Need to Know

US - Bubble skincare has collaborated with Disney Pixar’s Inside Out 2 to create a collection championing emotional wellbeing.

Bubble, a fast-growing skincare brand, is shaking up the future with its diverse and highly engaged tween community. For the Face Your Feels initiative, Bubble’s affordable yet effective formulas are paired with beloved Disney characters. The limited-edition collection bridges the gap between emotions and skincare, reflecting Bubble’s commitment to empowering individuals through feel-good beauty rituals.

Shai Eisenman, founder and CEO of Bubble, explains, ‘Riley’s story of processing new feelings and growing up is a universal one that we are delighted to see celebrated in this new collection.’ This sentiment aligns with Bubbles mission to foster a supportive community. We have previously discussed how Gen Alpha uses skincare as a means of self-expression and self-care in our Tween Skincare article.

Every Friday, we offer an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and virals we’re all talking about. This week, director of foresight Fiona Harkin dives into the bear pit and the tween mobile phone trap.

: If you haven’t seen the ‘bear vs man’ debate on social media then you’ve missed out on some classic memes in the making, and also the kind of reporting that looks into just how dangerous bears are – which is somewhat missing the point. Starting on TikTok, with a user asking women if they’d rather be trapped in the woods with a bear or a man, the debate is, at the very least, generating much-needed awareness about male violence against women and girls.

: The movement to restrict smartphone access for teens is growing, fed by new research from the likes of psychologist Jonathan Haidt whose new book, The Anxious Generation, charts the damaging effects of social media and smartphone usage on young minds. In the US, author and academic Jean M Twenge – who we spoke to for our Generations: Now & Next report – called for government action. In the UK, one school is trialling locking away phones. With YouTube being the number one place for Gen Alpha to see ads, what will a dumbphone future led by digital guardian parents look like for brands?

: It’s a subject we tracked last year in our Future Five: Home & Family analysis, but this Vox podcast, It Shouldn’t Be So Hard to Live Near Your Friends, on emerging communal living groups in the US as a way to fight the loneliness epidemic, made my heart feel warm just thinking about the possibility of my own friendship diaspora returning close to home again.