EOTO #2: Generative AI

Generative AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is a relatively new concept in the world of technology that people are still trying to navigate and understand. However, its likeness has been researched since the 1960s. 

In 1966, MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum created the first-ever chatbot and named it ELIZA. The chatbot was named after Eliza Doolittle, the fictional character from George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play, Pygmalion. ELIZA was one of the earliest examples of Natural Language Processing, or NLP. 

ELIZA's purpose was to simulate plausible conversations with human users by generating responses based on the text it was given. ELIZA was originally modeled after the Rogerian style of psychotherapy. The machine would rephrase any speech input it received into a question. For instance, if you told ELIZA a conversation with a friend made you sad, it would ask, "Why do you feel sad?" 

Weizenbaum designed ELIZA with the intent of displaying how superficial the conversations between humans and machines were, but ELIZA's existence produced the complete opposite reaction from the general public. People loved talking to it and hearing it repeat and reflect everything they just said.

Weizenbaum was so disturbed by these reactions, that he spent the rest of his life warning people against the chaos that could ensue if computers were given too large of a role to play in society. The irony here is that a man who regrets his own invention and does not support the idea of humans and machines communicating helped to create Artificial Intelligence in the future. 

Weizenbaum even went on to write against ELIZA in a book he published in 1976 titled, Computer Power and Human Reason. In the book, Weizenbaum states, "What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people." 

People saw the machine as an illusion of compassion, which Weizenbaum feared the government and other corporations could take advantage of. 

Weizenbaum passed away in March of 2008, well before the more advanced Artificial Intelligence that we know today came into existence. Although he would not approve if he were still alive today, ELIZA has acted as the perfect blueprint to build more advanced Artificial Intelligence creations. 

In February 2010, Siri was released on Apple's App Store for iOS. Two months later, Apple acquired the app and integrated it into the iPhone 4S at its release in the fall of 2011. The separate Siri app was then removed from the App Store, and Siri became the official digital assistant of Apple. Siri can now be found on all Apple devices, including the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Macbook, Airpods, Apple TV, and their latest virtual assistant development, HomePod. I am going in chronological order here, so I will touch on HomePod within the next few paragraphs. 

Siri uses voice queries, gesture-based control, and focus-tracking, and similarly to ELIZA, has Natural Language Processing abilities. Siri can adapt to its users' individual language uses, searches, and preferences, and delivers results that reflect them. The assistant can set up text messages, dial phone calls, schedule calendar events, set timers, set alarms, and come up with internet searches from the questions it is asked by users. 

In 2011, Jeff Bezos was brainstorming the first Echo device for Amazon. He said that he wanted the device to be completely voice-controlled, which his team said would be hard to accomplish. In 2001, a speech synthesizer called Ivona was invented in Poland. Ivona's purpose was to convert text into audible speech with a human-sounding voice that humans could easily understand. 

In 2013, Amazon bought Ivona to help them develop a voice for the artificial intelligence that would later reside in the Echo, Alexa. Ivona was inspired by the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, whereas Alexa was inspired by the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek. In 2014, Alexa was finally complete and ready to be released as a part of the Amazon Echo. Alexa, like ELIZA and Siri, also uses Natural Language Processing to perform its functions. Alexa has voice interaction and music playback. It can make a to-do list, shop on Amazon for you, set alarms, stream podcasts, and play audiobooks. It can also provide the weather, traffic, sports, and other news in real-time. 

In 2016, the original Google Home was released in the United States, and devices under the Google Home name have continued to be released globally since 2017. Google's line of digital home products has been sold under a new name, Google Nest, since 2019. The name change's purpose was to keep all of Google's devices together under one name. Google has also come out with thermostats, security cameras, smoke detectors, smart doorbells, and more under the Nest branding. 

I will, however, keep referring to the devices as Google Home in this blog post because that is what they were called when my family bought ours. Google Home was at first a series of smart speakers that had built-in Google Assistant, the company's own virtual assistant. Users can play music, control the playback of photos or videos, and receive news updates by voice. The devices allow users to control them by voice command. A later update allowed the Googe Home devices to connect to Bluetooth for audio streaming.

 In 2016, the original Google Home was a tall cylindrical shape with LED dots on the top. In 2017, Google released the Google Home Mini and Google Home Max. In 2018, Google released the Google Home Hub, a smart speaker sporting a 7-inch touchscreen. Finally in 2019, after rebranding to Google Nest, the Google Nest Hub Max, a bigger and newer version of the Google Home Hub, was released. 

