tagFormer ‘Dancing’ pro Cheryl Burke says being ‘breadwinner’ in marriage with Matthew Lawrence didn’t work"Dancing with the Stars" alum Cheryl Burke said she was earning more than Matthew Lawrence during their marriage, and it hurt their relationship. sharesave
Slovak prime minister still in serious condition as suspect appears in courtA government minister says Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s condition is stable but serious as the man accused of trying to assassinate him faces his first court appearance
Preakness Stakes 2024: Mystik Dan eyes Triple Crown, Bob Baffert returns seeking record-extending winThe Preakness Stakes returns Saturday to Pimlico Race Course as Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan looks to become the Triple Crown winner since 2018.
The Forever TrialHow the sister of one victim of the Sept. 11 attacks is navigating the trial of the men accused of orchestrating it.
The Forever TrialHow the sister of one victim of the Sept. 11 attacks is navigating the trial of the men accused of orchestrating it.
China makes some of the hottest new EVs. Most aren’t sold in the U.S.Chinese-made electric vehicles aren’t widely available yet in the United States — and may never be after the Biden administration moved to quadruple import tariffs on them, to100 percent. Here are some Chinese EVs that are being shipped out of China.
China makes some of the hottest new EVs. Most aren’t sold in the U.S.Chinese-made electric vehicles aren’t widely available yet in the United States — and may never be after the Biden administration moved to quadruple import tariffs on them, to100 percent. Here are some Chinese EVs that are being shipped out of China.
American and Chinese car makers bet on different strategies in global fightAs Chinese manufacturers try to sell as many cars as possible, their U.S. competitors are betting on making each vehicle sale more valuable.
Why are Americans spending so much? Shoppers carry Uniqlo bags in the SoHo neighborhood of New York on March 8, 2024. | John Taggart/Bloomberg via Getty Images They say the economy is bad, but they’re spending like it’s booming. Americans have been pessimistic about the economy for years. Weirdly, that’s seemed to have little impact on their willingness to open their wallets. Retail sales surged during the pandemic as home-bound workers clicked “complete purchase” on everything from Pelotons to sourdough starter. In 2020, e-commerce sales rose by 43 percent. Stimulus checks gave Americans newfound savings and excess money to burn. Supply chains couldn’t keep up with the demand. That was all supposed to come crashing down at some point. For more than a year, economists warned about the “death of the consumer” and a resulting recession — neither of which have materialized. Consumers were expected to retreat as inflation skyrocketed, hitting a 9.1 percent peak in June 2022 and remaining stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2 percent. Instead, Americans just kept buying more, even accounting for price increases and beyond growth in their disposable income. Their spending helped drive US economic growth in 2023 and remained high in the first months of this year. In March, consumer spending increased by 0.8 percent, exceeding expectations from financial analysts. There is a sign that Americans’ shopping spree might be finally coming to an end: Retail spending stayed the same in April as compared to the previous month, falling short of analyst projections for growth. However, those numbers don’t capture spending on services — for example, health care, transportation, and insurance — which has increased markedly this year. And both Preston Caldwell, a senior US economist at Morningstar, and Scott Hoyt, a Moody’s Analytics economist, said those numbers could easily bounce back next month, even if they’re expecting spending to cool by the end of the year. “I am anticipating that we do see eventually a consumer slowdown over the course of this year,” Caldwell said. “It’s premature to say that that’s already playing out right now.” Indeed, spending is bound to come down at some point under the pressure of high interest rates, which the Fed isn’t expected to cut until later this year — or potentially at all in 2024. So why, despite all the doom and gloom among consumers, has spending been so resilient? Who is driving high spending? Two things are simultaneously true: People feel really negatively about the economy, and that’s not stopping them from spending. In May, the University of Michigan recorded its lowest consumer sentiment reading in six months — an index of 67.4 out of 100 — as part of its long-running survey. That’s up from this time last year, but still well below pre-pandemic consumer sentiment readings, which hovered in the upper 80s and 90s. The trend in sentiment was widespread across demographic lines: Consumers “expressed worries that inflation, unemployment and interest rates may all be moving in an unfavorable direction in the year ahead,” the University of Michigan report reads. It’s hard to reconcile that with high spending figures. But in short, the rich currently feel rich and account for a large share of overall spending. The middle class feels a little better off too, and likely still has some savings built up they can burn through. They might not yet have felt the pressure of high interest rates and inflation to the same degree as people who rent and have fewer investments. (But that’s due to change.) High-income consumers — households in the top 20 percent of income earning at least $244,025 before taxes as of 2022 — have been largely cushioned from economic headwinds and are flush with cash to spend. The pandemic saw Americans’ average percentage of income saved increase to an all-time high of 32 percent in April 2020 after many households received stimulus checks. That has helped fuel spending, but unlike in other high-income countries where consumers have proved more thrifty, Americans are close to depleting those savings. “The excess savings [are] still kind of sloshing their way through the system. Depending on how you estimate excess savings, they will be depleted sometime in the middle of 2024 or maybe by as late as mid-2025,” Caldwell said. Many high-income consumers also locked in low interest rates on their mortgages before the Federal Reserve started raising rates in March 2022, and they’re seeing their home values continue to go up nonetheless. The average US home price increased from $287,000 in 2019 to $450,000 in 2024. This is in part due to persistent low inventory: High interest rates have kept would-be sellers on the sidelines because their mortgage payments would be higher if they bought a new place. High-income consumers have also seen their investment portfolios balloon in the last year. The stock market repeatedly tested new highs in recent months, with the latest record set on Thursday in the wake of new data showing that inflation is slowing. And wealthy older Americans who allocate more of their portfolios to government bonds are benefiting from higher interest rates. “That sort of gives consumers an incentive to spend out of their newfound wealth,” Hoyt said. “And since this set of consumers still has excess savings left over from the pandemic, that gives them the easy, relatively liquid monies to do so.” The question is how long the stock market can sustain this run. Some analysts think stocks are currently overpriced and due for a correction — which might cause some people to finally close their wallets. “Equity prices are starting to move more into arguably overvalued territory,” Caldwell said. “So that’s probably not going to be a tailwind [for spending] over the next year.” At the same time, the factors currently fueling spending at the highest income levels aren’t universal. Not all consumers can afford to spend more. Even though inflation has come down significantly from its 2022 peak, low-income Americans are struggling with higher prices. Consumers in general say they are budgeting more on everyday essentials like fresh produce and baby supplies. Among people living paycheck to paycheck, pandemic savings (if they ever really had any) might be long gone. Low and moderate-income consumers are also increasingly weighed down by credit card debt and struggling to pay it down due to high interest rates, which research suggests could be a major contributor to overall economic pessimism. Though credit card debt levels dipped during the pandemic, they are now returning to pre-pandemic levels, with the average balance per consumer increasing by 8.5 percent in the last year to $6,218. More than half of people earning less than $25,000 carry a balance on their credit cards. Their only consolation is that the job market remains strong, meaning they might be able to count on another paycheck — but even that might not last. Analysts including Caldwell expect the unemployment rate to rise from 3.8 percent to 3.9 percent and wage growth to slow in 2024. Ultimately, however, low-income consumers “just don’t account for that big of a share of total spending,” Hoyt said. “It’s the high end of the income distribution that accounts for a disproportionate share of the spending.”
Why are Americans spending so much? Shoppers carry Uniqlo bags in the SoHo neighborhood of New York on March 8, 2024. | John Taggart/Bloomberg via Getty Images They say the economy is bad, but they’re spending like it’s booming. Americans have been pessimistic about the economy for years. Weirdly, that’s seemed to have little impact on their willingness to open their wallets. Retail sales surged during the pandemic as home-bound workers clicked “complete purchase” on everything from Pelotons to sourdough starter. In 2020, e-commerce sales rose by 43 percent. Stimulus checks gave Americans newfound savings and excess money to burn. Supply chains couldn’t keep up with the demand. That was all supposed to come crashing down at some point. For more than a year, economists warned about the “death of the consumer” and a resulting recession — neither of which have materialized. Consumers were expected to retreat as inflation skyrocketed, hitting a 9.1 percent peak in June 2022 and remaining stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2 percent. Instead, Americans just kept buying more, even accounting for price increases and beyond growth in their disposable income. Their spending helped drive US economic growth in 2023 and remained high in the first months of this year. In March, consumer spending increased by 0.8 percent, exceeding expectations from financial analysts. There is a sign that Americans’ shopping spree might be finally coming to an end: Retail spending stayed the same in April as compared to the previous month, falling short of analyst projections for growth. However, those numbers don’t capture spending on services — for example, health care, transportation, and insurance — which has increased markedly this year. And both Preston Caldwell, a senior US economist