The Best Gifts for Every Tech Nerd in Your Life

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Our grandparents could drop some treats in a sock and call it Christmas, secure in the knowledge that their children would be delighted by an orange. These days, though, everyone from your tech-obsessed granny to your cutting-edge teen, wants to be impressed. Luckily, there's a high-tech gadget out there for everyone.

Stocking stuffer of the year: Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses (Gen 2)

The 2025 line of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have a longer battery life than the first generation, as well as better AI and the ability to take longer videos. Those aren't massive improvements, but the original is so solid, it didn't need much done to make it better. Almost any tech lover would be happy with a pair of these in their stocking. I like my 1st-Gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses enough that I had prescription lenses put in them and I wear them daily. The ability to snap a photo, take a video, or start streaming to Instagram instantly takes the documentary-about-your-life aspect of social media to new levels, and the built-in AI and music player make this the stocking stuffer of the year. Check out my full review for more details.

For the fitness-obsessed: Whoop Peak 5

It can be hard to buy a gift for a health-focused person. They usually don't want booze and they like putting in effort. But the Whoop Peak 5 fitness tracker will brighten the Christmas morning of the most diehard athlete. It's more versatile than a watch (you can wear it on your bicep and even in your underwear) and it monitors heart rate, respiratory rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature, blood oxygen levels, daily activity, and sleep—basically everything I don't worry about. Check out Lifehacker's senior health editor Beth Skwarecki's in-depth look at the Whoop Peak 5 for more details.

WHOOP Peak – 12-Month Membership – 5.0 Health and Fitness Wearable – 24/7 Activity and Sleep Tracker with Heart Rate, HRV, Stress Monitor, Personalized Coaching, Healthspan – 14+ Days Battery Life

$199.00 at Amazon

$239.00 Save $40.00

$199.00 at Amazon

$239.00 Save $40.00

For the adventurer: GoPro Hero 13

You cannot go wrong with a GoPro. The company's easy-to-use, hard-to-break cameras are synonymous with "action photography" and compact enough to fit in a stocking. If there's a snowboarder, skateboarder, kayaker, or BMX racer on your list, this is a must. Even if your giftee isn't an adventurer, the GoPro Hero 13 supports additional lenses and filters that let users go beyond the "gnarly fish-eye, dude" photography and videography of past generations. Check out associate tech editor Michelle Ehrhardt's GoPro Hero 13 review for more details.

For the tech-toy lover: DJI Mini 4K Drone

Some people want tech products that make their lives easier in some way, but others want the pure joy that comes from impressively useless toys. If you're shopping for the latter this Christmas, I highly recommend a DJI Mini 4K drone: Few have a practical use for a little helicopter, but it's so flippin' cool. It takes off from the palm of your hand, flies in winds up to 38 kph (23.61 mph), and captures stabilized 4K video in all kinds of lighting conditions. You can even set it to follow you around automatically, like a little drone pal.

DJI Mini 4K Drone

$299.00 at Amazon

$299.00 at Amazon

For the gamer: R36Max Retro Handheld Game Console

Like the Switch 2, the R36Max retro handheld game console lets you take your gaming anywhere. But unlike the Switch 2, it comes with over 18,000 games pre-installed and ready to go, so you can play every title from classic consoles like the Atari 2600 or the PlayStation 1, as well as every arcade game anyone ever dropped a coin into, all for less than $100. Heck, I payed more than that in quarter just to beat Dragon's Lair.

For the musician/producer: Yamaha Seqtrak

I'm obsessed with the Yamaha Seqtrak. It crams a drum machine, sequencer, sampler, and synthesizer into a package small enough to put into a Christmas stocking, with room left over for a speaker. It's everything you need to produce a song by itself, and it integrates with your computer and other gear too. It's not even difficult to understand, nor is it super expensive at $300.