In 2018, Google decided to create its own virtual assistant to make phone calls for people, called Google Duplex. The point of Duplex was to schedule appointments and make restaurant reservations on a human's behalf while sounding like a human. Google wanted Duplex to sound as realistic as possible, so the company gave it a natural speech pattern that included filler words such as "er" and "mmm-hmm" to make it sound more human-like. Google Duplex was also able to ask businesses for their hours of operation during holidays and make the information available to view online with a Google search after receiving it. 

In 2018, the first generation model of HomePod was released by Apple. HomePod has been sold alongside its smaller and less expensive version, HomePod Mini, since 2020. HomePod's first generation was discontinued in 2021 due to a series of complaints by users about its few abilities and hefty price tag, but the first generation of HomePod Mini got to stick around and is still sold today. 

In 2023, Apple released a second generation of the HomePod with improvements. HomePod is a smart speaker that Apple designed to work with an Apple Music subscription. The device uses beamforming, a technique used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of received signals, eliminate undesirable interference sources, and focus transmitted signals to specific locations. 

In 2021, DALL-E was developed and released by the company OpenAI. DALL-E is able to generate digital images using natural language descriptions from users, called "prompts". In 2022, OpenAI released DALL-E 2. The purpose of the second model was to make images that appeared more realistic and could be viewed at higher resolutions. Microsoft decided to insert DALL-E 2 into their Designer app as well as their Image Creator tool, which is included inside Bing and Microsoft Edge. In 2023, OpenAI released its third model, DALL-E 3. The third model was created to be able to understand "significantly more nuance and detail" than its predecessors. The name DALL-E is a combination of the Pixar character, WALL-E, and the Spanish surrealist artist, Salvador Dalí. 

2022 brought the initial release of ChatGPT, and 2023 introduced the stable release of the chatbot. ChatGPT stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer. It was developed by OpenAI, the same company that created DALL-E. ChatGPT is a language model-based chatbot that lets users refine and steer conversations toward whatever length, format, style, level of detail, and language they want. Users can get priority access to newer features with a paid subscription to ChatGPT Plus which was released in 2023 and costs users $20 monthly. 

The chatbot was trained on its functions by humans through two different methods of training: RLHF and supervised learning. RLHF stands for reinforcement learning from human feedback. The way it works is, humans go into the chatbot's conversational history and rank its past performance. These rankings created "reward models" and helped to fine-tune the model even further. Supervised learning puts the trainers in the position of both the human users and the chatbot assistant itself. 

After researching eight types of generative artificial intelligence, I have identified a big problem among at least three of them. Siri, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home/Nest all respond immediately to a simple voice command programmed into their system. Siri's command is, "Hey Siri". Amazon Alexa's command is, "Alexa". Google Home/Nest's command is, "OK Google". The problem that these simple voice commands have pointed out to me is: if people are able to grasp the attention of AI-controlled devices using a voice command and have them respond immediately to let us know that they're listening, does this mean that the devices are listening to people all the time 24/7? I believe it is possible, but I have no proof. 

Blog Post #6: Anti-War Voices

One of the first articles that caught my eye on the website antiwar.com began with the title, "The Media Aren't Telling the Whole Story". Immediately curious as to what they were talking about, I clicked on the article. The title told me right off the bat that I was about to read something the U.S. government did not want to get out. 

Part of our First Amendment rights as American citizens is freedom of the press. How free is the press? Is the press coming up with their own narratives and reporting on stories they've written for themselves, or is the government spoon-feeding journalists hand-picked information to prevent them from spewing other bits and pieces of information that they want to shield from the public eye?  

The first article I clicked on discussed severe floods in Libya, which I have seen nothing about in the news. Thousands of people are dead or missing, many houses have been destroyed, their dams are in bad shape (which caused the floods) and overall, the politics in Libya have been an absolute trainwreck for years. Who obliterated Libya's political system? The U.S. government. 

Further down the article, it is mentioned that NATO went behind the back of the United Nations and violated what was allowed. NATO launched what they called a "humanitarian intervention" but over two thousand Libyans were killed in the process. NATO labeled the intervention in Libya as a means to protect its citizens, when in reality, they intended from the start to cause destruction. Also, they murdered Libya's dictator at the time, Muammar Gaddafi, with little to no supporting evidence that he was plotting to use his troops to mass murder and rape civilians. 

