The Dot Cake craze is upon us. And if your feed hasn’t been inundated with people showing off their tiny, cupcake-sized, hundreds-and-thousands-encrusted treat, knocking the top, scratching a spoon across it, and digging in… do you even internet? Just like every other viral dessert, this one’s outrageous in price ($11 for 6 bites of cake) and causing people to lose their collective minds in the comments. So, what’s behind our obsession with paying out the wazoo for seemingly underwhelming items, just because we saw them online?

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

(btw - If you’re already using Claude Code or Cowork daily, scroll on by bc this isn’t for you)

But if you’ve just dabbled in using AI, maybe you’re using ChatGPT to help you look up recipes, write basic emails, or attempt to diagnose that insect bite you just got, stay with me for a sec.

When it comes to AI, there’s a lot of “bro you’re so behind” messaging out there. When, in reality, within just a couple hours, you can learn how to use AI better than 95% of people you know. And this why we put together the Beginner’s Guide to Claude AI course.

It’s a 4-week cohort where you learn how to go from using AI as a glorified Google to getting it to actually help you with the sh*tty admin (life or work) you hate doing every day.

We kick off our second cohort on 22 June, so if you want to go from feeling behind to using AI to make your life better, this is for you 👇

The New York Knicks are currently up 2-0 against the San Antonio Spurs, meaning they are just two wins away from a historic championship. New York City is obviously riding a basketball high, considering it’s the first time in 27 years the Knicks are so back. Obviously the Kicks Mania generates an unprecedented level of local attention.

I guess, Mayor Zohran Mamdani was looking to capture that lightning in a bottle and launched an unexpected blitz during the post-game coverage. It was very “We interrupt this victory for a message from your Mayor” vibes. Dressed in orange and blue, Mamdani used the playoff momentum to endorse a trio of progressive congressional candidates under the tagline, "This is the team. This is our year." Kinda dystopian? But also, I get it. You’d be a fool to pass up on all those eyes.

Speaking of Dystopian, the line between reality and the matrix on our feeds has almost ceased to exist. A deep-dive on The Verge reveals the flood of AI content creators are now hyper-realistic. To a scary point. Not obviously fake like they once were. These are super lifelike synthetic influencers designed to mimic human trends, build massive followings, and, you guessed it, scam people.

Shady operators are using these fake hot people to run aggressive dropshipping scams and push garbage products on unsuspecting audiences who genuinely think they’re supporting a real person. I am officially questioning the consciousness of every single person on my FYP. Fun! The absolute worst part is that the Evil Tech Overlords are completely leaving us out to dry (shock!).

As detailed in another piece by The Verge, users are practically begging platforms like Google, Meta, and TikTok for a simple "filter out AI slop" button. This should be absolutely easy enough for them to do. Except they won’t. Because the endless firehose of automated slop keeps traffic high, which keeps advertisers happy. So instead of a curated, human internet, we’re being forced to wade through a digital landfill of AI junk because corporate profits say so. Deep, existential sigh.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

The distinct, sharp, almost violent sound of a heavy metal spoon cracking through a cement-thick layer of rainbow nonpareil sprinkles is usually the first thing to assault my ears when I open my phone. And has been for the last few weeks.

If you haven’t seen it yet, congratulations on spending time outside. But for the rest of us, we are trapped in the absolute cultural chokehold of the Dot Cake.

Pioneered by New York’s The Dotcakes bakery and causing blocks-long lines at Manhattan's Butterfield Market, the product is deceptively simple: an 8-ounce plastic cup packed with box-style cake, standard frosting, and a hyper-dense crust of crunchy dots. It costs eleven dollars. People are waiting two hours in the rain for it.

"It’s literally just grocery store sheet cake deconstructed into a plastic cup. Go make it yourself!"

I think maybe they’ve missed the point.

The Dot Cake craze isn’t about the baking. It is a whole thing when it comes to modern consumer psychology, sensory marketing, and the exact mechanics of what happens when a product is engineered to be a content generator.