Yamaha SEQTRAK Mobile Music Ideastation, Orange

$299.99 at Amazon

$349.99 Save $50.00

$299.99 at Amazon

$349.99 Save $50.00

For the hacker: Flipper Zero

The Flipper Zero is a must-have device for the hardcore, glasses-wearing, circuit-bender type of techie. Its ability to do evil deeds like hack ATMs is greatly exaggerated, but the Flipper is still a technological Swiss army knife that lets you read and manipulate the invisible waves around you, from radio waves, to RFID, NFC, Bluetooth, and wifi signals. It's educational, fascinating, and powerful; how you use that power is your business.

For the scientist: Skybasic digital microscope

If you're giving a gift to a would-be Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, this miniature, wireless microscope will rock their holiday. It's easy to set up, works with PCs, Android, or iOS devices, magnifies things up to 1000x, and takes 1080p pictures of your discoveries.

A non-tech gift for you: Hochstadter's Slow & Low Rock and Rye

Credit: Hochstadter's

Whether you find Christmas stressful or celebratory, slipping a bottle of liquor into your own stocking is the kind of self-care I support. My suggestion: Hochstadter's Slow and Low. It's a no-effort drink that's classier (and boozier) than a supermarket White Claw, and it has a retro vibe and sweet taste that pairs perfectly with the holidays.

How to Choose the Best Christmas Tree for Your Home

Considering that America was a relative latecomer to the Christmas tree—the practice didn’t really become popular here until the mid-19th century—we sure have come to love them. While plenty of Christmas traditions have entered the dustbin of history, the mighty Christmas tree has survived the years; about 25-30 million real trees are purchased each year. Unless you have zero plans to celebrate the holiday, chances are you’re one of those people.

If you think finding a Christmas tree is just a matter of heading to the empty lot or the tree farm down the road and grabbing one that looks vaguely tree-shaped, you would be wrong. If you want the best possible Christmas tree experience, you have to take a few basic aspects of the tree and your home into consideration. Here’s how to make sure you find the best Christmas tree.

How to pick the best spot for a Christmas tree

Your first stop toward the best possible Christmas tree is deciding where to set it up. You’ll want to choose a location where the tree will be the centerpiece of your celebration, and people can actually enjoy it, whether that’s in the living room, one corner of your tiny studio, or in the special Holiday Room you had built into the West Wing of the family manse. Once you’ve picked the right general location, you’ll want to avoid putting the tree next to a heat source (which will dry it out), and you’ll want it to be near a power outlet (so you don’t have extension cords tripping people up and/or possibly burning your house down).

Once you’ve selected the right spot, you’re going to want to measure. First, measure the height of your ceilings. Take off a foot to accommodate a stand and a topper, if you’re using one, and that’s the maximum height of tree you’re looking for. Measure from the center of the spot where the tree will stand and get an approximate circumference that will ensure branches don’t scratch the walls or block foot traffic, as well. Now you have the basic dimensions of the best tree for your space. Don’t forget to bring the tape measure to the tree lot.

How to pick the best type of Christmas tree

Although the Christmas tree has become a generic symbol of the holiday season, there are a surprising number of varieties. Choosing the best one depends on the look and feel you need:

• Traditional. If you want that “Christmas card” look, go with a Balsam fir. These trees tend to have the classic triangular shape and deep green color you’re looking for, and they tend to last a long time indoors—this is kind of the default Christmas tree, and it will fill your house with that classic Christmas tree smell. If you want something a little different but still classic, the Fraser fir has more of a blue tint to it, and will last a long time.

• Kid-friendly. If you have little ones racing about, the stiff, surprisingly sharp needles of some trees might be a concern. The Douglas fir has a classic look but sports soft, bendy needles that won’t poke little eyes, as does the Scotch (or Scots) pine tree.

• Big room. If you’re putting the tree someplace that could reasonably described as a “Great Room” or similarly large space, you’ll want a tall, full-bodied tree like the Douglas fir to fill the space. You could also go with the majestic Norway spruce (the tree traditionally chosen to stand at Rockefeller Center in New York City), but beware: The Norway is a delicate tree that won’t last very long in your house.

