Tag Archives: culture-features

When Carter Vail walked down the streets of New York City earlier this spring, he loved how many people shouted at him as he passed. His friends, however, were pretty confused. “The people around me would go ‘Why is everyone shouting “Dirt Man!” at this poor guy?’” Vail says. If …

Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast on YouTube, is expanding his empire into reality television with Amazon. A creator and star of the largest channel on YouTube, with more than 310 million subscribers, Donaldson has built his audience with over-the-top challenges, such as staying in a nuclear bunker for 100 days …

I t’s a sunny afternoon at the end of August in a crowded Echo Park cafe, and John Early is telling me, unprompted, about his pulled groin. I have to admire this spontaneous confession from the mischievous blond actor and comedian, given our lack of privacy. This is of a …

NASA and Boeing have avoided the terms “stuck” and “stranded,” but either way, two astronauts are still in space long after they planned to be. Sunita “Suni” Williams, the mission’s pilot, and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, the mission’s commander, left for the International Space Station in Starliner on June 5. The …

Olivia, a 21-year-old college student, was sitting in an English class at her Minnesota school last week when her professor began talking about the challenges in writing about traumatic events. But when he used 9/11 as an example, and described to the class how hectic things seemed that day, she …

When a friend group of Mormon mothers-turned-TikTok influencers blew up on TikTok, the drama at the center was a rumor that each of the mothers (and their partners) participated in soft swinging —essentially attending parties and swapping partners with each other. Led by TikTok star Taylor Frankie Paul, the rumor …

There’s no such thing as free money. But on TikTok, the apparent solution to that adage seems to be ignoring it entirely — often committing fraud in the process. Over the weekend, the phrase “Chase bank hack” went viral on the video-sharing app after users became convinced that the ATM …

The picture, posted July 4 on the Facebook page “Love Shares 3.0” for 71,000 followers, appears to be an aerial view of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, with people gathered in the square. Overhead, dangling from a gigantic black helicopter, is what can only be a massive Bible, but …

“I’ve been chilling in the mountains of Peru/Drinking ayahuasca with the shamans too/Cup of San Pedro to shift the mood,” Shanin Blake croons over a smooth, R&B-inflected groove. She’s got a giant mass of platinum blonde dreads and she’s wearing a white crocheted bikini top, a wide-brimmed hat, and an …

I n the beginning, there was nothing. And influencers said, “Let there be light.” Ring lights, that is. For the past five years, I’ve reported on social media’s watershed moments and interviewed countless content creators at different stages of their careers. What I’ve never done, though, is try to become …