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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.)
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."
Source: X[/caption]
Despite these troubling claims, a review of Live Nation's official website revealed no apparent signs of disruption.
The Cyber Express team contacted Live Nation for confirmation, but has not received an official response at the time of this report. Until the company confirms, the accuracy of these breach claims remains uncertain.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.)
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.
Secret codes are all around us, making it easier to communicate information quickly to the people who are looking for it. CB Radio codes, for example, aren’t exactly mysterious—if you’re old enough, you might even remember when they were quite a fad—and you probably know that hospitals have several color codes for specific emergency situations. And a lot of people use secret codes in their everyday lives, whether to keep their kids safe or to find movies on Netflix.
But there are some secret codes that aren’t so well known. They fly under the radar, and unless you know what you’re looking for, you’ve probably encountered them and never even noticed. Secret codes aren’t the sole province of spies and criminal gangs, after all—they’re used in all walks of life any time someone needs to communicate without attracting attention or raising an alarm. Here are some of the secret codes you might not be aware of.
On a dating profile, it's expected that people will share information about themselves, like their interests, hobbies, and dating goals. Some people also use coded language to subtly communicate various things about themselves—in this case, details about their sexual health. According to the Washington Post, people who have herpes will sometimes use a simple, discrete secret code in their dating profiles to give a heads up to their potential partners: The number 437737, which spells out HERPES on a phone’s keypad.
Anywhere large groups of people gather to compete over limited resources, bad behavior will follow—and Disney’s theme parks are no exception. Disney has an image to protect, however, and has strict rules concerning how staff can speak to and interact with guests. As you might imagine, calling someone an “entitled dick” would violate those rules, so Disney has a secret code for referring to assholes in their park: Treasured Guest. This code has terrific “bless your heart” energy.
Disney also has codes for other mishaps—a kid peeing in a water ride is a “Code Winnie,” someone vomiting is called a “protein spill,” and when folks scatter a loved one’s ashes—a frequent and forbidden practice—it’s referred to with the ominous-sounding phrase, “white powder alert.”
You might not think that scientists would be particularly rebellious folks, but they can be when they perceive anything as being detrimental to the spread of knowledge—like when corporate-owned scientific journals lock papers behind paywalls. This has not only sparked the Open Access movement that seeks to make it easier to swap papers and articles, it’s also driven many scientists to become low-key pirates, and they use a secret code to do their dirty work.
Well, it’s a “secret” code in that you might not know what it means when you see it: When a researcher or scientist needs access to a paper, they’ll post a link to social media or a forum and add the phrase “I Can Haz PDF,” a reference to the old cheeseburger-cat meme. When a colleague who has access to that paper sees it, they’ll email a PDF over pronto.
It is a sad fact of modern life that the very places you’re supposed to be able to unwind, relax, and have a good time—bars and taverns—are often the exact places women don’t feel safe. When an aggressive or creepy dude latches on to you in a bar, the result runs the gamut from a ruined evening to a dangerous situation.
Depending on where your local bar is, though, there might be a secret code you can use in those situations: The Angel Shot or Ask for Angela. They’re both secret codes that alert the bar staff that you need assistance without forcing you to point out the person bothering you (thus alerting them that you’ve accused them of something) or having to explain a sticky situation. Some bars post signs in the women’s bathroom promoting the code, and some places add extra phrases, like asking for an "Angel Shot on the rocks" when you need someone to call you an Uber.
Wedding bands are like anything else: While most people choose traditional looks, some folks want to stand out and be more unique. If you see someone wearing a black wedding ring, it might simply be a stylistic choice. But it might also be a secret code that tells people in the know that they’re swingers—you know, people who like to swap sexual partners and engage in group sexual encounters.
Black rings aren’t just for married folks—unmarried swingers can wear black rings to signal their openness to a liaison, too.
A very wholesome—and useful!—secret code is right in front of you every time you buy a bag of bread at the grocery store. The twist tie or plastic clip that holds the plastic closed is probably one of five colors, and that color is a code telling you the day of the week that loaf of bread was baked:
Blue: Monday
Green: Tuesday
Red: Thursday
White: Friday
Yellow: Saturday
Bakers typically don’t work Sundays and Wednesdays, so apparently there’s no color code for those days. So if you go into the store on Friday and see loaves with yellow tags or ties, you know they’re a few days old, so you might want to look for something fresher.
If computers and gadgets are a mystery to you, you’ve no doubt experienced the withering disdain of an IT professional—or a geeky friend or relative—when they have to do something extremely simple to resolve your computer difficulty. You simply haven’t lived until you demand IT assistance only to have a grumbling nerd power-cycle your laptop and walk away.
Well, you should know that IT pros have a whole set of secret codes to refer to you without triggering you:
ID 10-T Error. This sounds technical, but they’re actually calling you an “ID10T.”
PEBKAC/PICNIC. If your friendly IT pro is chatting about your trouble ticket and refers to PICNIC or PEBKAC, they’re letting their colleagues know the problem is you. PEBKAC = Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair, and PICNIC = Problem In Chair Not In Computer.
CODE 18. Another technical-sounding phrase that is instead suggesting that the problem is sitting about 18 inches from the computer monitor (pssst, they’re talking about you).
EEOC. This stands for Equipment Exceeds Operator Capabilities. It’s another way of calling you a big ole’ dummy.
IBM Error. You might think this is a reference to some portion of your setup made by IBM. Nope, it stands for “idiot behind machine.”
