0:02

I'm Taylor Lorenz. Welcome to Power User.

0:04

The internet moves fast, so fast that

0:07

it's hard to remember what captured our

0:09

collective attention even a couple weeks

0:11

ago. The lifespan of a meme

0:13

is getting shorter and shorter. There

0:15

are new influencers being minted on

0:17

the daily, and suddenly it feels

0:19

like there's an entire new suite

0:21

of apps that we all have

0:23

to learn and keep up with.

0:25

But 2024 was an unforgettable year,

0:27

and today we're going to be

0:29

breaking down the biggest viral moments.

0:31

Unpacking, who's up and who's down,

0:33

and what 2024's biggest memes and

0:35

online phenomena can tell us about

0:37

where 2025 is headed. To do

0:39

this, I've got Sam Sanders, pop

0:41

culture expert, and host of the

0:43

Sam Sanders show on KCRW. Sam, welcome

0:45

to Power User. So good to be

0:48

here. Thank you for having me. This

0:50

is great. You were on my show

0:52

just a few weeks ago. We're still

0:54

talking about that episode. It was so

0:56

delightful. It was so delightful. So let's

0:58

just make this a thing. So this year

1:01

started with a meme that was

1:03

kind of a remnant of 2023.

1:06

And I'm talking about the Mark

1:08

Zuckerberg vs. Elon Musk cage fight

1:10

that was supposed to happen.

1:13

Oh, were they gonna fight? Were they

1:15

gonna MMA or something? Exactly. So,

1:17

yeah. Girl, I forgot that even

1:19

happened. But yeah, Elon Musk sort

1:22

of, I think, like, tacitly

1:24

challenged Zuck. I'll find him. Any

1:26

place, any time, any rule. Zuck

1:28

started training for it. Remember he

1:30

was fighting with all the MMA fighters

1:33

and then everyone sort of quietly backed

1:35

out. I think he sort of claimed

1:37

some injury maybe. It never happened. I

1:39

think that would have been the biggest

1:41

moment on the internet had it happened.

1:43

But it did kick off what has

1:45

now been called the Zuckasans. Which is

1:47

after that sort of rumors of those

1:49

fights started, you saw Mark Zuckerberg really

1:51

start to evolve his look. He got

1:53

very into MMA. He grew out the

1:55

hair. He's got a new style, a

1:57

new swag. He got some riz. He got

1:59

some riz. He really did. Maybe he

2:01

is the new, the Rizzler, the

2:03

new Rizzler. I'd love to do

2:05

a competition, whether it's UFC or

2:08

something else. I think I can

2:10

speak for the world where we

2:12

would love to see that. Now

2:14

I do want to say though,

2:16

when it comes to Rizz for

2:18

these tech dudes, the bar is

2:21

on the parking garage, the bar

2:23

is in hell, so like doing

2:25

the least feels like the most

2:27

when you're comparing yourselves, these other

2:29

tech CEOs. I also found it

2:31

quite remarkable remarkable that... as many

2:33

of the actual images I saw

2:36

of Zuck's glow up, I saw

2:38

just as many like AI fake

2:40

images of folks like imagining a

2:42

Zuck glow up, giving him an

2:44

ass, giving him a beard, giving

2:46

him Baddiati. It was very strange

2:49

to see the ways in which

2:51

the internet glomed onto the idea

2:53

of a Zuck glow up and

2:55

like ran with it. I didn't

2:57

expect that. Another big

2:59

story this year, I think, in tech

3:02

is just the nicheification of platforms. We

3:04

saw an explosion of competitors to Twitter,

3:06

obviously threads and platforms like Blue Sky

3:08

launched previously, but this is the year

3:11

a lot of them gained traction. We

3:13

also saw things like the TikTok ban,

3:15

and it seems like the whole social

3:18

media world has kind of been tossed

3:20

up and jumbled around. I'm curious Sam,

3:22

what do you think of these tax-based

3:24

competitors to Twitter? Do you think that

3:27

we saw a Twitter competitor emerge in

3:29

2024 or not? I think Blue Sky

3:31

is the fetch of social media. Stop

3:33

trying to make fetch happen. It's not

3:36

going to happen. Blue Sky will never

3:38

get to even half the size of

3:40

Twitter at its peak because I think

3:43

the internet is moving... has moved very

3:45

quickly from a text and still image-based

3:47

experience to a video-based experience. The internet

3:49

that I came up on that you

3:52

came up on, it was kind of

3:54

text- first. And Twitter came into that

3:56

space when we all were still wanting

3:59

to write about our experiences. You know,

4:01

we moved from Facebook status updates to

4:03

Twitter. We were still reading websites with

4:05

like long articles. We had a text

4:08

base experience of internet and smartphone. And

4:10

I think from the pandemic on with

4:12

the rise of TikTok. A lot of

4:15

people's experience, especially people under 35, the

4:17

experience has gone from text-based to video-based.

4:19

And so you're never going to recapture

4:21

that Twitter at its peak energy because

4:24

people aren't doing internet like that and

4:26

as high numbers as they were years

4:28

ago. And it's been hard for me

4:31

as a 40-year-old because I realized in

4:33

this shift to video, I'm probably not

4:35

making my own Tik. I just watched

4:37

them. in a text-based internet, I was

4:40

tweeting all day, and I had a

4:42

social life in these spaces that I

4:44

haven't been able to recreate since the

4:47

demise of Twitter. So for me, it's

4:49

less about which platforms up and which

4:51

platform is down. It's like one of

4:53

the big ways in which we're going

4:56

to use our devices, and it's moving

4:58

to video and no longer text. I

5:00

totally agree with you. I think the

5:03

text internet is dead. I feel like

5:05

it was on life support last year.

