August 2026

Hey all,

New York is finally seeing a reprieve from the oppressive heat we had this summer. I even grabbed a light sweater when I took an early walk the other day.

NOAA just released its prediction of a warmer-than-average winter for the Northeast. Which will be nice (if true) after last year’s brutal winter followed by sweltering summer.

Personally, I’m a fan of arctic winters with lots of snow. But after a full year of extremes, I’ll take something more mild.

Fall officially lands next month. Bring it on.

-Dann

🕺 Throbbin’ the hood

In November 2025, a TikTok video posted by @jamestoe3423 went viral with the description, “What is Happening at My Grandma’s Nursing Home rn.” It featured three very average looking young men in pink jumpsuits dancing in the common area of a retirement community. A laptop to the left showed a full-screen video call with a fourth member bopping along to the music. On the right, a large banner declaring the name of this group as Boy Throb.

It’s one of those videos that feels like a skit or a joke. But it’s over so fast (buried underneath a pile of new short form videos) that most people just forget about it. That is, until Boy Throb pops up again. Then again. Then again.

Just a month after that viral video, outlets like the BBC are discussing whether Boy Throb is just some big internet joke, but also pontificating on whether there’s a difference between something being a parody or being serious when the content is the same.

Here’s the premise: Boy Throb is a four-person boy band, with one member “stuck” in India, due to a lack of a visa. The band’s sole goal is to get this member a visa so he can perform with the group in the United States.

In May 2026, Boy Throb announced performances in LA, Chicago and New York in what it was calling “The Rehearsal Tour.”

At this point, this all may be starting to sound very familiar. I’m convinced, along with a decent portion of the internet, that this project is the result of season three of Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal. None of this is confirmed…but a closer look at the US visa process through the lens of forming a boy band seems like a perfect setup for the third season. Especially as Darshan had his visa officially approved less than a week ago.

Even if Boy Throb doesn’t turn out to be a Nathan Fielder project (which seems unlikely at this point), it’s still an interesting way to explore the relationship between truth and parody as it relates to US law. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is it not a duck? Is Boy Throb any less a boy band, in terms of the visa process, if the premise is a joke? Is the premise actually a joke? What elements actually make it a joke?

Is their first music video really that much different than Major Lazer’s “Pon De Floor” (NSFW-ish)?

🕊️ What’s left unsaid

There’s a tweet from 2019 that I think about a lot:

Each day on twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it.

If you’ve spent any meaningful amount of time on the internet, you know exactly what this means. A video or post will go viral for all the wrong reasons, and then the onslaught of reactions, comments, think pieces, and attacks ensues.

Since I, myself, publish content online (and strongly encourage others to do the same), I have another bit of advice to add: never join this conversation yourself, either.

No good can come of it, regardless of how right you feel your opinion is or how horrible the original post might be.

🤥 Trust me, bro

None of the companies building frontier AI models can be trusted. It’s unfortunate, because the AI researchers ringing the alarm bells were right about conflicting safety motives: when the people building the AI models are also using those models to build and grow their for-profit businesses, things can get messy. It becomes hard to separate truth from marketing.

Sam Altman of OpenAI says he’ll have AGI (artificial general intelligence) by the end of 2026. His definition of AGI is a model that can “invent new things in a way that matters.” Today’s LLMs are great at synthesizing existing knowledge, but it’s still a human-only skill to think up new things. Apparently, that’s about to change.

If true, then we may be close to facing the worst-case scenario we’ve been warned about: fast takeoff. This is where AI gets into a self-improvement loop (better AI → faster AI research → even better AI → repeat) and slips out of human control in a matter of days (hours? minutes? seconds?).

But anyone watching the AI space won’t have to look that far back to remember the Anthropic Mythos fears: a model so powerful that it would hack the entire internet. Two months after these concerning articles popped up, Mythos was released. And that proved to be an incremental improvement rather than a dire sea change.

This new OpenAI hype about AGI, and their new “automated research intern” named Astra, feels like the new normal for companies announcing new AI products. It’s fear-based marketing, even though each company is saying “you have nothing to fear from us.”

Meanwhile, as AI development keeps charging along at full speed, enterprise AI adoption is quite a bit slower than predicted. Altman described it as such:

We’re still at the Palm Pilot stage of adoption. We have all of the technological pieces, but we have not had the iPhone moment of like completely changing how someone interfaces with technology.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like this lack of enterprise adoption is going to slow the pace of AI innovation, as it might in other industries. We’re still barreling towards Superintelligence, but fewer of us will get to enjoy the benefits before it kills us all.

🎮 Handheld fun

I enjoy playing video games, but I don’t really have video game stamina. I’m not going to lose myself in a game, staying up all night playing. I’m usually playing an hour, or hour and a half max, even with the most engaging game.

This past week, I’ve been uncharacteristically playing a bit more than usual. The game that’s holding my attention: Persona 5 Royal. The game is a few years old at this point, but Nintendo is selling the digital download for only $18 (instead of the usual $60). It’s going back to full price tomorrow (September 1st).

I usually like to only play Nintendo Switch games docked, on the big screen. But P5R in particular works well in handheld mode. The way exploration and navigation works, as well as the turn-based battle mechanics, means you’re not really losing much by playing on a smaller screen.

This is my second time playing the game, but only made it maybe a quarter of the way through that first time. Based on how it’s holding my attention this time, I just might finish it.

💩 The bedroom incident

Bobby Fingers is back again with another art project. This time, featuring Johnny Depp (NSFW-ish?):

Today I’m going to show you how I made this 1 to 13 scale diorama of a poo that was left on Johnny Depp’s bed.

Perhaps one of the more infamous moments from the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard trial, brought to life. This isn’t the first time I’ve shared Bobby Fingers in this newsletter, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Even with hundreds of thousands of views, I still consider these videos to be criminally unseen. Do yourself a favor and spend a half an hour watching a true artist work.

End note

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Also, if you find anything interesting, send it my way.

Thanks for reading. Until next time, Dann