Culture / Digital Culture

Games with Black leads and characters were derided as forced. Female characters deemed unattractive or masculine were suffering from “DEI chin.” Dragon Age: The Veilguard, was criticized by far-right trolls for its customization options,…

A wooded area. A roaring fire. A bit of gently falling snow. This is my happy place. Except, it’s not out my window; it’s on TikTok.For months I have “taught” TikTok to serve me this content: people, usually dudes, building shelters by hand…

In one particularly testy exchange on a conspiracy theories subreddit, two hair stylists clashed over Mangione’s eyebrows.“I was a hairstylist for 20 years back in the day, no one’s eyebrows grow that fast in three days,” one user wrote.…

Earlier this week, feeling somewhat inundated with memes and social media posts about Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, I emailed Simone Driessen. She’s a professor of media and…

If you dwell in certain internet neighborhoods long enough, the rules of governing, however absurd or toxic, become second nature.On X, the site formerly known as Twitter, harassment, racism, and hate speech had become so uniquely poisonous…

In the US, people have strong opinions about health insurance companies, and when it came out that the alleged shooter had written “deny,” “depose,” “defend” on some ammo casings, they rallied round. When it turned out Mangione had been…

David is one of dozens of “pals” programmed with a backstory, personality, and set of expertise aligned with common user interests, from cooking to yoga and astronomy. Users can use their smartphone to video call or text with a pre-existing…

Pornhub has taken steps to address at least some of these problems. Following the Times article, it scrubbed the site of all “unverified content,” Kekesi said. Now anyone who wants to upload content to Pornhub has to not only verify their…

In the late 19th century, before the invention of cinema and radio, every piece of music, performance, oration—even a natural view like a rainbow—was a unique event. Unrepeatable. Cinema and radio changed that, enforcing a massive shift in…

Since the election, Richards says that applications have skyrocketed, with a majority of requests coming from Texas and Florida. In October, TCP had gotten a little more than 20 applications. By mid-November, that number was already over…