• The trend involves a group standing in a circle, bopping, and shouting their main characteristics.
• Corporate accounts have begun posting playful videos that follow the trend.
• An employment lawyer warned about the consequences staffers can face when virality goes wrong.

A seemingly harmless TikTok trend that companies are jumping on could cause issues for employees, a lawyer has warned.

The trend involves a group of people — typically women — standing in a circle, bopping, and shouting two of their main characteristics. For instance, one might chant: "Hoop earrings and a shirt."

The trend is believed to have started in June when three friends posted a clip of their characteristic way of describing themselves, which was coined "boots and a slick back bun."

It was meant to be a lighthearted way for women to hype each other up. Then, several business accounts began posting videos of their employees doing the meme as a way to introduce their staff on TikTok.

One of those accounts was run by Australian brand Tbh Skincare.

On July 8, a group of women from the company featured in a TikTok where they chanted their attributes, including "itty bitty titties and a bob" and "Gen Z boss and a mini."

But while many considered it simple, lighthearted fun, the skincare company ran into trouble when its video spread farther afield.

It amassed four million views and traversed off-platform. The trend started being referred to as "Gen Z Boss and a mini," and misogyny directed at those featured in the clip ran rampant.

An unwelcome audience

Andrew Tate reposted Tbh Skincare's video on X, claiming: "If you do not escape The Matrix, women like this will be your boss."

The video was then further shared on X and Reddit, finding a new, less appreciative audience who described it as "peak corporate cringe" and "humiliating."

Some told the women to "get back in the kitchen" and expressed wanting a return of "the gender pay gap."

The Tbh Skincare women didn't take the criticism lying down, posting two more videos. In one, they poked fun at the sexism they were encountering, chanting some of the comments they'd received, including "it's giving millennial core," "fire them all," and "make it stop, hate this."

Rachael Wilde, the company's cofounder and CMO, told Smart Company in a statement that they had found themselves "on the wrong side of the internet."

"We were surprised to see innocent fun upsetting so many people online," she said. "Not sure how us doing a dance in the office warranted so much feedback and hatred like this."

Craig Schweighoffer, the CEO of York St Brands, which encompasses Tbh Skincare and Boost Lab, told Business Insider in a statement that "our staff's safety and well-being is always at the forefront."

"We have a workplace that employs 90% females and are proud of what the team is doing during this time," he said.

Legal troubles

Still, the reaction shows that companies should be careful when engaging with social media trends, warned Roxanne Hart, an employment lawyer and the director of Hart & Co Lawyers.

Hart shared some of her concerns in her own TikTok, saying the women had become "the laughing stock of the internet" and the end result "could be limiting for their careers."

Hart told BI the video had swerved into the "Wild West" of the internet, where even the most frivolous content posted by women can lead to rape and death threats.

There's also an important power imbalance companies should consider before putting their employees out there for the world to see — especially if they are making comments about their bodies, Hart said.

"What happens when the 'freak in the sheets and a calculator' lady gets her next finance job, and the boys in the office start making jokes about her being a freak in the sheets?" she said. "She's supposed to just take that on the chin?"

In Australia, where Tbh Skincare is based, mental health is covered by a workplace's insurance. So, if employees are affected mentally by being bullied online due to a social media video, they could make a claim, Hart said. She added that it's also a company's legal responsibility to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace.

The company will likely see a boost in exposure and sales from the virality, but the benefit to the staff is less clear.

"What are these staff getting out of it?" Hart said. "I don't think that they're influencers, they're just normal workers. What do they get out of just being embarrassed?"

Staff should also be discerning about taking part in content that their workplace posts, Hart added.

"Be smarter about the things that you say, try to be funny in other ways," she said. "You don't need to reduce it to anything sexual, especially when you're dealing with young women. I think that's just going to lend itself to a lot of problems."

The internet is forever, and young workers should assume anything posted will be visible to future employees, Hart said.

Gen Zers and millennials have gotten "slightly too comfortable" with posting everything, she said.

"Probably like 10 to 15% too comfortable."

In response, Wilde, the company's CMO, told BI in a statement that responses that "direct people to go look at the inappropriate comments" are "disappointing."

"At the end of the day, we're choosing to focus on the positive comments," she said, which there have been many, and "not give too much attention to the negative."

"I am so proud of how the team has handled it all," Wilde added. "We have all banded together and are supporting each other through it."

• A diet high in ultra-processed foods is linked to poor health. 
• But you don't need to cut them out to be healthy, dietitian Nichola Ludlam-Raine said.
• She shared an average day of eating to show how to strike a healthy balance. 

Registered dietitian Nichola Ludlam-Raine is on a mission to help people understand how to limit ultra-processed foods (UPF) while enjoying their lives.

While the term UPF has become more prominent in recent years as research has grown about their potential harms, Ludlam-Raine says the public is confused about how to shop and eat to avoid them.

In her new book, "How Not to Eat Ultra-Processed," published in the UK and Germany on July 18, Ludlam-Raine aims to arm people with the knowledge they need to decipher food labels and make informed decisions.

It's not a case of never eating anything ultra-processed — generally considered to be a food containing ingredients you wouldn't have in your own kitchen — but minimizing your intake and choosing predominantly whole foods.

There are many reasons UPFs are considered harmful: they tend to be hyper-palatable thus easy to over-eat, and were linked to a higher risk of 32 health problems, including type 2 diabetes, depression, and cardiovascular disease, in a recent study.

As Ludlam-Raine explained to Business Insider, when choosing what to eat, it's not necessarily about what the foods are, but what versions you choose. One brand of cream cheese might be a UPF, but another won't, for example.

To help show how you can eat a predominantly non-UPF diet, Ludlam-Raine shared how she eats on an average day with BI.

