Borkowski Weekly Media Trends: Starmer Vs RLB | TikTok Vs Tabloids | Tech Vs BLM | Tina Fey X Jenna Marbles
Borkowski Weekly Media Trends
Another lesson from the Machiavellian inner workings of political comms, another dystopian technological development revealed, another strand in the new DNA of fame and another week in the rise of Cancel Culture. The usual...
Are the UK Media Losing their Fourth Estate Powers?
Since Kier Starmer was appointed, he has swung the axe into his own top team with impunity - Rebecca Long-Bailey his latest victim, but been reluctant to call Boris Johnson to do the same. Why is this?
It was so quick it was almost forgotten, but when Rosie Duffield MP (a breakout Labour star from the last Parliament) was found to have broken lockdown she was immediately sacked. Rebecca Long Bailey, was (according to Huffington Post) given four hours to retract and apologise for sharing of an anti-semetic sentiment crowbarred into an unrelated story before summarily being sacked. And no journalist got an inkling that the sacking was coming until it was done, which speaks again to a quiet culture shift.
Johnson on the other hand has stood by his men. Cummings and Jenrick are both engulfed in sustained ‘off with their heads’ campaigns. And although Cummings has won his own battle, Jenrick's struggle has ballooned out of proportion. True, it doesn’t look good, but it’s hardly conclusive and the ink being splashed on it either speaks to an underlying reputation (which is possible) or something else. Why is it causing such rage in the media?
This is a struggle over the media's power to hold government to account. Is it possible that Cummings is right, and the traditionally powerful pool of top political journalists are no longer to be feared? That they will jump up and down but the polls won’t move? All you need to do is hide in a fridge until it all calms down and keep pumping money into Facebook ads?
Cummings tried to prove that once, and now the papers from The Mail and The Guardian are doing their best to prove likewise. It almost makes you feel sorry for Jenrick. Nobody deserves to become the stake in a game of chicken between the media and government.
TikTok is running down the clock on tabloid dominance of the Fame Game?
Two things we've seen emerge from the current situation are firstly the development of a Gen Z / Zoomer personality as encapsulated by the millions of Gen Z vs Millennial and Zoomer vs Boomer memes, and secondly the continued demise of traditional media.
The two seem disconnected but there's a theory which connects these two seemingly unrelated phenomenon.
TikTok the first Gen Z-dominated social media platform, is both the vessel by which this Zoomer identity is forming, and an influential breeding ground for their culture and influences. This is typified by a story revealing that Jason Derulo is so firmly established as a TikTok star for that generation that many of his followers are unaware of his music and acting careers.
TikTok's influence over this emerging generation, and related ability not only to create stars, but to change the nature of their stardom, both solidifies it as a powerful new media platform and is also bad news for the fame makers of yesteryear, familiar even to early millennials; tabloids (and to a lesser extent, the entirely symbiotic entity of reality TV).
In the olden days we'd see Peter Andre in the Sun and wonder what his day job was beyond professional tabloid headline. Unfortunately for the newspaper industry, the next generation are doing the same, except with Derulo, on TikTok. Given that Derulo has 100% approval of everything that appears on his TikTok channel, you can see that celebrities may not be resistant to this change.
The End of Anonymity pt. 2
Would the George Floyd protests have set the world alight if we hadn’t all been forced inside, too focussed on endlessly doomscrolling our feeds to check on the world outside?
This kind of social upheaval is generally associated with political extremes, but perhaps truly radical change is the art of seeping into enough moderates to tip the scales.
Perhaps for this to exist it requires us all to be isolated from the sweet distraction of the beer garden. But while we were looking, feeling and learning about BlackLivesMatter protests, a US tech company called Mobilewalla was also watching closely, and carrying a warning of the perils of modern surveillance for freedom.
Under a month after the protesters finished expunging their rage, they released a document called ‘George Floyd Protestor Demographics: Insights Across 4 Major US Cities’.
You’ll only be able to find it at that link for a short while longer. Within that document, the data of 17,000 protestors is organised by age, ethnicity and gender. That data, taken without consent, can be cut up and sold to online marketeers free of regulation. It can even be sold to Governments.
Although this is a US phenomenon so far. From big planes with fancy paint jobs, to chlorinated chicken approaching our supermarkets, our economic trajectory is more closely aligned to the States every day. We have to hope that our Prime Minister, infamous for his hands off approach, will sustain that impulse when it comes to big tech and surveillance.
Pre-empting Cancel Culture: The New Non-Apology-Apology
Cancel Culture continues to grow exponentially and the BLM revolution has shone a light on the number of celebrities who, whether or not they deserve to have their careers ended for it, have done some racially insensitive, occasionally openly racist, and always pretty dumb stuff in the past.
