Bruce Springsteen has previewed his upcoming collection Tracks II with a new song, the mariachi-assisted ‘Adelita’. A ode to Mexico’s “soldadera” freedom fighters, this one is taken from the lost album Inyo, which was recorded in the 1990s and was inspired by his motorcycle trips across the Southwest. Check it out below.
“There was constant border reporting in the Los Angeles Times, so it was a big part of your life,” Springsteen said in a press release. “Inyo was a record I wrote in California during long drives along the California aqueduct, up through Inyo County on my way to Yosemite or Death Valley. I was enjoying that kind of writing so much. [On The Ghost of Tom Joad tour] I would go home to the hotel room at night and continue to write in that style because I thought I was going to follow up The Ghost of Tom Joad with a similar record, but I didn’t. That’s where Inyo came from. It’s one of my favorites.”
Tracks II: The Lost Albums will be released on June 27. So far, the Boss has shared the title track from Faithless, the score to a movie that never got made; ‘Blind Spot’ from Streets of Philadelphia Sessions; and ‘Rain in the River’ from the compilation Perfect World; and ‘Repo Man’ from Somewhere North of Nashville.
It’s easy to trace a narrative thread between the title of Shura’s new album and its cover artwork: I Got Too Sad for My Friends, so I dressed myself up in insufficient armour, ripped jeans, a jumper, Converse, and headed off to the mountains. And then it begs the question: Are the little gremlins circling our protagonist friends, manifestations of nervous catastrophizing, or remnants of a creative imagination that never stops running when we’re kids? After the pandemic halted the momentum of the British singer-songwriter’s previous album, Forevher, she found herself at a roadblock – unable to listen to, much less write, music that inspired her – but also a different kind of community in video game streaming. She’d chased her dream of living in New York, albeit at a time of stifled human interaction, before moving back to London without realizing that’s what she was doing. I Got Too Sad for My Friends not only offsets some of the encroaching loneliness with guest features from Cassandra Jenkins, Helado Negro, and Becca Mancari, but blankets its accompanying despair with rich swirls of sound and textured instrumentation, even upping the tempo on some of the pop songs. Call it a counter-narrative: I Got Too Sad for My Friends sounds like a joyful experience.
We caught up with Shura to talk about video games, The Little Prince, Brooklyn, and other inspirations behind her first album in six years.
Video games: Baldur’s Gate 3, The Last of Us
While Baldur’s Gate is maybe a more obvious reference because of the aesthetics of the record, I certainly remember The Last of Us, particularly the second game, being a huge character in my life. I’d just moved to New York, and we landed to the news that gatherings over a certain number of people were now canceled. And I was like, “Oh, okay. I picked a very interesting time to live here, I guess.” A few months later, the game came out. I had loved the first game. I’d never played it – it’s a bit too frightening for me, but I had watched my twin brother play it, and it was like watching a great TV show. I knew that I couldn’t really watch him play it because we weren’t living together anymore, and I was alone, so I was like, “Guess I’m gonna have to get over it.” [laughs]
When something’s bad, some people go for an antidote, so some people will try to listen to happy music when they’re sad. I’m the opposite. I want to wallow. If we’re gonna be sad, we’re gonna really feel it to the extreme. I remember playing this game and watching every single apocalypse movie that ever has been made, whether it was Contagion or Deep Impact. I was really drawn to that.
How was your relationship with music at the time? Was there a similar impulse?
I couldn’t listen to music. It was really weird. When something becomes your job, your relationship to that thing certainly changes, so I’ve definitely gone through phases where I don’t look for new music as much. Whereas as a teenager, it was either music that was brand new or music that was new to me, and I would be constantly trying to be a sponge. And I’ve certainly gone through periods, especially when I’m recording, where I tend not to listen because I really fall hard for records. And if I fall too hard, I get frightened that I’ll try to make my thing into something that it’s not supposed to be. So I try to remain neutral when I’m recording. With this, I couldn’t listen to any music. The only way I can describe it is: I felt awful for all musicians. Because I knew what I was experiencing – I’d had an album campaign and a tour that just disappeared, more or less overnight, and my brain was like, “I guess I threw that record in the bin.” All that love and care and blood, sweat, and tears, whatever it is that’s gone into all these records – there was something deeply distressing to me about that. I should’ve just worried about myself and maybe listened to some records – maybe would’ve been a bit nicer. [laughs] But yeah, I could only listen to podcasts, spoken word.