Oatmeal is a healthy breakfast

Ludlam-Raine has oats for breakfast but chooses whole rolled oats rather than instant, which can be ultra-processed.

She cooks her oatmeal then tops it with frozen berries, nuts, and seeds, so she's eating a diverse range of plants, Ludlam-Raine said. The aim is to add goodness into your meals when trying to eat more healthily, rather than cutting out foods, she said.

When it comes to the milk she uses to cook her oats, the least processed choice is usually dairy. However, Ludlam-Raine's son is allergic to dairy, so she doesn't use it.

"These foods have got a real place in people's lives who literally cannot consume certain things," she said, referring to UPFs. "So if my son didn't have UPF oat milk, he wouldn't be meeting his calcium and his iodine goals."

This is an example of a small amount of UPF in an otherwise whole-food meal being nothing to worry about, Ludlam-Raine said.

She often has some Greek yogurt on the side for a protein boost too, which is a better choice than flavored yogurts which tend to be ultra-processed.

Fruit, nuts, and cheese are good morning snacks

Ludlam-Raine said she drinks tea and coffee in the morning and often snacks on dried fruit with nuts, or fresh fruit such as an apple with a piece of cheese.

Depending on the product, cheese tends to be processed not ultra-processed, she said.

Sourdough toast is a versatile lunch base

For lunch, Ludlam-Raine uses sourdough bread as a base, but makes sure to choose one that is genuine sourdough as opposed to "sourfaux." Sourdough bread should only feature flour, water, and salt on its ingredients list.

"All you have to do is look at the label on bread and if there's no emulsifiers or preservatives, if it's based on whole foods, then that's non-UPF," Ludlam-Raine said.

She toasts her sourdough and tops it with smashed avocado or a non-UPF hummus.

"The majority of hummus out there is non-UPF, but some is," Ludlam-Raine said. "However, the amount of additives, again that's on the spectrum. I was mortified when I looked at some of these ingredient lists."

She said some brands of hummus may only include a small amount of one preservative, whereas others have many additives.

Other days, Ludlam-Raine has eggs on toast with a side salad, she said.

Look for snack bars that are non-UPF

When it comes to an afternoon snack, Ludlam-Raine's choice depends on whether she is out or at home.

She looks for the least processed option: A chocolate bar would likely be UPF, while chocolate-covered almonds might also be UPF but would be more nutritious. So she would choose a snack bar that features whole foods mixed together.

Ludlam-Raine, who is based in the UK, likes brands including Nakd and Deliciously Ella.

Spaghetti bolognese can be a non-UPF meal

An average dinner for Ludlam-Raine would be homemade Bolognese sauce made from lean ground beef, kidney beans, chopped tomatoes, and spices, served with spaghetti.

If you make your Bolognese using a pre-made pasta sauce, however, it may contain UPF.

"Although these meals could be 100% non-UPF, actually there's a decision to be made on the oat milk, the bread, the pasta sauce," Ludlam-Raine said.

Greek yogurt and dark chocolate for dessert

To satisfy her sweet tooth after dinner, Ludlam-Raine often eats Greek yogurt topped with a combination of dark chocolate, homemade granola, strawberries, or honey, she said.

"Sugar isn't UPF, but because it's non-UPF doesn't mean that you can have as much of it as you like," Ludlam-Raine said.

She encourages people to eat unprocessed foods freely while being mindful of the sugar and fat content.

Take potato chips, for example: You can get non-UPF potato chips, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch your portion size, Ludlam-Raine said.

This is why Ludlam-Raine thinks it's a mistake to consider only whether a food is a UPF when choosing what to eat, when there are many factors that determine how healthy something is.

• Luxury retailers say they've been hit by slumping sales in China. At Burberry, they fell by 21%.
• Chinese consumers have been avoiding some purchases because of "luxury shame," Bain analysts said.
• And some have been making their big luxury buys in Japan instead, benefitting from the weak yen.

Hugo Boss, Burberry, Richemont, and Swatch have all called out slumping sales in China this week as consumers cut back on luxury spending.

Hugo Boss said in its preliminary Q2 financial results on Monday that the Chinese market — a key one for the German fashion brand — was "particularly challenging."

British fashion house Burberry's sales in mainland China fell 21% year-over-year in the most recent quarter, which board chair Gerry Murphy attributed to "deteriorating consumer confidence" in an investor call on Monday. The Chinese market had been "weaker than we expected," he said.

Swiss watch group Swatch said it expects the Chinese market "to remain challenging for the entire luxury goods industry until the end of the year."

China, the world's second-most populous country, is a key market for luxury brands.

Bain & Company said in a report earlier this year that China's luxury market tripled in size between 2017 and 2021, but suffered a sharp decline in 2022 due to the impact of COVID-19 restrictions. There was a "significant" rebound in 2023 as lockdown restrictions were lifted.

But much of this spending has been overseas, and sales in China have fallen for some of the world's biggest luxury brands. Here's why they've been struggling.

Economic growth is slowing

China's economy grew just 4.7% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2024, missing forecasts and slowing from the 5.3% growth reported by officials in the first quarter.

Shoppers simply haven't been spending enough money: Sales of clothing, shoes, and hats were down 1.9% in June year-over-year, per Chinese government data, despite growing disposable income.

Bain said in a June report that China's economic environment was "undermining middle-class consumer confidence, leading to 'luxury shame' behavior similar to what occurred in the Americas during the 2008-09 financial crisis."

Luxury shaming refers to people being hesitant to buy and show off high-price status items during periods of economic downturn.

Swatch said in its financial release on Monday that there had been a "sharp drop in demand for luxury goods in China" and Southeast Asian markets, which it said are "heavily dependent" on Chinese tourists.

"Swatch Group is most exposed to Chinese middle-class consumers, who are clearly on the back foot," Bernstein luxury goods analyst Luca Solca wrote in a note to clients on Monday.

