Content Consumed: Tech Bubble Burst, Avengers, Drake, and Sri Lanka

Happy Monday! A heatwave is knocking on the PNW’s door this week—wish us luck over here.

In today’s edition of Content Consumed: San Francisco’s big changes, a hot take on Marvel’s Avengers, minimalist menus disappear, Drake’s being creepy on IG, and Sri Lanka shows up.

San Francisco’s a whole new city

The tech bubble is bursting, resulting in the biggest exodus of any major U.S. city during the pandemic. Local giants such as Apple Inc. and Google are slowing their hiring; companies like Tesla and Lyft are swiftly cutting jobs; the notoriously pricey housing market is rapidly cooling; office workers and tourists have been slow to return to the city’s downtown; the city’s government is becoming more conservative as homelessness and crime rates skyrocket. But booms and busts are part of SF’s culture, from the Gold Rush to the tech age to the pandemic. Who knows what’s next.

Hot take: The Avengers should be done.

But alas, two more Avengers movies are already in the works. You’d think the most recent one, literally titled Endgame, would be it! You’d think when arguably the most popular Avenger (okay, at least top 3) Iron Man died, they’d be done! But nope. Marvel is droppin’ the heat at Comic-Con with more phases of MCU movies and TV shows rolling out over the next five years and beyond. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty will arrive May 2025, with another Avengers movie following months later, Avengers: Secret Wars. Hopefully, their much-discussed VFX issues will be solved by then, but with this much content planned… who knows.

Begone, minimalist restaurant menus!

Print menus are coming back, and therefore ingredient lists, sourcing transparency, and more dish details are too. Post-millennium and pre-pandemic, many restaurants opted for concise menus that listed just a few ingredients instead of more intricate descriptions. And with the pandemic, we scanned QR codes and often found simply the name of the dish and nothing more. But now, “people built a deeper relationship with food during the pandemic. They no longer want to be so passive when facing a menu.” Plus, more awareness of food allergies and popularity of diet restrictions have influenced menus.

Don’t let Drake lead you into a restraining order.

Last week during his lil vacay to Ibiza, Drake posted a photo of a lovely woman who was simply minding her own business. The creepy pic, which she was clearly unaware of being taken, was posted on Instagram and captioned by the rapper: “Tried to airdrop this woman a pic of herself cause she’s a dime.” And the Internet responded. Why didn’t superstar Drake have the confidence to strike up a conversation with this woman? Why did he share this with 117 million Instagram followers? Why is he acting like a stalker a lá Joe Goldberg from You? Disregarding privacy entirely? In the delusional world of celebrité, Drake probably thought this would be a compliment to the woman.

How to storm a presidential palace, Sri Lanka edition.

As we end the summertime showing of the January 6 hearings, Sri Lankans have risen and stormed their governments’ buildings during national protests. But it looked a hell of a lot different than the recent U.S. insurrection: Protesters didn’t ransack the place. They started inviting the public to come in, in an orderly fashion. Activists forced people to queue properly. They treated these buildings like museums, concerned about not damaging any property. And they weren’t armed, weren’t aligned with any political party, and had national support.

And that’s it for today! Thanks for reading.

Saludos,
Casey

P.S. I expanded on last Friday’s column about Amazon’s push into health care here.

P.P.S. My weekly list:

📺—The Boys (halfway through season 1), The Bear (just finished last night, wow!!!), Love Island UK (final week!), Formula 1 races (France yesterday, Hungary this weekend)

📚—A Lonely Man (pretty eh so far, interesting plot and hateable characters), all my usual email newsletters

🎶—Beyonce’s Renaissance (drops late this week, of course), Hardcore History’s BLITZ Human Resources podcast episode (really tough but really worthwhile), and all my usual pods (Celebrity Memoir Book Club, F1 Chequered Flag, Brooke and Connor Make a Podcast, Trillionaire Mindset, Always Sunny Podcast, etc)