Annie Zhang

TikTok/Reels skits just feel like the glossy, expertly-edited versions of the inside jokes that kids make at summer camp talent shows...Most of the creators...are non-art minded amateurs working in templated formats...“[D]igital vaudeville” says it all — it's just not an "inventive creative practice that expands what is possible with art."

And in a... See more

6. The rise of the power trad couples

There are a number of popular ideas out there about who marries whom. One is that rich men primarily want physically attractive wives and don’t care about social status, education, and so on. Another is that power couples tend to be dual earners.

In fact, both of these stereotypes are wrong. As Lyman Stone... See more

This cross-national study investigates how psychopathy, narcissism, and fear of missing out (FoMO) influence online political participation, and how cognitive ability moderates these associations. Drawing on data from the United States and seven Asian countries, the findings reveal that individuals high in psychopathy and FoMO are consistently more... See more

To turn to consumer, I think of consumer as the inverse formula:

1. Take something we really enjoy doing, but feel guilty about.


2. And make us not feel so guilty about it!

This is a pretty interesting formula:

1. Take something that people know they should do, but don’t like doing.


2. And turn it into something they like doing.

"Tradwives and girlbosses end up in the same quadrant," she said. "They are actually both trying to cut their work in half."

Other practices, while not as deceptive, are wildly untraditional. Green lattes and smoothies are prepared with shortcuts (batched concentrate, nicknamed batcha) and flavorings (banana bread!) that send ripples of horror down the spines of matcha purists. Baristas inhale so much airborne green powder that they joke about coming down with matcha... See more

One thing happening in the background here is that marriage rates are declining most among low-income and low-education groups. That means the marriages that do happen are more likely to involve higher-education, higher-income couples who have always had a lower divorce rate.

Marriage is getting rarer, older, and more stable. Consider the typical 25-year old American woman. If she was born in 1940, she had an 80 percent chance of being married. If born in the 1990, she had a ~20 percent chance of being married.