In Solca's commentary on results posted by Richemont this week — which reported a 27% drop in sales for China, Hong Kong, and Macau for Q1 of fiscal 2025 — he said that it "confirms lackluster demand" in this area. Richemont owns brands including Cartier, Vacheron Constantin, and Chloé.

Some luxury brands, including Marc Jacobs, Burberry, and Versace, have resorted to offering big discounts in China to reel in shoppers and get rid of excess inventory, The Financial Times reported this week.

Marc Jacobs, for example, was offering discounts of more than 50% on Alibaba's upscale e-commerce platform Tmall Luxury Pavilion this month, the FT wrote.

Chinese shoppers are spending overseas instead

Instead of buying luxury goods at home, some Chinese shoppers have been taking advantage of Japan's weak currency to make big-ticket purchases there instead.

The weakening yen has made visiting and spending in Japan more affordable for overseas visitors, leading to booming tourism.

More than half a million tourists from mainland China visited Japan in May, making up nearly 18% of visitors to the country that month — though this is well behind the post-pandemic rebound for other tourists in Japan.

Well-off Chinese shoppers typically make their expensive purchases while traveling overseas.

Before the pandemic, about two-thirds of Chinese luxury spending occurred outside mainland China, plummeting to less than 10% in 2021 and 2022 because of travel restrictions, according to data from Bain.

The consultancy said that this started to rebound in 2023 with the return of overseas tourism, with an estimated 30% of luxury spending taking place outside mainland China.

Richemont said in its financial release on Tuesday that Japan had posted the strongest regional sales growth during its most recent quarter, at 59%, partly fuelled by "thriving tourist spending" from Chinese, South Korean, East Asian, and American clients.

Prada, too, credited its 46% year-over-year growth in Japanese sales in the first quarter partly to a boom in tourist spending.

Its CEO said at The Financial Times' Business of Luxury Summit in May that Japan was "on fire," per Reuters.

But this, in turn, means Chinese travelers are spending less in their home country.

• JD Vance, a critic of electric vehicles, received Elon Musk's endorsement.
• Vance has expressed support for the oil industry and has proposed cutting EV subsidies.
• Musk also opposes EV subsidies, although Tesla has benefited from past subsidies.

For years, JD Vance has criticized the switch to electric vehicles and said Teslas aren't his thing. Elon Musk endorsed him anyway.

The Ohio senator, and now the Republican vice presidential candidate, has the backing of Musk and other Silicon Valley tech billionaires like Peter Thiel and AOL founder Steve Case, even as Vance became a vocal critic of EVs and the tech industry during his first two years in office.

"If you have a Tesla — and I think they're kind of cool. I don't own one, they're pretty fast. But not my thing," Vance told The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show in 2022.

Vance said his anti-EV stance stems from what he sees as hypocrisy in the charging and manufacturing of the vehicles. While the US doesn't import many EVs directly from China, the country does dominate the supply chain for batteries and the critical minerals inside them. Back in the US, cars are also charged up on a mostly dirty power grid, Vance added, saying, "The whole EV thing is a scam."

"If you plug it into your wall, people think there's Keebler elves back there making energy in the walls," he said. "It comes, of course, from fossil fuels. So you're manufacturing cars in the dirtiest economy in the world. You're still relying on fossil fuels to produce energy."

Vance has also criticized President Joe Biden's tax incentives to encourage more Americans to buy EVs and introduced his own tax credit for gas- and diesel-powered vehicles manufactured in the US.

But none of this seems to be a problem for Musk. On Tuesday, he also voiced opposition to subsidies for EVs, noting that taking them away "will only help Tesla." Musk in past interviews has said Tesla's advantage over its competitors would widen if federal subsidies ended. Yet Tesla has received subsidies amounting to nearly $3 billion, such as in 2010 when the company got a $465 million federal loan.

On Monday, Musk committed to donating $45 million per month to a pro-Trump super PAC, even though Trump has similarly disproved of EVs, calling the Biden administration's support for EVs "ridiculous."

Why Vance doesn't like EVs

Vance's opposition to EVs aligns with his recent pivot to being a climate denier.

As recently as a 2020 speech at Ohio State University, Vance said, "a climate problem exists in our society," noting the benefits of solar energy.

However, by 2022, he had changed his mind following his campaign for the Senate, for which the oil and gas industry was a top donor.

Campaign finance watchdog Open Secrets found that since 2019, Vance has received over $340,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, the New York Times reported.

In 2022, in an interview on conservative talk radio, Vance said he didn't think there was a climate crisis. And even if there was, he said, it wouldn't be solved by buying "Chinese manufactured electric vehicles."

Vance has argued that EVs are enriching China at the expense of the American auto industry.

Vance's opposition is rooted in how the EV supply chain, including batteries and the critical metals they are made with, is largely controlled by China — "the dirtiest economy" in the world, he said. Then in the US, EVs are getting charged up on a power grid mostly composed of fossil fuels anyway.

Vance's position ignores the fact that tailpipe pollution from cars and trucks is the largest source of US greenhouse gas emissions that are rapidly warming the planet.

Some $250 billion worth of investment by the federal government and private sector is pouring into North America's EV supply chain, from minerals to batteries to assembly, following passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure law — two of President Joe Biden's signature climate laws.

In Vance's home state of Ohio, Biden's Inflation Reduction Act is helping fund a $3.5 billion project to produce lithium batteries for electric vehicles and a new clean steel plant in the state run by U.S. steel giant Cleveland Cliffs.

Despite a blip earlier this year, Americans have been buying more EVs throughout the pandemic, which could comprise over 10% of all new cars sold nationally. According to a Kelley Blue Book analysis, Americans bought nearly 269,000 new EVs in the first quarter of 2024, down from the fourth quarter of 2023 but the first downturn since 2020.

