Open Tabs

This week’s tabs: Beauty brands are bringing QVC-style shopping to TikTok Live, and creators are proving that the best brand partnerships are built on stories audiences are already invested in.

Timestamps:

💄 0:23 - Beauty brands are bringing QVC to TikTok. From Rihanna joining Fenty Beauty’s TikTok Live to brands building recurring livestream shopping shows, we’re unpacking why live shopping is gaining traction and what U.S. brands can learn from China’s multitrillion-dollar livestream commerce market.

* How Beauty Brands Can Ride the Live Shopping Wave, WWD

✨ 13:01 - The best creator partnerships have lore. Beauty creator Hannah Chody spent years trying to find a dupe for her favorite discontinued Tom Ford eyeshadow. Now, she’s partnered with Saie to recreate it, turning a long-running content series into a brand collaboration her audience is already invested in. We’re breaking down why brands should look beyond follower counts to find creators with stories and communities they can build on, and why bringing back a beloved product can be more powerful than launching something new.

* Gap Just Launched a New Nostalgic Collection. Some Customers Consider It ‘Dystopian’

This week’s tabs: Executive women are turning to astrology and tarot to navigate their careers, and Big Tech is giving AI assistants the cute-character treatment to make them feel more human.

Timestamps:

🔮 0:20 - Workplace witchcraft is having a moment. From executive women hiring “workplace witches” for $1,000 a month to astrology becoming a regular topic on professional calls, we’re unpacking why spirituality is finding its way into the workplace.

* The Rise of Workplace Witchcraft, Goop

🤖 24:06 - Big Tech wants you to fall in love with its AI agents. Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s Dot are getting cute, character-inspired branding, but there’s a bigger strategy behind the adorable faces. As AI assistants move deeper into our inboxes, calendars, bank accounts, and shopping habits, we’re discussing how anthropomorphizing technology can make people more comfortable with it, and what happens when a friendly little character has access to your entire digital life.

* Why Is Big Tech Trying to Make AI Agents the New Labubus? - Vogue

This week’s tabs: The NHL tried to capitalize on the hockey romance boom and listicles are making a comeback in the age of AI.

Timestamps:

🏒 0:00 - The NHL tried getting into hockey romance. The league launched “Hot for Hockey,” a series of fan fiction-inspired audio stories featuring real NHL players. They quickly scrapped the entire project just days after launching. We’re unpacking why it felt so off, what the league is missing about its growing female audience, and how sports can tap into women’s fandom without reducing it to romance and WAG culture [not that there’s anything wrong with romance or WAGs].

* The NHL Is Releasing Its Own ‘Hot’ Fanfic. Romance Lovers Hate It, Wired

* NHL’s ‘Hot for Hockey’ campaign ends after not-so-hot reception, Yahoo Sports

📋 16:45 - The listicle is back. In an internet flooded with AI slop, people are turning back to rankings, lists, and curation as a way to signal taste, find community, and create shared cultural context. We’re talking BuzzFeed, Letterboxd, the New York Times’ TV rankings, and why the real value of a list might not be the list itself but what people do with it once its been posted.

* How lists became our greatest defense against endless slop, New Yorker

* The 100 best TV shows of the 21st century, NY Times

This week’s tabs: Kids are turning Spotify comments into group chats and New York City is becoming the unofficial soundstage for social media.

Timestamps:

🎧 0:00 - Kids are finding new ways to socialize online. Middle schoolers who aren’t allowed on traditional social platforms have turned Spotify podcast comments into makeshift group chats.

* Kids turned the comment section of an NPR podcast into a group chat, The Verge

🗽 18:45 - New York City is becoming a content creator’s paradise. The city is emerging as an unofficial soundstage for social media, from Subway Takes to man-on-the-street content in Washington Square Park. We’re digging into why NYC works so well for short-form video, how it differs from the old L.A. creator ecosystem, and what makes a city feel authentic enough to become part of the content itself.

* Why New York City is a paradise for creators, NY Times

This week’s tabs: Personal blogs are making a comeback with young women and CoStar is launching a dating app for book lovers.

Timestamps:

💻 0:00 - The personal blog is back. Young women are reviving the early-2000s personal blog as a customizable alternative to social media. We’re unpacking creator fatigue, algorithm exhaustion, and why people are craving their own little corners of the internet.

* Custom cursors, GIFs and hand-coded widgets: The personal blog is back, NBC News

📚 18:21 - CoStar is making a dating app for book lovers. ReadMe matches people based on their reading habits, communication styles, beliefs, and more. But can your taste in books actually predict romantic compatibility? We’re digging into the rise of BookTok, niche dating apps, and what people really want from online dating.

* I tried Co-star’s Readme, the dating app for readers. It’s fine., Mashable

* Dating Apps Are Dying, Time

This week’s tabs: Youth sports are becoming more expensive, competitive, and all-consuming, and we’re unpacking what that means for kids, parents, and the future of sports. Plus, how one Olive Garden superfan turned a Lifetime Pasta Pass into a niche internet community, and why YouTube is finally investing in the community features creators have been missing.

