Latest / Open Tabs / 🎧 Cool girls, long lines, and angry customers

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🎧 Cool girls, long lines, and angry customers · Open Tabs

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, guys. Welcome to Open Tabs, our Thursday edition,
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: our twice-weekly conversation where we talk about the things taking up space
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: in our tabs, our feeds, and our brains.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Megan.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hello. Happy Thursday. Happy Thursday.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yay, we're almost there.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay so we have some fun topics, two fun topics,
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: and then one like social media branding problem that Megan has been talking
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: about for a very long time.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So good episode.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the first topic we're going to talk about Is this cut article,
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Goodbye Disney Adults, Hello Disney Cool Girls.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like Disney adult has been a term for,
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it's like a millennial term,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's been around for like 15 years.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of, you know, it's like the adults who are obsessed with Disney.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're visiting the parks all the time.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to Disney movies.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're, what is it, Disney bounding where they wear outfits.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: They go to parks wearing outfits inspired by different characters because it's a rule.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can't wear, like adults can't wear legit costumes of Disney characters
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: because then other visitors could think they're the actors running around.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of been like associated, I don't want to be mean,
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: but like with kind of being a little lame, a little cheesy,
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: like you'll see in comments sometimes like, ooh, this is giving.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of used as like an insult.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: For being, like, lame or cheesy.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, content that isn't even about Disney.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll see in the comments, like, this is giving Disney adult derogatory, like,
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: in parentheses. You know, it's kind of become a little bit of an insult.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: But, I mean, I, like, live and let live.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: To be cringe is to be free.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're not hurting anyone.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of my POP on it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: But past few weeks,
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I organically have been getting a lot of like Disney cool girl content.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And these are like young women, Gen Z in their 20s or early 30s.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they're going to parks.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're wearing Disney merch, but they're wearing cool vintage Disney merch.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're upcycling it to make it their own.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they're wearing it with very trendy outfits and going to the parks.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not typically served up Disney content,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: but I do get a lot of vintage and upcycling content.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So these cool girls have been making their way to my feed.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't really seen the Cool Girl content as much,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: but I have seen a lot of discourse about this Cut article,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: as Cut articles are want to do, start a discourse.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I've seen a lot of people basically criticizing the article for being...
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Batphobic because they're basically creating this new archetype of cool girl
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: and they showcase a lot of different influencers.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: But they're like the main visual striking difference between these influencers
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: and the influencers we've come to know as Disney adults is that they're all thin,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: skinny, And that's part of the cool girl thing.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of like a similar discourse happened with Bella Hadid
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: where she was very much lauded as a style icon.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: And people were like, is it a fit or is she just skinny?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like there is some of that happening here
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: where it's like you just have skinnier bodies wearing the same type of clothes.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I also think this speaks to millennial aging if we're going to take it as a little more...
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well -intentioned because I also,
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: something I noticed is there's a lot of tattoos happening with the Disney Cool Girls
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: that I feel like isn't happening as much with traditional Disney adults,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: I feel have a more clean -cut, wholesome look.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel this tattooed dark hair grunge there is
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: a bit of a difference there
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: and I think they're criticisms to be had about the article
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: but I also think it's hitting on something very accurate around...
