Latest Stories from Charlie
How lockdown has changed the way Gen Z listen to music
Being tucked up inside all day has given new opportunities for artists to create music and get their careers off the ground, while quarantine playlists are booming. Coronavirus has had an enormous impact on nearly every country across the globe. Theatres are shut, restaurants are closing down, even entire airlines are having to go into administration and ask for government help. One industry that’s managing to keep itself alive...
How Cole Bennett became the Gen Z director of hip hop
Cole’s YouTube channel and home grown brand ‘Lyrical Lemonade’ has become synonymous with top tier music video quality – and he’s only 23. When Eminem first dropped the video to his recent single ‘Godzilla’, many were surprised to see it wasn’t posted by VEVO, the typical outlet for top tier pop stars. It was instead released by Lyrical Lemonade, the hip hop music video channel that’s celebrated by avid fans...
How to celebrate Pride during the pandemic
It’s an undeniably turbulent time, but Pride is still happening this year – here’s how you can get involved and where you can show your support. Coronavirus and all that’s come with it – lockdown, never-ending social distancing, the usual fun global pandemic stuff – has caused serious disruption to the 2020 calendar. Music festivals have been cancelled and large gatherings are banned for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, Pride Week parades...
Coca Cola backs degradable plant-based bottles
Despite saying it would make no immediate changes to plastic production earlier this year, Coca Cola has now announced it will be switching all plastic to plant-based bottles by 2023. I make it no secret around the office that Coca Cola’s advertisement campaigns in recent years have aggravated me to no end. Its emphasis on making ‘recyclable plastics’ and being environmentally conscious has never sat right with me, given that it...
Social media is getting Gen Z to the voting booth
New data suggests that apps such as Snapchat are making a sizeable difference to voting turnouts, which in turn could dramatically shift election results moving forward. One of the biggest challenges in modern politics is getting young people to vote. Millennials and Gen Zers now make up more than a third of eligible voters in the US, yet actual turn out is nearly always lower than experts predict. Bernie Sanders’...
SpaceX and NASA successfully launch Dragon Capsule
It’s the first time NASA has launched astronauts since 2011, and could usher in a new age of commercial and government space innovation. Amidst all of the memes and baby names, I sometimes forget that Elon Musk is an actual billionaire with a huge, privately owned space tech company. He’s always floating at the top of Twitter’s trending page but it’s rarely for his SpaceX endeavours. Thankfully that wasn’t the...
The ‘Doomsday Vault’ preserving agricultural biodiversity
This Norwegian vault holds nearly one million preserved seeds from all across the world, just in case they’re needed in the future. When I first played Bethesda’s Fallout video game series, in which you are thrown into a giant vault underground and then eventually released hundreds of years later, I presumed it was merely a fictional fantasy. It appears I was grossly incorrect, however, as it turns out that...
Stormzy pledges £10m to fight racial injustice
The UK grime artist will be giving cash to various undisclosed organisations over the next decade. It comes as other artists speak out about the music industry’s racial biases and discrimination. In a statement released yesterday, Stormzy has promised to donate £10 million to ‘organisations, charities, and movements that are committed to fighting racial inequality, justice reform, and Black empowerment in the UK’ over the next ten years. He will...
Understanding Gen Z and brand loyalty in 2020
Companies looking to create long-lasting connections with younger consumers must respect personal data, provide quick, authentic services, and be transparent about their business operations. If you’re a business looking to tap into the ever growing market of young Generation Z shoppers, then you’re probably wondering how to go about doing so. By the end of this year young adults and teens will make up over 40% of all American consumers....
Planet of the Humans is a well meant but inaccurate mess
Planet of the Humans argues that our current capitalist system cannot co-exist with truly sustainable living. It’s a messy, questionable work, one that uses flimsy sources for information and promotes outdated myths, but there are threads of truth throughout that open up the conversation of green energy. Michael Moore’s latest documentary, directed by Jeff Gibbs and surprise released on YouTube last month, is an all-out attack on the green...
