Glossier tapped WNBA stars for its latest lip gloss launch; Samantha Leitch profiled Chloe Cherry for Nylon; thrilling (if inevitable) to see Chappell Roan on the SNL lineup this season; and I’m writing to you from Columbus, Ohio because — I can’t believe I’m actually typing this — the Abercrombie team invited me to visit the HQ. A dream, to say the least! I will of course report back.
GENERATIONS 101, morningconsult
TikTok tops Gen Z’s buzziest brands — “buzz” here is defined as the share of respondents who reported seeing, reading, or hearing something, positive or negative, about a brand recently — with iPhone, Apple, Netflix, and Starbucks rounding out the top five, according to Morning Consult’s latest generational report. Research shows that Gen Zers are social media power users compared to other generations: They’re 27 percentage points more likely to say they use Instagram, and 32 points more likely to say they use TikTok than U.S. adults (perhaps the millennial invasion hasn’t sent Gen Z running from TikTok after all).
TIKTOK’S ROUGH DAY IN COURT, puck
Puck’s Eriq Gardner, who was on the ground in D.C. for TikTok’s big day in court, says the judges appeared “thoroughly unimpressed” by TikTok’s lead attorney, Andrew Pincus, “openly musing” that he was wasting their time and expressing considerable skepticism about extending First Amendment protections to the activities of Chinese coders. So what’s next? Gardner writes:
Leaving the courtroom, I came away with the strong sense that the Biden administration has at least two votes, possibly all three, to proceed and compel the Chinese to relinquish TikTok, regardless of the logistical headaches this would cause for the app’s current management and the howls from Gen Z.
20-SOMETHINGS LEARN TO LOVE THEIR CORPORATE JOBS, wsj
Young people are “relishing” going to the office, at least in part because of an uptick in TikToks that show the joys of a 9-5. “It really is a soft life,” says one young corporate worker. “I’ve definitely noticed a cultural shift back to the idea that corporate is a good place to be.” Interestingly, white-collar Gen Z workers are staying at companies 18% longer than millennials did in their first seven years in the workforce, making the younger generation more aligned with Gen X and boomers in terms of the amount of time they stay at one place.
‘A TROUBLING HALO OF HEALTH’: HOW CELSIUS BECAME RED BULL FOR WOMEN, theguardian
For years, energy drinks like Monster, Red Bull, and, most recently, Prime have aligned themselves with the interests of young men, but Celsius — with its skinny white cans featuring cheerful images of fresh fruit — won over women “by softening up its image and tapping into the billion-dollar wellness industry.” Between Celsius and Zyn and Ozempic and Feel Free and whatever the heck Kourtney Kardashian is selling, I’m worried about the collective health of Gen Z and millennials.
HER ‘SKINNY’ VIDEOS DIVIDED TIKTOK. SHE SAYS THEY’RE ‘WHAT THE VIEWERS WANT.’, wsj
For months, my feed has been filled with videos of girls filming themselves eating with the caption saying something along the lines of “eating this because Liv Schmidt exists” as a form of protest against the 22-year-old influencer whose enter brand is based on being skinny. Over the weekend, I began to see videos celebrating that Liv had (finally?) been banned from the platform, which, it turns out, was in response to WSJ reporting this story and reaching out to TikTok for comment. I believe in free speech, but I don’t believe in glorifying subsisting on 800 calories on a platform full of young women. It doesn’t matter what I think, though, because Liv’s already back on TikTok.
One last thought:
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