Cosplay Models Sold ‘Feet Juice’ At An Anime Convention And People Drank It This is the economy now. Every day we drift further from the agricultural society our ancestors intended.
Flight To Europe Turns Around Because Of Bluetooth Speaker Named “Bomb” The TSA’s greatest enemy is a guy who thinks he’s funny.
Chicago Graduate Has Diploma Withheld After Doing Split Onstage During Ceremony. Worth it.
Mother Renames Son After Tattooist Makes Spelling Error This is a woman who thinks on her feet and knows how to pivot.
CIA Accused Of Using 23andme And Ancestry.Doc To Hunt Down Alien Bloodlines In DNA
The Krakken was real. First Alien DNA, now this. Big week for your crazy uncle.
Scientists Just Accidentally Discovered a Strange Rule of Human Nature. Humans turn counterclockwise almost 100% of the time We are the roomba. The roomba is us.
50 Most Interesting Things Left in Ubers This Year Highlights include: Pelvic implants, a dishwasher, a live turtle, and a Viking drinking horn.
New Hampshire Man Rescues OnlyFans Model off Mount Whitney A 22-year-old OnlyFans model hiking the Pacific Crest Trail was inspired by a psychedelic mushroom trip and the Reese Witherspoon movie “Wild.” She drank from a creek, got sick, and a 25-year-old former mechanical engineer (trail name: Marmot) helped rescue her. I hope they fell in love.
A Former Senior CIA Official Was Arrested After The FBI Found 303 Gold Bars Worth Over $40 Million In His House. Along with $2 million in cash and 35 Rolexes. He had been expensing the gold bars to the government for “work-related purposes.” He also faked his entire military background and both of his degrees. What a legend. The craziest part is that he apparently thought 303 gold bars was a subtle amount of gold bars.
A Woman Is Suing Outback Steakhouse for Slipping On Mashed Potatoes. This feels like something that would happen to me
Influencer Banned For Life For Eating Chicken Nuggets On A Roller Coaster This also feels like something that would happen to me
Teeny, tiny blue octopus discovered. I would die for him.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the end of May marks the close of Emmy eligibility season. This means it’s FYC season, the brief magical period where every surface in Los Angeles becomes an advertisement for voting for television shows.
Your inbox gets conservatively 4-6 million For Your Consideration emails a day. Bus stops want your vote. Billboards want your vote. Coffee sleeves want your vote.
What season comes next? Thank you so much for asking. Rattlesnake season. And after that? Spider season. We live in paradise.
Every Year After (Amazon)
What if your first love is destined to be your soulmate? Based on Carley Fortune’s popular YA novel, this is a sweet, romantic story about first love, a lake town, and a love triangle. If that’s your thing, this is your thing.
Alice and Steve (Hulu)
I am a long time Nicola Walker fan and she’s so good in this show about 2 lifelong friends and what happens when he starts dating her daughter. Nobody does emotional messiness better than British television.
Below Deck Med (Bravo/Peacock)
Captain Sandy, Aesha, Nathan and Joe Bradley are setting sail in Croatia and I can’t help but see Kings Landing everywhere they go. Last season Nathan and Joe started as best friends and ended as enemies. The Chef is French and angry so this should be a good time.
The World Cup (Fox)
From now until July 19th there will always be soccer on somewhere. Even if you don’t care about soccer, there is something special about knowing the entire planet is watching, and arguing about the same thing.
American Ninja Warrior (NBC/Peacock)
When was the last time you watched this show? It’s kind of fun. Try it. Especially if you have kids.
Now, let’s talk about docs
Maternal Instinct (Netflix)
A Texas Trooper pulls over a woman who says she’d just given birth. And the rest of it you will never see coming.
Michael Jackson: The Verdict (Netflix)
Officially a giant hit with 17 million views in the first week and no signs of stopping. There’s a lot of discourse about it if you want to be a part of that.
FINALES
Widows Bay
I haven’t heard about a season 2 pick up order yet but I can’t imagine there won’t be right? RIGHT?!?! This may be the scariest thing yet.
RHORI
My 2 favorite recent watches are ending the same week. This is the real horror.
Summer House
In the final part of the reunion we learned we’re getting a surprise Part 4 featuring one-on-one sit-downs. Why? My guess: because the cast is supposed to start filming again and the vibes are currently radioactive. Summer House traditionally begins with July 4th weekend. If everyone walks into that house feeling the way they felt at the reunion, there won’t be a season. There will be a hostage situation.
So, now the show has to perform emergency surgery. Somebody has to apologize. Somebody has to cry. Somebody has to begin a redemption arc. And because television is built on the backs of a few reliable workhorses, Kyle and Lindsay have once again been called into service because of Amanda and West’s pitiful, pilled-out performance on the reunion.
