million

They learned cinema on YouTube, they have raised 300 million with their films and they have achieved something: defeating Star Wars

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Three horror movies. Budgets ranging from a ridiculous million dollars for one to ten million for another. Directors of 26, 34 and 20 years old trained on YouTube, not in schools for children of. So far in 2026, those three films have grossed more than $300 million in the North American market. Franchise cinema is not dead, of course, and we are going to prove it this year with the premiere of ‘Doomsday‘ (although, for once, surprises are no longer ruled out). But there are issues that seem to be changing in another sense. The ‘Backrooms’ explosion. Last weekend,’Backrooms‘ (directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons) collection 81.4 million dollars in North America and 118 million worldwide in its first weekend (and it does not arrive in countries like Spain until the end of June), with a budget of only ten million. It is the biggest premiere in the history of A24surpassing the previous record held by ‘Civil War‘by Alex Garland. Parsons also becomes the youngest director to top the US domestic box office, taking that record from Josh Trank, who was 27 years old when ‘Chronicle’ topped the charts in 2012. Unstoppable obsession. At the same time, ‘Obsession’ (by Curry Barker, 26 years old) added 26.4 million in its third weekend, 54% more than the previous week, starting from a budget of one million dollars. Its domestic total already exceeds 104 million. Meanwhile, ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu‘, with a budget of 165 million, fell 69% compared to its opening week and was third on the list of box office receipts that week. We will see ‘Obsession’ this weekend in Spain. The precedent. January had already given the first sign. ‘Iron Lung’ (written, directed, starring and self-distributed by Mark Fischbach, Markiplier on YouTube, 34 years old), debuted with 17.8 million domestic dollars and reached 52 million at the global box office from a budget of three. Fischbach didn’t even go through a study: he self-financed and distributed the film himselfpocketing half of the world gross. Young audience. It is obvious where these collections come from: 86% of the opening audience for ‘Backrooms’ was under 35 years old, and 44% under 21. ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’, not to get away from Disney’s setback with a financially similar debut the previous week, had a share of those under 25 years of age of 27%, although on paper, it should have attracted more viewers of that age (which corroborates that at this point ‘Star Wars’ is entirely a franchise for kids over forty.) These directors who came from YouTube did not summon a new audience, but rather the one they already brought from the internet. Warner Bros. Motion Pictures co-head Michael De Luca summed it up in a conference in which said that these directors “They are in dialogue with their audience from the first moment.” By the time movies like these hit theaters, he added, “they’ve already had a billion screenings.” Three directors, a common pattern. In 2022, Kane Parsons uploaded a nine-minute short film to YouTube titled ‘The Backrooms (Found Footage)’shot from his bedroom with the help of the 3D graphics software Blender. Over the next few years, episodes of the series They accumulated more than 197 million views. Curry Barker, on the other hand, came from the sketch comedy channel ‘That’s a Bad Idea’ which currently has over 700 million cumulative views across platforms. In 2024 he filmed ‘Milk & Serial’, a found footage horror with $800 budget, almost all of it spent on the camera. He spent a year trying to get mainstream distribution without success. He uploaded it for free to YouTube and accumulated 1.6 million views. Mark Fischbach, for his part, has been on YouTube since 2012. He had experimented with the film format in two of his own productions for YouTube (‘A Heist with Markiplier’ and ‘In Space with Markiplier’) before adapting ‘Iron Lung’, David Szymanski’s indie horror video game published in 2022. Why the terror. American terror has exceeded 800 million dollars worldwide so far this year, and these three films directed by YouTube creators account for a third of that figure. But… why this devotion to the genre, which goes hand in hand with the good state of health that enjoy in recent years? Horror operates well with low budgets, and the young audience that grew up with creepypasta and found footages on YouTube has a particular relationship with that aesthetic space. Testing ground. The video clips of the nineties were the laboratory where authors such as David Fincher or Michel Gondry developed their visual grammar before jumping into cinema. Now, YouTube serves as a testing ground for the new generation of filmmakers. That’s why studios and agents now scour YouTube for new names. Now what. Barker has already filmed his next film, a horror comedy titled ‘Anything but Ghosts’, and A24 has hired him for a remake of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. Parsons wants to expand the ‘Backrooms’ universe, possibly in television format. Fischbach, for his part, has already made it clear that he would like to collaborate with a large studio on future projects, without giving up creative control. It is possibly the one with the most traditional discovery profile in the underground and jump to the big leagues. For now, ‘Backrooms’ could end its box office career between $140 and $160 million in the United States alone, which would make the film one of the biggest hits of the year. Not bad for an idea that started as just another meme on 4chan. In Xataka | Cinema can only survive by competing in the “experience” market. That’s why Madrid already has its 70 mm projector

