• Biden has insisted several times that he's staying in the race.
• Congressional Democrats keep responding: Have you really made that decision?
• "I think there's a sense that we need to have the conversation open still," said Rep. Ro Khanna.

After House Democrats' gathering to discuss President Joe Biden's future on Tuesday morning, Rep. Ro Khanna of California — a surrogate for Biden's reelection campaign — told me that the conversation among his colleagues on the topic was just about over.

"The consensus is that President Biden's our nominee," Khanna said. "I think there's a recognition that he's made a decision that he's running, and he enjoys the support of a lot of senior leaders and important caucuses, like the [Congressional Black Caucus], and we're moving forward."

On Thursday, the California Democrat offered a rather different assessment. "I think there's a sense that we need to have the conversation open still, and listen to people," he said. "It shifts every day. One day they're like, '100 percent, he's in.' The other day it's like, 'oh, maybe not.'"

Those shifts haven't been taking place at the White House, at least publicly. Biden has reiterated that he's staying in the race, he's the Democratic nominee, he won the party's (uncompetitive) primaries, and he doesn't want Democrats to continue talking about this. He's done it several times.

The shifts have been happening on Capitol Hill, spearheaded by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House who remains a well-respected figure in the party. During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday — the same program where Biden urged his doubters to "challenge me at the convention" on Monday — Pelosi said that it's "up to the president to decide if he is going to run."

"We're all encouraging him to make that decision," Pelosi said. "Because time is running short."

"Gaslighting," a term far too often used as a substitute for "lying," refers to the manipulation of a person's perception of reality by feeding them false information. It's a charge that some Democrats made about the Biden campaign's messaging in the wake of the president's disastrous debate against former President Donald Trump last month. Everything's fine, we're moving forward, nothing to see here. Now, Democrats in Congress — by suggesting that Biden hasn't made his decision after all — sure look like they're returning the favor.

Pelosi's comments have shaken things up. After a lull at the beginning of this week, the calls for Biden to step aside from Democratic lawmakers are growing once more. The situation for the president once again feels untenable. As Khanna said, things shift every day, so it's still difficult to make a prediction about the end result at this point. Biden's press conference tonight will be pivotal. But for now, the silence that Biden and congressional leaders tried to enforce on Monday has failed to hold.

At Hakeem Jeffries weekly press conference on Thursday, I asked the House Minority Leader whether he believed Biden had made his final decision about whether to stay in the race. If that were the case, Jeffries could have said "yes." Instead, he offered a version of the statement that gave in response to three of the 11 questions he fielded about Biden.

"House Democrats are engaged in conversations with House Democrats at this moment in time. Those conversations have been candid, clear-eyed and comprehensive," Jeffries said. He likes alliteration. The Democratic leader clearly isn't taking "no" for an answer yet either.

It's probably a stretch to say that these Democrats are actually gaslighting Biden. What they're doing instead is something far more delicate: Signaling to the president that they're not satisfied with him staying in the race, while doing their best not to upset his ego, lest their efforts to nudge him out backfire. After all, the president is known to be stubborn. He's shown as much over the course of the last week as he's not only insisted that he's the best candidate to defeat Trump, but engaged in a straight-up denial of the reality of his poor polling.

That need for delicacy, however, has led to a degree of confusion. On Thursday, I asked Rep. Jim Clyburn — the South California Democrat who arguably saved Biden's candidacy in 2020 with his endorsement — whether he believes Biden's made his final decision.

"I am ridin' with Biden, no matter what his decision is. Whether or not it's final, I don't know," said Clyburn. "But I'm with him. I have no idea what's going on in his head. But I'm taking him at his word."

• Founder Chris Kirchner was sentenced to 20 years in prison for using startup funds for personal use.
• Prosecutors contended Kirchner bought a $16 million private jet, among other extravagant purchases. 
• The supply chain tech startup Kirchner founded, called Slync, shut down in October 2023.

Chris Kirchner, a startup founder convicted of defrauding investors, money laundering, and wire fraud, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison Thursday after using $25 million of his funders' cash for personal use, according to court documents.

Kirchner, 36, founded a supply chain tech startup called Slync, raising more than $50 million from venture investors, including Goldman Sachs, between 2018 and 2021. According to the prosecutors, he transferred millions of the company's funding to himself in 100 separate transactions, funneled through multiple accounts. He also wired $20 million directly to his own checking account, according to the US Attorney's office in the Northern District of Texas.

