Five things on Friday #391
Happy New Year x
Things of note for the week ending Sunday January 12th, 2025.
INTRO
Hello hello. Happy New Year to you. As I write this to you now, it’s -3.5 outside. There’s frost on the grass and although it’s too cold for snow, the light dusting of crips white ice across everything I can see outside the house gives the impression that it might - or that it has.
Winter is here.
This time of year is tricky for so many people for so many reasons. Seasonal affective disorder is at its hardest/lowest, it’s brutally cold outside, the bank balance is probably painfully low… it’s hard.
So if you see yourself in any of what I’ve just written, know that you are seen. And you are not alone.
The days are getting longer again. By a good ten minutes each day and, before you know it, the daffs will be pushing through the soil, reaching for the sunshine, and breathing the cool air of the New Year.
So without wanting to wish life away, this too shall pass.
Winter will become spring, spring will become summer, summer to autumn and then winter shall return. As the days pass, and wind blows - take a moment to enjoy what you have.
We’re not here for long, so do with it what you can.
—
How have you been? I hope you had a good break. I had 17 days off all told and truck me did I ever need it.
It’s interesting. Those of you that know me well know that Christmas is my time for reflection. I try and dedicate one maybe two days to really think about where I am, what I’m doing, and where I’m going.
I didn’t do that this (last!) year. And I think I’ve only realised or noticed that today. This morning in fact (and today as I write this intro is actually a Friday).
I’m putting it down to a few things.
First, Freelance life is quite different when it comes to career planning you see (this may seem obvious to some of you; it dawned on me about four hours ago). And this is the first tranche of freelance life I’ve experienced since, well, I’d say about 2008/2009 ish? Even that was a month or two at best…
And second, the work leading up to Christmas was absolutely nuts (but yay - we made some ads!) and so the brain-space for the pre-work I normally do in my head just wasn’t available.
So yeah, it’s weird. I think now I’ve noticed that I didn’t do the reflecting on the career thing (and the work pattern is a bit less hectic), my brain is perhaps reconfiguring and doing it a bit later than usual.
Hmm.
I will report back.
..
In the meantime, shall we crack on with the things?
LET’S.
TO THE THINGS!
THING 1. THE YEAR AHEAD FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
I was reminded over the Christmas period (by my own mother of all people) that it's been ten years - nearly to the day - since I was published in Campaign magazine writing about the year ahead for social media (in advertising sense at least).
“Social media is no longer an add-on, an afterthought, a thing you get the social guy to put some thought around the day before the pitch. It is part and parcel of everything we do in advertising. It doesn’t matter if your brief isn’t "integrated" (which ones aren’t these days?) because, while social media may not always be an output per se, it should always be an input – a point the planners among you will already be familiar with.”
Social media in 2015 eh?
You can read the full article still available on the Campaign Mag website right here (and perhaps by way of reply to this email debate whether or not I was right).
Thinking ahead to 2025’s year ahead for social media, and in light of Meta's decision to rollback any kind of fact checking (or as they call it 'bias' - facts are facts, numbnuts), the year ahead for social media might be cleaning up? It might be: the state against the platforms? It might the year the EU and Meta go toe-to-toe properly…?
If I had to choose one word for the year ahead for social media in 2025, then I’d choose ‘Volatile’.
You can read the Meta announcement on their newsroom post here - many others have written a lot of smart and insightful things about this this week (and the danger and harms this opens up to marginalised communities makes me feel ill to even think about).
However, on first read, one thing struck me loud and clear: there was a time when [the platform previously known as Twitter], X, was nothing more than a rounding error to Facebook. The user numbers, the profit (or lack thereof) - none of it mattered to Zuck. Who was busy buying Instagram, and WhatsApp and circling the next billion of users vs a paltry few hundred million loss makers.
And yet here’s a newsroom announcement where X is not only mentioned twice but also held up as a measure of success?
They’ve already lost. They just don’t know it yet.
-
Related reading:
Former director of planning at Twitter UK, David Wilding, here discussing Twitter’s original move to community notes, the thinking behind it, and why that matters in comparison to Meta’s misstep.
Casey Newton on Platformer ‘Meta surrenders to the right on speech’ - on point.
And as night follows day, Zuck appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast. Here’s The Verge’s Elizabeth Loppatto watching/listening so you don’t have to: ‘Mark Zuckerberg lies about content moderation to Joe Rogan’s face’
Facebook’s original content policy author here on Bluesky with a decent thread on what we’re missing with these changes.
Politico does well to follow up and subsequently report that the fact-checking changes will not be rolled out in the EU (regulation works, eh?)
