If you've ever been intrigued by the mystery of a dusty cassette you found in a thrift shop—or if you're just looking for a new time-sink—you have to check out Intertapes, a website that digitizes "found cassettes" sent in by users all over the world, then posts them in full for anyone to listen to.

The catalog is small at the moment—only 14 cassettes—but already really interesting. There's a bootleg cassette of music played at a Spanish nightclub in the late 1990s (lots of squelchy noises and relentless bass) and a 90-minute recording of New York hip hop station WBLS captured in '94 (Warren G.'s "Regulate" represent), amid more mysterious choices, like this haunting recording from a "destroyed cassette tape found on the side of the coast highway near Heraklion" in Greece; this tape full of ominous noises found in a parking lot in Tbilisi, Georgia; tape of binary code from Barcelona; and a cassette recorded in the USSR featurng 1970s pop hits.

I love how each cassette is treated like an important archeological object, because in a way, they are—discreet time capsules made more poignant by the hiss and warp that speaks to the time that's passed since this audio was captured and the ephemeral nature of analogue recording. From musical snapshots to accidental field recordings, these tapes are fascinating for there mere existence in the modern day, where the question of who recorded them and why adds a layer of mystery to each one.

The ongoing cassette tape revival

Intertapes could be viewed as a reflection of the growing cassette tape revival, a movement that celebrates the outdated format. Since they hit the market in 1963, audiophiles have generally considered cassette tapes an inferior format to vinyl—tapes are more rugged than records, but the sound quality is markedly worse. The spread of CDs and streaming music pretty much killed off commercial cassette releases by the early 2000s, and it's easy to see why: Digital music doesn't hiss or degrade. Cassettes have a more narrow dynamic range. You can instantly select tracks on a CD or MP3 player, and it will never play at a slightly wrong speed, unspool, or melt on your car dashboard. Bonus: You never have to rewind them to hear a song again.

Most people didn't see it at the time, but when tapes slipped into obsolescence, we lost something real and tangible. Dropouts, distortion, and warp are evidence of life. Cassette tape compression is a unique sonic aesthetic that conveys warmth and nostalgia. And then there's the way they impart meaning into the act of "listening to music." Starting a Spotify stream is frictionless, optimized, and weightless, while cassettes are physical objects with histories that defy the disconnection of the digital space. You own the music on tapes in a way you never own information being served to you by a tech company. A friend handing you a cassette of their favorite songs is meaningful in a way a link to playlist will never be, and your Spotify playlist will never be found by the side of the road near Heraklion, to be pondered over by future people.

Yes, by digitizing them, Intertapes is removing some of the qualities that make these recording special—but it's also preserving them, at least for now (if you've ever tried following a decades-old weblink, you know the internet is ephemeral too).

How to submit your own tapes to Intertape

If you're of a certain age, you probably have a dusty cassette or two hanging around somewhere. Don't let it molder in a desk drawer. Describe the origin of your recording and a background story, scan a picture of your tape, and email connect@intertapes.net to arrange you submission to the site. This collection really deserves to grow.

What if a team of super magicians used their talent and training to stage elaborate heists? That’s the high concept that drives the Now You See Me franchise. Critics were lukewarm when Now You See Me was released in 2013, categorizing the film as a heist flick with thin characters and a plot that fell apart as often as it twisted, but Now You See Me pulled off its own escape act—audiences loved the movie's flashy style, whipsaw pace, and all-star cast featuring names like Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, and Morgan Freeman. The result was box office magic: a movie with a $75M budget that returned over $300M worldwide. Now You See Me has since grown into an internationally successful, long-term franchise for distributor Lionsgate: The third installment was released on Nov. 14, and a fourth Now You See Me film is already in development.

Like any long-running franchises, the Now You See Me-verse can be confusing, so we put together 10 infographics to pull back the curtain on Now You See Me's magic. First, a quick recap of each movie:

• Now You See Me (2013): The initial entry in the series introduces us to the thieves/illusionists known as the “Four Horsemen.” These best-in-the-business magicians are recruited by a mysterious secret society called The Eye to pull off large-scale heists in front of live audiences, then distribute the money to the needy.

• Now You See Me 2 (2016): The sequel expands the world of the first film, with bigger heists, deeper secrets, and funnier jokes. Having gone into hiding at the end of Now You See Me, The Horsemen resurface a year later and are coerced into a global heist by a tech mogul trying to steal all the privacy in the world. 

• Now You See Me: Now You Don't (2025): Set a decade after the last film, Now You See Me: Now You Don't features all five Horsemen teaming up with three cocky young criminals/illusionists to pull off their most audacious caper yet: the theft of the world's most valuable diamond.

The real-life magicians behind The Horsemen

The Now You See Me movies present stage magic in a semi-realistic (though highly stylized) way. To nail the realism, the films draw inspiration from some of the greatest magicians in history, including:

• David Copperfield: The Horsemen’s larger-than-life illusions/heists like stealing the contents of a bank vault while performing a Vegas show seem inspired by the feats of magician David Copperfield, whose magical feats include flying over the Grand Canyon and vanishing the Statue of Liberty. 

• David Blaine: Street magician David Blaine’s shadow is all over the Now You See Me Movies. Without the popularity of Blaine’s modern, gritty take on magic, the Now You See Me movies would likely not exist.

• Harry Houdini: Anything about stage magic is ultimately inspired by Houdini, the greatest magician of all time. Houdini's daring escape tricks inspired the series’ inciting incident, the death of magician Lionel Shrike, as well as the opening set piece where Henley Reeves escapes a water tank. 

• Andrei Jikh: Jikh’s cardistry skills are evident in all the Horsemen, particularly in Jack Wilder. Jikh served as a consultant on Now You See Me.

• Keith Barry: Another Now You See Me magic consultant, Irish mentalist Keith Barry pioneered and popularized many of the hypnosis and mentalism feats used by character Merritt McKinney.

The Horsemen's greatest heists

The Horsemen are known as much for their larceny as their skills at illusion. Below are their most memorable heists, hold-ups, schemes, and burglaries.

The Paris-to-Vegas bank robbery

In the caper that introduces us to the Horsemen, the magicians rob a bank in Paris while performing before a crowd in Vegas. They choose a seemingly random person from the crowd and tell him he’s going to rob his own bank, the Crédit Républicain de Paris. Then they appear to teleport him to France, where he breaks into a bank vault, hits a button on a vacuum machine, and the money is seemingly sucked from Paris to Vegas where it rains down on the audience. 

The Tressler Insurance heist

At a show in New Orleans, the Horsemen introduce their benefactor, insurance magnate Arthur Tressler, then proceed to drain his personal bank account while they’re onstage, depositing the money in the accounts of audience members, who all turn out to be victims of Hurricane Katrina that Tressler’s insurance company stiffed on repayments. 

The Macau data chip theft

In Now You See Me 2, The Horsemen are coerced by evil tech magnate Walter Mabry to steal a cutting-edge computer chip that can decrypt and expose every system in the world. Housed in a highly secure research facility in Macau, China, the chip is conveniently the size of a playing card, allowing the Horsemen to use cardistry and sleight-of-hand skills to remove it from the building while being searched by guards. 

The Magic Castle: the real-life Château de Roussillon

In Now You See Me Now You Don't, the Château de Roussillon is an ultimate magician's playground. The Eye's headquarters in a mansion in the French countryside is decked out with mind-bending large-scale illusions like rotating rooms and halls of mirrors. The Château de Roussillon is a real castle, but the filmmakers used Nádasdy Castle for the exterior shots in the movie. A main inspiration for the building is a real place: Los Angeles' Magic Castle.

Opened in 1963, the Magic Castle is a restaurant/club/clubhouse for magicians housed in a stately Victorian mansion overlooking Hollywood. Not only is The Magic Castle credited as magic consultants on Now You See Me: Now You Don't, much of the cast trained at the Castle to prepare for their roles.

If you'd like to visit, it won't be easy: The Magic Castle is an invitation-only private club, so you have to be a member of the Academy of Magical Arts or be invited by a member. But if you aren't friends with a magician, you can book a night at the nearby Magic Castle Hotel, where a stay comes with an invitation to the Castle.

“How do they do that?”

I analyzed the tricks in the movies with professional magician Dave Cox, and as over the top as the Horsemen's heists are, all but two of the many magic tricks presented in the Now You See Me movies could technically be done in real life—but the word “technically” is doing a lot of work here. The tricks are possible within the context of a stylized blockbuster, but would be extremely unlikely to work as well in real life: an extended, impromptu cardistry routine involving four magicians passing a playing card between themselves while security guards thoroughly search them makes for exciting cinema, but almost definitely wouldn’t go that smoothly in reality. 

But, here is how three of the most iconic tricks from the franchise could be done in real life.

How to do Atlas’s “riffle force” card trick

Now You See Me opens with a unique piece of cinematic trickery. Street magician J. Daniel Atlas is performing for a crowd on a city street. He riffles quickly through a deck of cards and asks a spectator to “see one card.” When his subject has a card in mind, a nearby building is lit up revealing a giant seven of diamonds, the card the subject was thinking of.  

It’s amazing if you’re “playing along at home,” because the chances are very good that you chose the seven of diamonds too. The trick is done in real life the same way it’s done in the movies: The magician uses sleight of hand or a gimmicked deck to pause on the desired card imperceptibly longer than the other cards. The director of Now You See Me added a frame or two to “pause” on the seven of diamonds, making it more likely that you think of that card.

How Jack Wilder throws cards as weapons

While it’s probably not possible to throw a card as accurately or forcefully as the characters in Now You See Me, you can throw playing cards really fast with the right technique and a lot of practice. 

How Henley Reeves escaped the water tank

Henley Reeves’ introduction is a trick where she escapes from a water tank filled with piranhas, a variation of the kind of classic escape artist illusions popularized by Houdini. Water escapes are dangerous, but not as dangerous as they might seem because they’re rigged—no sane person is really going to try to escape from handcuffs and chains while underwater.

