This Animal Feed brings you shopping, returns, ratings, and the rebranding of the season: from Twitter to X. If the following headlines appear to carry a negative hue, remember the wise words of Jimmy Buffet: “It takes no more time to see the good side of life than the bad,” and give them a second chance!

From Twitter to X. The aftermath of the recent Twitter rebrand has unveiled a myriad of captivating perspectives that coalesce into a compendium of lessons in (what-not-to-do-when) rebranding. For us, it seems X aims to mirror China’s WeChat, a platform that expanded beyond messaging to incorporate payment services, e-commerce functionality, and gaming features, resulting in widespread popularity. However, while WeChat smiles, X looks like the button in the corner of a browser window you hit to close it. NYTimes

Going Shopping is Dead. How stores sucked the fun out of an American pastime. Vox

The Era of Ultra Cheap Stuff is Under Threat. Factories across Asia are struggling to attract young workers, which is bad news for Western consumers accustomed to inexpensive goods. WSJ

What Happens to All the Stuff We Return? How product returns became an industry. The New Yorker

Online Ratings are Broken. Your feedback is important. So important that, in the past couple of weeks alone, you’ve received a mountain of desperate requests for it. Haven’t you? The Atlantic

EXTRA. Mind wide open. The Edgar. Betting on Disney. Animal actors are on a strike too. Forget the office gym, welcome to the gym office. The world is going blind. Prada’s $650 underwear. Which face is real? Brotox. 125 years of Pepsi. Generation Z on tipping. One win, 17,000 defeats. Grounding. Gatekeeping. Lazy-girl jobs. Pushing songs up the charts. Video calls or better video chat. Would you drive an extra five minutes to save the planet? Where have all the Lindas gone? Next slide, please.