This week, one young footballer makes history with a great esc-vape. Angelina Jolie makes a space for sustainability. Ozempic is changing portion sizes for diners, and AI has a new face – it is creepy AF!
FOOTBALLER MAKES THE GREAT ESC-VAPE
Last weekend, a young Irish footballer made history. 15-year-old Rory Finneran came off the bench to make his debut for Blackburn Rovers, becoming the youngest senior player to play for the club, breaking a record that stood for 112 years. But what really struck us was what he was missing as he stepped onto the pitch.
The Championship side has been sponsored by vaping brand Totally Wicked since 2022. At 15, Finneran is far below the legal age to purchase vapes, so his jersey was missing the prominent logo of Totally Wicked.
It sparks an interesting conversation around social responsibility and sponsorship in sports. Sponsors were lining up with offers to 16-year-old Luke Littler, who reached the final of the World Darts Championships last week, but due to his age, alcohol and gambling brands were unable to lock in any deals.
While Premier League clubs have agreed to remove gambling sponsors from the front of jerseys by the end of the 2025-26 season, sponsor money will surely remain a huge influence in professional sport. This conversation is far from over.
HAD ENOUGH OF CELEBRITY BRANDS? MEET ATELIER JOLIE!
Angelina Jolie is the latest icon to inhabit 57 Great Jones Street, the former studio of many legendary artists, including Andy Warhol and Basquiat.
She has transformed the space into ‘Atelier Jolie‘, a new sustainability-focused fashion house that sells clothes made from deadstock and vintage materials. The space includes a café which serves Turkish coffee and Syrian pies and is staffed by refugees.
In keeping with her track record in sustainability and humanitarian work, Atelier Jolie isn’t about profit. Jolie is on a mission to create a fashion brand that does not harm people, and she hopes others will follow.
In a world where we see so many mass-produced celebrity brands, it’s refreshing to see Angelina Jolie do something different.
Hors D’oeuvres and Ozempic
The restaurant industry faces a new dilemma as diners turn to a new delicacy – Ozempic.
The drug was originally used for the management of diabetes but is now the fashionable weight loss drug of choice. Ozempic works by suppressing appetite and slowing digestion, but an unexpected side effect is that as A-listers shed kilos, restaurants having to shed their portions for a not-so-hungry clientele.
Speaking to the New York Post, Thomas Makos, owner of Nello on Madison Avenue, said, “People have been leaving a lot of food at the table; the restaurant is now offering “tapas’’ size portion of our entrees.”
Undoubtedly, the food industry will continue adapting to a weight-obsessed world. Ozempic with a side of fries, anyone?
Look AI in the eye
Wehead GPT Edition has created a new product that aims to bridge the gap between humans and AI by putting a face to ChatGPT. Creepy? Yes indeedy. The rationale? As AI therapy is on the rise, perhaps we would feel more comfortable having a conversation face-to-face with technology.
The bizarre device is basically a malformed mannequin head with a face on a screen that sits on your desktop. Theoretically, it offers richer, more realistic interaction through eye contact and movements like nods and head tilts that mimic human responses.
Users can choose from a range of digital assistants, from Luna to Zetta to Bro (who punctuates his sentences with ‘bro’). There is also talk of Wehead planning to clone celebrities to act as AI assistants in the future.
It will be interesting to see how this device develops and how customers will use it. But for now, while in its first edition, it’s more than a little creepy-looking and won’t be replacing human interaction for us just yet.