Hanukkah (or "Chanukah," if you prefer; it’s a transliteration, so there is no “correct” spelling) is an annual eight-day Jewish religious festival that usually takes place in late November or early December. In 2025, Hanukkah begins on the evening of Sunday, December 14, and continues through Monday December 22.
Why does Hanukkah fall on different dates each year?
While Hanukkah falls on different dates every year on the Gregorian calendar you’re probably familiar with, it begins on the same day every year on the Hebrew calendar: 25th of Kislev. The Hebrew calendar is based on the moon, and Hanukkah falls on the 25th day after the new moon that marks the beginning of the month of Kislev.
What is Hanukkah about, anyway?
Hanukkah celebrates the anniversary of the beginning of the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire and the re-dedication of the Second Temple that happened in the 2nd century BCE. That’s the strict definition of the holiday. In practice, in present day America, Hanukkah is the “festival of lights,” a winter celebration usually marked by gift-giving, delicious foods, candle-lighting, and the boring game of dreidel (more on that below).
Religiously, Hanukkah is a comparatively minor holiday, not nearly as significant as the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but it is a favorite among children, particularly American children. These days, the holiday is marked in Jewish communities all over the world, but Jewish kids in the U.S. are the undisputed Hanukkah kings and queens.
The origins of Hanukkah: A Hebrew rebellion brought to you by Cincinnati rabbis
There are two ways to think about the origin of the Festival of Lights. You could say Hanukkah began around 200 BCE when Greek leaders prevented Jews from practicing their religion, leading the Maccabees to rise up in defiance. Or you could say Hanukkah began in Cincinnati.
Before a couple hundred years ago, there’s no record of how anyone celebrated Hanukkah—maybe it was done, but it seems that no one made too big of a deal about it. That all changed in the mid-to-late 1800s, when a couple of Cincinnati rabbis, Isaac M. Wise and Max Lilienthal, put Hanukkah on the holiday map. They popularized, promoted, and Americanized the holiday, introducing celebrations of Hanukkah to their congregations and promoting it in national Jewish publications.
Wise and Lilienthal were leaders of Reform Judaism, a more modern, less orthodox form of the religion, and to some extent, the holiday they popularized reflects that set of values. It was meant to help Jewish children in America honor their heritage by presenting an exciting, relatable historical event featuring Jewish heroes. it was also meant to be Christmas-like—a family holiday that’s fun.
Lilienthal noted the rising popularity of Christmas celebrations in the U.S. in the 1800s, and was impressed with the way Christian churches used the secular aspects of the holiday to teach their faith, so he borrowed the gift-giving and lighthearted nature of non-religious Christmas celebrations and put a Jewish spin on ‘em. Thus modern Hanukkah was born.
“We must do something, too, to enliven our children… [They] shall have a grand and glorious Chanukah festival nicer than any Christmas festival.” Lilienthal wrote in 1876.
The traditions of Hanukkah: You’ve been wrong about the menorah your whole life
The main event of Hanukkah among most who celebrate is the lighting of candles before dinner, one more for each successive night of the festival. When the Maccabees rebuilt the temple back in the olden times, they re-lit the menorahs—candle holders for seven candles—but they only had enough oil for the candles to burn for one night (or so the story goes). Miraculously, the lights stayed on for eight nights.
Technically, most people don’t light menorahs on Hanukkah. Menorahs have eight lights. Hanukkah candles are usually in a “hanukkiah” which holds nine: eight main candles and the helper candle that lights them all.
Foodwise, you can eat whatever you like—this isn't a fasting holiday. Fried foods, particularly latkes (fried potato pancakes), are popular and delicious, especially if served with sour cream and/or apple sauce. Jelly doughnuts are another favorite. But like I said, you can eat whatever you like.
Many Hanukkah-heads give gifts too—one for each night.
Why aren’t there many classic Hanukkah songs like there are Christmas standards?
Hanukkah carols have never really caught on because golden age Jewish songwriters were busy writing “Let it Snow,” “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire,” “Silver Bells,” “White Christmas,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and almost every other Christmas song that isn’t a hymn. But there's "I Have a Little Dreidel," a folksong with English lyrics attributed to Samuel E. Goldfarb, but that's not explicitly about the holiday. This all leaves Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song" as the most well-known tune commemorating the Festival of Lights.
Speaking of dreidels, though...
How do you play dreidel?
Many households break out dreidels (spinning tops with Hebrew characters on them) and play with them for a few minutes after dinner. Dreidels are marked with Nun (נ), Gimel (ג), Hey (ה), and Shin (ש), which form an acronym for "Nes Gadol Hayah Sham" (A great miracle happened there). Here's how the game is traditionally played: Everyone starts with the same amount of something "valuable," usually chocolate coins. At the start of a round, everyone antes up, then they takes turns spinning the dreidel, following the directions of which character it lands on.
נ (Nun) means “nisht” or “nothing.” Player does nothing if Nun comes up.
ה (Hey) means “halb” or “half.” The player gets half of the pot. (If there is an odd number of pieces, the player gets the extra.)
ש (Shin) means “shtel” or “put in.” The player adds a chocolate coin to the pot.
ג (Gimel) means “gantz” or “everything.” The player gets everything in the pot. Jackpot!
(It's not a very good game: all luck; no skill.)
It’s widely believed that dreidel is the most popular Hanukkah game, but this is a lie. The most popular (and best) Hanukkah game is “guess which candle will be the last to go out,” a much more nuanced and exciting game played by everyone who has ever fired up a menorah (sorry, a hanukkiah) before dinner. Do darker candles burn faster than lighter ones? Does placement matter? How about wick length? All of this and more must be considered and discussed if you’re going to master this exciting game.
Is it cool to celebrate Hanukkah if you’re not Jewish?
You can celebrate any holiday you want; it's a free country. Hanukkah is generally seen as a “fun” holiday, without the deep religious significance of other Jewish holidays. While I don’t speak for anyone else, none of the Jews I know take offense if non-Jews want to light some candles and watch 8 Crazy Nights to capture some of that Hanukkah magic.Some of the traditions of the holiday were partly inspired by Christmas anyway, and much of Christmas was (maybe) appropriated from pagan solstice celebrations itself, so go nuts—it’s the holidays.
It’s Christmas time, so I’m taking a look at myths related to the holiday. Last week, I focused on myths about Jesus. This week I’m taking a look at that other beloved Christmas icon: Santa Claus, the central figure in the secular holiday mascot pantheon, who is so mysterious, we can’t even agree on his real name.
I’m sure he’s innocent of any crimes, but Santa has many aliases. Among many other sobriquets and honorifics, the guy who brings presents in December goes by Jolly Old St. Nicholas, Kris Kringle, Père Noël, and Father Christmas. That’s a lot of fake identities, but what is his real name? And who invented him?
Did Coca-Cola invent Santa Claus?
There is an often repeated myths that the modern image of Santa Claus—red clothes, white beard, fat—was created by the Coca Cola company in the 1930s to sell soda. But nah. While it’s true that Coke blanketed popular publications with ads featuring Haddon Sundblom’s illustrations of a red-clad hefty boy drinking Coke, Sundblom’s was drawing on existing depictions of Santa, particularly the 1822 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas," commonly called "'Twas the Night Before Christmas."
Did Clement Clark Moore invent Santa Claus?
"A Visit from St. Nicholas" was written by Clement Clark Moore's and the poem did create some Santa details that have been nearly universally adopted. The chubbiness, the twinkly eyes, the jollyness, and the rosy cheeks are pure Moore. Also the sleigh and reindeer, the reindeer’s names, and Santa coming down the chimney were invented by Moore. But Moore didn’t invent Santa, because Moore thought St. Nick was a wee baby man.
Santa Claus is not a wee baby man
While Twas the Night Before Christmas offers no specific height for St. Nicholas, Moore describes St. Nick as “an elf,” and “a little old driver,” who pilots a “miniature sleigh” towed by “eight tiny reindeer.” He is said to fit up the chimney with ease, even though he has a belly like a bowlful of jelly. The preponderance of clues from Moore’s poem suggest St. Nick is around two feet tall.
Moore’s poem isn’t even about Santa Claus. It’s about St. Nick, and much of Moore’s inspiration was based on centuries-old traditions, and those were based on folk myths drawn from Catholic hagiographies. But if you trace Santa Claus mythologies all the way back to the year 300, during the Roman Empire, you will actually land on a historically verified person who lived on earth.So Santa Claus is real—kind of.
Jolly Old St. Nicholas: original Christmas badass
Credit: Public Domain
Above is a depiction of St. Nicholas painted between 1503 and 1508. You may be wondering why St. Nick is pictured gesturing to three miniature, naked men standing in a wooden barrel—like what kind of Christmas parties did they have back then?? I’m going to get to it, believe me, but first—the facts.
Saint Nicholas of Myra, also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker, was a Catholic bishop who lived in Turkey during the Roman Empire and (probably) attended the First Council of Nicaea in 325. He died on Dec. 6 sometime around 343. That’s all we know for sure about St. Nick—the earliest accounts of his life and deeds were hagiographies written centuries after his death, so, according to leading St. Nick historian Jona Lendering and common sense, can't be relied upon. But still, a cult formed around St. Nick, people built churches to him, and we still talk about him today as a good guy who brings kids presents, so he must have done something right. Here are only some of the good deeds and miracles attributed to St. Nicholas:
As an infant, refused to suckle his mother’s breast on Fridays
Rescued three girls from prostitution by giving their father gold to pay their dowries
Calmed a storm at sea
Saved three soldiers from wrongful execution
Remained chaste
Chopped down a tree possessed by a demon
Slapped the heretic Arius at the Council of Nicaea for suggesting God created Jesus
All those are good deeds, but one tale of St. Nick is a great deed that stands head and shoulders above the others; St. Nicholas, it is said, resurrected three children who had been murdered, chopped up, and and pickled in brine by an evil butcher planning to sell them as pork during a famine.
As you’d probably expect, the story of St. Nicholas confronting an evil butcher and bringing pickled children back from the grave caught on with people in a bigger way than the one about him slapping a heretic. Some variations had him enslaving the evil butcher and bringing him around on his yearly rounds to beat naughty children with a stick.
All of which brings us back to the homunculi:
They're wearing goose suits. Credit: Public Domain
The story of the resurrected children so enthralled people that artists started depicting St. Nick with three little buff boys in a vat (they only look like old men because painters in the early medieval period sucked at drawing children). “St. Nick with naked children” was seen so much that even people who hadn’t heard the story of the butcher associated the saint with children and he became known as the Saint who liked children (but not in a gross way). The legend and cult of St. Nicholas spread far and wide, and when it made it to the Netherlands, they called him “Sinterklaas" which eventually became Santa Claus.
The religious rivalry of Kris Kringle and St. Nicholas
Kris Kringle and St. Nick were once bitter enemies, products of warring religious dogmas, but Christmas magic and American religious tolerance melded them into a single holiday entity.
By the 17th century, a jolly old saint named Nicholas bringing children presents on Dec. 6 was the tradition all over Europe. But Protestant reformer Martin Luther did not want no Catholic saint giving presents to no Protestant kids. So Luther replaced St. Nick with Jesus himself, creating and popularizing a tradition where Baby J gives children presents on Dec. 25, the anniversary of the day He was born, rather than St. Nick giving them presents on Dec. 6, the anniversary of his own death.
The gift giver was called Christkindl, the Christ Child and was often depicted with wings. Said to hide mischievously when delivering gifts, Christkindl was to grown-up Jesus as The Muppet Babies are to The Muppets—not quite canonical, but fun for kids. He was also St. Nick's enemy, sent to erase the jolly old saint from the Protestant imagination, and the operation was partially successful. Christkindl is still the default seasonal gift bringer in some parts of the world. But the joke was ultimately on Martin Luther.
Christkindl came to the U.S. with German immigrants in the 1800s. Germans met the Dutch settlers who were already here and devoted to St. Nicholas. Presumably because both St. Nicholas and Christkindle are myths told to children, there was no bitter, bloody religious war. Not a single heretic was slapped. Instead, they compromised: America gradually settled on presents being delivered on Dec. 25 instead of Dec. 6, but Santa Claus brought the gifts instead of Christkindl, whose name eventually morphed into “Kris Kringle,” another name for Santa/St. Nick.
This week, young people are longing for a past they were barely alive for, roasting people who dare to read books in public, and sharing videos of the last moments their lives made sense. So, not exactly an uplifting collection of cultural observations, but I threw in some truly banger Christmas carol mashups to lighten the mood. Everything is nostalgic, melancholic, or festive—sometimes all at once.
What is "millennial optimism"?
Nostalgia for Y2K is dying out, replaced by romanticization of the years around 2010, which some younger people are imagining as a more innocent, hopeful time that they missed out on. At the same time, many millennials who were setting those trends then are feeling nostalgic for their lost youth, so both groups are posting TikTok videos about "millennial optimism." You see, supposedly post-2010 was an era marked by whimsical possibility and confidence in a bright future, which is decidedly not how kids feel today. Thus: Nostalgia.
Here are some examples of videos about the time, one made by a young person:
and one by an older person:
So is "millennial optimism" really a thing? Yes and no. While it's hard for an older person to see a decade that included both the fallout from the 2008 recession and the election of 2016 as the best of times, a youth living through our current nightmare might see it that way. And I'm sure many millennial hipsters were having a lovely time back in the late-aughts and teens, growing funny mustaches, going to farmer's markets, and listening to Stomp Clap Hey music.
But whatever fun and whimsy was on order back then wasn't because of some overall cultural optimism; it was because that's when millennials were young, and it's fun to be young. Also, the urban hipsters at the center of these memes were only a tiny percentage of the population; everyone else was just living their lives—which were, more or less, the same lives people have always led. Anyway, if young people you know start talking about the golden age of optimism that was 2010-2020, this is the context behind their understanding of the recent past. It's flawed, but nostalgia for times we didn't live always is.
What is "performative reading"?
The rise of the term "performative reading" could be seen as an indicator that the recent past was actually more optimistic. Performative reading was coined around 2020 and originally referred to people who read books in public as a social status indicator. You might know it better as “acting pretentious” or “being a pseudo intellectual.” As an insult toward people who use books as fashion accessories, "performative reading" wasn’t widely employed back then, but lately, the term is being connected to the insult “performative male,” and is often used to refer to young men who read books written by women authors in public in an attempt to get women to notice/like them. I don't think this actually a widespread trend—it feels like one of those things that is commented upon more often than actually happens. Regardless, the result is the worst type of people posting photos (that I won't link to) of "performative readers" they spot on subways and coffeeshops, so other horrible people can comment like, "look at this jerk, readin' a book! Written by a woman!"
This is troubling on many levels—it’s anti-intellectual, it's sexist, it's bullying, and it’s also part of a larger trend among generations Z and A, who seem reluctant to do anything out-of-the-ordinary for fear of being publicly judged and/or ridiculed for it online. Before everything was online, you could sit at a coffeeshop reading bell hooks and the worst you might have to deal with would have been a smirk from a stranger. Now, a picture of you in a beret could end up online with a hundreds of thousands of faceless strangers dunking on your pretentious ass. The result is a drop in the number of annoying urban attention seekers, but also a drop in the number of people who do anything interesting at all. So maybe nostalgia for the aughts antwenty-d teens is warranted.
What is the white rabbit trend?
In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the main character chases after a white rabbit and is led into a surreal, troubling world. That's the basis of the White Rabbit trend on TikTok. The idea is to post a video of yourself experiencing a moment of happiness right before the "white rabbit" appeared to change the trajectory of your life. It's the calm before the storm, the tragic equivalent of the "photo taken moments before disaster" meme, but with the confessional intimacy of TikTok. The melancholic mood is driven home by a soundtrack of a metronome counting down, accompanied by a baleful lo-fi piano riff.
Here's an example, in which a TikToker posted a graduation walk, taken two days before her white rabbit showed up in the form of a serious car accident.
Many white rabbit videos don't offer any context, leaving you to fill in the blanks:
It's not exactly an uplifting trend, but if you like the camaraderie of knowing you're not the only person whose life has been suddenly uprooted by forces beyond your control, you can check out over 200,000 videos that use the "white rabbit" audio.
What does "hemmy" mean?
Back in my day, "hemmy" was a word gearheads used to describe the engines in Ram trucks, but among a growing number of young people, "hemmy" now means "homie," but as said by a white person. The originator of the word is Milk, a fan-favorite character in Legends of Chamberlain Heights, an "edgy," crudely animated cartoon that premiered on Comedy Central in 2016 and ran for two seasons.
Viral video of the week: Noteliwood's Christmas Mash-ups
It's Christmas, so let's check out some Christmas carols that are going viral. TikTok DJ Noteliwood is blowing up (as they used to say) for his holiday-themed mash-ups, like this collision of "Linus and Lucy" from the Vince Guaraldi Trio and and GloRilla's "Yeah Glo!" that I cannot stop listening to (along with 3.3 million other people):
If that's not enough to get you in the Christmas spirit, how about "Money in the Sleigh," a mashup of Wham!'s "Last Christmas" and Drake's "Money in the Grave" that's closing in on four million streams:
We’ve reached the end of television. Since the invention of the technology in the 1920s, TV screens have gradually grown larger, pictures clearer, and sets cheaper, until now: For all intents and purposes, we’re at the end of the road. This "nothing special" 65-inch Samsung unit, is, for most people, as good as a TV ever needs to be. It displays an image more highly detailed than most viewers can perceive from a couch-length viewing distance, its screen is as big as the average American living room can handle, and it costs less than $500. For 100 years, manufacturers and consumers have been chasing screen size and image clarity, so what happens now that the dog has caught the mail truck, and just about everyone has a TV that’s essentially perfect?
