I used to think conspiracy theories were fun. It was interesting/funny that there were people out there who believed we faked the moon landing, or that Elvis Presley didn't actually die in 1977 (instead, he put on a mask and changed his name to "Orion," and kept on singing.) But those kinds of "harmless crank" conspiracy theories have always been rare. They usually eclipsed in popularity by hateful (but politically useful) conspiracy theories that boil down to "it was the Jews' fault."

There are still some "harmless" conspiracy theories out there, though, that capture the old "wait, people believe that?" energy. Below are my favorites, as well as a couple of conspiracy theories that seem harmless on the surface, but are stealthily hiding some terrible beliefs.

The year is actually 1727

According to the “phantom time hypothesis," It is not 2024. It is 1727. The years 614 to 911 never happened. They were simply added to the calendar to push the date forward artificially. The theory comes from German author Heribert Illig who detailed the theory in a 1996 (sorry, I mean 1699) book. Illig lays the blame for the missing time on Holy Roman Emperor Otto III and Pope Sylvester II, who conspired to change the dates so Otto could be Emperor in the year 1000, to legitimize his reign. Radiocarbon dating, the recorded appearance of eclipses and comets, histories written in China, and a ton of other evidence refute this theory, but ultimately, I'm just happy the Jews aren't being blamed for stealing all those years.

The Moon isn't real

This conspiracy theory comes from the world of Flat Earthers, and it's a fringe belief even there, but the theory holds that the moon is not physically present. What you see in the sky at night is a projection put there by someone, presumably to make us think the world is round. In a weird way, it makes sense. If the earth really were a flat plane, the moon's movement across the sky wouldn't make sense—unless it's not really there. Since we can see the moon, it must be a projection. There can be no other explanation.

It's a good idea to "sun your butthole"

A fringe belief in the "wellness community," practitioners of "perineum sunning" or "butthole sunning" believe that briefly exposing the area between the genitals and anus to sunlight gives you energy, improves your circulation, regulates hormones, and has a host of other health benefits. There's no way to absolutely prove that this isn't so, but there's no evidence that it is so either. Doctors point out that the taint is sensitive to sunlight, so you could get sunburned, and sunning where the sun (traditionally) does not shine puts you at greater risk of developing skin cancer, but butthole sunners generally recommend very brief exposure, and suggest using sunblock. So you should probably do this.

You don't need food and water to live

Breatharians believe that we don't need food to live, and some believe we don't need water either. In the West, the belief dates back to a 1670 Rosicrucian text describing a physician who lived "several years by taking only one-half scrupule of Solar Quintessence." Complete fasting is described in older Hindu texts as well, and often attributed to the particularly enlightened or wise. Periodically, people still claim that they don't eat or drink for months or years at a time to this day (and scientists are baffled). These people are all caught sneaking food eventually (like the founder of the Breatharian Institute of America who was spotted outside a 7-11 eating a hot dog, a Slurpee and a box of Twinkies) or no one has caught them yet.

Death is not inevitable

Immoralists believe that life can be extended indefinitely. There is obviously a lot of scientific effort being put into extending human life, but, as yet, everyone is going to die. Even you. Like the breatharians, various people have publicly claimed to be immortal throughout history, but as far as we know, all of them died eventually (and their deaths must have been particularly embarrassing.)

Pinecones are mystical symbols

There are a lot of people out there who think the appearance of pinecones in the art of various ancient civilizations are symbols of human enlightenment and the pineal gland, which is said to be the source of mystical knowledge and visions. What the YouTube videos and websites that confidently spread these theories don't seem to grasp is that the pineal gland was named after the pinecone because the gland has the same shape. There's also no reason to think that representations of pinecones symbolized the same thing to ancient Assyrians as it did to ancient Greeks. We don't know what they mean. A more reasonable theory is that pinecones are frequently represented in ancient art because their repeating patterns are visually interesting and fun to sculpt.

Two stealthily harmful conspiracy theories

These two conspiracy theories seem like "wacky, fun" conspiracy theories, but once you scratch the surface, you realize they're actually based on poisonous ideas.

Helen Keller was a fraud

This conspiracy theory claims that Helen Keller didn't actually do all the things people give her credit for, particularly writing books, or that she wasn't actually deaf and blind. "Helen Keller is a fraud" has become a popular meme on TikTok over the last few years, but the accusation actually dates back to 1892. While I think the TikTokers are mainly having a little joke, this isn't as "harmless" a theory as it might seem, as its basis is the belief that people with disabilities aren't capable enough for some intellectual tasks.

On the other hand (and giving this theory way more credit than it probably deserves) in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a fairly widely accepted belief that "facilitated communication" could allow non-verbal people (mainly people with severe autism) to communicate. With the help of a facilitator helping them point to letters or words, some previously non-verbal people wrote books and graduated college. But as soon as real testing was applied, the communication was shown to be the product of the facilitator alone. So this could have happened with Keller; there's no reason to think it did, but it's at least possible. (Unlike the crazy theory below.)

The White House was built thousands of years ago, by giants

When I first heard of the "Tartarian Empire" I thought I'd found a rich and fascinating conspiracy theory that wouldn't make me think "gross." I was wrong.