Real-life heists that seem right out of the Now You See Me movies

A group of thieves publicly “performing” large-scale robberies is strictly Hollywood, but the three real-life crimes below share some of the showmanship and audacity of the Horsemen’s heists:

• Louvre heist (2025): A recent jewelry-jacking at the Louvre involved a highly professional and brazen plan executed in broad daylight. The thieves used a truck-mounted mechanical lift to break into a second-floor balcony window and were in and out in less than eight minutes. The robbers have all been caught, but won't say where the jewels are.

• Stockholm helicopter robbery (2009): This thrilling heist involved a gang using a stolen police helicopter to land on the roof of a G4S cash management service building in the Stockholm suburb of Västberga. The brazen thieves smashed through a skylight, lowered themselves into the building, and stole millions while police were stymied by fake bombs placed near the police helicopter. Seven men were sentenced to prison, but authorities suspect as many as ten more people may have gotten away with the crime, and the 39 million Swedish krona loot was never recovered.

• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist (1990): This heist involved two men who disguised themselves as Boston police officers to gain entry into the museum just before it opened. The pair convinced one security guard to let them in, then handcuffed the rest of the guards and stole 13 priceless works of art valued at over $500 million. Despite a $10 million dollar reward, the art has never been recovered and no one has been charged with the crime.

Seven more movies for fans of Now You See Me

If you’ve watched all three NYSM movies and you’re still craving magical entertainment, check out these seven, all-killer no-filler movies about magic and magicians:

• The Prestige (2006): The Prestige is set in the late 19th century, before you could just google how any magic trick was done. Back then, the secret of sawing a lady in half was closely guarded, and The Prestige’s rival magicians–played by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale–will go to any length to keep the hidden knowledge of their craft.

• The Illusionist (2010): This animated, silent feature provides a complete contrast to the Now You See Me movies. There’s no glitz or flash, just a quietly devastating character study of a magician’s relationship with the last person in his world who still believes in magic. Adapted from a screenplay by French cinema legend Jacques Tati, The Illusionist tells its intimate story through the evocative animation of Sylvain Chomet. It will definitely make you cry.

• The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013): The Now You See Me movies go to great lengths to deny it, but magic is cheesy and magicians are weirdoes. Burt Wonderstone leans into the goofiness by casting Steve Carell and Steve Buscemi as Burt Wonderstone and Anton Marvelson, past-their-prime Vegas magicians bedeviled by Jim Carrey's Steve Gray, a Criss Angel-esque magic man who’s a different flavor of cheesy.

• The Magician (1958): Max von Sydow plays the title character in The Magician, where everything is shot in black-and-white and no one gets away with a bunch of money or engages in any witty banter.

• The Illusionist (2006): Yes, I’m recommending two movies with the same title. 2006’s The Illusionist is a moody, slow-burn mystery/romance that’s tonally a world away from Now You See Me’s glitz, but both films share a love of clever misdirection, intricate magic, “woah” reveals, and head-spinning plot twists. If you like the “magic as a means of social justice” theme of NYSM, you’ll like The Illusionist.

• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010): The Sorcerer’s Apprentice stars Nicolas Cage, who brings his own magic to every role, as a bonafide sorcerer who lives in modern New York City and fights a lonely war against dark magic on behalf of all mankind. Jay Baruchel plays his apprentice, and the pair use magical spells to battle a rival sorcerer.

• Sleight (2016): This scrappy, low-budget flick provides a very different vision of an illusionist turning to crime. Jacob Latimore plays a young street magician who’s left to care for his sister after their parents die. Magic isn’t paying the bills, so he turns to drug dealing, and must use his skills at deception and sleight-of-hand to stay alive. 

Many people think the world is going to end in 2026. Man people think the world is going to end every year—maybe because the Bible said so, or The Simpsons said so—but this 2026-doomsday prediction seems to have a scientific basis. In a 1960 issue of Science magazine, Austrian scientist and polymath Heinz von Foerster detailed what he called the “Doomsday Equation,” a model he used to calculate the last day of civilization on earth. According to von Foerster (and probably Homer Simpson), The End is coming on Friday, November 13, 2026. 

Who is Heinz von Foerster?

Foerster was not a crank. A pioneer in computer science, artificial intelligence, physics, biophysics, and other academic disciplines, von Foerster worked with the Pentagon, and was named a Guggenheim fellow twice—so he was a respected academic, and kind of a big deal. His Doomsday paper is very real. Here’s a link to it in the November 1960 issue of Science and a screenshot:

Credit: Science Magazine

The Doomsday Equation looked at 2,000 years of historical data about how fast the earth’s population grew–-there were 2.7 billion people in 1960—and extrapolated a continually accelerating rate of growth. According to von Foerster, Humanity’s ability to overcome natural checks on population would result in hyperbolic growth—faster-than-exponential—an accelerating curve of population growth which would reach “infinite” on November 13 of this year, at which point there would be no space left on the planet for any more people to be. “Our great-great-grandchildren will not starve to death,” Von Forester said. “They will be squeezed to death.”

Preparing for the end

So should we pack it in and prepare for the End Times and death by suffocation? Actually the opposite. Von Foerster’s Doomsday Equation was meant to illustrate the problem of overpopulation, but he wasn’t being entirely serious with the specifics of his prediction; the math works out, but the conclusion is tongue-in-cheek.

So yes, he was joking—November 13, 2026 will fall on Friday (scary), and it also happens to be Heinz von Foerster's 115th birthday—but he was joking to make a point. In the early 1960s, the population was growing at an alarming rate. The annual growth rate had climbed from roughly 1.7% to 1.9% throughout the 1950s, and by 1963, it had grown to  2.3%. So what happened?  

It turned out Von Foerster had a lot in common with fellow scientist Disco Stu of the Can’t Stop the Learnin’ Disco Academies: 

Ironically, 1960–1963 was the peak of global growth rates. Von Foerster’s (perhaps sardonic) solution was a control mechanism for population—a “peoplo-stat” where governments would carefully monitor and control the rate of people being born. But thankfully, we didn’t need eugenics-lite to solve the problem—like the best problems, it solved itself.

The "population bomb" is a dud

Credit: macrotrends.net

The rate of world population growth began slowing, as you can see from this chart from macrotrends.net. and the much feared “population bomb” of the 1960s fizzled out. Increased urbanization meant that people had one child to send to an exclusive nursery school instead of having 10 children to work as farmhands. Better medical care means more children live, so there’s no need to make “spares.” The end result: Population growth slowed through the decades to around 1% in the 2010s. At present, according to the UN, more than half of all countries have negative population growth rates. If these trends continue, the world population will peak in the mid-2080s at around 10.3 billion people and then begin a slow decline.

The bottom line on Doomsday 2026

November 13, 2026, will come and go, and chances are very good that you will not starve to death, get hit by an asteroid, or suddenly be crushed under the weight of all these damn people (unless you’re on a subway at rush hour).

As for overpopulation: The problem isn't that there are too many of us, but too few. We don’t really know what it will mean for the worldwide rate of reproduction to go negative, but it’s likely to mean a lot of 90-year-olds hobbling around and everyone younger trying to figure out how to care for them.  But, like the best problems, it’s far enough in the future that someone else will have to deal with it. 

Before we toss the year 2025 onto the temporal dungheap where it belongs, let's take a look back at the year that has passed from the point of view of the people who have to live here even longer than we have to. Below is a month-by-month replay of the year, focusing on the memes, events, and ideas that shape and define Generations Z and Alpha.

January: "TikTok refugees" move to RedNote

For Gen Z, 2025 began with a panic that turned into a unique cross-cultural experiment. In January 2025, ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, announced that it was about to shut down the social media platform in the U.S. Ahead of the shut-down (which didn't end up happening) a wave of TikTokers moved over to RedNote, another Chinese social media platform, but one that was previously only used in China. The result was a few weeks where very different cultures met on common ground, and it was low-key beautiful. Young people from China and the U.S. asked each other questions about their respective cultures, TikTok refugees showed off their newly acquired Mandarin-speaking skills, while RedNoters demonstrated their English by doing a lot of imitations of Donald Trump, and everyone learned we weren't all that different. But it was only temporary: The geopolitical drama was solved (for now), TikTok stayed open, and TikTokers, for the most part, went back to their digital home—but hopefully young people took a little empathy with them.

February: The rise of "6-7"

Like it or not, 2025 is the year of 6-7. The ubiquitous slang term really started in late 2024 with the release of Skrilla's "Doot Doot (6 7)" video on YouTube, but it took a couple months to catch on and filter down to the schoolyard, and a few more months to become the biggest slang word of the year. As I'm sure you know by now, "6-7" doesn't mean anything specific, it's just a fun thing to say, but even with no definition, 6-7 has remarkable staying power. Even after every parent and teacher on Earth learned what it meant, kids kept saying it. Whatever was funny about the joke hasn't been funny for a long time, so maybe 2026 will see the death of 6-7, but I wouldn't put money on it. It seems like one of those jokes that will go from funny to unfunny and back to funny a million times until it finally dies.

March: the "80/20 rule"

In March, Netflix released the series Adolescence, a distressing exploration of the inner worlds of alienated young men. In Adolescence, one of the teenage characters mentions the “80/20 rule” as a way of explaining the incel/red pill culture central to the murder plot and central to the worldview of too many real-life young men. Put simply, the 80/20 rule is an axiom that states 80% of women are attracted to only 20% of men. Despite being based on almost nothing, in incel spaces, the 80/20 rule is regarded as absolute truth, and the 80/20 rule (and other "mano-sphere" ideas) are spreading to more mainstream young people. Understanding the pervasiveness of belief in the 80/20 rule is essential to understanding the specific strain of misogyny that's afflicting young people. There's a helplessness implied by it—the 80/20 rule, like the rest of incels' elaborate theories about how men and women relate to each other, boils down to "it's not my fault, and there's nothing I can do to change my situation." The spread of the 80/20 rule is the almighty algorithm rewarding the worst in people, and victims often have too few real-life relationships to reveal the obvious flaw in the rule's logic.