Compared to 1.1 million EV sales in the US in 2023, the International Energy Agency estimates sales will grow to 2.5 million in 2025.

Daniel doesn't think of himself as a mom-and-pop landlord. The 42-year-old engineer is a savvy real-estate investor, the kind of guy who scours the internet to find nearby rents and combs through new listings with an eye toward expanding his mini empire. He owns nearly 30 rental homes, and while he outsources their day-to-day management to a large company, he makes sure his properties are within a 1½ -hour drive of his Atlanta home so he can stop by if necessary.

Real-estate insiders often divide owners of single-family rental homes into two groups. There are the big guys — a small number of cash-flush "Wall Street investors" who own hundreds or thousands of properties — and then a whole lot of little guys, or mom-and-pops, who own the vast majority of single-family rentals. The stark, black-and-white divide has proved useful for all types of groups: Big companies point to the prevalence of mom-and-pops as proof that corporations like themselves are nowhere close to taking over the market. Politicians invoke the Ms-and-Ps to highlight the contrast between the new class of greedy Wall Street landlords and the industry's humble origins. But Daniel, who requested anonymity to speak freely about his investments, is a prime example of the blurring line between the two factions — nowhere near the size of the private-equity firms who gobbled up entire blocks of homes during the pandemic but a far cry from the old guy who lives downstairs and hasn't raised rent in a couple of years. In this binary world, he's stuck with the mom-and-pop moniker.

The past few years have solidified single-family rental homes as genuine moneymaking enterprises, not just ho-hum nest eggs. It costs nothing for small-time landlords to cruise through Zillow and see what their neighbors are charging, which makes it easier to price their rentals more aggressively. Meanwhile, a whole ecosystem of startups has sprung up to meet the every need of mom-and-pop landlords, from basic stuff like tenant screening to the minutiae of air-filter delivery. Bryan Smith, the chief operating officer of AMH Homes — one of the truly big landlords, with a portfolio of more than 59,000 homes — noted in a recent call with analysts that mom-and-pops hadn't traditionally been known for raising rents. But over time, he said, they've "migrated into a strategy that's closer" to that of big players such as AMH. Translation: The Wall Street mindset has gone mainstream.

In fact, I think it's time to retire the label of "mom-and-pop landlord." There may be plenty of aging couples or "accidental landlords" sailing into retirement with an investment home or two in their back pockets, but even the smallest of landlords, lured by the promise of greater efficiency and fatter profits, may no longer be content to merely have heads in beds. A steady stream of rental data and an onslaught of new property-management services have made amateur landlords savvier than ever. And that's to say nothing of the changing of the guard as baby boomers age out of their property-owning days, which leaves millennials and Gen Zers to take on the mantle.

In other words, your kindly mom-and-pop landlord is about to get a lot more cutthroat.

---

Until recently, there was no need to distinguish between mom-and-pop owners of single-family rentals and their suit-clad counterparts. Institutional landlords — massive investment managers with billions of dollars to spend on single-family homes — didn't exist before the housing market's crash in 2008. Most big investors assumed it would be too complicated and expensive to manage portfolios of homes scattered across neighborhoods and cities. Corporate behemoths were content to spend big on apartment buildings and let the little guys handle homes.

The burst of the housing bubble flipped this logic on its head. An abundance of cheap homes offered the perfect entry point for private-equity-backed firms, while new technology allowed large companies to efficiently and cheaply manage properties scattered across the country. Between 2007 and 2014, the number of single-family rentals jumped from fewer than 12 million to more than 15 million, according to an analysis of census data by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Then came the pandemic, which cemented the idea that single-family homes were a great bet. Booming housing demand drew all kinds of investors into the market — in the first quarter of 2022, a Redfin analysis found, landlords accounted for more than 20% of all home purchases.

Institutional investors — those with more than 1,000 homes in their portfolios — own about 426,000 of the 14.2 million rental homes today, John Burns Research and Consulting found. Most of those properties are in sunny Southern places like Atlanta or Raleigh. Small-time landlords still dominate the single-family-rental landscape, but these aren't your mom and pop's "mom-and-pops." For one, the industry is vastly more transparent than it was in the early 2000s. If you want to see what comparable homes in your neighborhood are renting for, you can scroll through Zillow or visit the website of one of the institutional investors, such as Tricon Residential, Pretium, or Invitation Homes, all of which publicly list their properties and their asking rents. If even that sounds like too much work, companies including Buildium and Roofstock, known mostly for servicing the largest investors in the space, stand at the ready to offer property management and pricing advice — for a fee, of course.

"I think it all comes down to transparency and availability of information," Rick Palacios Jr., the director of research at John Burns, told me. "If you were to think about the single-family space today versus 10 years ago, 15 years ago, it's like night and day, just in terms of the availability of information that's out there."

When everyone was scrambling for their piece of the suburbs during the pandemic, mom-and-pop landlords pounced, using these newfound tools to collect more cash. The median rent for single-family homes soared by double-digit percentages in both 2021 and 2022, according to the property-data firm CoreLogic, peaking at a nearly 14% annual increase.

"I think there's this narrative that it's only institutional landlords or investors that push up rents, jack rents," Palacios told me. "And that's absolutely not the case."

Data on small landlords' behavior is notoriously scarce, but the latest John Burns figures show that in cities with little to no institutional presence, the smaller landlords are the ones cranking up the pressure. Chattanooga, Tennessee, for instance, has practically zero homes owned by institutional landlords but one of the country's highest rates of rent growth for single-family homes, with the typical asking rent for new leases up 10% in April from a year prior. Institutional investors own less than 1% of single-family rentals in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but asking rents there were up 8% year over year. In a similar vein, corporate owners may face the most scrutiny over evictions, but mom-and-pop rental owners are more likely to illegally evict their tenants, advocates for both landlords and tenants told Business Insider as part of a wide-ranging investigation into so-called "lockouts."

