Culture

Dystopian Vibes

A Dating App Is Giving Away Free Gas to Convince People to Get Out of the House

Amid ongoing economic anxieties, BLK and other companies are giving away basic essentials to appeal to the public.

Jason Parham

His Trolliness

Pope Leo Schooled the Tech Bros on Tolkien

Miles Klee

Streaming Guides

The 9 Best Movies to Stream This Month

Matt Kamen

Digital Culture

A Swimmer Broke a World Record at the ‘Steroid Olympics’

Dozens of juiced athletes competed at the Enhanced Games in Las Vegas. Most won’t admit what drugs they used.

Ben Dowsett

These Privacy-Conscious Gay Dating Apps Want to Dethrone Grindr

As public backlash against Big Dating mounts, a batch of new gay hookup apps offer community-powered alternatives.

Jason Parham

4chan’s Misogynist ‘Wizards’ Are Nudifying Women by Request

As nonconsensual explicit deepfakes continue to proliferate online, entire communities are now collaborating on this digital form of sexual abuse.

Miles Klee

Trump Wants to Be the Hero Vapers Don’t Really Need

The White House says Trump’s pro-vape stance is based on “gold standard science.” It feels more like vice-signaling to a demographic that often doesn’t vote—over products that are widely available.

Jamie Ducharme

Video Games

Gamers’ Worst Nightmares About AI Are Coming True

From the global RAM shortage driving up console prices to job loss in the industry, gaming is shaping up to be one of the AI boom's biggest casualties.

Helen Vogelsong-Donahue

Roblox’s AI-Powered Age Verification Is a Complete Mess

Kids are being identified as adults—and vice versa—on Roblox, while age-verified accounts are already being sold online.

David Gilbert

The Avatar Game Is So Good, They Don’t Need to Make the Movies Anymore

See the new movie Avatar: Fire and Ash if you’d like. But if you really want to experience the big blue world of Pandora, the video game is where it’s at.

Boone Ashworth

A New Las Vegas Attraction Serves Up Alien Foxes, Exoplanets, and VR Carl Sagan

Interstellar Arc is an immersive sci-fi experience that uses recent advances in headset tech to break new ground in virtual reality. And it all happens inside an empty-looking room in Las Vegas.

Ben Dowsett

Movies and TV

Margo’s Got Money Troubles Won TV’s OnlyFans Wars

Unlike Euphoria, the Apple TV show wants to humanize the experience of sex workers rather than catastrophize the extremes of the profession.

Jason Parham

The 10 Best TV Shows to Stream This Month

Rick and Morty, The Boroughs, and Battlestar Galactica are just a few of the TV shows you should be watching right now.

Jennifer M. Wood

The Creators of Hacks Really, Really, Really Hate AI

Ahead of the hit show’s finale, cocreators Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello talk about media consolidation, the perils of censorship, and why they find AI “deeply disturbing.”

Katie Drummond

I Work in Hollywood. Everyone Who Used to Make TV Is Now Secretly Training AI

For screenwriters like me—and job seekers all over—AI gig work is the new waiting tables. In eight months, I’ve done 20 of these soul-crushing contracts for five different platforms. It’s bad.

Ruth Fowler