at Morningstar, and Scott Hoyt, a Moody’s Analytics economist, said those numbers could easily bounce back next month, even if they’re expecting spending to cool by the end of the year. “I am anticipating that we do see eventually a consumer slowdown over the course of this year,” Caldwell said. “It’s premature to say that that’s already playing out right now.” Indeed, spending is bound to come down at some point under the pressure of high interest rates, which the Fed isn’t expected to cut until later this year — or potentially at all in 2024. So why, despite all the doom and gloom among consumers, has spending been so resilient? Who is driving high spending? Two things are simultaneously true: People feel really negatively about the economy, and that’s not stopping them from spending. In May, the University of Michigan recorded its lowest consumer sentiment reading in six months — an index of 67.4 out of 100 — as part of its long-running survey. That’s up from this time last year, but still well below pre-pandemic consumer sentiment readings, which hovered in the upper 80s and 90s. The trend in sentiment was widespread across demographic lines: Consumers “expressed worries that inflation, unemployment and interest rates may all be moving in an unfavorable direction in the year ahead,” the University of Michigan report reads. It’s hard to reconcile that with high spending figures. But in short, the rich currently feel rich and account for a large share of overall spending. The middle class feels a little better off too, and likely still has some savings built up they can burn through. They might not yet have felt the pressure of high interest rates and inflation to the same degree as people who rent and have fewer investments. (But that’s due to change.) High-income consumers — households in the top 20 percent of income earning at least $244,025 before taxes as of 2022 — have been largely cushioned from economic headwinds and are flush with cash to spend. The pandemic saw Americans’ average percentage of income saved increase to an all-time high of 32 percent in April 2020 after many households received stimulus checks. That has helped fuel spending, but unlike in other high-income countries where consumers have proved more thrifty, Americans are close to depleting those savings. “The excess savings [are] still kind of sloshing their way through the system. Depending on how you estimate excess savings, they will be depleted sometime in the middle of 2024 or maybe by as late as mid-2025,” Caldwell said. Many high-income consumers also locked in low interest rates on their mortgages before the Federal Reserve started raising rates in March 2022, and they’re seeing their home values continue to go up nonetheless. The average US home price increased from $287,000 in 2019 to $450,000 in 2024. This is in part due to persistent low inventory: High interest rates have kept would-be sellers on the sidelines because their mortgage payments would be higher if they bought a new place. High-income consumers have also seen their investment portfolios balloon in the last year. The stock market repeatedly tested new highs in recent months, with the latest record set on Thursday in the wake of new data showing that inflation is slowing. And wealthy older Americans who allocate more of their portfolios to government bonds are benefiting from higher interest rates. “That sort of gives consumers an incentive to spend out of their newfound wealth,” Hoyt said. “And since this set of consumers still has excess savings left over from the pandemic, that gives them the easy, relatively liquid monies to do so.” The question is how long the stock market can sustain this run. Some analysts think stocks are currently overpriced and due for a correction — which might cause some people to finally close their wallets. “Equity prices are starting to move more into arguably overvalued territory,” Caldwell said. “So that’s probably not going to be a tailwind [for spending] over the next year.” At the same time, the factors currently fueling spending at the highest income levels aren’t universal. Not all consumers can afford to spend more. Even though inflation has come down significantly from its 2022 peak, low-income Americans are struggling with higher prices. Consumers in general say they are budgeting more on everyday essentials like fresh produce and baby supplies. Among people living paycheck to paycheck, pandemic savings (if they ever really had any) might be long gone. Low and moderate-income consumers are also increasingly weighed down by credit card debt and struggling to pay it down due to high interest rates, which research suggests could be a major contributor to overall economic pessimism. Though credit card debt levels dipped during the pandemic, they are now returning to pre-pandemic levels, with the average balance per consumer increasing by 8.5 percent in the last year to $6,218. More than half of people earning less than $25,000 carry a balance on their credit cards. Their only consolation is that the job market remains strong, meaning they might be able to count on another paycheck — but even that might not last. Analysts including Caldwell expect the unemployment rate to rise from 3.8 percent to 3.9 percent and wage growth to slow in 2024. Ultimately, however, low-income consumers “just don’t account for that big of a share of total spending,” Hoyt said. “It’s the high end of the income distribution that accounts for a disproportionate share of the spending.”
