It’s easy to argue on TikTok. But singer Derric Gobourne Jr. is taking it a step further — he’s dancing the haters away. While you might not recognize Gobourne’s name, or his stage moniker Sir Indigo, there’s a good chance you’ve seen him move. For the past month, he’s been …
Read More »The Mycology TikToker Embracing the Sound of Shrooms
There’s pure silence in the air until Noa Kalos stretches her hand into the video’s frame and clamps a white wire onto a bowling ball-sized cluster of oyster mushrooms. Pink and fleshy with pronounced gills, they look like they were plucked from a desert garden on Mars — and they …
Read More »We Regret to Inform You That Etsy Has Become a Hotbed of Cheugy True-Crime Merch
On Etsy, the online marketplace known for feminist cross-stitch samplers and macrame wall hangings, a search for “serial killer” returns nearly 16,000 results. Extending far beyond intentionally macabre portraits of murderers and kitschy needlepoints, there’s a certain subset that looks like a crime-obsessed mom was set loose to design Home …
Read More »'They Don't Give a Shit': Former Agent Says FBI Ignores Child Sex Abuse Cases
Last week, the Justice Department’s Inspector General released a scathing report detailing just how badly the FBI botched the major child abuse case involving Larry Nassar, former doctor for the USA Gymnastics national team and Michigan State University accused of abusing dozens of young patients in his care across several …
Read More »The Enemy Within
A nita Muldoon could sense that this might be her last chance to make it as a cop. She was riding shotgun in a Minneapolis squad car in the fall of 1993 when her training officer offered a blunt assessment of her standing. “You’re not trusted,” he told her. “And …
Read More »Lisa Montgomery Suffered Years of Abuse and Trauma. The United States Killed Her Anyway
Last week, while Donald Trump holed up with his shrinking circle of advisors to plan nearly 150 pardons and commutations, including many for his friends and coconspirators, his Department of Justice concluded a string of 13 federal executions — breaking a 17-year hiatus of the federal death penalty. In just …
Read More »A New Year's Eve Gay Cruise Sank in Puerto Vallarta, and Gay Instagram Is Exploding
When the world rang in 2021, we thought we would be leaving much of the malaise of the previous pandemic year behind. But alas, there is no vaccine for one of our favorite pursuits: good old-fashioned social media shaming, which has been rampant thanks to an anonymous Instagram account and …
Read More »Why Sexual-Abuse Survivors Are Getting Sucked Into QAnon
In 2016, Sarah*, 34, was a hardcore Bernie Sanders supporter, and was frustrated by what she viewed as the lopsided media coverage surrounding his 2016 campaign. “He’d have crowds with tens of thousands of people and no one would be covering it,” she recalls. “The only people talking about it …
Read More »Rumaan Alam's 'Leave the World Behind' Captures the Universal Horror of the Apocalypse
Novelist Rumaan Alam refuses to be confined to one race, gender, or sexuality when he picks up the pen. In his newest novel, Leave the World Behind, he slides easily into an array of personas, which proves that when it comes to the end of the world, we all pretty …
Read More »Why the Fireworks Conspiracy Theories Are So Damn Believable
Just past midnight on Tuesday, June 23rd, a man stepped outside his apartment building in the Grand Concourse neighborhood of the Bronx to retrieve the wallet he’d left in his car when he saw what he believes was a police officer in street clothes handing out fireworks to teens. The …
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