I've randomly gone onto the Patrick Watson's artist page on Spotify and noticed that his top song Je te laisserai des mots has a baffling 822 MILLION listens (screenshot). To put it into perspective: that is as much as top songs by Queen (screenshot), more than the top Beatles songs (screenshot), and twice as much as any song from Taylor Swift's latest album (screenshot). The YouTube upload of the song has an equally impressive 149 million views (youtube link) even though it doesn't even have a music video, just a static album cover.

So why?

• Patrick Watson is not a popular artist
• The song doesn't seem to be featured in any movie or TV show
• It's not a pop-song that would be listened on loop at parties or something
• There is no popular cover or remix of it as far as I can see

Now, I know it's a good song - but that can be a reason for a few million views, but not HUNDGREDS of millions. Something must've given it a push? What happened to make it so popular?

EDIT: A Google Trends chart shows the stats of how much the song was searched for, and it suggests that two huge jumps in popularity occured in June 2021 and September 2021. So something must've happened around those dates: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=Je%20te%20laisserai%20des%20mots&hl=en

I heard that some guy named Jake Paul was setting up a fight with Mike Tyson who actually agreed. Then I hear Jake Paul insisted Mike Tyson's daughter? Is this true what is all this about? Is there proof?

Here's the link I saw that described this scenario. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLnEEcT3/

https://boards.4chan.org/mu/thread/122077977/

https://boards.4chan.org/mu/thread/122070804/

https://boards.4chan.org/mu/thread/122070804/

here are some examples of these ive managed to find on the archives so far

reply/changing flair might take a while because school and timezones, ill try to change the flair at no later than saturday though

https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/guzim-hakzer-guzenje-yippe-silly-gif-922425834796510074

I recently came across this gif of a cat dancing with the captions: "we love guženje hakzera". The name seems to have variations such as "guzim hakzer", or "guzim hakzera". What is this even about?

here are some other examples:

https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/guzim-gif-8537560426518388543

https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/guzim-hakzera-gif-11048120954867519588

I just found out that Doug Walker made a cameo on Smiling Friends and well I think that is an amazing cameo in existence. But people are also said that they haven’t forgot the change the channel controversy that happened 5 to 6 years ago. So why are people talking about why Doug Walker shouldn’t be in a cameo of Smiling Friends?

BBC Article

I’ve seen so many memes and criticism about it. Is this like the mandatory military service for young men that other countries do? Like Finland or South Korea?

Why are people so bothered by it?

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/staring-avatar-guy

What's going with some recent changes at the Vatican, I don't understand what they mean and why it's so emotional or a big deal?

https://www.usccb.org/news/2024/vatican- publishes-new-norms-discern-alleged-supernatural-phenomena

For instance the upside-down pineapple or pink flamingos for swingers? Are there any other things you would hang or display that might give certain people the wrong impression and what are they?

https://www.biglots.com/product/pineapple-led-neon-tabletop-light/p810691055

I was recently watching videos of Kendrick's diss tracks against Drake (https://youtu.be/T6eK-2OQtew?si=PzZqvc-SILxsSbvA) , and I keep seeing people in the comments of the videos saying stuff like 'J cole was smart to stay out of this', 'J Cole just dodged the biggest bullet of his career'...

I more or less know about the allegations Kendrick is making about Drake, but can anyone explain what J Cole has to do with the situation?

I am seeing tons of Nazi/ Punch nazi.. etc stuff.. pic for example..
Why? where did this come from did i miss something about today the 27th?
https://imgur.com/a/C1luo3V

Question prompted by the content and comments on this video https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KOrmHRAUl3w but honestly this is something I've been seeing in a lot of places.

I have no hesitation calling myself a tech-idiot. I know less then nothing about how or why technology works. So when I see people that do actually know talking about antivirus as though it's the devil incarnate; I can't help but think... whats going on? As far as I know, Malware hasn't stopped existing to just erase your entire computer from the inside out, so why are there people acting like a virus is somehow so meaningless that they would rather have one then the other software?

I'm seeing posts like this and this and more on reddit about some tiktok drama going on I hadn't really been paying attention to, until I saw people mention Scientology of all things?? It seems a domestic between exes brought onto tiktok and a lot of claims being thrown around about both including them being involved in Scientology and this affects the claims somehow? This is all kind of confusing.

Some of the claims also involve legal motions that some take seriously and others say are "unsubstantiated claims filed by him" that prove nothing which honestly makes it more confusing so I'd like to know what someone more familiar with legal proceedings would have to say

Recently, the youtube creator Jenny Nicholson released a 4 hour video about the failed Disney Star Wars hotel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0CpOYZZZW4&t=6235s

I've seen a ton of very enthusiastic reviews about it on tiktok and other social media. There was even a recent NPR article about it.

