Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: The Kid LAROI & Tate McRae split, E! News cancellation + Gwyneth Paltrow for Astronomer
Transcript
- 0:00Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
- 0:04culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
- 0:07media, the creator economy and the digital space.
- 0:10Every Monday through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
- 0:13I'm your host, Lauren Meissner, the founder of the youth digital
- 0:17media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Scroll,
- 0:21everyone. OK, I have two pieces of news
- 0:24for you guys. The 1st is good news.
- 0:26The second is not so good news. Everything is fine and I'm OK
- 0:29and everyone involved in this story is OK.
- 0:31But something really freaky and scary happened to me this
- 0:34morning that I want to tell you guys about.
- 0:36So the first, I'll start with the good news.
- 0:38OK, we rebranded the newsletter officially finally, so it will
- 0:42no longer be called Infinite Scroll.
- 0:44We explain why and it's kind of a funny story in the last issue.
- 0:49So if you guys are not subscribed, please subscribe
- 0:51because you guys can read that issue and of course get all of
- 0:54our future newsletters. So we are doing 3 newsletters
- 0:57every single month instead of one a week.
- 0:59We're doing Hitfollow Infinite Scroll.
- 1:02So we'll still have one called Infinite Scroll and close
- 1:04friends. So Hitfollow is a creator first
- 1:07newsletter series. So this will be a newsletter
- 1:10every month where we explore who is blowing up on social media
- 1:13and why. It's kind of like a CHEAT SHEET
- 1:16for creator trends and it is the perfect newsletter if you are in
- 1:20media PR, agency marketing. All of that infinite scroll will
- 1:24be kind of similar to what the infinite scroll podcast is,
- 1:27which is like viral topics broken down South, weekly
- 1:31headlines, deep dives, commentary, long form pieces and
- 1:35analysis. So this is perfect for like
- 1:38media professionals are loyal readers, you guys that listen to
- 1:41the pod probably and then close friends is actually going to get
- 1:44you guys involved. So this will be kind of like
- 1:47thoughtful takes on viral content, a place to share
- 1:50perspectives. We'll ask you guys for opinions
- 1:53and takes on different topics and then we will put it all
- 1:56together once a month. So yes, please subscribe to our
- 1:59newsletter. The link is in the description.
- 2:01My next piece of news, like I said, is not that great.
- 2:05Again, everyone is fine, but this is a trigger warning.
- 2:08If you do not want to listen to a story about a baby and a
- 2:11mother getting hurt, then please skip ahead.
- 2:13There are time stamps in the description.
- 2:15I completely understand if you don't want to hear this story,
- 2:18but something very scary happened to me this morning.
- 2:20So I was walking to the gym and I was looking down at my phone.
- 2:24I was messaging and then when I looked back up like several
- 2:26blocks in front of me was a mother on the ground.
- 2:30Like sprawled out on the ground clutching her baby, just
- 2:33screaming like screaming bloody murder, not saying any words,
- 2:38just screaming and sobbing uncontrollably.
- 2:42And the stroller was completely flipped over.
- 2:44No one else was on the street, like nobody was close by.
- 2:47And so I was like looking at the, I was like trying to
- 2:49process what was happening. And then I guess once I kind of
- 2:52realized that obviously she was injured and or the baby was
- 2:56injured and like she needed help, I just started sprinting
- 2:59towards her. And the whole time that I'm
- 3:01sprinting towards her, I'm thinking I am the worst person
- 3:05to be in this situation because I cannot handle gore.
- 3:09I cannot handle seeing limbs that are, you know, disjoined.
- 3:14I can't handle blood. And so I knew that about myself.
- 3:17And I'm running towards her thinking I can't get too close.
- 3:19If something that I see is like not right, I might fade or I
- 3:23might vomit. And then I'm not helpful to
- 3:25anyone. So as I'm running to her, I get,
- 3:28you know, within yelling distance away.
- 3:29So I call out. I say, do you need me to call
- 3:31000, which is like our version of 911 here.
