Max Tani is the Media Editor at Semafor and co-host of the Mixed Signals podcast. He also writes the must-read Semafor Media newsletter every Sunday evening. Max is a longtime friend of the pod (and in real life) and we’re honored to have him on as our first guest. We wanted to get Max's take on some of the puzzling and contradictory phenomenons we're noticing in media. We discuss how long of a runway he gives the “dumb question” interview format, whether MrBeast is just a reskinned version of Home Makeover but with a creepier host, and why CNN’s fake podcast gamut was a misreading of why audiences don’t trust media.

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Day One FM is now part of Side Projects: a strategy studio and creative outlet helping brands, marketers, and everyday people think critically about how advertising shapes the cultural landscape.

Eli and Clara share some context about what Side Projects is and what this transition will look like for the pod: what’s new (our theme song, a studio revamp, and YouTube Channel) and what’s staying the same (great conversations and your hosts Eli, Clara, and Trey).

To learn more about Side Projects, check out side-projects.co where you can subscribe to our newsletter and order our first print issue.

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We’re going on a break for a few weeks! But before we do, we talk about how the most sauceless couple you know are doing Carolyn Bessette and JFK Jr. cosplay, the viral Interview magazine piece about the “Finest Boys in Finance,” and why fashion was better when it was about the clothes, not the business.

Recommended this week:

• JFK (Dir. Oliver Stone)
• Angel's Egg (Dir. Mamoru Oshii)
• The Play Podcast
• Benjamin Edgar on Navigating Cultural Tipping Points
• The Verge’s Nilay Patel Believes Gen Z Will Revolt Against the “Brand Deal” Economy
• “Trend Bipolarity” and How Brands Kneecapped Cool

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Nilay Patel is the editor-in-chief of The Verge and host of Decoder with Nilay Patel. The Verge is “about technology and how it makes us feel,” and Nilay knows people don’t feel so hot right now. We speak with him about how founders have never been more transparent about the negative impacts of their product, how AI products are actually bad, the poison that is prediction markets on our information ecosystem, why Gen Z will ultimately turn on the brand deal economy, and the moment he realized everything is just fans.

Recommended this week:

• The Conquest of Cool by Thomas Frank

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We dive into Greg Ip’s article in the Wall Street Journal talking about how people aged 65 and older are healthier, wealthier, and, essentially, propping up the entire American economy. We also discuss if brands are going to shift their attention towards the “silver economy,” stretched adolescence, rotisserie chicken, books as cultural signals, and the death/end of the mass-market paperback.

Recommended this week:

• The Faltering by Tristan Taylor
• Ronin (dir. John Frankenheimer)
• Canada - John Beltran and Placid Angels

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Ian Michna is the founder of Jenkem Magazine. We talk with him about bringing an outside perspective to skateboarding, being a good beginner, why a combination of fear and shame keeps skateboarding alive, cold plunges with “Andy” Huberman, how Jenkem works with brands as a boutique agency, and why most things that turned out well also could’ve been terrible.

Recommended this week:

• Be a beginner
• Go to Amoeba and shop for records based on their album art

Where to find Ian:

• @ian.michna
• @jenkemmag
• jenkemmag.com
• youtube.com/@jenkemmag

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We begin with a very brief Super Bowl recap, where Eli was one lazy holding call away from a handful of benjamins. Then, we put some respect on some of the American athletes sweeping, skating, and skiing in Milano Cortina. Nothing cooler than being extremely good at one specific thing. And finally, Clara and Trey dive into a lively debate centered around Joshua Rothman’s latest piece in The New Yorker, “Is Good Taste a Trap?” Yes.

Recommended this week:

• It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley (dir. Amy Berg)
• 3 Women (dir. Robert Altman)
• The Culture Journalist

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Ahead of the Super Bowl, we caught up with Adweek’s Senior Media Reporter Mark Stenberg to help us contextualize the trends we’re seeing in this year’s crop of commercials and identify what you should look out for as you watch on Sunday.

We cover the rise of the multi-week attention ecosystem, why we’ll see more health-focused ads, and more. Plus, we get Mark’s thoughts on the integration of prediction markets into media platforms and whether he buys that people trust journalists less than funeral home directors.

Recommended this week:

• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Where to find Mark:

• @markstenberg3
• On Background
• Adweek

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