ICYMI: Mark Zuckerberg’s fighting for his life 🥊

Or at least the future of Meta

Apr 18, 2025

[Mark Zuckerberg via Meta AI]

The Group Chat’s back thanks to Netflix; Brands are rethinking ad budgets; Coachella’s being compared to the Hunger Games; and Mark Zuckerberg is a Settlers of Catan pro?! Here we go…

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

YouTube remained the dominant streaming platform in March
TikTok announced Footnotes, its version of Community Notes
Meta published a new report — Generation Zeitgeist — on Gen Z social habits
11 weirdest details emerging from Meta’s antitrust trial
POV: 3 influencer experiences that seriously missed the mark
Candy Crush wisely put customers ahead of influencers in their latest campaign
ChatGPT might soon be part of a social network
Study: There’s a deep divide between experts perception of AI’s potential and what the public thinks
ICYMI Pro subscribers: check your inbox on Monday for an interview with Rare Beauty’s Director of Creative Strategy, MacKenzie Kassab who’s writing the company’s newsletter: Rare Beauty Secrets. It’s a good one — and the first half is free for everyone!

💻 ROADMAP

📲 YouTube Updates

YouTube invited live streamers, podcasters, Shorts creators and shopping affiliate program members to join its sounding board, Creator Research, for studies and research panels. Apply here.
YouTube dropped a Culture & Trends Report on virtual creators, which they’ve broken into Vtubers, Gaming Virtual Creators, Virtual Artists and Virtual Humans.
YouTube is expanding location auto tagging to travel and restaurant-related Shorts to help viewers find locally relevant content. The location tags will be based on your Short’s title and description. Whether you’re a hospitality-based businesses or creator, it’s a great opportunity for greater visibility in the app.
YouTube shared 23 tips for turning your long-form content into Shorts.
YouTube expanded its Hype limited beta to more creators in Taiwan, Brazil and Turkey — Hype puts eligible videos on a new leaderboard that can help content get discovered by new viewers.
Spotted: YouTube is working on a new timer feature to stop you from doomscrolling Shorts.
YouTube is launching a new AI music-making tool to generate instrumental music that can be added to creator videos.

📲 LinkedIn Updates

LinkedIn has been on a content streak lately, now they’ve launched a micro site for creators: Create on LinkedIn, with tips to getting started.

📲 TikTok Updates

TikTok announced Footnotes, its version of Community Notes on posts. The new feature is meant to give app users more context about content on TikTok.
Spotted: TikTok is showing reviews next to the comment section but only on selected videos with a tagged location.

📲 Meta Updates

Meta is hosting a Reels webinar for UK and European marketers but the event seems open to all who want to participate (if you don’t mind getting up early for this one). RSVP here.
Meta published Generation Zeitgeist, a report on Gen Z insights:
- Gen Z share content to connect with each other
- Short-form video acts as a search engines
- Gen Z is almost always in “consideration mode” — scrolling and shopping have become interchangeable
Adam Mosseri just announced Blends, which taps into Meta’s Gen Z insights that people want a curated feed of recommended Reels between them and their friends.
Spotted: A new feature that allows you to filter Reels by most viewed or recent.

📲 Patreon Updates

Patreon is testing Live Video to allow live streaming 24/7. The new feature offers an interactive and uninterrupted ad-free livestreaming experience.

📲 Snapchat Updates

Snapchat announced Snap School sponsorships, giving brands the chance to get in front of its creator community through sponsored workshops.