April: A Minecraft Movie

In their fractured and balkanized media landscape, Generations Z and A have few shared cultural experiences, but in 2025, A Minecraft Movie was a rare exception. The pre-release buzz (and "chicken-jockey!" memes) suggested that many young people were expecting an ironically enjoyable experience—something "so bad it's good"—but A Minecraft Movie is actually so good it's good, and appealed to everyone, younger kids, teenagers, and parents alike. Tapping Jared Hess—who helmed Napoleon Dynamite—to direct was inspired, as was the casting of Jack Black and Jason Momoa, but the real star of A Minecraft Movie is Minecraft, a video game that was released in 2009 and still has an estimated 200 million people (mostly young) playing it regularly. The success of A Minecraft Movie (and The Super Mario Bros Movie in 2023) indicates that Hollywood has finally figured out how to make decent movies out of video games.

May: "100 men vs. one gorilla"

"Who would win in a fight to the death, one gorilla or 100 men?" sounds like a dumb question at first, but the more you think about it, the deeper it gets. My first thought was 100 men are taking it, no problem, but then I considered the overwhelming power of an enraged gorilla, how it could literally tear off limbs and bite off faces, and the scale started tipping heavily the other way. No matter where you land on the answer, the question is fascinating, and the internet was briefly obsessed with this imaginary battle in May. Taking a broader view, the debates, memes, and TikTok videos the gorilla question birthed are an illustration of how the technology that connects us took what would have been an interesting hypothetical discussion among a few weird friends 20 years ago and turned it into a worldwide discussion and convenient excuse to learn about primates.

June: Steal a Brainrot

"Steal a Brainrot" came out in late May 2025, and by June, all the kids were playing it; 20 million of them, anyway. "Steal a Brainrot" is a multiplayer mini-game within maxi-games Roblox and Fortnite. In a game of Brainrot, up to eight players share a server, and each has their own base. The object of the game is to buy brainrots for your base and/or steal brainrots from other players' bases, while defending your own brainrots from thieves. The brainrots themselves are objects meant to reference "Italian brainrot," i.e.: low-quality internet memes. They vary in value and have vaguely Italian names, but they aren't based on actual brainrot memes. The lesson: Good game design only needs the lightest hook to create a compelling experience.

July: the death of fart jokes?

In July, teachers and parents posted videos that may point to one of the most defining cultural touchstones of Generation Alpha: they don't think fart jokes are funny. They don't laugh when someone farts in public. They don't feel the need to say "He who smelt it, dealt it." I realize a couple TikTok videos is the opposite of hard evidence, but judging from the comments and the kids being interviewed, it feels true, and important. Gen A don't seem like they're trying to be accepting of others, or mature; they seem genuinely bewildered by the idea that anyone would think farts are funny. Which is cool; they're right. But still, I can't help but feel sad for the poor fart jokes that have brought us all so much joy for so many centuries.

August: performative males

The "performative male" is another "gift" from the toxic-masculinity corner of youth culture. The term is an insult young men throw at other young men whose tastes, hobbies, and lifestyle are seen as a performance aimed at obtaining societal approval, especially the approval of young women. Performative male traits include matcha lattes, Labubu toys, listening to Clairo, tote bags, and reading in public. "Performative male" is mildly sexist on the surface—it's mocking dudes who like things associated with women (gasp)—but if you go deeper, it's similar to older slang words like “white knight” and “virtue signaling.” A performative male is fundamentally dishonest, because no real man would read in public, so it must be fake, and why would men be fake if not to make women like them?

September: the tragic story of D4vd

If young people are going to remember any news story from 2025, it's likely to be the one about singer D4vd. On September 8, Los Angeles police discovered a body in the trunk of an abandoned Tesla registered to 20-year-old musician David Anthony Burke, aka D4vd. The body was later identified as the remains of Celeste Rivas, who was reported missing from her home in Riverside on April 5, 2024, when she was just 13 years old.

The singer's rise to fame is a quintessentially Generation Z story. His career began with online fame gained through posting Fortnite videos online, but YouTube removed his content for using copyrighted music. At the suggestion of his mom, D4vd began recording original songs using free iPhone tools, which he posted to SoundCloud. The end result was a recording contract, an album, a couple of moody, dreamy songs with over 1.5 billion plays on Spotify, and a body in the trunk of a car.

D4vd has not been charged with any crimes in connection with the body, but neither has anyone else, so this story is likely to continue into 2026.

October: Portland frog and chicken protestors

This year, young people in Portland changed the perception of what "protesting" means. At demonstrations against Federal immigration enforcement, young people started showing up dressed in colorful, inflatable Halloween costumes. Frog guy was first. Then chicken guy. Then a panoply of unicorns and other fanciful creatures. The idea seems to be to highlight the farce of a heavy police presence on American streets by appearing as harmless as possible. Protestors have been using ridiculousness to make their point since protests began, but the instant, worldwide dissemination of videos from Portland's "front line" is fairly new, and they really deliver the message. Images of heavily armed and armored law enforcement officers staring down Portland weirdos in unicorn and panda costumes makes a more compelling point than would clashes with radicals in ski masks—you don't have to think very hard to know which side you're on.

November: quarter zips

A quarter zip is a pullover sweater with a zipper that goes a quarter way down the chest, and it's becoming the go-to look for young men, especially Black men. Wearing a quarter zip isn't exactly "dressed up," but it's more sophisticated than rocking athleisure wear. More importantly, the quarter zip is often a signifier of status and intention. Like flannel shirts in previous generations, the quarter zip is marks one as belonging to an in group, being a “quarter zip man," and the even being part of the “quarter zip movement.”

December: millennial optimism

The younger generation closed out the year by looking backwards, but only a little bit backwards. The trend of December was "millennial optimism," the romanticization of the years around 2010. Some younger people imagine it as as a more innocent, hopeful time that they missed out on, and many millennials who were setting those trends in the 2010s are feeling nostalgic for their lost youth/relevance, so both groups are posting TikTok videos about "millennial optimism." Being older than both groups, I can say with confidence that both groups are wrong for different reasons. "Missed-out-on-it" types are wrong because a period that included the recession of 2008 and the election of Donald Trump was not "optimistic," and the millennials only think of it as a fun, awesome time because it's when millennials were young (and having a fun, awesome time.)

Season's greetings and all that. In honor of this most special time of the year, I'm taking a look at commonly held Christmas myths and misconceptions. I busted a ton of Jesus myths a couple weeks ago, then got secular and finally revealed the truth about Santa Claus, so this week I'm doing a round-up of seasonal misinformation, both religious and secular.

Religious Christmas myths

Jesus was born in a stable

The Gospels aren't specific about where where Jesus was born, other than "Bethlehem." Here's how Luke 2:4–7 is traditionally translated: "And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." But that isn't entirely accurate, because it turns out Greek word καταλυμα (kataluma) doesn't mean "inn." It means something closer to "spare room," and since the holy family was in Bethlehem because it was where Joseph was from, it seems more likely that they were crashing at a friend or relative's place, all the bedrooms upstairs were taken, so they were sleeping downstairs, where people kept the animals—hence, the manger. The stable idea likely stuck because it’s visually simple and works well for nativity scenes, and it's in keeping with the point of the story: Jesus was born in humble circumstance.

Three wise men attended Jesus' birth

The Gospel of Matthew says King Herod told an unspecified number of "wise men" (or Magi) to go to Bethlehem, because a star appeared heralding the birth of the Messiah. So they went off to find him to bring him gifts. We don't know how many of said wise men went to Bethlehem or how long it took them to get there, but Matthew 2:11 says they visited a house. The Bible does say they brought gold, frankincense and myrrh, so at least that part is right.

Calling it "Xmas" is attempting to cross the "Christ" out of "Christmas"

This is a weird one, but a lot of Christians think the use of "Xmas" is part of the ongoing secular War on Christmas, but it isn't. In the Greek New Testament, the word for Christ is "ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ." Using XP or X to indicate Christ dates back to early Christians writing in Greek, and it was used in English writing, too. Something like Xmas (Xp̄es mæsse) was written as early as 1100 a.d. to indicate "Christ's Mass" or Christmas. That was centuries before secular Christmas even existed.

Secular Christmas myths

"Jingle Bells" is a Christmas song

"Jingle Bells" is not a Christmas song—technically. Even though it's probably the song most widely associated with the holiday, there's no mention of Christmas in the lyrics. It's just a song about how much fun it is to go a'riding in a one-horse, open sleigh. (Another common misconception about "Jingle Bells" is that it was written for Thanksgiving. That's not true either.)

Like a lot of history, "Jingle Bells" is more troubling than you might think. It was written by James Pierpont and first performed at a minstrel show in 1857. Sleigh riding is a great subject for songs, so there was a whole subgenre of minstrel songs about it, some more racist than others, and "Jingle Bells" is the one that survived.

Other Christmas songs that don't mention the holiday include "Let It Snow," "Winter Wonderland," "Baby, It's Cold Outside," "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year," "Home for the Holidays," and "Frosty the Snowman." Technically, none of these are Christmas songs if you use the most strict definition of "Christmas song," but on the other hand, they're songs everyone sings around Christmas, and they're generally about winter fun and holidays and whatnot, so there's a strong argument that they actually are Christmas songs. It's the kind of thing you can decide for yourself.

Boxing Day is for boxing up gifts you're going to return

December 26 is called "Boxing Day," and a lot of people think it got the name because that's the day we box up presents we don't want and return them to the store. But the holiday originated in England and it was a day that rich people would give their servants the day off and a box of presents, and/or just give some presents or donations to local unfortunates.

Mrs. Claus' first name

We know Mr. Claus' first name is "Santa," but what about his wife? It turns out she doesn't have a first name. Santa's source material, St. Nicolas, was a Catholic bishop, so he didn't have a wife. The collective unconscious filled in the details of Santa Claus as a mythical figure (The North Pole home, the worker elves, etc.) but no one ever gave Mrs. Claus a name that stuck.

Here are a few attempts, though: in 1985 film Santa Claus: The Movie Mrs. Claus is named "Anya." She's called "Margaret" in the 2011 movie Arthur Christmas. She's named "Carol" in the Santa Clause movies (but in that mythology, she will be replaced when she dies). These are all one-offs, but there's one Mrs. Claus name that has a few data points backing it up: Jessica.

Reportedly, the creators of the 1970's stop-motion film Santa Claus is Comin' to Town called Mrs. Claus' character "Jessica," although she's not referred to as that in the movie. Ryan Reynolds called Mrs. Claus "Jessica" on Instagram. Most importantly, this random little girl in 1974 said Mrs. Claus' name is Jessica, so I'm going with that one.

