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Convenience stores often have signs that read, Smile, youre on camera, to discourage all who enter from engaging in transgressive behavior. Perhaps those signs should go everywhere now. On Thursday, the CEO of tech company Astronomer was captured on the Jumbotron at a Coldplay concert, seemingly committing marital infidelity with an employee. A TikTok of the incident went mega-viral, racking up 56 million views in 24 hours on that platform alone, while also exploding across every other social media site, not to mention countless group chats. Theres something eerie, though, about how quickly and completely an apparent personal indiscretion became universal content. Its a cautionary tale for a new era of public shaming. The Jumbotron Moment Heard round the World blew up at such an incendiary level, on a bustling news day, for many reasons. The clumsy, deeply human way that the CEO and his employee seemed to realize they were suddenly visible, and then struggled to teleport out of sight, is almost objectively funny. Its also a cross-cultural story, encompassing the worlds of tech, music, and general human interest. Few current events, after all, get an equal amount of coverage at both PopCrave and Business Insider. The story also seemed to resonate because Coldplay might be the most memeable band that couldve been involved in such a situation, inspiring countless jokes on social media about not wanting to be caught dead at a Coldplay concert. But the reason the Jumbotron moment has not only captured so much attention but sustained it is because, after becoming a matter of public consumption, the story metastasized into a saga. The more people found out what happened, the more unresolved variables they unearthed, including how the spouses of both the CEO and the employee reacted, what the board at Astronomer thinks of the incident, and how the CEO will address all of this. What we do in the shadows Jumbotrongate is now more than just a viral momentto many online observers, its become an irresistibly spicy parasocial true-crime drama, one unfolding in real time, rather than in a Netflix docuseries. The apparently grueling wait for a statement from the CEO has inspired chaos agents to release multiple bogus apologies online. A Facebook posting of one of the fakes late on Thursday night has already garnered 55,000 reactions and 14,000 comments. This impatience to hear directly from the person at the center of a massively viral, still-developing saga recalls one of the earliest, broadest, and most notorious examples of online shamingthe Justine Sacco incident. Just before Christmas in 2013, Sacco, a senior PR executive, sent an ill-advised tweet as she boarded an 11-hour flight to South Africa. Going to Africa, the tweet began, before taking a turn for the controversial: Hope I dont get AIDS. Just kidding. Im white! Although Sacco had a relatively paltry following of less than 200 people at the time, the tone-deaf tweet came to the attention of a writer at Gawker, who helped it go tremendously, globally viral. The hashtag #HasJustineLandedYet quickly became inescapable on Twitter, driving more communal anticipation to find out what would happen next than arguably any public event since O.J. Simpsons white Bronco chase 20 years earlier. The incident sparked both a wave of public shaming and an awareness of how it changing peoples lives. (Sacco was let go from her job at InterActive Corp., though she was later rehired in a different role.) In the years to come, people would be shamed for killing a beloved lion during a hunting trip, for threatening to call the police on a Black man under false pretenses, and for appearing to masturbate during a work Zoom. What is now happening with the CEO of Astronomer, however, is a completely different beast. What he did may be perceived as morally objectionable and sleazy but its ultimately a private matter that managed to break containment and reach a global audience. Who deserves anonymity? Sacco may not have deserved the level of attention wrought by her tweet in 2013, but unlike the Astronomer CEOs conduct, her offensive joke was something that she felt comfortable broadcasting to the world. Meanwhile, as an American abroad, being in a crowd of thousands in an Australian arena during a Coldplay concert must have felt like the most anonymous place in the world. If the lesson from #HasJustineLanded was “Be careful what you tweet,” the one from this saga is more like, “Be careful what you do anywhere at any time.” Theres certainly something satisfying about seeing an apparent cheater get his comeuppance, but those celebrating it might be a little too comfortable living in a surveillance state. Most people have an implicit understanding that Nest camera footage or Alexa recordings might come up in court, and that we each leave a gigantic breadcrumb trail of data behind us wherever we go online, but its easy to convince ourselves that the Saurons eye-like panopticon will never turn on us personally. The Astronomer CEOs turn in the barrel should be seen as a warnin that no matter who or where you are, a camera is never far away, and its probably aimed in your direction.