• Minimalist. If your idea of decorating a home and tree for the holidays is to place a few subtle items around that hint at Christmas, the Grand fir makes a statement with its exceptionally long needles, and does well with just a touch of decoration. Another great choice is the Noble fir, which adds cones to the mix, giving it a ready-made decoration.

• Modern. If you’re going for a less-classic look, an Arizona cypress tree is a good choice. It’s generally a pale green with reddish-brown branches, resulting in a lush color story that’s still in the traditional realm while adding a touch of drama that other trees won’t have.

Inspect the tree

Once you know which tree you want and where it’s going to go, give it a solid inspection to make sure you’re getting the best possible specimen. That means checking for insects and even animals or birds, making sure the needles feel fresh and don’t fall off easily, and actually smelling the tree—it should have a light, fresh scent, not a musty or moldy smell.

Now you have the best possible Christmas tree, and all you have to do is take care of it properly so it lasts the whole holiday season.

I Let Android AI Summarize My Notifications for a Day, and Here's What Happened

AI is everywhere! Writing essays, editing photos, producing social-media slop, doing your browsing for you, making plenty of mistakes—and now, if you've installed the latest Android 16 update (currently rolling out to Pixel phones), summarizing your notifications so you have less text and fewer alerts to wade through.

The new summarization feature, as per Google, will "help you cut through the clutter and stay focused," and give you "quick understanding and context at a glance." I'm all for cutting through the clutter, so as soon as the update landed on my own Pixel device, I decided to enable the feature and see how useful it really is.

How AI summaries work, and how to turn them on

Enabling the feature on an Android phone. Credit: Lifehacker

AI notification summaries won't automatically take over your phone, after the update—you need to enable them manually. From Settings, head to Notifications, then tap Notification summaries to turn this on. The same screen lets you choose which apps you want notifications summarized for.

There are actually two parts to the new update: the actual notification summaries, and what Google is calling a "notification organizer." This organizer is designed to group and silence lower-priority notifications (including social alerts and promotional messages), though there doesn't appear to be a separate toggle switch for this.

Of course, other Android phone makers will be able to implement this in whatever way they choose. It looks as though Samsung is testing the feature with the One UI 8.5, which should be launching in beta any day now. A full release of the software is expected early next year, alongside the Galaxy S26 phones.

Using AI notification summaries for 24 hours

Ready to banish notification clutter from my life, I turned on AI summaries for all my apps to see exactly how this worked. For a start, it doesn't apply to all apps, at least not yet: My Snapchat and Instagram alerts remained the same as always, so further updates will be needed from Google and app developers before this is something you see everywhere.

The apps I saw summaries for most often were Google Chat, WhatsApp, and Slack—almost always in group conversations, and some of the time for single messages (the length of the message seems to affect this somehow). And the summaries were ... mostly okay. They tended to catch the gist of who had said what, and in that sense were an accurate recap of what I was missing by not actually opening these apps.

The summaries work, up to a point. Credit: Lifehacker

These summaries did update as more messages were added, but the summary preview window is only a couple of lines long—so once multiple people start piling into a group chat, the summary isn't going to be able to cover everything. From the lock screen and pull-down notification shade, it's possible to expand notifications to see full messages (as usual), and then minimize them back to the summary view again.

There was one occasion when the AI notification summaries got confused by the Lifehacker slack and by the various @mentions included—attributing a message to the person who had been tagged in a message, rather than the person who had sent it. On the whole, though, there were no obvious mistakes, just certain details left out from summaries of longer chats that I would've liked to have known about.

Now I've tested this out, I'm going to turn it off again, for a couple of reasons—and inaccuracy isn't really one of them (though that might certainly creep in). First, given the small size of the preview window, I'm not sure an AI summary is any more useful than the first couple of lines of text you get as standard anyway. That's usually enough for me to tell whether or not a message is important before opening it.

