Let Green be Green 💚
  Tonight: Mars Wrigley seems to have inadvertently picked a fight with Green M&M Internet. Plus: Houses are still expensive and Amazon could be coming to a mall near you. Let's get into it. MAKE IT FASHUN  LA's hottest fashion destination is…*squints at notes*… Amazon?
Yep, it's the latest trend to spin out of this ouroboros of e-commerce we find ourselves in here in the roaring 20s. Web businesses are becoming brick and mortar, and brick and mortar are moving are moving online. Or being subsumed by the web.
Amazon announced Thursday that it will open Amazon Style, its first real-life clothing store, at a posh LA mall later this year. The shop will be tucked in among rivals Amazon's business model has threatened to destroy for the better part of the last decade: Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters, J.Crew and H&M. Across the street sits a JCPenney – perhaps the most prominent casualty of the scorched retail landscape wrought by the internet.
The store may seem out of place, but there are few reasons it makes sense for the retail behemoth:
Amazon Style is the latest attempt to expand Amazon's physical retail footprint, which hasn't had nearly the blockbuster success of its online operation. Including Whole Foods, which it bought in 2017, and a smattering of bookshops and convenience stores, Amazon had more than 600 physical stores in North America at the end of 2020.
But Amazon, wildly successful at online retail, has so far struggled to crack the brick-and-mortar code, Nathaniel writes. Read his full story here for a look inside the new, though not especially innovative, store. #️⃣ NUMBER OF THE DAY $346,900 It's official: The median price for an existing home in America last year rose to a $346,900, up 17% from 2020. Still, buyers gobbled up what they could find. Sales were the strongest they've been in 15 years, with 6.12 million homes sold. That made it tough for first-time buyers, of course, but it's a boon for those who already owned property. At the median price, a typical homeowner accumulated $50,200 in housing wealth from 2020 to 2021.
🥡 FOOD NEWS  It's Thursday, aka Nightcap Friday, so we're celebrating with a bit of bubbly, a bit of candy, and a dash of straight-up horror. Time for another Nightcap food digest!
MEAT MASK In a marketing move that was surely yanked from Hannibal Lector's mood board, Oscar Mayer made a bologna face mask. And if you think that's depraved, consider this: It sold out in less than a day.
Kraft Heinz, which unleashed this godforsaken product on us, said it was restocking the mask, blaming the shortage on "unexpected, incredibly high demand." It's the No. 1 new release in Amazon's beauty and personal care section. You sick bastards.
OK, so the mask isn't made of actual meat – and you shouldn't eat it. It's just a regular ol' hydrating beauty mask, in an uncomfortably pinkish hue.
CHEERS Speaking of depravity: Y'all are still drinking at home like it's 2020 but perhaps with a touch more sophistication than a 12-pack of White Claw.
Champagne sales are poppin' off. France exported a record 180 million bottles of bubbly in 2021, an increase of 38% over the previous year. An industry trade group attributed the influx to consumers who have "chosen to entertain themselves at home" —not sure we had much choice in the matter, but go on — "compensating for the generally gloomy mood." Well, you can say that again.
M&M MAKEOVER The charming anthropomorphic M&M crew, like the rest of us, is dressing down a bit. It's a pandemic after all – that means Green is swapping her go-go boots for sneakers. Brown's high heels are now a more sensible low pump. Orange's shoe laces are no longer untied (honestly, Orange always deserved better.)
Mars Wrigley, which owns M&Ms, said it's making subtle changes to the characters' appearance to make them more "current" and "representative of our consumer." It also adjusted the logo, setting it up straight instead of at that zany tilt, and with a bigger ampersand.
The overall effect is of M&Ms who aren't messing around anymore – these are serious times and we need serious candy to support us.
Not everyone was thrilled about the changes, particularly the, um, how to put this… the de-sexifying of Ms. Green. It was mostly ironic, faux outrage, at least in the corners of Twitter that I dared to venture into this afternoon. EJ Dickson of Rolling Stone summed up the discourse nicely (and without the salty language that would be inappropriate for this newsletter): "Let the Green M&M Be Slutty." 
WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON? 📺 Netflix's stock fell 19% in after-hours trading after the company missed its subscription target and forecast weaker growth ahead.
✈️ Airline executives, in a stark change of tone from earlier this week, now say they expect to reach a resolution to the 5G debacle without thousands of delayed, diverted or canceled flights.
📈 So far, 2022 hasn't been great for stocks. But the Biden market is still up 18%.
🚲 Peloton shares sank 20% Thursday after CNBC reported that the company is halting production of its bike and treadmill products because of waning consumer demand. TWEET OF THE DAY 
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