The tragic invasion of Libya was closely compared by the U.S. government to the invasion of Iraq and the murder of Saddam Hussein. The two events are similar in the way that NATO went and started a war based on zero proven facts without the United Nations permission. Circling back to the beginning of this post, I think that I have to seek out obscure websites such as antiwar.com in order to hear strong antiwar voices because the U.S. government is overly supportive of war. They love the idea of war. They jump for joy at the thought of sending troops out with explosives. 

Why is no one stopping them? The U.S. government has developed an abundance of power over time. Weapons have been upgraded, and laws have been both rewritten and unwritten from history. There's a famous quote by George Santayana that sits in the back of my head. He once said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". Erasing history will only lead to it coming back to haunt you in the future. 

When you take a minute to think about all of the history that has been erased, or unwritten, or how many people have tried to make you forget it happened, there is a long list. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the original verdict of Roe v. Wade. Also, in the past, someone tried to tell me, a Jewish woman, that the holocaust was not real and did not happen, as a joke. If tragedies in history such as the holocaust were to be forgotten, that leaves a chance of repetition later on, and I cannot begin to imagine what that would look like today. 

I believe that the roots of any country lie within its government. What does that say about America as a whole? Libya no longer has roots to grow from, as it still does not have a government. 

In conclusion, the U.S. government is too powerful, history is capable of repeating itself if one tries to forget or erase it, and I hope that Libya can reconstruct its government and restore what was destroyed. 

EOTO #1 Reaction: The iPhone, The Typewriter, YouTube, and Netflix

After watching my classmates' presentations on the history of different types of communication technology, I found that four topics piqued my interest the most. Here is everything I learned about the history of the iPhone, the typewriter, YouTube, and Netflix. 

The iPhone was revealed to the public on January 9, 2007. Development of the iPhone began in 2004, and before the iPhone came around, there were very few phones that had a touchscreen. Those that did were super expensive. The point of the iPhone was to have the functions of a computer condensed and able to fit into the palm of your hand. The first iPhone cost $599, and Apple sold 300,000 units in its first weekend. Every new iPhone model has come with a new feature, such as touch ID, face ID, and the loss of the home button. Today, Apple has released over 30 different iPhone models, and they've become a pretty powerful company. 50% of people in the United States and 21% of people globally own an iPhone. As an iPhone owner myself, I was a little surprised to discover that half of the U.S. population owns an iPhone. 

The typewriter does not have a distinct inventor and is said to have been invented by a man of unknown origin. One thing that surprised me was finding out that the typewriter was originally created for blind people to type out their thoughts. Later on, it was used to cut down on the time it takes to handwrite on paper. Christopher Soles, the inventor of the QWERTY keyboard, reinvented and patented the typewriter and took it to the United States. I thought it was really cool that the typewriter was first made with the intention of helping blind people communicate. I had no idea! 

YouTube came to be on February 14, 2005, by three former employees of the financial company PayPal. Their idea was to create a community where people could share home videos. In the very beginning, those who wanted to share videos on YouTube had to pay a fee. It's weird to think about the fact that people were required to pay to post at first. Imagine all the current YouTubers and social media influencers, who post multiple videos weekly, having to put their paychecks toward posting their videos rather than updating equipment or other things related to their channels. 

Netflix was created by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph on August 27, 1997, in Scotts Valley, California. Initially, Netflix started out as a DVD rental website that would ship customers DVDs in the mail. Users would then rate the DVDs they rented. By 2006, Netflix had reached 5 million users. The company did not add a streaming feature until 2007. Netflix's direct competition at the time was Blockbuster, and with the way things are today, it is pretty clear which entertainment giant won. There is only one Blockbuster in existence as of right now, and it is located in Bend, Oregon. As of September 8 of this year, Netflix's net worth is 196.23 billion dollars, and the streaming company currently boasts about 238 million subscribers, which is more than any other streaming service. I was already aware that Marc Randolph frequently visits High Point University to meet with business students, but it never occurred to me just how much effort Randolph had to put into creating this company and what it truly meant to surpass Blockbuster's success. 

EOTO #1: The Phonograph

The phonograph was originally invented and constructed by Thomas Edison in December of 1877. Edison wanted a way to combine the likes of the telegraph and the telephone, which both had already been invented. The earliest version of the phonograph consisted of a diaphragm with an embossing point and a piece of paraffin paper. The idea was to create indentations on the paper to mark sound vibrations. As Edison continued to brainstorm, the paraffin paper was replaced by a metal cylinder with a piece of tin foil wrapped around it to catch the indentations. 

