#5Things: This Week in Social

5Things 10.26.23 - Transcript

Joey Scarillo: Welcome to the five things this week in social. This is the Webby Award- winning podcast that looks at five stories from social data, content and tech to give you something sweet to chew on for the week ahead. If you're a marketer and advertiser or creator or anyone who makes a living using social platforms, then you are listening to the right podcast. Today on the show, we welcome back Shylene Radinsky. Hello, Shylene.

Shylene Radinsky: Hi, Joey. How's it going?

Joey Scarillo: Pretty good. Question for you. What was your favorite Halloween costume as a kid?

Shylene Radinsky: I was Belle from Beauty and the Beast five years in a row. So, gonna go with that one.

Joey Scarillo: That's hands down, that was the favorite as a kid. And on the show for the first time, she is no stranger to the five things. She is Grey's marketing and communications specialist. You've heard her name in the credits of this show many times. She runs our social, coordinates the newsletter, and is a content creator herself. Here is Jayda Hinds. Hello, Jayda.

Jayda Hinds: Hi, I like the intro.

Joey Scarillo: Haha, Jayda, same question for you. What was your favorite Halloween costume as a kid?

Jayda Hinds: I have to be honest, I wasn't creative. A pirate. Love that one. That was cute and easy.

Joey Scarillo: Such a classic. Such a classic. Well, I'm Joey Scarillo and once I was a Frankenstein with like a whole rubber head that covered my hair and my neck. And the coolest part was that there were bolts that stuck out of the neck and I painted my face green and the jacket had big shoulders. So it was like a whole like Frankenstein vibe. It was pretty classic.

Alright. Here are the five things. Shylene talks about how parents and 40 state AGs. Team up to go after Metta claiming that their apps are addictive for kids.
Then Jayda discusses a new app called Daylyy that claims to be the version of Instagram that is good for your mental health. Then Shylene explains how Instagram is testing a separate feed dedicated for verified users. Next, Jayda talks TikTok. who are testing 15 minute long episodes from select users. And finally, Shylene gets into the new feature from Tinder where friends can play matchmaker.

Alright, let's get into it. Shylene, kick us off with this big story. Parents and 40 state. Attorneys General team up to go after Meta claiming that the apps are addictive for kids.

Shylene Radinsky: Yeah, so on Tuesday these states filed a federal lawsuit against Meta claiming that Instagram has too many addictive features that are really harmful to users mental health, young users mental health specifically, with constant notifications and...

Kind of a seemingly endless feed. A lot of young users are really prone to kind of an unmeasurable amount of news and almost dopamine manipulating features. They're spending a lot of time on the app. They can scroll continuously and this is also the first time that the consideration of law section 230 could be amended to protect more users from what's allowed to be posted on social media.

Maybe how much time you can spend on there. So it's a very interesting case and very curious to see how it all plays out.

Joey Scarillo: What's interesting about this is. that, you know, parents are teaming up with the state attorneys general, Jayda, you know, as somebody who maybe has grown up with social media, what do you think are some of the effects that you've seen from people, you know, and negative effects from the platforms?

Jayda Hinds: The first one that comes to mind is beauty standards. I've made a couple of videos on this myself. I think that Instagram and TikTok have a way of dissecting beauty in a way that's Unhealthy. There was at one time a scalp check where people would show off how thick their hair was and I thought to myself, this can't be good.

There was a side profile check so people can see the point of their nose or back profile check too, how people's back looks on their body and I think that these apps have a really harmful way of showing what is beauty and beauty can be anything and that part about beauty isn't shown well.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, so the beauty standards are one thing. I'm curious, Shylene, why do you think this is so dangerous for teens and kids?

Shylene Radinsky: I think that that's a really crucial time in their lives when they're developing and inherently just... very much comparing themselves to. I think that for the first time a lot of young people are seeing content that maybe they would not see if they didn't have social media.
So they go on to TikTok, they go on to Instagram and they see people their age that maybe live in a super affluent community and are going on trips and flying in private jets and going to crazy concerts and things like that. And that's not something that, you know, before we had access to you, you only saw what was directly around you.

So I think that it adds an entirely new layer to the development and kind of confidence that a lot of young people have in themselves and what they have to offer to the world.

Joey Scarillo: So there's a big element of FOMO that goes along with this as well. What do you think is going to happen with the attorneys general and this case in court, Shylene?

