Lambo Hustles and Ghost Posting

Carly Rae Jepsen and Lena Dunham just announced a 10 Things I Hate About You Broadway musical; Willow Smith is the face of Free People's fall campaign; and Madonna leads the VMA nominations with 11, followed by Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and Ariana Grande.

I’m hosting a live conversation about AI with three Gen Zers next Wednesday afternoon in New York, in partnership with OpenAI. We’ll get into how young people are actually using AI across school, work, and everyday life, what they’re excited or skeptical about, and where they think the technology is headed. If you’re interested in joining us, RSVP here to join the waitlist.

A BREAKDOWN OF THE FINANCIAL ADVICE THAT’S FLYING ALL OVER TIKTOK, wsj
The Journal reviewed 212 of the most popular money-advice accounts on social media and found that most are run by people without a financial license. Even less surprising: About a fifth posted sponsored content, often for financial brands. U.K. creator Leo Gibson got nearly 500,000 views on a bedroom-shot video of “21 pieces of money and life advice before he turned 21,” much of it “regurgitated” from personal finance books and YouTube videos. “When the information is coming from a 21-year-old lad from the U.K. who is sat in a hoodie and a cap, it feels a lot more relatable than someone in a suit and a big wooden office trying to get the same point across,” Gibson said. Brittany Bowen, a 29-year-old who dispenses personal finance while filming GRWMs, bought a $100,000-plus Mercedes for the express purpose of filming content in front of it. “You have to show people the results of what their life could be if they do what you’ve done,” Bowen said. She’s since funneled 625 women into her $300 course on monetizing social accounts.

THE $75,000-A-MONTH JOB: GEN Z HUSTLER PITCHES VENDING MACHINES OVER 9-TO-5 GRIND, bloomberg
Faced with dwindling entry-level opportunities and rising debt, some young adults are skipping corporate life to operate vending machines stocked with vapes and Zyn pouches. The hustle can be surprisingly lucrative — Micah Stanley, a 24-year-old high school dropout who used to work nights as a janitor at a Nebraska high school, says his business clears up to $75,000 a month in profit. He buys flavored vapes in bulk for around $8 apiece and resells them for $25 in 150 machines across three states. “It’s a really aggressive margin, so that’s kind of what attracted me to vapes in the first place,” Stanley said. He now drives a Lambo and coaches other aspiring vendors through YouTube videos like “How To Start A Vape Vending Machine Business In 2026.” Among Gen Z, “there’s a pretty big move towards this idea that you just need passive income,” said RAND senior economist Jennie Wenger.

THE OUTSOURCED IN CROWD, airmail
Private clubs are handing their guest lists over to Contra, a year-old invite platform that vets applicants on referrals and social following, serving as a “more sophisticated version of the old-school club promoter,” as Alyson Krueger explains it. Under 5% of its 64,000 applicants have been accepted, a strategy hospitality consultant Tommy Saleh likens to “privatizing Eventbrite.” “I love Zero Bond,” said Contra member Kasey Crook, “but if you go on a Thursday night at seven p.m., it’s dead.” Contra isn’t the first to build a business on getting hot people to show up — last year, the Wall Street Journal covered Neon Coat, which offers influencers free meals, blowouts, and workout classes in exchange for social posts — and it won’t be the last, but it sure does make the supposed “exclusivity” feel phony.

IS THE GRID DEAD? HOW YOUNG PEOPLE ARE CHANGING THE FEED, dazed
Young people are “ghost-posting” on Instagram — sharing a photo, archiving it, then unarchiving it days or weeks later so it hits their grid without hitting anyone’s feed. Willa Farrell, a 23-year-old in LA, hasn’t posted “for real” in years. “I think there’s something about posting in secret,” she says. “When you ghost-post, you acknowledge the fact that it’s not going to be seen by a lot of people.” For 26-year-old Danait Desta, it’s about relief from posting anxiety. “I don’t really want to appear on people’s feeds or be perceived constantly,” she says. This trend is a reaction to the “posting ennui” Kyle Chayka wrote about last summer, when 24-year-old Kanika Mehra told him, “People don’t want to be perceived,” and admitted that when they do post, they “feel a bit of a vulnerability hangover.”

SCHOOLS ACROSS THE US BANNED PHONES. TEENS ARE DEMANDING MORE OFFLINE SUPPORT, theguardian
School phone bans are now in effect in at least 39 states, and students say they want more support filling the void. “We were the first generation to grow up on technology,” said Olivia Howard, a rising junior at Valley Stream North High School in Long Island. “If legislators are implementing these phone bans, we need to take into account: what are the substitutes?” At Valley Stream, a “detox room” decked out with books, stress toys, and a sound machine is opening this fall. Elise Choi, a junior at Orange County School of the Arts, is building a coalition for a California bill that would mandate district-wide digital wellness education. “Our entire social lives are happening online.”

One last thought: