Another dangerous, dumb TikTok trend: The “Superman Challenge” has kids tossing each other into the air to look like a flying superhero, with many ending up in the hospital with broken bones and contusions. Talk to your kids about it.
Reset your social media algorithms
Still stuck in election season on your social media feed? Or maybe you bought one bottle of perfume and now Big Tech thinks you’re launching a beauty empire. Algorithms are smart, but they don’t know when you’re ready to get back to your regularly scheduled programming, like cat videos and memes. Here’s how to reset your feed and take control of what you see.
Start with Facebook
Goodbye, annoying ads. It only takes a minute to kick out the things you no longer want to see.
🛠️ The fix: Filter your advertising topics by going to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Account Center > Ad Preferences > Customize ads.
Now, on to YouTube
Say your family is staying with you for the holidays and your niece is watching cartoons on your YouTube account all day long. Now that’s all YouTube recommends. Delete your search history to get things back to normal.
🛠️ The fix: On the YouTube app, tap You to bring up your History. Tap the cog icon > Settings > Manage All History. At the bottom, you’ll see DELETE with a blue down arrow. Tap from the dropdown menu to delete videos from today, a custom range or all time. Click X to remove items individually, if you prefer.
Going forward, turn off your viewing history any time you don’t want those vids in your algorithm. You can set your video and search histories to autodelete, too. Now your YouTube is back to how you like it, with my video podcast at the very top. You’ll love it!
TikTok tracks your habits
TikTok’s algorithm is built to keep you on the app. Every time you like, follow or comment on something, it tells the algorithm you’re interested in a video, and more videos like it will pop up on your For You page. Disliking a video or writing a nasty comment doesn’t matter, by the way; you still kept watching.
🛠️ The fix: Reset your feed. Open your Profile in the bottom right corner then press the three lines at the top right > Settings and Privacy > Content Preferences > Refresh Your For You Feed > Continue.
Fine-tune Instagram
$300,000
How much an Alabama woman stole from the church where she worked. Most of the money went toward buying virtual gifts for TikTok creators. She faces up to 20 years in prison. What a mess.
No jokes when it comes to a kid’s well-being: Police are investigating after a TikTok mommy influencer posted a now-deleted clip in which her son flinched and covered his face when his dad walked by. It was so startling that viewers contacted Utah police and Child Protective Services in droves. Mom says they were just playing around.
📱 Will TikTok get banned? A U.S. appeals court just said Congress can force TikTok to cut ties with its parent company, Communist China’s ByteDance, or get banned. It’ll be appealed in the Supreme Court. If TikTok is banned, it won’t be illegal for you to use TikTok; the ban would only prohibit app stores from letting users download the app, among other things. Remember, TikTok sends just about everything you do on your phone to Chinese servers.
Rich parents tickle their kids by saying, “Gucci, Gucci, Gucci!” Aris Yeager got his big break on social media with a viral video mocking his wealthy college roommate’s entitled behavior. He started an account called “The European Kid,” a parody persona of a spoiled heir. Now, 1.7 million TikTok followers later, he makes up to $30,000 per post.
It twerks: People are turning to TikTok to pay off medical bills. Some creators can earn cash from videos over a minute long, and viewers only have to interact once. A mom turned a live dance party with her kids into $2,500 to pay off her 3-year-old’s medical bills. It works!
Criminal mastermind: A Florida mom stole from Target using a barcode trick at self-checkout. She then went full “genius” and posted the evidence on TikTok. When police shared a screenshot of the would-be thief, a tipster identified her as a social media influencer with over 356,000 followers. Her account even showed her in the very same outfit, picking out the stolen goods.
🚢 Google = The Titanic: That’s how The Wall Street Journal now describes the search engine, which is on the verge of sinking. Here’s why: AI tools like ChatGPT, Gen Z searches on TikTok and, of course, Google’s increasingly worse search results. I called this two years ago. It’s nice to see the WSJ catching up.
All I want for Christmas is a capybara: No, not me! The semiaquatic rodents that live up to 12 years and weigh up to 150 pounds have stolen the internet’s heart with viral videos. In a Reddit post, a 24-year-old brother asked if he was a jerk for thinking it’s just a TikTok phase his 16-year-old sister will grow out of. Spoiler: She will.
🗞️ We’re in trouble: Nearly 40% of Gen Zers get their news from social media influencers. X is the go-to news source, with Instagram close behind. Male influencers outnumber women 2-to-1, and news influencers lean a bit more right than left (27% to 21%). Wonder how long it’ll take for TikTokkers to be moderating debates.
Real men cannot be stolen: A woman is going viral on TikTok for the way she discovered her boyfriend of eight years was cheating for the last two years. Yes, you read that right! Mr. “Lyin’ King” got a new iPhone and lost all his contacts. She sent him a text that read, “Hey sexy,” so he could save her number. He replied, saying he needed to leave his apartment but was on his way to bed her, thinking she was the other woman. Yikes.
🚨 Black Friday alert: Chinese scammers are imitating big brands like L.L. Bean and Ikea with “deals” up to 80% off. They use tracking pixels in Meta and TikTok to detect your location and translate the site so it looks legit. Don’t fall for too-good-to-be-true offers, and shop on official sites only!
Not your dentist’s advice: TikTok’s latest stupid viral trend, oil-pulling, has people swishing cooking oil around their mouths for five to 20 minutes. Why? To whiten teeth and prevent gum disease. There’s some evidence it improves gum health, but it’s nowhere near as effective as mouthwash or, ya know, brushing your teeth.
Future of hiring: Gen Z is ditching traditional resumes and recording videos on TikTok to land jobs. Take Nicole, who applied for a Barstool Sports internship with a video resume and racked up over 657,000 views. No word on how many recruiters saw it, but it sure beats having a resume get buried in an inbox or automatically trashed by an AI bot.
Divorced Barbie comes with all of Ken’s stuff: When social media stars divorce, splitting assets is tough. Lawyers factor in current values, the stars’ future earning potential, and who came up with the best pranks or did the most editing. Take “MikeAndKat” — they had 4 million followers when they split. Kat got the TikTok account and blew it up, while Mike got the YouTube channel … and it flopped. Ouch.
👑 A royal first: Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, just became the first British royal family member to join TikTok. The 65-year-old, who was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, plans to share an intimate look at her journey. It’s strange to me she only has a little over 2,000 followers.
Sounds like the plot for a Stephen King horror movie: A nation gives its enemies’ kids a free, fun app that takes over and destroys their lives right in front of their parents’ eyes. Newly leaked confidential docs prove Communist China-owned ByteDance knew kids could get addicted to TikTok in under 35 minutes. They also knew TikTok would cause anxiety, depression, memory issues, slower brain development and sleep problems. Hopefully, there’s no sequel.
“Facebook is so lit,” said no Gen Zer ever: Zuckerburg knows this, so they’re going all in to capture those younger eyes for more billions in ad revenues. They’re showing nearby events, groups and activity recs. Short video clips now look like TikTok, and friends can find profiles of people you can date. Just wait till Grandma sends you a DM like, “You have such a pretty face. Pull your hair back so it shows.”
🚨 12 states and Washington, D.C., are suing TikTok: The lawsuit claims the Communist China app is purposefully loaded with things like infinite scrolling, push notifications and in-app currency to keep kids glued to their screens, leading to anxiety, a lack of sleep or worse. This is great, but where were they in 2018, when TikTok launched in the U.S.?