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Kim Kardashian will pay $1.26 million to settle SEC charges over a crypto post
The agency says Kardashian didn't disclose that she was paid for an Instagram Story.
Beats and Kim Kardashian made a line of skin-colored Fit Pro earbuds
Kim Kardashian now has a special edition Beats Fit Pro in three skin colors.
Instagram suspended Kanye West for 24 hours
The temporary ban follows attacks on comedians Pete Davidson and Trevor Noah.
Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather sued over alleged crypto scam
A class action lawsuit has named Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather and basketball star Paul Pierce as defendants for promoting a cryptocurrency called EthereumMax.
Instagram lets you buy what Kim Kardashian wears right from the app
With over 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram sees a major opportunity to disrupt online shopping. And, over the past year or so, the company has been working hard to make shopping a cornerstone feature of its app. Just last month, it started allowing users buy products from a select group of brands without leaving the application, and now it's taking that one step further by opening up these features to celebrities, athletes and influencers. Starting next week, Instagram will make it easy for you to shop looks from your favorite creators: They'll now be able to tag products in their posts, giving you the ability to buy whatever they may be wearing (from apparel to cosmetics) directly from the app.
Adults are the only ones who fell for the Momo hoax
Oh man, we really do live on the dumbest timeline. You probably recognize the horrifying visage you see above: it's Momo, the mascot for the internet's newest outrage sensation. The Momo Challenge, as it's called, reportedly encourages children and teens to commit increasingly brazen acts of self-harm and criminality. It's also a complete and utter, laughably obvious hoax. Your kids are fine, literally nobody on the entire internet has fallen for this -- except, well, countless adults, law enforcement agencies, news outlets and school districts. You know, the responsible folks. The Momo in the picture, it should be noted, is real. The figure is not digitally generated, nor is it photoshopped. "Momo" actually exists as a static sculpture, dubbed "Mother Bird," and was created by Japanese artist Keisuke Aisawa, who made it for his employer: the special effects company, Link Factory. It was first displayed in a Tokyo horror-art gallery back in 2016. View this post on Instagram 台風だから幽霊の絵見てきた 幽霊はいいぞ #幽霊画廊 #猫将軍 A post shared by さとう【生ビール嫌い】 (@j_s_rock) on Aug 22, 2016 at 7:13am PDT During its run at the gallery, visitors snapped pictures of the sculpture, officially titled "Mother Bird," and posted them to Instagram. Eventually the images made their way to Reddit's r/creepy forum where it was further disseminated across the internet, all the while morphing into the Momo Challenge. Momo made her first appearance in the mainstream early last year after authorities in Argentina warned of a "WhatsApp terror game" following the suicide of a 12-year-old girl. In the following months, the rumor of "El Momo" made waves in Mexico before eventually landing on news desks here in the US that fall. By that point, school officials and local police departments were claiming that Momo was being spliced into children's programming on YouTube and spread among WhatsApp users. The panic even spread to the UK at the start of 2019 before hopping the pond back to the United States late last month. At the end of February, a Twitter user going by Wanda Maximoff issued the following warning in a now-deleted tweet, The Atlantic reports, "Warning! Please read, this is real. There is a thing called 'Momo' that's instructing kids to kill themselves. INFORM EVERYONE YOU CAN." That tweet was viewed more than 22,000 times over the next few days before exploding onto the mainstream consciousness thanks to Kim Kardashian discussing the Challenge with her 129 million-odd Instagram followers. Yet despite there being no confirmed cases of kids and teens even participating in this activity -- much less dying from it -- adults and authority figures around the country have flipped out, rushing to protect children from an online menace that doesn't actually exist. What we have here is a full-blown moral panic. I wish I could tell you that moral panics were something new but, as Chris Ferguson, professor and co-chair of psychology at Florida's Stetson University, explains to Engadget, they've been around for millenia. "I mean, you can see narratives in Plato's dialogues where Athenians are talking about Greek plays -- that they're going to be morally corrupting, that they're going to cause delinquency in kids," Ferguson points out. "That's why Socrates was killed, right? Essentially, that his his ideas were going to corrupt the youth of Athens. Socrates was the Momo challenge of his day." Unfortunately, humanity appears to still be roughly as gullible as we were in the 5th century BC as new moral panics crop up with uncanny regularity. In recent decades we've seen panics about Dungeons and Dragons leading to Satanism, hidden messages in Beatles songs, killer forest clowns, the Blue Whale, the Knockout Game, and the Tide Pod Challenge. Despite the unique nature of threat presented in each panic, this phenomenon follows a pair of basic motifs, Ferguson explained. "There's this inherent protectiveness of kids," he