- 3:34And she nods as she's still like screaming, like absolutely going
- 3:37nuts. And I was like, OK, but if I
- 3:39call 000I obviously need to get closer because I need to talk to
- 3:42her. I need to understand what
- 3:43happened. So I I immediately dialed 000.
- 3:46As I'm getting closer, two women who lived in houses around there
- 3:50come out and they come over to her and they're like thankfully
- 3:53like comforting her, checking on her while I'm on the phone.
- 3:55I'm on the phone and I'm getting an ambulance and this woman is
- 4:00inconsolable. Basically what happened.
- 4:02I thought they were hit by a car.
- 4:03I had to ask her obviously because I'm on the phone with
- 4:05dispatch. But no, what happened was the
- 4:09sidewalk was like so mangled at this one particular place and
- 4:14obviously she tried to like get over it with her pram or I don't
- 4:18know if she twisted her ankle or what, but her ankle and her like
- 4:20shin area was like all messed up.
- 4:23It was, I think it was definitely broken.
- 4:25Like she couldn't walk on it. And anyway, she ended up
- 4:28falling, twisting her ankle or something, falling and the
- 4:30stroller like fully flipped over.
- 4:32Her baby was, you know, like quite beaten up as well.
- 4:35And I'm sure she was so terrified that her baby had hit
- 4:38its head and like, it was Oh my God, it was horrific because she
- 4:43was just so distraught and obviously in so much shock.
- 4:46And like, I will actually never get that image out of my brain,
- 4:49like running towards a woman who was staring at me, like
- 4:52screaming her lungs out, like sobbing uncontrollably,
- 4:56clutching her baby. Like I had no idea what happened
- 4:58to them. Oh my God, it was horrific.
- 5:00So the ambulance came, the women that were there were helping.
- 5:03They were very helpful. They were so sweet.
- 5:05The craziest part of this whole story is that the ambulance come
- 5:09and we're kind of outside of like basically like a, a Body
- 5:13Shop for a car, OK? And so the ambulance like pull
- 5:16in and they park, they back into the body shops like parking lot.
- 5:21OK? So they're like blocking the
- 5:22entrance. It's an ambulance.
- 5:24OK? So they're doing what they need
- 5:26to do. And then while they're there, at
- 5:28some point some man comes with a truck who obviously has like
- 5:31parts for The Body Shop or something.
- 5:33He slows down, he honks and he's like, move to an ambulance.
- 5:38Me and then one of the women were like, it's an ambulance,
- 5:40bro, are you fucking kidding me? Like go around.
- 5:44No, Oh my God. It was wild.
- 5:46That actually like enraged me. And I had so much adrenaline
- 5:49already. So anyways, they were off to the
- 5:52hospital. I think they will be completely
- 5:54fine. It was just like the scariest
- 5:56thing. And I actually ended up going to
- 5:58the gym because I was like, well, what am I going to do now?
- 6:00Like I'm not going to get this scene out of my head.
- 6:02I was like all hyped up, you know, I was like on all this
- 6:04adrenaline. I was like, I'm not going to be
- 6:05able to just like go home and start work work.
- 6:07So I was like, I might as well go to the gym.
- 6:09I'm right here. And I'm not kidding.
- 6:10I did what was supposed to be a 60 minute lifting session in 30
- 6:15minutes and it was basically a hit session.
- 6:17Like I didn't listen to music or a podcast.
- 6:19I did not stop. It was like the most adrenaline
- 6:22that I have ever had. It was so intense.
- 6:25And also for context, I was a lifeguard.
- 6:27OK. So like I in theory at some
- 6:30point used to have pretty extensive training and like
- 6:32first aid and emergency situations.
- 6:34But as I have gotten older, like I can handle them less and less
- 6:38and less. Like I really, and I know myself
- 6:40now, like I just know, I just know I cannot handle them well.
- 6:43So it was a very like tough situation for everyone involved.
- 6:47Obviously. I'm so glad the baby and the
- 6:49mom, like I think they will be OK, but it was so scary.
