Algorithmic Scavengers and TikTok Professors

"tiktok has already won"

Dua Lipa and Michael Cera are slated to appear in the upcoming Barbie movie; NFL star Travis Kelce announces his own Kansas City music festival; H&M unveils the entire Mugler lookbook; and last night I hosted a Gen Z dinner with my pals at Day One Agency — there were a lot of top-tier convos about trends and platforms (TikTok and Twitter and Substack, oh my!), so expect a recap this weekend.

WHY EVERY APP NOW FEELS LIKE TIKTOK, BUT WORSE, nymag
Algorithmic videos are killing social media. What will happen if TikTok is banned? Nothing, because effectively TikTok exists across every platform now.

The government can try to ban TikTok — and may actually follow through — but in this way, TikTok has already won: It drove its competition to madness. The big social apps now feel increasingly the same because they’re filled with the same stuff: content their users didn’t ask for made by people they don’t know on platforms they may not even use. Where they used to see posts from people they know, now there are algorithmically suggested videos from somebody made for nobody.

WANT AN A IN HIS CLASS? YOU HAD BETTER GO VIRAL., nyt
A marketing professor gave his students a challenge: If they made a TikTok video that got a million views, the final exam would be canceled. Within days, if not hours, a student succeeded.

6 YOUNG MEN ON GETTING POST-ROE VASECTOMIES, thecut
This article didn’t touch on it, but it’s worth noting that the #vasectomy hashtag on TikTok has more than 800 million views; many of the videos — like this one — are young men sharing their experiences with getting the procedure.

GEN Z LOVES GOOGLE, axios
Young Americans of all stripes dream of working at Google, according to a new Axios/Generation Lab survey of college students around the country. The federal government also ranked high on college students' dream employers list, taking the No. 2 spot for both young Republicans and Democrats.

GEN Z IS APPROACHING A ‘STUDENT LOAN CLIFF’ THAT COULD SEND SHOCKWAVES ACROSS THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, fortune
Millions of Gen Z grads have never had to pay their monthly student loan bill, with federal payments paused for more than three years. That will change soon—and it will be a “shock” for many household budgets, especially coming at a time when so many are already struggling with daily expenses, given inflation and the exorbitant cost of basics like housing and food.

QURATE RETAIL GROUP LAUNCHES SUNE, A VIDEO APP AIMED AT YOUNG CUSTOMERS, wwd
Qurate Retail Group — the company behind QVC, the OG live shopping platform — is rolling out an “experiential” livestream shopping app called Sune that hopes to reach young consumers between 18 and 29 years old via “a rotating calendar of live product drops, relatable personalities, and undiscovered brands.” So far, interest in the app, according to the company’s GM, has been “remarkable”; he did not elaborate on what remarkable interest looks like, so I guess we’ll take his word for it.

One last thought:

Rachel Karten @milkkarten

those capcut template trends that are everywhere (pedro pascal toast, will ferrell i’m so scared right now, the lightning mcqueen scene, etc) are so boring and i am convinced tiktok is only pushing them because they own capcut and want more people to use it