"Call [it] a 'blacktag'—a trending topic initiated by a young African-American woman in Hollywood, pushed to a wider audience by a black woman in South Africa, and then pushed over the top by thousands of contributions from who appear to be black teenagers all over the United States."—Farhad Manjoo, in Slate.
Farhad Manjoo on "How Black People Use Twitter"
Cheugy: out of touch, trying too hard, but not quite uncool
Cheugy is a recently-coined word referring to anyone or anything that's a bit behind the times and trying hard. It's neither basic nor uncool, suggests Taylor Lorenz in the New York Times, but a kind of authentic cheesiness that's both obvious yet highly subjective amid the finely-gradated and self-conscious world of Tik Tokkers. One may… READ THE REST
FedEx mass shooter was brony who hoped to see Applejack in the afterlife
Brandon Scott Hole, 19, entered a FedEx depot in Indianapolis at 11 p.m. last Thursday and shot dead 8 people before taking his own life. Forty minutes earlier, he had posted final words: "I hope that I can be with Applejack in the afterlife, my life has no meaning without her." Applejack is the main… READ THE REST
The end of Mills College and its massively influential experimental music scene?
Oakland, California's Mills College, a small liberal arts women's college with an all-gender grad program, announced that it will close its doors in the next few years due to financial challenges. This marks the end of this institution of higher learning but also the silencing of an incredibly-influential experimental music scene that really defined the… READ THE REST
Get a Sam's Club membership for only $20 this weekend only
You may not have heard about it, but earlier this month, America took another important step toward restoring life to normalcy in our post-COVID world: Sam's Club announced samples were back. Look, it might not seem like a huge milestone, but nobody can deny that noshing on a bite of a new cold cut variety… READ THE REST
17 apps, software, streaming services, and more on sale for this weekend only
For all their everything-ness, there are still some areas where even the great and powerful Amazon isn't all that. Sure, you can find just about any physical item being sold in the depths of Amazon product pages somewhere, but when it comes to software and apps, well, that's an area where the eCommerce giant mostly steers… READ THE REST
Amazon can't beat the prices on these killer portable monitors
There's only so much squinting you can do at a tiny smartphone screen before you start wondering why we ever thought it was a good idea to build devices so small in the first place. Sure, portability is a plus, but when you're trying to watch videos on your phone, that itty-bitty baby screen won't… READ THE REST
