Culture | The Verge

I met Olaf — the Frozen robot who might be the future of Disney Parks

2026-03-20T20:10:33-04:00

Olaf, a Disney Imagineering robot that will greet guests at Disney parks. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

You know Olaf. Before KPop Demon Hunters, before the Wicked movies, it was Disney's Frozen that blasted show tunes like "Let It Go" and "Into the Unknown" into our lives. My little girls loved belting those tunes.

So when I met Olaf, the Disney Imagineering robot, I kept thinking: I can't wait for my kids to meet him too.

It's a weird thought, really, because this Olaf isn't a "he" and can't carry on a conversation. Why do I keep thinking "I met him" when he's largely a remote-controlled puppet teleoperated by a Steam Deck gaming handheld?

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Is this the best robot Disney's ever made? Frozen's snowman Olaf will soon greet guests …

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Digg’s open beta shuts down after just two months, blaming AI bot spam

2026-03-13T16:51:15-04:00

It's only been a year since Digg founder Kevin Rose, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, and a few others announced the link-sharing site would relaunch, promising a "social discovery built by communities, not by algorithms." Now, two months after opening its Reddit-like platform to the public, Digg is announcing a "hard reset" that's shutting down operations and will "significantly downsize the Digg team."

When they announced its relaunch, Rose told The Verge that AI could "remove the janitorial work of moderators and community managers." Now, the new Digg's CEO Justin Mezzell writes in a note pinned to the homepage that, "We knew bots were …

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Every influencer eventually becomes a merch store

2026-03-10T11:29:26-04:00

Tucker Carlson’s “NY Commie” hat | Image: Tucker Carlson Network

Tucker Carlson's online store sells right-wing apparel and home goods, like hoodies in the Supreme streetwear style mocking Somali people or mugs with The Godfather puppetmaster iconography edited to feature AIPAC. But last week, a handful of other products caught the attention of those outside Carlson's typical audience: one is a red and yellow "NY Commie" baseball cap, with a hammer and sickle replacing the "C" (the icon is mirrored to work for the joke); another cap is emblazoned with "Neocons are gay for Israel"; and an "I HEART NICOTINE" mug.

The merch seems to have captured a subset of people whose politics are at odds with Carlson: …

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4chan’s creator says ‘Epstein had nothing to do’ with creating infamous far-right board /pol/

2026-02-13T16:10:09-05:00

The close timing of Jeffrey Epstein coming into contact with 4chan founder Chris 'moot' Poole and the launch of the "politically incorrect" message board /pol/ that became a breeding ground for QAnon and the white supremacist alt-right movement was coincidental, says Poole. In a statement given to The Verge, Pool writes, "The decision to add the board was made weeks beforehand, and the board was added almost 24 hours prior to a first, chance encounter at a social event."

Speculation about the timing arose after emails found in the millions of documents released by the Department of Justice showed Epstein and venture capitalist Boris Nikolic …

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I’m The Verge’s Senior Internet Typist, ask me anything while Nilay’s away!

2025-12-29T15:13:11-05:00

Hello from the dead week of the year, when all sane people have logged off to spend time with their families. This is when I typically write at least one deeply weird post while I'm working over the holiday. One time I got left alone on New Year's Day and posted about cats all day and people got very mad! No one let me run the site alone anymore after that.

I'm supposed to give you some inkling of what I am willing to talk about but even I don't know what my beat is anymore. I am somehow our business reporter, our in-house media critic, our heavy metal expert, our long-running (and long-suffering) Elon Musk personality disorder specialist, …

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It’s finally time to retire the word ‘podcast’

2026-01-04T12:57:18-05:00

According to YouTube's 2025 Recap feature, the podcast I consumed the most on its platform was Seth Meyers' recurring segment "A Closer Look" on his show Late Night.

Last year, I would have argued that this is not a podcast. That it is, in fact, a clip of a TV show. But in 2025, with almost every major podcast now having a video component, the definition of the word "podcast" has become pretty meaningless. A decades-old TV show talk show format is now almost indistinguishable from podcasts like Good Hang with Amy Poehler, Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Club Shay Shay with Shannon Sharpe, and other shows at the top of Spotify's podcast c …

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The Luigi Mangione trial is all about narrative control

2025-12-05T13:36:52-05:00

On Monday, several dozen members of the public are lined up outside 100 Centre Street in Lower Manhattan, hoping to squeeze into the courtroom to hear testimony from witnesses called by the state against Luigi Mangione - the man accused of shooting and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson a year ago.

Despite the endless news coverage, viral memes, and photos seen by millions of people, the group that shows up to hearings has thinned out significantly since the court date in February, when hundreds gathered outside and in the courthouse. There is a small demonstration ramping up, organized by healthcare reform group People Over Profi …

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The Luigi Mangione legal saga

2026-04-16T03:26:02-04:00

One year after the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan, his alleged shooter, Luigi Mangione, faces charges of first and second degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon, stalking, forgery, and others.

Mangione has become a folk hero to many online, amid debates over wealth inequality, healthcare affordability, and even content moderation. His hearings have drawn hundreds of supporters to camp outside courthouses, including some who have sent Mangione letters and gifts. Videos of him coming and going from court appearances regularly garner millions of views, and he has even become the inspiration for fan fictions and Etsy listings.

The Department of Justice is now seeking the death penalty against Mangione, which his lawyers are attempting to get dismissed.

Read on below for all of the latest news and updates about Luigi Mangione.

The indie web is here to make the internet weird again

2025-11-30T17:02:10-05:00

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on internet culture, follow Stevie Bonifield. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

The indie web began a few years after the end of GeoCities, which Yahoo shut down in 2009 (at least, in the US - GeoCities Japan managed to hang on until 2019). GeoCities was a free web hosting service that launched in 1994 and once hosted millions of personal HTML websites, from pop culture shrines to teachers' pages for their students (and truly everything in between).

When GeoCities …

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‘Jmail’ is like any other inbox, except this one has Jeffrey Epstein’s emails

2025-11-24T05:54:02-05:00

The more than 20,000 pages of Jeffrey Epstein emails released earlier this month by the House Oversight Committee have been enough to prompt more investigations into the convicted child sex offender and the people around him, like former Harvard president and OpenAI board member Larry Summers. Now, Luke Igel and Riley Walz have reformatted the source documents into a more familiar format for anyone looking into them by copying the Gmail inbox on a website called "Jmail."

Walz, who has previously authored stunts like a website that unearths long-forgotten iPhone clips on YouTube and a fake Manhattan steakhouse, said they used Google's Gemini …

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