The viral βHotel Lobbyβ meme, which lets users inhabit the bodies of Quavo and Takeoff using A.I., resembles a kind of digital blackface, but also speaks to a technology that makes appropriation the default.
Tech-entrepreneur bio-pics used to give us flawed men who built great products. But the latest wave of movies, from βThe Social Reckoningβ to βArtificial,β recast Silicon Valley titans as unambiguous villains, and suggest that the products themselves are the threat.
A form that was once emblematic of the internetβs frivolity has become our preferred way of expressing taste, with the New York Times and Letterboxd users alike clamoring to define the canon.
The host of βFinancial Audit,β a popular YouTube series, claims that his goal is to make his viewers more financially literate, with his down-and-out interviewees serving as extreme test cases for what not to do.