Culture

Like death and taxes, Call of Duty is inescapable. For over 20 years, Activision’s military shooter has been an annual staple, arriving each fall just in time to make bank amid the holiday rush. With that level of ubiquity also comes malaise, and nowadays it’s newsworthy just to hear that …

At the end of 2024, OpenAI unveiled Sora, a text-to-video AI model that could generate moving images based on user prompts, ranging from stylistic animations to photorealistic “footage.” Although these snippets often included visual errors that clearly marked them as products of AI processing, the ramifications of such technology were …

Laws banning conversion therapy for minors in more than 20 states are under threat, thanks to a Supreme Court case challenging Colorado’s legislation against the practice on the basis of free speech. Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Chiles v. Salazar, in which Kaley Chiles, …

Darren Watkins Jr., far better known as IShowSpeed, has attained a kind of fame that’s hard to wrap your head around. The 20-year-old streamer, named Rolling Stone‘s most influential creator of 2025, doesn’t just have 135 million followers online. He also gets mobbed and chased by fans wherever he goes, …

Dave Chappelle ironically used a Saudi comedy event to talk about freedom of speech. According to The New York Times, Chappelle — who has been under fired for his transphobic jokes in the past — used his comedy set at the Riyadh Comedy Festival to speak about the lack of …

Toward the end of March, Rachel Ganz had what she calls “a premonition of doom.” At the time, she couldn’t quite explain this foreboding. She and her husband, Jon Ganz, ages 45 and 49, respectively, were in the midst of what should have been a happy milestone: The couple were …

Theo Von is opening up about his recent comedy special at New York’s Beacon Theatre after he reportedly struggled to complete his performance, and a viral clip from the night caused concern over his mental health among fans. During his new This Past Weekend episode, the podcaster shared the context …

O ne chilly day last January, Brennan Lee Mulligan was walking by Penn Station, pondering the distance between the hot dog stand at the subway entrance, to the stage at Madison Square Garden. He was having an “out of body experience,” he remembers, describing the journey — through the doors, …

Jane Goodall, the celebrated primatologist and conservationist best known for her work studying the behavior of chimpanzees, died Wednesday, Oct. 1. She was 91. The Jane Goodall Institute confirmed Goodall’s death in a statement. The organization said she died from “natural causes” while in California on a speaking tour. “Dr. …

Like a high-level creature ripped from the pages of the Player’s Handbook, the cultural juggernaut that is Critical Role seemingly cannot be stopped. Ten years into the reign of the Dungeons & Dragons troupe turned multimedia savants, Critical Role isn’t just content with the start of their biggest campaign, launching …