The Guardian view on the 90s revival: the end of the analogue age | Editorial 9 October 2026 at 12:50

The Guardian view on the 90s revival: the end of the analogue age | Editorial

9 October 2026 at 12:50

The new exhibition at Tate Britain is part of a wider cultural resurgence from 30 years ago. This is nostalgia for a pre-digital era

Each generation imagines itself to be cooler than the one that went before it, and weirder than the one that comes after it, to update George Orwell. Gen X is no exception. “It felt like something was happening,” Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker writes in the catalogue for The 90s: Art and Fashion, which opened at Tate Britain this week. “Something good. It felt like the weirdos were taking over.”

The exhibition, curated by the former editor of British Vogue, Edward Enninful, is part of a wider 90s cultural revival. Oasis’s Wonderwall was the UK’s unofficial World Cup anthem this summer, after last year’s sellout reunion tour. Pulp have also just completed a world tour. The 1993 novel Trainspotting has become a musical; less surprisingly, so has 90s-set romance One Day, which found a new audience with 2024’s Netflix series. Love Story, which fictionalises the doomed relationship between John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette, broke streaming records. Cult drama This Life is now on iPlayer. Vogue has described the era as “fashion’s most revisited decade”.

Severed hands, crushed bones and a ‘monstrous mermaid with sharp teeth’: Reece Shearsmith on his dark obsessions 8 October 2026 at 03:00

Severed hands, crushed bones and a ‘monstrous mermaid with sharp teeth’: Reece Shearsmith on his dark obsessions

The Guardian

By: Fiona Sturges

8 October 2026 at 03:00

The League of Gentlemen and Inside No 9 co-creator has always displayed a sense of gothic unease, and his new book combines myth, memoir – and his own disquieting drawings

When Reece Shearsmith was a boy, he overheard relatives chatting at a New Year gathering. “One of them was talking about [the ghost of] a woman they’d seen standing on the village green at three in the morning,” he recalls. “Another knew a woman who woke up and found a figure sitting at the end of her bed. It’s my first recollection of being properly scared and loving it.”

From then on, the Yorkshire-born Shearsmith was fascinated by all things uncanny. He would stay up late to watch Hammer horror films – his mother allowed it because she loved them, too – and immerse himself in books including the Hamlyn Book of Horror, Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and the works of Edgar Allan Poe. His obsession carried through into adulthood and his work: Shearsmith is best known as the co-creator of the surreal comedy series The League of Gentlemen, Psychoville and the horror anthology Inside No 9. “I’ve managed to forge a career from the things I loved as a kid,” he says.

A.I. Music Fraudster Who Drew Millions in Royalties Is Sentenced to 18 Months 7 October 2026 at 22:05

A.I. Music Fraudster Who Drew Millions in Royalties Is Sentenced to 18 Months

NYT: Technology

By: Derrick Bryson Taylor

7 October 2026 at 22:05

Prosecutors say Michael Smith flooded music-streaming platforms with bots that repeatedly streamed his A.I.-generated music, earning him as much as $8 million.

The case against Michael Smith, 54, was the Justice Department’s first involving fraud through A.I.-assisted music streaming. Mr. Smith used as many as 10,000 bot accounts to stream his music, the department said.

Out of Hawk 29 September 2026 at 22:11

Out of Hawk

MetaFilter

By: nightcoast

29 September 2026 at 22:11

A tidy little drama unfolded during today's US Senate hearings (C-Span, via YouTube).

Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt, who is being floated as a possible VP candidate for a Vance presidential run (Axios, sigh), lined up dutifully for his sound bite attacking former special counsel Jack Smith. Then things took a turn. The whole seven minutes or so are worth taking in. As a dessert, you can watch Alabama Senator Katie Britt at the moment of unraveling (YouTube).

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