Jimmy Kimmel joined fellow chat show Jimmy - Fallon- in limply apologising for a history of blackface this week, while Matt Lucas and David Walliams' strife has been at the head of a well-documented reckoning for British Comedy, but this week Tina Fey tried to get out ahead of her own scandal by calling for three episodes of her own sticom, 30 Rock, to be removed from streaming and syndication due to use of blackface.
The pre-emptive strike somewhat backfired, the problem being that Fey, in common with a lot of American comedians, even those with relatively woke, left-leaning fanbases (another example is Rob Delaney), whose past comedy has leaned heavily on racial profiling, even stereotypes. Many deemed that her past comments on race meant her latest move could not be considered an authentic gesture.
A more successful example of the pre-emptive apology comes from another noughties linchpin,YouTube pioneer Jenna Marbles, who announced that she was retiring her YouTube channel as part of an effort to move on from her past use of blackface. It was a better apology for a number of reasons; a cleaner break with the past, a fuller acceptance of her own wrongdoing, and a more humble promise to do better in future.
These won't be the last apologies, and doing it rightly could mend bridges and save careers.
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Borkowski Weekly Media Trends: 19 June
New age celebrity
Manchester United and England star Marcus Rashford took many by surprise this week with a startlingly effective campaign. Beginning with an apparently innocuous tweet last Wednesday, his mission to reverse the government’s policy on free school meals during the summer holidays soon snowballed: a letter to parliament attracted both cross party support and a poorly judged intervention from Conservative MP Therese Coffey. Before we knew it Boris Johnson, who had initially refused Rashford’s suggestions, was forced into an embarrassing U-turn.
Are we seeing the birth of a new kind of celebrity? At the fresh age of 22, Rashford has shown just how important a social conscience is to this new generation of public figures. Indeed, Rashford isn’t alone; both his England teammate Raheem Sterling and American international Megan Rapinoe haven’t been shy on issues of racial and social justice.
For these celebrities, social impact is an essential prerequisite to fame. We have come a long way from stars like Michael Jordan, for whom business came above all else. Not only that, but their prodigious grasp of best practice in corporate communications – message discipline, communicating authenticity, leveraging genuine fame – shows us why Rashford’s bid met with such success. The new celebrity is truly a force to be reckoned with.
The modern poetry of protest
These last weeks have been most defined by people locked inside with their news feeds watching videos of the murder of George Floyd and then feeling the tidal wave of rage flow first across their Instagram and then into their city centres. It is a strange phenomenon, because apart from a very few eccentric and sad people, we all think of ourselves as being opposed to racism. But that very clearly isn’t enough. Many people are coming to terms for the first time with phrases like ‘structural racism’ and not being met by welcoming activists but by exasperated activists angry it took them so long to arrive.
This dividing line, between the two camps was perhaps best reflected by the exchange between J Cole (the world’s most revered hip-hop lyricist) and Noname (a DJ and radical activist). J Cole released a brilliantly crafted verse that reflected the need to be gentle and encouraging with people who want to do their best rather than angry. Noname retaliated with a ‘why is this the issue that you are addressing when the world is on fire’. It’s an interesting debate, beautifully delivered. Interestingly, the original difference between their views is that J Cole views the coming change towards justice as inevitable, and Noname sees it as far from being assured. It’s probable that that clashing perspective spirals out into all the others.
Play both to anyone who ever tries to tell you that hip-hop isn’t the most articulate music form of today.
Is SpongeBob SquarePants gay?
- hypersensitive millennials retrofitting their woke undercurrent to beloved children’s cartoon
- deeply topical and relevant question that’s finally been answered
- it’s a cartoon, who cares?!
Earlier this week, Nickelodeon depicted the loveable character in LGBTQ+ colours for Pride month, prompting furious discussion about his sexuality online.
We’ve spoken before in Borkowski Weekly Trends about trendy updates to children’s classics, but SpongeBob feels different.
As the topic of sexuality becomes more pertinent, cartoon characters will become increasingly pressured to answer tough questions from the fans. This all may sound trivial but consider how cartoons shape childhood’s often forming the starting point of a child’s cultural understanding.
Take The Simpsons– a show that caters for both children and adults with subtle cultural references that children can piece together whilst not understanding the nuances for adult audiences.
As identity politics and moves into more areas of our cultural life, cartoons could become a child friendly way to introduce some of the harder questions around sexuality and gender that parents will inevitably face.
Have we entered the age of sexualised cartoons? Not in that way!!!
The UK non-profit hitting Trump where it hurts
It’s been another big week of developments in the social media/legacy media/political communication sphere, with Facebook being forced into wading into the debate due to a mass walkout of their staff due to Zuckerberg’s unwillingness to police how political parties use his medium. On first glance, and judging by the headlines, it has taken the uploading of Nazi imagery by junior Trump staff to his official campaign page to finally jolt a reaction out of Nick Clegg’s boss. But would Trump himself point the finger in the direction of a tiny UK nonprofit that is targeting the complex media empire that is dedicated to keeping Donald Trump in power?