The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units. One was used for recording sound, and the other was used for playback. In order to make it all work, someone had to speak into a mouthpiece, thus indenting sound vibrations on the metal cylinder with the needle and making a vertical groove pattern. When Edison was first testing out the invention, he spoke "Mary had a little lamb" into the mouthpiece, and marked the phonograph as a success once it played the words back to him. 

Thomas Edison filed for a patent on the phonograph on December 24, 1877, and finally got the patent issued on February 19, 1878. The phonograph was officially his invention, and it was the first and only working model of its kind. The only other recording of an invention similar to Edison's was written in a paper in April of 1877 by Charles Cros, a French Scientist. His work was not proven to actually exist and was only spoken of by theory. 

 Edison, ever-proud of his product, took it over to the Scientific American offices in New York City, where it piqued the interest of many and skyrocketed in popularity. Soon after Edison's visit to the offices, the phonograph was pictured in a series of newspapers and magazines. The Edison Speaking Phonograph Company came to be on January 24, 1878. 

After a while, the phonograph was less of an interest to the public, and Thomas Edison paused his work on the product to focus on inventing the incandescent light bulb. While Edison was busy inventing the light bulb, Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, took it upon himself to further improve upon Edison's phonograph. 

Bell and his brother, Chichester A. Bell, built a new and improved model of the phonograph, replacing some of its key parts with more convenient ones. They replaced the needle with a floating stylus and used a combination of different waxes to replace the tin foil since the tin foil would break apart after only a few uses. The Bell brothers dubbed their creation the "Gramophone", were issued a patent, and then proposed a collaboration with Edison.

 Edison declined and resumed his own work on the phonograph. By this point, he had invented the light bulb and had plenty of time to spend making the phonograph even better than the Bells did. Ironically, Edison pulled from the Bell brothers' idea of using wax rather than tin foil for his latest upgrade to the invention. Edison completed his revisions, and called his latest version the "New Phonograph". 

The phonograph was revised even further, with a later version called the "Edison Standard Phonograph". The Standard Phonograph was manufactured and sold in 1898 and became the first phonograph to have the Edison trademark design on it. The standard model cost $20 at the time and saw great success. 

The phonograph has continued to leave an impact on sound today, especially within the music industry. Over the years, it offered people the chance to listen to any kind of music wherever and whenever they wanted, completely on demand. Different genres emerged such as jazz and blues, songs became shorter (2-3 minutes in length), and the general public found themselves resonating with sound more than ever before. Thomas Edison did not invent music, but he built a strong foundation for music to be played on. 

Blog Post #3: The Eight Speech Theories

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a theory can be defined as a multitude of things. In summary with every definition I found combined, a theory is a principle offered to explain unusual circumstances and poses as a hypothetical set of facts. Theories exist to give us a filler answer until we are able to reach a real one or just deem the theory ridiculous and forget about it with no further investigation. 

The Eight Values of Free Expression, or Eight Speech Theories, are a set of filler answers brought about to offer an explanation as to why human beings behave the way that they do under certain circumstances. In this case, the theories seem to revolve around the government, politics, and philosophy. 

After carefully reading through each of the eight speech theories, I believe that Marketplace of Ideas, Stable Change (also known as Safety Valve), and Protect Dissent resonate with me the most personally and are the three most important theories on that list. 

The Marketplace of Ideas theory is all about embracing the truth. The main idea is that when caught between true and false information, the truth will always win. Trying to argue for the side of falsehood is only going to strengthen the truth. In an article written by Christopher T. Wonnell for the Law Journal Library, Wonnell mentions something interesting. He wonders whether free speech can lead to the discovery of truth and whether the two are intertwined with one another. When it comes to freedom of speech, a person does not necessarily have to always speak the truth. Would it be preferred? Yes, most likely. However, there is nothing preventing someone from lying or spreading false ideas as long as they are harmless and not seen as a threat. 

Even still, some people are going to make threats regardless. The Constitution does not contain limits on what kind of speech is free in the United States. When people are given the general right to speak their minds, they have the right to lie. This theory resonates with me because I grew up knowing there was (and still is) a long list of words and phrases that if I were to say publicly would get me in trouble and maybe even arrested. For example, you cannot shout that there is a bomb in a movie theater or on an airplane. It may be false information or it may not, but either way, it presents itself as threatening and harmful speech. Therefore, there is an unspoken, unwritten but assumed limit on free speech. 