404 Media spoke to Meta employees ‘It’s totally chaos internally right now’
And that report was BEFORE Meta reportedly also killed ALL of it’s DEI programs. Jeez.
THING 2. PANELS MANELS CAMELS SCHLAMELS
HEY YOU. YES, YOU.
ARE YOU PLANNING YOUR EVENTS CALENDAR FOR THE YEAR?
HAVE YOU BEEN INVITED TO APPEAR ON ANY PANELS YET? ARE YOU GOING TO GET PITCHED OUT TO APPEAR ON ANY?
BETTER YET, ARE YOU TIRED OF APPEARING ON BAD* PANELS?
Well, GOOD SHOUT has got you covered:
So a few things, this is an eLearning thing. It’s run by mate Amy (natch). But it’s also:
✓ 4 distinct modules and 16 videos
✓ A 37-page interactive workbook for you to keep
✓ A closed social learning forum to ask questions and advice
✓ A completion certificate and CPD accreditation
And if you use the code JWPANELS you got a 10% discount off the course as well.
Got training budget? Spend it!
Don’t know if you’ve got training budget? Ask!
As an aside, I’ve seen a fair bit of the work that’s gone into this and it’s fantastic. I’ve also helped with panel training on Good Shout in the past and can vouch for how good it can be.
So yeah, do that.
L&D. It’s a vibe for ‘25.
*Bad Panels: I’ve been on a few. Most memorably I think it was ‘Social Media World’ (or something similar) at the Truman Brewery, easily a decade or so ago. The panel was meant to be something like ‘Social tools for success’. We had a host who was more interested in talking himself, questions [from him] that made no sense, and - by the end of it - no answers to the questions actually put in the panel description. As he was closing the panel, I spoke up and reeled off a bunch of social tools I used to help me do my job then tweeted them all out after. Jesus Christ that guy was a bellend. Don’t be that guy. Do the course!
THING 3. THIS WEEK IN… VIDEO GAMES
The main thing this week (and doubtful for the last time) but the Nintendo Switch 2 announcement is imminent and with it, the model was all but revealed at CES.
With the announcement due literally any day now (recent rumours suggest as early as next week - my money is March with an April launch, but let’s see).
But if there’s one thing guaranteed: The Switch 2 will ship certainly launch before GTA 6 (whenever that arrives; officially, GTA 6 is coming November ‘25 but the rumour mill is hawking an early 2026 release - either way, don’t hold your breath).
Read - and see - more about the Switch 2 via Polygon.
Quick hits:
Kate Willaert with the history of the first playable female protagonist in video games is a fascinating read:
The topic of the first playable female protagonist isn't as cut-and-dried as folks might like to think. There are many flavors of first, which trips people up. Who was the first on arcade, computer, home console? In the US, Japan, Europe? I'll try to unravel it for you here in a thread. 🧵
— "Critical Kate" Willaert (@katewillaert.bsky.social) 2025-01-09T21:33:34.163Z
Majora’s Mask on the N64 has had microphone support hidden away in the game for nearly 25 years. Wow.
I thought I had more but hey ‘quick’ bites are quick, right?
WHAT IS JAMES PLAYING?
Current playlist/immediate backlog consists of:
The next No Man's Sky Expedition, ‘Aquarius’ - I’ve started this and need to get it done by Tuesday (long story, maybe for next edition).
Space Marines 2. Ops. I finished the campaign while on break and I LOVED IT. If you’ve been umming and ah-ing on this, it’s definitely worth picking up. Now I’ve done the main story, I’ve got the Ops missions to get done. They’re next.
Pacific Drive. Picked this up on a whim in the sales and I’ve enjoyed what I've played so far, wanna go back to it.
Indiana Jones on Game Pass. As above.
And finally, honestly I am playing tons of LEGO Fortnite Odyssey; both kids are well into it and we're planning our attack on The Storm King (that said, the kids are 8 and 11 respectively, so it's like herding cats).
What are you playing?
THING 4. RTO? GTFO
Notable adland dinosaur and regular villain of the agency world, WPP, mandated its staff to return to the office four days a week this week.
To top it off, the line ‘Employees will also be required to work from the office on at least two Fridays per month…’ was thrown in for good measure to really underline the low-level sociopathy at the heart of this decision.
Genuinely stunned at the commitment to showing absolutely zero vision on securing the talent of the future with this announcement.
They say that some of these announcements can help drive out staff ahead of any redundancy rounds. ‘Quiet firing’ they call it. Why pay people to leave when you can just demand they change their post-covid routines and force them back to the office (and subsequently onto the job hunt)?
