Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
The Beige-Loving Amazon Influencer From That Story Is One of Us
You've probably seen this feature making the rounds on Bluesky, or Twitter, or wherever you're getting your links these days: The Verge's Mia Sato tracked down two Amazon influencers who are embroiled in a rivalry that's led to a first-of-its-kind lawsuit. "Can the legal system protect the vibe of a creator? And what if that vibe is basic?" Sato asks, delightfully. (You will not believe how much these women love beige—and cream, and ecru, and eggshell...)
Influencer one is Alyssa Sheil, whom the author visits first. She lives in a subdivision outside of Austin, Texas, where she spends her days ordering, unboxing, and recording videos of things she buys on Amazon, then uploading those shortform clips for her 300,000+ TikTok followers and 137,000 Instagram followers.
And influencer two? Well, here's why you're reading about this interesting rivalry on Racket's virtual pages: "The next day, I fly to meet with Sydney Nicole Gifford, 24, the Amazon influencer that is suing Sheil, at her home outside of Minneapolis," Sato writes.
That's right, baby. We've got ourselves a local angle.
Gifford has nearly 600,000 TikTok followers and another 300,000 on Instagram, and she's the one doing the suing in this legal battle.
Here's the gist of their conflict:
In her lawsuit, Gifford alleges that Sheil copied her, down to specific frames in videos. She claims that repeated pattern and Sheil’s uncannily similar content ultimately cut into Gifford’s own earnings. The similarities extend, in Gifford’s telling, beyond just video content to eerie real-life aspects like her manner of speaking, appearance, and even tattoos.
Yikes! (Allegedly!)
Walking through Gifford's home, Sato says she notices many of the same items, from boucle storage stools (cream colored, of course) to a set of nesting tables. The question, of course, is "who influenced whom?" And to get a sense of that... well, you'll just have to read the story.
Colleges Are Dropping Race-Based Support Programs
Services and programs offering mentorship, resources, and comradery can be critical in diversifying certain fields, especially in setting up a pathway into certain STEM careers. But those kinds of programs are quickly disappearing, writes Laura Pappano and Joanna Hou at The Hechinger Report. Take the U of M’s Multicultural Summer Research Opportunities Program for example, which is no more. “I think MSROP changed my life,” says PhD neuroscience candidate Jocelyn Ricard. As a Black teen from a lower-income family, she says had never considered a career in medicine before MSROP.
The cause? Colleges and universities are afraid of lawsuits after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to nuke affirmative action. They may have reason to err on the side of caution; the ironically named Equal Protection Project reports that in the past year it has filed 43 discrimination complaints with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, 20 of which were successful. Its Vision: 2025 plan (not to be confused with very different Project 2025) suggests no end to their bullshit. It’s worth noting that diversity programs don't typically ban white people from participating, and, according to this 2019 report and this 2021 analysis, doctoral candidates continue to be overwhelmingly white.
Do the Vikings Need a New Anthem?
Maria Schneider sure thinks so. And while there might be scant overlap between U.S. Bank Stadium season ticket holders and devotees of the award-winning jazz composer, Schneider has come up with the fight song she thinks the Vikings deserve. “Have you ever heard the Vikings song that they have? It doesn’t have testosterone. It has nothing. It is mamsy-pamsy,” she told Sean McPherson of Jazz88 yesterday, So the Windom, Minnesota native summoned up several trombones and a cadre of Julliard baritones and recorded her own anthem. “If I could have my dream in life, it would be everybody in the stands screaming “We’re Vikings!”—you know, quoting this song and having the words up on the Jumbotron,” she said. So far, no word from the Vikings.
Where to Get a Free Thanksgiving Meal
Nobody should go without a meal any day of the year, but that's especially true on Thanksgiving. Thankfully, the local nonprofit Avivo has assembled a nice list of Minneapolis places where folks in need can grab a no-cost bite to eat over the next couple days; hungry St. Paulites can consult this list of free Thanksgiving meals in Ramsey County. Live outside of the metro's two largest cities? KSTP has you covered with this list of spots, featuring gratis grub all the way up to Ely. And the always-bustling Facebook group Twin Cities Free Food Events & Resources is at is most bustling with suggestions this time of year. Here's hoping everyone has a safe, warm, nourishing holiday. We'll see ya Monday. Gobble, gobble.
