Knifeplay have previewed their upcoming album What Is Truth? with a new song called ‘Toil (Reprise)’. It arrives on the heels of ‘Love Song’, which made our list of the best songs of October. Pensive until its uproarious finale, it’s accompanied by a music video directed by the band’s Tj Strohmer, which comes with a trigger warning for self-harm. Check it out below.
“This video is a remake or retelling of Elias Merhige’s 1989 silent horror film Begotten, which, in my interpretation, tells the story of the cycle of suffering that has befallen humanity via the metaphorical (or literal?) death of God and subsequent torture and death of ‘Mother Earth’,” Strohmer explained. “While I am probably not a Christian, I do not see this story as a blasphemous one; I see it as having empathy for a god, a planet, and a people who, like Mother Earth’s forlorn child, have found themselves helpless, injured, and confused.”
He added: “Given that the song is primarily instrumental and lyrically simple, it felt like the perfect canvas to tell this story, whose themes are relevant across the whole album. The original film is shocking and uncompromising in its storytelling, which are traits I have always wanted to bring into my own artistry. Despite being an extreme amateur when it comes to video work, with a scarcity of time, resources, and courage, I attempted to tell the story in a slightly milder way that would work for a music video.”
Black Belt Eagle Scout, the project of Swinomish musician Katherine “KP” Paul, is back with a new single called ‘Fantasy’. The gentle, mesmerizing track marks her first new music since 2023’s The Land, The Water, the Sky; it’s also the first Black Belt Eagle Scout song to be released since the singer-songwriter was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2024. It comes with a music video filmed in Kotzebue, Alaska, where her Iñupiaq family is from. Check it out below.
“I wrote ‘Fantasy’ during a time in my life when I was transitioning out of the nonprofit world and into making music full time,” KP explained in a statement. “I was feeling really burnt out and disconnected from the work I was doing. Working in the Native nonprofit world, I often felt this pressure to be some kind of superwoman representing Native people, while also trying to fit into systems that didn’t always reflect who we are as Native people. I was at a point where I didn’t want to keep trying to fit into something that didn’t feel right for me anymore. I wanted to make music, feel free, spend time in the trees, and reconnect with myself outside of all those expectations.”
“I started writing this song on just an acoustic guitar, playing into my voice memos on my phone,” she continued. “In the recording, you could hear my hand shuffling against the guitar and that made its way into the beat of the song with the snare and hi hat. Claire Glass and Nay Mapalo produced and also played on the song. They are in this incredible band called Hikes; part of Hikes’ sound includes these beautiful and fast guitar licks, which I took inspiration from for the guitar solo of the song and wrote it for Nay to play on the track.”
Commenting on the video, KP added: “My cousin Priscilla Hensley created original choreography inspired by Iñupiaq dance, and she also directed and filmed the video alongside Evan Benally Atwood. Movement needed to be a big part of the visual storytelling because of my own journey with multiple sclerosis. When I first had my MS relapse, I could barely walk and lost the ability to play guitar. Since going through a healing process and regaining mobility, movement has become something I do with intention now. To be in our ancestral home, supported by my family and moving on the land in these pieces that we created was cultural healing work.”
Julia Shapiro was probably listening to ambient music when she designed the artwork for Chastity Belt’s new album, All My Friends, traced off of a photo of the band in a rowboat. Since making graphic design a real practice (including work on two Elliott Smith reissues), she’s used to putting on ambient record while working, and even made one as Guest Bartender Deborah Toyota with Samur Khouja, the longtime collaborator who recorded, mixed, and mastered the group’s latest LP. The Live, Laugh, Love follow-up was tracked in different locations, including Seahorse Sound Studios in Los Angeles and the Old Harpet Factory in Hydra, Greece, and these days, the band is scattered across LA, Seattle, and Chicago; in that photo, though, they are at Washington’s Puget Sound, where guitarist Lydia Lund’s family owns a property they’ve retreated to for nearly a decade and a half. The details have almost literally been traced off – the members hardly identifiable by their outlines (though Shapiro laughingly reveals who’s trailing behind), with no signifier of time or place. Yet in dissolving the moment it finds a symbol for their friendship, the theme their new songs unwittingly coalesce around even when they reflect different perspectives. Bouts of introspection, melancholy, and nostalgia may colour All My Friends in a downcast mood, but the enduring bond that’s brought it into existence invites you to bask in it like warm water.
We caught up with Chastity Belt’s Julia Shapiro and Gretchen Grimm to talk about long walks, ambient music, friendship, and other inspirations behind All My Friends.
Long walks
Julia Shapiro: I was thinking about the process of mixing the record and listening to songs, and pretty much every time I listened to them, I went on a really long walk. I think it’s just a good way to focus for me and listen. I have trouble just sitting and listening; I’ll get distracted if I’m in my apartment. Walking is a good way to hear things differently. Sometimes I would smoke a little weed and listen, because I would hear different things in different states or moods.
Gretchen Grimm: I did that a lot during the mix, too. At one point, I was really focused and walked right by a friend, and he was just like, “Hi, Gretchen!” You get kind of sucked in and forget you’re in public sometimes.
JS: Just stopping to open my notes app and write down stuff.
Would you write down technical notes, or were they also things like seeing the record in a different light?
JS: Different things would come out, for sure. There were a couple of songs where I just noticed layers that I hadn’t noticed after listening a ton of times. I think part of that was Samur, who mixed it – he was changing different levels of stuff without telling us, just to see if we would notice, I think. [laughs] I feel like there were these really dissonant layers on your song, Gretchen, that maybe got pushed up and up until we said something.
GG: That was driving me crazy, yeah. I was like, “What is going on? I swear this is different.”
JS: Maybe that’s his way of making sure we’re actually listening, I don’t know. But also, I think he just really liked dissonant parts.
GG: He likes to sneak them in when he can.
Do you tend to write lyrics or record voice memos on long walks?
JS: Sometimes, yeah. If I don’t have all the lyrics for a song, sometimes I’ll listen to a voice memo on a walk and try to think of lyrics in my head.
GG: Yeah, I’ve done that too.
Do you remember going on long walks together in the making of this record or in general?
JS: We do go on long walks when we’re on tour, because you gotta stretch those legs.
GG: I feel like we all like to walk. But I don’t know if we do a ton of group walks.
JS: Yeah, usually it’s more of a solo thing. [laughs] Take a little time away.
Swimming
Is it a similar thing with swimming for you, Gretchen? I’m guessing that was a big part of your trip to Greece, where you went to record in the island of Hydra.
GG: I feel like not good enough at swimming for it to feel like walking, where I’m getting in the zone for a long time. Swimming is more about taking a break for me. When we recorded in Greece, we were there in August, so it was really hot. Pretty every day in the middle to late afternoon, we all took a swim break. Our intention there was really like, “We’re just gonna try to enjoy ourselves.” Yes, we’re here to record and that’s kind of work, but we’re in this beautiful place, and we don’t need to feel stressed about wasting two hours of studio time. We can let ourselves take a breather, and then when we go back, we’ll have some fresh ideas.
JS: It was very necessary to take swim breaks, too, because there’s no AC in the live room. We would get so hot we couldn’t even think. We were really baking.
GG: That was the nicest water I’ve ever been in. It was so warm, but not like – this summer I swam in water on the East Coast in South Carolina that was too warm. That water in Greece was warm, but refreshing, and so blue.
JS: It’s so salty you really just float.
Did you find yourselves recording there at night? Westerman, who recorded his last album there, told me that because there’s no AC at the building, it’s so hot during the day that it’s almost impossible to work and record.
JS: I feel like we usually were just going out to eat at night. The sun set pretty late – we might have recorded a little bit at night, but we tried to do morning-ish, take a break in the middle of the day, and then record in the evening.
Did being there feel like a holiday, despite the fact that you were working?
GG: I think that’s how we try to keep the band feeling in general. We don’t get to be together a ton, so we want to be able to have a good time when we are together. We’re working, but we try not to get too stressed. Our overall intention as a band is just to enjoy making music together.
JS: We went into it thinking, “Let’s not get too stressed about getting everything done, and let our enjoyment come first.” Fun and friendship first, and then the music. Things tend to turn out worse when we’re stressed about music. When we go into a session thinking, “These are just demos, no pressure,” it always turns out better, and we actually tend to get more done that way.
GG: I think when you get too much into a work mindset, you start to nitpick every little thing and almost forget that it’s music. It doesn’t work as well for us – that’s not what it’s about.
JS: You can’t get into a headspace where you feel like everything has to be perfect. It’s helpful to take a step back and realize that a lot of what I enjoy in other people’s music is the imperfections and weird parts that maybe weren’t intentional. It’s hard to realize that with your own music, but when we’re in a good headspace, we don’t get so perfectionist about things.
Αmbient music
Julia, you recently released a collaborative ambient record under the name Guest Bartender Deborah Toyota, which I know was inspired by a poster you saw in Hydra.
JS: You really did your research!
Has ambient music been a big part of your listening diet lately?