- 6:53With that being said, I did have a few stories that I wanted to
- 6:56cover today that I felt required a bit more like brain power,
- 6:59like a bit of critical thinking, a bit of research, you know,
- 7:02like I want to talk about Sydney Sweeney for the American Eagle
- 7:05and what that represents and stuff.
- 7:06But I really just needed some stories that I felt I could
- 7:10speak to without trying too hard, if that makes sense.
- 7:14Because I, yeah, my day started off really stressful and I
- 7:18really couldn't kind of get back down to earth until just a
- 7:21couple of hours ago. So with that being said, let's
- 7:24get into the stories for today. The first story that I have for
- 7:27you guys is that the kid Leroy has seemingly confirmed his
- 7:30split from Tate McRae, and it also seems like he confirmed the
- 7:35existence of celebrity slander campaigns in the process.
- 7:40After weeks of speculation that the kid, Leroy and Tate McRae
- 7:43were no longer together, it seems Leroy was forced to
- 7:46address the allegations after fans started accusing him of
- 7:50orchestrating a paid slander campaign against Tate on
- 7:53Twitter. So yes, he shared a screenshot
- 7:56on Twitter of a group chat called Leroy Social.
- 7:59So it's like him and his, you know, management, his social
- 8:01team, whatever. In the screenshot, he sent a
- 8:03link to a Twitter thread to this group and he wrote, guys, is
- 8:08this coming internally? If so, can we please have these
- 8:11taken down? Tate and I are on good terms and
- 8:14this just looks messy. Slash wack.
- 8:16Someone in the chat wrote back, yeah, we'll make moves on this.
- 8:19Someone else wrote. Definitely didn't come from us.
- 8:21That's fucked up. And then he quote tweeted this
- 8:24saying, so we all know I have nothing to do with this and I do
- 8:28not cosign this behavior whatsoever.
- 8:30Working on getting these removed.
- 8:31So yeah, him saying Tate and I are on good terms to his team.
- 8:35Most people are like, OK, well, that obviously confirms that
- 8:37they're broken up because that's what you say about somebody when
- 8:40you break up with them. But you know, it's all fine.
- 8:42We're on good terms, right? Two things I wanted to touch on
- 8:44here. First, we posted a TikTok about
- 8:47this breakup yesterday. And like, so many of the
- 8:49comments, I think that's just like, made me realize, I guess,
- 8:52how young they're and basis, which makes sense because
- 8:54they're both so young. But the comments are just filled
- 8:58with people who are either really young or like,
- 9:00delusionally parasocial. Just being like, that confirms
- 9:04nothing. We're on good terms.
- 9:05That could just mean that the relationship is on good terms.
- 9:08But like, once you've been in serious relationships, you know,
- 9:12you would never refer to your partner as, oh, we're on good
- 9:15terms. Like, oh, if somebody asked me,
- 9:17how's your marriage? Oh, yeah, like, we're on good
- 9:19terms. No, that is what you reserve for
- 9:21somebody who you are exes with. Imagine I was like, yeah, Sean
- 9:25and I were on good terms. Like, no, yeah, we're still
- 9:27married. Yeah, we're happily married.
- 9:28Yeah, We're going through shit. Like, whatever.
- 9:30You would, of course, just be like, we are still together
- 9:32saying Tate and I are on good terms to his team.
- 9:35Who would know that they're broken up.
- 9:37I'm going to say that means that they're broken up.
- 9:39Anyways, as I mentioned before, the actually interesting part of
- 9:42this whole story is that the kid Leroy kind of indirectly exposed
- 9:46our suspicions about celebrity PR smear campaigns by sharing
- 9:51that he essentially immediately went to his team assuming that
- 9:54it was possible that these slanderous tweets against hates
- 9:58were coming from his team. And even though they say that
- 10:01they're not coming from the team, the fact that he even
- 10:03entertained that it could be from his team confirms that
- 10:07these targeted near campaigns are real, which obviously has
- 10:11been a very big topic of conversation this year with the
- 10:15Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni situation.