But it’s also a symptom of a profound cultural regression. We have completely eliminated hunger from our vocabulary and replaced it with a permanent reservation at the kid's table.

We are currently sitting at the absolute peak of a historical bell curve of consumption.

Before refrigerators and pre-packaged convenience, food was fragile. A cake, a loaf of bread, or a piece of fruit was highly perishable. It had to be baked and enjoyed quickly in one place. Ingredients were irregular; preservation was a luxury. Sweets were rare because they physically could not exist in perpetuity.

More importantly, kids and adults shared the exact same diet. There was no "kid food." Food was food. Everyone showed up to the table hungry, without debating likes or dislikes, and without picking or choosing. You ate to live.

“Small cakes and pies have become a staple, not a treat. Researchers noted, with middle-class housewives describing [cakes] as a necessity on their grocery list, and children thinking of them as routine.”

Fast forward to 2026, and we are living in the hyper-evolved, dystopian endgame of that shift. We are all picky now. Every food must be a comfort. We survive on an endless rotation of grazing boards, "little treats," and snack tins. All designed to save us from the terrifying prospect of an empty stomach.

The modern tongue has a job, and we refuse to let it go unemployed. And if the, you know, consequences get too bad, well then, throw every GLP-1 weight-loss drug at us, just so we can dull the appetite enough to keep grazing in teeny-tiny, minimal-effort ways.

The Dot Cake is the ultimate manifestation of this. It requires zero proactive transformation. It asks nothing of our palate. It is an $11 cup of pure regression.

We like to think of ourselves as rational consumers, but a two-hour line for a cup of cake proves otherwise. There are deep psychological drivers happening underneath that sprinkle crust:

They build the marketing directly into the sensory design of the product, exploiting three distinct digital mechanics:

1. The sensory hook (ASMR)

The algorithm rewards sensory extremes. Dot Cake content relies entirely on a purely acoustic, tactile hook: running a spoon across that cobblestone sprinkle crust to capture a highly satisfying crack before plunging into fluffy cake.

2. The outrage engagement flywheel

The fastest way to get pushed to the mass market is to trigger a debate. Because the cake is so basic, it triggers immediate backlash from people yelling "you're being scammed!". That tension drives thousands of comments. Those comments create traction.

3. The copycat loop

Because a Dot Cake is structurally simple, home bakers can instantly dupe it. This creates an exponential web of free user-generated content that cements the original creator as the cultural blueprint.

But today, the absolute winners are the brands that understand the deep psychological undercurrents of our cultural exhaustion.

We don't want complex. We don't want adult. We want a spoon, a plastic cup, and a loud, crunchy distraction from the void.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

Today's sound comes from Drake's recent Nike ad for Kevin Durant's KD 19. It’s a locker room skit where Drake plays the world's most committed yes man. KD keeps pulling out increasingly unhinged sneaker designs, like a cowboy boot basketball hybrid and a pair covered in actual fur, and Drake hypes every single one without blinking. "Okay wow. First thought, transcending the game. You need a banjo for those. Those are crazy." 

He posted it himself with the caption "normalize glazing the bros" and the internet ran with the audio immediately, using it to soundtrack any moment of completely disproportionate enthusiasm.

My favourites so far:

Lipsync the audio and put whatever you're irrationally hyping on screen.

A few ideas to get you started:

-abdel khalil, brand & marketing exec

😂Yap’s funniest home videos - I'm a stone, get it?
❤How wholesome - "Who's your one good friend?"
😊Soooo satisfying - Sneaking chickens into school
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight - Courtney's Kumara

Hey Emmett!

You have a strong emotional pull here as housing is a topic pretty much everyone has 1) experience in and, 2) strong opinions about. One idea for your content is to just go out and do street interviews. Ask people questions about their experience renting. You could do a series like, “How much do you pay for rent in [your city]?” and let the stories unfold naturally. This kind of content should spark good discussion in the comments and give you the opportunity to have conversations with your audience.

- 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.