Mashable • March 5 2026

The Looksmaxxing Glossary: Understanding the internet's most unhinged subculture

Every so often, a word or phrase claws its way out of a cultural underground and into the mainstream lexicon. More often than not, it's African American Vernacular English (AAVE) that gets co-opted by TikTokers before landing on Good Morning America, say. Slightly cringe, mostly harmless.

But some slang breaks containment in ways that aren't so benign.

Case in point: looksmaxxing. This term, which has recently been explained to viewers of NBC News, refers to the practice of maximizing your phy...

Mashable • March 5 2026

Sarah J. Maas announces two new 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' books

Fantasy author Sarah J. Maas has big plans for the future of A Court of Thorns and Roses. In an appearance on the March 4 episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, Maas revealed that not one but two new ACOTAR books are on the way — and they'll be arriving just a few months apart.

The sixth book in the ACOTAR series will hit shelves on Oct. 27 of this year, followed by the seventh on Jan. 12, 2027. (Insert 67 joke here.) Speaking with host Alex Cooper, Maas said the upcoming releases are part of a...

Mashable • March 5 2026

X is reinventing its Creator Subscriptions. Here's what to know.

Elon Musk's X is reinventing its Creator Subscriptions, dubbing the new offering — wait for it — Creator Subscriptions 2.0.

Creator Subscriptions, in effect, allow people to pay their favorite influencers for exclusive offerings. That's right, some major changes are coming to the website formerly known as Twitter (and not just a continued lurch toward the far right). So, what's new? A few things. Here's what you need to know.

X rolled out the ability for creators to hide a thread for subscrib...

Mashable • March 4 2026

Apple's MacBook Neo is the most colorful MacBook yet — and the internet has thoughts

For years, Apple laptops have lived in a world of tasteful restraint: silver, space gray, maybe the occasional muted gold Apple calls starlight. Functional, sleek, and, depending on who you ask, a little boring.

So when Apple unveiled the new MacBook Neo, a lighter, more budget-friendly addition to its laptop lineup, it wasn't just the $599 price tag that caught people's attention. It was the colors.

Do you want a yellow laptop? Apple is banking on it.

The Neo arrives in four shades (blush, i...

Mashable • February 27 2026

The Pokémon memes that defined the last 30 years

When Satoshi Tajiri created Pokémon, he imagined it as a way for kids to connect. The original games, released in Japan in February 1996, required a physical Game Boy link cable to trade creatures, turning strangers into trainers and playgrounds into real-life Pokémon Gyms.

The anime reinforced that idea, following Ash and Pikachu's journey as they met new friends wherever they went. Pokémon, in any form, was never meant to be experienced alone.

Thirty years later, that same instinct lives on...

Mashable • February 27 2026

Pokémon's new starters have the internet in a cute aggression spiral

Three hot new bombshells have entered the Pokémon villa.

During its 30th anniversary Pokémon Presents livestream, The Pokémon Company officially unveiled two new paired games, Pokémon Winds and Pokémon Waves, the franchise's 10th mainline generation. Within minutes of the reveal, the online conversation swerved hard in one direction: the adorable starters.

Set in a brand-new, island-dotted region surrounded by a vast, glittering sea, Winds and Waves promise open-water exploration and tropical...

Mashable • February 26 2026

Who is Clavicular, and why is he everywhere right now?

If you've been online in the past few weeks, I'm sorry. That's a general comment, but it especially goes for if you've seen posts and articles about someone named Clavicular.

Clavicular, given name Braden Peters, is a 20-year-old "looksmax" influencer. His claim to fame is going to extreme measures to "ascend," or enhance his appearance, and immersing himself in the world of right-wing influencers. As of this publication, he has around 770,000 followers on TikTok and 190,000 followers on Kick,...

Mashable • February 26 2026

‘Ride the D’: LA Metro has the internet blushing with new transit campaign

Los Angeles is finally extending its transit system to the tony streets of Beverly Hills, announcing on Thursday that a 4-mile extension of the D Line subway opens on May 8.