5:07

And I think also Twitter is aggressive

5:09

pivot toward video as well because they've

5:12

been pushing so much more video on

5:14

the feed, like it's just, it's not

5:16

going to happen. We've moved on. Yeah.

5:18

Well, and then it's like when I

5:21

want to go back and try to

5:23

type a blue sky or type a

5:25

tweet, I'm so scared of having any

5:28

opinion because someone's going to rip it

5:30

apart. And that energy is worse now

5:32

than it was five or six years.

5:34

You can't say anything online without someone

5:37

being like, fuck you. There's some sort

5:39

of like toxicity that feels very like

5:41

mainstreamed, especially in the second half. of

5:44

2024. And I don't know if that's

5:46

Trump election vibes or what, but there's

5:48

like a dark energy, I feel like.

5:50

And you know, I remember, even when

5:53

I was covering the 2016 election, tweeting

5:55

everything, I still knew that in general,

5:57

most of my tweets would be treated

6:00

nicely. Whether I was having a hot

6:02

take on Bernie Sanders or not. And

6:04

now I'm literally afraid to say what

6:06

music I'm listening to online. Because someone's

6:09

gonna be like, your trash, your awful,

6:11

you are stupid, how dare you like

6:13

this thing. I posted a cut of

6:16

one of my recent episodes, talking about

6:18

like Billy Eilish albums, and which one

6:20

I liked better. And somebody was really

6:22

furious about it. And I'm just like,

6:25

are you serious? And so I think

6:27

like, we've had years now where people

6:29

know the way to more engagement is

6:32

to fight. So everyone knows that. And

6:34

we've seen a lot of these spaces

6:36

become overrun with alt-right in-cell and bots.

6:38

Yes. And that's there too, you know.

6:41

Yes. Yeah, I think they're all manipulated.

6:43

They're also all AI-driven, right? We have

6:45

like the rise of algorithmic feeds that

6:48

I think have just become completely normalized.

6:50

And that is why you have a

6:52

lot of context collapse on different platforms.

6:54

Oh, yeah. I think that we're just

6:57

going to see more, aside from Google

6:59

and meta, which have a duopoly, now

7:01

they've gotten tick-tock banned, which I think

7:03

is said to happen early next year.

7:06

Do you think it's going to happen?

7:08

I think there's too much money to

7:10

be made. Yes, it's happening. Yes, unless,

7:13

you know, there would have to be

7:15

like an act of God from Trump,

7:17

I don't think. Here's my thing though,

7:19

I think Trump likes to be liked,

7:22

and if he can do something, and

7:24

quote unquote saves it and all the

7:26

influencers are like thank you daddy Trump

7:29

he would get off on that shit

7:31

I want to believe that I think

7:33

he also does a lot of really

7:35

crazy policies that people fucking hate and

7:38

true It's also really this was Biden's

7:40

policy, so it's not his policy. So

7:42

I think he's, you know, but I

7:45

do think that the social media landscape

7:47

is just fractured. It also seems like

7:49

2024 was this year where we saw.

7:51

the year of long form media where

7:54

it wasn't just short form of content

7:56

that has sort of dominated our feeds

7:58

since tic-toc launch but you saw people

8:01

leaning into these hours long podcast or

8:03

days long streams you had kaisan out

8:05

one of the biggest twitch streamers streaming

8:07

for 30 days straight in what's called

8:10

a subathon which essentially when you're streaming

8:12

back to back 24 7 so that

8:14

you can get as many subscriptions as

8:17

possible. I have cams on 24 7

8:19

they watch me, they watch me eat,

8:21

are you doing 30. He literally just

8:23

had programming where he was streaming consistently

8:26

throughout the month of November hitting record

8:28

after record. He's obviously not the first

8:30

person to do this, but I think

8:33

he hit really big numbers, but also

8:35

sort of like cultural, there was a

8:37

lot of cultural moments, there were a

8:39

lot of like, you know, clips from

8:42

that. stream that ended up going megaviral.

8:44

You also saw the rise of other

8:46

streamers like I Show Speed and these

8:48

big Hasan Piker had a breakout. I

8:51

know Hasan. He's a political commentator, right?

8:53

But this is a guy that sits

8:55

in front of his computer eight to

8:58

ten hours a day talking and you

9:00

have a lot of people consuming media

9:02

for hours and hours and hours. And

9:04

I think that's a little different because

9:07

I think three or four years ago,

9:09

I don't know that all of us

9:11

were consuming two to three to four

9:14

hour long shows, whether in live stream

9:16

or podcast form. Well, and it's also

9:18

just hearing you say how these folks

9:20

do it, it scares me to death.

9:23

I mean, you and I both came

9:25

up in traditional quote-unquote legacy newsrooms and

9:27

the foundational organizing principle of what you

9:30

would do in those spaces is you

9:32

don't take the pen and you don't

9:34

take the mic until you've prepared and

9:36

know what the hell you're going to

9:39

say are right. And it seems like

9:41

everything you're saying about what these men

9:43

are doing and women to is entirely

9:46

improvising off the cuff. That is amazing.

