In The Buzz Cut, we bring you a round-up of all the weird, controversial, and wonderful stories we’ve been reading all week.

Scientists discovered a parallel universe where time runs backwards, headlines proclaimed this week. In reality, they only discovered signals about some fundamental particles behaving weirdly, which news organizations quickly misinterpreted. Here’s the scoop.

*

Harry Styles released the music video for “Watermelon Sugar” this week, and people understandably started thirsting for the blissful summer that the Covid19 pandemic stole from the world. The sexual thirst in the video itself, however, is uniquely focused on the joys of sex — yet another thing the pandemic stole — that prioritizes women’s enthusiastic pleasure.

*

The Alison Roman-Chrissy Teigen controversy brought to the fore a deep-seated problem in global food culture, that of the global pantry, most often fetishized and appropriated by white people to match a white food aesthetic — that ultimately becomes the food standard to aspire to. Can these food standards ever be set by people of color?

*

The man who predicted the 2008 global recession — whom nobody took seriously at the time — is back, foreshadowing a global depression after the Covid19 pandemic. Here’s what Dr. Doom had to say.

*

People around the world are proclaiming an end to socializing as we know it — casual sex, nightlife, hugs and handshakes — due to the Covid19 pandemic. But if the 1918 influenza pandemic is any indication, we’re about to enter into a “manic flight into sociability.” Is it time, perhaps, for the roaring twenties again, a hundred years later?

*

Parasocial relationships on social media — one-sided connections people have with those they follow — often then suffocating when they’re between “reply guys” and the women they follow. Our communication might have moved to digital, but the faults of it, including racism, sexism and queerphobia, have simply manifested differently, even in superficially healthy manners, through parasocial relationships. Here’s how.

*

The collapse of reality as we’ve known it is upon us. And no, it’s not about the Covid19 pandemic, but the deeply uncomfortable and ubiquitous rise of manipulated video, which technologists have been warning is our last tether to reality, and it has long broken. How is this dystopia affecting us?

*

This week, we might have changed what it means to be a terrorist. A term with predominantly Islamophobic connotations, Canada just slapped it on an incel (involuntary celibate) teenager who stabbed a woman to death in a massage parlor. It’s the first time a gender ideology-based terror attack has been dubbed as terrorism.

*

This week, Lana Del Rey expressed frustration about the way she’s treated for her music, which many have criticized glamorizes abuse, saying women need to be able to show weakness and flaws without being called unfeminist. So far, so good. So why was the reaction to her post replete with outrage? Hint: it’s about racism.