Guinness successfully hopped on a meme just in time for St. Patty’s Day
Singing pints have been circulating on TikTok: the concept is to poke holes into the foam of your beer (usually a Guinness) and blow on it to create a singing face. Just in time for St. Patty’s Day, Guinness caught onto the niche hashtag #SingingGuiness (3M views on TikTok) and turned it into an official ad to promote their new alcohol-free beer. They turned the gag into the official ad for “Holding Out For a Zero” to promote Guinness 0.0, with creamy pints singing their foams off to the tune of—you guessed it—Bonnie Tyler’s classic song “Holding Out for a Hero.” The alcohol-free drink as launched by the iconic Irish stout brand only a few months ago, making today its first St. Patty’s, a day to compete with drinking-centric marketing.
YPulse’s research shows that as Gen Z is aging up (and passing 21), young people overall have become more interested in cutting back their alcohol consumption. Trends like “Dry January” and zero-proof beverages have taken off in North America; and though young Europeans are consuming more alcohol this year, it doesn’t mean they won’t appreciate a pint of Guinness 0.0 to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.
This Gen Z-favorite movie swept the Oscars—and got TikTok tuning into them
When Everything Everywhere All At Once came out last March, Gen Z was the first to hop on what would be an industry-shaking support train. Now, it’s the most awarded movie of all time, and took home seven Oscars, with six “above the line” wins—more than any other movie in Oscar history. And while YPulse data shows Gen Z are not generally enthusiastic about award shows (one reason being they don’t feel they are ever diverse enough), Everything Everywhere had them tuning into and celebrating awards season this year. For Gen Z, seeing stories from diverse creators, portrayed by diverse casts, is core to good media, and Everything Everywhere gave them exactly that. The Financial Times even writes that “The Gen Z audience that flocked to the Daniels’ opus is the one the film industry has long been terrified would simply never start watching movies.”
But to see a story they connected to and drove support for honored by Hollywood institutions with a past record of not awarding such stories was fulfilling for them, if only in an “it’s about time” way. Since Sunday, the top videos in the hashtag #Oscars2023 (1B views) on TikTok are dominated by heartfelt edits of Best Supporting Actor winner Ke Huy Quan’s and Best Actress winner Michelle Yeoh’s acceptance speeches. These two were landmark Oscar winners as Yeoh was the first Asian woman, and only the second woman of color ever, to win Best Actress, while Quan became the second Asian man to win Best Supporting Actor—in all 95 years of the Oscars’ history.
These wins meant a lot to Gen Z who, as the most diverse generation to date, feel they haven’t seen themselves represented in pop culture for a long time—and recognize the impact for older generations as well. But the awards ceremony itself of course shows that Gen Z really celebrates live events on social media, where they see videos flooding in of the wins almost in real time.
Also at the Oscars: Andrew Garfield became a meme, again
This week on TikTok: Just letting y’all know we can #BeManyThings
Gen Z isn’t shy when it comes to being vulnerable online, and this week’s trend is akin to sharing random unabridged life instances that absolutely no one asked for—but everyone is here for. It’s like being in kindergarten again and one of your 5-year-old classmates raises their hand and tells the teacher that they just dropped their pencil. Basically, TikTokers are sharing random messages like “Just letting everyone know this weekend I have a scheduled argument with my boyfriend so I won’t be available till Monday morning,” all the while using a CapCut template where one cheesy photo of themselves spins through a twirling sparkly transition over overly happy music.
While the videos are short, they’re gaining traction among Gen Z for their chaotic / unhinged look and feel, a trend they’re also gravitating towards in their fashion sense (with “weird girl” clothing), home décor (see #ClutterCore), as well as other memes. The videos appear under the hashtag #BeManyThings (currently at 91.9M views) initiated by Ralph Lauren and inspired by his quote: “Be anything you want to be. And be many things.” The tag comes from an old Pride campaign prompting users to “share with us what makes you, you,” although it has nothing really to do with the current use of the tag.
Many of the videos start with the caption, “Just letting everyone know…” For example, @whoismaroun posted his version of the trend, writing “Just letting everyone know I have a doctors appointment on monday the 13th @ 11:30am so I will be busy at that time” which has more than 7M views and 1.4M likes. Commenters are joining in on the fun with sarcastic replies like “thanks for letting us know.” Even brands are joining in: Milk Makeup responded with “noted” and Dunkin wrote “we will move our company meeting to accommodate.”
Links We’re Passing
Celebs: Miley Cyrus’ new “Endless Summer Vacation” album now has a matching beauty box
TV: Everyone is amazed that making clicker noises for The Last of Us is a real, paying job
TikTok: Everyone can be categorized as Bouba or Kiki, and it just makes sense
“Frontal lobe is front lobing” is young Millennials and Gen Z’s way to say they’re more mature now
Gen Z embarrasses bad drivers with a thumbs down instead of the middle finger