In addition to prison time to be served in the Dallas, Fort Worth area, Kirchner was ordered to pay $65,415,938.12 in restitution. The judge did not hand down a fine as "the defendant does not have the financial resources or future earning capacity to pay a fine," according to the sentencing documents.

"Even as his company was circling the drain, Chris Kirchner was spending millions of his investors' money on himself," said Leigha Simonton, US Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, in an email statement. "Apparently, projecting personal prosperity was more important to him than making payroll. His duplicity earned him 20 years in prison. We are proud to hold him accountable for his crimes and are committed to pursuing all businesspeople engaged in criminal conduct."

In June 2022, some staff at Slync told BI they hadn't received their pay for weeks. At the time, Kirchner insisted the company was financially viable. In the weeks prior, he vied to purchase an English football club, Derby County, causing a stir among fans of the club on social media and in the sports press.

The startup also drew attention for participating in expensive sports sponsorships, including a five-year deal to sponsor the DP World Tour Desert Classic golf tournament, which is uncommon for a startup.

Kirchner eventually withdrew his offer for the football club and blamed his company's payroll issues on software providers. The golf deal was soon terminated as well.

Kirchner was suspended by his company's board in July 2022 and terminated the following month. The board appointed a new CEO, and the company attempted to recover but ultimately shut down in October 2023.

The FBI raided Kirchner's West Lake, Texas, home in February 2023. He was then charged with securities fraud and arrested. He was indicted in May of last year and further charged with defrauding investors in January 2024.

Kirchner's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• The box office got off to a slow start in 2024.
• Last year's strike has led to fewer big-budget movies being released.
• The rise of streaming has also made people more reluctant to get to the theater.

This year has not been great for the box office. In fact, Memorial Day was the worst weekend for the movies since the '90s. The entire domestic box office pulled in just $126 million — in years past, the No. 1 movie alone has made as much as $160 million, as "Top Gun: Maverick" did in 2022.

A few factors have led to this. Mainly, the WGA/SAG strikes last year put many productions on pause, so some of the bigger movies won't come out until later in the year.

Another factor is streaming and VOD. "Furiosa," which came out a little over six weeks ago, is already available to rent at home. For a family, it's cheaper to spend $30 to rent something at home than $50-plus on tickets, snacks, and drinks.

And finally, people apparently just aren't convinced they need to see some of these films on the big screen. Why go see Kevin Costner's new Western when you can watch him in "Yellowstone" at home?

Not all movies have bombed this year — "Inside Out 2" has pulled in $1.2 billion worldwide, a record for Pixar, Forbes reported — but these films performed much worse than anticipated.

"Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1" bombed so badly that the sequel was taken off the release calendar.

"Horizon" was a huge gamble for its star/director/writer/producer, Kevin Costner. Costner mortgaged his home in Santa Barbara and invested $38 million of his own fortune to fund the film.

He also left his lucrative role on the smash-hit TV show "Yellowstone" due to scheduling conflicts with "Horizon."

It's an ambitious task — Costner sees "Horizon" as a four-part series that he planned on releasing over the course of a few months. "Chapter 1" was released in June and made $11 million on its first weekend. A rough start for a movie that cost as much as $100 million to make.

New Line, its distributor, apparently agreed. "Chapter 2" was supposed to hit movie theaters on August 16, but the sequel was pulled from the schedule and now sits in limbo.

"Furiosa" opened to a bleak $32 million over the four-day Memorial Day Weekend.

As The Wrap pointed out, "Furiosa's" $32 million opening weekend is the lowest No. 1 total for a Memorial Day Weekend since 1995, when "Casper" topped the box office with $22 million.

Another depressing stat for the "Mad Max: Fury Road" prequel? According to Screen Rant, it had the worst second-week drop of any "Mad Max" movie, plunging a staggering 59%.

Now, why exactly is "Furiosa" flopping so hard? It might be a case of unreasonable expectations. "Fury Road" is rightfully hailed as one of the best action movies of all time, but it didn't light the box office on fire at first either. Its domestic opening in 2015 was $42.4 million, ending up at a respectable $380 million worldwide.

Also, Anya-Taylor Joy (who plays the titular Furiosa) is famous but not a definite movie star yet — arguably, her big break was for a TV show ("The Queen's Gambit"), and her last big cinematic hits ("Dune: Part Two" and "The Menu") were sold on bigger stars like Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and Ralph Fiennes.

