From Oslo pram guy to the teenage vacuum expert: inside the obsessive world of niche online reviewers

Wade can tell you the best pram for a tall parent; Matthew knows which cleaner has superior suction power. But how do you become a respected reviewer on the wild west of the internet?

Once a month, every month, more than 8,000 strangers pay James Hoffmann a total of £16,263 so he can go out and buy coffee machines. Hoffmann, 41, from London, is an author, business owner, coffee connoisseur and, above all, a YouTuber: more than 900,000 people subscribe to his channel, on which he discusses everything to do with beans and brewing. Around a third of Hoffmann’s videos are product reviews: grinders, espresso machines, storage canisters and filters have all been scrutinised by him.

Hoffmann’s monthly £16,000 comes from Patreon, a membership platform that allows fans to pay creators a regular fee. The money is intended to keep him impartial: it enables him to buy machines to review directly – just like you or me – instead of getting them on loan from brands.

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Instagram ‘pushes weight-loss messages to teenagers’

Researchers find minimal interactions by teen users can trigger a deluge of thin-body and dieting images

Instagram’s algorithms are pushing teenage girls who even briefly engage with fitness-related images towards a flood of weight-loss content, according to new research which aimed to recreate the experience of being a child on social networks.

Researchers adopting “mystery shopper” techniques set up a series of Instagram profiles mirroring real children and followed the same accounts as the volunteer teenagers. They then began liking a handful of posts to see how quickly the network’s algorithm pushed potentially damaging material into the site’s “explore” tab, which highlights material that the social network thinks a user might like.

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Social networks’ anti-racism policies belied by users’ experience

Analysis: Twitter, Facebook and others condemn hateful speech, so why is it so easy to find on their sites?

The world’s biggest social networks say racism isn’t welcome on their platforms, but a combination of poor enforcement and weak rules have allowed hate to flourish.

In the hours after England’s loss to Italy in the European Football Championship, both Twitter and Facebook, which owns Instagram, issued statements condemning the swelling racist abuse.

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‘Where else can I make a month’s rent in two days?’: the unlikely stars of OnlyFans

Clarita needed to put herself through nursing school; Lex wanted to boost his income as a labourer – now they are erotic influencers on the subscriber site

In many ways, Lex Lederman, 28, is a classic American family man. He owns a farm in New Hampshire, where he lives with his wife and three children (plus a sizable company of chickens, pigs and geese). He’s teaching himself home renovation (plumbing, electrics, how to lay floors) and regularly helps out with homeless food charities, refugee relief, and the local high school football team. But this lifestyle has only become possible since he quit his construction job for a full-time career on OnlyFans – the content subscription service where he uploads erotic pictures and videos for his predominantly gay male fanbase.

One of the biggest tech success stories of the last few years, OnlyFans was founded by British entrepreneur Tim Stokely in September 2016. “You could see the explosion of influencer marketing, but the influencers were getting paid via ad campaigns and product endorsements,” he explained in an interview earlier this year. “Our thinking was always, OK, what if you could build a platform where it’s similar to existing on social media, but with the key difference being the payment button?” Stokely is now worth an estimated $120m (£86m).

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Facebook to suspend Trump’s account for two years

Decision follows oversight board recommendation over ex-president’s post on Capitol attack

Facebook is suspending Donald Trump’s account for two years, the company has announced in a highly anticipated decision that follows months of debate over the former president’s future on social media.

“Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols. We are suspending his accounts for two years, effective from the date of the initial suspension on January 7 this year,” Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice-president of global affairs, said in a statement on Friday.

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‘In this world, social media is everything’: how Dubai became the planet’s influencer capital

Once a small port on the edge of a desert, Dubai is now a magnet for reality stars and a jet set crowd looking to beat the vaccine queue. But do the filtered images tell the whole story?

On the electric blue tarmac of a helipad on the edge of Palm Jumeirah, an artificial island on the Dubai coastline, Busra Duran stands on tiptoes. Wearing multicoloured trainers and a pink tulle minidress, the 28-year-old Turkish influencer is posing for photos in front of a red helicopter. Her husband, Gökhan Gündüz, snaps away as she models her pink sunglasses in the shadow of the Atlantis, a blush-coloured hotel with green pointed rooftops which resembles the fake castles of Disneyland’s Magic Kingdom.

‘Gündüz, 29, wears a striped T-shirt with the word “positive” emblazoned around the collar. Duran skips over to check the photos he’s taken, before they discuss her Instagram shots from the ride. Duran approached the helicopter company to request this free 12-minute tour, the shortest available, and they were happy to oblige. “It was amazing,” she says, flatly, sounding unconvinced. The trip is one of a whole roster of experiences Duran has set up for the benefit of her 608,000 Instagram followers. In a few days, the couple have arranged to play golf – another free gift – and Duran often poses for pictures at restaurants in exchange for a meal. Her glittering Dubai lifestyle is displayed on her Instagram: one day she’ll be perching on the side of a bubble bath in an upmarket hotel reading a copy of Gulf News; the next in a red swimsuit beside a pool, a glass of rosé in one hand and a copy of a Paulo Coelho novel in front of her.

