“Almost passed out,” the poster wrote. “$25 for an Aeron, I’m shaking,” they added.
The Herman Miller website says that the Aeron chair is an ergonomic icon in modern office design. Made from high-performance materials, the chair is designed to provide maximum comfort and posture support through its breathable mesh fabric, fully adjustable armrests, and three size options tailored to different body types.
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The chair currently retails for between $1,350 and $2,415 on the official store’s site.
As noted by Engage for Success, the importance of a good office chair extends far beyond comfort. Using an ergonomic chair promotes better posture, reduces strain on the body, and can lead to improved concentration and productivity—ultimately enhancing overall work performance.
Fellow Reddit users were quick to react to the incredible find. “They definitely didn’t know what they had,” said one.
“My university’s computer lab is full of these, what’s so special about them?” asked another user.
“This is a Herman Miller, which is a luxury furniture brand. these chairs retail for hundreds of dollars and are widely respected for being super high quality. I ended up with one when my office downsized; I sit on it 10-12 hours a day sometimes with 0 discomfort.”
“$25 for this is a really great find if it’s in good condition,” one user posted.
“That is a steal! Great work!” added another.
“I sit in one for 8 hrs a day at work. I never feel any discomfort. My chair at home was $300 and it doesn’t compare to the Aeron. I shift around a lot in my chair at home. But the Aeron is just comfortable. And so easily adjustable to what you want whether you’re working or chilling,” shared one user.
“I was gifted an Aeron in 2002 from a grateful client and I am using it to this day; it’s in like-new shape, incredibly comfortable and my college freshman kid has asked for it when (if, ha!) I retire. It wasn’t my money spent on this thing but it’s worth every penny IMO [in my opinion],” shared another fan.
Newsweek reached out to u/Frosty-Present-7885 for comment via Reddit. We could not verify the details of the case.
Do you have any amazing thrifting finds that you want to share? We want to see the best ones! Send them in to life@newsweek.com and they could appear on our site.
Many Republicans are blaming social media for the murder of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk since it’s been revealed the suspect engraved internet meme messages on the bullets and used Discord to allegedly confess to the killing. And now a high-profile congressman wants some of the executives from various tech platforms to testify about it all.
James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, released a statement Wednesday calling for the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit to testify at a committee hearing on October 8, 2025.
“The politically motivated assassination of Charlie Kirk claimed the life of a husband, father, and American patriot. In the wake of this tragedy, and amid other acts of politically motivated violence, Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence,” Comer said in a statement published online.
“To prevent future radicalization and violence, the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit must appear before the Oversight Committee and explain what actions they will take to ensure their platforms are not exploited for nefarious purposes.”
Discord told Gizmodo in a statement on Wednesday that its CEO would be testifying.
“We have received the Committee’s invitation and welcome the opportunity to testify,” a spokesperson told Gizmodo. “We continuously engage with policymakers on these critical issues and look forward to continuing this important dialogue next month.”
Kirk was shot and killed Sept. 10 at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, while doing one of his debate-style talks on campus. Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from Utah, turned himself in to authorities late the next day after his parents reportedly recognized him from security footage released by the FBI.
The bullet cartridges found near the scene of the crime were found to have messages engraved, one of many signs that the suspect was plugged in to internet trolling culture.
The messages reportedly included:
“Notices bulges OWO what’s this?”
“Hey fascist! Catch!” [Symbols that include an up arrow, right arrow, and three down arrows]
Robinson also allegedly talked with friends on Discord, which is presumably why Comer wants to bring the CEO of the company in for a hearing. But it’s unclear why he’s also calling in executives who oversee companies like Twitch, Steam, and Reddit.
The shooter’s exact politics have yet to be determined, but the indictment alleges Robinson said Kirk was full of “hate.” The indictment also suggests that Robinson’s messages were just a way to perform as a troll rather than an attempt to make an earnest statement.
But that’s not going to stop legislators from insisting that something about platforms like Discord is in some way responsible for Kirk’s death, no matter how ridiculous that idea may be.
Reddit, Twitch, and Valve (the owner of Steam) didn’t respond to questions emailed on Wednesday about whether their respective CEOs would be attending the hearing. Gizmodo will update this article when we hear back.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has asked the CEOs of Discord, Twitch, Valve and Reddit to testify at a hearing on online radicalization. The hearing will be held on October 8, 2025, and is in direct response to the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk, an event some have tried to connect to the online communities the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, participated in.
“Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence,” Comer shared in the press release announcing the hearing. “To prevent future radicalization and violence, the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit must appear before the Oversight Committee and explain what actions they will take to ensure their platforms are not exploited for nefarious purposes.”
Following Kirk’s death, law enforcement, regulators and the press have exerted significant effort to both understand Robinson’s actions and structure them into a coherent narrative. The fact that he seemingly engraved the bullets he used with references to furry memes and the game Helldivers implies he may have been immersed in online culture, and could have been influenced by who he interacted with there. But a recent report on his Discord chats suggests his motivations are hard to pin down, even for his friends.