9:48

I'd be so afraid to do that.

9:50

Even this conversation we're having right now,

9:52

we had a call yesterday and talked

9:55

about discussion topics, right? Every podcast episode

9:57

I take, I prepare a script, I

9:59

research, and a team of editors helps

10:02

me go over it. And so to

10:04

hear you talk about the ways that

10:06

Kai or Hassan can just get out

10:08

there and just go live for not

10:11

hours, but days at a time, it

10:13

is a new. way of thinking about

10:15

being a public intellectual that I find

10:18

intriguing and also scary. Yes, I do

10:20

want to say that they do spend

10:22

quite a bit of time preparing to.

10:24

But you're right, there's no script. There's

10:27

no script. There's no script. There's no

10:29

script. It's right. It's all about kind

10:31

of like what's going to happen next.

10:33

And someone like they're very reactive, right

10:36

to the situation as well, because you

10:38

want to keep people engaged and keep

10:40

people guessing. And I mean, it's a

10:43

testament to their skill. I don't know

10:45

that I could do that, but it

10:47

is, you know, as someone who turned

10:49

40 this year, it has me saying,

10:52

oh, we're into in a new world,

10:54

and I don't know if I have

10:56

the skill set to thrive in the

10:59

way that I would have thrived in

11:01

the media landscape of 10 years ago.

11:03

This was a big year of reckoning

11:05

for Mr. B's. This is the biggest

11:08

content creator on YouTube. He got a

11:10

big hundred million dollar deal with Amazon

11:12

prime studios to produce to produce a

11:15

big reality competition show, basically game show.

11:17

And this was the year that he

11:19

really had his reckoning. For years, his

11:21

former employees had been coming out, talking

11:24

about labor abuses, poor working conditions, how

11:26

basically they were being subject to kind

11:28

of like torture for these videos, and

11:31

a youtuber named Dogpack dropped a sort

11:33

of tell-all video that really opened the

11:35

floodgates for all of this reporting to

11:37

come out. I want to show the

11:40

segment from an internal document on Mr.

11:42

Mr. B's called How to Suc in

11:44

Mr. Specifically on page 19, there's a

11:47

paragraph called, no does not mean no.

11:49

I don't know if we want to

11:51

say the downfall of Mr. Beast, but

11:53

we certainly saw the Mr. Beast reckoning

11:56

in 20... This reminds me a lot

11:58

of what is happening in the world

12:00

of reality TV. Like a lot of

12:03

folks coming forward and saying, you like

12:05

these little shows, you like this and

12:07

that and the dating shows and the

12:09

housewives, but behind the scenes, it's like

12:12

psychological torture, sensory deprivation, manipulation, and the

12:14

list goes on. And I think the

12:16

through line with what's happening with Mr.

12:18

Beast and with what's happening in reality

12:21

TV. When you have media spaces in

12:23

which there's no union protections for anybody,

12:25

this stuff can happen. I think the

12:28

larger issue for me with reality TV

12:30

and with YouTube and YouTopers like Mr.

12:32

Beast is that these new-ish media spaces

12:34

need unions and union protections. Well we

12:37

just saw right the love is blind

12:39

contestants were just declared official employees that

12:41

happened recently. Yeah the NLRB was like

12:44

no you are employees and you need

12:46

to have protections and that's yeah that

12:48

like it's funny we had this like

12:50

summer or two summers of like protests

12:53

and strikes across the country teachers were

12:55

striking postal workers were striking and there

12:57

was this idea that like unions were

13:00

back I hope they are. And I

13:02

want everyone working in these new spaces

13:04

to be able to have the choice,

13:06

if they need to, to like get

13:09

some protections. Yeah. Well, I want to

13:11

talk about sort of like Mr. Beast

13:13

as a concept, because this idea of

13:16

this like mega Youtuber has been so

13:18

big since YouTube started, right? We had

13:20

these this era of like these mega

13:22

stars that were so big. More recently

13:25

we've seen kind of the nicheification of

13:27

the internet of YouTube. It's very hard

13:29

to reach the level that he is

13:32

at unless you started almost a decade

13:34

ago. He surpassed beauty pie. He has

13:36

become the biggest in the world. A

13:38

lot of people thought he was sort

13:41

of too big to fail. I think

13:43

we have seen peak Mr. Beast. I'm

13:45

going to put it in the ground.

13:48

That doesn't mean that I don't think

13:50

he's still gonna be around and still

13:52

sign major deals. I think there's too

13:54

many people invested in the success of

13:57

this business to really see it go

13:59

away. But I think it's going to

14:01

become one of these like zombie YouTube

14:04

channels where we have all. Zombie,

14:06

that's strong. Well, yeah, I mean,

14:08

when you look at some of

14:10

the biggest YouTubers and YouTube channels

14:12

that were like huge in 2016,

14:14

2017, 2018, even 2014, right? Like,

14:16

they sort of hit peak cultural

14:18

relevance and they don't necessarily lose

14:20

all their subscribers. They might atrophy

14:22

a little or grow at a slower rate,

14:24

but they don't have that cultural impact.

