‘The tragedy!’: Cookie Monster endorses ad tech, sort of

On a recent tour of the new “Sesame Street” set, Digiday ran into Cookie Monster, a central character of the show for its entire run. As the program prepares to enter its 46th season, the set has been upgraded, along with a few other updates that will be announced later in the year.

“Over the years, lots of changes,” said Cookie Monster, apparently pleased with the new look of his old home.

Not that the formula is broken: A recent study of the public television juggernaut has shown that “Sesame Street” leads to improved early educational outcomes for children across demographics.

But that’s not what’s on Cookie Monster’s mind at the moment. The social media phenomenon — upwards of 37,000 followers on Twitter and nearly 9.5 million Facebook fans — has a message for his fans: “Maybe they can each send me a cookie,” he suggested.

A brief interview threatened to turn contentious, however, when the topic of deleting cookies came up. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the furry blue monster came out strongly against the practice. “That tragic!” he said, in disbelief. “The tragedy! You no delete cookies! No, you send cookies to me.”

More in Media

The Rundown: Google has drawn its AI payment lines — and publishers’ leverage is narrow

For publishers trying to navigate AI licensing, the message was blunt: Google is willing to pay for access, but not for training – and it remains unwilling to define AI Overviews as a compensable use of journalism.

search referral traffic for publishers

Media Briefing: Google’s latest core update a reminder that pageviews can’t remain the primary metric

Google’s latest core update signals pageviews can no longer be the primary metric, favoring intent-solving publishers over scale.

After an oversaturation of AI-generated content, creators’ authenticity and ‘messiness’ are in high demand

Content creators and brand marketing specialists on how 2026 will be the year creator authenticity becomes even more crucial in the face of rampant AI-generated “slop” flooding social media platforms.