The Tartarians, according to conspiracy theorists, were/are an ancient but advanced civilization, sometimes posited to be giants, who were responsible for thousands of well known buildings all over the world, including Notre Dame de Paris, The Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower, the White House, and pretty much any opulent pre-modernist structure you've ever seen. These edifices were built thousands of years ago, and they aren't just buildings; they hold the key to Tartarian free energy, and if you study them hard enough (and your hat is on too tight) you can find hidden clues in the architectural details. The Tartarians were buried in some kind of "mud flood" that, depending on who you ask, happened as recently as 100 years ago (when my grandmother was alive!). Much of recent history, including World Wars I and II, were attempts to erased evidence of Tartarians so that the secret of their free energy can be kept from us.

It may seems like a wacky, harmless nutjob theory, but the Tartarians seem awfully similar to the Aryan race that the Nazis invented. Plus, the Tartarian theory is catching on, and its popularity is about to turn it from something stupid into something ugly.

Most Tartarian believers seem like well-meaning dopes who don't understand architecture or history, but their theory is so outlandish that it doesn't yet have comprehensive historical narrative to bind it together. It's a pastiche of different dumb, often conflicting ideas, but as it gains cred among the gullible, bad actors are stepping in to shape the narrative. People like white nationalist holocaust denier Stew Peters are going hard at Tartarian theories, so it's only a matter of time before the age old conspiracy theory pattern repeats, and someone answers the question of "What happened to the Tartarians?" with "it was the Jews' fault."

Teenagers used to be considered the life-blood of the movie industry, but judging by the terrible box office returns on Memorial Day weekend, they don't seem to care that much anymore. They do care about impassioned, four-hour long YouTube videos, cringe-y crush tales, and how to get very, extremely high, though.

The movie business' very bad weekend

This Memorial Day weekend was a box office disaster for the movie industry, the worst in nearly 30 years (adjusted for COVID). Neither of the tentpole weekend releases (Fury Road prequel Furiosa and Garfield) returned more than $30 million, largely because younger people just don't care about movies like they used to.

There are any number of theories for the epically bad weekend—tickets are too expensive; we're seeing the result of the actors' strike; this is part of "sequel fatigue;" neither Garfield nor Furiosa are very good—but here's my opinion: This is part of a generational shift away from movies altogether that's partly due to the industry, and partly due to larger cultural forces.

As of 2019, the 18-24 demographic still made up the largest share of moviegoers, and Hollywood really missed that mark this weekend. Furiosa features a teenage hero and bankable star Chris Hemsworth, which should appeal to younger people, but it's also based on a series that started back in the 1970s. Another key demographic that Hollywood seemed to have missed this weekend: little kids who badger their parents into taking them to movies. Garfield, based on an ancient comic strip, doesn't seem to have caught their imagination.

In a broader sense, no matter what you put on screen, I don't think most younger people get the cultural reinforcement vibe out of movies that they used to. Instead, it comes from their peers online, a much faster and more relatable form of feedback. In the U.S., moviegoing is down across the board, and the convenience and low cost of watching movies at home seems to be no match for hassle and expense of the local multiplex.

What does "egg blinker" mean?

The term "egg blinker" is trending this week among the druggier corners of TikTok. It refers to a method for smoking weed out of vape pen (aka "dabbing"). "Blinker" is slang for inhaling on a vape pen long enough that it starts to blink, indicating a stronger than expected pull. "Egg blinker," a term coined by TikToker 448smokes in this video, is hitting the pen for five seconds, then taking a quick break, then inhaling for four seconds, quick break, another four seconds, quick break, four seconds more, quick break, four seconds more, then hold everything in for eight seconds. This is a lot to remember for someone who is stoned, but it supposedly produces the feeling of an egg in one's throat, and, presumably, gets one very, very high. I know there is no lethal dose of marijuana, but if I were to try this, I would definitely die, or at least have to watch the video below a few times.

TikTok's #lostmymind trend: What did you do for your crush?

Remember actually caring about another person enough to have a crush on them? Me neither! But TikTok's young romantics are sharing the cringe-worthy, embarrassing things they've done to impress their crushes in a series of videos that might melt your icicle heart. Examples include putting a love spell on 'em, having your dad take paparazzi-style photos of you, trying to slam-dunk at beer pong, pretending to like anime, or Bruno Mars. I admire the courage it takes to post these videos, because they really are embarrassing, but they're heartwarming, too. If you want to enjoy, just check out the videos that use this sound clip.

Google's AI delights internet with misinformation, than disappears

Google rolled out AI-assisted search this month, with the search engine often returning results culled from its Gemini AI instead of just the links people expected. To call it unsuccessful is an understatement. Users quickly noticed that Google's AI was giving some severely unhinged answers. It told users to glue the cheese onto pizza, suggested eating rocks every day, claimed that dogs play professional sports, and that a cure for depression is "jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge." Google's response has reportedly been to manually take down answers to these specific questions, and they seem to be cutting back on how often AI results appear on searches. (I say they "seem" to be cutting back because if you search "Did Google turn off its AI search results?" you will not return the answer to that question.)

