culture News

The Safety Reckoning Inside OpenAI

OpenAI’s rogue agent hack was a watershed moment for AI safety and cybersecurity. It also sparked internal questions about the culture that led to it.

Right-Wing Haters Try to Stop the Steal as ‘Woke’ Odyssey Conquers Global Box Office

It might be the dumbest culture war fight of the year.

How a murder case fuelled a culture war

How Luigi Mangione's case became a battleground in America's culture wars

‘Nirvanna the Band the Show’ Is Finally Returning to Streaming

The hilarious, pop-culture-infused show inspired the new film, 'Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.'

What Love Island tells us about the changing face of dating

From women making the first move to shifting relationship dynamics, Love Island has become a window into Britain's evolving dating culture

Lauryn Hill and Wyclef ‘in an amazing place’ as fans hope for new Fugees album after 30 years

Hill says the band have gone through "an incredible healing process", raising the prospect of new music.

Everything we know about how biggest Wall Street banks are using AI

Wall Street banks like JPMorgan, Citi, and Goldman Sachs are investing billions in AI, reshaping workflows and culture.

Felicia Day’s Movie Kickstarter for The Guild Hit Its Goal in 3 Hours

Don’t call it a comeback, The Guild aims to shine a light on how nerd culture has changed in 20 years.

Could you run a country on just three hours of sleep? Japan's PM says she does

Japan’s prime minister Sanae Takaichi says she survives on zero to three hours a night, and people are reacting.

When I moved to Paris 9 years ago, I shouldn't have worried so much about dressing 'wrong' and knowing French

Some of the biggest challenges of moving to Paris from the UK weren't what I expected, from language barriers to vacation culture to fashion.

Ebay Has to Pay $55.7 Million in Settlement for Its Unhinged Harassment Campaign

For months on end, eBay employees and contractors made life hell for a couple that had criticized the company. Six years later, the company is finally paying up.

The 20 best college towns where life revolves around their universities, ranked

College towns offer student experiences that set them apart from big cities. Life in Ann Arbor revolves around the University of Michigan's culture.

A 27-year-old New Yorker made $130,000 from 9 income streams. She says the hustle nearly burned her out.

Mohuya Khan, a Queens native, thrives as a business owner and content creator, managing nine income streams in NYC's hustle culture.

Your Employees Are Bringing AI Salary Ranges to Pay Talks. Here’s How to Respond.

Compensation isn't a data output — and the leaders who lose sight of that while employees arrive with ChatGPT-generated benchmarks risk eroding trust, culture and retention.

Humanoid startup Agility Robotics doesn't want 'coin-operated employees'

Agility Robotics has expanded with a new Silicon Valley hub. The startup is avoiding AI talent wars and focusing on culture over high salaries.

7 Of Deadpool’s Best Fighting Game References In Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls

The merc with a mouth has dozens of homages to pop culture, with many specifically nodding to fighting game history

Buc-ee’s dodges John Oliver to sue another small business

Buc-ee's became something of a viral sensation during the World Cup, but it has a troubling history of suing small gas stations and convenience stores. On a recent episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver literally begged the company to sue him for selling m…

Ready to Own a Franchise? Here’s What to Ask Before You Buy

Before buying a franchise, ask the right questions about the brand’s track record, financial performance, support system and culture to determine whether it’s the right fit for your goals.

Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals

Nerdom is great. . . but at what cost?

Insomniac Staff Blame Social Media Feedback Loops For Overnight Wolverine Hate

The studio’s marketing director blows off some steam on the sudden surge of scrutiny, believing this kind of culture can’t possibly be good for anyone’s mental health

Why small moments of recognition are becoming critical to workplace culture

Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report shows employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020, with disengagement costing the global economy an estimated $10 trillion annually. Research also shows that engagement is closely tied to …

Preference falsification

People lie. They lie in focus groups, they lie on surveys and they lie to themselves. Culture can be seen as an organized lying function. Be aware of what other people are thinking and make choices about your preferences so you can fit in. Without this effect…

Short term dumb, long term smart

Culture provides scaffolding, and learning happens over time. The result is that we’re each capable of extraordinary feats. People can fly planes, ski down mountains, figure out how to use Photoshop or a solve a crossword puzzle. But… Most people only exhibit…

