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Bitmoji is going back to 2D. Snapchat announced Monday that a new Bitmoji style inspired by the classic 2D look will be an option for Snapchat+ subscribers in the coming days. The revamped style for the app’s popular avatars is called Comic Bitmoji. Bitmoji’s 3D redesign in 2023 allowed Snapchat to launch new body types and deliver faster on top fashion requests, from low-rise jeans to saris, says Swetha Dhamodharan, a senior product director at Snapchat. But there’s been growing calls to bring back the old 2D comic style. One online petition to bring back the style has racked up nearly 100,000 signatures. “I think that there’s just a little bit of nostalgia, and the avatar is cute,” Dhamodharan tells Fast Company. “We’ve done a lot of work to make it cuter over time.” [Image: Snap Inc] Also key are the wide variability of customizable traits, from hair styles to clothes, which make a friend’s or family member’s Bitmoji, though cartoonish and exaggerated, so easy to clock. That same volume of variability, though, also makes the redesign projects from 2D to 3D and back again technically complex. The design process included iteration across a range of body shapes and sizes and fashion items. “The scale of our traits is enormous,” Dhamodharan says. Bitmoji are central to the Snapchat experience and show up across the app in different ways, like as the avatar of the person you’re talking to instead of just initials, or on the app’s Snap Map, which reached 400 million users this year. That means animations had to look right as both a profile picture and full body. The team made tweaks to get the proportions, shading, and the thickness of outlines just right. The option for a classic-inspired 2D Bitmoji style comes one week after Snapchat’s parent company Snap announced a partnership with Perplexity AI and said its revenue was up 10% year-over-year. “Bitmoji is so important to Snapchat and what makes it so different,” Dhamodharan says. “It’s not this avatar that you create once and then you kind of forget about. It’s truly how you see yourself, it’s how you see your friends and family. And I think it just makes communicating on Snapchat feel complete different anymore connected than other places.”
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Disney has been in the cruise business for 27 years now, but over the past few years, the company has doubled down in an unprecedented manner. On November 20, the entertainment giant will see the inaugural sailing of the Disney Destiny, a 144,000 gross ton ship capable of carrying 4,000 passengers that is the latest in a growing fleet. It’s the fourth addition in the past four years. And five more ships are coming by 2031, which will bring the total to 13. An expansion like that isn’t cheap, but Disney is making a lot of sizable wagers these days. The new ships are part of a $60 billion capital investment between now and 2033, which includes a variety of planned updates and changes at its park, updating legacy attractions and unveiling what it called the largest ever expansion plans for the Magic Kingdom. Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, is overseeing the expansion of it alland when it comes to cruises, he’s particularly bullish. “We believe in what we’re doing in this space,” he tells Fast Company. “Our fans believe in what we’re doing in this space and we’re being incredibly ambitious.” There’s good reason for that optimism. AAA projects that 21.7 million Americans will hit the high seas next year, setting a record. That’s the fourth straight year of record-breaking cruise passenger volume. And according to Bank of America credit and debit card data from May 2024, spending on cruises was up 12% year-over-year. Disney cruises have been especially popular. The existing fleet, including Destiny, is already nearly 50% booked for 2026 with newer ships showing higher booking percentages. Prices for a journey on the Destiny run from $1,994 to just shy of $10,000. Disney does not break out financial metrics for its cruise ships, but those are part of the companys Disney Experiences division, which saw operating income of $2.5 billion in the companys fiscal third quarter, a $294 million increase over the year prior. That figure included a roughly $30 million impact from pre-opening expenses at Disney Cruise Line, the company said. Cruises are more than just a contributor to the company’s bottom line, says D’Amaro. They’re a chance to offer Disney experiences beyond the theme parks, including some areas where those parks may be difficult for families to get to. “These ships are tremendous ambassadors for our brand,” he says. “We have an opportunity to take these experiences anywhere we want.” After the christening of the 6,700-passenger Adventure in Singapore next year, Disney will introduce Disney cruise vacations to Japan in 2029, the result of an agreement with Oriental Land Co., Ltd. And D’Amaro says the company is not tying its ships to a specific ports forever. In the years to come, they could rotate to new ports of call, giving passengers a fresh experience without a new capital outlay. “We can move them anywhere in the world we like and you’re seeing us do that with the Adventure,” says D’Amaro. “That will be an opportunity to bring the Disney brand to a brand-new market and bring Disney to fans that may not have had an opportunity to experience one of our parks.” The