This Slack summary wasn't fully accurate—and Snapchat alerts weren't affected. Credit: Lifehacker

Second, I'm not sure I really want my messages and group chats summarized—at least not the important ones. If a friend, family member, or work colleague has something to tell me, I'd like to know exactly what it is, rather than reading a précis. It feels like AI is being used just for the sake of it—and not for the first time.

I didn't see any evidence of the notification organizer in action, by the way, perhaps because of the way I've got my Android notifications set up—there are now a host of granular options for alerts in Android, for silencing and dismissing notifications. This feature sounds vaguely useful, but again, I'm not sure I'm ready to hand over the job of judging how important notifications are over to AI just yet.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Is $100 Off Right Now

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The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 is currently down to $759.99 on Amazon, down from $859.99.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 256GB Wi-Fi 11" Tablet With S Pen (Gray)

$759.99 at Amazon

$859.99 Save $100.00

$759.99 at Amazon

$859.99 Save $100.00

For those in the market for a premium Android tablet that leans into both productivity and entertainment, this might be one to consider. It has the same polished design and high-quality build Samsung brings to its flagship phones, with a sturdy Armor Aluminum frame, water and dust resistance (IP68), and a bright 11-inch Dynamic AMOLED display that’s crisp, color-rich, and plenty bright even outdoors. It also comes with the redesigned S Pen included at no extra charge, unlike the Apple Pencil.

In terms of performance, the Tab S11 holds its own. It’s powered by MediaTek’s 9400+ chip with 12GB RAM and Android 16, which keeps things snappy across multitasking and Samsung’s DeX mode (basically a desktop experience on a tablet). You get 256GB of onboard storage, expandable up to 2TB with a microSD card, which is handy for offline media or large files. Battery life clocked in around 9.5 hours in PCMag’s rundown test, which means real-world use lands somewhere in the all-day range unless you keep brightness maxed out. As for the audio, the stereo speakers are loud and clear enough for small rooms, but the bass is underwhelming—if audio quality matters to you, a solid pair of wireless headphones or earbuds might be a better bet.

Camera-wise, the 13MP rear camera and 12MP front cam handle video calls and quick snapshots fine, but don’t expect smartphone-level sharpness or dynamic range. The real edge lies in the software: Samsung’s One UI 8.0 and Galaxy AI tools like Notes Assist, Transcript Assist, and Circle to Search help streamline everyday use. Add seven years of promised updates, and you’ve got long-term support locked in.

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Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now

Apple AirPods Pro 3 Noise Cancelling Heart Rate Wireless Earbuds — $249.00 (List Price $249.00)

Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $353.00 (List Price $353.00)

Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) — $69.99 (List Price $139.99)

Sony WH-1000XM5 — $278.00 (List Price $399.99)

Blink Outdoor 4 1080p Wireless Security Camera (5-Pack) — $399.99 (List Price $399.99)

Ring Floodlight Cam Wired Plus 1080p Security Camera (White) — $99.99 (List Price $179.99)

Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus — $24.99 (List Price $49.99)

NEW Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones — (List Price $410.24)

Shark AI Ultra Matrix Clean Mapping Voice Control Robot Vacuum with XL Self-Empty Base — $249.99 (List Price $599.00)

Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS, 42mm, S/M Black Sport Band) — $329.00 (List Price $399.00)

Deals are selected by our commerce team

The Best Tech Deals Under $25 Still Live After Cyber Monday

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Although Cyber Monday is over, Cyber Week is still going on, and there are many deals still live from Monday sales. While it's nice to save money on a big-ticket item, if you're looking to score a bargain on a budget, I've used all my resources to find the best still active Cyber Week tech deals under $25.

