Together with
The Black Godfather. Clarence Avant, one of the most prominent gatekeepers in music and entertainment, passed away on Sunday at 92. While you may not know his name or work, his generational influence helped fuel the success of many prolific icons, companies, and even politicians (including Barack Obama). If you’re a documentary buff like us, grab some popcorn and check out The Black Godfather on Netflix.
In other news… TikTok’s NPC trend spurs hope for live shopping, Gen Z struggles to keep a roof over their heads, and Netflix gamifies our screens.
Top Trends
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Robotic sales // Illustration by Kate Walker
NPC’s livestreaming may fuel TikTok Shop
The Future. The bizarre TikTok trend where users livestream themselves as non-playable characters (NPC) in video games for tips may be a sign that American culture is ready for social shopping. That’s key for TikTok, which wants to become a shopping giant that could rival Amazon but hasn’t yet been able to capitalize on organic trends like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt. While TikTok is trying to normalize and incentivize going live, the concept’s success may really be determined by how many influencers are willing to mix entertainment and commerce.
Bots and bags
Why could the NPC livestream craze be a precursor to TikTok’s shopping ambitions?
TikTok expects to sell $20 billion in merch on the platform this year … but it’ll need livestream-shopping to take off to reach that goal.
The company’s livestream-shopping is already a hit in Southeast Asia, but a test in the UK went poorly, making execs nervous.
Still, the strange NPC livestream trend (some creators make up to $10,000 a day) has demonstrated people are willing to “go live,” and fans will organically show up and shell out cash.
The ultimate hope is TikTok can make livestream shopping catch on by tapping niche communities on the platform (think #BookTok or #FoodTok), where users will regularly buy items as they scroll through videos — with the company handling everything from payments to customer service. It’s a strategy TikTok calls “community commerce.”
That dream hasn’t panned out for rivals like Amazon, YouTube, and Meta, which have introduced and then quickly shuttered or curtailed live-shopping features. But maybe TikTok’s audience and algorithm are the missing ingredients.
So, don’t be surprised if popular NPC streamers start moving products by just lifting them and yelling, “Buy! Buy! Buy!” It could happen…
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HOUSING
Money pit // Illustration by Kate Walker
Rent prices keep Gen Z down
The Future. Gen Zers believe owning a home is now the American pipe dream. As more start to reach the age where they hope to settle down and start families, local governments may need to rethink zoning and construction laws that would allow cheaper, more alternative forms of housing to become available.
Rent rat race
A survey from Freddie Mac found over a third of Gen Zers think they’ll never own a home, while Zillow found over half believe they’ll need to win the lottery to own one.
Between 1999 and 2002, rent has grown an average of 135%, while income has gone up only about 77%, according to Moody’s.
So, the median-income household needs to spend over 30% of their pay to afford the average… which officially makes them “rent burdened.”
For Gen Z, who’s just at the beginning of their career journey, that percentage is much higher, which is why a third lives with their parents and plans on doing so long-term.
For the other two-thirds, the majority are in complex roommate situations, are moving in quickly with romantic partners, and can’t afford to live in major metros.
It’s no wonder, per the National Association of Realtors, the typical first-time homebuyer last year was an average of 36 years old — the highest it’s ever been.
It looks like we’ll have to get into fractional ownership or move into tiny homes just to own something.
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Office gifts are remote now too
Now that more than half of the office works remotely, gifting coworkers has gone remote too. GroupTogether makes it easy to coordinate group gifts (for baby showers, birthdays, retirement, etc.) without the hassle.
Avoid your coworkers’ money in your personal bank account and gluing messages on a card… nightmare! You can do it all online with GroupTogether instead.
Here’s how it works:
CREATE: Invite people to your group gift or card via Whatsapp, email, or SMS.
COLLECT: Share a safe link, so your colleagues can click to pay and/or sign.
GIFT: Make someone’s day with one of 150 eGift Cards. Or let them pick their own with the AnyCard.
GroupTogether’s free and super easy to use, so what are you waiting for?
GAMING
Courtesy of Netflix
Netflix puts games on every screen
The Future. Netflix is rolling out a test of its cloud-gaming operations with a limited number of subscribers. It’s pitched as a test of both the platform’s tech and its recently announced mobile controller. But if all goes smoothly, subscribers worldwide could have access to Netflix’s planned 95 games by the end of the year… and give the streamer a new highest-priced subscription tier.
Multi-screen player
Someday soon, you’ll be able to binge Stranger Things and play an accompanying video game all within the same Netflix app.
The streamer is doing a small beta test of playing games on connected TVs using the company’s controller app.
It’s also testing the games via browsers on PCs and Macs, where people can use their mouse and keyboard to play.
Two games are available to try — Night School Studio’s Oxenfree and a “gem-mining arcade game” called Mining Adventure.
Currently, the test is only open to subscribers in Canada and the UK, with support available for devices like the Amazon Fire TV Stick, Google’s Chromecast, Roku players, and select smart TVs.
So, we American Apple TV users will need to wait patiently.
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Too cool for ChatGPT Skool?
Nah. Nothing’s cooler than learning to navigate ChatGPT-4 and all the AI plugins, right?
ChatGPT Skool will show you how to make your content creation process efficient and effective. Read: you’ll actually learn how to use it instead of just trying to figure it out.
Here are some takeaways you’ll go home with:
How to supercharge your blog posts and SEO
How to boost your social media presence
How to make your emails hit
Highlights
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Tech, Web3, & AI
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Creator Economy
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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.
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