- 10:17And then that kind of snowballed into a bigger conversation about
- 10:20the fact that, oh, like, are women in the media intentionally
- 10:25being smeared? Like, are there these smear
- 10:26campaigns that are intentionally being paid for or like, kind of
- 10:29put out there by different teams for different celebrities?
- 10:33So I really feel like this screenshot gave us more insight
- 10:37into the inner workings of these giant celebrity PR machines than
- 10:41we've had in a long time. And this one, you know, we can't
- 10:44deny. Like he literally thought the
- 10:46first thought was, was this internal?
- 10:47Like, did this come internally from my team?
- 10:49OK, The next story that I have for you guys is E News's
- 10:53cancellation has sparked discussion about the state of
- 10:56entertainment news journalism in the era of TikTok.
- 11:00Iconic celebrity news show e-news has been cancelled after
- 11:0334 years on air. e-news initially shut down in 2020 due
- 11:07to the pandemic and then was revived in 2022.
- 11:10Now I'm I'm sure a lot of you guys were the same if your 90s
- 11:13babies, but like I was addicted to e-news.
- 11:17I mean, I don't think that would surprise anyone.
- 11:18I literally started a company so that I can report on
- 11:21entertainment news every single day as my job.
- 11:24Like I was addicted to this shit.
- 11:26OK, obviously this is kind of a mainstream story.
- 11:28We don't normally cover stuff like this, but I wanted to cover
- 11:31it because of the reasons why it was reportedly cancelled.
- 11:36So this is from people, quote, e-news is being cancelled as
- 11:39part of the network's shift towards priority digital and
- 11:42social content. The show's 11:00 PM time slot no
- 11:45longer best serves the audience who now prefer real time digital
- 11:49coverage. And then former e-news host
- 11:52Liliana Vasquez made a TikTok saying she's not surprised.
- 11:56And she had some thoughts on the state of entertainment news
- 11:59journalism just in general in the TikTok era.
- 12:02So here's what she said. The reason?
- 12:03That e-news didn't work in a taped format is #1 it's far too
- 12:09edited for today's consumption. Right now, I can jump on TikTok
- 12:13or Instagram Stories or Instagram Reels and get real
- 12:16live hot takes in the moment that are reactive to what is
- 12:19happening. When it comes to entertainment
- 12:21news, By the time a story gets put on e-news at 11:30 PM at
- 12:27night, the story's dead. It happened 12 hours ago when
- 12:30TikTok was reacting to it. I go straight to TikTok if I
- 12:33want to hear about the Blake Lively scandal.
- 12:35I'm not turning on my TV at 7:00 PM to hear what some watered
- 12:40down version of that story is. And the reason I know it's
- 12:43watered down is because I lived this life.
- 12:45Any story that we put on air, we had to put through 10 different
- 12:49filters. And were those filters unbiased?
- 12:51How? No.
- 12:52We had to communicate with the publicist, with the managers,
- 12:55oftentimes directly with the celebrity if they were a show
- 12:58friendly. So to think that you were
- 13:00getting an authentic, fair version of entertainment news on
- 13:05air? Not possible you guys.
- 13:07I think part of what's missing to this conversation because
- 13:10yes, like, of course, it's not unsurprising that TikTok
- 13:13creators are getting to the news first, right?
- 13:16And they have less red tape around what they can and cannot
- 13:18say. I mean, that's why we record
- 13:20Mini on the same day as we publish it.
- 13:23Like people always think that we record it a day before, but we
- 13:25don't. We record it, we prep it, record
- 13:27it, edit it and upload it all in the same day.
- 13:29So it's like super, super current.
- 13:31But if you listen to Mini frequently, then you guys would
- 13:33know. I do cover stories that are
- 13:35sometimes a couple days old, even like a couple weeks old if
- 13:38it just comes across my desk. And I think it's still relevant.