A brief history of big-screen TVs
Television has come a long way. If we traveled back in time to 1986 with the equivalent of $500 to buy a TV, we would only be able to afford the cheapest set from that year's Sears catalog. For $159.99, the same relative cost as a 65-inch Samsung today, you could snag a set featuring a 13-inch, 4:3 screen with an equivalent resolution of around 480i. (CRT televisions don't have pixels, but their screens displayed roughly 330–480 lines of usable detail depending on the signal.) By comparison, the Samsung has a 65-inch, 16:9 screen with a 3840×2160 resolution.
Those CRTs originally displayed images by firing electrons at a phosphorescent screen inside a vacuum-sealed glass tube. The cathode ray tube (hence CRT) had to be deep enough for the electron beams to accelerate, with glass thick enough safely contain them. The result: heavy, deep, fragile machines that couldn’t practically support screens much larger than 40 inches without being prohibitively expensive and heavy. The 1981 Sony KV-3000R, a 30-inch model that cost $10,000 ($36,500 in today’s money) and weighed over 500 pounds, was at the top of the big CRT consumer market. It was technically possible to go bigger—Trinitron created a 45-inch CRT in 1989 that sold in Japan for $40,000—but these were not the kind of screens you'd find in anyone's living room.
The projection TVs that followed were able to achieve their unheard-of screen sizes by using internal projectors and mirrors to project the cathode ray image onto a translucent screen, but this came with significant drawbacks. The sets were massive and could weigh up to 500 pounds, and the projected image was blurrier and dimmer than a typical CRT’s already "standard definition" image. Viewing angles were limited—you basically had to sit directly in front of it to see anything clearly—and projector bulbs had a limited lifespan and were expensive to replace.
The limitations and cost of rear projection TVs didn’t dissuade people from adopting the technology, especially as they came down in price. By the 1990s, improvements in rear-projection optics, CRT projectors, and production efficiency made big-screen, rear projection TVs into a status symbol, resulting in 50-, 60-, and even 70-inch behemoths appearing in suburban living rooms. They were still heavy, fuzzy, and crazy expensive—a 61-inch Magnavox rear-projection television cost $2,999.99in 1993—but everything changed in the late 90s with the release of the first plasma TVs.
The flat screen revolution
Plasma and LCD TVs weren’t just better ways of displaying images, but worked on entirely differently principles altogether. In a plasma TV, each pixel is a tiny gas-filled cell that emits ultraviolet light when charged with electricity, which then excites phosphors on the display to create visible colors that resolve into an episode of Friends. LCD TVs use liquid crystals to control the passage of light sourced from a backlight behind. Each pixel contains a liquid crystal layer that can twist or block light, allowing precise control over color and brightness and thus a much more detailed look at Rachel’s hair. Both technologies supported far brighter and more defined images than rear projection TVs all without weighing 400 pounds, making big screen, high-definition displays obtainable for average consumers.
Both LCD and plasma TVs had advantages and drawbacks—plasmas had faster response times (how quickly a pixel can adjust) and darker blacks than LCDs, but LCD TVs lasted longer (around 50,000 hours vs 30,000 hours), used less power, work better in brighter rooms, and weren't as prone to "burn in" as older plasma and CRT monitors. Ultimately, LCD won out, and plasma TVs became a thing of the past by 2014.
In 2004, Sony introduced the first LED TVs. Where older LCD TVs use cold cathode fluorescent lamps for back lighting, LEDs use light-emitting diodes as backlighting. They're much more energy efficient and produce a brighter image, more accurate colors, and greater contrast than either LCD or Plasma displays. LED and other technical improvements also solved problems like narrow viewing angles, motion blur, and uneven backlighting that plagued earlier generations of flat screens.
Flat panel displays were expensive at first, but prices fell rapidly. A 42-inch plasma cost around $20,000 in 1997, but cost less than $1,000 a decade later. As prices fell, resolution rose, from 720p (1,280 pixels wide by 720 pixels tall) to 1080p (1,920 pixels wide by 1,080 pixels long) to 4K (3,840 pixels wide by 2,160 pixels long), making it feasible for anyone to mount a giant TV on their living room wall and enjoy a level of realism and image quality previously only available in movie theaters.
Fine tuning your television: All about backlighting
As screen size and resolution improved, so too did the qualitative aspects of TV images—contrast, color accuracy, and brightness. Older LCD TVs use fluorescent lamps to shine light through liquid crystals, but the crystals can't block all of the light, so no pixel is ever truly black. That's why you can tell whether an older LCD TV is on, even if there is no picture. LED displays are built with local dimming—backlights that can light up or dim zones of the screen as needed. The result is less light leaking through the pixels, and thus darker blacks. Mini-LED displays have many more backlighting "zones," sometimes thousands, further refining the darkness. QLED displays slide a film of "quantum dots" between the LED lights and the LCD front that dilate to improve color saturation and brightness.
Organic light-emitting diode TVs (OLED) take it even further. Many OLED televisions don't have a backlight at all. Instead, each pixel in the display contains an organic material that lights up individually when electricity is applied. So when a pixel is black, it's off, which means it's totally black. OLED televisions aren't perfect—they tend to be less bright than LED or mini-LED displays—and the emerging technology of microLED TVs promises to solve that problem, but current six-figure price tags make them prohibitively expensive.
We may have achieved peak television
The difference between a color image and a black-and-white one were immediately obvious when the first color TVs hit the market in the 1950s, as was the difference between high-definition and standard definition in late 1990s, but the distinction between an OLED and a QLED display are fine enough to be almost indistinguishable to the average consumer. I'm sure some people are passionately devoted to OLED over mini-LED, or feel you haven't really experienced Breaking Bad if you haven't seen it on a $100,000 microLED TV, but for the rest of us, midrange TVs are so close to "as good as they can possibly be" that granular technological improvements are meaningless.
Now, no technology is perfect for everyone. CRT TVs, for instance, are better than the best LED TVs for old school gaming, and a 4K TV might not be detailed enough for some technical uses, but if you're just talking about the needs and desires of standard, living-room-dwelling watchers, current TV technology is all but perfect. Here are some reasons why:
The limits of vision
A standard 65-inch 4K television delivers a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels, a density high enough to create an image that is pixel-invisible to a typical viewer sitting at reasonable distance from a television.You can buy an 8K TV (7,680 pixels wide by 4,320 pixels tall), but those extra pixels won’t make the picture look clearer or more highly defined in a practical way; they’ll only add more detail than you canphysically see from your couch. For reasonable viewing, even 4K screens are overkill.
Then, there's the question of size. TVs always could get bigger, but there’s a point where it doesn’t add value to the experience of watching. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers has determined that the best screen viewing experience for most people is achieved when sitting at a distance where your display screen is taking up 30 degrees of your vision. That’s about 8.5 feet away for a 65-inch TV, more than adequate for most living rooms, and even if it isn’t, commercially available televisions go up to 115-inches, which is big enough for all but a cathedral-sized rec room.
The limits of light, color, and comfort
Contrast, the difference in brightness between the darkest blacks and the brightest whites that a screen can display, helps determine how vivid and detailed an image looks. OLED TVs don't have contrast ratios, because the contrast is infinite.Each pixel in an OLED TV is its own light source, so when a pixel is told to be black, it is literally off, and it doesn’t get blacker than that. In terms of color, modern OLED TVs can reproduce 98 to 100% of the colors used in movies and TV shows, so what you see on screen is all the color there is in source material.While other display types don't have OLED's infinite contrast ratio, they get pretty close: Some mini-LED TVs have a contrast ratio as high as 10,000,000:1.
TVs are also brighter than ever. Displays designed for use outside are bright enough to be watchable in full sunlight, and their peak HDR brightness of 1,400 or so nits is far brighter than then the 250 nits of typical screen viewed indoors, which is already more than bright enough to be comfortable for your living room.
The limits of content
As far as what we watch on TV, if you define perfect TV as “the ability to watch anything I want, whenever I want,” we’re practically there. Viewers used to have a scarcity problem; you'd watch whatever happened to be on one of three channels and you'd like it. Now, our problem now is abundance. We’re overwhelmed with content to watch—there are millions of instantly available things to stream on your TV, from shows to movies to YouTube videos. While programming spread over thousands of channels and across dozens of pay and free streaming services is messy, almost every film or TV show ever produced is available somewhere, although it might take a little work (and monthly subscription fees) to find it.
What’s next for TV?
Consumer demand for bigger-screened televisions with higher quality displays has essentially driven the industry for the last 80 years, so what happens now that the race is almost over and we can all watch whatever we want on an all but-perfect TV? A marketing person might answer that TV makers will create reasons for people to want new TVs by expanding what TV actually is. You can see this happening with things Samsung’s The Wall or Sony’s Crystal LED—systems that let you cover an entire wall with seamless TV panels (if you have a spare $100,000 sitting around).
But do people really want a TV wall enough to buy one, assuming they become more affordable? Some people would, sure, but a wall screen wouldn’t really make sitting on the couch watching TV better for most of us. A more down-to-earth potential future for TVs is represented by Samsung’s Frame, a “a lifestyle TV” designed to turn your screen into a gallery of digital art when you’re not watching Netflix. It’s cool, but if it doesn’t improve the experience of watching Pluribus, I’m not rushing out to replace my TV.
When “big TV” tries to create a desire for TVs that do something other than just work like TVs, the results haven’t always worked. Back 2010, perhaps sensing the need for a “gotta have it” feature, the industry rolled out the first 3D TVs. Despite years of hyping the technology as the next big thing, consumers didn’t bite, and by 2017, 3D TV was a dead technology. It was cool, but not cool enough to justify buying a new TV when people just wanted to watch Game of Thrones. Another example: the “screenless screen” represented by AR/VR devices like the Apple VisionPro or Meta Quest 3. It’s too early to say for sure, but these much-hyped devices seem to be meeting with lukewarm consumer response as well.
The one way your TV isn’t perfect
Don’t get too smug about your perfect TV, though, as it's probably going to break soon. The profitability of the TV industry requires a lot of people buy new TVs every few years, so your 65-inch Samsung isn't designed to last as long as the clunky CRTs of yore.Older sets were fairly simple machines that could last for decades (if Elvis didn't shoot them), but modern flat-panels are packed with LEDs that dim and LCDs that flicker out. Maybe more importantly, almost all new TVs are smart TVs, which introduces new ways of adding obsolescence—manufacturers could stop updating your TV's operating system and streaming services could drop support too. Even if the display still works, you might find navigating your TV to be such a slow, cumbersome, and useless experience that you'll go out and pick up a new one, far earlier than you otherwise would.
There's also the matter of privacy: These TVs are constantly watching what we do, and collect our data when connected to the internet. It's part of why TVs don't cost as much up front: You are subsidizing the price with your data. Disconnecting these TVs from the internet helps, but many streaming devices aren't much better, so you need to choose wisely. Choosing the right one, however, can expand the life of an old, otherwise functioning TV—until the hardware gives out, of course.
For more than half a century, audiences have been captivated by the Planet of the Apes—a sprawling sci-fi epic that spans at least three timelines, 3,000 years of history, and a franchise that includes 10 feature films, two TV series, three video games, and dozens of comics and novels. Whether you're a long-time fan trying to make sense of the lore or a newcomer wondering how a talking chimpanzee led to a post-apocalyptic planet dominated by primates, I’ve laid out the Planet of the Apes series by release order, chronological continuity, critical and commercial reception, the technological milestones of ape civilizations, and more.
This is your illustrated guide to the rise (and fall... and rise again, and fall, etc.) of the Planet of the Apes.
What is the Planet of the Apes?
Planet of the Apes is one of the strangest, most ambitious, and longest-running film franchises in cinema history. Films in the series vary wildly in quality, ambition, competence, and style, but all Apes movies, from the 1968 original to 2024’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, share a narrative focus: a world-shaking conflict between humans and intelligent apes.
Every Planet of the Apes movie, in chronological order
The original saga (1968–1973)
Planet of the Apes (1968):Based on Pierre Boulle’s 1963 sci-fi novel La Planète des Singes, 1968’s Planet of the Apes tells the story of astronaut George Taylor, who crash lands on what he thinks is a distant planet where apes are intelligent and in charge, and the people are dumb slaves.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970): While star Charlton Heston appears in the film briefly, Beneath the Planet of the Apes is really the story of Brent, an astronaut who’s been sent to rescue Taylor.
Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971): You’d think the annihilation of the entire planet would end the Planet of the Apes series, but no: In Escape, Cornelius, Zira, and Dr. Milo manage to flee the planet on Taylor’s ship before the doomsday bomb explodes; the trio time-travel to 1973.
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972): The last two old-school Planet of the Apes movies had lower budgets than their predecessors, and it definitely shows. Lore-wise, Conquest presents a divergent narrative path to explain the development of ape intelligence and other events.
Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973): In the years since the Ape rebellion in Conquest, a nuclear war has killed most humans; humans and ape relations are good enough, but the fragile detente is broken by human-hating gorilla Aldo.
The Burton reboot (2001)
Planet of the Apes (2001): After a nearly 30-year hiatus, 2001’s Apes is a thematically and tonally uneven summer blockbuster featuring a by-the-numbers plot, mid-tier action, and an ending that confuses everyone. (The makeup and production design are top-notch, though.)
The modern quadrilogy (2011–2024)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011): This movie blows the dust off the hoary old apes and breathes fresh creative life into a moribund franchise; Rise is a film packed with both action and dignity.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014): Dawn takes place about a decade after the events of the last movie, and apes are definitely on the come-up: It features the most nuanced (and most depressing) take on the conflict between species.
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017): If the message of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is “war is inevitable…,” the message of War for the Planet of the Apes is “..and war is hell.” It's a grim movie.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024): Kingdom explores an ape-dominated world where the few humans left are brainless scavengers (or so it seems). It doesn’t break new ground the way Rise did, but Kingdom opens the way for more Planet of the Apes sequels in the future.
Geographic location of each Planet of the Apes movie
Over more than five decades of films, Planet of the Apes has taken audiences from the shattered ruins of New York City to the tranquil redwood forests of Northern California, and even to entirely different worlds (maybe). This map tracks the primary settings of each movie, showing how the saga’s conflicts play out across Earth.
Who traveled where in time?
From astronauts overshooting the present by millennia, to apes hurtling back to the 20th century’s hippy era, time travel is integral to the Planet of the Apes, so lets take a look at the franchise’s major temporal tourists, charting when they left, when they arrived, and just how far they jumped.
The complicated chronology of the Planet of the Apes
If you’re considering a watch order for the Planet of the Apes, "in order by chronology" is the worst option—the Apes timeline is simply all over the place. While there are a few moments in the modern quadrilogy (2011–2024) that suggest the films are prequels to the original pentalogy (1968–1973), these are ultimately fan-service Easter eggs; the two series just don’t connect unless you get very creative with time-travel loops and offscreen assumptions. Hell, the first five films don’t connect with themselves unless you get creative with time-travel. So, I got creative with time travel to break down the major historical milestones in the Planet of the Apes Universe, across three timelines. (Four, if you count the self-contained 2001 Planet.)
Here are the Planet of the Apes movies listed in order of the year that each one takes place:
Critical reception of Planet of the Apes movies
Critics have a love-hate relationship with Planet of the Apes movies. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the “best” Apes movie is War for the Planet of the Apes, which was praised by 94% of critics. The “worst” is Battle for the Planet of the Apes, with only 33% positivity. That’s a big spread!
How much money did each Planet of the Apes movie make?
Critical acceptance is great; but in cynical Hollywood terms, the only measure of a good movie is how much money it makes. By that metric, the “best” Apes movie is the 2001 reboot, Planet of the Apes. Despite mixed review, the movie made $328,049,530.32 in domestic ticket sales (adjusted for inflation), which is even more than the original and the 2014 blockbuster Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
A who’s-who of ape leadership
Any society is defined by its leaders, including ape society, so here is a breakdown of the doctors, generals, and tribal chiefs who have ruled the apes over the last 50 years.
Dr. Zaius (Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes): An orangutan Minister of Science and Defender of the Faith who balances political control with the fear of humanity’s return.
General Ursus (Beneath the Planet of the Apes): This violent gorilla warlord never encountered a problem he couldn’t meet with violence.
Dr. Zira (Escape from the Planet of the Apes, 1970): A compassionate and sharp-witted chimpanzee thrust into the role of cultural ambassador between societies on the verge of war, Dr. Zira is the defacto leader of a small band of ape time-travelers.
Caesar (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes): The original Caesar is a fiery revolutionary who transforms ape resentment into a successful uprising against humanity.
General Thade (Planet of the Apes, 2001): A sadistic and cunning chimpanzee general obsessed with wiping out humanity.
Caesar (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, War for the Planet of the Apes): A hyper-intelligent chimp raised by humans, Caesar’s combination of tactical brilliance, political savvy, raw charisma, and genuine compassion for both apes and humans make him the best overall ape leader.
Koba (2014, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes): A bitter, scarred veteran of human torture and hero of the ape revolution, Koba has been through some shit.
Proximus Caesar (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes): An iron-fisted militarist who twists the past to justify authoritarian rule, Proximus Caesar rules through fear and historical revisionism.
Ape technological and intellectual milestones by movie
Across the Planet of the Apes films, the ever-shifting balance of power between apes and humans often comes down to brains as much as brawn. Each installment shows apes using technologies, social systems, and tactics that they’ve either developed or borrowed from humans. From crude tools and simple rules to heavy artillery and complex political structures, these milestones mark the evolving capabilities of ape society over the decades (and timelines) of the franchise. Here's a breakdown of the technological highlights of ape society in each movie.