“That doesn’t work”

We transferred an idea from engineering to culture, but it’s incomplete. If you build a watch that doesn’t tell time, it’s fair to say it doesn’t work. But when a critic says, “that joke didn’t work,” after seeing a comic perform to a raucous audience, what t…

Sega Boss Says ‘We Still Value The Culture Of Physical Media,’ But Claims ‘A Digital Shift Is Crucial’

Publishers are increasingly PC-first in their thinking

Malls, once symbols of American consumer culture, are splitting. Some are dying as others thrive

The Livingston Mall, which opened in 1972 with stores including Bamberger’s, Sears and Hahne & Co., may have been a bustling social scene for my peers. Ther...

Despite China’s 996 culture, DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng says his workers don’t do overtime or even have KPIs: ‘No one manages them’

While Silicon Valley races to adopt China's brutal 996 culture, DeepSeek's founder says his $60 billion AI company has no KPIs and no overtime.

Ken Paxton tries to tamp down growing Republican concerns about his Senate campaign

After years of battling fellow Republicans and helping lead the culture wars in Texas, Ken Paxton is campaigning on tax deductions, appearing with state lawm...

Israel accused of weaponising archaeology at ancient West Bank sites

Israel is planning large-scale land expropriations in historic, Palestinian areas of the West Bank.

Root lifts midnight curfew on England team

New Test captain Joe Root abolishes the midnight curfew imposed on the England team under predecessor Ben Stokes.

How an OpenAI influencer trip backfired

The brand trip is a right of passage for influencers. It's a mark of legitimacy that a sponsor wants to invite them on an all-expenses-paid vacation, often with luxurious freebies and activities. Trips can also spur hard feelings from uninvited influencers, t…

San Diego Comic-Con 2026: All the Coolest Things We Saw on the Show Floor

From never-before-seen 'Avengers: Doomsday' costumes to Tauntaun guts, here are our favorite things at SDCC 2026.

'South Asian programmes helped us settle into our new lives'

Early South Asian programming included music and practical tips to settle into British life.

AI is removing the middle class of software engineering

AI makes projects with weak engineering culture fail much faster.

The Having/Doing job gap

It’s a dance between workers, bosses and the market. The most stable quadrant happens when a thoughtful and consistent boss hires the right person, pays them fairly, creates positive working conditions and useful training. In return, the company gets extraord…

WATCH: 'Jumanji,' BTS and wedding drama top the pop culture buzz

ABC News' Rocsi Diaz breaks down the latest entertainment headlines, from the new 'Jumanji' trailer to BTS’ Grammys decision.

The left and right agree on one thing: no data centers

Today, I’m talking with Gaby Del Valle, a policy reporter here at The Verge, about the growing backlash against AI data centers. Gaby recently reported a fantastic piece about Hernando County, Florida, where last month the county commission unanimously appro…

The Real Story Behind the 2018 Google Walkout

In 2018, more than 20,000 employees walked out to protest how Google handled allegations of sexual harassment. Here’s how they organized it from inside the company.

WATCH: Reviewers calling 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' best of the Tom Holland era

Critics are calling the actor's performance in his fourth solo Spidey movie the best of his career plus more in pop culture news with ABC News' Rocsi Diaz.

The 8 Winners and 4 Losers of San Diego Comic-Con 2026

io9 picks the best and worst from this year’s massive pop culture gathering.

You Need Book Smarts And Pop Culture Smarts To Finish This Crossword Puzzle

Here's your pop culture crossword for August 7, 2026.View Entire Post ›

San Diego Comic-Con 2026: Our Favorite Moments (and How to Travel Connected With Ubigi)

From Doomsday and a new Black Panther to Ryan Gosling's Ghost Rider, here are our favorite San Diego Comic-Con 2026 moments, plus the Ubigi eSIM to travel connected.

ASU’s content creation degree grades your follower count

The programme sits inside the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The first cohort enrols this autumn. The Associated Press reported the launch and the backlash on 14 August. Kaitlyn Huamani, who covers social media and internet cultu…

Ex neo-Nazi activist withdraws as Tory election candidate

It follows a backlash against the party's decision to pick Joshua Bonehill-Paine as a council candidate in Somerset.