Viral video of the week: The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel

This week's viral video highlights the power that fans can have over huge corporations. YouTuber Jenny Nicholson recently posted a video describing her experience at Disney's Star Wars hotel, the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, in great detail. Over the course of more than four hours, Nicholson describes and shows footage of every facet of the experience and concludes that it was pretty bad, and that the price tag of around $6,000 for a weekend was way too high. (This tracks with Lifehacker's review.)

Even if it was free and worked perfectly, staying at the Star Wars hotel sounds like a nightmare to me, but Jenny is coming at it from the opposite point-of-view: she's a 100% fangirl. She paid for this as a vacation, and she desperately wanted what Disney promised—a fully immersive Star Wars weekend—but was thwarted seemingly at every turn. She's exactly the kind of person who should come away from this experience delighted, but instead of a galaxy-spanning LARP, according to Nicholson, guests are nickled-and-dimed for "add-ons" at every turn, and little about it actually works.

Her disappointment is genuine and her logic flawless. As a result, the video has been viewed millions of times and was picked up by CNN, NPR, and other news sources. The Star Wars hotel is already closed, but you'd hope Disney and other owners of beloved intellectual property will spare a few hours to consider what happens when you do a bad job of stewarding the creative output that fans love.

Anyone who grew up in this country understands Memorial Day to be a celebration of wartime sacrifice and patriotic valor. It’s a holiday with its origins in the Civil War, a time of untold division, death, and disease—but also the ostensible triumph of equality (in theory, if not remotely in practice) over slavery.

The "official" history of Memorial Day

Most people likely don’t ruminate on the origins of Memorial Day as they plan their long weekend getaways and family cookouts, but the general story goes something like this: A year after the Civil War ended, in 1866, a group of women began commemorating the 620,000 soldiers and civilians slain in the conflict or felled by disease while fighting it by laying wreaths on the graves in the hospital town of Columbus, Mississippi. In 1868, the annual day of commemoration was born, and has been celebrated ever since on the last Monday of May. General John A. Logan, a Union veteran leader, made it so, declaring “Decoration Day” a national holiday.

While all of that is true, it’s technically a piece of revisionism (as evidenced by the multitude of towns who lay claim to the first Memorial Day tributes), and one that places white people at the forefront of a cherished American pastime. The official story erases what the Yale historian David W. Blight has long argued are the original roots of Memorial Day—a tribute orchestrated by Black members of the Union Infantry that’s been drained of color, so to speak, by time and the whitewashing of history.

Why do we celebrate Memorial Day?

Unlike Veterans Day, which pays homage to all military service members at home and abroad, Memorial Day actually applies specifically to the Civil War. Separated from the carnage by nearly 200 years, it’s hard to imagine that the U.S. was formerly wedged apart by two independent governments, divided not only by opposing ideologies, but by the agrarian economy of the South and the ascendant industrialism of the North. (Though, admittedly, it is getting easier to imagine all the time.)

The Civil War remains the deadliest conflict in U.S. history, with over 620,000 civilians and soldiers dying, whether from battle or disease, between the start of the war in 1860 and the liberation of the slaves in 1865. The death toll was exacerbated by the Union and Confederacy both technically fielding American troops, as well as 19th century methods of warfare that led to much more direct confrontation on the battle field.

The scale of destruction is near-unfathomable in modern terms: The total population in 1860 was around 31 million people, putting the death toll at two percent of that total. Towns lay in ruin across the South, as viscerally described by historian David W. Blight for the Zinn Educational Project in 2011.

At the end of the Civil War the dead were everywhere, some in half buried coffins and some visible only as unidentified bones strewn on the killing fields of Virginia or Georgia. Americans, north and south, faced an enormous spiritual and logistical challenge of memorialization.

Traditionally, Memorial Day marks a day of mourning for the lives lost on both sides of the conflict. According to Blight’s research, however, its foundation rests on the actions of freed enslaved people and their symbolic tributes to fallen Union soldiers.

Memorial Day really started in Charleston, South Carolina

In some ways, the Civil War is bookended by Charleston: It was where the conflict’s first shots rang out at Fort Sumter in 1861, and it was the city that saw thousands of freed enslaved people pay the first tributes to the war’s fallen amid rubble-strewn streets some four years later.

The city had been vacated by most of its white residents in the latter days of the war, but many of its Black denizens stayed. Among the first Union forces to enter Charleston was the Twenty-First U. S. Colored Infantry, which quickly accepted the city’s surrender, Blight writes.

In the intervening days, these freed men and women “conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war,” but none were as poignant or as indicative of the conflict’s immeasurable suffering as a tribute made at the city’s Washington Race Course and Jockey Club. The site had been converted into a prison by the Confederacy during the war, with at least 257 Union soldiers succumbing to disease and exposure there, their bodies piled into mass graves.

Many of the still-exposed bodies were given a proper burial by a number of Black workmen who erected a fence around the burial ground and an archway, emblazoned with “Martyrs of the Race Course,” Blight’s research indicates. After that, several efforts to memorialize the dead ensued, including a massive parade of 10,000 people on the site of the race course and another march on May 1, led by a procession of 3,000 Black school children singing “John Brown’s Body,” a processional honoring the famed abolitionist.