14:27

And I do feel like Mr. 2021

14:29

to 2022, 2023 internet so much. And

14:31

now I just think we're moving into

14:33

a new phase. I think people are

14:36

starting to look a little bit askew

14:38

at some of his challenges. It came

14:40

out that he had actually not paid

14:43

a bunch of doctors who had done

14:45

eye surgery. And this video works during

14:47

a thousand people's blinds. It's going

14:49

to be crazy. Turns out he

14:52

didn't pay some of the doctors involved.

14:54

Are you serious? Yes, this is part

14:56

of what led to this cancellation, exactly.

14:58

So I think we're just... We're seeing,

15:00

you know, the backlash to him where

15:02

I think it's going to be hard

15:04

for him to... continue on the path

15:06

that he was previously. And I don't

15:08

think that he's going to go away,

15:10

Mr. Beast fans, because I know they're

15:12

going to come debate me about this,

15:15

but I do think that his cultural

15:17

relevance is fading and unless he reinvents

15:19

himself, which he might, his star is his

15:21

movie. Also, I'm not going to worry about

15:23

him either way, because either way he's rich.

15:25

He'll be fine. He's fine. He's fine. February

15:28

was actually when we started to

15:30

really see the... proliferation of a

15:32

lot of this AI slop that

15:34

I think also has come to

15:36

dominate the 2024 internet. We

15:38

saw the Taylor Swift deep

15:40

fakes, remember when those sort

15:42

of vaguely pornographic deep fakes

15:44

went viral of Taylor Swift.

15:47

I didn't click on those. I was like,

15:49

let me not curse myself. Yeah. They

15:51

came across my feed because Elon

15:53

was initially refusing to censor them

15:56

or, you know, remove them in

15:58

any way. But I feel like... AI had

16:00

a real big moment this year.

16:02

Like if we're talking breakout technologies

16:04

of the year, AI sort of

16:06

warping everything around us seems to

16:08

be like a defining text story.

16:11

I don't think it's as big

16:13

as we thought it was going

16:15

to be. At the end of

16:17

2023, I remember everyone saying 2024

16:19

is going to be the year

16:21

that AI ruins everything specifically the

16:23

music industry. You know, remember in

16:25

late 2023 there was this. AI

16:27

song of Drake and the weekend,

16:30

that sounded surprisingly like a real

16:32

Drake weekend song. It was sued

16:34

to oblivion within a day or

16:36

two, but it got really vile

16:38

really quickly to the extent that

16:40

the daily I want to say

16:42

had a whole episode about it.

16:44

When an anonymous music producer used

16:46

artificial intelligence to impersonate Drake earlier

16:49

this month, it jolted the music

16:51

industry. It was everywhere. And I

16:53

follow music obsessively and my thinking

16:55

was like, oh, this is a

16:57

sign. 2024 is going to be

16:59

the year in which AI ruins

17:01

pop music. But in actuality, in

17:03

the world of music, it didn't

17:05

because everyone and their mom is

17:08

just suing everything AI and music

17:10

into oblivion. And then when I

17:12

do see AI pop up in

17:14

other spaces, It's still very bad.

17:16

So I'm not worried about it.

17:18

It's so bad. Wait, no, but

17:20

you're... Okay, I would say, okay,

17:22

it hasn't ruined pop music yet,

17:25

but it's ruined everything else around

17:27

us? Like, I mean, AI Slop,

17:29

I feel like has destroyed so

17:31

much of the internet. Look at

17:33

what happened to Google, right? Another

17:35

big story this year was the

17:37

AI recipes and the AI generated

17:39

food on food delivery apps, the

17:41

glue on the pizza. Earlier this

17:44

year, recipes were going viral because

17:46

people were googling recipes and Google

17:48

was auto-filling different recipes and it

17:50

suggested putting glue in your pizza.

17:52

to ensure that the cheese was

17:54

sticky. I would argue though, like

17:56

what actually has ruined Google, at

17:58

least in my experience, is not

18:00

AI, it's all the sponsored results

18:03

whenever I search for anything. That's

18:05

the bigger ruining of me. And

18:07

so like the insidification of these

18:09

apps and these platforms is happening

18:11

and can happen with or without

18:13

AI. I totally disagree because I

18:15

think it is AI that is

18:17

insidifying these apps. I mean, look

18:19

at something like. Facebook with shrimp

18:22

Jesus a AI generated image of

18:24

Jesus made of shrimp that went

18:26

mega viral on Facebook I also

18:28

think that we started to see

18:30

AI affecting the real world remember

18:32

the AI Wanka experience that happened

18:34

this past spring where basically an

18:36

AI generated flyer of a Willie

18:39

Wanka experience went viral a bunch

18:41

of people showed up and then

18:43

it was a disaster it was

18:45

nothing like AI generated images I

18:47

think a lot of these things

18:49

loan bigger on the internet than

18:51

they actually are in real life.

18:53

It was a funny online moment

18:55

and I do think it started

18:58

to show the problems and we

19:00

saw this happen again right with

19:02

that parade later in the year.

