Greetings from NYC, where it's finally decorative gourd season:
LHC is expanding! We not only have a new office (which is possibly just an excuse for us to indulge in our latent nesting instinct (aka, we're buying a lot of succulents (but also: fast wifi!))), but we also have a new addition to our team! Eliza Martin will be slumming with us after stints at The New Yorker and WNYC, helping out on content strategy, social media, office decor, and everything in between.
On to the #content:
Follower Factories
We kind of hate social media as a rule, despite the fact that we maintain about a zillion Instagram accounts. Someone once said Facebook is the people you actually know, Twitter is the people you wish you knew, LinkedIn is people you don’t know but who claim to know you, and Instagram is brands. Or maybe we made that up, who even knows anymore. But as anyone who uses social media in any sort of professional capacity knows, there have long been major issues with fake followers across all these platforms, and we think it’s interesting that the issue is getting some mainstream attention.
As gross as the growing world of counterfeit followers might be, having a big influence on social media matters in our profession. Social media is a form of currency—and having a sizable following can help you climb the career ladder, get you clients, and prove to people that you’re not just another fake influence peddler boasting of their swag.
The point is, those big numbers matter. And seriously, who’s going to spend the time to actually go in and check that every last one of your followers are legit? So, despite the much-publicized efforts by social platforms to crack down on the issue, there are plenty of Insta influencers, Moldovan teens, and Russian KGB agents who will tell you this epidemic isn’t slowing down anytime soon--no matter how many rules and regulations are put in place. As long as there’s something to be gained from a big social following, there will be people out there trying to cheat their way into one.
Which is all basically just to say, if you know of any place to get some decent fake followers, shoot us a DM.
Things are happening
Google is making some big changes to how content is discovered. Per Axios, the company recently announced Discover—a mobile-friendly news feed that will aggregate content around a user’s specific interests “rather than social trends,” or headlines. That sound you hear is about a million SEO professionals trying to figure out what that means.
Lars Ulrich was at Dreamforce, which is further proof that we might be living in a simulation, but also does anyone have James Hetfield’s number so we can get him for LHCFORCE?
Tronc gets the longform treatment in The Ringer, and if you don’t want to read 5,000 words on Tronc the tl;dr is that it’s very existence is really not great for journalism, or really anyone.
In chipspotting news, Lil’ Xan went to the hospital after a Hot Cheetos binge ended badly. Take away the face tats and Lil’ Xan is basically just like us.
We can’t stop staring at the amazing designs for the Amazon Treasure Truck by Seattle artist Kyler Martz (luckily, he does tats too).
And finally, The Atlantic confirms what we’ve always suspected: NBA players really, really need their moms—not just for emotional support, but for career advice, too. That’s why they formed their own league: Mothers of Professional Basketball Players (MPBP). Our moms will be joining as soon as we go pro.