@SFFakeNews started by targeting left-wing, anti-Semitic blogs by going after their bank balance. Its modus operandi is simple, yet ruthless. Visiting these sites repeatedly, it screenshots those major companies (many of whom have made numerous public declarations to being morally upright) as their adverts appear next to repulsive, racist headlines. They then send the photos over Twitter to said companies, which forces those companies to blacklist the racist blog. It is a business model that is so effective at disrupting the business model of Facebook, and of other online advertising companies, that it has had the Trump family up in arms. It just goes to show, that if you want to upset a politician you go after his reputation, but if you want to really threaten him – you go after the funding.
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Borkowski Weekly Media Trends: JKR | The Great Sitcom Purge | More Media Madness
Borkowski Weekly Media Trends
It's been a strange old week of disappearing statues and sitcoms. Let's try to make sense of it.
To start on a happy note, our very own Olly Longworth has this week rightly been recognised by PR Week as one of the finest young minds in the industry. Olly is one of the 'ghosts' who writes these trends and regularly harps on about getting his byline added to the ones he writes so will no doubt be delighted to have his name in lights for once! Back to Private Eye-style anonymity next week...!
Harry Potter and the Disappearing Reputation
Gender identity sadly caused another row this week as the world's most successful author, J.K Rowling, made a statement suggesting that certain transgender rights threaten women's rights and then doubled down in a lengthy blog post.
Irrespective of views on the issue itself, it's a mark of JKR's monumental power that her career didn't end there and then.
Her statement and lengthy 'not mea culpa' incriminated her with so many people in the arts, entertainment and media industries that it could do even her career - which these days amounts to a license to print money in exchange for a morsel more Harry Potter canon- material damage.
There are communications lessons to be learned from various of the responses to JKR's statement. Daniel Radcliffe issued a thoughtful and compassionate response which was both forthright and humane, and avoided escalating the conflict by being overly direct. Various of his Harry Potter co-stars issued other brief, if carefully-worded statements distancing themselves from JKR's views.
Of course the brandwagon also came crashing into the story. This issue affects people's lives and their fundamental rights so it's not one in which to score cheap virtue points. Clearly nobody in the Body Shop's Comms team told them that and, in a move which some are calling a 'Rattner moment' (an instance of communications kamikaze), and which seems to us to have been inspired by the reactive and far more dignified Yorkshire Tea and PG Tips responses to Black Lives Matter, tried to insert a consumer PR-gifting set into the argument.
To compound the misery, The Sun then followed up a revelation in JKR's letter by publishing a shockingly tone deaf headline which showed absolutely no empathy for survivors of domestic abuse. Exactly at a time when the role of newspapers, especially the red tops, is at its most precarious in history. Jesus wept.
SITC..ULTURE WAR?
An unusual offshoot of the Black Lives Matter and great statue purge of 2020 is what feels like a fairly thorough audit of historic sitcoms, with those employing blackface or open racism summarily defenestrated from streaming platforms the world over.
While for some, like Little Britain and Come Fly With Me, the writing was on the wall, others like The League of Gentlemen can arguably feel harder done-by and the argument has even spilled into sitcoms where blackface isn't the issue, like Gavin & Stacy, in which a character's name was erroneously accused of being racist..
One issue caught our attention more than most, Fawlty Towers. An episode with a flagrantly racist scene has been removed from Britbox, but here's the rub. There's a version of that episode already used on the BBC, with the scene edited out, so the episode will probably be back up before too long, and all that will remain of the 'scandal' is a convenient reminder that the BBC, ITV and UKTV have a huge trove of nostalgic, un-politically correct programming just sitting there. Publicity stunt? Mark Borkowski thinks so....
BRAVE NEW WORLD FOR THE MEDIA
This week has seen a number of substantial changes to the top jobs in British media. First off was Tim Davie’s appointment as new Director General of the BBC, a job described as ‘hellish’ by the BBC’s own media editor. Davie, who previously served as the CEO of BBC Studios, has a commercial background and is seen by some as the man to take on the streaming giants and drag the corporation kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
Meanwhile, over in the land formerly known as Fleet Street, the Evening Standard has a new Editor. Emily Sheffield, a former deputy editor of Vogue, will take on the role as George Osbourne steps up to the more managerial Editor-in-Chief position. It’s merely coincidence, of course, that Sheffield is the sister-in-law of David Cameron, George Osbourne’s former political partner in crime. Meritocracy in the British media is clearly still in rude health.
