RushTok Is Back.
Newsletter #137
This Week
Sororities Have In-House Content Teams
ICYMI: No Need to Ramble
Spotted
Before We Go…
1. The Audience Got Bigger. Then Everything Else Did, Too.
When I rushed at the University of Kansas in the fall of 1989, sorority recruitment was entirely analog.
The Panhellenic Association, the student leadership group that manages and governs rush, produced, printed, and mailed a rush booklet. Prospective members requested a paper application (in writing or by a phone call), waited for it to arrive at home, filled it out, and mailed it back to KU.
And then we showed up.
Rush was an in-person experience. College women welcomed prospective members into the sorority houses, talked with them, got to know them, and ultimately welcomed a new class. At the Kappa Kappa Gamma house, we produced and performed a super sweet mini play of The Little Mermaid. (Yes, yes, I was in it, and I was a “supporting mermaid.” No photos or videos exist!)
The rush audience was very clear: the women going through rush.
Then the technology started changing and quickly.
2. The Art of Brevity
In a 2023 episode of Speaking of Psychology, Gloria Mark, PhD, chancellor’s professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, shared decades of research on how technology impacts our attention, mood, and stress. Her findings confirm what many of us have suspected: our attention spans have been steadily declining over the past two decades.
In 2004, the average attention span for online content was 2.5 minutes.
By 2012, it dropped to 75 seconds.
In 2023, it was down to 47 seconds, with a median of just 40 seconds.
For communicators, that reality carries a clear lesson: clarity and conciseness are no longer optional, they’re essential
3. Spotted
This one is for anyone terrified that an AI takeover is imminent. One TikTok user has found that we probably have some more time before that happens. User @HuskIsTaken posts hilarious videos asking AIs to do simple tasks, only to find out that the human experience is one that can’t yet be fully replicated. Here, he asks three AIs to count to 100 with unimpressive results.
4. Before We Go…
From The Wall Street Journal: The 60-year-old real-estate agent giving history lessons on Instagram
“Instead of using social media solely to promote property listings, Jamie Peva uses his platform to highlight Georgetown’s history and local culture.”
Instagram rolled out a new logo last week, and like with any brand redesign, people had opinions…many of them not good. Instagram’s head of product design, Jasmine Probst, responded: “Our goal was to create something that felt familiar to Instagram, but sharper and more modern — to meet the community where they are now.”
From The New York Times: Sick of AI Slop? So are tech giants.
“The digital sewage heap has sprawled across tech platforms, cheapening meaningful content and polluting the information ecosystem, as chatbots and video generators continue to advance. Now, Silicon Valley wants to take out the trash.”