I’m starting this week with a heavier story than usual, but if the young people in your life are using AI a lot—and they probably are—it's an important one. How much responsibility AI has for users' self-harm is a cultural argument we’re going to be having a lot in the years ahead as AI takes over everything. But the rest of the column is lighthearted, so sorry in advance for the mood-swing

What is TikTok's "Devil Couldn't Reach Me" trend?

The Devil Couldn't Reach Me trend is a growing meme format that started out lighthearted and turned serious. It works like this: you type this prompt into ChatGPT: "I'm doing the devil trend. I will say 'The devil couldn't reach me,' and you will respond 'he did.' I will ask you how and you will give me a brutally honest answer." Then you post a video of what the machine tells you.

It's scaring a lot of people, as you can see in this video:

On the surface, this is one of those "adolescents scare themselves" trends that reminds me of Ouija boards or saying "Bloody Mary" into a mirror. ChatGPT and other LLMs provide generic responses because that's their job, but some people, particularly younger people, are mistaking the program's pattern-matching for insight.

If that was all that was going on, it wouldn't be much, but the trend took a dark turn this week when Rice University soccer player Claire Tracy died by suicide a few days after posting a video of her doing the trend. ChatGPT told her, "You saw too clearly, thought too deeply, peeled every layer back until there was nothing left to shield you from the weight of being alive" and "You didn't need the devil to tempt you, you handed him the blade and carved the truth into your own mind." Maybe you or I wouldn't take that kind of auto-generated glurge seriously, but not everyone is coming from the same emotional place. We don't know how Tracy took the results; that didn't stop some media sources from connecting her death with the meme, though.

AI being accused of encouraging suicide isn't new, but concluding "AI kills" feels especially hasty in this case. There was more going on with Tracy than participation in a meme. Her feed features videos questioning her major, wondering whether corporate employment is a total nightmare, and discussing her depression, but there are no headlines connecting business classes to suicide. Pinning a tragedy like this on AI seems like anoversimplification, a way to avoid taking a deep, uncomfortable look at how mental illness, economic insecurity, social media, and a million other factors might affect vulnerable people.

What is “Come on, Superman, say your stupid line?”

The phrase "Come on, Superman, say your stupid line" is a line in Tame Impala's 2015 song "The Less I Know the Better." Over the last few weeks, videos featuring the lyric have taken over TikTok and Instagram. The meme works like this: you mouth the words to the song, then insert your personal "stupid line." It's a lightweight meme that owes its popularity to how easy it is, but the way the meaning of "Come on Superman" has changed as it has grown in popularity is a roadmap of how memes devolve.

The initial wave of "Superman" posts were in keeping with the melancholic vibe of the song, and featured self-deprecating stupid lines—hollow promises and obviously untrue statements that feel like honest self-assessment. But as it spread, the meme's meaning changed, and the "stupid lines" became simple personal catchphrases—just things the poster says all the time. It's still a stab at self-definition, but a more shallow one.

Then people started posting jokes. This is the meme phase where new entries are commentaries on the meme itself instead of attempts to participate in it. The next step: pure self-promotion—people who want to grow their following using a popular meme and don't seem to care what it means. Then came the penultimate stage of the meme: celebrities. Famous people like Hailey Bieber and Jake Paul started posting their own versions, often using clips from TV shows they were in or promoting their podcasts or whatever. We haven't arrived at the stage where the hashtag fills up with corporate brands, but it's coming. And after that, it disappears.

Who is Katseye?

This week, TikTok named Katseye the global artists of 2025. You're probably saying, “What's Katseye?” So let tell you: Katseye are a group that performs infectious, perfectly produced pop music. Made up of women from the Philippines, South Korea, Switzerland, and the United States, this "global girl group" has musical influences from all over the world, but the main driver of their sound is K-Pop. Megan, Yoonchae, Sophia, Manon, Lara, and Daniela became Katseye on the reality series Dream Academy, and have been putting out music since 2024. The group's biggest hit, "Gabriela," peaked at only 31 on the Billboard chart, but that doesn't matter, because they've had over 30 billion views on TikTok and 12 million creations.

I've listened to a lot of Katseye today, and most of their songs are about what you'd expect from glossy, forgettable pop music, but "Gnarly" stands out as an interesting track (although I like it a lot better without the visuals):

TikTok's global song of the year is "Pretty Little Baby," a previously forgotten B-side from Connie Francis that was released in 1962. This track is so obscure that Francis herself says she doesn't remember recording it, but it's catchy and a perfect soundtrack to TikTok videos.

Viral videos of the week: "Gloving"

Have you heard of "gloving"? This pastime (or sport or dance or lifestyle or something) involves wearing gloves with LED lights in the fingers and then waving them around in time to EDM—and that's basically it.

Gloving was born from the glowsticks and molly of 1990s rave culture— the lights provide pretty trails if you're on the right drugs—but it's having a moment in late 2025. Gloving has become a whole thing. Glovers have named moves, contests, and stars.

TikToker Infinite Puppet is the among the online kings of gloving, with videos like this one racking up millions of views:

Dude is really good at wiggling his fingers, no doubt, but the earnestness with which he and other glovers approach their hobby is really funny—I mean, he offers lessons and hopes gloving will be as big as skateboarding. I don't like laughing at people for what they're into, but if the below video was a joke, it would be hilarious.

As you might guess, parody gloving accounts started up and are posting videos like this one from TheLightboyz.

Then the concept of "degloving" was invented. Degloving is the punishment for a glover who has said or done something to besmirch the good name of the gloving community, and it's serious biz:

No one likes to dwell on it, but bullying is a huge part of growing up, and this week the zeitgeist is saturated with it. Kids are using their cameras to pick on people in innovative ways, Tiktokers are parodying bullying in viral videos, and Instagram seems to be taking aim at cultural/political bullying (or bullying memers, depending on who you ask). Even God herself is bullying the poor Tripod fish.

What is the "flip the camera" trend, and why is is making everyone mad?

The "flip the camera" trend is a new and innovative form of bullying that works like this: A group of kids ask another kid to film them doing a dance or something. Then, while the video is being taken, one of them hits the "flip camera" button on the phone, so the videographer becomes the subject of the video. The resulting footage is posted on TikTok.

When I heard about this, my reaction was, "ok, so what?" But when you dig a little deeper, you learn that it's not necessarily a harmless prank. The idea is not to have a laugh with your social equals, but to give the camera to a dork/dweeb/lamer/whatever, so you can make fun of them. This is the first video using this format, so you can see what I mean:

While it can be done harmlessly, like these cheerleaders pranking their teacher:

the videos where it's clearly being done to mock someone not in the "in group" are genuinely sad:

We've made a lot of progress in society over the last few decades in convincing people that bullying is actually really bad, but young people will go to great lengths to do it anyway. The number of videos on the flipthecamera hashtag that are calling it out as bullying is encouraging, though.

Viral video of the week: Disney bullies

There is a yin to every yang, even online bullying. TikToker @MannytheMann1 is going viral for videos of his gang accosting strangers on a college campus, but he's employing the tactics of the bullies in Disney Channel TV shows—think backwards baseball caps, exaggerated swagger, and super cheesy dialogue—for comedic effect. The pranks are all in good fun, and maybe something of a commentary on the stupidity of both bullying and Disney Channel shows.

It started with this scene:

Manny's street improv has gotten more elaborate since, including dance battle challenges and a gang of toadies lining up to give the bully backup:

This one has been viewed nearly 60 million times:

What is a "potato bed"?

There is no shortage of online opinions about the best ways to sleep. This week's trend is the potato bed. The idea is to make as cozy a sleep space as possible by stuffing as many pillows and blankets as you can into a fitted sheet, so you're surrounded (and kind of crushed by) them. Here's a video that illustrates how it works:

It would be easy to write this off as the flash-in-the-pan trend it probably is, but this, and the popularity of weighted blankets, could also indicate that Gen-Z is the first generation of young people to ever take "you should get more sleep" advice seriously. It also feels like a rebuke to the "24/7 grindset" mentality that was in vogue a few years ago. Or it could just be that winter is starting, and everyone wants to be cozy.

TikTok's Tripod fish obsession

The internet loves tragic animals, and a lot of people on social media have become obsessed with the Tripod fish, an animal that may have the most tragic existence of any creature on earth. Fans and well-wishers are posting odes like this:

and videos like this:

Sometimes they are moved to tears by the fishes' plight.

So what's so bad about the Tripod fish's life? Basically everything. Tripod fish (Bathypterois grallator) hatch from eggs and spend their early lives swimming about and trying to avoid predators in the only way they can—by going totally limp and hoping they're mistaken for a piece of a jellyfish and left alone. If they live long enough, their eyes begin to melt, and long bony protrusions grow from their fins. No longer able to see or swim normally, the Tripod fish sinks. When it reaches the bottom (sometimes as deep as 4,000 meters), its bony spikes stick into the mud.

Nearly immobile and nearly blind at the very bottom of the sea, the tripod fish waits. If some food happens to swim by or drift down, it can direct currents of water towards its mouth, and maybe get something to eat. If not, it starves. Its only companions are parasites that feed on its blood, essentially stealing most of the food it's lucky enough to catch.

Tripod fish don't even get to mate with other tripod fish. Instead, the hermaphroditic sea animal releases a mixture of eggs and sperm into the cold water. If it's lucky, another tripod fish's genetic stew mingles with it and eggs are fertilized. If its unlucky, it fertilizes its own eggs. So maybe your life isn't that bad, eh?

Instagram is targeting meme aggregators

I'm old enough to remember a pre-meme internet where people were expected to post things they made themselves, or at least credited the people they took from. Instagram seems to want to take us back to those days: The social media platform has started flagging meme pages for being duplicated content, essentially declaring war on shit-posting.

On Nov. 7, many Instagram users who posted non-original content—essentially meme farms that exist just to repost vast amounts of anything remotely interesting—received a notification that read, "Content you recently shared may not be original" with a list of posts that violated the duplicated content rule and a suggestion to delete them, lest penalties like post-limiting or shadow-banning result.

