Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Is there such a thing as being too attractive? For fitness influencers, it turns out there might be. Contrary to popular belief, new research suggests that being too good-looking can actually be a disadvantage, particularly in the online fitness space. The study, coauthored by researchers at the University of Dayton and University of Oregon, found that the more attractive the influencer, the lower the engagement they received on their social media posts. The reason? It all comes down to a sense of relatability, and what researchers have termed the “beauty backfire effect.” In the study, researchers showed 299 U.S. adults mock Instagram posts featuring …

On July 29, 2025, at 9:45 a.m., Christine Ressy was supposed to be undergoing surgery to remove kidney stones. Instead, Ressy, a 49-year-old hairdresser in New York City, found herself holding back tears in the waiting room of a Manhattan hospital. Unless she paid half of her $10,933 bill prior to surgery, her doctor simply could not operate, she had been told. Because Ressy was uninsured, she had hoped to receive a cash-pay discount or find some other way to negotiate costs. She wanted to see an itemized receipt after her surgery before paying up, and had prepared a $500 cash deposit. She had done all this on the advice of her most trusted advocate: ChatGPT. Ressy…

Every workplace seems to have one. A manager who goes silent for days, then suddenly reappears in the team chat the moment senior leadership checks in. They’ll swoop in to take credit for the work they hadn’t touched, and say, “Oh yes, we’ve been addressing that.” This type of boss shows up when there’s an audience, then vanishes as soon as the higher-ups leave. I’ve started calling them the performative manager, because that’s exactly what they are. The rise of the performative manager To performative managers, actually leading isn’t really the point. All they care about is looking like they’re leading. Performative managers care more about optics than outcome…

If you’ve ever taken a sick pet to the vet’s office, you know the pain of seeing your four-footed family member hurting. Then, of course, comes the secondary anguish of figuring how to pay for their veterinary care, which may have you wishing you’d ponied up for pet insurance. While Insurify reports that the average cost of a routine vet visit is about $138 for a cat and $214 for a dog, emergency veterinary care can run the gamut from $300 to $10,000, according to Marketwatch. The insurance industry touts pet insurance as the financial solution to the high cost of veterinary care. Like human health insurance, you pay monthly premiums so that your pet insurance wil…

If you were one of the millions of children who grew up reading Goodnight Moon before bed, chances are its iconic green bedroom is permanently seared into your memory. Now, for the next four months, you have the opportunity to sleep in the Goodnight Moon room IRL. The Goodnight Moon room has been faithfully re-created—down to the red balloon, bowl of mush, and cow jumping over the moon—for a new immersive suite at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. The room can accommodate up to two adults and two children, and a booking in the suite comes with perks like four tickets to the View Boston observation deck, a $150 daily food and beverage credit, complimentary moon and star cooki…

After Viagra came to market in 1998, women began clamoring for a drug of their own. But it has taken decades for the medical community to take women’s sexual health seriously—and even longer to develop and approve a drug that improves women’s libido. A new documentary called The Pink Pill: Sex, Drugs, and Who Has Control, premiering at the DOC NYC film festival, explores the fight to launch Addyi, a drug known as “the female Viagra.” Directed by Aisling Chin-Yee, the film follows Cindy Eckert, the founder of Sprout Pharmaceuticals, who worked for five years to bring Addyi to market, which she managed to do in 2015. But just as fascinating, the film explores society’s per…

Aaliyah Arnold, the 21-year-old founder of BossUp Cosmetics, goes live on TikTok a few times a week. Each livestream will last anywhere from 4 to 12 hours. Thousands tune in to watch her pack mystery boxes for customers, give away products, and teach makeup tutorials. “I mix in music, jokes, giveaways, and real product demos so people feel like they’re hanging out with me while shopping,” Arnold tells Fast Company. Livestreaming now makes up 60% of her company’s total sales. Her biggest livestream to date hit $170,000 in sales, with more than 1 million viewers tuning in. Arnold is one of many solopreneurs on platforms like TikTok leaning into “live selling” to ge…

It’s open enrollment season again—that period between October and November when workers must reacquaint themselves with “deductibles,” “copays,” and “premiums.” Many would rather wait at the DMV, sit through a three-hour work meeting, or attempt to explain social media to tech-challeged loved ones than spend their afternoon selecting an insurance plan. That’s why some workers are farming out everything on their health insurance to-do list to AI and social media. New research from HR tech company Justworks and The Harris Poll shows we’re entering the era of “benefit burnout”: Many people are not doing their own research on what plans are best for them, and instead…

From fake “apologies” that spread like wildfire on social media (as was the case during the Astronomer CEO scandal) to companies facing backlash for using generative AI without safeguards, recent crises have shown how quickly brand reputations can unravel in the digital age. The rapid spread of misinformation online, combined with new risks tied to emerging technologies, has left organizations more vulnerable than ever. Companies that are not ready to deal with a crisis are putting their brands, reputations, and future at risk. There are three warning signs that your workplace is unprepared for the next disaster, scandal, or other corporate emergency. 1. There’s N…

Marketers are setting the cultural conversation — with their successes as much as their missteps. But which campaigns are creating healthy tension? When is the right time to walk back a rebrand? Autodesk CMO Dara Treseder breaks down branding and marketing lessons from the most high-profile campaigns of 2025, giving her unvarnished opinion on everything from Sydney Sweeney to Cracker Barrel and more. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian and recorded live at the 2025 Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response feat…