By July, the film hadn't crossed the $175 million mark worldwide.

"The Garfield Movie" has not been as successful as "Kung Fu Panda 4."

We can't only blame "Furiosa" for the abysmal Memorial Day box office. The other film that opened as counter-programming that weekend was "The Garfield Movie," the second animated adaptation of everyone's favorite grumpy cat.

The film, which stars Chris Pratt as Garfield, made just $31 million on its opening weekend. So, between "Garfield" and "Furiosa," the top two movies at the box office made a total of $63 million.

For context, the No. 1 movie at the box office last Memorial Day weekend was "The Little Mermaid," which made $118 million.

After the billion-dollar success of "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" (also starring Pratt), "Garfield" simply couldn't measure up. The other big animated movie of the year, "Kung Fu Panda 4," opened to $57 million and has made $541 million worldwide.

When "Inside Out 2" was released, that's when it was truly curtains for Garfield. The Pixar sequel has already made $1.2 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing movie of the year.

"The Fall Guy" didn't light up box offices in the way some thought it would.

An action rom-com led by the two of the stars of last year's box-office phenomenon, Barbenheimer? You'd think that'd be a no-brainer smash, but "The Fall Guy" hasn't lived up to those lofty expectations.

Variety reported that the film was projected to debut between $30 and $40 million, but it made just $28.5 million. At this point, it's made $177 million worldwide.

As Business Insider's Jason Guerrasio noted before the film premiered, this May was the first time in 17 years (excluding 2020) that a Marvel movie of some kind hasn't kicked off the summer. Last May's Marvel film, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," made $118 million domestically in its opening weekend.

With that looming over its head, it's no surprise that "The Fall Guy," based on the little-remembered '80s TV show of the same name, couldn't measure up.

"Argylle" has made less than half its budget back.

Put aside the deeply annoying "Who is the real Agent Argylle?" marketing campaign and think about how wild this is: "Argylle," an action spy-thriller starring Oscar-winner Sam Rockwell, former Superman Henry Cavill, the former star of a multi-billion-dollar franchise Bryce Dallas Howard, living legend Samuel L. Jackson, comedy icon Catherine O'Hara, beloved actor Bryan Cranston, and current pop star Dua Lipa couldn't crack $100 million at the box-office.

Compare that to the $200 million it cost Apple to make, as reported by Indiewire, and that's a true box-office bomb, even if Apple claims otherwise.

"Madame Web" solidified that the Sony Spider-Man Universe is truly in trouble.

If you're unfamiliar with the Sony Spider-Man Universe (or the SSU), here's a quick explanation: Marvel (and, therefore, Disney) now owns the rights to almost all of its comic characters. The one property it can't get back? Spider-Man and all his related villains, friends, and love interests, which are still owned by Sony.

Although Sony and Disney have agreed on a deal that allows Spidey to appear in the MCU, Sony is still holding tight to the rest of his associates, which is how we end up with films like "Venom," "Morbius," "Kraven the Hunter," and yes, "Madame Web."

Why Sony thought this movie was a good idea is beyond us — Madame Web is a little-known character (and matters even less without, you know, Spider-Man around to help save the day), and star Dakota Johnson hasn't proven herself to be a cinematic draw outside IP-driven properties like "Fifty Shades of Grey," which made a combined $1.3 billion worldwide.

With a dismal worldwide box office of $100 million, all that the SSU has proven is that these movies make for good memes.

"The First Omen" also underperformed against initial box-office predictions.

"The First Omen" is by no means a huge disappointment for 20th Century Studios — it's made $53 million worldwide against a $30 million budget — but it wasn't the hit you might've expected from one of the most iconic franchises in horror history.

Variety even reported that projections expected the film to make $14 to $15 million on opening weekend. It made a little over half that: just $8.3 million.

"The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" was 2024's second movie starring Henry Cavill to flop.

Director Guy Ritchie's latest film is about Winston Churchill's secret special forces team that operated in World War II. This team would perform top-secret missions to take down the Nazis — it's destined to become a No. 1 dad movie in the future.

But for now, this film starring Cavill, Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, and Henry Golding will be known as a movie that cost $60 million to make, according to Variety, and earned just $27 million.