- 13:40And I think the piece that is missing here from this
- 13:43conversation is like, yes, TikTok has absolutely changed
- 13:47the immediacy that we expect, like, entertainment news to
- 13:50come. But at the same time, it's also
- 13:53like that parasocial element that I think traditional
- 13:56newsrooms still don't have. They had it with Nightly Pop
- 14:00when it was Hunter, Justin Morgan, Stewart, Nina, like
- 14:04that. I think people, I think
- 14:06audiences felt a bit more parasocial and like a bit more
- 14:08connected to that show. But yeah, that's the thing
- 14:12that's missing. Entertainment news journalism
- 14:13now is about opinion and commentary.
- 14:16Like we can get the news on TikTok, we can get the news from
- 14:19wherever we need to. But people follow these accounts
- 14:22and people are invested in this space now because they want
- 14:25those people's opinions. Like they feel connected to the
- 14:28host or to the creator and they want to hear what they
- 14:32personally feel about these stories.
- 14:34And that's something that broadcast journalism in a news
- 14:37capacity is like not going to do.
- 14:38That's why Nightly Pop was so relevant, because they did share
- 14:41their opinions. The other thing that I think
- 14:43they could have done differently is being flexible on reporting
- 14:47on stories on social first when they first break before you have
- 14:51published them on your more like official channels, right?
- 14:54Like, for example, I posted yesterday about the kid Leroy
- 14:57and Tay McRae on TikTok and I could have waited until I
- 15:00published it here on mini and used a clip from that or like
- 15:02waited until like this is like our main platform, right?
- 15:05So like it makes sense. Like, OK, this is published now
- 15:07officially here. And then we'll put that snippet
- 15:09or whatever on social. Like, no, I was like, well, this
- 15:11is blowing up right now. And it did.
- 15:13And we have almost 1 million views on that video in less than
- 15:1524 hours. And that's because, so I was
- 15:17like, well, we got to get this up ASAP because we got to
- 15:19capitalize on the social attraction.
- 15:21And then I will cover it on mini tomorrow.
- 15:23And like, that's also fine. So many times publishers will
- 15:26not cover a story on social until they've written it or
- 15:29until they've published it wherever they're like main kind
- 15:31of focus is. But that does not work in the
- 15:34digital era because social is not always a driver to something
- 15:37else. Like it's its own individual
- 15:39publishing platform at this point.
- 15:40So you need to treat it as such. OK, The last way that I have for
- 15:44you guys is that Gwyneth Paltrow has been tapped by Astronomer
- 15:47post cheating scandal. OK, we definitely don't need to
- 15:50go into the play by play of this.
- 15:52Also, I'm sorry this is like another kind of mainstream
- 15:54story, but all of these stories are like somewhat mainstream,
- 15:57but they're about like the conversations that people are
- 15:59having online about these stories.
- 16:00OK, so we definitely don't need to go into the insurance and
- 16:03outs of the cheating scandal. But Astronomer was the company
- 16:07that Andy Byron and Kristen Cabot of the, you know, infamous
- 16:10Coldplay Jumbotron cheating scandal both worked for.
- 16:14Astronomer is essentially like an operations tech platform and
- 16:18this is a very random company to go viral in the way that it has.
- 16:22So to capitalize on this virality and all the memes that
- 16:25this is generated, Astronomer has brought in Gwyneth Paltrow
- 16:29as a quote temporary spokesperson.
- 16:31Obviously Gwyneth Paltrow is the ex-wife to Chris Martin who is
- 16:35the front man of Coldplay. So that is her connection to
- 16:38this incident. So the company recently posted a
- 16:40video to social media with the caption reading Thank you for
- 16:43your interest in Astronomer. Hi, I'm Gwyneth Paltrow.
- 16:46I've been hired on a very temporary basis to speak on
- 16:49behalf of the 300 plus employees at Astronomer.
- 16:53Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days
- 16:57and they wanted me to answer the most common ones.
- 17:01Yes, Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow,
- 17:05unifying the experience of running data, ML and AI
- 17:09pipelines at scale. We've been thrilled so many
- 17:12people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation.
- 17:16As for the other questions we've received, yes, there is still
- 17:22room available at our Beyond Analytics event in September.
- 17:26We will now be returning to what we do best, delivering game
- 17:29changing results for our customers.
