👋 Zoom meeting is on, but no one’s home? We get it. And so does everyone else, apparently, because Oxford University Press named “brain rot” as the dictionary word of the year. The phrase shot to popularity in 2024, with a 230% increase in frequency of use from the year prior. Before we feel too badly about ourselves, our generation isn’t entirely responsible for this phenomenon: The first recorded use of the term was in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden in 1854.
🎧 On the pod:Why Americans are ditching dollar stores.
NEWS FLASH
⚡ Disgraced energy company Enron is back. Kinda. The brand rose from the dead on the 23rd anniversary of the company’s bankruptcy filing with a new website, press release, and promo video. If you started asking questions after seeing a branded puffer vest in the Enron merch store — good eye. The site is, in fact, an elaborate prank from one of the creators of the satirical conspiracy theory “Birds Aren’t Real” who purchased the Enron trademark for $275 in 2020. The site’s terms do state that it’s “performance art” and for “entertainment purposes only,” and it looks like they’ll deliver: A countdown clock promises the release of “something very special.”
🤖 What’s in a name? For OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a lot. The chatbot shuts down if asked about certain names, including David Mayer, Guido Scorza, and Brian Hood. While OpenAI hasn’t provided an explanation, TechCrunch suggests it could be that there’s a list of people who want search engines or AI models to “forget” them, and it’s somehow breaking the bot. For example, Brian Hood is an Australian mayor who previously accused ChatGPT of falsely claiming he had committed a crime, Guido Scorza sits on the board of Italy’s Data Protection Authority, and David Mayer may relate to a late professor who fought for years to have his name disassociated with the pseudonym of a criminal.
🎁 The gamification of gifting: Google launched a star-studded game show for its Shopping platform after finding ~60% of people treat holiday shopping as a competition to see who can find the best gift, per Stephanie Horton, Google’s senior director of global commerce marketing. Jimmy Kimmel hosted each YouTube episode, which dropped daily between Nov. 25 and Nov. 29 and saw celebrities trying to answer questions about various products. Not a bad way for Google to draw attention to some of its Shopping platform’s features, which include new AI tools and filters — though, frankly, we don’t understand the 60% of you who want to make holiday shopping more stressful.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Jaguar is making more waves. Two weeks after it unveiled a redesigned, and highly criticized, logo, the carmaker launched its Type 00 EV concept car. The new model is similarly polarizing, with a long, boxy frame and the choice of a bright pink or blue paint job.
Pizza Hut is piloting a new design concept at a location in Plano, Texas, that features a central pizza-making station where customers can watch their orders being made. The chain is also experimenting with touchscreen ordering kiosks and heated cabinets for pick-up orders.
Elon Musk’s massive Tesla pay package — now worth ~$100B given current share prices — was rejected again by a judge who previously ruled Musk had influence over Tesla’s board. Tesla intends to appeal.
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Wikipedia is the seventh-most visited website in the world, but it’s written and edited by volunteers, is free of paywalls, and has remained a nonprofit since it launched in 2001.
Some argue it’s one of the most reliable sources of information available online due to its careful sourcing and diligent editors, and its annual list of its most-read articles provides insight into which topics garnered the most interest in a given year.
So, what was hot in 2024?
English-language Wikipedia has received 76B+ views worldwide in 2024. The most-visited pages, as of Nov. 22, were:
A list of deaths in 2024 (44.4m+ views): This list has ranked third place or higher each year since Wikipedia began releasing viewer data in 2015.
Kamala Harris (~29m views)
2024 US Presidential Election (27.9m views)
Lyle & Erik Menendez (26.1m): The brothers returned to the headlines decades after being found guilty of the 1989 murder of their parents due to “Monsters,” a controversial yet popular Netflix series, and the news that they’ll be resentenced in 2025.
Donald Trump (25.3m views)
What else?
Crime, entertainment, and politics.
Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris may have taken the second spot, but politics dominated the list, with elections and political figures accounting for 10 of the top 25 pages.
Entertainment — Taylor Swift, Deadpool & Wolverine, Dune: Part Two, Kalki 2898 AD — and sports, like the 2024 Olympics and the Indian Premier League, also made the top 25.
In addition to the Mendendez brothers, controversial figures rounded out the list:
Griselda Blanco, a Colombian drug lord who died in 2012, got 13.5m views, also due to the Netflix treatment.
Rapper Sean Combs (AKA Diddy) got 13.1m+ views. He was arrested and charged with sex trafficking in September.
ChatGPT also scored 16.6m views, down significantly from 2023, when it topped the list with 52.5m+ views.
And yet, all of these big numbers pale in comparison to 2020’s hottest Wikipedia page: you guessed it, “COVID-19 pandemic,” with 83.7m+ views.
Wikipedia, thanks for helping us figure out what the heck everyone is talking about — and for this list of animals with human diplomas.
Like chess? Then you’re really going to enjoythis.
Have a successful Black Friday? No matter which sales you scored, you probably didn’t get your hands on a Birkin. Here’s why.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Counterfeit Gibson guitars seized at the Los Angeles-Long Beach Seaport, which, if real, would have been worth ~$18.7m. US Customs and Border Protection said the operation was the largest recorded seizure of musical instruments and also advised holiday shoppers to scrutinize any prices that seem too good to be true.
Gibsons are made only in Tennessee and Montana, and the company is protective of its iconic designs. Last month, it sent a cease and desist to the owner of Trump Guitars, a line of electric and acoustic guitars that Gibson claims mimics the shape of its trademarked Les Paul guitars.
AROUND THE WEB
📰 On this day: In 1881, the first edition of the Los Angeles Times, then known as the Los Angeles Daily Times, was published.
🐋 That’s interesting: Orcas are wearing salmon hats again. Yeah, it was strange for us to write that sentence, too, but it’s a true story.
👀 My First Million: George Mack shares the best ideas he’s found on the internet.
