Look, I know when HAVEN’T we been in a crisis in the 21st century? But this one’s unique - we’re talking about a cultural crisis, a losing-the-Library-of-Alexandria-type of problem. Meta recently announced a new policy that hurts repost pages that lack “original value”. The intent is to pave the way for more original content to hit feeds, which initially sounds ideal. But when good faith pages that curate content into online exhibitions exist, this policy risks putting digital museums in the firing line.

- Devin Pike, Guest Editor 💜

(btw - If you’re already using Claude Code or Cowork daily, scroll on by bc this ain’t for you)

But if you’ve just dabbled in using AI, maybe you’re using ChatGPT to help you look up recipes, write basic emails, or attempt to diagnose that insect bite you just got, stay with me for a sec.

When it comes to AI, there’s a lot of “bro you’re so behind” messaging out there. When, in reality, within just a couple hours, you can learn how to use AI better than 95% of people you know. And this why we put together the Beginner’s Guide to Claude AI course.

It’s a 4-week cohort where you learn how to go from using AI as a glorified Google to getting it to actually help you with the sh*tty admin (life or work) you hate doing every day.

We kick off on 18 May, so if you want to go from feeling behind to using AI to make your life better, this is for you 👇

But that’s not even my story, it’s just hilarious and a good segway to this: a popular music subreddit has caught record labels impersonating fans to promote their artists.

What is going on. Why is everybody so desperate. Y’all would do great on Tinder, btw.

In the latest music marketing whoopsie – subreddit r/indieheads has banned record labels from its community after discovering an influx of anonymous users were actually record labels posing as users through burner accounts. LOL. Y’all are messy and embarrassing.

While I believe a name and shame is in order, the mod said that they’re “not going to reveal who these labels are at this time, but it was disappointing to find them engaging with our subreddit with a near-total lack of transparency (and it was disappointing for me personally finding out how long some of these accounts had been operating)".

Anyway! Back to ol’ Elon; this Musk v. Altman trial is spilling some serious tea.

Greg Brockman just wrapped his testimony on Tuesday and revealed details of a “fiery meeting” with Musk and Ilya Sutskever at the billionaire's 47-acre, $23 million “haunted mansion” outside San Francisco to discuss the future of OpenAI.

So apparently ahead of the meeting, Musk had gifted the two a tesla each. Sutskever tried to reciprocate with a painting of a Tesla, but it was obvious to the pair that Elon was “buttering us up".

Musk allegedly wanted control of the company, but Sutskever and Brockman objected to granting the Tesla CEO what they believed would be a “dictatorship” over the future of AI development. Musk rejected their offer, stood up and charged around the table, snatching the painting and claiming he would cut off his funding of the nonprofit until Brockman and Sutskever quit. Brockman recalls: “I actually thought he was going to hit me, physically attack me.”

Apparently it’s just one of many examples of his erratic behaviour. More of which I’m sure we’ll learn about in due time.

Finally, YouTube has taken over American classrooms, and not for the better.

The Wall Street Journal found that schools across the country have become too reliant on the platform, creating a gateway for students to get sucked into an infinite scroll, and become exposed to inappropriate content.

One kid in the report scrolled 13,000 YouTube videos in three months.

Probably no better than my screentime tbh, but for a kid, that’s pretty cooked.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

I’m an aesthetic girly. I love to feel inspired by cool pictures of pop culture and curated vibes.

These pages have always served as the internet’s communal mood board, whether it’s the lo-fi nostalgia of @bapeaesthetics, the high-concept design of @hidden.ny, or the subculture deep-dives of @onlystarleft, these accounts have become one of the primary ways we consume fashion, art, and history.

They're kind of the digital pulse of what’s cool. But a recent announcement from Meta suggests this era might be coming to an end, and it’s making a lot of us, myself included, deeply fkn sad.

This effectively strips them of their ability to be recommended in the algorithm. On the surface, the logic is sound: protect original creators from having their work stolen by accounts that simply scrape and repost for engagement. At first I was all "yay, original creators won't have to worry", that’s kind of the moment we’ve all been waiting for.

