Alex Burns

The term, which was coined by the sociologist Ray Oldenburg in the 1980s, essentially refers to a physical location other than work or home where there’s little to no financial barrier to entry and where conversation is the primary activity. The historical examples that Oldenburg cites in his book The Great Good Place include French cafés, German A... See more

Compassion Fade : People have more compassion for small groups of victims than larger groups, because the smaller the group the easier it is to identify individual victims.

According to data from Forbes, there were 2,781 billionaires worldwide as of March. The combined net worth of U.S. billionaires totals $5.7 trillion, more than any other country. China’s billionaires rank second, worth $1.3 trillion, and India’s billionaires rank third at $954 billion.

On Monday night, some of the biggest celebrities in the country, dressed in their finest and most outrageous couture, assembled at the steps of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for the biggest red carpet event of the year. They entered the museum for a high-profile celebration of fashion — sponsored by TikTok this year — that remained ent... See more

Even for a sport that traffics heavily in phenoms and next-big-things, that throws around the anvil of expectation as if it were weightless, Nadal was a next-level prospect. It didn’t hurt that Nadal was more like a fantastical creation than a sports prodigy. Yes, he was torrentially talented. But his game and his backstory were both sui generis , ... See more

The technology of TikTok might be new, but the shift itself has precedence. The history of celebrity gossip is the history of the power of meaning-making pinballing between 1) the studios that create star vehicles; 2) the publications that collaborate closely with the studios to promote those vehicles; 3) the scandal/gossip publications and paparaz... See more