Did streaming video games offer some kind of alternative to that?
100%. At that time, we were being asked a lot to do Instagram Lives and do acoustic gigs in our living room. I’d done as much as I could to give it a vibe, and I remember doing one and I was just like, “I am literally singing at a wall.” Doing this performance made me feel more acutely depressed about not being able to do it the way we would’ve liked to have done it. I was playing The Last of Us, and my partner was like, “What about streaming?” I never watched a stream and was like, “Why would anyone do that?” We just put one on one evening, and within ten minutes, I was like, “I fully understand this.” It’s like a digital version of when you used to invite your friends over when you were 15 and play Mario Kart. I play the game, and I can read the screen, and I can talk to my fans, and they find it hilarious. It’s fun if you’re good. It’s fun if you’re bad. You can just be completely yourself. You don’t have to remember any lyrics. [laughs] I still have a Discord community as a result – I’m not streaming as regularly, but it’s this really beautiful community, and it really made sense at the time.
What I will say about The Last of Us, the fact that there are zombies is the least interesting thing about it. I know people who aren’t gamers won’t necessarily know or really care about, but it was one of the first triple-A games – big studio games – where the lead character is explicitly written as queer. For me, that was a really cool thing. You know, I’ve played The Sims – I’ve been gay in The Sims, like a lot of queer people were gay in The Sims before they were gay in real life. [laughs] But to have it written that way, and it not be an option – it’s not that you can flirt with a person of the same sex – in a game of that kind of magnitude was really cool.
The Little Prince
How did that come up as a reference point for the album artwork?
I was thinking about the aesthetics, and I was talking to my partner about them. I’d begun making a mood board, and there was Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet on there – that’s just an image that I’ve always loved. It was funny reading Cassandra’s inspirations, and I saw that that Romeo and Juliet came up. If you were a young person when that film came out, it just affected you. I’m half Russian, and I also had a lot of images that I’d scanned from illustrated children’s books. They had this quality to them where they were sort of rudimentary and quite childlike. So I started putting all these things together in a mood board to send to Gilad [Kaufman], the art director for the record, and my partner, who’s kind of a cultural sponge, was looking at it, and she’s like, “Have you read The Little Prince?” And I was like, “No, but obviously, I know about it.” She said, “You should read that.” And I went out that day, to my local bookstore, and it was there on display. I just started it that evening, finished that evening, and was really struck by it.
Obviously, I knew it to be a children’s book. And yet if you read it as an adult, you realize it’s absolutely not a children’s book. Children can read it, and they’ll get stuff from it. But it’s a very profound book and meditation on so many things that I think was ruminating on during the writing process: the idea of trying to find something, someone, a place where you belong and feel at home; the isolation; the absurdity of human existence. But there was one image in particular that really struck me. I liked the idea of armor and the metaphor wearing armor, but not really armor that you would ever fight in – if you were gonna fight, you would wear armor that protected your head, your vital organs, you’re not gonna just sit there in pauldrons and be like, “I’m ready.” It might stop you breaking your arm, but that’s about it. [laughs] You know, you’re still gonna die.
It was this image of the little prince standing on top of a mountain with his little scarf blowing in the wind, on planet Earth, being told that Earth was full of people, and it’s the one place you can’t find anyone just because of where he’s landed. And I was like, “God, that really resonates with me.” Even though I was living at home with a partner who was incredibly supportive and who I loved and have many wonderful friends and amazing family, when I was at my lowest, it did feel a bit like standing on the moon alone, or standing in this place you’ve been told is lush and full of life – and I felt I couldn’t find any. I couldn’t find any life. I didn’t know where to look. I didn’t know that I was looking in the wrong place.
I really wanted to try and make sure that this scene of me wearing anachronistic armor and jeans was on top of a mountain. The reason I’msat on a rock is that we just couldn’t climb the mountain in time. [laughs] It just took three hours just to get there with all the gear, and we were like, “Well, this rock will have to do.” Actually, I’m sort of pleased because I think it’s a little bit different – there’s a body of water, and the rock’s sort of interesting. I sort of imagined something a bit more desperate and lonely-looking, and there’s something about this cover that was maybe more stoic than I was imagining, which I think is also beautiful.
There are also these imaginary creatures – “little gremlins,” I think Gilad called them – that made me also think of the imaginary as a place of deep anxiety rather than innocence and dreams. Like on ‘Online’, when you keep singing, “I can imagine.”