Mom-and-pop landlords may not be required to detail their operations in quarterly calls with stock analysts, but most experts I spoke with agreed that even those who own just a handful of properties are getting more with the times.

"Mom-and-pop investors are very savvy, very much in tune with what's happening," Jordan Kavana, the founder and chair of Ark Homes for Rent, told me.

They also represent a huge opportunity for software companies and property-management firms to expand beyond their primary clients — deep-pocketed corporations — and target the vast number of smaller players. "It's a massive market," Rich Ford, a cofounder of Vesta Ventures, a venture-capital firm with a heavy focus on the single-family-rental industry, told me. The firm has made investments in property-management-software companies like Hemlane, which offers à la carte property-management services for small-time landlords, and Second Nature, which started out by delivering air filters to rental homes but now helps landlords offer "resident benefit packages" that include things like renters insurance, move-in concierge, and avenues for tenants to build credit through their rent payments.

I think there's this narrative that it's only institutional landlords or investors that push up rents, jack rents. And that's absolutely not the case.

Startups like Second Nature typically target the biggest players first — a single client can deploy the technology at tens of thousands of homes — but "as you fine-tune your product, bring its cost down, etc., now you've got the ability to spill into the mom-and-pop area," Ford said. Hemlane, on the other hand, has always focused on smaller owners. The company, which estimates only one-fourth of single-family-rental landlords use professional management services, now manages more than 28,000 rentals on behalf of small landlords.

"Those groups are able to do things for those individual investors, landlords, in a way that — I think you could make a pretty strong case — kind of mirrors how institutions are managing their properties," Palacios told me.

The day-to-day life of a landlord is filled with a million questions: Am I paying too much for insurance? Do I really need to shell out that much for an electrical repair? In the past, small landlords might compare notes, but it was an inexact science. Now companies like Stessa, which offers a platform for landlords to manage everything from rent collection to bookkeeping, can gather all those data points from a wide range of investors and pass them down to the little guys. Individual landlords can look across their local markets, or even around the country, and understand how they stack up against their competitors.

"That's something that institutions have been able to do for a long time because they have so many doors," Devin Redmond, a marketing executive at Stessa, told me. "And that's something that mom-and-pop landlords would go to their local meetup and they chat with people, and they might get five or six data points."

There will always be some landlords who seek nothing more than a tenant who pays rent on time, doesn't leave, and doesn't pick up the phone to complain when something breaks down. For this subset, the onslaught of proptech companies and landlord software may seem like unnecessary money sucks. But others will recognize the need to compete with the more professionalized newcomers — the landlords, both large and small, who fix things on time, let you pay online, and, yes, raise rents accordingly.

---

The growing adoption of these newfangled services raises a big question: What exactly does it mean to be a mom-and-pop landlord these days? The definition has never been scientific or even widely agreed upon. Instead, it conjures a "very folksy, almost romanticized affection," Philip Garboden, who studies housing and property ownership at the University of Chicago, told me. It's been deployed in many contexts: You're just as likely to hear it in a CEO's quarterly recap as you are to hear it in a politician's stump speech. But the truth is, the term has outlived its usefulness. As the Wall Street ethos trickles down to small rental owners, it'll be harder and harder to tell them apart.

Mom-and-pop investors are very savvy, very much in tune with what's happening.

Various industry insiders I spoke with offered alternatives like "small operator" or "retail investor" to describe the amateur landlord. None of these is nearly as evocative as "mom-and-pop," but maybe it doesn't matter. Rather than judging landlords by their portfolio sizes or corporate structures, Garboden said, we should pay attention to their behaviors.

"We should really be concerned about management practices, fair housing, maintenance, all those types of things, and not be using these other things," — whether a landlord is large or small — "as proxies for those behaviors," Garboden told me.

Some of the tools favored by big-time landlords may always be out of reach for smaller investors. Individuals may also be more hesitant to raise rents in line with institutional players since a vacancy for a month or two is much more costly when you have a couple houses than when you have 10,000. But the gap is narrowing as small rental owners capitalize on the innovations that the institutional class has already embraced.

Daniel, the landlord in Atlanta, told me he now coaches his friends on how to maximize their cash flow from investment properties. His arrangement with Roofstock, the company that manages his properties, frees him up to spend more time sourcing deals. Even when he owned only one home, he told me, he didn't subscribe to the mom-and-pop mindset. He aimed to make decisions based on data and his local knowledge, not gut feeling. And he wanted to grow.

"I want to be big, but I'm not big yet," Daniel told me. "So I will look at the big guys and say, 'How are these guys so successful?' And I learn from them."

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James Rodriguez is a senior reporter on Business Insider's Discourse team.

• Jerry Chiemeke moved from Nigeria to London in 2022, looking for writing career opportunities. 
• He said the UK's job market is too competitive, and he's received rejection after rejection. 
• Chiemeke is struggling in the UK but doesn't want to give up and return to Nigeria yet.  

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Jerry Chiemeke, a writer from London, about moving to the UK from Nigeria. Business Insider has verified his visa with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm from Nigeria, but I began experiencing disillusionment with the country I was born in.

Muhammadu Buhari became president in 2015. Under his leadership, there was national concern over human rights violations and an economic downturn. Our currency was impacted, and my friends started leaving, looking for better career opportunities in countries like the US, Canada, and the UK.

In Nigeria, I worked in law and media communications and also pursued writing. I reviewed books, wrote essays, and published poetry as a side venture, and also published a collection of short stories in 2020.

I wanted to be known as a writer, but I was unsure whether I should continue developing my career in Nigeria.

The COVID-19 pandemic made things worse economically and politically in Nigeria. On October 20, 2020, the Nigerian army opened fire on people protesting against police. There are varying reports on the death toll, ranging into the dozens.