Apple EarPods Wired Headphones With Lightning Connector

$15.96 at Amazon

$19.00 Save $3.04

$15.96 at Amazon

$19.00 Save $3.04

Soundcore by Anker P20i True Wireless Earbuds, 10mm Drivers with Big Bass, Bluetooth 5.3, 30H Long Playtime, Water-Resistant, 2 Mics for AI Clear Calls, 22 Preset EQs, Customization (White)

$18.99 at Amazon

$39.99 Save $21.00

$18.99 at Amazon

$39.99 Save $21.00

Apple AirTag

$17.97 at Amazon

$29.00 Save $11.03

$17.97 at Amazon

$29.00 Save $11.03

Amazon Echo Pop Alexa Smart Speaker (2023)

$21.99 at Amazon

$39.99 Save $18.00

$21.99 at Amazon

$39.99 Save $18.00

INIU 10000mAh 45W Power Bank with USB-C Cable

$11.21 at Amazon

$29.99 Save $18.78

$11.21 at Amazon

$29.99 Save $18.78

Bluetooth Speaker with HD Sound, Portable Wireless, IPX5 Waterproof, Up to 24H Playtime, TWS Pairing, BT5.3, for Home/Party/Outdoor/Beach, Electronic Gadgets, Birthday Gift (Black)

$18.98 at Amazon

$26.99 Save $8.01

$18.98 at Amazon

$26.99 Save $8.01

Apple and Anker wired earbuds are nicely discounted

Wired earbuds are very early 2000s, but on the other hand, they never run out of batteries. If you're still rocking an iPhone 14 Plus or below (or an iPhone SE 3rd generation), you'll be able to pick up some official Apple EarPods Headphones with a Lightning connector for $15.96 (originally $19), or one with USB-C connector for a few cents more.

If you prefer wireless earbuds but don't want to pay too much for something you might end up losing, the Soundcore by Anker P20i are a solid pair with some impressive features for their $19.99 price (marked down from $39.99). You get Bluetooth 5.3, 30 hours of battery, water resistance, and a full EQ with its companion app.

AirTags are $75 for a four-pack

You don't need to be a spy to use tracking devices. As an Apple user, you can use AirTags and Find My to track anything that you can attach one of these little devices to. Right now, Amazon has single AirTags for $24.99 (originally $29) or a four-pack for $74.98 (originally $99), bringing the cost down to $16.25 each.

This Iniu portable phone charger is $22

I recently lost my Iniu Portable Charger while traveling in Europe. Fortunately, it was at the end of my trip, and it had served its purpose well, saving my phone's battery (and therefore my life) multiple times. You can get one now for $21.99 (originally $29.99) after the 40% discount at checkout.

A BolaButty portable outdoor speaker for less than $20

If you're looking for a cheap portable outdoor speaker that can get wet, consider the BolaButty Portable Speaker, currently going for $18.98 (originally $26.99). It's waterproof with an IPX5 rating and will last 20 hours before running out of juice.

This TP-Link TL-SG105 ethernet switch is 48% off

I have many PoE security cameras, smart hubs, and other devices that need an Ethernet connection. I've been using the TP-Link TL-SG105 switch for over a year, and it has worked great for me. You can get it for $12.99 (originally $24.99).

A Kasa Smart Plug Mini for $24

I've been using the Kasa Smart Plug Mini to automatically turn on and off my backyard string lights on a schedule. You can get it for $23.99 (originally $29.99).

The Roku Streaming Stick HD is $20

The Roku Streaming Stick HD is the most basic Roku Stick you can buy, and it's 50% off right now, making it a great time to upgrade your TV's OS to my favorite one. You can get it for $19.99 (originally $29.99).

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How long do Black Friday deals really last?

Black Friday sales officially begin Friday, November 28, 2025, and run throughout “Cyber Week,” the five-day period that runs from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, December 1, 2025. But Black Friday and Cyber Monday dates have expanded as retailers compete for customers. You can get the same Black Friday sales early, and we expect sales to wind down by December 3, 2025. 

What stores have the best sales on Black Friday?

Nowadays, both large retailers and small businesses compete for Black Friday shoppers, so you can expect practically every store to run sales through Monday, December 1, 2025. The “best” sales depend on your needs, but in general, the biggest discounts tend to come from larger retailers who can afford lower prices: think places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. You can find all the best sales from major retailers on our live blog. 

Are Black Friday deals worth it?

