Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Boy Throb explained, 14-year boyfriend proposal, TikTok Awards update + Michael's Black Friday mess

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MINI SCROLL: Boy Throb explained, 14-year boyfriend proposal, TikTok Awards update + Michael's Black Friday mess · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
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  culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
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  media, the creator economy and the digital space.
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  Every Monday through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
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  I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, the founder of the youth digital
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  All right, let's just get into the stories for today.
• 1:51
  So the first story that I have for you guys is I need to talk
• 1:55
  about the TikTok boy band, Boy Throb and how there are
• 2:00
  questions over if they're real, how we're now following the
• 2:03
  journey to getting Darshan's O1 visa.
• 2:06
  Like this is a whole narrative on TikTok and I need to fill you
• 2:10
  guys in. So Boy Throb are this boy band.
• 2:13
  They were created on TikTok and they've been going viral for a
• 2:16
  couple of reasons. First of all, there are four
• 2:17
  members of Boy Throb. Three of them are based in the
• 2:20
  US and one is based in India. His name is Darshan.
• 2:23
  Now the other three members include Evan Papier, Anthony Key
• 2:27
  and Zach Sabinia. They launched at the end of
• 2:29
  October, and they have since taken over the online zeitgeist
• 2:33
  because people just cannot tell if this is a troll or if this is
• 2:38
  a real boy band. Given that both Evan and Anthony
• 2:41
  have content creation or like musical backgrounds, some think
• 2:44
  that's a pretty big indication that this is a real band.
• 2:47
  Despite this, they've had two major goals this entire time.
• 2:51
  First, get Darshan over to America and second, win a
• 2:54
  Grammy. So to achieve this, they were
• 2:56
  trying to get to 1,000,000 followers, which they actually
• 2:59
  just achieved yesterday. And now they're asking
• 3:02
  journalists to give them press mentions so Darshan can apply
• 3:05
  for his O1 visa and hopefully have a better chance of getting
• 3:08
  approved. And O1 visa in the US is
• 3:10
  basically a visa for like a special talent.
• 3:12
  So if you have press mentions and write ups and lots of
• 3:15
  followers and stuff like that, you're considered more of like a
• 3:18
  special person with like a special talent and therefore
• 3:21
  it's more likely that you'll get this visa.
• 3:22
  So I don't know if mini scroll counts, probably not, but we're
• 3:25
  here for you, Darshan. This is a press mentioned from
• 3:28
  us. So this is from the tab quote on
• 3:32
  on their road to the Grammys. Boethrob has performed at a
• 3:35
  nursing home and in a public park.
• 3:37
  They're still worlds away from selling out arenas, but
• 3:40
  considering how fast they've grown their followers, nothing
• 3:42
  is off limits. Across TikTok, they've dropped
• 3:45
  covers of wicked somber, Sabrina Carpenter, K pop demon hunters,
• 3:49
  cats I Taylor Swift and Olivia Dean.
• 3:51
  Their repertoire is ever expanding.
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  I want to say part of their success is not just that they're
• 3:56
  documenting, you know, trying to get Darshan over to the US and
• 4:00
  trying to win a Grammy and trying to build this boy.
• 4:02
  And it's like, the style of content is also so funny.
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  That's why people are like, is this satire?
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  It is kind of like brain rot mixed with, like, 2000s music
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  video culture. It's really interesting and
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  funny and bizarre and very chronically online.
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  So in response to the allegations that they are
• 4:21
  satire, this is what they said. Quote.
• 4:24
  While the reception is mainly positive, there are quite a few
• 4:26
  unkind comments, mainly people asking if we're satire.
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  We know our content can seem playful and fun, but comments
• 4:33
  like this really affect us as we are aspiring to be legitimate
• 4:36
  artists. But we're not going to let the
• 4:38
  negativity stop us. In fact, we've been actively
• 4:40
  using it as fuel to prove the haters wrong, which is why we
• 4:43
  are currently in the process of creating original music.
• 4:46
  That's right, we're currently working on a debut single.
• 4:49
  OK, so if the band is real, this narrative of getting Sean over
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  to America through reaching 1,000,000 followers and the
• 4:57
  press mentions like all of that is honestly marketing genius.
