BY: JESSICA BEUKER Since about the time it came out, I have remained heavily anti-Tinder. Of course I would never pass judgment on those who actually use it, I just personally have zero interest in receiving dick pics from self-righteous…
Expression & Culture
Photographer left his cushy accounting job to capture the soul of urban homelessness
BY: JOHNATHAN MOSS Photos by Lee Jeffries Accountant by profession, self taught photographer by design, Lee Jeffries left his longtime career to capture the soul that breathes through our city streets. He uses the homeless as his primary focus, casting a light…
There are no guards in this prison—instead it’s run by the world’s most violent gang (Photos)
BY: M. TOMOSKI When the family members of inmates come to the Penal de Ciudad Barrios in El Salvador for their routine conjugal visits the police stand guard outside the prison walls and only outside. In 2013 British photographer Adam…
They told me to go after my dream— too bad I wanted to be a female Hollywood director
BY: ANGIE PICCIRILLO When you walk the hallways of any elementary or middle school, the walls are lined with inspirational posters pushing kids towards higher education, and reminding them to “follow your dreams.” The pessimist in me is somewhat sad…
Photos tell the disturbing yet intriguing stories of feral children from around the world
BY: CONNOR BRIAN Images © Julia Fullerton-Batten There has long been a fascination with feral children, who in their earliest stages were neglected by their parents, lost to the wilderness, and raised by animals. They live isolated in the woods…
That time Ai Weiwei flipped off the world’s most “important” monuments to prove a point (Photos)
BY: CONNOR BRIAN “I think there is a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression.” says Ai Weiwei in an interview with BBC Radio 1 in 2011 He is a man who has experienced the exact opposite of…
Adorable photos of a rescued baby raccoon that lives with a family and thinks she’s a dog
BY: JESSICA BEUKER Last year, Rosie Kemp found an injured baby raccoon that had fallen out of a tree in her backyard in Nassau, Bahamas. The little critter had a broken back leg and had been abandoned by her mother.…
These aren’t photos of traditional Chinese landscapes; they are mountains of man-made garbage
BY: ELI ROSS All too easily your eyes can mislead your mind. Nostalgic imagery is deceiving. As your eyes scan across the foggy mountain peaks and calm rivers that wind through green pastures you probably mistook these photographs for a…
This Chinese amusement park has a death simulator where you can be “cremated”
BY: JESSICA BEUKER People have always been fascinated with death. The uncertainty of what is an inevitable event causes many to wonder, “Will it hurt?” “What will happen to me after?” While there is no way to answer these questions,…
This terrifying new app is like “Yelp” for people, where others can rate and review your life
BY: JESSICA BEUKER We are obsessed with rating things. We rate restaurants, movies, hotels, our workplaces and professors. A new app will let us take the obsession even further—allowing us to rate people. That’s right, Peeple (basically “Yelp for people”)…
This surreal artist ditched his studio so he could paint with light and movement instead (Photos)
BY: ELI ROSS Artist Julien Breton has mastered the art of gesture, working silently in urban environments, using the world around him as his canvas, recording it with a long exposure on a film camera. When he is drawing, it…
Watch James Franco read the Ginsberg poem that captured the spirit of a generation
BY: CONNOR BRIAN The first time I read Howl my chest exploded, the words were a ticking time bomb that sent shockwaves down my spine, it cracked open my skull and out poured out my imagination like a bag of…
A tribe in South Dakota is opening America’s first marijuana resort
BY: JESSICA BEUKER Back in June, the United States Department of Justice granted Indian tribes permission to grow and sell marijuana on Santee Sioux land in South Dakota. The Santee Sioux tribe operates a number of successful businesses including a…
The golden era of skateboarding in 1970s California (photos)
BY: CONNOR BRIAN In the mid-1970s an endless summer struck Southern California, evaporating water in drainage ditches and suburban swimming pools, catalyzing what would change the face of counter-cul- ture forever. Maybe it was the dehydration, or maybe it was…
Take a peek into the surreal custom house of a 65-year-old Russian clown
BY: JESSICA BEUKER On the outskirts of Paris sits a house with a psychedelic caravan parked outside. Lush gardens line the perimeter and the inside has a design so surreal it must have been dreamt up by the severely mercury-poisoned…
7 short stories that will turn you into a literary master over lunch
BY: ROB HOFFMAN A Good Man is Hard to Find By: Flannery O’Connor This piece of classic southern gothic literature offers a commentary on the fickle definition of morality. A family trip turns sour as the grandmother tries to persuade…
The hypnotizing architecture of a city that is reaching towards the sky
BY: CONNOR BRIAN The word claustrophobia finds new definition in Hong Kong. The city is one of the most densely populated places in the world, with over 7.2 million people squished inside and the area of just 1,104 square kilometres.…
Human Library gives people a chance to learn from people rather than books
BY: JESSICA BEUKER “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” That’s especially true if the book is a person. The Human Library lets people check out “interactive books” for half an hour, but the words come straight out of people…
A 12-year-old’s IQ result put her above Einstein and Hawking
BY: ROB HOFFMAN An unlikely genius has emerged in the heart of England’s gypsy community, scoring an IQ higher than some of the world’s most renowned geniuses. On a whim of intuition about his daughter’s exceptional intellect, James Barr took…
An inclusive park just opened for children with disabilities so everyone can have fun
BY: SWIKAR OLI In the city of Kenosha, WI, a joint three-year dream of over 3,000 volunteers, organizers and contributors has come into sharp relief: a playground for children who otherwise had none. The Dream Playground has swings that fit…