

Discover more from After School by Casey Lewis
Vinyl records outsell CDs for the first time since 1987; drunk shopping ‘habit’ reaches $14 billion thanks to Gen Z and millennials; Pedro Pascal confirms he has a secret TikTok account; and here’s a glance of all the Gen Zers at the Oscars red carpet.
SEPHORA AND TIKTOK TEAM UP ON NEW CONTENT PROGRAM FOR EMERGING BRANDS, glossy
In partnership with the marketing agency Digitas, the Sephora x TikTok Incubator Program aims to help young brands become more successful on TikTok and more fluent in working with influencers on partnerships. Its pilot will kick off with three BIPOC-founded brands: Eadem, Topicals, and Hyper Skin.
GEN ALPHA LOVES EATING MCDONALD'S, WATCHING YOUTUBE AND DISNEY+, AND TELLING THEIR PARENTS WHAT TO BUY AT THE STORE, insider
An absolutely fascinating insight c/o Morning Consult: Thirty-seven percent of Gen Alpha parents said McDonald’s was their kids' favorite restaurant, six times as many as those who said runner-up Chick-fil-A was their top choice. These were open-ended, unaided responses — in other words, not chosen from a list.
PEOPLE THINK GEN Z IS SEX NEGATIVE, BUT THE TRUTH IS MORE COMPLICATED, buzzfeed
A 23-year-old reporter talked to 15 members of Gen Z (and read through a survey of another 200 Gen Zers) to better understand how the generation thinks about sex. The findings were “more nuanced and less dire than people online seem to think.”
People abstaining from sex in the long term were supportive of everyone else’s right to have sex however they chose, provided their partners were consenting adults. People looking for emotional connections in monogamous sexual relationships also appreciated the value of casual engagement; often they’d tried both. People who talked freely and joyfully about their “high body counts” also reflected rigorously on what they wanted out of sex and why.
GEN ZERS ARE BOOKWORMS BUT SAY THEY'RE SHUNNING E-BOOKS BECAUSE OF EYE STRAIN, DIGITAL DETOXING, AND THEIR LOVE FOR LIBRARIES, insider
Despite young people’s reliance on screens, they’re opting for good old-fashioned hardbacks over e-books. “There is nothing like opening up a real book on a couch or beach,” Madalyn Boyd, a 23-year-old from Michigan. “The smell of real books is so personal.”
THE RADICAL ACT OF EATING WITH STRANGERS, nyt
Anita Michaud, 24, launched Dinner With Friends in May 2022. After posting about the dinners on TikTok and Instagram, over 800 people — mainly young women, like Ms. Michaud — have signed up for her events so far, a wait list that Ms. Michaud, who has a full-time job in financial services, said would take her four years to get through, one dinner-party-of-eight at a time.
YOUR THERAPIST IS ON TIKTOK. WILL YOUR THERAPY SESSION END UP THERE TOO?, wapo
Therapists are increasingly giving social media consent forms to new patients before treatment. One such example reads: “We use our social media accounts to provide psychoeducation to a larger audience and to market our practice. You may follow these accounts and interact with them as you’d like. However, we highly discourage commenting and stating you are a client or doing anything that could be perceived as you disclosing our therapeutic relationship.”
One last thought:
Digital Detoxes and Body Counts
I love your roundups Casey 👏🏾👏🏾