The Zeitgeist: August 29, 2025

Today's Edition: Mall Stores, Hype, and Quiet Cracking

Bacon, hammers, and pretty much everything else are about to get pricier as Hormel and Ace Hardware pass Trump’s tariff tab straight to your wallet. Cracker Barrel flirted with a rebrand but decided Uncle Herschel — suspenders, barrel, and all — still sells better than change.

Meanwhile, Stanford researchers just confirmed Gen Z’s worst nightmare: AI is already eating their jobs, with employment for 22–25-year-olds in techy, “safe” gigs like software devs and customer service down 13%. If you need an escape, don’t count on Burning Man — thanks to Starlink, the desert is less utopia and more WeWork-on-dust, with Burners hopping on Zoom between raves.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement turned brands into unpaid wedding crashers, plastering their logos all over the happy couple’s flower wall. And if all that wasn’t enough, electricity prices are surging as our creaky power grid tries (and fails) to keep up with AI’s bottomless energy appetite.

Campaigns

Earned-friendly campaigns & clever moments

Also, DUDE Wipes’ billboard blitz for National Toilet Paper Day, Sonic’s Save a Pumpkin PSA, and Graza’s party bus to the US Open.

Culture 

Snackable bites of consumer culture

Corporate

Commerce

Shopper society snapshot

Connections

Feed intelligence

Media Moves:

  • Marie Beaudette, editor at The Wall Street Journal overseeing business, finance, and economics coverage, is leaving the paper for a position at CNN.

  • Emily Bobrow, formerly features editor at The Wall Street Journal, is now senior editor at The Atlantic.

  • Jada Gomez, formerly the executive managing editor at Inc., is now the managing editor at BuzzFeed, overseeing partnerships with major streaming platforms, including Disney, Hulu, and others.

  • Kaya Yurieff, formerly team leader and creator economy expert at The Information, is leaving the outlet and has yet to announce her new role.

  • Judy Lagrou, formerly an intern at CNBC, is now a rotational reporter at Bloomberg News, where she will cover various areas of the newsroom. She starts on October 6.

  • Sri Muppidi, who joined The Information late last year to cover venture capital and startups, will expand on her coverage of the business of the biggest AI startups to become a beat reporter on OpenAI and Anthropic.

Also... learn about Ota Tofu, the oldest tofu shop in the U.S. in Portland, OR, on the Atlas Obscura Podcast.

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