I began planning to leave the country. Many young people became disillusioned after taking part in protests that culminated in a massacre. I didn't want to live in a country that I felt actively tried to eliminate its youth.

I eventually moved to the UK in 2022 on a Global Talent visa. I wanted to continue building my career as a creative, but I've since found it difficult to find permanent work.

I've traded one problem for another moving to the UK, but I'm not giving up on my dream.

I had to show I was eligible for a Global Talent Visa to come to the UK

The UK is linked to Nigeria through the Commonwealth, and there's a large Nigerian community here. I felt there were spaces where I would belong. I'd seen other Nigerian writers do well in the UK too.

I was accepted into some master's programs at British universities in 2021, but ultimately, the tuition fees and financial costs made it a more stressful option in the long term.

One of my friends suggested the Global Talent visa for skilled people in the academic, tech, and arts fields. It seemed like a good option with a viable pathway to getting indefinite leave to remain, where you can live and work in the UK as long as you like, and the opportunity for my creative work to be rewarded in the UK.

The application required evidence that I was a leader in my field or had the potential to be one. I submitted reviews of my book, an award I'd won and another I was nominated for, and letters of recommendation from several arts organizations, among other things.

I submitted the evidence to The Arts Council England and paid my application fees. After getting approval from the Arts Council, I took the endorsement letter, receipt of my visa fees and immigration surcharge, and my passport to the visa office in Lagos. My application was approved in August, permitting me to stay and work in the UK for up to five years.

To renew my visa after three years, I'd need evidence that I'd been earning money from my line of work. I wanted to stay in the UK indefinitely, so I needed to secure relevant paid opportunities.

It's been very difficult to get paid work in the UK's creative industry

I was hesitant about leaving everything and everyone I loved and concerned about starting my career again in a new country.

Every day in Nigeria feels like summer, but I landed in the UK in autumn, which quickly transitioned to winter. I had to get used to it getting dark by 4 p.m.

I saved a great deal before moving. I was fairly comfortable with the income from my full-time job and writing side hustles in Nigeria, and for around eight months, I spent less than a third of my salary to save before resigning from my job.

Before arriving in the UK, I'd lined up part-time editing work. I'd been vigorously applying for full-time employment in the arts but couldn't land anything. After around three months in the UK, I secured a full-time position as a digital marketing executive for a power tool company.

My job involves some copywriting, but I want to work in the UK's creative industry. I applied to editing and contributor roles but got rejection after rejection. I've been able to freelance but haven't secured permanent creative work.

London was lonely. I stayed with a friend in London for the first six weeks before moving into my own apartment. I had Nigerian friends who lived across England, but it was difficult to meet up.

I knew how the creative industry worked in Nigeria, but I don't have the same knowledge of opportunities here, and there's only so much you can Google.

In Nigeria, I've worked as a staff writer and senior editor, but I feel there's more competition for the same kind of roles in the UK. Sometimes, when I see an opening on LinkedIn, 100 people will have applied in the past hour.

Some organizations that have rejected me have said they want candidates with more UK experience, so the criteria seem quite stringent here.

I thought I was entering a senior stage of my career in Nigeria, but in the UK, I can't land midlevel jobs. I've seen some of my Nigerian peers apply for entry-level British jobs who were at a mid-senior level back home.

That being said, being at a senior level in Nigeria wouldn't necessarily be an improvement because the economic downturn affects people, and inflation is soaring.

Although struggling in the UK, I don't want to return to Nigeria.

The UK isn't perfect, but I want to stay for the career opportunities

I was naïve when I first arrived. Earning in pounds felt like a big deal because of the exchange rate. There are never power outages like in Nigeria, and I feel safer. However, the reality is that the UK is not perfect. Inflation fluctuates, rents increase, and sometimes public transport fails.

There are trade-offs with a decision to migrate. Ultimately, I want to stay in the UK because it's better for my career. Despite the fierce competition, there are more opportunities to get eyes on my work. I just need to get my foot in the door.

My visa allows me to work in the UK until October 2025. After five years in the country, I plan to apply for renewal and then for indefinite leave to remain, but I need to rack up more paid opportunities.

I've proven myself in Nigeria; now, I must prove myself in the UK. It's a challenge, but the route wouldn't be worth it if it were easy.

• The automotive journalist Jules Rogers test-drove the 2024 Toyota Prius Prime XSE and enjoyed it.
• The hybrid vehicle boasts updated performance and a sporty design with sleek lines and 19-inch wheels.
• Rogers says she would splurge for the premium model if she were in the market for a new vehicle.

The 2024 Toyota Prius Prime is not your average hybrid vehicle. Its updated performance and sporty design are bonuses for drivers who want to look cool while driving a compact hybrid.

The 2024 model is extra attractive. Its alluring physique is enhanced by sleek lines, 19-inch wheels, and SofTex vegan leather seats, making it feel upscale. The third generation's good looks match its performance, and the overall ride and feel of the car have been significantly improved compared to previous models.

The 2024 plug-in hybrid has several new features, such as an updated battery pack for added range as an EV and an eight-speaker JBL sound system.

First impressions

As an automotive journalist, I test-drive new vehicles all the time. I drove the 2024 Prius Prime XSE Premium model, which is priced at $39,670, in the highest trim. The standard SE trim costs $32,795.

The Prius Prime has three driving modes: EV, Eco, and Power.

Eco mode still uses fuel, while EV mode won't take any energy from the gas tank and will run solely on the electric battery. In power mode, it changes the throttle to assist acceleration at lower speeds.

I started strictly in EV mode to familiarize myself with its responsiveness. It felt powerful and brawny, and the upgrades to the vehicle were apparent. I enjoyed the easy ride while the car only used its battery to move us along. Honestly, I forgot I was driving a hybrid vehicle because this new model feels so nimble.

