December 11, 2023
Press
Last night saw the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles take on one another for the 57th Superbowl. In case you were asleep (no judgement) or you just generally forgot, here’s what you missed.
The game aside (does anyone really know what’s going on there anyway), we saw Rihanna ‘werk, werk, werk, werk, werk’ in her dazzling halftime show performance; slammed with absolute bangers and Parris Goebel’s usual racy choreography. It slapped.
Whilst the star chose to refrain from any celebrity guest appearances, she took the opportunity to instead reveal the news that she and her partner, ASAP Rocky, are expecting their second baby. Cute!
In what seems to be a new emerging tradition, the Superbowl ad breaks were once again drenched in celebrity cameos from the film, music and television industries, giving us the a-list celebrity fix we didn’t know we needed.
Allegedly costing up to $10 million for a 30-second slot to address an average audience of 100 million, this year’s ads saw huge cameos from Sir Elton John, Jack Harlow, Jenifer Coolidge, Jenifer Lopez and husband Ben Affleck, Will Farrell, John Travolta and more, and some legendary character revivals for Breaking Bad, Zoolander and Clueless topping the breaks.
To save you trawling the full-time show for all the juicy bits, here’s our round-up.
Check them out below.
Following in the footsteps of Facebook, Instagram is rolling out a new ‘Memory’ prompt on stories, in an attempt to encourage users to engage with past content and reposition their existing Archive feature.
The new update mimics that of their sister brand, which took the steps to introduce their ‘On This Day’ feature, as an olive branch in 2015 to their users who no longer appeared to communicate for themselves on the platform anymore, following a whopping 21% decrease year-for-year in user’s personal posts. Yikes.
Although Instagram is hardly struggling with Reels, it does feel like our feeds feel slightly saturated with hopeful content creators, edging their way to viral success; could this update suggest Meta see the same as we do and acknowledge the social network platform has lost its genuine social appeal?
If the success of a similar feature on Facebook is anything to go by, with more than 60 million Facebook visiting their personal “On This Day” page every day in 2017, and 155 million opting to receive dedicated notifications for the feature; the redemption may be possible for IG. The move could also be seen as a suggested shift to move personal content to stories and retain the new-wave curated posts for user feeds and further improve the algorithm.
How do you see the shift affecting your profile and will you be welcoming the update?
Who doesn’t love a TikTok hack? Well, Kia maybe.
Earlier last year, the car brand fell victim to the TikTok ‘KIA Challenge’ which saw users learn pretty swiftly how to steal a car using a USB cable to bypass the ignition. Don’t get any ideas, please.
It turns out, Kia models from 2011-2021 and Hyundai models from 2015-2021 lack an anti-theft “immobiliser” feature common to many contemporary ignition-technology systems. Whoops.
Although the trending videos were quickly removed by the platform, it seems the viral video has left more than a lasting impression on the brand.
Reports of targeted Kia and Hyundai car thefts have soared; in New Orleans, they accounted for a new mass proportion of 64% of auto thefts. Whilst in Washington, Chicago, and Philadelphia the two brands made up a 3rd of car thefts since the start of 2022 and the video's influence.
Even worse still, the safety of existing Kia and Hyundai car owners and their cars is a real concern, many have reported targeted criminal activity towards them and some have even escalated to filing class action lawsuits against the brands.
In all respects, it feels like the big businesses aren’t doing enough here. Kia and Hyundai haven’t offered much in the way of compensation or a solution to the ongoing issue, other than a helpline to call and limited wheel locks offered on a first-come-first-serve basis in limited states. TikTok announced that the issue breached their guidelines but did very little to remove future content surrounding the issue. Trust has been lost across the board, for sure.
A spokesperson for Kia claimed “The safety and well-being of our customers and the community is and will remain our top priority,” the statement says. “These vehicles meet or exceed Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and engine immobilizers are standard equipment on all new Hyundai vehicles.”
Whilst the damage of this trend can’t be undone, we want to know whether social platforms will prevent this kind of content from being leaked in the future and should law enforcement be introduced around the issue moving forward.