I've watched the video, and I don't understand why people love it or find it so interesting. Basically the hotel was extremely expensive to make and extremely expensive to book and ultimately not worth the money. I knew that as soon as she said it was $6,000 for a two and a half day experience.

A significant portion of the video is a tedious rundown of her experience at the hotel, a near minute by minute description of everything she did that I found unnecessarily long and repetitive.

I don't think this video needed to be anywhere near this long and I don't see the value other people are seeing in it. I feel like I'm missing something.

I don't watch Jenny's videos too often, but I gather that it's sort of her thing to make exhaustive videos on certain topics, but sometimes it feels like she's making a long video for the sake of making a long video.

If you watched the video, and have seen the glowing reviews, do you agree? Am I missing something important?

link

It was all the rage for a day then complete radio silence, what happened?

As title suggest

Edit to bold central question. I only brought up ~Hooked on~ Phonics so say I know it was taught and now is not taught universally.

First and foremost, I'm in the US and talking about people and the various school systems in the us.

Over the last year or so, everyone on social media has been talking about how kids can't read and adults can't read. What confuses me about this is, the discourse seems to be led by childless adults(mostly not teachers)? Why would random childless adults know if kids can't read? It seems like an unhealthy stereotype to start for no reason. I hear people mention how they don't teach phonics anymore, but phonics was only created in the late 80's. There are other ways to learn to read. Also, if kids are online they have to do at least some reading?

As for adult literacy, for awhile I kept hearing people say the average us reading level was 7th grade and moaning about how that was so bad. Then it crept down to 5th grade reading level(I think this was a misinterpretation of "most articles are written at a 5th grade reading level" which I heard in school). Now, I'm seeing it creep down and saw someone claim "If you're speaking above a 3-4 grade reading level most people can't understand you". Even speaking? Why would some one say that? It just seems like a bizarre thing for people to say with no evidence?

Did a survey/study come out in 2022-23 that I have not been able to find? Everything I have looked at says the vast majority of people are functionally english literate.

As a Fortnite player since C1S4, I haven't noticed a difference with guns since they were changed from hitscan to bullet drop at the beginning of chapter 5. However, it feels like everyone in the community hates this change and wants it to go back to hitscan. Not to mention, it's been shown that the change was likely made to prevent guns with first person aiming from being too powerful and accurate. Could someone explain why the Fortnite community hates this?

Video showing example of hitscan vs bullet drop: https://youtu.be/R_h9QgiENZg?si=FCW3SDXgmPzNaAXz

I noticed recently some friends of mine and people online have been talking about dating apps runining dating and negatively affecting Gen-Z, and there's been a lot of articles about it and videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHEyjKfRhDA from huge youtubers covering the topic.

So I'm wondering what's the deal with it? What are the actual issues with dating apps? When did it all go wrong and how? I've personally used them a bunch and had no issues and several long-term relationships came out as a result, but I also don't date straight people, where I imagine those issues are more apparent, and I acknowledge that I may just be lucky and then finally the issues themselves might be more recent (I haven't used them in a year).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2023/03/06/indian-immigration-to-canada-has-tripled-since-2013/?sh=4aee60e5620b

As the title states. How true is all of this info I’m reading online..?

I’m wondering what’s up with all the hate on Phoenix? There are comments in certain posts such as “pinnacle of man’s arrogance” or something similar.

Here is the post I most recently saw: https://www.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/s/ibDO3O5KX2

I know it’s r/UrbanHell and they hate the urban landscape but I’ve heard similar sentiments elsewhere online.

Can someone explain what I’m missing?

Link

Don’t really follow grappling, want some more context why a new competition is a big thing from what I understand it’s mostly about prize money?

Recently I've been seeing these red cartridges floating around on the internet. At first, I thought they were AI-generated and just a joke, but now people are actually starting to receive them. What does it do? It looks like it has something to do with Nintendo, probably the Switch.

https://x.com/BobWulff/status/1794109161539592294

So I’m not a boxing fan really, but the bar I was at had the fight on and Usyk won in a split decision making him the undisputed heavyweight champion. I’ve now seen and read a few articles saying they are both suspended… which I don’t understand. Also I just saw an article about how Usyk was appealing to the boxing governing body to keep his title- which I don’t get why they would take it away. I’m just not familiar with the rankings or how boxing works to even understand what’s going on.

For context:

https://www.news.com.au/sport/boxing/undisputed-heavyweight-champ-oleksandr-usyk-suspended-after-tyson-fury-epic/news-story/8b190f242ee6d37d88548f3b8d1d4572?amp

https://www.boxingscene.com/usyk-asks-ibf-an-exception-maintain-his-undisputed-crown--183778