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  Because we know that right now the music industry has this huge
• 5:04
  focus on follower count, right? And artists are expected to play
• 5:08
  a huge role in promoting their own songs through social media
• 5:12
  now. So this gets them ahead of that.
• 5:15
  Like they're getting all of that tough stuff like building a
• 5:18
  following, getting organic press mentions, becoming part of the
• 5:21
  cultural zeitgeist in general. Like they're getting all of that
• 5:24
  out of the way first. And now they have millions of
• 5:27
  people invested in them. So I actually think that this is
• 5:29
  a really great strategy. I don't know if it will really
• 5:32
  translate to like longevity if they do let's say, like release
• 5:37
  an original album, if they'll be able to sell out stadiums and
• 5:40
  actually win a Grammy and like actually develop fans or if this
• 5:42
  is more of just like an in joke with the people that are
• 5:45
  following them right now. But either way, it's working.
• 5:48
  Whatever they're doing so far is working.
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  They hit a million followers in basically one month.
• 5:53
  Darshan is getting press mentions.
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  He's on his way to America soon, I'm sure.
• 5:57
  And yeah, it's all working out for them.
• 6:00
  OK, the next story that I have for you guys is a creator on
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  TikTok is going viral after proposing to her partner of 14
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  years this weekend. So a creator named Estella is
• 6:09
  the talk of relationship talk right now after she took the
• 6:12
  viewers along on her experience proposing to her partner of 14
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  years. They have children together.
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  I will say the reports on how many kids they have is very
• 6:21
  conflicting. It's either two children or
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  four. And they also currently live
• 6:25
  with his parents. She said that she wants to
• 6:27
  propose to him because she wants to be married and he's never
• 6:31
  proposed. Even though she said that he
• 6:33
  tells her that, you know, he wants to spend the rest of his
• 6:36
  life with her. They have children together,
• 6:38
  they've been together for so long, but he's just never gotten
• 6:41
  around to proposing. So this has sparked such intense
• 6:44
  discourse online around the whole like if he wanted to, he
• 6:47
  would narrative. Lots of women are saying that
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  this is an example of when you leave your man, like you deserve
• 6:53
  better. If he won't give you the
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  commitment that you want and have wanted this entire time
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  while still having children with you, that's not a man that
• 7:01
  respects you. That's what people are saying.
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  It's also sparked a whole trend of women asking their husbands
• 7:06
  what they would do that they proposed to them after being
• 7:08
  together for 14 years and getting their husband's
• 7:11
  reactions on camera did. You guys hear about the girl
• 7:14
  that proposed to her boyfriend of 14 years and they even have
• 7:16
  like two children together. I just want to know like what
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  was in her decision making process that made her think
• 7:22
  like, you know what, this man has been with me for 14 years.
• 7:25
  He's never proposed. I'm just going to go ahead and
• 7:26
  take that load off of his shoulder and I'll propose for
• 7:28
  him. Like I just don't get that
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  process. Like because we all know as
• 7:31
  women, especially if he really wanted to, he would.
• 7:34
  So I just want to know like what do you guys think about this?
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  Like my honest opinion is like, more power to you girl.
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  Like if this is where you felt like you were in the
• 7:42
  relationship, like I'm just going to go ahead and put the
• 7:45
  pants on and do what I need to do.
• 7:47
  I get it. But like a are you genuinely
• 7:50
  happy and B how much of the pants do you wear in the
• 7:53
  relationship? I don't think that proposing to
• 7:55
  your partner, to your boyfriend, whatever is cringe.
• 7:58
  I have a few friends who have proposed to their partners and
• 8:01
  it's like if you want to get married just do it.
• 8:03
  Like you definitely don't need to wait for your man to be the
• 8:05
  one to propose. However, what most people seem
• 8:08
  to have an issue with is that she's wanted this for so long.
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  Like they've been together for 14 years and he still wouldn't
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  do it. And a lot of people are saying
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  that is giving red flag. So I'm interested to hear your
• 8:18
  guys's perspective on this. I think for me, if marriage was
• 8:21
  so important to me, I probably wouldn't have children with a
• 8:25
  man who wasn't at least on the same page with me.
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  It with that, like, I don't know, I, I think I would care to
• 8:31
  be married or at least engaged. Like knowing that that is
• 8:33
  something like that. I really want, I really want
• 8:36
  that for my future with this person.
