ICYMI: Inside The White House Creator Holiday Party
Plus wrapping up the social headlines of 2024
[Dr. Jill Biden and President Joe Biden, coming out to deliver a toast to creators at the White House Holiday Party]
This is my last newsletter of 2024. Along with platform updates, social and creator news, I’m looking back at some of the ICYMI highlights of the year — starting with two major milestones: ICYMI hit 30K subscribers on Substack and 8K subscribers on LinkedIn. Thank you all for subscribing and supporting this newsletter 🎉
⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear TikTok’s challenge to the potential ban
Instagram confirmed Collages for Stories, along with new holiday-themed features
Instagram is testing a “screenshot prevention” feature for DMs
Instagram is expected to generate 50% of Meta’s U.S. ad sales in 2025
YouTube revealed the secrets to its most successful ads of the year
Report: What happened in an Internet minute in 2024
12 of the most interesting people we met online in 2024
The 10 best new social features of 2024
I’m a judge for the 29th Annual Webby Awards — and there are all new creator categories
Details from inside the White House’s Holiday Party for creators
💻 ROADMAP
📲 TikTok Updates
The Supreme Court agreed to hear TikTok’s challenge to the potential ban on January 10. Here’s a timeline for the attorneys who will be working thought the holidays.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew met Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago hours after the company appealed the potential ban to the U.S. Supreme Court.
📲 Meta Updates
Instagram has confirmed you can now schedule DMs.
Instagram is expected to generate more than 50% of Meta’s U.S. ad sales in 2025. That’s a 24% increase from 2024.
Adam Mosseri said Instagram plans to roll out Movie Gen next year, the AI research model will let you change nearly any aspect of your videos with a simple text prompt.
Spotted: Instagram added a “screenshot prevention” feature for DM content sent as “view once.”
Mark Zuckerberg announced that Threads has over 300 million monthly active users and over 100 million daily active users.
Adam Mosseri announced they would soon start testing scheduled Threads posts.
Threads is rolling out a way to reshare photos and videos from posts you see on the platform, while crediting them to the original poster.
Meta announced that affiliate links on Facebook “will now be more prominently displayed directly on your Reels, videos, photos, and text posts to help encourage more of your followers to purchase products through your unique link”
Plus, Instagram finally confirmed Collages for Stories as part of several New Year’s-themed Easter eggs they announced this week.
The platform also teamed up with top creators in fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and more to celebrate the best trends discovered in 2024, and share their predictions for 2025.
Look for #InstagramPartner Reels this week and next from creators such as Susan Alexandra and Niccoya to Albert Ayal and Annabelle Kline.
As for the special features, a Meta rep told me to look out for:
End Of Year-themed collages
5 New-Year’s themed Add Yours templates
Seasonal font and text effect
Holiday chat themes in DMs
Secret phrases in Notes and DMs (type “happy New Year” or “hello 2025” to test the feature)
Custom Likes on NYE Stories
📲 YouTube Updates
YouTube used Gemini-powered insights to examine the most successful YouTube ads of the year.
📲 LinkedIn Updates
LinkedIn is testing a new, more immersive vertical video format in the feed.
📲 Snapchat Updates
Snapchat launched a new monetization program for creators based on Spotlight videos longer than 1 minute.
🥂🇺🇸 INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE HOLIDAY PARTY
💫 What happened: I had the immense honor of attending the White House’s holiday party for creators and industry leaders on Tuesday. It’s the second year creators have been invited to celebrate the holidays at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — and according to people who attended last year, this year’s event seemed packed with at least double the guests.
📝 Who was there: Amid the 83 Christmas trees and 28,000 ornaments were a mix of influencers (Jackie Aina and Tony P in DC), news creators (Harry Sisson, Aaron Parnas and Under the Desk News), celebrities (Keegan-Michael Key and Flavor Flav) and creator economy pros (RJ Larese and Kaya Yurieff) — plus, of course, the President, Dr. Jill Biden and Hunter Biden.
🍽️ The menu: It was a buffet-style celebration with food from the White House kitchen, including a platter of shrimp and stone crab claws, rack of lamb, beef tenderloin, winter salad, roasted potatoes, cauliflower mac and cheese, gingerbread cookies, red velvet cake and the BEST lemon raspberry trifle.
☕️ The tea: The party ran from about 3pm to 5pm and there was no lingering. I found out later that the staff break down, clean up and prepare for the next round in about two hours before hosting another celebration.
🥂 The presidential toast: President Biden appeared briefly to offer a toast and acknowledge the importance of creators — something he had emphasized earlier in the year during the White House’s first ever Creator Economy Conference.