If you’ve ever been to Central Park in New York City, you know that it’s huge and sprawling and doesn’t follow the same grid-like layout that Midtown does. It’s not unusual for native New Yorkers to get turned around and disoriented in there once they lose sight of the streets.
But there’s a secret code in plain sight that makes getting lost almost impossible. On every lamppost throughout the park is a simple, four- or five-digit numerical code. The first two or three digits tell you which cross street you’re closest to, and the last two numbers stand for West Side (odd) or East Side (even). A lamppost with 6104 on it means you’re closest to 61st Street on the East Side.
You’ve probably seen tanker trucks with hazmat signs on them, and you probably know that those signs mean something dangerous is in the tank. But there are all sorts of codes on those placards that tell you exactly what’s in that tanker. These codes are called UN Numbers, and they can be found either directly on the hazmat symbol or next to them.
There are even more codes that tell you whether you’re dealing with explosives, flammable gases, combustible liquids, radioactive materials, poisons, corrosives (like acids), oxidizers, flammable solids, or something else. And the colors used on the hazmat placard also tell you something about what’s in there—for example, a blue placard indicates that the substance is flammable when exposed to water.
You might know that hospitals, airports, and other public places will often use codes in the public address system to alert police or employees to a situation without alarming the public. But retail stores and malls do this, too—and one of the most universal is to use the name Nora, which is actually the acronym NORA, which stands for “Need Officer Right Away.” If an employee is having trouble with a violent or disruptive person—or if they want to spread the word that someone is shoplifting without tipping their hand—they can discretely request that someone call the cops without escalating the situation.
It shouldn’t be surprising that escorts and sex workers can be found on various dating apps—a lot of these apps are pretty much marketed as hookup apps, after all. But of course no sex worker is going to simply say so in their profile and list a price sheet. Instead, some apparently use the code “roses” or “bring roses.” Roses are dollars (it’s a 1:1 exchange rate), so when someone instructs you to bring roses, they’re saying you should be prepared to pay them for the date. And if they list specific numbers of roses, they’re essentially giving you their rate card.
You can get a lifetime subscription to Babbel language learning on sale for $139.97 right now (reg. $599) through May 28, its lowest price to date. The subscription comes with access to a catalog of lessons for 14 languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish, Dutch, Polish, Indonesian, Norwegian, Danish, and Russian), and the curriculums are geared toward promoting conversation and familiarity with real-life topics. Beyond what you can typically expect from a language-learning app, Babbel has grammar-specific lessons that teach you the ‘why’ behind new vocabulary; lesson reviews that let you select the format between flashcards, writing, speaking, listening, or mini-games; podcasts in the language you’re learning to build your comprehension; and the option to take live classes at an additional cost (but you can take two for free as part of your subscription). Babbel is good for learners of all levels, and it uses speech-recognition technology to listen to how you speak and help you adjust your pronunciation accordingly.
You can get a lifetime subscription to Babbel Language Learning on sale for $139.97 right now (reg. $599) through May 28 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices can change at any time.
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.
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.
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.)
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."
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
House of the Dragon returns to HBO Max for an action-packed second season next month.
The second season of House of the Dragon premieres in about a month, and we have one final action-packed trailer to boost anticipation. While the first season felt smaller and quieter—in a good way, more focused on character relationships and political maneuvering—the show seems to be pulling out all the stops in S2 as all-out war breaks out in the legendary "Dance of Dragons."
As previously reported, the series is set nearly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and chronicles the beginning of the end of House Targaryen's reign. The primary source material is Fire and Blood, a fictional history of the Targaryen kings written by George R.R. Martin. As book readers know, those events culminated in a civil war and the extinction of the dragons—at least until Daenerys Targaryen came along.
(Spoilers for S1 below.)
Charlie Vicker's Sauron is front and center in the teaser for S2 of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Amazon's Prime Video made a major investment in The Rings of Power when it acquired the rights to the source material from the Tolkien estate, even committing to multiple seasons upfront. The casting was strong and the visuals were quite spectacular (including the opening credits). But while the first season had its moments, personally I found it a bit plodding, often more concerned with establishing this rich fictional world and the characters within it than moving the story forward.
Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have said that this was deliberate. They wanted to avoid a "villain-centric" story in S1 but promised they would be delving more deeply into "the lore and the stories people have been waiting to hear." That would be the rise of Sauron (Charlie Vickers), the forging of the titular rings of power, and the last alliance between elves and men to defeat Sauron's evil machinations. Judging by the teaser that dropped today, we'll be getting lots more action in S2, with the shape-shifting Sauron now handily disguised as an elf. Bonus: There's an accompanying behind-the-scenes preview of the second season.
(Spoilers for the S1 finale below.)
Krysten Ritter stars as Lucy in Orphan Black: Echoes, which picks up in 2052, 37 years after the original series ended.
Fans of the dystopian sci-fi thriller series Orphan Black have been waiting to see more of the new TV show set in the same fictional world: Orphan Black: Echoes, starring Krysten Ritter (of Jessica Jones fame). That time has arrived with AMC's release of the official trailer.
(Some spoilers for the original Orphan Black series below.)
The original series was co-created by Graeme Manson and John Fawcett. Tatiana Maslany (She-Hulk) starred as Sarah Manning, a British con artist in Toronto who witnessed a woman who seemed like her doppelgänger commit suicide and assumed her identity as a police detective. Sarah soon discovered that both she and the dead woman were clones. And there were many more clones out there—all expertly played by Maslany, who finally won that richly deserved Emmy in 2016—thanks to the eugenics research of the Dyad Institute, the base of operations for the so-called "Neolution."
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