In general, online platforms don’t escape scrutiny after tragic events, so these sorts of hearings are to be expected. Twitch and Discord were both investigated by the New York and New Jersey Attorney Generals following a 2022 shooting in Buffalo, New York, for example. Given the reaction to Kirk’s death, though, it remains to be seen how much the House Oversight Committee actually wants answers from online platforms, and how much it wants to lay the blame at their feet.
Being stuck inside all day truly has us ready for adventure and the great outdoors. But since there’s still work to be done here at Chive HQ, I figured bushcraft photos were the next best thing.
We’ve compiled some of the most interesting and ingenious uses of bushcraft – not to be confused with Busch craft which is just me crushing an entire 12-pack by myself.
Perfect idea for the weekend: Enjoy these pics, then get out there and touch some grass yourself!
With web publishers in crisis, a new open standard lets them set the ground rules for AI scrapers. (Or, at least it will try.) The new Really Simple Licensing (RSL) standard creates terms that participants expect AI companies to abide by. Although enforcement is an open question, it can’t hurt that some heavy hitters back it. Among others, the list includes Reddit, Yahoo (Engadget’s parent company), Medium and People Inc.
RSL adds licensing terms to the robots.txt protocol, the simple file that provides instructions for web crawlers. Supported licensing options include free, attribution, subscription, pay-per-crawl and pay-per-inference. (The latter means AI companies only pay publishers when the content is used to generate a response.)
Launching alongside the standard is a new managing nonprofit, the RSL Collective. It views itself as an equivalent of nonprofits like ASCAP and BMI, which manage music industry royalties. The new group says its standard can “establish fair market prices and strengthen negotiation leverage for all publishers.”
Participating brands include plenty of internet old-schoolers. Reddit, People Inc., Yahoo, Internet Brands, Ziff Davis, wikiHow, O’Reilly Media, Medium, The Daily Beast, Miso.AI, Raptive, Ranker and Evolve Media are all on board. Former Ask.com CEO Doug Leeds and RSS co-creator Eckart Walther lead the group.
“The RSL Standard gives publishers and platforms a clear, scalable way to set licensing terms in the AI era,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman wrote in a press release. “The RSL Collective offers a path to do it together. Reddit supports both as important steps toward protecting the open web and the communities that make it thrive.” (It’s worth noting that Reddit has licensing deals with OpenAI and Google.)
It’s unclear whether AI companies will honor the standard. After all, they’ve been known to simply ignore robots.txt instructions. But the group believes its terms will be legally enforceable.
In an interview with Ars Technica, Leeds pointed to Anthropic’s recent $1.5 billion settlement, suggesting “there’s real money at stake” for AI companies that don’t train “legitimately.” (However, that settlement is up in the air after a judge rejected it.) Leeds toldThe Verge that the standard’s collective nature could also help spread legal costs, making challenges to violations more feasible.
As for technical enforcement, the RSL standard can’t block bots on its own. For that, the group is partnering with the cloud company Fastly, which can act as a sort of gatekeeper. (Perhaps Cloudflare, which recently launched a pay-per-crawl system, could eventually play a part, too.) Leeds said Fastly could serve as “the bouncer at the door to the club.”
Leeds suggested to Ars that there are incentives for AI companies, too. Financially, it could be simpler for them than inking individual licensing deals. It could prevent a problem in AI content: using multiple sources for an answer to avoid using too much from any one. If content is legally licensed, the AI app can simply use the best source, which provides the user with a higher-quality answer and minimizes the risk of hallucinations.
He also referenced complaints from AI companies that there’s no effective means of licensing web-wide content. “We have listened to them, and what we’ve heard them say is… we need a new protocol,” Leeds told Ars Technica. “With the RSL standard, AI firms get a “scalable way to get all the content” they want, while setting an incentive that they’ll only have to pay for the best content that their models actually reference. If they’re using it, they pay for it, and if they’re not using it, they don’t pay for it.”
Anthropic has agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by authors and publishers over its use of millions of copyrighted books to train the models for its AI chatbot Claude, according to a legal filing posted online.
A federal judge found in June that Anthropic’s use of 7 million pirated books was protected under fair use but that holding the digital works in a “central library” violated copyright law. The judge ruled that executives at the company knew they were downloading pirated works, and a trial was scheduled for December.
The settlement, which was presented to a federal judge on Friday, still needs final approval but would pay $3,000 per book to hundreds of thousands of authors, according to the New York Times. The $1.5 billion settlement would be the largest payout in the history of U.S. copyright law, though the amount paid per work has often been higher. For example, in 2012, a woman in Minnesota paid about $9,000 per song downloaded, a figure brought down after she was initially ordered to pay over $60,000 per song.