Now they need more than two million euros to buy a flat

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Madrid has become one of the favorite cities by the great Latin American fortunes, and this migratory movement of millionaires to Spain is already being noticed in international rankings. The latest report ‘The Henley Private Wealth Migration Report‘from the consultant Henley & Partners places the Spanish capital among the main destinations for millionaires from the other side of the pond. The capital is no longer only gaining visibility for its offer of urban life and its luxury real estate marketnow it also does it as the formula to own a “pied-à-terre” in a city on each side of the Atlantic that the map is changing of demand in the most expensive neighborhoods of the city. A magnet for large assets. According to data from the report of Henley & PartnersMadrid brings together nearly 34,900 millionaires, about 5,900 more people than three years ago, which equals growth of 20%. The consulting firm considers millionaires to be individuals with investable liquid assets of $1 million or more. This report points out the possibility that Madrid could welcome 200 more millionaires in the next twelve months. In the last decade, the number of millionaires in the capital has grown 3%. Of the almost 35,000 millionaires who live in Madrid, 72 can be considered centimillionaires, that is, with assets of more than 100 million dollars, and eight billionaires with assets of more than 1,000 million dollars. Your home remains your most valuable asset. Data of another study from the consulting firm Knight Frank points out that Latin American investors maintain a relevant weight of 26% in real estate purchase operations prime from Madrid, while those from the United States rise to 8% and the United Kingdom to 5%. Henley & Partners explains in its report that Madrid is positioned as one of the cities that best consolidates the most determining aspects in the migratory decision of foreign millionaires: stability, private education and quality of life for families with large assets. The pressure is noticeable in the real estate market. As and as highlighted cnnof the 44,680 foreign residents of the Salamanca district, the most exclusive area of ​​Madrid, about 21,740 come from Latin American countries. This high demand has caused the price of housing in those areas to skyrocket. According to report data annual Diza Market, in 2014, with one million euros you could buy 2.88 standard homes in the prime areas of Madrid, while in 2026, the same investment barely covers 1.17. That pressure on prices has been shifting to other areas of the cityand postal codes such as Ibiza- Niño Jesús have registered an increase of 195.1% in the prices of their properties since 2014 or Aravaca 119.2%. The square meter has skyrocketed. The study by the real estate consultancy Diza has detected a strong rise in prices in the high-end housing market during the first quarter of 2026 in the most exclusive neighborhoods, which have gone from having an average price of 4,166 euros/m2 in 2014, to 11,928 euros in 2026. The average amount of each operation in these prime districts of the capital is around two million euros, and more than half of them are carried out under the ownership of family officesSICAVs, Socimis or other investment vehicles. Spain is fashionable among millionaires. Madrid is not the only one that monopolizes the arrival of large assets Latin Americans and the United States. All this, despite the fact that in April 2025, the Government ended with the “Golden Visa”which allowed foreigners to obtain residency in Spain through a real estate investment of at least 500,000 euros. Just like the report highlights of Henley & Partners The Costa del Sol maintains its appeal among centimillionaires, remaining in 56th place on the list of places with the largest population of millionaires with more than 100 million dollars, while Barcelona is located just on the edge of the top 100 cities with more millionaires. In Xataka | Madrid has been filled with Latin American millionaires, so Spanish millionaires are creating clubs without them Image | Unsplasg (Florian Wehde)