Ape-adjacent TV shows, video games, comic books and movies
If ten feature films isn't enough Apes for you, there's plenty more material out there. The Ape-verse began with a novel, and has grown to include a live-action TV series, a cartoon series, three video games, and dozens of novelizations and comic books.
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What if you make this the year you don't fill all the stockings with candy or socks? Both have their place, but if you want to really make this the best Christmas ever, you have to shove some tech in those stockings. The good news: tech gifts don’t have to be expensive to be impressive.
No matter who you're shopping for, there are tons of affordable gizmos that are some combination of cool and useful and that feel pricier than they are. Here are 20 cool tech stocking stuffers to light up any holiday morning, all of which cost less than $50.
This handheld retro gaming console
If there's an old-school gamer on your list, their Christmas morning will be extra merry if it includes a tiny video game emulator. R36T Retro Gaming Console ($47.50) puts over 18,000 video games in the palm of your hand. It has a 3.5" screen, so whether they like arcade classics or consoles-of-the-past, they can fit 'em all in a pocket. You can even network up with another emulator for head-to-head action.
The Xteink X4 is an e-reader that's smaller than your phone. It uses e-ink like an Amazon Kindle, so you can whip a glare-free screen out of your pocket and start reading anywhere there's a light source. The X4 is a no-frills gadget—there's no lighting, touchscreen, or apps—but if you want a cheap, convenient way to read for around $50, it's perfect.
Those disposable cans of compressed air with the red straws are so 2015. Blow the dust off your electronics with an SDFM Electric Air Duster ($32.99) instead. With an engine that moves at 150,000 RPM, it shoots air such high speeds, the dust doesn't stand a chance. It's also cordless and comes with a variety of cleaning attachments to keep your gear in top shape.
If your giftee likes to listen to music or podcasts while drifting off to sleep, there's no gift better than a pair of sleep headphones; except twopairs of sleep headphones! This two-pack retails for $29.99 and contains two headbands with built in speakers you can pair with your phone or other device easily. You could buy a single pair, but these things break fairly regularly, so a backup is good.
Your giftee may have the tech side of their battle station/home office locked down, but I bet they don't have the aesthetics dialed in. Govee Smart LED Light Bars ($33) are programmable, colorful light bars work with Alexa and Google Assistant and can display light effects created from 16 millions colors. It even syncs with your music to provide trippy visuals.
My lifestyle doesn't involve cutting down trees, but I still need one of these miniature chainsaws. I mean, it's a chainsaw, andit's only six-inches long. This Dodowin mini chainsaw ($40) is battery powered, so no one will be accidentally cutting the cord. According to listing, it's suitable for tree pruning, garden artistry, shrub trimming, forest logging, and wood cutting. They don't mention it, but it's also perfect for tiny Texas massacres.
You know what computer fiends are missing in their lives? Knobs. This little $36 gadget lets you assign functions to four external knobs and 12 push buttons, so you can finally have a decent volume control, scrub through video smoothly, skip music tracks with a button push, and control any other function easily and physically. Perfect for gamers.
You could use a tape measure like a caveman, or you could measure things with a frickin' laser that fits in your pocket. This $40 gadget has an LED screen that's easy to read and it doubles as a cat toy. But does it measure things? Goddamn right it measures things—big things, little things, middle-sized things—it doesn't give a shit what you put in front of it, it will measure the hell out of it! (Up to 98 feet, anyway.)
This compact bluetooth speaker has an Amazon rating of 4.7 stars out of 5, and it's cheap—just $32. It's waterproof, it sounds great, and it features a built-in light show with six different settings so you can check out cool visuals with your tunes.
Keep track of the things in your life with these miniature tracking tags. Slip one in your wallet or your keys, and if you misplace them, you can hit a button and it will play a sound and/or give you a map that will lead you exactly to your missing item. Plus, it works in reverse, so you can hit a tag and it will ring your lost phone. I rely on these; no joke.
If you want to keep warm during the holidays, you could do a lot worse than this portable neck, shoulder, and back warmer. There are three temperature settings and a safety shut-off feature, and it heats up really fast.
This tiny little vacuum will keep your desktop dustfree. It sucks at 1000Pa of suction power for 400 minutes off a single charge, and it's very easy to use: You put it in the palm of your hand and push it around. Cool!
It's not like most people need an endoscope camera every day, but if the need for a tiny camera does arise—if you need to see why the engine isn't working or if your wedding ring falls behind the oven or something—you'll be glad you have this Anykit USB Endoscope Camera. It plugs right into your Android or iPhone and captures HD photos and video.
Projectors have gotten really good over the last few years, and they prices have come down massively too. This mini projector costs only $40 and projects a 1080p image up to 201" and even comes with a remote control and a projection screen.
If your giftee is into house automation within the Amazon ecosystem, you can't go wrong with an Echo Dot. This compact smart speaker packs a surprisingly nice sound along with built-in Alexa, so it can be used for for playing music, setting timers, and controlling your smart devices.
Alright, most people already have a media streamer attached to their televisions, but in case you're gifting someone who doesn't, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K is a solid choice. This no-frills device serves up 4K HD video, gives you access to hundreds of free and premium channels, and is easy to setup.
The Twelve South AirFly SE is an ultra-compact Bluetooth transmitter lets you plug into any device with a 3.5 mm jack, like in-flight entertainment systems, gym machines, or TVs, and stream audio wirelessly to your Bluetooth earbuds or headphones. Leave those accursed wired headphone in the drawer where they belong!
A portable inflator is perfect for car emergencies or keeping your bike tires plump, and this one from Slime is a steal at only $50. It's rechargeable, has an onboard pressure guage, an LED flashlight, and can inflate a car tire in only eight minutes. You will never go back to a manual air pump, I promise.
I am 100% sure whoever you're giving a gift to will be able to use this compact, high‑power Anker charger. It has two USB‑C ports plus one USB‑A, letting you power up your laptop, phone, and tablet all at once, from one plug.
Watching Clark Griswold fail at hanging up Christmas lights in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation may be a hilarious annual holiday tradition, but in real life, decorating failure is no laughing matter. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, around 15,000 people in the U.S. go to the emergency room every year for holiday decorating-related injuries. And no one is keeping statistics on the countless serious injuries my eyes suffer when I see neighbors with a half-ass light display. So let's avoid all that unpleasantness with this ultimate guide to Christmas lights, from planning, to tools, tips, safety, and storage.
Make a Christmas light hanging plan
The time to think about how you're going to hang your holiday lights is not when you're up on the ladder, so first, sit down and make a comprehensive plan for lights before you do anything else. Here are some steps and things to keep in mind:
Assess your space: Consider your roofline, windows, trees, shrubs, and walkways and decide what you're going to light up. Then develop an overall vision for your light display.
How much is enough: Decide whether you'd like a maximalist, minimalist, or traditionalist display.
Choose a color scheme: A coherent look to your holiday lights is so important, I made a whole section about it below. Skip ahead if needed.
Highlight architectural details: You want the lights to go around windows, roofs, and doorways.
Decide on your lights: Do you want string lights, icicle lights, net lights, projectors?
Props and other decorations: There are so many outdoor decorations available for all styles, from fairly understated displays to Santa in a pickup truck, that you kind of have to have something. Just make sure it fits in with the overall vibe. We're going for coherence here.
Measure it: Now that you know what you're going for, it's time to measure. The first step to measuring is to throw away your old tape measures and get a laser. Here's a laser measurer for less than $30. Get something like this and you won't have to climb a ladder to know how long your roofline is.
Consider the power: Make sure you know where the outlets are and whether you have enough extension cords.
Check your older lights: Part of planning is checking if the gear you already have is still working, so mix up some eggnog and make sure those old strings of lights still function.
Choose your color palette wisely
Anyone can throw some lights up, but throwing up lights with intention is what separates us from chimpanzees. Here's some color theory for your Christmas light display:
Pick a palette: The most obvious choice is red, green, and white, but consider other options like white, blue, and silver for a winter wonderland look, or red, white, and pink for candy cane vibes.
Limit your colors: You could go for a maximalist, every color look, but it's hard to pull-off without it looking like a Christmas thrift store.
Be careful with the flair: If you're going to have lights that twinkle, chase, or change color, make sure it's part of an overall cohesive look. One flashing light amongst a bunch of static strings is not what you want.
Remember that LED Christmas lights are superior
If you’re still using those old-school incandescent mini bulbs, shame on you. Stop being a caveman. LED lights are better than incandescent in all of these ways:
They're cool: LED lights run at about half the heat of older style bulbs, so they are unlikely to set anything on fire, even if you try.
They last forever: LEDs can run for tens of thousands of hours. They'll outlive you.
They use less energy: LEDs use about 10% of the energy that old school bulbs use.
They are independent: Remember back in the day, when your whole string of lights was shot if one bulb went out? That's the past, man. LEDs don't care whether other LEDs are dead or not.
Having followed these steps, you should know exactly how many feet of lights you need and what color they should be, but that's not the whole story. You need tools and other supplies, too.
Safety first: Hanging holiday lights is the most embarrassing way to injure yourself. It's just not worth it, so make doubly sure you have a plan for everything, don't take any risks, and get a helper to hold the ladder.
Start at the power source: Always begin where your lights will plug in. Starting elsewhere is a Griswold move that will ruin Christmas. Work outward from the outlet so you don’t run out of cord length mid-roofline.
Re-test your lights: You should have already tested them, but test each string again before you string 'em up. It's much easier to deal with a loose connection on the ground than up on a ladder.
Use clips and hooks instead of nails: Nails can damage your house or even cause electrical fires, so don't nail anything. Bonus: Hooks make taking everything down in January much easier.
Hang lights evenly: Space out the bulbs so you don't end up with a spaghetti look. Follow the lines of your house for the best looking display.
Wrap trees and shrubs neatly: For trees, start at the trunk and work outward. For small bushes, wrap in a spiral pattern from bottom to top.
How to remove and store Christmas lights
When the holidays are over, it's time to put everything back until next year. Resist the temptation to just clump everything up and throw it in boxes—you will not be happy with yourself next year. Do not just leave everything strung up either; you're a civilized person.
Reverse the installation: Do it all backwards. Remove lights starting from the farthest point from the outlet. Remove lights from trees from the outside-in and from the bottom up.
Wrap carefully: To avoid a "ball of despair" next Christmas, wrap your lights around something—a makeshift spool or just a piece of cardboard work wonders.
Label each strand: Denote where it went (roofline, bushes, tree, etc.) with a piece of masking tape and a Sharpie.
Store hooks and clips: A dedicated container for hooks and clips is a must. Fishing tackle boxes work great for this.
Store securely: Keep all your gear in a cool, dry place, in a plastic storage bin, so you can be ready for next year. Do not use cardboard boxes. Instead, get something like these Rubbermaid tubs.
We’ve all experienced gift panic—that sinking feeling when you realize you need a present in an hour and you just don’t have one to give. Whether you spent all year chasing the “perfect” gift or simply procrastinated, your time is nearly up. But don’t panic. The clock may have run out, but your options haven’t. Before you resort to re-gifting something from the back of a closet, here’s how to pull off a last-minute gift that is effortless but feels elevated and worthy of the person you’re giving it to.
Sometimes the gift is in the delivery
With the right presentation, even the most last-minute gift can read as thoughtful. Any performer will tell you that the difference between a good show and a bad one comes down to commitment and confidence. The same is true for last-minute gifts: If you act like your gift is thoughtful and intentional, they’ll think it is. The biggest mistake people make is apologizing as they hand over a present—nothing ruins a vibe faster than, “Sorry this is so last-minute.” So give with confidence.
And focus on presentation. A handwritten note that contains a shared memory or personal joke can elevate a present. Use simple but personal wrapping; kraft paper and twine, or a reusable gift bag that looks like you planned ahead. Add a small flourish, like a sprig of rosemary or a fancy bow. Small touches can make it seem like you’ve carefully prepared. What you don’t want are obvious panic gifts that scream, “I grabbed this on the way here.” The goal is effortless, not frantic. Here are some suggestions.
Instant purchase digital gifts
Digital gifts are your friends. You can order something in minutes that arrives instantly online, and with a little thought, will still read as personal and intentional. The trick is choosing a present that speaks to the recipient’s tastes, hobbies, or quirks, and pairing it with a small note to show you remember what they love. From eBooks to streaming subscriptions, these gifts hit the sweet spot of thoughtful and last-minute. Here are some suggestion:
Kindle unlimited subscription
If you have a reader on your list, they want books, and a Kindle Unlimited subscription lets them read anything they like. It can be ordered instantly and lets users access millions of titles, including audiobooks, for six months or a year, even if they don’t have a Kindle reader. Include a note that says something like, "I know how much you love discovering new stories. Now you can explore as many as you like—just make sure you tell me what you find!” Boom! Mission accomplished.
Gift cards that aren't impersonal
When time is running out, gift cards are your secret weapon. They arrive instantly online, don’t require shipping, and with the right presentation, they can feel surprisingly thoughtful. The key is to pick a card that fits the recipient’s interests and add a personal note. The more specific you are, the better. If your giftee is into Italian food, get them an Eataly gift card. If they're a PC gamer, get them a Steam card. If they're into education, a membership to Skillshare is perfect. There's a gift card out there for just about any interest, and all you have to do it google it and email it.
Making generic gift cards seem thoughtful
Generic gift cards can be a last-minute lifesaver that can still seem a little personal if you give them the right way.
Pick a theme or design: Many online cards, like Amazon, Etsy, or Starbucks, let you choose designs. The right visual makes the card feel more intentional.
Include a warm, personal message: Even one line can make a digital card feel thoughtful—something like, “I couldn’t pick just one thing for you. Hope this helps you treat yourself!”
Send strategically: Deliver the card by email or text, but consider printing the email or screenshotting it in a small envelope so it feels like a “real” gift.
Subscription boxes with instant confirmation emails
Sign someone up for a subscription service, write a note explaining you want to keep giving them presents all year, and you're golden. Here are some suggestions:
SnackCrate: This service sends a different snack from around the world every month.
SpiceClub: For the culinary adventurer on your list. A subscription to RawSpiceBar’s Spice Club delivers a curated selection of spices every month.
Mocktail variety box: Booze-free fancy drinks delivered once a month? Sign me up.
Thera Box: If you know someone in need of some self-care, this once-a-month box is packed with wellness and relaxation items.
Loot Crate: If your giftee is geeky, consider this monthly surprise box of pop culture treasures.
Send a message from a celebrity
Cameo is a platform where celebrities, influencers, musicians, and performers create personalized video messages for fans. If someone on your list is a fan of someone on Cameo, you can set up a session, and give a card with a mysterious note like "Keep an eye out for a special message." They'll be delighted when Kenny G. sends them a video.
Experiential gifts
I have enough crap in my house, so I love getting experiences instead of things. The challenge with experience gifts is usually timing: Many require reservations or coordination, but there are plenty of options that let your giftee schedule the time, making them perfect last-minute gifts.
Museum membership cards: Many institutions sell digital gift memberships that the recipient can activate whenever they like.
Movie tickets: Your local multiplex probably has a gift certificate you can buy online.
Local attraction passes: Some city attractions offer gift cards or “anytime admission” tickets that don’t expire immediately.
Pair these with a note explaining why you chose the experience, or, if you have that kind of relationship, something like, "I want to take you to the Museum of Modern Art" or whatever. Just make sure you follow through and actually go.
Really last-minute, on-the-way-to-the-party gifts
Sometimes, there’s literally no time to order, wrap, or even think about a gift. If you’re scrambling out the door and need something now, you might be able to fake your way through, even if you're stopping at the liquor store on the way to the Christmas party.
Easy on-the-way options
Flowers or a small potted plant: Give a seasonal bouquet or a small indoor plant. Add a handwritten note, even a single line, and it might come off as thoughtful.
Gourmet chocolates or candy: Specialty chocolates from a local shop or grocery store display can feel luxe with a little ribbon or bag.
Wine, craft beer, or non-alcoholic beverage: A bottle with a clean label or interesting packaging immediately elevates your gift. Ask the clerk at the liquor store to help you find something unique.
Lottery tickets: Who wouldn't appreciate a bunch of scratch-off lottery tickets?
When all else fails, give cash
Hard cash is the most impersonal gift of all, but the only one you know will be used. This gift really depends on the person getting it, so be aware of whether they're likely to think "Just what I wanted!" or "Wait, I'm not poor." If you give cash, make sure it's crisp bills in a nice card, with a personalized note.
In a way, the Christmas season is more fun if you don’t celebrate it. There’s no pressure. You get to enjoy all the brightly colored lights your neighbors put up, but you don’t have to put up your own. You don’t have to do any duty-shopping. But Christmas Day itself leaves you in a mostly shuttered world that feels like there’s nothing to do. Fortunately, there are still quite a few options to make Dec. 25 a fun day off, regardless of your observances.
Un-Christmas classics: Chinese restaurants and movies
You can’t go wrong with some moo shu pork and a trip to the multiplex. Chinese restaurants and movie theaters traditionally stay open on Christmas day for those who don't celebrate, and they’re often crowded with fellow Christmas refugees. Check Google for the hours of your local Chinese restaurant and give them a call to make a reservation. If you’re more adventurous and you’re in a city large enough to have a Chinatown (or a whatever-town), just head straight there on Christmas and see what happens—that’s how the best days usually start.
