Gamified Psychology and TikTok Hypnosis
“long-form girl in a hot-take world.”
After School is a daily newsletter about youth culture read by execs from Facebook, Nike, and Depop. I’m so happy you’re here! If you like it, consider forwarding to your extremely powerful boss (or becoming a paid subscriber).
The latest Rowing Blazers x NBA collab is great; TikTokers are using eyeliner to trick men into falling in love with them; will anyone actually buy secondhand Crocs?; and what in the hell is ‘right-clicker mentality’?
SURPRISE! THE FUTURE OF MEDIA INVOLVES A CRYPTO-BASED POPULARITY CONTEST
Unlike Substack or Medium, Mirror offers an ever-expanding suite of crowdfunding tools made possible by blockchain technology that pushes the act of raising money on the Internet into psychedelic new shapes. vice
Dena Yago is a self-described “long-form girl in a hot-take world.” A co-founder of K-Hole, the defunct art collective and trend forecasting group best known for coining the 2010s fashion buzzword normcore, she said she’s never felt like her writing was a fit for subscription-based platforms, which hinge on keeping readers engaged on a weekly or daily basis. So she was curious about the possibility of using crypto to fund a standalone piece of writing—ideally while earning more money than she would writing for a traditional publication.
BEME IS AN INSURANCE-BACKED TIKTOK FOR MENTAL HEALTH. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?
“Built by minds from Harvard, Facebook, and the Trevor Project,” this social media platform aims “to help make teens happier and mentally healthier” by… gamifying psychology, basically. fastcompany
BeMe wouldn’t be a modern social media startup without a solid, unabashed clone of the TikTok feed. Yet unlike TikTok, which allows anyone to post just about anything, BeMe’s feed will also be anchored in proven content. Popular influencers may come over from platforms like TikTok, but on BeMe, they can only post company-vetted mental health messaging (a fact-checking plan companies like Snapchat have deployed in the past).
↳ Inside the success of the “Teenage Therapy,” a youth-led podcast that — while not “built by minds from Harvard, Facebook, and the Trevor Project” — is still great. dailytrojan
BOOKTOK HAS PASSION—AND ENORMOUS MARKETING POWER
Have publishers finally figured out how to sell books again…? Bloomsbury recently reported record sales and a 220% rise in profits, due in part to the “absolute phenomenon” of BookTok. economist
TIKTOK'S VERSION OF THE PHOTO DUMP FINDS BEAUTY IN THE MUNDANE
The latest trend sweeping the app — other than the beauty trick said to cause love hypnosis — is posting all of the aesthetically mundane photos from your camera roll "set to a remix of "Good Days" by SZA that overlays dialogue from HBO's Euphoria. Nostalgia, baby! mashable
BUMBLE BFF HAS AN MLM PROBLEM
I clicked on this headline expecting a tell-all story about how Bumble’s campus ambassador program is MLM-y, but while I did not get that, the actual story — about how multi-level marketers have exhausted Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok and are now turning their attention towards Bumble BFF — doesn’t disappoint. Really makes you wonder about the future of MLM’s beyond millennials. Will Gen Zers bite, too? inputmag