Why your LinkedIn is about to get very busy
+ MrBeast Luigi arc, the Gen Z jegging, masculinity coaches, Barstool tea, paparazzi fire chasers, and a Spotify party boycott at the Grammys
Everybody wants a new job in 2025
Lately it feels like everyone I know is looking for a new job. Friends are polishing up their LinkedIn pages and networking like crazy. I’ve also noticed a lot more memes on IG and X about hating work, and the vibe online generally feels like a lot of people are fed up and looking for something new. This seems to be backed up by recent data. 56 percent of full-time employees in the U.S. are looking to get a new job in 2025 and 27 percent have already started searching, according to one recent poll. One in three people plan to quit their current job this year even if they don’t have a new one lined up.
These stats confirm earlier findings from Gallup that show that American workers are fed up and over half of them are actively looking for a new job as employee satisfaction plummets.
With inflation rising faster than wages over the past few years and costs of living going up, a lot of people feel under-compensated. 52 percent of job seekers are so done they’re even considering switching industries, according to ResumeTemplates, a platform that helps optimize your resume. Workers in retail, government, hospitality, and manufacturing are the ones most likely to be seeking a new field, and finance and tech are listed as the most desirable industries. Better work-life balance and job security are the two things that respondents said were their number one priorities (with 99 and 98 percent respectively).
It’s no surprise that if you hate your job and desperately want to quit, you’re probably pretty miserable at work. And, as Gallup reported recently, “U.S. employees’ daily negative emotions remain elevated above pre-pandemic levels.... Although all four negative emotions measured — stress, worry, anger and sadness — peaked in 2020, their latest measures remain higher than data Gallup collected before 2020. Gallup’s indicators also find that employees’ life evaluations have reached a record low.”
I think this general job dissatisfaction is going to lead to some interesting shifts this year. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more people making moves in the first few months of 2025 and attempting to redefine what their work life looks like. It would be amazing if employers started valuing their workers, but since this is America and I don’t see that happening anytime soon, I do think there will be opportunities out there for people seeking to tap into this broad sentiment of work hatred and misery. Yay!
Paparazzi are running into the L.A. wildfires to try to get a shot
When paparazzi photos of Ben Affleck evacuating his $20.5 million Pacific Palisades home spread all over, the pics seemed to show that that celebrities, even amidst raging wildfires, are just like us. But the photos also revealed a deeper issue: paparazzi will follow their A-list subjects into literal infernos.
Vulture reached out to paparazzi agency photojournalist-proprietors Randy Bauer, owner of the Bauer-Griffin photo agency, and Giles Harrison, founder of London Entertainment Group, to ask: “What could possibly possess these ultra-competitive, stop-at-nothing, take-no-prisoners shooters to venture out amid Los Angeles’s most devastating natural disaster in pursuit of celeb photos?” You can read the full piece here.
Randy Bauer Bauer-Griffin photo agency:
“For lack of a better term, it’s a shitshow. We’re doing some pictures of what we call general views of the fire in the neighborhood to help with the story. This is a national, international story; it’s not just a local L.A. story. The celebrity aspect, a lot of it is just fluke. It’s random sightings and luck. There’s definitely interest in a celebrity in front of their burned-down $10 million mansion with tears in their eyes.”
Giles Harrison, London Entertainment Group:
“I know what the strategy is. They want photos of celebs picking up the pieces, somebody returning to the ruins of their house and showing the destruction the celebrities are facing, which, yeah, in and of itself is a news story. But I ain’t risking my life for it.
Is the payday worth the risk? No. It’s a news story and there’s no re-sellable value to the photos that’s not associated with the fires. Because it’s a tragedy, nobody’s going to keep reposting this. There’s no evergreen value… It’s not worth it, but they’ll do it. Some tabloid, some outlet wants the shot.”
Another friendly reminder that Mark Zuckerberg does not give a shit about free speech
Zuckerberg went on Rogan earlier this week claiming that Biden officials would “scream” and “curse” at Meta staffers when seeking removal of Facebook content, among other things. Given how aggressively the Biden admin has sought to to restrict speech online, this doesn’t surprise me. I’ve long argued that Liberals’ focus on censoring “disinformation” would ultimately backfire as Democrats increasingly fought to restrict any speech that they simply disagreed with. The sad truth is neither Republicans or Democrats actually care about protecting speech or civil liberties online. Both parties just want to censor the other side.
Earlier this week I wrote about how Zuck’s new “free speech” pivot isn’t based on principle or belief in actual free speech, but his comments on Rogan serve as another reminder. As journalist Sam Biddle posted, “The notion that Zuckerberg is somehow now meaningfully against heeding government censorship pressure is belied by the fact that the company continues to voluntarily censor discussion of the federal Specially Designated Global Terrorists roster. A CEO with a principled opposition to government censorship would probably also not employ a dedicated liaison to the Israeli government who tries to get posts by groups protesting that government taken down.
A 2022 audit commissioned by Meta found the company was systematically violating the human rights of Palestinian users through its censorship apparatus. But these users have zero political capital, so the company does very little to address this.
Ultimately, I think these new hate speech rules illustrate the extent to which the 'Community Standards' are less a system of principled values than a tool Meta can use to reposition itself in response to powerful outside pressures (political, governmental, cultural).”
Here’s a good thread from top first amendment lawyer Ari Cohen:
MrBeast Luigi arc?
MrBeast just published his latest video where he helped 2,000 amputees walk again by giving them prosthetic legs. These sorts of videos (where he provides needy people with basic healthcare for YouTube views) have become common on his channel, but while he usually ends his videos with calls to subscribe, this one veers into new territory.
