What are lavender marriages and why are they on the rise?
Thanks to TikTok trends, a bleak dating culture, and a rising sense of patriarchal dread, we’re pining for platonic love. The term ‘lavender marriage’ originates from the ‘lavender scare’ of the mid-20th century, a period of moral panic fuelled by Sen. Joseph McCarthy and President Eisenhower that saw a widespread...
Current in Offbeat
What is a ‘party gap’ relationship?
Are your partner’s social habits clashing with your own? You might be in a ‘party gap’ relationship. There’s been plenty of chatter around ‘swag gap’ relationships recently. This colloquial chasm between lovers – defined by one’s sense of style and the others’ lack thereof – entered the zeitgeist thanks to...
Police urge caution over viral AI homeless prank
Gen Zers are using AI tools to trick relatives into thinking they’ve let homeless people into their property. The ensuing outrage is recorded and then posted online, with many clips going viral. Now police are warning against the prank, citing safety concerns. We’re sure that you’ve probably seen the AI...
Why are we watching everything with subtitles?
The phenomenon of half-watching, half-listening is symptomatic of a broader degradation in our attention spans. Streaming services have left us paralysed with choice when it comes to entertainment. Nowadays, deciding what to watch on TV can take hours – even longer if you’re compromising with a viewing partner. And when you...
Why is the ‘Rapture’ trending on TikTok?
Evangelists are adamant that Christ is about return for judgement day, and TikTok is apparently the perfect place to get the message out. We really got the ‘Rapture’ before GTA VI? The hashtag #Rapture has over 3,000 hits on TikTok, and there’s a palpable feeling of trepidation among certain circles of...
Gen Z like their love with a small price tag
According to a new survey, young people are spending very little on dating – if anything at all. If you thought the pandemic was the only thing forcing us to stay at home, think again. These days there’s plenty to keep Gen Z off the dating scene – but the main culprit...
How racism sparked the myth that MSG is unhealthy
Many people still believe that the umami-rich seasoning monosodium glutamate (MSG) is bad for their health. This longstanding myth was born out of anti-Asian racism and has since been disproven by science. Let’s investigate its story. Salt, salt, salt… who doesn’t love it? It brings to life the natural flavours of otherwise humble ingredients and satisfies our taste buds in a way that only its opposite – sugar – can compete...
Is ‘mankeeping’ a common dynamic straining straight relationships?
Researchers have finally named the phenomenon experienced by heterosexual women who’ve been told at least once in their lives, ‘You’re not his therapist.’ Angelica Ferrara and Dylan Vergara from Stanford University published an article on ‘mankeeping,’ which theorizes heterosexual men’s growing dependency on their partners for their emotional needs. According to Theorizing Mankeeping: The Male Friendship Recession and Women’s Associated Labor as Structural Component of Gender Inequality research, ‘the...
Are Gen Z ageing faster than their parents?
Gen Z are known for tempering harmful habits like drinking or smoking, but are they destined to age poorly anyway? If you’re chronically online, you’ll have seen self-deprecating videos from Gen Zers talking about how they’re ageing worse than millennials, but is there any genuine credibility behind the jokes about receding hairlines? There might just be. Experts are increasingly warning of a ‘generational health drift,’ in which future cohorts may have...
Opinion – the earthquake magnitude scale shouldn’t be logarithmic
Full disclaimer: I’m no scientist. I’m a journalist trying to understand the logic behind measuring earthquakes logarithmically – meaning each whole number increase represents a quake that is 10x stronger – when this isn’t intuitive to the public. Shouldn’t we measure them out of 100 instead? In the early hours of July 30, a powerful 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck Russia’s Kamchatka Kari peninsula. It caused an volcano in the region...
