Meme Dates and Overnight Antimonopolists

creator retirement funds

You can now get your Kanye West tattoos removed for free; Apple Music is getting a karaoke mode; and Måneskin is making live rock thrilling (and sexy) again.

DCDX SECOND ANNUAL SCREEN TIME REPORT, dcdx
So many good insights here! Snap screen time is down 38%, though it's still #5 overall in Gen Z's most-used mobile apps, and Instagram remains Gen Z's #1 most-used app with an average of over 6 hours per week, which provides a fascinating counter-point to Kate Lindsay's Atlantic piece from last week. TikTok's most active Gen Z users spend almost 15 hours per week on the app — roughly 2 hours a day; I'm kind of surprised it's not more tbh — and Facebook* entered the Top 10 apps used by Gen Z.

*I asked Andrew, DCDX’s founder why this may be. “My take? To be honest, I think there's a big social media fatigue happening right now. Lots of change, lots of platforms trying to innovate and add new features, new platforms launching, etc,” he said.

TOP #TIKTOKMADEMEBUYIT TRENDS OF 2022: MACSTACK, GLOSSIER YOU, IRONIC BOAT AND TOTES, glossy
TikTok released its “Year on TikTok 2022” recap (you can read the whole thing here), but most interesting to me was its top-five list of viral #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt moments A viral food chopper was No. 1, but beauty and fashion brands — namely, MAC Cosmetics, Glossier, Birkenstock and LL Bean — rounded out the list.

It wasn’t just top TikTok influencers driving viral product trends. Glossier’s 3-year-old fragrance, Glossier You, for example, has 106.7 million views on its TikTok hashtag. It went viral in June after user @bitcoin_papi shared a post talking about the intense reactions she’d received when wearing the fragrance. They included being stopped on the street and asked about the scent, and receiving a poem about it written by a man she’d gone on two dates with. The post received over 500,000 likes.

INSTAGRAM OFFERS ITS PREDICTIONS ON GENERATION Z TRENDS FOR 2023, adweek
Yet another EOY recap — ‘tis the season — with some pretty revealing findings: Nearly two-thirds (64%) of respondents plan to monetize a social content project in 2023, while over 85% plan to learn a new skill, with roughly one of four looking to boost their finance skills. Additionally, nearly one-half of Gen-Z social media users answered “yes” when asked if they’d ever send a meme as a first message to a match in a dating app, but 39% of respondents said having bad taste in memes makes their crush less attractive. Finally — most importantly! — almost one-half of respondents say they would not date someone with an incompatible astrology chart.

LIVE NATION TICKET FIASCO SHOWS RISKS OF CREATING COMPANIES TOO BIG TO CARE, wsj
Just a really good quote here: Live Nation Entertainment Inc.'s recent inability to handle demand for tickets to Taylor Swift's tour "converted more Gen Z'ers into antimonopolists overnight than anything I could have done," Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan said.

ROBINHOOD IS PIVOTING TO RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS AS NOVICE TRADERS SHUN THE GET-RICH-QUICK APPEAL OF MEME STOCKS, insider
A sign of the times. Robinhood's new offering aims to tackle the "gig" economy sector — those who have skirted the 9 to 5 corporate life, have side hustles, or run their own businesses. 

One last thought:

Matt Klein @KleinKleinKlein

The fu—?