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Borkowski Weekly Media Trends: Black Lives Matter
Borkowski Weekly Media Trends
The news this week has been dominated by the killing of George Floyd and the wave of anger it has launched around the world at institutionalised racial injustice.
With public discourse once again hitting rock bottom in terms of illuminating thought and mutual understanding (notwithstanding some highly honourable exceptions) we took a look at some of the communications issues raised throughout the week.
BLACK LIVES MATTER: THE COMMUNICATIONS PERSPECTIVE
Black Lives Matter is many noble things but it is also a communications campaign. The ultimate aim for the movement will be massive cultural shifts converting into significant legislative changes. And while the move towards racial equality in America can no longer rely on King, X, Baldwin and Parks to elucidate the injustice and ignominy of the American construct, it can count on thousands of cameras to capture the pain first hand.
Would George Floyd’s murder have spurred a global howl of rage had it not been caught on film? No. We have the off-camera murders of thousands of forgotten black men, women and children to attest to that. The reason that the hackneyed ‘resisting arrest’ line has finally failed is because there are endless photos, videos and writings to discredit it. What is a typed police report when compared to the begging of a murdered man? The avalanche of social media posts in the following days ensured that nobody could dismiss this as a unique case. It was suddenly clear who were the true roaming and lawless gangs on the streets of America.
This is why the blizzard of black boxes that filled social media on Tuesday and Wednesday were a communications disaster. Just as the world was finally being confronted with endless, undeniable, heart-rendering evidence of the racism that rots away at it – the screen went black. The visceral confrontation of evil had been reduced to empty platitude. An opportunity to elevate ignored black voices was nearly squandered. Performative solidarity had suffocated those meanings we were just beginning to contemplate.
It took murders, and the cameras of thousands to capture the attention of millions. If we are to see the change this world so badly needs, we must be careful to ensure that more than a confusing hashtag and a generic image be our reaction.
THE INEVITABLE BRANDWAGON
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, all kinds of brands have sought to get in on the action with earnest Instagram posts and company statements. But how seriously should we take such interventions? Do they amount to anything greater than empty words? Many in the media are sceptical that brands have anything meaningful to say about injustice.
A number of brands seem to have made such statements out of fear of being attacked for saying nothing. But that’s a weak foundation for a meaningful message, and generic language will inevitably fade into the noise. As one commentator has said, many brands are intent on “walking right up to the line of politics without stepping one toe over it.” That simply doesn’t cut it in the 20th century, as Ben & Jerry’s clearly realised, with their strident statement that called attention to “inhumane police brutality” and “a culture of white supremacy”.
More important that language, however, is transparency. Consumers aren’t comfortable with giving their money to opaque corporations anymore. They want to know that people like themselves sit on their board, that the company has a genuine commitment to the cause, beyond times of convenience. If they don’t, they lose the right to take part in the conversation. Effective communications is increasingly becoming the art of looking hard at yourself in the mirror, and knowing when to sit down and shut up.
K-POP STANS MAKE A STAND
During this period of worldwide civil unrest, Twitter has been a platform for millions to voice their views on the current protests. Standing out loud and proud are K-pop ‘stans’ who’ve united to drown out opposition to rightwing and pro-Trump hashtags including #WhiteLivesMatter, as well as police channels. By flooding racist hashtags with videos and images of their favourite artists, they’ve effectively nullified the negative sentiment behind problematic trends on the social media platform.
While celebrities like Jordan Peele and hacktivist group Anonymous have supported Kpop recent efforts, an informative thread by Hyunsu Yim highlights a history of political charged online campaigns targeting an array of racism and injustice that has repeatably slipped under the radar, particularly as western culture regularly casts and dismisses K-pop as a propaganda movement.
Scrolling through the comment sections of platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube can be a cesspit of trolling, abuse and ill-informed opinions. However, it allows groups to come together, and on this occasion root out some of the nastiness and hate on a global scale.
INFLUENCERS BEING INFLUENCERS
As light relief from our usual nihilistic despair at the state of influencer culture we often turn to an account called Infleuncers in the Wild. If's mainly a kind of You've Been Framed / RudeTube in which painstakingly stage managed boyfriends of Insta photoshoots end in disaster, but this week it's taken on an important role in platforming videos which expose the dangerous and venal inauthenticity running rampant on social media.
An influencer posing thoughtfully outside a smashed T-Mobile (for exactly the length of time it takes her boyfriend to take a photo), another borrowing a drill from a man fixing a looted shop so she can hold it, again for just long enough to give the impression that she's helping, another looking like she's going to Coachella, joins a brandishes a BLM sign for all of 5 seconds before leaving the protest, three more seem to be dabbing or giving thumbs up as a car burns in the background.
It's not Russian interference in an election, but social media users must really question what is authentic because so much of this culture is empty, vacuous and utterly superficial.
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