I think that’s the issue with my imagination at times, is that it’s very focused on all the bad things that can happen. With the creatures, there’s no way of necessarily knowing whether they’re nice; it’s even ambiguous in the artwork. Some of them maybe look a bit scary and some of them are not necessarily bad gremlins, but they’re gremlins nonetheless. And I think that’s the thing we often do with anxiety – we take something that is not a threat necessarily, but we make it so, or we react to it as if it is so, which I found interesting to me.
Brooklyn
I know you had to move back to the UK at some point while making the album. How far into the process were you?
Not super far. I didn’t realize I was moving back. I think that’s the weirdest part. I was leaving to go back and do some music and do some writing, and I just hadn’t really checked and thought about the implications of that. I’d sort of seen that basically you couldn’t really come back to America – I had a visa, but you had to prove there was something in place, that you were part of a company earning over a certain threshold and that your travel was essential. I could have maybe tried, but I hate flying. The idea of going all the way back and being like, “No, you can’t come here.” That’s sort of what ‘Leonard Street’ is about – it was liminal in the sense that I was supposed to move there, and then, when I did, where I moved to didn’t really exist as I knew it anymore. And then I went home and didn’t get to say goodbye.
There was a thought that certainly occurred – again, this is part of the anxious catastrophizing, the “I can imagine” part – which was when the Uber arrived. In fact, before the Uber arrived, I went around the whole apartment, to really be present and really take it all in because I was like, “What if I never come back?” It was the closest I get to being, I guess, spiritual – I was like, “I really must scan it and take a photograph in my mind.” I remember sitting in the cab, waving to my partner, thinking this might be the last time I take a cab from this location to the airport. Τhere was a fear there.
I’d been going to New York and Brooklyn for years before I finally moved, and I loved it. My social life was quite rich there – I almost knew Brooklyn better than I knew London, it felt. I had places I would go and get a coffee and spend half a day there, and there would always be someone to talk to and hang out with. And then when I finally moved, that was no longer really available to me. So I feel like I didn’t quite finish the thought of what it would be to live in Brooklyn. I really look forward to going back. I don’t know if I’ll ever move there again; I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to it. Maybe not for a few years.
You mentioned ‘Leonard Street’, which has these lyrics that stood out to me: “I woke up in the winter like a bird in the spring/ I could see inside apartments full of people that I know I’ll never meet.” The way that you sing and frame it, to me, sounds like: I’ve moved away from this place, but I remember the possibilities and fullness of people. And that’s a different kind of grief.
Yeah, there’s a lot of grief on the record. I haven’t said it anywhere, but it’s nice that you should pick it out. It made me a bit emotional, actually, but that’s one of my favorite lyrics on the record. It’s probably also the most lyrical and indirect I’ve been – normally my lyrics are very matter-of-fact, I try not to wrap things in too much metaphor. But that was maybe the most opposite of that that I’ve ever been in a song. There’s so many ways of reading that line, which is why I like it. I think it works for me in the sense that it’s like finally getting here and it not being, in a quite literal sense, the right time to be here. I’m like, “Hi, guys,” and it’s the depth of winter and everyone’s inside and I’m like, “Oh, okay.”
For me, it’s also about sometimes being weirdly comfortable in hardship or being fulfilled by hardship – not as a compliment to my brain or myself, but I’ve always loved winter, for instance. I love being cold. I love the idea of wrapping up against the elements and facing them much more than I like the idea of wearing a T-shirt and being comfortable on a beach or whatever. There are slight instincts I have, I think, towards hardship. I wonder if that’s like a cultural thing I got from my mom – I don’t know. But I love that lyric, and I tend not to say it when people ask me what my favorite one is, because I feel like I just spend four hours waffling, and sometimes it’s just more fun for people to interpret it the way they want to.
There’s another single where Brooklyn comes up, and it’s ‘Richardson’ with Cassandra Jenkins. Apart from the lyrical connection to Brooklyn, what did it mean for you to have artists from New York sing on this record?
