Nicholas Hoult: The Quiet English Export Quietly Reshaping Global Pop Culture While the World Burns By Dave’s Foreign Correspondent-at-Large, still jet-lagged in the smoking lounge of existence If you squint past the streaming-service menus and algorithmic fog, you’ll notice that a lanky lad from Berkshire with the surname of a small but ferocious predator has…
Mumbai’s morning commuter trains still smell of cardamom and diesel, but last week they also smelled faintly of fear; every carriage held at least one passenger doom-scrolling on a cracked screen, transfixed by grainy set photos of Benedict Cumberbatch shambling through the rubble of what used to be a Disney back-lot. Somewhere between Seoul’s stock-exchange…
Juan Soler: The Argentinian Telenovela Heart-Throb Who Accidentally Became a Geopolitical Rorschach Test By Dave’s Locker Global Desk If you’ve never heard of Juan Soler, congratulations—you’ve successfully avoided Latin America’s most potent export after inflation and existential dread. For the uninitiated, Soler is the square-jawed Argentinian actor whose career has ping-ponged between playing brooding polo…
Premios Juventud 2025: Latin America’s Glitter-Splattered Rebellion Goes Global By: “Señorita Sarcástica,” Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker MIAMI—Somewhere between the Everglades and the artificial glow of loan-shark billboards, Univision’s waterfront soundstage has been re-christened “La Jungla del TikTok.” It is here, under surgical-grade spotlights, that Premios Juventud 2025 will unfold on July 17, transforming the usual…
**Forza Horizon 6: The World’s Most Elaborate Distraction from Climate Catastrophe** As the planet’s temperature graphs resemble a meth addict’s EKG and democracy continues its global impression of a drunk tourist on a Barcelona stag do, Microsoft has graciously announced Forza Horizon 6—because nothing quite says “we’re all going to be fine” like pretending to…
**The Global Ballet of Britt Stewart: How One Dancer Became America’s Accidental Diplomat** While the world’s superpowers engage in their usual diplomatic dance of sanctions, summits, and subtle threats, an unlikely ambassador has emerged from the glittering excess of Los Angeles, armed with nothing more lethal than choreography and charisma. Britt Stewart, the first Black…
**The Geopolitics of Mild Irritation: Jon Richardson and the Globalization of British Neurosis** In a world teetering on the precipice of climate catastrophe, nuclear proliferation, and the inexorable rise of TikTok dances, one might question the international significance of a 40-something British comedian whose primary export is acute social anxiety wrapped in self-deprecating humor. Yet…
The Jonas Brothers, International Objects of Desire: How Three Ex-Disney Hostages Became the Planet’s Guilty Pleasure By Astrid Van Der Loon, Senior Correspondent, Everywhere That Still Has Spotify GENEVA—Somewhere between the UN’s emergency climate summit and a hastily convened OPEC meeting on dwindling oil futures, a different sort of global crisis quietly crested: the Jonas…
Stephanie McMahon, Heir to a Glitter-Fisted Empire, Steps Off the Global Stage By Matteo “Mace” Vargas, International Correspondent at Large Somewhere between the pyrotechnics in Jeddah and a merchandising kiosk in Manila, the news pinged across the planet: Stephanie McMahon—once tipped to reign over WWE’s billion-dollar carny cosmos—has resigned as Chairwoman and Co-CEO. The announcement…
Henry Cavill: The Last British Export Standing Between Us and Total Cultural Collapse By the time you finish this sentence, another streaming service will have announced its own gritty reboot of something Henry Cavill once touched. The man has become less an actor and more a geopolitical constant, like the price of crude oil or…
When the lights went up at the Cannes premiere of Moulin Rouge! in 2001, John Leguizamo—painted green, four-foot-tall, and dying of tuberculosis—was not the obvious candidate to become a walking Rorschach test for the planet’s shifting power dynamics. Yet, two decades later, the Colombian-American polymath has quietly become one of the most efficient export mechanisms…
Damson Idris and the Soft-Power Gambit: How a Peckham Kid Became the United Nations of Netflix By our London bureau chief, nursing a lukewarm Negroni and a deeper chill about the future Damson Alade-Bo Idris—yes, that really is his name, as if his parents anticipated LinkedIn’s fetish for multi-hyphenates—has spent the past decade doing something…