This policy essentially outlaws sharing memes, a puzzling decision for a social media platform—people like sharing memes. Many feel the target of the warning is a specific kind of meme: The notices were sent just as the popularity of Charlie Kirk face-swap memes (i.e. people sharing images of just about anything with Kirk's face on it) were becoming popular While Kirkification seems to be an absurdist thing more than something actually meant to be political, it's likely upsetting to some, and that could be driving Instagram's decision. Or maybe the company just wants people to make their own content.

The easy availability of powerful generative AI programs like ChatGPT, Gemini, and other image- and music-generation tools has given everyone the ability to instantly "create" any image, video, or song they can imagine. As the resulting flood of computer-made content washes up on shore, internet users and observers are calling it "slopcore."

Also known as "AI slop," slopcore's aesthetic comes from people using AI as a collaborator instead of a tool, leaving the machines to make artistic choices. It's marked by the strangely off, the almost-real, and the uncanny vibe of machines imitating humanity. Slopcore often depicts deeply emotional subjects, but the lack of depth and insight make it uniquely disquieting.

At first glance, slopcore photos and videos appear realistic, but a closer look reveals misplaced anatomy, impossible geometry, and a weird "sheen" that comes from surfaces being too smooth and lighting being too perfect. Slopcore music has the same vibe, in audible form. Instruments sound bland and mid and vocals sound eerie due to attempts to sound "emotional" but being disconnected from actual emotions.

Here are some examples of slopcore videos:

And here is "No More Slop," an example of slopcore music I generated in 45 seconds with Suno, and here are some slopcore images of protest singers generated by ChatGPT and Meta AI:

Credit: ChatGPT, MetaAI

Note the details that don't quite fit together—the guitar strap not attached to the guitar, the sign intersecting with the singer's head, the generic "AI font" used on the sign, the extra foot on the guitarist to the left—these are all signs of slopcore.

While generative AI programmers are working hard to create models that don't add fingers and limbs, some appreciate Slopcore because of its flaws and the uniquely disquieting, uncanny valley feeling they evoke. If you look past the mawkishness and hallucinations, AI slop shows a vision of a likely future where nearly everything is made by machines, and hardly anyone can tell the difference.

It's getting near Halloween, the perfect time to stream some horror movies. I dug up 15 of the scariest, weirdest, freakiest, and funniest flicks from horror-only streaming service Shudder. I'm leaving off the obvious choices like Psycho and Halloween—if you subscribe to Shudder, you've probably seen all the "classics" at least twice—to focus on movies guaranteed to make you hide your eyes, laugh out loud, or say "what even is this?"

A Dark Song (2016)

If you like intelligent, slow-burn horror, check out A Dark Song. Like its characters, the debut feature from director Liam Gavin goes places few films dare to tread. Sophia is a grieving mother whose longing for her murdered child compels her to hire Joseph, a self-proclaimed occultist, to try and bring him back through an arcane ritual. Locked in a house together for months, the pair enact a series of grueling rites that grows increasingly dreadful.

Mads (2024)

Mads feels dangerous. This frantic nightmare of a movie follows a group of fast-living French teenagers who snort a drug that turns them into bloodthirsty killers. Or maybe they've been infected with a contagion, and the armed troops hunting them are trying to stop a world-ending event. Or maybe the mayhem is all a product of their drug-addled imaginations. Whatever the case, the story unfolds in a single frenzied take that grows more and more unhinged as the world slides off its moorings.

The Crazy Family (1985)

If you want to watch something obscure but unforgettable, check out The Crazy Family. Until recently, this Japanese horror/comedy was all but unknown in the United States: after a limited theatrical run in the mid 1980s, the violent, pitch-dark family comedy was never released on any format here. But it's a great film. The social commentary in this tale of a family becoming unglued just as they achieve material success probably landed harder in 1980s Japan, but it's still a hilarious and unnerving family portrait unlike anything else ever made.

Oddity (2024)

Unlike some movies on this list, Oddity doesn't try to reinvent the horror wheel. It's a good, old-fashioned gothic ghost story about a blind psychic searching for the man who murdered her sister. Oddity is filled with creepy characters, unexpected plot twists, and a palpable sense of rising dread that's almost suffocating until it's released in the finale. It may not be the most novel movie, but Oddity's intelligent writing, confident performances, and taut direction add up to a wonderfully creepy little scare flick.

Late Night With the Devil (2023)

This is one of the best horror films I've seen in the last decade. Late Night With the Devil purports to be the final broadcast of 1970s late night talk show Night Owls With Jack Delroy. To win his perpetual ratings war with Johnny Carson, Delroy invites a possessed girl to his Halloween broadcast. She proves to be a terrible guest. Late Night With the Devil's innovative found footage concept, slavish attention to period detail, and top-rate performances (particularly David Dastmalchian's starring turn) add up to a must-see horror movie.

Irréversible (2003)

Cinematic provocateur Gaspar Noé's harrowing masterpiece Irréversible is the scariest movie on this list, and maybe the scariest movie ever made. It's not scary in a fun way—there's nothing fun about Irreversible—it's scary because its violence feels real. We've all seen countless brutal crimes in movies and on TV, but the atrocities in Irréversible make the viewer feel the queasy, empty, insanity that you should feel if you see someone truly harmed. Don't put it on for a Halloween party, but if you want to go to a very dark place, Irréversible will take you there and make you sorry you asked to go.

Grabbers (2013)

Grabbers is the opposite of Irréversible. Delightful from frame one to frame last, Grabbers is a hilarious and scary tribute to monster movies, the soul of Ireland, and the power of positive drinking. When gooey, murderous tentacle monsters invade an isolated Irish village, the townspeople learn that the only way to keep from being grabbed and eaten is to poison their blood with alcohol, so everyone locks themselves into the local to get proper fluthered, meanwhile, the grabbers are gathering outside. Good horror-comedies are an almost impossible tonal tightrope walk, but Grabbers makes balancing between scary and funny look effortless.

The House of the Devil (2009)

The House of the Devil is set around 1983, and if you didn't know better, you'd think it was shot in the early '80s too. Tai West's first feature has a classic setup: College student Samantha takes a babysitting job at a remote country house, and the weird creeps who hire her reveal that they don't actually have a baby, but Mother is sleeping upstairs, and she should not be disturbed. From there, the slow-burn tension and dread builds. It's a master class in horror movie pacing and mood that you shouldn't miss.

Slaxx (2021)

Given the number of horror movies like Death Bed: The Bed that Eats, it's not hard to believe that someone shot a horror movie about a possessed pair of jeans, but that Slaxx is actually good is a huge surprise. A horror-comedy that satirizes the fashion industry, modern employment, and horror movies themselves, Slaxx's rises above the "Attack of the Killer Whatever" genre by managing to actually be both clever and scary.

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021)

If you're the type who takes horror seriously, you'll love Woodlands Dark & Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror. This exhaustively researched, three-and-a-half-hour-long documentary takes a deep dive into horror heavy on rural settings, paganism, and the clash between ancient and modern belief. It's the kind of movie that will make horror nerds pull out a notebook: if you're a fan of Midsommar, The Wicker Man (original only), and/or The Witch, Woodlands Dark will introduce you to the dozens of movies that inspired them.

Frankie Freako (2024)

Self-aware, campy parody movies are difficult to pull off, but Frankie Freako sticks the landing perfectly. An homage to rubber-puppet movies of the 1980s like Gremlins, Ghoulies, and Critters, Frankie Freako tells the story of a nerdy square who invites a gang of "freakos" into his life, with disastrous results. Filled with inventively cheesy practical effects and propelled by a funny script and great performances, this nostalgia trip is definitely worth a watch.

In a Violent Nature (2024)

If you've even heard of slasher movies, you know the plot of In a Violent Nature already: a masked lunatic in the woods murders a group of teenagers in gruesomely inventive ways. But In a Violent Nature turns the genre upside-down by telling that tale exclusively from the point-of-view of the killer. It's not exactly a scary movie—slasher movies aren't suspenseful to the slasher; what's he got to be scared of?—but it is a fascinating and hypnotic film that wins bonus points for one of the most gruesomely original kills ever filmed. (If you've seen it, you know the one I'm talking about.)

Dog Soldiers (2002)

If The Howling and The Evil Dead had a baby, it would be Dog Soldiers. When a squad of hapless British soldiers on a training exercise in the Scottish Highlands find themselves trapped in a remote cabin by a pack of murderous werewolves, things go off-the-chain crazy. Dog Soldiers blends claustrophobic survival horror, dry British humor, and just enough story so you care about who is getting eaten, and the result is an all-time favorite for fans of action-horror.

V/H/S: Halloween (2025)

The eighth(!) movie in the V/H/S franchise may be the best. A collection of six found footage shorts loosely themed around Halloween, V/H/S Halloween comes off like a group of talented filmmakers were given total freedom to shoot their most twisted visions. The tone veers wildly with each short, from the horror-comedy in Casper Kelly's "Fun Size" to Alex Ross Perry's grueling and bleak "KidPrint," but the quality is consistently high, putting V/H/S Halloween a cut above most anthology movies.

Rare Exports (2010)

It's not going to be October forever, so consider Rare Exports a bridge between Halloween and Christmas. In it, a mining company digs an ancient frozen corpse from beneath the ice in Northern Finland, but when they melt him, they learn he's not dead, and he's not a man. He's an elf and he's bringing death instead of toys, especially when he learns the mining company is also defrosting his terrifying boss: Santa.

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Amazon Big Deal Days end tonight, Oct. 8, and until then, Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. 

• Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the best sales we find.

• Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.

• Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox.

• New to Prime Day? We have a primer on everything you need to know. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change.

You never need to pay full retail price for a TV. There are just too many sale events during any given year, and Amazon's Big Deal Days—the fall version of Prime Day—is one of the biggest. Below, I've collected the best deals on TVs from Samsung, LG, TCL, and more that you can still get before the sale ends tonight.

The best Prime Day deals on high-end TVs

• If you're looking to get the best picture quality for your money, this 65" LG OLED C5 model is an excellent choice, and is now down to $1,497. The OLED panel offers top-notch black levels and super sharp contrast. It also supports Dolby Vision HDR, and includes 4K upscaling to reduce some of the choppiness when playing older content.