When I switched to hybrid mode, I experienced combustion from the four-cylinder engine working in tandem with the battery. I noticed the 220 combined net horsepower gave me added agility to maneuver in traffic.

Drivers can travel with added confidence when driving this Prius, knowing it comes with Toyota Safety Sense 3.0, blind spot monitoring, including rear and cross-traffic alert systems, and lane change assistance.

Interior and exterior

I enjoy the aesthetic lines on the exterior of the Prius Prime XSE Premium. It's fun to look at and very sporty.

The interior of the compact EV is spacious and comfortable. Ventilated front seats allow the driver to self-regulate temperature in the summer months, and in the cold months, you have heated seats to ensure comfort year-round. The heated steering wheel is also a nice touch and adds a high-quality feel to the upscale ergonomics of the interior.

Toyota did a great job giving the operators a wide field of view. Passengers can enjoy the fixed glass roof, which offers 360-degree views all around the car, almost like fishbowl windows.

Soft vegan leather seats inside make it very comfortable, and the vehicle's ergonomics are super user-friendly. Everything in the Prius is easy to use because the JBL infotainment system is quite large.

Driving experience

The driving experience is not what you'd expect from a normal Prius.

With each iteration, Toyota continuously makes the Prius Prime smoother, quieter, and more capable. According to Toyota, the 2024 model has about 99 more horsepower than previous versions, so it's quite a bit faster.

When in EV mode, the acceleration feels perky, but when driving as a hybrid, it's actually faster. You can easily toggle back and forth and feel the Prius Prime respond, although the switchover was a little clunky.

Once I put the Prius Prime into the hybrid mode, I could tell a difference in the drive and it didn't seem as smooth, but it was still a great driving experience — and offers excellent range. This year's model features about a 40-mile range, while last year's had about a 25-mile range. The combustion engine's EPA rating is 48 mpg.

The Prius Prime XSE only has front-wheel drive, but in every mode, it's very quick and smooth to drive. I prefer four-wheel drive for safety reasons because I live somewhere hilly that can become icy in the cold months.

The steering gives great feedback, so you know exactly where your tires are. The 19-inch wheels are slightly larger than average, making it a fun car to ride in.

If I were in the market for a new vehicle, I would absolutely buy a Prius Prime. It's a great price for great fuel efficiency, with comfortable seats for a 5'3" person. Many of its features come standard, but I might even spring for the XSE Premium model since the base price is so affordable.

• Chinese mattresses are flooding US markets, driving prices below $175 for a queen size.
• The US imposed tariffs up to 1,731% on Chinese mattresses in 2019 to curb dumping.
• But there are suspicions that Chinese exporters are countering the tariffs by rerouting their shipments.

China's mattresses are flooding US markets and depressing prices so much that customers can now buy a queen-size product for under $175, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

To be sure, the issue has been going on for years. In 2019, the US slapped tariffs of up to 1,731% on mattresses from China.

However, the mattress industry continues to be plagued by competition in the lower end of the market, prompting suspicions that Chinese manufacturers have been exporting their products to the US via third countries, per WSJ.

US Customs and Border Protection is now probing 12 US importers of shipping mattresses from China through South Korea as imports jumped 10 times from March to August last year, according to an official report.

Mattress prices run the gamut from hundreds to thousands of dollars. In 2021, the average price of a queen-size innerspring mattress was $1,050, per Statista.

Foam mattresses tend to be the cheapest options on the market. According to Insider Reviews product test earlier this year, the best foam mattresses cost between $389 and $3,825, with a median price of $1,100.

China will roll out countermeasures against US tariffs

The trade dispute over mattresses highlights broader issues surrounding the US' trade tensions with China.

In recent months, the US and other Western countries have been criticizing China for its barrage of cheap exports flooding the world's markets. They say China's dumping and unfair trade practices have hurt their economies.

In May, US President Joe Biden's administration slapped tariffs on $18 billion of Chinese goods, including a 100% tax on Chinese-made electric vehicles. Last month, the European Commission announced tariffs of up to 38.1% on Chinese EV imports — on top of existing 10% duties.

But China is likely to roll out countermeasures against any moves to constrain exports — particularly amid dismal consumer sentiment in China while external demand remains strong.

China's countermeasures against US tariffs were already apparent from 2018 to 2019, when former President Donald Trump's administration slapped tariffs of up to 25% on a range of Chinese imports, Louise Loo, the lead economist at UK-based Oxford Economics, wrote in a report last week.

In response, Chinese manufacturers shifted their supply chains outside the country and localized production, Loo wrote. Notably, China may have found a new way to skirt US import tariffs by exporting to the US via Mexico.

This trend is likely to continue.

"Further protectionism would drive the continued reorientation of firms' supply chains and accelerate the localization plans of Chinese manufacturers, as firms also increasingly look at improving supply chain resiliency," wrote Loo.

• Trump name-dropped Mark Zuckerberg in a Bloomberg Businessweek interview published Tuesday.
• Trump said he was in favor of TikTok because it competes with Zuckerberg's platforms.
• Last week, Trump threatened to jail Zuckerberg if he's elected in November.

Former President Donald Trump can't seem to stop himself from taking every given opportunity to bash Mark Zuckerberg.

The latest shot at the Facebook founder and Meta CEO came in an interview that Trump gave to Bloomberg Businessweek, published on Tuesday.

The wide-ranging interview, which took place in late June, covered Trump's opinions on the economy, foreign policy, and his views on several CEOs.

While he praised Apple CEO Tim Cook and JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon, Trump railed against Big Tech companies, calling them "too big" and "too powerful."

"I don't want to hurt those companies. But I don't want them destroying our youth, either," Trump said.

Trump emphasized that while he didn't want to destroy Big Tech companies because they're important for competing against other countries, he believed some guardrails still needed to be implemented.

