Most Based Comments

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔥🔘🔘

I'm very interested to see if her supporters actually care. There's now a 2nd board member coming out voicing their concern with government meddling in contracts. This is a fully UCP appointed board. (21)

I can't even find out who fired the CEO. Wouldn't the board be the ones to fire the CEO. Lmao (2)

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔘🔘🔘

You can always tell when Nenshi lies. His eyes flutter and he never looks at the camera or the person he's speaking to. (-6)

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔘🔘🔘

I'm astonished support for Nenshi is that high, you'd think the dippers would have figured him out and obviously the rest of AB doesn't know who he is - he's divisive, when he left Calgary as mayor this city was in shambles, he had an approval rating in the 40s and dropping. In his first go he campaigned as a conservative, said all the right things but governed as a high taxing, high spending liberal. When he won his first mayor, from his mother's basement where he lived he said Calgarians weren't racists but when it looked like he was gonna get booted he said Calgarians were racists. He'll say anything to get elected but when in office look out. (6)

I would guess about 70-80% of voters are UCP or NPD no matter who. I am one of them. Why? Because no matter what brain-dead leader the UCP elects, it will not be worse than a lunatic NDP leftist. (1)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: 😡😡🔘🔘🔘

But it won him Calgary elections he basically accused anyone who didn't vote for him of being racist, and somehow it worked. (2)

The problem is that the term racist has been thrown around so much, it has become deluted. It's getting to be that the person using that term is being judged more than the person it's being pointed at. (-1)

Angriness: 😡🔘🔘🔘🔘

But it won him Calgary elections he basically accused anyone who didn't vote for him of being racist, and somehow it worked. (2)

Not voting for a representative of the majority of this province is racist. (-1)

Angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

Absolutely zero surprise. Smith has tapped into Alberta's 'renegade' mentality made popular by King Ralph which appeals to many. Nenshi should reassess his approach and adopt some of that feisty Albertan spirit. As we've seen, embracing Ottawa is a poor strategy for any Alberta political party. (39)

Also embracing victim culture is not interesting for many Albertans (26)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/Constant_Sky9173

Score: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

Number of comments: 1

Average angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

Maximum angriness: 😡😡🔘🔘🔘

Minimum angriness: 😡😡🔘🔘🔘

NEW: Subscribe to /h/miners to see untapped drama veins, ripe for mining!

autodrama: automating away the jobs of dramneurodivergents. Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion

Or maybe it's actually good this time?

im very drunk and shat this out teehee

For the love of god why the frick would he say that 😟

Consider me upset and disappointed (as if redditor's feel any other emotions ). And I was actually going to make a post about how I've been pleasantly surprised at the lack of mask pushback the past 6ish months at doctors appointments. Which is GREATLY appreciated as I've been dealing with a newer chronic health condition, on top of my grandma who's on oxygen needing her doctors appointments as well.

Long story short - I asked my doctor to sign a medical exemption form for me so I can wear a mask to this upcoming necessary appointment. I was once again pleasantly surprised, she didn't question me and I felt like she was finally taking me seriously.

I opened the envelope today and read what she wrote: "Severe Generalized Anxiety Disorder". Not my chronic migraines, or the fact that I'm a care giver. We never discussed this "severe" anxiety disorder and I thought she finally recognized that a) my precautions are not because of my anxiety and b) my increased anxiety was due to my undiagnosed chronic migraines that I developed from a hormone medication SHE put me on.

I'll fully admit that my anxiety got much worse before my migraines were properly addressed. It was an uphill battle where I was not being heard by my doctor - the "it's just anxiety, anxiety, anxiety" bit until I had hospital worthy chronic pain...

But my family and I have masked and taken Covid precautions since 2020. It's infuriating that wearing a mask is likely the reason why my doctors first answer to everything is anxiety. Like pardon me for being educated and trying to protect my family. I guess that makes me incredibly anxious. So be it.

(I'm sending hugs to everyone that can relate🤍 I appreciate every single person on here😷🫶)

You are wrong.

