Greetings from LHC HQ, where we’re coming in hot with some special announcements. First up, your favorite newsletter — this one — is moving to Substack. Make sure you don’t miss out, take a second and SUBSCRIBE.
Meanwhile, it’s time to start making sartorial sacrifices in the name of summer office vibes. Plus, we’re proud to announce that we’re (officially) a great place to work yet again! And we still don’t have a dress code, unrelatedly.
Now on to the #content
Empire of Slop
There’s slop everywhere, whether you like it or not. And in the six months since slop officially took the crown for 2025 word of the year, the phenomenon has metastasized into an all-consuming, era-defining ethos.
The most obvious force driving slop’s cultural hegemony is, of course, AI writing. It’s not just a communication style quietly overtaking your LinkedIn feed. It’s a feature being shipped across our collective psyche — and when you see it, you just know. [Do you want me to adjust the tone? Make it more newsletter-friendly? A little less casual?]
Next, let’s turn to another means through which slop drives the drivel: lunch. Déjeuner in downtown NYC has become fully slopified — salads, “Mediterranean,” teriyaki, poke, nothing is immune. It all begins to run together in a sea of beige bowls, business-casual clientele, and the illusion of decision fatigue.
And finally, a new subcategory has lately emerged in the form of tasteslop, coined by writer Emily Segal. While “taste” discerns, “tasteslop is what happens when the classifying function is automated, overly explicit, or reduced to spitting out rote taste tokens.” Which is to say, tasteslop is what happens when good taste is rendered down into mere input.
Those same inputs defined as ‘good’ (for instance: Monocle Magazine, Rimowa suitcases, that Rick Rubin book, Eames chairs) are overindexed by AI to influence the outputs of everything. Truly random deep cuts are gradually removed until we begin to sense that everything looks the same, even if it seems refined.
So how can we say no to slop and still get our nutrients? Do things the unoptimized way. Embrace your typos. Have a three-martini lunch. Or simply host a nonsensical party. Speaking of which…
Cann’t Wait (and You’re Invited)
Every June, a sliver of the advertising industry packs their linen shirts and flocks to the South of France for Cannes Lions. What about the rest of us who don’t score an invite?
Enter Cann’t, the Lighthouse block party celebrating the good parts of Cannes for all. We’re replacing rosé and champagne with spaghets and Estrella and bringing the party right here to NYC.
As Lighthouse Creative Co-Founder Sam Slaughter told Marketing Brew, “All the fucking fat cats can go to Cannes. We’re gonna party with the creatives who don’t get to go there.”
Instead of execs patting themselves on the back, we’ll honor the behind-the-scenes players actually creating the work and have some fun. And as with any great ceremony, there will be awards highlighting cutting-edge categories like lowest ROI, most cringe LinkedIn post, worst use of AI, and much more.
Get your submissions in to help decide who takes home the Grand Prix. RSVP here.
The Latest and Greatest from LHC HQ
- Listen to Sam on the Breaking and Entering podcast, where he dives into LHC’s origins, our work philosophy, and advice for young creatives.
- X-energy unveiled the largest public offering in the nuclear industry’s history this spring. Learn how we helped them build up their brand to meet the moment.