It's been a rough few years for Cavill post-"Justice League" in 2017. He began starring in "The Witcher" in 2019 (a very successful show by all accounts), only to leave after season three. It's never been officially announced why he left, but the timing did line up with his cameo as Superman in the DCEU film "Black Adam" in 2022.

Unfortunately for Cavill, when James Gunn took over the DC film division, he announced his plans to scrap the entire DCEU (DC Extended Universe) and start fresh with a brand-new Superman, now played by David Corenswet.

And now, Cavill's last two films since his last appearance as Superman in "The Flash" have bombed.

"The Book of Clarence" made just 15% of its budget back.

"The Book of Clarence" is an alternate-history biblical comedy that posits the existence of a 13th Apostle, Clarence.

"The Book of Clarence" is only director Jeymes Samuel's second film. His first, "The Harder They Fall," was a critical success and enjoyed by viewers, but it debuted on Netflix, so it was hard to gauge what the box office would be like for his follow-up.

It turns out that biblical comedy doesn't go over as well as a Western. According to Variety, "The Book of Clarence" cost $40 million to produce and made only $6.2 million worldwide.

"Lisa Frankenstein" made less than $10 million worldwide.

Cole Sprouse and Kathryn Newton have been tapped as potential movie stars in the next generation of Hollywood and have each been in successful films.

However, their star power and the value of "Frankenstein" as intellectual property didn't help this '80s teen comedy earn money.

Even though it was a relatively cheap film to make at just $13 million, according to Variety, it couldn't crack double digits at the box office. It made only $9.9 million.

"Drive-Away Dolls" is the lowest-grossing film directed by a Coen brother in 33 years.

"Drive-Away Dolls" was directed by Ethan Coen and was the first film he directed on his own without his brother, Joel (excluding the 2022 documentary, "Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind").

It was also the first Coen film to make less than $10 million since 1991's "Barton Fink," which made $6.2 million to "Drive-Away Dolls'" $6.8 million. The Coens have since made 14 films, some of which made as much as $252 million ("True Grit").

• Don't look, Apple: There's more bad news for the Vision Pro.
• The headset is expected to sell fewer than a half million units this year.
• The $3,500 device likely won't sell better until a cheaper model arrives.

It's been a few months since the Apple Vision Pro launched in the US, but sales are still looking pretty lackluster.

They're running below 100,000 units a quarter, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing a report from market intelligence firm IDC. That means Apple's $3,500 mixed-reality headset, which debuted in the US in February, is way behind Apple's other big product launches, like the iPhone, which sold a million devices within 75 days of its 2007 launch, and the iPad, which sold more than 300,000 devices on the first day of its US launch in 2010.

IDC estimates Apple will sell fewer than 500,000 Vision Pro units for the entire year. That's down sharply from what the Financial Times reported was Apple's initial sales target of 1 million.

As sales don't look promising stateside, Apple recently announced it's making the Vision Pro available outside the US. It started with China, Japan, and Singapore in late June and will continue with Canada, France, Germany, Australia, and the UK this month.

Some analysts have predicted that the Vision Pro may not become a bigger hit until Tim Cook's Apple comes out with a cheaper model.

Bloomberg reported last year that Apple was already working on two follow-ups to the $3,500 Vision Pro. One high-end model would have even faster processing abilities, while a cheaper version would likely drop the "Pro" in its name and have some trade-offs for the lower price, according to Bloomberg.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• Hundreds of ancient tombs in Aswan, Egypt contain mummified remains and artifacts.
• Archaeologists recently found evidence of the diseases the inhabitants had when they died.
• Experts have excavated only a fraction of the necropolis, with hundreds of tombs still unexplored.

Egyptians were mummifying their dead long before the time of the pyramids. And some of those tombs remain today, filled with food, art, treasure, and bodies that are still well-preserved more than 2,000 years later.

A hillside cemetery in Aswan, Egypt is one such place. Not far from the Nile, the ancient necropolis offers a place to "better know our ancestors and the people of the past, who are not so different from us," Egyptologist Patrizia Piacentini told Business Insider.

Piacentini is part of an excavation team who's been studying the tombs as part of a joint project between the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and Italy's University of Milan for the past several years.

The team has uncovered many amazing finds, including a stretcher that may have been used to carry bodies into the tombs and jars of bitumen, a tar-like substance that was sometimes used in mummification.

Most recently, the excavators have turned their focus to the mummified remains. Using X-rays and CT scans on the bodies, they've discovered how some likely died. Even among the wealthy elites, anemia, malnutrition, and other diseases, were common, the team found.