said. "There's also the sense of like, kids are idiots and therefore adults have to step in and 'do something' -- hence the idea that your teenager can simply watch a YouTube video and then suddenly want to kill themselves. It's ridiculous if you think about if for 30 seconds but, nonetheless, this is an appealing sort of narrative." "There's the general sense of teens behaving badly and technology oftentimes being the culprit in some way or another," Ferguson continued. "It just seems that we're kind of wired, particularly as we get older, to be more and more suspicious of technology and popular culture." That is due, in part, because the popular culture right now isn't the popular culture that the people in power grew up with. It's a "kids today with their music and their hair" situation, Ferguson argues. He points out that "Mid-adult mammals tend to be the most dominant in social species," but as they age, their power erodes until they are forced out of their position by a younger, fitter rival. "As we get older, eventually we're going to become less and less relevant," he said. Faced with that prospect, older members of society may begin to view fresh ideas and new technologies as evidence of society's overall moral decline. kids: we're afraid of dying because of climate change boomers: that's ridiculous! we're afraid a Japanese half-woman half-bird sculpture is trying to kill you through the internet — Notorious Sexual Freak Mrs. Beverly Bighead (@mechapoetic) March 2, 2019 When presented with unfamiliar tech and notions, "we may have the sense that we're losing control of culture gradually," Ferguson speculates. "That makes [moral panicking] easy for us because of that anxiety to push back against anything new." Conversely, the motivations for people to commit these hoaxes is depressingly straightforward: it's fun being a jerk online. Trolling folks into believing that a nightmarish chicken lady is grooming your kids for suicide by targeting their Peppa Pig videos is done for a variety of reasons: simple amusement, as attention seeking behavior, or as an act of revenge. "I think sometimes people like to start these things because they want the reaction," Ferguson said. "They want to feel like they're smarter than all these knuckleheads," who fell for their ruse. Unfortunately, in today's social media landscape where attention serves as the de facto currency, simply ignoring the trolls -- hoping that they'll get bored and quit -- isn't likely to happen. And for as long as people keep reproducing, society will be faced with intergenerational strife as "the kids with their music and their hair" grow up, rightfully displace their elders and assert themselves as gatekeepers of the dominant culture. Even when faced with their own mortality and declining social influence, today's panic stricken adults do still have a quantum of solace: Aisawa announced earlier this week that, in the wake of the Momo Challenge fallout, he has destroyed the original sculpture. "It doesn't exist anymore, it was never meant to last," Aisawa told The Sun. "It was rotten and I threw it away. The children can be reassured Momo is dead – she doesn't exist and the curse is gone."
Ken Bone may have violated FTC rules with Uber tweet (updated)
Ken Bone's overnight fame looks to have already soured. As VICE reports, Bone's tweet for the UBERSelect service in St. Louis, where last Sunday's presidential debate was held, did not include any indication that the message was sponsored. This is a big no-no with the Federal Trade Commission -- just ask Kim Kardashian.
Hillary Clinton's mobile game lets you run your own campaign
The Democratic National Convention opens today in Philadelphia and there has been some serious inner-DNC turmoil the past few days involving a ton of leaked emails. WikiLeaks published messages that show party officials rallying up against Bernie Sanders, and even making fake Craigslist ads to to target Donald Trump. But the Hillary Clinton campaign is moving full-steam ahead the only way it knows how: by releasing a mobile game.
The 10 most-tweeted commercials from Super Bowl XLIX
It was a great night for Rob Gronkowski and the New England Patriots, but it wasn't so good for our friend Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks. It also was a great night for brands trying to hold your attention for seconds with ads to get you talking on Twitter. From the usual highbrow suspects selling soda and beer, to toe fungus medication and superglue, here's our take on the most-talked about spots from last night's big game.
IRL: The OnePlus One is everything my iPhone wasn't
After last month's iPhone event, I was disappointed -- I realized the iPhone 6 and its "Plus" sibling were still catching up to Android in a lot of ways. Regardless, the devoted iPhone fan in me still pre-ordered an iPhone 6 a few days later, in the wee hours of September 12th. The next morning, I awoke to the alarm on my iPhone 5s and went to silence it, only to discover a small spot of water damage had worsened overnight, rendering the phone unusable. With less than 24 hours before jetting off on a work trip, I had no choice but to force myself into using another phone sitting on my desk: the OnePlus One. Now, you might be thinking that this was unusually convenient. The truth is, I decided to get a second phone a couple of weeks earlier and wanted one of the unlocked Android variety. Might as well ensure it's a good phone too, so with an Engadget score of 90, the One made sense.