Four 'extraordinary' Renaissance paintings stolen from Italian museum

The works were taken overnight without alarms being triggered, raising suspicion of a professional hit.

The Must-Have Exclusives From San Diego Comic-Con 2026

Transformers cassettes, pink glitter Godzilla figures, and 'KPop Demon Hunters' Hot Wheels are just a few of the exclusives we can't wait to cop.

Live Updates From San Diego Comic-Con 2026

Join io9 as we bring you news and updates from the biggest pop culture convention of the year.

The Golden Age of British Ice Cream

Cornetto to Magnum: How fifteen influential years changed British culture. Words by Ruby Tandoh. Illustration by Sing Yun Lee.

Norwegian soldiers say they're training Ukrainian soldiers with a 'Viking mentality' built for harsh conditions

Norwegian troops are bringing battlefield skills and a Viking-inspired warrior mentality to training Ukrainian soldiers on NATO soil.

Celebrity art

It doesn’t have to be well-crafted, historically important or aesthetically unique. It simply needs to be famous. Celebrity art is famous, with a story and thus emotional resonance. It’s a souvenir for our eyes, a chance to have proximity without ownership. I…

Does Google even want to win at AI?

Today on Decoder, I’m talking with Hayden Field, The Verge’s senior AI reporter, about a question that’s been rocketing around the tech industry for the past week: Is Google losing the AI race? That’s because last week Google announced a bombshell reorganizat…

NUOVO Shapes a Multi-sensory Moment for Hong Kong’s Art and Design Scene

The exhibition evolves NUOVO's identity beyond furniture showroom to design culture curator With Sequence – A Listening Room, NUOVO turns its space into an environment where furniture, sound, material research and spatial …

Dawn Richard Reveals New Album Creole Culture

Out October 9, Richard’s first solo LP in five years completes a trilogy with 2019’s New Breed and 2021’s Second Line: An Electro Revival

The way you look can help you get a job - here's how

While you need to answer the questions in an interview, your appearance and mannerisms are also crucial.

Trump orders Smithsonian to post warnings about 'inaccurate' US history

The Trump administration has often accused the world's largest research museum of harbouring an anti-American bias.

The Pursuit of Cultural Relevance Is Getting Risky. Here’s How Brands Can Get It Right.

Brands are rushing into cultural moments, but without a clear role or real experience behind them, relevance can quickly turn into risk.

AI Found a New Way to Ruin Memes: Selling Them to Advertisers

The creator of the 'Running Away Balloon' meme is suing a company for offering the copyrighted comic as a template for advertisements.

New York City Council Opens Investigation Into Prediction Markets Over Predatory Marketing Practices

The council sent letters requesting information from Kalshi, Polymarket, Coinbase, and Gemini Titan.

Officials Are Struggling to Track America’s Explosive Diarrhea Outbreak. The Culprit Is Depressingly Obvious

A CDC lab tasked with tracking cyclospora outbreaks lost most of its staff during the DOGE cuts, and we're now having to grapple with the fallout.

MrBeast's studio head is leaving after less than a year. Here's what his company's CEO told staffers.

Corie Henson, president of the studio division, was among the new hires brought on to turn MrBeast's company into a Disney-style colossus.

Gen Z Cares About This One Factor More Than Salary and Work-Life Balance

According to a new survey of 900 summer interns at accounting firm KPMG, Gen Z has lofty aspirations.

Anything Could Become a Battleground

Isaac Butler’s new book mixes history and personal testimony to examine the ‘culture wars’ that shaped the 1980s—conflicts that differed in striking ways from the ones we’re witnessing today.

He joined OpenAI. Here’s his advice for those who want a job at the lab.

OpenAI product manager Ty Geri told Business Insider that the AI lab hires people who are passionate about the mission and experiment.

Shake Shack customer claims kiosk adds surcharge after adding no tip

A Utah couple received a surcharge after not tipping at a Shake Shack located in the Salt Lake City airport. Viral video of the situation is now sparking a d...