19:04

I think it was also in

19:06

Ireland. Thousands gathered in Dublin excited

19:08

for a Halloween parade that never

19:10

came. The event was a hoax

19:12

spread by an AI-generated website based

19:14

in Pakistan. Again, you see this

19:17

AI generated flyer, AI generated content,

19:19

it's become so easy to produce

19:21

creative work that I feel like

19:23

there's, I just think like the

19:25

gap between marketing and reality is,

19:27

has just completely diverged. Yeah. I

19:29

am not as worried as you

19:31

are yet. Because I think that

19:33

in general, I am still able

19:36

to have a pretty good. experience

19:38

online and I'm still at least

19:40

at this point able to sniff

19:42

out the AI pretty easily I

19:44

will be worried when it becomes

19:46

harder and harder to do so

19:48

and so far for me in

19:50

my world it hasn't become that

19:53

yet that's all I'm saying. The

19:55

problem is Sam many people do

19:57

not realize it's fake. This is

19:59

the problem. I really don't want

20:01

to downplay it Sam because I

20:03

have to tell you. As somebody

20:05

that covers technology and media literacy

20:07

and all of this stuff, you

20:09

as a journalist might be able

20:12

to tell what is AI and

20:14

what is not. Most people cannot.

20:16

And the thing is that something

20:18

doesn't have to necessarily be believable

20:20

to so doubt, right? Like, I

20:22

think just the fact that we're

20:24

questioning whether or not things are

20:26

AI or not has made it

20:28

so that there is just a

20:31

lot more distrust in the things

20:33

that we're seeing consuming. Yeah. Brainrot

20:35

was Oxford Dictionary's word of the

20:37

year for 2024, and I think

20:39

it was perfect. I never know

20:41

how seriously to take the word

20:43

brainrot because it feels like three

20:45

quarters of the time when I

20:47

hear it's delivered with a wink

20:50

and a nod. So it's like,

20:52

are you saying your brains actually

20:54

rotted? Or are you saying, L-O-L-L-O-L-Brain-rot?

20:56

I'm actually smarter than all of

20:58

this. And I'm thinking on a

21:00

higher level about all of these

21:02

things. Brainrot speaks to a specific

21:04

type of content that is kind

21:07

of so overly optimized for the

21:09

internet that it just becomes comically

21:11

dumb. Like, yes, but the fact

21:13

that you can see it and

21:15

see the dumbness and how the

21:17

dumbness work means that you're smart.

21:19

Not rotted, right? I think those

21:21

of us that can recognize brain

21:23

rot, I think the average six-year-old

21:26

does not have that media literacy.

21:28

I think they love brain rot.

21:30

They just like Skibbitty toilet. They

21:32

just were like, oh, Skibbitty toilet

21:34

all day long. I also broke

21:36

the news early this year that

21:38

a Skibity toilet movie is perhaps

21:40

in development. Michael Bay is exploring

21:42

that. disaster scene of Michael Bay's

21:45

gibity toilet movie where like a

21:47

toilet the size of Arkansas explodes.

21:49

Oh, you know he's gonna do

21:51

it. Absolutely. And I'll be there.

21:53

I'll be there. Up next, Sam

21:55

and I will debate who's the

21:57

most influential content creator of 2024.

22:04

We had some breakout creators as well

22:06

this year earlier in the year we

22:09

started out with Risa Tisa with her

22:11

viral series Who the F did I

22:13

marry? I'm going to tell the story

22:16

of how I met Dated married and

22:18

divorced a real pathological liar. I watched

22:20

two of the Tiktaks and was like

22:23

I'll wait for the movie because I

22:25

think it was like all together like

22:27

over 40 hours of content she posted

22:30

about this bad relationship Bless her, bless

22:32

it, but I will wait for the

22:34

90-minute movie. Well, a TV series, I

22:37

believe, was in the worst. It doesn't

22:39

need a whole series, just make it

22:41

a TV, just make it a movie.

22:44

I agree. I think it goes back

22:46

to this long-form content thing, though. I

22:48

think like the fact, I've sat through

22:51

it for all 40 hours or whatever

22:53

it was. You did? Oh, yeah. Give

22:55

it a great. Give it a review.

22:58

I loved it. I would say B-plus.

23:00

B-plus. Okay, B-plus. You know, I think

23:02

her story was wild. I think it

23:05

kicked off this trend on TikTok of

23:07

long form storytelling where you even are

23:09

seeing this with like that little Muppet

23:12

meme recently where people are using it

23:14

to tell this like sort of humorous

23:16

stories in multiple acts. Like I think

23:19

people love storytelling. We're seeing a lot

23:21

more storytelling on social media. Right. which

23:23

became a movie. You want to hear

23:26

a story about how me and this

23:28

bitch fell out? It's kind of long,

23:30

but it's full of suspense. No one's

23:33

doing Zola on Twitter anymore. They're doing

23:35

Zola on TikTok. Absolutely. It's moved. It's

23:37

shifted. I'm going to mention some other

23:40

big content creators who broke out in

23:42

2024. Let's do it. Okay, well, we

23:44

have to say Mu Dang. I don't

23:47

know if she counts as a content

23:49

creator, but I think she counts as

23:51

a content creator. animal of when we

23:54

look at the viral animal of 2024

23:56

she was the viral animal it was

23:58

it was a year of hippo but

24:01

she is not she's not yeah I

24:03

think the New Yorker recently wrote about

24:05

the year of the creator and tried

24:08

to argue that her handlers were the

24:10

content creators I think that's a stretch

24:12

I think she's just a viral camera

24:15

whoever's posting the content they're the ones

24:17

yeah we also had Jules LeBron see

24:19

how I do my makeup for work

24:22

Very demure. Very mindful. I don't come

24:24

to work with a green cut crease.

