Five things on Friday on Saturday #242

Things of note for the week ending Saturday December 2nd, 2017

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Shall we?

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1. VOYAGER 1 IS ALIVE

This is CRAZY awesome.

Voyager 1, the farthest man-made object from Earth (current location: interstellar space), just fired up its thrusters for the first time in THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS.

The results of the request took 19hrs and 35mins to transmit back to Earth (quite the long distance call) but the damn thing still works. Incredible.

Please, go and read more - via the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, at NASA.

This is actually rocket science.

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2. HOW TO SURVIVE THE MEDIA APOCALYPSE

HINT: it ain’t ‘pivot to video’.

Try pivoting to readers instead. That’s what this piece from The Atlanticproposes as its solution to the ongoing demolition of the media landscape. You know when Buzzfeed have to make lay-offs, things aren’t looking great all around.

“2017 has been a uniquely miserable year in the media business, in which venerable publications and fledging sites, divided by audience age and editorial style, have been united in misery. At Vanity Fair, the editorial budget faces a 30 percent cut. At The New York Times, advertising revenue is down $20millionannually after nine months. Oath, the offspring of Yahoo and AOL’s union, is shedding more than 500 positions as it strains to fit inside of its Verizon conglomerate. Meanwhile, almost every digital publisher seems to be struggling, selling, or soliciting, whether it’s the media company IAC exploring offers to offload The Daily Beast, Fusion Media Group offering a minority stake in The Onion and former Gawker Media sites, or Mashable selling for a fifth of its former valuation. So many media companies in 2017 have reoriented their budgets around the production of videos that the so-called “pivot to video” has becamean industry joke. Today, the pivot seems less like a business strategy and more like end-of-life estate planning.”

There are three main trends covered. Too many publishers, not enough cash, and the ‘Trump-effect’.

You should read this piece.

It’ll make you sound smart at dinner later.  

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3. MESSAGES FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE ARE CHANGING HOW WE GRIEVE

This week’s edition of ‘The future is effing weird, you guys’.

I’ve read this article twice and can’t find one section suitable to lift and shift into this for your consumption.

My advice: just read the damn thing.

As someone who regularly emails his children to inboxes that they won’t know exist for many years to come, this has really made me think about the impact those messages might have should my light go out before they read them.

Also, you may need tissues. 

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4. VANITY FAIR ON THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSEThis is a phenomenally great interview and overview of the Marvel Studios goliath that now dominates our cinema screens every four or five months.

Because I’m a geek for this stuff, I’m often (well, not often these days – people have heard it all) found to be exclaiming to people that IRON MAN was never EVER ‘the coolest superhero ever’. Think about it. Think back. Before the movie, your average person in the street would struggle to name him. ‘What? Is he a robot? Why is red and yellow? Looks rubbish’ – they would’ve said to you. 2008’s IRON MAN movie was SUCH a huge risk. To think that the culmination of all of that is just around the corner – some 22 films would’ve gone into a huge story-telling arc, based upon the success of that one gamble.

This doesn’t happen often. And one person pretty much made the whole thing happen. Vanity Fair went to talk to him: Kevin Feige.

PS. In case you’ve been under a rock this week: the INFINITY WAR trailer dropped. Worth watching for the 58th time, I’d say.

PPS. This is the best photo ever of the leading women of the MCU.

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5. UNUSED FLAKE AD IS MENTAL

I downloaded this earlier this week because I thought there was no way in this world that it would stay up but – as I type this to you now – it is miraculously still live.

Six or seven years ago, Cadbury’s (or should I say, Cadbury’s ad agency) commissioned the AMAZING Jonathan Glazer (you’d know his work: Under the Skin, Sexy Beast – the Guiness ad with the surfer) to make an ad for FLAKE.

The OUTSTANDING output was this 2mins of mental brilliance.

FOR SOME REASON, Cadbury’s said no. Can’t think why… 

Can you imagine that turning up as an ad in the middle of Corrie?

Brilliant.

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PRE-BONUS ESSENTIAL READING: 

Only the essentials.

The full list of all sexual misconduct accusations made against Donald Trump. 

It’s the only one here for a reason. Read it. 

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THE BONUS SECTION OF BONUS-SHAPED BONUSES: 

Big up your bonus self.

Until next time…

Whatley out.

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Author: James Whatley

Chief Strategy Officer in adland. I got ❤️ for writing, gaming, and figuring stuff out. I'm @whatleydude pretty much everywhere that matters. Nice to meet you x