TikTok is changing the building trades

TikTok can turn everyday users into stars

TikTok is such a cultural force, it’s now a platform for turning ordinary users into stars. This "Planet Money" podcast episode performs a deep dive into how Tai Verdes went from working a day job and dreaming of becoming a successful musician to using TikTok to gain a following.

TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms of all time

Centered around user-generated short videos, the platform was created by the Chinese technology company ByteDance Ltd. With over 1.8 billion users, the app has become a global force.

TikTok is transforming the English language

Linguists like Adam Aleksic have argued that the way internet slang—especially the kind that thrives on TikTok—enters the real world isn’t so different from how English evolved in its earliest days.

How to read the news on TikTok

There's plenty of news on TikTok, but that doesn't mean it's all reliable. This guide, written by a communication technology professor, breaks down the ways the app's algorithm delivers news. It also covers how users can determine whether or not a story is factual or misleading. Most strikingly, the professor warns readers that if they didn't search for a TikTok video, then "it probably found you."

How to catch a TikTok thief

Someone took a 10-second clip of a parody video made by Hugh Clegg and posted it to TikTok, where it racked up millions of views. The uncredited clip meant viewers assumed it was owned by the uploader, an assumption Clegg was eager to rectify. His messages and comments had no real effect outside of earning him temporary bans for "spamming." So he decided to moonlight as a private eye.

TikTok's algorithm has changed the way hits are made

Songs aimed at TikTok's algorithm—designed for viral dances or soundtracking common experiences—often find success on the Billboard charts. An early example was Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road," which used his memes and a country-trap beat from the Netherlands to rise to the top of the Billboard charts.

Why TikTok loves fast-casual restaurant Chili's

The company noticed TikTokers posting enthusiastically about its food and began partnering with creators on the platform. The videos include mukbangs, a South Korean trend in which users eat a massive amount of food, and #cheesepulls, where Chili's mozzarella sticks are stretched to their limits.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Former New Yorker editor Tina Brown coined the term “gig economy” in 2009

Although this article was written pre-pandemic, the workers interviewed in it still feel representative of the sector’s modern ethos. In the piece, the writer interviews a handful of gig workers about why, exactly, they’ve chosen to make a living off of Airbnbs or TaskRabbit gigs rather than doing something else.

Meta has added video features to attract more young users to Facebook

Amid an aging userbase and competition from newer social networks like TikTok, Facebook has seen its perceived relevance and cool factor progressively decrease. The Local tab and dating features are among several efforts to counter this perception.

What Trump's executive order provides TikTok

Just a few days into his second term, President Trump paused the US law banning TikTok through an executive order. While that may sound like an all-out reversal, it's more of a time out, granting ByteDance an additional 75 days to find a US-based seller. This resource breaks down what Trump's executive order provides the Chinese company and what it might mean for the future of the app.

How AR could reshape construction

Wired's Grant Imahara visits Los Angeles, where he witnesses how augmented reality will be a key component of how builders will do their jobs in the future.

One filmmaker turned an abandoned high school into a film studio

In 2017, Jeremy Garelick purchased a vacant school in Liverpool, New York, and turned it into a comedy production studio aimed at social media. The gambit has been successful, with the studio's two TikTok accounts earning over 1M combined followers.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Therapy & intimacy in the age of Twitch.

There are thousands of people streaming for single digit audiences. We asked them what it’s like, and the steps they’ve taken to grow their audiences.

Today’s kids would rather be YouTubers than astronauts

While the other children in your kindergarten class might have wanted to be firefighters or astronauts when they grew up, modern kids are different. Lego conducted a study that found children were more likely to say they wanted to be a YouTuber when they grew up than an astronaut.

Wedding photographers and other vendors have tailored their services to social media in recent years

In this podcast interview with Xochitl Gonzalez—a former luxury wedding planner who wrote the viral The Fake Poor Bride article in 2023—you'll learn a lot about how the wedding-industrial complex has evolved over the past few years and how modern additions, such as the rise of wedding styling services for "wedding weeks," have driven costs up.

The pandemic saw Zoom overtake Skype as the default video conferencing tool

When millions of people needed to become work-from-home experts overnight, ease of use for video conferencing tools became especially important. Zoom's success was partly because the company made it easier to join meetings than Skype did—with Zoom, users only needed a URL to join a meeting, rather than downloading a fully separate app as they did on Skype. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Robinhood's pivot from everyday investors to hyperactive traders

The platform was conceived as a hub for first-time investors looking to get into trading. After criticism in 2021, the company pivoted to focus on more regular, daily traders, among whom the company's CEO has now become a cult hero.

Meet a 90-year-old who built his own hobbit-inspired house

A retired carpenter built himself a kind-of Hobbit house, and is living comfortably off the grid at 90 years old, tourists notwithstanding. Learn how he did it with this video.

People are making careers out of playing claw machines

As it turns out, winning at a claw machine arcade game over and over again makes for great social media content. Influencers like Erik Kane are taking advantage of this—and making money off of it, too.

Read the New York Times profile of TAKI 183

The 1971 article about the young graffiti artist and his many acolytes exposed the burgeoning subculture to a large audience and also detailed the effort to clean the work from the city's walls. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Interview with a pay transparency expert

Maybe you’ve seen one of Hannah Williams’ videos on social media. On her viral “Salary Transparent Street” accounts, Williams stands on the street with a microphone and asks passersby to tell her how much money they make per year. This podcast interview with Williams details what she’s learned about pay transparency in the process. Listen to it here.

Consumers are buying more books now than they were 20 years ago

Interest in reading spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic and has continued building since then. The romance and fantasy genres in particular have been especially popular, with titles celebrated on BookTok, a wing of TikTok dedicated to reading, spurring the craze.

What it’s like to be an apprentice at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin

Architect James Walter Schildroth became an apprentice in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship program in 1959, just months after Wright's passing. The invaluable experience taught him how to build as he worked and confronted him with the struggles of living in the space.

A Hitchcock film has been adapted for a new demographic: smartphone users

Hitchcock's "The Lodger," a silent film from 1927, has been adapted for Tattle TV, a video app featuring "vertical microdramas" aimed at smartphone users looking for bite-sized stories.

Inside the community movement behind DIY synthetic biology

Margaret Talbot spotlights the rise of DIY biology in community labs, where amateur scientists—often outside formal institutions—create everything from insulin to prosthetic prototypes. These grassroots biohackers challenge traditional science by pursuing open, accessible innovation, raising questions about credibility, ethical oversight, and acceptance by mainstream researchers.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Firework or sparkler burns, even if they cover a relatively small area of skin, can significantly affect our range of motion.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.