Culture

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.

(Swift has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the office.)

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.

“I never expected this would show up 20 years later,” Sarda said.

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.

That remaining figure, dubbed “Celebrity Number Six,” remained a complete mystery until yesterday when the reference image of Spanish model Leticia Sardá was finally uncovered. Guess it's time to retire the subreddit?

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.

Someone go get David Hume — we’re trying to figure out what blue is. I scored 174, true neutral.

The creator of “One Million Checkboxes” has shared some heartwarming stories about the creative ways that teens interacted with the now-shuttered website. Check out the below video, this X thread, or Eieio’s blog for some feel-good Friday vibes about concealing URLs in binary and creating pixelated Rick-Rolls.

Help. Help help help.

But for those of us doomed to remember what the Obama years were like the first time around — the turbo-pop, the undercuts, the novelty Twitter accounts, the Internet Boyfriends, the girlbosses, the hashtags, the precise shades of pink — there is one last bracing thought. For better or worse, these were our ’60s, and we’re all just going to have to come to terms with that.

You can pay to see if your partner will respond to a stranger’s flirty DM — and TikTok has turned this into a thriving subculture.

“On one hand, it’s like, fuck yeah, we got this guy,” Monzon told me. “But on the other hand, it’s like, ‘Fuck.’ This girl’s life is…she’s heartbroken now.”

She played both Ash’s companion and Team Rocket’s female lead from 1997 to 2015 across TV, film, and commercials. She also voiced some Pokémon like Jigglypuff and Goldeen, including in the Smash Bros. games.

Her sister Laurie Orr and her “Ash” co-star Veronica Taylor both confirmed the news. Here’s her IMDB page with other roles, including Your Lie in April and Hunter x Hunter.

Correction: Lillis was 55, not 46.

A placard at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture used the internet-speak term “un-alive” to describe Cobain’s suicide, according to Billboard. The museum elsewhere reportedly said it used it as a “gesture of respect.”

People use terms like “un-alive” online to try to get around moderation algorithms that they believe may suppress or remove their content. MoPOP didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

One of the greatest debates of our time — is Hello Kitty a cat? — continues to rage on, with Sanrio once again affirming the negative. But we’ve been here before.

The Enhanced Games, a Saturday Night Live skit come to life, is trying to raise before the first competition. I’m very curious to see who invests!

Though Kurzweil still can’t explain precisely how he’s going to “merge” with a machine, he’s out here telling The New York Times he expects it to happen before he dies.

For the realists out there, I recommend Seneca.

While old-school scams usually target retirees, the people getting catfished are young. So maybe one way to keep your friends from being vulnerable to bad actors is just to give them a call?

A look at the era of the non-disclosure agreement, subject of pop songs and nearly as common as water in Silicon Valley. Paradoxically, though, being as loud as possible makes it harder for the likes of Jeff Bezos to come after you.

How about you remain competitive by fixing your shit? I’ve met a lead data scientist with access to hundreds of thousands of sensitive customer records who is allowed to keep their password in a text file on their desktop, and you’re worried that customers are best served by using AI to improve security through some mechanism that you haven’t even come up with yet?

Lewis, the Post’s publisher and a former Murdoch henchman, forced out Sally Buzbee, the executive editor. As a result, a longstanding UK scandal around journalistic ethics resurfaced, as Lewis has allegedly attempted to suppress stories about it.

There’s now enough blood in the water that Bezos, WaPo’s owner, is involved. He’s supporting his British import.

Following on the reporting earlier this year from The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal profiles a teen influencer — whose mom is aware the account’s biggest fans are adult men.

Illinois has passed a law to protect child influencers, and more legislation is almost certainly forthcoming.

A remarkable essay on how an AI-generated video on kung fu led one family to order actual, physical encyclopedias.

Knowledge is not a market commodity. Moreover, “justified true belief” does not result from an optimization function. Knowledge may be refined through questioning or falsification, but it does not improve from competition with purposeful nonknowledge. If anything, in the face of nonknowledge, knowledge loses.