bet is: If someone experiences the Disney bubble on a cruise, it will whet their appetite to visit one of the parks. Analysts like that. In June, Jefferies upgraded Disney from a hold to a buy, citing, in part, the positive performance in the cruise business. A different kind of storytelling Entertaining 4,000 guests on a cruise is a bit different than hosting 40,000 at a theme park. While some of the experiences are roughly the same (character meet and greets, pin trading), a cruise ship can’t (and arguably shouldn’t) support all the rides of a theme park. It’s a slower pace. On the Destiny, that means Imagineers focus on things like effects and details in gathering spots, like the Pirates of the Caribbean-themed Cast & Cannon bar or The Haunted Mansion Parlor. Younger passengers have dedicated spaces that incorporate the Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars universes. And teens have two areas to hang out with people their age. The onboard shows, meanwhile, are Broadway-caliber and feature Imagineer-influenced effects. And familiar stories, like The Lion King, can be rethought as part of a dining experience. Part of the secret to storytelling on a smaller basis, says D’Amaro lays in how the company steers guests through their stay onboard. “[It gives] us a great opportunity to fully choreograph a show,” he says. “So if you think about a Disney cruise experience, you’re moving in a sequence from dining hall to dining hall. You are able to take in a show on specific nights. We’re basically trying to create a three-, four-, five-, or seven-day experience that we can completely choreograph and make sure you’re seeing everything on the ship, make sure you’re getting exposed to all the stories we have.” Another difference between cruises and theme parks: Families also get to know each other on cruises, instead of bobbing and weaving around each other in a mad dash to get to the next attraction. And guests interact with the same cast members, forming a relationship. The rides that are offered are generally water attractions, such as Aqua Mouse on the Destiny, Wish, and Treasure ships. And each ship focuses on a different theme (the Wish centers around enchantment, Treasure tells a story of adventure and Destiny tackles heroes versus villains). That, says D’Amaro, has made the cruise experiences among the most highly rated in the company. Disney has plenty of intellectual properties it hasn’t tapped for Experiences yet. Villains are getting their own land in the Magic Kingdomand Zootopia and Encanto will be featured heavily in a new area in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. But the Disney catalog is deep. That gives the company plenty of opportunities to expand its experiences at sea, as well. (The focus on 1997’s Hercules film on the Destiny is a shining example.) D’Amaro says the company plans to continue exploring new destinations and push itself from a story-telling perspective. Disney’s cruise efforts may still be tiny compared to industry giants like Carnival and Royal Caribbean, but its ambitions are sizable. “We’re still relatively small in this space,” says D’Amaro. “I think there’s a tremendous opportunity for the Walt Disney Company here.”
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Paul Tagliabue, who helped bring labor peace and riches to the NFL during his 17 years as commissioner but was criticized for not taking stronger action on concussions, died Sunday from heart failure. He was 84.NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said Tagliabue’s family informed the league of his death in Chevy Chase, Maryland.Tagliabue, who had developed Parkinson’s disease, was commissioner after Pete Rozelle from 1989 to 2006. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as part of a special centennial class in 2020. Current Commissioner Roger Goodell succeeded Tagliabue.“Paul was the ultimate steward of the game tall in stature, humble in presence and decisive in his loyalty to the NFL,” Goodell said in a statement. “I am forever grateful and proud to have Paul as my friend and mentor. I cherished the innumerable hours we spent together where he helped shape me as an executive but also as a man, husband and father.”News of Tagliabue’s death came shortly before seven games kicked off Sunday at 1 p.m. EST. Several teams held moments of silence throughout the day for Tagliabue and Marshawn Kneeland, the Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle who died on Thursday.Tagliabue oversaw the construction of myriad new stadiums and negotiated television contracts that added billions of dollars to the league’s bank account. Under him, there were no labor stoppages.During his time, Los Angeles lost two teams and Cleveland another, migrating to Baltimore before being replaced by an expansion franchise. Los Angeles eventually regained two teams.Tagliabue implemented a policy on substance abuse that was considered the strongest in all major sports. He also established the “Rooney Rule,” in which all teams with coaching vacancies must interview minority candidates. It has since been expanded to include front-office and league executive positions.When he took office in 1989, the NFL had just hired its first Black head coach of the modern era. By the time Tagliabue stepped down in 2006, there were seven minority head coaches in the league.In one of his pivotal moments, Tagliabue called off NFL games the weekend