The planet needs lab-grown meat, no matter what Ron DeSantis saysThere isn't enough lab-grown meat in the U.S. to supply a dozen restaurants, yet two Republican governors are scared enough to ban it.
What time does the 2024 Preakness Stakes start? What TV channel is it on?What time does the 2024 Preakness Stakes start? Here's a breakdown of when the race starts and the TV and streaming options available.
Letters to Sports: Lamenting the LeBron James and Lakers situationsReaders of the Los Angeles Times sports section weigh in on LeBron James' future, as well as that of his son, the Lakers coaching search and the Dodgers.
It Is Inexcusable How Judge Cannon Is Delaying the Trump Documents CaseShe is utterly failing to keep the case moving along in a fair but timely manner.
Discovery of Strange 'Scratch Marks' on Forest Path Sparks Wild TheoriesOne Reddit user suggested they could have been left by some kind of "big cat," while another claimed it could be something "even creepier."
Vincent Trocheck’s infuriating do-it-all game the missing link for RangersIn his second season with the Rangers, Vincent Trocheck has embodied that hard-to-play-against trait the organization had been chasing for years.
3 Spanish tourists killed, multiple injured during attack in AfghanistanEight were wounded and according to preliminary information were from Norway, Australia, Lithuania and Spain.
Chiefs' Harrison Butker 'said nothing wrong' during faith-based commencement speech, religious group saysNFL player Harrison Butker has received a considerable amount of attention in the days since he delivered the commencement speech at Kansas College.
Climate activists breach German airport, glue themselves to runway during busy travel weekendAn airport spokesperson said the airport had been fully closed to takeoffs and landings for nearly two hours.
China's Moves Away From US Dollar Hit New MilestoneChina continues to offload U.S. treasuries while buying up gold and other commodities in what some analysts say is a move to hedge against future reprisals.
China's Moves Away From US Dollar Hit New MilestoneChina continues to offload U.S. treasuries while buying up gold and other commodities in what some analysts say is a move to hedge against future reprisals.
‘Never Trump?’ ‘Never Biden’ voters might loom larger.Biden’s ceiling of support is actually lower than Trump’s right now. It’s a stark reversal from 2020 — with major implications.
Queen of the Book ClubSitting down for lunch with Reese Witherspoon, whose book picks have become a force in the publishing industry.
Ukrainians Fleeing Russia's Kharkiv Offensive Fear Occupation Once Again"People are terrified because the circumstances are not predictable," aid group Rescue Now has told Newsweek.
Trump trusted more than Biden on inflation, a top issue for voters, poll showsEighty-five percent of people surveyed said inflation is an important issue, and most trust Trump more than Biden to deal with it.
Biden called out for past desegregation remarks after praising 1954 landmark Supreme Court rulingCritics reminded President Biden about his past support for school segregation after he praised the Brown v. Board of Education ruling Friday.
It's not 'TV Week' anymore as streamers dominate the advertising upfrontsIn a week that was once all about ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, Amazon and Netflix make their presence felt as they seek a piece of the $27-billion upfront ad market.
Namaste away: Rangers bar yoga classes at cliffside San Diego parkSan Diego is enforcing a new ordinance that limits where people can hold outdoor yoga and fitness classes. Sunset Cliffs isn't on the approved list.
With 'OMG Fashun,' Julia Fox and Law Roach bring sustainable, daring style to reality TVScout Productions' latest fashion reality competition series where competing designers create looks from upcycled materials, and it features fashion's "it girl" Julia Fox and celebrity stylist Law Roach.
Sean 'Diddy' Combs faces growing peril after video shows him attacking Cassie VenturaA video showing Sean “Diddy” Combs violently attacking his then-girlfriend in a Los Angeles hotel in 2016 is likely to add more urgency to a federal sex-trafficking investigation into the star.
Supporters say 'warmhearted' Mexican Mafia member deserves bail. Wiretaps reveal murder threatsProsecutors say Johnny Martinez was caught on a wiretap boasting of several murders, but he still has prominent voices calling for his release, including two L.A. County probation officials.
Inside a Gaza hospital: A Los Angeles doctor's storyMohamad Abdelfattah, a critical-care doctor, was in the southern city of Rafah with no way of leaving. He was at the end of a two-week trip volunteering in one of the few hospitals that has remained open in the besieged city.