Transit followers eagerly anticipating the new subway extension have long made jokes on Reddit and X about wanting to "ride the D." Metro, LA County’s transportation agency, is not shying away from the randy pun. The agency is selling "Ride the D" t-shirts and crop tops on its online merch store.

The minimalist black tops...

Mashable • February 24 2026

Has ChatGPT killed the em dash?

Generative AI is doing a lot of harm – environmental, privacy-related, potentially even affecting the brain activity of those who use it all too often. So the demise of a punctuation mark may seem to pale in comparison, but this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter. In this video, we explore whether ChatGPT is killing the em-dash, its centuries-old tradition in English writing, and what the future of the 'ChatGPT hyphen' could look like.

Mashable • February 24 2026

Is Punch the monkey OK? Here are the latest updates.

At this point, Punch the monkey no longer belongs to the zoo. He belongs to the internet.

The 7-month-old macaque at Ichikawa City Zoo near Tokyo first went viral for clinging to a stuffed animal after being abandoned by his mother. (She was just stressed out!) People projected onto him immediately — his loneliness, his resilience, his need for comfort. They rooted for him as if he were the Chosen One in a modern fantasy novel.

And like any good main character, people want updates. Lots of the...

Mashable • February 24 2026

Google included racist slur in push alerts on BAFTA controversy

Google officials apologized after the company sent out push notifications about Sunday’s BAFTA controversy that included a spelled-out racist slur.

The notification linked to a Hollywood Reporter article about the BAFTA film awards and included the following text: "See more on [anti-Black slur]," according to Hollywood Reporter sister publication Variety and screencaps shared on X.

Google officials told Variety that the notifications went out only to a small group of people who receive push no...

Mashable • February 23 2026

BBC under fire after man with Tourette syndrome yells racist slur at BAFTAs

The year’s BAFTAS, the British equivalent of the Oscars, will not be remembered for which movies won, but rather how the BBC handled a shocking moment. During the broadcast, an attendee with Tourette syndrome yelled a racial slur, which could be heard on the tape-delayed broadcast.

The first time the N-word was shouted by John Davidson, whose life was the basis for the BAFTA-nominated film I Swear, was at the beginning of the BBC’s broadcast, as Sinners stars Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo...

Mashable • February 23 2026

Trump celebrates the men's hockey team and demeans the women's

The 2026 Winter Olympics should have been a golden moment for American hockey. Both the men's and women's teams won gold. The sport was already in the middle of a cultural surge, fueled in part by the massive fandom that had formed around Heated Rivalry, the breakout series that made hockey newly legible to audiences who had never cared much about it before. In the weeks before the Games, ice hockey was trending on Google. Women joked about going to the "boy aquarium," turning the rink into a ki...

Mashable • February 23 2026

Watch: Massive snowball fight breaks out in NYC after blizzard

A massive snowball fight broke out in New York City on Monday after a blizzard dumped some 20 inches of snow in the Big Apple.

The wintry conflict took place at Washington Square Park in Manhattan's West Village. Videos of the battle quickly went viral on social media, which is not surprising for a few reasons. One: The videos are fun and joyous. Two: The event was organized by Side Talk, the viral NYC series that famously gave us the "BING BONG" videos.

But look at this snowball fight. It loo...

Mashable • February 23 2026

For YouTube creators, getting hacked by scammers is 'traumatizing'

Nearly a year after his YouTube channel was hacked by crypto scammers, Steve still thinks about the ordeal every day. "I’m scared to leave my browser open," he says.

Steve, along with his wife, Danielle (who are withholding their last name for privacy reasons), launched Vegas Action in 2020, chronicling their wins and losses playing poker and blackjack at Sin City casinos. The couple wanted to highlight their love for Vegas while also showing the reality of gambling (aka, the house always wins)...

Mashable • February 20 2026

The internet is worried about Punch the monkey. The zoo says he's OK.

The internet has fallen in love with Punch, the 7-month-old macaque who clings to a stuffed animal for comfort. So when a video (since deleted) surfaced showing him being dragged across the ground by another monkey inside his enclosure at the Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan, people online panicked.

Clips spread rapidly across social media this week, with viewers accusing the other monkeys of abusing him. People demanded answers. Some accused the zoo of negligence. Others declared the other monkeys b...

