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Hello, geeks!

Welcome to your weekly deep dive into social media geekiness.

Apparently, “nobody will remember…” a lot of stuff this week.

More on that in a moment.

But first…

Everyone is asking ChatGPT to roast their Instagram profile.

Want a brutally honest review of your Instagram?

🔥 Get your Instagram Roasted 🔥

This is mine. It cuts deep. 😆

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A couple of Geekout PSAs…

I’m hoping to meet up with more of you lovely lot in 2024 / 2025.

I will be speaking at a number of events in the next 12 months, which hopefully brings me to a city near you soon.

I will be flying (or driving) into the following cities:

• Swansea, Wales (September 26)

• Frankfurt, Germany (October 30-31)

• Brussels, Belgium (December 4-7)

• Dubai, UAE (Early 2025 / TBC)

• Las Vegas, USA (Spring 2025 / TBC)

• Nova Scotia, Canada (2025 / TBC)

• London, UK (May 2025 / TBC)

I will drop more details here when i have confirmed dates.

Feel free to reply to this email if you are located in any of these locations and fancy meeting up!

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Geekout Summer Holiday

I haven’t taken a summer holiday (or any holiday!) in 2024 yet, as my son was unable to travel due to his leg surgery last month.

So… I’ve decided to take a much needed break to rest and recharge.

This means there will be no Geekout Newsletter next week (Friday 30th August).

But it will be back in your inbox in two weeks time (Friday 6th September).

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Alrighty… Let’s get dive into this week’s news. But…

DON’T MISS THIS…

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🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5

Geekout’s pick of the hottest headlines in social this week:

2. Trump Posts Deepfakes of Swift, Harris and Musk in Effort to Shore Up Support [TRUTH-BENDING]

3. Google Still Suggesting Buyers Target Teens on YouTube, Going Against Its Policies [RULE-BENDING]

4. Elon Musk’s Twitter $44B Takeover Is Now the Worst Buyout for Banks Since the Financial Crisis [DEBT-SLINGING]

5. Elon Musk Said X Will Pull Operations From Brazil After ‘Censorship Orders’ [X-ITING]

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🚨 EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT…

AI images aren’t the problem many predicted (yet)

If there’s one trend in AI worth paying attention to, it’s how the widely predicted impacts of the tech aren’t occurring as quickly as many expected.

This was supposed to be the year of the ‘AI election’, where disinformation created with generative AI would cause havoc and confusion.

…but that’s not really happened (yet).

Was anyone truly fooled when Donald Trump shared images suggesting Taylor Swift endorsed his presidential campaign? Ditto the AI-generated images of Kamala Harris he shared.

AI generated images feel more akin to political cartoons than misinformation, and audiences seem sophisticated enough not to fall for them to any great degree.

Is this 43-year-old film poster style comment on Reagan and Thatcher’s attitude to nuclear war really that different from a lot of the AI we see today?

Here at Geekout, we often use AI to create images showing silly things like Mark Zuckerberg riding a llama. They’re sometimes photorealistic at first glance, but no-one would say they’re meant to convey reality or think we really captured an exclusive shot of Zuck hanging out at a llama ranch.

For now at least, it seems AI imagery is just another meme style in this election.

But AI bots polluting replies to posts? That’s a whole different problem.

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✨ NEW & NOTEWORTHY

Everything else you need to know from the past seven days…

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😆 LOL

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📈 MEMES

'Nobody will remember' your salary but they will remember this meme

This meme first emerged in 2022 with a longer version of the “nobody will remember” section. It was revived in August 2024 for unknown reasons.

Brands have been all over it this week….

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🌡️ VIRAL

AI might not live up to all of its hype, but more than 300,000 people have participated in an Instagram Story challenge where they ask ChatGPT to “roast” their feed.

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🪧 BRANDS

Pour one out for the McDonald’s social team, who this week had to contend with a nasty account hack…

“Hackers who seized control of the official McDonald’s Instagram account on Wednesday to promote and ‘rug pull’ a memecoin called ‘Grimace’, claimed they made off with over $700,000.”

