📡ON OUR RADAR

• Weekly unemployment claims fell in February. That’s a surprise to many economists, given the surge of layoffs that kicked off 2024. However, the labor market is still tight, and employers are asking more and more of job applicants. WIRED reports tech jobs are increasingly asking applicants to do a massive amount of free work with no promise of an offer.

• Instagram is emerging as a player in the news landscape, according to the New York Times. Following in the footsteps of fellow Meta company Facebook, the app is evolving from a place to share your vacation photos into a platform expected to play an outsized role in the upcoming 2024 election.

• Where have all the good subcultures gone? Internet-driven “aesthetics” and “-cores” are fulfilling American adolescents’ desires for niche personality identifiers rather than spending time in a physical scene. This week, Mireille Silcoff argues for kids to return to a “real-world cultural community” over online algorithmic personas.

💡ON OUR MINDS: “The Cut” Makes The Cut

• As the Media Graveyard continues to populate by the day (R.I.P. VICE), one publication has defied the odds: The Cut.
• Last week, New York Magazine’s style and culture publication announced it would be adding additional full-time editorial staff and new beats (including sports) amid growing demand from advertisers and “industry trend” headwinds.
• Sitting squarely at the intersection of women’s lifestyle, health & wellness, fashion, and pop culture, The Cut has long been adored by its readers for celebrity profiles, candid columns, and making the low-brow somehow high-brow.
• Over the past few years, its growing position in the cultural lexicon has sparked conversations and clickbait. Just last week, a The Cut column went viral for its improbable story of a financial advice columnist being scammed out of $50,000.
• The lesson here? As the media landscape unravels, it might be easy to bet on the business press but don’t count out the lifestyle publications and their dedicated, engaged readership.

🥊QUICK HITS:

In case you missed these reads.

• WeightWatchers’ Ozempic Hype House doesn’t earn the brand any brownie points with disillusioned clientele.

• A word to the Wyze: Your home security cameras could make you an unwitting livestreamer.

• Air Canada was forced to pay a discount erroneously offered by its AI-powered customer service chatbot.