Crossing over. Fun fact, FutureParty people: On this day in 1959, Rod Sterling’s iconic series The Twilight Zone debuted on CBS and changed TV forever. As we gear up for Halloween, it felt only right to honor this timeless classic. Speaking of, is anyone else blown away that it’s already October? It feels like we stepped into another dimension where we fast-forwarded to the end of the year. Time is weird.
In other news… social media gets an AI makeover, streaming bundles complicate writer residuals, and Andorra has an influencer problem.
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SOCIAL MEDIA
AI friend request // Illustration by Kate Walker
Social media is about to be flooded with virtual users
The Future. While social media of the past decade has evolved from peer-to-peer social networking to influencer-driven entertainment, the next decade of evolution may be all about peer-to-AI social networking. Best-case scenario, the rise of chatbots will give us entertaining personalities that can answer anything on the fly… but they may also run the risk of creating a community where people spend most of their time with photorealistic simulations of people instead of the real thing.
Neural networks
The Verge’s Casey Newton argues that, with the flood of recent AI-powered features on social platforms, they’re evolving into “partially synthetic social networks.”
Some examples:
OpenAI’s ChatGPT can now talk to you, made even more lifelike thanks to five custom voices — one company employee is said to have had “personal, emotional” conversations with the chatbot.
Meta, TikTok, and Snap have all rolled out generative AI tools for people to use on their photos and videos.
But Meta and Snap have taken it further, introducing an AI assistant within the app (Snap) and “personality-driven” chatbots based around 28 different celebrities (Meta).
What that will eventually all add up to are virtual characters that users can chat with, have their own profiles, and make content. Powered by AI, they’ll almost exist independently to provide endless companionship for people (if they so choose to engage).
And Newton takes things a step further — he says those celebrities voicing fictional characters (although, that Meta experiment is just text-driven right now) may decide to create a bot of their own likeness, paywalling access to speak to a simulation of them.
Talk about passive income.
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ENTERTAINMENT
Mystery box // Illustration by Kate Walker
Big Tech streamers obscure what counts as a “subscriber”
The Future. In the wake of the WGA scoring a subscriber-based residual, what counts as a subscriber on bundle-based streamers may be hard to pin down. While the streamers are required to share how many subscribers their services have, Big Tech players like Apple and Amazon aren’t so easy to decipher because their services are add-ons to their main, non-entertainment services. As more companies look to bundle their offerings with brands outside of Hollywood, the problem may only deepen… and require an updated residual equation.
User, viewer, mystery
Counting streaming subscribers may be a lot more complex than simple addition.
While pure-play streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ have clear-cut subscriber counts, those for Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime are wrapped up in the company’s bundle of other subscription offerings that are the main reason people sign up.
That means subscriber counts may be insanely high, but most users may not actually be watching the films and shows offered as part of the subscription.
That may make it difficult for the WGA to collect its new residual on projects created for those streamers because they’ll need to be watched by at least 20% of the platform’s subscribers — a benchmark a majority of the titles may not hit.
Ultimately, inflating those subscriber numbers will be more beneficial to Amazon and Apple than to writers.
Of course, the WGA is aware of the issue, putting a provision in the new contract that the union and the companies will engage in “good faith” to break down what the subscriber breakdowns are.
And if they can’t agree (which, as this past summer has made loud and clear, is entirely possible), an arbiter will be brought in. It’s not the first time the WGA has done that… and that’s proven also to be a winning strategy.
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SOCIAL MEDIA
Influencer flag // Illustration by Kate Walker
YouTubers flock to a European micronation
The Future. The Principality of Andorra, a microstate with a population of 84,000 between France and Spain, is attracting a large number of European YouTubers and other digital influencers because it’s just a thing right now. As the battle between locals and digital nomads reaches a fever pitch, it may test the limits of the work-from-anywhere philosophy.
Viral nation
Andorra has an influencer problem.
While influencers come for the beautiful mountain vistas, they end up staying because of the low taxes and banking discretion (read: a perfect place to keep and park money).
The financial perks are so good that Andorra has a higher GDP per capita than Germany and Sweden.
And that’s creating a housing crisis where new, rich, foreign residents are pushing out native Andorrans (the only nation where Catalan is the official language).
With real estate prices spiking 30% since 2018, many Andorrans have had to move across the border — typically to northern Spain.
Andorra is trying to curb the moneyed migration, instituting new tax laws, residency requirements, and language tests to help preserve the country’s culture.
But Andorrans say the roadblocks are easily passable and will eventually turn Andorra into a rich-kid playground like Monaco… putting residents of a country that’s been around since 1278 on a collision course with international influencers who fell in love with the fresh backdrop.
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Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Media, Music, & Entertainment
Yellowstone’s migration from streaming to broadcast (a strikes-related Band-Aid) has been a hit for Paramount Global and NBCUniversal — three million people who had never seen the show before tuned in on CBS, while the show’s viewership on Peacock (a complicated rights deal) has jumped 26%. Read more → variety
Gersh, hoping to join the M&A fray, is reportedly in talks to buy A3 Artists Agency’s digital and unscripted departments. Read more → deadline
Bon voyage: Netflix just sent out its last red-enveloped DVD — the Coen brothers’ 2010 remake of True Grit. Read more → thr
Fashion & E-Commerce
Meta and Ray-Ban are unboxing the second iteration of their smart-glasses collaboration, which has an upgraded camera and better audio capabilities. Read more → hypebeast
Even though soccer superstar Lionel Messi just started at Inter Miami (which has been a major success), he’s reportedly already decided to go back home to Argentina to play for and retire at Newell’s Old Boys when his contract expires (start budgeting for jerseys now). Read more → forbes
SpaceX’s move to Texas left a lot of great engineering talent in Los Angeles, which has led to a manufacturing boom in the city. Read more → bloomberg
Tech, Web3, & AI
Cinephile-favorite social platform Letterboxd, which has attracted users like Margot Robbie and Christopher McQuarrie, has sold to Canadian holding company Tiny in a deal that values the company at over $50 million. Read more → variety
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that’ll ultimately decide whether states have the Constitutional authority to regulate specific social media platforms within their borders. Read more → insider
A group of 750 consultants discovered that while ChatGPT can find solutions to problems quickly… the results were often incorrect if the chatbot wasn’t trained to handle those specific issues (read: AI only works if you train it right). Read more → axios
Creator Economy
Indonesia’s crackdown on social shopping is bad news for TikTok Shop — one-third of the marketplace’s revenue comes from the country. Read more → theinformation
Comedy YouTuber Airrack (real name Eric Decker) signed with UTA to expand into “digital partnerships, TV, live events, and publishing.” Read more → tubefilter
X CEO Linda Yaccarino says the company has paid out almost $20 million since it introduced monetization features in February. Read more → techcrunch
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.