And while we’re here, let me offer what may be the coldest take in television commentary. I have known Wests. A West is someone who falls in love with unavailable people without realizing that the unavailability is the attraction. The yearning becomes the relationship. The secrecy becomes the chemistry. The obstacle becomes proof that it’s real.
Because wanting someone feels so powerful, they mistake the wanting for love. Then the minute that person becomes available, “the magic disappears”. Not because the other person changed. Because the obstacle was what made the relationship. The relationship wasn’t built on compatibility. It was built on pursuit.
Meanwhile someone has blown up a relationship, a marriage, or an entire life based on feelings that were only sustainable at a distance. Watch out for Wests. They’re everywhere.
STILL WATCHING
Love Island USA (Peacock)
Why you should watch Love Island a treatise.
Want to get in the best shape of your life?
I have a weird suggestion. Watch more television. Specifically, use television to trick yourself into exercising.
One of the ideas from Atomic Habits is habit stacking, pairing something you enjoy with something you don’t. Instead of relying on willpower, you make the reward and the habit happen at the same time.
Love Island is perfect for this because it’s on six nights a week.
This summer, make yourself one rule: You can only watch Love Island while walking. Treadmill. Walking pad. Neighborhood walk. Whatever.
A typical episode is about 13 thousand steps. By the end of the season you’ll have logged thousands of steps without really thinking about it.
You’ll be healthier. You’ll understand all the memes. And you’ll have strong opinions about people you’ve never met.
If Love Island isn’t your thing, use Dateline. Or Survivor. Or Real Housewives. Or whatever show you love that has a million episodes.
The point isn’t Love Island. The point is outsourcing your self-discipline to television.
By the time the finale rolls around, you’ll be the hot new bombshell.
Love Island UK (Hulu)
LIke the great British Bake Off vs. American baking shows, there is just something about watching UK contestants that feels cozier.
IF YOU CAN ONLY WATCH ONE
For the third week in a row, let it be Widow’s Bay. One of the most creative, scary, and funny shows of the year. It’s about a New England town with all the lore and scares of Stephen King’s Maine but inhabited with the types of characters and the heart of Park and Rec’s Pawnee. Wednesday is the finale so catch up now.
IN THEATERS
Disclosure Day
Steven Spielberg’s return to the alien genre, starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, and Colman Domingo. Spielberg has said publicly he wants people to come together and watch things on a big screen—and you’’ll see why from the movie. I am also on this mission. Go to a theater. Watch TV together. The aliens are coming.
Stop! That! Train!
Do you like camp? Drag queens? Celebrity cameos? As Dr. Seuss would say: Would you like them on a train? Would you like them in the rain? Then you’ll like this.
The Hottest Beach Read of the Summer Is Nonfiction Town and Country, the magazine for people who summer as a verb, has declared this a nonfiction summer. They’re right. 2026 has been an unusually strong year for nonfiction. We’ve already talked about Strangers, Adult Braces, Famesick and now please try:
London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
If you’ve read Say Nothing or Empire of Pain you already know you are buying this. If you haven’t, the short version is that Keefe is one of the best nonfiction writers working and this is his new book. It follows the mysterious 2019 death of nineteen-year-old Zac Brettler, who jumped from a balcony into the Thames in the middle of the night and the investigation that revealed he had been living a secret life posing as the son of a Russian oligarch inside London’s dirty-money underworld. A family portrait and a thriller and an indictment of an entire city, all at once. Currently number one on many charts and #2 on Amazon’s Best Books of the Year so far.
World War II with Tom Hanks
Ooh guess what? That Tom Hanks WW2 doc series I mentioned last week is also a podcast. Nothing says summer like a 20 part war documentary.
Switched on Pop
One of my favorite things is learning how things work. Restaurants. Television shows. Theme parks. Political campaigns. Why Costco is laid out the way it is. Switched on Pop does that, but for music. Every episode breaks down the hidden choices behind the songs you can’t stop listening to. Why a chorus works. Why a melody gets stuck in your head. Why Sabrina Carpenter sounds different than Chappell Roan. Why one song becomes the song of the summer while another disappears. If you’ve ever listened to a song 100 times in a row and wondered why it works so well, this is for you.
One podcast explains how World War II happened. The other explains why Taylor Swift happened. Both are delightfully educational.
THE WORLD CUP
It has begun. France and Spain are the favorites going in, but every team has players you could write fanfic about, and my favorite part of the entire thing is foreigners trying American food for the first time.
Italians Discover Free refills
British People Discover Big Gulps
Germans trying waffle house and Taco Bell
I love it all.
THE KNICKS
The New York Knicks came back from 29 points down to beat the San Antonio Spurs 107-106 on Wednesday night, completing the largest comeback in NBA Finals history and moving to within one win of their first championship since 1973. OG Anunoby tipped in the miss of Jalen Brunson’s long three-pointer with 1.2 seconds remaining. They can win it all on Saturday in San Antonio.
Some real poetry has come out of this series.