Blight details the scenes that followed:

The children were followed by several hundred black women with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses. Then came black men marching in cadence, followed by contingents of Union infantry and other black and white citizens. As many as possible gathering in the cemetery enclosure; a childrens’ choir sang “We’ll Rally around the Flag,” the “Star-Spangled Banner,” and several spirituals before several black ministers read from scripture.

The parade dispersed, giving way to picnics and social gatherings—the very stuff we now recognize as the lifeblood of Memorial Day. These were the nascent beginnings of the annual celebration, first christened as a nationally recognized observance two years later, in 1868. The day’s roots as a tribute paid by the recently freed Black men and women of the south have been erased by over a century of objections from ancestors of Confederate families. But retracing the very first efforts to memorialize the Civil War’s dead tells a different story.

From the Civil War to great savings: modern observances of Memorial Day

It may have begun as a solemn occasion for remembering the forgotten dead of the Civil War, but in 2024 America, we mostly celebrate Memorial Day by having picnics and going shopping.

There is some annual public chiding over the lost meaning of Memorial Day, but that's an American tradition too, one that's almost as old as the holiday itself. An 1869 New York Times editorial writer was among the first to publicly wring their hands over the holiday, urging readers to "keep ever in mind the original purpose of the day, as signified by its very name," lest the holiday become “not a sacred but a sacrilegious one.”

The 1954 establishment of Veterans Day (earlier known as "Armistice Day") took some of the wind from Memorial Day's sails, and the 1971 congressional decision to schedule Memorial Day so we get a three-day weekend cemented the day as a perfect time to watch a big car race, go to the beach, or get a great deal on new TV.

This pattern of solemn remembrance becoming celebration happens, more or less, to all holidays. Time passes and people forget. But that's cool. The reason many Americans fought in wars to begin with was the belief they were helping ensure future generations' freedom to go to the lake and grill cheeseburgers for their family.

As veteran Jason Redman writes:

Enjoy that time with family. Enjoy those barbecues. Enjoy those sales. But recognize, that every barbecue, every party, every sale, every ounce of freedom and opportunity we have, came from the sacrifice of an American service member.

Noted. Now let's drink some Mai Tais.

This week, the agendas of people on X, right wing radio programs, and Disney fan blogs came together to form a Voltron of awfulness around a single issue: Disney canceling beloved Disney icon Tinker Bell for lack of wokeness.

"Woke destroys everything. No wonder mental health is declining," X user Pamela Garfield-Jaeger, LCSW posted in reaction to the news.

"Oh geez," political commentator/ghoul Tomi Lahren said on Fox New Radio, "here we go again with the political correctness overload that is literally ruining everything innocent and fun."

Ben Shapiro posted a YouTube video entitled "Disney Erases Tinker Bell." (I don't know what he said about Tinker Bell specifically because he starts his video by announcing, "There are two visions of Western society that are currently on the table—" and I had a stroke and died.)

But is everything innocent and fun being literally ruined, like really? To get to the truth, I did an investigative journalism by visiting Disneyland's website and learned that Bell is scheduled for a meet-and-greet at Pixie Hollow tomorrow between 8:15 AM to 10:30 AM and 11:15 AM to 2:30 PM. I also checked Snopes, the source for all fact-checking.

Credit: Disney

So no. Despite the mountain of innocent ones and zeroes that being wasted to spread this story over the internet, Disney is not removing Tinker Bell from anything. You can still stream Peter Pan from the Disney+ streaming service. You can still meet Tinker Bell at Disney parks. She's still spreading glitter on the intros to Disney videos and is, in every way, functioning as mascot for the Disney corporation.

Why do people think Tinker Bell is canceled?

The rumor has a history that goes back years. Back in 2022, The New York Times posted an article that touched on the review process Disney uses for content that appears on Disney+ streaming service. It quotes unnamed Disney executives as saying, "Tinker Bell was marked for caution because she is 'body conscious' and jealous of Peter Pan's attention," and including her in a list of characters and content that are potentially problematic.

Fast forward to May 3, 2024, when Disney blog WDW News posted a story entitled "Tinker Bell Meet & Greet Signs Removed from Town Square Theater."

On May 7, TheStreet.com posted an article that states, "Disney World has quietly axed one of its classic characters from doing meet-and-greets at the park."

On May 9, some rando on Facebook posted (then deleted) a made-up quote from a "Disney executive," and the culture warriors had enough evidence.

If you put all these pieces together, filter it through a lens of paranoia and squint hard, you can kind of see how it adds up to "Tinker Bell is canceled." (All of that seems like a lot of work compared to "checking Disney Land's website for Tinker Bell's schedule," though.)

