What a week! Between the news that TikTok is now given the green light to sell in America for $14b, to Los Angeles Comic Con reminding me that fandom is alive and well, to an epic fundraiser event in Los Angeles for War Child, I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the big picture.

I mean, just take 10 minutes out of your day to listen to War Child’s founder Dr. Samantha Nutt absolutely nailing this rallying cry to make the world a better place:

So of course I fell head-first into studying the backgrounds and strategies of the TikTok USA buyers: Larry Ellison, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Dell, and plenty of other rumored buyers.

Needless to say, it seems to signal that we may be saying goodbye to ‘fun TikTok’ and hello to ‘outrage TikTok’. I’ll break down some thoughts.

Also in this edition:

🦾 1 Billion Summit and Google Giving $1m to an AI Film

👮🏽‍♀️ Tai Lopez Accused Of Being Exactly What We All Thought

🫰🏼 Firms Battle for the Last Snap Shows

🧴 Hailey Bieber Rocks Sephora with $10m in Two-Day Sales

💪🏼 Jobs from Fashion Nova, Sanrio Inc., and Dhar Mann Studios.

🎭 …and a dank meme from yours truly!

Let’s get into it.

NEWS:

TikTok’s US Buyers Aren’t Chill Dudes

TLDR:

• Most confirmed and suggested buyers are rightwing activists at best, brutal propagandists at worst

• Larry Ellison, according to Trump, is taking a ‘big role’ and is quietly building a media empire

• We all know what TikTok customers want: a bit of fun, not outrage.

TikTok has been banned in the US for almost a year now. Well…supposedly.

As a reminder, there was overwhelming bi-partisan support to shutdown TikTok in the US unless it’s wholly owned by the US without connections to the CCP.

Then Trump kicked the can down the road.

Four times.

And now, it appears there’s a group of buyers. And, after looking back into their company strategies and biographies, there’s a lot to be concerned about.

Not as a Republican or a Democrat, but as someone who uses TikTok as an escape in a world of social media outrage factories. To break them down.

Larry Ellison

CEO of Oracle and huge Republican donor, giving over $31m to the 2022 midterms. He also bought out 98% of one of the most beautiful Hawaiian islands (supervillain move) and tried to import a literal fighter jet from Russia until the US government wisely blocked its import (I don’t think that would happen anymore).

He was also briefly the richest man in the world recently, overtaking Musk when there was a spike in the market.

Look, I know bribery has always driven politics. I’m not naive. But shouldn’t there be at least a little classy money laundering in between the whole “if you give our campaigns a lot of money I’ll give you the most valuable social platform for Gen Z in the world?”

I digress. The more worrisome part: when you’re that wealthy, TikTok is not a business. It’s a plaything.

You saw it with Twitter. If Elon had any pressure to build an actual business, he wouldn’t be constantly torpedoing its reputation, especially to the brand market.

And for myself and my creators that spent a lot of time and money building meaningful audiences on that platform, it was like watching watching a major league pitcher decide they were the world’s greatest bowler.

The fans stuck around, but the real ones know it’s a completely different game. Plus we got to watch a lot of really powerful people spend a lot of time in the gutter. Have we all forgotten that Musk said Trump was in the Epstein files?! What happened to that?!

Plus, Larry Ellison and his family are buying a lot of media properties right now: Skydance, CBS, Warner Brothers, The Free Press, and Paramount Global. He clearly sees value in controlling media narratives. And how do you think he’ll control them?

Rupert Murdoch

Literally created Fox News by seeing what was happening on rightwing AM radio merging news and entertainment.

And by ‘entertainment’ he meant ‘outrage that doesn’t concern itself with facts, as that gets in the way of the outrage.’

A lot of ink has been spilled about the sheer amount of misinformation is spread on the network. Heck, they just had to pay $787.5m because of the misinformation spread around ‘The Big Lie’ and Dominian Voting Systems. I’m not here to litigate that.

Instead I’m worried by this: he’s very, very good at creating and operating outrage machines.

Like, Zuckerberg-level good.

And a Pew Research study found 95% of Americans use TikTok for entertainment.

Great for them, but not as sticky as outrage.

If he’s able to help direct strategy, we’re going to see a lot more rage bait and a lot less lip-syncing to ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’.

Michael Dell

Okay, I actually think Michael Dell seems pretty great.

Leans Republican, but appears to be a free thinker. And has donated $3b to child poverty! Awesome!

However, his net worth is $151b.

I know, I know, I shouldn’t judge all billionaires by their number, but it goes back to my biggest issue: is there any economic incentive to keeping TikTok as just a fun platform for fun content?

In closing:

I know there’s no good answer to any of this as the information as to why TikTok was threatened to be banned in the first place has been opaque, but major media consolidation is not only bad for customers, but bad for the creator economy.

We need leaders who have the best longterm interest of the platforms and creators in mind to create healthy ecosystems.

And, frankly, I think this group is more interested in psyops than strategy.

FAME & FORTUNE

What creators, brands, governments, and platforms are making waves this week in the name of fortune, fame, and fun?

🦾 The 1 Billion Summit and Google are giving a $1 million prize to the best AI film at the January summit in 2026. And yes, they are requiring that you use Google’s AI products so don’t just screen record you fighting with ChatGPT about whether a recipe for meatballs should include eggshells.

👮🏽‍♀️ Tai Lopez bought RadioShack and Pier 1 and turned them into an alleged $112m Ponzi Scheme. He was prominently featured in Forbes in 2017 so the streak continues!

🫰🏼 Snapchat has been gradually phasing out their ultra-profitable Snap Shows program, but the remaining surviving Snap Shows are now being aggressively acquired by mostly overseas firms to use AI to make them highly profitable until they are removed. I’ve had six random outreaches about this in the past few weeks, so I have to assume there’s a lot of shows still out there!

🧴 Hailey Bieber, Instagrammer with 54m followers who is married to a singer of some sort, had a record-breaking premiere at Sephora with her rhode skincare line, selling $10m of product in two days. Big creators, here’s reminder number 2 million to build something yourself!

JOB BOARD

Fashion Nova, Social Media Manager

Fashion Nova does an absolutely silly amount of volume, especially on Instagram, with everyone from mega to longtail creators. This role will likely provide loads of content to play with, and if you have a sharp mind for shaping narratives with that content, could be a career-changer.

Marketing Content Manager & Storyteller, Sanrio Inc.

What media writer doesn’t dream of writing for absolutely iconic, global characters! Hello Kitty is a phenomenon all over the globe, and if you can truly understand the desires of the core fanbase, this could be the kind of role where your resume can forever say, “Drove 1 billion views…”

Head of 5th Quarter Agency, Dhar Mann Studios

Dhar Mann has driven billions of views across most social platforms, so working with the agency-side focused on distribution and monetization will likely come with huge goals, but what incredible infrastructure you’ll have to play with! Those analytics will be insane, you get to work with Sean Atkins and Dhar Mann, and you can unpack learnings from some of the best social strategiests in the game. Definitely a mid-career role, but one that could lead to C-level positions moving forward.