The Daily Valet. - 4/13/22, Wednesday

✔️ Did Anyone See This Coming?

April 13, 2022

Wednesday, April 13th Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

I’ll meet you at the Polo Bar …

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today’s Big Story

Yuppie Style Is Back, Baby

The bold designs and hyper-optimism of the ’80s and early ’90s is popping up everywhere

You’ve probably noticed it, even if you couldn’t put your finger on it. Slight nods to the moneyed and optimistic era of the 1980s and ’90s are seemingly everywhere.

You see it advertising especially. The retro campaigns, reminiscent of early Apple ads or car companies like Honda or Dodge. The look is text-heavy, with layouts comprised of a single image and a punchy headline. Eye on Design says the layered, type-driven designs make a worthy opponent for the sleek, buttoned-up visual world of the last decade.

Maybe it’s just the pendulum swing of fashion. Because the yuppie sartorial sense is back as well, in everything from sweatshirts to sneakers. As Jason Diamond wrote in GQ, “it’s not so much about flaunting your wealth as it is taking cues from Masters of the Universe past. It’s a vintage Rolex hat going for over a hundred bucks on Grailed. A shirt touting your membership in the fictional Hamptons Sports Club.”

And speaking of Masters of the Universe, geriatric millennial nostalgia and modern multiplayer gaming trends collided with MythForce, a new game announced Tuesday. The first-person, high fantasy, co-operative game is wrapped in an art style that’s straight out of 1980s cartoons like He-Man and Thundercats.

We all have our reasons for our little nods to yuppiedom past. You might want to rep a brand or style that you were too young to experience the first time. Or you might just think stuff with tennis rackets or a now-defunct bank’s name on it looks cool and funny.

Perhaps it’s the optimism that’s so attractive. The blatant boldness has big IDGAF energy and we could all use a little of that these days, right? This might be why the Memphis style of interior design, (which began as the antithesis of the establishment but eventually morphed into a seminal style) is suddenly cool again too.

↦ Dig Deeper: Vice attempts to unpack the internet’s long, awkward history with yuppie pyschopath Patrick Bateman.

Biden Says Russia Is Committing ‘Genocide’

The president had previously stopped short of using that term

President Joe Biden on Tuesday said the atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine amounted to “genocide,” marking the first time he has leveled the accusation against Vladimir Putin.

The president made the accusation in a speech at an ethanol fuel plant in Iowa, where he blamed the invasion for higher gas prices. “Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide a half a world away,” Biden said.

The State Department has a lengthy internal process for determining if mass killings amount to genocide, including collecting evidence over a period of time. The U.S. government defines genocide as “an act against members of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part.”

Russia vowed to continue its bloody offensive as the war nears its seventh week. The Associated Press reports that Putin insisted on Tuesday that the campaign was going as planned despite a major withdrawal and significant losses.

↦ Meanwhile: The Washington Post says conflict in Mexico is displacing thousands, calling it “the war next door.”

An Explosion in Road Rage

“Instead of throwing up the finger, they’re pulling out the gun.”

A recent study found road rage shootings are on the rise in the U.S. Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control advocacy group, found 44 people a month were killed or injured in road rage shootings last year—double the average reported in 2019.

Overall, 728 road rage shootings happened in 2021, the highest number in the six years the group said it has recorded such incidents. And it amounts to someone getting injured or killed every 17 hours. (And that doesn't even take into account the hundreds of instances where a gun gets waved but not fired.)

This is worrisome. And not just because I'm an absent-minded driver who could very well cut you off inadvertently. So why is it happening? Criminologists cautioned that any theory of motivation behind road rage shootings is hampered by a lack of data. There's not a federal database and most police departments don't keep statistics on road rage (mostly because it is not itself a crime category).

According to the New York Times, the prevalence of such violence suggests a “cultural commonality, an extreme example of deteriorating behavior that has also flared on airplanes and in stores. It is as if the pandemic and the nation's sour mood have left people forgetting how to act in public.” And what a time, too, when people are buying millions more guns.

↦ Lay Off the Horn: Geico actually has a safety lesson devoted to road rage and aggressive driving behavior.

The World’s Busiest Airports

American airports dominate rankings

As travel slowly picked up in 2021, there were nearly 4.5 billion global flight passengers moving through the world's airports, according to figures released this week by Airports Council International World.

That's an increase of nearly 25% from 2020, reports the Wall Street Journal, but still about half of all the flyers from the year before COVID grounded the bulk of business and recreational travel.

ACI analyzed passenger traffic, cargo volumes and aircraft movement to determine which airports around the world had the highest volume. And U.S. airports made up eight of the 10 busiest hubs, as a jump in domestic leisure travel displaced some of the world's bustling international hubs during the Covid pandemic.

Georgia's Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta is once again the world's busiest airport. According to CNN, it was knocked off its No. 1 perch to the No. 2 slot in passenger volume in 2020 by Guangzhou Baiyun in China, breaking Atlanta's 22-year streak in the top slot. But China's lockdowns definitely slowed air travel—Guangzhou dropped to No. 8 in 2021, and another airport in China, Chengdu's Shuangliu International, is ninth on the 2021 list, down from No. 3 in 2020.

↦ Buy: The Valet. staff pulled together the different types of travel bags you need for a successful trip.

In Other News

↦ Police Focus on Van Renter in Brooklyn Subway Shooting Probe

↦ Americans Are Not Paying Any Attention to CDC’s ‘Do Not Travel’ List

↦ The Deadline to File a Tax Extension Is Next Week. Here's How to Do It.

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

Gilbert Gottfried

The restaurant name vibe shift

Picture-in-picture

Nighttime Is the Right Time ...

To look after your skin with a night cream

You probably know by now that getting ample sleep is good for your skin. Your body boosts blood flow to the skin and regenerates cells while you snooze. So why not use those hours in bed to supercharge your skincare?

After all, it's likely the longest stretch of time that a product can stay on your face uninterrupted. Plus, the slight increase in body temperature that occurs while we sleep can actually help with product absorption.

Which means nighttime is the right time to invest in those active ingredients that really make a difference. You're never too young to start taking care of your skin and it's never too late to invest in yourself.

But which night cream is right for you? That depends on a lot of factors—what you're looking to accomplish and how much you're willing to spend. But to help you out, our team of skincare fanatics put a bunch to the test over the past few weeks to bring you the ones worth making room for in your medicine cabinet.

↦ Read: The best night creams for any concern (and any budget).

Grooming Deals

A clay mask to clean skin thoroughly, and a face oil to help rejuvenate. This mask kit ($55 / $33) features exfoliating pineapple and cooling cucumber, along with multani mitti clay to draw out impurities. The oil is made up of calendula and meadowfoam to protect and restore.

↦ Want More? 5 grooming items on sale now