In This Issue: TikTok Star MiriTheSiren Gets Shake Shack Sponsorship, Days After Chick-Fil-A Asked Her to Stop Posting Employee Meal Videos / Netflix Will Stop Reporting Subscriber Numbers / How TikTok Has Changed America / Millions of Americans Could Lose Home Internet Access / Concord Buys Hipgnosis / Help Every Reporter Out/ Debbie Millman On How Brands Impact Culture / LinkedIn Testing Paid Company Pages / How Theo Von’s Podcast Got So Popular / “Basically Zero News Consumers Want Unbiased Journalism More Than They Want Their Partisan Priors Confirmed” / “The Worst Product I’ve Ever Reviewed… For Now” / The Taylor Swift Haggadah? The Harry Potter version? Maxwell House is the Passover Prayer Book of Presidents
Welcome to Context Collapse, the world’s best comms newsletter. I’m Neal Ungerleider. I run Ungerleider Works and used to work as a reporter for Fast Company, write op-eds for the LA Times, and work as a senior copywriter for R/GA. This newsletter helps readers navigate the weird new world of media and gleefully ignores all the conventional wisdom about journalism, public relations, marketing, and advertising.
New week, new links.
Chag sameach, happy Passover and glad to have you here.
-Neal
TikTok Star MiriTheSiren Gets Shake Shack Sponsorship, Days After Chick-Fil-A Asked Her to Stop Posting Employee Meal Videos: “Miri, who works at a local Chick-Fil-A store, became famous on TikTok after posting her free employee meal every day and inspiring fans of the fast food chain to try new things based on her creative ideas.
Netflix Will Stop Reporting Subscriber Numbers: “In its Q1 letter to shareholders, Netflix said that engagement — time spent with the service — is its “best proxy for customer satisfaction.” As such, it will no longer report quarterly membership numbers or average revenue per member (which it dubs “ARM”), as of Q1 2025. Netflix said it will announce “major subscriber milestones as we cross them” but will cease disclosing quarterly subscriber numbers.”
How TikTok Has Changed America: “Imagining what a United States without TikTok would look like throws into sharp relief just how much the app has worked its way into American culture.
Roughly 170 million Americans use TikTok. That’s half the population of the United States.”
Millions of Americans Could Lose Home Internet Access: “The pandemic-era initiative aimed at getting more Americans online has so far connected 23 million households, but it’s slated to run out of money by the beginning of May. With no clear path for Congress to renew program funding, ACP recipients like Burrell are forced to grapple with what losing connectivity will mean.”
Help Every Reporter Out: HARO founder Peter Shankman is back with a similar service for journalists who need help finding sources. Welcome!
“The Worst Product I’ve Ever Reviewed… For Now”:
MKBHD: “The Humane AI pin is... bad. Almost no one should buy it. Yet.”
The Taylor Swift Haggadah? The Harry Potter version? Maxwell House is the Passover Prayer Book of Presidents: “This year, 400,000 copies of the Maxwell House Haggadah were printed, adding to 60 million total that have been printed over the years. The book holds "significant cultural importance," says Rosenfeld, whose company first advertised it in 1932 in the Forward, a Jewish newspaper. It's distributed free in supermarkets across the United States — such as ShopRite, Kroger, Stop & Shop and Publix — and also available online for the price of postage alone. "It's the longest running promotion of any major brand in the U.S.," Kelly Webb, senior brand manager at Kraft Heinz, the maker of Maxwell House coffee, tells Axios.”
Debbie Millman On How Brands Impact Culture:
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