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's an attempt from culture and maybe from Disney themselves to kind of like
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Have you seen these criticisms of the fatphobia?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't get served up, which is any discourse about this article,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: which is interesting because I got served up the content that inspired it,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: but I never saw any of the discourse.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Which is really interesting.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know there was discourse happening about it until you mentioned that.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah. And I feel like there's a larger push happening by Disney to be cooler.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like at their D23 summit this year, they announced like a streetwear,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: more streetwear-y kind of merch that was really cool and interesting.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: They did a They did a collab with Zara Larsson
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: where they did Little Mermaid merch that's inspired by Zara Larsson
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: and her whole aesthetic that's happening right now.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're launching this month a collab with Gustav Westman, which is this cool Dishware brand.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the really chunky bowls and plates and mugs.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: So they're doing one of those.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like there's also a concerted brand push
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: into a more upscale, cool,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: aspirational place as opposed to with adults,
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: as opposed to just like this is family friendly and for everyone.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like they've also done that like Disney content wise
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: with their Disney Plus shows about like Agatha all along,
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm blanking on the Red Witch TV show.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blanking on it.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't watch it, but it's WandaVision.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: WandaVision, thank you.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Where I feel like it's a bit more adult,
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: and I think it's a little bit more mature than their movies
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: that they're putting out.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I feel like they've kind of been,
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: it started with their content like in the past five years,
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: their like series content on streaming.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting. I didn't know they had rolled out street style
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: or inspired merch, which is interesting.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So these cool girls don't have to be scraping eBay for vintage, but I'm sure they do well.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's like, Interesting.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking about your observation about the tattoos and it being
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: a little bit more alt, this new audience.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's also the style of it.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're all black and white.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Their tattoos are all black and white.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, they all have dyed black hair.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of them seem to be wearing, like, Nightmare Before Christmas merch, like,
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: leaning into Disney's, like, horror.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've also seen, and it's probably because, you know,
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: we're just coming out of Halloween, but I've also been seeing a lot about, like,
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Coraline, which is a bit of, like, a darker Disney movie with a little,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: it's like horror for kids, if you could call it that.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And adults revisiting it and fangirling over it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think of like Disney adults,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: it's always been associated with like the princesses and Disney parks themselves
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: and like the very little kid content that Disney offers.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: But when you really look at it,
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: like Marvel is Disney
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: and like Disney adults are technically Marvel fans and...
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Star Wars.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Star Wars.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Those fandoms are also Disney adults.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they are just as obsessed
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: with their franchises as the fans of the princesses are.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I also think it's like certain princesses are more Disney adults
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: than others.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like Tiana, Mulan, Pocahontas,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: maybe Belle are like cooler Disney princesses
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: because I think people feel like they did something and like they stood
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: for something and there was a greater lesson.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't just damsels in distress.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And like the sleepy baby, Snow White, Cinderella are kind of like, I hate the word,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: but like chuggy.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Even when you think about the princesses that young girls today love the most,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: it's like Anna and Elsa.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: They like the ones of their generation.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: They're not as enamored by the original ones that kind of were saved by True Love's Kiss.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I think, yeah, there's a lot of interesting shifts happening in the brand
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: and even like We're seeing Disney also invest more in villains.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: So there's like the Descendants is huge.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like Melissa was telling us they went to the like Descendants thing with her daughter.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then they're also opening up a villains part of the park.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: So they're leaning into like different narratives than just
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: the like traditional princess, hero type thing that we're used to seeing from them.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's to hit these different sensibilities and value sets that you're outlining.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's so interesting.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know they were doing a villain section of the park because I was,
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: when I was a little girl, obsessed with the Disney princesses.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then I've never really been a Disney adult.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: I've always enjoyed it more in a nostalgic way.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I love Maleficent, the Maleficent movies.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think she's such an interesting character.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I would go visit the villain section if I ever found myself at Disney.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: There was one other thing.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I also feel like we had it as a potential topic the other week,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: but I feel like adult Disney stars,
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: this is now kind of separate from the Disney adult, but Selena Gomez,
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Miley Cyrus have been leaning more into their history.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: With Disney, like Selena Gomez
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: and Demi Lovato famously were Disney BFFs back in the day.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Disney like heavily marketed their friendship and they had a movie together,
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Princess Protection Program.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then they had a falling out and they recently reconnected in the past year