Photos from the site show how the team excavates the ancient tombs and some of the artifacts and mummified bodies they've found.

The necropolis is located near the modern-built mausoleum of Aga Khan.

Thousands of years ago, locals cut the tombs into the hill's rock. They used the area as a cemetery for nearly a millennium, starting in the 6th century BCE, centuries before the construction of Egypt's pyramids.

The necropolis is enormous, covering over 1 million square feet, the size of about 17 American football fields, and scientists have only searched about 33 of the estimated 300 to 400 tombs.

The necropolis was built for the upper classes.

The hill contains between eight and 10 terraces, or levels, with the wealthiest members of society interred at the top.

"We have, for example, a general of the army of Aswan and the administrator of temples," Piacentini said. "So very, very high positions." The funerary equipment in these tombs tends to be more valuable too, she said.

The tombs don't have evidence of the poorer classes, Piacentini said. They would have likely been buried in simpler tombs in the desert.

Thieves looted the tombs, stealing many valuable items.

The joint team of excavators aren't the first to discover this ancient site. These upper-class tombs were likely once filled with objects made of precious metals and other valuable items, but the researchers rarely find anything of the sort. Centuries ago, grave robbers probably removed them, Piacentini said.

However, there are still plenty of items for Piacentini and her team to explore, including wooden statues, clay figurines, oil lamps, and other objects.

One common item in many of the tombs is cartonnage, a kind of plaster made of papyrus. Ancient Egyptians often covered bodies in casts made from the plaster and decorated them. This image shows a cartonnage chest covering found in the tomb.

These days, there's a market for stolen cartonnages, and illegal excavators were targeting the tombs before the Egyptian government took over the site, Ahram Online reported in 2015.

Items remaining in the tombs offer valuable insights about the dead.

In addition to cartonnage masks like the one pictured here, the citizens of Aswan would stock their relatives' tombs with sycamore figs or dates left in vases.

"These were the offerings brought to the dead," Piacentini said.

It takes a team of researchers to excavate a tomb.

Chemists, paleobotanists, and bioarchaeologists are looking at every aspect of the tombs, from mummy wrappings to plant remains to animal bones.

"Our mission is an interdisciplinary mission," Piacentini said, adding that there's still much more to be learned.

The process is so slow and careful that the team can only study a handful of tombs a year, Piacentini said.

Experts use technology to virtually unwrap mummified remains.

Early excavators used to remove wrappings from bodies to examine them. Now, experts use CT scans and X-ray machines to "virtually unwrap" mummified remains.

This can help researchers learn new information about mummification techniques. For example, two children had rods between their vertebrae to help keep their bodies perfectly straight after death, Piacentini said.

Even the wealthy and privileged couldn't escape from a host of diseases.

Early results from some of the experts' research revealed that between 30% and 40% of the people in the tombs were children, from newborns to teenagers.

Many of the people, including the wealthy, showed signs of anemia, malnutrition, and other diseases. Entire families may have died from tuberculosis, according to the researchers.

In addition to disease, childbirth was another common cause of death, for both the mother and baby, across all social classes.

The necropolis is a city for eternity.

While some refer to the Aswan necropolis as a "city of death," Piacentini prefers to think of it as a city for eternity. "They wanted to live forever," she said. "And they did because we discovered them. We studied them."

And there's enough of the necropolis left unexplored that the excavations will continue, too. "It'll last forever," she said.

• Several NATO allies have agreed to design long-range missiles to strengthen their militaries.
• It comes on the heels of a joint plan to deploy US long-range capabilities in Germany.
• In both cases, European allies are recognizing critical gaps in their long-range weapon arsenals.

Several NATO allies have agreed to a plan to develop new long-range missiles that are intended to fill capability gaps that have become increasingly noticeable as Russia wages its war in Ukraine.

Following an announcement the day before on deep-strike deployment plans involving the US and Germany, the latest move further signals Europe's recognition of gaps in its arsenal and its desire to develop that capability to deter an aggressive Russia.

On Thursday, France, Poland, Germany, and Italy signed onto an initiative focusing on developing "long-range and deep-fire capacity," said French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu during the NATO summit on Thursday, per Bloomberg's reporting.

The new initiative among these NATO allies is focused on developing ground-launched cruise missiles with ranges is excess of 500 kilometers. Lecornu explained that "this is clearly a segment we don't have."