Maybe Disney should cancel Tinker Bell

For as much as I know about Tinker Bell, she seems fine. I don't think anyone has a problem with her (except when she drinks), but if she isn't fine, I hope Disney cancels her quickly. Cultural tastes changes. Something can be innocent and harmless to one generation and totally unacceptable to the next. Adults (ideally) can put things into context and decide what's acceptable for themselves, but kids can't. So if Tinker Bell is encouraging little girls to feel bad about their bodies or something, I'd hope Disney would de-center her from their park, put disclaimers on her movies, and gently push her onto an ice floe. And I hope they'd do it quickly. While the company isn't against cancelling things for cultural reasons, they sure take their time: There are still vestigial Song of the South remnants in Disney parks in 2024, and everyone has known that movie was racist since Adam Clayton Powell said so in 1947.

Despite categorizations of it as an evil empire preying on children, The Disney Corporation is just a company trying to make money, so there's no teeth behind any of the editorial decisions they make about their intellectual property. It's just the bottom line.

This is a great disappointment to me, personally. If I had my wish, Disney would be the leading the charge of cancel culture. I want them to cancel things that are creatively bankrupt, like the entire Marvel cinematic universe. Then they should cancel things that don't even make sense, like that little old man from Up, just because it would be funny.

Just do whatever, Disney. Cancel that $500 million dollar Star Wars hotel (Oops. Too late.) Cancel my credit card debt. Go nuts with it. But most of all, Disney, I want you to cancel everything that Tomi Lahren and Ben Shapiro and their ilk hold dear. Mickey, Minnie, all of 'em. I want Disney to say it's because talking animals might disturb PETA, or that Donald Duck not wearing pants is too sexually suggestive (I mean, it's pretty hot, not gonna lie). Right-wing people are always talking about boycotting Disney, but they never seem to stop showing up. Maybe that would be the push they need, so they can stop being in front of me in line at the Haunted Mansion.

Summer is coming on fast, and young people seem to be turning their attention away from weighty topics like "would you rather be trapped in the woods with a bear or a man," to more lighthearted concerns—like unhinged home design videos, candy salad, and Billie Eilish's new song "Lunch."

Viral video of the week: Billie Eilish—Lunch

I'm calling it now: Billie Eilish's "Lunch" is the song of the summer. The 22-year-old pop star dropped the video this week, and in its first three days online, it’s been played 16,697,734 times. The "Lunch" video feels like one of those generation-defining things. It's just Eilish. There’s no big concept; there's not even a background. It's just a performer singing her new song—but her look, the song, and the moment seem to be coalescing. The look is '90s suburban-gangster throwback—baggy jeans, snapback ball cap turned to the side, silver grill. And the song is an fearless celebration of lust. Eilish sings “It's a craving, not a crush,” and “You need a seat? I'll volunteer.” 

Eilish, who came out as lesbian in Variety last year, said this about the song in a recent Rolling Stone interview: “I wrote some of it before even doing anything with a girl, and then wrote the rest after. I’ve been in love with girls for my whole life, but I just didn’t understand—until, last year, I realized I wanted my face in a vagina.” 

What does aura mean?

In Gen-Z slang, “aura" means something like presence. It's a little like the '70s meaning, but saying someone "has aura" defines them as mysterious, powerful, and cool. The term was first used widely in connection with Dutch soccer player Virgil van Dijk to describe his ineffable charisma. It stayed in the sports world for a while, until the question “Can you be fat and still have aura?” caught on in March. The answers—which mentioned people like Tony Soprano—provide some nuance to how the word is generally used. First, it’s almost exclusively applied to men. Secondly, it’s not the same as saying someone is attractive (in a traditional way). It’s similar, but not the same, as “rizz.” Rizz describes more of a “good with words” person, where "aura" seems like the non-verbal part of being cool.

Another aura-related trend that took off recently are TikToks featuring “The Most Amount of Aura I’ve Used on a Level 1” where aura-filled subjects “use” their aura on “lesser” people, often described as “lvl 1 crooks,” or “low vibrational people.”

Unhinged home design

The “unhinged home design” trend that’s taking over TikTok refers to CGI videos that purport to be home-design tutorials, but quickly devolve into absurdly complex space-saving ideas, or just complete insanity.

The trend started with a TikTok account called @designer_bob that began posting earnest design videos like this a couple years ago. They would occasionally layer in some absurd elements, and people started noticing things like children being pushed through walls. Then other accounts, most notably @homedesign369, started posting videos that are all absurdity, including adding a weirdly intense AI narrator that describes the rooms and the people who build them. Videos like “building a bedroom for 100 kids" started becoming popular, and repeated phrases from the videos, like “galvanized steel” and “eco-friendly wood veneers,” became catchphrases in the comment section and the videos themselves. It doesn't seem like anyone knows if these accounts are run by the same person/people, but they have a similarity in style that suggests they could be. 

New culinary trend: candy salad

I don’t know if it’s “cooking” exactly, but aspiring chefs on TikTok are making “candy salad.” As you could have guessed, candy salad is made by taking a variety of different candies and mixing them up in a bowl. This wholesome activity is often done as a group thing, with each person saying their name into he camera before adding their sweet of choice to the communal bowl. Some folks get a little extra and do things like make a green-candy-only salad for Saint Patrick’s Day, but for the most part, it’s just chucking some candy in a bowl. Of course, which candies you combine says something. Commenters on these videos offer their opinion about how the different sweets complement or clash with each other. Like you wouldn’t mix sour candy with chocolate, unless you were bold. 

