Brief with a hint of Godzilla

Brief Update

The weather is nice in San Francisco. A week off means there are lots of links to catch up on. All that, plus some general life weirdness, means we are keeping it extra brief this week.

Godzilla x Kong X Body Autonomy 

You might think that the latest Monsterverse movie is nothing more than a series of CGI fight scenes, but I’m here to tell you it’s actually a manifesto on the value of body autonomy and modification. 

King Kong’s dental work and prosthetic arm invoke Donna Haraway’s essay, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” blurring the lines between kaiju and machine. Godzilla, the Judith Butler of giant lizards, absorbs the feminine energy of Tiamat's lair, transforming themself from a blue “masculine” radioactive monster into a pink “feminine” radioactive monster. Shimo allies herself with Kong and Godzilla to defeat her abuser, liberating herself and the other kongs. Mothra comes back to life (I think… I took an edible before this film) and looks stunning doing it. 

Through its giant CGI monstrosities, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire asks us to question what it means to be monstrous. What it means to have a body. And what it means to change that body, on our own terms, in order to beat the crap out of other CGI monsters. 

Platform Updates

Instagram & Threads

• Meta’s Testing a Bonus Program for Threads Creators To Stimulate Growth

• Threads Releases API Documentation Ahead of Planned June Launch 

The Rest of Meta 

• Meta Says End-To-End Encryption Will Be the Default in Messenger in the Coming Months

• Meta is accused of censoring a non-profit newspaper and an independent journalist who criticized the company 

• Facebook Launches an Updated Vertical Video Display and Recommendations Algorithm (they didn’t have this already) 

• Meta’s new AI deepfake playbook: More labels, fewer takedowns

• Facebook’s new full-screen video player looks a lot like TikTok

TikTok

• TikTok’s Instagram competitor likely to be named TikTok Notes (the ouroboros of product design wriggles on) 

YouTube

• YouTube Says OpenAI Training Sora With Its Videos Would Break Rules 

• YouTube Launches AI-Powered Skip Ahead, New Features for Live Streamers

Google 

• Google to delete search data of millions who used 'incognito' mode 

• Google rolling out Find My Device network for Android 

Apple

• App Store guidelines now allow game emulators; music apps in the EU can take users to an external website 

Amazon

• Amazon gives up on no-checkout shopping in its large grocery stores 

Discord

• Discord to Start Showing Ads for Gamers to Boost Revenue

Reddit

• Reddit Rolls Out Ad Creation Updates, Including Generative AI Copy Suggestions

LinkedIn 

• LinkedIn Launches Connected TV and Live Event Ads for B2B Marketers

Pinterest (disclosure: I’m currently working with Pinterest as a contractor) 

• Megan Thee Stallion’s favorite app is Pinterest, obviously

Snap 

• Snapchat turns off controversial ‘Solar System’ feature by default after bad press 

• Snapchat Launches Advanced Partner Program To Help Build on Opportunities 

• Snapchat Announces Ad Analytics Partnerships To Improve Campaign Insight

Twitter, Sorry X

The Product 

• X Adds Adult Content Setting for Communities

The Dumpster Fire

• X Removes Pronoun Display Options on User Profiles

• Elon Musk's X pushed a fake headline about Iran attacking Israel. X's AI chatbot Grok made it up. 

• X automatically changed 'Twitter' to 'X' in users' posts, breaking legit URLs 

• X Continues To Amplify Misinformation Ahead of the Upcoming US Election

• X is funding a lawsuit against Jack Dorsey's Block to support the 'right to freedom of speech'

• X’s ‘complimentary’ Premium push gives people blue checks they didn’t ask for (o, and X’s Premium users can no longer hide their blue checks) 

Culture Movers 

Pipes & Tubes 

• FCC to vote to restore net neutrality rules, reversing Trump

• DuckDuckGo launches a new subscription to bundle VPN and identity theft protection

Film & TV

• Roku’s idea of showing ads on your HDMI inputs seems like an inevitable hell

• Paramount is the latest company to introduce custom ads that appear mid-show 

• Apple is turning William Gibson’s Neuromancer into a TV series (Neuromancer is one of my favorite novels, so I’m pretty excited) 

Music 

• Spotify jumps 8% on report it plans to raise prices 

Publishing 

• Vice was once promised to become the brash young voice of news. But wild expenses, shady deals, and greed turned it into ‘a fucking clown show.’

• Yahoo is buying Artifact, the AI news app from the Instagram co-founders 

Creator Economy 

• Patreon is taking Reddit’s approach to content moderation (creators have been doing this with their patron-only Discord mods for a while now, good to see it in the product itself)

AI 

• Google Bans Face Swap App for Inviting Users to Make Deepfake Porn 

• Google Books Is Indexing AI-Generated Garbage 

• Nicki Minaj, Billie Eilish, Katy Perry and other musicians sign letter against irresponsible AI

Popcorn Bucket Update

Apparently, the higher-ups at AMC Theaters aren’t as into the Dune popcorn bucket as the rest of humanity. Their CCO, Elizabeth Frank, told Variety, “We would have never imagined the “Dune” thing. We would have never created it knowing it would be celebrated or mocked.” This feels like a frankly irresponsible level of c-suit culture disconnect. AMC needs to figure out how to sell a vaguely sexual novelty concession item at least once per quarter if they want Americans to return to theaters.

*I’m very dyslexic, and this is a largely free project/hobby. I do not set aside the same time for proofreading that I do for other professional work. If you spot a typo that would cause a communication error, please reach out to gently let me know.