One of the things I was so excited about moving to New York is that there are so many incredible musicians there. I was really sort of looking forward to connecting with them and shifting the perspective from where I was making music. I’d made a record in London, and I’d made a record about falling in love in New York, but I still made it in London, and I was ready in my life for a big adventure. Didn’t realize quite how big it was gonna be. [laughs]
Cassandra’s music is some of the first music that I could listen to when I began to start exploring the idea of listening to music again. I’m definitely a lyrics person in terms of enjoying music. I was always really struck by Cassandra’s way of saying things. She was a complete surprise to me in the sense that I went to a show and Okay Kaya was playing, who I love, and Cassandra was supporting. I remember just having this very visceral, in-the-room reaction of “Who the fuck is this, and why haven’t I ever listened to their music?” This was before An Overview on Phenomenal Nature came out. I was just completely struck by their music. And then Overview came out, and I think I only listened to that record for about a year. It became a reset for me. She’s so economical with what she’s saying and not saying, and what she’s letting you dream up as a result.
And then, of course, there are the meditations on grief. I wasn’t grieving a person at the time, but I was grieving in other ways – grieving the end of an album campaign, grieving a move to a place that no longer felt like what I thought it would be, grieving the loss of a sense of self. Who was I in this moment if I wasn’t writing or making music? If I’m not doing that, then who am I? From the moment I first saw that show, I thought, this person is incredible, I’d love to work with them. We talked about it for a few years, and in the end, I just sent Cassandra a sort of “menu” of songs. I really wanted her to say yes, but it wasn’t necessarily helpful. I was like, “It could be this, it could be that. And if you don’t like this, it could always be that.”
But Cassandra, being Cassandra, was much more chill about it. She said, “Let’s just book it. I’ll have a listen.” And then I think the day before we went in to record, she said, “Where I’m at right now, it feels like ‘Richardson’ is the one I’d like to hang onto.” It surprised me, but I’m so glad she picked that one. It feels like the perfect song for her to be on. Obviously, the connection to New York, but it being about that time in my life that was very much soundtracked by her. In a kind of cosmic full-circle way, we both really enjoyed that.
Desolate Landscapes/Cosmos
I’ve always been really upset with how math is taught in school. It’s all to do with money, how maths is taught here. I found it incredibly boring. But if someone had told me, math is how we get a person to space and back again, I’d have been like, “Holy shit. I’m gonna study maths.” There’s a world in which I would have quite liked being an astronaut. But I’ve always been in love with space. I’m not a religious person, so I think that’s the closest I get to spirituality is being in awe of space and the natural world.
I love being in the mountains. After I finished my degree, I’d been reading a lot of Latin American magical realism, and I was determined to go there. So I went alone. I did an intensive two-week Spanish course in Bolivia, and then went trekking in the mountains. It felt like the closest I could get to space, to being an astronaut, because they are kind of alien landscapes to me; I hadn’t grown up in a mountainous country. I’m really interested in the beauty of vastness, because there’s a bit of fear as well.
I once did a sensory deprivation float around the time I finished the record. You’re in this completely dark tank, and there’s a ton of salt in there. It’s meant to be good for sleep, creativity, relaxation. And I literally felt like a fetus floating through the birth of the universe. I promise I wasn’t drunk and I had taken no drugs. [laughs] But it was that feeling of weightlessness, like, “I’d be happy to do this, actually.” Which is weird, because it’s like 2001, A Space Odyssey with the giant baby in the sky. I kind of felt like that baby, but I was comforted, whereas when I watch that film I’m highly disturbed.
Listening to your inner child
I thought I might never get to make a record again. So it was that selfish, childish thing of: I want all the sweets I can see in the sweet shop. I wanted to approach this record by doing all the things that either I wish I’d already explored or have never done and want to. I wanted to really make decisions that bring me immediate joy. So it was like, “I’ve never worked with clarinets – let’s do that. Let’s have woodwinds. Let’s all record live. Let’s sing live. Let’s play together.” All of my records until that point had been recorded in quite a disjointed way, very bedroom producer and then adding bits later and going in and rerecording all that stuff. Because I can imagine this being the last one – it may not, but just in case – the next one is not guaranteed, so what do you wanna do now?
I think we often go, “What advice would you give to younger you?” And I was thinking, why do we assume that we always have advice for the younger version? What would my younger version tell me to do now? What if I flipped that? What if I’ve forgotten how to have fun? I was really interested in asking the me that wanted to be a musician when I was 13, who wasn’t a professional musician, “What do you wanna do?” We’re doing this now, so what do you wanna do? That’s definitely in the music, but it’s also completely in the artwork. I used to dress up in silly costumes all the time as a kid.
