Well, besides giving himself scurvy once, he likes meditating. Altman is also “pretty disconnected from the reality of life for most people,” he admits. And:
A friend in his inner circle described him to me as “the most ambitious person I know who is still sane, and I know 20,000 people in Silicon Valley.”
[Intelligencer]
Consumers, states, and the FTC are taking marketing claims from wellness companies more seriously — and, increasingly, there are legal consequences.
The lawsuits come as online promoters move from endorsing other companies’ products to creating and pushing their own. Meanwhile regulators are looking more closely at influencer marketing, which is expected to exceed $21 billion this year, according to an industry report.
“We were never meant to see our faces this much,” argues a Dazed essay. The increase in video conferencing may also mean an increase in body dysmorphic disorder, one survey of more than 7,000 people suggests. (The survey also found an increased use of fillers in people aged 18 to 24.) Personally, I find it helpful to turn off self-view in video calls and insist on phone calls as often as possible.
Ruby Franke, a parenting YouTuber, has been charged with child abuse. And now some fans are questioning the genre:
Franke is part of a sprawling family social media apparatus in which her parents and all four of her siblings have their own dedicated YouTube channels, with combined followers around 5.5 million and views in the billions. Halterman found their content fascinating. It even made her feel closer to her faith, as both she and the Frankes are Mormon. “They looked perfect,” she says. But since Franke’s arrest, Halterman wonders if her interest in family vloggers is part of the problem. “I now see it for what it is — exploitation of these minor [children] and voyeurism on my part.”
[The Washington Post]
Alert — if you resold your Taylor Swift tickets you bought on Ticketmaster, you may be on the hook for the profits. Ticketmaster has turned your info over to the IRS already, thanks to a new law, and:
The average price for Taylor Swift tickets sold in the U.S. on StubHub was $1,095, with the best seats going for thousands of dollars, according to the company, which operates an online market for people to resell and buy tickets.
Also, the number of fan resellers skyrocketed.
[The Wall Street Journal]
Controversial stablecoin Tether is making loans to its customers. Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine walks through why that’s kind of weird:
If you are in charge of Tether and someone shows up at your office to pitch you on a clever investment that will get you a higher return with only a little risk, you should put your fingers in your ears and scream “NO” and kick them out of your office. You can make billions of dollars of pure profit taking no risk!
Anyway, the implications are even weirder: Tether might be propping up crypto prices.
[Bloomberg]
There’s another Twitter spat going on, this time between market-makers DWF Labs, GSR and Wintermute. Worth keeping an eye on, because at least once when there was this kind of Twitter trash-talking — between FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried and Binance’s Changpeng “CZ” Zhao — FTX melted down.
And they call themselves... the future of finance!
And when they complained to TikTok about their treatment, they were retailiated against, according to a complaint filed with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Nnete Matima and Joël Carter say their work was sabotaged.
“I did everything in terms of filing complaints, reporting things going up the chain of command — I did everything I possibly could do, but found that the more I spoke up for myself, the worse I was treated,” Matima said in an interview with Bloomberg.
[The Washington Post]