- 17:31Thank you for your interest in Astronomer.
- 17:35Unsurprisingly, one of the top comments under this video on X
- 17:38describes it as APR master class.
- 17:41Because truly, what a way for astronomer to take this and spin
- 17:45it and to show like, OK, we're not going to take this scandal
- 17:48too seriously. Like, I mean, they're taking it
- 17:49seriously in the ways that they need to.
- 17:51But you know, like we're going to play this up too.
- 17:53We're going to like lean in a little bit, even though I am
- 17:55sure it is wreaking absolute havoc behind the scenes.
- 17:58They're not going to let us know that, right?
- 17:59They're going to be like everything is business as usual
- 18:01to the point that we have money to hire Gwyneth Paltrow.
- 18:04And now everyone, someone is talking so positively about the
- 18:06company, not that they were talking negatively about the
- 18:09company itself. But of course, like this is a
- 18:11way to take a negative press kind of that you are involved
- 18:14in, even if it's not directly about you and like spin it into
- 18:17something that now everybody's like, wow, that is really
- 18:20relevant on the pulse, really funny.
- 18:23Like good for you. However, some of the
- 18:25conversation, there's a lot of users online who are now even
- 18:28more skeptical of the scandal. There are so many people now
- 18:32saying that this whole thing felt stayed as in the cheating
- 18:36scandal, Chris Martin being involved because they're like,
- 18:39how would they get Gwyneth Paltrow so quickly?
- 18:41I'll tell you how. With millions of dollars, like,
- 18:45that's how that probably took her at the most half a day to
- 18:49record, OK? Like there is no way that Andy
- 18:55and Kristen would destroy their reputations for this like buzzy
- 19:00PR moment for a company that they worked for.
- 19:04I don't know if Andy has stakes. I've seen very conflicting
- 19:07things if he was like a Co founder or had stakes in the
- 19:09company. But either way Kristen did not.
- 19:11She was just an employee as far as we know.
- 19:13And like the whole all PR is good PR thing doesn't apply to
- 19:18individuals working in corporate in regular jobs.
- 19:22Like they were private citizens. They were not trying to build a
- 19:26public persona, a public personal brand to further some
- 19:30like fame agenda. Like there would be no benefit
- 19:33to them having this bad PR. There would be no benefit to
- 19:37them on an individual level to go in on some gag like this.
- 19:41Both of them, their names and reputations have been absolutely
- 19:45destroyed. Do I think Andy will go get some
- 19:48other CEO jobs soon? Like yes.
- 19:50Do I think Kristen will ever work again?
- 19:51Like honestly, maybe not. And that's obviously just the
- 19:54double standard. OK.
- 19:55But regardless, neither of them would ever in a million years do
- 19:58that. Why would they do that?
- 20:00They're not trying to get PR for themselves personally.
- 20:02Like they're not trying to get any type of any type of bad PR,
- 20:05especially working in corporate. That's like so high up.
- 20:08Neither of them are trying to get themselves any type of bad
- 20:11PR. They are like private citizens,
- 20:13like corporate workers. Like, no, the company got
- 20:17Gwyneth Paltrow because they have enough money to get Gwyneth
- 20:21Paltrow. Anyways, guys, that's it for
- 20:23Mini Scroll today. Thank you so much for listening.
- 20:25I love you guys. Please remember to rate, review
- 20:28and subscribe. Subscribe to our newsletter.
- 20:30Subscribe to our newsletter. Oh yeah, I didn't even tell you
- 20:33what it was called. It's called keep scrolling for
- 20:36because that's what we would write at the top of every
- 20:38newsletter. Keep scrolling for blah, blah,
- 20:39blah. So we were like, you know what?
- 20:41Infinite Scroll. If you read the most recent
- 20:43issue of Infinite Scroll, you'll find out why we had to change
- 20:45the name, why we decided to change the name, But yes, it is
- 20:47called Keep scrolling for. All right guys, I love you and I
- 20:50will talk to you tomorrow. Bye.