The World According to Angela Bassett: How One Woman’s Eyebrows Became a Geopolitical Barometer By Étienne “Grimly Amused” Moreau, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker PARIS—Somewhere between the Seine and a streaming queue in São Paulo, Angela Bassett’s cheekbones have quietly redrawn the map of soft power. While diplomats in Geneva argue over comma placement in trade…
**The Mullet That Marched Across Borders: Jared Allen’s Accidental Diplomacy** While diplomats in Geneva negotiate trade deals over lukewarm coffee, somewhere in Eastern Europe a farmer wears a Minnesota Vikings jersey with “Allen 69” stretched across his beer-enhanced torso. This is what passes for American cultural export these days: not democracy or innovation, but a…
Grant Show: The Last American Export Anyone Still Wants By our correspondent in the lobby bar of a five-star hotel whose name changes every six months for tax reasons PARIS—While the rest of the United States busies itself exporting inflation, culture wars, and inexplicable TikTok dances, one product remains stubbornly in demand on the international…
From the vantage point of a cramped newsroom in downtown Lagos, where the generator coughs like a chain-smoking oracle, I watched Charlie Kirk’s latest soliloquy on George Floyd ricochet across WhatsApp groups from São Paulo to Seoul. The American conservative influencer, who has perfected the art of sounding earnest while selling vitamin supplements, declared that…
Cooper Koch and the Global Ripple of a Hollywood Debut By Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk PARIS—While COP negotiators were busy congratulating themselves on a new “aspirational” climate pledge that will be quietly shelved by the next election cycle, a 27-year-old actor from Los Angeles was quietly making the planet’s electrons twitch. Cooper Koch—pronounced “cook,” because…
**The Queen of Indie Quirk: How Parker Posey Became the Patron Saint of Global Misfits** In a world where streaming algorithms have reduced human emotion to “skip intro” buttons and “are you still watching?” prompts, Parker Posey stands as a glorious anachronism—a walking, talking middle finger to the homogenization of global entertainment. While Hollywood churns…
Carrie Underwood: How a Farm-Girl Soprano Became the UN’s Unofficial Soundtrack for Late-Stage Capitalism By Our Correspondent in Exile, Currently Somewhere Between Nashville and Narnia MOSCOW—Somewhere between the Kremlin’s nightly news and the latest oligarch yacht auction, a familiar voice crackles over a tinny radio in a Lada dashboard: “Jesus, take the wheel.” It is…
Scarlett Johansson, or How One Voice Became the UN Security Council of Pop Culture By Our Correspondent in the Departures Lounge, Somewhere Over Greenland It is tempting to say the planet now runs on three currencies: dollars, yuan, and whatever Scarlett Johansson is charging per syllable. Last week the actress filed a legal salvo against…
Michelle Williams: The Woman the World Can’t Stop Misplacing By Our Correspondent in Perpetual Transit Somewhere between the duty-free mazes of Incheon, the baggage carousels of Charles de Gaulle, and the red-carpet vacuum of Cannes, Michelle Williams is quietly becoming the planet’s most elusive export. Not the Destiny’s Child alum (she’s busy healing the world…
Nathaniel Lowe and the Curious American Pastime of Exporting First-Base Anxiety to a Bewildered Planet By Santiago “Sully” Malcontent, International Desk The name Nathaniel Lowe will not, at first glance, trigger emergency sessions at the U.N. Security Council. Yet in the grand bazaar of global soft power—where K-Pop idols, French wine, and German cars jostle…
Yankee, Go Home (But First, Explain Yourself) PARIS — The word “Yankee” has always traveled poorly. At a smoky bar in Istanbul the syllable passes for an insult; in Manila duty-free it’s a credit card; in Caracas it’s the ghost of every coup since 1954. A single term, half-slur, half-brand, now stands in for the…
Will Warren, the understated co-founder of 0x Labs, is the sort of fellow you could sit next to on a trans-Atlantic flight and never suspect he’s quietly re-wiring the planet’s financial plumbing. While the rest of us were busy panic-buying toilet paper and doom-scrolling, Warren was shipping code that allows anyone, anywhere, to trade digital…