JS: Yeah, that’s pretty much the only music I’ve been listening to for the past couple of years. I tend to need to take a break from music and the Chastity Belt genre. It’s a nice break from that, and it goes well with everyday life – I was just in school for a couple of years, so I would put on an ambient record while doing graphic design, which is a nice combo. I enjoy listening to different genres outside of Chastity Belt, and I think it’s helpful for getting inspiration that way.
How was it helpful around the time you were making All My Friends?
JS: Some of the songs on this record are older than others, but for the newer ones, I was definitely listening to more ambient music. I don’t know necessarily how much that influenced the music, but it probably seeped in in places. The ending of ‘Designs’ has this ambient, hypnotizing quality with some synths lower in the mix that come up. The ambient record I just put out was basically all synths, so I feel like I’m better versed in synths now and have fun sprinkling them in where I can. I don’t really approach our music thinking, “I’m gonna write a song that sounds like this band.” Some bands are inspired by Stereolab and write a Stereolab record, but consciously or unconsciously, I almost don’t want our music to sound like other bands. I think it naturally doesn’t; it naturally sounds like the four of us playing together because we’ve played together for so long and created our own sound. No matter what we play, to me, it sounds like Chastity Belt. There are different kinds of Chastity Belt, but that’s just how I hear it.
Puget Sound
I know Lydia’s family has a house there that’s sort of served as an escape for you over the year. I hear it on songs like ‘Friends for This’. Tell me more about what it means to your friendship and the band.
GG: That’s our spot that we always go to just to write and get to be together. It’s kind of the best – being able to play together right on the sound, and it’s so beautiful. There are themes in this album related to cycles and tides. There’s something about the tide in the sound – it’s a cycle, but not a perfect circle. It’s returning to spots it’s been before, but things always look a little different. I feel like a few songs, like ‘Friends for This’, remind me of that. You’re coming back to a place you’ve been, but you’re a little different and the place is a little different. Life often feels cyclical like that – nothing is ever right back in the exact same place, but sometimes you have the feeling of, “Oh, I’ve been in this phase of my life before, but it’s a little different.”
JS: It’s always interesting to go back to Lydia’s family place because we’ve been going there and writing music since 2012. Each time we go back, it’s a reflection of how we’ve changed and how our music has changed. It’s a way to measure time and the changes in our lives.
GG: We were there this past summer, and I think that was one of the longer periods we’d gone without all being together. Almost immediately, I started playing a chord progression, and Lydia immediately started playing a lead line that was perfect for it. We all just started laughing because we were like, “Oh my god, here we are back in it.” We just know each other so well we can click together.
JS: We just jump right back in.
What was going through your minds at that moment?
JS: I haven’t really been playing guitar that much, and so I was like, “We’ll see what happens.” It really is something clicks when we’re all together, and all of a sudden I feel more inspired to play.
GG: Yeah, definitely. I hadn’t been playing drums much at all either, so it was nice.
What do you remember about the first times you made music there or hung out there?
JS: I have this specific memory of the song ‘Lydia’, Lydia playing a song for us, and there’s a line that’s like, “When the fog meets the water.” Looking out, you can just see the water from the room that we all play in. Sometimes when the tide is really high, it almost looks like we’re on a boat or something. I remember in that moment feeling that, and it all just coming together. I do love when the tide is high and we’re in there, because I’ll just imagine that we’re floating on the water.
GG: I feel like I remember being out on the rowboat. We had a lot of good times on the rowboat with a bottle of wine and someone trailing behind in the tube.
JS: Usually Gretchen.
GG: [laughs] Yeah. Everything was so novel then, you know? It was like, “Oh my god, this is crazy, we’re out on the rowboat!” 15 years later, it’s like, I’m up in the morning reading my book – definitely we’ve changed and aged since then, but we still like to take the rowboat out.
Elliott Smith
You mentioned playing the guitar, and I’m sure Elliott Smith has been a huge influence, even just in that department. I read you discovered his music in eighth grade, and I wonder if you went through a period of re-appreciation recently.
JS: Yeah, I definitely have that kind of relationship with his music. But when I wrote that, I was thinking of one specific song – ‘Not Today’ definitely has an Elliott Smith kind of vibe. It wasn’t like I sat down and wrote a song that sounds like Elliott Smith, but I started playing that and then kind of later realized it sounds like Elliott Smith.
I do think his style of guitar playing just naturally seeps into the way that I play guitar. I think about this interview with him that I’ve watched a couple of times where he talks about songwriting. He talks about it in this abstract way that I could kind of relate to – it doesn’t really make sense, but he’s like, “Yeah, sometimes I just make different shapes with my hands and then something happens.” I feel like I’ve written a lot of songs that way, where I’m not even thinking about what I’m doing, but I’m holding a guitar, maybe talking to someone or doing something else, and then all of a sudden my fingers just start doing stuff and I’m like, “Oh, whoa, that was cool.” It’s kind of nice to have songs that come out like that subconsciously, because I don’t really know music theory; chords are shapes to me, and I don’t know the name of the chord that I’m playing or anything. But that, to me, makes it more fun – it’s kind of more of a puzzle to find the right chord that fits.