While details on the arrangement are still unclear, Lecornu suggested other allies could join in the weapon's development and that the missile would ultimately serve as a deterrent.

"The idea is to open it up as widely as possible," he said, according to reporting from Reuters, adding, "It has value, including on a budgetary level, because it obviously also allows the various costs to be amortized."

Lecornu shared a picture of him and his German, Italian, and Polish counterparts signing the letter of intent on X, writing: "The war in Ukraine shows that long-range strikes are a key issue for the defense of Europe."

The joint initiative comes a day after the US announced plans to deploy new long-range capabilities in Germany as part of a joint effort to bolster its deep-strike options. The "episodic deployments" will begin in 2026 "as part of planning for enduring stationing of these capabilities in the future," the US and Germany said.

The conventional long-range fires will include new SM-6 and Tomahawk capabilities, as well as unspecified developmental hypersonic weapons. These "have significantly longer range than currently lang-based fires in Europe," the two allies added.

In both cases, the shift toward improving long-range capabilities on European soil further signals NATO's understanding of critical gaps in its arsenal highlighted by the Ukraine war.

Ukraine has used Western-provided tactical ballistic missiles like the Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Storm Shadow cruise missiles to strike into Russian-occupied territory such as Crimea but is short on true deep-strike capabilities. Russia, meanwhile, has regularly used its arsenal of long-range ballistic and cruise missiles to devastate Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure.

Experts have assessed that while many European states have long ignored the importance of long-range strike options, the war in Ukraine is prompting them to pursue new surface-to-surface strike capabilities and prioritize the development of such weapons.

The US, too, is hard at work on long-range ground-based capabilities in the wake of its 2019 withdrawal from the INF Treaty, which it accused Russia of violating.

The US is fast-tracking development of the Typhon Mid-Range Capability, which uses a ground-based launcher to fire the Standard Missile 6 and Tomahawk, and the Army's Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon.

Responding to US plans to deploy deep-strike capabilities in Germany, among other NATO actions, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: "This is a very serious threat to the national security of our country."

"All of this," he said, "will require us to take thoughtful, coordinated, effective responses to deter NATO, to counteract NATO."

• Sometimes you can do tech reporting by talking to sources or scouring documents.
• Other times you can do it just by watching TV.
• For instance: Meta is running new WhatsApp ads featuring the cast of a defunct sitcom. That tells you a lot about where it wants to find growth.

Ten years ago, Meta bought WhatsApp for some $21 billion. How's it going today?

That's a reasonable question, but if you go looking for answers in Meta's financials, you won't find many: The company blends WhatsApp's metrics with those from Instagram and Facebook, so there's very little specific data available. A few years ago, it announced that WhatsApp had 2 billion users around the world, and that's about it.

On the other hand! You can learn quite a bit about WhatsApp simply by watching TV. That's where Meta has started running ads promoting the messaging platform, using the cast of "Modern Family," the long-running sitcom.

This isn't the first time Meta has advertised WhatsApp on TV. A couple of years ago, it ran spots playing up WhatsApp's privacy advantages, focused on ideas like "end-to-end encryption."

But the current crop of spots is much, much more simple and direct: They tell you that WhatsApp is an app you can use to send messages. And that if some of your friends and family have iPhones and others use Androids, it will work really well without the dreaded blue/green bubble issues.

One version I've seen running on Hulu even included a QR code you could use to help download the app.

Combine that messaging, along with the messengers — the cast of a broadcast TV sitcom that was very, very popular yet never discussed by people who use terms like Prestige TV — and you can draw some pretty basic conclusions: While WhatsApp is very big outside the US, Meta thinks it has an opportunity find more users in America — especially those who live in flyover country instead of big coastal cities.

I ran that thesis by Carl Woog, who runs comms for WhatsApp, and he … said I had it right: WhatsApp thinks middle America is a growth market. Particularly with older users.

Woog said the ads, which started running last month, often around big national events like the NBA finals, are aimed at people who don't live in big cities like Miami, New York, and Seattle, where WhatsApp is strongest in the US.

And he says that WhatsApp also does best with users under the age of 35 — which is why these ads are aimed at older would-be users, and why they employ the cast of a broadcast TV show that stopped running in 2020.

Oh. And I did get one data point out of Woog: He says that WhatsApp's US year-over-year growth rate is running above 10%.

So there you go: Sometimes it still pays to watch TV.