three million people have disappeared

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Three million people are (more or less) the population of Armenia, Puerto Rico either Mongolia. Also the hole that they just found each other Japanese authorities reviewing their national census, a task they carry out every five years to get a precise idea of ​​their demographics. The last time they had done this task, in 2020, there were 126.1 million residents, including the native and foreign population. Now the figure barely exceeds 123 million, which represents a 2.45% decrease in five years and (even worse) it takes the Japanese census back to the size it was approximately in 1989. The question that more and more people are asking is: Does this decline have a basis or will the projections that predict that the census will fall to 87 million of inhabitants in 2070? Getting deeper (and darker). That is the simplest and most graphic way to describe the demographic hole which Japan has been dealing with for decades. Although all your efforts To reverse the population drain (and there have been many), the Japanese census does not stop losing weight. The last alarm signal is left the five-year report on population and households from the Statistics Bureau of Japan (SBJ), which shows that in 2025, 123,049,524 people resided in the country, including both natives and settled foreigners. Is it bad data? Worse. It’s terrible. To begin with, there are 3,096,575 fewer people than those counted in the last census, in 2020. In case this drop of 2.45% was not enough, the review of the files of the SBJ leave an even more disastrous reading: it supposes the third consecutive fall and worsens the decline recorded between 2015 and 2020, when it had already been noted a ‘puncture’ of 0.7%. Since Japanese officials began taking the census in 1920, they have never documented a decline as pronounced as the one in 2025. 45 of 47. The problem also extends to the vast majority of the territory. The SBJ census shows that, of Japan’s 47 prefectures, 45 lost population in the last five years. In some cases with drops as pronounced as those of Hokkaido, which hosts 239,000 fewer residents than in 2020, Shizuoka (164,000) or Hyogo (141,000). Other territories that had gained population in 2020 have now joined the red list. At the opposite pole are Tokyo and Okinawawhich respectively gained 199,000 and 1,000 inhabitants. Moving away from 2008. The SBJ figures leave few positive readings. Not only do they move Japan further and further away from the data from 2008, when it reached its population peak with 128 million of inhabitants. The latest censuses (and especially their trend) show that the country is gradually meeting the worst forecasts of the National Population Research Institute (IPSS), which estimates that by 2070 the number of residents will have dropped to 87 million and the population over 65 years of age will represent almost 40% of the census. The problem is not the loss of inhabitants or aging itself, but the implications that this has for the economy, health, defense and (in general) the Japanese welfare state. There are those who warn that the loss of residents is already it’s taking its toll to the country’s economy, which among other things has encountered millions of empty housesschools no activity forced to convert into factories or the closure (and bankruptcy) of health centers. “It’s at the forefront”. The most serious thing is not that Japan is losing population, it is that it is doing so despite all the Government’s efforts to tackle the country’s real problem: alarming collapse of their birth rate. The latest official data on the subject, from just a few months agoshow that the number of births has fallen to reach minimums that the authorities did not expect to see until 2042. Against this backdrop, Japan seems to be left with only the resource of immigration, which clashes with the boom of political formations that advocate the opposite. Although its increase In recent years, it is estimated that foreigners represent less than 3% of the population. “Japan has reached a point where this type of decline is not reversible in the short or medium term,” warns in The New York Times James Raymo of Princeton University. “We just won’t see mass immigration.” The Japanese case is interesting because, remember, it does not reflect a trend exclusive to the country. “More and more nations in Asia and other parts of the world will experience similar levels of demographic decline. Japan is simply ahead of the curve and has been in this situation for much longer.” The exception: Tokyo. The most curious thing (or not) is that while most of the country is depopulated and aging, in the Tokyo area the trend is diametrically opposite. The SBJ census also shows that in the metropolitan area of Tokyo The resident population has increased to around 37 million of people, 30% of the entire country. In fact, in the capital the population density more than multiplies the Japanese average: about 6,400 people per square kilometer, while in Japan as a whole it barely exceeds 300. Images | Jezael Mendoza (Unsplash) 1 and 2 In Xataka | Japan no longer knows what to do to make Japanese people have children. So he’s putting free daycare all over the country