Inside a Gaza hospital: A Los Angeles doctor's storyMohamad Abdelfattah, a critical-care doctor, was in the southern city of Rafah with no way of leaving. He was at the end of a two-week trip volunteering in one of the few hospitals that has remained open in the besieged city.
Letters to the Editor: When Trump vacillates on accepting election results, he's saying he'll end democracyThe question voters will answer in 2024: Do we continue the American experiment in democracy, or call it quits?
California pays meth users up to $599 a year to get soberCalifornia’s Medicaid program is testing a novel approach for people addicted to methamphetamine, cocaine and other stimulants: For every clean urine test, they can earn money — up to $599 a year.
California pays meth users up to $599 a year to get soberCalifornia’s Medicaid program is testing a novel approach for people addicted to methamphetamine, cocaine and other stimulants: For every clean urine test, they can earn money — up to $599 a year.
Letters to the Editor: Air quality isn't just a port problem. Regulators are failing all of Southern CaliforniaAccusing SCAQMD leaders of shirking their duties by holding a retreat in the Coachella Valley ignores that poor air quality is a problem in the desert too.
California's effort to plug abandoned, chemical-spewing oil wells gets $35-million boostThe Biden administration funding is among the "largest ever in American history to address legacy pollution," U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said.
Reparations in America: How cities from San Francisco to Wilmington are trying to get it doneReparations proposals continue to sweep across the country as cities and states debate whether to give Black Americans
California school district becomes first in nation to go all electric busesOakland Unified announced Thursday that it is the first school district in the nation to use a fully electric bus fleet due to its partnership with electric bus startup Zūm, which is also providing bidirectional chargers. The district employs 74 buses.
California school district becomes first in nation to go all electric busesOakland Unified announced Thursday that it is the first school district in the nation to use a fully electric bus fleet due to its partnership with electric bus startup Zūm, which is also providing bidirectional chargers. The district employs 74 buses.
Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) charts his process — as a writer, reader and for living life 'And Then? And Then? What Else' begins with a question — 'What am I doing?' — that leads to life lessons: Be curious. Accept nothing at face value. Opt for joy.
Letters to the Editor: Why today's college protests are entirely different from anti-Vietnam War unrestIn the 1960s and '70s, students had a common cause: ending the Vietnam War. Today's protests pit one group against another.
LAPD seeks to fire a senior captain over relationship with 911 dispatcherLos Angeles police officials are seeking to fire a senior captain after an internal investigation determined he failed to disclose a romantic relationship with a civilian employee and then lied about it to internal affairs detectives, according to three department sources.
LAPD seeks to fire a senior captain over relationship with 911 dispatcherLos Angeles police officials are seeking to fire a senior captain after an internal investigation determined he failed to disclose a romantic relationship with a civilian employee and then lied about it to internal affairs detectives, according to three department sources.
Archaeologists Unearth Ancient Tombs With 'Rare' Bronze SealsDozens of funerary objects were found in the tombs, including iron swords, bronze mirrors and glazed pottery.
In Berlin, a painter of angst and isolation draws crowds for his 250thCaspar David Friedrich was the soul of German romanticism, and nationalism. He’s still wildly popular.