What is even going on anymore pic.twitter.com/mQYO88jRi0

— captive dreamer (@captivedreamer7) February 15, 2025

REPORTER: *asks dumb question*

TRUMP: “I don’t know what you’re talking about and neither do you. Who are you with?”

REPORTER: “HuffPost”

TRUMP: “I thought they died.” 🤣 pic.twitter.com/B14XtHkYhD

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 10, 2025

!chuds

/r/games re- ACK!ts: https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1iciwl6/sony_corp_shake_up_hiroki_totoki_named_corporate/

ReetardEra re-ACK!ts: https://www.resetera.com/threads/hideaki-nishino-elevated-to-solo-ceo-role-at-sie-herman-hulst-remains-as-ceo-of-the-studio-business-group.1094379/

NeoStrags sneed: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/sony-shake-up-hiroki-totoki-named-corporate-ceo-hideaki-nishino-elevated-to-sie-solo-ceo-herman-hulst-reports-to-nishino-now.1680154/

4chuds chudlebrating: https://boards.4chan.org/v/thread/701522090

Kiwiggers are also chudlebrating the return of glorious Nippon: https://kiwifarms.st/threads/sony-hate-thread.87498/post-20448374

!g*mers !chuds !asians

This is your one chance losers, dont mess it up!

Heres review of the movie shes talking about btw:

https://old.reddit.com/r/aznidentity/comments/1648nmn/past_lives_an_analysis_of_the_movie_spoilers/

https://old.reddit.com/r/AsianMasculinity/comments/14gykob/has_anybody_seen_the_new_movie_past_lives_by_a24/

A year into their relationship, Jess and Nate got engaged next to the sea. "It was a golden, sandy beach – empty and secluded," says Jess, 26. "It was just us two there, so it was really intimate."

Except that the couple were actually hundreds of miles apart – and they were role-playing their engagement in the video game World of Warcraft.

Nate, 27, was living just outside London – and Jess was in Wales. After meeting briefly at an esports event in Germany in March 2023, the pair developed a long-distance relationship, playing the game together "from the moment we woke up to the moment we went to bed", says Nate.

The couple still play the game daily, even though they've been living together in Manchester since March 2024. And they know other couples who have found their partners through video games: "It's a different way of meeting someone," says Jess. "You both have such a strong mutual love for something already, it's easier to fall in love."

Nate agrees. "I was able to build a lot more of a connection with people I meet in gaming than I ever was able to in a dating app."

A selfie of Nate and Jess on the left, and on the right, a screenshot from World of Warcraft showing Nate proposing with the words, "Will you marry me?"

Nate and Jess (pictured, alongside their virtual engagement), found love online - but not on a dating app

Nate and Jess are not alone. According to some experts, people of their generation are moving away from dating apps and finding love on platforms that were not specifically designed for romance.

And hanging out somewhere online that's instead focused on a shared interest or hobby could allow people to find a partner in a lower-stakes, less pressurised setting than marketing themselves to a gallery of strangers. For some digital-native Gen Zs, it seems, simply doing the things they enjoy can be an alternative to the tyranny of the swipe.

Internet dating at 30 - a turning point?

Since it first appeared with the launch of match.com 30 years ago, online dating has fundamentally altered our relationships. Around 10% of heterosexual people and 24% of LGBT people have met their long-term partner online, according to Pew Research Center.

But evidence suggests that young people are switching off dating apps, with the UK's top 10 seeing a fall of nearly 16%, according to a report published by Ofcom in November 2024. Tinder lost 594,000 users, while Hinge dropped by 131,000, Bumble by 368,000 and Grindr by 11,000, the report said (a Grindr spokesperson said they were "not familiar with this study's source data" and that their UK users "continue to rise year over year").

According to a 2023 Axios study of US college students and other Gen Zers, 79% said they were forgoing regular dating app usage. And in its 2024 Online Nation report, Ofcom said: "Some analysts speculate that for younger people, particularly Gen Z, the novelty of dating apps is wearing off." In a January 2024 letter to shareholders, Match Group Inc - which owns Tinder and Hinge - acknowledged younger people were seeking "a lower pressure, more authentic way to find connections".