Shylene Radinsky: They might not be able to change any features that are on Facebook or Instagram. I think that those features are going to stay there forever. I think maybe there will come a more kid friendly version on the platform, maybe launching something that's more directed towards children so that they can still participate in social media, participate in hanging out and chatting with their friends online, but it'll be a much more Controlled version of what's currently available.

Joey Scarillo: Jayda, what do you think parents can do to keep an eye on what their kids are posting and what their kids are viewing on social media?

Jayda Hinds: Parents need to be on Instagram themselves first. A lot of times I think Parents try to monitor their children's experience on social without being on social themselves or understanding social.

So the first step would be, you know, having an Instagram account, seeing what happens on your own timeline and seeing who are the types of influencers or people that your children follow just to see what is in their digital space and their digital circle. And from there, you can have conversations about that.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, I think that's, that's really good advice. I think staying up to date on these platforms yourself is the best way of knowing what's out there. Like I know there's probably more parents on Instagram than there are on TikTok, so I think it's probably good for parents to keep an eye on all those platforms.

Alright let's jump over to this new app called Daylyy, which actually sounds like it's the antithesis of Instagram and is claiming that it's actually good for your mental health. Jayda, why don't you tell us about it?

Jayda Hinds: Yes, there is a new app on the block called Daylyy spelled D A Y L Y Y. Like Daylyy, I think so many apps have sort of sprouted from the seed of being anti Instagram.

BeReal's unofficial motto was that Instagram takes you off the moment, we keep you in it. Inspire is another new app on the block where people post real time photos. So Daylyy's concept doesn't surprise me. And Daylyy is a photo sharing app where you take pictures only in real time, preventing you from uploading touched up edited photos, or just pictures that have been filtered. And there's no public comments on the Daylyy app too, which makes it a little different. If you'd like to say something about a photo, you need to message a user directly for a more connected experience. Now, I like the fact that apps like Daylyy are appearing.

Like Shylene just said, Instagram has been proven to be bad for mental health, especially children. There's a dopamine addictive experience with a never ending explore page. And beauty standards can be more through these edited photos and filters. And I think this dilemma created a lane for an app like Daylyy to really counter that.

Joey Scarillo: So Shylene, we, we've seen this before from apps like Be Real.
Do you think an app like Daylyy will catch on?

Shylene Radinsky: I think that it might have its moment in the spotlight and people will try to make it a big thing. I think we saw it with Be Real, like you said, we saw it with Lemonade, which was supposed to replace.
Pinterest and Instagram, kind of. The platforms that we have currently are in such a solidified place and have so many loyal users. I think that, you know, no matter how much people complain about Instagram or TikTok and how damaging it can be to their mental health, I think they would prefer to just take breaks from using the app versus trying out a new app entirely.

Joey Scarillo: Jayda, is there space for one more app out there?

Jayda Hinds: Kind of. Just to build off to Shylene's point, I don't think apps built as an antithesis to Instagram will ever completely dominated because real time photos are a limited type of content. With Instagram, you have Instagram Live, Reels, Close Friends, and there's tons of other stuff too.

Joey Scarillo: Artists, singers, creatives, important players behind social movements. You have infographics and news that also hold space and weight on that platform. So I think apps like Daylyy are great in addition to bigger platforms that already exist, but I don't think it could dominate the market long term if posting in real time is the only main distinguishable feature.
I think there should be something else, another feature that drive folks to that app. Yeah, Shylene. I think to

Shylene Radinsky: Jayda's point as well, I think that if a new app were to come on the market and kind of live up in the ranks with the platforms that we currently use, it would have to be something that we don't already have.
I think that the reason TikTok blew up, you know, we had Vine previously, but I think that TikTok was a much more kind of raw video and raw emotion. And it invoked something that, you know, people could connect very personally without having it feel very fake. I think that a new app would need to be kind of revolutionary.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, it is interesting, right? Like, just in the years that we've done this show, we've seen a lot of apps come and go. And the ones that tend to stick around, do have like some new feature or do something new to your point, like a TikTok. But it's interesting, the ones that don't stick around are usually ones that either claim to be a better version of another app or a rival to another app.

That is really an interesting observation and for sure we'll, we'll keep an eye on this. I actually am sort of interested to try it. I jumped on the Be real bandwagon and still going strong on that one. But yeah, we'll see what Daylyy is all about. All right, Shylene, let's jump over back to Instagram, who are testing a separate feed dedicated for verified users.

Shylene Radinsky: Yeah, so they're now testing this feature where users will be able to filter their feed to see only posts from verified users. And I think that the value from a. verified subscribers perspective would be that they're able to find other verified users a lot easier versus a, you know, feed that has everyone that they follow in it.

