Vogue interviewed 19-year-old F1 star Bianca Bustamante; Rihanna debuts pink hair ahead of tonight’s Met Gala; Dua Lipa was surprisingly (I’m sorry!) great on SNL; and how Hozier became Gen Z’s “forest daddy.”
UNIVERSAL MUSIC ARTISTS WILL RETURN TO TIKTOK, nyt
TikTok and Universal Music Group have reached a new licensing deal, ending a three-month deadlock that kept many of pop's biggest stars off the platform. The companies are “working expeditiously” to return Universal’s music to the platform, which could take a “matter of days or weeks.”
HOW TIKTOK IS WIRING GEN Z'S MONEY BRAIN, wsj
Young adults are experiencing "money dysmorphia" due to a disconnect between their actual financial well-being and their perceptions influenced by TikTok feeds. One 27-year-old describes her TikTok feed as a “mix of economic gloom and consumerism gone wild,” with “Dave Ramsey TikToks that warn of the evils of debt, followed by influencers showing off their shopping hauls of skin-care products and handbags.”
FROM RHODE TO FENTY, WHAT THE CURRENT LIP GLOSS CRAZE SAYS ABOUT GEN Z, vox
Among young people, lip glosses are not just makeup — they’re affordable status symbols that offer “a moment of ritualistic self-care, comfort, and play” in times of economic distress. They’ve “become a low-stakes remedy for a particular type of dread facing everyone — but maybe more vocally, young women.”
“Do I think it’s possible to finish 300-plus lip products by the time my life is over? Probably not,” says 27-year-old beauty influencer Ky Mason, who posted a five-part “lip product collection tour” on TikTok. “But I’ll have fun counting how many of them I can finish and reviewing them until that time comes.”
GEN Z HELPS FUEL RISE IN SABBATICALS, axios
Driven by a still-tight labor market, remote work, and Gen Z expectations, more companies are offering sabbaticals, according to the payroll platform Gusto. The share of workers likely on a sabbatical — defined by Gusto as someone who is off for three weeks or more during a prior two-month period — rose from 3.3% in January 2019 to 6.7% as of January this year.
AT DISNEY WORLD, ADULT VISITORS INCREASINGLY MIX REMOTE WORK AND PLAY, nbcnews
The rise of Disney adults — grown-ups who are Walt Disney superfans — has led to an uptick in young people WFD (working from Disney). “It’s that vibe of ‘Epcot is my coffee shop,’” said one Disney expert. “Instead of ‘I’m going to close my laptop and start watching Netflix,’ it’s like, ‘I’m going to close my laptop and go on Spaceship Earth.’”
THE TEENS MAKING FRIENDS WITH AI CHATBOTS, theverge
“I’m not going to lie. I think I may be a little addicted to it.” Character.AI attracts 3.5 million daily users, many of whom are teenagers who say talking to chatbots is easier than interacting with real people. Young fans gather on Reddit to discuss their interactions with the chatbots and compete over who has racked up the most screen time.
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