The Zeitgeist: March 15, 2024

Today's Edition: Temu, Sora AI and #KateGate

Good morning. #KateGate is consuming social media as conspiracies about the Duchess of Cambridge’s whereabouts swirl and show the dangers of the spread of mis- and dis-information. Sunday’s Oscars saw more than 19.5 million people tune in - the largest viewing audience since 2020. SXSW didn’t get the strong start it hoped for. And, we wait with bated breath to learn the fate of TikTok in the U.S.

Data: Information Tracer; Note: Interactions include likes and comments, as well as retweets and quote tweets on Twitter; Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals

Campaigns

Earned-friendly campaigns & clever moments

Also, Rent the Runaway’s celebration of women’s career wins on LinkedIn, Coors Light’s March Madness advent calendar, Voodoo Ranger x Tombstone Pizza’s pizza beer for Pi Day and National Beer Day and brand activations at SXSW from Delta, Sharpie, LaCroix and Paramount+.

Culture 

Snackable bites of consumer culture

Corporate

Commerce

Shopper society snapshot

Connections

Feed intelligence

Media Moves:

  • Maria Gracia Santillana, formerly reporter at Forbes on the Money team covering cryptocurrency, NFTs and blockchain technology, is moving to the careers beat at the same publication.

  • Vinamrata “Vinny” Chaturvedi, formerly finance reporter at Forbes, is now staff writer at Quartz.

  • Dan Wakeford, formerly editor in chief at The Messenger, is now editor in chief at Us Weekly.

  • Julia Longoria, formerly host and managing editor of More Perfect, is now host and managing editor of a new seasonal podcast from Vox. The show will be a collaboration with the Vox section Future Perfect, which examines the difficult problems facing the world and the most effective ways to solve them.

  • Sofia Gonzalez, formerly reporter at the Houston Business Journal covering economic development, education and diversity, equity and inclusion, is now food and drink editor at Houstonia Magazine.

Also... listen to three new space sounds released by NASA, including sonifications of another galaxy and a supernova remnant.

Thanks for reading.

Let us know what you think of our new layout. If you need help accessing the full text of any of these stories, drop your team a line and we'll send it right over.

—The Editors

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe to the Confidant Zeitgeist here.