In a statement to Gizmodo on Friday, Anthropic touted the earlier ruling from June that it was engaging in fair use by training models with millions of books.
“In June, the District Court issued a landmark ruling on AI development and copyright law, finding that Anthropic’s approach to training AI models constitutes fair use,” Aparna Sridhar, deputy general counsel at Anthropic, said in a statement by email.
“Today’s settlement, if approved, will resolve the plaintiffs’ remaining legacy claims. We remain committed to developing safe AI systems that help people and organizations extend their capabilities, advance scientific discovery, and solve complex problems,” Sridhar continued.
According to the legal filing, Anthropic says the payments will go out in four tranches tied to court-approved milestones. The first payment would be $300 million within five days after the court’s preliminary approval of the settlement, and another $300 million within five days of the final approval order. Then $450 million would be due, with interest, within 12 months of the preliminary order. And finally $450 million within the year after that.
Anthropic, which was recently valued at $183 billion, is still facing lawsuits from companies like Reddit, which struck a deal in early 2024 to let Google train its AI models on the platform’s content. And authors still have active lawsuits against the other big tech firms like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta.
The ruling from June explained that Anthropic’s training of AI models with copyrighted books would be considered fair use under U.S. copyright law because theoretically someone could read “all the modern-day classics” and emulate them, which would be protected:
…not reproduced to the public a given work’s creative elements, nor even one author’s identifiable expressive style…Yes, Claude has outputted grammar, composition, and style that the underlying LLM distilled from thousands of works. But if someone were to read all the modern-day classics because of their exceptional expression, memorize them, and then emulate a blend of their best writing, would that violate the Copyright Act? Of course not.
“Like any reader aspiring to be a writer, Anthropic’s LLMs trained upon works not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them—but to turn a hard corner and create something different,” the ruling said.
Under this legal theory, all the company needed to do was buy every book it pirated to lawfully train its models, something that certainly costs less than $3,000 per book. But as the New York Times notes, this settlement won’t set any legal precedent that could determine future cases because it isn’t going to trial.
Around 300 million tourists were reported to have traveled internationally in the first quarter of 2025, which is around 14 million more than in the same period last year, according to the UNWTO.
From tourist traps and overcommercialized cities to underwhelming landmarks and overpriced resorts, Reddit users did not hold back.
Hollywood Boulevard and Walk of Fame, California
One cited Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles as a let-down, particularly the iconic Walk of Fame. “It seems so glamorous in movies and photos, but up close it’s crowded, gritty and full of pushy vendors and costumed characters,” wrote u/Substantial-Cost-429. “Interesting to see once, but definitely not like the postcard version.”
The Alamo, Texas
The historic Alamo site in San Antonio also came under fire. “You know how you always picture it in the middle of nowhere surrounded by sand? Well it’s not. It’s one block downtown San Antonio surrounded by high-rise buildings,” said u/False_Ad_555. “But the Riverwalk in San Antonio is amazing,” they added.
The Mona Lisa at the Louvre, France
Others expressed disappointment with international attractions.
Crowd control and expectations also played a role in disillusionment. “The Mona Lisa [painting] at the Louvre [museum in Paris],” wrote u/incunabula001. “You have to wait in a long a** line full of tourists only to get a few seconds to look at a (IMO [in my opinion]) underwhelming portrait with people doing obnoxious selfies around you.”
Oktoberfest, Germany
Even Oktoberfest, a world-famous beer festival in Germany, didn’t escape critique. “More specifically Munich,” said u/Critical-Wolverine29. “Now I’m not saying you won’t have a good time, it’s just if you want to go to a place … with a million other Americans singing Sweet Caroline [the song] with €30 [ around $34] chicken or schnitzel getting s***faced with €15 beers under a large tent with an oompa band, and spending €20 [around $23] and an hour long wait to ride the Ferris wheel, go right ahead!!”
A spokesperson for Oktoberfest told Newsweek: “What a shame u/Critical-Wolverine29 didn’t enjoy themself at Oktoberfest—but 6.7 million people did last year.”
Noting that entry to the beer festival is “completely free,” the spokesperson said “no ticket is needed; you can just wander in and let the fun begin.”
While many Americans have the famed festival on their bucket list, “around 80 percent of our guests actually come from Munich and Bavaria,” the spokesperson said. “It’s a real local celebration that everyone around the world is invited to enjoy.”
The spokesperson added that “weekends can get extra lively,” so those who prefer a more-relaxed visit are advised to go during the week. “There’s still plenty of atmosphere, but with more room to breathe and fewer queues at the popular rides,” the spokesperson said.
They also recommend one of the beer gardens attached to the big tents or the smaller, less-boisterous beer tents. “You can even just stroll through the festival grounds, grab some candy floss or sugar-roasted almonds, and simply soak up the atmosphere,” the spokesperson said.