The first breakout star of the candy-salad genre is the kid in this video, He’s adorable, talks in that “kid who’s out of breath style” and he brought two kinds of sour patch kids. But the real draw is that he says his name is "Ander Dingus," which is enough to make you internet-famous for 15 minutes.

Why is everyone "looking for a man in finance."

Speaking of 16 minutes of internet fame: In a recently posted video, TikToker Girl On Couch threw out the chorus to a song, and asked “Can someone make this into an actual song plz just for funzies.“ Something about the way she says “I’m looking for a man in finance. Trust fund. SIx-Five. Blue Eyes” caught a lot of people’s attention. Some people added the music she requested (An alternative take. Or this one.)  Or used her video as an excust to brag about their own “man in finance.” Or made parodies. Some dudes used it as an reason to be assholes. Some people used it to be like, “I don’t want a man in finance.” This lady did the math and made a Powerpoint to explore the likelihood of actually finding a man who fits those exacting criteria. In her video, Girl on Couch also suggests she may have written the song of the summer. She didn't, but she did write the song of the next couple of weeks.

Social media platform TikTok's misinformation policy is fairly robust, at least on paper. It explicitly bans content that contains "medical misinformation about vaccines or abortion" and "misinformation about voting," as well as a general prohibition on content that "undermines public trust." (You have to go to Twitter/X for that kind of thing.) But TikTok's community guidelines don't ban more esoteric bullshit about "reality shifting," "manifesting," and a whole lot of other esoteric beliefs. As a result, these out-there ideas are finding a new audience among the mostly young people who use TikTok. And TikTok is doing nothing about it. Which is good.

What is reality shifting?

Simplified, reality shifting is the belief that we can shift our consciousness to alternate realities. It's (very loosely) based on the "many-worlds interpretation" of quantum mechanics that posits that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are realized in some universe, and thus there are an infinite number of realities—like in that movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once. The leap that TikTok's reality shifters make is thinking there's a way to visit these alternative realities, either corporally or just mentally. As far as anyone can prove, there is not, but if you'd like to try, you can check out this video for instructions or watch every video on the hashtag in some alternative dimension where you have all day.

What is manifesting?

Reality shifting has the sheen of novelty to it, but it's actually a close cousin to the older idea of "manifesting," another belief with a strong fan base on TikTok. While it's often surrounded by exhortations to meditate or visualize, manifesting, at its most basic level, is the belief that you can have whatever you want if you believe you can have it. It's wishing, with extra steps.

Where does all this come from?

It seems that each new generation finds a way to talk about manifesting, reality shifting, and other fringe spiritual beliefs. Since it was published in 2006, over 35 million copies of the book The Secret have been sold. (Spoiler alert: The secret of the title is "if you wish for something hard enough, you'll get it.") The Secret was a modernization of the new-age beliefs that were popular in the 1990s, which were based on the "human potential movement" of the 1970s, which was based on the esoterica of the hippy generation in the 1960s. If you keep going back in time (literally, if you want to reality shift), you arrive at the "second great awakening" of the early late 1800s-early 1900s, where spiritualism, freemasonry, and transcendentalism were on-trend.

What's the harm in wishing?

While it seems pretty obvious that people can't have whatever they want just because they want it—just look at everything—but is it a bad thing? Yes and no.

On the harm side of the column: Believing that the universe delivers whatever you order only really works if you're privileged. It's way easier to think, "I have all this money because I really wanted it!" when you already have all this money than it is to ask, "Where's that car I ordered?"

It's also a pretty callous belief system. Manifesters like to pose as compassionate, but a belief in a generous universe or the present-giving God of the "prosperity gospel" movement (less popular on TikTok, more popular on Facebook ) means that anyone in an unfortunate situation must want to be in it—that kid who has cancer must want to have cancer, or he didn't pray hard enough.

Also on the negative side of the ledger: the gurus, preachers, and politicians who prey on the gullible. And when believers try to make laws based on their beliefs. And UFO cults with suicide pacts. So there are a lot of negatives.

Why we shouldn't do anything about it (except feel smug)

But on the other hand, there has always been a counter-current of occultism informing American beliefs. You can see it in the longtime popularity of astrology (another TikTok favorite), the ready availability of Ouija boards in toy stores, and the existence of your local palm reader. People are meeting some basic need, whether it's through horoscope and vision boards or Sunday morning church services. I don't understand it personally, but like Sinatra said, "I'm for whatever gets you through the night."

There have been attempts to rein in new religious movements in the past, and they tend to be disasters. After the Jonestown mass suicide for instance, anti-cult sentiment was strong enough that a cottage industry of "de-programmers" sprung up, and there were actual court cases where serious people argued that it was lawful to kidnap your relatives if you really didn't like what they believed and really didn't approve of who they hung out with.

Wringing your hands about the people who believe weird things on TikTok—and the grifters and frauds getting rich off them—isn't the answer. First, it's boring, like the confrontational atheism that was popular online a decade ago. But more importantly, Western culture, when it's working correctly, is built on the idea that people should be able to believe and say whatever they like. even if it's stupid—freedom and all that shit.