Depression
I want to ask – and it may be difficult to pin down – whether “the heaviness setting in,” as you sing on the final track, stifles the urge to write, or if it sometimes feeds into it. Is it cyclical in the way Gretchen described before?
JS: I would say there are moments of that sort of numb depression where I don’t feel like writing and I’m not inspired. But I do sometimes worry that all the lyrics I write make it seem like I’m this really depressed person. I think someone was talking about Elliott Smith, saying you’d think he’s this sad-sack guy by listening to his music, but he’s actually really funny and fun to be around. Hopefully, people feel that way about me! [laughs] But I tend to be drawn towards sad music, and I tend to write music when I’m sad and dealing with more negative emotions. It’s a form of therapy. Sometimes subconscious thoughts come out when I’m writing lyrics, and later I’ll realize what the song was even about. When I’m writing, I don’t necessarily realize what it’s about in a conscious way, and then after having space from it, I’ll go back and be like, “Yeah, this is pretty straightforward, what I’m singing about.” Definitely, in terms of lyrics, depression is a huge influence.
You’ve also mentioned the fear of being perceived as an inspiration, and I wonder if it’s somehow tied to depression.
JS: Yeah, when I look at some of the lyrics I’ve written, a lot of them are about a fear of being perceived, but also wanting to be understood. There’s this push and pull. Another aspect of writing lyrics is knowing that there’s going to be an audience for it. It’s not necessarily just for yourself; it’s a weird feeling to know this is going to go out into the world. I consciously try not to think about how people will receive it when I’m writing, because it takes me out of it, but I’m sure it plays into things. Our first record is really special in the sense that I don’t think we were thinking about an audience at all. That’s why there’s this purity to it – we didn’t even have an audience at the time, and when we were writing those songs, we didn’t even really know we were going to put out an album. There is a freeness to that record that we’ll never have again, but that’s what makes it special.
But there’s also a special feeling to this record, which is that the audience in mind often seems to be just a close circle of friends.
JS: I think in a way, the first audience is just our band. That’s definitely something I’ve thought about.I don’t know if we knew we weren’t going to play these songs live or tour this album when we were recording, but now, not knowing when we’ll tour again, it creates this other sort of freedom. We don’t have to worry about playing this song live or figuring out how to play it live, so in that sense, we can take more chances and write more difficult parts that we wouldn’t necessarily want to play live.
Friendship
Obviously, we’ve been talking about friendship throughout the conversation, which was also at the heart of Live, Love, Laugh. I’m curious what felt different about centering your friendship as a band on this record. Did you feel like it came into the foreground in some way?
GG: It was actually Samur who mixed our album, who brought it up to us. He was mixing and said, “You know, a lot of these songs are about friends.” Then we realized he was right, they are. Again, it wasn’t like we did many things with songwriting or making an album where we thought, “This is going to be centered around this.” We just get together and write songs, and then afterwards we reflect on themes. Maybe it’s just where we’re all at in life – old enough to realize how important friendships are, and at this point, we’ve known each other for almost 20 years.
JS: I think a lot of people value career and family before friendship, but something we have in common as a band is that we’ve always valued friendship the most, it seems. Because we are all so close and such good friends, it’s really nice to have this project together where we have a reason to get together and work on something. A lot of people don’t necessarily have that. They might be like, “Let’s go on a friend vacation,” but it’s not as frequent as us intentionally deciding to take a week to do some songwriting, hang out, and have a good time. It’s really nice to have that, especially later in life when people seem to be getting more isolated, coupling up, and not hanging out as much as they did in their 20s. It’s nice to be able to make time for that.
Tell me about making time to do a Secret Santa while recording All My Friends.
GG: Our last recording session at Seahorse Sound Studios was around Christmas, and we’re there around the holidays because it’s just when people have time off. I don’t know how we decided to do a Secret Santa, but we did, and we just took it really seriously. We drew names out of a hat, and it was Seahorse Sound Studios’ solstice celebration. We took it so seriously. No one knew who had who, and all week we were trying to guess. It got to the point where I was kind of nervous the day of.
JS: [laughs] Everyone was!
GG: The anticipation really builds.
JS: So much anticipation, because every single day, Gretchen would do a countdown, like, “5 days till Secret Santa!” The other thing about it that was fun was we had to keep it to $20 and under, and you had to purchase stuff at a corner store, so there were a couple of rules. We should do it again this time.