24:26

Don't look like a clown when I

24:29

go to work. Love her. And you

24:31

know what I love? She came in.

24:33

She got her bag. She's like, I'm

24:36

using this money to pay for my

24:38

transition. And then she wandered off. I

24:40

don't think about her anymore. I just

24:43

know she got her bag and it's

24:45

helping her. Don't stick around long enough

24:47

to be a milkshake duck. I agree.

24:50

And then I would say the two

24:52

major content creators that define 2024, and

24:54

you tell me who really encapsulates 2024

24:57

better, the Costco guys, including the Rizzler.

24:59

This gets a really big boom! Or

25:01

the hawk to a girl. You gotta

25:04

give him that hawk to and spend

25:06

on that thing. Oh, hawk to a

25:08

girl, because hers is the perennial cautionary

25:11

tale. She is caught up now in

25:13

a crypto scheme. That was so quick.

25:15

It was so quick. This is a

25:18

cautionary tale. I think she just speed

25:20

ran the entire cycle of virality. This

25:22

goal went viral immediately, signed brand deals

25:25

immediately. Like she got a podcast immediately.

25:27

Got a crypto and Bitcoin immediately. And

25:29

now it's all followed apart. All within

25:32

a few months. Wow. The cycle was

25:34

so quick. I mean, normally that would

25:36

take like a couple years to like

25:39

live out that life. cycle. As someone

25:41

who podcasts for a living, watching that

25:43

happen, I was just like, oh my

25:46

God, what am I doing wrong? How

25:48

do I hock to myself? My goodness.

25:50

Well, her podcast was backed by a

25:53

sports betting company. Okay, I don't want

25:55

that. I don't want that. I don't

25:57

want that. Damn, damn. Okay. I gotta

26:00

go Costco, guys, though. Really? Yeah, I

26:02

mean, I just think that they have

26:04

become this sort of like interesting phenomenon

26:07

where they've really created this world. this

26:09

like extended universe of people. The Rizzler

26:11

is, I mean, he's an eight-year-old, so

26:14

he has not been canceled yet. But

26:16

he's just such an online phenomena. I

26:18

mean, he just appeared in a big

26:20

Christmas ad for a toy company. I

26:23

want a beep, hoop, and a brach

26:25

call. I want a T-ball set in

26:27

a picture pet, pet, and the little

26:30

types ride in the backyard. Has Costco

26:32

said anything about the Costco guys? They

26:34

are supportive, they're quietly supportive, they don't,

26:37

I don't think that they have partnered

26:39

directly, but they, but they allow them

26:41

to fill in the stories as long

26:44

as they're loving. That for me is

26:46

the most interesting part of the Costco

26:48

guys. Costco navigating it, like I find

26:51

Costco to be an incredibly impressive brand

26:53

with incredible longevity. I think that like

26:55

them navigating Costco guys without getting too

26:58

close is smart because who knows who's

27:00

gonna milkshake duck. If they milkshake, the

27:02

Costco can still be like, well, you

27:05

know, that was them. I don't think

27:07

people overly associate with them with Costco.

27:09

I think they're known as the Costco

27:12

guys, but I do think that they've

27:14

sort of superseded the brand. People know

27:16

AJ and Big Justice and all of

27:19

that. Are you a Costco girl? I'm

27:21

not. I don't have the membership, but

27:23

I support. It's kind of miraculous. I

27:26

have friend dates at Costco. I have

27:28

friend dates at Costco. It's so fun.

27:30

Yeah. Anywho, sorry. This old man here

27:33

waxing poetic on Costco. It's a great,

27:35

it's a great place. This summer there

27:37

was also obviously tons of big viral

27:40

political moments from Trump's multiple assassination attempts

27:42

to the brown. Pilled coconut memes this

27:44

summer, brat summer generally. It was interesting

27:47

kind of like how seasonal that meme

27:49

is. I feel like we had brat

27:51

summer and I don't know what we're

27:54

having this fall. People have been saying

27:56

it's sort of Tradwife fall. That just

27:58

doesn't get as hard. That feels dark.

28:01

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I

28:03

go so back and forth on brat.

28:05

Because on the one hand, I love

28:08

Charlie XZX, I loved that album, I

28:10

loved the remix album, and I thought

28:12

everything she did about the presentation of

28:15

her in that moment was incredible. Because

28:17

she took this music that is niche.

28:19

It's like intensely niche dance music. And

28:22

she made a lot of folks care

28:24

about it who wouldn't. through the smartness

28:26

of that branding. But then as soon

28:29

as I saw the ways in which

28:31

Democrats and Team Kamala tried to co-opt

28:33

BRAT, in hindsight, it clearly didn't work.

28:36

It did not work at all. Yeah,

28:38

and so I'm of two minds on

28:40

BRAT. I think when I think of

28:43

BRAT as just an expression of Charlie

28:45

XX and her music in this year

28:47

for her, great. As soon as it

28:50

became political, I think for a second

28:52

of two, I was like, oh, that's

28:54

fun. And now I'm like, no, no,

28:57

no. No, no, no, no, no. What

28:59

do you think about it? I think,

29:01

like, a lot of interesting stuff has

29:04

happened in sort of, like, music pop

29:06

culture this year. We had the Era's

29:08

tour concluding, which is, obviously, one of

29:11

the biggest tours of all time, spawned

29:13

some content. She'll bring her back. She'll

29:15

bring her back. That thing will never

29:18

end. She's taking me to the grave.

