On a cloudy day in May, I meet the TikTok Creator @tweakseason near Madison Square Park, where he’s filming before his shift at Trader Joe’s. When he gets his phone out to shoot a video of a nice car parked on the street, he takes maybe a few seconds to …
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To paraphrase Cher Horowitz, searching for authenticity on a social media app is like trying to find meaning in a Pauly Shore film. Yet that hasn’t stopped Silicon Valley from trying. Apps like VSCO, Cluster, We Heart It, and Dispo all aim to take the pressure off curating one’s flawlessly …
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21-year-old Austin Chui began making videos as a way to hold himself accountable in his pursuit of a healthy lifestyle. “When hundreds of thousands of people are watching, you cannot be lazy,” he says. Chui’s videos — often of just him preparing to go the gym — are part of …
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As soon as Alex Guerra and Ramon Ruiz discovered 15-year-old Yahritza Martinez on TikTok, they knew she was going to be huge. The high schooler from Yakima, Washington, had been courting a massive following on social media with her shockingly powerful voice, and Ruiz and Guerra — both artists from …
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A few weeks ago, toward the end of a hectic workday, a writer — let’s call her Sarah — took what she thought was her usual dose of CBD. She had recently been gifted a new bottle from the same brand she always takes, and though the label was different, …
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It begins with a crystalline, whistling melody. It’s sweetly seductive as it crests and dips, beckoning you closer. All of a sudden, NCT 127’s “Favorite (Vampire)” plummets into a quirky, hip-trap groove, where the rappers spit about a dangerous love that hurts so good. But this stark departure from its …
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Several of the most striking videos from the last few months — Omar Apollo’s “Invincible,” Bad Bunny’s “Moscow Mule,” Rosalia’s “Candy” — have one thing in common: a director’s credit that reads “By STILLZ.” Though the name seems to be everywhere, there’s not much info out there about who Stillz …
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Whether you, yourself, live in just one of an endless array of alternate universes is a topic of actual debate among physicists, even sober ones. But when it comes to fictional worlds, multiverses have taken over, from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which, come to think of it, might have to …
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Billy Strings backs his black Jeep Gladiator down to the lip of Nashville’s Percy Priest Lake and hops out to unhook the tricked-out bass boat he’s towing behind him. The heavy sounds of Primus, one of his favorite bands, spill loudly out of the cab, where old Combos wrappers, cigarette …
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F or just an hour, Megan Thee Stallion’s world shrinks to the size of a Los Angeles escape room. Here, on this April evening, there are no festivals to rehearse for, no verses to perfect, no brand deals to broker, no rumors to right or trauma to relive or pretrial …
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