Speaking multiple languages may protect both your brain and body by slowing down the biological aging process, increasing resilience as you get older, according to a new international study. Published in Nature Aging journal, the paper, titled “Multilingualism protects against accelerated aging in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of 27 European countries,” looked at data from 86,149 Europeans and found that those who spoke multiple languages experienced slower biobehavioral aging compared with those who only spoke one language. It concluded that speaking multiple languages may slow the biological processes of aging and protect against age-related decline.…

A grocery store is offering to buy pennies in a 2-for-1 deal. Sound like pennies from heaven? Too good to be true? The news comes a day after the U.S. Mint pressed its final penny on November 12 in Philadelphia, following an order from President Donald The President to stop making the one-cent coins back in February. Market 32 and Price Chopper stores are inviting customers to double the value of their spare change by bringing in their pennies this Sunday, November 16 for “Double Exchange Day.” The only catch is that customers will receive a gift card instead of cold hard cash for their trouble, according to a statement on the company’s website. Market 32 is a…

A regional supermarket chain is offering to buy pennies in a two-for-one deal. Sound like pennies from heaven? Too good to be true? The news comes a day after the U.S. Mint pressed its final penny on November 12 in Philadelphia, following an order from President Donald The President to stop making the one-cent coins back in February. Market 32 and Price Chopper grocery stores are inviting customers to double the value of their spare change by bringing in their pennies this Sunday, November 16, for “Double Exchange Day.” The only catch is that customers will receive a gift card instead of cold hard cash for their trouble, according to a statement on the company’s w…

The headache of planning a ski trip stands in sharp contrast to the freedom of effortlessly slicing down the slopes once you actually get up the mountain. If you’re tired of worrying about squeezing all of that gear into your car or wrestling with chains in the cold, Uber’s latest option for getting you to the slopes is one way to go. The company continues to broaden the services you can book through its app, and now Uber wants you to not only hail one of its rides up the mountain, but also book your ski pass on the way. Through a partnership with Vail Resorts, Uber is offering an option to buy an Epic Pass through the app. The Epic Pass, sold by Colorado ski gia…

For decades, Adobe’s software tools, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, have been the universal language of visual communication, shaping how marketers, artists, and brands build the modern creative world. As artificial intelligence transforms the nature of work and how we define productivity, the 42-year-old creative tech company is reinventing itself once again, transforming the world’s creative supply chains through its AI ecosystem. Designers and marketers globally are using Adobe Firefly for generative image creation, Substance 3D for photorealistic modeling and digital twins, Express for rapid on-brand content production, and Experience Manager for…

Verizon is planning to cut about 15,000 jobs in the telecommunications company’s largest-ever layoffs as part of a restructuring under its new CEO, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday. The layoffs, affecting about 15% of its workforce, are set to take place as soon as next week, the person said. Verizon’s shares rose about 1.4% on the news. They have largely stagnated over the last three years, with a gain of 8% compared with the S&P 500’s near-70% rise. A Verizon spokesperson declined to comment. The cuts, following the appointment of former PayPal boss Dan Schulman as CEO in early October, are aimed at its non-union management …

AI can do a lot of things. It can write your emails. It can make your grocery list. It can even interview you for a job. But now, more and more people are depending on AI for things that require real human qualities: life coaching, therapy, even companionship. Scott Galloway, best-selling author and professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, says the real problem with synthetic relationships is what they lack: any kind of struggle or challenge that comes with maintaining real relationships. Leaning on AI In a recent social media post, Galloway calls AI “a rabbit hole” that is “sequestering us from each other”—and while it may…

Disney reported $22.46 billion in revenue for the quarter, which just missed analyst expectations and resulted in a 5% drop in premarket trading on Thursday. The entertainment division—which includes the company’s streaming, linear networks, and theatrical business—saw a 6% drop in revenue. Streaming did see some gains: Disney+ and Hulu ended the quarter with 196 million subscriptions, an increase of 12.4 million subscribers from the previous quarter. However, Disney’s linear networks dropped 16% to $107 million, compared to this time last year, while operating income fell 21%. The company’s theatrical releases also saw declines with both the drop in linear networks …

After years of living on the street and crashing on friends’ couches, Quantavia Smith was given the keys to a studio apartment in Los Angeles that came with an important perk—easy access to public transit. The 38-year-old feels like she went from a life where “no one cares” to one where she has a safe place to begin rebuilding her life. And the metro station the apartment complex was literally built upon is a lifeline as she searches for work without a car. “It is more a sense of relief, a sense of independence,” said Smith, who moved in July. She receives some government assistance and pays 30% of her income for rent — just $19 a month for an efficiency with a fu…

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. I’m Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy. This week, I’m focusing on what AI pioneer Yann LeCun’s new company will likely build after he departs from Meta. I also look at Marc Andreessen’s jab at the Pope on X, and at “Fei-Fei Li’s” view of the AI world since 2012. Sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. And if you have comments on this issue and/or ideas for future ones, drop me a line at sullivan@fastcompany.com, and follow me on X @thesullivan. Yann LeCun’s departure from Me…