If you're looking for a new show to watch this week, streaming has you covered. Some of them are even worth your time!

This is a particularly great week for television shows. Netflix's Eric is the choice for you if you're in the mood for something dark, or you love Benedict Cumberbatch. If you'd rather a breezy comedy that crackles with youthful energy, check out the second season of We Are Lady Parts on Peacock. Or you could dive into a new season of Vatican-based horror on Evil, make Prime's Outlaws your new favorite show just because Christopher Walken is in it, or check out a new cult documentary with Netflix's Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult.

Eric

Benedict Cumberbatch stars in this thriller series created by BAFTA and Emmy Award-winner Abi Morgan. Cumberbatch plays Vincent, a puppeteer who created the wildly successful kids' show Good Day Sunshine. But when his nine-year-old son goes missing on the way to school, Vincent's world unravels and he descends into a personal nightmare of guilt, anger, obsession, and madness. According to Morgan, "Eric is a dark and crazy journey into the heart of 1980s New York—and the good, bad, and ugly world of Vincent." Sounds good to me.

Where to stream: Netflix

We Are Lady Parts, season 2

We Are Lady Parts is my favorite show on streaming, and I'm not the only person who loves it: season one is sitting on a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. If you're not familiar, Lady Parts is a British comedy series about an all-female, all-Muslim punk rock band. How could you not love a show with this premise? Season two sees Lady Parts trying to record an album, dealing with local fame, and navigating the contrasts between their culture and their profession in charming, hilarious, awkward, and heart-warming ways.

Where to stream: Peacock

Evil, Season 4

Equal parts terrifying and thought-provoking, horror/thriller series Evil has been earning nearly universal critical and audience raves since its first season in 2019. The show follows a skeptical female forensic psychologist, a priest-in-training, and a blue-collar contractor as they explore the unexplained mysteries of the Catholic Church. This season, the trio will be confronting witches, possessions, robot dogs, and the anti-Christ itself—if it's even a real thing.

Where to stream: Paramount+

The Outlaws, season 3

Created by and starring Steven Merchant, co-creator of the U.K. version of The Office, The Outlaws serves up very British comedy with a side order of Christopher Walken. It follows a pack of minor scofflaws from different walks of life who come together to do community service for their crimes. Things get complicated when they discover a cache of hidden money and decide to keep it, angering the drug dealer it belongs to. Now is an excellent time to catch up on the first two seasons if you are unfamiliar.

Where to stream: Prime

Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult

At the time of this posting, Netflix hasn't released a ton of details about original documentary Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult, but the Instagram post announcing it by co-creator Katie Paulson describes the doc as shining a light on "the exploitation that occurs in Hollywood" by nefarious people preying on "talented dancers and entertainers." There's also mentions of a lawsuit to shut the documentary down, and there are hints of a huge, tangled mess of internet drama too. As a super-fan of cult-related documentaries, I am compelled to watch this one.

Where to stream: Netflix

Last week's picks

The Kardashians, season 5

The members of the Kardashian-Jenner family continue documenting their glamorous, beige-tinted, opulent lives in the fifth season of The Kardashians. According to Hulu, the Kardashians will “punch it into overdrive” for season five, adding, “From the big screen to baby bliss, the family continues to defy expectations in all their endeavors.” That’s not a lot to go on, but a highlight of the season is likely to be the story of Kourtney Kardashian-Barker's first child with Travis Barker. It is reality TV, so you don’t know what will happen—maybe they’ll all be abducted by aliens or something.

Where to stream: Hulu

Trying, Season 4

Forget Ted Lasso; this gentle British family dramedy is Apple TV+'s real hidden gem. At the end of Trying's third season Nikki (Esther Smith) and Jason (Rafe Spall) were granted full custody of their foster children Princess and Tyler. Season 4 flashes forward six years, and digs into the drama and comedy of raising teenagers. It's well-walked ground for a TV show, but Trying gets the details right, so its blend of wit and realism makes the familiar seem fresh. There's a reason it earned 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Where to stream: AppleTV+

Tires

I love Netflix's strategy of releasing smaller, more personal comedy series. Last month, it was Baby Reindeer. This month, it's Tires. Stand-up comic Shane Gillis stars in this six-episode comedy series about the crazy goings-on inside an auto repair shop in Valley Forge, PA. Gillis is also Tires' executive producer and co-creator, so this has the potential to be one of those idiosyncratic, sleeper-hit shows that streaming is made for.

Where to stream: Netflix

Stax: Soulsville USA

Stax was the greatest record label in music history, and Stax: Soulsville USA examines how it came to be. Through archival performances footage and interviews with musicians, producers and others that made up Stax, this four-part HBO original music documentary series explores the history and impact of the legendary Memphis record label that brought us Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, The Staple Singers, and many more iconic artists.

Where to stream: Max

Looking to settle in with a good movie? Me too. That's why I've pored over the release schedules of major streaming services to bring you the best original and new-to-streaming movies you can watch right now.