If Chinese food isn’t your thing, look at restaurants serving any non-European cuisine—Greek places, Japanese places, and Mediterranean places are usually open, as are plenty of Italian restaurants and steakhouses. Just make sure you check first. Lots of chain restaurants are open on Christmas Day, including Applebees, McDonald’s, Benihana, and more. You can even get Christmas breakfast at your local IHOP. But not every location of every outlet follows the same hours, so check first.
As for movies, most chain multiplex theaters are open on Dec. 25, and theaters are usually pretty full. The movies attract both people who don't celebrate Christmas and people who celebrate the holiday but want to get away from their families for a couple hours, so make sure and reserve a seat beforehand. Consider hitting up an out-of-the-way spot or that theater with the table service and cushy recliners to make it feel like more of an occasion.
Most people going to the movies on Christmas Day aren’t there for Christmas movies, so interesting “secular” movies are often slated for release on the 25th. This year, a ridiculous looking re-boot of Anaconda starring Jack Black will be released on Christmas, so you've got options.
Less obvious options for Christmas day fun
Chinese restaurants and movie theaters aren’t the only establishments open on Christmas. Here are some other options:
Go skiing or snowboarding: Most mountains are open on Christmas and the lift lines are blissfully empty. There's no better way of celebrating a winter-based holiday than on a wide open mountain.
Visit a skating rink: Speaking of winter sports, ice skating rinks are generally open on Christmas too.
Pretend to be a tourist: Tourist attractions are often open on Christmas, especially in larger cities. This includes places like Madame Tussaud’s and Ripley’s Believe It or Not, as well as ziplines and Segway tours—so do that touristy thing you’ve never done before.
Get a room: If you’ve got some spare cash and have nothing better to do, get a room at a hotel. Hotels don’t usually close on Christmas, and they typically offer plenty of amenities, so take advantage of the pool at the Holiday Inn or the spa at the Four Seasons, depending on your lifestyle.
Hiking and biking: Hiking trails and parks are open on Christmas if you want to get outdoors. If you’re into biking, hit the trails or hit the streets: Traffic is minimal on Christmas, so it’s a great time to put in some serious roadwork.
Volunteer: Not having anything to do on Christmas isn’t the biggest life problem, especially compared to people who have nowhere to go and nothing to eat. So use Christmas to help people and actually deliver on that whole “good will towards men” thing. Check your local Craigslist for volunteering opportunities.
Use Christmas as a catch-up day: This is strictly for type-A people, but if everyone is out of town and no one is going to call you, why not spend the day catching up on neglected chores or personal projects? You can spend at least part of your day knocking a few things off your to-do list and the rest of the time relaxing. That way you’ll get a break and still feel accomplished.
Just sleep all day: Type-B personalities like me see a day free of obligations and other people as a golden opportunity to do as little as is humanly possible, a day to fully commit to sloth.
Spend time with friends and family at home: Not celebrating Christmas doesn’t mean you can’t spend the day with family and/or friends. Get together with your loved ones, play games, watch a movie, cook together, talk, or whatever else you all enjoy. You don’t have to go out to have fun, so don’t rule out staying in with people you care about.
Shopping: This is at the bottom of the list because it’s iffy. Drug stores and convenience stores like 711 are usually open on the 25th. Grocery chains like Kroger’s and Trader Joe’s usually aren’t. Your local shopping mall or retail district might be open, but probably won't be, so check ahead.
Make a list and check it twice
Because so many places are closed on Christmas day, you should plan ahead (unless you like spontaneity and are OK with the possibility of disappointment) by:
Making a list of the places you want to go.
Calling nearby locations to confirm they’ll be open, as not every chain follows corporate holiday hour recommendations.
Making reservations at any restaurant(s) you plan to visit.
Putting together a basic timeline of the day, accounting for travel time, so you don’t lose any reservations, miss a movie, or arrive after the store closes.
The most important advice here is to do something intentional on Christmas, even if it's sleeping in, so the day doesn't feel depressing or empty. So hit the slopes, suck down some dim sum, or keep your couch from floating away, but be sure you make Christmas your own.
Our grandparents could drop some treats in a sock and call it Christmas, secure in the knowledge that their children would be delighted by an orange. These days, though, everyone from your tech-obsessed granny to your cutting-edge teen, wants to be impressed. Luckily, there's a high-tech gadget out there for everyone.
Stocking stuffer of the year: Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses (Gen 2)
The 2025 line of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have a longer battery life than the first generation, as well as better AI and the ability to take longer videos. Those aren't massive improvements, but the original is so solid, it didn't need much done to make it better. Almost any tech lover would be happy with a pair of these in their stocking. I like my 1st-Gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses enough that I had prescription lenses put in them and I wear them daily. The ability to snap a photo, take a video, or start streaming to Instagram instantly takes the documentary-about-your-life aspect of social media to new levels, and the built-in AI and music player make this the stocking stuffer of the year. Check out my full review for more details.
For the fitness-obsessed: Whoop Peak 5
It can be hard to buy a gift for a health-focused person. They usually don't want booze and they like putting in effort. But the Whoop Peak 5 fitness tracker will brighten the Christmas morning of the most diehard athlete. It's more versatile than a watch (you can wear it on your bicep and even in your underwear) and it monitors heart rate, respiratory rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature, blood oxygen levels, daily activity, and sleep—basically everything I don't worry about. Check out Lifehacker's senior health editor Beth Skwarecki's in-depth look at the Whoop Peak 5 for more details.
You cannot go wrong with a GoPro. The company's easy-to-use, hard-to-break cameras are synonymous with "action photography" and compact enough to fit in a stocking. If there's a snowboarder, skateboarder, kayaker, or BMX racer on your list, this is a must. Even if your giftee isn't an adventurer, the GoPro Hero 13 supports additional lenses and filters that let users go beyond the "gnarly fish-eye, dude" photography and videography of past generations. Check out associate tech editor Michelle Ehrhardt's GoPro Hero 13 review for more details.
For the tech-toy lover: DJI Mini 4K Drone
Some people want tech products that make their lives easier in some way, but others want the pure joy that comes from impressively useless toys. If you're shopping for the latter this Christmas, I highly recommend a DJI Mini 4K drone: Few have a practical use for a little helicopter, but it's so flippin' cool. It takes off from the palm of your hand, flies in winds up to 38 kph (23.61 mph), and captures stabilized 4K video in all kinds of lighting conditions. You can even set it to follow you around automatically, like a little drone pal.
Like the Switch 2, the R36Max retro handheld game console lets you take your gaming anywhere. But unlike the Switch 2, it comes with over 18,000 games pre-installed and ready to go, so you can play every title from classic consoles like the Atari 2600 or the PlayStation 1, as well as every arcade game anyone ever dropped a coin into, all for less than $100. Heck, I payed more than that in quarter just to beat Dragon's Lair.
For the musician/producer: Yamaha Seqtrak
I'm obsessed with the Yamaha Seqtrak. It crams a drum machine, sequencer, sampler, and synthesizer into a package small enough to put into a Christmas stocking, with room left over for a speaker. It's everything you need to produce a song by itself, and it integrates with your computer and other gear too. It's not even difficult to understand, nor is it super expensive at $300.
The Flipper Zero is a must-have device for the hardcore, glasses-wearing, circuit-bender type of techie. Its ability to do evil deeds like hack ATMs is greatly exaggerated, but the Flipper is still a technological Swiss army knife that lets you read and manipulate the invisible waves around you, from radio waves, to RFID, NFC, Bluetooth, and wifi signals. It's educational, fascinating, and powerful; how you use that power is your business.
For the scientist: Skybasic digital microscope
If you're giving a gift to a would-be Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, this miniature, wireless microscope will rock their holiday. It's easy to set up, works with PCs, Android, or iOS devices, magnifies things up to 1000x, and takes 1080p pictures of your discoveries.
A non-tech gift for you: Hochstadter's Slow & Low Rock and Rye
Credit: Hochstadter's
Whether you find Christmas stressful or celebratory, slipping a bottle of liquor into your own stocking is the kind of self-care I support. My suggestion: Hochstadter's Slow and Low. It's a no-effort drink that's classier (and boozier) than a supermarket White Claw, and it has a retro vibe and sweet taste that pairs perfectly with the holidays.
It's Christmas time, and people believe a lot of inaccurate things about the holiday, so for the next few weeks, I'm going to take a look at the truth behind Christmas mythology, starting with the biggest misconception of them all: Not "how can the North Pole support an industrial infrastructure large enough to build toys for all the world's children," but whether Jesus was really born on Dec. 25.
Was Jesus born on Dec. 25?
Most Christians celebrate the Baby J's birthday on Dec. 25, but he probably wasn't born on that day. The Bible doesn't provide a specific date, neither does any historical document, and early Christians didn't even celebrate Christmas. So Jesus could have been born on Dec. 25, but he could have been born on March 7, or any other date. Here are some popular alternatives for Jesus' birthday:
January 6 or 7—favored by Orthodox Christians
November 18—according to Clement of Alexandria
March or April—based on Biblical passages describing shepherds watching their flocks.
September or October—based on John the Baptist's father's membership in "The Order of Abijah." This theory is too complex to explain here, but it's fascinating, and I urge you to fall into the priestly division of Abijah rabbit hole like I did.
If Jesus wasn't born on Dec. 25, why is it Christmas?
No one knows for sure why we have mostly landed on Dec. 25 as Jesus' birthday, but there are theories. Here are two of the most common:
Solar Theory: The first solid reference to Jesus being born on Dec. 25 was in the Calendar of Filocalus, a Roman almanac written in 354. The calendar denotes Dec. 25 as both Christ's birth date and the date of an older holiday, "The Birthday of the Unconquered Sun," suggesting both holidays were celebrated on the same day in Rome (or were at least listed that way by the 4th century). The theory is that Romans were like "we celebrate the day anyway" and early Christians were all "we got your unconquered sun right here" and accepted the 25th to celebrate, eventually outlasting the Romans and leaving the pagan holiday a footnote that no one celebrates besides my friend Gary.
Calculation Theory: Early Christians believed that prophets and martyrs died on the same day they were conceived—I assume a second-century skeptic carved a scathing tablet debunking this, but it's what many early Christians believed. Jesus' martyrdom/conception was said to have happened on March 25, so his birth would be on Dec. 25 (assuming he was punctual.)
There are other theories—the date was chosen to coincide with Hannukah, Saturnalia, the re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, or the Eagles/Bears game in 2006. The point is we don't actually know, but it's probably a "little from column A, a little from column B" situation. The Calculation Theory provided a theological justification for the date, and the Solar symbolism provided cultural relevance; both Jesus and Santa like when we work together, after all.
What is the true meaning of Christmas?
Ultimately, the murkiness around Jesus' exact birthday isn't important. Christmas doesn't exist because a Roman bureaucrat wrote it on a calendar or some pagans wanted to blow off steam. Whether you celebrate Christmas as the birthday of Christ or a mid-winter celebration of light, the holiday's meaning was been built collectively over centuries, and is molded and changed constantly to fit the needs and desires of the people who celebrate it. Whether that celebration is a somber religious expression or listening to Mariah Carey while drinking eggnog, it's all good.
Generations A and Z contain multitudes. While some kids are gleefully crapping out AI-generated Rizzmas carols—holiday brain-rot so potent it should probably be classified as a controlled substance—other kids are dissecting the work of esoteric 19th-century novelist Robert W. Chambers like they’re in a graduate seminar. And they’re the same kids. So we’re whipsawing between rizz and cosmic horror, with side quests to discover Diddy tag and this year’s hottest Christmas toy.
What is “67 Rizzmas”?
In what’s becoming a regrettable holiday tradition, the internet has begun releasing rizzmas carols—brainrot versions of beloved seasonal songs. (“Rizz” is slang for charisma, but here it’s just a stand-in for meaningless meme-speak.) In the past, redoing a classic required at least singing over a recording, but the rise of AI has made it nearly effortless to churn out as many brain-rot rizzmas carols as you want—I made Skibiddi Christmas Rizz in 45 seconds. It’s a terrible song; all these songs are terrible, but that doesn’t stop TikTok accounts from churning them out. Perhaps inevitably, one of these AI abominations has become a “hit.” @html.brainrot's "67 on a Merry Rizzmas" has been viewed over 3.7 million times. Set to the tune of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and consisting only of meme lyrics, “67” has grown popular enough that 146,000 other videos have used the song. There are meme-heavy dance videos like this:
understandable critiques like this:
and plenty of AI slop like this:
Merry Christmas, I guess.
Dumb videos are only one symptom of rizzmas fever. There’s also a rizzmas meme coin that one could invest in, if one were stupid, and so many other unfunny, annoying rizzmas carols to listen to. In the unlikely event that you want to hear more rizzmas carols or want to watch videos of people telling you that investing in rizzmas coin will make you rich, go to the hashtag—there are over 12,000 videos to choose from.
American Girls Wicked dolls sell out
Remember that Christmas when Tickle Me Elmo dolls were so coveted that re-sellers were charging thousands of dollars for them? This year’s Elmo is American Girl’s limited-edition Wicked dolls. Launched in September for $295 each, the Elphaba and Glinda American Girls dolls quickly sold out. Now they’re only available from re-sellers, where they’re commanding prices of up to $1,000, and it’s only the beginning of December. Whether American Girl is going to sell more of the coveted dolls isn’t known, so if a kid in your life has to have one, you’re going to have to go to eBay or fork over half your bank account to a shady guy in a parking lot on Christmas Eve.
Kids are playing “Diddy tag”
According to TikToker @nestaog’s son, the hottest game in elementary school this year is Diddy tag. “Diddy tag is when you tag someone and that person’s Diddy,” the kid said. “He got baby oil,” he added.
TikTok commenters say that kids in their lives are also playing Diddy-based schoolyard games like “Escape from Diddy’s House” and insulting each other by saying, “you’re going to Diddy’s house.”
Kids were making and playing games based on the convicted sex offender on Roblox too, until the company banned user-created games with names like “Five Nights At Diddy’s,” “Nice Try Diddy,” and “Diddy Survival” from the platform. Roblox reportedly nuked over 600 fan-created experiences about Diddy and Jeffery Epstein from the service.
So Diddy is clearly on kids’ minds. While it’s concerning that children know enough about him to cast Diddy as the boogeyman in their schoolyard games, if you think back to your own school days, you were probably playing “Ebola Tag,” “Nuclear War,” or “Vietnam.” It’s how kids deal with their fears. And is it really the worst thing for kids to be warning each other to stay away from Diddy?
Who is Boy Throb and are they a joke?
Boy Throb is an online boy band who wear matching pink track suits and make videos featuring self-consciously cheesy pop songs. Despite online debate and the group's insistence that they are not a joke, Boy Throb is obviously a joke. But it’s a funny joke.
The group initially went viral on TikTok about a month ago with this video:
According to the band, an immigration lawyer told them they need a million followers so Darshawn, the Indian Boy Throbber, can get a visa so he can “sing and dance in America.” I’m no attorney, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how immigration law works. A couple of days ago, Boy Throb hit their follower goal on TikTok, but their lawyer had another request:
Now they say that, in order for Darshawn to make it here, they need journalists to write a “couple articles of press” about them. Now, I don’t work for Rolling Stone or Readers Digest, but I’d still like to confirm that Darshawn has extraordinary abilities and he should be allowed to sing and dance in America.
Viral video of the week: Searching for a World That Doesn’t Exist
It would be easy to look at the brainrot memes and general numbskullery of generations A and Z and despair, but there’s a countervailing force of ad-hoc intellectualism that I find fascinating, as evidenced by the fact that Robert W. Chambers is having a viral moment.
Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with the name. Chambers was a popular author in the late 1800s, known for romances and historical novels, but most of his work didn’t stand the test of time like Dickens or Poe—except for half of one collection of short stories. The King in Yellow was published in 1895, and its cosmic horror is different from everything else Chambers wrote. These short stories revolve around a play called The King in Yellow that will drive you mad if you read it. The book has been a cult favorite of horror weirdos since it was published—it’s my personal choice for best piece of horror literature ever written, but it’s esoteric and dense, so it’s strange that The King in Yellow is having a pop culture moment among the young people.
There’s been no shortage of popular culture riffs on The King in Yellow—John Carpenter’s 1994 feature In the Mouth of Madness and the first season of HBO’s True Detective especially—but Chambers’ Yellow King is catching on with the YouTube and Minecraft generation in a bigger way.
This three-and-a-half hour long close reading of the King in Yellow from YouTuber Wendigoon has been viewed over four million times:
In it, Wendigoon illustrates how the titular figure in Chambers’ novel is a malevolent mimetic entity, a supernatural thought-contagion that spreads through information. Chambers was definitely ahead of his time.
Like its namesake, the King spread to even more young people in the form of a Minecraft alternative reality game, courtesy of YouTuber Wifies, whose “Searching for a World That Doesn’t Exist” is this week’s viral video.
Wifies’ video details the unfortunate adventures of a young gamer who finds a laptop in a storage container and plays Minecraft on it, only to discover a haunted virtual world with plenty of similarities to Chambers’ work. "Searching for a World That Doesn’t Exist" draws its understated dread from a combination of Chambers’ themes and the uncanny alienation of Minecraft itself. It’s subtle and thoughtful—the opposite of brain-rot—and the kids are into it.
“Searching” has been viewed over a million times, Google searches for “The King in Yellow” are through the roof, and fans are responding with tribute videos and memes, and the phrase “Don’t go left” is growing as a catch-all warning. Some kids are probably even reading the book and connecting the constant temptation of forbidden knowledge to their own lives lived entirely online.
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Cyber Monday is here, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before the sales are over.
Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find.
Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.
Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change.