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: and they partnered up together to do a collab for Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: and they did They recreated the YouTube videos they used to post.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: They, like, were lip syncing to their song from the Princess Protection Program.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: They dressed up in costumes as their old characters from that movie.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And people loved it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was all over my feed.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like Miley Cyrus, she obviously did like the Hannah Montana reunion.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe it was the 20th reunion last year.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting because these are people who have,
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: once they kind of escaped the Disney machine,
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: made a concerted effort not to revisit it.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And in the past couple of years, they've been dipping their toes back in.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think Selena is also- It'll be interesting to see how-
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: You go. I was just going to, one last thing I remembered,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Selena Gomez also makes appearances in the Wizards of Waverly Place reboot
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: on Disney+.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think she's like a regular, but she makes, she comes in and out.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: She makes cameos.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Also, Hilary Duff and her recent rise as like the millennial It Girl,
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like will be interesting to see how that plays out
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: because when Disney Plus was launching,
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: there was talk of bringing Lizzie McGuire back.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And they wanted to make it more mature.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: They wanted, you know, like the joke was, let Lacey McGuire have sex.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And Disney was like, No, this is a character for kids. We can't do that.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: It needs to be super PG.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the project fell apart over creative differences.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like we are now five, six years out from that.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems like Disney is finally in a place where they're ready to figure out how
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: to let some of their brands grow up to reach this millennial audience.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll see if they can woo Hillary back over because I think
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: that The people would love a Lizzie McGuire reboot based
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: on how they've been responding to Hillary's most recent era.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: I would love that.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: I would probably get a Disney Plus subscription to watch it.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, same. Yeah.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully somebody at Disney listens to this.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, second topic I wanted to talk about.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is the waiting in line epidemic that it seems to be
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: a coastal problem mostly happening in New York City and LA.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been getting, I don't know what to call them, like line content creators,
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: like People who live in New York and they will just go out and find massive,
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: massive lines.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them I've seen will just wait on them and just wait to see what
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: the line is eventually for.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or they'll send you estimates and interview people who are waiting in line.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're seeing this content,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: people are waiting in hours plus long lines for A pop-up of like
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: a social media brand or a matcha spot or Froyo.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Froyo is, I've been seeing a lot of Froyo lines in New York City.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so, it's like specific ones too.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because like, remember I saw somebody's video
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: and there was this massive line outside of a Froyo place in New York.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, there's another fro-yo place like half a block up
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: and nobody's waiting in line for that. There's no line.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: But people are willing to wait like an hour
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: for this specific trending fro-yo spot.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Megan, have you seen any of this like line stuff happening in L.A.?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, I've waited in some lines myself,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: not quite what we're describing where it's like hours for the trending spot,
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: but I feel like lines are just part of living in a city, you know,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: like there's always lines for things and there's certain lines you'll wait in longer
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: than shorter. How about you?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Have you been seeing the line epidemic as described?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have on the weekends in Soho and the West Village,
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: the neighborhoods where these little trendy pop-ups and spots are,
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: you will see lines.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I just kind of walked by and I'm like, I wonder what that's about.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: But it's funny because typically when I was in high school, you would see lines like that.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd be like, oh, there must be a really good sample sale happening there or something.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's like, oh,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: it's a matcha restaurant that people saw on Instagram. No shade.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: I like that distinction you're making because my first instinct
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: when I saw this article was, this isn't new.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: I remember this being a plotline in Gilmore Girls' A Year in the Life.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Rory is writing about how people are waiting hours in line for things that they are
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: so ridiculous.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that was in 2016.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that was 10 years ago that we were having the same discourse.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I think what you're pointing out is that people used to at least understand
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: the reason why people were waiting in these lines.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And now it seems like the thing that they're getting is not worth the hours
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: that they're spending on it is kind of what we're noting.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: But clearly they think it is because they're waiting in line for hours.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think social media is a big part of that because a lot of this is you're doing it
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: for social media clout to post like, look, I got one of these things.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: And when you look at young people who honestly have too much time on their hands,
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: time is one of the things that they can waste and that they can be luxurious
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: about because they can like Maybe they don't have a career
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: that they're really passionate about,
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: but they have four hours to wait in this line and be on their phone and chat
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: with their friends so that they can then post it on their story
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: and everyone can be like, OMG, you got that?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like it's so hard or I look so good.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's a rebalancing