But it was funny hearing it framed back to me. When you do inner child work, it’s like, imagine a three-year-old version of yourself: You wake up, what are you gonna do? You’re gonna give them breakfast. Whereas if I as an adult, I might not make myself breakfast because I’m busy, I’m stressed. It’s like, “No. Make yourself breakfast. Look after yourself as if you were that person.” And then someone reframed it to me: “It sounds like three-year-old you carried you out of this period of depression. Rather than you saving yourself via your inner child, it sounds like your inner child was the hero.” And I’m like, “Thank you, tiny Shu, for realizing that you were the one that knew the way out.” Because I think grown up Shura had somewhat lost their way, and toddler Shu was like, “I got this!”
Her dad’s record collection
Were those also records you listened to as a child?
There were records I was definitely exposed to and that I have core memories of. My dad is a big lover of music. After a period, he stopped listening to new music, so he’s very much stuck in a certain era. But I remember growing up and listening to a lot of Simon & Garfunkel and James Taylor. To me, I was like, “Wow, this is from another world.” I remember him often sitting down and talking about songs and, especially with Simon & Garfunkel, talking about harmony. Harmony is such a big part of this record in a way that I’ve explored it a little bit on maybe the second album, not at all really on the first. But it was music that is satisfying, that resolves. The emotion doesn’t necessarily have to resolve, or the sentence doesn’t have to resolve, but musically, there’s a resolution.
I was interested in playing with these topics that are quite difficult and often unresolved and often question marks or anxieties or things you can imagine are happening, but then having the bed in which they all live to be very comforting, to have all these layers of harmony. Going back to desolate landscapes or mountain ranges, they have a texture to them that’s so tactile. I don’t know how else to explain it, but whenever people say green is boring, I’m like, “Have you actually looked at grass? Have you looked at a have you looked at a tree recently?” [laughs] I was just in this world of wanting to work with natural-sounding things, hearing a clarinet and being like, “This kinda sounds like a person.” All these textures that I think I was soothing myself with bled onto the record.
Memoir
I did an English literature degree, because I loved reading. I loved fiction. Went to South America because of, you know, a book that I loved. But weirdly, doing it as my degree somewhat extinguished the kind of love that I’d had for it as a kid. I think when you’re forced to read a book that’s 500 pages long in a week and then also write an essay about it, reading becomes a chore. So I found myself reading less and less fiction as an adult. I would occasionally pick up a nonfiction book – say I’d watch Chernobyl, then I’d read a book about that, and that’s fine.
To not read fiction is like not watering your brain. It’s like saying, “I don’t drink water,” in my opinion, as a creative person. To not read fiction is like, “Well, good luck if you’re not gonna water your brain in that way.” So at that time when I was really struggling to write anything, I found memoir – because it reads like a middle ground to me, if it has a bit of that magical realism element of, you’re not sure what’s truth and what’s a version of it. I’d read a lot of Maggie Nelson. I’d just read Olivia Laing’s Lonely City, which obviously, as an English person in New York feeling lonely, really struck me.
It’s what led me to also write something. It wasn’t songs at first, but I was like, “I’m gonna keep a diary.” I never kept a diary in my life, I wish I had. I would start the diary most days with 10 objective observations, and then I would talk about the day that I’d had. Because also in that period of time when none of us were really doing very much of anything, it was very difficult to have a concept of how much time had passed or what you had done the day before because every day was a very similar thing. Except I found out when you keep a diary, it wasn’t. And actually, the days were really different when I kept it. Big things happened that I wouldn’t remember if I hadn’t kept a diary. With ‘America’, you have another case of police brutality, and then literally the very next day, Elon Musk is sending someone into space. I can’t write songs unless I find what I’m talking about interesting, and reading that back after feeding my brain with memoir, I started to go, “These two things are interesting. This is a story that I can tell.” I can talk about how we covered all the mirrors in the apartment because we were sick of seeing ourselves. And suddenly, I was interested in my own life again – and the observations about what I could see other people doing, what we were doing – enough to write.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Alex G is back. Having signed to RCA last year, the singer-songwriter has announced his first album for the label, Headlights. The follow-up to 2022’s God Save the Animals is set for release on July 18. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘Afterlife’, which is accompanied by a Charlotte Rutherford-directed music video. Check it out below, and scroll down for the LP’s cover art and tracklist.
The banjo is at the forefront of ‘Afterlife’, which homes in on the sprightly, direct sound of Alex G’s previous album while further twisting its surreal, animalistic lyricism. Which is to say, the artist’s major label pivot does not seem to have dramatically altered his approach – only brightened it. According to a press release, Headlights is “a collection of absurd twists and mundane milestones,” demonstrating how “Alex’s lexicon of symbols and sounds has, over years and albums, grown into something bigger: a musical mythology that is affecting and unmistakable.”
