Temu Mania and Me Core

the television equivalent of a pumpkin spice latte

Anna Weyant painted Kaia Gerber for the cover of Vogue; Olivia Rodrigo removed her song from TikTok after the Trump campaign used it in a victory video; Emma Chamberlain posed (nude) for her stylist Jared Ellner’s brand debut; the lookalike contests have gotten out of hand; and I had a nice few days away from my computer — I hope you did, too — but I’m thrilled to be back online (scroll to the bottom to see how I feel right now).

THESE ARE THE TOP APPS GEN Z YOUNG ADULTS DOWNLOADED THIS YEAR, techcrunch
From January to October, Gen Z young adults — segmented here as ages 18 to 24 — downloaded Temu a staggering 41.98 million times, more than any other app; TikTok came in second with 33.23 million downloads; Meta’s Twitter competitor Threads had 32.32 million installs, significantly more than Instagram (26.29 million) and Facebook (20.58 million). Snapchat had 19.16 million installs and Pinterest came in at just 8.23 million (though their revenue is up, as are their monthly active users).

FALL IS FOR ‘GILMORE GIRLS’: THE DATA SAYS SO, AND CREATOR AMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO AGREES, hollywoodreporter
Every fall, without fail, Gilmore Girls trends across social media and returns to the top of streaming charts. From 2021-23, the early-aughts TV series was one of the top 10 library shows of the year in total viewing time, according to Nielsen. The show's biggest single week in viewing time typically falls in late September or October. You’d think TV execs might look at the success of Gilmore Girls and create more programming that’s the television equivalent of a pumpkin spice latte, but so far, nothing…

THE MAKING OF A MODERN HIT FACTORY, financialtimes
John Janick, the forty-something CEO of Interscope, has “become the go-to for a generation of women artists.” He’s the man behind Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo (Janick’s Marvel and Star Wars, FT writes), as well as other “sad-girl” acts like boygenius, Lana Del Rey, Gracie Abrams, and Reneé Rapp. Talk about a Gen Z whisperer.

WHAT SERIAL DATERS AND MATCHMAKERS ALIKE THINK WE SHOULD DO ABOUT OUR DATING CRISIS, slate
Slate’s Tanya Chen sums up the dating (app) crisis thusly: “A loneliness epidemic has been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, which has led to poor socializing skills, and there’s a surplus of unvetted suitors that the major dating apps like Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble push onto users while hiding their most authentic matches behind a paywall.” One solution to the problem:

If tech companies are minimally willing to put people’s needs over profit, like using smarter A.I. or their swell of data to more mindfully match users—and, simultaneously, if people lean less on tech and do more internal work to become healthier daters—we could cultivate a more curative dating environment where people are more tactfully matched with “the one.”

MEET THE ‘DOOM-SPENDING’ GEN ZERS USING RETAIL THERAPY TO COPE WITH TRUMP WIN, telegraph
In a study conducted ahead of the election, Credit Karma found that 27% of Americans doom spend to cope with stress, and that those numbers are higher for millennials (39%) and Gen Zers (37%). In the last week, my FYP has been filled with young women anxiety shopping and, crucially, sharing it on social media; Sephora, whose semi-annual sale happened to fall over the last week, especially benefited from this collective angst. The Telegraph mentions one girl’s $261 Sephora haul which she shared on TikTok with the title “things that I bought in the Sephora sale to cope with the election.” (Fwiw, I’ve also seen a bunch of TikToks about trying not to shop to avoid boosting “Trump’s economy.”)

TRUMP RE-ELECTION SPARKS INTEREST IN SOUTH KOREA’S '4B' MOVEMENT AMONG AMERICAN WOMEN, nbcnews
And finally, have you been tracking the 4B movement? It’s been covered by everyone — Bloomberg, Washington Post, The Cut, CNN, New York Times, etc. — in the last three days. NBC News reported that there were over 500,000 search inquiries for “4B movement” on Google over the span of 48 hours this week, and it became one of the top trending topics on the online search engine. So what is it? What began as a fringe feminist movement in South Korea, the movement — no dating, no sex, no marriage, and no dating as a form of protest against misogyny, gender discrimination, and violence against women — has gained popularity among American women following the election. But this sentiment isn’t entirely new: Celibacy among Gen Z dominated headlines earlier this summer, and the whole “boysober” trend was everywhere way back in February.

One last thought:

@biarosahhTektek

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