29:20

But then we also saw the rise

29:22

of this new generation of pop girlies,

29:25

of Sabrina Carpenter with Sabrina Carpenterer, I

29:27

know that Sabrina and Charlie have been

29:29

around for a while, all three of

29:32

them. It's like none of these people

29:34

are an overnight success, but you cannot

29:36

deny that this was for all three

29:39

of them a breakout year. Well, and

29:41

what I love about the three of

29:43

them, and I would add Olivia to

29:46

that mix, and maybe even Gracie Abrams.

29:48

They're not fighting. They're not doing the

29:50

thing that the celebrity women were kind

29:53

of forced to do when I was

29:55

like coming up in the 2000s Where

29:57

it's like who hates who who's pitted

30:00

against who all of these women have

30:02

covered each other's songs or Performs together

30:04

and they all share and show love

30:07

for each other for each other and

30:09

I like that nothing but love for

30:11

my pop queens. I love them all

30:14

I feel like we had an interesting

30:16

year in fashion also. Oh, this girl,

30:18

I dress like an uncle taking his

30:21

nephew to soccer practice. I'm so out

30:23

of touch on fashion. I think we

30:25

finally maxed out on the niche TikTok

30:28

aesthetics. I think no more strawberry girl,

30:30

milk girl. We did see in 2024

30:32

the rise of the mob wife aesthetic.

30:35

Coastal cow girls. I think everyone's a

30:37

little bit sick of them. I think

30:39

we have had it. They come too

30:42

quickly. They come too quickly. It kind

30:44

of reminds me of also the way

30:46

that we think about men. We saw

30:49

over the summer it was the rat

30:51

boys we're in. Yeah, the rat boys

30:53

thing. That was just like, yeah, that

30:56

was that was for the white boys.

30:58

It wasn't for all the boys. Every

31:00

few months we find a new word

31:03

to describe people getting their rocks off

31:05

on the very idea of Timothy Shalomay.

31:07

Yeah, it's true. That's what it is.

31:10

Y'all are obsessed with Timothy Shalomay and

31:12

every few months you find a new

31:14

word for that. I would like to

31:17

drum roll please. I introduced the Timothy

31:19

Chauvin Lookalike competition. Five minutes before the

31:21

event, there was already like a thousand

31:24

people there. People crave community and connection.

31:26

I think that's what these celebrities look

31:28

like contests that have gone viral really

31:31

in the later part of this year

31:33

really speak to. And somebody tweeted and

31:35

I'm gonna butcher exactly how the tweet

31:38

was worded, but it was basically like,

31:40

these are free offline events that anyone

31:42

can go to. And it's really rare

31:45

that we have like spaces to meet

31:47

up and meet people. I get that.

31:49

And I'm not mad at it. I

31:52

don't think it's for me, I'm not

31:54

going, unless they have like a Tyrese-like

31:56

contest, because I would like to try

31:59

to win that one. But I think

32:01

it's really earnest and pure. You know,

32:03

when they started, I was like, oh

32:06

my God, are the cops going to

32:08

F this up? Is it going to

32:10

become violent? Is it going to become

32:13

weird and like a problem for these

32:15

kids out there? But it seems to

32:17

just be a good time. Yeah, so

32:20

far they've been good. There hasn't really

32:22

been drama. Obviously, sometimes, you know, Timothy

32:24

showed up to his, Glenn Powell, zoomed

32:27

in, I believe, to his. I will

32:29

say, I think we've reached peak look-alike

32:31

contest. I think there was a Jason

32:34

Kelsey one last week. I don't think

32:36

they're going to continue that much into

32:38

2020. Do they only do the white

32:41

guys? Have there been any ones that

32:43

aren't white guys? There's a Zendaya one.

32:45

But yeah, we need a little more

32:48

diversity, I would say, in that world.

32:50

But Partiful, which is the main engine

32:52

behind all of them, which is the

32:55

sort of Genzi's favorite event playing out.

32:57

Yeah, I like Partiful. Well, Part of

32:59

all has said they are shutting them

33:02

all down. They said at the end

33:04

of 2024, no more. But they've been

33:06

working. Yeah. So I think they're just

33:09

joking around, but I do think in

33:11

January, look, it's cold. I don't know

33:13

if people want to go out for

33:15

these as much as they did, you

33:18

know, maybe in October, November. What do

33:20

you think are some overlooked trends or

33:22

memes this year? What were some sort

33:25

of like underrated online moments that really

33:27

ended up being maybe they were as

33:29

influential in the moment? What sort of

33:32

stands out to you? I think it's

33:34

not so much a thing we missed,

33:36

but a thing we were just talking

33:39

about in the wrong way. When Beyonce

33:41

released Cowboy Carter, her first country album,

33:43

the stage was set for this like

33:46

race war in Nashville. And I don't

33:48

have to tell you all the racialized

33:50

history of country music in America. Before

33:53

it was labeled country music, that kind

33:55

of American music was made in integrated

33:57

southern spaces and that music became racialized

34:00

to self. records. Back in the day,

34:02

you could only sell music to white

34:04

audiences if it was made by white

34:07

people. So literally, when labels began to

34:09

sell it, they differentiated and the white

34:11

stuff became country music and the black

34:14

stuff became literally on the billboard charts

34:16

race music, but it was all the

34:18

same thing. So our very idea of

34:21

country music in America is racialized, right?