“I wanted to end this video a little differently,” MrBeast said. “I wanted to say that the fact that some of these people had insurance and were denied, some of these people had insurance but didn't have the right coverage, it just doesn't sit right with me. Their only hope right now of getting a prosthetic leg, so they can walk again, so they can go get a job, is for a YouTuber to step in and help them, which is absurd.”
“I don't know what the answer is,” he added, “but I wanted to say this so the 100 million people watching this can get inspired because what I saw when filming this video is just obviously not ok.” Shortly after the clip went viral, r/YouTube inexplicably took down MrBeast’s statement criticizing the U.S. healthcare system.
Overall I think it’s a good thing that he’s starting to acknowledge how broken and fucked up our healthcare system is, and I hope that someone close to him can educate him on this stuff. But, as one X user noted, “Can’t help but notice he is not backing or suggesting any policy or taking political stance whatsoever. It’s almost as if he doesn’t actually care about the words he’s saying, and meanwhile is extremely friendly with many right wingers.”
A fascinating breakdown of how Barstool works with its creators
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Dave Portnoy is in a fight right now with Grace O’Malley, a former co-host of a podcast on his network. O’Malley shaded Barstool in an interview recently, and so Portnoy took it upon himself to reveal the details of O’Malley’s contract. I think it’s such an interesting peek behind the curtain of how these deals are structured, especially at a company like Barstool that is known for it’s talent-driven approach to media.
For serving as a podcast co-host on one of Barstool’s hit shows, Barstool paid O’Malley a base salary of $175,000 and shared 70% of revenue with her whenever the company upsold a sponsorship on one of her personal social media accounts (eg, if it sold a $10,000 sponsorship on her Instagram account she'd get $7,000).
Portnoy claims that Barstool tried to negotiate a contract for launching a new podcast with her, and in that scenario she'd continue earning her $175,000 base salary, and then Barstool would split any revenue past $175,000 with her 50/50.
Barstool seems to retain control over the feed and the other assets related to the show, and they publish the show, so the $175,000 salary makes sense. Podcasters who own their own feeds and publish their own shows (like I do with my Power User podcast!), don’t generally get base salaries because their shows aren’t owned by any company.
What I’m reading
Feeding the Machine: Trisha Paytas and the American Dream
How Trisha Paytas became the Forrest Gump of the twenty-first century - Cafe Hysteria
Will Video Kill the Audio Star in 2025?
Large swathes of the industry have reoriented themselves around video. - Vulture (I’ve been doing a video podcast called Power User, for nearly a year on YouTube, here’s another shameless plug to subscribe!!!!!!)
Twitch Streamers Come Home After Big-Money Contracts at Rivals Dried Up
YouTube, Kick offered multimillion-dollar deals but viewers didn’t necessarily follow. - Bloomberg
The Message in the Sky Over Los Angeles
A native Angelino (and my old editor!!) writes beautifully about what it means to go from smog to smoke. - The Atlantic
More fun stuff
Can AI identify depression from the voices of CEOs on financial earnings calls? A new paper suggests, yes.
‘Superficial’ by Heidi Montag rises to #2 on the iTunes Albums chart after Spencer Pratt encouraged fans to stream it to support the couple after their home burned down in the L.A. fires.
YouTuber “ian is ugly” hired a masculinity coach and the results are hilarious.
Gen Z craze for sweatpants jeans has caused pants to sell out. The Rag & Bone Miramar trousers have been dubbed the “Gen Z jegging.”
Letterboxd hit 17M members in 2024, a big jump from just 1.8M in 2020.
Bradley Cooper’s new Philly cheesesteak spot in NYC is apparently delicious.
Steve Bannon says he “will do anything” to keep Musk out of the White House (rare Bannon W).
The brilliant writer Cory Doctorow just launched a Kickstarter campaign for his next novel, Picks and Shovels, a technothriller set in the early 1980s and starring a hard-charging forensic accountant Marty Hench in an adventure that pits him against the first stirrings of enshittification.
Loro Piana designs are suddenly everywhere, Vogue digs into how the “quiet luxury” brand got very loud through red carpet dressing.
Great thread on how the effort to ban TikTok is not about national security, and instead represents a convergence of the media, Big Tech, the U.S. military, and private groups like AIPAC and the ADL —all with financial and political motives for banning TikTok.
X/Twitter announces labels for parody accounts. I guess comedy isn’t legal on X anymore :(
‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 will be filmed at this glamorous Thailand hotel.
A group of Grammy-nominated songwriters are boycotting Spotify’s Songwriter Of The Year Grammy party over Spotify’s treatment of songwriters.
The $125 million mansion from ‘Succession’ was destroyed in LA wildfires.
Declaration that 'Uptown Girl' brought 'sinister vibes' to the Uber ride has everyone worried about Gen Z. (this headline reads like copypasta and I can’t stop laughing at it)
The FDA has set the acceptable level for the proportion of cockroaches and other insects mixed into ground coffee at 4-6%.
Stimulation Clicker is a nightmarish free browser game that will test your actual capacity for dopamine-driven brainrot.
Medical history books about bloodletting and things like delivering a baby in 1669 have become a hot commodity among collectors.
Meta’s VP of civil rights Roy Austin resigned from the company after the company rolled out policies explicitly allowing the targeting LGBTQ people with hate speech.
A guy made a “Reels Timer” device that attaches to your phone, where Zuckerberg’s head peeks over at you when you’ve been watching Reels too long.
I’m tracking a growing number of children with podcasts, if you see kids under the age of 16 with a podcast, please send them to me!
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Comedy was never legal on X because Elon is criminally unfunny.