Taylor Swift Is a Skeleton Key to the InternetIt is nighttime in Paris. We are more than a year into Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, and tonight, her fans are once again trying to figure out what her clothes mean.The star is in a glittering yellow-and-red two-piece set, a possible reference to the colors of the Kansas City Chiefs, the football team Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, plays on. This is also the 87th performance in the tour, and—aha!—Kelce wears jersey number 87. The hundreds of thousands of fans watching along through bootlegged livestreams on TikTok and YouTube have solved another mystery.This is the beginning of the European leg of Eras, which will stretch on and on until Swift returns to North America this fall and plays the final show of the tour on December 8 (that is, assuming she doesn’t extend it, as she has multiple times already). You’d think people would have lost interest by now. But Taylor Swift has kept fans’ attention by tapping into an algorithmic machine unlike anyone has before her.Swift is savvy, and leverages social-media culture to her advantage. Over her 18-year career, she has trained her fandom to inspect everything she does for Easter eggs; she knows that even a small reveal can send people into a frenzy. She likes to leave clues about upcoming music in her outfits, in music videos, even in commercials she films with brands. She knows people are interested in her personal life—her romances, her feuds—and capitalizes on that, leaving them hints in her liner notes or in song titles.In response, fans analyze dates and look for numbers that add up to 13, her favorite number. They create spreadsheets of every single outfit she’s worn on tour, methodically tracking each surprise song she’s played. They chat nonstop across platforms, swapping elaborate theories to try to decode when the next album is coming or whom each song is about. For more than half a decade, they’ve been convinced that there’s a lost album called Karma, which was shelved in the mid-2010s amid Swift’s feud with Kanye West (now known as Ye) and Kim Kardashian. According to one theory, the orange outfits she’s been wearing in Paris are a sign that she’ll release music from Karma. It’s like QAnon, if QAnon involved a lot of DIY rhinestone boots.[Read: The real Taylor Swift would never]Swifties don’t storm the Capitol, but they will flood Kardashian’s Instagram with snake emoji in response to Swift talking about the pain their fight brought her, just as they will fight Ticketmaster when the company botches her concert-ticket rollout. Their thinking is often conspiratorial. In one recent TikTok, a fan argued that Swift would be releasing something on May 3, according to this logic: A recent screenshot of a music-video still posted to Swift’s team’s Instagram included the letter-and-number combination 14.3V—Swift’s latest music video was for “Fortnight,” and a fortnight is two weeks; two weeks is 14 days. One plus four equals five. The three rounds it out: Something’s happening on the 3rd. The V is actually the Roman numeral for five. (May 3 came and went without a release.)Extreme cliques might be one side effect of our digital culture. “Our algorithms and media are designed to produce fandoms around consumption goods,” Petter Törnberg, a professor of computational social science at the University of Amsterdam, told me over email. “There is hence a fundamental similarity between Swifties, Apple-fans and MAGA Republicans: our current era has the tendency of turning our preferences into identities, and shaping a form of postmodern tribes around both consumption goods and political leaders.” (See also: fans of Beyoncé and BTS.)In other words: Social platforms can have a radicalizing effect on fandoms. When we study algorithmic radicalization, we tend to do so in the context of politics, but the same systems might also calcify our beliefs about cultural products. Yet we still have a fairly limited understanding of how all of this works. “The very best studies we have are still really struggling to detect effects, because there’s so many challenges when you try to study this stuff,” Chris Bail, the founding director of the Polarization Lab at Duke University, told me.No one single algorithm powers this fandom. It operates across platforms; in a single day, a Swift fan might stream her music on Spotify, watch her music videos on YouTube, and consume posts about her on TikTok. All of these sites have distinct recommendation systems. Companies also tend to keep these systems a secret, making them hard to research.But we can say this: Algorithms tend to reinforce what’s already popular, because attention attracts more attention. Growth begets growth, as Törnberg put it. In this way, Swift also demonstrates how platforms that supposedly target content based on an individual’s interests can, in fact, end up clustering around one monolithic force. “It just seems like, Oh, that’s sort of weird, I thought everybody was supposed to have their own algorithmic niche now,” Nick Seaver, the author of Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation, told me. “And instead—I mean, maybe in addition to that—we also all have Taylor Swift.”[Read: Nobody knows what’s happening online anymore]Our modern Swiftocracy is a reminder that we are still subject to strange algorithmic forces, even as the web is supposedly fractured. Yet the consequences of this can be as hard to decode as an Easter egg dropped by Swift. On her final show in Paris, she opted for a “berry”-red dress for the Folklore section of her set. It may be a sign of something to come. Or not.