after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It was one of the few times the public compared him favorably to Rozelle, who proceeded with the games two days after President John Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963. A key presidential aide had advised Rozelle that the NFL should play, a decision that was one of the commissioner’s great regrets.Tagliabue certainly had his detractors, notably over concussions. The issue has plagued the NFL for decades, though team owners had a major role in the lack of progress in dealing with head trauma.In 2017, Tagliabue apologized for remarks he made decades ago about concussions in football, acknowledging he didn’t have the proper data at the time in 1994. He called concussions “one of those pack-journalism issues” and contended the number of concussions “is relatively small; the problem is the journalist issue.”“Obviously,” he said on Talk of Fame Network, “I do regret those remarks. Looking back, it was not sensible language to use to express my thoughts at the time. My language was intemperate, and it led to a serious misunderstanding.“My intention at the time was to make a point which could have been made fairly simply: that there was a need for better data. There was a need for more reliable information about concussions and uniformity in terms of how they were being defined in terms of severity.”While concussion recognition, research and treatment lagged for much of Tagliabue’s tenure, his work on the labor front was exemplary.As one of his first decisions, Tagliabue reached out to the players’ union, then run by Gene Upshaw, a Hall of Fame player and former star for Al Davis’ Raiders. Tagliabue had insisted he be directly involved in all labor negotiations, basically rendering useless the Management Council of club executives that had handled such duties for nearly two decades.It was a wise decision.“When Paul was named commissioner after that seven-month search in 1989, that’s when the league got back on track,” said Joe Browne, who spent 50 years as an NFL executive and was a confidant of Rozelle and Tagliabue.“Paul had insisted during his negotiations for the position that final control over matters such as labor and all commercial business dealings had to rest in the commissioner’s office. The owners agreed and that was a large step forward toward the tremendous rebound we had as a league an expanded league in the ’90s and beyond.”Tagliabue forged a solid relationship with Upshaw. In breaking with the contentious dealings between the league and the NFL Players Association, Tagliabue and Upshaw kept negotiations respectful and centered on what would benefit both sides. Compromise was key, Upshaw always said although the union often was criticized for being too accommodating.Tagliabue had been the NFL’s Washington lawyer, a partner in the prestigious firm of Covington & Burling. He was chosen as commissioner in October 1989 over New Orleans general manager Jim Finks after a bitter fight highlighting the differences between the NFL’s old guard and newer owners.Yet during his reign as commissioner, which ended in the spring of 2006 after pushing through a highly contested labor agreement, he managed to unite those divided owners and, in fact, relied more on the old-timers who supported him than on Jerry Jones and many of the younger owners at the time.Tagliabue was born on Nov. 24, 1940, in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was the 6-foot-5 captain of the basketball team at Georgetown and graduated in 1962 as one of the school’s leading rebounders at the time his career average later listed just below that of Patrick Ewing. He was president of his class and a Rhodes scholar finalist. Three years later, he graduated from NYU Law School and subsequently worked as a lawyer in the Defense Department before joining Covington & Burling.He eventually took over the NFL account, establishing a close relationship with Rozelle and other league officials during a series of legal actions in the 1970s and 1980s.Tagliabue was reserved by nature and it sometimes led to coolness with the media, which had embraced Rozelle, an affable former public relations man. Even after he left office, Tagliabue did not measure up in that regard with Goodell, who began his NFL career in the public relations department.But after 9/11, Tagliabue showed a different side, particularly toward league employees who had lost loved ones in the attacks. He accompanied Ed Tighe, an NFL Management Council lawyer whose wife died that day, to Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a few blocks from the NFL office.Art Shell, a Hall of Fame player, became the NFL’s first modern-day Black head coach with the Raiders. He got to see Tagliabue up close and thought him utterly suited for his job.“After my coaching career was over, I had the privilege of working directly with Paul in the league office,” Shell said. “His philosophy on almost every issue was, ‘If it’s broke, fix it. And if it’s not broke, fix it anyway.’“He always challenged us to find better ways of doing things. Paul never lost sight of his responsibility to do what was right for the game. He was the perfect choice as NFL commissioner.”Tagliabue is survived by his wife, Chandler, son Drew anddaughter Emily. AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl Barry Wilner and Rob Maaddi, AP Pro Football Writers
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