🙃 Take a people detox: Humans need each other. But sometimes you just want everyone to disappear. That’s not misanthropy, that’s “aloneliness”: the emotional ache of not getting enough alone time. New research shows even 15 minutes of solitude lowers stress, boosts creativity and dials down cortisol. So give yourself some me time today.
48,000
That’s how many likes Tinder’s “most swiped right man” racked up without finding “the one.” Despite spending nine years and countless hours on the app (earning him the title “Mr. Tinder”), Stefan-Pierre Tomlin found love the old-fashioned way, meeting his girlfriend during a night out. She had no clue he was Mr. Tinder until she Googled him.
Stop trolls on Instagram: You can filter out nasty comments. Go to Profile > Settings and activity > Hidden Words (under How others can interact with you). Tap Manage custom words and phrases to build a block list, then toggle on Hide comments. Anything with those words stays hidden from your followers.
🙊 Catfishing finance: Scammers are using deepfake Zoom calls (paywall link) and cloned exec voices to steal millions. Companies keep falling for it. One Hong Kong firm wired $25M to a video call of “CFOs” who turned out to be AI sock puppets. Congrats to the bots, you now officially have LinkedIn clout.
Water you doing? Here’s something they don’t tell you about those huge data centers. Beverly thought she retired into rural peace, then Meta built a data center 400 yards away. Her well went cloudy, her toilet needs bucket-flushing, and the water’s too gunky to drink. Meta denies any link, but the booming data center biz raises red flags, like AI slurping trillions of gallons by 2027.
🤖 Grok just keeps Grokking: Elon’s chatbot went rogue, quoting Hitler and calling itself “MechaHitler.” xAI blamed a system prompt. Days later? Boom, Grok 4 launches with a $300/month “SuperGrok Heavy” tier. It allegedly doubled OpenAI’s top model score. “Terrifying rate of progress” sounds less cool when your bot’s quoting Mein Kampf.
If you’re a podcaster, you’re now a target: A scammer impersonating “The Bill Simmons Podcast” almost took over Magic Singh’s socials using a fake interview setup. They even tricked his management. The red flag? A “test call” that ended with a sketchy dude asking for Facebook Business access. Nope.
Your ex just Banksy’d you: That uneasy vibe? It’s called “Banksying,” a new name for a breakup tactic where someone slowly fades emotionally but sticks around just long enough to watch you unravel. It’s basically ghosting’s more psychopathic cousin. Named after the artist, it ends when they dramatically exit while you’re still mentally planning next weekend’s brunch.
🥶 Antarctica said, “Not today”: This kid has guts. A teenage solo pilot TikToker trying to fly to all seven continents landed in Antarctica without telling anyone. Authorities in Chile were like, “That’s illegal,” detained him for filing a fake flight plan and now, he’s ice-o-lated.
Show me your face: Tinder’s rolling out a mandatory facial recognition login, creatively named “Face Check.” It’s trying to root out bots, catfishers and the psycho 53-year-old pretending to be a 27-year-old trust fund baby. Will it work? Nah.
408
The number of cat nap videos researchers scrutinized … for science. Cat’s out of the bag, 65% of cats snooze on their left side. Why? Experts say it activates the right brain for lightning-fast reflexes and spatial finesse. The purrfect slumber isn’t just cute. Think elite soldier … in sleep mode, dreaming of chaos.
Gen Z wants out: Nearly 50% of Gen Z says they’d rather live in a world without the internet, according to a recent survey. Not less of it, none. The vibe? They’re not Luddites, they’re nostalgic for a weirder, less curated life where friendships weren’t content and the boredom felt more human.
😊 Emojis = happier relationships: A study shows that using emojis in texts can make your partner feel more appreciated. Why? Because apparently, it signals you’re paying more attention. But before you get carried away, remember that different generations don’t always interpret them the same way. Gen Z might see a 🙂 or 👍 as sarcastic.
About 80%
The amount of time teen drivers are actually watching the road. The rest? Spent on their phones. Most of that screen time isn’t for directions. It’s music, texting and social media. Terrifying when you realize that looking down for 5 seconds at 55 mph is like driving a football field with your eyes shut.
⏰ Clock is TikTokin’: Look for a new app just for U.S. folks ahead of a forced sell-off of the communist Chinese phenomena to American investors. It drops Sept. 5, and yeah, you’ll need to download it. Trump says the deal is “pretty much” done.
⏩ 2x speed frying memory: A new study says bingeing podcasts and videos at warp speed might make you dumber or at least worsen memory retention. Turns out 2x pushes the brain past its “working memory” limit, especially for older adults. Teens? Basically brain athletes for TikTok TED Talks. The rest of us? Toast.
🤖 You’ve got a friend in me: AI leaders like Musk, Zuckerberg and Microsoft are pushing bots as personalized friends (paywall link) to combat loneliness, but more importantly, for user engagement and data tracking. AI companions are constantly being tweaked with just enough bias to keep you loyal, as seen with Musk’s Grok being “retrained” after backlash for leaning too liberal.
37 out of 50
That’s how many top news sites saw traffic drop after Google’s AI took the wheel. Despite wild headlines covering assassination attempts, election chaos and tariff wars, users stayed on the search page. Why? Google’s Gemini bot summarizes the news, grabs the eyeballs and leaves publishers ghosted like a bad Tinder date.
💔 Trouble in swipe city: Dating apps are seeing a drop in love … and users. Case in point: Bumble just laid off about a third of its staff to cut costs. Why? People are fed up with ghosting, pay-to-play matches and the lack of real connection. Looks like it’s back to making eye contact at the grocery store while squeezing the melons.
🔞 TikTok trouble, again: This is really bad. A viral TikTok trend is using motivational clips to camouflage grooming tactics. Teens, mostly girls, lip-synch “Yes you can” while text implies dating younger kids or sneaking out. Experts say it plays on empowerment language to nudge kids into risky behavior. Predators are watching and commenting. TikTok, of course, does nothing.