"The idea of using a shared interest to meet someone isn't new, but it's been reinvented in this particular moment in time – it signals a desire of Gen Z," says Carolina Bandinelli, an associate professor at Warwick University whose research focuses on the digital technologies of romance.

Getty Images Joggers running in a parkGetty Images

Many younger people are exploring alternatives to dating apps, from gaming to running clubs and other social activities

According to Danait Tesfay, 26, a marketing assistant from London, younger people are looking for alternatives to dating apps, "whether that be gaming or running clubs or extra-curricular clubs, where people are able to meet other like-minded people and eventually foster a romantic connection".

At the same time that membership of some dating apps appears to be in decline, platforms based around common interests are attracting more users. For instance, the fitness app Strava now has 135m users – and its monthly active users grew by 20% last year, according to the company. Other so-called "affinity-based" sites have seen similar growth: Letterboxd, where film fans can share reviews, says its community grew by 50% last year.

Rise of the hobby apps

And just as in the pre-internet age, when couples might have met at a sports club or the cinema, now singletons are able to find each other in their online equivalents.

"People have always bonded over shared interests, but it's been given a digital spin with these online communities," says Luke Brunning, co-director of the Centre for Love, S*x, and Relationships (CLSR) at the University of Leeds.

"It's increasingly difficult to distinguish between behaviour that's on a dating app and dating behaviour on another platform."

Hobby apps are taking on some features of social media, too: in 2023, Strava introduced a messaging feature letting users chat directly. One twenty-something from London explains that her friends use it as a way to flirt with people they fancy, initially by liking a running route they've posted on the platform. Strava says its data shows that one in five of its active Gen Z members has been on a date with someone they met through fitness clubs.

"[Online] fitness communities are becoming big places to find partners," says Nichi Hodgson, the author of The Curious History of Dating. She says a friend of hers met his partner that way, and they're now living together.

The same appears to apply to Letterboxd, too. With users including Chappell Roan and Charli XCX, it's a popular platform for younger people - two-thirds of members in a survey of 5,000 were under 34.

The company says it's aware of several couples meeting through the app, including one who bonded over a shared love of David Fincher's opinion-dividing 2020 drama Mank. "It could be that seeing other people's film tastes reveals an interesting aspect of themselves," says Letterboxd co-founder Matthew Buchanan.

Why the shift?

So what might be driving this? While dating apps initially appeared to offer "the illusion of choice", and a transparent, efficient way to meet partners, the reality for many has often proven to be different. The Pew Research Center found that 46% of dating-app users said their experiences were overall very or somewhat negative.

The recent decline in user numbers might also be a response to the way some apps are structured – in particular, the swipe feature for selecting potential partners, launched by Tinder in 2013 and widely copied.

Its creator, Jonathan Badeen, was partly inspired by studying the 1940s experiments of psychologist BF Skinner, who conditioned hungry pigeons to believe that food delivered randomly into a tray was prompted by their movements.

Getty Images A psychological experiment with pigeons conducted by BF SkinnerGetty Images

Tinder's swipe mechanism was partly inspired by Harvard Professor BF Skinner's psychological experiments with pigeons in order to understand the brain's reward system

Eventually, the swipe mechanism faced a backlash. "Ten years ago, people were enthusiastic and would talk quite openly about what apps they were on," says Ms Hodgson. "Now the Tinder model is dead with many young people – they don't want to swipe any more."

According to Mr Brunning, the gameifying interface of many dating apps is a turn-off. "Intimacy is made simple for you, it's made fun in the short term, but the more you play, the more you feel kind of icky."

The pandemic may have had an impact, too, says Prof Brian Heaphy at the University of Manchester, who has studied dating-app use in and after the lockdowns: "During Covid, dating apps themselves became more like social media – because people couldn't meet up, they were looking for different things."

Although that didn't last after the pandemic, it "gave people a sense that it could be different from just swiping and getting no responses – all the negatives of dating-app culture," says Prof Heaphy.

And in that context, the fact that video games or online communities like Strava or Letterboxd aren't designed for dating can be appealing. By attracting users for a broader range of reasons, there's less pressure on each interaction.

