Four Things to Know This Week:
You Don’t Want to be a “Bird”
"Bird" went viral on TikTok this month, used as a shorthand for a woman who tolerates bad behavior from a man. It’s a term now stuck in my head as I watch the first part of the Summerhouse Reunion (bad look West Wilson & Amanda Batula).
A bird goes after crumbs. Stays in situationships that were declared dead by every friend a month ago. Picks up the phone every time he calls. The trend even has its own dance: the bird shuffle, and its own antidote: "bird deprogramming" content, where creators post daily playlists of songs designed to help women decentre men.
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The term itself isn't new. "Bird" has been Bronx shorthand for someone acting goofy for years, and British slang for a young woman since forever. What's new is the moral framework the internet has assigned it. Being a bird isn't just embarrassing. It's something you have to be deprogrammed from. MORE.
Brand Play: Brands targeting women 18-30 are going to be tempted to reference this. Most of them should NOT. The line between “we get it” and “we’re using your vulnerability to sell you something” is thin. The one exception: brands that genuinely center women’s self-worth as part of their core identity. A brand like that can make bird-deprogramming content that feels real.
Celebrities Have Taste…We Promise
When everyone on social media shares recommendations and everything looks like an ad, consumers are trying to find someone they trust to cut through all that. Celebrities already had cultural authority. Now they're on these taste maker platforms (Substack, Letterboxd, Criterion Collection Closet), trying their best to show it off. The recommendation doesn’t really matter, it’s about what it signals about the person recommending it. Taste stopped being a private thing you have. It's now a public thing you perform. They’re all just influencers now (but without that gross pejorative term lol). MORE.
Brand Play: The play here is not to chase celebrity recommendations. It's to understand what they're replacing. Traditional product placement and endorsement deals look transactional now. The audience wants to believe the celebrity actually chose the thing. Brands that can engineer organic-looking moments within these recommendation ecosystems, getting your product on a Criterion Closet shelf or in a Service95 book list, will get more mileage than a standard paid post. The catch: the product has to actually be good enough that someone with cultural credibility would organically choose it. If it's not, this strategy will actually expose you.
Charli XCX’x SS26
Charli XCX’s new single "SS26" was named after the Spring/Summer 2026 fashion season where she spent time running between shows in Paris. The music video is a full runway presentation. Carine Roitfeld in the front row, Anthony Vaccarello sitting next to her, and multiple looks from Ann Demeulemeester, Balmain, Saint Laurent, and Chrome Hearts. She falls in platform heels (a Naomi Campbell reference), lights a cigarette on the catwalk, that kinda thing.
Brand Play: If you're a fashion brand, watch this video and ask yourself whether your last runway show was more interesting. If the answer is no, that could be an issue. If you're a non-fashion brand, "SS26" is a blueprint for borrowing the aesthetics of industries you don't belong to. A food brand staging a runway. A tech company sending products down a catwalk. The format is up for grabs.
READ THE ROOM: A chemical tank ruptured at a Washington paper mill, killing at least one worker with nine still missing
On May 26, a 900,000-gallon tank holding corrosive chemicals ruptured at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Company in Longview, Washington. At least one worker is confirmed dead. Nine others are still unaccounted for. MORE.
Brand Guidance: This is a workplace tragedy that is still unfolding. Workers are still missing. Families are still waiting. If your brand has any connection to manufacturing, industrial work, workplace safety, or the Pacific Northwest, review your scheduled content. If you have anything that could read as tone-deaf in the context of workers dying on the job, pull it.
If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.
Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.
Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.
Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.