A brief overview of what is currently trending in news, culture, and/or trending hashtags and formats.
Dart: Jaxson Dart returned from injury last night in the New York Giants 33-15 loss against the New England Patriots.
Lakers: After last night’s loss to the Phoenix Suns, Lakers fans are discussing what their team could use.
Snow Day: Yesterday marked the first snow fall for many across the country, including 8 inches of snow in Chicago.
A deeper dive into a subject that is impacting culture on a macro level, beyond just the social space.
AI Music Infiltrating the Main Stream TikTok
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What It Is: If you’ve been on TikTok in the past month the lyrics “Come in closer, know that I’m a mess, tangled up in wires I can’t catch my breath I run, I run, I run” may sound familiar. The song titled “I Run” was created by producer Haven as his debut single and was first posted to TikTok in snippet form throughout October of 2025. These clips performed so well, with fans begging for the official release of the song, that Haven officially dropped it on all platforms on October 28th. 2025; this however is where the controversy began. From the first clip that was posted to social media fans had speculated about who the voice of the song was, the widespread conclusion was that it had to be popular English vocalist Jorja Smith due to her distinct style and pitch. However, this claim was quickly dispelled by the artist who left a comment on a TikTok stating that it was in fact not her. Fans then went digging into the credits of the official release of the song and were confused to find no singers credited anywhere, leading to the questions “were the vocals stolen?” and “where did they come from?”. With a little more digging found the answers to these questions - AI generation. Now confirmed by the team behind the song, the vocals for the initial release of the song were created using the music-generation software Suno - sometimes called the “ChatGPT for music”. With a simple prompt and hummed melody, the software pulled from other artists’ voices and styles to create this recognizable, but unidentifiable, vocal track; something that hasn’t sat well with fans. People had already fallen in love with the song and saved it to their libraries to the point that it peaked at #25 on the global charts, but now were faced with the question of if they had a true zero tolerance policy for AI generated content or were going to let it slide in this one case after building a connection to it unknowingly. Due to the backlash the artist Haven has now re-released the song using the human vocals of a TikToker who had posted themself signing the song, though fans aren’t feeling the same way about it now.
The Brand Takeaway:
For brands looking at this case, it isn’t limited only to the music industry. AI generated content has begun to take over the internet, from Sora AI videos to AI voiceovers it is truly inescapable. And while people have taken a firm stance against all AI content, think the commonly used mantra “AI slop”, others have softened their stance allowing themselves to enjoy content that has been generated without a creator. However, those with softened stances seem to still value the disclosure of AI usage very highly. When presented with something as if it was a unique asset that took hours to days of time and effort viewers will inevitably feel lied to or betrayed when they find out the truth about how it was created. This is why it’s of the utmost importance for brands to disclose their usage of AI as it becomes more regularized in the advertising space - you’d rather get out ahead of the wave, rather than being caught out and having to backtrack. Additionally it’s important that brands track the reaction to their usage of AI, possibly pivoting off the use if sentiment reflects heavily negative themes.
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