“A ride on the big Ferris wheel is highly recommended for the fantastic views over the festival grounds, the city, and, if you’re lucky, even all the way to the Alps. The fee is actually €10 [around $11.60) for an adult (not €20) and €4 [around $4.60] for a child.”
Wave Rock, Australia
“Wave Rock, Western Australia. Basically the promo photo is it lol [laugh out loud],” said u/sp1ffm1ff. “A cool rock that is like 7 hours drive from the nearest city, in a tiny town with nothing much.”
Monaco
Monaco, known for its luxury and exclusivity, also received critical remarks. “Way too expensive for what it offers tourists,” wrote u/Plane-Trip1323. “Heavily priced drinks and empty streets, feels more like a theme park than an actual country.”
Phu Quoc, Vietnam
Some mourned the loss of cultural integrity in places they once loved. “Phu Quoc, Vietnam … has been completely commodified for tourism’s sake,” wrote u/re3dbks. “Not what I remember from even 20 years ago …”
The Blarney Stone, Ireland
Other frustrations were more practical. U/RareGur3157 took issue with the famed Blarney Stone in Ireland: “You wait in long lines and dangle awkwardly over a castle ledge, but you also press your lips to a filthy, bacteria-covered slab that’s been kissed by thousands of strangers every day.”
A spokesperson for Tourism Ireland told Newsweek: “Tourism Ireland won’t be commenting on the story, but appreciate you bringing the opportunity to us.”
Newsweek has contacted the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board, the Louvre Museum, Visit Monaco, Tourism Western Australia, Vietnam National Authority of Tourism via email and the original poster via the Reddit messaging system for comment.
Stock image: A couple of tourists appear bored while sitting outdoors looking at a map. Stock image: A couple of tourists appear bored while sitting outdoors looking at a map. Getty
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A group of healthcare workers in Santa Barbara were fired on Wednesday after a video apparently showing patients’ bodily fluids was posted on TikTok, according to their employer.
The now-deleted post, made by a former employee at Sansum Clinic — a nonprofit outpatient care facility owned by Sutter Health — showed eight workers mocking what appeared to be the bodily fluid of patients on exam tables with the on-screen caption, “Are patients allowed to leave you guys gifts?” and “Make sure you leave your healthcare workers sweet gifts like these!” In one image, the medical staff are seen pointing and smiling at a spot with their thumbs up. The caption reads, “Guess the substance!”
A spokesperson for Sacramento-based health system Sutter Health said that, although the original poster was not an employee at the time the video was posted, others who appeared in it had been terminated.
“This unacceptable behavior is an outright violation of our policies, shows a lack of respect for our patients and will not be tolerated,” the company said in a statement shared with The Times.
The video spread over the weekend on platforms including X, Instagram and Reddit, sparking an outpouring of anger among commenters along the way.
“No place for shaming the patient in medicine,” one user on Reddit wrote.
“My question is what is the culture of your clinic because why did this many employees feel comfortable participating in this?” another user inquired on Instagram.
According to an online statement from Sansum Clinic, officials were notified of the post by concerned patients and immediately conducted a review of the video.
“Within 24 hours of becoming aware of the posts, we placed the employees on administrative leave, and within another 24 hours, we terminated those involved,” the health system posted.
The video was deleted soon after it was posted once commenters questioned the participants’ ethics. But it was reposted by multiple other accounts and disseminated further through “stitches” of individuals reacting to the post on TikTok and other platforms.
A Sansum spokesperson said the clinic remained steadfastly committed to patient privacy and dignity.
“We expect all team members to live our patients-first mission and uphold the highest standards of compassion, professionalism and respect,” he said. “We are using this inappropriate incident to reinforce our comprehensive policies with all our team members across the organization.”
A homeowner on Reddit highlighted their neighbor’s erratic behavior, and they asked other people in the area for advice.
The post was shared on a subreddit dedicated to the city of Lowell, Massachusetts. It shows a photo of their neighbor’s questionable parking and explains the disruption in detail.
Photo Credit: Reddit
“A neighbor drove in front of me and ran me off the sidewalk to park his car like this and totally blocks pedestrian traffic every day,” the user said. “How do I get him to stop?”
Having issues with a neighbor is a tale as old as time, unfortunately. While many of us find community bonds and potluck invitees by way of the people we live near, some are not so lucky.
Bad neighbors have even made climate-friendly home additions nearly impossible, by spraying herbicides through a shared fence, burning trash in the neighborhood, and cutting down native plant gardens.
Luckily, most people are fairly reasonable, and clear communication and boundary setting can lead to positive change in neighborly relations. When these steps prove ineffective in especially troubling situations, the next best step is to speak to higher-ups in your community who can engage with the issue properly.
In this case, at least, the street does not appear to be busy enough to put a major strain on most pedestrians, outside of the driver’s practice of parking there even when pedestrians are actively using the sidewalk, but the practice still puts an undue strain on anyone who is blind, in a mobility device, or pushing a stroller, for instance. Commenters on the Reddit post shared insight to help the user deal with the neighborhood parking problem.