34:23

That said, Bionsoe releases Cowboy

34:25

Carter and everyone's like, this

34:27

is... The mean racist Nashville

34:29

elites and black people in

34:31

black country, and it's going

34:33

to be a fight. And

34:35

we didn't get a fight.

34:37

What we got was Shibuzi's

34:39

a bar song tipsy, topping

34:41

the Billboard Hot 100 for

34:43

18 weeks. So it wasn't

34:45

just the biggest country song

34:47

in the country this year.

34:49

And it was a country

34:52

song written and performed by

34:54

a black guy with dreadlocks

34:56

sampling a hip-hop classic,

34:58

Jay Kwan's Tipsi. The only other

35:00

song that has been number

35:02

one longer was Little Ma's Ex's

35:05

Old Town Road. Another country song

35:07

performed by a black man. And

35:09

so for me, the biggest undercover

35:12

story of 2024 was the great

35:14

country race battle that wasn't.

35:16

There's no battle. Hip-hop is part

35:18

of every genre. Black people are

35:21

part of every genre and most

35:23

of America is just enjoying all

35:25

the songs. You know like Morgan

35:27

Wallens songs have trap beats under

35:29

them. Like it's like there's no battle.

35:31

Like most of the music-consuming public wants

35:34

to hear pop and country and Charlie

35:36

and dance and all of it and

35:38

like this idea of genre means a

35:40

lot less to real people than we

35:43

think it does. Yeah. Sorry to soapbox.

35:45

No, that is so interesting and

35:47

I think so true. Last thing

35:49

before we go, what are your

35:52

predictions for what we will see

35:54

on the internet in 2025? I

35:56

think we'll continue to see

35:58

the slow... downfall of

36:01

TV streaming. Just before we hopped on

36:03

the line, I saw the new trailer

36:05

for the next season of the White

36:08

Lotus. And I'm like, oh, finally, I

36:10

can take my streaming app seriously again.

36:12

But for the last year or so,

36:14

Netflix, Peacock, Hulu, all the others, they

36:17

systematically kind of let me down. I

36:19

don't like the interfaces, I can't find

36:21

good stuff to watch, they don't seem

36:24

to be part of the zeitgeist or

36:26

having their finger on the pulse anymore,

36:28

but dare I say my energies in

36:30

terms of like just viewing might be

36:33

shifting to a place like YouTube, you

36:35

know? Yep. That's what I see coming

36:37

in my world. I'm probably years behind

36:40

the kids anyway, they're all on YouTube

36:42

already, but this 40 year old who

36:44

still believes in like the heyday of

36:47

HBO. I might be making my way

36:49

to YouTube more in the new year.

36:51

I get it. I think YouTube is

36:53

going to have another huge 2025, especially,

36:56

you know, if slash when this TikTok

36:58

band goes through, YouTube is a huge

37:00

beneficiary along with meta. I think Twitter

37:03

will remain relevant but become sort of

37:05

increasingly miserable. Like I think that the

37:07

way that people remained on it throughout

37:09

the election in 2024 was sort of

37:12

like... The last grasp I think now

37:14

that especially under Trump and Elon's, you

37:16

know, close relationship with Trump It's just

37:19

going to be full truth social and

37:21

we're just going to see that fraction

37:23

as you mentioned as well The move

37:25

away from text. I think Twitter is

37:28

down for 2024. Yeah, and I think

37:30

that we're going to see also I

37:32

mean it just goes back to streaming

37:35

I think we're going to see the

37:37

birth of a new generation of live

37:39

streamers and long-form content creators that are

37:41

really going to take advantage of this

37:44

more long-form ecosystem to build a name

37:46

for themselves. And I think streaming is

37:48

becoming more and more part of that.

37:51

Can we live stream together in the

37:53

new year in one of our backyards?

37:55

You want to launch your Twitch? I

37:58

want to walk into a newest territory

38:00

for me with a friend who I

38:02

trust, Taylor Lorenz. 2025, the year Sam

38:04

Sanders goes full, Twitch star. With Taylor's

38:07

help, I'm not going alone. I got

38:09

a hold of hand. Sam Sanders Subathon

38:11

coming fall 2025. Get ready, get ready,

38:14

get ready. I'll put my dogs in

38:16

there, it'll be fun. Well, Sam, thank

38:18

you so much for joining me and

38:20

happy end of the year. Happy end

38:23

of the year. Thank you for just

38:25

like what you do. Like even in

38:27

this conversation, you taught me some things.

38:30

So I appreciate the education you're given

38:32

to myself and your audience every day.

38:34

Thank you. That's all for the show.

38:36

You can watch full episodes of Power

38:39

User on my YouTube channel at Taylor

38:41

Lorenz. Power user is produced by Travis

38:43

Larchik and Jalani Carter. Our executive producer

38:46

is Zach Mac. Our video editor is

38:48

Sam Essex. The power user is part

38:50

of the Fox Media Podcast Network. If

38:53

you like the show, give us a

38:55

rating and review on Apple Podcast, Spotify,

38:57

or wherever you listen. And in the

38:59

meantime, subscribe to my newsletter, usermag.co, where

39:02

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