I'd like to apologize to Kim Kardashian
I've been hard on Kim Kardashian. Well, not necessarily hard on her as a person, but I've always written about her iOS game, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, in a negative way. I apologize for that. I still think the app itself is the kind that appeals to the lowest common denominator, and wouldn't bother wasting a dime on it, but for the first time since KK: Hollywood became a hit, I now have what I can only describe as some much needed perspective. That perspective came in the form of a quarterly earnings report from Candy Crush publisher King Digital Entertainment. In its report, King noted some disappointing numbers, including a 12% drop in paying users. Analysts have cried foul and recommended investors to hold off on King at the moment, and the company's stock has taken a beating as a result, down almost 25% as of this writing. But where does Kim Kardashian fit in? Well, her wickedly popular celebrity simulator, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood has been sucking up loads of cash from App Store customers, and according to King, some of that cash was supposed to be going to them instead. "Competition within casual gaming is intense," the report reads, "with Kim Kardashian: Hollywood and 2048 going after the same demographics." King is blaming its failing App Store strategy -- which consists entirely of copying existing game concepts and rehashing them -- at least partly on Kim Kardashian's app. Thank you, Ms. Kardashian. To be clear: I'm not thanking the newlywed celebrity for costing King money, because I honestly don't believe KK: Hollywood is to blame for King's woes. What I am thankful for is the opportunity to view her celeb simulator in a new light. I still don't consider KK: Hollywood to be much of a game, but that doesn't really matter. What it is, is original, well made, and an absolute cash cow that deserves to be raking in money just like it has been. With a celebrity of the caliber of Kim Kardashian attached to it, the game had a pretty good chance of becoming a hit, but it was by no means a guarantee. In short, the Kardashian app was more of a risk than anything King has created in the 11 years the company has been around. Despite a US$7 billion IPO and more investors than any company could possibly know what to do with, King has yet to risk its now plummeting stock price on anything even remotely resembling an original idea. Now they're paying for it. Kim Kardashian -- whether or not she was deeply involved with how her game actually plays or not -- was able to do it on her first try. Bravo, Kim. Bravo.
Women are more prone to spending cash on in-app purchases
Ladies, I'm not blaming you for the fact that Kim Kardashian's obnoxious celebrity simulator is raking in huge mounds of cash, but a new study says you're more likely to embrace in-app purchases if you lack a Y chromosome. The data -- gathered by analytics firm Flurry -- shows that women make 31% more in-app transactions than men, and spend 35% more time with mobile games overall. The study, which sampled games on over a million devices, also showed trends within specific game genres. Men were more likely to spend time on strategy and competitive card games, while women played more solitaire, and simulation titles -- like Kim Kardashian's new game. Women were also found to be more "loyal" to the games they played, showing more dedication over a 7-day period than men. This makes sense of course because men hunt and women nest... right?
Stephen Colbert reviews the Kim Kardashian app
Don't look now, but the "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" app has already generated tens of millions of dollars in pure profit and currently occupies the #5 spot on the App Store's list of Top Grossing apps. There's no shortage of opportunities for jokes here, but why not let a master comedian show you how it's done? Earlier this week, Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report ran a hilarious review of the Kim Kardashian app that will have serious iOS developers cursing the heavens and everyone else laughing up a storm. The Colbert Report Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,The Colbert Report on Facebook,Video Archive
Kim Kardashian is one of the four horsemen of the App Store apocalypse
Kim Kardashian's has an app -- which should have been the first sign that we were approaching a dark time in the App Store -- and that app is so successful that it is on its way to raking in a total of $200 million in revenue by the end of the year. What in the name of Angry Birds is happening to the App Store? First, let's talk about the app itself: In Kim Kardashian: Hollywood your only real goal is to become famous. Not actually famous, just fake app famous. You do this by buying goofy clothes, getting clingy with other celebrities, getting fans for doing absolutely nothing meaningful, and -- of course -- by spending real-world money on in-app "Star Packs" in order to do these things. It's about as much of a "game" as filing your taxes would be if that activity somehow included poorly-drawn cartoon characters. The app appears to be quite the addictive experience, as many of the App Store reviews bemoan the impact the game is having on users' bank accounts. Tracie Morrissey from Jezebel knows this feeling well, having recently admitted to blowing a whopping $500 on in-app purchases. It would be nice to think that celebrity alone isn't enough to drive an app to massive financial success, but that seems to be exactly what's happening with Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. There's really no reason to even consider playing it unless you possess and almost unhealthy adoration for the titular gal, and that alone has been enough to suck millions and millions of dollars out of customers. If you have the money to burn, I can't really judge you for blowing it on an app -- I've been known to drop embarrassing amounts of cash on old video games, and that's not much different. But if you find yourself writing an App Store review blaming the app for the fact that you can't pay your rent, you might want to seek professional help.
Smack Kim Kardashian's giant butt in Facebreaker
We're just gonna go ahead and not call the game Buttbreaker. We know you want to. We want to. But we're all simply better than that. It doesn't mean the latest news about the boxing title is any less hilarious, though.Facebreaker K.O. Party already looked a little crazy, but it's about to get crazier -- reality-show, leopard-print, sex-tape kind of crazy, that is. In at least one version of the game (and probably all), Kardashian will appear as a playable character. We'd ask why, but it's so funny that we don't care. Maybe someone should add in Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Nicole Richie for a full set. The battles would be epic.%Gallery-27624%[Via Game|Life]
