cuteroid

the 2026 vmas felt less like a celebration of where pop culture is going and more like proof that pop culture is increasingly living off its own past.

madonna dominated the night, snoop dogg hosted, nirvana got the video vanguard award, dolly parton was honored, and taylor swift became the most awarded artist in vma history.

for an awards show that was once supposed to tell you what was next, a lot of its biggest moments came from people and legacies we already knew.

maybe nostalgia isn’t interrupting pop culture anymore. maybe nostalgia is pop culture. image

the bandwagon effect is our tendency to believe, like, or do something partly because a lot of other people already are.

a restaurant has an hour long line? suddenly it must be amazing.

a random song is everywhere for three days? somehow you know the chorus.

sometimes popularity is the result of something being good. sometimes popularity is the reason we decide it’s good.

riverside, illinois is one of those places that feels intentionally different because it literally was.

it was planned in 1869 by frederick law olmsted and calvert vaux, the same team behind central park, with curved streets, lots of trees and green space, and the des plaines river worked into the design instead of the usual street grid.

kind of wild that a suburb designed more than 150 years ago can still feel more thoughtfully planned than a lot of places built today.

the idea that capitalism can exist, but it should not be allowed to decide everything.

markets still function, private companies still make profit, and people can still become rich. the difference is that healthcare, education, labor protections, unemployment support, pensions, and other basic parts of life are treated less like luxuries and more like social guarantees.

historically, social democracy grew out of the socialist movement, but modern social democrats generally try to reduce inequality through elections, regulation, taxation, unions, and the welfare state rather than abolishing capitalism altogether.

in american politics, aoc is probably one of the clearest examples of how the term “sjw” changed meaning.

her actual politics are much broader than culture war stuff. she campaigns on wages, housing, healthcare, climate, unions, immigration, and corporate power. she also came out of grassroots organizing and defeated a senior democratic incumbent in 2018.

but online, critics often flatten all of that into one label.

“sjw.”

that is what makes the term interesting politically.

it can describe a real style of activism, but it can also work as a shortcut that turns a whole political program into a stereotype.

sometimes the label tells you less about the politician than it does about the person using it.

latin for “after this, therefore because of this.”

the mistake of assuming that because something happened after something else, the first thing must have caused it.

justice carried out where courts are weak, distant, or simply ignored.

in the american frontier, that could mean vigilantes, posses, public punishment, or an entire town deciding guilt before any judge ever saw the case.

the romantic version is simple people creating order where government could not.

the darker version is equally simple.

when the crowd becomes the court, justice can turn into revenge very quickly.

a goddess who somehow makes being a redneck look good.

right now, this is probably the best ai video model on the market for cinematic output.

the biggest difference is how well it can work with reference material. a lot of other video models still struggle with that, but seedance 2.5 handles it well enough that the gap suddenly feels pretty big.

people are basically watching what this model can do with their mouths open.

and with bytedance behind it, the company that owns tiktok, it also has serious money and infrastructure behind the technology.

if it keeps improving at this pace, advertising is going to feel it first, and the film industry probably will too.

nike shares have lost about 76% of their value over the past five years.

the company’s market value has fallen from around $264 billion to roughly $57 billion.

the main reasons seem to be a flawed direct to consumer strategy, a lack of innovation, the rise of competitors like hoka and on running, weakness in china, and heavy discounting caused by excess inventory.

management has admitted to some of those strategic mistakes and is trying to rebuild relationships with traditional wholesale partners, put more emphasis on product innovation, and clean up inventory.

the problem is that the market seems to expect the recovery to take a long time.

personally, my reason for moving away from nike is much simpler: comfort, design issues, and declining product quality.

the last four pairs i bought all had problems.

when a company this big is selling shoes that literally squeak with every step, something has gone seriously wrong.

according to aristotle, one swallow does not make a summer.

the story feels suffocating, and this suffocating quality could've been made a bit more epic. the film isn't actually bad, but at this point should nolan work with a different technical team (the camera work and editing especially)? an epic film's camera angles need to be epic too, fast cuts and the like belong in today's action films. 7/10.

it's unbelievable, a team that gets senselessly romanticized, oh, they're the game of football itself, oh, they're the salt-and-woman-scented streets of buenos aires... get outta here with that!

if a european team had pulled the dirty tricks these guys pulled, they'd have been banned from the next world cup. these guys protested by turning their backs to the stage during the trophy ceremony, come on, what did you even play, what did you even do, what right of yours got trampled on that you're protesting like this, are you saying we couldn't beat up the spaniards with our fists after the match so we're doing this instead!?

by the way messi, you should be ashamed of that pathetic move you pulled to get cucurella sent off, wanting to slander a guy young enough to be your kid just to get him ejected suits you just fine...

if spain hadn't won the world cup, he would've taken most of the blame. there was probably a lot of pressure on him.

he's still very young, though. hopefully we'll get to see him live up to his potential in future tournaments.

because of the scandal over the red card suspension being deferred, i am hoping belgium just refuses to take the field. there is no way a disgrace like this stands. let us see how the referee is going to give a card against the usa now.