But then I realised, for the pages that exist within these digital subcultures, it’s actually "oh no, my faves are going to be pushed out by the algorithm”. For them, this move feels less like a security update and more like a cultural lobotomy.

To an algorithm, a repost is just a duplicate file taking up space. But to a follower, a post from an archive page is a piece of a larger puzzle. I’ll say this one time and one time only: CURATION IS AN ART FORM IN ITSELF.

It’s literally the difference between walking into a warehouse full of random paintings and walking into a gallery put together by someone with a distinct point of view. Archive pages do more than repost random sh*t; they’re contextualising, they're the real chronically online historians who spend hours digging through defunct Japanese magazines or obscure 90s runway shows to bring us a specific aesthetic blueprint.

We follow pages like @hiiihorse or @artifaxing for their taste. In an era of AI-generated sludge and fast content, human taste is becoming our most valuable currency. Traditional blogs and media companies operate with massive teams and commercial interests, but archive pages are often passion projects run by individuals. They represent the indie spirit of the original internet: raw, niche, and deeply personal.

By flattening these pages into repost bots, Meta is effectively saying that the organisation of ideas has no value - only the creation of the raw material does.

So right now, the person who tells us what matters can be just as important as the person who made it. This policy risks creating an algorithm of boring, where the discovery of niche subcultures is replaced by a sanitised stream of original content that lacks any connective tissue. Let’s be honest, a lot of these creators are just replicating the same trends and styles, so how original really is it?

The irony of Meta’s crackdown is that these pages often drive more discovery for original creators than the algorithm does. An artist might get buried in the noise of the Explore page, only to be discovered and credited by a curation account that understands that artist’s place in a specific movement.

These pages act as the middleman between the obscure and the mainstream. By de-prioritising these nodes of connection, Instagram risks becoming a sterile environment where only the loudest voices are heard, while the quiet threads that connect them are cut.

Many of these archive pages serve as the only accessible records of pre-digital or early digital culture. When an archive page is wiped or hidden, we lose a curated history of a specific moment in time… be it 2016 nostalgia or 90s streetwear. We are essentially burning down digital libraries because we don't like the way the books were shelved. That’s messed up.

While the community will likely (and hopefully) prevail, moving to Substack, physical zines, or whatever platform emerges next, the loss to Instagram’s cultural ecosystem is massive. More so than people realise, I think.

We’re trading human-led discovery for safe recommendations.

If we lose the tastemakers, we lose the soul of the feed. 

-Sophie Randell, Writer

Today’s trend comes from the 2013 Australian mockumentary miniseries following Ja’mie King, a naughty and narcissistic student who sees herself as the queen of the school. It centres on the clip of her saying, “no, 'cause I’ve got a plan”, hinting at her over-the-top graduation revenge performance in the final episode.

TikTok creators are using this trend to poke fun at moments where they have unrealistic or loosely defined ambitions, but carry them with complete confidence. The captions creators pair the audio with typically describe situations where their expectations skip over reality, like expecting to go from no car to Porsche, scheming to be famous, or relatable moments like when you're only motivated to finish your degree for that Insta post.  

Using the audio, turn the camera on yourself, and in editing add an on-screen text describing your relatable situation, ideally starting with "When..."

A few ideas to get you started: 

- Fiona Badiana, Intern

😂Yap’s funniest home videos: Girl... you did not bring your cat here...
✨Daily inspo: Maybe you need to hear this
😊Soooo satisfying: Cardboard keyboard sounds
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight: Sweet potato beef bowl 

Hey Richard!

Getting your message right is going to come down to your brand positioning. How do you want your audience to see you? What makes you different from all the other businesses that do the same thing yours does? This can't just be that you have the "best" product because pretty much everyone thinks they're the best. It has to be some kind of value your audience can get behind. Once you know what this is, it will be your core message.

Then you need to figure out how you're going to get this across in your content, because this is the thing that your audience will be able to connect with. So focus on figuring out your positioning, then let your content stem from that! 

For a more in-depth look at brand positioning, check out this article.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.