31 nanny Joe is back, TikTok is taking over

we're in florida this week, and we're not ashamed to say this is our first time visiting the wrinkly elbow joint of america. who knew there was a state where alligators were the most sentient inhabitants? it's not that we're surprised that there's a state where there are more swamps than people, but having to keep our windshield wipers constantly on due to the humidity is still crazy. anyways, we'll be back to civilization by monday, but until then - enjoy our in-depth hottake on Jacob Zuma, the "florida man" of south africa.

big idea: nanny Joe is here to rescue us all

1. Joe unveiled his newest plan to beat COVID thursday, which basically boils down to...get vaccinated and quit the shenanigans. the highlights include requiring either vaccination or weekly testing for all employees who work for large businesses, all government contractors, and nearly all federal employees. that’ll cover an estimated 100 million people, or two-thirds of america’s working population.
2. this comes amid the delta-spike in cases, with 1,500 people dying daily from COVID and a new CDC study which found unvaccinated people are eleven times more likely to die from COVID than vaccinated smartie pants. it also comes after months of Dems essentially begging Joe to screw his critics and go full nanny state.
3. what finally changed Joe's mind? more than likely, his dropping poll numbers combined with a fully FDA-approved vaccine. his team finally realized that his critics were going to compare any move he made to an overbearing, interfering nanny state, so why not take actually effective policy steps to end the pandemic? states with higher vaccination rates clearly have fewer outbreaks and deaths, and it is time to replicate that success nationally. we'll have to wait and see though, if you're crazy enough to refuse the vaccine, you're probably crazy enough to quit your job over it too.

story to watch: TikTok beats YouTube in minutes used

1. a new report adds to the growing evidence that TikTok is the new social media app to beat. Android users in the US and UK spent more average time on TikTok per month than YouTube. in 2020, TikTok beat Facebook’s Messenger app to become the most downloaded app of the year, and now earns more money than YouTube per user. 
2. that’s phenomenal performance for an app which is barely five years old, especially when considering TikToks are three minutes long at most. because YouTube has more than double the number of users (two billion versus 700 million), it still has more time spent on its platform. to put things in perspective, 44% of all time on smartphones is spent on social media apps, so TikTok is at the very top of the app game.
3. like all the other massive social media platforms, this crown will no doubt shed more light on the shadiness of TikTok. its corporate owner is ByteDance, a chinese company which claims there is a firewall between the communist party and the massive amounts of data it collects on TikTok users. there are also growing concerns that TikTok’s content recommendation algorithm is incredibly addictive and essentially autoplays it into our youths’ hearts.

this week’s image: Lee finally surrenders

• (The Atlantic) a statue of Robert E Lee is dismantled in richmond. turns out the Civil War is the longest american war, not the Afghan War.

this week’s number: triple the number of women volunteer for office housework than men

1. a study found that women were nearly three times more likely to volunteer for non-promotable workplace tasks than men - 7% versus 2.6%. essentially, women are being forced into "office mom" roles which are critical to company culture but do nothing for the individual women's careers. 
2. the study is back in the news because of (of course) COVID. bosses are worried that their company culture is going down the drain, but as workers return to in-person work, some women are refusing to work for free. everyone loves the administrator who takes care of office birthdays, helps out new employees, and supervises the interns, but if none of those are part of her job description, why should she continue doing them? 

what we’re making: carrot halwa

• we usually stick to strictly american foods, but we recently tried to make some carrot halwa - and it was delicious. think carrot cake, just without the flour aka gluten-free before hipsters ever existed. we highly recommend serving a warmed scoop of halwa with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. it's like a brownie sundae, just...browner.

and, in case you missed it:

• teachers are working to undo months of QAnon and antivax brainwashing among students by their parents
• smoking pot has been found to be linked to higher rates of heart attacks in young adults
• this week, we’re the florida man - we flew to florida in the middle of hurricane season, and were surprised that it was rainy

the weekly rundown is produced by Yunus, Faisal, and Ahmed. learn more about us and email us your comments and feedback!