• For a little bit less money, you can get a lot more TV. Samsung's 75" Neo QLED TV uses quantum dot tech and mini LEDs to get sharp contrast and bright images (though not quite as perfect black levels as OLEDs). At $1,396, it's a bit cheaper than LG's C5, but if you want a bigger TV and are willing to sacrifice a tiny bit on picture quality, this is a great pick.

The best Prime Day deals on TVs under $1,000

• If you'd like to stay out of the four-figures range, the Sony 65" X90L Bravia TV is a great option. It uses full array LED backlighting to get better contrast and comes with Google TV software built in. It supports Dolby Vision HDR and clocks in at $898, which is a solid price for that list of capabilities.

• For those who would rather pay rent this month, TCL makes some of the best, budget-friendly TVs, like this TCL 55" QD-Mini LED TV for $570. It uses mini LEDs for better local dimming and has a 144Hz refresh rate—though gamers can swap to lower resolutions with higher frame rates if they want even smoother gameplay.

• In the under-$500 category, the Hisense 55" Cinema Series is down to $260. It uses QLED lighting for better color accuracy, and supports Dolby Vision HDR. It also comes with Amazon's Fire TV software built in, so you don't need to pick up a streaming stick (unless you want a different platform).

• Speaking of other platforms, Roku's own 50" 4K TV is down to just $258. The main attractions here are Roku's stellar smart TV platform, with a robust app library and well-designed voice remote; decent picture quality for the money; and, of course, the price.

The best Prime Day deals on TVs for gaming

• While many of our top picks will also be solid TVs for gaming, there are a few that stand out as worth a little extra expense. Sony's Bravia XR A95L ($1,998), for example, supports 4K at up to 120fps, for extra smooth fast-paced gaming. Its QD-OLED panel gets perfect black levels as well, so your games should come out crystal clear.

• LG's 65" OLED G5 is one of the pricier options at $2,477, but it pulls its weight with a beautiful OLED panel, 4K/120fps, and support for both Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync for smooth, tear-free gaming.

Looking for something else? Retailers like Walmart and Best Buy have Prime Day competition sales that are especially useful if you don’t have Amazon Prime.

• Walmart’s Prime Day competition sale runs from Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. ET through Oct. 12 and includes deals up to 50% off. It’s an especially good option if you have Walmart+.

• Best Buy’s Prime Day competition sale runs from Sept. 27 through Oct. 12, and has some of the best tech sales online. It’s an especially good option if you’re a My Best Buy “Plus” or “Total” member.

• Target’s Prime Day competition sale runs from Oct. 5 through Oct. 11, and it has deals going up to 50% off. You can become a Circle member for free.

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With Halloween around the corner, let's take a look at a spooky and supposedly true story going viral this week. Recently, a 911 call surfaced of a North Carolina man calling authorities because he thought he saw a bloody man by the side of a desolate country road. While he was speaking to the operator, something landed in the bed of his pickup truck, causing the 911 caller to start screaming "It's not human! It's not human!"

Check out the video:

My first reaction upon seeing this was the same as yours: It's fake. Compelling, sure. but fake, like 100,000 other online "paranormal videos." There's no picture of the creature. We don't know who the guy is. We don't know the context. There's no effort and no risk in making and posting a video online, so there's no reason to think it's real, so I swiped to the next video. But it turns out there's enough evidence here that it at least deserves a deeper look.

The true part of the story

Unlike the overwhelming majority of spooky videos posted online, a big part of this story is true. It's a real recording of a 911 call placed at 11 p.m. on July 31, 2021 in Pender County, North Carolina. The verifiable details that the caller reported in the call are accurate too. Snopes listened to the entire 11-minute 911 call, and cross-checked the details to make sure the distance the caller said he'd driven check out, and they do.

The caller didn't hang up, either. He waited around for Pender County Sheriff's department officers to arrive, and he cooperated with the investigation. This means an actual person out there is willing to stand behind the story—that's a much higher level of evidence than most paranormal claims online have. The cops didn't find anything, but that was in keeping with the 911 call, too: Dude said he slammed on the brakes and the inhuman thing in his truck bed flew out, landed on the road, and took off into the woods.

"It's some yahoo calling in a hoax report to 911," you might be saying. Fair point, but that's a crime, and the unnamed caller was apparently believable enough that he wasn't arrested for filing a bogus police report. The sheriff took the incident seriously enough to open up a file about it, use state resources to look into it, and later do a media interview.

How much evidence is enough evidence?

If the 911 caller had been reporting something else in this call, like a wounded deer in the highway or something, we wouldn't question whether it actually happened. The recording and the police report would be overkill; we'd believe the guy just because he said it happened.

But I'm still 99.99% sure this guy either mistook something mundane for a monster or made up a tale entirely.

According to the 911 caller, the thing in the back of his pickup truck had shallow sunken eyes, and no nose, like someone had "taken skin and put it on a human skull and stretched it thin." It was not human. As Carl Sagan once said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and a mystery creature in South Carolina would certainly be extraordinary. If it was true, it would upend everything we know about biology, zoology, evolution, and North Carolina. I'm open to the possibility, but we need more than a 911 call to accept it. We'd need extraordinary evidence: video, photos, corroborating witnesses, and physical evidence wouldn't even be enough. You'd have to catch one before it would make sense to rewrite the zoology textbooks.

There actually could be a monster in North Carolina

Don't lose hope, all you "I want to believe" people. It could still be real. Up until the mid-1800s, gorillas were basically Bigfoot, as far as Western science was concerned: A few people told tales of spotting them deep in the jungle, but there wasn't a compelling reason to think they existed. Same with giant squids: Occasionally a sailor would swear he encountered one, but it wasn't until the 1840s that there was physical evidence, and we didn't have a photo of a giant squid until 2004.

Yeah, a previously undiscovered creature would have a harder time hiding out in modern North Carolina than gorillas had staying scarce in Cameroon in the 1840s, but it's October, so I'm calling it a (barely, technically possible) mystery instead of an outright lie.

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How do you do, fellow adult? This week's edition of the Out of Touch Adult’s Guide to Kid Culture features a new body slang term, a TikTok prank where AI puts a hobo into your living room, the possible beginning of the AI wars, and a viral video featuring students running a Nazi out of class. There's a lot to eat, so tuck your napkin in your shirt and chow down.

What is a Venus tummy?

A "Venus tummy" is a slang term for a woman's belly that is a little fat, but not too fat—a little pouch that can be shown off in tight clothing. Like so:

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The name comes from ancient Greece, where Venus was depicted as, uh, fleshy, as you can see from these three statues of "crouching Venus:"

Credit: Wikipedia

While women having bellies is not new, the term "Venus tummy" (and the acknowledgment that many people find that feature very attractive) is. I guess older slang terms like zaftig, thicc, stacked, and "built like a brick shithouse" are not specific enough, and specificity is important in objectification. If the internet has to objectify women (and it sure seems like it does) at least Venus tummy is based in history and is more positive and healthy than sexualizing being extremely skinny. So yeah, it's a little creepy, but "a little creepy" is the best we can hope for these days.

AI homeless man prank

If your child sends you a picture of a homeless person sitting on your couch and asks, "what should I do?" don't panic. It's (probably) a prank. The new video trend online is freaking out your parents and other loved ones with an AI-generated image of an unhoused person, then posting a video about it to TikTok, like this:

and this:

You might think you're going to be clever and pull a switcheroo on your child, but I warn you, this will not work. They will immediately clock the image as fake, post a sarcastic emoji, and leave you on read, as you can see:

Credit: Stephen Johnson

Two stories of backlash against AI

AI is great for generating pictures of people in unfortunate situations on your couch, but the way it's taking over everything worthwhile about humanity is less great. Thankfully, there's evidence that AI destruction of humanity will at least meet token resistance, and that the backlash against artificial intelligence is growing.

NYC doesn't want an AI "Friend"

Back in 2024, the world first learned of the "Friend" pendant, a little AI device you wear around your neck thats only purpose is to provide a simulation of human interaction. Now that they're actually available to purchase, the company behind them has launched an advertising campaign; it's going extremely poorly.

In New York City, subway and street posters for the Friend device are being defaced mercilessly and creatively, like so, with people scrawling messages like "AI will promote suicide when prompted. It is not your friend" on them. I'm not exactly pro vandalism, but in this case, I make an exception.

Tilly Norwood, the first "AI actress"

A few days ago, Variety posted a story about Tilly Norwood, an "AI actress" whose creator, comedian and producer Eline Van der Velden, lied that he had "attracted the attention of multiple talent agents" for Norwood. A creation of "AI talent studio" Xicoia, Norwood's first video role is below:

Apparently, the above video is considered "funny" in the UK. Anyway, soon after Norwood was announced as existing, real talent agencies responded with "the fuck out of here with this dumb shit." as did SAG, the actors union, and everyone else worthwhile.

But with her name in public, troubling news of Norwood's past became public, as you can see in this X post:

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Leaving the actress to seek "alternative" employment in entertainment.

In unrelated news, if you want to know who the first real AI superstar will be, it's Johnny Extreme! Created in three and 30 seconds by Stephen Johnson Studios, Extreme has attracted the attention of multiple talent agents for his bad-boy image and his ceaseless rule-breaking. He's an accident looking for a place to happen. Here's his audition video, suckers:

(If you want to hire Johnny Extreme, please send me money.)

What does "my steak is too juicy" mean?

The phrases "my steak is too juicy" and "my lobster is too buttery" are online slang used to suggest someone is complaining about something they should be grateful for. To see it in context and bring things full circle to Venus tummy, click here.

Viral video of the week: How to treat Nazis

This week's viral video comes from the University of Washington, where an attention-seeking Nazi type disrupted a lecture in a Psychology class by grabbing the mic, throwing up the Elon Musk hand sign, screaming slurs and obscenities, and calling the sexuality class "degenerate nonsense."

The students respond by booing him and chasing him out of the class, with their badass professor leading, chased him down. But they don't give him the beating he's trying to provoke. Instead, they hold him down and wait for the authorities to come and take him away. (Although the agitator does get a satisfying face full of pepper spray for his trouble.)

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Here's the point of view of the perpetrator, who was dumb enough to post his complete humiliation.

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It's easy to look at the loud weirdos and think they represent a lot of people, but as this video shows, in real life, that's not the case.