The Porsche Book

A visual history of Porsche's cars, racing heritage, design, and culture.

Rebecca Solnit on the Tate brothers, The Odyssey, and...

Rebecca Solnit on the Tate brothers, The Odyssey, and the misogyny of classical literature & the contemporary world. “Classical culture is a lot of things including, literally, rape culture.”

Open Mike Eagle and Kenny Segal crafted a hip hop breakup masterpiece

"Breakups are… tough." It's the opening lines of an interlude towards the end of DOOMED! Called "It Happens in Every Universe." It's also basically the thesis of the entire record. It's no grand revelation, but it's a well-trodden subject that Open Mike Eagle…

Hear what the Odyssey may have sounded like as a song

Georg Danek and Stefan Hagel have worked out a way to sing Homer, and Open Culture has their recording. Danek teaches at the University of Vienna and Hagel is at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. What they recorded is lines 267 to 366 of book 8 of the Odyssey…

Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting...

Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting to Look the Same. “A recommender that’s a mediocre predictor of what you’d love in a rich, diverse world becomes an excellent predictor of what

Raw images, no filters: Why MySpace fans want it back as relaunch hinted

Fans and creators say a revived MySpace must feel personal, not algorithm-driven.

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 23, #668

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for July 23, No. 668.

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Aug. 2, #1870

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle No. 1,870 for Sunday, Aug. 2.

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Aug. 4, #1872

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle No. 1,872 for Tuesday, Aug. 4.

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, Aug. 12

Here are the answers for today’s NYT Mini Crossword puzzle for Aug. 12, 2026.

Today’s NYT Connections Hints and Answers for July 29, #1144

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle No. 1144 for July 29.

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 29, #674

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for July 29, #674.

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for July 31, #1868

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for July 31, No. 1,868.

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Aug. 1, #677

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 677 for Saturday, Aug. 1.

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for July 24, #1861

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle No. 1,861 for Friday, July 24.

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for July 30, #1867

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle No. 1,867 for Thursday, July 30.

Today’s NYT Connections Hints and Answers for July 30, #1145

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle No. 1145 for July 30.

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 30, #675

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for July 30, No. 675

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 28, #673

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for July 28, No. 673.

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Sunday, Aug. 2

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Aug. 2, 2026.

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, Aug. 1

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Aug. 1, 2026.

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Aug. 3, #1871

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle No. 1,871 for Monday, Aug. 3.

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Aug. 1, #1869

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Aug. 1 No. 1,869.

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Aug. 3, #679

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Aug. 3, No. 679.

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for July 23, #1860

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle No. 1,860 for Thursday, July 23.

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, July 22

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for July 22.

What Every Founder Gets Wrong About Scaling — And the 4 Principles That Fix It

Growth exposes every weakness in how you operate — here are the four principles I return to whenever the business starts to feel out of control.

What Workplace Injuries Really Cost Your Business (It’s More Than You Think)

Workplace injuries cost businesses far more than most owners realize. Here's why.

Emotional hygiene

After doing an autopsy at the morgue, it’s a good idea for doctors to wash their hands before delivering babies. A few hundred years ago, Ignaz Semmelweis proved this now-obvious insight about hygiene. Doctors don’t scrub because it’s fun or convenient, they …

We moved from a big US city to a small town in Southern Italy 12 years ago. Raising kids here isn't what I expected.

Our American family moved from a big US city to a small town in Southern Italy 12 years ago. Raising kids and being a parent here is so different.

Before You Open a Second Location, Answer These 7 Questions — Or Risk Turning One Strong Business Into Two Weak Ones

Most founders think expansion is a growth story, but it's actually a stress test that exposes every weakness in the original business — and the ones who scale successfully treat their second location like a franchise, not an extension of themselves.

Hardcore tech execs are meeting their match: the limits of the human body

Tech is in its hardcore era. Where does that leave execs like Lilian Weng and Fidji Simo, who have said they are too sick to work as intensely as they'd like?

What Nearly a Decade of Betting on AI Taught Me About Growth

Here's why you should invest in innovation to set your company, your team and yourself up for long-term success.