👀 TRIAL WATCH

11 of the Weirdest and Most Interesting Details to Emerge from Meta’s AntiTrust Trial

The Federal Trade Commission is accusing Meta of a "buy or bury strategy" in acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp since it viewed the apps as threats. Here are the most interesting details to emerge during Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony:

Mark Zuckerberg tried to settle this antitrust suit by offering to pay $450 million, but the FTC wasn’t buying it
Friending and friend sharing are losing steam, Zuckerberg confirmed this week: “The amount that people are sharing with friends on Facebook, especially, has been declining… Even the amount of new friends that people add … I think has been declining. But I don’t know the exact numbers”
In 2022, Zuckerberg proposed a “potentially crazy idea is to consider wiping everyone’s [Facebook] graphs and having them start again”
As TikTok became popular, Meta’s “growth slowed down dramatically”
In 2018, Zuckerberg contemplated spinning Instagram off from Meta as a separate company
In 2013, Zuckerberg tried to buy Snapchat for $6B but was rebuffed by Evan Spiegel. "If we would had bought them we would have accelerated their growth," Zuckerberg testified
Instagram had a better camera app than Facebook, said Zuckerberg, “so I thought it was better to buy them”
Meta's former chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, initially thought they paid “way too much” for Instagram
Sandberg wanted to block Google from advertising on Facebook
In between business talk, Zuckerberg offered to teach Sandberg how to play the board game Settlers of Catan
In a 2008 email, Zuckerberg said “it is better to buy than compete”

If the FTC proves its case, Meta could be forced to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp.

🧠💡 POV

Not Now, Influencers

It’s been a rough week for influencers and celebrities.

Parasocial relationships work best when we can relate to the influencers we follow. But when our “friends” start flaunting experiences that feel completely out of reach — especially while everyone else is struggling — it ruins the illusion. That’s when the resentment sets in, and the backlash begins.

In other words, influencers — and the brands that hire them — need to read the room. What might have worked 6 months ago might seem tone deaf now.

Take Coachella: Depending on which part of the internet you're on, you either saw people camping in their cars and peeing in bushes… or influencers jetting in on private planes and crashing in luxury villas. “It’s dystopian,” said creator Alec Harrison. The whole thing even drew Hunger Games comparisons — with “the peasants” stuck in District 12 while influencers lived it up in District 1.

Then there’s Blue Origin: Launching a group of ultra-wealthy women into space for — checks notes — 11 minutes didn’t exactly inspire awe. A quick check of Google Trends shows breakout topics alongside the shuttle launch included criticism from Kara Swisher and Emily Ratajkowski. One person on Threads summed it up: “In another timeline, the all-female space mission might’ve hit differently, but we’re in the middle of a constitutional crisis and I don’t give a fuck about Katy Perry.”

Even The Masters Tournament caught heat. Some golf fans expressed frustration that influencers got invited to Augusta National, skipping the famously exclusive ticket lottery. It’s an inevitable part of The Masters entering its Content Creator Era. Interestingly, Masters runner-up Bryson DeChambeau now lists himself as “Content Creator” first, and “Pro Golfer” second on his Instagram bio.

56% of AI experts say AI will have a positive effect on the US over the next 20 years versus 17% of the public — revealing a deep divide in the perception of AI’s potential

-via to the Pew Research Center study on how the U.S. public and AI experts view artificial intelligence

Two-thirds of Gen Z travelers said they use social media for inspiration and 41% of consumers overall use social media to research and discover destinations

-via a recent survey by Data Axle, reported by Marketing Dive

📣 QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Conventional celebrity culture isn’t disappearing—just yet, anyway—but it is losing ground to micro-fame and platform-specific stars who shape consumer trends and cultural conversations at a faster rate than traditional A-listers”

-via “The Business of Influence”, a new report from Day One Agency with youth culture expert and After School writer Casey Lewis on the current and future state of fame

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

YouTube remained the dominant streaming platform in March -Adweek
OpenAI is working on a social network as part of ChatGPT -The Verge
A new AI startup founded by Yale students wants to compete with LinkedIn -Business Insider
The Creators’ Guild of America Is Launching a Contract Rider to Protect Creators — To use the rider, creators must be members of the CGA -Passionfruit
Revolve faces a $50M lawsuit alleging influencers hid paid brand partnerships -AOL
The $1,000 MrBeast Experience is the New Fyre Festival -Passionfruit
Part of the tension at Coachella stems from a waning internet era marked by the dominance of Instagram and the Millennial generation -Megan E. Collins
VidCon released its first round of Creator Track speakers, including “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” stars Mayci Neeley and Layla Taylor -Nerds That Geek

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