Meet Leah Halton, the influencer who could break the most-liked TikTok video record; Willow shares whimsical new single ‘Big Feelings’; and Caitlin Clark wore Prada (and made history) at the WNBA draft.
EVA ALT IS SELLING DOWNTOWN, curbed
Some Glossier alums have gone on to start their own CPG empires; Eva Alt, who was the beauty brand’s social lead for years, “is managing the impossible: making it cool to be a New York real-estate agent.” Capitalizing on her superior taste and knack for marketing, she landed a gig with Compass’s Hudson Advisory team, which specializes in referral-only listings across downtown Manhattan.
HOW DAVIS CLARKE BECAME THE MOST LOCKED-IN MAN ON THE INTERNET, gq
A 27-year-old man who works at Citizens Bank in Boston and shops at Jos. A. Bank has accrued a following on Instagram for his motivational short-form videos, which, Kate Lindsay writes, “answer a question no one has ever asked: What if LinkedIn assumed human form, and was really charming and funny?”
THE BIG NEW WAY TO GET RICH, businessinsider
Young men are more likely to participate in sports betting, crypto trading, and high-risk investing, and they have more access to these things than ever before. They also have money: “Many of them have income they're not doing more productive things with, especially in the wake of a pandemic that has a lot of consumers who were once trying to save up thinking, ‘Eh, screw it.’” (And yet! Almost a third of Gen Z live with their parents, and young men are more likely than women to do so.)
META THINKS IT’S A GOOD IDEA FOR STUDENTS TO WEAR QUEST HEADSETS IN CLASS, techcrunch
On Monday, the company announced that later this year it will be launching a new education product for Quest to position its VR headset as a go-to device for teaching in classrooms. Jonathan Haidt said smartphones are bad, but he didn’t say anything about VR headsets…!
AIRCHAT IS SILICON VALLEY’S LATEST OBSESSION, wired
Airchat combines the feed aspect of Twitter with the audio-first format of Clubhouse, and while it isn’t explicitly targeting young people — right now, the feed is “filled with tech enthusiasts, early adopters, venture capitalists, and journalists” — it’ll be interesting to see if Gen Z, a cohort that famously loves voice notes, engages with the app.
COACHELLA 2024: WOMEN SAVE THE DAY AS FESTIVAL SUFFERS AN IDENTITY CRISIS, theguardian
This reporter says a shift towards a Gen Z audience was noticeable at Coachella this year, signaling a potential change in the festival's usual demographic, though I would think the music festival, which has always been a young person’s playground, would have been dominated by Gen Z (the oldest of which is 27) for years. Either way, the quotes are great:
One college-age woman I spoke to ahead of the gates opening on Friday night said she had come since childhood with her dad, noting with a straight face that, “He’s an OG. He has a vintage Coachella shirt from 2008.”
REVOLVE INVENTED INFLUENCER MARKETING AS WE KNOW IT. NOW IT’S PULLING BACK., bof
After the 2023 Revolve Festival generated about half the earned media value as it did in 2019, the brand has significantly scaled back in size and extravagance. Revolve's net sales dipped in 2023, prompting the company to shift its focus to everyday categories such as office wear and beauty, and reduce overall marketing spend.
One last thought: