In this week’s Our Take: men’s health gets messy, a new Chinese manifesto, speaking up for singletons, and is AI making us more moderate?
Taking health into your own hands
Health campaigns can often smack you over the head with doom and gloom. Not this one. VML Health and Fuck Cancer have taken prostate health and turned it into a conversation starter that’s impossible to scroll past. Their cheeky new campaign, ‘Beat Cancer Off’, leans into the science that men who ejaculate at least 21 times a month may cut their prostate cancer risk by 22%.
And they get the message across. Every word, euphemism, and playful nickname for male self-pleasure is on full display, making the stat impossible to forget and impossible not to laugh at.
Science is communicated best when it’s backed by humour, and here it’s got animation, a catchy tune and enough risqué wordplay to make your dad blush. The campaign has even released an app to help men reach their target numbers.
Most importantly? It works. Men are talking, sharing, and maybe even trying for themselves.
Momager of Manifestation
Manifestation has been a thing for years now, from lucky girl syndrome to vision boards, to “main character energy” – and we’re all guilty of a quick wallpaper switch when we want to reset the vibe.
Across Chinese social media platforms Douyin and Red, thousands of users are swapping their profile pics for one of Kris Jenner – turning the ultimate ‘momager’ into a good luck charm that represents wealth and prosperity. The users are also AI editing Kris as a CEO in a suit, a doctor in a white coat, or a Ph.D. student in a graduation gown, to match their own aspirations for success.
When everything feels a bit uncertain – jobs, money, what’s next – we look for control wherever we can get it. Even if that control is as small as changing a profile picture in the hope to manifest something great.
You’re doing amazing, sweetie.
WILL YOU SHIFT MY MATE?
Let’s set the scene. You’re on a night out with your friends when you feel the dreaded tap on your shoulder. You turn around to hear one of the most Irish one-liners of all time: “Will you shift my mate?” Cue the flashbacks.
What feels like an Irish rite of passage might just reflect a very real dating truth: the best wingman is your best mate.
Enter Date My Friend – a series of live events popping up globally, from San Francisco to Dublin, where you pitch your friend to a room full of potential suitors, supported by slideshows, speeches and lots of chaos. It sounds nuts, but it taps into something that’s been working for Irish people for years: social proof. A friend can say the things you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) and do it with credibility and humour.
As a nation, we’re not exactly known for talking ourselves up. Self-promotion feels slightly painful at best. But hyping up your mate? That’s second nature. We’ve been doing it for years, just with less structure and usually after a few drinks.
And it turns out the rest of the world is catching on.
Moderate Intelligence
A recent FT analysis found that while social media platforms tend to amplify extreme views, AI chatbots might do the opposite, nudging users toward the moderate centre. If Twitter is where the cranks find their people, AI might be more like your centrist dad: slightly boring and reasonably well-read. While it may not talk your crazy uncle down from the ledge, it’s at least less likely to push him out there in the first place.
The methodology has its sceptics: AI’s tendency toward agreeableness means it may just be telling us what we want to hear rather than genuinely moderating anything. And of course, there are the tycoons seemingly determined to build an AI that reflects their own, let’s say, unsavoury worldview.
But for now, it seems AI might be coming for your job, but at least it’s being nice about it.