The Blackout That United—and Divided—Us All By A. M. Vance, International Correspondent, Dave’s Locker SÃO PAULO—At 09:17 GMT last Tuesday, the PlayStation Network coughed, sputtered, and finally flat-lined. Across 72 countries, 117 million registered accounts watched their digital worlds evaporate into a single, smug error code: WS-116520-5. In a heartbeat, Fortnite warriors in Jakarta found…
Rhode: The Lipstick Empire the World Never Knew It Needed By Dave’s Foreign Correspondent, still jet-lagged in Terminal 3 Somewhere between the collapse of the Turkish lira and the quiet implosion of another crypto exchange, the planet has paused to obsess over Rhode—an American cosmetics line whose name sounds like a mispronounced Greek island but…
The Weeknd Goes Global: How One Torontonian Made the Entire Planet Feel Like 3 A.M. on a Tuesday By the time you read this, Abel Tesfaye—known to customs officials and streaming algorithms alike as “The Weeknd”—has already soundtracked another rotation of Earth. His synth-soaked tales of after-hours heartbreak have become the unofficial dial tone for…
Anaconda, Darling of the Dystopian Tropics, Eyes the World Stage By L. Marlowe, Senior Correspondent for Dave’s Locker RIO DE JANEIRO—Every few years, the anaconda slithers out of the fetid Amazon and into the global imagination, reminding the planet’s apex predator—us—that we are still, technically, edible. This time the serpent’s renaissance has nothing to do…
Unknown Number: The High-School Catfish Who Trolled the Planet By Our Jaded Correspondent, Currently Suffering from Déjà Vu in Three Time Zones It began, as all twenty-first-century disasters do, with a vibrating rectangle. Somewhere in the fluorescent-lit limbo of an American high school—a place that doubles as a petri dish for future congressional interns—an “unknown…
Rolling Ray, the 5-foot-tall, 300-pound viral hurricane who answers to both “Mr. Raymond” and “the wheelchair-bound chaos goblin,” has been unleashed upon a planet already wheezing from 2024’s buffet of existential hors d’oeuvres. From Lagos to Lisbon, screens flicker with the same clip: Ray, sequined durag gleaming like a disco ball that’s seen things, flipping…
Jamie Lee Curtis and the Global Supply Chain of Screams By Our Bureau Chief, Still Jet-Lagged in an Airport Lounge Near You Somewhere at 39,000 feet between Singapore and Reykjavík, a cargo manifest quietly lists “Curtis, J. L.—1 unit, cultural icon.” That bureaucratic understatement is how the world now ships its nightmares: neatly shrink-wrapped, Dolby-certified,…
Elsbeth, the Legal Tourist: How One Prosecutor Became the World’s Favorite Foreign Correspondent By the time CBS shipped Elsbeth Tascioni—Chicago’s most flamboyantly unhinged defense lawyer—to New York under the guise of “monitoring police reform,” half the planet had already turned her into a meme. In Lagos, WhatsApp stickers show her tilting her head like a…
Astros: The New Cosmic Cartel Running the World While You’re Busy Scrolling By Dave’s Foreign Desk, from an undisclosed bar with a view of three different time zones You’d be forgiven for assuming that “Astros” refers to that baseball team whose 2017 World Series trophy is now used primarily as a paperweight for MLB’s apology…
Severance, Global Edition: The World’s Favorite New Exit Strategy By Dave’s Foreign Desk, still wearing yesterday’s cynicism The word “severance” once belonged to HR paperwork and polite euphemisms like “rightsizing.” Now, courtesy of an Apple TV+ show about surgically splitting workers’ memories, it has become a planetary Rorschach test—everyone sees the same inkblot, but each…
Miley Cyrus: The Last American Export Still Clearing Customs By the time you read this, Miley Cyrus has already twerked, tongue-lolled, and power-balladed her way through another cultural checkpoint. Somewhere between Berlin’s Berghain and Bangkok’s rooftop infinity pools, the former Disney Channel tax write-off has become the global West’s most reliable soft-power delivery system—one glitter…
High Potential, Season 2: A Bureaucratic Fairy Tale for Our Disenchanted Planet Dave’s Locker – International Desk (with the windows bolted shut) The algorithmic oracle known as Disney+ has decreed that “High Potential”—a show whose very title sounds like an HR euphemism for “over-promoted intern”—will return for a second season. Cue the synchronized sighs of…
