853 tacks
Did a human write this?
What happens when the majority of content on the internet tips over into AI slop? On this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel talks to Max Spero, a co-founder of Pangram, an AI-detection company. They discuss how AI-detection tools work and how effective they can be at identifying what’s made by humans and what comes from a chatbot. They explore the cultural concerns around authenticity in the large-language-model era, and whether detection can keep up as models improve.
Why Rich People Post Differently
Is your Instagram "low class"? While we like to think of the internet as a universal playground, a new digital class war is emerging. From the way you use filters to the number of emojis in your bio, your digital habits are increasingly signaling your socioeconomic status to the world. In this episode of Power User, Taylor Lorenz sit down with etymologist and cultural commentator Adam Aleksic to decode the hidden semiotics of "Low Class Instagram."
Why becoming a YouTuber is not what you think
In this essay, Andres Acevedo examines why YouTube’s dominance, and the power of its parent company Google, is a problem for viewers, creators, and the open internet. YouTube is the world’s second most visited website and perhaps the closest thing the world has ever had to a global broadcaster. But it exists inside one of the most powerful corporate empires ever built: one that has systematically crushed competitors, exploited users, and now faces antitrust proceedings on both sides of the Atlantic. The essay features Acevedo’s interview with Nicholas Shaxson, investigative journalist, Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and co-author of Google’s Hidden Empire.
Why Cuarón Plans Everything (And Still Feels Spontaneous)
Alfonso Cuarón operates on a paradox: the more prepared he is, the freer he becomes. For three decades, across wildly different genres — intimate family dramas, dystopian thrillers, space epics — his work is governed by a single philosophical tension. Preparation isn’t the goal. It’s the safety net that lets him fall toward the unexpected. This video breaks down that philosophy through Cuarón’s own words, drawn from interviews spanning his career. You’ll hear how Roma came to exist as a screenplay he wrote in three weeks and never read again, how Y Tu Mamá También was structured enough to allow real improvisation, and how the blood-spattered lens in Children of Men — a complete accident — became the shot that defined a generation.
You’re Not Watching the Show. You’re Watching the Clips.
In this episode of “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel talks with business writer Ed Elson about the rise of the “clip economy”—the idea that short video clips pulled from podcasts, livestreams, and other long-form content have become the dominant unit of online media, not just a promotional tool. Elson explains how figures like Andrew Tate pioneered armies of paid clippers to flood social platforms with content and how the viewership numbers on clips often perform better than the original shows. Warzel and Elson discuss what this means for legacy media organizations, as well as the broader societal costs of phone-driven attention erosion.
The Poor Man’s Process (How Movies Fake Driving Scenes)
The Poor Man’s Process is a classic filmmaking technique used to create realistic driving scenes without moving the car. Learn how cinematographers use lighting, reflections, and camera movement to simulate motion on a budget. This guide breaks down how to shoot cinematic car scenes without expensive gear.
The Power of the Wide Shot (Explained)
What is a wide shot, and why do filmmakers rely on it so heavily? In this video, we break down how wide shots work, how they establish space and story, and why they’re essential to cinematography and visual storytelling. From wide master shots to cinematic framing, this is a foundational technique every filmmaker should understand.
Looksmaxxing: Inside the dangerous trend taking over the feeds of young men | 60 Minutes
Impressionable young men under the spell of a dangerous phenomenon called looksmaxxing.
The Downfall of Skibidi Toilet
Taylor Lorenz examines the growing backlash surrounding Skibidi Toilet after its shift from an internet-native phenomenon into a studio-managed franchise. She explains how DaFuqBoom’s surreal viral series became a massive cultural hit, then lost fan confidence once Invisible Narratives took control and launched Emergence. The video explores the leaked call that deepened the controversy, the #BringBackBoom movement, and the broader tension between online creator culture and Hollywood ownership.
AI influencers are here. Can you spot them?
On this week’s “Galaxy Brain” episode, Charlie Warzel is joined by New York Times technology reporter Tiffany Hsu to discuss the rise of AI influencers—synthetic avatars, often indistinguishable from real people, that are flooding social-media feeds to sell supplements and promote brands. Hsu unpacks her reporting on the combination of forces converging around it, including the wellness industry, a historically fertile ground for scammers. The pair discuss how the volume of synthetic content online is producing a new kind of epistemic exhaustion: a fatigue so deep that many people have simply stopped caring whether what they're seeing is real. So is authenticity already beside the point? And is an audience’s emotional response—rather than the truth behind the image—the only currency that matters?
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