Students are out of school, businesses are closed, and millions are stuck at home amid the coronavirus pandemic. One app many people are turning to for entertainment is TikTok, so a viral campaign is trying to remind the platform's many young users "there are still plenty of good times to be had."
Truth, the youth smoking prevention campaign, kicked off a TikTok challenge called #WerkItFromHome where users are encouraged to strut their stuff to RuPaul's hit song, Supermodel. Ariana Lee, who has over eight million followers on the platform, told Cheddar Thursday that the campaign is a creative way to tell people to stay at home.
“I took part because I feel like it’s a great way to encourage young people to stay home,” Lee said. “I think it shows how creative people can be.”
The short-form video platform has become widely popular with Generation Z and Lee said it resonates with so many users because of its similarity to Vine, which officially closed in 2017. “I guess it’s like a longer form of Vine and Vine was really popular, so I feel like short-formed videos are really appealing to my generation.”
When it came to creating her TikTok video for the #WerkItFromHome challenge Lee described how her contribution for the challenge came about. “It took a little bit of planning,” she said. “But it kind of happened naturally.”
The TikTok star said that the extra time at home recently has also allowed her to connect with her fans, and with more users on the platform, more ideas are being shared and trends have been created.
“I think there are more ideas because there are more people posting, and TikTok, you go off one another and you make your own video off that so there are more trends,” she said.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!