Voters used to say they wanted a president they could have a beer with. Now, would-be presidential candidates are chasing that authenticity in a different way: appearing on podcasts, sports shows, and other new media platforms where politics almost takes a back seat. “Folks don’t want blow-dried politicians anymore,” Democratic strategist Anthony Coley said. “Authenticity matters and… Source link
A thousand miles off the coast of Florida, influencers have found the secret to instant virality. One after another, content creators are finding their way to Little Saint James, better known as the private island once owned by the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Armed with cameras, they are capitalizing on and propelling increased interest in revelations from the latest release of the Epstein files — a series of disclosures made by the Justice Department revealing partially redacted documents that were aggregated and produced during its investigation into Epstein. The disgraced financier died by suicide in his jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. Out of over 15 YouTube videos NBC News reviewed of people filming their expeditions to Little Saint James, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, at least nine were posted this year, some within days of each other. The videos have become increasingly popular and have accumulated more than 52 million views in total. Most of the videos run a similar course. Content creators fly to …
She thinks some of these individuals will never stop running cover for the company because of their long-term investments. “To me it’s a lot about the money, more about the money than it is Elon—even though they say it’s Elon,” she says. No one, however, provokes the wrath of the Tesla swarm like Dan O’Dowd. A tech billionaire who founded Green Hills Software and serves as its CEO, he, too, was once a great proponent of Tesla vehicles and Musk’s leadership. In 2016, he owned two Roadsters and a Model S. “Big fan,” he says. That year, he was thrilled to hear Musk proclaim that a Tesla would autonomously drive itself across the US from Los Angeles to Times Square in Manhattan by the end of 2017. “He wanted people to believe that, but there was no truth to it at all,” says O’Dowd. At that time, he still argued that Musk was a “genius.” But as the 2017 deadline went by and Musk stopped bothering to offer new time frames for the cross-country drive, …
(RNS) — Physical fitness is often seen as a way of improving our health or appearance, or an effort to challenge oneself. But for Nada Mostafa, a 24-year-old Muslim fitness coach based in Toronto, it also serves a higher religious purpose. “I help Muslim women understand that when it comes to their health, your body is a gift, what in Islam we call an ‘amanah’ – a blessing we have been entrusted with,” Mostafa said. She has built a career in faith-based strength and endurance training. Many of her clients approached her after feeling frustrated with secular fitness environments or trainers who did not understand many religious Muslim women’s commitment to modesty or religious discipline. Mostafa joins the likes of innovators such as Texas-based Sana Mahmood, co-founder of Jeem Fitness, an Islamic values-based wellness app and virtual training platform. It only employs female trainers, promotes modest attire and does not play music during virtual workouts. Nada Mostafa, center, is a strength and endurance fitness coach in Toronto. (Photo courtesy of Nada Mostafa) “Much of what …
As Iranian missiles and drones exploded above Dubai in the first days of the Iran war, the city’s legions of social-media influencers started posting. “Your boy is currently in the middle of World War III right now,” the day trader Mike Babayan, who posts under the handle “Nitrotrades,” said into his camera on February 28, a clip that garnered 1.1 million views on Instagram Reels. It was a departure from his usual fare of filming fancy sports cars and stock-trading strategies. Now “I am seeing a lot of people who are just, like, packing up and leaving altogether,” he said, standing under the Burj Khalifa, the cloud-scraping, 163-floor high-rise where he lives. “That was meters away from us,” another influencer, Will Bailey, said, wide-eyed, as he turned his camera to a nearby plume of black smoke and explained that it was coming from the Fairmont Dubai. CNN later reported that an Iranian drone had struck near the hotel. In a subsequent video, Bailey moved inside from the pool at the sound of two explosions, saying …