"Those apps aren't offering a commercialised form of romance, so they can seem more authentic," says Prof Heaphy.

The World of Warcraft characters of PurplePixel and Wochi

The humans behind Wochi and PurplePixel (pictured) met while playing World of Warcraft, though they say finding a partner wasn't their original intention

It's a type of connection free from the burden of expectation. A different couple who met on World of Warcraft – and go by the names Wochi and PurplePixel – weren't looking for love. "I definitely didn't go into an online game trying to find a partner," says Wochi.

But although initially in opposing teams, or guilds, their characters started a conversation. "We spent all night talking until the early hours of the morning, and by the end of the night, I'd actually left my guild and joined his guild," says PurplePixel. Within three years, Wochi had quit his job and moved to the UK from Italy to be with her.

According to Ms Hodgson, "While some dating apps can bring out the worst behaviours, these other online spaces can do the opposite, because people are sharing something they enjoy."

Because of these structural elements, she doesn't think the recent decline in numbers is temporary. "It's going to keep happening until dating apps figure out how to put the human aspect back."

New kinds of dating app

The dating apps aren't giving up without a fight, however. Hinge is still "setting up a date every two seconds", according to a spokesperson; Tinder says a relationship starts every three seconds on its platform and that almost 60% of its users are aged 18-30. In fact, the apps appear to be embracing the shift to shared-interest platforms, launching niche alternatives including ones based around fitness, veganism, dog-ownership or even facial hair.

They're also evolving to encourage different kinds of interaction. On Breeze, users who agree to be set up on a date aren't allowed to message each other before they meet; and Jigsaw hides people's faces, only removing pieces to reveal the full photo after a certain amount of interaction.

It means that it's premature to proclaim the death of the dating app, believes Prof Heaphy. "There's now such a diversity of dating apps that the numbers for the biggest ones aren't the key indicator," he says. "It might actually be a similar number to before, in terms of overall membership."

And there's a downside to people going to more general-interest apps looking for love – people might not want to be hit on when they just want to talk about books. Dating apps, at least, are clear about what their purpose is.

What might the future look like?

In an increasingly online world, the solution to improving relationships might not simply be to go offline. Instead, apps that can offer an experience which more closely mirrors the best of IRL interactions, while tapping into the possibilities of digital ones, might also show a way forward.

With the imminent integration of AI into dating apps, we are "right on the cusp of something new", says Mr Brunning. "It's interesting to see if we'll end up with specific apps just for dating, or will we end up with something a bit more fluid?"

He points to platforms in China that are more multi-purpose. "People use them for chat, for community, and conduct business on them – they can also be dating platforms, but they're often not exclusively for that."

In the meantime, the interactions possible in less mediated communities like World of Warcraft could offer more of a chance to connect than conversations initiated by a swipe.

Jess and Nate's in-game engagement on the beach might not have been real, but the couple are hoping to change that soon. "It's a matter of when, really. There are a few things we need to tick off the checklist, and then she'll be getting her ring," says Nate. And there'll still be a gaming element.

"You can role-play getting married," says Jess. "So it could be funny to get all our friends together at some point in the World of Warcraft cathedral, and we could have a marriage ceremony."

キャラデザ練習
Marlboro black menthol pic.twitter.com/bj8TjM97Pf

— VXDRQ (@vxdrq) February 6, 2025

I'd ping but aevann told me to stop doing that

https://nypost.com/2025/02/17/us-news/doge-discovers-4-7-trillion-in-treasury-payments-were-missing-critical-code/

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doge-says-found-nearly-untraceable-budget-line-item-responsible-4-7t-payments

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/doge-4-7t-treasury-payments-untraceable-b2700115.html

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/doge-finds-47-trillion-virtually-untraceable-treasury-payments

mmt of this Sept 10th 2001 speech that Donald Rumsfeld gave as Sec of Defense early on in Bush's first term

!superheroes

!gaystapo !besties who else would do this

Why did Elon Musk just say Trump wants to bring two stranded astronauts home?

