Old media is dying (in case you didn't know)
Old media is dying (in case you didn't know)
Plus, other updates this week: latest developments in the WordPress drama, TikTok goes all-in on Shops, X changes blocking feature, Bluesky gets a surge of defectors
This week, I’m reading about the brainrot of 2024 halloween costumes, celebrity jet-tracking accounts vanishing from Meta platforms, the murky state of influencer political endorsements, and Claude’s latest AI model getting bored and scrolling photos of Yellowstone instead of doing its coding job (they’re just like us fr!!). I’m watching all the videos from the American Girl brand account on TikTok (10/10 social media hire), listening to Tyler, The Creator’s new album Chromakopia (can’t wait for Gen A to discover Odd Future)
There’s more culture, tech updates, and platform news below, like X updating its blocking feature and Bluesky getting a surge of defectors.
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tech & culture
Updates on the wordpress drama
A couple weeks ago when I updated you on this, WordPress & co. were in the early beef stages (WP Engine suing Automattic and Mullenweg over abuse of power). Some new additions to the plotline since then include a new Executive Director of WordPress.org named Mary Hubbard (previously worked at WordPress), a controversial feature for WP Engine users, an employee getting booted because he threw shade in the group chat (Slack), and WordPress has been salty in its replies:
WordPress is tightening control, which is clear since it filed trademarks for "Managed WordPress" and "Hosted WordPress," which is making devs nervous about future restrictions. It's not great for WP Engine users either — it means fewer hosting options, delayed access to updates and plugins, site performance issues, and higher costs as providers adjust to restrictions. Lots of users are jumping ship and finding alternative hosting platforms (I switched to Bluehost). More on that here.
You know it’s bad when kids’ TV ratings are down
Kids have already decided the future of media – and it's not looking good for the old guard.
Nickelodeon has lost 86% of its viewers since 2016 and Disney Channel fared even worse with a 90% drop. The collapse shows us how the next generation — Gen A (Alpha) fundamentally sees media differently than we do.
To them, there's no difference between a YouTube creator and a TV star, or between a livestream and a broadcast. They don't think "I'm watching YouTube" versus "I'm watching TV" – they're just watching content they care about. It's a preview of how all media consumption is evolving. The only currency that matters now is whether brands/creators can make content people actually want to watch, regardless of where it lives. Everything else is just boomers clutching their Nielsen ratings while the future carries on.
🤖 Anthropic’s Claude can now write and run code. The new "analysis tool" lets Claude analyze data and perform complex calculations, making it much more like a real data analyst. Users can upload files like spreadsheets and PDFs, and Claude will clean, explore, and visualize the data in real-time. For example, if you’re a marketer you can get insights on customer interactions or analyze sales performance by country. The update is currently in preview.
⛑️ OpenAI disbands another safety team. Miles Brundage, who led OpenAI's AGI Readiness team, is leaving the company, citing more freedom to publish research — and he might just start a non-profit focused on AI policy. OpenAI is disbanding his team and moving members elsewhere. This adds to the ongoing leadership shake-up at OpenAI, especially after the recent dissolution of their 'superalignment' team.
platform updates
💥 Substack is becoming more social — and creators are worried. The platform that once stood for "own your audience" is adding features like follow buttons that let readers engage with content without sharing their email – basically building the same kind of walled garden they originally set out to avoid. Without email addresses, creators can't reach readers outside of Substack, can't move them to other platforms, and can't really "own" that relationship anymore. Substack became popular specifically because it was different from social media platforms, letting writers and creators build direct relationships with their readers. Now, as tech writer Taylor Lorenz recently pointed out, top writers are actually leaving the platform over this rift.
🛍️ TikTok continues betting big Shop – And it shows, with the platform pushing hard to convert users’ endless scrolling into endless shopping heading into the holiday season. Even though they're way off their $17.5B sales target (they're only at $4.5B), TikTok's doubling down by teaching creators how to sell better in livestreams instead of just throwing discount codes around. And it's working for some — eg. Stormi Steele, whose beauty brand just pulled in $1M from a single livestream. The platform is also in the early stages of connecting creators with manufacturers to help them develop custom products to sell on TikTok Shop, letting them sell products directly to followers. The bottom line: brand or creator, don’t sleep on TikTok Shop.
X changes blocking feature, Bluesky gets a surge of defectors
ICYMI: Elon Musk recently decided to "update" its block feature in the name of transparency and it’s been a total disaster. Blocked users can now see your public posts. They can't interact (like, reply, repost), but they can still creep on your content.
Why it's a mess:
Safety nightmare. Stalkers and harassers are basically getting a free pass to keep tabs on people who've blocked them. Dangerous territory since the platform already hosts a sizeable army of belligerent internet trolls, bad actors, and scammers on the platform.
Privacy? What Privacy? If you thought blocking someone meant they couldn't see your stuff, 𝕏 just threw that concept out the window.
User exodus: People have been fleeing X in troves — more so than they usually do. Bluesky gained 500,000 new users in just 24 hours after the announcement was made.
Advertiser's dream, user's nightmare. Some folks think this is just a ploy to boost ad views. More eyeballs on posts = more ad revenue. Cha-ching for X, but at what cost?
After that change, Bluesky saw a huge spike. They're now up to over 10.7 million users total.
It's not just the blocking thing, though. Bluesky has been steadily benefitting from the firehouse of 𝕏 drama, like when Brazil banned X last month (3 million new users in a week) or any time Musk makes decisions that people don’t like (too many to list).
People seem to like that Bluesky feels similar to the old Twitter but with some improvements. It's decentralized, which means users have more control, and it's not trying to actively avoid political content the way Threads does. Bluesky is growing fast, but they're having some growing pains too - occasional server issues and login problems as they try to keep up with all the new users.
💸 Elon’s 𝕏 is in a revenue free fall. Other than my personal sentiment about the platform (it’s almost unbearable to use now), X is really struggling with its revenue. Reports show that globally ad spend on X dropped about 24% in the first half of 2024 compared to last year. In India, it’s even worse — revenue plummeted by 89.8%. They went from $24.7 million to just $2.51 million in a year, although they still managed to scrape out a small profit ($380,000). In the US and UK, user numbers are down significantly too — about 1/3 in the UK and 1/5 in the US.
quick bites
Instagram is lowering video quality for Stories and Reels that get fewer views, aiming to conserve resources. It could reduce engagement on less popular content, especially for smaller creators.
TikTok just expanded its STEM feed to all users in the U.S., U.K., and Ireland, making science-focused content available to everyone, not just teens, to boost interest and engagement in educational topics.
YouTube is rumored to be testing a new homepage design that removes viewer counts and publication dates from videos, displaying only the creator's name.
Netflix just rolled out a new feature called "Moments" that lets you bookmark and share your favorite scenes from shows and movies to social media.
sauce snippets
Beyond brat: why the trend + brand product formula is no longer enough to capture consumer attention
The “coolest brands” according to Gen Alpha
Instagram’s Creators of Tomorrow lineup
A mysterious new image generation model has appeared
How — and why — this brand created an ad campaign entirely with AI
Timothée Chalamet surprised fans at NYC look-alike contest and it went viral
I hate gay halloween what do you mean you’re chappell roan in the crowd at gov ball