It's Monday and the TikToker who started the “Scientology run” trend would like everyone to cut it out now, please.

Today’s News

✍️ Precisify talks to Millennials
💬 XChat hits the App Store
🛍️ ShopMy helps with OOTDs
🏫 Schools leverage TikTok
🎙️ This week on the podcast…

SURVEY SAYS

Nothing crosses age divides like YouTube.

According to Precisify, YouTube is where Gen Z and Millennials come together

The report: Precisify has collected legally-compliant data about kids' and teens' video viewership for years. Now, for the first time, the London-based ad tech firm is studying the habits of folks who remember a time before “Baby Shark.”

Its latest report, Precisify Insights: Gen Z & Millennials, USA, contains data from Americans aged 13-44, and "highlights significant differences in how Gen Z and Millennial audiences consume media across streaming, social, gaming, and creator-led environments (per a press release).

As the following data shows, those differences manifest in everything from preferred platforms to watch time.

Precisify found that 68% of Gen Z uses TikTok, compared to 46% of Millennials. Disney+ was also stronger with Gen Z (57% vs 28%).
Millennials, meanwhile, spend their time on Netflix (65%), Amazon Prime Video (50%), and Facebook (67%).
The one place "where both audiences consistently converge” is YouTube, which counts 83% of Gen Z and 78% of Millennials as users.
Nearly 45% of both groups spend 30-60 minutes watching YouTube each day, while 11% watch 2-2.5 hours/day.
Beyond that, 5% of Millennials watch YouTube 3-3.5 hours/day (compared to 3% of Gen Z), 8% watch 3.5-4 hours (compared to 2%), and 12% watch over 4 hours (compared to 3% of Gen Z).

The ad data: That’s not surprising considering that YouTube is the single most-watched distributor of content on TV screens in the U.S. (per Nielsen).

But Precisify also found that ad recall is strongest on YouTube for over 50% of respondents in both age groups. The closest runner-up for Gen Z is TikTok, with 38% of teens having ad recall there. For Millennials, it's Facebook (at 36%).

On top of that, 36% of Gen Z said they see the best ads on YouTube long-form, followed by Netflix (20%), TikTok (18%), Facebook and Instagram (16%), Amazon Prime (13%), and, finally, YouTube Shorts (11%).

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

Can Elon Musk make X the “everything” platform? (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images.)

X’s new messaging app, XChat, is now available to all iOS users in the App Store—and X Money is reportedly coming next. (TechCrunch, Gizmodo)
Google could invest as much as $40 billion in Anthropic as part of a conditional, multi-year investment deal. (Engadget)
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has issued a formal apology following a shooting in British Columbia that was allegedly committed by a ChatGPT user who was banned from the platform without being reported to authorities. (Engadget)
Shortly after announcing sweeping layoffs, Meta has signed a multibillion-dollar deal with Amazon Web Services “to deploy tens of millions of Graviton5 processor cores for artificial intelligence workloads.” (TheNextWeb)

FASHION FORWARD

Your favorite fashion creator might have a personal shopper.

ShopMy wants humans to help you find your next OOTD

The platform: ShopMy is offering a new solution for style-conscious shoppers who want a human touch in their online shopping experience. The influencer marketing and ecommerce firm has unveiled Noir, a platform that pairs users with real-life personal shoppers who can help them choose their next looks.

While Noir employs AI to help synthesize relevant user data from the ShopMy platform, the resulting recommendations are ultimately made by human stylists (aka “curators”).

To assemble its team of curators, ShopMy looked within its own network.

“We’ve observed that many of our creators come from stylist or editor backgrounds…Others are personal stylists who’ve been using ShopMy in a non-traditional way to curate shelves for their clients to purchase directly from. This enables all of these curators to do more of what they love, built on a powerful skill set that’s high in demand.”

- Tiffany Lopinsky, ShopMy President & Co-Founder (via Net Influencer)

The context: The demand Lopinsky speaks of is visible across the social web. “Outfit of the Day” posts often go viral on platforms like TikTok—especially during calendar tentpoles like sorority rush season—and many influencers plan their outfits months in advance before attending events like Coachella.

By playing the matchmaker between those kinds of influencers and fashion-forward brands, ShopMy has positioned itself at the center of the creator economy. That status helped the firm secure multiple funding rounds last year.

Now, the style-conscious individuals who team up with Noir’s curators will give themselves a leg up within the fashionable world of social feeds. Right now, the platform is available for the highest spenders within ShopMy’s community, who are part of the platform’s black and gold tiers. Eventually, the service will expand to a greater number of members.

SCHOOL’S IN SESSION

Schools are using TikTok to reach potential students. (Photo via Getty Images.)

Students are a scarce resource. Can schools use TikTok to combat the demographic cliff?

The shift: As a demographic cliff looms, academic institutions are hoping to woo pupils on platforms like TikTok. Colleges, universities, and even high schools are increasing their marketing budgets to convince students to enroll with them—and many of the resulting campaigns are being distributed across teens’ favorite social media feeds.

The phrase “demographic cliff” refers to a sharp decline in U.S. birth rates that coincided with the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. Birth rates still haven’t fully recovered, meaning students—who were once an abundant resource—are becoming scarcer with each passing year.

For academic institutions, one recruitment strategy involves the creator economy. Today’s young people have a new dream job, so some colleges and universities are rolling out new curricula to teach the skills that underpin the creator career.

The campaigns: While that approach works best for colleges and universities, high schools have developed their own social media strategies. An increasing number of institutions are launching campaigns on TikTok, with some—like the New York City charter school chain Success Academy—collecting thousands of followers and hundreds of thousands of likes. Beyond TikTok, schools are also running ads on podcasts and streaming services.

The logic behind those campaigns is simple. Gen Z already uses TikTok for recommendations related to beauty, books, and bank accounts, so why wouldn’t they trust the same process for their educational choices? It makes sense that teenagers would peruse TikTok for schools in the same way they search for academic scholarships.

LISTEN UP 🎙️

Keke Palmer is bringing Hollywood glamour to Twitch.

This week on the podcast…

The episode: On the latest installment of Creator Upload, hosts Joshua Cohen and Lauren Schnipper dive into the increasing overlap between Hollywood and the creator economy.

The latest stars participating in that trend are creator extraordinaire Markiplier—whose $50 million box office hit could soon hit YouTube—and A-lister Keke Palmer, who’s bringing her own talk show to Twitch.

Tune into the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to find out more.

The survey: Creator Upload wants your opinion! Take this survey to help us understand who’s tuning in and what you want more (or less) of from the show.