“There’s a fundamental change in the way the press works and the way communication works. You all speak straight to the American people and it matters a lot,” Biden said to an appreciative crowd. “You’re empowering people to feel seen and heard, which they don’t feel very much these days.”
🎁 2024 WRAPPED
💌 ICYMI Highlights:
In 2024, you read 73 ICYMI newsletters or about 69,369 words.
It’s been 1,463 days since the first ICYMI newsletter was sent on December 18, 2020
In 2024, ICYMI reached 30K subscribers on Substack and 8K subscribers on LinkedIn 🎉
🏆 The 5 Most Popular ICYMI Newsletters:
💻 The Best New Social Features of 2024
If you think something else deserves to be on here, shout it out in the comments below!
TikTok Collaboration posts (which not everyone seems to have yet)
“I do think the game changer was TikTok’s Delete and Re-Edit and Instagram Trial Reels to test what content is really hitting and what may need some finessing. I wonder if YouTube might try something similar” -Cristina Lopez
“IG 20 slide carousels has been really impactful for us. It's not always a time-saver, but expands our storytelling abilities and lets us reuse content in different way. We have seen our performance improve and plan to keep testing different formats in 2025” -Libby Gluck
🥹 12 of the Most Interesting People You Met In 2024
… but might barely remember because a week is a lifetime when it comes to the social trend life cycle.
Megan Boni’s Looking for a Man In Finance
Reesa Teesa and her Who TF Did I Marry series
Introducing Pookie and Jett
The Pommel Horse Guy
Miri the Siren, formerly of Chik-Fil-A
The very demure Jools Lebron
Love Island USA’s PPG
Love Island’s suitcase swirling Kordell
Marc Sebastian and the 9-month cruise
Moo Deng, of course
🥰 My Personal Highlights
So much good stuff happened in 2024, it would take me an entire newsletter to express how much I appreciate everything so I’ll just list off some highlights. But also I want to point out that success is not linear. Last December 2023 I had a big consulting project booked that fell apart. None of the opportunities below were on my 2024 bingo card. I’m a very Type A person but I really had to go with the flow this year and just vibe as things worked themselves out.
Being invited to the White House 3 times this year by the amazing Digital Strategy team (thanks to Marian Dimaano, Patrick Stevenson, Morgan MacNaughton and Christian Tom!)
Speaking at State of Social in Australia, Adobe Max in Miami, Duel’s Social Commerce Summit in New York, VidCon in Anaheim, CreatorIQ Connect in Los Angeles and the Italian Embassy Digital Diplomacy panel in D.C.
Writing on the Creator Economy in higher ed for The Hollywood Reporter
Lecturing at UCLA, USC (thanks Laura Davis!) and S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University (thanks Nick Cicero!)
Attending Social Media Week on behalf of Dash Hudson
Partnering with incredible folks at Sprout Social on projects all year long, especially this round table with Rachel Karten and Casey Lewis
Collaborating with the brilliant Colin and Samir on live community sessions for their Creator Startup
Making Creator Economy Live's Top 50 Innovators to Watch list
I was asked to be a judge for the 29th Annual Webby Awards. And in 2025, they’re rolling out a brand-new suite of honors celebrating creators. Today’s the final deadline to apply and I can’t wait to see your submissions!
Finally, I got to consult with some amazing partners on less public facing work and — off-topic accomplishment — I taught my kid how to drive!
👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES
Influencers are putting together their post-TikTok plans as a potential ban looms -Business Insider
YouTube crashing the TV party was the media story of 2024 -Next In Media
The top 5 creator-brand partnerships of 2024 -AdAge
Creator economy trends of 2024 -Lindsey Gamble
The top 24 knowledge creators of 2024 -Kajabi
From 2024 to 2025: Gen Z social media trends to watch -EduBirdie
The annual app “2024 Wrapped” recaps are here -The Verge
Flipboard launches Surf, a new app for browsing the open social web -TechCrunch
Content creators find a place in newsrooms -Nieman Lab
MrBeast encouraged fans to make reaction videos to the launch of Beast Games on Prime -MrBeast on X
Every minute of the day, TikTok users upload 16K videos and 138.9M Reels are played on Facebook and Instagram -Domo’s Data Never Sleeps
The future of social media: 7 expert predictions for 2025 -Sprout Social
Thanks for reading and see you next year. I’ve got a new content series planned for paid subscribers that I can’t wait to share in January!
Thank you Lia for 2024. Always a pleasure reading this newsletter and catching up on all the happenings 😁 Happy holidays!