People are spending millions on NFTs, but what are they?
Let’s be clear about this much — money is fake, and can be anything to anyone. But in the wake of cryptocurrencies, there’s now an even more porous type of luxury item for fans to trade and invest in online: NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. What are…
By Shawn Cooke

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How would a 'vaccine passport' work, exactly?
By Tracey Anne Duncan
Well before COVID-19 vaccines existed, people were speculating about how life would change once they were created. There were — extremely reasonable — concerns that vaccines would not be distributed equitably, and there were also conspiracy theories…
Now people are injecting themselves with lip fillers on TikTok
By Melissa Pandika
While the past year has been objectively terrible, it’s also served us some prime Internet content. (Nathan Apodaca vibing to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” definitely ranks in my top three.) I see this fruitfulness as a sign of people turning to…
The new 'Harry Potter' video game will include transgender characters (take that, J. K. Rowling)
By Kara Weisenstein
In a tacit rejection of J. K. Rowling’s transphobia, developers working on the highly anticipated Harry Potter video game, Hogwarts Legacy, fought to include character customization options that allow for transgender avatars, according to Bloomberg.…
Watching 'Minari' with my immigrant parents showed just how little we know one another
By James Yeh
A couple years ago, I tried watching Game of Thrones with my parents — made them watch it with me, I should say, as a kind of experiment. My ostensible goal was to write about it for work, but the real goal was to connect in some vague yet…
The surprising link between anxiety and your newfound drowsiness
By Melissa Pandika
A few years ago, my therapist said something that’s stuck with me ever since: “Life is a little harder for you.” What she meant was that because of my generalized anxiety disorder, I need to constantly rein in my racing thoughts — the same ones that…
Revisiting reparations: It's time for the U.S. to pay off its debt to Black Americans
By Anne C. Bailey
Some 156 years after the end of the Civil War and the official abolition of slavery through the 13th Amendment, the idea of reparations is gaining currency in Washington. On March 1, Cedric Richmond, a senior adviser to President Joe Biden,…
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp would "absolutely" back Donald Trump in 2024
By Rafi Schwartz
I wouldn't say I feel sorry for Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, an arguably terrible man who has had an objectively negative impact on, well, everything. But if there's a way to feel bad for someone without actually, y'know... feeling bad,…
TikTokers discovering secret rooms in their homes is my favorite new rabbit hole
By Kara Weisenstein
We’ve all been stuck inside our respective dwellings for a year now. And it’s perhaps symptomatic of this fact that TikToks of people discovering secret rooms in their homes have lately been going viral. The creep-factor of finding a hidden chamber…
Maybe it's time to get rid of award shows
By Shawn Cooke
No matter your vantage point, there’s almost never a good reason to ascribe coherent ideology to the ebbs and flows of TV ratings. They’re usually headed in one direction — down — and that isn’t due to any lib-owning or other unified political…
Senate Republicans are going to absurd lengths to block your stimulus check
By Rafi Schwartz
We're closing in on a full year since the CARES Act of 2020 sent some desperately needed pandemic payments to most people's bank accounts, and more than two months since the laughably insufficient $600 follow-up from the Trump administration. Now,…
The Gulf Stream is weaker than it has been in 1,000 years. That's bad news
By AJ Dellinger
The Gulf Stream is one of the most important forces on Earth that you will never see. This powerful ocean current brings warm waters from the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic Ocean, carrying them past the east coast of the United States, all the way…
How would a 'vaccine passport' work, exactly?
By Tracey Anne Duncan
Well before COVID-19 vaccines existed, people were speculating about how life would change once they were created. There were — extremely reasonable — concerns that vaccines would not be distributed equitably, and there were also conspiracy theories…
The House just passed the George Floyd police reform bill. Here's what it does.
By Rafi Schwartz
For the second time in as many years, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a sweeping police reform bill named after George Floyd, the unarmed black man killed by Minneapolis Police Department Officer Derek Chauvin this past May. H.R. 1280, the…
The pandemic has been hell for our eyes. Here's how to do some damage control
By Tracey Anne Duncan
The pandemic is wreaking havoc on our bodies and minds and, it turns out, even the windows to our souls. The pandemic has likely increased the amount of time we spend staring at screens, leading to what some are calling, “lockdown eye strain.” And…
Being honest about your drug use is a crucial type of activism
By Tracey Anne Duncan
I am a drug user. So are most of the people I know, but most people keep their use private for fear of the stigma attached. That’s reasonable. There are real repercussions to coming out of any closet. But if we actually want to see an end to the…
People are spending millions on NFTs, but what are they?
By Shawn Cooke
Let’s be clear about this much — money is fake, and can be anything to anyone. But in the wake of cryptocurrencies, there’s now an even more porous type of luxury item for fans to trade and invest in online: NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. What are…
Dolly Parton turned "Jolene" into a vaccine PSA, and it's magnificent
By Kara Weisenstein
The doyenne of country and Squarespace songstress, Dolly Parton, got "a dose of her own medicine" this week. Meaning, of course, that she got her first coronavirus vaccination. And naturally it was the Moderna varietal, which Parton helped fund with…
Now people are injecting themselves with lip fillers on TikTok
By Melissa Pandika
While the past year has been objectively terrible, it’s also served us some prime Internet content. (Nathan Apodaca vibing to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” definitely ranks in my top three.) I see this fruitfulness as a sign of people turning to…
Lawmakers from both parties have had enough of the president’s war powers
By Rafi Schwartz
It's been three decades since Congress first voted to give the President of the United States an astonishingly wide berth to conduct military operations in Iraq and the Gulf, and almost two decades since they reasserted those permissions in the…
Feds are preparing for a possible second insurrection attempt on March 4
By Rafi Schwartz
We're not even three months out from the last time a group of Trump-addled insurrectionists breached the halls of congress in a violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election and lynch anyone they considered political enemies, and already federal…
Is Britney Spears's dad trying to gaslight her?
By Kara Weisenstein
The documentary Framing Britney Spears lent the #FreeBritney movement lots more legitimacy. Suddenly, tons of people were rightfully enraged that the super successful 39-year-old pop star wasn’t in control of the minutiae of her life, because she…
Scientists just discovered that space hurricanes are a thing
By AJ Dellinger
We know hurricanes are becoming more frequent occurrences and happening outside of the typical hurricane season, but this is ridiculous. According to a study published last month in the journal, Nature Communications, scientists have officially…
A new report confirms America's democracy is more fragile than ever
By Rafi Schwartz
It's pretty widely accepted that this past year was one of the worst in recent memory for huge swaths of the country. There was a catastrophically bungled pandemic; a tidal wave of social justice protests met with brutal military force and…