But I'm not totally seeing the value in it for a regular user, maybe like you or I, that are just wanting to see what our friends are posting or, you know, what brands are posting. And I think that in a lot of articles that were written. They were asking if this was going to be more beneficial for verified users or more beneficial for brands that are also verified users.

And Venna's already pushing that content out to regular users. So really what this does is it just kind of whittles down what you're seeing that's not verified. And the idea here is to cut down on bot users and ghost users. But I think that for a verified user who's looking for other verified users, that's great.
Maybe for Research if you're looking for verified users only could also be very helpful. But I think that you see that content in your feed up at the top anyhow. So I don't know if it makes a huge difference for everyday users.

Joey Scarillo: Jayda, do you think this is actually a better creator tool than just a plain old regular Instagram user tool as well?

Jayda Hinds: It's hard for me to see the value in this too. Like Shylene said, I think for creators, A lot of verified accounts actually end up on the explore page when you think about influencers already. And I question if people will actually use this tab when most people go on Instagram to see what their friends are up to on the main page.

And if you do want to see an influencer or a verified account, you will most likely see it on the explore page

Shylene Radinsky: already. And I think coming from an agency side where we're doing research and trying to find new creators to use for our campaigns, if we have this feature, it limits us to only the people that we're following.
It doesn't give us an entirely new pool of verified users that we can go through and use for our campaigns. Influencer identification or anything like that.

Joey Scarillo: Is this new feature helpful for brands?

Jayda Hinds: Could be. A lot of the articles argue that this could potentially create a stream of ads and a stream of branded content, which is not good.
But if this ends up being a really good mix of influencers and branded content or celebrities, then potentially, right? But again, Don't predict this being a really well used feature.

Joey Scarillo: I guess we'll find out. You know, Adam Asari will certainly keep us honest, and if it isn't working, it may go away. All right, let's switch over to TikTok, who is testing 15 minute uploads from select users.
Jayda, is it too good to be true?

Jayda Hinds: It's not too good to be true. It's here. Well, kind of. It's kind of here. So TikTok is testing the feature for people to upload 15 minute videos. It's being piloted in select regions with a small group of people. We don't know any location or user information specifics just yet. But we do know that the upload limit right now is currently 10 minutes. So they'd be adding an extra five minutes on top of that. In last week's Five Things episode, Kylie mentioned that Paramount uploaded all of the Mean Girls movie for Mean Girls Day on TikTok in 20 something parts. And of course, people ate it up.

And even the other day, I asked my friend, Oh, what are you watching right now? And she responded, Grey's Anatomy. on TikTok. And I troubled, but it's real. People are watching that type of content on TikTok. And this is really good news for consumers who have shown interest in it. And it paves a lane for the type of content that me and you and Shylene are making right now.
And I predict that we can see podcast clips on TikTok, vlogging style content from influencers or long clips of streamers from Twitch. And I think that this new feature allows content to continue to diversify on TikTok. The platform has come a long way from being known as a renegade dance app, and it's exciting.
And this allows the app to be more in competition with players like YouTube.

Joey Scarillo: Last week, we talked about watching full movies on TikTok, which blew my mind. I hadn't even considered that. And I quickly said, you know, watch out YouTube. So I'm curious, Shylene, do you think that an app like YouTube should be really worried about this longer content getting on the platform?

Shylene Radinsky: I don't. I think so. I think that when people go to YouTube, they're going for that longer form content experience. I think that when people go to TikTok, they're going for the more short form experience. So I'm not so, so concerned. I just personally, when I scroll on TikTok, if a video is longer than, you know, two minutes, I'll probably watch a little bit of it and then scroll.
I think it's just the attention span generally on TikTok skews a little bit shorter. So I don't think that YouTube has anything to be particularly worried about?

Joey Scarillo: I wonder if, hear me out here, right? If TikTok is now bringing in 15-minute-long videos, maybe what they would do or could do is put those longer videos in one section of the app.

So that way, to your point, Shylene, right? Like if you wanted to Flip through and just watch two-minute-long videos, almost like YouTube has YouTube shorts. It would almost be like TikTok long, right? So it'd be a place to find this longer form content. I don't know if people want to just like scroll through their influencer feed and then like get a clip from Beauty and the Beast or something from Disney.

But maybe they do. I don't know. What do you think, Jayda? What's the user behavior like?