Headlights Cover Artwork:
Headlights Tracklist:
1. June Guitar
2. Real Thing
3. Afterlife
4. Beam Me Up
5. Spinning
6. Louisiana
7. Bounce Boy
8. Oranges
9. Far and Wide
10. Headlights
11. Is It Still You in There?
12. Logan Hotel (Live)
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In online games today, you are not just playing but also presenting. With every hairstyle, skin texture, accessory, or wardrobe tweak, players are crafting digital versions of themselves with surprising nuance.
The line between fashion, identity, and play has blurred into something richer: a customizable, cultural mirror of who we are or who we want to be.
Why What You Wear in Games Matters
In the past, gaming avatars were static. A few default faces. A limited color palette. Clothing that rarely went beyond utility. Now, entire platforms are designed around what your avatar wears.
Look at open-world MMOs, social simulators, and virtual casinos. These aren’t just entertainment but places of self-styled expression. Your character’s appearance becomes your calling card. Your virtual skin might communicate confidence, rebellion, humor, or elegance.
Fashion in digital worlds is no longer cosmetic. It’s communicative.
The Culture Behind Custom Skins
Custom skins aren’t just “cool.” They carry meaning. Streetwear, high fashion, punk, and retro-futurism are all reflected in digital gear. And much like their real-life counterparts, they form a visual language tied to culture, subculture, and even class.
Some gamers save up or grind for weeks just to unlock that one limited jacket or exclusive haircut. Others pay premium prices for items they feel reflect their vibe. Even within casino-themed games, what you wear in the digital lobby may say more about you than your bankroll.
Here’s where identity becomes dynamic. When your avatar is yours to build, when you can reflect your mood, politics, humor, or style in real-time, it reshapes the entire meaning of play.
Where Casino Worlds Come In
Virtual casino games may seem simple at first glance: tables, reels, chips. But those platforms now double as vibrant social hubs. They have leaned heavily into avatar customization, giving players a reason to stick around even when they are not spinning or betting.
In these spaces, you don’t just enter to win. You enter to be seen. You browse outfits, decorate your space, chat with others, and explore environments. This is especially true with New Aussie Casino Sites. These platforms increasingly incorporate these immersive, culture-rich features into their platforms.
The Rise of the Designer Player
There is a fascinating trend going on currently. Players who treat avatar design as their primary craft. Some users spend hours crafting the “perfect” outfit. They are sourcing color-coordinated accessories or matching virtual tattoos with background aesthetics. They’ll post screenshots, build lookbooks, and share style codes in online communities.
It’s like a fashion week but for online gamers.
Entire forums and social media subcultures have popped up around avatar styling. Go ahead and check out Tumblr mood boards. On Instagram, you’ll find reels showcasing full digital fits, and Reddit threads comparing hair shaders.
There’s even a new kind of influencer emerging. Not the loud streamer, but the quietly stylish character designer whose avatars are so distinctive that they earn loyal followers.
Expression Beyond Gender and Boundaries
Digital fashion opens possibilities that real-world fashion often cannot. Your avatar doesn’t need to match your biological features or societal expectations. Want a neon mohawk with a ball gown and sneakers? Go for it. A reptilian skin tone and Victorian coat? Sure.
Gaming spaces have become safe, creative arenas for exploring personal transitions or aesthetic experimentation. That means a lot for many players, especially those from marginalized backgrounds.
These avatars serve as digital dress rehearsals. They help people figure out who they are, what they like, and how they want to be seen, even before stepping into a real-world look.
Influence on Real-World Trends
Surprisingly, what starts in games often bleeds into reality.
Designers are now taking cues from virtual outfits. Some international fashion brands even consult game artists for ideas. What used to be the fringe, like cyberpunk, e-girl, tactical goth, is now front and center on fashion runways.
And the crossover isn’t just aesthetic. Virtual skins can lead to real-world apparel drops. Brands test designs in the metaverse before committing to physical runs. Others collaborate with game developers to release mirrored collections: one for your avatar, one for you.
The Monetization of Style
Let’s be honest – style sells. Game developers know this. That’s why so many games now include shops, seasonal passes, and rotating inventories filled with limited-edition looks. Scarcity drives desire.
