And honestly? Good for them. Because somewhere between the terrace culture and the TikTok algorithm, football stopped being just a sport and became the most powerful aesthetic statement on the street. The vintage kit. The cinched waist. The cleat-inspired sneaker under the silk slip dress. Fashion has fully colonised football's visual language, and the commercial implications of that crossover are more interesting than anyone is giving them credit for.

TechCrunch reports that the Department of Justice confirmed this week that a 2022 law banning TikTok from federal government devices no longer applies. This follows the deal that transferred TikTok's US operations to a joint venture backed by Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX. Federal employees are now free to download the app on their government-issued devices. The ban lasted four years. The app outlasted three separate attempts to kill it. At this point, TikTok has more lives than most geopolitical crises.

Meanwhile, the AI arms race just got a notable new entry. TechCrunch reports that Chinese company Moonshot AI has released Kimi K3. It's an open source model that independent assessments from Arena.ai and Vals AI suggest is now competitive with flagship frontier models, including Claude and GPT. Moonshot itself acknowledged the model "still trails" the most powerful proprietary models. But the gap is closing at a pace that has the industry paying close attention. The AI race between the US and China was supposed to have a clear leader. It is increasingly unclear who that is.

And finally, with the World Cup officially over, MLS has a very specific problem to solve. Marketing Brew reports that the league has launched its largest marketing campaign in history, "Thanks World, We'll Take It From Here." It features Lionel Messi, David Beckham, Matthew McConaughey and a re-recorded version of A Tribe Called Quest's "Can I Kick It?" The goal is simple: convert the wave of new soccer fans the World Cup created into paying MLS customers before the momentum dies.

MLS had 45 players in the World Cup. The same game. The same players. On North American soil. Every week. They're not wrong to make the pitch.

If you haven’t noticed, the fashion crowd has totally clocked in to the football world. And the transformation is both so hot, and a phenomenon worth talking about.

Look at how low-profile, terrace-culture sneakers have been dominating the sidewalk (yes, for a while, now). Footwear silhouettes are becoming increasingly football-esque with cleat-inspired details. Club kits are being paired with luxury tailoring on the streets of Milan and Paris.

All of your fave influencers and fashion girlies are currently posting in the customised, cinched-waist jersey of your dreams. If you’re wondering why, it’s because football has found itself front and centre of the cultural and fashion realm.

And it's operating as a massive, ubiquitous lifestyle statement. Mind you, for a demographic that has likely never watched a full ninety minutes of a match in their lives.

Maybe. What we are witnessing may just be the algorithmic unmooring of sports subculture from the actual sport itself.

Historically, wearing a football shirt was an act of localised, tribal loyalty. It was a visual contract that said you stood by a specific community, a specific city, or a specific set of working-class roots.

The modern interest-based feed has completely hollowed out that contract. It's stripped away the geographical and athletic context to turn the football kit into a pure design canvas. The jersey has lowkey been liberated from the stadium and repurposed as the ultimate vehicle for effortless, gender-fluid street style.

For the last few years, the fashion landscape was utterly suffocated by the "clean girl" aesthetic and hyper-minimalist corporate luxury. (I know, I harp on about this all the time, but stay with me.) It was an aesthetic built on absolute restriction, pristine whites, and looking like you spent your day inside a sanitised wellness clinic.

The football “baddie” fashion wave, frequently dubbed ‘Blokecore’, is the perfect antidote we've all been desperate for.

A vintage kit carries an inherent, gritty texture. It screams heritage, friction, and real-world utility that allows the wearer to borrow the deep, romantic history of a sports institution.

All without having to endure the actual heartbreak of supporting it. You don't need to know the offside rule to appreciate the typography of a 1994 sponsor logo or the beautiful, high-contrast palette of a retro away kit. You just have to look hot wearing it.

High-fashion houses have always observed sports culture from a safe distance, and dabbled when necessary, of course. The two go hand in hand. But they are now actively colonising it through luxury collaborations, custom bootlegs, and high-end runway reinterpretations.

The sneaker market has been almost completely reshaped by this terrace-style infiltration. And it's forcing brands to pivot their manufacturing pipelines away from chunkier dad-shoes and toward slim, low-profile, indoor-football silhouettes (hello, Adidas anything right now) that look just as natural under a silk slip dress as they do on a pitch.

The jersey has become the ultimate equaliser. A democratic piece of sportswear elevated to a high-luxury premium simply by changing the styling context.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, the commercial takeaway is a great fkn lesson in subcultural liquidity.

Rigid demographic definitions are kind of played out. Brands that understand how to cross-pollinate, taking the raw, emotional energy of one world, a poignant one, like the fierce loyalty of sports fans right now, and translating it into the visual aesthetics of another, are the ones on the money.

If your brand communication feels too literal or too buttoned-up, you risk being left out of the conversation entirely.

For someone who has studied both fashion and pop culture my entire career, this shift feels incredibly symbolic. The traditional rules of who gets to play in which arena have been dismantled. The gates are open, the aesthetics are fluid, and the old corporate boundaries are melting away.

And you certainly don't need to stay in your lane to win the crowd.

This phenomenon is a great reminder that the most exciting culture is always created when you have the creative audacity to break the rules.

And if you do need permission, you have mine. Break the rules, baby.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

The sound comes from creator Adelman Inspires who posted a video battling his way through an endless scroll of repetitive food content, or "sludge" as he calls it, dropping increasingly desperate commentary as each new video appears:

"I can't take this anymore. I'm having a mental breakdown. This is getting too difficult. The sludge is too powerful. It's taking over. I'm going to have a heart attack..."

Creators are lipsyncing to the audio as on-screen text describes whatever situation is currently sending them into a full spiral.

Some of my favourite examples:

Film yourself lipsyncing to the sound and add whatever is currently pushing you to your absolute limit as your on-screen text.

A few ideas to get you started:

-Devin Pike, Copywriter

Hey Ngaio!

It makes sense why you've focused on FB and IG up until now. But, if you have the resources to post on LinkedIn, you definitely should! Why? Because LinkedIn is full of founders. That means when you share stories about your business journey, other people are going to find your content relatable. This relatability is great for building your brand.

Second, there aren't tons of product-based brands on LinkedIn. This means you have the opportunity to stand out in a way that is a lot harder to do on Instagram or Facebook. Third, I can almost guarantee you that there are plenty of potential customers on LinkedIn. And if you aren't there, you're missing out on opportunities to build your brand.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.