The Conjuring: Last Rites and the Global Economy of Dread By L. Marlowe, Senior Correspondent, Somewhere Between a Screening Room and Existential Despair If you believed the Vatican’s only export these days is schism and papal merch, think again. The Conjuring: Last Rites—Warner Bros.’ latest dispatch from the ecclesiastical horror-industrial complex—turns exorcism into a passport-stamped…
The NFL, that quintessentially American carnival of padded gladiators and 30-second capitalist sermons, has long prided itself on exporting the Stars and Stripes one touchdown at a time. Yet the most successful U.S. cultural attaché of the past decade might not be an overfed franchise circling Wembley like a hawk above a meat pie, but…
**The Global Siren Song of the FanDuel Touchdown Jackpot: How America’s Digital Gold Rush Went Viral** While the world grapples with climate refugees and supply chain collapses, nothing quite captures the zeitgeist of late-stage capitalism like watching a London investment banker place bets on Cleveland’s third-string quarterback during his lunch break. The FanDuel Touchdown Jackpot—America’s…
The planet, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the most pressing export from the United States this season is not microchips, democracy, or even another streaming series about morally flexible hedge-fund managers, but rather the salty effusion of one 27-year-old defensive end named Josh Sweat. From Lagos traffic jams to the fjords of Norway,…
From Apia to Abu Dhabi: Jey Uso’s Slow-Motion Rebellion as a Global Mood Ring The first time I watched Jey Uso shoulder-check Roman Reigns on a grainy stream in Nairobi, the power flickered twice—once for the city’s aging grid, once for the narrative earthquake rippling outward from Tampa. Half the planet away, a cousin in…
Denise Richards and the Geopolitics of the Celebrity Cameo By Matteo Cruel, Senior Correspondent for Dave’s Locker, filing from a hotel bar in Geneva where the Wi-Fi is slower than the Geneva Conventions. When the United Nations finally appoints its first Special Envoy for Low-Stakes Spectacle, the short list will begin and end with Denise…
**The Golden Bachelor 2025: When Geriatric Love Becomes Global Geopolitics** In a world where nuclear powers play chicken over shipping lanes and artificial intelligence is busy writing love letters to itself, humanity has found its latest distraction: watching a 72-year-old pharmaceutical magnate from Pasadena navigate the treacherous waters of televised romance. The Golden Bachelor 2025—now…
Chad Powers Goes Global: How a Mustachioed Quarterback Is Quietly Re-Writing Soft-Power Playbooks COPENHAGEN—Somewhere between a NATO summit and the latest climate meltdown, the planet has discovered its newest diplomatic weapon: a 27-year-old American wearing wrap-around shades and a fake mustache that looks like it was stolen from a 1970s adult-film extra. “Chad Powers,” the…
Knives Out: A Global Affair in Which Everyone Is Guilty By Our Correspondent Who Has Already Checked the Silverware Drawer GENEVA—The phrase “knives out” once conjured up quaint English country houses, thunderclaps, and a Belgian sleuth fussing over egg-temperature. Today it is less parlour game and more planetary blood sport. From the South China Sea…
Chicago — It began, as most modern apocalypses do, with a push notification: “Bears vs Vikings: 3 p.m. local, 21:00 GMT, 06:00 tomorrow in Seoul.” Somewhere between the algorithmic chirp and the global reflex to refresh the scoreboard, the planet’s attention pivoted to a frozen rectangle of Midwestern sod where 106 padded mercenaries pretended the…
Harrison Smith and the Curious Global Cult of the American Safety Dateline: Somewhere over the Atlantic, where Wi-Fi costs more than a decent bottle of Moldovan wine and still drops every time the plane hits a cloud. From this altitude, the spectacle of modern fandom looks remarkably uniform: whether you’re in Lagos, Lyon, or Lahore,…
Friday, the Thirteenth: How Rebecca Black Became a Global Litmus Test for Human Resilience By the time the Arab Spring was busy redrawing maps with tear-gas and Twitter, another revolution—smaller, pinker, and mercilessly auto-tuned—was already reshaping the planet. Rebecca Black’s “Friday” dropped on 10 February 2011, the same week Hosni Mubarak discovered that ruling Egypt…