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  So it's like, OK, if you want to have kids with me, if we want to
• 8:40
  start a family together, like I need that level of commitment.
• 8:43
  I think that is probably where I land on that.
• 8:46
  But I'm interested to hear what your guys opinion is.
• 8:49
  Reminder, Please remember to rate, review and subscribe if
• 8:52
  you guys like mini scroll. We're trying to get to 1000
• 8:54
  Spotify star ratings by the end of the year.
• 8:56
  OK, the next story that I have for you guys is a quick update
• 8:59
  on the TikTok Awards, the whole saga that I reported on back on
• 9:03
  Friday. So TikTok Australia has made a
• 9:05
  public address about the racism and all of the event backlash
• 9:10
  that occurred. So for an incredibly high level
• 9:12
  recap, there's several black creators who have come out, some
• 9:15
  of them nominees, some of them not.
• 9:16
  Regardless, creators who were at the awards saying that they
• 9:20
  experienced racism specifically from the photographers at the
• 9:23
  media wall and event staff. So this has really blown up even
• 9:28
  more over the weekend. However, I will still say that
• 9:31
  mainstream media has not covered this yet.
• 9:34
  At the time of recording, none of the mainstream media that was
• 9:37
  on the red carpet, as far as I've been able to find has
• 9:40
  actually covered this. I mean, aside from us, but I
• 9:43
  wouldn't consider us mainstream media at all.
• 9:45
  So TikTok has now issued a statement on TikTok in a
• 9:48
  carousel. They said we are all deeply
• 9:50
  upset that some of our valued guests had a negative experience
• 9:53
  at this year's TikTok Awards and we wanted to address our
• 9:55
  community personally. This year's event was the
• 9:58
  biggest ever with more than 5000 guests.
• 10:01
  The huge increase and change of venue was to accommodate more of
• 10:04
  our valued creator community who previously couldn't attend due
• 10:07
  to capacity. Tickets for everyone were free.
• 10:09
  It was always our intention for everyone to walk the red carpet,
• 10:12
  but two hours before guests arrived, the venue's risk
• 10:15
  management team told us a severe storm was coming and it was not
• 10:17
  safe for our media wall and some activations to proceed.
• 10:21
  In the interest of safety, we made the decision to move
• 10:23
  inside, having the space available and making the flow of
• 10:27
  people throughout the venue challenging.
• 10:28
  We sincerely apologize to anyone who felt excluded or
• 10:31
  uncomfortable at this year's TikTok Awards.
• 10:33
  Our amazing and diverse community is what makes TikTok
• 10:36
  great, and the awards are designed to celebrate that.
• 10:39
  More than 1/3 of this year's nominees were from culturally or
• 10:42
  linguistically diverse backgrounds.
• 10:44
  Our priority is always to maintain a safe, positive, and
• 10:47
  inclusive environment for everyone.
• 10:48
  We appreciate the feedback to help us improve future events.
• 10:52
  So instead of going into this again and also inserting my
• 10:54
  opinion over top of, you know, the women who are speaking out
• 10:58
  about this, the creators of color, the black women, I don't
• 11:00
  want to be doing that in this situation.
• 11:02
  So I'm going to actually direct you guys to a newsletter by Z
• 11:06
  Feed by my friend Crystal Andrews.
• 11:08
  She is the founder of Z Feed and she spoke to TikTok Australia's
• 11:12
  PR team. She spoke to Niall, who was the
• 11:15
  first creator that spoke out about this.
• 11:16
  She spoke to various different sources to figure out what
• 11:20
  happened here, how this could have happened.
• 11:22
  And she put together a piece that essentially dissects
• 11:25
  Australias racism problem in the media and how lack of safeguards
• 11:31
  in place because of like this quote UN quote weather event and
• 11:34
  having to move everything inside.
• 11:36
  How that kind of contributed to allowing the discernment to fall
• 11:41
  on the individuals, as in the photographers of who gets their
• 11:44
  photo taken and who doesn't. Because creators were not made
• 11:48
  aware that, you know, their position at the awards change,
• 11:51
  that people didn't want their photos unless they were nominees
• 11:54
  and media was not necessarily briefed well on kind of these
• 11:58
  changes. And therefore allowing the
• 12:01
  discernment to fall on an individual is what brings out
• 12:04
  that individual's bias and bigotry and racism and
• 12:08
  discrimination. The root of it is that the
• 12:09
  Australian media industry is incredibly racist and there is
• 12:13
  nowhere near enough diversity and you know, because of the
• 12:17
  logistical issues that racism was able to present itself.