This week's best new movie releases are heavy on documentaries. Jim Henson: Idea Man digs into the unique vision and legacy of the iconoclastic artist, MoviePass, MovieCrash explores the corporate skullduggery behind the once-popular MoviePass, and there's a new rock doc about The Beach Boys over on Disney+. On the non-doc side, there's a new special episode of South Park that takes on weight-loss drugs that's hilarious in that special South Park style.

Jim Henson: Idea Man

Ron Howard directed this Disney+ original documentary about Jim Henson, the creator of the muppets. Idea Man explores the work and legacy of this visionary artist, from his humble beginning in local kiddie TV to his complete re-imagining of the genre of children's television with Sesame Street, and on to mainstream success with The Muppet Show and the many movies his creations starred in. As of this posting, Jim Henson: Idea Man is sitting at a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, so you literally could not watch a better movie this week.

Where to stream: Disney+

South Park: the End of Obesity

South Park has been around for such a long time, I sometimes forget it exists, but then I catch an episode and remember that it's still hilarious, smart, and fearless, nearly 30 years into its journey. In this 50-minute episode, Cartman is prescribed Semaglutide for weight loss and hilarity/social satire ensue as the gang navigates the American healthcare system.

Where to stream: Paramount+

The Beach Boys

I love The Beach Boys. Their music is great, and the band's behind-the-scenes madness rivals the excesses of any rock band ever, despite their squeaky clean image. The Beach Boys documentary from Disney+ probably won't delve too deeply into their darker days—too many actual band members are in it—but the music is peerless, and the Boys' relationship with their nightmarish father/manager Murry Wilson is fair game for pop culture ghouls like me.

Where to stream: Disney+

MoviePass, Moviecrash

On paper, a documentary about a dead movie ticket subscription service might not sound interesting, but MoviePass's meteoric rise and plunge back to Earth is a fascinating study in bad business ideas, hubris, and corporate double-dealing, and the positive early reviews from Rotten Tomatoes are evidence that this documentary lays the facts out with style. MoviePass, Moviecrash is told by the men who started the company and later had to watch from the sidelines as new executives piloted the aircraft straight into the ground.

Where to stream: Max

Last week's picks

Dune: Part Two (2024)

Dune: Part Two is a massive, beautiful, triumph of world building, but director Denis Villeneuve doesn't ignore the details to focus on spectacle. The story picks up where Dune left off. Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), are the last survivors of the House Atreides and they find refuge with the Fremen, many of whom regard Paul as their prophesied messiah, destined to lead them to freedom. The evil Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), has more diabolical plans in mind. While Dune: Part Two is the kind of spectacle film best seen in theaters, watching it on streaming lets you pause and rewind to catch the details you might have missed on first viewing.

Where to stream: Max

Ferrari (2023)

In Ferrari, director Michael Mann tells the story of the man behind the iconic car. Enzo Ferrari, played by Adam Driver, is an former Formula 1 driver whose company, racing team, and marriage are all poised on the edge of financial disaster. In response, Ferrari puts everything he has behind the effort to win the Mille Miglia, a 1,000-mile race across Italy. Ferrari also stars Penèlope Cruz as Laura Ferrari, and race-car driving actor Patrick Dempsey as Piero Taruffi.

Where to stream: Hulu

Atlas

In Atlas, Jennifer Lopez beats up AI. She plays agent Atlas Shepard, a wisecracking badass who has devoted her life to hunting down rogue artificial intelligence Harlan. Trapped on a distant planet with her life in danger, Agent J-Lo is forced to rely on a computer program named Smith to survive. But in classic Odd Couple style, agent Shepard hates all AI, so it's not going to be an easy friendship. I didn't have "Jennifer Lopez plays a science fiction action hero battling super computers" on my bingo card, but now that I've heard about it, it makes a weird kind of sense.

Where to stream: Netflix

Queen of the Deuce

This Apple original documentary tells the "wait, what?" story of Chelly Wilson, a holocaust survivor who became a porn magnate in 1960s, '70s, and '80s New York. From her apartment above the Adonis Theatre on 42nd street, Wilson built an adult entertainment empire, first by producing films like Come Ride the Wild Pink Horse, then by buying up the notorious Times Square movie houses that screened them, all while doting over her beloved grandchildren.

Where to stream: AppleTV

Rachel Feinstein: Big Guy

The comedy will just absolutely not stop this month on Netflix, no matter how you might beg. Rachel Feinstein is a comedians' comedian who has won fans for her whip-smart observational comedy. She's the kind of always-on-it pro who gets laughs whether she's playing some dinky club on a Wednesday night or co-hosting The View. Don't miss her Netflix special.

Where to stream: Netflix

The Straight Story (1999)

Director David Lynch is known for his surreal, often confrontational cinematic excess in films like Mulholland Drive, but in The Straight Story, Lynch plays it, well, straight. The story is so simple it's practically a non-plot—an old man drives a lawn mower from Iowa to Wisconsin to visit his estranged brother who recently suffered a stroke—but it's told with such subtlety and gentleness that the end result is breathtaking. The Straight Story is part of a Criterion collection of films from 1999, and really all of them are brilliant: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Ratcatcher, Go, The Virgin Suicides, Summer of Sam—I mean, come on.

Where to stream: Criterion Channel