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On Monday morning, January 29, 2024, Christina Vittas posted a nine-word tweet: Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing? Apparently, not so great. Vittas had been managing the social accounts for the beloved Sesame Street superstar since the end of 2020. She hadnt anticipated that Elmos friendly question would tap into a deep vein of national angst: a looming presidential election, inflation, and conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. Christina Vittas: I thought, Strategically, when is the best time for Elmo to post this? Monday morning, right? People are getting back in. How are we doing? is a question that a friend would ask. I posted on X at 10:46 a.m. [Illustration: Antonio Sortino] Aaron Bisman, SVP of Marketing for Sesame Workshop: Vibes werent so hot, and Christina had a sense that this was a great moment to ask this question. We saw that the engagement was very, very fast. Within a couple of hours, we realized we had sparked an important conversation. Vittas: At about 1 p.m., one of my coworkers, [senior social media manager] Eder Reynoso, tapped me on the shoulder in our meeting and was like, Christina, this is going places. Rosemarie Truglio, SVP of Curriculum and Content for Sesame Workshop: I didnt know the tweet was going out, but my office is very close to marketing and communications, so then of course I went online and was surprised by the sheer volume and kinds of responses. Elmo: Elmo didnt realize so many people were having big feelings! By early afternoon, Elmos tweet had become the number one trending topic on X, prompting discussions on Reddit, Instagram, and Facebook. Other Sesame Street characters joined in, sharing links to the Sesame Workshop curriculum. Celebrities like Chance the Rapper and T-Pain also weighed in, culminating in a message from President Biden via the POTUS account: Our friend Elmo is right: We have to be there for each other, offer our help to a neighbor in need, and above all else, ask for help when we need it. Even though its hard, youre never alone. Bisman: We regrouped to discuss what to do with all this attention. Thats when we saw the opportunity to make this a moment to share our emotional well-being resources, an initiative we launched in May 2023. [Illustration: Antonio Sortino] Truglio: The curriculum comes from a developmental and educational perspective. To create it, were listening to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association. Were demystifying mental health. Were providing families with the language and the strategies and the toolbox to manage their feelings. Bisman: Elmos tweet rearticulated a core concept, and now we had a new educational framework for how we teach these things. That helped extend what we could do with it. The conversation continues to this day, reaching its apex, perhaps, on October 18, 2024, when Elmo and Andrew Garfield engaged in a heartfelt video discussion about how the actor continued to process his grief after the passing of his mother in 2019. Bisman: Again, I give Christina full credit. Shes immersed in pop culture and knew that Andrew was talking pretty openly about the loss of his mother. Vittas: That conversation brought additional life to the campaign. Thats the power of the internet, finding something when its truly a great, authentic fit. Elmo: Elmo learned that its very important to check on your friends and see how theyre doing, because maybe theyre not feeling okayand sometimes just being a friend can help. [Illustration: Antonio Sortino] Bisman: We were thinking about whether wed want to do something to mark the one-year anniversary. But after the Andrew Garfield moment, we were thinking, When will it be too much? The worst thing you can do in social is beat a joke or a viral moment to death. We definitely didnt want to do that. To be like, Oh, remember that thing we did a year ago? It didnt feel like the right moment. Vittas: When you bring up Elmo online, people typically know of this moment. I think its an honor that Elmo is connected with checking in on friends. Elmo: Elmo wants everyone to know that they always have a friend on Sesame Street. Elmo loves you!
