“What if art fairs, but acid?” is the aesthetic of the bananas trailer for Netflix’s new satirical horror film, Velvet Buzzsaw, released yesterday.
It’s a new year, but that hasn’t dimmed the popularity of 2018’s most viral ditty, the inescapable children’s bop “Baby Shark,” that inspired a global dance craze. In fact, the song—whose target audiences is aged 3 and under—seems to have somehow become even more popular.
After decades of being relegated to the back aisles of drug stores and seedy storefronts, sex products from lube to vibrators are getting a much-needed rebranding. And the companies that make them are doing it—like many other industries—by aligning with the wellness industry.
Today’s Google homepage features a delightful dino-themed drawing by 7-year-old Sarah Lane-Gomez, a budding paleontologist who created the doodle while her family’s electricity was knocked out by a snowstorm last March.
Seven conglomerates dominate the global beauty industry, and nearly all of them are investing in high-tech consumer experiences that involve budding technology like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, facial recognition, or 3-D printing.
This year’s red carpet was full of sparkle and daring fashion choices. Among them was 23-year-old Timothée Chalamet, who was nominated for best supporting actor for his role in Beautiful Boy.
The British actor Jameela Jamil came to fame on the comedy The Good Place playing Tahani Al-Jamil, a vain but lovable heiress with a penchant for name-dropping celebs and performative shows of do-goodery—hosting splashy charity balls, or going on humanitarian missions with a documentary crew in tow.
2018 brought us plenty of bizarre fashion trends, from tiny sunglasses to platform Crocs to that one Balenciaga t-shirt.
American Girl has announced its 2019 “Girl of the Year” doll, and in addition to wholesome hobbies like cooking and gardening, she has some very relatable issues, one of which is that she is obsessed with her phone.
After leaving a complicated trail of breadcrumbs over the past several months, Netflix finally released an official trailer for Black Mirror: Bandersnatch this morning ahead of its debut tomorrow, Dec. 28.
In an interview with CNN this week, the outgoing Democratic senator for Missouri, Claire McCaskill, expressed confusion over the popularity of 29-year-old incoming Democratic congresswoman from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whom McCaskill referred to as “a bright shiny new object.”
While season five of Netflix’s sci-fi anthology Black Mirror isn’t expected until 2019, a feature-length Black Mirror film titled Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is poised to usher fans into the new year with fresh fears about society’s relationship with technology.
One thing you can say about fashion trends in 2018: There were a lot of them.
While perceptions of beauty vary widely across geography and demographics, a recent global survey by the research firm Euromonitor revealed that definitions of beauty may be shifting for global consumers into something that prioritizes internal intangibles—like being comfortable in one’s own skin and feeling confident—over external features.
Florida’s Miami Beach hosted the American leg of Art Basel, the world’s largest and most opulent modern and contemporary art fair, earlier this month.
It’s been about half a decade since dating apps arrived on the scene, and many are now joining what looks like a collective overhaul (paywall) of their services. Faced with an increasingly competitive app space, online dating dinosaurs like OkCupid have pivoted to a younger, tech-savvy audience with suggestive ad campaigns, while modern heavy hitters like Bumble and League are billing themselves as professional networking platforms that ostensibly allow one to climb the social ladder, and snag a date on the way. What’s more, most of them are branching into editorial content, with online verticals that feature original reporting, personal essays, and various other news functions.
Disney is continuing its ruthless resurrection of classic animated stories with its new live-action take on Aladdin, the beloved rags-to-riches tale of a street urchin who is befriended by a genie. The remake is set to be directed by the British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, known for brooding gangster thrillers like Snatch and the Sherlock Holmes film franchise.
The Italian fashion house Prada today announced that it would stop selling red-lipped monkey dolls to be used as handbag keychains after online commentators pointed out that they closely resembled the racist caricature known as “Black Sambo.”
“Could you imagine?” Miss USA, Sarah Rose Summers, asks a camera at this year’s Miss Universe competition in Thailand. “Miss Cambodia is here and doesn’t speak any English, and not a single other person speaks her language… Poor Cambodia.”
Raise your hand if you know this person: They studied abroad in Italy, and so they only order an Aperol Spritz, even when you’re at a dive bar. They live in Brooklyn, probably Williamsburg or Bushwick, where they raise a small family of succulents. They lose their shit when the bodega runs out of Oatly, and they wear overalls in the summer and denim jackets in the fall—both heavily accessorized with enamel pins (vintage).
Much of the art at Scope, a contemporary art fair that took place alongside last week’s Art Basel Miami Beach, spoke directly to a certain stereotypical millennial experience. There were large-format oil paintings of La Croix sparkling water cans and giant ceramic sculptures of Xanax bars. An exhibit called Young Thug as Paintings—which originated as a meme that places photos of the rapper against works of fine art—was especially popular with the highfalutin art crowd.
A striking show at this year’s Scope contemporary art fair took on the topic of gun control with an installation that parodied back-to-school shopping in the age of rampant mass shootings in America.
The wellness industry—which has its roots in niche environments like grocery store health food aisles, and movements like clean eating—has ballooned this past decade into a $4.2 trillion juggernaut.
It came as a serious shock to me when I rounded a corner at Art Basel Miami Beach, the world’s largest contemporary art fair, and came face-to-face with Donald J. Trump.