export 10 million units

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China has multiplied its car exports. While sales in the local market seem slightly stagnant, the number of vehicles leaving its borders has skyrocketed to the point that, everything indicates, we will see a new export record this year. And it makes perfect sense. Almost a million. China exported 901,000 vehicles last April, of which 796,000 units were passenger vehicles, they explain in Associated Press. It is a figure slightly higher than that of last March but, above all, it is completely disconnected from the 2025 data since 85% more cars have been exported than in April of last year. So far this year, the total number of vehicles exported now exceeds 3.13 million units, which represents a growth of more than 60% compared to the January-April 2025 period, they explain in CNEV Post. 10 million. It is the objective, they point out in this latest publication, for this year. If the pace is maintained, exports would far exceed this figure. Last year, China placed 7.1 million vehicles in other markets and the forecasts They pointed out that this year they would grow slightly to 7.4 million. However, this new barrier of 10 million vehicles that looms on the horizon represents a new historical milestone. Last year it already grew by 21.1%. If we maintain this pace we would be talking about growth above 30%. Because? China has an internal problem. With aid for the purchase of electric cars withdrawn, sales of this type of vehicle have fallen. The first months of the year were especially bad but little by little they have been recovering. The rise in fuel prices as a result of the crisis Hormuz has had a lot to do with. China, which in 2025 once again broke a new record for cars sold, faces a new problem. Last year, with a view to the withdrawal of aid, many cars were self-registered which were difficult to find an outlet for. The market fell into a wild price war and sales of new cars slowed down. The result is a perfect storm for an industry without aid, with a lot of stock that needs to sell cars to a culture that continues to prioritize family savings. Between January and April of this year, 25% fewer vehicles have been sold in China of passengers than last year. We sell them outside. The only way out for the Chinese industry is to take its cars outside its borders. This is being the lifeline for some of their companies. BYD, for example, is reaching export levels that were not expected until 2030. All this movement is allowing China to position itself as a country that offers technological cars at affordable prices. This has allowed them to grow more than 220% in Brazil and reach close to 200% growth in South Korea, Australia and Germany, they point out in Al Jazeera. The perfect car for each market. Although the Chinese market is aimed at new energy vehicles (NEVs in China include plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles), the country’s advantage is that right now it has the perfect technology for each place. This type of vehicles has increased its exports in more than 40% so far this year but its main market continues to be Asia. Where electricity has very little penetration, such as Australia or Japan, its growth rates can be very high. But in other markets like Europe, China has plug-in hybrids that are not subject to tariffs. These types of vehicles are being welcomed with open arms, especially in countries like Spain where the purchase price is the determining factor. Four of the 10 best-selling models with this technology are Chinese. More and more objectives. It must be added that the country has been making efforts to reach new markets. Despite warnings from the United States, some Chinese brands aim continue gaining followers in Mexico. And exports to Canada have been shot. Even in Japan, BYD will try to sell its own kei car a rarity that no foreigner had dared until now. Besides, all Latin America is accepting the arrival of more and more Chinese vehicles. The cars continue to arrive while BYD puts the plant built in Brazil into full operation and announces new releases specific to Europe of its plug-in hybrids. And without forgetting the rest of the companies. While BYD has grown its exports by around 10% at the beginning of the year, Chery has grown by more than 200%, Geely by more than 51% and Leapmotor, now backed by Stellantis, by almost 400%. Photo | In Xataka | While half the world wants to distance itself commercially from China, there is a country that is increasingly doing just the opposite: Spain