GG: We have to.
JS: It’s like the new tradition.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
A South Korean mystery horror that premiered around Halloween is currently drawing in a global audience. Available on Netflix, Dead-End Job is the kind of show that combines supernatural scares with poignant social commentary.
With 5 million views last week, it’s also among the most-watched series on Netflix, and a Top 10 title in 51 countries. Could this mean we might get another installment somewhere down the line? Here’s what we know so far.
Dead-End Job Season 2 Release Date
At the time of writing, there’s no official information about a potential Dead-End Job season 2.
The title appears as a limited series on Netflix. Additionally, Korean productions rarely get follow-ups. In other words, it looks like the episodes currently available are all there is.
Still, if you watched until the end, you know there’s room for more story. Maybe if the show becomes a global phenomenon, we’ll get a chance to find out what happens next.
Dead-End Job Cast
Lee Jae-wook as Byeon Hyeok-jun
Go Min-si as Eum Yeon-joo
Kim Min-ha as Byeon Ji-yoon
Lee Hee-joon as Mr. S
Baek Hyun-Jin as Byeon Min-su
Lee Suk-hyeong as Kwak Byeong-cheol
What Is Dead-End Job About?
Dead-End Job revolves around Byeon Hyeok-jun, a debt-ridden man desperate to improve his financial situation. When he discovers that an employment agency offers wages much higher than normal, he jumps at the opportunity. The catch? Every job comes with bizarre rules. There’s also a real possibility he might not survive his shifts.
As Hyeok-jun takes on dangerous assignments, he begins to uncover the truth behind the shady agency and its enigmatic boss. At the same time, an investigator is zeroing in, and Hyeok-jun’s younger sister becomes concerned about her brother’s new career.
The series resembles a horror anthology, given that Hyeok-jun is assigned different gigs. It also touches on exploitative workplaces and the desperate lengths people go to survive. All in all, it has a lot to offer, especially to viewers who prefer their entertainment to be of the spooky variety.
By the time the finale rolls around, the main story wraps up, but a cliffhanger hints that Hyeok-jun might not be done with the agency just yet.
“When we made season one, we didn’t know how viewers would respond. Now that we’ve seen a range of feedback, if we make season two, I’d like to be a little bolder or show things we couldn’t show this time. But that’s something we need to think about more. I hope lots of people will watch it,” director Kim Da-min said.
Even if Dead-End Job season 2 happens, it might be a while before it hits our screens. Star Lee Jae-wook is taking a career break at the moment to perform mandatory military service.
TV shows with micro-episodes are steadily gaining popularity. Netflix has recently seen success with Between Father and Son, a Mexican thriller that was quick to climb the platform’s charts. Now, a brand-new sitcom shows similar potential.
Minimum Wage amassed 2.4 million views last week, making it one of the most-watched titles on the service. Could this mean that a follow-up is on the way? Here’s what we know so far.
Minimum Wage Season 2 Release Date
At the time of writing, there’s no official news about Minimum Wage season 2.
That said, reports suggest that Netflix has given the show a 28-episode order, and only 14 have been released so far. Whether the remaining ones would act as a second season, we don’t know yet. If they do, they might land on streaming in a few months.
Minimum Wage Cast
Aidan Micho as Aidan Baldwin
Grace Reiter as Grace
Hyde Healy as Hyde Dunbar
Julia DiCesare as Julia
Luke Burke as Luke Torque
Ryan Micho as Ryan Parker
Tommy Armstrong as Tommy Armstrong
Randall Park as Terry Sylvester
What Is Minimum Wage About?
Minimum Wage is based on the popular social-media comedy shorts from American High. A workplace comedy, it centres on a chaotic group of teenagers who works at a pizzeria called The Slice Club.
They have to juggle school, awkward romances, petty arguments, ridiculous pranks, and customers who test their patience. At the same time, they struggle to keep the restaurant running while earning little.
See, owner Mr. Sylvester visits the restaurant to decide whether he should keep it open or sell. As a result, Grace, one of the more responsible members of the team, tries to keep her colleagues in line despite their questionable work ethic.
All episodes are short and manage to poke fun at various teenage growing pains, while also highlighting the absurdities of working a low-paying job. If you want a lighthearted, funny watch, the show goes down smoothly.
By the time the 14 available episodes wrap up, New Year’s Eve delivers romantic complications. Minimum Wage season 2 would likely pick up from there, following the teens as they deal with the fallout. If they manage to keep their jobs, even better. We’re eager to see how it goes.
