🎵 Top Sounds 🎵
Our curated picks of the top sounds on TikTok
This viral sound is so catchy. It makes you want to run through a fairground with your bestie. Flyana Boss’ running videos are also fantastic examples of a successful viral marketing strategy.
Me Gustas Tu 🌴
This is a bright and fun sound for all your summer videos.Why Am I Like This? 😩
Much like the ‘canon event’ this sound lets you explain what pivotal event made you this way today.Stop This Madness ✋🏽
This sound is currently being used to dunk on people with blue eyes but that doesn’t mean there isn’t potential here. After all, I think we would all like things to stop for a second.The format of this trend is super simple. Just name two things you never sweat about paying for and one that you definitely do. The less justified the better.
Dirty Work 🕺🏽
A fun classic sound for video backgrounds.
🔉 Our Sound Highlight 🔉
The Monster In Your Story
Mood: 💪🏽
Not to get all Joker (2019) but if you can’t see a use for a sound about being pushed to become the monster in someone else’s story after this past week… I don’t know what to say.
👹 Effects Highlight 👹
This cat is a mood. Feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and checked out? Use the cat to tell us why.
This CapCut template is great for any work-related videos.
Perfect for reflecting on your July 4th plans, or for the day back at work after the long weekend.
🗣️ The Moment 🗣️
Issues that are at the forefront of online discourse— The Supreme Court
The Supreme Court can fight me.
I don’t care where. Outside Ben’s Chili Bowl, outside the DuPont CVS, on the court steps. It doesn’t matter. I’m ready.
In truth, I’ve been ready for a while. Perhaps, I was first ready, when cases like Plessy v. Ferguson and Buck v. Bell were covered in the classroom. Maybe when Gorsuch was sped through the confirmation process that had been halted for Merrick Garland. Certainly by the time Kavanaugh was foaming at the mouth in his Senate testimony— while I was in the halls outside, pointing dozens of sexual assault survivors to their next lobby meeting. All of us, at that time, aware that soon he would likely be responsible for the reversal of our right to our own bodies. And that he would be joining Clarence Thomas, a man also accused of assault, in a lifetime appointment to a non-elected body. A body, that is somehow, able to decide our rights. A body that weighs out the facts of the case along with what their donor pal with the Nazi memorabilia house (complete with dictator garden!) would like.
It’s been 220 years since Marbury v. Madison confirmed The Supreme Court’s role in American democracy, and its ability to strike down laws determined to be in violation of The Constitution. 220 years. And for as many victories as I’ve felt, like the thrill of a friend sending across the Obergefell decision with a flurry of exclamation marks, the Supreme Court has sent down too many devastating rulings to view the institution, regardless of who presently sits on its bench, as a positive force.
Many of us have come here, to the point where we feel forced to re-examine the structure of the US government. How democratic can these institutions feel when our rights are decided on by nine unelected officials? Let alone when three of the nine justices were appointed by a president who lost the popular vote by 3 million votes?
We live in a country where your location gives your vote more weight, where slavery still impacts the electoral system. Where the oft-quoted ‘50% of Americans don’t vote’ fails to explain why that is. Or why millions can’t vote, and are consistently denied that supposedly unassailable right.
In light of the court’s recent decisions, the reversal of Roe, the reversal of Affirmative Action, and the blow to anti-discrimination, it only makes sense to reimagine our democratic system. It is imperative we work toward a system that protects us and our rights and does not strip them away.
☕ The Zeitgeist ☕
Hot topics from across the internet
Real country music is in, and it is apparent on TikTok, including this song ready to be airplayed at your conservative family’s bbq.
Barbie and the South China Sea are not what you’d expect to share space in a Reuters headline, and yet here we are. Barbie was banned in Vietnam over a South China Sea map.
Speaking of Barbie, are your Barbenheimer fits ready yet?
Jennifer Lawrence’s return features an immaculate aesthetic and also many dogs.
The Idol wrapped early because even HBO didn’t want to be involved anymore, it seemed. And, given the plot twist, I can see why.
Fall Out Boy released a 2023 edition of We Didn’t Start The Fire including events that occurred since the 1989 original song. It kind of hits, honestly…
Meta tries transparency when it comes to AI on Facebook and Instagram, releasing an explainer.
🥡 The Takeaway 🥡
Influencer brand trips in 2023 have been a disaster.
I would be lying if I told you I didn’t see the benefit of a well-planned brand trip. In another life, where I’m on the influencer side of this industry, I wouldn’t say no to a stay at Grantley Hall courtesy of Yorkshire Tea (yes, that is my dream partnership). Nor do I think brand trips are a bad deal when it comes to cost. A shared AirBnB, equitable rooming optional, for days of free sponsored content, is quite the bargain. Especially when you consider the price of a single post, versus the cost of a trip.
The real cost of influencer trips isn’t the price of the stay, it’s the PR crisis that often ensues. Tarte learned this earlier in the year when an influencer pointed out how Tarte prioritizes white influencers on trips, giving those influencers better experiences, rooms, and additional perks. This is something Tarte followed up with a last-minute invite to two Black creators, seemingly to cover the allegations that their campaigns lack diversity, and a company non-apology GRWM video from their CEO. A few months before that, Tarte was criticized by Yahoo News for an out-of-touch brand trip to Dubai.
Yet, the cost of the PR debacle for the brand is nothing compared to the millions of dollars large companies have to spend on marketing. Who really gets burned, are the influencers who do the work of defending a brand after making a controversial deal with them. These influencers may never recover audience trust and followers and are likely to find it difficult to partner with other advertisers in order to maintain income.
That’s particularly evident when we look at the SHEIN propaganda tour brand trip to a definitely-not-staged factory. An influencer trip that was inspired by a need to do damage control after a Channel 4 documentary showed the extent to which SHEIN relies on child labor and human rights violations. Those $7 crop tops? They’re the result of 75-hour shifts, salaries as low as $14 a day, and 6.3 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
While the influencers on the trip definitely deserve some smoke (and while I’m here: a confidence activist isn’t a thing, and I could write an entire thesis on such toothless performative titles) they’ll bare the real brunt of the backlash. SHEIN has the capital not to care. Unless there’s a dramatic shift in consumer behavior, and massive labor action, as a result of this, the pain will be felt but minimal. They’ll lose some millions. They’ll gain some millions. The wheel will keep on spinning.
It’s a bleak takeaway, but I’m not really writing all this for the sake of brands. Or rather, I am but indirectly. What I really want, beyond overturning the systems that let companies like SHEIN flourish, is for creatives to know what to look for in a partnership. There is no destination intriguing enough to cape for a brand that is harming its workers and our environment. There is no brand deal worth taking that requires reinforcing racism. And if you’re a brand that is anxious about the fallout from a brand trip. Fix yourself first.
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