Reels - 23 December 2025

Here's Grok on the shift in news consumption from legacy media to social media and other digital platforms:

Globally, according to the Reuters Institute's 2025 Digital News Report, consumption of news via social video platforms rose from 52% in 2020 to 65%, with overall video news reaching 75%, predominantly through third-party networks like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and X, while direct access to legacy news sites or apps stagnated at around 29%.

I still read a lot from legacy sources but confess to mirroring in my own news consumption practices to the Grok reported shift to social media and other digital sources.

Take Facebook Reels, for one (Reels are Facebook's response to TikTok). Twenty second shorts are delivered on Reels in pretty much the same fashion as TikTok does. There is so much there... not all hard news...that I would have never learned about without its availability. I think it's important to consume a chunk of my information on the growing social media and digital platforms as a compliment to struggling legacy media.

Here are four Reels series that have captured my recent interest:

Above: Mars surface as seen from Mars Rover. I follow via Reels several sources on astronomy and astrophysics, including the Reels of famed British astrophysicist, Brian Cox. I took an astronomy lab at BYU circa 1968 and learned a little bit about our little corner of the galaxy. These new Reels presentations open up a totally new vista to the stars for me as amplified by such technological triumphs as the Webb and Hubble telescopes. Thinking about existence or consciousness - or God - in the context of universal time and not earth time gives rise to expanded reflections on the meaning of it all.

Above: Tajana Cekic is an immigrant to Canada from Serbia, part of the former Yugoslavia. She is blistering in taking Canada to task as a morphing socialist tyranny. She is currently working in the Texas oil fields along with her husband on a H-2B visa. Balkan Slavs know tyranny having lived under full blown communism for eighty years. Suppressed in their former life, they are shocked, like Tajana is, when they see a repeat of repression in countries that are supposed to be free. Tajana is a passionate, focused, champion of freedom and doesn't like what she sees in her adopted country, Canada. She has 700K followers on Facebook!

PS. Tajana reminds of Macedonia (also former Yugoslavia) immigrant to the US, personal friend Billie, who has the same attitude as Tajana, the same articulate arguments, and the same passion. Billie could have done what Tajana is doing. Instead, she focused her attention on raising two outstanding kids, one in US big law and the other headed that way.

The US needs more immigrants like Tajana and Billie.... and Helder, from El Salvador, who I featured in my blog a few days ago. These are people who love freedom and desire to live so as to preserve and expand it.

What's with the Balkans these days? They also have delivered the two best basketball players in the NBA, Nicola Jokic and Luca Doncic. And then, what about all time tennis great, Novak Djokovic?!!! Just sayin'. More Balkan immigrants please.

Above: Sarah Clark, Mormon Influencer. Passionate, persuasive pro-Mormon social media influencer. Twenty-eight years old. Lives in Utah County after returning from eight years of working a government job in Washington, D.C. Engaged to be married. Calls out hypocrisy. Advocates devotion. Unapologetically attributes Utah's many number one state rankings to the Mormon ethic. Admits to a sinful past and extols the life affirming benefit of repentance. When I watch her well delivered shorts, I wonder how The Brethren feel about this sort of positioning... she uses the make-up of a tart to gain attrition to talk about living righteously! Very, very effective. She knows social media.

I love the Philadelphia area string bands. There are a half dozen important string bands in Phillie. They march in local parades and have their own presentations. The above image doesn't show the sometimes-outrageous costumes they wear. Their instruments are banjos, accordions, saxophones and percussion. Can you believe this instrument configuration? The band members are blue collar, neighborhood guys... female band members are there, but they are rare.

I know. Social media is not all good. There can be some bad stuff, especially for young people. But it's no secret, the way it is presented, why it is rapidly shoving legacy media to the dust bin. I'm not sure Bari Weiss is going to be able to compete with this. It's like asymmetric warfare. Like the Houthi's using cheap drones to scare away aircraft carriers, the social media influencers are using I-Phones to overpower the humongous studio infrastructure used by legacy media.