first choice, but it's one of the entertaining options offered in a new sound effects app called Zoom Escaper created by artist Sam Lavigne. Once you download some free software, you'll be able to add a baby crying or an echo to your microphone feed to "self-sabotage your audio stream to make your presence unbearable to other people."

I'm not sure who would use the "Urination" option as a way to get out of a meeting, but this app might be good for a few laughs on your next unnecessarily long Zoom call. Especially if you're willing to fake having a newborn and utilize the "Upset Baby," option. If not, you could always practice your storytelling skills to explain the man weeping in the background.  

What You Can Learn From Chicago's Businesses Lost From The Pandemic

This week The Chicago Tribune released a list of businesses that closed their doors during the past year. Unsurprisingly, the two categories that fared the worst were restaurants and retail. The loss of some businesses, like City Lit Books, were a real community tragedy. Losing a few cell phone stores -- probably not so much.

Buried at the start of the article was a far more interesting statistic to put the story in context. Across Illinois state in that same time frame, nearly 200,000 new businesses were started. While experts guess most of these were solo entrepreneurs, it does signal a developing trend borne from necessity where we have many more first-time entrepreneurs trying to make their ideas work in 2021. In the coming weeks, I will be sharing more information about a few things I'm working on that can hopefully help at least some of them to survive. 

How Mountain Dew Brought Bob Ross Back to Life and (Probably) Why

In recent years, legendary PBS show host and painter Bob Ross has been having a resurgence through old YouTube videos. Tapping into the nostalgia, Mountain Dew partnered with the Bob Ross Company to produce a "lost episode" where Ross paints a landscape with a bottle of Mountain Dew at the center. Usually this type of brand-as-the-hero advertising falls flat, but something about watching this AI-generated Bob Ross voiced by a good impersonator actually feels real. Yes, it's fake - but it's a good, innocent and watchable fake. And even though after watching I didn't really crave a Mt. Dew (or want to pick up a paintbrush) ... for any marketer that chooses to measure marketing success by "engagement," this was probably a huge success. 

Do We Need To Retire The Term "Video Game" and Pick Something New?

When I was young, we had video games. I mean, they were literally games we played by watching on a video screen. Today, games have gotten much more immersive, VR-enabled games are growing and there are more experiments on human-computer interfaces and neural implants. The advances are leading at least one gaming tech founder to wonder in a tweet whether the term "video game" might already be a dated way of describing the sorts of immersive experiences that are under development. It's one of those seemingly simple suggestions with world-shifting implications behind it. Will the video games of today become the alternate realities of tomorrow? On some level, perhaps the answer is already yes. 

Why Flexiform Buildings Are The Next Big Thing In Architecture

What if a single space could be used as an opera house and a functioning sports arena as well? We don't tend to think about big public spaces in this shared way, but there is a growing movement in architecture to imagine and build these so-called "flexiform" buildings. Architecture does reflect the culture of its time, so this feels like a fitting movement to happen right now:

As Owen Hopkins wrote for Dezeen, the emerging architectural movement is an acute symptom of the times: “Multiform is not a style, but the architectural manifestation of our present moment of profound political, economic and cultural flux.”

The Legendary Fabric That Disappeared More Than a Century Ago

"Western customers found it hard to believe that Dhaka muslin could possibly have been made by human hands – there were rumours that it was woven by mermaids, fairies and even ghosts. Some said that it was done underwater."

Every once in a while, I share a longer read that isn't particularly urgent or reflective of what happened in the world this past week - but it's just plain interesting. This story about the "legendary" lost fabric of Dhaka muslin certainly fits that category. If you find yourself with a bit of idle time, it's definitely worth a read. The entire piece reminded me of a wonderful book I read last year and selected as a finalist for our Non-Obvious Book Awards called The Fabric of Civilization. I'd recommend that one too. 

Even More Non-Obvious Stories ...

Every week, I find more stories than I'm able to write about in this newsletter. Here are a few worth a read if you have a bit of extra time this week: 

• Tinder Lets You Run Dating Background Checks 
• Eight States Use "Cloud Seeding" To Control the Rain 
• Why Virtual Sneakers Are The Hot New Collectible 
• Photographer Captures Surreal Hong Kong Street Photos

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