"If you go after them very violently, you can destroy them," Trump said. "I don't want to destroy them. I want them to thrive."

"But I don't want them to influence elections. I don't want them to destroy children when children are, you know, committing suicide all over the country, which has been happening," he added, seemingly referencing Zuckerberg's appearance at a dramatic Senate hearing in January.

During the hearing, Zuckerberg made a rare apology to the families who blamed social media abuse for their children's deaths.

"I'm sorry for everything you have all been through. No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered," Zuckerberg told the families in attendance.

Although Trump suggested that he would take a cautious approach to what he calls a "complex situation," he didn't sound like he would exercise that same nuance on Facebook.

"Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm for TikTok because you need competition," Trump told Bloomberg. "If you don't have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram, and that's, you know, that's Zuckerberg."

Representatives for Trump and Meta didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

No love lost

Trump's incendiary rhetoric toward Zuckerberg shouldn't come as a surprise to many. The GOP presidential nominee has long been critical of the Meta chief.

Last week, Trump threatened to put Zuckerberg in jail after accusing him of committing election fraud.

"All I can say is that if I'm elected President, we will pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time," Trump said in Truth Social post on July 9.

"We already know who you are. DON'T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!" he added.

The feud between the two seems to stem from Meta's decision to bar Trump from the platform following the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The ban was lifted in early 2023.

"All of a sudden, I went from No. 1 to having nobody," Trump said in his interview with Bloomberg, adding that he now relies on his own platform, Truth Social.

Zuckerberg's tense relationship with Trump contrasts starkly with that of his Big Tech counterparts, some of whom have gone all in on Trump.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was quick to endorse the GOP nominee right after the failed assassination attempt on Trump on Saturday.

"I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery," Musk wrote in an X post just minutes after gunshots erupted at a Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

For what it's worth, Zuckerberg also commented on the shooting, saying that he was "praying for a quick recovery for President Trump."

"This is such a sad day for our country. Political violence undermines democracy and must always be condemned," Zuckerberg wrote in a Threads post.

On Friday, Meta announced that it was removing the remaining restrictions and penalties it had imposed on Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Meta said the decision took into account Trump's formal nomination as the GOP's presidential candidate, which took place on Monday.

"In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for President on the same basis," Meta's president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said in a blog post.

• After 20 years at home with my kids, I decided to reenter the work force. 
• The last job I had had been 21 years ago and paid $53,000.
• I realized that I can only do jobs that I'm passionate about now that I'm 57. 

Recently, I decided to reenter the traditional workforce after 20 years at home with my daughters — after having been a teen mom earlier in my life. This brief detour steered me in a u-turn-like fashion away from my true passion.

Earlier this year, an opportunity popped up out of the blue. It was part-time, in my administrative wheelhouse, and it would pay $20 per hour. When I called my adult son to share the news, he said, "That's great, as long as it doesn't interfere with your writing."

For context, I left my last job as an executive assistant 21 years ago, where I made $53,000 annually. This included a generous benefits package and a beautiful office where lunch was brought in daily. It was one of the best jobs I've ever had, and I've had a lot of jobs.

I started working when I was 13

My enterprising, people-pleasing spirit emerged in early childhood. By the time I was 13, I had parlayed cleaning skills learned from doing chores at home into extra jobs as a mother's helper. The neighborhood moms raved about me, and I craved their affirmation.

Now I see clearly that, by taking this new job which was unlike anything I've ever done, I was satisfying an unhealthy part of myself that still feels the need to prove something and quiet still-whispering voices from the past.

So, in one of the happiest phases of my life, which includes an empty nest, a happy 23-year marriage, three kids, and two out-of-state grandbabies, I'm thankful to be able to visit often, I went ahead and sabotaged myself.

I quickly realized the job wasn't what I thought it would be. I also realized that at 57, I'm no longer willing to do work I'm not genuinely interested in.

My passion is writing, and I've finally reached a point where I'm fortunate to be able to pursue it. In the past two years, I've taken classes and realized my dream of building a byline.

I've had tons of jobs

As a young divorced mom, I had two jobs. I did early morning surveillance for a PI firm investigating Workers' Compensation cases and then waitressed the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift at the local coffee shop. Those were challenging times, and I was always searching for the next, better job.

My move up from waitressing came when one of my regulars, a very Mad Men-esque general contractor couple, offered me my first secretarial job. I'd hit the big time, making $8.50 an hour in the late 1980s.

In 1998, at 30 years old, I purchased my first home, thanks to one of those jobs of a lifetime that included a 401(k) plan. I was ultimately let go from that one. And in the way that the universe always has its plans, had I not been canned from that job, I wouldn't have met my husband.

When I was young and hungry (without a college degree), an instinct propelled me to tolerate less-than-ideal work environments because my choices were limited. The jobs have been amazing, eye-gouging, and everything in between — for example, I became a licensed nail technician in 1992 and learned that doing nails wasn't as fun or profitable as it looked.

In the early 2000s, a stay-at-home mom with two toddlers, I began looking for ways to reinvent myself. I started my own Mexican food catering company. My pièce de résistance was single-handedly catering a Cinco de Mayo party for a Philadelphia Eagles player. I learned that catering is exhausting.

An early adopter of social media and natural connector, I began tweeting and blogging about Kelly Ripa's Homemade Millionaire. Writing about and promoting fellow "Mompreneurs" led to work with a PR firm, which led to writing my first children's book, a first-of-its-kind social media guide, in 2014. I was 47. The book led to school assemblies and dozens of television appearances over several years. I also completed the manuscript for a young adult novel.

Now, I know I can only do things I am passionate about. So, on a Friday afternoon, I told my boss I wouldn't be continuing. When I called my son to tell him the job didn't work out he said, "From now on, passion projects only."