Taylor Swift Is a Skeleton Key to the InternetIt is nighttime in Paris. We are more than a year into Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, and tonight, her fans are once again trying to figure out what her clothes mean.The star is in a glittering yellow-and-red two-piece set, a possible reference to the colors of the Kansas City Chiefs, the football team Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, plays on. This is also the 87th performance in the tour, and—aha!—Kelce wears jersey number 87. The hundreds of thousands of fans watching along through bootlegged livestreams on TikTok and YouTube have solved another mystery.This is the beginning of the European leg of Eras, which will stretch on and on until Swift returns to North America this fall and plays the final show of the tour on December 8 (that is, assuming she doesn’t extend it, as she has multiple times already). You’d think people would have lost interest by now. But Taylor Swift has kept fans’ attention by tapping into an algorithmic machine unlike anyone has before her.Swift is savvy, and leverages social-media culture to her advantage. Over her 18-year career, she has trained her fandom to inspect everything she does for Easter eggs; she knows that even a small reveal can send people into a frenzy. She likes to leave clues about upcoming music in her outfits, in music videos, even in commercials she films with brands. She knows people are interested in her personal life—her romances, her feuds—and capitalizes on that, leaving them hints in her liner notes or in song titles.In response, fans analyze dates and look for numbers that add up to 13, her favorite number. They create spreadsheets of every single outfit she’s worn on tour, methodically tracking each surprise song she’s played. They chat nonstop across platforms, swapping elaborate theories to try to decode when the next album is coming or whom each song is about. For more than half a decade, they’ve been convinced that there’s a lost album called Karma, which was shelved in the mid-2010s amid Swift’s feud with Kanye West (now known as Ye) and Kim Kardashian. According to one theory, the orange outfits she’s been wearing in Paris are a sign that she’ll release music from Karma. It’s like QAnon, if QAnon involved a lot of DIY rhinestone boots.[Read: The real Taylor Swift would never]Swifties don’t storm the Capitol, but they will flood Kardashian’s Instagram with snake emoji in response to Swift talking about the pain their fight brought her, just as they will fight Ticketmaster when the company botches her concert-ticket rollout. Their thinking is often conspiratorial. In one recent TikTok, a fan argued that Swift would be releasing something on May 3, according to this logic: A recent screenshot of a music-video still posted to Swift’s team’s Instagram included the letter-and-number combination 14.3V—Swift’s latest music video was for “Fortnight,” and a fortnight is two weeks; two weeks is 14 days. One plus four equals five. The three rounds it out: Something’s happening on the 3rd. The V is actually the Roman numeral for five. (May 3 came and went without a release.)Extreme cliques might be one side effect of our digital culture. “Our algorithms and media are designed to produce fandoms around consumption goods,” Petter Törnberg, a professor of computational social science at the University of Amsterdam, told me over email. “There is hence a fundamental similarity between Swifties, Apple-fans and MAGA Republicans: our current era has the tendency of turning our preferences into identities, and shaping a form of postmodern tribes around both consumption goods and political leaders.” (See also: fans of Beyoncé and BTS.)In other words: Social platforms can have a radicalizing effect on fandoms. When we study algorithmic radicalization, we tend to do so in the context of politics, but the same systems might also calcify our beliefs about cultural products. Yet we still have a fairly limited understanding of how all of this works. “The very best studies we have are still really struggling to detect effects, because there’s so many challenges when you try to study this stuff,” Chris Bail, the founding director of the Polarization Lab at Duke University, told me.No one single algorithm powers this fandom. It operates across platforms; in a single day, a Swift fan might stream her music on Spotify, watch her music videos on YouTube, and consume posts about her on TikTok. All of these sites have distinct recommendation systems. Companies also tend to keep these systems a secret, making them hard to research.But we can say this: Algorithms tend to reinforce what’s already popular, because attention attracts more attention. Growth begets growth, as Törnberg put it. In this way, Swift also demonstrates how platforms that supposedly target content based on an individual’s interests can, in fact, end up clustering around one monolithic force. “It just seems like, Oh, that’s sort of weird, I thought everybody was supposed to have their own algorithmic niche now,” Nick Seaver, the author of Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation, told me. “And instead—I mean, maybe in addition to that—we also all have Taylor Swift.”[Read: Nobody knows what’s happening online anymore]Our modern Swiftocracy is a reminder that we are still subject to strange algorithmic forces, even as the web is supposedly fractured. Yet the consequences of this can be as hard to decode as an Easter egg dropped by Swift. On her final show in Paris, she opted for a “berry”-red dress for the Folklore section of her set. It may be a sign of something to come. Or not.
Police in Austin, San Francisco secretly skirted facial recognition bansThe Washington Post has obtained emails and other documents showing that police in Austin and San Francisco skirted city bans against using facial recognition by asking officers in other cities to run the AI-powered programs for them.
Police in Austin, San Francisco secretly skirted facial recognition bansThe Washington Post has obtained emails and other documents showing that police in Austin and San Francisco skirted city bans against using facial recognition by asking officers in other cities to run the AI-powered programs for them.
What Does a Fox News Viewer See in One Day? You Have to See It to Believe.Every hour on Fox News the day Stormy Daniels was cross-examined at the Trump trial.
