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.
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
