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Mia Sato

Mia Sato

Features Writer, The Verge

Features Writer, The Verge

    More From Mia Sato

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    Extreme boy home makeover.

    The TikTok show Boy Room tours the disgusting bedrooms of men, cigarette butts, dirty clothes, and all. It’s gross, funny, and weirdly revealing — and now much more sanitized via an Amazon partnership.

    In an HGTV-esque reboot, the show will now give home makeovers featuring Amazon furniture and decor. It serves as a front end to Amazon: Boy Room is also promoting the products via affiliate marketing.

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    The new MSM.

    Pew Research Center released a report on news influencers who people are increasingly getting their information from.

    The report couldn’t have come at a better time, following an election where the role of influencers and podcasters was especially notable. Of today’s news influencers:

    - 77 percent have no background with news orgs

    - 65 percent are men

    - More identify as Republican or conservative than Democratic or liberal

    - Far more have a presence on X than on any other platform

    America’s News Influencers

    [Pew Research Center]

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    Well, that went as expected.

    Amazon announced a $20-and-under “Haul” section yesterday to compete with platforms like Temu — and it’s already filled with questionable listings.

    ModernRetail rounded up a few, and scrolling through Amazon, it’s not totally clear to me whether images are AI-generated or just very poorly edited (probably both). You have to hand it to Amazon, though: it does look exactly like Temu.

    An Amazon Haul product page for kitchen spatulas. The spatulas are half the size of the human nearby.
    An Amazon Haul product image for a pair of women’s pajamas. The model is inexplicably in what appears to be a park.
    Amazon Haul product image for chopsticks. The person using the chopsticks and the food she is cooking appears to be AI-generated.
    1/3Image: Amazon
    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    More AI-generated ads are coming to TikTok.

    The company announced today it’s opening up its AI ads tool to all advertisers — so prepare to see more AI content on your feed.

    TikTok’s Symphony Creative Studio lets advertisers remix content and generate new videos promoting products in just a few minutes. Some of those ads even include AI avatars resembling humans.

    TikTok AI-generated ads selling makeup products.
    Image: TikTok