1. We’ve all been on this call.

Timothée Chalamet posted an 18-minute Zoom meeting to promote his upcoming A24 film Marty Supreme, and it might be the most interesting thing about the movie. In the video, he plays the world's most insufferable creative: the actor who hijacks a marketing call with increasingly absurd ideas like putting his character on Wheaties boxes, deploying blimps, and painting the Eiffel Tower orange. The other participants, supposed A24 marketing executives, struggle to keep straight faces while accommodating his ridiculous demands. It's parody so accurate that people in the creative industry couldn't stop sharing it because they've all been on that exact call.

The video is so relatable because it perfectly captures remote work culture: overly long introductions, clunky screen sharing, corporate buzzwords like "culmination" and "fruitionizing" (which Chalamet admits isn't a real word). The marketing went viral while the actual film trailer landed with indifference. The video works because it nails the universal experience of being stuck in a meeting with someone who has too much power and no self-awareness. It's Nathan for You meets corporate hell, and the relatability made it impossible not to share.

2. Cowboy chic meets chalupa.

Most of us simpletons carry our tacos in paper bags. Taco Bell decided that was unacceptable and commissioned Guillermo Cuevas: an artisan leather craftsman whose clients include Kendrick Lamar and Glen Powell, to create the "Taco Bellt". It’s a handmade holster designed to carry a taco at your waist like a cowboy strapped with a Colt. It features worked leather, embossed detailing, and the kind of craftsmanship you'd expect from a premium accessory, except its sole purpose is holding a Chalupa. The brand dropped it for exactly one hour through their app, applying Supreme-level scarcity tactics to what is essentially a joke about wearing your dinner on your hip.

You gotta admire how seriously Taco Bell took something fundamentally ridiculous. Instead of making a cheap throwaway gimmick, they commissioned actual craftsmanship to build something intentionally well-made and designed to be shown off. The activation understood that Gen Z loves absurd objects, exclusive drops, and items that make you smile before they make sense. A taco holster has no reason to exist, which is exactly why it became instantly coveted. Sometimes the best marketing is about creating desire through sheer commitment to a joke that refuses to wink.

3. Disney's nearly extinct art form.

Only four artists at Disney still know how to ink and paint animation cels by hand. It's the craft that created every frame of Snow White, Pinocchio, and Bambi, but Xerox machines replaced it in the 1960s and computers killed it entirely by the 1990s. What was once a department of roughly 100 women meticulously tracing animators' pencil lines onto celluloid is now Annie Hobbs, David Scott Smith, Antonio Pelayo, and Charles Landholm. They're the last practitioners of an art form most people never see, preserving the handcrafted process that gave Disney animation its iconic look for generations.

The work is painstaking: inkers trace every line with the thinnest nibs available, capturing not just shape but feeling. In the 1930s and '40s, this was women's work. Creative roles went to men while talented female artists made $18 per week doing repetitive labor that was simultaneously undervalued and absolutely essential. They dressed in pearls and heels, worked double shifts to meet deadlines, and gave Disney its visual soul. The four remaining artists aren't just preserving nostalgia. They're keeping alive the human touch that once brought every character to life, one careful brushstroke at a time, before the craft disappears completely.

Bonus curious thing: Dawn survived Q4.

Apparently there's a universal agency truth that everything goes into overdrive right before the year ends. And we def felt it. I posted a quick update on LinkedIn about what the last few months looked like for us: new clients, new verticals, and a lot of learning curves. If you’re curious how our small studio handled a very loud end of year, the link is below.