Social Media & Internet Culture: TikTok Memes Spark Playful Battle of the Sexes

From men’s preoccupation with the Roman Empire, to women only caring about football when Taylor Swift makes an appearance, social media is filled with half-serious memes riffing on supposed cisgender binaries. However, as brands try to get involved in creators’ in-jokes, they’re revealing the fine line between lampooning sexism, and lending it a commercial platform.

Gaming: Phantom Liberty: Cyberpunk 2077’s Narrative Expansion

Polish developer CD Projekt Red has redeemed its action roleplaying game Cyberpunk 2077 (which was plagued with performance issues at launch) with a narrative game expansion called Phantom Liberty. Boasting a motion-captured lead performance by British actor Idris Elba, Phantom Liberty continues the game's investment in storytelling growth.

Music & Sound: Spotify Overhauls Audiobook Distribution

A year after adding a pay-per-book catalogue of audiobooks to its platform, Spotify has revamped its strategy, now offering 15 free hours of monthly listening. This challenges Amazon (which currently dominates digital distribution of audiobooks with its Audible service) and draws in millions of new listeners with easier discovery.

Publishing & Broadcasting: Netflix’s Adult Animation Drop

On September 27, Netflix hosted Drop 01, its first ever showcase dedicated exclusively to animated projects in production. It is the latest development in an ongoing renaissance as western animation catches up to the all-ages-audience advantage enjoyed by Japanese anime.

One to Watch: Paramount’s TikTok Movie Party

This month, US film studio Paramount released the entirety of the 2004 movie Mean Girls on TikTok – cutting its 107-minute runtime into 23 bite-sized clips ranging from 60 seconds to 10 minutes in length. The one-off promotion joins similar experiments from streaming platform Peacock to use social short-form as the gateway to streamed long-form.