My mayor Muslim, my bagels Jewish, my Christian Dior, Knicks in four.
Here’s the update. A Poet Laureate (And should out to Kalshi for all this marketing without doing any disclosures.)
And A$AP Rocky, who said simply: I ain’t a Knicks fan, I am a Knick.
NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS
Carolina Hurricanes lead the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 . Vegas is now one loss away from elimination, playing Game 6 at home Sunday. Las Vegas: surprising home for a hockey team, unsurprising home for a desperate comeback.
TIK TALK
These were my favorite trends ths week:
NEW SLANG
Kitten fishing: Not full cat fishing, just when you tell little lies about yourself on dating apps or in the early stages of dating.
Loneliness influencers. A new trend of single people”with no friends” showing what their lives are like.
THINGS TO DO
The Sound of Love: A lovely rabbit hole to go down that shows YouTube comments from love songs
Catalogues, a free and fun new game from The New Yorker that asks you to put things in order
There is no sound if the 2020s yet A fascinating article has been making the rounds arguing that there is no defining sound of the 2020s. Not yet, anyway. The theory is that streaming, algorithms, TikTok, endless niche communities, and infinite choice have fractured music into a thousand micro-scenes instead of creating one dominant cultural sound. Think about it.
The 50s had rock and roll.
The 60s had Motown and psychedelic rock.
The 70s had disco.
The 80s had synth-pop.
The 90s had grunge.
The 2000s had indie sleaze and hip-hop.
The 2010s had EDM drops, trap beats, and whatever was happening to Mumford & Sons.
But if someone asked you what the 2020s sound like? I don't know that there is an answer. Maybe it's because we're all listening to different things. Maybe it's because culture moves too fast now. Either way, it’s an interesting question.
What do you think the sound of the 2020s is? I’m genuinely curious.
Father’s Day is next weekend. Here are 2 excellent Gift Guides from people with good taste.
A Continuous Lean is a popular men’s lifestyle newsletter founded by writer and creative strategist Michael Williams way back in 2007. It focuses on timeless men’s style, heritage craftsmanship, artisanal products, and the ethos of “buying less but buying better”
And
Hailee Steinfeld’s Boy’s List on ShopMy
Cardi B recently discovered 5 Below. She said she’s been “rich for too long.” If you’ve never been there, imagine Target but less overwhelming. 10/10 would recommend.
Summer Shoe Tour, Week 3
Every summer there is a shoe that suddenly appears on every attractive person. This year it’s the Nike Moon Shoe. Especially the Jaquemus collab.
Jacob Elordi has been wearing them.
Jerry Lorenzo has been wearing them.
Rihanna has been wearing them.
Dua Lipa, Lisa, the list goes on and on.
The regular ones are about $106, which in 2026 celebrity fashion terms qualifies as “free.” If you’ve been looking for a summer sneaker that feels current without requiring a second mortgage, this is the one.
You’re not putting enough salt in your pasta water
Bartenders predict the 2026 drink of the summer. My money is on the Hugo Spritz.
Lima, Peru has been voted best food city
Cooking one meal at home a week reduces risk of dementia by up to 67%
Milly pepper After fancy salt It was only a matter of time before we got fancy pepper
British people are melting down over an anchovy paste shortage.
M&Ms have a playalong pack for Love Island. Basically it’s like a drinking game you can eat.
Wendy’s has a new banana frosty for the Minions movie, I haven’t tried it yet. But banana-flavored desserts have an unusually high success rate: Banana pudding, Banana cream pie, Banana bread…
Kansas City BBQ and Texas BBQ Ramen noodles. Do we think this is good? Someone told me these were tasty so I had to put them in. Cannot confirm or deny though.
Takis Hot Sauce. I’m interested
Hello Kitty Spam. Isn’t her friend Pippo a pig? Rude.
A tip I learned when making a baking show: Never cut cake from the top down. Cut from the side.
When you cut from above, the knife drags crumbs through the frosting and destroys that beautiful bakery-perfect finish. Cutting from the side gives you a much cleaner slice. Demonstration here
Parkour isn’t just a hobby, it’s a lifestyle
I’ve been feeling incredibly grateful lately. For this newsletter. For all of you.
For every comment, share, restack, recommendation, email, DM, and conversation that starts with “I thought of Extremely Helpful when I saw this.”
Building something on the internet can feel a little like throwing messages into the ocean and hoping somebody finds them.
So thank you for finding them.
I do have a question.
If you could pick one, which would you want most?
A monthly giveaway of Extremely Helpful favorite things for paid subscribers
A monthly roundup of the most popular recommendations
Guest letters from extremely helpful people
A second weekly newsletter
Let me know in the comments. 👇
And one final favor:
The Pilates studio I’ve gone to for eight years just closed. A genuine tragedy. If you’re in Los Angeles, reply or DM me your favorite Pilates studios. I am now accepting applications for my next fitness personality.
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