Bluetooth tracking tags are the perfect holiday gift; they're both high-tech and practical, they're easy to set up and use, and literally everyone has something they lose, from luggage, to laptops, to car keys, to pets. Plus, they're compact and easy to wrap. Best of all, these Mate tags from Tile are —especially while they're 50% off for Cyber Monday.
They work like this: You affix them to whatever you like, and then you can either see where the item is on a map on your phone or play an alarm. But that's only half of what makes these trackers useful, because also work in reverse: You can click a Mate and it will ring your phone in case you lose that.
A four pack of Mate trackers for $39.99 is the lowest price Amazon has ever offered, so this isn't an illusionary bargain, and it's much cheaper than Apple's competing product: A four-pack of AirTags lists for $99, and is currently on sale for $62.99.
What stores have the best sales on Cyber Monday?
Nowadays, both large retailers and small businesses compete for Cyber Monday shoppers, so you can expect practically every store to run sales through Monday, December 1, 2025. The “best” sales depend on your needs, but in general, the biggest discounts tend to come from larger retailers that can afford lower prices: think places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. You can find all the best sales from major retailers on our live blog.
Are Cyber Monday deals worth it?
In short, yes, Cyber Monday still offers discounts that can be rare throughout the rest of the year. If there’s something you want to buy, or you’re shopping for gifts, it’s a good time to look for discounts on what you need, especially tech sales, home improvement supplies, and fitness tech. Of course, if you need to save money, the best way to save is to not buy anything.
Are Cyber Monday deals better than Black Friday?
Black Friday used to be bigger for major retailers and more expensive tech and appliances, while Cyber Monday was for cheaper tech and gave smaller businesses a chance to compete online. Nowadays, though, the distinction is almost meaningless. Every major retailer will offer sales on both days, and the smart move is to know what you want, use price trackers or refer to guides like our live blog that use price trackers for you, and don’t stress over finding the perfect timing.
Our Best Editor-Vetted Cyber Monday Deals Right Now
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over.
Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find.
Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.
Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change.
The perfect gift for a college student can be hard to suss out. They're adults, but not really, and what they need at school swings between "serious academic tools" and "things that make dorm life more bearable" wildly. Whether you're prepping a freshman to return for the spring semester at a state school or you're upgrading the gear of a senior at Yale, the right tech, accessories, and comfort items can make a huge difference in their daily routines. Here’s a curated list of tech-focused gifts that any student would like, covering productivity boosters, dorm upgrades, and a fun splurges—many of which are on sale right now.
Academic and productivity essentials
Good grades require good gear. These items are all designed to aid in the "studying" part of going to college, because education is the whole point.
A reliable laptop is the most important piece of tech for most students. The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3i Chromebook is powerful enough to handle note-taking, Google Docs, and streaming, and, at less than three pounds, it's light enough to carry all over campus.
No dorm room has enough outlets, and few surge protectors have enough USB ports. This power strip solves both problems at once by cramming 12(!) outlets and 6 USB ports—both C and B—into one compact unit. It's infinitely practical.
These Urbanista over-ear headphones are great for drowning out loud roommates, hallway traffic, and the general chaos of college housing. Plus, they can be used to get, like, really into Pink Floyd. They're very solid headphones at a very good price.
A phone calculator won’t cut it on exams. Obviously math, science, business, and engineering students are going to need a reliable scientific calculator, but even liberal arts majors are likely to need one for that damn statistics class they have to take.
Just as English majors need calculators, STEM students are going to have to take at least on literature class, and a Kindle will make all that reading as painless as possible with its bright screen and go-anywhere size and weight.
An Amazon Fire tablet is the perfect item to have with you when a laptop isn't needed. This flexible entertainment (and study) device lets you stream lectures, take notes, watch movies, and browse the web, and it costs way less than an iPad. It's just a much cleaner option than a pile of notebooks.
If you want to take their tablet to the next level, don't forget the stylus. It's great for note-taking, sketching, highlighting, and annotating PDFs.
Dorm life and entertainment
College isn't all lectures, reading, studying, and exams. There's also navigating being away from home for the first time, figuring our how to live comfortably, and making friends, and that extracurricular activity can be as much of an education as classes.
Keurig K-Express Single Serve K-Cup Pod Coffee Maker
For many students, caffeine is vital for productivity, wellness, and entertainment. There may be coffee at the cafeteria, but it's all the way across campus. This dorm-size, single serving coffee maker from Keurig will be greatly appreciated.
A year's subscription to a streaming service
Whether you sign them up for Amazon Prime, Netflix, or The Criterion Collection, a subscription is one of the most appreciated gifts you can give, and it's something they'll definitely use. It's also super-easy to sign up. Just make sure you check for student discounts so you don't over pay.
Portable and loud enough for dorm hangouts, study playlists, and small outdoor gatherings, the JBL Charge 6 sounds great, and it's tough enough to deal with spilled drinks, drops on the ground, and more. This is a great Bluetooth speaker for college life.
These LED strips will turn an impersonal dorm room into a customized den instantly. Plus, the effortless installation isn't likely to run afoul of the dorm's rules about making room alterations.
A dorm room with a mini fridge packed with midnight snacks and cans of "sodas" is the kind of dorm room everyone wants to hang out in, but before you buy this, make sure setting up a fridge isn't breaking any rules.
Controlling the temperature in a dorm room can be hard, but this Dyson heater/cooler is perfect for the limited square footage of a typical dorm room. It's quiet, unobtrusive, and can be used to cool or heat a person or a whole room.
A color-changing light can makes any dorm room feel calmer and more comfortable, but this attractive Echo lamp has a secret: It's Alexa compatible so it can be controlled with spoken commands and it also works as an alarm clock.
Meta Quest 3S
A popular pick for VR gaming, fitness, and immersive study breaks, the Meta Quest 3S is also great for virtual hangouts with the friends they left behind when they graduated high school.
Personal Wellness and lifestyle
College life can be stressful, so staying physically and mentally fit is vital. These wellness and style focused gifts might help build good habits and take better care of themselves while they’re juggling classes, work, and social life.
The color-changing gimmick at the heart of these music-playing glasses is perfect for someone who exercises outside a lot, and Music Shields are also perfect for someone who wants to make a fashion impression in a unique way.
This all-in-one device is great for managing notifications, tracking fitness, and maintaining healthy sleep habits, all things that can make a huge difference in college. Plus, a Galaxy Watch will help them get to class on time and look stylish doing it.
These Shokz headphones are perfect for a student who likes to listen to music or podcast while walking, running, or cycling. The open-ear design allows you to hear your surrounding, but they still sound great.
A really solid, high-end toothbrush like this Oral-B iO is the kind of thing a cash-strapped student is unlikely to buy for themselves, but will make a huge difference in their daily life. In other words, even though it's "just" a toothbrush, it's a perfect Christmas gift.
Oura Ring 4
This unobtrusive finger ring is amazing: it tracks sleep, stress, exercise, and recovery. An Oura Ring 4 is great for students trying to balance classes, work, fitness and social life while avoiding burnout; in other words, every college student.
Does Apple do Black Friday?
Yes, Apple participates in Black Friday, though you may want to compare their sales with other retailers like Best Buy and Walmart. Apple is offering an exclusive $250 gift card for eligible purchases, but so far, the best Black Friday sale on an Apple product is the M4 MacBook on sale for cheaper than ever.
Does Amazon have Black Friday deals?
Yes, Amazon has Black Friday sales, but prices aren’t always what they seem. Use a price tracker to make sure you’re getting the best deal, or refer to guides like our live blog that use price trackers for you. And if you have an Amazon Prime membership, make the most of it.
What stores have the best sales on Black Friday?
Nowadays, both large retailers and small businesses compete for Black Friday shoppers, so you can expect practically every store to run sales through Monday, December 1, 2025. The “best” sales depend on your needs, but in general, the biggest discounts tend to come from larger retailers that can afford lower prices: think places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. You can find all the best sales from major retailers on our live blog.
Are Black Friday deals worth it?
In short, yes, Black Friday still offers discounts that can be rare throughout the rest of the year. If there’s something you want to buy, or you’re shopping for gifts, it’s a good time to look for discounts on what you need, especially tech sales, home improvement supplies, and fitness tech. Of course, if you need to save money, the best way to save is to not buy anything.
Are Cyber Monday deals better than Black Friday?
Black Friday used to be bigger for major retailers and more expensive tech and appliances, while Cyber Monday was for cheaper tech and gave smaller businesses a chance to compete online. Nowadays, though, the distinction is almost meaningless. Every major retailer will offer sales on both days, and the smart move is to know what you want, use price trackers or refer to guides like our live blog that use price trackers for you, and don’t stress over finding the perfect timing.
Our Best Editor-Vetted Cyber Monday Deals Right Now
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
It's Cyber Monday bargain week, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over.
Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find.
Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.
Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change.
Shopping for a teenager can be hard—their tastes are hyper-specific and change daily. But the gifts below take aim at the moving target of teen trends, focusing on gear that's useful, amusing, and/or even (gasp) educational. Plus, every item on the list is still on sale in the wake of Black Friday/Cyber Monday.
From retro-cool instant cameras to room-transforming LEDs and clever toys, here are 11 of the best tech gifts for teens in 2025.
Polaroid Now 3rd Generation
Maybe it's teenage rebellion against our screen-scrolling lifestyle or a quest for authenticity, but more and more kids are getting into old fashioned cameras. The Polaroid Now 3rd Gen is a classic analog device that lets you watch your photos develop in real time, doesn't have any megapixels, and ejects a keepable, framable, non-scrollable physical object.
For lots of kids, part of growing up is learning exactly how awesome music can be. If your giftee is making that transition, there's no better gift than decent audio gear, like these Beats Solo 4 bluetooth headphones. They sound great, with spatial audio and head tracking, and they come in five colors, so they look great too. There's a reason they have a 4.6 star rating on Amazon.
Being able to print 3D objects at home still seems like science fiction to me, but not only is it possible, it's not even that expensive. The Flashforge 3D printer is only $239 for Cyber Week. If you have a teen with artistic, creative, or technical interests, this device is perfect.
There's a reason the JBL Clip 5 is such a massive hit with teenagers. This portable bluetooth speaker is available in nine different designs, it's waterproof and practically indestructible, and you can clip it onto anything. Plus, it sounds great.
This mini projector connects to Netflix, YouTube, and other services to stream 4K video on any wall or ceiling, so it's a must-have for a teenager who is sick of watching things on their phone. It can connect via bluetooth or Wi-Fi and it costs less than $100 during Cyber week.
Having a kid that's into technology likely means a lot of expensive little gadgets—cameras, headphones, tablets, etc.—and they can all get lost. But not if you slap one of these Apple Airtags on 'em. This pack comes with four for $74.98, an investment that will pay for itself with the first misplaced tablet it finds.
If your teenager is anything like mine, they have a million things to charge and no ability to keep track of the necessary cords, so if you give 'em one of these chargers/batteries, you'll be saving your own precious USB-Cs. This portable charger and batteries has 6 outputs and 3 inputs, so you can charge 6 devices at the same time.
Help them decorate their room with a galactically cool lunar lamp. Powered by cool-to-the-touch LED bulbs this lamp's 16 colors swirl, fade, and smooth in a soothing way, and the hues can be adjusted according to their mood.
Self-obsession is a hallmark of teenager-hood, so give the gift of flattering selfies with this ring light set. It's basically everything you need for an ad hoc social media studio: a stand with a phone holder, ring light with adjustable brightness, and a trigger to turn on the recording. Kind of a steal at $25.64.
Technically, this device is aimed at younger kids, but I can't think of anyone, of any age, who wouldn't be into a 1000X magnification microscope that has its own 4K screen. It comes with prepared glass slides, but nothing is stopping you from magnifying whatever you'd like.
Karaoke machines have come along way. This Ikaro machine is a party in a compact box. It comes with two microphones, works with YouTube, (which basically gives you access to every karaoke recording ever), and even has a cool LED light show. Plus it doubles as a portable PA system.
What stores have the best sales for during Cyber Week?
Nowadays, both large retailers and small businesses compete for holiday shoppers, so you can expect practically every store to run sales through December. The “best” sales depend on your needs, but in general, the biggest discounts tend to come from larger retailers who can afford lower prices: think places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. You can find all the best sales from major retailers on our live blog.
Are Cyber Week deals worth it?
In short, yes. Cyber Week sales still offers discounts that can be rare throughout the rest of the year. If there’s something you want to buy, or you’re shopping for gifts, it’s a good time to look for discounts on what you need, especially tech sales, home improvement supplies, and fitness tech. Of course, if you need to save money, the best way to save is to not buy anything.
Are Cyber Week deals better than Black Friday?
Black Friday used to be bigger for major retailers and more expensive tech and appliances, while Cyber Monday was for cheaper tech and gave smaller businesses a chance to compete online. Nowadays, though, distinction is almost meaningless. Every major retailer will offer sales on both days and throughout the following week, and the smart move is to know what you want, use price trackers or refer to guides like our live blog that use price trackers for you, and don’t stress over finding the perfect timing.
Our Best Editor-Vetted Cyber Monday Deals Right Now
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over.
Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find.
Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.
Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change.
If you have a gamer on your list, make this the year that you don't get them Lee Carvalla's Putting Challenge when they want Bonestorm. The list of Black Friday discounted items below contains everything from full systems to high-end monitors to novelty gifts that'll get a quick laugh—in other words, something for every kind of gamer.
Meta Quest 3S
If the gamer in your life is virtual-reality-curious, Meta's Quest 3S headset is the best entry-level VR headset. It might not be the top of Meta's line of VR headsets, but it does everything its bigger brother the Meta Quest 3 does—at a much lower price. Check out my comparison for an in-depth look. The Meta Quest 3S is $249, down from $299.
Huqjot retro gaming console
It's a golden age for fans of old school games—emulators have gotten so compact and so inexpensive that you can play almost any old game you can think of with just a memory stick plugged into your TV. There are a lot of emulators choose from, but this classic gaming stick comes pre-packaged with over 20,000 games and 23 emulators plus two controllers for less than $50.
It pains me to say this as a longtime Xbox user, but PlayStation has won this generation for serious console gamers. This sleek, slim version of the console is all digital, so there's no disc drive to worry about. It plays the entire catalog of PS5 games, and it comes with a controller. Plus, the Black Friday price is $399, as cheap as it has ever sold for. If you'd rather have a drive, the PS5 Slim disc version is on sale for $449.
PlayStation DualSense wireless controller
If you do gift a PS5, don't forget the extra controller. This DualSense encourages couch co-op and competitive gaming. It charges through a USB-C port, features haptics, and has a built-in mic, so it's everything you need to get Player 2 up and running fast on a PlayStation system.
Xboxers need a second controller, too.This first-party wireless controller works great and looks slick. It works for both Xbox and PC and includes a "share" button so you can instantly disseminate screenshots and videos. At $49, this Black Friday price is as low as the Ice Breaker has ever been priced.
When you're serious about PC gaming, you need a serious gaming mouse like the Logitech G502 X Plus. This wireless mouse has programmable LED lighting, a dual-mode scroll wheel, and a Hero 25K gaming sensor that's precise down to the sub-micron. They're on Black Friday sale for $128.49, down from $179.99.
KontrolFreek performance thumbsticks
PC gamers aren't the only people who need more precise input. These simple accessories snap on to the thumbsticks of your console controller and give you a little more grip and a little more height, and thus a little better control. They're less than $15 for Black Friday.
This Sceptre PC monitor curves around you for better immersion. It packs 5 million pixels into its 34" frame, features 3440 x 1440, and the 21:9 aspect ratio provides you with 30% more screen space versus a conventional monitor. At $187.97, it's 30% off the list price.
If your giftee is really into flight sims, a set of Logitech flight rudder pedals will take their gaming into the stratosphere (so to speak). Compatible with Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, this controller has adjustable tension to give the feel of every kind of aircraft, from ultralights to passenger jets. It's $129.99 for Black Friday.
These noise-cancelling Bluetooth headphones from Bose have an onboard mic, USB-C charging, and play for 24 hours on a charge. They sound excellent too, whether you use them for listening to music or making sure you can hear someone sneaking up on you in Battlefield 6. The discount is substantial, too: $199 down from $349.
Everyone needs batteries, but gamers really need batteries. This bundle combines 28 AA and 28 AAA batteries in one package. These aren't the cheap batteries, either; they're Duracells, so they're reliable and long-lasting. They're 18% off for Black Friday.
Crucial X10 Pro 2TB Portable SSD
Crucial's X10 Pro is a two-terabyte SSD drive that connects to just about everything—Windows, Mac, iPad, Chromebooks, Android, Linux, PS4, PS5, and Xbox—via USB-C and USB-A. It stores all kinds of data, and retrieves it fast too: up to 2,100MB/s read and 2,000MB/s write speeds. Plus, it's IP55 water and dust resistance and drop resistant up to 7.5 ft. It's currently $149.99, almost 50% off.
Snactiv Pro Finger Chopsticks
Unwrapping a pair of Snactiv Pros will definitely make your gamer smile. They're finger chopsticks that attach to your knuckles so you can eat snacks without hitting pause or getting Cheeto dust all over your controller, which is either ridiculous or useful, depending on your point-of-view. In other words, a perfect for a Christmas gift.
You might think there's something impersonal about buying gift cards for Christmas, but trust me, this is what gamers actually want—as long as you know what ecosystem they're in. You can set how much money to put on these cards and choose between digital delivery or a physical card.
If there's a Nintendo gamer in your life, this JSAUX charger will power-up their controllers and look good doing it. It charges up to four controllers at once, and features LED lights that tell you how much gas is in the tank. It's $12.99, down from $15.99.
