Real Americans do not watch soccer
Here's a fun Internet quiz, you guys: How much highly personal, potentially embarrassing information does Buzzfeed know about you? You don't have to answer any multiple choice questions! There's only one result: A LOT. Fortunately for Buzzfeed -- and unfortunately, I guess, for everyone else -- this is true for virtually every website on the Internet, ever. We're basically all just lil cogs in the big-data machine. And on that cheering note, let's talk cyberbullying!
1. Ask.fm may just be the world's most-hated social network. And in an unusual interview with Time, the Latvian brothers who started the site -- often considered a haven for cyberbullying, and blamed for several teen suicides -- basically said sorry, but they're not sorry.
2. What makes a children's movie go viral? Frozen was a great movie, sure. (Don't even ask me how many times I've sung "Let It Go" in the shower.) But when an animated movie intended for kids incites that kind of international, all-ages frenzy, something else is going on. Something psychological, maybe, or something sociological. Or maybe, as the New Yorker's Maria Konnikova puts it, perhaps it's just "a bit a magic."
3. What happens when you trade your iPhone's keyboard for ... hand-lettered calligraphy. "Before I started, I established rules for myself: I could create only handwritten text messages for seven days, absolutely no using my phone’s keyboard. I had to write out my messages on paper, photograph them, then hit 'send.'" The results were pretty incredible.
Pocketables: Josh Marks was a reality TV star and a rising culinary talent. Then his life spiraled out of control. (5698 words/23 minutes)
Postscripts: Happily fancy. Paper to pixels. The secret science of shyness. Cookbooks, but for food stamps and Uber, but for Doritos. What's in a name? What's on your mind? Today, in things that have officially died: soda bans, buffer zones, Washboards, romance. And since real Americans do not watch soccer, I guess real America has died, too.
Public service announcement: "Links" will not come out tomorrow or Monday, as I'll be in Savannah celebrating the marriage of the wonderful Ms. Wendy. Ms. Wendy, my boyfriend's mother, remained a loyal reader of this newsletter long after my own mother unsubscribed. (AHEM.) Thank you Ms. Wendy, and congrats!!
Until Tuesday,
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