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Welcome back from the long weekend, Future Party. Labor Day marks the official baton pass from the summer-movie season to the fall-awards race, with the Venice Film Festival as the clear demarcation point. After just a week of screenings, there’s already a lot to look forward to — standouts include Bugonia, Hamnet, and Frankenstein. Gen Alpha may be too young for those titles, but they’ll have plenty to watch while mom and dad start drafting their Oscar ballots. More on that below.

A new study by NRG found that Gen Alpha — kids born between 2013 and 2025 — love going to the movies.

The Big Picture: While prevailing wisdom says kids love being on their phones, the youngest generation actually craves moments to log off and connect IRL. Going to the movies provides just that, giving Hollywood hope the pendulum is swinging back toward the big screen over streaming.

Behind The Scenes: NRG surveyed 6,100 moviegoers (between six and 60 years old) and found:

Final Credits: The study found that at-home, on-demand entertainment is so status quo for Gen Alpha that “there’s little novelty or excitement to be found in an at-home movie night. By extension, that makes the experience of physically leaving the house and going to watch a movie in theaters feel all the more special.”

And when friends, community, and fandom enter the picture, that’s when moviegoing really shines. It’s why last month’s theatrical release of KPop Demon Hunters crushed expectations — and why Gen Alpha’s favorite entertainment franchises remain Minecraft, Fortnite, and Roblox. Nothing beats a big-screen celebration of their culture.

Coming Soon: The theater of the future won’t just be a place to watch a movie — it’ll be a true “third space,” where audiences can hang out before and after the show, turning a night at the movies into a full social experience.

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Bumble is preparing a radical AI-powered update that will not only transform its app but also revolutionize online dating, giving users access to “the world’s smartest and most emotionally intelligent matchmaker in existence.”

Why It Hits: The dating app industry has undergone a steep financial and cultural decline in the past five years. Almost every platform has lost users and revenue, with Bumble shrinking from a $13 billion valuation in 2021 to just $660 million today. Meanwhile, young people frustrated with the apps are drifting back to in-person matchmaking events. To survive, Bumble recognizes it needs a radical overhaul of its platform.

Behind The Questions: Bumble wants to put matchmaking in the hands of a chatbot designed to know your dating preferences better than you do.

Last Chat: Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd is one of the most influential figures in online dating — she cofounded Tinder (and even came up with the name) and became the youngest woman ever to take a company public with Bumble. In other words, she’s the Queen of the Swipe Right era.

But now, she admits the swipe mentality isn’t great for finding lasting love. In fact, she confessed she wouldn’t have swiped right on her own husband. Even on the apps, looking a little deeper may be the most attractive thing of all.

Next Match: By slowing down dating with an AI-driven, less-is-more approach, Bumble hopes to cut fatigue, improve success rates, and revitalize both its user base and bottom line. If it works, swiping may no longer define modern romance.

89.4% of you voted Yes in Friday’s poll: Do you recycle at home on a regular basis?

“I also do blender composting of all foods and most lawn cuttings. It is time-consuming, but I hope one day — probably after my time on earth — I will have bettered the soil around my home.”

“Aside from being legally required, I do enjoy it.”

“It’s a regular discussion in the household about what is and isn’t recyclable! We differ on when in doubt, what bin to put it in!!!”

“Once I learned that a lot of recycling ends up in landfills or sold to other countries to dispose of anyway, I figured why bother.”

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🤖 Microsoft unveiled two new large language models as it works to wean itself off reliance on OpenAI’s systems.

⌚ Google is betting that the winning formula for AI-powered wearables is to have a lot of Gemini-packed accessories.

💸 OpenAI is making it clear that investing in its pursuit of AGI could lead to a world where money becomes meaningless. Head-spinning.

👔 Are we in the era of American high fashion? Revenue gains for Tapestry, Ralph Lauren, and Coach would say so.

📦 After several starts and stops, the “de minimis” shipping exemption is gone. Your SHEIN order just got more expensive.

📡 Burning Man has discovered the internet. How long before you’re watching the wildest, weirdest livestreams of your life?

🥴 Meta has pulled several unauthorized chatbots resembling Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Selena Gomez, and Anne Hathaway after they began making sexual advances toward users.

📱 Mastodon, a decentralized competitor of X, stated that it doesn’t have the necessary infrastructure to perform age verification. Could that spell the end of the platform?

🛏️ Sleep streams — watching livestreams of people sleeping — have now leveled up to branded content.