Some platforms have also allowed player-to-player trading or resale markets for skins and items. What started as fun has evolved into microeconomies. Virtual cowboy boots or slick evening wear may now hold real-world resale value, sometimes even in the hundreds.
And casino-themed environments, known for glam aesthetics and high-roller imagery, are tapping into this. The allure of velvet jackets, cocktail dresses, or bespoke tuxedos can elevate the immersive feel and attract style-conscious gamers.
Ethical Conversations Around Digital Identity
But with growth comes complexity. As digital personas become more personalized and monetized, questions around ethics and access grow louder.
Why are some styles locked behind high paywalls? Do these systems reward creativity or reinforce class divides, even in games? Is there enough diversity in design choices to reflect all cultures and bodies?
And what happens to your digital self when platforms shut down or designs become obsolete? For many, losing an avatar they built over the years can feel like losing a part of themselves.
It’s a conversation the gaming world is only beginning to have.
Why This Matters Beyond Gaming
Avatar design might seem like a niche hobby. But it’s touching music, art, fashion, and even wellness. For many, especially Gen Z and younger millennials, the avatar is an extension of real selfhood. It’s a canvas for mood, taste, experimentation, and belonging.
And in a time when online spaces often feel impersonal or toxic, crafting a character that feels uniquely “you” can be grounding and empowering.
Platforms that honor this, whether through inclusive design tools, style freedom, or social integration, are building not just games but evolving digital cultures.
On game day in America, the spotlight shines on the athletes – the quarterbacks, sluggers, and point guards who captivate millions. But behind every touchdown and buzzer-beater is an unseen workforce powering the fan experience: gig workers.
From stadium parking lots to online resale platforms and mobile apps, the gig economy quietly fuels the excitement of American sports. Whether it’s ticket runners, food couriers, or tailgate vendors, thousands of individuals are earning flexible income by tapping into the country’s obsession with their most cherished pastimes.
And with demand on the rise, these roles are playing an even bigger part in game-day culture than ever before.
The Rise of the Secondary Ticket Hustle
The resale market for event tickets continues to explode. Recent projections from Technavio indicate the global secondary ticket market is expected to grow by $132.1 billion from last year, up until 2028, with North America accounting for 44% of that expansion. It’s a clear signal: fans are willing to pay more for access, and gig workers are seizing the opportunity.
Many get involved as part-time ticket resellers, finding underpriced seats early and flipping them ahead of big games. Others work as runners, coordinating physical exchanges near stadiums or last-minute deliveries. Areas like Kansas City, Philadelphia, and Buffalo – where demand often spikes during playoff season – have become hotbeds for this kind of activity.
This is not a get-rich-quick scheme, but it can be a solid seasonal hustle for those who understand the market. It shares similarities with other flexible side gigs, like keeping an eye out for a casino bonus or tracking limited-edition drops, where timing, strategy, and quick action are the key fundamentals.
Tailgate Vendors
For many, the day starts long before kickoff. Tailgate culture is deeply ingrained in American sports; for some, it’s a business opportunity. Tailgate vendors, ranging from grill masters selling BBQ plates to local artisans offering team-themed crafts, set up shop near stadiums to tap into pre-game crowds. In college towns and mid-size cities, this informal economy plays a crucial role in the local sports scene.
These pop-up hustles aren’t usually captured in big data reports, but their impact is real. They’re low-barrier ways to earn extra income doing something social and community-focused. For many, it’s not just about the money – it’s about being part of the event.
Merch Flipping and the Fan Economy
With teams regularly releasing items such as limited-edition jerseys to retro caps, unique official gear will forever be prominent for a wide array of specific fan bases and casual sports fans in general. The demand tends to peak during winning seasons or major playoff runs, creating fertile ground for merch resellers who know how to find valuable items and flip them online.
Platforms like eBay, Poshmark, Depop and Facebook Marketplace make it easy to list and ship, while sneaker-style platforms like StockX have expanded into sports apparel. For example, a reseller might pick up a throwback NBA warmup jacket at a discount and resell it during the Finals for twice the price. It takes knowing the retailing landscape within this niche and the fans’ actions.
Delivery Drivers and Game-Time Orders
For fans watching from home, food delivery is part of the ritual. According to delivery platform data from 2024, services like Uber Eats and DoorDash report 30-40% higher order volumes in major metro areas during big games like the Super Bowl or NBA Finals.