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Advocates say kids’ Instagram product would ‘put young users at great risk’

Children’s health advocates urged Mark Zuckerberg to abandon the plan citing the negative effects of social media on children

An international coalition of children’s health advocates has called on Facebook to abandon its plans to build an Instagram product for kids, citing harm to teens from excessive use of social media.

The campaign comes after Buzzfeed broke the news in March that Facebook seeks to build an Instagram product for people under the age of 13. The company currently requires users to be 13 years or older to create an account.

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How Leslie Jordan made it big: ‘If you want to get sober, try 27 days in county jail’

After starring in Will & Grace and American Horror Story, his life took a twist in lockdown and he became an Instagram superstar at 65. He discusses fame, fun and sharing a cell with Robert Downey Jr

For a man of such diminutive stature – 4ft 11in in shoes – Leslie Jordan loves a tall tale. A cursory question at the start of our interview about where he is calling from, for example, results in this glorious flight of fancy: “I got on a bus in 1982, from the hills of Tennessee. I had $1,200 sewn into my underpants by my mother and I arrived in LA and found West Hollywood, which is where I currently live.”

Such vivid storytelling – delivered in a honey-thick southern drawl, accentuated perfectly by a knowing campness – is part of the reason for Jordan’s unexpected career boost at 65. A jobbing actor best known for his role in American Horror Story and his Emmy-winning turn as Beverly Leslie, the acid-tongued rival of Megan Mullally’s Karen in Will & Grace, Jordan spent most of 2020 becoming an accidental internet sensation, racking up 5.6 million Instagram followers – including the likes of Rihanna and Lily Allen – thanks to his charmingly chaotic videos.

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‘It smelled like pain and regret’: inside the world of competitive hot chilli eaters

The pandemic has driven chilliheads online, where some have built impressive followings for their hot sauce reviews and daring feats of strength

Behind his calm, methodical approach to every hot chilli eating and super spicy food challenge, Dustin “Atomik Menace” Johnson is enduring a kind of physical pain and mental anguish beyond what most will ever experience in a lifetime.

In one of his most-watched YouTube livestreams, the 31-year-old Las Vegas resident downs 122 super-spicy Carolina Reapers, the Guinness World Record holder for hottest pepper, while fans watch and cheer him on. While there are clues that he’s struggling – his face turns a deep red color and shines with perspiration, and in the latter half in particular, he takes breaks – his low-key demeanor has made the growing chillihead community question whether he’s built like an average human, or if he’s human at all.

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Donald Trump video clip removed from Facebook ‘in line with block’

Former US president has been banned from the platform since early January after the violent insurrection of the Capitol

Facebook on Wednesday removed a clip of an interview with Donald Trump from its platform, according to the former president’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump.

In a post shared to her Instagram account, Lara Trump, who is a Fox News commentator, shared a message from Facebook officials alerting her they had removed a video teaser of an upcoming interview with her father-in-law on Fox News.

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‘The fakery is all part of the fun’: the hoax of the mirror selfie

An influencer has claimed that the popular social media pose is a form of visual trickery. But why would you bother, when it’s so easy to do by yourself? And does it matter if it’s fake or not?

Even if the phrase “mirror selfies” isn’t in your daily lexicon, you likely know what it means: a selfie which, rather than being taken directly – camera-phone to face – is taken using a mirror, giving you a photograph of your own reflection.

Last week the internet trope - a mainstay of influencers such a Kendall Jenner, recognisable for the placement of a phone in front of the face - became freshly controversial.

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Tobacco giant bets £1bn on social-media influencers to boost ‘lung-friendlier’ sales

As smoking falls out of fashion, BAT is pinning its hopes on younger users of e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches

Flashing an ice-white smile for her 50,000 followers on TikTok, a fresh-faced young woman pops a flavoured nicotine pouch into her mouth, as one of Pakistan’s most popular love songs plays in the background.

More than 3,000 miles away, in Sweden, another social media starlet lip-syncs for the camera, to a different pop tune. The same little pouches, made by British American Tobacco, appear in shot.

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Rihanna angers Hindus with ‘disrespectful’ Ganesha pendant

Comments on singer’s Instagram account say wearing likeness of god is cultural appropriation

The singer Rihanna has angered the Hindu community with a “disrespectful” Instagram picture in which she wears a diamond-studded pendant featuring the Hindu god Ganesha.

