From Boy Bands To Man Bands

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Happy Monday, Future Party. Last Friday, the Pentagon released a tranche of 162 files related to UFO sightings — or UAP sightings, as they’re now called. While few of the files offer more convincing evidence of alien life than the photos and videos released over the past few years, it’s hard to imagine better marketing for Steven Spielberg’s upcoming sci-fi film, Disclosure Day.

Clipping — the practice of paying an army of random accounts to create and post short-form clips from longer videos — has taken over the algorithm.

The Big Picture: The amount of clips flooding the internet is reshaping how things go viral — and whether anything can still go viral organically. But as clips become the primary way people engage with long-form content, a culture of repetitive, contextless soundbites engineered to rack up views may become the new norm across every social media feed.

Behind The Cuts: Why can’t you escape all the clips?

Last Upload: While it’s widely understood that clipping is everywhere, few people actually want to talk about it. That was the case when The Verge reached out to RuPaul’s Drag Race producer World of Wonder, AI startup Perplexity, podcaster and former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, and Florida congressional candidate Michael Carbonara — all of whom are known to have run recent clipping campaigns — despite clear evidence that they had employed the tactic.

Maybe no one likes admitting that virality can be manufactured.

Next Posts: With Meta limiting the discovery of original content on Facebook and Instagram, clipping culture may soon be cut off at the knees — placing greater emphasis on creators who can meaningfully build fresh content around a clip.

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Millennials are breaking the bank to see former boy bands in concert.

Why It Hits: Boy bands like the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC haven’t been truly popular since their peak in the early 2000s, but the nostalgia economy has fueled a renaissance for the genre. That resurgence could turn boy bands into viable legacy acts, similar to rock bands like The Rolling Stones and The Who.

Behind The Curtain: Millennials are making their feelings about boy bands loud and clear: “I Want You Back.”

Encore: According to The WSJ, boy bands were only expected to have “a shelf life of about seven or eight years.” But their resurgence shows just how much people want to recapture the simpler energy of the ’90s — especially through “breezy, melodic tracks about love and heartbreak” like the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” and *NSYNC’s “Tearin’ Up My Heart.”

Call it the comfort concert.

Next Tour: There’s a lot of crossover between boy bands and K-pop acts, so it’s only a matter of time before a group from each world collabs on a new track… and breaks the internet in the process.

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66.1% of you voted No, never in Friday’s poll: Have you ever ordered from a ghost kitchen (a delivery-only restaurant with no storefront)?

“None of the food delivery apps deliver to my address. I actually think I’m lucky for this because it’s probably saved me a ton of money.”

“If we’re getting takeout (rare these days), we like to order from places we know and trust.”

“I ordered Goop for months without realizing it was a ghost kitchen. Felt really dumb when I suggested taking my wife there for a date.”

“It’s freaky, and I wish it were more obvious that’s what it was.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join Poll Of The Day, 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.

🎸 Warner Music Group has acquired Red Hot Chili Peppers’ catalog for $300 million.

📺 NBC’s beefed-up pilot season has led to series orders for dramas The Rockford Files and Line of Fire and comedies Sunset P.I. and Newlyweds.

🏈 YouTube and Netflix are expected to split the rights to Monday Night Football games that ESPN previously broadcasted.

📱 Apple has inked a deal with Intel to use its chips in its hardware.

🤖 During the brief period when Sam Altman was removed as CEO of OpenAI, the board reportedly considered merging the company with Anthropic.

🚽 The shortage of materials needed for AI infrastructure has become so intense that construction companies like Caterpillar and toilet brands like TOTO are seeing their stocks pop.

⚽ Fanatics has struck a partnership with FIFA to handle exclusive soccer collectibles, such as trading cards and stickers.

🛴 E-scooter startup Lime is going public to raise up to $250 million.

🚗 A new platform called Forte wants to be the StockX of luxury cars.