"Many advertisers have concerns about TikTok and its Chinese owners....But companies keep flocking to the app... because it appears to have reach and cultural cachet..."

"Unlike other social media platforms, TikTok has ads appear like any other full-screen video on the platform, so they aren’t always immediately discernible as ads. The app has pushed brands to work with its content creators, making ads seem even more natural. It has told brands: 'Don’t make ads, make TikToks.'...  Last year, the men’s fashion company Swet Tailor posted a TikTok video advertising the same shirt, in different colors, being thrown onto a rotating man. The video garnered 5,000 views, far more than most TikTok videos posted by the company, which has fewer than 300 followers. In two weeks, Swet Tailor sold 35 percent of its inventory for the shirt, when it normally would have sold 5 percent. By contrast, Facebook and Instagram ads 'barely moved the needle,' said Adam Bolden, the clothing brand’s chief executive.... Still, advertising on TikTok is not necessarily straightforward. That’s partly because brands have to avoid becoming, to cite a meme frequently seen on the platform, a middle-aged, skateboard-carrying Steve Buscemi saying, 'How do you do, fellow kids?'"

From "TikTok Builds Itself Into an Ads Juggernaut/The Chinese-owned video app’s ad business is thriving, even as a digital advertising slump hurts Meta, Snap and other rivals" (NYT).

On TikTok, you don't just get views, you garner views.

Here's the Know Your Meme article on "How do you do, fellow kids?"

"I said to her – and she completely agreed – 'Can we love each other without that?'"

"If you can love somebody without that, then you can really love somebody."

Said Russell Wilson, the Seattle Seahawks quarterback, in an interview with the pastor of Rock Church, referring to his relationship with Ciara.

The link goes to People, which reads that quote as  "news that the couple is abstaining from sex for religious reasons." But the quote does not say that. Let's talk about what the words mean, and let's assume that Wilson: 1. doesn't lie, and 2. chooses his words accurately.

First, Wilson is telling us about a conversation in which he posed the question whether it's possible to love without having sex. The woman agreed with the proposition embedded in his question: Yes, it is. There's a second level to the proposition: Refraining from having sex is a test of love. If you have the capacity to love without having sex, then your capacity for love is truly great. At the time of the conversation, the couple expressed a shared belief in this proposition.

That's lovely and quite appropriate for an interview in a church, but if privacy-invading probing questions were in order, I'd ask: After agreeing about the possibility of love without sex, did there come a time when you, in fact, had sex? I'm only pointing out the gap between the quote and the People paraphrase. Wilson didn't state that the couple is — People's word — "abstaining."

Second, Wilson didn't state that the couple is abstaining — as People put it — for religious reasons. One might seek a sex-free relationship with a person of the opposite sex for reasons other than religion. Maybe that's the only reason People can think of or maybe People is influenced by the church setting or maybe People is pandering to the tastes of its readers, but religion is not a necessary foundation for Wilson's statement. It could be philosophy (as in Plato's "Symposium"). And it could be sexual preference. I would not infer from a woman's beauty that a particular man feels sexual desire for her.

They're a beautiful couple, and I wish them happiness. My motivation here is to reveal the soppiness and the sloppiness of People Magazine.

Underinflated and overinflated football.

ESPN says its "league sources involved and familiar with the investigation of Sunday's AFC Championship Game" are — like air out of a football — leaking: "The NFL has found that 11 of the New England Patriots' 12 game balls were inflated significantly below the NFL's requirements."

Yet to be determined is what, if any, penalties may be imposed upon the Patriots. One source described the league as "disappointed ... angry ... distraught" after spending considerable time on the findings earlier Tuesday....

The NFL began looking into the issue because doctoring the footballs could provide a competitive advantage, compromising the integrity of the game. Deflating a football can change the way it's gripped by a player or the way it travels through the air....

The most interesting commentary comes from the Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who likes his footballs overinflated:

"I have a major problem with the way it goes down, to be honest with you... The majority of the time, they take air out of the football. I think that, for me, is a disadvantage.... The majority of quarterbacks, I would say more than half, are maybe on the other end of the spectrum and like it on the flatter side... My belief is that there should be a minimum air-pressure requirement but not a maximum. There's no advantage, in my opinion -- we're not kicking the football -- there's no advantage in having a pumped-up football. There is, if you don't have strong grip pressure or smaller hands, an advantage to having a flat football, though, because that is easier to throw."

How can it be a disadvantage to take away what was not an advantage? Is that some kind of Zen koan? That makes me wonder about the religion of Aaron Rodgers, and it's actually in the news today:

“I don’t think God cares a whole lot about the outcome,” Rodgers said. “He cares about the people involved, but I don’t think he’s a big football fan.”

Meanwhile, the Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson takes a different position on the God and football question:

“That’s God setting it up, to make it so dramatic, so rewarding, so special,” Wilson said.... “I’ve been through a lot in life, and had some ups and downs. It’s what’s led me to this day.”

Underinflated and overinflated.

"There were 3 minutes on the clock, still ticking, and he’s still in our face telling us, 'Stay ready.'"

"And we’re like, 'Man, the game’s pretty much over.' He just wants to be great that much."

[Russell] Wilson is accustomed to playing the underdog role. He was a two-star recruit coming out of the Collegiate School in Richmond, Va. His size was deemed an impediment. He played two sports at North Carolina State, was drafted as an outfielder by the Colorado Rockies in 2010 and played two seasons of minor league baseball. Plenty of people pushed him to pursue baseball

Wilson, though, chose a different route. After he had an impressive postgraduate season at Wisconsin, Seattle selected him in the third round of the 2012 draft. It was not long after the Seahawks had already paid a considerable sum to sign the free agent Matt Flynn.

It's a day to think about what it means to be an underdog. (And a Badger.)

ExBadger, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson receives a handmade-from-duct-tape wallet from a young girl who needs a heart transplant.

A sweet story.

"Wisconsin should know we're coming... our lineman are getting after the quarterback. And they're going to hurt him."

Said Michigan State safety Isaiah Lewis the other day about Wisconsin's quarterback Russell Wilson.

Well, the game is on right now, and after the first play, Isaiah Lewis was holding his wrist, complaining, and had to be looked after and escorted off the field.

Be careful, delicate Spartans!

UPDATE: Karma is a bitch.