Timestamps:

⚾ 0:00 - Youth sports are becoming a full-time job. The cost of youth sports is rising, private club teams are becoming the norm, and parents and the athletes are grappling with FOMO, burnout, specialization, and just how much time and money to invest in their kids’ athletic lives.

* The cost of youth sports is out of control - Vox

🍝 18:21 - The internet’s favorite Olive Garden superfan. One of just 50 people with an Olive Garden Lifetime Pasta Pass, Braden Sinclair has turned his unlimited pasta privileges into a surprisingly devoted online community.

* This Man Has a Cult Internet Following Over His Olive Garden Lifetime Pasta Pass, Wired

* LifetimePastaPass.com

📱 30:50 - YouTube wants to keep creators and their communities in one place. YouTube is adding group chats, direct video sharing, members-only communities, GIF reactions, and more interactive features as it tries to make the platform a more complete home for creators and their audiences. We’re just wondering what took them so long.

* Jenny Hoyos wants to be your ‘internet best friend.’ YouTube wants to make that easier - Mashable

Today’s topics: Duolingo is taking its language-learning shtick to New York Fashion Week, and we’re asking whether its latest merch drop is actually the beginning of a bigger lifestyle brand. Plus, why A24 has become a cultural status symbol for Gen Z, and Charli D’Amelio is back in the discourse with a new chapter in her family drama.

Timestamps:

👜 0:00 - Duolingo enters its fashion era. Duolingo is bringing its signature humor to Fashion Week with a capsule collection featuring phonetic pronunciations of hard-to-say designer names.

* Duolingo Creates a Fashion Line for the Brands You Can’t Pronounce, AdWeek

🎬 11:54 - A24 is building the next generation of cinephiles. From its upcoming Nathan Fielder/Elizabeth Holmes project to its merch and membership strategy, we unpack how A24 has turned a production company into a lifestyle brand and a shorthand for taste.

* Elizabeth Holmes Documentary Debuts at a Secret Screening in Telluride, NY Times

📱 19:57 - Charli D’Amelio is back in the algorithm. Charli is resurfacing online amid reports of a family money dispute, and her recent interviews are sending people back into the D’Amelio archives.

* What’s the D’ealio With the D’Amelios?, Vulture

Today’s topics: Alix Earle is officially a reality TV star, and we’re breaking down what Earle Meets World says about the creator-to-reality-TV pipeline, the Alex Cooper/Unwell drama, and why the show’s storylines keep playing out on social. Plus, W Magazine is bringing back the teen magazine with W Youth [pronounced double youth].

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 - Alex Earl enters her reality TV era. We deep Alix Earle’s new Netflix reality show, from it’s parallels to early Keeping up with the Kardashians, to her drama with Alex Cooper [we originally covered it here].

📰 30:21 - W Magazine wants Gen Z to buy a magazine. W is launching W Youth, a twice-annual print edition inspired by the teen magazines of the early 2000s [RIP Tiger Beat]. With Sofia Coppola behind the idea, Hailey and Justin Bieber on the cover, and a heavy dose of nostalgia and fandom, we ask whether this is actually what Gen Z wants, and whether physical media can stay culturally relevant beyond the initial hype.

Today’s topics: TikTok is updating their comment sections to be more like iMessage, and workshopping Megan Collins’s upcoming piece breaking down Ross’ latest marking push.

Timestamps:

🎙️ 0:00 - TikTok wants your comments to be content, too. TikTok is rolling out voice comments, polls, photo carousels, and Live Photos, making its comment section more interactive than ever. We talk about the rise of “comment influencers,” [Jackietaylorfan77 iykyk], how these features could deepen celebrity and creator relationships with their audiences, and why TikTok may be taking cues from the way we already use DMs and iMessage.

* TikTok comments are getting more interactive, TechCrunch

🛍️ 17:27 - What exactly is Ross World? Ross is investing in influencers, celebrities, and immersive experiences to reach a younger, more culturally attuned audience. But between Ross World, Ross Wonderland, and celebrity content, we ask: what does any of this actually have to do with Ross? Stay tuned for Megan’s deepdive into Ross World next week.

Today’s topics: Why Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields Festival feels like a new model for cultural and brand experiences, and how sorority recruitment has become a full-blown social media and marketing ecosystem.

Timestamps:

🌼 0:00 - Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields Festival is more than a music festival. We break down how Olivia turned her album rollout into a sold-out, 45k person festival, raised $20 million for charity, and created an experience rooted in girlhood, crafting, community, and multi-generational fandom.

💌 14:16 - Brands are officially on RushTok. Sorority recruitment, aka #RushTok, has become a major social media moment, and brands have really gotten in on the action this year. We talk about how Poppi, Nike, and other brands are showing up during rush and why sorority girls are becoming expert marketers and focus groups for brands.