This leads us to the Stable Change theory. Stable Change, or Safety Valve, puts emphasis on letting the people speak their minds for the greater good. The general consensus of the theory is that if angry citizens are given the right to complain and voice their concerns, society will become more stable and less violence will ensue as a result. I have seen this theory in action today throughout the WGA writers' strike. Under the First Amendment, U.S. citizens have the freedom of peaceful assembly. The strikers, whether they have been actors, writers, and/or directors, have all done nothing but assemble peacefully, create signs voicing their complaints, and make fair demands for better pay. No one has resorted to violence. 

I think it is very important that the writers' demands are met, because if not, what will that say about the U.S. government to its citizens? That they don't care about our well-being and livelihood unless violence occurs? With the writers of a ton of popular television programs on strike, many of America's favorite shows are on pause. If the shows aren't airing, the big bosses are losing money, and the economic status of America is declining. It doesn't look good for anyone, and I'd like to think no one wants to lose money. 

The Protect Dissent theory is short and sweet, but it really ties everything together. The overall message of this theory is that it is your protected right and especially your duty as an American citizen to disagree with and criticize the government. America is a democracy, and should always be treated as such. In a country where you are allowed to point out flaws with no repercussions, I think you should do it. As long as you are not causing harm, making a threat, inciting violence, or doing anything illegal, go right ahead! An opinion cannot be right or wrong, and if the U.S. government is willing to actually accept constructive criticism from its citizens, maybe expressing those opinions can help make America better. 

 

Blog post #2: The Supreme Court

 The Supreme Court, or SCOTUS, has been an integral part of the United States government for centuries. After taking a deep dive into the history and inner workings behind SCOTUS, I have learned some valuable pieces of information. 

I've known for a while that the Supreme Court justices play a crucial role in the judicial branch of government and that there are nine justices in total. It's time to get down to what I didn't know previously. 

The Supreme Court was originally created and organized through the Judiciary Act of 1789, which was signed into law and made official by George Washington during his presidency. The act was a power exercised by Congress in the legislative branch, with permission from the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court initially consisted of six justices, rather than the current nine. The rule about each justice's term has remained the same since the start: serve on the court until they pass away or retire. 

The first six Supreme Court justices were John Jay, John Rutledge, William Cushing, James Iredell, John Blair, and James Wilson. John Jay was the first chief justice to serve on the Supreme Court and was nominated by George Washington. The Supreme Court justices get nominated by the President, but it is then the Senate's job to confirm or deny the nomination to set it in motion officially. John Jay was in charge of a lot of things as chief justice, such as literally the entire Supreme Court and planning weekly meetings. In addition, the chief justice is put in charge of all presidential impeachment trials in the Senate. 

As previously mentioned, the first set of Supreme Court justices was only a group of six, and as most of us know, there are currently nine justices who serve on the court. The number has been switched around a few times over the years, but eventually, having nine justices was set as the standard by Congress in 1869.

 

The most important takeaway point from doing research on the Supreme Court is that the Supreme Court has heard and taken on some of the most important court cases that have shaped the way our country is now. I'll list out some examples. Texas v. Johnson in 1989 allowed us to clarify what is and is not included in our freedoms in the First Amendment, which in this case was burning the American flag, and that is perfectly fine to do apparently. Another far more impactful and important case is, of course, the court's first decision in 1973 and their damaging press of the undo button in 2022 for Roe v. Wade, which protected women's right to have an abortion. The fact that the U.S. Supreme Court can hold power over a woman's uterus is an issue I won't go into here, but I would just LOVE to rant about it in the future. Truly. 

I was surprised that in a paragraph mentioning notable Supreme Court justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's name was nowhere to be found. She had done so much during her time as a justice, and she especially supported and fought hard for women's rights. She was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court, and the first ever Jewish woman to serve. I think she deserves proper recognition for her achievements. 

Blog Post #1: My Top 5 News Sources

As a journalism major with an eye for entertainment, I am primarily invested in the news surrounding pop culture - celebrities, film, music, etc. Like many other 20-somethings in my generation, I often fall victim to educating myself on not-so-important pieces of news, such as a Kardashian doing a dramatic outfit change mid-day to go out to eat at Nobu. You might be asking yourself, why bring the Kardashians into this? Well, allow me to ask you: What should we as a society consider to be "news"? 