For reasons that were not immediately clear, SpaceX founder Elon Musk took to his social media site X on Tuesday evening to make a perplexing space-based pronouncement.

"The POTUS has asked SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so," Musk wrote. "Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long."

Now generally, at Ars Technica, it is not our policy to write stories strictly based on things Elon Musk says on X. However, this statement was so declarative, and so consternation-inducing for NASA, it bears a bit of explication.

lmao bullshit, Ars loves to sneed about everything Elon does; it's basically TMZ but only covering Elon.

Foremost, NASA has gone to great lengths to stress that the two astronauts referenced here—Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams—are not stranded on the International Space Station.

The astronauts are clearly stranded as has been covered extensively over the last year by even leftie organisations:

NPR also released an article insisting that the astronauts aren't stranded - https://www.npr.org/2025/01/28/nx-s1-5278636/iss-astronaut-rescue-spacex-trump:

Ars comments are of course mad:

Why wouldn't the US government want to bring two stranded astronauts home? Why is this the top comment? What are you mad about?

They were meant to be there for eight days. The eighteen month stay was planned.

And yet they're still stranded there, curious. Why don't they just fly back home? They must want to be there.

The bottom two comments - note the guy who's had an account for 17 years.

Back when he was signing USMCA he had this to say about it

And today, we're finally ending the NAFTA nightmare and signing into law the brand-new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. (Applause.) Very special. Very, very special.

The USMCA is the largest, fairest, most balanced, and modern trade agreement ever achieved. There's never been anything like it. Other countries are now looking at it, but there can't be a border like that because, believe it or not, that is by far the biggest border anywhere in the world, in terms of economy, in terms of people. There's nothing even close.

This is a colossal victory for our farmers, ranchers, energy workers, factory workers, and American workers in all 50 states and, you could almost say, beyond — because it's all beyond. This is all over the world even though it's at one beautiful border — where, by the way, a very major powerful wall is, right now, being built. (Laughter.) Okay? I don't know if I should say that at this particular reading. I know last night it got a very big hand. (Laughter.) Today, they're a little bit like, "Are we supposed to clap now?" (Laughter.)

USMCA has a much weaker dispute resolution process than NAFTA did (something US producers absolutely loathe, Canadian provinces really love doing stupid shit with trade and they can't hold them accountable under USMCA like they could with NAFTA) where countries exchange & approve each others lists of potential dispute panelists. Even in the event daddy has updated this from Biden's list because the treaty requires all the countries to have agreed to changes its unlikely daddy will be able to front load it with yes men. It also allows Canada to just go around the US to the WTO.

The lumber is itself a great deal of lulz that has been going on for decades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_softwood_lumber_dispute but there are three new opportunities for $DRAMA inflation:

• Daddy really doesn't seem to understand how trade works, a tariff on Canadian oil would immediately increase the cost of gas & energy in the US. Just the comment he was thinking about doing it added more than a $1 to oil prices

• Daddy is going to have to argue why his own treaty sucks and why its totally Biden's fault his treaty sucks

• First challenge to congressional authority. Taxing is an enumerated power of congress and the ability of a president to create tariffs is limited. His pet theory is that the impoundment authority that lets sanctions work allows him to create any tariffs he wants. Congress have to choose between challenging daddy or setting a precedent that future presidents could use however they wanted. Bong's PM called you a mean name? 9001% tariffs on all bong goods.

I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: the problem with Rory and people like him is that he has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130. This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years.

— JD Vance (@JDVance) January 30, 2025

Context is the heatmap meme about differences between liberals and conservatives (oikophobia vs xenophobia)

!chuds !sneed he's IQ-poasting

feel like that moment has well and truly passed, everyone I know has increased their meat consumption and takes collagen peptides now

Geez Louise, Vavra has actually gone crazy, remember when Musa was just a side character?He's now part of the main story and so black it's hilarious:

>insults your white intelligence

>brags about his travels

>stares at women in the bath

>apparently may cuck you with a single mom which is meant to be the main hetero romance character in the game???

>White people don't season dey food

Literally.

!g*mers !chuds