“[You] could always call the non-emergency police line and ask them to investigate and/or tow it,” one user suggested.
Another person added, “You can absolutely call police; parking on sidewalks is illegal and can get you a citation.”
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Phoenix is a hiking city. Whatever moves residents and visitors to a mountain to climb it outward or upward, making the jaunt in peaceful surroundings is generally preferred…
We’re going to talk a little bit about that later. Now I hate to do this, but you did work at Pizza Hut in high school.
I did. Nothing I hate about that.
I worked at Tim Horton’s, so I agree. Favorite pizza topping?
Jalapenos.
Bold. First video game purchase?
Oh my God. With my own money?
Yes.
It was probably this helicopter action sim called Comanche: Maximum Overkill. I’d just gotten this computer, this 486SX monster. I was so excited.
Now you’re really making me want to look and relive this game on YouTube.
My first game was probably something like SimTower, and sometimes I get these cravings. I crave building those condos. New York or San Francisco?
New York. I was born in Fort Greene. Come on.
American football or soccer?
I’m forever going to be a die-hard American football fan. That was the sport I played, the sport I loved. I’ve come to love the beautiful game, but I definitely was indoctrinated in the NFL.
Favorite Reddit AMA?
One of the ones that’s always stuck with me was the vacuum repair guy. That one’s a sort of legendary one, and I think it exemplifies some of the best of Reddit, because it was just this random vacuum-repair guy who had a passion and knew a lot about vacuums. And his AMA was engrossing as hell.
And now everybody using ChatGPT can get really good vacuum-repair advice. Wimbledon or the US Open?
US Open. I’m a New Yorker at heart, and I just love the crowd, that energy. And the US Open night-match energy—definitely inspired in a lot of ways. So I’ve got to give it its flowers.
Final question: lake or ocean?
I’m not really a water creature. I’m definitely an earth bender. I like being solidly on the ground. But I guess ocean’s more fun.
So you were born in Brooklyn, as you said, but you were raised in Maryland, right? In a suburb, one of the first planned communities in the United States.
Wow. Deep cut.
Mom was German, dad was Armenian.
Yep.
Talk to me a little bit about your childhood. How did that inform where you are today?
So I was born in Brooklyn. We lived in Ridgewood, Queens, for a minute there—
Ridgewood is hot right now.
It was not in the ’80s, but I’ll let my dad know.
My mother was an au pair who overstayed her visa because she was in love with my dad. Thankfully ICE wasn’t there to deport her. Eventually, they got married and she got a green card, but my mom was undocumented there for a few years on the down-low. And my father was American-born but to Armenian parents, survivors of the genocide. This had a pretty big impact on me.
My mother worked different jobs, but she was ultimately a pharmacy technician down in Maryland. She’d come over and she got a GED, but that was her highest level of education. And then my dad was a travel agent, which was a career in the ’80s.
He started doing that in Baltimore, so we moved when I was 6 or 7. I had aunts and cousins and uncles up in the city, and I was very jealous of how cool living in New York would’ve been. But it ended up being a really good childhood. Good schools, and I could hang out with my buddies all day just biking around the burbs.
An Oregon homeowner recently took to Reddit to vent about an unwelcome plant in their yard.
Their former neighbor planted an invasive variety of a blackberry bush that jumped the property line. What started as stray vines has now turned into quite the invasion in their yard.
Photo Credit: Reddit
Photo Credit: Reddit
“I have declared war on my blackberries,” they detailed in the post. “For 5 years I’ve been keeping them at bay on one side of the yard but I started to notice them popping up in the middle of the yard.”
Referring to one form of creative weed control, a commenter quipped, “Bring out the goats!”
The OP wondered if anyone else in the r/oregon subreddit was also “fighting the good fight” against invasive plants.
Judging by the responses, dealing with invasive blackberries was quite common.
“I replanted 5 acres with native flowers and the blackberries decided they were more important,” one commenter said. “I tried digging, cutting, mowing, goats and just about anything else.”
That Redditor ultimately resorted to spraying a small amount of pesticides to kill off the blackberries.
The Himalayan variety of blackberries that the OP was dealing with is infamous for its ability to spread aggressively.
Its plants grow wild or send underground runners far beyond an original planting site. Once established, their dense vines can block sunlight, monopolize water and nutrients, and leave little room for anything else to grow — especially native plants.
The problem extends beyond a single backyard. These plants can spread into surrounding neighbors’ yards and wildlife habitats, leading to displaced native vegetation, altered soil composition, and decreased biodiversity.
Wildlife that depends on native plants for food and shelter often suffers when aggressive species take over, creating a terrible domino effect through the ecosystem.
It’s a common headache for people trying to keep their yards eco-friendly; neighbors’ choices can sometimes undo all that hard work.
