Limelight: This month's guide to what's trending online - The Spinoff

To assistance navigate what’s going connected successful the net universe, we bring you Limelight — a monthly file by our friends astatine originative studio, Daylight.

Five weeks till Christmas and the internet’s not giving up connected its chaos conscionable yet.

Aside from the full Ye (Kanye) anti-semitism losing a cardinal dollars successful a time dystopian drama, celebrities dressing similar different celebrities each Halloween, Elon conscionable doing his accustomed terrifying thing and the costume packet viral meme nary 1 was harmless from, here’s what’s been going connected successful the net lately:

Deep ’90s nostalgia

A inclination we’ve been affectionately calling “Dawson’s Creek Chic”, this one’s been begging the question lately… are we each conscionable surviving successful a perpetual occurrence of Friends/Charmed/Aaliyah euphony video?

From the renaissance of earphones with chords and Windows 95 cursor effects to point-and-shoot cameras, tiny handbags and the question of 90s banger bands coming connected circuit (Basement Jaxx, Groove Armada, Fatboy Slim), for anyone live during that clip walking down a main thoroughfare astatine the infinitesimal has felt similar a heavy dive backmost into an epoch we ne'er thought we’d get back.

Trends person ever worked successful epoch cycles, but this latest scope towards a debased slung jean, the Ashley Tisdale astatine the Teen Choice Awards aesthetic, and the immense resurgence of the ecstasy-grunge-club epoch euphony reflects a corporate scope backmost to simpler times earlier Bebo was invented, Life connected Mars was a opus by Bowie and not a hellscape helmed by Elon Musk. 

Musical agony

With astir satellite borders lifted and radical live with the feeling of… being live again, gigs are backmost with a vengeance. But what’s travel with it is the revelation that musicians are really making much wealth from merch than selling records oregon touring.

Not to notation the information that 100,000 songs are being dropped connected Spotify a day, which is dilatory turning the music-streaming app into YouTube (while YouTube tries to go much similar Spotify), and the manufacture collectively braces itself for Artificial Intelligence to swamp it successful 1 blistery beat.

Big Bleak Tech

The post-pandemic roar is truly implicit for Big Tech (think Microsoft, Alphabet, Snap, Meta, Amazon), with galore reporting drops successful revenue, which are projected to keep falling.

Forbes economist Morgan Stanley thinks the S&P 500 mightiness autumn different 10-20% this twelvemonth aft already dropping to 20%. But what does this mean for a elemental smartphone proprietor who doesn’t privation to spell to space? With implicit 100,000 jobs mislaid successful tech layoffs this twelvemonth alone, expect little R&D and buzzy caller features and much upgrades connected existing software, bug fixes, and splinter platforms to beryllium developed successful the aftermath of Twitter’s caller meltdown. 

Tokification

Think backmost to the halcyon days erstwhile Instagram was conscionable a humble app for photographs and not cardinal to the mode we papers our lives.

Enter TikTok. In a caller newsletter, media institution The Future Party wrote astir the unit grounds labels nether to marque their songs spell viral connected the level to person a sliver of a accidental of success. Journalists are pushed to Tokify their articles into 60-second reels, and there’s adjacent been a inclination of radical self-diagnosing done the platform. If Zoomers are getting not lone their quality but their aesculapian proposal each done an app, it begs the question… who’s going to wage for mainstream media – oregon thing other – successful years to come?

Artificial selfishness

This abstraction is moving quickly, and it’s somewhat frightening to foretell however acold on Artificial Intelligence volition beryllium successful six months’ time.

My aged shot photograph / AI representation done Draw Anyone (Source: Draw Anyone)

Recently, AI has graduated from arguable graphic plan tools similar Stable Diffusion to web plug-ins similar Draw Anyone. Users taxable 5-10 selfies and get backmost a scope of artificially constructed portraits successful assorted antithetic ocular presets to take from (psychedelic? Painterly? Hotter than reality? Dealer’s choice). Its likeness and quality to emulate creation styles and intimate details amusement conscionable however precocious and method (and… terrifying) improvement successful this abstraction is becoming.

Third-party parties

Instagram’s gotten each upset lately due to the fact that large-scale influencers person been directing their fans to articulation them connected caller platforms similar Geneva, Communities and Discord due to the fact that they’re easier for them to pass privately with groups, sharing ‘exclusive content’ and, obviously, making money.

In a knee-jerk reaction, it launched a myriad of antithetic products inactive making their mode to the mainstream, similar subscriptions, badges for superfans (yawn) and a functionality called Group Profiles that fundamentally mimics Discord. The takeaway? Fandom has ne'er been specified a summons to quitting your time occupation and making wealth disconnected your content.

The powerfulness of the pod

This American Life spinoff podcast Serial, which launched successful 2014, took the satellite by tempest with its 12-part probe into the execution of a Baltimore teen successful 1999 and created a full sub-section of existent transgression pods that we ne'er knew we desperately needed.

Fast-forward astir 8 years later, and this twelvemonth alone, the subjects of Serial (Adnan Syed), The Teacher’s Pet (Chris Dawson), and Your Own Backyard (Paul Flores) person each been either exonerated oregon convicted wrong the past mates of months. What does this archer us? The powerfulness and necessity of autarkic media and investigative journalism is immense, essential, and not to ever beryllium underestimated.