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Your ATTN Please || Thursday, 24 April

Your ATTN Please || Thursday, 24 April

April 24, 2025

YouTube is officially 20.

Yes, children. Before TikTok infected every one of us with brain rot, there was YouTube (aka the OG of viral video platforms). The one that brought us gems such as “Charlie bit my finger”, “Peanut butter jelly time”, and “Charlie the unicorn”. But YouTube wasn’t just the beginning of our addiction to watching stupid videos on the internet. It also forever changed how brands reach their audiences.

- Charlotte, Editor ♡

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARKETING TODAY?

YouTube is 20, Alexa Chung collabs with Vinted & History Channel campaign warns against hate crimes

YouTube turns 20!!!

And I feel old 😊 yaaaay. Crazy how 20 years can feel like no time at all and a freaking eternity. The platform, created as a place to simply share videos, has become a behemoth in both digital and pop culture. Since YouTube's inception, video content has become an invaluable tool for brands. So, in honour of the platform where it all began, here's 3 of the OG videos that DEFINED YouTube in the beginning:

It would be wrong not to mention the first video every posted to the platform. Me at the zoo, by jawed, was posted on April 23rd, 2005. Co-founder of YouTube Jawed Karim uploaded a grainy 19-second clip of him standing in front of the elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo. The video became emblematic of the core genre: unfiltered home videos.
Who could forget David After Dentist, uploaded Jan. 31st, 2009? In an anaesthesia-induced daze, a wee David DeVore ponders the meaning of life and other existential questions. The clip garnered millions of views and became an early example of how YouTube virality could be monetised.
Justin Bieber’s "Baby" – if you were around for this time you KNOW. This hit like literal crack and the internet did not stop coming back for more. This was the definition of megaviral. "Baby" spent two years as YouTube’s most-viewed video of all time and still sits at spot 38 with more than 3.3 billion views.

Second-hand marketplace Vinted partners with Alexa Chung.

Indie Queen of the mid 2000s is giving fans an opportunity to shop her wardrobe (and 14-year-old me is screaming). The collaboration will be available to Vinted members in the UK from 4 May and features items from brands such as Prada, JW Anderson, Magda Butrym and Galvan London. Best of all, the collection includes the embroidered bralette from fashion house Miu Miu and a 1930s coral silk vintage number. Yes, the one WORN BY Chung herself at Paris Fashion Week. Brb, moving to the UK.

History Channel delivers a stark warning against far-right extremism.

If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. That’s the message of the History Channel's new campaign, which features tattooed numbers of Holocaust survivors, alongside alarming present-day data. The work marks the 25th anniversary of the channel and also coincides with the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen on April 15. Far Right Extremism is soaring globally. Last year, there were 33,963 racial hate crimes in Germany alone. This moving piece heeds warning to a past we can’t forget. Watch it here.

-Sophie, Writer

DEEP DIVE

How the tech tycoons are cheating death

If you had enough money to never die, wouldn’t you at least spend it on something cooler than drinking a cocktail of your son’s blood and dry swallowing 100 pills a day?

Well, if you're Bryan Johnson, apparently you wouldn't. The tech entrepreneur, best known for his extreme longevity regimen, believes his ideology—"Don't Die"—will be the most influential in the world by 2027. Put a lot of thought into that tagline didn’t ya, Bryan?

But is this actually aspirational? Or are we just witnessing another case of tech billionaires brute-forcing their bizarre personal fixations into the cultural zeitgeist?

Death as a “technical problem”

Johnson sold his company, Braintree, to PayPal for $800 million in 2013. He has since funnelled millions into his own body, treating ageing like a software bug he can patch. His anti-ageing experiment, Blueprint, is an absurdly regimented routine of calorie restriction, supplement stacking, and high-tech monitoring. It's all in pursuit of biological immortality—or at least a slightly younger liver. He believes that death is not an inevitable fact of life, but a glitch in the system. And he’s debugging it.

