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Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim are joined by writer and journalist Fortesa Latifi who has been reporting extensively on child influencer legislation for Teen Vogue. In August 2023, the governor of Illinois passed an amendment to the state’s child labor law that would require parents to compensate their children for their appearances in monetized content. Drawing comparisons to the Coogan Law, several states have followed suit and proposed their own legislation to finally address the privacy and monetary concerns that former children influencers have started speaking up about.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton.

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Thousands of songs have disappeared from TikTok in recent months as music giant Universal Music Group, or UMG, has pulled its catalog from the app. UMG claims that TikTok is a music platform, and that TikTok needs to pay more to license its music. TikTok claims they're a marketing platform that helps labels promote their artists. But while the two sides argue over contract negotiations for licensing music on the video platform, many artists are left scrambling.

Guest: Ethan Millman, staff writer at Rolling Stone covering the music industry.

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On today’s show, Rachelle and Candice return to the halcyon days of YouTube in 2013, when wholesome youths with names like Zoe Sugg and Caspar Lee and Troye Sivan ruled supreme. Colloquially known as the Brit Crew, these teens and twenty-somethings were some of the first to prove that internet fame could translate into million-dollar empires. And while their influence has diminished over the past decade, their hold on our adolescent brains has lasted a lifetime which is why today’s episode is a super-special ranking of Rachelle and Candice’s favorite British YouTubers.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton.

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Why scam obituaries are edging out earnest ones, with the help of artificial intelligence and an adept Google game.

Guest: Mia Sato, reporter for The Verge.

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This week, Felix Salmon, Emily Peck and Elizabeth Spiers ponder the future of computers, cars, and…fast food? They discuss why Elon Musk is suing Sam Altman and OpenAI and the altruistic origins of ChatGPT. Also: Wendy’s “surge pricing” gaff had customers crying foul and Apple’s electric car has been scrapped. In the Plus segment: The downfall of Macy’s and the American department store. 

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 Podcast production by Jared Downing and Cheyna Roth.

Clips in the show:

After segment one: The Thinking Machine - MIT 1961

After segment two: 1975 Wendy’s Commercial

Plus outro: Scene from Miracle on 34th Street

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Candice Lim is joined by Link in Bio writer Rachel Karten, whose Substack breaks down how Stanley Cups went viral, why the Duolingo owl got a BBL and how “seemingly ranch” hit supermarket shelves. Karten was a social media manager who started her newsletter after leaving Bon Appétit following a racial and labor reckoning in 2020 that exposed — what the publication themselves called — a “toxic, top-down culture.” Since then, Karten has found a rapt audience of more than 55,000 subscribers who are social media managers like herself, marketing insiders and curious readers who just want to know how and why they’re being influenced at.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton.

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Is it censorship for social media platforms to moderate their content, or is censorship when the state tells social media platforms how to moderate their content? 

Guest: Mark Joseph Stern, Slate writer on courts and the law. 

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On today’s episode, Rachelle is joined by her best friend Danielle Hewitt, a producer at Prologue Projects and, formerly, Slate’s daily news podcast What Next. In a deeply revealing exercise, the two go through a selection of the 250 TikToks that Danielle sent Rachelle while the latter was on a six week long social media break.

But first, Candice breaks down the highlights of Jennifer Lopez’s new documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton.

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Fertility doctors and their patients trying to conceive via in vitro fertilization (IVF) were stopped in their tracks this week, as the Alabama Supreme Court declared that embryos have the same rights as people. The decision has left doctors wondering if they can be sued for carrying out standard IVF procedures, and experts worry the ruling could have ramifications for IVF around the country. 

Guest: Dr. Elizabeth Constance, reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist in Omaha, Nebraska.

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Check out Compiler here.

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Rachelle and Candice dive deep into the scammer story currently scratching the internet’s itch: Reesa Teesa’s 52-part “Who TF Did I Marry?” TikTok series. On February 14, @ReesaMTeesa detailed the very harrowing story of meeting, dating and divorcing a man she calls “Legion.” She recaps her highly suspicious relationship to a man who courted her in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and allegedly lied about his job, family and previous marriages. From faking phone calls with imaginary siblings to printing out bank statements for accounts that didn’t exist, this story is about the deceit of a man who Reesa Teesa calls “the United Nations of red flags.”

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton.

ICYMI is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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