What stores have the best sales on Black Friday?
Nowadays, both large retailers and small businesses compete for Black Friday shoppers, so you can expect practically every store to run sales through Monday, December 1, 2025. The “best” sales depend on your needs, but in general, the biggest discounts tend to come from larger retailers who can afford lower prices: think places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. You can find all the best sales from major retailers on our live blog.
Are Black Friday deals worth it?
In short, yes, Black Friday still offers discounts that can be rare throughout the rest of the year. If there’s something you want to buy, or you’re shopping for gifts, it’s a good time to look for discounts on what you need, especially tech sales, home improvement supplies, and fitness tech. Of course, if you need to save money, the best way to save is to not buy anything.
Are Cyber Monday deals better than Black Friday?
Black Friday used to be bigger for major retailers and more expensive tech and appliances, while Cyber Monday was for cheaper tech and gave smaller businesses a chance to compete online. Nowadays, though, distinction is almost meaningless. Every major retailer will offer sales on both days, and the smart move is to know what you want, use price trackers or refer to guides like our live blog that use price trackers for you, and don’t stress over finding the perfect timing.
Something strange is happening this week: The hottest trend among young people is acting mature.
Maybe it's in response to our nation's financial and political leaders abdicating maturity, but Gen Z is adopting business casual attire as a cultural identifier and using a pick-up line in online dating that seems like something out of the 1950s. Even the brain-rot generation is considering moving away from meaninglessness and dropping six-seeeven in favor of memes people can understand.
What is a “quarter zip” and what does it mean to wear one?
A quarter zip is exactly what it sounds like: a pullover sweater with a zipper that goes a quarter way down the chest, and it's becoming the go-to look for young men, especially Black men. Wearing a quarter zip isn't exactly "dressed up," but it's more sophisticated than rocking athleisure wear. More importantly, the quarter zip is often a signifier of status and intention. Like flannel shirts in previous generations, the quarter zip is marks one as belonging to an in-group, being a “quarter zip man," and the even being part of the “quarter zip movement.”
"We don't do Nike tech and coffee no more," Gyamfi says, "it's straight matchas and quarter zips around here." (Matcha is a kind of Japanese green tea. It's also a marker of "performative males.") Another part of the quarter zip movement are chunky black glasses, which I personally endorse because chunky black frames are the only glasses that matter.
My white ass is not culturally qualified to talk about what the quarter zip means in terms the Black experience (dig into the hashtag if you'd like to go down that path) but I find it fascinating in terms of the younger generation taking a step into adulthood. It's not a great time for the concept of being a grown-up, with the most powerful people on earth trading schoolyard barbs and flame wars on social media regularly, so I see the quarter zip thing as a small countervailing force, as if younger people are saying, "You want to vacate maturity? We'll take it up."
How “may I meet you?” is becoming Gen Z’s go-to pick-up line
Speaking of maturity making a surprise comeback: Gen Z is adopting an unexpectedly formal greeting as a romantic opener.
We have Bill Ackman to thank for it. The unlikely dating influencer isn't a roided-out weirdo Andrew-Tate type; he's a 59-year-old married hedge fund manager known for his philanthropy and his billion dollars built on long-shot bets. Ackman has summed up his investment strategy like this: “Make a bold call that nobody believes in,” and so he did in a recent tweet aimed at our nation’s young men trapped in the male loneliness epidemic, posting:
“I hear from many young men that they find it difficult to meet young women in a public setting. In other words, the online culture has destroyed the ability to spontaneously meet strangers. As such, I thought I would share a few words that I used in my youth to meet someone that I found compelling. I would ask: “May I meet you?” before engaging further in a conversation.
The tweet was viewed over 38 million times. It was at first met with skepticism, tweets like:
But the phrase is actually catching on. People are using it on dating apps, sometimes ironically, sometimes not, but always with the subtext: "I understand this reference, therefore I am online enough for you." The phrase functions as both a shared joke and a surprisingly straightforward expression of interest. The politeness of it suggests "I'm not going to make this all weird," too.
Whether young men are picking up the subtext of Ackman’s advice (i.e., “Just be a normal person—and it doesn’t hurt to have a couple billion dollars") is unclear, but the phrase has definitely embedded itself in online courtship.
Generation Alpha's great meme reset
Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I'm even seeing maturity creeping into the collective unconscious of Generation Alpha.
As a longtime decoder of youth culture, I've watched Gen Z and Gen A's main form of self-expression—internet memes—going from generally relatable jokes and observations to messages with so many inside jokes that they're only understandable to the terminally online, to brain-rot memes that are incomprehensible to everyone, even their own creators, because they literally don't mean anything. But TikTokers are proposing a "Great Meme Reset" to begin in 2026, and promising a return to comprehensibility.
The reset was first proposed (ironically, of course) in this video, posted during the supposed "meme drought" back in March.
The idea that memes are dead has been much discussed online, with videos like this envisioning what the great sweeping away of memes might look like and solidifying the date it's coming:
What comes next, though, is a harder thing to envision. Creators are basically proposing "going back to when memes meant something," and they generally land on 2016 as the "golden age." As TikToker NoahGlennCarter puts it in this video:
"We're going to go back to the originals, things like nyan cat, Ugandan Knuckles, and the dancing banana are all going to be coming back as memes..."
I'm in favor of the idea of bringing coherence back to meme-dom, but I'm sure you can see the problem here too: Nyan Cat, Ugandan Knuckles and company didn't mean anything in 2016 to anyone who wasn't terminally online. A reset is only possible if people share a baseline cultural reference point, and that’s hard to come by.
Another problem: Self-conscious attempts to orchestrate cultural expression basically never work. You can’t will a renaissance into being; you can’t just make fetch happen.
Viral video of the week: mishandled meat
I usually link to viral videos that are funny and/or awesome, but this week's highlights a different viral subgenre: disgusting food-handling videos.
TikToker @sergiogarcia9100 was apparently just hanging out on a roof (like you do) when he caught this scene of a restaurant employee's less-than-sanitary handling of some frozen ribs:
The video was viewed over five million times in its first three days online. The original poster didn't provide much detail about where the video beyond saying it was "near San Jose." But internet detectives are good, and despite the seeming lack of identifying information in the video, a geoguesser on Reddit identified the restaurant as PhoLove in Milpitas, California. The county health department was notified, and the restaurant shut down temporarily while they address health code violations. All of which should remind us that the internet is terrifyingly good at CSI work, and, if you must mishandle meat, watch for video snipers on the roof.
The annual shopping Holiday of Black Friday is nearly upon us. We'll keep you updated with all the best deals throughout the holiday shopping season. But before you purchase anything, here's how to set your own prices for Black Friday and every other day.
If you're an impulse buyer, you know that shopping events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday can be bad. Even though we know retailers are using all kinds of manipulation techniques to get us to buy things we don’t need, it still works, so this year, try setting your own prices and only choosing things you already want to buy.
How to “set your own prices” on Amazon
You can’t make Amazon lower its prices at your whim, but you can set up an alert system to let you know if anything you want to buy dips in price enough for it to make sense for you to purchase it. Below is a step-by-step guide to setting your own personal maximum price for any item sold by Amazon:
Identify the items you’d like to purchase and throw them into your Amazon wishlist. Make sure your wishlist is set to “public.”
Visit the Amazon price-tracking website CamelCamelCamel and make a free account. There are other price-tracking apps and websites that, more or less, do the same thing—Slick Deals, Honey, Keepa, etc.—so check out this overview of the best price-tracking tools if you want to compare them. Spoiler alert, though: For Amazon specifically, camelCamelCamel wins.
Click “import wishlist.” (You’ll have to copy and paste the URL from your Amazon wishlist.)
Once you’ve done that, CamelCamelCamel lets you add specific maximum prices (or percentage drops) for everything in your wishlist. Enter the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for each item in your list, and then you can tell it to send you an email when any item’s price drops to your set spending limit.
Ignore all the hype and wait for the email alert letting you know that your chosen items have become cheap enough for you to buy.
Spend Black Friday feeling smug and agree with yourself that you actually are the smartest person alive. Don’t even look at Amazon’s website. Seriously. Well, maybe just for a second. This time you’ll have the willpower to avoid buying another chocolate fountain or a self-stirring mug with “SELF STIRRING MUG” written on the side, right? Right?
How to set price alerts at non-Amazon retailers
CamelaCamelCamel is an Amazon-only product, but other price-tracking services can be used with other retailers. Honey, for instance, is PayPal's retail service. It lists 10,000 supported retailers. If you install the Honey browser extension, you can add an item you want to buy from a retailer to your droplist and it will notify you when the price drops to the level you set. You can also compare the price of the same item across website. Here's how to set your own price:
Create an account with Honey.
Install the Honey browser extension.
Find the item you want to buy on Honey's website.
Click the "Add to Droplist" button that appears on the product page.
Set the discount percentage you want to see.
Click "Add to Droplist" to confirm your preferences.
Honey will then monitor the item and send you an email or push notification once the price drops to the amount you specified.
More ideas for imposing limits on your spending
If you want to take tech-based shopping guardrails beyond the basic "time to buy" alert system described above, here are some ideas.
Block ads: If you're the type of person who responds to online ads, you can block a ton of them with a simple tool or app. Here's our overview of the best ad-blocking software.
Track your expenses: Whether you do it with pencil and paper or use an app, seeing how much you're spending can be a powerful motivation to be more thrifty. Budgeting over time can even give you a bit of a surplus, so you can splurge when Black Friday rolls around if you want to.
Save up for something: Saving up for something in the future—a vacation, an electric surfboard, whatever—can make it easier to resist spending now.
Hit your internal pause button: If you can make a habit of waiting a day or two between thinking "I want those sunglasses" and entering your credit card numbers, you may decide your old sunglasses are just fine.
Set up a one-in-one-out system: For everything you buy or acquire, get rid of a similar item (or more!) to make room for it. Knowing something has to go if you hit "buy now" can stop you from making an impulse buy, and following this rule keeps your home less cluttered. Bonus points if you resell an item before getting a similar one. Make money before spending money, and save space while you're at it.
Consider professional help: It's normal and common to sometimes have a little difficulty controlling spending, but researchers say about 6% of Americans suffer from compulsive buying disorder which may be part of a larger psychological problem. So if your spending is driving you deep into debt, you're suffering real-world consequences based on your buying habits, or you just feel like shopping might be a problem for you, talk to a professional.
Our Best Editor-Vetted Early Black Friday Deals Right Now
Black Friday—once simply known as "the day after Thanksgiving"—has become a quasi-holiday in the United States, one marked by consumer discounts, ceaseless shopping, and occasional violence.
Black Friday has grown and metastasized so much that it isn't a mere day anymore: It's a week, a month, a veritable state of mind. (Speaking of which, check out Lifehacker's Black Friday coverage. We got all the deals, baby!) While waking up early and shopping at physical stores on Black Friday is waning as online shopping grows, it’s still a big deal in the U.S.—it’s estimated that around 90 million Americans shopped online and 76.2 million Americans visited a brick-and-mortar store during Black Friday in 2023.
But where did Black Friday come from and what does it all mean?
When was the first Black Friday?
“Black Friday” in the United States originally referred to the start of the Panic of 1869, when the collapse of the price of gold devastated the national economy. “Black Friday” as a description of the shopping day after Thanksgiving only dates back to 1951: The term first appeared in the journal Factory Management and Maintenance to refer to the number of employees who skipped work on the day after Thanksgiving. Around the same time, the police in Philadelphia and Rochester started informally using “Black Friday” to describe the traffic and crowds that appeared in their cities as shoppers hit the stores on the day after Thanksgiving.
The phrase gradually caught on—it was picked up by national press in 1975 when the New York Times used the phrase to describe the day after Thanksgiving and the shopping and sales it brings.
But even before it had a name, Black Friday was a thing. The day after Thanksgiving has been known by merchants as the start of the shopping season since the late 1800s. Back then and into the 20th century, retailers often sponsored Thanksgiving Day parades that traditionally ended with an appearance by Santa Claus, as if to say, “Now it’s time to shop for Christmas.” By unspoken agreement among retailers, Christmas-themed advertisements rarely appeared prior to Thanksgiving in our grandparents’ day. This informal bargain obviously no longer applies.
Black Friday’s problematic name
Referring to a day as “black” traditionally denotes a period of calamity or tragedy, leading some to suggest different names for the day. In the early 1960s, the Philadelphia merchants suggested “Big Friday,” a name which did not catch on, leaving retailers with the weak explanation that the “black” in Black Friday refers to the black ink denoting profits in ledger (as if they aren’t making money the rest of the year). Oft-repeated lore suggests that retailers are "in the red" all year, and only start making an annual profit at the end of the year, but accounting doesn't really work like that—big retail chains generally report on their profits to investors every quarter.
A more modern issue with the name is that Black Friday sales now lasts for days or even weeks, beginning in early to mid-November and bleeding over into the following Saturday, Sunday, “Cyber Monday,” Tuesday, and beyond, leading people to say things like, “Do you want to go Black Friday shopping this Sunday?” So far, alternative names like “Five-Day Frenzy” and “The day I get to trample someone to save $8 on a Nespresso” haven’t caught on. But here’s hoping.
The failure of “Black Thursday”
Beginning around 2011, an insatiable thirst for profits led many retailers to try to push the start of Black Friday shopping to Thursday (aka Thanksgiving Day). So some large retailers—Kmart, Toys R Us and others that haven't since gone out of business—began opening on Thanksgiving. The trend never really caught on, with many shoppers appalled that employees were forced to work on Thanksgiving or angry that consumerism was encroaching upon a holiday meant to celebrate colonialism. By 2021 most major retailers had acquiesced and remained closed on Thanksgiving.
Cyber Monday is Black Friday’s bastard child
The term “Cyber Monday” describes the boost in online retail sales on the Monday after Thanksgiving, sparked by workers returning to the office and getting right to online shopping. The term first appeared on Nov. 28, 2005, in a Shop.org press release entitled “'Cyber Monday’ Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year," which may be the most influential press release ever written.
Since its early 2000s birth, Cyber Monday has grown in popularity and is believed to have overtaken Black Friday in terms of sheer profit, although it's hard to tell exactly. In 2023, online sales on Cyber Monday topped $12.4 billion according to Adobe Analytics. Exact numbers for total in‑store Black Friday sales aren’t readily available, but growth data suggests brick‑and‑mortar spending is much smaller in comparison. None of this actually matters to retailers, of course, who mash everything into the category of "Black Friday–Cyber Monday," because a lot of people shop on Saturday and Sunday too.
Buy Nothing Day is the inverse of Black Friday
If all this naked consumerism makes you a little squeamish, you're not alone. Anti-consumerists have named the day after Thanksgiving “Buy Nothing Day,” a day you can celebrate by doing charity work or simply not purchasing anything. Pioneered by artist Ted Dave for AdBusters magazine, the first Buy Nothing Day was celebrated in Canada in 1992.
It’s hard to measure the success of the alternative holiday. Both online and brick-and-mortar retail sales have increased sharply since 1992, suggesting Buy Nothing Day’s effect is negligible. On the other hand, maybe big retailers are losing millions because someone on Bluesky reminded you not to shop. Sure.
How many people has Black Friday killed?
Depending to how you measure it, Black Friday has resulted in between one and 17 deaths. Jdimytai Damour is the only person killed directly due to a Black Friday sale: The 34-year-old stock clerk was trampled to death by a surging crowd at a Long Island Walmart on Black Friday in 2008. If you include car accidents, shootings, retail worker suicides, and fatal heart attacks, Black Friday’s death toll balloons to 17, with 125 reported injuries.
Black Friday violence has even inspired a horror flick: Eli Roth's 2023 holiday-themed slasher Thanksgiving opens with a hilariously brutal Black Friday riot that inspires two of its victims to cook up a brutal plan for revenge alongside the next year's turkey.
Is Black Friday a gigantic scam?
I mean, yeah, of course. Critics of Black Friday point out that there is actually a better time to buy a new TV (the week before the Super Bowl) and other goods. Savings from Black Friday shopping are often largely illusory—big-ticket “doorbuster” items generally sell out quickly, leaving behind goods that are, by and large, priced the same as they would be at any other time of year, retailers often mark up products ahead of Black Friday so the discounts looks bigger, and if you're buying online, your browser history, location, and cart contents can tweak the prices you see on Black Friday like any other day.
Despite protest holidays, the unpleasantness of shopping when stores are super crowded, and the frustration of hunting for bargains that often don’t exist, Black Friday remains an unofficial holiday, celebrated by over 100 million Americans in one way or another. What that says about our country and its relationship with capitalism is unclear, but personally, I’m going to continue my own day-after-Thanksgiving tradition of eating pie for breakfast and thinking about going for a walk but watching The Quick and the Dead instead. I'm not protesting anything; I just don't need the hassle.
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over.
Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find.
Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.
Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change.
I've reviewed a ton of high-tech smart glasses for Lifehacker, and this Black Friday deal on the RayNeo Air 3s Pro display glasses is excellent. They are on sale for $249 on Amazon (originally $299) until Dec. 1.
If you're not familiar, these smart glasses basically put a high-definition display in your pocket, projecting the equivalent of a 201-inch TV in front of your face—so if someone on your list is tech-inclined and you want to blast 'em with a pure "whoa" present, here you go. They'll even fit in a stocking.
There are other glasses that do the same thing, but the Ray Neo Air 3 Pro hit a nice sweet spot between inexpensive and good quality. Check out my review if you want to read about these glasses in more depth, but the bottom line is: if you want to make every flight you'll ever take better or stream videos and games in private, these glasses will do the trick.
