Blog: virality

“Pop Stars Aren’t Popping Like They Used To”, Billboard ’s Elias Leight writes in a recent article, in which record label executives stress over the struggle to break new artists. The article (or at least, the headline) stirred up a storm on Twitter — ahem, X — last week, where many users took the opportunity to slam record labels’ misguided focus on virality.

Another Super Bowl Sunday (and half-time show) has left us as quickly as it arrived. [SPOILER] Chiefs won 38 to 35, Rihanna’s “surprise guest” was in fact her baby bump, and Fox Sports reported that ad spots during the game cost circa $7 million per 30 seconds.

This week gaming entered leak season, with large amounts of content unexpectedly released for two major upcoming titles: Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA) and Diablo IV. GTA developer Rockstar Games confirmed : “We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorised third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto”.

For the past week, hip-hop Twitter was buzzing with debate. The Weeknd and Gunna both released surprise albums on 7thJanuary: Dawn FM and DS4EVER , respectively. So, whose album would come out on top? Though The Weeknd is the bigger household name, the two artists’ rollout strategies were remarkably similar.

The story of David Sarnoff is the archetypal American Dream. A Belarusian child immigrant arriving in New York City at the turn of the 20th century, the ambitious Sarnoff would demonstrate an early instinct for technological shifts with a prescient awarenessof the emerging media and entertainment industries.