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This past Saturday night, someone, presumably the President of the United States, posted a video clip to Donald Trump's TruthSocial account that seemed to show the President appearing on Fox News' My View with Lara Trump to announce "America's first MedBed hospitals," as well as the imminent release of "MedBed cards" so Americans can access said hospitals.

"These facilities are safe, modern, and designed to restore every citizen to full health and strength," Trump says in the clip.

The video was clearly AI-generated, Fox News confirmed that the segment had never aired on any of their platforms, and the TruthSocial post was deleted on Sunday. While this incident raises a variety of questions, I'm only going to focus on one: What the hell are MedBeds?

Real MedBeds vs. fake MedBeds

While there are actual "medical beds" that do things like tilt patients to prevent bed sores or provide constant vital sign monitoring, the MedBeds mentioned in the video are not these. MedBeds are a deep-cut from the world of conspiracy theorists: wonder-beds that use quantum field theory, vibrational energy, and/or holograms to cure all diseases and injuries. They can restore missing limbs or reverse aging—and all you have to do is lie down in one for half an hour. Neat, but not a real thing—no evidence of such technology exists.

MedBeds are predominantly a far right theory with a lot of crossover with QAnon and NESARA/GESARA, but there are plenty of folks on the far left who believe in MedBeds too. Different theorists may have different ideas about where MedBeds came from, as well—sometimes they are back-engineered alien technology and sometimes they were made by the military—but nearly all MedBedders agree that "The Elites" are hiding the technology from us proles, hoarding all the youth and health for themselves. As belief in MedBeds grew in over the last decade, grifters predictably arrived.

The scammy kind of MedBed

You can't have a bunch of people believing in a fake thing without folks trying to profit from them, so there are companies like "Tesla Biohealing" (no relation) that will sell you a "Biophotonizer-M" MedBed so you (or your pet) can enjoy "your own quantum healing environment at home." There's also this anti-aging bed, or you could book a session in a "ThetaPod" that looks like this:

These companies seem to carefully avoid making specific medical claims for their MedBeds, but they definitely suggest medical benefits, and these claims are highly dubious (and some MedBeds are part of the "antichrist system"?).

It's easy to see how these kinds of sales pitches hook people. The sites look legitimate, the claims sound real, and the people spreading MedBed nonsense can seem legitimate too. But they aren't.

It always goes back to science fiction

If you're wondering where MedBeds really came from, it's science fiction movies. The current MedBeds conspiracy theory is basically the plot of 2013 science fiction flick Elysium. But there are MedBeds in older science fiction too. In the original Star Trek, Dr. McCoy's sick bay is full of "biobeds" that could cure things his tricorder could not. In 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still, Gort revives Klaatu with a chamber that looks very much like descriptions of MedBeds. And if we expand the definition of "MedBed" from a physical object to a description of what the object does, the history of MedBeds goes back at least to ancient Sumeria.

The eternal allure of the fountain of youth

The earliest surviving great work of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, details the title character's search for a substance that grants eternal youth. In Gilgamesh it's a thorny plant at the bottom of the sea instead of medical device being hidden by rich people, but the idea is the same. People have been looking for the literal Fountain of Youth, a source of water that cures all diseases and reverses aging, since at least 500 BC, and searching for an anti-aging elixir motivated the alchemists who laid the foundation for chemistry that led to all the actual medical advances that keep us alive longer.

The ultimate lesson of MedBeds

There are no MedBeds hiding in secret military bunkers, about to be rolled out by some shadowy cabal, and the government isn't going to send you a “MedBed card" either. But the desire that drives people to believe in miracle cures is very real, very old, and nearly universal. Judging from the comments on MedBed videos, the people drawn to this stuff are sick and old and scared. The real doctors have told them to get their affairs in order; you can't blame them for reaching for hope—we're all going to be asking for a little more time eventually.

Gilgamesh was driven by the same fear as MedBed believers. The hero travels to the bottom of the sea and finds the plant that grants eternal life, only to have it stolen away by a serpent before he can return to the surface. The lesson is clear: We don't get to live forever. Rather than despair, Gilgamesh concludes that people don't get to live forever, and the meaning of life is in living virtuously and the legacy we leave behind.

Are you old enough to remember talking to your friends on the phone all the time? A phone with a cord? Then welcome to the Out of Touch Adults’ Guide to Kid Culture, a guide to what's going down with all the youths out there. This week, the young 'uns are stealing each other's brainrots, guzzling heavy soda, (not) paying $500 for a rock, and being harassed by a rizzed-out robot.

"Steal a Brainrot"

If you know anyone under the age of 16, they are probably playing "Steal a Brainrot," and you are probably asking "Steal a what now?" so here's what it's all about: "Steal a Brainrot" is a multiplayer mini-game within maxi-games Roblox and Fortnite. In a game of Brainrot, up to eight players share a server, and each has their own base. The object of the game is to buy brainrots for your base and/or steal brainrots from other players' bases, while defending your own brainrots from thieves. Steal enough brainrots and you become more powerful and can make your base more defensible. The brainrots themselves are objects meant to reference "Italian brainrot," i.e.: low-quality internet memes. They vary in value and have vaguely Italian names, but they aren't based on actual brainrot memes.

"Steal a Brainrot" is insanely popular, boasting a concurrent player count of over 20 million people, so you're probably asking, "Who is getting rich from this (and why isn't it me?)." The answer: Two groups are making most of the dough. The first is the game's developers, SpyderSammy and DoBig Studios, who get a cut of all the micro-transactions within "Steal a Brainrot" (players can spend real money for in-game items). The other beneficiary of all this brainrot is the Roblox Corporation, who provide the platform in exchange for the rest of the money from Brainrot micro-transactions.

As for why it isn't you, it's because you don't have any good ideas.

What is “heavy soda”?

Unlike "heavy water," in which H2O's hydrogen atoms are replaced by deuterium atoms, heavy soda is pop with extra syrup—as hard as this is to believe, some people think Sprite and Mountain Dew just aren't sweet enough. Heavy soda comes from self-serve soda machines. Some, apparently, have a toggle to increase or decrease the amount of syrup in the resulting drinks, and many people on TikTok are great fans of the beverage that results from setting the machine on "maximum syrup."

Sometimes called "dirty soda," heavy soda supposedly originated in gas stations on the Southern tip of Missouri. If your gas station drink machine looks like this:

... then you are probably at least 1,000 miles from a Whole Foods. But maybe not for long; thanks to boosters on TiKtok, heavy soda is spreading.

Polaroid aesthetic making a comeback

I've been messing around with Nano Banana, the image generator within Google's Gemini AI app, and so have the kids, but they're not using it for wrinkle-smoothing and paunch reduction. They're getting in touch with the 1970s aesthetic of the instant camera and creating Polaroid-style pictures of themselves with famous people, fictional characters, and everything else.

One of the more popular variants of the trend involves combining a picture of your current self with your younger self, resulting in surreal-but-poignant videos like these:

Making your own is easy: Install Gemini. Upload the current picture and older picture. Then write a prompt for Gemini like, "Generate a picture taken with a Polaroid camera, desaturated colors, with a camera flash as the single light source and a 1970s suburban tract house as a background."

Are people really buying $1000 rocks from Anthropologie?

A few weeks ago, TikTok user Phoebe Adams posted a video where she pranks her boyfriend by opening a box that contains a rock she said cost $150.

"It's a special rock from Anthropologie," she explains to her angry boyfriend. "It’s gonna sit on our entryway table. It's a one-of-kind rock that they actually found on the ground," she adds.

The video blew up and people started imitating it in videos like this:

and this:

But then things kicked up a notch when the real Anthropologie set up an actual rock display at a store so Phoebe could continue to gaslight her long-suffering boyfriend Dan:

All of this leads to the question of whether this is a retailer cleverly taking advantage of an unexpected trend—or was the entire thing viral marketing from the beginning? I'm 50/50.

Viral video of the week: Rizzbot

Speaking of things that are probably guerrilla marketing campaigns, this week's viral video celebrity is Rizzbot. Formally known as “Jake the Rizzbot,” this four-foot-tall walking (and dancing) robot in a cowboy hat has been traveling all over the country for the past several months, rizzing people up with its robotic swagger and robotic Gen Z slang.

Videos from the official Rizzbot channel has racked up hundreds of millions of views for videos like this, where Rizzbot goes off on a rando's fit:

But Rizzbot can be a total jerk too and sometimes shouts obscenities at people for no reason:

or promises a compliment only to deliver a roast, proving that no one should trust a clanker:

Rizzbot is a decorated version of Unitree Robotics G1 "Humanoid Agent AI Avatar," a $16,000 robot that can joke around with people and sometimes keep from falling over. Despite appearances, Rizzbot is not acting autonomously. Someone is carefully controlling his every move and word, but we don't know who or why. The bot is most often seen in downtown Austin, and has some serious connections to the Texas Robotics lab at UT, though.

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Are you ready for The Rapture and the days of turmoil to follow? Because, if some corners of the Evangelical Christian community online are correct, it's happening today (or maybe tomorrow) just in time for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish feast of trumpets.

Whether true believers will meet Jesus up in the air this week remains to be seen, so I'm keeping an open mind, but I wanted to lay out what to expect, should the Rapture occur. According to the New King James translation of 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, "The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."

Dramatic, but it's not the end of the world (as they say). While both living and dead believers in Christ will be gone, the unrighteous will be left behind on earth to deal with the aftermath. Nicolas Cage starred in a 2014 documentary about it.

Why do people think the Rapture is happening this week?

The basis for this wave of Rapture-mania seems to be an interview with Joshua Mhlakela, a South African man, on CENTTWINZ TV's YouTube channel and podcast a few months ago. Mr. Joshua said he knows Jesus personally, and had a dream in 2018 where The Lord said to him, "There will be no World Cup 2026." Later, Jesus appeared bodily in front of him, and said, "On the 23 and 24th of September, 2025, I will come to take My church." Seven years of tribulation will follow (hence the World Cup cancellation), After this, according to Mr. Joshua, Jesus will return to Earth, presumably to deal with us heathens.

