One gif that will restore your faith in the internet
I was scrolling through Tumblr and saw a gif of a fireman saving the “This Is Fine” dog and it made me ~feel~ things. Also in this week’s issue:
Time magazine names a century’s worth of women of the year
Turns out targeted political ads online are very unpopular
Facebook pulls Trump campaign census ads
Yours,
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Time magazine names a century’s worth of women of the year
To mark International Women’s Day, Time magazine released new covers inspired by its annual Person of the Year series, which up until 1999 was actually named “Man of the Year.” The magazine selected a woman of the year for each year going back to 1920, when U.S. women gained the right to vote.
The magazine worked with artists and went through photo archives to create and find images for 89 new covers, each designed in the style of Time’s cover design at the time.
“[I]t was an irresistible exercise to go back and look again, at different ways of wielding power, and the different results derived,” Nancy Gibbs, a former Time editor-in-chief, wrote in an introductory essay for the series. “Women were wielding soft power long before the concept was defined.”
There were 11 years that didn’t get a new cover because a woman was selected as the Person of the Year that year, including 2019 (Greta Thunberg), 2017 (the Silence Breakers), and 1952 (Queen Elizabeth II).
Fun facts: The first woman on the cover of the magazine was Italian actor Eleonora Duse in 1923, and the first year the magazine featured more solo women on its cover than men was 2019.
You can search the covers by decade here.
Turns out targeted political ads online are very unpopular
This is a pretty incredible statistic from a Gallup-Knight Foundation poll released last week: 72% of Americans are opposed to micro-targeted political ads and believe ads should be shown to anyone who uses a website or app regardless of their background characteristics.
An additional 20% believe targeting is OK if it’s limited to general information like gender, age, and zip code.
This puts the ad policies of Facebook out of step with the majority of Americans. Facebook allows campaigns to target users based on traits like demographics, interests, behaviors, and profession. Beginning in December, for example, President Trump’s campaign targeted voters interested in Audi cars, HBO, law enforcement, and the Catholic Church, according to Quartz.
Screenshot of Facebook’s ad manager, which allows ads to be targeted by categories like interests.
The Trump campaign has spent more than $33.4 million on Facebook ads, the Sanders campaign has spent nearly $12 million, and the Biden campaign has spent more than $6.4 million.
Twitter announced it would ban political ads on its platform last year, and Google, which runs ads on search results and on YouTube, limits targeting to age, gender, and postal code.
Facebook pulls Trump campaign census ads
Screenshot of a Trump Facebook ad that was removed.
Facebook said it removed Trump campaign ads Thursday that asked supporters to fill out an “Official 2020 Congressional District Census,” saying the ads violated its policy of interfering in the U.S. Census.
The Trump Make America Great Again Committee ran more than 2,000 versions of digital ads that mentioned the census, according to Facebook’s ad library. These ads linked to a 19-question campaign survey that collected personal information and included the question “Do you approve or disapprove of adding a question to the U.S. Census regarding citizenship?”
“There are policies in place to prevent confusion around the official U.S. census and this is an example of those being enforced,” Facebook said in a statement to the New York Times.
Biden’s massive earned media boost
Biden’s broadcast mentions in Super Tuesday states, broken down by media market. Credit: Critical Mention
It was a political comeback for the ages. Former Vice President Biden has run for president three times in his career but had never won a primary or caucus until South Carolina on February 29, followed by a Super Tuesday winning spree. In a matter of four days, Biden went from zero career wins to 11.
Though Biden was outspent and out-organized in many of the states he won, he had a major advantage when it came to media coverage. According to Critical Mention, a media tracking firm, Biden received almost $72 million worth of national earned media between polls closing in South Carolina and the first polls closing on Super Tuesday, including a big spike Monday, when Biden was endorsed by three of his former rivals — former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minn., and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Biden currently leads Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) 670-574 in the delegate count.
This performance artist plays Trump because he doesn’t think there’s enough Trump art
Credit: @tootsiewarholny/Instagram
If you attended any major art fairs in New York City last week, you might have spotted a Trump impersonator in orange makeup, a long red tie, and a bad wig. Performance artist Tootsie Warhol began impersonating Trump at the Whitney Biennial last summer for nearly two months and started the performance art piece as a response to the lack of Trump-themed art, according to Artnet News. Of the more than 200 pieces at the biennial, he only saw two about Trump
“To me, this was like having an art show about art in America during the Vietnam War and not even talking about the Vietnam War,” he said. “I had no training in performance or acting, but I thought, ‘if they’re not going to put Trump in the biennial, I’m going to put Trump in the biennial.’”
Warhol said the orange makeup is professional clown makeup and takes two showers to remove.
Warren gets the Tracie Ching treatment
Days before Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) dropped out of the race, her campaign released a poster by artist Tracie Ching, who previously did a poster for Sen. Kamala Harris’ (D-Calif.) campaign. The image was inspired by an FDR campaign poster from 1940. Despite the late release, the poster, as well as tees, totes, and stickers with the image, are up for sale “for debt retirement purposes,” as the campaign website states.
Michelle Obama saw Christina Aguilera in Vegas
Credit: TMZ
Aguilera told Access Hollywood that she and Obama took a photo together before her “The Xperience” residency in Las Vegas last Wednesday that neither has posted yet and I’m dying to see. She also said Obama came with her team to the show “to celebrate them.”
“She’s so beautiful and so powerful and so strong,” Aguilera said of Obama.
TMZ obtained footage of one of Xtina’s dancers twerking up in front of the former FLOTUS during the show.
One gif that will restore your faith in the internet
What a mood. I love this so much and if the smiling face with tear emoji was out yet I would put it here.
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