Category:
E-Commerce
If youve built an audience around documenting your 9-to-5 online, what happens after you hand in your notice? Thats the conundrum facing Connor Hubbard, aka hubs.life, a creator who amassed a huge following by sharing the mundane details of his corporate life as a senior analyst at a Fortune 500 company. In April 2024, The Guardian dubbed him the most boring man on the internet, with some of his most popular videos showing viewers his lunch breaks and daily 9-to-5 routine. @hubs.life The days are long, the years are short.. #dayinthelife #ninetofivelife #dailyvlog Glimpse (Slowed + Reverb) – Gabriel Albuquerqüe The internet couldnt get enough. It just seemed to get a lot of traction, because I think most of the world is working,” he told GQ in an interview. “They have to work for a living. They can’t all be influencers. Then he quit. Not for another job, but to become a full-time influencer. Clips from a recent livestream began circulating after Hubbard told viewers he wouldnt answer questions unless they sent him a Galaxy, a TikTok gift that costs 1,000 coins, or about $13. Unsurprisingly, this didnt go over well with fans. We need studies on the downfall of Hubs Life, one TikTok user posted. Who did this guy become? @escapetheslop Not going to pretend I was ever not a hater of the corporate sloptent, but this was so absurd I clipped it. Like a #jasonnash stream all over. #normalizethenorm #9to5 #hubslife #contentcreator @hubs.life oh my god bruh oh hell na man – ok9172917 Hubbard has fallen into the relatability trapone that often trips up influencers who go viral by sharing their ordinary lives. As their follower count grows, their lifestyleas well as their contentinevitably shifts. Maybe its a bigger house, more lavish brand trips, or, in Hubbards case, quitting the job that made him famous in the first place. Suddenly, the content no longer reflects what drew the audience in. He left his 6-figure job FOR THIS, one person commented. This storyline would be a good Black Mirror episode, another added. (Fast Company has reached out to Hubbard for comment.) For audiences, watching their favorite influencers change in real time can feel dishearteningsometimes even like a betrayal. The backlash can be swift and harsh, or fans simply lose interest and move on. Hubs Life assumed people loved him, not the content, another TikTok user observed. The internet is rarely forgiving, especially when followers feel responsible for someones rise. Its a lesson Hubbard is learning the hard way. As one particularly brutal comment put it: We made the wrong person famous.
Category:
E-Commerce
If you bought an e-bike on Amazon for a price that seemed too good to be true, theres a fair chance you mightve been right. A federal consumer watchdog just issued a recall for about 24,000 e-bikes in the sub-$1,000 price range, all of which were sold at popular retailers including Amazon, Walmart, Sears, and Wayfair. According to the recall notice, issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on July 17, the affected bikes were sold under the brand name VIVI. The recall comes due to a potential fire and burn risk posed by the bikes 36-volt lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, which have already resulted in 14 reports of overheating and three reports of fires, though, thankfully, no injuries have been reported. Full details of the recallincluding affected models and retailersare listed in the notice. Unfortunately, this isnt the first time that the next-to-non-existent e-bike and e-bike battery regulations in the U.S. have resulted in fire concerns. Why are e-bikes catching fire? According to a 2022 article by the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA), the first UL Standards & Engagement safety standards (a voluntary safety certification) for personal electric micromobility devices were created back in 2016, after more than half a million electric hoverboards were recalled due to overheating and, in some cases, explosions. The truth is battery-powered electric micromobility devices, including the e-bikes and e-scooters that have become immensely popular in recent years, do catch fire, the NFPA wrote. Specifically, its their batteries, which are often lithium-ion, that pose a risk. Today, UL Standards & Engagement has two separate safety standards for both e-bikes (UL 2849) and e-bike batteries (UL 2271). These standards require a one-time certification test to confirm that a product is safe, which typically cost between $30,000 and $100,000. However, in most U.S. jurisdictions, these certifications are not requiredand there is currently no federally mandated safety standard. Of the VIVI brand e-bikes involved in the recent recall, all of the affected models that are currently available on VIVI’s website claim to be certified with UL 2849, but not with the battery specific UL 2271. Several of the affected models appear to be either unavailable or no longer sold. A 2022 investigation by Consumer Reports found that loose regulations have resulted in many companies skirting around adequate safety precautions for both e-bikes and their lithium-ion batteries to avoid added costs. This trend was made even worse by the fact that, before May 2 of this year, Chinese importers (which account for the majority of the U.S. e-bike market) were incentivized to keep prices low by the de minimis exception, which allowed goods under $800 to enter the U.S. tax-free. Lack of regulation or industry-wide acceptance of safety standards may leave lower-income users at greater risk than those able to afford high-end devices that are likelier to be UL-certified, Consumer Reports noted. As of 2023, New York City began requiring UL certification on all e-bikes. A UL Standards & Engagement study published in 2024 found that the rate of deaths and injuries in the city began to slow significantly after the law was put into place. And, this coming January, California is set to follow New York Citys example with its own UL requirements. However, as the Consumer Reports investigation noted, until a federal standard for e-bike safety is set, its likely that other states will continue to encounter problems caused by faulty batteries. Despite the mounting toll of fires, injuries, and deaths tied to e-bike batteries, manufacturers and sellers have failed to take vital steps that would protect peoples safety, said Gabe Knight, policy advocate for Consumer Reports, in a press release. When an industry isnt putting safety first, people rightly expect the Consumer Product Safety Commission to step in. CRs investigation shows that the CPSC cant do its job as quickly or effectively as it needs to as long as Congress forces the agency to fight with one hand tied behind its back.
Category:
E-Commerce
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