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E-Commerce
Corporate leaders and billionaires are often viewed as visionaries and wealth creators. But beneath the surface, many are trapped in an invisible financial crisisone rooted not in market volatility or poor investments but in their psychological relationship with money. As a finance professor and editor of the forthcoming book Financial Therapy for Men, I study this often overlooked aspect of financial psychology. Money is far more than numbers on a balance sheetit carries emotional, psychological and social meaning. Peoples relationships with money are shaped by childhood experiences, cultural beliefs, and personal triumphs and failures. This emotional baggage can influence not only their sense of safety and self-worth but also how they manage power and status. The field of financial therapy emerged in the mid-2000s to address these dynamics. Drawing from behavioral economics, financial psychology, family systems theory, and clinical therapy, it aims to help people understand how their thoughts, feelings, and experiences shape financial behavior. Foundational academic work began at Kansas State University, home to one of the first graduate-level programs in the field. Since then, financial therapy has gained traction in the U.S. and globally: Its supported by a peer-reviewed journal and is increasingly integrated into professional practice by financial advisers and licensed therapists. Studies have shown that financial therapy can improve relationships and reduce emotional distress. Yet much of the field focuses on people who are emotionally open and reflectiveneglecting executives, who are often socialized to view themselves as purely rational decision-makers. I think this is a mistake. Research shows that people often project their unconscious anxieties onto markets, experiencing them as mirrors of competence, failure, or control. This means that public valuations and capital flows may carry deeply symbolic weight for corporate leaders. My research suggests that people at the highest levels of wealth and power have deeply complex emotional relationships with moneybut the field of financial therapy has largely overlooked them. This isnt an accident. It reflects a broader assumption that wealth insulates people from psychological distress. In reality, emotional entanglements can intensify with greater wealth and powerand research suggests that men, in particular, face distinct challenges. True inclusion in financial therapy means recognizing and responding to these needs. When distress becomes a leadership crisis In a 2023 studyWhen and why do men negotiate assertively?Jens Mazei, whose research focuses on negotiations and conflict management, and his colleagues found that men become more aggressive in negotiations when they think their masculinity is being threatened. This was especially true in contexts viewed as masculine, such as salary negotiations. In non-masculine contexts, such as negotiations over flexible work and child care benefits, participants werent significantly more aggressive when their masculinity was challenged. On male-coded topics, many men in the study reinforced gender norms by rejecting compromise, using hardball tactics or even inflating financial demands to reassert their masculinity. These behaviors reflect an unconscious need to restore a sense of masculine identity, the researchers suggest. If this reaction occurs in salary negotiations, how might it manifest when the stakes are exponentially higher? Emerging research in organizational psychology shows that financial stress is linked to abusive supervision, particularly among men who feel a loss of control. Further, traits such as CEO masculinity have been linked with increased risk-taking, while female CEOs tend to reduce risk. Together, these findings point to a dangerous intersection of psychological stress, masculinity and executive decision-making. M&A as a masculinity battleground Financial distress doesnt always look like bankruptcy or bad credit. Among powerful men, it can manifest as overconfidence, rigidity, or aggressionand it can sometimes lead to very uneconomical outcomes. Consider the research on M&A. Most mergers and acquisitions are value killersin other words, they destroy more economic value than they createand the field of M&A is deeply male. These two facts suggest that some mergers are driven more by threatened masculinity than by strategic logic. If men become more aggressive in negotiations when their masculinity is threatened, then CEOs and corporate leaders, who are overwhelmingly male, may react similarly when their companies, and by extension their leadership, are challenged. Target companies rarely take a passive approach to acquisition attempts. Instead, they deploy defensive measures such as poison pills, golden parachutes, staggered boards, and scorched-earth tactics. In addition to serving financial goals, these may also act as symbolic defenses of masculine authority. Mergers and acquisitions, by their nature, create a contest of power between dominant figures. The very language of M&Afor example, raiders, hostile takeovers, defenses, and white knightsis combative. This reinforces an environment where corporate leaders may view acquisition attempts as challenges to their authority rather than as just financial transactions. A growing body of behavioral-strategy research confirms that boardroom decisions are often shaped by emotional undercurrents rather than purely rational analysis. While this research stops short of naming it, the dynamics it describes align closely with what Mazei and colleagues call masculinity threat. This has direct implications for corporate M&A. The overwhelming majority of top CEOs are men, and the language of M&A often evokes siege, power struggles and conquest. In such a symbolic arena, acquisition attempts can trigger deep, emotionally charged responses, as the identity stakes are high. What appear to be strategic financial decisions may actually be refexive defenses of masculine authority. On a related note, researchers in behavioral finance have long studied the endowment effect, or the tendency for people to value assets more simply because they own them. While the endowment effect has been studied primarily among retail investors making ordinary financial decisions, it could be particularly important for corporate executives and billionaires, who have more to lose. When combined with threatened masculinity, the endowment effect can produce combustible reactions to declining valuations, missed earnings or takeover bidseven for individuals who remain vastly wealthy after marginal losses. While the research at this intersection is still emerging, the underlying behavioral patterns are well-established. What does financial therapy for the ultrarich look like? Financial therapy for high-net-worth individuals rarely looks like sitting on a couch discussing childhood trauma. Instead, it takes an interdisciplinary approach involving financial advisers, therapists, and sometimes executive coaches. Sessions tend to focus on legacy planning, control issues, guilt over wealth, or strained family relationships. Many high-net-worth men display