Also:

• How extremely online culture is showing up outside of social media from ‘very demure’ to ‘Brat Summer’

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👀 MY FAV READS

This is a fun interview with Soren Iverson, the man behind those satirical app features that go viral.

He reveals where his fake app feature ideas come from, and more…

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🙊 WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

“I am a crusader for vengeance. And if my vengeance can best be served by covering up the crimes of those who have wronged me, then I'll probably do that."

– Fired Oculus founder turned defence tech leader Palmer Luckey isn't looking to throw Mark Zuckerberg under the bus… at the moment

• ‘Threads is just deathly dull’: have Twitter quitters found what they are looking for on other networks?

• Meta product director Esther Crawford says companies without internal AI tools are “already behind”.

• “What happens online within a matter of minutes transfers to the streets”: Prince Harry has hit out at the spread of disinformation via AI and social media.

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🥇 RECORD BREAKER

Cristiano Ronaldo has broken YouTube’s record for the fastest person to reach 1 million subscribers, after he launched his account on Wednesday.

He broke MrBeast’s record by hitting 20 million channel subscribers within 24 hours. Then 30 million within 48 hours!

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😮 WTF?!

If you’ve seen a restaurant called Bistro Huddy on TikTok, you might be surprised to learn that… it doesn’t exist.

Also:

• Threads: What is it with all of those people posting really dumb questions on Threads?

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🤦 FAIL

Oh dear. X has put ads for Olympics and GSK next to hard-right posts in the UK.

“Agitators who shared misinformation on X about Southport stabbings may have made thousands from ad revenue.”

Also:

• Chinese social media users hilariously mock AI video fails

• Netflix is withholding prize money for ‘The Influencer’ after the winner leaked results before show aired

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🤫 LEAKED

“MrBeast producers leaked an internal 36-page document, offering a unique insight into the mind of the largest YouTuber….”

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👔 YOU’RE HIRED!

Hot new social media jobs worth checking out this week:

• Epic Games is looking for a Director, Social Media & Editorial [Multiple locations, USA]

• Hyundai Motor America needs a Manager, Digital & Social Media Marketing [hybrid, Fountain Valley, CA, USA]

• The Bank of England is hiring a Social Media Lead in Content Delivery [London, UK]

• Comic Relief wants to find a Social Media Lead [London, UK]

👌 PRO TIPS

There are some useful tips here for recovering a hacked Facebook account…

Also:

• The 12 best social media marketing courses to elevate your skills in 2024

• TikTok has published a 2024 holiday marketing guide

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🤖 SOCIAL A.I.

The newest social media A.I. features spotted this week:

• Instagram is working on an "Ask Meta AI" option for DMs

• A new AI support chatbot is available for hacked YouTube channels

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📊 SOCIAL STATS

10,000 followers

– Influencers with less than 10,000 followers delivered much greater returns, in a study looking at 2 million purchases and 100s of paid influencer endorsements

• Snapchat: 63% of adults, and 86% teens report feeling happy when using messaging apps for communication, significantly more than say the same about using social media platforms, according to Snap

• Spotify says its ads get 2x more attention than ads on TikTok, Instagram, and other popular social-media platforms

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📊📈 CHARTED

More top charts and infographics spotted this week… 📈📊👇

• Nearly half of US kids aged 10-15 spending over two hours a day on TikTok, new study shows

• Meta’s ad share is nearly 3x the share of time spent on its platforms

• Meta revenue by employee headcount is impressive

• More than 4 in 10 B2B marketers in North America and Europe plan to increase social media content (46%) and video (41%) distribution this year

• Live shopping is growing up in the US

• Meta shares are flying high as Zuckerberg sells his AI vision

• TikTok moves ahead of YouTube for brands' video-focused social media marketing

• A chart to show which banks hold most of Elon’s X debt

• UK regulator Ofcom’s hiring spree amid pressure to curb misinformation online

• TikTok coins reward live streamers as video dominates mobile apps

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• Meta’s Llama AI model is trailing rivals on AWS. [The Information $$$]