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: of values and time and what you want to spend your time on.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's actually really interesting.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, you totally hit the nail on the head with that.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: They talk about that in the article and about how having
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: the disposable time to wait
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: in these lines for sometimes hours on end is like a flex in and of itself.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have responsibilities.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have work.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have the time to wait in this line.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the dazed journalist went
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: and found a massive line and interviewed people who were in line.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they talked about how it felt like they were a part of something
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: and they were making friends with the people around them.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the title of the article is When did waiting in line become an activity
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: because these people aren't just standing there waiting silently.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're making new friends.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Which is great.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it is like very true.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: The last time I waited in a line like this was for the Manhattan Vintage Show.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't even that long.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was maybe in line for like 30 minutes.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't that bad.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: But like it was very communal.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Also like very communal because it was like, you know,
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: people would come out and then they'd let more people in.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And like it was communal with like the people coming out where the girls,
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: it was mostly girls, waiting in line would stop them and be like, what did you get?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And they would pull out like and do a little like haul for us live while we were waiting.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it was honestly like very fun.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like what I, I had a very fun experience with that.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Would I do that for Froyo or Matcha?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, but it's like all about your priorities.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I also think to your point about waiting in line,
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: like just being a part of a big living in a major metropolitan area,
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like a lot of this line content that you'll see is targeted towards people
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: who don't live in New York or LA and them kind of in the comments being like,
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: oh my god, this is what New Yorkers are doing on a beautiful Saturday.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is how these people are spending their time.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of being like a way to dunk on the coastal elites
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: of like Yeah, yeah,
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: that makes a lot of sense that that's kind of one avenue of content.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like Coachella is often like that too,
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: where they highlight the bad parts because people who aren't there want to feel
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: a sense of schadenfreude more than they want to feel FOMO.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: With the line thing, another thing that I think is very interesting about The idea
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: of waiting in line, well, first of all, we talked about Disney,
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: which is just kind of a collection of lines that you wait
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: in for something that's like a moment of thrill, quite literally, where you're like,
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: woo, and then you're like, okay, this is over.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: But with the line content, we're also just seeing right now people are so hungry
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: for an excuse to gather.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about in Radar Report this week how people got together over the weekend
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: to protest Liberty Biberty, the Liberty Mutual mascot.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, it's a joke, you know?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, they're like, it's annoying and repetitive and we're protesting it.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think Liberty Mutual should take it seriously in terms of, like,
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: rethinking their branding necessarily.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I think just there's the bar for entry of, like,
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: this is an excuse to get together is so low.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there was the lookalike contest that happened, like, over the summer.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: There was...
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: In Germany, people were literally having events
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: where it was called Pudding Midgabble,
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: which translates to eating pudding with a fork.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: And they were just gathering in random places to eat pudding with a fork.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is presenting a real opportunity for brands where people just want
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: to get together and make friends and if you can find a really compelling activation
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: that does that, it doesn't have to be the biggest, greatest thing,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: but just a really good experience that gives people a reason to get outside and talk
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: to each other online is all people are really looking for right now.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Quickly on the Liberty Viberty.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want more context on that,
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: I highly recommend watching CoolShinyCulture's video from yesterday
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: where Megan broke it down in very in-depth detail.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I wanted to comment this while I was watching live, but I got distracted by something.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: When I first saw the Liberty Viberty protest, I thought it was a stunt from the brand.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, they hired people to protest about their new mascot.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then I just like scrolled by.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, that's interesting.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was like, oh, it got a lot of views and like a lot of likes. Good on them.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I just kept and I just scrolled away.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until you talked about it yesterday where I was like, wait,
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: that was just some dude.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Just some dude.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Just some dude.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Who was like, wait, an excuse to gather people? Let's do it.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I think take that energy and spin it in more positive ways.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: One last thing on Liberty Biberty.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is kind of funny and stupid.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: My dad is very into theater.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: He is always in shows and me and my sister
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: and sometimes our very nice friends will go and watch him and he's very good.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have to say he's very good.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he was in a short play contest that he made to the finals.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: So yay for Joe.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a joke in it about the Liberty Biberty mascot.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a little one minute back and forth about Liberty Mutual's mascots.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it got the biggest laugh in the crowd.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it was about how it's kind of annoying and their mascot doesn't make sense