behaviors that dont look like stereotypical financial distress. These can include compulsive deal-making, emotionally driven investment decisions, workaholism, and difficulty trusting advisers. In some cases, unresolved financial trauma shows up as chronic dissatisfaction and the sense that no achievement, acquisition, or net worth is ever enough. While financial therapy is intended to help individuals, I think it could actually be a tool for global economic stability. After all, when masculinity is threatened in corporate decision-making, the consequences can extend far beyond the boardroom. These actions can destabilize industries, fuel economic downturns, and disrupt entire labor markets. Unchecked financial anxiety among corporate elites and billionaires isnt just their own problemit can cascade and become everyones problem. From this perspective, financial therapy isnt just a personal good. Its a structural necessity that can prevent unchecked financial distress from driving destructive corporate decisions and broader economic disruptions. If financial therapy helps people navigate financial distress and make healthier money decisions, then no group needs it more than male corporate leaders and billionaires. Prince Sarpong is an associate professor at the University of the Free State. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
It seems the market has spoken when it comes to phones with physical keyboards. BlackBerry exited the mobile hardware business almost a decade ago, and its licensing partners like TCL appear to have given up on the idea as well. For better or worse, the world now largely runs on people typing and swiping words onto glass surfaces. That doesnt mean the loss doesnt sting for the diehards. For some, theres just no substitute for a physical keyboardand thats who Unihertz is hoping to serve with its new Titan 2. Unihertz is a small company based in China that designs extremely niche smartphones. Sometimes theyll have tiny screens, like the Jelly line; sometimes theyll have a rugged build, like the original Titan; sometimes theyll have both, like the Atom. The Titan 2, which is available to order on Kickstarter now, is the companys fourth attempt at a phone with a physical keyboard. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/multicore_logo.jpg","headline":"Multicore","description":"Multicore is about technology hardware and design. It's written from Tokyo by Sam Byford. To learn more visit multicore.blog","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.multicore.blog","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}} A new approach The Titan 2 takes a different approach to Unihertzs previous keyboard-equipped phones, however. The design is much sleeker and feels like a better fit for the kind of professional whos likely to have lingering BlackBerry nostalgiathe original Titan looked more like something youd take onto an oil rig. This is still a fairly hefty phone, at 10.8 millimeters thick and 235 grams with a boxy metal build. But it feels reassuringly solid rather than excessively rugged. The synthetic leather on the back panel is a nice touch, too. At $400, or $269 at current early-bird pricing, you cant expect particularly high-end specs. Theres a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 processor that does the job, and a dual-camera setup that mostly doesnt. The 12GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and 5,050mAh battery with 33W charging are all pretty standard. [Photo: Unihertz] The screen is really the killer spec here, featuring an unusual 4.5-inch 1440-by-1440 LCD panel. That might not sound huge in an age where iPhones can push 7 inches, but because its squarelike the BlackBerry Passportits much wider than any conventional smartphone. This makes the Titan 2 great for browsing websites and viewing documents, though its less ideal for scrolling through social media. You can switch the screen to a vertical 4:3 window with a swipe gesture, which sacrifices some real estate on the sides but gives a more comfortable experience in apps like X and Instagram. Theres also a secondary OLED screen on the phones back panel, which is largely a gimmickyou can use it with built-in tools like a clock, a compass, or a selfie viewfinder, or add other Android apps yourself to see how they run. If ever youve wanted to watch Netflix on a screen the size of an Apple Watch, now you can. The keyboard Below the main screen, of course, is the keyboard. I was never much of a BlackBerry addict myself, but I do think the Titan 2s keyboard feels great to use. The backlit keys are easy to distinguish from one another and give strong tactile feedback; the surface is also touch-sensitive so you can use it to scroll and swipe through apps. There is something of a learning curve to figuring out how to make the most of the keyboard and use the modifier buttons in combination with the letters, but its fairly self-explanatory and just takes an hour or two of practice. [Photo: Unihertz] One thing I will say about the Titan 2 keyboard is that even after getting used to it, Im nowhere near as fast as I am on a touchscreen. Former BlackBerry obsessives might take issue with this, but even as someone who never uses autocorrect, I still think Im a lot faster using swipe-to-type and word prediction on a touchscreen than I could ever be on a keyboard like this. Tangible feedback But that doesnt mean theres no value to a physical keyboard or no advantage over a touchscreen. I like using manual gearboxes in cars and physical dials on cameras, for example, even though faster automatic solutions exist for both. What they have in common with the Titan 2, or the BlackBerry before it, is the satisfyingly tangible feedback and the sense of intention when you use them. Youre in control. When you press a key on the Titan 2 keyboard, you know whats going to happen. You can feel that you pressed it and see the letter pop up right away. Theres no prediction algorithm to mess up your spelling and much less chance to miss your key altogether. I know my typing nets out slower on this phone than it would on any regular smartphone, but I do spend much less time needing to correct my own copy. Typing on the Titan 2 is a deliberate, involved experience with much less frustration. Not for everyone This phone clearly isnt for everyone. The camera is pretty bad and the software is unpolished. I wouldnt recommend it to anyone who wasnt really sure that they wanted a physical keyboard, and even then it probably makes more sense as a secondary device. But for those peoplethe people who held out longer than anyone else before giving up their BlackBerrythe Titan 2 might just end up as their favorite phone in the world today. Its clearly Unihertzs best take onthe concept yet, and no one else is really trying to compete. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/multicore_logo.jpg","headline":"Multicore","description":"Multicore is about technology hardware and design. It's written from Tokyo by Sam Byford. To learn more visit multicore.blog","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.multicore.blog","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
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