Mashable • February 18 2026

CBS claims it didn't ban Stephen Colbert interview from broadcast. Here's what he says about that.

Stephen Colbert has addressed CBS' denial that it barred his interview with Rep. James Talarico from airing last night. In short, he's calling it "crap."

"I was ready to let the whole thing go," Colbert said. "Until a few hours ago, when my group chat blowed up. Because, without ever talking to me, the corporation put out this press release, this statement."

Released on Tuesday, CBS' statement read: "The Late Show was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James Talari...

Mashable • February 18 2026

A very good dog interrupts women's Olympic ski race

A surprise four-legged guest briefly joined the action at the 2026 Winter Olympics during the women's cross-country skiing team sprint qualifying race on Wednesday, Feb. 18 — and quickly became the unofficial star of the event.

As athletes from Croatia and Australia crossed the finish line, a dog suddenly wandered onto the course. The pup paused to glance toward the cameras before appearing to notice the skiers and sprinting toward the finish behind them. (Hey, even canines can have Olympic dre...

Mashable • February 17 2026

CBS refused to broadcast this Stephen Colbert interview. Here's how to watch it anyway.

Stephen Colbert has blasted CBS, claiming that the network has barred him from airing his interview with Texas State Rep. James Talarico. He was also allegedly told that he couldn't even mention not having Talarico on. Of course, that didn't stop him.

"Because my network clearly doesn't want us to talk about this, let's talk about this," Colbert quipped.

The Late Show host spent around eight minutes giving audiences a peek behind the curtain, explaining that CBS' lawyers told them "in no uncer...

Mashable • February 17 2026

The internet is rooting for this abandoned baby monkey and his stuffed animal

There are some stories the internet collectively decides to care about.

This week, it's a little monkey named Punch.

Punch — or more colloquially, Punch-kun — is a baby macaque at Ichikawa City Zoo in Chiba, Japan, near Tokyo. Born in July 2025, he was rejected by his mother shortly after birth. In the wild, that would have meant certain death. At the zoo, where Punch was raised through hand-rearing, it meant something else: survival, and a substitute for the one thing zookeepers couldn't prov...

Mashable • February 17 2026

Snapchat is testing creator subscriptions with new alpha test

Snapchat is introducing a new way for creators to earn revenue directly from their audiences.

Beginning Feb. 23, Snap will launch creator subscriptions in alpha testing with select U.S.-based creators, including Jeremiah Brown, Harry Jowsey, and Skai Jackson. The feature allows fans to pay a monthly fee for exclusive access to content and perks within the app.

Creators can set their own subscription prices, with Snap suggesting tier options. Subscribers will unlock exclusive posts, receive pri...

Mashable • February 14 2026

This dad is turning his 3-year-old's stories into adorable, groovy songs

If you've ever heard a toddler tell a story, then you know they have a tendency to let the narrative meander. Kids often have an excess of imagination and a deficit of mental organization, leading to silly, wildly entertaining tales.

One parent has taken it upon himself to turn his 3-year-old's silly, adorable stories into cute, catchy tunes — songs he's posted online to the benefit of us all. Stephen Spencer is more than qualified; he's a songwriter, composer, and music professor, which means...

Mashable • February 11 2026

Watch Margot Robbie respond to the unpopular opinions of radio callers

Margot Robbie will agree with you that there's a best way to put toilet roll on a holder, and she'll agree that men who idolise The Wolf of Wall Street's Jordan Belfort might not be taking the correct message from the film — but don't you dare try to come for her kangaroos.

In the BBC Radio One clip above, the Wuthering Heights star sits down opposite host Greg James to play "Unpopular Opinion", fielding call from listeners on a wide variety of topics.

The most controversial one? A caller who...

Mashable • February 11 2026

James Van Der Beek dead at 48: The internet reacts

The internet mourned Dawnson's Creek star James Van Der Beek, who died on Wednesday (Feb. 11).

"Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace," the actor's wife, Kimberly Van Der Beek, wrote on Instagram. "There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity, and the sacredness of time. Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend."...