Jayda Hinds: Yeah, so again, last week we spoke about how TikTok's algorithm is really up to you. I know for me as a creator who makes long form content, my videos like pass a minute, two minutes sometimes and could go longer. People watch them and some people use TikTok as a really educational experience.

So I could see these types of videos being helpful or useful for consumers who like long videos on TikTok. And to your point, yeah, YouTube completely flipped the videos that they upload on their own platform. There's YouTube Shorts. So I can totally see TikTok having a designated space on the app for longer videos, because I don't think it would be helpful if you're watching like a 10 second dance video.
And then there's A 10-minute speech the next video. I think that's kind of nuts.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, it is. It's kind of strange. Well, if this show ever ends up on TikTok, Jayda, I'm sure you will have a lot to do with it. So we'll just keep an eye out for that or an ear out for that. Alright let's bring it home with this fun one. Shylene, tell us about this new feature on Tinder where friends can play matchmaker matchmaker.

Shylene Radinsky: Yeah, so if you in real life have ever either told a friend that you have someone you want to set them up with or they have told you and it kind of just falls through, Tinder launched a new feature called Tinder Matchmaker to help combat the kind of flakiness of that so other users can recommend your profile to people that they see on their feed and while you won't be able to Like anyone on a friend's behalf, you can invite those friends to view the profile and they'll have the final call.
And this came after a survey that Tinder conducted that shared that about 75 percent of single people between the ages of 18 and 25 talk about their dating lives with their friends, have friends that have set them up with somebody else before. So I think that this could be a really useful tool. Tinder has seen a really big decrease in users and is hoping that this new feature brings in a lot of new Gen Z users who are leaning towards other dating apps.
Like Hinge and Bumble. So very curious to see how this plays out. I think it's a super cool feature. Just even myself, just being able to see certain, you know, profiles and thinking, Oh, this person would be great for my friend, not for me, being able to pass that on to somebody else could be really cool.

Joey Scarillo: I want to zoom out here for just one second and touch on something that you mentioned, Shylene.
Jayda, why do you think less people in Gen Z are going towards apps like Tinder?

Jayda Hinds: I think because Tinder feels a little disconnected. On Instagram, where I think a lot of sort of dating app for some people, a lot of people have met their significant other on Instagram or have a crush on Instagram. I think Instagram feels like a more connected experience and Tinder feels really disconnected.
You wouldn't see them on your For You Page or you don't see them on your timeline. It's just boom, here this person is for you. So I think there's sort of a disconnect there and what this feature does. bring a connection back. Here's a friend that you know and trust. They think this person might be good for you.
So it builds a level of trust and credibility. Yeah.

Joey Scarillo: Shylene, do you think a feature like this will catch on? Would you recommend people on Tinder to your friends?

Shylene Radinsky: I think that if other apps launch the same feature, it could really take off. I think that Tinder generally people have a very different view on, but the feature itself is a really great idea.
People are really utilizing it and they're sharing other profiles with friends that, you know, you might be able to find someone that wouldn't have come across your feed originally, but it just being on Tinder might not work so well.
Joey Scarillo: Is it safe to assume, because I haven't been on these apps for a very, very, very long time, Tinder is not where you go to find your soulmate or your long term connection?

Shylene Radinsky: Very safe to assume.

Jayda Hinds: Yeah.

Joey Scarillo: I'm glad that was unanimous. Okay, well that does it for us this week. If you don't already, be sure to follow us, share us, review us, like us, or write to us with your questions, comments, concerns, points of interest, or complaints, or just send us a thing you want us to discuss. You can do all of that by emailing us at Podcasts@Grey.Com.

Connect with us on Spotify by sharing your thoughts on the show. Just look for the Q&A field. The topics discussed on this show are written and researched by the social and connections team at Grey New York with help this week from our panel, Shylene Radinsky and Jayda Hinds. Jayda, come back.
Anytime, let's make it a thing. And we want to give a special thank you and shout out this week to our friend, Jessica Womack.

This podcast is produced by me, Joey Scarillo, and Samantha Geller, with post production by Amanda Fuentes, Guy Rosmarin, and Ned Martin at Gramercy Park Studios. Marketing and communications support from Adrian Hopkins, Christina Hyde, and Jayda Hinds.

Listen to Grey Matter: A Podcast About Ideas where we speak to founders, artists, and innovators about bringing their ideas to life. You can find Grey Matter Grey Matter: A Podcast About Ideas wherever you find this podcast.
That's it for us this week. Thank you, listener, and please be social.
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