Adults-Only Camp

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New week, new you, Future Party. Artist riders for tours or music festivals are notoriously high-maintenance (and often hilarious), but none take the cake quite like John Stamos’ for Riot Fest in Chicago this year. His demands? “A John Stamos look-a-like contest must be hosted by Riot Fest,” “John Stamos masks must be printed out for the crowd to wear,” and “no one is allowed to make eye contact with John Stamos’ hair.” Legendary stuff. The best part is that Riot Fest is actually taking these demands seriously… though it’s unclear how they plan to enforce the no-staring-at-the-hair rule. To be fair, Stamos does have a truly great head of hair.

Sleep-away camps for adults are becoming a popular way to meet new people and connect through IRL activities.

Why It Hits: Modern adults (especially millennials and Gen Zers) have a reported friend deficit, largely due to spending so much of life glued to screens. As America grapples with a “loneliness epidemic,” it’s possible that organized camps that disconnect people from their devices and engage them in playtime can break the ice among strangers long-term.

Between The Activities: Maybe your next vacation will be spent at summer camp just like when you were a kid.

Final Itinerary: So, what goes down at these camps? Well, exactly what you did when you attended in middle school — bunking, ropes courses, tie-dying, boating, and archery. But they also have some activities now that you’re over the age of 21, like paint-and-sip classes and dance parties with an open bar.

Next Time: With many of these camps taking on brand partners to offset costs — Camp Social has been sponsored by Amazon Prime and Dunkin’, while Camp No Counselors has been sponsored by Fat Tire Ale and Bombas — adult camps may be the freshest kind of activation.

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Several startups are introducing AI-powered stuffed animals designed to be companions for young kids. It’s the battle for next-gen playtime.

The Big Play: The techno plushies are being positioned as an alternative to screen time — a way for tots to be entertained while parents are busy. While the effects of too much screen time for kids is well-documented, trading Bluey and Peppa Pig for chatbot-led play could open an even bigger can of worms.

Behind The Plush: Curio’s “Grem” — which The NYT describes as “a fuzzy cube styled like an anime alien” designed by the musician Grimes — is the perfect example of the new AI stuffed animal.

The Future: Grem joins a lineup of other teddy bears, dragons, robots, and other toys with AI built in. While startups dominate the space, Mattel recently announced a partnership with OpenAI that could soon turn the most popular toys into plastic-and-plush chatbots… potentially ones that could even interact with each other.

We’re guessing everyone forgot the movie Small Soldiers.

Prediction: With parents already split on screen time, expect a new divide over AI plushies — which could even affect future play dates.

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69.7% of you voted No in Monday’s poll: Would you ever use thought-reading technology to type or send messages?

“I have far too many thoughts that I don’t want shared.”

“I don’t have enough for bail money.”

“Welcome to no privacy in the future. We should fight against engineering babies, thought reading, loss of jobs to AI. No one seems to care, though. It’s happening.”

“I might even write the mystery novel I keep in my brain.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

🎥 Sugar23 is teaming up with the Ad Council to form Ad Council Entertainment, which will make long-form socially-relevant content, including movies and shows.

🎵 Music-acquisition company Chord Music Partners, which has stakes in the catalogs of The Weeknd and Morgan Wallen, has secured funding from Searchlight Capital to grow.

📺 Tubi has hired TikTok vet Kudzi Chikumbu to spearhead creator partnerships.

😵‍💫 Anthropic updated its Claude user policy to prohibit its use in developing high-yield explosives, and biological, nuclear, chemical, and radiological weapons. Not concerning whatsoever.

🤖 An AI tool called SweetREX, which was developed by DOGE, is being used to automate the review of federal regulations that can be slashed.

😂 Chinese automaker XPeng now lets drivers fling AR emojis at cars that cut them off on the road.

👀 By letting Mississippi’s age-verification law stand, the Supreme Court has opened the door to federally age-gating social media.

📱 Bluesky updated all of its policies and Community Guidelines to fall in line with new regulations in Europe.

🤓 Trend alert: people are creating month-long “curricula” for skills they want to learn or topics they want to study. We approve.