There’s a certain Silicon Valley logic to this. The same industry that’s tried (and largely failed) to automate creativity, disrupt social norms, and colonise the internet now has its sights set on the final boss: mortality. Tech founders are no longer only trying to change the way we live - they’re trying to control how (or if) we die.

The cult of the tech prophet

What’s fascinating about Johnson’s ideology isn’t just its ambition, but its potential to shape cultural discourse. Silicon Valley has a history of turning personal obsessions into mass movements (see: minimalism, dopamine fasting, "grindset" culture). If enough money and marketing are thrown behind it, "Don't Die" could easily follow suit. I mean, surely it’s going to need a better name though (I’m sorry I just can’t get past the ridiculousness of it).

But does this have real influence, or is it just the product of billionaires with too much cash and too few hobbies? The reality is, many of these extreme lifestyle ideologies thrive not because they offer viable solutions, but because they are exclusive and unattainable. Most people can’t afford a $2 million-a-year longevity experiment, but they can be seduced by the aesthetic of optimisation and control.

Is this the future of aspirational content?

The internet loves a hyper-optimised lifestyle, whether it’s biohacking, monk-mode hustle culture, or minimalist luxury. But the line between aspiration and absurdity is thin, and Byran Johnson is walking it, hard. "Don't Die" is compelling in the same way a dystopian sci-fi villain is compelling—it’s fascinating, but not exactly relatable.

Ultimately, this is less about genuine inspiration and more about influence in its rawest form. When you have enough money, you can make anything seem like a movement. Will "Don't Die" take off as a cultural ideology or remain a high-budget existential crisis? That remains to be seen. But if the future of aspiration is just rich men trying to brute-force their way out of the human condition, maybe mortality isn’t the real problem.

Maybe it’s just a skill issue.

-Sophie, Writer

TREND PLUG

I think I’ll survive

Set to "Never Let Me Go" by Florence + the Machine, today's trend pairs a deeply personal truth with the line:

“I think I’ll survive if you don’t like me.”

It’s not dramatic. It’s just someone quietly choosing perspective after going through something much bigger than judgement in the big '25. People are using this trend to open up about real, formative experiences—things that shaped them, scarred them, or still sit with them today. Not for shock. Just for perspective. Some examples include:

Then comes the line: “I think I’ll survive if you don’t like me.” It’s not defensive. It’s just a quiet reminder of what actually matters.

How you can jump on this trend:

Use the sound with your own truth about something that’s challenged you. You don’t have to explain it. Just state it. Then end with the line: “I think I’ll survive if you don’t like me.”

A few ideas to get you started:

I’ve had full breakdowns between back-to-back Zooms
I spent three months building a campaign that never went live
I’ve cried in the bathroom at work then fixed someone else’s deck

-Abdel, Social Media Coordinator

FOR THE GROUP CHAT

😂Yap’s funniest home videos: Gotta play it cool for the audience
❤How wholesome: SuperGirl
🎧Soooo tingly: Extra Long Nails ASMR
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight: Cava Spicy Lamb Meatballs!

TODAY ON THE YAP PODCAST

Want even more “YAP”ing? Check out the full podcast here.

ASK THE EDITOR

I own a small coffee roasting business and have a decent audience on IG and TikTok. Is there any point posting on LinkedIn, too? -Sarahlee

Hey Sarahlee!

No one says you have to post on LinkedIn! If you’re getting plenty of customers from the marketing you’re already doing, don’t overcomplicate things. However, if you do want to expand your audience (and you have the resources to do so), you absolutely should start posting on LinkedIn.

After all, LinkedIn is full of business owners like you. That means when you share stories about your business journey, other people are going to find your content relatable. This relatability is great for building your brand. Not to mention, your customers are on LinkedIn. It’s the ideal place to expand your network, as long as you put in the effort to engage with people and not just post and ghost.