In short, yes, Black Friday still offers discounts that can be rare throughout the rest of the year. If there’s something you want to buy, or you’re shopping for gifts, it’s a good time to look for discounts on what you need, especially tech sales, home improvement supplies, and fitness tech. Of course, if you need to save money, the best way to save is not to buy anything. 

Our Best Editor-Vetted Cyber Monday Deals Right Now

Apple iPad Air 11" M3 128GB WiFi Tablet (Space Gray) — $559.00 (List Price $599.00)

Dell 14 Premium DA14250 (Intel Core Ultra 7 255H, 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM, 2K Display) — $999.99 (List Price $1,549.99)

Sony WH-1000XM5 — $248.00 (List Price $399.99)

WD 6TB My Passport USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive — $139.99 (List Price $179.99)

Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ 10.9" 64GB Wi-Fi Tablet (Graphite) — $149.99 (List Price $219.99)

Apple Watch Series 11 [GPS 46mm] Smartwatch with Jet Black Aluminum Case with Black Sport Band - M/L. Sleep Score, Fitness Tracker, Health Monitoring, Always-On Display, Water Resistant — $359.99 (List Price $429.00)

Deals are selected by our commerce team

The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: The Horror of Rizzmas Carols

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Generations A and Z contain multitudes. While some kids are gleefully crapping out AI-generated Rizzmas carols—holiday brain-rot so potent it should probably be classified as a controlled substance—other kids are dissecting the work of esoteric 19th-century novelist Robert W. Chambers like they’re in a graduate seminar. And they’re the same kids. So we’re whipsawing between rizz and cosmic horror, with side quests to discover Diddy tag and this year’s hottest Christmas toy. 

What is “67 Rizzmas”?

In what’s becoming a regrettable holiday tradition, the internet has begun releasing rizzmas carols—brainrot versions of beloved seasonal songs. (“Rizz” is slang for charisma, but here it’s just a stand-in for meaningless meme-speak.) In the past, redoing a classic required at least singing over a recording, but the rise of AI has made it nearly effortless to churn out as many brain-rot rizzmas carols as you want—I made Skibiddi Christmas Rizz in 45 seconds. It’s a terrible song; all these songs are terrible, but that doesn’t stop TikTok accounts from churning them out. Perhaps inevitably, one of these AI abominations has become a “hit.” @html.brainrot's "67 on a Merry Rizzmas" has been viewed over 3.7 million times. Set to the tune of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and consisting only of meme lyrics, “67” has grown popular enough that 146,000 other videos have used the song. There are meme-heavy dance videos like this:

understandable critiques like this:

and plenty of AI slop like this:

Merry Christmas, I guess. 

Dumb videos are only one symptom of rizzmas fever. There’s also a rizzmas meme coin that one could invest in, if one were stupid, and so many other unfunny, annoying rizzmas carols to listen to. In the unlikely event that you want to hear more rizzmas carols or want to watch videos of people telling you that investing in rizzmas coin will make you rich, go to the hashtag—there are over 12,000 videos to choose from. 

American Girls Wicked dolls sell out

Remember that Christmas when Tickle Me Elmo dolls were so coveted that re-sellers were charging thousands of dollars for them? This year’s Elmo is American Girl’s limited-edition Wicked dolls. Launched in September for $295 each, the Elphaba and Glinda American Girls dolls quickly sold out. Now they’re only available from re-sellers, where they’re commanding prices of up to $1,000, and it’s only the beginning of December. Whether American Girl is going to sell more of the coveted dolls isn’t known, so if a kid in your life has to have one, you’re going to have to go to eBay or fork over half your bank account to a shady guy in a parking lot on Christmas Eve.

Kids are playing “Diddy tag”

According to TikToker @nestaog’s son, the hottest game in elementary school this year is Diddy tag. “Diddy tag is when you tag someone and that person’s Diddy,” the kid said. “He got baby oil,” he added.