• Meta’s Oversight Board is reviewing posts related to political violence in Venezuela. [The Verge]

Instagram:

• Instagram is testing a mute button when you pause a Reel. [@ihammod_oh]

• Instagram has been spotted displaying a new icon for sharing a profile [@ihammod_oh]

• Instagram has added ‘Notebook’ and ‘Foliage’. chat themes. [@oncescuradu]

• Instagram will now sell you Meta Verified direct via the iOS app. [@JonahManzano]

• Instagram has been spotted showing notifications when someone replies to a Threads post. [@JonahManzano]

Threads:

• Threads now lets you toggle your ‘online status’. [@theahmedghanem]

• Threads is rolling out the ability to save multiple drafts to more people. [@mosseri]

WhatsApp:

• WhatsApp is testing a simplified like reaction for status updates that appears in the viewers’ list rather than the primary inbox. [Android Authority]

• WhatsApp is working on new indicators to make it clearer when a business uses services provided by Meta. [WABetaInfo]

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• X is being sued over $120 million worth of server parts. [Business Insider]

• X has been temporarily banned in Venezuela. [Social Media Today]

• Here’s how Russian trolls are trying to go viral on X. [Wall Street Journal $$$]

• Elon Musk's ban on remote work at X has beaten a disability bias claim, for now. [Reuters $$$].

• US politicians are flocking to TikTok ahead of November’s elections. [NBC News]

• TikTok has teamed up with the International Paralympics Committee for exclusive live content. [TikTok Newsroom]

New features and tests:

• TikTok is testing a new UI for suggested accounts. [@oncescuradu]

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💥 EVEN MORE SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS & UPDATES

• News publishers see potential in Bluesky. [Press Gazette]

• Snap has rejected Australian push to raise age for allowing teenagers on social media to 16. [The Guardian]

• Substack and Beehiiv are attracting a growing number of TikTok and Instagram creators. [AdAge $$$]

• CapCut is running a YouTube Shorts contest with cash prizes. [@lindseygamble_]

• Indigenous creators in Brazil are having to censor themselves to avoid getting banned on social platforms. [Rest of World]

• Social media poses 'obvious dangers' to teens, Texas AG Ken Paxton claims. [MediaPost]

Insights to give you an edge at work:

• Snap has shared insights into digital engagement among Australian users. [Social Media Today]

New features and tests:

• YouTube has started adding ‘New’ labels to Shorts that have recently been added. [@lindseygamble_]

• LinkedIn has added two new buttons for links sent as private messages: “Forward link” and “Save”. [@oncescuradu]

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📰 WEEKEND READS

Geekout’s pick of the best longer reads to sink into over the weekend:

• Beauty YouTubers turned TikTok into QVC

• How the Harris campaign beat Trump at being online

• Instagram owned real friendships. Its new AI chatbots encourage fake ones

• How extremely online culture is showing up outside of social media from 'very demure' to 'Brat Summer'

• Elon Musk said he’d eliminate bots from X. Instead, election influence campaigns are running wild

• Influencers explain how Kamala Harris’ campaign won TikTok

• Elon Musk's decision to privatise likes on X has made the platform worse

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😳 AND FINALLY…

This guy created 11 videos featuring song lyrics made from LinkedIn profile names. Well, you’ve got to have a pastime, right?

You can check out their profile for yourself, too.

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📅 BACK NEXT WEEK…

And that’s your social media news download done. ✅

You are fully debriefed on EVERYTHING new in social this week.

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Reminder: Geekout’s Summer Break 🏖️

I’m taking a much-needed summer holiday next week.

Geekout will return to your inbox on Friday 6th September.

__________

Time for me to head off and get glittered up.👩🏻‍🎤

I’ve been roped in to taking my 14 year old daughter to a Becky Hill gig in Cardiff. 😎

I need to find the ‘cool dad’ mode button, if it still works.

Goodbye, geeks!

p.s. This newsletter is edited by Martin SFP Bryant

Donald Trump photo in header image credit Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons