All I Want for Christmas are Subscriptions
Spotify with ads is worse than Pandora. Yeah, I said it.
First, I want to address the elephant in the room: I haven’t written you enough lately. I’m sure you’ve been absolutely PINING for this newsletter and for that, I’m sorry. This is some hot content and I feel bad for withholding it. Do I have a good excuse for you? I do not. What I do have is four kids, two dogs, a full-time job, and a wife that—amazingly—likes spending time with me.
But I’m here now, and so are the holidays. And with the holidays comes the question on everyone’s lips beginning around Thanksgiving and repeated until December 24th: what do you want for Christmas? As a kid, this was my favorite question to hear. The possibilities were endless and somehow also so simple. A bike. A Nintendo. A Talkboy like the one Kevin had in Home Alone. Kids have a photographic memory for toy commercials, and Saturday morning cartoons (RIP) provided me with an endless catalogue of Christmas gift ideas.
But at 34, I can’t stand that question. I have either A) already purchased the things that I wanted at other points in the year, or B) only haven’t purchased the things I wanted because they were too expensive. I don’t want to be the guy with the million dollar Christmas list, man! That’s a bad look! So when someone asks me “what do you want for Christmas” I usually just tell them the truth: I don’t know. And you know what? That answer has served me well for years! Because somehow, year after year, my wife and my mother-in-law—the two biggest gift givers in my life—somehow come up with fun and cool gifts that I would never have thought to ask for in the first place. Not having a list has served me well. My wife and her mom are smarter and more creative than I’ll ever be, so I just get out of the way and let them do their thing.
This year, though, I’ve had a realization: I do have a list. This year, all I want for Christmas are subscription services. Maybe it’s a mirage of the pandemic, but it seems like every single part of my life is now online. I don’t have CDs, I have Spotify playlists. I don’t have DVDs, I have Netflix (and Disney+, and Amazon Prime…) I don’t get Sports Illustrated, I read my sports news online. Every bit of leisure I have is mediated to me via the world wide web. And you know what? It’s only getting worse! Someday soon, my children will forget that movie theaters were ever a thing. Why endure sticky floors and creaky chairs when I can watch Wonder Woman on HBO Max?
The thing is, the internet future is expensive. This month I decided to save money by cancelling my Spotify premium and regretted it IMMEDIATELY. It’s really hard to get into a good vibe when the BudLight Knight keeps busting in on my tunes. I don’t think Spotify has ads for revenue, I think they have ads just to annoy people into premium plans. Meanwhile, Apple TV+ is starting to put out quality content (see below), the aforementioned HBO Max is promising enough content to fill an ocean liner, and Hulu keeps on putting out one or two new movies a month that pique my interest. And that’s just the entertainment. Online writing is going subscription based, too! There are paid substack newsletters, sites like the Athletic, and (tragically) my favorite writer does his thing behind a paywall at Defector. I would need a second job to keep up with all of the different subscriptions I need to stay HIP and RELEVANT. Those are important parts of my brand! What will I be if I’m no longer hip?!
I don’t want to be greedy, but this year my list to Santa is going to cost him for 12 whole months. But if he signs up soon, I think he can probably get the first 3 months for free.
ON TO THE LINKS!
One of my FAVORITE gifts to receive from my wife and/or mother-in-law are shoes. I HATE picking out shoes. I’m always shopping the clearance rack and then getting angry at the selection. Here, I made a handy Venn Diagram to explain my problem:
Unlike me, there is a whole world of people who LOVE shoes and who have actually turned shoe buying and selling into an entire subculture. To understand the world of sneaker heads, I asked my friend Sam for an explainer:
When I started posting pictures of crazy and/or expensive shoes for sale on my Instagram story, I started to get the question in my messages and in real life. “Are you a sneaker head?!” It was as if people were equal parts thrilled and terrified for me, but regardless, they wanted to experience it.
Where do you buy them? How does it work? You can actually re-sell them?!
Here’s a quick rundown from a very new, with *very* limited success, participant in the sneaker game.
If you want to buy and resell Nikes, you need the SNKRS app. It’s where Nike drops their limited real ease, sure-to-sell-out shoes, like Air Jordan 1s, unique collaborations, and such. Set up your profile and have a payment method already plugged in, because you’ll need to act fast. Even when you click purchase the moment shoes drop (sneaker for “release” and it happens at 9am CST), you rarely immediately get them, typically you're placed in line, and usually disappointed to learn you didn’t cop (sneaker for “get”) them.
For Yeezy’s (and other Adidas collaborations and limited releases - think Pharell’s HU NMD shoes) you’ll want the Confirmed app. Yeezy’s run on a raffle, so you have enter the raffle for a chance to buy the shoe. In order to enter you provide payment information and are committed to buy if you’re selected.
The go-to resell apps are GOAT and Stockx. You can use those apps to see what people are paying for shoes. Take it from me...beware not to gauge your purchases off of what people are selling shoes for, you want to pay attention to what people are buying shoes for! And also know there will be some pricing volatility between the day the shoe drops and the day you have it in hand and can sell it.
Pro tip: Stockx let’s you list before you have the shoe in hand, but requires you to ship within 3 days of selling. This lets you post it a day or two before the shoe arrives (check your tracking!) so it’s already sold and ready to ship when it arrives.
GOAT makes sure you have the shoes in hand, which they do by requiring you to take a few pictures before they let you post for sale.
Also be sure to understand the app’s fee structures. They take 12-15% and then you have to factor in PayPal fees on top of that. This is important because if you buy a $200 shoe, and resell for $250, you’re basically breaking even.
To help research which shoes you should buy, check out hypebeast.com which will help you gauge the releases which are “hyped” and may drive up resell prices, and Instagram accounts like @cops4resell which will speculate resell prices. Full disclosure: I’m still trying to figure out how to reliably forecast resell prices that will result in a profit.
My big takeaway here: Pharell makes some pretty sweet tunes AND some pretty sweet shoes. I love deep dives into niche subcultures and this one seems endless. Happy hunting, Sam!
I’m going to tell you about the best kept secret in pop culture right now: Ted Lasso. It’s showing up on all kinds of “end of year” lists and for good reason. Apple TV+ is hardly a “must have” streaming service, but do yourself a favor and spend the $5 to sign up for a month and binge the heck out of this show. I was dubious to say the least, but Ted turned me into a believer.
In other streaming-related news, The Crown is causing a kerfuffle with the current season’s portrayal of the Charles/Diana marriage. I had zero interest in this show when it was all “chin up and pip pip cheerio with Winston Churchill” but now things have gotten JUICY.
At the recent opening of an In and Out in Colorado, people waited in line for 14 hours and legit fights broke out. I know this statement is punishable by death in California, but… those burgers aren’t worth it, man. If I’m standing 14 hours in line, it’s because I’m getting free Chick Fil A for a year.
Some quick hits here:
This is old news, but these Mark Zuckerberg/Jack Dorsey memes are still funny
An Australian family found a koala in their Christmas tree. Honestly, that sentence sums up the whole article, but you should still click it to see the picture—no regerts.
My wife showed me this video and… man. I can’t even try to sum it up for you. This lady is the GOAT of celebrity interviews.
Welp, here we are again. At the end of the newsletter. I feel like I’m always saying this, but you should for sure pass this along to someone else. Or better yet, just sign them up and don’t even tell them about it! Here, I’ll even add the buttons for you:
See you next time!