Invasive blackberries don’t care about fences — they’ll climb, creep, and take over anything in their path. The only way to stop them is for neighbors to work together.
Start by having a friendly conversation, sharing information about the environmental harm invasive plants cause. In some regions, property owners are required to control any invasive plants in their yards, so bring in your local law enforcement or government when necessary.
When cooperation isn’t possible, planting dense native hedges or installing physical barriers can help slow the spread. If you’re not careful, your neighbor’s plants might become your jungle.
Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more and waste less, and don’t miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
The Federal Aviation Administration says that flight attendants are expected to “verify that the armrests are in the normal forward/down position in order to ensure that they do not obstruct the passageway between the row or seats leading from the aisle to the emergency exit.”
A spokesperson for Delta told Newsweek: “Armrests must be lowered upon taxi, takeoff and landing. This is announced ahead of takeoff and landing.”
Asked whether passengers are allowed to stay among flight attendants during a flight journey, as the woman allegedly did in the Reddit post, the spokesperson added: “No further comment on the rest of the post, as we are unable to verify the accuracy of the claims made by the poster.”
Scientific research also supports the importance of proper seat belt use. An October 2020 study published in World Neurosurgery found that, while lap seat belts can help protect passengers from turbulence, they may be less effective during sudden deceleration during takeoff or landing. The study recommended enhanced safety harnesses as a more-protective alternative in such cases.
‘Infuriating’
The woman in the Reddit post said that the encounter began before takeoff, when she found the armrest already raised as she arrived at her assigned seat. “He was on the phone before takeoff, so I didn’t know when/how to interject before I asked for my seat belt,” she said.
She added that the issue continued throughout the flight until she finally sought help from a flight attendant. “I ended up asking FA [flight attendant] for help. The FA walked me back to the seat and shook him awake from his nap. She told him we must put the armrest down for safety and I need to be able to fit in the seat and put my seat belt on.
“He put up a complaint that he is 6’5″ but we were able to get the armrest down and he moved his leg straighter so our thighs were no longer touching.”
When the poster initially tried asking the man directly to put down the armrest, she said he replied: “I could try.”
The experience left her so unsettled that she temporarily removed herself from the situation. “I was in the back when I made this post and I first stayed in the bathroom an extra long time and then I was standing in the back,” she wrote. “The leg touching was very uncomfortable and I didn’t want to go back to my seat.”
The Reddit post sparked swift reactions, with users sharply criticizing the man’s response and lack of spatial awareness.
“Some people really have zero boundaries. It’s infuriating,” wrote u/ProfessorRealistic86. Another commenter, u/Traditional-Buddy136, reacted to the attached image by saying: “Good Lord. That’s an entire leg.”
Others pointed out inappropriate body language, with u/Intelligent-Award881 adding: “And then the hand in the crotch thing. Bro, find another place and time for that.”
Seat-belt safety has also become part of the debate. One Reddit commenter, u/tireddoc1, criticized the passenger’s dismissive remark, writing: “Such an ignorant comment about the seat belt.”
U/Rubes2525 added: “Seatbelts are also to make sure you don’t slam your head on the ceiling in case of turbulence. Keeping your seat belts fastened during the flight has little to do about a potential crash.”
Some Reddit users called for better passenger education. “They should play a video on [airplane etiquette] before playing the safety video,” suggested u/Constant-Juggernaut2.
Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment via the Reddit messaging system.
Stock image: A flight attendant directs a woman on a plane toward a seat. Stock image: A flight attendant directs a woman on a plane toward a seat. Getty
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Reddit’s stock price is surging after the social media player posted a rare profit.
Reddit on Tuesday reported net income of nearly $30 million for the third quarter, while its revenue of $348.4 million for the period topped analyst forecasts. Those figures were up from a loss of $7.4 million on sales of $207.5 million a year ago. Showing impressive customer growth, the business now has more than 97 million daily users, up 47% from a year ago.
A key factor behind Reddit’s fast growth of late is artificial intelligence. In a letter to shareholders, Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman said a new AI-powered service that lets people translate posts between English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and German quadrupled its number of users. Reddit plans to roll out the feature to more than 30 countries over the course of 2025, he added.
“In 2024 so far, ‘Reddit’ was the sixth most Googled word in the U.S., underscoring that when people are looking for answers, advice or community, they’re turning to Reddit,” Huffman wrote. “We saw this play out in real time when the White House came to Reddit to share critical information during recent hurricanes, reaching people in the affected areas with timely updates.”
Reddit was launched by Huffman, Alexis Ohanian and Aaron Swartz in 2005, only some 16 months after Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook. But Reddit didn’t go public until earlier this year and had never turned a profit, piling up hundreds of millions in losses even as its audience steadily grew.
Reddit’s stock, which in March debuted on the New York Stock Exchange at $34 a share under the ticker symbol “RDDT,” have since more than tripled in value and traded Wednesday afternoon at $113.50, up 39% on the day.
