How I Made My Shed The Top Rated Restaurant On Tripadvisor
With the help of fake reviews, mystique and nonsense, I was going to do it: turn my shed into London’s top-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor. And then serve customers Iceland ready meals on its opening night.
DrDrunkenstein’s Reign Of Terror
“DrDrunkenstein” is one of many aliases Magnus Carlsen has played under when he went on a killing spree across the speed chess tournaments of the internet. Carlsen has taken to livestreaming his games on a variety of platforms, which has provided a surprisingly entertaining window into the mind of an all-time great.
Inside HBO Max, The $4 Billion Bet To Stand Out In The Streaming Wars
Bob Greenblatt, Kevin Reilly and Sarah Aubrey — the executives leading the charge for WarnerMedia’s ambitious HBO Max streaming venture — outline their vision for a global platform to compete with Netflix, Amazon, Disney and others in TV’s new frontier of the direct-to-consumer cavalcade.
Dracula Bosses Erect Billboard That Comes To Life At Night
The BBC decided to give Dracula fans a fright with two billboards of the show that come to life at night. A shadow of the infamous vampire appears in the center of the advert, which looks as though it has been cast by a number of wooden stakes plunged into the advert.
Where Hollywood Shoots All Its Plane Scenes
Many of the most iconic plane and airport scenes were filmed in the same place — Air Hollywood, the LA production studio entirely dedicated to aviation. The studio has three full aircraft interiors and an airport terminal set that’s reconfigurable into any part of the air travel experience.
IKEA Let Customers Pay With Their Time Instead Of Currency
For the opening of the Swedish retailer’s new outpost in Jebel Ali, a large commercial port located on the harbor of Dubai, the brand wanted to encourage shoppers to journey to the new store by allowing them to use the time it took for them to get there as currency.
Why Burger King Is Proudly Advertising A Moldy, Disgusting Whopper
Burger King unveiled a global ad campaign aimed at highlighting its commitment to dropping all artificial preservatives. The chain’s anti-preservatives pledge breaks just about every rule in advertising.
Inside The Booming Business Of Background Music
The background music industry – also known as music design, music consultancy or something offered as part of a broader package of “experiential design” or “sensory marketing” – is constantly deciding what we hear as we go about our everyday business. The biggest player in the industry, Mood Media, supplies music to 560,000 locations across the world, from Sainsbury’s to KFC.
What Comes After TV?
A mobile-storytelling platform called Quibi has loomed on the content horizon, promising that, when its app launches this spring, it will be a home to a huge library of short-form shows made specifically for your phone. But Snapchat has been operating in that space for years. It’s harder than you’d think.
The Secret History Of Page Six
For more than four decades, Page Six has ruled the world of gossip about the famous and powerful. In an era when celebrities control the narrative and “power” is a dirty word, can it survive?
Creatives Call For Mental-Health Warnings On ‘Toxic’ Magazines
A creative team in London is hijacking the covers of celebrity and gossip magazines to raise awareness of the harmful impact that media can have on people’s mental health. They were inspired by news that hair salons across the UK have boycotted “toxic” gossip magazines following the death of presenter Caroline Flack.
Life And Struggle After YouTube Fame
Dax Flame was only 15 when he became YouTube royalty – his channel was among the top 20 most subscribed in the early years of the site. But 13 years later, his fortunes have changed – he’s working as a waiter and trying to scrape together money just to get by.
How Instagram Killed The It Girl
In a world of constant self-surveillance and curation, we may never see the Parises, the Nicoles, the Taras in the way we once did. The It Girl exists within the moral grey areas of life, but with the existence of social media, such grey areas no longer exist for her to live in – everything is now black and white, good or bad.
Mikhail Gorbachev’s Pizza Hut Thanksgiving Miracle
Since his involuntary retirement, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has raised money for worthy causes, attempted to make a comeback in Russian politics, and, notoriously, made an advertisement for Pizza Hut.
Searching For Meg White, The Elusive White Stripes Drummer
The White Stripes played their final show in 2007 and officially called it a day in 2011. Jack White continued performing, but it’s been over a decade since we heard from Meg White. Could renewed attention over a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nomination coax her back into the spotlight?
The Danger Of Befriending Celebrities
Meryl Streep doesn’t call me every week to go bowling. In fact, she doesn’t call me at all. And that’s a good thing. I honestly can’t recommend becoming friends with celebrities, especially if you’re a long-running journalist like I am. It simply will not lead to a Hollywood ending.
How We’ll Forget John Lennon
The report, “The universal decay of collective memory and attention,” concludes that people and things are kept alive through “oral communication” from about five to 30 years. They then pass into written and online records, where they experience a slower, longer decline.
The 00s Cam Girl Who Livestreamed Every Second Of Her Life
Sex, showering, breaking up: Tanya Corrin and her boyfriend Josh Harris set up cameras all over their apartment for an internet project that pre-empted everything from influencer culture to digital sex work and reality TV.
The New Mind Control
The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence that can flip elections and manipulate everything we say, think and do. Most of the vacuous thoughts and intense feelings our teenagers experience from morning till night are carefully orchestrated by highly skilled marketing professionals working in our fashion and entertainment industries.
The True Story Of Erroll Garner, The First Artist To Sue A Major Label And Win
You have to dial back to 1960 to find the major precedent: when star jazz pianist Erroll Garner sued Columbia Records for breaking his contract — and won after a nearly three-year battle in a New York Supreme Court decision. It was a landmark case that has been largely forgotten.
In Travel Journalism, After Every Disaster Comes “The Perfect Time To Visit”
When tourists go away, vacations become a gesture of financial support. And we’re told that a tourism economy relishes every dollar that does come. But what big little lies do we tell ourselves when PR companies spin a local disaster into a travel opportunity?