What’s Hot?
This week, we’re making plans on Snapchat, following Skete on the ‘gram, and voting at the Oscars…
Snapchat and Ticketmaster have teamed up to create Ticketmatcher, an overlay of the classic Snapchat map that allows you to see events near you. To access, users need to fill in a quick survey on their interests, so the app can decide which events are right for you. You can tap right through to Ticketmaster to purchase. If you want to make it a group thing, you can invite friends and even make a guest list in app. It’s fantastic to see the Snapchat map in a new context, other than the traditional TikTok deepdive on “how I found out my boyfriend was cheating”. Long may Ticketmatcher reign…
Pete Davidson has been all over our feeds this week, but I would like to be clear that it is not because we follow Kanye. Instead, it’s because of the meme-ception that’s happening across Twitter (Kanye’s memes within bigger memes within conversations about mental health).
Anyway, that’s the last word we’ll say on Kanye. Instead, let’s turn our attention to Pete’s return to Instagram. Pete decided to take a break from Instagram nearly four years ago but has recently decided to return – this screams Kris Jenner – and despite already having 973k followers, has followed just two accounts.
One, obviously, is Kim. This power-couple move is borrowed from Beyonce, who famously (and by famously we mean we wrote about it in November) only followed Jay-Z on Instagram.
The second, for some reason, is Sebastian Stan. We have to know why. Are they friends?! Is Pete a huge Bucky fan? Or going back further, a Carter Baizen fan? Does he love the Mad Hatter in Once Upon a Time? Please, someone. Tell us the answer.
Whether superhero movies are “good enough” for the Best Picture Academy Award is hotly contested every year. Let’s look at the facts, shall we?
- For three out of the last four years, a superhero movie has been the highest grossing film in the US (the other movie was Bad Boys for Life… Make of that what you will)
- More people have won an Oscar for playing the Joker than any other role other than the Godfather
- In 2019, Black Panther won three academy awards
This year, the Academy has added a ‘fan favourite’ award, voted for by the public on Twitter via an interactive hashtag. An easy way to engage with younger audience, the category is clearly a set-up for unnominated fan faves like Spider-Man and Bond to win. While it’s great to see fans have a say in the Oscars, the fact is that this category will never have the same clout as the more ‘traditional’ winners, and we need to start seeing well -produced, -scored, -directed, -written, and -acted films being nominated for Best Picture, even if the main character is a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.
Twitter adds bot labels – but not the ones you want
This week, Twitter announced it was introducing bot labels, which was very exciting for about 40 seconds before we clicked the link to learn more.
The bot labels are supposed to add more transparency to your feed, by adding a little robot icon next to bot accounts. However, this is an opt-in feature for accounts, meaning only #GoodBots will have the tag, and not annoying bots.
By #GoodBots we mean weather updates, Daily Ferrets, and Every-Still-From-Shrek type accounts. Which we knew were automated anyway. So what’s the point…?
Boohoo gets banned
The ASA has forced Boohoo to ban some of its adverts for being too sexually suggestive… The images showed a woman kneeling from behind, sitting on the floor with her legs apart, wearing a bikini, while lifting her t shirt up. Somehow, this image was supposed to sell you the t shirt that you could barely see.
The ASA stated that the ad objectified and sexualised women, making it irresponsible and irrelevant.
Yep. Fair.