Today, the company’s main source of revenue remains advertising, although it now also brings in money through financial agreements with companies like Google and OpenAI that train their generative-AI tools on Reddit’s content.
Reddit also was in the black for one quarter in both 2021 and 2023, according to the company.
“Looking ahead, including the search experience on Reddit is a key part of our strategy,” Huffman said Tuesday in a call with Wall Street analysts. “We want to ensure that all users have the best experience possible. This includes users coming to Reddit from external search and those searching directly on Reddit who are looking for recommendations on what to buy, what to watch, or what products or services are the best.”
Being a writer, I’ve had more than my fair share of interactions with trolls. But sometimes you just have to tip your hat to them. There are folks out there who have the quick wit and more importantly, the balls to post some of the craziest shit you’ve ever seen.
We’ve compiled a batch of some all-star troll jobs. Break out the lotion, you might need it after these burns.
Later on in the thread, a different user accused PsychoticMammal of being Vance because the linked video was unlisted. “Unlisted? 21 views? Senator Vance, is that you?”
“Lol I wish! Would love to be rolling in the dough like him and his VC buddies,” PsychoticMammal replied. “Honestly when I first watched this the thought kinda crossed my mind that maybe he’s familiar because he is a fan himself, but I feel like that’s doubtful given his politics. I’m sure there are a few congressmen who indulge, but I doubt they’re using zenes or other RCs [research chemicals]. Seems like a coke kinda job.”
In the comments of a now deleted post on r/ObscureDrugs, PsychoticMammal, responding to a user claiming that nitazenes are not obscure drugs, called Vance a “Trump boot licker.”
“I just can’t believe that this Trump boot licker Vance is ahead of the curve here,” the comments reads.
PsychoticMammal described numerous instances of drug use in posts dating from the time Kofsky worked for then senator Pat Toomey and Vance. “I love coke on its own, mixed with benzos, mixed with opiates (my fav tbh), and even love a line or two after smoking a few bowls. I’d even say that coke is my second favorite drug behind opiates,” they wrote earlier this year. In May of last year, they wrote about “my latest tianeptine binge which has skyrocketed my tolerance” and “hoping to finally kick Tia”—references to an unscheduled antidepressant that produces an effect similar to opioids and which is banned in 12 states and commonly sold at convenience stores. In May 2022, they wrote: “Coke then opiates is always my go-to. I only speedball if I have enough opiates to redose when I’m out of blow.”
PsychoticMammal has repeatedly posted about suffering from an addiction to tianeptine. In a post from last year titled “ODSMT for Tianeptine Withdrawals,” they wrote, “I’m trying to figure out what the tianeptine to ODSMT equivalent dose conversion is. I have a few grams of ODSMT coming in the mail and hoping to finally kick Tia using it.”
PsychoticMammal has also repeatedly referenced using kratom, a substance sourced from the leaves of a Southeast Asian tree that mimics the effects of opioids and is often sold at corner stores and smoke shops. Two years ago, in response to a Reddit user who was seeking pain relief, they wrote: “I’ve dabbled in every drug you can think of—kratom is the one drug that really tripped me up and I found myself addicted to. Not sure what it was about it as it’s like a much milder opiate, but man that shit was hell for me to quit.”
WIRED’s investigation shows that Kofsky appears to be closely tied to the PsychoticMammal username across the internet. In 2013, for example, PsychoticMammal wrote that they were a ski instructor at the same resort, Boston Mills Brandywine Ski Resorts, that Kofsky lists as a past employer on his LinkedIn profile, and which he spoke about to Cleveland Magazine in a 2014 profile of notable area students. In another post from earlier this year, PsychoticMammal referred to the resort as their “home hill.”
In a separate post from November 2013, PsychoticMammal replied to a post about a St. Vincent–St. Mary High School football game, suggesting that they went to that school and correctly listing the final score of the game. Kofsky’s LinkedIn account lists the Akron, Ohio–based school as his former high school, and he is listed as a 2015 graduate in the school magazine.
Let’s say you represent the most powerful government on Earth and would like to convey some information to the citizens of your country in a moment of crisis. We’re talking pretty basic stuff: How to apply for federal assistance after a series of massive natural disasters, the general state of the recovery effort, things like that. You’ve got a lot of options, more than ever in the history of mankind. You can issue a press release. You can call a press conference. You can have the president give a little speech or send surrogates out for interviews. You can communicate with state and local authorities who will use the channels at their disposal. You can post anything you want on all sorts of social media platforms and reach out to influencers, theoretically accessing a near-infinite audience.
