What’s Hot? 11/06
This week, we’re learning about the Greek alphabet, deleting our dating apps, turning to TikTok communities and paying a trip to mount Recyclemore…
Nike manages to insult its own namesake
Nike. What a brand. Named after the Greek Goddess of Victory, and don’t you just feel so victorious when you slip into your Air Force 1 Lows? Well not anymore lads!
Nike made a major whoopsie when they attempted to pay homage to Nike herself by writing ‘NIKE’ in Greek on the back of the shoes. Except they didn’t choose the correct Greek letters, they chose the ones that looked most similar to NIKE, and instead wrote “PIKS”. Apparently, there were zero Greek people available to consult.
I have Googled Piks and they are a camera repair service based in Wandsworth, London, and I expect a lawsuit is imminent. After all, if Nike had put “Snappy Snaps” on the back of Air Force 1s, one would expect a retaliation.
Finally, I feel it’s worth pointing out that the Goddess Nike had wings. So probably wouldn’t wear trainers at all. A better homage would be to put her image atop a spear, or chariot, or on a Gold Medal at the Olympics. Oh wait. That’s already been done, by actual Greek people.
As part of its creator week, Instagram has explained algorithms! Hurrah. The bad news is that they revealed there’s no one algorithm and formula we’re all following, which means I can’t invest my time into making my ‘explore’ page seem cooler should anyone borrow my phone.
Instead, they let us know which actions make us more likely to see a certain ‘type’ of content again – spending a few seconds watching, commenting, liking, saving, and tapping onto the profile. These actions are weighted against each other and build our personalised formulas.
My favourite part is that they measure “how interesting a person might be to you”, a phrase I will now use whenever my friend has been wronged by someone, e.g., they are ghosted, or their housemate finishes all of their shampoo. “But how interesting are they to you?”
Deleting your dating apps
What’s hot this week? Deleting your dating apps, and meeting someone the old-fashioned way. What would you call the old-fashioned way? According to Twitter user @jzux it’s “he sells me onions, I sell him spiced peaches” (doesn’t sound like it’ll end happily to me. In fact, it’ll just end in tonnes of teenage boys digging 6ft x 6ft holes for years. But what good love story doesn’t end that way?)
The initial tweet led to a torrent of responses based on Romeo & Juliet (from the excellent @sparknotes, as always), Great Gatsby, Mamma Mia and more.
TikTok offers a space for forbidden grief
It feels like the topic of abortion is almost always in the news, with laws changing back and forth constantly around the world. A few weeks ago, laws in Texas backtracked a few decades and introduced the USA’s strictest abortion laws yet. Eugh.
However, it’s not just the news where abortion is being discussed. On TikTok, 19-year-old Kaylyn Weston shared a now-viral video about the reality of having a planned abortion, and the mixed feeling of relief and an open future, and the confusing feeling of grief associated with the procedure.
Her comments section is full of women who have the same confused thoughts and mixed feelings, who expected to feel one way and now feel another. Some of these women have held onto this feeling for ten years without discussing it, truly showing the community aspect of social media and the fact that even TikTok can offer a space for forbidden grief.
Mount Recyclemore
Last week, if you had asked me about musicMagpie, I would have fondly remembered selling all my CDs, DVDs and old iPods before heading off to university with an additional £23 in my bank account.
This week, that fond memory has been eclipsed, and I’ll always associate musicMagpie with Mount Recyclemore, a giant Mount-Rushmore-esque sculpture of the G7 leaders heads made out of binned electronics.
A truly captivating stunt with a fantastic name, our own Creative Director Jo Chappel added, “What I love is unlike the ephemeral nature of many stunts this one has longevity with the brand behind it—musicMagpie—donating funds to WasteAid for every piece of consumer tech customers trade in with them throughout June. A far from rubbish idea.”