TikTok commenters say that kids in their lives are also playing Diddy-based schoolyard games like “Escape from Diddy’s House” and insulting each other by saying, “you’re going to Diddy’s house.”  

Kids were making and playing games based on the convicted sex offender on Roblox too, until the company banned user-created games with names like “Five Nights At Diddy’s,” “Nice Try Diddy,” and “Diddy Survival” from the platform. Roblox reportedly nuked over 600 fan-created experiences about Diddy and Jeffery Epstein from the service. 

So Diddy is clearly on kids’ minds. While it’s concerning that children know enough about him to cast Diddy as the boogeyman in their schoolyard games, if you think back to your own school days, you were probably playing “Ebola Tag,” “Nuclear War,” or “Vietnam.” It’s how kids deal with their fears. And is it really the worst thing for kids to be warning each other to stay away from Diddy? 

Who is Boy Throb and are they a joke?

Boy Throb is an online boy band who wear matching pink track suits and make videos featuring self-consciously cheesy pop songs. Despite online debate and the group's insistence that they are not a joke, Boy Throb is obviously a joke. But it’s a funny joke. 

The group initially went viral on TikTok about a month ago with this video:

According to the band, an immigration lawyer told them they need a million followers so Darshawn, the Indian Boy Throbber, can get a visa so he can “sing and dance in America.” I’m no attorney, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how immigration law works. A couple of days ago, Boy Throb hit their follower goal on TikTok, but their lawyer had another request:

Now they say that, in order for Darshawn to make it here, they need journalists to write a “couple articles of press” about them. Now, I don’t work for Rolling Stone or Readers Digest, but I’d still like to confirm that Darshawn has extraordinary abilities and he should be allowed to sing and dance in America. 

Viral video of the week: Searching for a World That Doesn’t Exist

It would be easy to look at the brainrot memes and general numbskullery of generations A and Z and despair, but there’s a countervailing force of ad-hoc intellectualism that I find fascinating, as evidenced by the fact that Robert W. Chambers is having a viral moment.

Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with the name. Chambers was a popular author in the late 1800s, known for romances and historical novels, but most of his work didn’t stand the test of time like Dickens or Poe—except for half of one collection of short stories. The King in Yellow was published in 1895, and its cosmic horror is different from everything else Chambers wrote. These short stories revolve around a play called The King in Yellow that will drive you mad if you read it. The book has been a cult favorite of horror weirdos since it was published—it’s my personal choice for best piece of horror literature ever written, but it’s esoteric and dense, so it’s strange that The King in Yellow is having a pop culture moment among the young people.

There’s been no shortage of popular culture riffs on The King in Yellow—John Carpenter’s 1994 feature In the Mouth of Madness and the first season of HBO’s True Detective especially—but Chambers’ Yellow King is catching on with the YouTube and Minecraft generation in a bigger way.

This three-and-a-half hour long close reading of the King in Yellow from YouTuber Wendigoon has been viewed over four million times:

In it, Wendigoon illustrates how the titular figure in Chambers’ novel is a malevolent mimetic entity, a supernatural thought-contagion that spreads through information. Chambers was definitely ahead of his time.

Like its namesake, the King spread to even more young people in the form of a Minecraft alternative reality game, courtesy of YouTuber Wifies, whose “Searching for a World That Doesn’t Exist” is this week’s viral video. 

Wifies’ video details the unfortunate adventures of a young gamer who finds a laptop in a storage container and plays Minecraft on it, only to discover a haunted virtual world with plenty of similarities to Chambers’ work. "Searching for a World That Doesn’t Exist" draws its understated dread from a combination of Chambers’ themes and the uncanny alienation of Minecraft itself. It’s subtle and thoughtful—the opposite of brain-rot—and the kids are into it.

“Searching” has been viewed over a million times, Google searches for “The King in Yellow” are through the roof, and fans are responding with tribute videos and memes, and the phrase “Don’t go left” is growing as a catch-all warning. Some kids are probably even reading the book and connecting the constant temptation of forbidden knowledge to their own lives lived entirely online.