40 million dollars in gold bars

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Sometimes an investigation leaves an image so powerful that it threatens to cover up the most important detail. In this case, the image is that of FBI agents entering a house in Virginia and finding more than 300 one-kilo gold bars (about $40 million), along with about $2 million in cash and about 35 luxury watches. The immediate question is obvious: what was all that doing there? The answer, for now, is not in the formal accusation. According to NPRDavid J. Rush faces, for now, a much more limited charge: alleged theft of public money for military leave payments allegedly obtained through false statements. It all started within the CIA itself. According to a joint statement from the CIA and FBI, an internal investigation by the agency identified possible legal violations and led its director, John Ratcliffe, to refer the matter to the FBI. The search of Rush’s home occurred on May 18 and the arrest came on the 19th. The key to the case. The discovery suggests a huge cause, but the accusation presented so far is much more limited. The New York Times points out that Rush is only accused of having inflated his academic credentials and collecting tens of thousands of dollars in military leave payments. He also falsely claimed that he was still in the Navy Reserve after being discharged. And here is the curious part: these assets are part of the investigation, but they are not yet the formal core of the accusation. An important piece. NPR describes him as a former CIA employee at the Senior Executive Service level, a category associated with high-ranking positions within the federal Administration. We are not talking, therefore, about a minor name within the story that the sources draw. We are talking about someone located at a level that does not go unnoticed. The unexplained hole. The big question is not only how those goods ended up in a private home, but why they had been requested in the first place. Rush began demanding foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in bullion, arguing that it was needed for labor issues. The CIA later searched a storage space associated with it and only located some of the cash. Added to this is that the agency had not yet found records that justified the need to handle such an extraordinary sum. A resume in question. The FBI also looks back, long before the funding requests and registration in Virginia. The man would have included studies at Clemson University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in several CIA applications, in addition to military merits that are now under suspicion. The two universities, according to the affidavit cited by US Public Radio, found no records that he had attended class. Something similar occurs with his profile as a supposed pilot: the documents reviewed would not support that he had passed evaluations or that he had a license. The case. Rush remains in the custody of the US Marshals Service after his bail request was rejected, and has yet to make a formal statement. Court records cited indicate that he waived a preliminary hearing and that the detention hearing was postponed until June 5. At the moment, one question still has no public answer: whether the gold was requested for an operation, for an internal project or for another purpose that we do not yet know. Images | Xataka with Grok In Xataka | Against all odds, Madrid has committed itself to building the largest Ferris wheel on the planet: 260 m high and worth 300 million euros

Brussels has just fined Temu the largest fine in its history with the Digital Services Law: 200 million euros

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This Thursday, the European Commission sanctioned the Chinese e-commerce platform with the largest fine imposed so far under the Digital Services Law. Brussels considers that Temu has not been able to detect or stop the sale of dangerous items reaching European consumers, from chargers to baby toys. What exactly happened. Brussels accuses Temu of “not having identified, analyzed or evaluated with due diligence the systemic risks” derived from offering illegal products on its website, ensuring that this practice entails “potential harm” to EU users. This violates the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European regulation that forces large platforms to monitor what circulates through their services. The 200 million exceed the 120 that prevailed over the social network last December, so far the highest penalty under this regulation. No filters. The Commission maintains that this is not a specific case of defective products, but rather a failure in the platform’s own security system. In the words of the Executive“the evidence collected indicates that European consumers are very likely to encounter illegal items in Temu.” The problem, therefore, would not be in a specific seller, but in the company’s inability to filter what it sells. In detail. The research has been supported by several sources. The main one was a “secret shopping” exercise commissioned from an independent contractor, who has carried out laboratory tests on items chosen at random. The results, according to Brusselswere worrying in three categories: Electric chargers: a very high percentage did not pass basic safety tests, with the risk of short circuits and burns. Toys and objects for babies: Many presented medium or high severity hazards, either because they contained chemicals above legal limits or because of the risk of suffocation due to detached parts. Jeweler’s: Irregularities were also detected. According to the statement, these data were compared with customs controls of the Member States and with the European market surveillance database (ICSMS). The three routes, according to the Commission, showed “high or very high” percentages of non-compliant products, although the organization has decided not to publish the exact figures. Product bombing. In addition to the products, Brussels focuses on the technology of the platform. The Commission criticizes that Temu did not evaluate how the design of its own service (recommendation systems and promotional campaigns run by affiliated influencers) could be amplifying the dissemination of these articles. Furthermore, according to the agency, the company based its 2024 risk assessment on generic information from the sector and not on evidence on its own website, ignoring external studies (such as reports from consumer associations in Denmark and Finland) that already warned of the problem. What Brussels says. “Temu’s risk assessment underestimates specific risks, lacks detail, is not based on solid evidence and is not comprehensive,” counted the vice president of the Commission responsible for Technological Sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen. The Finnish commissioner insists that these analyzes “are not mere bureaucratic procedures”, but the backbone of the DSA. How much does the fine weigh? Although the figure is relatively large, represents only 0.38% of Temu’s estimated turnover for 2025 (calculated at around €53 billion), very far from the 6% limit allowed by regulations. The Commission justifies this moderation because the sanction is “proportionate” to other aspects that remain under investigation. The situation has been brewing since 2024based on complaints from the European Consumer Organization (BEUC) and 17 of its national associations. And now what. Temu has three months to pay and until August 28 of this year to submit a “corrective action plan.” That document will then be reviewed by the European Committee for Digital Services, which will have one month to issue a response. After that, the Commission will have another month to set the final decision and on what date the fine will be applied. If the company does not correct course, it is exposed to periodic fines (daily, weekly or monthly) until it complies. The company can appeal to the European courts, but Brussels has already warned that the fine is final and does not intend to lower it even if the company corrects its behavior. Cover image | François Genon and own assembly In Xataka | Europe is already cherishing what was always a dream: the industrial manufacturing of qubits for quantum machines