This will all help, but it won’t necessarily work. Nobody pays attention to the channels you control. Traditional media is fragmented and its audiences are diminished and hyper-polarized. Lots of people are watching TV, but not the TV you need them to watch; everyone’s looking at their phones, but they’re not receiving your messages. Your posts on Facebook, which briefly assumed a role in basic civic communication across the country, are filtered through recommendation algorithms and submerged in slop. Your announcements on Instagram have no way to spread and people aren’t looking for them, anyway. Your posts on TikTok feel like a joke and mostly get distributed to random people in other states. Your posts on X, which used to be at least marginally helpful as a sort of straightforward institutional newswire, are barely visible and overwhelmed by conspiracy theories. It’s a little paradoxical, and if you’re in the business of communications, probably sort of discouraging: It isn’t just your propaganda machine that’s broken, it’s your basic means of reaching people in any way at all. It’s also darkly funny: Everyone can talk to everyone and now suddenly nobody can hear anyone.
Still, you’d like to get that FEMA phone number out there and clarify a few things. A weary social media manager pipes up from the corner of the office: I guess… we could post on Reddit? Reports the Verge:
Reddit isn’t the first place you’d think to see official statements and news coming from the federal government, but today, The White House is on the site making posts… The Biden administration’s “whitehouse” account has new posts in subreddits r/NorthCarolina and r/Georgia to discuss the federal response to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.
For years, the typical story about governments, politicians, or public figures showing up on Reddit focused on the unlikeliness of that match. Reddit was rowdy, weird, or nerdy, and it was sort of interesting or fun or strange for people with big platforms to show up there. In recent years, Reddit has grown from a large cluster of online communities into a sort of last refuge semi-protected habitat for online communities in general — that is, spaces where actual people gather to discuss or find information about certain topics or interests, organized and moderated by other actual people. Now, nobody is deigning to post on Reddit. They’re just hoping it might add to their audience a bit. It helps that /r/NorthCarolina is the sort of place where you might be able to post something like “hey, visit DisasterAssistance.gov” without getting drowned out by posts claiming that FEMA is going to seize your property.
Reddit is also coming into play for another (comparatively inconsequential) type of crisis: Brand meltdowns. At her Substack Link in Bio, Rachel Karten tells the story of KeithFromSonos, the Sonos employee who kept dutifully and patiently posting on the brand’s unofficial subreddit after a disastrous app update nearly tanked the company. The subreddit has a couple hundred thousand members, many of whom are pretty mad at the company. But they don’t hate Keith, who has been posting there for a while, and some even feel sorry for him. As a result, he can post straightforward updates without getting yelled at, unlike pretty much anywhere else, which got the attention of the company’s CEO — who then ended up heading over to Reddit, too.
To be clear, Reddit probably won’t help save Sonos from its angry customers, much less have any measurable effect on the response to hurricanes Helene and Milton — these are, in the grand scheme of things, fairly small communities full of people who otherwise don’t have too much trouble finding information online. And for its part, Reddit hasn’t grown without consequence. Community moderators have grown weary of volunteering for an increasingly profit-minded (and now public) company that takes them for granted, and the site’s size and new visibility on Google — the search company also sees Reddit as a rare source of authentic human activity, albeit for harvesting purposes — has caused an influx of spammers and bots looking to get a piece, all but setting a timer on Reddit’s eventual ruin. But in the meantime, Reddit is serving as an online information oasis of last resort, a channel through which extremely basic mass communication is still possible, at least for now.
It’s hard to find a bigger gut-punch than finding out one of your heroes is not actually a good person. And listen, I’m all about giving celebs the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these kinds of lists. But when it’s multiple people who have had the same type of encounters with a certain celeb, you start to lose faith.
In that light, we’ve compiled fan stories about some of the rudest celebrities in the business.
“So, Alexis [Ohanian], my co-founder, college roommate at the time, he and I applied to Y Combinator,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman on Thursday. Their initial idea was to create a way to order food from cell phones — which wasn’t the norm in 2005.
Y Combinator rejected the idea but asked Ohanian and Huffman, who were 22 and 21 years old at the time, to work on something else. They came up with Reddit, which Y Combinator funded with a $12,000 check.
The idea for Reddit came about from two websites: Delicious and Slashdot. Delicious was a website that let users store and share bookmarks; Yahoo acquired it in 2007. Slashdot.org still exists as a social news site covering science and tech news; Reddit’s co-founders were drawn to the community it had but wanted to expand beyond tech.
Reddit “was kind of a Delicious plus Slashdot, but make both of them better,” Huffman said. “Honestly, I think that’s pretty much what we built. But for 19 years, we’ve been iterating on this and tweaking it, and kind of following our users and adding features.”
For example, Huffman pointed out that Reddit’s “most important feature,” or the power it gives users to create their own communities, was introduced three years after launch.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Since going public, Reddit has posted earnings that beat expectations for two consecutive quarters. The company inked AI licensing deals with Google and OpenAI earlier this year, allowing Google’s Gemini AI and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to use Reddit posts in their training data.
Huffman said there is “a tremendous amount of opportunity” with AI.
“I’m very proud that Reddit has played a role in the development of these technologies,” he said.
