The Newsletter You Didn't Subscribe To - Friday cats

Your daily dose of nonsense - 24 July 2020

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Friday cats

Source: Reddit

Source: Pinterest.

Source: CBS Austin (okay, it was funny at first, but on closer inspection, it was its leg that got stuck. It broke its hip)

TikTok earmarks $200mil for creators

In a previous post, I discussed TikTok hiring lobbyists so that it doesn’t get banned in the US. But why limit yourself to traditional lobbyists, when a large part of your business model is about making a new crop of lobbyists on a brand new platform. The only difference is that we call them ‘influencers’ instead of lobbyists.

Of course, the traditional lobbyists are typically:

1. Specialised in dealing with policy makers; and

2. Already have one-to-one connections with policy makers.

But sometimes, nothing beats appealing to the public for their support. Especially a public who sees your platform as one that is democratising the ability to reach out to as many people as possible. 

Of course, this strategy is contingent on the perceived positive sentiment being more powerful than the perceived negative sentiment of security concerns of it being run by a Chinese company. So far, it seems like many people in India don’t really want to uninstall TikTok if this report is to be believed - only 21% of survey respondents in India want to uninstall it ‘because it is Chinese’.

And to tip this balance further into TikTok’s favour - it is willing to spend $200mil to fund creators and increase their chances of making a livelihood creating content on the platform. It definitely would help TikTok with a bribe that size. Everyone would like to be paid the rate Charli D’Amelio gets (reportedly $48,000 per post)

Also, again, if all else fails, TikTok can make itself an all American business, where reportedly Sequoia, General Atlantic and New Enterprise Associates are interested to make a bid.

Financial devolution of London

In case you didn’t know (I didn’t), London as a city has the ability to spend 7% of taxes collected within it, according to this report. Mayor Sadiq Khan wants to increase that. Would Boris, who was also mayor of London at one point, budge?

I doubt. My personal opinion is that he might want to finally reward the people outside of London who voted strongly for him in the last election, who had traditionally voted Labour but now want Boris in charge. And you do that by possibly reallocating money that money that’s raised in London and could be spent on London, to the other parts of the UK.

But I think it’s an interesting concept of London having control over the money that was raised in London. In this day and age, it might as well be its own independent country if it were to get total control of its finances. Also another entertaining thought experiment would be ring-fencing London as part of the European Union while the rest of the UK gets out, as outlined in this Wikipedia page on London independence. This idea stems from the way London has voted in the Brexit referendum, where the majority of constituencies voted Remain as shown in the graphic below.

Source: Wikipedia

It sounds really absurd, but it’s 2020 and we’ve seen some crazy stuff happen this year now, haven’t we. (If you already live in London, would you fancy suddenly living outside of the UK?)

Fast food and the lockdown

Yesterday, I found myself listening to the banging tunes of the old Wendy’s rap music ad campaign. For whatever reason, these are my favourite lines to the song Rest in Grease:

Them lil tweets don't phase me, McDonalds be so lazy

I know the reason you hatin' me 'cause I'm fast food's First Lady

It's queen Wendy up in this thang

You can't beat us serving them thangs

Feuds aside, Chipotle, a chain of Mexican-inspired fast food restaurants, has done really well for itself during the lockdown. In the US, you can order on the app and then go to their drive through lanes made especially for pick-ups (“Chipotlanes”). Digital sales for the quarter, including the Chipotlanes, grew 216% to nearly 61% of total sales.

On the British front, the UK Office of National Statistics reported that food sales in the UK has been really strong since the start of the pandemic:

But if you don’t want to venture out but still have the craves, here are some home made attempts at recreating food served by chains by other people (some are pretty funny).

Cats being cats

This MP was teleconferencing, then his cat decided to make an appearance, and stayed.