Red Talk 001: New Year, New Week, New Trends
Curate Red Social & Digital Trends Digest January 1 - January 7, 2023
I’m the type of person to throw myself in the fire and see what happens… especially after setting and announcing a February launch date. So here I am! Presenting my first digest of Red Talk on January 9, 2023. WELCOME TO RED TALK, a social media & digital trends digest curated by ME, a Los Angeles-based data-obsessed black millennial who makes a bag advising your favorite brands on social. Let’s get into it!
Mother Marie Nature Drenches California
If you’re in California like me, your new year started with a natural cleanse sponsored by Mother Earth herself! The forecast for the top of 2023 was wet and rainy, and we Californians aren’t used to inclement weather of any sort, so my entire Twitter feed was in shambles. Productivity was halted. Errands delayed. Appointments postponed. It never rains in Southern California, and when it did last week, online conversation about it drove a potential reach of 5.6 TRILLION.
My favorite tweet from melodramatic LA Twitter was the exasperated one below from user @Scooteuxr (1.5K Twitter Followers), with over 600K views.
I’m not the only one who found it relatable. The LA meme and lifestyle Instagram account @sbrbnla (43K Instagram Followers) and mutuals also reposted the tweet. What makes it so relatable beyond the borderline traumatic flashbacks of hearing your government name in a stern tone is Los Angeles’s middle name, Nicole. I know ten millennials with the middle name Nicole and I won’t bother counting the number of peers I have with Nicole as their first name. “Marie” received honorable mentions in tweets and comments as another popular middle name for millennials and gen z. Data validates this tweet’s popularity: Marie & Nicole ranked in the top 5 for baby girl middle names from 1989-2009, according to data from Social Security.
The TikTok Appropriation of Black Hair Products
Alongside #bombcyclone and #atmosphericriver on my timeline last week was the natural hair care brand Mielle. Beauty and lifestyle influencer Alix Earl (3.3M TikTok Followers) included Mielle’s Rosemary Mint Growth Oil on her Amazon Wishlist, promoting the product to an audience it wasn’t intended for and sending [us] natural girls into a tizzy as it sold out everywhere (to be fair, it is often sold out at my local Target, but with its newfound popularity it’s going to be even more challenging to find).
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Not to be dramatic, but the potential reach of this TikTok and the response it generated was 440B, and 67% of the sentiment of the conversation was negative.
TikTok users flooded Alix’s comments expressing their discontent with the product gaining popularity among a non-black demographic that did not have the hair type the oil or brand was intended for. While Mielle assured its core consumers that they would remain loyal to our kinks and curls, the backlash to Mielle going viral was not wholly unfounded. Black hair care is a labor of love, and products made especially for us are often hard to come by. When Shea Moisture’s original owners sold to big companies, their products’ formulas and marketing were altered (we assume) to appeal to a larger, non-black audience.
So what can be done? I believe education is the first step. Anecdotally, people with profound privilege often fail to recognize they have it and therefore struggle to empathize with issues like… how hard it is to find Black hair care products. @Ronelle__ (139K TikTok Followers) spelled it nicely below.
Tubi, a FREE Streaming Service for Unhinged Content
…and I freaking love the social conversation it generates. I went down a Tubi rabbit hole last week (and ultimately signed up for the service) after stumbling across this video on Twitter:
Search Tubi on Twitter and discover several wild clips from different movies and series on their service, like the one above. Below is another favorite of mine posted by @blackculturenews (422K Instagram followers):
Twitter conversation about Tubi content drove 20.6M potential reach last week, which is fantastic, especially for the budding filmmakers for which Tubi provides a platform! I’ve always worked for companies that expressed a desire to discover and empower new creators, but what Tubi is doing is special for up-and-coming black filmmakers, actors, authors, producers, directors, and writers who can reach global audiences with their stories at no cost to fans. Start watching with recommendations from @denisemonet5 (16.7K TikTok Followers):
That’s all for the first edition of Red Talk! Be sure to subscribe to receive next week’s digest and share Red Talk with your cool friends!
Tubi is a fav 🤣🤣
HAHA. Keith sent me the TikTok of that Tubi