The “beta mom” has arrived — and she wants you to know she’s totally fine with the fact that her kid ate cereal for dinner three nights this week. Beta mom culture is the latest parenting identity to colonize TikTok and Instagram, positioning itself as the antidote to the hyper-curated,…
Category: Social Media
Animals
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Argentine Teens Are Identifying as Dogs — And TikTok Made It Go Viral
A Buenos Aires plaza turned into an impromptu wildlife preserve last Sunday. Teenagers in lifelike animal masks ran on all fours across the grass. A 15-year-old named Aguara — who identifies as a Belgian Malinois and counts her age in dog years — leapt through an obstacle course. Others dressed…
AI
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TikTok Overtakes Traditional Media as Primary News Source for Digital-First Consumers
Not that it happened — that part felt inevitable. It’s how fast it went from fringe behavior to muscle memory. According to a new Pew Research Center study, 1 in 5 Americans now regularly get news on TikTok, up from 3% in 2020. Three percent to twenty before anyone really…
Culture
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The Great Chili Stampede-When a Viral Rumor Turned a Village Farm Into a Free-For-All
There’s a special kind of chaos that only social media can produce — the kind where a village wakes up expecting a normal workday and instead finds half the province rummaging through its chili fields like they’re at a clearance sale. That’s exactly what happened in Liujiangou, a rural village…
Media
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How a Foodie Freeloader Exposed NYC’s Soft Spot for Small Crimes
New York has seen its share of characters: subway poets, rooftop pigeon trainers, guys selling “vintage” iPhone 6s outside the L train. But every once in a while someone shows up who just… breaks the simulation. Enter Pei Chung, the foodie influencer who apparently views every restaurant in the five…
Culture
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Kids Don’t Shake Piggy Banks Anymore — They Check Their Balance
Somewhere in an attic — next to the Beanie Babies and the box of VHS tapes nobody wants to throw out — sits a ceramic pig with a coin slot carved into its back. It had a good run. But like most analog traditions, it’s now being replaced by something…