Talk global to me: OK, so YouTube just made subtitles feel like a flip phone. They’re rolling out AI dubbing that copies your own voice and tone but in other languages. Early testers like Jamie Oliver saw their views triple. Plus, thumbnails get the translation glow-up, too. Repeat after me: J’adore The Current.
The catfisher in the minivan
Netflix
Alert: This article is a spoiler for Unknown Number: The High School Catfish on Netflix.
Imagine you’re a high school girl. Your phone won’t stop buzzing. It’s not friendly DMs, texts or social media notifications.
Instead, hundreds of cruel, anonymous messages flood in, calling you names, threatening you, turning your friends against you and even urging you to take your own life.
This is the true story of Netflix’s Unknown Number: The High School Catfish.
🧍🏼♀️ Who was it?
It started in 2020 when 13-year-old Lauryn Licari from Beal City, Michigan, and her boyfriend Owen began getting bombarded with vicious, untraceable texts and DMs, sometimes over 50 a day.
Her mom, Kendra, was right there with Lauryn, consoling her, talking her through what was going on and helping her file reports with the school and police.
But this was all a sinister act. Kendra was the one harassing her own daughter.
⛓️ A digital predator’s tool kit
Kendra didn’t need sophisticated computer and hacking skills or tools sold on the dark web. She used apps available to anyone.
- Spoofing and burner apps: TextNow and TextFree let you create fake phone numbers. Kendra would send hateful texts, then simply get a new number.
- Bogus social media accounts: You can make fake social media accounts in seconds. Kendra did this on Instagram and Facebook, pretending to be Lauryn’s classmates or friends.
- VPN (virtual private network): Kendra used a VPN to hide her device’s IP address, making the messages appear to come from locations across the country.
She weaponized these tools to not only attack her daughter but to pin the blame on Lauryn’s friends, isolating her completely.
$2 million
How much the Las Vegas Sphere makes every single day. Not from concerts but from showing the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz. Between 4,000 and 5,000 fans show up multiple times a day, each paying about $200 a ticket. Execs estimate the film could top $1 billion over its run (paywall link). I guess the real Emerald City is in Vegas. Btw, I saw it. I loved it!
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Want a YouTube video to play on repeat? On desktop, right-click the video and select Loop. Great for study beats, background music or white noise.
🚨 Scrape me up before you go-go: The Atlantic just dropped a seriously creepy tool. Type in your name, and it’ll show whether your YouTube videos were quietly scraped to train AI. No permission, no payment, just … surprise! You helped build someone else’s billion-dollar model. I popped up 75 times. Unreal. Search for your name here.
Stop wasting money! Most of us pay for subscriptions we forgot about. Rocket Money finds them, tracks them and helps you cancel what you don’t need. I saved $435 on my first try. See how much you’ll save!
🎧 Spotify hits a high note: If you’re a Premium subscriber, you might now have lossless streaming, aka CD‑quality 24‑bit/44.1 kHz FLAC audio. I say “might” because it’s rolling out gradually. To turn it on, go to Settings > Audio Quality and choose Lossless under streaming options.
👨👩👧 Make Netflix profiles for everyone: Netflix recommends shows based on what you watch, so don’t let cartoons mess up your rom-coms. Go to Manage Profiles > Add Profile > name it > Save. FYI: It also makes it easier to track what your kids are watching. Go back to Manage Profiles > their profile > Viewing activity.
🎙️ Talk is cheap: Startup Inception Point AI is pumping out 3,000+ AI-hosted podcast episodes a week, using AI personalities like Claire Delish and Oly Bennett. The cost? Less than $1 per show. They’ve already racked up 10 million downloads, and now they’re turning these bots into full-blown egoless influencers that don’t need a mic, only an LLM.
📺 RIP Freevee: Amazon’s free streaming service, used by millions, is officially gone. Open the app now, and you’ll be redirected to a site to download Prime Video instead. The silver lining? Some of Freevee’s original shows will still be on Prime, and you won’t need a membership to watch. Cue tiny violin.
🕳️ The web’s falling apart: Google just told a judge the web’s in “rapid decline.” Advertisers are bailing for streaming and shopping platforms, leaving websites high and dry. Basically, the internet’s breaking up with quirky blogs and small sites for someone hotter, richer and way more into retail. It’s kind of like watching your favorite diner get replaced by a Sweetgreen.
▶️ YouTube PiP on Chromebook: You can keep a YouTube video running while working on other tasks. Place your cursor on the video player, double-tap with two fingers on the touchpad, and select Picture in picture. A floating window will appear that you can resize and move anywhere on your screen.
🎥 Welles, Welles, Welles, what do we have here? AI studio Showrunner is trying to rebuild Orson Welles’ butchered masterpiece The Magnificent Ambersons. The missing 43 minutes were burned for storage space in 1942. Now, AI + live actors + face-swapping tech are piecing it back together. Amazon is backing it, but without the movie rights, it’s just a very expensive Frankenstein film.
🎤 When the main chord is an AI power cord: Meet Oliver McCann, a guy who can’t sing, play or strum a guitar. But with a chatbot, he’s pumping out everything from indie pop to country rap. One track hit 3 million streams and landed him a record deal. Here’s what AI sounds like. Fake it until you stream it.
Whack-a-stream: Cops just shut down a massive Streameast copycat that pulled 1.6 billion visits last year, more traffic than Twitter. The site streamed 10,000 illegal sports events and laundered $6.2M through a fake UAE company before Egyptian police raided it and arrested two guys. Plot twist: the real Streameast? Still online. Still streaming.
Walmart vs Amazon, round 92: Walmart+ just lobbed a grenade at Prime with its new offer of free Peacock streaming for members, starting Sept. 15. That’s Real Housewives, NFL and SNL, bundled into Walmart’s $98 plan, cheaper than Peacock’s $109.99 annual price. You can also swap between Peacock and Paramount+ every 90 days.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: On YouTube, press Shift + > to speed things up or Shift + < to slow them down. Each tap shifts playback by 0.25. I use it for podcasts and slo-mo replays.
▶️ Add a channel trailer on YouTube: Give potential subscribers a preview of what to expect. Log in to YouTube and go to YouTube Studio > Customization > Home tab > Layout. Click + Add section > Channel trailer, pick the video you want, and hit Publish. Pro tip: Swap it out every few weeks to keep things fresh.
YouTube’s family freeloader era is over, too: So you’ve been coasting on someone else’s YouTube Premium family plan for years? Well, YouTube just went full Netflix on us. Starting now, every 30 days, it’ll GPS‑scan your butt to make sure you actually live under the same roof as the account holder.
📼 Own it? Not really: A new lawsuit says Amazon’s “Buy” button on video downloads is misleading, because what you’re really buying is a long-term rental they can take back anytime. A new California law backs the claim. So if your “purchased” movie vanishes next week, well, that’s legal. Somewhere, your dusty DVD collection is cackling.