Commenters on her Instagram account have called the wearing of the likeness of the god around her neck cultural appropriation.

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‘I get better sleep’: the people who quit social media

Soo Youn is considering giving up the apps. She speaks to those who have already taken the plunge – with liberating results

My memory and recall are alarmingly good – borderline photographic. But when I used Instagram, I found it would short-circuit my recall in an alarming way. I’d be describing something mid-sentence and I’d just stop speaking, unable to finish. So I rarely use it.

But my attention span – and my posture, eyes and sleep – are still being degraded by other technology and my dependence on it. In my pandemic life, technology is a lifeline – 90% of my social and work life happens on one of four screens.

I’m flirting with the idea of giving up social media and maybe even ... texts. I am fascinated by people like Justine Haupt, a quantum communications engineer who has never owned a smartphone. She also builds and sells rotary cellphones. Yes, rotary cellphones.

What would my life be like if getting in touch with people required me to communicate with purpose, memorize numbers again, and dial with my fingers, instead of, accidentally, my butt?

For my sake – and yours – I sought inspiration from people who have already crossed into a more analog life.

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Perfect storm: have the influencers selling a dream lost their allure?

Social media stars, already under fire for trips to Dubai in lockdown, are now involved in a row over Instagram posts

Makeup artist Sasha Louise Pallari started her hashtag #filterdrop in summer 2020. A social media campaign to discourage influencers promoting beauty products by using filters to exaggerate their effect, it paid off last week when the Advertising Standards Authority banned two tanning brands from using misleading filters on Instagram Stories. The ruling means that in future all use of filters will be more tightly controlled – and, so the theory goes, more “natural” content likely to be seen on social media.

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The nobody-nose job: how the pandemic led to a rise in plastic surgery

Wanting to emerge from lockdown ‘better’ versions of themselves, some people are turning to drastic measures

When Kaafiya Abdulle gave birth to her son in April 2017, she chose to breastfeed. A year later, she switched to baby formula, hyper-vigilant of the effects nursing had on her breasts. Unhappy with the sagging and shrinking that had occurred, she began to research breast lifts – a procedure she desperately wanted but never had the courage to pursue. Until the pandemic, that is.

Related: Why you should ignore the pressure to be productive during lockdown

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Fat felines: we all love a ‘chonky’ cat – but the online trend has to end

Over the last few years, the internet has thrilled to pictures of chubby pets. But now experts are calling for a new era of cat shaming and determined dieting

Name: Fat cats.

Age: Probably no older than 10, given their propensity to die young.

Appearance: Fat.

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AOC’s cooking live streams perfect the recipe for making politics palatable

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is using her millennial’s instinct for social media and her star quality to get her message across

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or talk up a storm about the minimum wage, healthcare and the existential struggle for democracy.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s latest Instagram live stream found the youngest woman ever elected to the US Congress standing at a chopping board with two lemons and a plastic jug as she expounded her political philosophy.

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How western travel influencers got tangled up in Pakistan’s politics

Travel bloggers have flocked to Pakistan in recent years – but have some of them become too close to the authorities?

Long before she became headline news in Pakistan, Cynthia Dawn Ritchie was simply a tourist. In 2009, Ritchie, an American woman living in Houston, Texas, took a trip to Karachi, the sprawling megacity in southern Pakistan. At the time, Pakistan was beset by terrorist violence, and the travel advice of most western countries could be summarised as “don’t go”. But Ritchie had been persuaded by friends who knew the city. “My Pakistani friends said: ‘Cynthia, you’ve travelled much of the world, but you haven’t been to Pakistan, why not come?’ I was like: ‘Sure, why not?’,” Ritchie told me.

After a couple of weeks eating seafood and sightseeing, Ritchie went back to Houston, where she worked in communications and other roles for local government. The next year, she made a few more trips to Pakistan, funded by various Pakistani-American organisations. Houston is twinned with Karachi, and Ritchie told me that back then she “represented the city as an informal goodwill ambassador”. As foreigners in Pakistan often are, she was immediately offered exciting opportunities – working with local NGOs, advising the health department about social media, giving lectures. That year, she decided to move to Pakistan permanently. “I just felt a kinship here, that I belonged here and had a sense of purpose,” she said when we first spoke earlier this year. She settled in the leafy, relatively secure capital city, Islamabad, where most westerners in Pakistan – diplomats, journalists, aid workers – also lived.

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Instagram row over plus-size model forces change to nudity policy

Facebook amends code after deletion of black users’ photos sparks outrage

As campaigning victories go, forcing Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire to admit a discriminatory flaw in its policy is no small feat.

But following a campaign launched in this paper, the Observer can exclusively reveal that Instagram and its parent company Facebook will be updating its policy on nudity in order to help end discrimination of plus-size black women on its platforms and ensure all body types are treated fairly.

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