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: and nobody gets it.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: But everybody laughed about it because everybody knew exactly what they were talking about.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody knew what Liberty Mutual was.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone knew their multiple mascots at this point.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it was their biggest laugh.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think, good for Liberty Mutual.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: They've got a unique mascot and add dollars to spend and they did it.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like, listen, it might be annoying,
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: but they have really good brand awareness and like where a group
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: of about 100 people can all laugh at a joke about it.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Last thing I wanted to talk to you about.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: This Fast Company article about customer service online
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: and that consumers are having like a major gripe with the state
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: of modern customer service, how hard it is to get human support.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: People are getting like very frustrated with the AI bots that tend to like spin you in circles.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that brands are starting to see a lot of public complaints
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: on their social media via comments.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're getting DMs.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have been on the customer service beat
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: for a while because it just always bleeds
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: into social now.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: People DM brands with customer service questions.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're in comments.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't respond fast enough, they're publicly calling you out.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's something like brands need to pay close attention to.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this article is breaking down, um, the backlash that companies are starting to see.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it reminded me of a piece that you wrote for us, Megan,
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: way back in January about why 2026 is the year of the human touch.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And by that, you basically meant, like, customer service and more personalized customer service.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And, I mean, this is like, yeah.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: A stat from the article is 77% of U.S.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: consumers experienced a major product or service problem in the past year
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: and poor complaint handling.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's a huge problem and no wonder people are complaining publicly about it.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And serious stuff, like not protesting Liberty Mutuals.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Annoying.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to get your thoughts because you really called this.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of your predictions at the top of the year.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to put your brain on it.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think, like I said, like you said,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: we saw this coming because people are so invested in, I think this comes down to,
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: people are very invested in cutting costs.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the long-term effects of that has been
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: the customer experience has deteriorated very drastically.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: It used to very much be in favor of the customer, maybe too much,
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: like the customer is always right.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that kind of gave people carte blanche too.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Poorly in stores and I think we saw a major backlash to that on like Karens
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: and there's a movement of like well I don't get it paid enough
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: to be treated like this or to care this much.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so its led to the situation where especially in retail you've got people
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: who are going to shop, maybe not finding what they need,
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: and then they're going to go shop online, and then that's the cost of the business,
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: where it's like they were there in person,
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: could have been helped and gotten the thing they need.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, they went home, bought it online, probably with free two-day shipping,
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: and then now you have to get that item really quickly.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's only a matter of time before the businesses recognize
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: that good customer service is actually good for the bottom line.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think ultimately make the pendulum swing back.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what will be interesting there is what does good customer service look
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: like to Gen Z?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like it's very different from what it looked like
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: to older generations and specifically boomers.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: I know I get a lot of like not just people spamming DMs,
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: but like a lot of people having their like pretty woman moment on like TikTok
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: and making videos.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And also like it's always been a thing of like tweeting at the brand and stuff like that.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's totally and this is like a complaint.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: And an annoying thing about working in social media is like a lot of times
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: the social team then has to deal with that.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be like very choppy water to navigate
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: because if most social media
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: professionals are not customer service professionals.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And some brands I know are like I have tried to solve with this
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: with like creating specific customer service accounts
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: and like sending people's complaints there.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you have a question, DM our customer service Twitter account, you know,
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: or X account instead of like spamming the main brand.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's like I saw this article and I was like, well, yeah,
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: we've been talking about this for forever.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you work in social,
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: you've I have not known about this
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: for a long time.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: I did want to talk
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: about your piece that you wrote.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: You did pull out brands
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: that are doing a good
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: job And one thing with Chewy I think
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: that is really good is that one of the things that I see
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: that they do is they send out random pet portraits so you can upload a photo
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: of your pet to their profile.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then every now and then it seems like they have an in-house artist