How long do Black Friday deals really last?
Black Friday sales officially begin Friday, November 28, 2025, and run throughout “Cyber Week,” the five-day period that runs from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, December 1, 2025. But Black Friday and Cyber Monday dates have expanded as retailers compete for customers. Expect sales to wind down by December 3, 2025.
What stores have the best sales on Black Friday?
Nowadays, both large retailers and small businesses compete for Black Friday shoppers, so you can expect practically every store to run sales through Monday, December 1, 2025. The “best” sales depend on your needs, but in general, the biggest discounts tend to come from larger retailers that can afford lower prices: think places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. You can find all the best sales from major retailers on our live blog.
Are Black Friday deals worth it?
In short, yes, Black Friday still offers discounts that can be rare throughout the rest of the year. If there’s something you want to buy, or you’re shopping for gifts, it’s a good time to look for discounts on what you need, especially tech sales, home improvement supplies, and fitness tech. Of course, if you need to save money, the best way to save is to not buy anything.
Our Best Editor-Vetted Cyber Monday Deals Right Now
If constantly being mogged by sigmas has you feeling like a fuhuhluhtoogan, and you have no idea what any of that means, you've come to the right place. This glossary aims to define and explain popular slang words and phrases of Generation Z (usually defined as people born between 1997 and 2012) and Generation A (anyone born between 2012 and now) so you'll know what the hell people are talking about.
A word of warning: If you aren't of those generations, and/or you need an online list to know what slang words mean, you should not say them aloud, unless you're trying to be embarrassing.
New entries
Beez: Popularized in Nicki Minaj's 2012 track "Beez in the Trap," beez means something like "I am always." So "beez in the trap" means "I am always in the trap." (See "Trap.")
Clock that: "I understand and agree." Not to be confused with older slang, where "clock" meant to see, or even older slang where "clock" meant "to hit or punch."
Cracked: This slang term has two meanings: to have sex, as in "I got cracked last night," and to be really good at something, like "he’s cracked at Fortnite."
Doi doi doi: This piece of brain-rot slang doesn't mean anything. It's correctly pronounced by putting your hand up to your mouth and saying "doi doi doi" in a way that sounds funny.
Fujoshing: The verb form of the Japanese slang term "fujoshi," fujoshing describes women/girls enjoying media that depicts romantic relationships between men. This word is used almost exclusively in online fandom communities.
Rawdogging boredom: Rawdogging is "doing something with no safeguards or support," so "rawdogging boredom" is consciously doing nothing.
Slopper: Insult directed at people who use AI programs too much, people who takes conversations with LLMs too seriously, and people who have basically offloaded their thinking to an algorithm.
Trap: Once used to refer to a house where drugs are sold, trap has come to describe both a form of music and any place where one works or hustles.
304: Hoe. (Type "304" on a calculator and turn it upside down.)
4+4: Ate. Four plus four is eight, or "ate." (See "ate.")
6-7 (or 67): This piece of Generation Alpha brainrot slang doesn't mean anything. It's just funny to some people to say "6-7," especially in answer to any question involving numbers. Ex: "Q: What time is it? A: six-seveeen."
6-7 Weekend: A weekend in which Saturday falls on the 6th day of the month and Sunday on the 7th.
80/20 Rule: An axiom in online incel spaces, the 80/20 is the idea that 80% of women only date the "top" 20% of men.
Algo speak: Coded language used to bypass online content moderation. Examples: "regarded" used instead of "retarded" and "unalive" instead of "kill."
Alpha male: Taken from animal ethology, an alpha male is the dominant member of a group of males, or just a male who is in charge. (See "beta male" and "sigma male.")
Ate/eat: Done very well, often regarding clothing. e.g.: "You ate that outfit." See also: "serving."
Aura: Someone who is mysterious and cool is said to "have aura."
Aura farming: Depending on the context, “aura farming” can refer to a person who does something cool without trying or someone who is trying too hard to appear cool.
Baddie: A bad/wild girl. Meant as a compliment.
Baka: Japanese word meaning “crazy" or “foolish.” Used mainly in the anime community.
Based: Independent in a cool way.
Bed-rotting: Staying in bed all day. You may know it as “lazing around.” (See "Hurkle-durkle.")
Beta male: A beta male, or just "beta," is a weaker, subservient male. (See "alpha male" and "sigma male.")
Boombayah: A euphemism for “having sex.” It’s used mostly online, often to defeat censorship algorithms.
Bop: A girl who sleeps around. Also: a great song.
Boysober: Someone who has sworn off sex, relationships, and/or dating.
Brain-rot: A description of the overuse of stupid slang. See also: “Skibidi.” Also used to describe the effects of being overly online.
Brat: The contemporary meaning of "brat" is an adjective describing a person who is edgy, imperfect, and confident. It was coined by pop star Charli XCX who defined it as "that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes. Who feels herself but maybe also has a breakdown."
Bruzz: Bros. Part of the -uzz family of slang words. See "Huzz" and "-uzz."
Bubba truck: A lifted or otherwise modified pick-up truck.
Bussin': Very good or excellent.
Cap: A lie. Often used to say "no cap."
Cake: Butt, especially a nice butt.
Chad: An attractive man; an “alpha male.” See "Giga-Chad."
Chat: A reference to streamers addressing their chat windows aloud. Saying “chat” in real life is an ironic joke.
Chopped: Ugly. Chopped is often applied to someone's face or outfit, but anything that isn't aesthetically pleasing could be called "chopped," as could anything that is generally not good, like an awkward situation.
Chud: A physically unappealing person. Sometimes used for a man who holds right-wing views.
Clanker: A slur aimed at robots and AI agents pretending to be human.
Coomer: A man who masturbates too often.
Corn: “Corn” is algo-speak that means “porn.” Used in online spaces where the word might cause your account to be flagged or banned.
Coworker-core: A catch-all description for things that are unfunny or uninteresting in a way that appeals to older people.
Crash out: To have an intense emotional outburst, usually accompanied by impulsive behavior. Crashing out is often due to being overwhelmed or overly frustrated.
Dead: Past tense of having died laughing. If someone responds to a joke with "dead" or a skull emoji, they find it funny.
Deadass: Seriously. Used like, "I am deadass not lying."
Delulu: Delusional.
Deriod: A combination of "dick" and "period," deriod refers to men seeming to experience the mood swings commonly associated with women's menstrual cycles.
Dih: Algo speak for “dick.” (See "Algo speak.")
Doomer: A person who is overly negative and/or cynical.
Drip: A fashionable or stylish look.
Dwerking: A male-centric variation of twerking. A sexually suggestive dancing characterized by rapid, repeated hip thrusts and shaking of the dick. Other variants include "pwerking" and "bwerking" where the "p" and "b" stand for pussy and boobs.
Edgar: A variation of the Caesar haircut worn especially among Hispanic males. Also refers to the kind of person who wears the haircut.
Fambushing: A combination of "family" and "ambushing," fambushing refers to young people checking where their parents are on location-sharing apps so they can get free food—if you see mom at Chipotle, you ask for a burrito.
Fanum tax: The theft of food between friends. Named for streamer Fanum, known for “taxing” his friends by taking bites of their meals or stealing fries.
Fax, no printer: Telling the truth. Since "fax and "facts" are pronounced the same, this is a colorful way of saying "facts, no cap."
Fent-fold: A description of the bent-over posture of people nodding on heavy drugs.
Fit: Short for "outfit."
Fuhuhluhtoogan: Supposedly from Baltimore slang, this is a nonsense word used so people will ask what it means but never receive an answer. Often paired with "Jittleyang."
Gamer dent: The temporary indentation left on someone’s hair or skin after wearing headphones for too long.
Geeker: Someone who uses a lot of drugs.
Giga-Chad: A Chad among Chads.
Glaze: To overly praise someone, often insincerely, or with the hope of getting something in return.
Gleek: An older slang term that is gaining prominence lately, gleeking describes squirting saliva from under the tongue.
Glizzy: Hot dog. "Glizzy" was originally slang for Glock or gun, but came to mean hot dog based on the hot dog shape of a Glock's magazine.
Green fn: An interjection one might used when someone does something cool or impressive. Often used ironically.
Gooner: A man who goons. (See "gooning.")
Goonette: A woman who goons. (See "gooning.")
Gooning: Extended masturbation without orgasm done for the purpose of entering an altered state of consciousness. (See "gooner," "goonette.")
Gyatt or Gyat: Once an interjection used when seeing someone sexy, like “god-DAMN,” “gyatt” has come to mean “attractive booty.”
Heavy soda: Pop with extra syrup. Some gas station soda machines have settings that control the ratio of syrup to carbonated water. A heavy soda is a soda with the syrup level set very high.
Hewwo: An overly cute way of saying "hello." Usually used online, and often ironically.
HGS: Abbreviation for "home girls" used in comment sections.
Hozier yell: Named for singer/songwriter Andrew Hozier, a "Hozier yell" refers to the sound one makes when experiencing a peak, climactic, and/or awe-inspiring moment.
Hurkle-durkle: Based on an archaic Scottish word, “hurkle-durkle” means to lounge in bed after it is time to get up. See also: “bed-rotting."
Huzz: -uzz slang for "hoes." See "bruzz" and "-uzz."
"It's giving": Used to convey that something has a specific vibe. Example: "That dude texts you every 10 minutes; it's giving desperate."
"It's so over": The situation is hopeless. The opposite of "we're so back." See also: "Doomer."
IWEL: This comment-section acronym is short for "I wouldn't even lie." Sometimes written as "IWL."
Jelqing: The use of stretching or weights in an attempt to increase penis size.
Jit: A kid. Used ironically online.
Jittleyang: Supposedly from Baltimore slang, this is a nonsense word used so people will ask what it means but never receive an answer. See also: "Fuhuhluhtoogan."
JOMO: A play on FOMO (fear of missing out) JOMO is an acronym that stands for “joy of missing out.”
Jugg: To grab quickly or to steal.
"Learn Chinese": Sports slang directed at failing players. They are in danger of being sent to play in China, so they should "learn Chinese."
Looksmaxxing: Maximizing one’s physical attractiveness through personal grooming, working out, and dressing stylishly. See also: “-maxxing.”
Mason (or Mason 6-7 kid): A "Mason 6-7 Kid" or "Mason" is a stereotypical male member of Generation Alpha. Mason kids are known for their love of baseball-inspired fashion (caps and shorts), their "ice cream" haircut, and for repeating brainrot slang like "6-7."
-maxxing: A suffix used with any word to indicate trying to improve. Seeing your friends could be called "friendmaxxing," working out could be called "gymmaxxing," making jokes could be called "jestermaxxing," etc.
Mid: Average, bland, expected.
Mewing: A facial exercise meant to strengthen the jawline.
Mirror sex: Using a mirror to watch yourself have sex.
Mog: To be more attractive than someone, usually in an intentional or aggressive way. Example: "I was rizzing up this girl, but he walked in and totally mogged me."
"My 90 in a 30": A song played while driving that inspires speeding.
"My steak is too juicy": The phrase "my steak is too juicy" and other variants like "my lobster is too buttery," are online insults that suggest someone is complaining about something they should be grateful for.
Neurospicy: A different way of saying “neuro-divergent.”
NPC: Non-player character. Originally describing video game characters, NPC is now used on the internet to mean people who don't think for themselves.
Opp: Short for "opposition." Someone who is out to get you. An enemy.
Performative male: An insult for young men whose tastes, hobbies, and lifestyle are seen as a performance aimed at obtaining societal approval, especially the approval of young women.
Pink cocaine: Also known as "pink snow," pink cocaine is slang for a powdered drug mixture that usually contains some combination of ketamine, MDMA, meth, opioids, and other substances.
Pole: A gun. See "up pole."
"Press F for respect:" In 2014 video game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfighter, the player attends a funeral and a prompt is given that reads "Press F to pay respects." Now, a singular "F" in a chat window indicates respect. It's usually ironic.
Regarded: “Regarded” is algo-speak for “retarded."
"Reheating your own nachos:" This slang phrase comes from cultural critics in online fandom communities. It refers to performers and/or artists whose new works are seen as trying to recapture what was good about their previous artistic output. It's not always negative; it's possible to successfully reheat your own nachos.
Rizz: As a noun, "rizz" means charisma. As a verb, "rizz" or "rizz up" means attracting someone with your charisma.
Scorigami: A slang term among football fans for when the final score of an NFL game has never happened before in the league's history. The most recent scorigami was on September 28, 2025, when the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys tied 40 to 40.
SDIYBT: An acronym for "start digging in your butt, twin," this brainrot phrase doesn't mean anything. Some people just think it's funny to say.
Sendy and “Let’s get sendy": Sendy is an adjective based on the older rock-climbing and extreme sports slang phrase "send it." A shortened version of "ascend it," "send it" is said right before one is about to do something challenging. "Sendy" describes a person who is prone to doing bold things. "Let's get sendy" means something like "Let's get wild." It's been adopted by brainrot fans, so it's often repeated with no meaning meant to be attached.
Serve: Wearing a particularly stylish outfit. See also: "ate."
Serve cunt: To act in a powerfully and unapologetically feminine way; to slay.
Sharking: Looking for people to hook up with.
Sigma male: An internet-created male classification, a "sigma male" is as dominant as an alpha male, but is outside the male hierarchy, i.e.: a lone wolf. Originally used seriously, the concept was so widely derided it's now almost always used ironically. (See "Alpha male" and "Beta male.")
Skibidi: Named after “Skibidi Toilet,” a popular series of YouTube videos, “skibidi” itself has no specific meaning, beyond ridiculing the overuse of slang itself. See “brain-rot.”
Skrt: Onomatopoetic word for the sound of tires squealing upon acceleration.
Slopcore: This term describes the countless 100s of millions of cheesy-looking, unsettling, AI-generated images, videos, and songs that have hit the internet since AI was given to the masses a couple of years ago.
Snatched: Very attractive and/or flawlessly styled.
Spawn point: Mother. Based on the spot you start in a video game.
Spoopy: Spooky.
Striker: Stolen/no-title car.
Surf Dracula: A hyper-specific phrase that describes "prestige" television series. The joke is that if there were an older TV show called "Surf Dracula," Dracula would be surfing in every episode, but modern shows would make the whole first season about how Dracula got his surfboard.
Sweat: A person who tries too hard, usually used in reference to video games. The adjective form is "sweaty."
SYBAU: An online acronym that stands for “shut your bitch ass up.”
Tradwife: Believer in traditional married gender roles.
Treatler (and Treatlerite): "Treatler" and "Treatlerite" are online insults that combine "treat" and "Hitler" to refer to entitled users of services like Doordash or Uber Eats who regard luxury delivery services as a human right, and don't consider the hardships of the people who do the work that makes "private taxis for burritos" possible.
TS: TS originally was AAVE shorthand for "this shit," but it is often used to just mean "this."
Turnt: Excited or intoxicated, or excitedly intoxicated.
Unc: Short for "uncle," used to describe slightly older people. Example: "The class of 2024 are unc-status to the class of 2028." See "yunc."
-uzz: -uzz slang words use "uzz" at the end of any word, so "bros" becomes "bruzz," "hoes" becomes "huzz," "granny" becomes "gruzz," etc.
Up pole: To raise a gun.
Twelve: Police.
Twin: Best friend.
"We're so back": Opposite of "it's so over."
Venus tummy: When a woman's belly is a little fat, but not too fat, she is said to have a Venus tummy. Named for ancient Greek statues of Venus and Aphrodite who were a little fleshy.
Yapping: Describes a presentational style often seen on online streams of talking a lot and/or quickly while not saying anything worthwhile.
Yeet: To quickly and/or forcibly eject.
Yunc: Yunc is a variation of "unc." In AAVE, a "yn" is a "young n-word." So "yunc" means something like "young uncle," or a person who may be young but has uncle vibes or unc status.
Zoomer Perm: A curly on top, short on the sides haircut popular among young people.
Testosterone is a hormone produced mainly in the testicles (and in smaller amounts in ovaries and adrenal glands) that helps regulate muscle growth, energy, sex drive, mood, and overall reproductive health. So it's important.
Low testosterone, also known as clinical hypogonadism, is a medical syndrome defined by persistently low testosterone levels in the blood, coupled with the presence of specific, debilitating symptoms like reduced libido, erectile dysfunction, or unexplained loss of muscle mass. It's a real medical condition, most common in older men, men with obesity, and is associated with poorly managed type 2 diabetes.
It's difficult to determine how common low testosterone is because different studies are counting different things in different populations and the definition of "low" varies. Be warned: It's going to get a little technical, but there's a difference between biochemical hypogonadism and clinical hypogonadism. If you're looking at people with both low levels of testosterone in their blood and specific symptoms, estimates range from 2% of men aged 40–79, according to a European cross-sectional study published in the New England Journal of Medicine to 5.6% according to the Massachusetts Male Aging Study (MMAS). If you're strictly looking at testosterone levels in blood in men over 45, with no regard to symptoms, the same MMAS study says that 38.7% have "low testosterone," using MMAS-specific lab cutoffs. These are the kinds of blurry lines that let people claim "nearly 40% of men suffer from low T!" and be telling something like the truth, but not really.
Why your doctor doesn't routinely screen your testosterone levels
When you get a physical, doctors generally don't check your testosterone level. This has led to an online conspiracy theory around testosterone that doctors are deliberately keeping patients from being diagnosed. The conspiracy theory goes like this: "The medical establishment, influenced by Big Pharma and insurance companies, is keeping a miracle cure from people because: A) It's more profitable to treat other diseases. B) Society is inherently biased against men acting manly. C) Reverse vampires told them to."
