Cultural Forces #65
talking the power of the written word (not just shakespeare's but yours too!), the borrowing of cues from tv to make better tiktoks and the slow tipping of taylor swift's crown.
📝 HAVING A PEN PAL IS SO BACK
✨ Pinterest is predicting a huuuge a letter-writing renaissance this year
✨ For Gen Z, it can provide a necessary space for slowing right down
✨ And in Buenos Aires, a new cafe offers both coffee - and a working post office
Flora’s take: I think this is less about a shift from digital to physical (we’ve heard that all before) but about an appreciation for slow-ness over immediacy. IN: delayed gratification, OUT: immediate gratification.
📺 THE TV-IFICATION OF TIKTOK IS HERE
✨ Remember when we were all worried about the Tiktokification of TV…?
✨ Wellllll, Tiktok has just launched PineDrama - an app for bite-sized TV shows
✨ In parallel, Tiktokers have even started editing normal life experiences “like a reality TV show”
Flora’s take: Back in the 60s, Marshall McLuhan said, “The content of a medium is always another medium” and I think he hit the nail on the head with that one.
🧡 IS TAYLOR SWIFT’S ERA FINALLY ENDING?
✨ Aphex Twin has overtaken Taylor Swift in monthly YT streams
✨ Double take-down - DJO has bumped TS from No. 1 on Spotify global chart
✨ Triple take-down? “Artistically she is treading water” according to Simran Hans
Flora’s take: Even Taylor Swift can’t fight the force of the algorithm and how it brings music back to life and to the fore.
🗣️ BEST OF MY X TIMELINE