I believe that, in technical terms, any information that an individual receives that was unbeknownst to them before is news. Of course, there is a surefire difference between following a presidential election and telling your family you've spotted a bunny on your front lawn. Which story will be broadcast across a series of networks and published in print nationwide? Take a guess (probably not the bunny). 

Now, let's get to the point. My top five sources of news and information are Rolling Stone, People Magazine, Associated Press, BuzzFeed, and Cosmopolitan, in no particular order. 

Rolling Stone is your one-stop shop for entertainment news. They offer stories pertaining to music, film, and television, and although they also have a politics section, they are mainly an entertainment source. Lately, I've been reading through Larisha Paul's pieces on current events in the music industry, and they certainly do not disappoint! Paul is a staff writer whose posts focus on the pop music industry, an industry I am quite fond of myself. She published a fascinating article recently about how a major Taylor Swift fan attended 20 concerts and didn't break the bank. Rolling Stone offers a plethora of articles under the "music" section, and although not every article is a news story, it's still plenty entertaining. For instance, I came across this ranked list of the 30 best Arctic Monkeys songs. If I hadn't made it clear from reading those articles, I happen to be a fan of both Taylor Swift and Arctic Monkeys. 

People Magazine is one of the publications I grew up seeing everywhere. It sat in news carts on the bustling streets of New York City, got stacked in a pile of other magazines at my local nail salon, and is most commonly neatly hung up on a shelf at CVS pharmacy near the checkout line. People was one of the first magazines I picked up as a kid as I graduated from reading the funny pages in newspapers. I loved learning about the lives of celebrities, and fashion trends, and as I got older I paid attention to the actual news in there. People Magazine has an abundance of content ranging from Jennifer Garner picking blueberries to Hurricane Idalia causing a tree to fall on Ron DeSantis' house. Any and all current events involving celebrities will be in People Magazine. The publication includes sections of news for all kinds of entertainment, politics, lifestyle, human interest, crime, and shopping suggestions. 

Associated Press, or AP for short, is what I personally believe to be the most reliable news source with zero bullshit. There's a special section of the AP digital publication appropriately titled, "Fact Check" where they list a bunch of news stories that have been properly fact-checked and proven to contain false and misleading information. One article in particular that honestly had me chuckling at its title for a good minute discusses all the fake news that has been circulating this week, called, "NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week". The article discusses misinformation and completely untrue claims about the current status of COVID-19, ticks causing a meat allergy in humans, items that survived the Maui wildfires, and more. As a future journalist, I was impressed to find this material on the AP site and I am very glad that the truth in journalism isn't completely dead. 

BuzzFeed is a unique company, in the sense that they cover so much under one name. They are more than just a news source. Firstly, BuzzFeed houses The Try Guys, a group of three (formerly four) men in their thirties who try out fun, sometimes downright insane, hilarious activities together and post them on the internet for entertainment. The Try Guys is currently comprised of Keith Habersberger, Eugene Lee Yang, and Zack Kornfeld. These guys will do the impossible for their fans' enjoyment, such as flying a plane, getting acupuncture, and trying to get into The Cheesecake Factory while wearing body paint that looks like clothing. In addition to The Try Guys, BuzzFeed is a digital media company that discusses breaking news, celebrities, television, and movies, and similarly to People, has a shopping section. BuzzFeed also has a separate culinary network called Tasty, which has amassed over 21 million YouTube subscribers since its launch in 2016. BuzzFeed is truly the jack of all trades! 

Last but not least, Cosmopolitan is a publication that was originally created for female readers, but the news does not and should not have an assigned gender. Cosmo is all about celebrity and entertainment news, fashion, beauty, and lifestyle, and also has a shopping section. I'm really starting to see a trend here with the shopping sections. The lifestyle section sports home renovation recommendations, health advice, fitness advice, recipes for cocktails, and overall hacks to make your life easier. Cosmo flawlessly keeps you in the loop on trends. For example, they posted a list of pink Barbie-themed cocktail recipes in their lifestyle section during the buzz about the new Barbie movie. No pun intended. Cosmopolitan is the kind of magazine you read in the chair at a hair salon, at a sleepover, or lounging on your living room couch on a weekend. It's a cute, playful, helpful, light-hearted news source that will satisfy anyone with a craving for artsy, pretty things, navigating adulthood, and good old-fashioned celebrity gossip.