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Trauma Porn- The New trend on Tik Tok

Observation: Trauma Porn, the exploitation of traumatic events on social media in order to get attention has been trending on Tik Tok. 

Why: Trauma porn is defined as any type of media, be it written, photographed or filmed which exploits traumatic moments of adversity to generate buzz, notoriety or social media attention. Tik Tok has been facing a lot of black lash for allowing such content to be displayed without suspending accounts. 

Outrage sparked when people started to reenact on Tik Tok George floyd’s murder, a black man who was brutally murdered by the police. In recent days there has been the I died at Auschwitz trend, where Tik Tok user pretend to be dead Holocaust victims. Many users did not find anything wrong with the videos and even stated it was a way to educate people.

Future: One of the reasons why facebook has become unpopular was because of the hateful and discriminatory content it was allowing. By allowing such offensive content Tik Tok will also become unpopular.

- BT

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Realistic Cake

Observation: The word cake has been trending on social media because of Turkish food artist, Tuba Geckil cutting realistic cakes. The video went viral and got twitter users jokingly questioning the reality of everything. 

Why: 2020 has definitely been “a year of realization” as described by a famous Kylie Jenner. We just finished the first half of the year and already a lot of weird things have occurred, one of them being the Coronavirus pandemic. Almost more than half the world’s population has been in some form of lockdown. The words term social distancing is probably the most used term ever. 

Even with all that is going on its no wonder people have come together and found some humor in everything as the saying goes “ you have to laugh in order to stop from crying”. So with the cutting of realistic cakes, its kind of made people think what if everything around us this world is not a cake. In this digital age, with humor comes memes and people have definitely meme the whole realistic cakes video.

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WhatsApp Gifting- the new scam

Observation:  Social media has seen an increase in people joining an online stokvel called the WhatsApp grifting. The WhatsApp gifting is said to be a stokvel but operates like a pyramid scheme and scamming people of hundreds of rands.

Why:  People are leaning to the WhatsApp gifting phenomenon because of the uncertainty that Coronvirus as created. Many people have lost their jobs and trying to find a way of making money quickly. More and more people are relying on social media platforms as a way of communicating and falling for pyramid schemes like the WhatsApp gifting is super easy. 

 Future: When times are uncertain and the economy is under stress we are going to see more and people become vulnerable and victims of scams such as the WhatsApp gifting.

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Influencers influencing brands

Observation: Famous beauty influencer and Youtuber Jackie Aina tagged and called out fashion brands to use their platform to support the black community and to also take a stand in regards to racial injustice and police brutality. Jackie furthermore called to fund the families of the victims of police brutality.

WHY: After the brutal murder of George Floyd, communities across the US have been protesting against police brutality and racial injustice against the black community. Brands were called out not only to acknowledge the racial injustice and police brutality in America but also to support by donating money to the black community. Famous beauty guru and Youtuber Jackie Aina called out fashion brands FashionNova, Prettylittethings, and Revolve for being silent during things powerful and unjust time. Jackie called out these brands because of their link to the black community and culture. Brands like Prettylittlethings and Fashionnova style has always inspired what is going with the hip hop and urban culture. Fashionnova promotes mostly on black urban social media platforms like the 

TheShaderoom, which also covers police brutality and black lives matter content. Jackie’s story calling out the fashion brands got a lot of traction, the CEOs of Prettylittlethings and FashionNova reached out to Jackie. Jack explains the CEOs had a discussion with her on ways that they can help and what the need to do better as a brand.

- BT

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Minister Memes ‘going viral’ to keep South Africans laughing and dancing

Observation: Max Hurrell’s ZOL track has reached almost 10 million views on social media, including the ZOL Challenge and various remixes. It’s based on Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma address when she stated “When people zol, they put saliva on the paper, and then they share that zol…”

Max Hurrell follow up track includes Bheki Cele’s address that said police can question “where [you] got the cigarette” and “when did [you] get the cigarette”, because “buying the cigarette is illegal.”

Why: Another example of how people look to laughter, connection and distractions in a time of a crises when they feel anxious, stressed and isolated.

