I have some confessions

Music Confession 

Confession: I don’t think I’ve ever heard this song. 

I definitely know who Harry Styles is. I’ve been obsessed with the Don’t Worry Darling drama. I know some of his songs. I had no idea he was doing this well on the Billboard Hot 100. 

I’m certainly not the first one to notice this, but the monoculture is truly dead. Moments like this just make it very apparent and viscerally real for me.

Platform Updates

Instagram 

• Instagram’s Testing a New Way to Use DMs as an Alert Option for New Posts (this sounds totally annoying tbh)

• Instagram starts testing a home feed without a shopping tab (ugh finally) 

The Rest of Meta 

• Meta Adds New Account Switching and Cross-App Alert Tools as it Looks to Maximize Engagement

• Meta to Cut Headcount for First Time, Slash Budgets Across Teams 

• Meta cracks down on ad-free Instagram client a day after it launched

• Meta’s new text-to-video AI generator is like DALL-E for video

TikTok

• TikTok just upped its video descriptions to 2,200 characters. Here’s why.

• TikTok is releasing its comment dislike button to all users worldwide

• TikTok Reports 62% Jump in Fake Profiles Being Created in the App (spam comes for us all)

Twitter

• Twitter’s Testing a New Way to Showcase Brand Communities in the App

• Twitter Faces Advertiser Boycott Due to Failures to Police Child Abuse Material

• Twitter is adding a new TikTok-like full-screen video feature

YouTube

• YouTube is rolling out its tip jar on Shorts

• YouTube Shorts adds narration voiceovers, a popular TikTok feature

Tumblr 

• No, Tumblr is not bringing back porn (sigh)

Culture Movers 

Film & TV

• Netflix drops lawsuit against The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical’s creators

• Nielsen and Roku Introduce Tool For Ad Measurement

Music 

• The Blackpink Fans Looking to Outfox YouTube

Creator Economy 

• The Try Guys have announced that Ned Fulmer “is no longer working” with them

• VidCon adds a second event in Baltimore for 2023 (sure I guess)

Gaming 

• Netflix is building its own game studio

• Google pulls the plug on Stadia

Gaming Confession 

Confession: I actually liked Cyberpunk 2077 at launch. 

For those who weren’t following the story at the time, Cyberpunk 2077 is an action RPG video game based on a tabletop roleplaying game. Its December 2020 launch was the conclusion of a massive hype cycle that all came crashing down when people actually started to play the game. It was buggy. Many of the features teased in trailers just weren’t there. Gamers are notoriously vocal online. It was a mess. 

The thing is, not all builds of the game were equally buggy. The version of the game I was playing on Google Stadia (RIP) was stable. The gameplay didn’t fully live up to the hype, but overall I thought the game was fun. And hey, it was 2020, and I didn’t have much else to do. 

The game’s developers have been quietly working on patches and updates since launch. Netflix just dropped an anime set in the game’s world. Because Stadia is going away, I’m getting my money back on my initial purchase of the game. Kinda feels like the universe is telling me to jump back into it.

I’m also a massive fan of the genre of books that inspired the original game. In a weird way, I think Cyberpunk novels like Neuromancer shape a lot of how I approach working in tech and marketing. Their futuristic noir storytelling is a good counterweight to the grandiose mission statements and techno-utopian optimism of modern tech company culture. It’s helped keep me grounded and skeptical. 

Anyway, if this newsletter is interesting to you, you should probably read Pattern Recognition by Willaim Gibson. 

Work Confession 

Confession: The newsletter is coming in a day later than normal this week (I told you weekly-ish up front) because I actually had a full day of meetings yesterday. 

Just gonna take a moment to appreciate how my freelance business is growing and remind any readers looking for social media or creative strategy support that I’m available. 😉