https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/18/magazine/national-blackout-power-electricity-outage.html

https://fortune.com/2026/10/26/pentagon-fortress-bases-90-days-off-grid-uk-be-ready-stockpile/

i’ve been seeing some stuff on social media lately and a family member of mine just called and asked if we’d heard anything. i’m in america and our midterms are coming up so i know it’s a strange time. apparently there’s supposed to be a 90 day black out??? there’s only a few things i can find online. our government is requiring the military and its bases to be able to sustain itself with no outside help for 90 days. the mid atlantic and east coast were under a temporary emergency period for three days, october 13-16. the last thing was our power grid is at risk of a 18 month blackout which sounds totally unrealistic.

can someone pls help me figure all this out lol like what’s real and what’s just fear mongering??? like should i be stocking up and telling my loved ones to do the same? is this even worth giving the time of day??? i have ocd and anxiety so this is all i’ve been able to think about and unfortunately i’m starting to panic. i’m trying to ease myself by thinking of it as like, well we’d all be going through it together should it actually occur. i know britain said something too buttt i don’t think that would affect us across the pond too much. idk i think i’m wigging myself out over (hopefully) nothing. life is weird, thanks in advanced! 🫩

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPLAK5hQP/

I am curious if the people in these respective countries have any idea what’s going on. Is there a specific event they are preparing for or is this a general guidance like how the Midwest gets reminders during tornado season.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/s/wnKGg6yJKD

Since the last two to one days my Twitter feed has been flooded with business saying they are firing multiple people and that they are going to stop doing charity programs

Some examples https://x.com/renancaixeiro/status/2114735718195220814

https://x.com/SidnelsonEu/status/2114828448476623168

I saw that Dictionary.com picked "maxxing" as its 2026 Word of the Year:

https://www.dictionary.com/articles/word-of-the-year-2026

I thought I understood the term from seeing "looksmaxxing" on TikTok. Basically trying to make yourself more attractive, right?

But now apparently people are sleepmaxxing, fibermaxxing, cozymaxxing, and even doing something called tokenmaxxing at work.

What's confusing me is the reaction. Some people are treating this as perfectly normal internet slang, while others seem genuinely bothered by the word being recognized by a dictionary. I've also seen comments saying it originated in incel communities, which seems like a pretty big leap from people joking about optimizing their breakfast.

Where did the double-x version actually come from, how did it spread to basically every activity imaginable, and why is the Word of the Year announcement controversial?

It’s the guy in the third panel of this meme:

https://www.reddit.com/r/initiatedsopranos/s/iZKEsTndzS

I've been seeing a lot of 'text message' exchanges (can I describe it as fan fiction?) between Jon Bernthal and "you", where Jon is "your" dad's best friend, "your" neighbour, "your" baby daddy, etc... It's normally set to some viral audio like Shadows by May Blue.

The format explains itself, but why this actor in particular? He had a supporting role in Spiderman right but I can't think of anything else he's been in. Why not a more 'sexy' actor like Tom Holland or Timothee Chalamet?

Here's an example

https://youtube.com/@blndsundoll4mj?si=AUBwHDohp0E_EGdo
I used to watch a lot of shane dawson back in the early youtube days and I watched all the shit with him go down in real time and now I really enjoy the content that makes fun of him on the internet because in hindsight his content was fucking insufferable lmao but anyway trish was kind of an adjacent content creator that I never really watched but would constantly hear about. I know there was like drama with her when she got married and had her first kid, but I recently went to google that one picture of her crying and saw that she’s like releasing music videos and a book? and so i’m trying to figure out if she’s somehow made it back around to being camp or if she’s still in that like category of weird toxic og youtubers. I personally always thought she was just kind of the youtube clown that goes on random side quests and says insane shit on twitter but I also don’t ever see anything about her these days or seek her out so lmk what you think about her

I have seen a lot of memes and post but i'm pretty lost

https://x.com/i/trending/2114629549640081737

Seriously, this was on my "for you" when I opened up the site just now.

same horse? : r/bigfoot

This was not the first time either. I've had this happen regularly over the past few days. I've never engaged in any Bigfoot related content in the past and it has very little to do with the stuff I usually engage with which is either a) Cat pictures, b) bitching about video games or c) making fun of sovereign citizens.

Did someone find Bigfoot while I wasn't looking?