Coronavirus memes/songs/dances are evolving over time to highlight our state and culture:

Stay safe: wash hands, sanitiser, social distancing (Toto’s Africa)

Supply shortages, panic buying (toilet paper)

Rebelling hygiene and social distancing (US licking toilet seats)

Influencer/celebrity backlash (stuck in lavish houses)

Hardship of no earnings and reality in townships

Surviving quarantine (indoor dances, singing on balconies in Italy)

Depicting apocalypse vs. everything is fine

President and Ministers addresses (alcohol and cigarette bans)

-CS

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SABC broadcasting Contagion: Good intentions but a bad outcome.

Observation: On Sunday 05 April, SABC broadcast the 2011 thriller Contagion as a way to inform people the importance of quarantine. Rather than feeling informed, people felt more fearful and starting questioning the government about their knowledge and association with the Corona virus.

Why: Contagion is a movie directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, and Kate Winslet. Inspired by the 2009 bird flu outbreak, the movie’s storyline is about the spread of a virus which turns to a pandemic as health and government officials cannot contain it and ultimately social order is lost. Similarities can be identified from the movie and what is happen in real life with the Corona pandemic. SABC’s intention for broadcasting the movie was to educate people about pandemics and the importance of following rules. 

Instead of raising awareness and knowlege,  the movie made people fearful and distrusting of the government. People took to social media to share their concerns after watching the movie and their distrust in the government. In addition to the movie increasing fears, there was an increase in conspiracy theories mainly towards the government.

Future: Broadcasting networks will be more careful when broadcasting movies as a way to educate the public. Rather than movies than will probably broadcast documentaries as there is less theatrics and scare tactics involved.

- BT

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Influencers doing the Don’t Rush Challenge

Observation: Some of the top beauty influencers in Africa decided to do the “Don’t Rush Challenge” a funny and cool before and after challenge, where they switch from the lazy pyjamas to glam outfits with amazing makeup. Soon other influencers from different fields started following on the trend. 

Why: This past weekend was the first lockdown weekend in South Africa, which saw a lot of people feeling nostalgic and reminiscing about going out. A group of South Africa beauty influencers following from UK influencers created their own Don’t Rush Challenge. Soon everyone on social media was joining in, not wanting to be left behind. What started with just females soon saw male influencers started  their own challenge. With the Coronavirus pandemic and almost 20% of the world in lockdown, the world seems very gloomy therefore it’s nice to be reminded that we can still laugh and have fun. Just like many brands, beauty brands have been impacted by the Coronavirus, major decline in sales for Beauty products. It would have been cool to see beauty brands jumping on this challenge with influencers, I’m sure some of those influencers have a L'oreal or Estee Lauder products to use for the Don’t Rush Challenge.

Future: Video challenges aren’t something  new. However, with the increase of video platforms such as TikTok, we are going to be seeing a lot more of them.

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#RIPVuyo #JusticeForVuyo

Observation: Vuyo Mbena was stabbed by girlfriend and this post sparked outrage amongst Twitter users. 

Why: People believe that women do not get the same punishment as men when they commit the same crimes.

Many gave reference to the current Sjava and Lady Zamar story leading to the trending hashtag #JusticeForSjava. The death of Vuyo has also started a trend on social media #JusticeForVuyo. 

The post made fans raise a lot of concerns about how the media is quiet about the death of this young man because he is a male.

The victim, Vuyo Mbena, whose Facebook name is Vierra Thadde was allegedly in a relationship with the suspect Kaybee Molotsi.

According to social media reports, Kaybee wrote an alleged statement on Facebook where she declares her love for Vuyo but also admits to taking his life.

The post above was allegedly written by Kaybee.

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Cultural Resets

Observation: A new term has emerged for events, usually in entertainment, that are cultural resets. Meaning that, when this event happened, how we understand culture completely resets its “truth” or meaning.  The moments that were so significant to the evolution of pop culture, ultimately changing history.  For example people have allocated the “cultural reset” to moments like in Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey when the women characters beat up a couple of tough guys. Changing the tone of violence and whether women are “able” to beat up a dude.

Another big moment was when Shakira belly danced to Arabic music during the Superbowl. More examples of this happening are when Rose McGowan explained how the #MeToo changed the world, Rose called it a “cultural reset”. Bong-Joon Ho when he won four Oscars for Parasite, people called a Korean film winning so many academy awards a cultural reset because of the doors it opened for non-English speaking movies.