As with all conspiracy theories, the truth is much more mundane: You're not routinely screened for low testosterone because the prevalence of hypogonadism in the general population, without clear symptoms, is very low; test results are highly unreliable and prone to false positives unless done under strict conditions; and having low testosterone levels isn't even a medical problem unless you have specific, debilitating symptoms. If you do have symptoms like fatigue, low libido, erectile dysfunction, or loss of muscle mass, and you have low testosterone, it could still be because of other health issues like stress, poor sleep, diabetes, obesity, or sleep apnea.
That "probably" is really the issue, the wedge that makes "low testosterone" the perfect breeding ground for health misinformation. Having less energy and a lower libido are solidly on the "normal human experience" spectrum, but because they could be caused by low testosterone, some people are drawn to that explanation, and the idea of a quick fix for aging and/or general malaise. Others see an opportunity to make some cash.
Historical precedent: snake oil and goat balls
The discourse may be happening on TikTok and instagram, but scammy "low testosterone" sales pitches originate with 19th-century medicine shows and the patent medicine salesmen that followed. If you read between the lines of much online testosterone talk, the promise is to treat lack of strength, lack of energy, lack of virility, or overall lack of "manliness"— concerns that have been monetized for a long time. Back in the 1800s, it was literal snake oil. In 1920s, lack of virility was sometimes treated by surgical introduction of goat glands in the testicles. In the 2020s, we're taking Tongkat Ali, ginger, Jamaican Chaney Root, and literally hundreds of other "supplements" marketed as testosterone boosters instead.
Despite testimony from satisfied customers back in the Jazz Age, goat tissue doesn't actually engraft or function when injected into the testicles, so it doesn't make men more goat-like. Herbs probably don't work either, no matter what that bodybuilder on Instagram says. A review of 32 studies of 13 different herbs meant to raise testosterone concluded that only two (Fenugreek and Ashwagandha) showed any promise, but like many studies on herbal supplements, the research is shaky: The sample sizes are too small, and test subjects didn't have a diagnosed clinical condition so the results may not apply to men who are genuinely deficient. So we have extremely scant evidence that herbs could raise your testosterone, and basically no evidence that raising your testosterone would provide a benefit anyway.
When should you ask your doctor about your testosterone levels?
If you actually suspect you have clinical hypogonadism, do not take herbs or listen to influencers. Talk to your doctor if you have these symptoms:
Significant, unexplained decrease in libido
Erectile dysfunction
Depression
Gynecomastia (unexplained swelling or tenderness of the breast tissue)
Unexplained loss of body or facial hair
Loss of muscle mass and strength (not explained by changes in your exercise routine)
If you're basically healthy, but you still think there's something to the whole "I need more testosterone, now!" there's good news and bad news. The good news is that it's possible to raise testosterone levels without hormone replacement or taking supplements. The bad news: There is solid scientific research to support the idea that you can raise testosterone levels by losing weight, exercise, and getting enough sleep.
No one likes to dwell on it, but bullying is a huge part of growing up, and this week the zeitgeist is saturated with it. Kids are using their cameras to pick on people in innovative ways, Tiktokers are parodying bullying in viral videos, and Instagram seems to be taking aim at cultural/political bullying (or bullying memers, depending on who you ask). Even God herself is bullying the poor Tripod fish.
What is the "flip the camera" trend, and why is is making everyone mad?
The "flip the camera" trend is a new and innovative form of bullying that works like this: A group of kids ask another kid to film them doing a dance or something. Then, while the video is being taken, one of them hits the "flip camera" button on the phone, so the videographer becomes the subject of the video. The resulting footage is posted on TikTok.
When I heard about this, my reaction was, "ok, so what?" But when you dig a little deeper, you learn that it's not necessarily a harmless prank. The idea is not to have a laugh with your social equals, but to give the camera to a dork/dweeb/lamer/whatever, so you can make fun of them. This is the first video using this format, so you can see what I mean:
While it can be done harmlessly, like these cheerleaders pranking their teacher:
the videos where it's clearly being done to mock someone not in the "in group" are genuinely sad:
We've made a lot of progress in society over the last few decades in convincing people that bullying is actually really bad, but young people will go to great lengths to do it anyway. The number of videos on the flipthecamera hashtag that are calling it out as bullying is encouraging, though.
Viral video of the week: Disney bullies
There is a yin to every yang, even online bullying. TikToker @MannytheMann1 is going viral for videos of his gang accosting strangers on a college campus, but he's employing the tactics of the bullies in Disney Channel TV shows—think backwards baseball caps, exaggerated swagger, and super cheesy dialogue—for comedic effect. The pranks are all in good fun, and maybe something of a commentary on the stupidity of both bullying and Disney Channel shows.
It started with this scene:
Manny's street improv has gotten more elaborate since, including dance battle challenges and a gang of toadies lining up to give the bully backup:
This one has been viewed nearly 60 million times:
What is a "potato bed"?
There is no shortage of online opinions about the best ways to sleep. This week's trend is the potato bed. The idea is to make as cozy a sleep space as possible by stuffing as many pillows and blankets as you can into a fitted sheet, so you're surrounded (and kind of crushed by) them. Here's a video that illustrates how it works:
It would be easy to write this off as the flash-in-the-pan trend it probably is, but this, and the popularity of weighted blankets, could also indicate that Gen-Z is the first generation of young people to ever take "you should get more sleep" advice seriously. It also feels like a rebuke to the "24/7 grindset" mentality that was in vogue a few years ago. Or it could just be that winter is starting, and everyone wants to be cozy.
TikTok's Tripod fish obsession
The internet loves tragic animals, and a lot of people on social media have become obsessed with the Tripod fish, an animal that may have the most tragic existence of any creature on earth. Fans and well-wishers are posting odes like this:
So what's so bad about the Tripod fish's life? Basically everything. Tripod fish (Bathypterois grallator) hatch from eggs and spend their early lives swimming about and trying to avoid predators in the only way they can—by going totally limp and hoping they're mistaken for a piece of a jellyfish and left alone. If they live long enough, their eyes begin to melt, and long bony protrusions grow from their fins. No longer able to see or swim normally, the Tripod fish sinks. When it reaches the bottom (sometimes as deep as 4,000 meters), its bony spikes stick into the mud.
Nearly immobile and nearly blind at the very bottom of the sea, the tripod fish waits. If some food happens to swim by or drift down, it can direct currents of water towards its mouth, and maybe get something to eat. If not, it starves. Its only companions are parasites that feed on its blood, essentially stealing most of the food it's lucky enough to catch.
Tripod fish don't even get to mate with other tripod fish. Instead, the hermaphroditic sea animal releases a mixture of eggs and sperm into the cold water. If it's lucky, another tripod fish's genetic stew mingles with it and eggs are fertilized. If its unlucky, it fertilizes its own eggs. So maybe your life isn't that bad, eh?
Instagram is targeting meme aggregators
I'm old enough to remember a pre-meme internet where people were expected to post things they made themselves, or at least credited the people they took from. Instagram seems to want to take us back to those days: The social media platform has started flagging meme pages for being duplicated content, essentially declaring war on shit-posting.
On Nov. 7, many Instagram users who posted non-original content—essentially meme farms that exist just to repost vast amounts of anything remotely interesting—received a notification that read, "Content you recently shared may not be original" with a list of posts that violated the duplicated content rule and a suggestion to delete them, lest penalties like post-limiting or shadow-banning result.
This policy essentially outlaws sharing memes, a puzzling decision for a social media platform—people like sharing memes. Many feel the target of the warning is a specific kind of meme: The notices were sent just as the popularity of Charlie Kirk face-swap memes (i.e. people sharing images of just about anything with Kirk's face on it) were becoming popular While Kirkification seems to be an absurdist thing more than something actually meant to be political, it's likely upsetting to some, and that could be driving Instagram's decision. Or maybe the company just wants people to make their own content.
The holidays are the perfect time to settle into your couch and check out a classic Christmas movie or 12. Streaming services have made just about any of them available at will, from traditional classics like Miracle on 34th Street, to potential future classics like Hot Frosty.
That said, choosing what to watch (and finding where it's available) can be a chore, so I've compiled the best 50 Christmas movies and specials in an alphabetical list. Revisit an old favorite, or check out a classic you've never seen before (preferably with a nice cup of cocoa at hand).
Bad Santa (2003)
Cut through the treacle of the season with this classic Christmas-themed black comedy starring Billy Bob Thornton as a very bad Santa. This could have been a purposefully "offensive" comedy, but the holiday-centric redemption arc raises it above the muck.
When a movie gets a Christmas-themed sequel, it's usually a bad sign, but Best Man Holiday is better than the original. This ensemble comedy's charismatic cast and relaxed vibe turn Christmas cliches into something that feels fresh.
This soft, beautiful, layered film proves that the holiday movies don't have to be lightheaded fluff. Based on Patricia Highsmith's seminal lesbian novel The Price of Salt, Carol tells a story of love and loneliness perfect for thoughtful holiday viewing.
A Charlie Brown Christmas is an enduring classic because it doesn't shy away from real pathos. It doesn't try to protect its child audience from the sadder, bleaker side of life, so the holiday redemption ending is actually earned.
There are too many "traditional" re-tellings of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol to list individually, and everyone has their personal favorite, but I've watched every single one, and ranked them.
Where to stream: Various
Christmas Evil (1980)
Christmas Evil is the weird, sleazy story of an unbalanced man's murderous obsession with Christmas. It's better than it has any right to be and features the best twist ending in cinema history. Plus, it's one of John Waters' favorite holiday movies, and that's good enough for me.
1940s Hollywood's vision of Christmas reaches its reassuring zenith with Christmas in Connecticut, a romantic comedy starring Barbara Stanwyck that can be watched over and over again and never stop being delightful.
Where to stream: Digital rental
A Christmas Story (1983)
Packed with quotable lines and unforgettable moments, A Christmas Story is battling It's a Wonderful Life for the title of most iconic American Christmas movie ever. I'm sure you've seen it before, and I'm also sure you watch the whole thing whenever it happens to be on.
In Christmas With the Kranks, a family throws together a last-minute Christmas for their grown-up child. It's very dumb, and critics hated it, but it seems to get better and better every year.
Lifetime's first LGBTQ+ Christmas movie has an 85% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and it stars Fran Drescher—both positive markers—so if you're looking for a lightweight movie to put on when you're wrapping gifts, give this one a shot.
It's not deep. It's not important. But Christmas Vacation is funny enough to watch and light enough to ignore when you're wrapping presents. It's like a comfortable old slipper of a movie, perfect for the slowed down time of the holidays.
Die Hard is a Christmas movie, no question. It's also the most action-packed film in the entire genre. Bruce Willis is amazing, and the "average Joe who gets into a huge situation" plot goes down smooth.
Appropriate for kids and hilarious for adults, you just can't beat Elf when you're looking for a holiday comedy. Will Ferrell is amazing as Buddy, the fish-out-of-water elf at the center of this story, whose wide-eyed optimism and unwavering belief will melt even the coldest heart.
Time has been strangely kind to Ernest movies (turns out slapstick ages better than any other form of comedy). If you haven't seen this one, check it out. It's delightfully stupid Christmas fun.
Friday After Next isn't usually thought of as a Christmas movie, but the holiday is integral to the plot: The third flick in Ice Cube's Friday series begins with Craig and Day-Day's apartment being robbed by a guy in a Santa suit, setting in motion a slew of Friday style antics centered on Christmas.
Frosty came out in a time when there were only three channels, so kids liked things on TV because they were the only things that were on the TV. But it rises far over this low bar through the naturalistic performances of its child actors—a rarity at the time.
Happiest Season breathes new life into the stilted holiday romantic comedy genre by removing the heterosexuality but keeping the Christmas magic intact. It's my pick for a future classic.
Like the best Christmas movies, this frothy, appreciate-what-you-got romantic comedy will charm you, even if you're desperately trying to prevent yourself from being charmed.
The story of eight-year-old Kevin McCallister being abandoned by his parents and stalked by hardened criminals could easily have been a horror movie, but instead, it's a Christmas classic. Movies are wild like that.
This Netflix original holiday rom-com asks the question: "What if Frosty the Snowman was a hot dude?" I was expecting so-bad-it's-good, but it's actually good-good. Lacey Chabert is great as a widow in need of some Christmas magic, and the jokes are actually funny.
I love any Christmas movie that acknowledges the misanthropes out there, and the Grinch is so hateful, his name has become synonymous with disdain for the holidays. It's a shame he has to be redeemed in the end—but hey, it's Christmas.
There's nothing that hasn't already been said about It's a Wonderful Life, the ultimate Christmas movie. You know you're going to watch it, so just give in.
Holiday classics get that way either because they're great movies, or you happened to see them at the right time in your life. Jack Frost seems more like the latter to me, but it's a lot of people's go-to sentimental Christmas flick, so who am I to argue?
Arnold Schwarzenegger drops the action-hero act in this fast-paced, slapstick comedy about consumerism and the holidays. It's not going to change anyone's life, but it's a perfectly paced and seamlessly constructed artifact from big 1990s Hollywood.
Christmas stories about "How Christmas came to be the way it is" seem very 1960s, but this beautifully animated Netflix feature brings the genre back in a big way by telling the story of Santa's team-up with an unlikely ally.
Driven by the star power of Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, and Timothy Hutton this Christmas movie extols the virtues of living for the moment. Queen Latifah's performance as a woman who reacts to a terminal diagnosis by saying, "I guess I'll have fun until I die" is amazing.
This movie breaks the mold by mashing up the teen-romance genre with the snow and tinsel tropes of the holiday movie genre. It works surprisingly well, largely due to its talented young cast.
Despite appearances, good holiday movies and romantic comedies have to be subtle, otherwise they descend into cheap sentiment. Love Actually manages to navigate the tightrope between mawkishness and real emotions as well as any movie ever made.
Before she descended into an alcoholic abyss, Judy Garland was as big a star as you could be, and this is Garland at the height of her power. Meet Me in St. Louis is a singing, dancing holiday delight.
A Miracle on 34th Street's taleof Santa Claus's reality being put on trial is sentimental, cloying hogwash, but so is Christmas, so just sit back and take it. (But don't watch the version from the 1990s. There's a limit.)
Like Bill Murray's Scrooged, The Muppet Christmas Carol is different enough from other film adaptations of Dickens' tale to not be lumped in with the others, mainly because most of the cast is made of felt. Other than that, the movie plays it pretty straight, but if you have kids, they'll like this better than some dusty old black-and-white Dickens adaptation.
This mash-up of Santa lore with Alice in Wonderland features charming animation and a soulful, gentle style. It holds its own with Christmas classics like Rudolf and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
The genre of "classic Christmas movie" is broad enough to include both Jingle all the Way and Night of the Hunter, an unsettling tale of a murderous preacher with "love" tattooed on one hand and "hate" on the other. Hunter's portrayal of Christmas as a brief moment of joy and imagination in the lives of joyless children makes it one of the most honest holiday films ever made.
You get two holidays for the price of one in this stop-motion animation classic where Jack Skellington, the King of Halloween Town tries to take over Christmas to bring some much-needed spookiness to the holiday. (Too bad he didn't succeed.)
The Polar Express adds a new wrinkle to the hoary legend of Santa Claus by imagining a ghost train that takes children on an express trip to the North Pole to meet the man himself. The dead-eyed animation and too-much-ness of the movie creates a sense of mystery and otherworldliness that's a little unsettling, but so is Santa Claus.
Prancer, a movie about a little girl who saves Christmas by nursing an injured reindeer back to health, could easily be a forgotten piece of kiddie trash, but it's better than it has any right to be. It stays realistic and reveals a deeper story about the nature of faith instead of falling into sentimentality.
Pitch-perfect performances from Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston take The Preacher's Wife from a by-the-numbers holiday rom-com into a watch-every-year comfort movie of the highest order.
Maybe Rare Exports is only a perennial holiday classic at my house, but this horror take on the nature of Santa is pure cinematic inventiveness and a delightful skewering of Christmas mythology—but don't watch it with your children.
Rudolph will never be beaten when it comes to perfect Christmas entertainment. The animation is amazing, the songs are unforgettable, and the story has the kind of power usually reserved for myths—it's like Christmas itself condensed into 55 minutes.
Christmas is for everyone, even weird freaks who enjoy gutter cinema the rest of the world ignores. For them (us, really) an annual viewing of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is as much of a holiday tradition as It's a Wonderful Life is for normal people.
Tim Allen stars in this tale of a curmudgeonly guy who kills Santa and must take over the office himself. He learns something about himself, strengthens his bond with his family, and gives in to holiday magic—you know the drill.
Bill Murray really sells this reworking of Dickens' A Christmas Carol with his perfect portrayal of a 1980s-cynical TV executive's capitulation to Christmasness. It's not better than Dickens, but it's close.
There's something about Jimmy Stewart and movies about Christmas. Like It's a Wonderful Life, The Shop Around the Corner isn't strictly a Christmas movie, but the climactic events take place during the holidays, so it's close enough.
Some Christmas movies take themselves very seriously. This is not one of those movies. It's dumb fun from start to finish, and Neil Patrick Harris is a national treasure. Stoners need Christmas movies too, right?
In this not-for-kids Christmas flick, a team of mercenaries takes a family hostage on Christmas Eve, and Santa arrives to save the day. Made by the producers of John Wick and Nobody, Violent Night promises "season's beatings" and delivers.
Closing out the list is White Christmas, a perennial Christmas classic featuring Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney crooning their way through a breezy musical that's perfect holiday escapism.
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