A reader reads a film review on Instagram, finishes it, and looks up an earlier interview with the director. The two stories are on the same magazine website, but there is no obvious way to move between them. The reader leaves after a few unsuccessful searches.
For cultural magazines, this is more than a problem of navigation. Reviews, interviews, photo essays, and festival coverage may find their way to audiences through different channels, but they need to stay connected after publication. When the content management system (CMS) of a magazine can’t support the work, even a strong archive is hard to explore.
When One Story Becomes Several Publishing Jobs
When more than one editor works on the same content, a routine correction can become complicated. You might find a biography of an artist in an interview, a festival landing page, or a newsletter. Without a common system, staff may have to update each version individually, increasing the chance of inconsistent information. Someone who moves from the newsletter to the website could then see different information about the same artist or event.
When editors are working in one system of publishing, it makes it easier to manage updates across several channels. CMS platforms like brightspot.com provide editorial approval workflows, content sharing across websites, and centralized media management. That means less duplicated work and helps teams keep information consistent without having to update every version individually.
Such systems cannot make an article interesting, and cannot guarantee reader loyalty. But they can clear away obstacles that make accurate, consistent publishing more difficult than it needs to be.
Why Readers Can’t Find The Next Story
Distribution is only half the story. A magazine also has to structure content around the way audiences discover culture. A reader of an actor story might want an earlier movie review, an interview from the festival, or a feature on the costume designer. Useful connections are hidden if editors only put those pieces under broad categories.
Modern CMS platforms can provide articles with structured information like subjects, people, genres, and events. Editors may use this information to build topic pages or suggest related coverage. A festival page, for instance, might mix reviews, interviews and photography without making readers sift through each section separately.
Visual content also gains from a better organization. A fashion magazine could feature runway photos, interviews, and collection reviews. By organizing materials by designer, event, or collection, editors let readers connect related coverage and explore beyond a single gallery.
These links are more important when readers are coming from social media than from the homepage of a magazine. In the 2026 Digital News Report by the Reuters Institute, 54% of respondents across 48 markets used social media and video networks for news, while 51% used news organizations’ websites and apps. The study does not examine arts magazines directly, but it does examine news consumption and shows how critical it is to help visitors find more content when they reach a publication’s website.
Some cultural publications already focus more on stories of lasting value. The launch of Dusty Mag, for example, focused on creating content readers would want to return to, not scroll past quickly. For magazines following a similar strategy, preserving access to older features and linking them to newer coverage becomes more important.
Editorial decisions still needed for better systems
A CMS can support related stories, consistent metadata, and cross-platform updates, but editors must decide which connections serve readers. It would be of little use to someone researching one artist to automatically group every article tagged “music”. More specific labels and better editorial choices are needed.
For a film festival, it might mean linking a premiere review with a director interview, and aggregating both on a dedicated landing page. An award announcement can draw new attention to a film, and editors can help make earlier coverage easier to find, without creating another article that repeats it.
Google Search Console can show you queries that bring people to older features, and Google Analytics 4 allows teams to look at what pages people visit next. Neither tool catches all departures. They can identify where the organization of the content should improve and where editorial review is needed.
Digital magazines can’t control what Instagram or TikTok will put out. They can control how they store, update, and link their own stories. A good CMS makes that job easier, and editorial judgment gives readers a reason to keep looking.
A convincing facial expression can change the meaning of an entire scene. The same is true of a sudden shift in lighting, an animated environment or the way a virtual character responds to another person. Graphics have long helped games communicate feelings, but advances in tracking and interactive technology are giving developers more ways to bring human emotion into gameplay. Visuals are no longer limited to what happens on screen. They can also reflect what happens on the other side of it.
From displayed feelings to responsive play
A character’s expression can tell players plenty about a scene, even without dialogue. Developers have long used facial animation, body language and changes in color to establish atmosphere. More recently, cameras and wearable sensors have introduced another possibility: allowing a game to take account of the person playing it. If software can identify certain physical responses, those signals could influence character animations or alter elements of the surrounding environment. The visuals would then reflect something happening beyond the game itself.
Wearables read emotional game sessions
Wearable technology is giving researchers another way to study what happens to players during a game. In a 2026 paper in Neural Computing and Applications, researchers used an Empatica EmbracePlus wrist device to record electrodermal activity (EDA) and blood volume pulse (BVP). Both measurements can provide information about changes in physiological arousal.
The researchers recruited 25 participants and asked them to play Tetris, Sonic Racing and Fall Guys. They then used the recorded data to train a machine learning model to distinguish between six emotional categories. The model achieved 86.01% accuracy in the reported tests.
There are obvious questions about how this could translate into game design. A change in a player’s physical response might influence the appearance of a character or the atmosphere of a level. But physiological data needs careful interpretation. The excitement of winning and the stress of struggling through a difficult level can produce similar physical reactions.