A recent example of this in South African context could be when Zodwa Wabantu proposed, paid labola and ultimately split from her very young husband. This series of actions reset what is “acceptable” in gender roles. Siya Kolisi’s winning Springboks could also be called a Cultural Reset. Why: Popular media echoes society and society echoes the media. Communication in the age of memes and social consciousness means that the media we consume will start representing us. These moments will stand out naturally, people are always looking for communication methods. They will also latch onto meaning when perhaps there is none, and in doing so ... will create meaning for themselves.

- BR

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Kylie Jenner & Travis Scott throw an enormous 2nd birthday for  Stormi and event planners are watching!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @jackboyrecords on Feb 2, 2020 at 2:57pm PST

Observation: Stormi celebrates her 2nd birthday in $100K StormiWorld 2 and event planners are watching.

Why: As we see more parents going over the top to celebrate their kids birthdays, the Kardashians keep on raising the bar. Every birthday and baby shower they have had in the last two years have been extraordinary and slowly influencing other parents to take it that far.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cardib (@iamcardib) on Jul 14, 2019 at 7:29pm PDT

Cardi B & Offset spent a whooping $400,000 for Kulture’s 1st birthday

Future: Event planners are not having conversations how beautiful these parties are but instead the starting to talk about how they would execute these kinds parties which shows a sign of the birthday parties and baby showers are going to be.

TD

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Star Trek Space Force?

Observation: Whether intentional or not, designers for the US military have created a logo for their new arm The Space Force that looks exactly like the Star Trek logo, combined with another Star Trek logo. Revealed by President Trump in a tweet, the reaction was swift and predictable with the internet equally angry and in hysterics.

- BR

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Dolly Parton Challenge

Observation: The latest celebrity viral post was the Dolly Parton Challenge. Dolly created Profile pics for specific Social Media platforms. The internet loved it and latched on, with hundreds of celebs, brands and normals creating their own versions.

Why: People love to get involved with narcissistic viral posts, especially if bought into by celebrities.

- BR

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Not so Salty Zozibini

Observation: This week Miss Universe Zozibini tweeted that she missed Aromat in NYC. Aromat jumped directly onto that and created a beautiful tweet for her, with a crowned Aromat bottle echoing Zozibinis win.

Why: Brands will latch onto celebrity call outs, and Aromat did it quickly and well.

- BR

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YouTube

Obs: YouTube is becoming a day-to-day social platform.

Why: When it all started, it was a video-based platform whereby people would do vlogs, post music videos, and just lifestyle videos. The growth has been drastic so much that people are now running their businesses on this powerful platform. Because the human brain processes visuals 60x more than text, YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google, which is the reason why is it is currently sitting at 1.8 billion registered users globally, which also makes it more accessible than Gmail. For this reason, brands, advertisers, and promoters have also decided to utilize the platform to reach the global market by merely working closely with content creators with a large number of subscribers, and it is effortless to do so with just the use of analytics on the platform. Content creators have the luxury of also taking examinations to up-skill themselves about the usage of the platform and also get certification from these exams to become certified users, which is a gold mine if you ask me. Recently, YouTube has added the YouTube Stories feature, which is no different from the Instagram Stories in terms of the interface and just how it works.

Future: The platform's continued growth is making life easier daily for everyone. As soon we're able to afford data and fiber, traditional media, esp TV, might be surpassed.

- LN

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Are all our Heroes are Zeroes?

Observation: Time Magazine's Person of the Year Greta Thunberg and German Railway service engaged in a Twar. Thunberg tweeted that she was sitting on the floor of an overcrowded trains. German Rail tweeted back saying that it would be nice if she had also tweeted about how nicely the First Class employees looked after her.  Why: Thunberg is painted as a self-righteous do-gooder and she will have learnt that any alleged hypocrisies will be latched onto and she will be attacked. It turns out she did have first-class travel, but not the entire way. Regardless, her PR team will need to be very careful the way they paint her character. Future: Public figures need to be vigilant about how they portray themselves, media can and will attack them. Greta will have a very challenging public life, and it remains to be seen how effective she has and will be.

- BR

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Saucy Netflix lights up Twitter

Observation: Netflix recently got a little saucy when they tweeted “Whats something you can say during sex but also when you manage a brand on twitter?”

Many people were taken aback, but most people loved it. SM brand managers, in particular, took advantage of the fun punting their products and enjoying the banter at the same time.

Why: Interacting with a brand online is one of the joys of SM and in particular Twitter. When brands give people the opportunity to be clever … and to possibly go viral themselves if the brand retweets them. - BR

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- BR