A reminder of this newsletter's mission: to help make sense of a dizzying media and content landscape for busy people. We'll serve up-to-the-minute analysis, guidance and curated news, aiming to be the fastest way to find the platforms, creators and content people are staring at right now. Let's get to it.
- Facebook Is Battered
The relentlessly negative narrative doesn't look like it will blow over. But this week, a small group of advertisers filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging it knew for more than a year starting in January 2015 that the way it was counting video views for ads was fraudulent. The bad press is only going to ramp as journalists blame this for the firing of hundreds of writers at publishers that pivoted to video. Plus there's the dark story of how Facebook may have contributed to genocide in Myanmar and a shareholder revolt against Zuckerberg. The most effective advertising platform in the world, arguably, is suffering from a growing erosion of trust.
- RIP: The Network
MTV is relaunching their biggest show ever on Facebook Watch, not on their own TV network. Is this an admission that the cable network is effectively done? The Real World is a legacy brand. MTV is a legacy brand. Facebook Watch seems like an odd fit for a facelift. But it seems Netflix lacks the social media gimmicks MTV wants to integrate into Real World to make it the next SKAM. Oh, and then there's this:
- What We're Staring At
This is a music nerd's surreal life. In 2005, when I was an obsessive reader of Pitchfork, I would never have believed the guy from Wolf Eyes, the DIY noise terrorists who have self-released hundreds of extremely challenging records on cassette and CD-R, is an influential comedic voice. John Olson a.k.a. Inzane Johnny f.k.a Wolf Eyes Psycho Jazz has turned the obscure band's Instagram into a cool kid meme hangout. The most avant-garde meme creators thirst to get on his page. He's got likes from John Mayer, who he continuously rips on. He posts jokes so far down the discographies of Steely Dan, Darkthrone, Ornette Coleman and Will Oldham that it's hard to believe the audience for this account is not just me. I check it first thing, that's how specific it feels to my taste. It reminds me of hanging out in Guitar Center on Comm. Ave across the street from Berklee College of Music in 2000 - the one place where someone would get your Pat Metheny, Mike Patton and Robert Fripp jokes. But I hear it come up all the time in conversation. It seems everyone I know follows it. If you can explain this, please try. Thankful to be alive at this time.
- It's Complicated
McKinsey has a very controversial client. Buried in yet another disturbing development in the disappearance of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi is this media tidbit: McKinsey's brand perception work for the Saudi government is scandalously wrapped up in strict shutdowns and arrests. According to the Times, McKinsey presented the Kingdom with a nine-page report identifying negative sentiment drivers on social media. Three of those people named found themselves shutdown by the government. “We are horrified by the possibility, however remote, that it could have been misused,” a McKinsey spokesman said in a statement. This is the type of social listening and brand perception analysis that every agency and consultancy routinely does. And Saudi Arabia is a client just like any other. Look at Endeavor. It's obvious that many more agencies and consultancies risk this type of exposure.
Links
Why Can’t Instagram Get Anybodyto Care About IGTV?—It’s been months since Instagram launched its longform video hub, with help from popular creators. So why isn’t the YouTube competitor luring users? Chinese millennials ‘falling out of cars’in search of internet fame—‘Falling stars’ challenge attracts Chinese millennials hoping to go viral and a mocking response from more down-to-earth citizens.A teen allegedly baked her grandfather’s ashesinto cookies — and fed them to classmates—This is the high school goth story to top all high school goth stories. The Printed Word in Peril—The age of Homo Virtualis is upon us.