PARIS—Somewhere between a Tokyo boardroom where executives now greet each other with “gronk-prime” and a Lagos cyber-café where the word is tattooed in Comic Sans on a bouncer’s neck, humanity has apparently decided that “gronk” is the new Esperanto. It isn’t listed in any dictionary older than last Thursday, yet it has already triggered trade…
The Curious Case of Jalynn Polk, or How a 19-Year-Old Wide Receiver Accidentally Became a Geopolitical Rorschach Test By the time most teenagers have figured out which end of a tax form is up, Jalynn Polk has already been drafted by the New England Patriots, weaponized by Chinese sports-apparel bots, meme-ified by Nigerian football-fan accounts,…
Ryan Staub: The Accidental Everyman Who Proves the World Has Run Out of Actual News *International Desk, Dave’s Locker* — While the Arctic melts and billionaires race to Mars like toddlers fighting over the last cookie, humanity has collectively decided that Ryan Staub—a man whose primary achievement appears to be existing—is worthy of global contemplation….
The Curious Case of Jay Wynne: A Local Weatherman Who Accidentally Became a Global Metaphor By the time Jay Wynne’s Wednesday-evening forecast went viral on five continents, the man himself was already asleep in his modest flat in Reading, dreaming—one likes to imagine—of isobars and kettle steam. By dawn, a clip captioned “British meteorologist predicts…
Lee Ryan and the Quantum Butterfly: How One Man’s Micro-Meltdown Became the World’s Macro-Mirror DATELINE: Somewhere over the Atlantic, where Wi-Fi costs more than a decent Rio caipirinha and still drops out whenever someone mentions Brexit. If you blinked last week, you probably missed the latest installment of “Minor Celebrity Says Something Stupid, Internet Declares…
Billy Lange, an American basketball coach from the Philadelphia suburbs, woke up last Tuesday to discover he had become a geopolitical Rorschach test. Overnight, a grainy clip of Lange’s sideline gesticulations—equal parts interpretive dance and mild seizure—was looped on every continent except Antarctica, which still only streams penguins. In Nairobi sports bars, patrons now toast…
Michael Rosen and the Global Echo of a British Dad Joke By Our Man in the Departures Lounge If you’ve recently heard a stranger on a Tokyo commuter train shout “Nice!” in an exaggerated Estuary accent, or watched a Colombian street vendor mime a frantic fridge-door mime, congratulations: you have witnessed the planet’s most improbable…
**The Accidental Tourist: Paul Nowak and the Global Search for Meaning in a Meaningless World** In the grand theater of international affairs, where nuclear powers play chicken over shipping lanes and billionaires rocket themselves into space for sport, the curious case of Paul Nowak emerges as a peculiar footnote to our collective existential crisis. While…
Kelvin Sheppard’s Global Cameo: How One Linebacker Accidentally Became an International Metaphor for Everything Going Wrong By the time Kelvin Sheppard’s name crossed the Atlantic this week—carried on the same jet stream that now delivers wildfire smoke and micro-plastics to whichever hemisphere is currently on sale—most of humanity had already forgotten what position he played….
Olivia Smith and the Curious Case of a Name That Became a Global Meme LONDON—When Olivia Smith, 27, posted a 14-second clip of herself absent-mindedly stirring instant coffee with a biro on a Tuesday morning in Leeds, she was nursing a hangover and a mild sense of existential dread. Within 48 hours, the post had…