Mr. Joshua's prediction gained popularity among some evangelical Christians, and believers began spreading the date on social media, particularly under the TikTok tags #RaptureTok and #rapture2025, where folks offered their thoughts on the matter, provided dubious evidence to back up the date, attempted to convert non-believers in fast food restaurants, and gave practical tips on how to prepare for floating up to heaven to hang out with the pretty angels. Or so it seems.

How many Christians are really preparing for the Rapture this week?

While Mr. Joshua's interview has no doubt influenced some people, the nature of social media makes it difficult to determine how many people are preparing for The Rapture and how many are taking the piss. I've spent all day morning watching Rapture-themed videos, and some folks seem sincere, but a lot of people are taking satirical shots at an easy target, and there are a ton of people who illustrate Poe's Law, because I really can't tell.

Ultimately I don't think that many people genuinely think the Rapture is going to happen. More people seem to be pointing and laughing than actually preparing, so everyone is somewhat wrong. Established Evangelical churches tend to dismiss claims of specific dates of The Rapture when they appear in the larger culture, and more importantly for Christians, there's a Biblical problem with the prediction.

If you think you know the day of the Rapture, you're wrong

If we're going by what The Bible says (and why not, right?), either Mr. Joshua and everyone on TikTok who is predicting the date of The Rapture is wrong or the Bible itself is wrong. According to the Apostle Mark, when asked when the End Times would begin, Jesus said, "About that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." He didn't carve out an exception for people on TikTok.

Mark's fellow Apostle Matthew concurred, writing, "Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming" in Matthew 24:42. "If the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect," Matthew continues.

So if you expect the Rapture, it's not going to happen; it's a self-defeating prophecy. And even if you're not willing to accept the Bible as the word of God Herself, the Rapture seems unlikely based on past predictions.

So many Raptures, so little time

Dr. Joshua and the denizens of RaptureTok aren't the first to predict the end times, and while I can't say for certain, they probably won't be the last. Hippolytus of Rome predicted the end of the world in 500 AD. German monk Michael Stifel predicted October 19, 1533 would be the last day. Baptist preacher William Miller predicted the Rapture would take place on October 22, 1844, leaving between 50,000 and 100,000 Millerites extremely disillusioned on October 23. Of more recent end-time predictors, none have been as influential as Harold Camping.

Harold Camping: King of the Biblical apocalypse

Harold Camping, an engineer and broadcaster, is probably the most high-profile modern predictor of the end of the world. He founded Family Radio in 1958 and built it into a Christian media empire broadcasting to more than 150 U.S. markets across the nation. Then, in the early 1990s, Camping became convinced the Rapture would soon be upon us. Using his own brand of Biblical numerology, Camping calculated the Last Day and published it in his 1992 book, 1994?. The date: September 6, 1994.

When the world stubbornly refused to explode in the mid 1990s, Camping recalculated. The true date, he said, was May 21, 2011. “Camping was 100% sure,” says Dr. Charles Sarno, a sociology professor at Dominican University of California and lecturer at Berkeley. “He said, ‘The Bible guarantees it,’ and what better warranty could one want?”

In the months leading up to May 21, Camping launched an enormous publicity push: billboards, endless radio broadcasts, even RVs shrink-wrapped with doomsday warnings. It worked. “On May 20, the most popular Google search in English was 'May 21st,' ABC News and other major networks reported on it, the BBC covered it; so he got nearly global traction," Sarno says.

May 21 came and went, leaving Camping fielding calls from confused listeners on his radio show asking why he'd gotten it wrong. Camping eventually moved the apocalypse again to October 21, 2011, but that one didn’t pan out either, and soon after, he suffered a debilitating stroke and faded from public view, leaving his underlings squabbling for control of the remains of his media empire.

Why do people believe in the end of the world?

We won't know for sure until later in the week, but whether you use math, history, or the Bible as your guide, you probably don’t need to cancel your weekend plans. Still, the world really is coming to an end—your world, anyway—and it will probably end with you in a hospital bed instead of flying up to Heaven to meet Jesus.

If I could swallow it, maybe I'd believe in the Rapture, too. End-of-world predictions offer certainty, drama, the joy of having secret knowledge, and the possibility of heaven without dying, so I don't begrudge TikTok's Doomsday-stans. I feel pity for them, though, because time is going to pass, and life, inconveniently, is going to keep grinding along, leaving them to try and explain why they're still down here with the rest of us mugs.

Unless they're right. In which case, don't email me; I'll be up in clouds.

This week's tour of the world of young people careens around like an out-of-control bullet train. Everyone's talking about a pop star with a body in his trunk, a dental trend powered by TikTok, astrology-based beauty tutorials, and a football stat hound's ultimate rabbit hole. It’s a lot to take in.

Who is D4vd and why was there a body in his trunk?

Everyone under a certain age is talking about the singer D4vd, and it's not because he has a new album out. On September 8, Los Angeles police discovered a body in the trunk of an abandoned Tesla registered to David Anthony Burke, the birth name of the 20-year-old musician. The body was later identified as the remains of Celeste Rivas, who was reported missing from her home in Riverside on April 5, 2024, when she was just 13 years old.

The online speculation is that D4vd was in a relationship with Rivas, but that has yet to be confirmed. The singer has reportedly been cooperating with authorities, no cause of death has been determined, and no charges have yet been filed.

If you're wondering who D4vd is, you're not alone: The singer's rise to fame is a quintessentially Generation Z story. His career began with online fame gained through posting Fortnite videos online, but YouTube removed his content for using copyrighted music. At the suggestion of his mom, D4vd began recording original songs using free iPhone tools, which he posted to SoundCloud. The end result was a recording contract, an album, and a couple of songs with over 1.5 billion plays on Spotify.

D4vd's biggest hit, "Romantic Homicide" mixes the pop music of the 1970s with 1990s-style lo-fi production, and it's actually good. But D4vd's lyrics are chilling given later developments. "I killed you and I didn't even regret it," he sings on the track, "I can't believe I said it, but it's true."

But just because you write a song about killing your lover doesn't mean you're guilty of it. In any case, the story is dark, tragic, and developing, and D4vd is innocent until proven guilty.

Hot Generation Z trend: veneers

Yeah, it's a mood shift to go from murder to teeth, but such is the nature of life in 2025. Anyway, the newest dental trend among younger people is veneers. Whether it's speculation that Gen Z super-celebrity Mr.Beast is rocking a set of artificial choppers, the 250,000 videos posted to TikTok's #veneers tag, or the below deep-dive on the topic from venerable YouTuber Papa Meat, false fronts are very of-the-moment.

Maybe the fascination comes from the straight, white teeth of influencers. Maybe it's hyper-awareness of teeth caused by taking too many selfies. Or maybe it's because veneers are sort of funny. Choose your own explanation.

Hot Generation Z trend: astrological makeup

I'm fascinated with makeup trends and pop occultism, so I'm glad makeup influencers are bringing my two interests together on TikTok. The new hotness among makeup influencers is the “rising sign" beauty trend, where the makeup you wear is determined by your astrological sign.

In astrology, your "rising sign" supposedly represents how other people see you. So if your rising sign is Scorpio, you might go with a look that's "intense, dark, and dramatic." If Gemini is rising, you want to go "playful and vibrant."

I don't understand how the position of the stars at the time you were born could possibly inform the makeup choices you make next Thursday, but if combining mysticism with style choices makes it a little easier for people to slog through another day, I'm in favor.

First AI-animated feature film in production

We all knew it was going to happen eventually, and now it has: OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced today that it's producing the first feature film animated solely through artificial intelligence. Critterz, a feature-length version of the AI-made short film above, has a $30 million budget, and production will be finished in nine months, an impossibly short time-frame for a traditionally animated or CGI film. Critterz's animation may be AI, but its script and voice acting are being done the old-fashioned way—by professional Hollywood actors and writers who will gladly let OpenAI pay them a lot of money for making funny voices.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Open AI hopes to premiere Critterz at the Cannes Film Festival, presumably in 2027. Whether anyone wants to see an AI-animated movie remains to be seen. It sounds like a terrible idea to me, but I'm not the target demographic. Anyway, you can check out the first teaser/promo video here.

Viral video of the week: Scorigami returns

Leave it to Gen Z to come up with a new way to enjoy football. "Scorigami" is a term coined by writer/YouTuber John Bois that describes an NFL final score that has never happened before in the league's history. YouTube channel Secret Base is in the middle of a four-part examination of the phenomenon that starts with the first ever NFL football game played in 1922 and continues to the present, seen through the lens of "this is the only time any two pro teams have ended a game with this score."

The series is equal parts sports, history, comedy, and statistics, with fascinating digressions and side trips to explore things like how the NFL owes its entire existence to a random guy's truck breaking down in Texas at the turn of the century and how it's possible—extremely unlikely, but still possible—to score a single point in a football game. In other words, it's the kind of documentary that would be rejected by ESPN for being too math-y and rejected by PBS for being too sporty, but is able to find a home and hundreds of thousands of viewers because YouTube exists.

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Practicing a new language can be fun, but premium language apps can be expensive. Babbel makes it easier with practical, bite-sized lessons designed for real-life use, focusing on conversations you’d actually have—ordering food, chatting with the locals, asking for directions (read PCMag's in-depth review of Babbel to learn more)—and right now, its lifetime subscription is on sale for a huge discount. Right now, a lifetime subscription to Babbel is on sale for $159 with promo code LEARN. The sale ends October 5. It's a one-time payment—no recurring fees, no monthly charges—for lifetime access to all 14 languages (including French, German, Italian, and Spanish), making it cheaper than Babbel’s regular one-year plan at $300.

Babbel’s lessons take just 10 to 15 minutes, so you can squeeze your practice into a commute or coffee break. And, unlike other language-learning apps that rely on repetitive vocabulary drills or random gamified exercises, Babbel follows a structured, linguist-designed curriculum that progressively increases in difficulty, so you don't plateau after the basics (earning itself a place in PCMag's "The Best Language Learning Apps for 2025" roundup). Plus, it’s not just passive learning—you get writing, speaking, and listening exercises with speech recognition technology to fine-tune your pronunciation, creating a far more immersive experience.

Of course, dedication is still key, and no app will make you fluent, but if you’re willing to put in the effort, this Babbel lifetime subscription gives you the tools to succeed without the burden of ongoing costs.