Is John Pork dead?

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Issue #101 | Your reading time this week is 5 mins. 45 secs.

Welcome to your new-look newsletter. Same breadth and depth of coverage. Same analysis and commentary. New layout.

ChatGPT wrote a script for Casey Neistat. It wasn’t great

Casey Neistat turned to ChatGPT-4 to create a vlog script. The result is not good. In fact, the YouTuber called it the worse video he’s ever made. Fortunately, the video lasts only around 5 minutes. Although it is unintentionally funny in places. Casey’s interaction with Candace his wife is particularly funny. According to Casey “every shot and line of dialogue was captured exactly how AI suggested”. The problem with the script says Casey is that it “had no humanity. It had no depth to it. No soul to it”

Mumfluencer faces abuse allegations

Trial starts next week for the mother of a teen YouTube star. The woman faces claims of emotional, physical and sexual abuse from 11 teen content creators who were featured on her daughter’s channel. Plaintiffs include two of the girl’s cousins.

Court papers were filed in January last year. The documents contain claims of “harassment, molestation, and abuse” and of not being paid to perform on the YouTube videos.

According to NBC News the teens are each seeking circa. $2 million in damages (a minimum $22 million in aggregate). The mumfluencer is, in turn, counter suing, to the tune of $30m.

In the UK the Paliamentary Inquiry into Influencer Culture recommended that “child influencers should be registered as 'working children' and protected accordingly” - the report noted that currently child influencers are not afforded the same protections around the pay and conditions of their work as other children in the entertainment industry.

At present, there a very few ways to regulate how children are participating in the influencer community, and the impact this may have on them, including on their consent and privacy.

NBC News explains that some advocates in the US would like to see California “re-examine legislation that pertains to child performers, such as the Coogan Law, which affirms that earnings by minors in the entertainment industry are the property of the minor, not their parents, according to the industry union SAG-AFTRA. The law also requires parents to put 15 percent of a child’s earnings into a blocked trust account, often called a Coogan Account”.

Is John Pork dead?

Firstly, who the hell is John Pork, anyway? He’s a virtual influencer. A human, male body with a pig’s head. I’ve followed him on Instagram for a year or so ever since I saw him trance-out in this video. Today JP has 224k followers on Instagram. TikTok videos including #johnpork have been viewed 568.5m times.

Where does John Pork come from? His first post on Instagram was back in May 2018. He’s rumoured to be the creation of YouTuber Technoblade though this was never confirmed. Many of his posts feature UK backdrops though his Instagram account is Italy based.

Cool, cool so why you telling me this? Because in the last few weeks TikTok has explored with videos claiming that John Pork has died. This video posted on March 27th has attracted 11m views to date. The creators of John Pork have not responded to these videos.

Influence is King

Jimmy Donaldson aka Mr.Beast just made it onto Time magazine’s exulted 100 Most Influential People of 2023 list. Filed under ‘pioneer’ Mr.Beast received a write-up from YouTuber pal and fellow philanthropist Mark Rober.

AiMCO elects new chair

The Australian Influencer Marketing Council (AiMCO) has elected Tegan Boorman as its new Chair. Tegan is an Australian Lawyer with 15 years’ experience and the founder of Social Law Co. Sam Kelly, Managing Director at Hello Social joins as a Deputy Chair alongside Detch Singh, Founder and CEO of Hypetap, and Patrick Whitnall, Marketing Director, TwentyFiveFour who remain as Deputy Chairs.

On becoming chair Tegan Boorman said: “With increased regulatory focus on the influencer marketing industry, it is a pivotal time for industry participants to have a working knowledge of the key issues, including influencer advertising disclosure, tax considerations, and an awareness of the specific goods and services subject to additional regulatory frameworks, such as therapeutic goods, regulated health services and financial products and services”.

Influencers face $60k penalties for breaking health ad rules

In Australia new advertising guidelines specific to cosmetic surgery come into effect on 1 July 2023. The new guidelines contain a strong focus on influencers. They come in addition to the existing code of conduct and advertising guidelines and address the unique features of cosmetic surgery - providing greater clarity about what is not acceptable. In addition to the formal announcement from the Australian Health Practioner Regulation Agency (AHPR) Social Law Co. carries a helpful explainer article.

28% of TikTok users buy after seeing creator content

U.S. TikTok users care less about giving away their data for advertising purposes than the general public surveyed in Statista’s Consumer Insights.

38% of survey respondents using TikTok tolerate advertising on the internet in exchange for free access to certain services. This is 4% more than the total number of adults surveyed.

28% of survey respondents using TikTok say they’ve bought a product because an influencer has advertised it. This is 10% above the average for the sample set.

Mr.Beast taught a class at Harvard

This week Mr.Beast uploaded a photo to LinkedIn of him teaching a class at Havard University. He was at the Ivy-league school to deliver a guest lecture as part of an entrepreneurship course. During the session Mr.Beast discussed his approach to philanthropy along with insights on branding, social media strategy, and the importance of creating engaging content. According to MrBeast News he “emphasized the importance of having a strong vision, setting goals, and taking calculated risks in entrepreneurship. He also stressed the need for authenticity and building a genuine connection with audiences to create a loyal fan base”.

In November 2022 East Carolina University and Mr.Beast announced an exclusive partnership aimed at developing a credentialing program to help solve the creator industry’s growing demand for a skilled workforce pipeline.

Instagram creators get 5 links in bio

Creators on Instagram can now add up to 5 links in their profile bios. The upgrade announced this week by Meta via Mark Zuckerberg’s Broadcast Channel follows testing by the platform from last October. The new feature looks like this.

Montana just banned TikTok on personal devices

Montana has become the first U.S. state to ban TikTok on all personal devices. App stores are no longer allowed to offer TikTok for downloads. According to the legislation “an entity that violates a provision of this section is liable in the amount of $10,000 for each discrete violation and is liable for an additional $10,000 each day thereafter that the violation continues.”

Optimal YouTube Shorts length

Want to know the optimal length for a YouTube Short? Paddy Galloway has crunched the numbers and has the answers. Paddy studied 3.3 Billion YouTube Short views. His findings show that whilst the majority of Shorts lasted between 20-40 seconds, the longer videos performed better and helped the creator earn more subscribers.

BeReal daily users drop 61%

BeReal daily users have plummeted from 15m last October to 6m last month according to Apptopia. That’s a drop of 61%. The dip in popularity will be partly due to the app’s one-trick-pony nature. Competitor copy-cats will also have dented usage of the French-based app. In mid-December, Instagram released its BeReal clone Candid Stories. TikTok has its own version called TikTok Now which launched in September.

A buck for Zuck

The Register reports that Mark Zuckerberg paid himself just $1 in salary again last year. However, the Meta founder and CEO cost his firm $27m in security and travel costs.

YouTube updates eating disorder policy

YouTube has updated its eating disorders policy to better protect viewers from sensitive content. The video-sharing platform may remove imitable content, age-restrict content, or show a crisis resource panel on videos about eating disorders or self-harm topics.

YouTube phases out affiliate marketing pilot

YouTube has phased out an affiliate marketing pilot whilst at the same time praising affiliate marketing. The video platform has this week closed a product-tagging shopping tool during its test phase.