Tag Archives: digital-culture

When director Alex Garland sat down in 2020 to write his new movie, Civil War, he was clearly worried about the polarization of American society. The Covid-19 pandemic was just beginning to take hold, and former US president Donald Trump was still in the White House. It was a much …

In the drawn-out contract battle between TikTok and Universal Music Group, a high-profile exemption has been made for Taylor Swift. A few of her songs became available again as TikTok sounds on Thursday, just a week before the release of Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. It remains unclear …

Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” landed with the force of an atomic bomb. Released last month, the thumping diss track hit the Billboard Hot 100 in a flash but went dynamite across X, Instagram, and TikTok thanks to a surprise verse from Kendrick Lamar, the Compton rapper who won …

Aruba has long been a special place for Stacy Argondizzo. For years, her family has vacationed on the tiny Caribbean Island every July. More recently it’s been more than just a place to take a break from her work as a digital archivist—becoming wholly a part of that work. A …

Four years ago, Vera Drew, the director of The People’s Joker, had a YouTube show called Hot Topics With Vera Drew. It was, she admits, a blatant attempt to get funded by the mall retailer and suburban hub for emo wear. “I only made four episodes of it,” she says, …

A 4.8-magnitude earthquake shook parts of the East Coast of the US on Friday. I was safe in my apartment wondering if the violent rocking in my building was because my neighbor was running their washing machine or if my building’s bad pipes were finally about to rupture in a …

Now in its 16th season, RuPaul’s Drag Race has birthed more than a few iconic lip-sync battles, but precious few have featured Muppets. None, even. AI Drag Race changed that. In the Instagram account’s recent season finale, Miss Piggy, wearing an AI-generated drag look, faced off against lover-turned-rival Kermisha Ihman, …

Yes, San Francisco is a nexus of artificial intelligence innovation, but it’s also one of the queerest cities in America. The Mission District, where ChatGPT maker OpenAI is headquartered, butts up against the Castro, where sidewalk crossings are coated with rainbows, and older nude men are often seen milling about. …

In a charming game called This Discord Has Ghosts in It, up to 15 participants at a time gather in a Discord server that has been reimagined as a haunted house. (Of course.) Inside lies a maze of (chat) rooms where each player takes the role of either an eponymous …

There’s a nasty not-so-secret secret no one likes to talk about, so it’s best to start there: Black women are among the most hated demographic worldwide. In America especially, anti-Blackness is the air. It’s everywhere even when you can’t see it. From the ivory halls of Washington to C-suites at …