For writers and documentarians, part of the challenge in covering the manosphere is its sheer sprawl. Theroux zoomed in on a select slice of some of the defining voices of the day. In an interview with Vanity Fair, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, he discussed the nature of this particular performance, the sorts of folk traditions that the Tate class has engaged in, and the extent to which we should panic about it all. Vanity Fair: We’ve all read a lot about the manosphere. This, as I took it, was the most humanistic document of this world to date. How did you arrive at the choice to look at these figures’ family backgrounds, and their father figures or lack thereof? Louis Theroux: I’ve been doing these kinds of documentaries for nearly 30 years and I often see projections of strength as confessions of weakness. I did a thing about pro wrestling in 2000. I’ve done documentaries about pimp culture in Houston, the world of pornography, and a lot of the performance of …
On Monday, streamer and content creator Hasan Piker helped raise more than $56,000 in one stream for Oliver Larkin, a former Bernie Sanders campaign staffer who is seeking to primary Jared Moskowitz, a moderate Democratic congressman from Florida. It was the most the campaign had raised “in a single day,” Larkin said on X shortly after the stream ended. Over the past few years, creators have become an essential piece of campaign messaging strategy. But Piker’s recent stream for Larkin is the latest sign that online influence is being leveraged for direct fundraising as well. Piker isn’t alone. Trisha Paytas, a YouTuber with more than 5 million subscribers and a long history of provocative stunts, isn’t known for her political activism, but in February she donated more than $10,000 to a campaign called Creators Against ICE. The campaign, organized by the creator collective Creators for Peace, is just one in a string of fundraisers organized by coalitions of creators turning social media followings into political fundraising machines. Unlike traditional fundraising models like super PACs that …
On Tuesday, James Talarico, a 36-year-old Presbyterian seminarian and state representative from Austin, Texas, defeated congresswoman Jasmine Crockett in what has become one of the most closely watched primary races so far this year. While both candidates boast immense social media followings—Talarico with 1.6 million followers and Crockett with 2.6 million followers on TikTok—it wasn’t just the candidates who drove the conversation. It was the creators around them, who offer a preview of the digital fights to come throughout the midterms and, ultimately, the 2028 presidential race. The Talarico and Crockett campaigns ran distinctly different digital strategies. Crockett has built her congressional brand on confrontation, going massively viral last year after calling out Marjorie Taylor Greene for having a “bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body” and telling Elon Musk to “fuck off.” Talarico’s digital presence reads more like a populist sermon delivered over his own social media accounts. He’s carried these preachings to unconventional platforms, like the Joe Rogan Experience, that rewarded him with countless viral clips. But for the most part, the incendiary aspects of the …
Screenshot of influencer Maeva Ghennam’s Instagram account. As Iranian bombs rain down on Dubai, for some, business has carried on as usual. On Sunday, March 1, French influencer Maeva Ghennam, secluded in her 600-square-meter villa, was promoting an anti-cellulite oil to her followers. The 28-year-old had promo codes to share with her three million Instagram and four million TikTok followers. “I’m never going to stop taking care of myself. It’s too important for me to feel beautiful and to please my husband,” she explained, filming herself as she organized her makeup. Yet, she couldn’t totally bypass reality. Beneath the table, she admitted, “My knees are shaking” – a reaction to explosions nearby. Dubai, the Emirati capital that many French influencers have long portrayed as a safe haven, has suddenly seemed much less secure since Iran launched a retaliatory operation against some of its neighbors, including the United Arab Emirates, an ally of the United States, in the wake of the Israeli-American offensive launched on February 28. You have 78.81% of this article left to read. …
It’s a tough time to be an author. The era of spending an evening with a book for company is long gone, as reading competes for our attention with TV, radio, podcasts, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X, PlayStation, Xbox, films, streaming, virtual reality, audiobooks, Substack, magazines and more… Many aren’t even picking up a book now and again. According to The Reading Agency, half of adults don’t regularly read, and research from the National Literacy Trust shows only a third of 8 to 18 year olds say they enjoy reading for pleasure – hardly reassuring for the industry. This apparent dwindling interest in reading is making it even more difficult for authors to capture public attention when competing with the stardust of a singer or the chaos of a reality TV contestant, but that’s not stopped some bucking the trend. In a classic case of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them, outshine them, and catapult yourself to national stardom’, psychological thriller writer Harriet Tyce found fame competing on The Traitors, the biggest show on TV. …