• 12:21
  So anyway, she did a much better job of explaining that in her
• 12:25
  piece. So I will link it down below and
• 12:27
  I highly suggest you guys go read it.
• 12:29
  OK. And the last story that I have
• 12:30
  for you guys is there is this Black Friday quote UN quote scam
• 12:35
  by Michael's craft store that is going viral.
• 12:37
  So a gaming creator named AJ has gone viral after she exposed
• 12:41
  what she has called, quote, the biggest Black Friday scam that
• 12:45
  she's ever seen at Michael's. For those who are not in North
• 12:48
  America, at Michaels is a craft store across the US and Canada.
• 12:52
  AJ is a big crafter so she buys a lot of things from Michaels.
• 12:55
  Specifically, she builds winter villages with small wooden
• 12:57
  houses that she gets at Michaels.
• 12:59
  So yesterday she made a video explaining that she went to
• 13:02
  Michaels to buy some on Black Friday sale.
• 13:05
  The price of these houses are normally $6.49.
• 13:09
  Michaels had them marked as 50% off for Black Friday, so she
• 13:12
  expects to go into the store and that she'd be able to buy them
• 13:15
  for $3.20. However, when she went into the
• 13:18
  store, the houses were tagged newly as costing 1299, which
• 13:23
  meant with the 50% Black Friday discount, they actually ended up
• 13:28
  costing more. I mean by 1 cent, but still,
• 13:31
  they ended up costing more than they normally would have without
• 13:35
  Black Friday. So she was essentially
• 13:37
  insinuating that they marked the price up and then put it on
• 13:40
  Black Friday sale so they could essentially charge like the same
• 13:44
  amount. She also noted that many items
• 13:46
  that were marked for Black Friday had the price stickers
• 13:49
  ripped off the display items. So you were unable to see what
• 13:52
  the original price was. And then they were like, these
• 13:54
  are 50% off and it's like from what?
• 13:56
  We can't even see what the original price was.
• 13:58
  However, a lot of the items that were not on Black Friday sale,
• 14:01
  they still had the display price stickers.
• 14:04
  So that led her to believe that Michaels was doing shady pricing
• 14:07
  stuff with basically most of their Black Friday items.
• 14:10
  These are 50% off today, so I thought I was going to come in
• 14:13
  here and get it for $3.20 No 1299.
• 14:18
  It cost more today. Than it usually does.
• 14:21
  Editing me bumping in here. What I meant is that it cost
• 14:24
  more on the Black Friday. Sale to buy it.
• 14:27
  With the 50% off than it would to buy it on a regular day, OK.
• 14:31
  We all hear about. Items being marked up on Black
• 14:33
  Friday? No, it was costing more to buy
• 14:36
  it with the 50% off than it would to buy on a regular.
• 14:39
  Price the week before let. Me show you something else.
• 14:43
  Anything that's on sale on Black Friday today has had the tag
• 14:47
  removed. Anything that's not on sale
• 14:50
  hasn't had it removed. So if it's only on these items
• 14:53
  that have had the tags removed, you ready for the most insane.
• 14:56
  Part. Price check.
• 14:59
  There used to be a price check here.
• 15:01
  Every single price check has been removed.
• 15:02
  I was here last week, they were here.
• 15:04
  Now, there were tons of people in her comments section
• 15:07
  explaining that a lot of stores do this, but there were also
• 15:10
  some people who have come out saying that they noticed the
• 15:12
  same thing at their local Michael store.
• 15:14
  So one woman in particular claims that she went in to look
• 15:17
  at Christmas trees before Black Friday.
• 15:20
  She took a photo of the one she wanted.
• 15:22
  So the price was in that photo. She went back during Black
• 15:25
  Friday and the store had upped the price by $50 and then quote,
• 15:29
  UN quote, put it on sale. So Michaels has responded to AJ
• 15:33
  about the situation. She now says that some of the
• 15:36
  information she put in her original video was maybe not
• 15:38
  totally accurate. But the important thing here is
• 15:41
  that the information that she provided in that first video,
• 15:45
  she has said this is, you know, like what she was able to gather
• 15:49
  from the information she had. She was like any general
• 15:53
  consumer, would assume these things based on what I was
• 15:57
  seeing and what I was hearing. I don't want to take my video
• 15:59
  down, I think that's wrong, but I do feel like the information I
• 16:03
  gave in the video might not be 100% correct.