Designing responses with player agency
Visual feedback doesn’t have to be complicated to make an interaction satisfying. In puzzle games for example, an animation following a successful move or a change in the background can make progress feel more rewarding. The expression on an avatar’s face can add another layer, giving an otherwise simple action more personality. These details are especially relevant to games built around shorter sessions, where there may be little time for an extended narrative.
Social casino gaming offers another example of how presentation contributes to the experience. An ACE online social casino platformbrings together interactive games in which familiar symbols, animated features and visual feedback help players follow what’s happening. The appeal isn’t necessarily tied to a complex storyline. The way a game looks and responds to individual actions can be just as important.
More sophisticated emotional tracking would introduce another consideration. Players might not want a game to change its atmosphere simply because software interprets their reactions in a particular way. Personal settings and the ability to disable adaptive features should remain part of the design.
Why reliable recognition matters
Reading a player’s expression is one thing. Knowing what it means is considerably harder. People don’t all display emotions in the same way, and a facial movement can have several explanations. A player staring intently at the screen might be enjoying a challenge rather than becoming irritated by it.
Research in IEEE Access in 2026 offers a useful example of this problem. The study examined 10,120 facial captures from 130 players across three games. Its recognition model recorded 83.5% accuracy when the training and testing data included the same participants. With entirely unfamiliar players, that figure fell to 51.2%.
The difference suggests that a system can become too dependent on the people it has already encountered. For developers, this presents a practical obstacle. An adaptive visual effect is only useful if the information triggering it is reasonably accurate. Otherwise, the game risks responding to an emotion the player isn’t experiencing.
Facial expressions aren’t simply recorded in the background. Players use them to collect memory fragments and move through the story, making their own reactions part of the gameplay. The project explores LGBTQ+ experiences and uses this interaction to encourage empathy with people whose lives may differ from those of the player.
It’s an interesting use of graphics technology because the player’s face becomes part of the storytelling itself. Rather than relying solely on increasingly realistic character models, Rekindle brings physical expression into the virtual experience.
Privacy shapes emotional immersion
A game that reads facial movements or monitors physical responses is collecting a different kind of information from one that records a player’s progress or preferred settings. That distinction deserves attention. Players should be told when biometric information is being collected, what happens to it and whether it is retained after a session.
There’s also no reason to make this technology compulsory. Someone might enjoy expressive characters and changing environments without wanting a camera or wearable device involved. Keeping emotion-based features optional would give developers room to experiment while allowing players to decide how much personal information they are comfortable sharing.
Most licensed casinos in the US require Know Your Customer (KYC) verification before a user can place a wager on their site.
For a member to play table games, slots, or place a bet on sports, they must provide a clear copy of their passport, driver’s license, utility bill, or bank statements.
While it might seem like another annoying process, providing companies with this data can put your sensitive information at risk, lead to identity theft and fraud, and result in targeted phishing scams and extortion.
Fortunately, no-KYC crypto casinos can counteract all the above, as they don’t require you to reveal who you are to place a wager online, keeping your identity and sensitive data private and protected.
To ensure you select the right site, here’s a ranking of the top no-KYC crypto casinos to help you maintain your anonymity when online gaming.
Duel
Most crypto casino platforms struggle to rival Duel for anonymity. You never need to reveal your identity or submit documents to sign up and start playing.
All you need to do is register with a basic email address, or you can access the site via a Steam account.
Duel’s online crypto casino was created by the founder of CSGOEmpire, Ossi “Monarch” Ketola, who is responsible for one of the world’s oldest Counter-Strike skin gambling platforms.
His primary goal is to provide members with the purest form of gambling online, which is why the platform avoids traditional welcome bonuses and focuses on providing greater value with a lower house edge.
For instance, its custom Duel Original games offer an incredible 99.9% Return to Player (RTP) rate, which is pretty hard to beat.
Players can also automatically receive an instant 50% rakeback, which they are free to withdraw from their balance at any time.
The site also moves away from traditional casinos’ flashy aesthetic, offering a more minimalistic design that reflects its no-nonsense approach to online gaming.
It also provides users with thousands of mobile-optimized slots, provably fair Duel Original games, and a fully integrated sportsbook.
Duel epic leaderboard pools reward loyal members and include daily, weekly, and monthly races determined by its wager volume.
Yeet
Yeet is a no-KYC crypto casino, meaning it has a zero-document policy when signing up for a standard account.
As the site holds an Anjouan gaming license, it does have a KYC threshold when withdrawals reach $2,000, which you must consider before registering.