Obviously WPP can say whatever the hell it likes and make demands of its staff equally so. There are thousands of talented people across the various WPP businesses. 111,000ish to be precise. The best/most talented ones will take one look at this and immediately find a job somewhere else. Well done, you’ve lost some of your best staff almost overnight.
As you’d expect, this has gone down like a cup of cold sick at WPP, and over 6000 people have already signed this petition pushing back on the edict.
We’ll see what happens eh?
-
It's funny, a full year BEFORE Covid happened, Annette King's Publicis UK announced flexible working for the entire UK workforce.
Driven by six clear principles (and founded on the idea of treating your adult employee population like… well, adults), it set out exactly why and how we should be working as employees of the future.
Arguably I’d wager this was one of the cornerstones of why and how Publics thrived so well during Covid; it had everything in place already.
(It’s worth pointing out Publicis Global has also rolled all of this good work back - now it mandates three days in the office - and is allegedly firing those that don’t follow).
A while back I was working with some founders who also wanted to introduce mandatory days in the office. I made it clear that a values and trust based approach to WFH would be better than treating your staff like children.
They disagreed. Headcount is now down by 20% - and it’s the top 20% that has gone.
Finally,
As ever - Bruce Daisley is excellent on this.
Working in an advertising agency used to be gloriously paid, now those who work in the field squint into spreadsheets all day earning salaries that are often substantially lower than the clients and media owners they deal with. Their morale can’t be helped by overhearing corner office dwelling bosses talking about the good old days of long lunches and foreign jollies on lavish expense accounts. It’s hard to believe that we’re ‘all in it together’ with the C suite when the boss is pocketing almost £7m a year.
THING 5. SOCIETY’S WEIRD ATTITUDE TOWARDS BOOBS
Wonderful commentary/art by the great Hazel Mead.
via Deathboy.
BONUS SECTION
THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.
ENJOY.
Sean Choi’s cultural moments encyclopaedia for 2025 is essential bookmarking.
Sometimes you just need to be reminded of the incredible 1989 sci-fi banger, ROBOT JOX (I was reminded of it by these amazing photos I found on Bluesky this week).
Do you want these Racoon trousers/pants?
The hits keep on coming: Meta trained its AI on pirated material (apparently).
Ray Stevenson’s passing was incredibly sad. This new casting for his role in Ahsoka S2 though? I’m impressed and excited.
Ann Telnaes quit the Washington Post. This is why.
‘Another University drops Elsevier’ - I did a tiny bit of work on Elsevier once. The business model is mental and insane. A reasonable person might call it ‘a racket’ - possibly. I hope more universities follow.
I can’t remember if I told you about the two ads we made for the new LEGO Fortnite updates but if you missed them, they’re here.
Ritson’s top ten marketing moments of 2024 are a fun watch.
Michael Moore responds to calls for him to condemn Luigi Mangione.
CAPTAIN POWER. Know him? Heard of him? The chances are you haven’t. But I have. And I went down a massive CAPTAIN POWER rabbit hole over Christmas. I had one of these toys and they were amazing. Turns out, the story (and legacy) behind them is MASSIVE and well worth a watch.
I should mention, I went down said rabbit hole thanks to this superb INTERACTIVE TV blog post from Terence Eden.
YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.
Last year, the best conference I think I’ve ever been to - State of Social, Perth - stuck out as a personal and professional highlight.
The tickets for this year’s conference, back down under in Perth, are ON SALE NOW - and this year’s theme is: REFRESH. And if this year’s speakers are half the caliber of last year’s (present company included, obvs), then you’re in for a belter.
I know there’s a significant number of you that read this in ANZ, so if this is you then SOS 25 is definitely one you should look at for your year ahead.
As for me? Well. It’s 1430 on Sunday afternoon. We’re having a proper clear out today. I had brunch with some friends yesterday and got home a little after 9pm. The New Year is off to a cracking start and I’ve also got some stuff booked in that I can’t wait to tell you about.
Additioanlly, I took Linkedin off my phone right before the Christmas break and I can tell you I am no rush to put it back again. And what with all the Meta shenanigans, Threads probably isn’t too far behind it either.
So that means I am only on Bluesky (regularly), for now at least. Linkedin is still there, I just check it when I need to vs every single day (instead of Twitter). I can’t recommend it enough.
I hope wherever you are reading this you are safe, and warm, and comfortable - and I look forward to keeping up with what you’re up as the year progresses.
Until next time,
Whatley out x
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