• 16:07
  Now as the consumer, this is all the information that I had.
• 16:11
  Nobody was giving me an explanation until I had 4
• 16:13
  million views and Michael's employees were messaging me.
• 16:16
  So I expect that there are plenty of people that were in
• 16:19
  the store and saw the same exact thing from me that I saw with no
• 16:23
  explanation. So I still do believe that they
• 16:26
  are scamming and deceiving people, whether or not they tell
• 16:28
  you the reasons for things or not.
• 16:30
  From the information that I have received, I believe that the
• 16:34
  house has been 649 since the day it came on the shelves, but it's
• 16:39
  been 50% off the entire time. They were never technically
• 16:43
  selling it for 1299 because they advertised their Christmas stuff
• 16:47
  as 50% off the whole time. Now, is Michael's the only store
• 16:50
  in the world to do this? No, but it's a new model that
• 16:53
  I've seen and have experienced this holiday season that things
• 16:58
  are on sale as soon as they hit the shelf.
• 17:00
  So this house that I've been buying for 649 since October
• 17:05
  must have had to be honest, a 50% off Christmas in that
• 17:09
  section. But they removed the original
• 17:12
  signs and replaced them all with one day Black Friday signage.
• 17:17
  OK, Black Friday deal, just today you can get this item for
• 17:20
  50% off. They took away the original sale
• 17:23
  item, put the same sale back on, but slapped it on that this is a
• 17:26
  deal. It's only going to be happening
• 17:28
  this one day. Now let's get to the scanner.
• 17:31
  So what I've heard is that the scanner system changed, right?
• 17:36
  Like the programming that they were using, it changed and
• 17:38
  Michaels was too lazy, literally the words of many people, and
• 17:42
  too cheap to afford to fix it and pay for the new service,
• 17:46
  right? So they just got rid of it all
• 17:48
  so that you have to use their app to scan items.
• 17:51
  I have the app. I tried to scan items and
• 17:55
  anything that had the new tag on it, I could not scan.
• 17:59
  It did not work. So if the whole truth is that
• 18:04
  the scanners were not working, they were.
• 18:07
  They didn't want to pay for them.
• 18:09
  And they didn't just do this for Black Friday.
• 18:10
  OK, But I couldn't scan items. And as the consumer and as you
• 18:15
  know, as a human being, this is the information you're shown.
• 18:17
  You're not hearing this explanation, right?
• 18:19
  So what else are you supposed to believe?
• 18:22
  Now, for the price tags, plenty of people are telling me that
• 18:26
  the reason it's ripped off and placed with new tags is because
• 18:29
  of tariffs. OK, They didn't know the price
• 18:32
  that it was going to be. They shipped them in and made
• 18:34
  employees stick the individual stickers on.
• 18:37
  So those are the technical 3 reasons for why that those
• 18:42
  things might have happened. But has Michaels made a
• 18:44
  statement? No.
• 18:45
  I think something we can really take away from this episode in
• 18:49
  general, especially with the TikTok awards and now with this
• 18:52
  Michaels thing. And this is no surprise, right?
• 18:54
  Like we know this about TikTok, but TikTok in so many ways has
• 18:57
  given the power to the consumer, to the individual, and that can
• 19:02
  really challenge systems, right, and corporations and
• 19:07
  exploitation. So what that is what I would
• 19:09
  like to take away from these final two stories.
• 19:12
  Is that positive in it? I never even thought about the
• 19:15
  fact that stores when they put things on sale, could up the
• 19:18
  price 1st and then be like, look, it's on sale.
• 19:20
  That literally never even crossed my mind.
• 19:23
  And now I'm going to be so aware of this and because, and that's
• 19:26
  all because of TikTok. Anyways, guys, that's it for
• 19:28
  mini scroll today. Thank you so much for listening.
• 19:30
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• 19:33
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• 19:35
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• 19:37
  I love you guys and I will talk to you guys tomorrow.
• 19:39
  Bye.