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: who will paint your pet's portrait and just send it to their random subscribers.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: So every now and then someone will be like, look what I got from Chewy.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is so sweet.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just a portrait of their pet, which who doesn't love that?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that is just kind of like a surprise delight moment that they do.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's so great. And then they're also really good around bereavement.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: So like a lot of people will say like,
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: oh my pet died and I forgot to cancel the auto ship and I called Chewy and they were
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: so nice. They were like, don't worry about it. We'll refund you.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Please donate that to his shelter.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then he sent me a bouquet of flowers.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's so sweet." And so I think they are creating a standard of just like
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: a brand that is completely online.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's no brick and mortar Chewy's.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Just being so human and so like loving, for lack of a better term.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: That those people feel compelled to come to the internet and say, this is a great brand.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: I love this brand. And it creates a halo effect where that becomes seen as the brand
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: that pet lovers want to shop from.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: So each of these good things that they're doing is, I feel like,
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: their form of influencer seeding.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it really pays off.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it totally does.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know with my mom, we have a dog.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up with pets.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Chewy is amazing with bereavement they sent my mom.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Bouquets and like handwritten notes.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's so kind.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, they totally have a halo effect.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like they're like,
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: One of the few brands that is like universally loved online and like can kind of do no way.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, brands can always do wrong in the eyes of consumers,
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: but like they are seen as a good brand
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: and like lovable online.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And another one that I think is similar that you also called out was Patagonia
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: and kind of like similar halo effect
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: that competitors like North Face don't have.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: of theirs is like you call out their worn wear program
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: where you can send
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: in your damaged Patagonia gear
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: and they will repair it for you
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: and then send it back.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that is, I mean, my ultimate customer service right there.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah. But I think that something that I'm seeing,
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: we used to talk a lot about brand love and brand love being really important,
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: but I think something that is going to replace brand love is brand fondness.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it is kind of this halo effect that I was talking about with Chewy
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: where it's like you have fondness for the Chewy brand based on their long reputation
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: of being like good to people.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think Patagonia also has a lot of fondness and we saw that fondness kind
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: of carry them through what could have been a reputational scandal
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: with the Patagonia thing that happened where there was a drag queen
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: who has been using the name Patagonia and there was a legal kerfuffle
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: where Patagonia, the original brand, was suing Patagonia for copyright infringement.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then Patagonia came to the internet and was like, hey,
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: this big brand is coming after me and kind of tried to garner support in kind
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: of like a Dave and Goliath sense.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like in normal cases, people would have just jumped on like Patagonia,
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: leave her alone.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: But because people have such fondness for Patagonia, they were like,
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: this doesn't sound like them.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: And like immediately the narrative shifted to like, No.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then Patagonia released a statement saying we've tried
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: to resolve this internally and it was squashed immediately.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like that kind of has insulated them.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: The fondness people have for them has insulated them as a brand
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: to where when someone tried to take it to social media and have like
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: a reputational crisis, they were able to be like, no.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: And they didn't have a reputational crisis.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I think Fondness is going to be so much more important of like building up a bank
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: of goodwill over time versus like just being relevant and being in the mix
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: and having high awareness.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: That is so true.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think that Patagonia, Patagonia moment was the only time where I have seen
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: a brand potential scandal situation where audiences were like, wait,
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: let's pause for a minute.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: And look into what's actually happening.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: That was like, I remember while I was watching it happen, I was like, whoa,
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've never seen audiences give a brand grace like that.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: And just kind of like, instead of rushing to judgment, being like, wait,
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: let's pause for a minute.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, the internet doesn't do that, but it does for Pasadonia.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that, and that wasn't Patagonia's mistake, but I think when brands,
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: every brand makes a mistake at some point,
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: and I think having that fondness built in will allow you to weather those mistakes
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: and also take bigger risks, do bigger innovations, try things that maybe won't work.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I, and I think we're seeing the opposite with Facebook where people have like
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: a lack of fondness and maybe even some contempt for Facebook
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: that I think makes it hard, everything they do 10 times harder
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: for Because they're up against that already impulse to kind of be negative
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: when it comes to them.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah. No, totally. I love that.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Brand fondness.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're claiming it now.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: That term is Megan's brand fondness.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe look out for more on that in 2027.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much as always, Megan.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing conversation.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great weekend and we'll see you next week.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: See you Tuesday. Bye.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.