Culture

Verge staffers review election.omg.lol: “Both horrifying and kinda helpful.” “This is a hell site.” “This rules.”

Mariah Carey has once again emerged from the Halloween cobwebs with an elaborately produced video reminding us the holiday season — and nonstop replays of “All I Want for Christmas is You” — is upon us.

Last year the YouTuber sued his business partner in charge of MrBeast Burgers, after customers complained about “inedible” and “revolting” food. Undeterred, this year MrBeast partnered with Logan Paul and KSI to launch Lunchly, a line of Lunchables-style snack boxes — that are apparently full of mold. If your kid asks for them maybe show them these pictures.

New fear unlocked: that even death will not release me from the Zoom meetings.

That’s XOXO organizer Andy Baio reflecting back on the speaker lineup he put together for this year’s conference, which was the last. I encourage you to read his blog post about this year’s talks, which were all amazing. (Including one from The Verge’s Sarah Jeong!)

So The Bear Cave, a newsletter popular among shortsellers, is claiming the short-sellers at Hindenburg Research are ripping it off. “This is the essence of plagiarism: taking the heart of someone else’s work without acknowledgement and repurposing it for your own audience.” Nate Anderson of Hindenburg has responded on Twitter, Edwin Dorsey, of The Bear Cave, isn’t having it.

If you have FOMO about missing out on the very last XOXO festival, the official video recordings have begun rolling out one by one.

Think Shot Spotter, but for songs. There’s a “crappy Android phone” that’s set up in the Mission in San Francisco that’s just on Shazam all day. “This is culture surveillance. No one notices, no one consents. But it’s not about catching criminals. It’s about catching vibes.”

Tegan and Sara (pop stars, iykyk) were known for their online presence and cultivating a fan community. But a catfish hacked Tegan’s accounts, and clearly had access to an awful lot of her personal information... turning her life upside down.

Gates critic Tim Schwab says when he was approached by the production company for What’s Next: The Future with Bill Gates, the people he spoke to misrepresented what the documentary was about. He also notes that Jen Krajicek, one of the producers, appears to work for Gates Ventures.

PBS News spent a few minutes with GeoGuessr superstar Trevor Rainbolt, who made a name for himself on TikTok by being really good at the game of guessing where a random Google Maps Street View photo was taken, based on small clues and the occasional “vibe guess.”

Former US President Donald Trump, who posted AI-generated images of Taylor Swift implying that she had endorsed him for President, now says he hates her, in a post on Truth Social.

In an interview with The New York Times, former model Leticia Sarda — better known to some as “Celebrity Number Six” — revealed she had no idea that thousands of people online have spent years trying to identify her because of some unusual curtains.

Your folding phone’s screen isn’t anywhere near this flexible, in case you’re wondering. They said we’d see the twistable, stretchable display at Seoul Fashion Week, and sure enough:

In January 2020, a Reddit user requested help identifying the celebrities illustrated on some decade-old curtains, and the internet quickly matched all but one to their original photograph.

Activist investors are circling Match, including the terror machines at Elliott Management. But 79 percent of women say they don’t want to use apps ever again. The shift away from dating apps is happening as Match is trying to squeeze more money from its users.