If you are not a high roller and enjoy a small, casual gamble every now and then, Yeet is a great option when looking for a document-free sign-up process. However, if true anonymity is what you are looking for, Duel might be a better fit.
Of course, Yeet does offer various other perks, including Telegram integration, a choice of over 9,500 games, and an attractive 11-tier VIP ladder to enjoy superb perks. You could even compete to win the $15,000 weekly Chairman’s Cup.
Winna
Winna is another great option for casual gamblers, as it requires no KYC documents during the sign-up process. You can start playing by entering your email or connecting your Google or Telegram account.
However, like Yeet, it might not be the best choice for high rollers, as the site has a strict $10,000 daily withdrawal cap. If you reach this sum, the transaction is likely to be frozen until you have completed an identity check.
If this isn’t an issue, Winna might be a great choice, as it has a large library of 5,200 slots to help the hours pass by. One of the biggest benefits is that it provides instant rakeback every seven minutes, deposited straight to your balance.
Richard Lloyd, the former guitarist of the pioneering art-punk band Television, has died. He revealed in August he had been diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, a serious form of bile duct cancer, and passed away this morning at his home in Chattanooga, TN. “His loving wife Sheila and his dog Willie Mays were with him at the end,” his family told Rolling Stone. Lloyd was 75 years old.
Born Richard John Alt in Pittsburgh, PA on October 25, 1951, Lloyd grew up in Pittsburgh before moving to New York. In high school, he learned guitar alongside his friend Velvert Turner, who claimed to be a guitar student of Jimi Hendrix. He joined Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell, and Billy Ficca to solidify Televison’s lineup in 1973, serving as a second guitarist. Lloyd’s intricate interplay with Verlaine (who passed away in 2023) not only helped the band stand out as they built a following at the iconic East Village club CBGB, but went on to become hugely influential. In 1977, Television released their iconic debut, Marquee Moon, on Elektra, following it up with Adventure the year after.
After the band broke up, Lloyd embarked on a prolific solo career, issuing nine albums and working as guitarist and session musician for artists including Matthew Sweet and X’s John Doe. His last album, The Countdown, came out in 2018. That same year, he published a memoir titled Everything Is Combustible: Television, CBGB’s and Five Decades of Rock and Roll.
The earliest evidence of human-made art can be found in Palaeolithic caves, and we’d all love to know what was going through their minds as they made it. When survival was tough, why dedicate so much time to creativity? What we know for sure is there’s something inherently human about creativity and art that reaches back tens of thousands of years to our distant ancestors.
That urge to create still exists within each of us, and we see that in the work of illustrator and artist Mrudula Kuvalekar. Her work ‘I’m Still A Dyke 2026’ bears a passing resemblance to that early cave art, and she has annotated it with the words ‘Like clockwork. I wake up and redraw the edges of who I am again and again and again’. While this shows her inner struggles and turmoil, something we all feel, her need to express this through her art is buried deep within every person’s DNA.
Her collages appear bucolic at first, maybe a picturesque landscape, but once you read the text, you understand the emotions she’s channelling through her work. A horse in a field with birds flying above transforms when you read that ‘she is screaming, not from fear, but from rage’. It’s a reminder of how we expect mental health challenges to manifest versus how they actually appear, and often those who seem quietest and calmest are struggling the most. It also reflects the societal pressure we feel to keep our emotions bottled up.
Queerness and her sexuality are a major part of her work, and the confrontational manner in which she declares that she’s a dyke is a recognition of how queerness has to be hidden in many societies, including many countries where it’s still illegal, but Kuvalekar is not hiding any more. It’s acknowledged in a work where she states, ‘growing up is designed to beat the queerness out of you’, and the presence of a wolf makes us question whether it is preying on her or whether it’s symbolic of how she’s taking on the world.
The poetry in her work can be dark when it speaks of the crack of bone on bone, or beautiful when it reflects that the sun has come apart.
Her work reminds me of the collages of Hannah Höch, who used collage to challenge gender roles, rebuking the idea that women should do the dishes. She left her male romantic partner and then started a relationship with a woman. It’s into this legacy of women challenging society’s expectations that Kuvalekar’s work naturally fits.
Höch also moved in the same circles as Kurt Schwitters, and while his work is more abstract than Kuvalekar’s, there is some similarity in the use of poetic language. The use of language to make powerful points also brings to mind Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer, who both use language to make relevant statements, through the language of advertising and news tickers, respectively.
Mrudula Kuvalekar’s work is raw and confrontational. While it follows in the footsteps of many major artists, she ensures her work draws from her life experiences so that it stands out as unique. It’s when her collage meets her words at their most intense that her work leaves a lasting impact.