Gig drivers can align their shifts to ride these waves, taking advantage of bonuses, surge pricing, and high tip potential.
This gig is especially popular with those seeking flexible hours – students, retirees, or full-time workers looking to supplement their income. And since it can be combined with other app-based opportunities, it adds another layer to the diverse world of the sports-related gig economy.
America’s Hidden MVPs
Sports culture in the U.S. isn’t just built inside stadiums – it’s supported by a vast, often low-key network of everyday hustlers. Whether it’s ticket runners coordinating last-minute handoffs, or food couriers gearing up to be on hand with their deliveries by halftime, gig workers have become an essential part of the game-day rhythm. They’re the ones flipping rare merch online, firing up grills in parking lots and providing a wider audience of fans with opportunities to attend fixtures.
These aren’t jobs that show up on the scoreboard or in highlight reels, but their impact is undeniable. This behind-the-scenes workforce helps bring energy, convenience, and authenticity to the sports experience. While much of this work slips under the radar of official employment data, it’s a growing part of the economic landscape – one that thrives on flexibility, creativity, and deep ties to local communities.
As America’s love for sports continues to evolve, so does the ecosystem that surrounds it. The gig economy may operate in the shadows of stadium lights, but for many fans and workers alike, it’s become just as much a part of game day as the opening whistle.
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Drugdealer and Weyes Blood have reunited for a new single called ‘Real Thing’. The lush, breezy track is accompanied by a music video that Drugdealer’s Michael Collins made with director James Manson. Check it out below.
Collins co-wrote ‘Real Thing’ with Max Baby and Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering. “Immediately I realized that it was the perfect thing to show Nat, who I had been wanting to collaborate with again for years,” Collins recalled. “After that we started working on it via multiple trips back and forth across the US, and it just became one of my favorite things we’ve ever done.”
Drugdealer and Weyes Blood have several collaborations under their belt, including ‘Suddenly’, ‘The End of Comedy’, and ‘Honey’. Drugdealer’s most recent album was 2022’s Hiding in Plain Sight, and Weyes Blood released And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow that same year.
Teasing the track on social media, Lorde wrote, “Man Of The Year. An offering from really deep inside me. The song I’m proudest of on Virgin.” Renewed from “my recent ego death,” as Lorde sings, the track starts out at a slower pace before breaking open, Jim-E Stack’s distorted drum programming matching her raw vocals.
On her website, Lorde wrote: “BIKING. SMOKING. SWIMMING. NEW STRENGTH IN MY SHOULDERS. FEELING SOMETHING AWAKENING. FIRST TAPING MY CHEST. SO SCARED TO BE HIM. THE GQ PARTY. LAYING BACK ON THE WHITE COUCH W THE MIC IN MY HAND AND LETTING IT HAPPEN. SUN. PERSIMMONS AND WALNUTS. VOCALS WITH AMS. TRYING TO MAKE IT SOUND LIKE A FONTANA, LIKE PAINTING BITTEN BY A MAN, LIKE THE NEW YORK EARTH ROOM. THE SOUND OF MY REBIRTH.”
Virgin will be out June 27. Lorde has also just unveiled the record’s tracklist, which you can also find below.
Virgin Tracklist:
1. Hammer
2. What Was That
3. Shapeshifter
4. Man of the Year
5. Favourite Daughter
6. Current Affairs
7. Clearblue
8. GRWM
9. Broken Glass
10. If She Could See Me Now
11. David
In an era where content is king, free streaming sites are the cheeky jesters making sure everyone gets a show. However, many free streaming platforms are not technically legal. At the same time, their nature causes them to experience frequent shutdowns. In the same sense, AZMovies is also riddled with domain changes, mirror sites, and sketchy ads. This is despite becoming a popular name among streaming fans. After countless attempts to access it, you come to realize the truth. Good things come to those who pay, especially when streaming without interruptions and pop-ups.
Five Recommended AZMovies Alternatives
Discovery+
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Starz
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BritBox
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Sundance Now
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Hulu
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Mirror Sites for AZMovies
As of now, there are no available mirror sites for AZMovies. While that can be a great sign that the main site is still working, there is still a great chance that you may encounter issues.
Reddit Community Updates
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Final Thoughts
With the current status of AZMovies and the reality of free streaming websites, it is best to opt for subscription-based platforms. Yes, subscriptions might cost, but they also bring the best shows to your screen. Similarly, sometimes paying means playing with fewer interruptions and higher quality.
