wtf is everyone talking about? — issue #3
dumb tech's comeback, the aimee lou wood effect, and the group chat saga
Welcome to another week of wtf is everyone talking about? 🫶
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Let’s get into it:
WE’RE GETTING DUMBER…TECHNOLOGY
The Tea: Amid declining literacy rates and a critical thinking crisis, there’s a growing embrace of “dumber” tools and technologies. While not a new trend, digital detoxes are gaining momentum in mainstream culture as people increasingly recognize the negative effects of constant digital consumption. As a result, people are gravitating toward legacy tech—flip phones, old-school radios, digital cameras—and analog activities, such as journaling, reading, and vinyl records. You’ve probably come across similar types of content documenting this experience: “How I stopped my doomscrolling,” “I hate my phone so I got rid of it,” “This dumb phone could help you cut your screen time.” There have also been recent talks about opting for a “minimal phone,” like the Light Phone 3, which seems better suited for the modern era, offering limited functionality without being as extreme as a “dumb phone”, such as the Nokia 2780.
The Takeaway: With more and more people looking to reconnect with themselves and the larger community around them, products and experiences that offer opportunities to limit screen time will surge in popularity. Especially since every single social media platform seemingly believes they need to jump on the short-form content scroll (*cough cough* Substack *cough cough*), these homogenous platform imitations will push people further into finding ways to digitally detox. Product innovations like the Brick have emerged to offer an extra physical barrier to curb your phone addiction. New platforms like seven39 are sticking it to the attention economy by only being available to log in between a 3-hour window. A global movement called The Offline Club offers experiences to connect with like-minded people without digital distractions. As someone attempting to recover from her own screen addiction, I, for one, am totally here for it.
IN DEFENSE OF IMPERFECTION
The Tea: In a digital era saturated with FaceTuned selfies, photoshopped bodies, AI influencers, and discourse around the next celebrity to fall victim to veneers, it’s no surprise that everyone finds Ms. Aimee Lou Wood a breath of fresh air. As a breakout star in Netflix’s Sex Education and now a fan favorite in HBO’s luxury-soaked satire The White Lotus, Wood’s crooked teeth have become an unexpected talking point. Many viewers expressed how refreshing it was to see a mainstream show embrace an actress whose beauty isn’t airbrushed into homogeneity, especially in an industry notorious for promoting the same narrow standard (see: the ubiquitous iPhone face). Others found Wood’s unapologetic authenticity uplifting, hoping this sparks a movement toward accepting natural and imperfect features that society would normally shame us into hiding.
The Takeaway: While it is unfortunate that a majority of the conversations around Wood are centered around her teeth and not of her stunning performance as Chelsea, it does represent a sort of defiant rallying cry against the homogenous standard for beauty and AI slop we’ve suddenly grown accustomed to. As Sophie Gilbert observes in an article for The Atlantic, “Given the ability to amend our own faces, we’ve helped normalize and propagate a horribly restrictive vision of beauty and humankind, and the more we distort ourselves in turn, the more confining the ideal becomes.” It’s important to note that this also reveals a cultural paradox: the hunger for real and diverse beauty representation comes at the same time we’re witnessing an Ozempic-fueled resurgence of thinness. For brands, this tension presents an important opportunity to differentiate with genuine, diverse representations of beauty as consumers continually reject artificial perfection.
THE GROUP CHAT SAGA
The Tea: The internet has been biting its teeth in anticipation of the hottest show’s season finale. And no, I’m not talking about The White Lotus (although that season finale had me on the edge of my seat the entire time too). TikToker Sydney Jo (@thatgirlsydjo) amassed millions of views for her self-produced series, “The Group Chat.” The 5-part series follows varying perspectives of a friend group of girls (all of whom are played by Jo herself) reacting to one of them saying that she is bringing her boyfriend, “Justin,” to dinner despite it being a girls-only event. It’s a storyline that’s relatable to many, even triggering to some. The series caught the attention of major brands, influencers, and celebrities like Charlie Puth, who even provided a surprise cameo in one of the parts. Many users felt inspired to post spinoff perspectives of different characters in the storyline, like the steakhouse hostess and an eavesdropping couple. Others were quick to debrief parts and share their own theories. Jo released the season finale on Tuesday, leaving us all on a cliffhanger and confirming this is not the last time we’ll be seeing The Group Chat—season 2 is coming.
The Takeaway: Series-based content continues its domination across the digital landscape. With many users feeling the burnout of one-off, short-form content they can barely even remember after the scroll, content with recurring characters and an enticing storyline offers deeper emotional investment for the audience to stay engaged. Whether intentional or not, Jo accomplished a feat that not many brands have been able to do: craft a universe their audience feels so invested in that they feel inspired to contribute their own creations. Similar engagement was exhibited by fans of the other popular series I mentioned, The White Lotus, with users sharing their own perspectives if they were part of the story’s world.
👀 OTHER THINGS I HAVE MY EYE ON 👀
Speaking of recurring characters, Kit Kat just introduced their first character-driven campaign with Break Brothers. I’ll be interested to see what the brand does with them for future campaigns.
Nostalgia marketing is strong as brands look to revive popular TV shows like Chili’s opening up a Scranton location as an homage to The Office and Sanpellegrino reuniting The Sopranos co-stars Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa for one last job.
Dove is putting concert tickets back into the hands of real fans with its gameified IRL activation, Hot Seats. The first of many concert partnerships this year is Charli XCX’s Brat tour and clues can be found on Reddit.
But if you can’t snag those tickets, there’s another hot festival happening on the metaverse with Sabrina Carpenter headlining the 8th season of Fortnite Festival.
Trader Joe’s dropped a pastel line of their fan-favorite totebags…but is it ever really this serious?
What have you been talking about? 👀 Let me know if you have thoughts on any of the topics I mentioned or if you’re following anything new that I should spill the tea on for the next issue!
Until next time 👋