There is a city that has scanned the faces of more than 3 million people on the street and it is not in China, but in Europe

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A few days ago a man was walking down the street when, without realizing it, a camera scanned his face. As he continued walking, a sophisticated system compared his face to a police database, sent the alert, and within minutes he was arrested. It happened in London. The city of cameras. London is one of the most surveilled cities in the world; according to some sourcesin its streets there are more than 600,000 cameras controlling everything that happens. For some years now, in addition, they have a real-time facial recognition system to identify dangerous criminals, and it seems that the system is being as effective as it is controversial. In numbers. London’s Metropolitan Police say that since the beginning of 2024 they have made 2,500 arrests, of which 2,100 are related to violent and sexual crimes against women and girls. The system scanned more than 3 million faces in one year and only generated ten false positives. During a pilot in the Croydon district at least 470,000 passers-by were scanned with only one false positive. According to the police, the result of this test was a 10.5% crime reduction. How it works. The facial recognition cameras they have installed are capable of scanning up to 5,000 faces per hour. What they do is send the data to a police operations room where an AI system, signed by the Japanese company NEC, is dedicated to compare them with the police databasewhere there are more than 17,000 registered suspects. When there is a match, an alert is issued to officers in the area so they can make the arrest. Opposition. Organizations like Big Brother Watch has carried out campaigns against this systemarguing that it risks normalizing mass surveillance in public spaces and calling the technology ‘Orwellian’. Furthermore, they strongly question its true operational profitability since, while the police boast of making an arrest every 35 minutes, they warn that these statistics hide the enormous number of hours of the agents and the immense logistical resources that the system requires on the streets, diverting efforts from traditional and more proportionate police work. The debate has intensified after the unprecedented use of the system in a political protest in London. Big Brother Watch took the case to the High Court, but it ruled in favor of the legality of the technology, paving the way for its expansion. In favor. Despite opposition from some organizations, according to Police Director Lindsey Chiswick, the technology is “revolutionary” and completely secure, stressing that the biometric data of those who do not match the list of suspects are immediately destroyed. There are also fears that the algorithm discriminates based on race, but the police hide behind the fact that the tests carried out concluded that the system is accurate and does not present ethnic or gender biases. According to Chiswick, citizen support is around 80% in surveys. Image | Levi Meir ClancyUnsplash In Xataka | Concern over mass video surveillance has created a new product: anti-facial recognition glasses

A Nazi officer has been watching you for two hours while you study, and has five million views on YouTube

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An austere room with an open door. Every three or four minutes, an SS officer entershe stares at the viewer and sees that he is doing exactly what he is supposed to do: studying or working. Except for a few threatening opening words and a sullen farewell, there is nothing more. With small variations (a Soviet officer, times that vary between one and four hours, setting in a sinister basement in some other video) we are facing a successful experiment with five and a half million views. Which connects with one of the most unique traditions of YouTube. The origin. It was published in September 2023 by the German channel Radical Living under the title “2 hours from a WWII German officer to help you study/work/focus.” The description, a laconic “Study with me.” The video accumulates more than five million views and carries, at the end of its description, the inevitable warning that “this work should only be seen as satire” and that the author condemns Nazi ideology. In March 2026 the same channel uploaded the soviet version: same formula, different uniform. Study with me. Having someone on the internet accompany you while you study is not new. The format is on YouTube since around 2014 and began to gain real traction around 2018, when creators around the world began posting recordings of themselves studying in real time, usually with lofi music in the background and visible timers, imitating the also inevitable Pomodoro technique. The mechanics are deliberately simple: the viewer puts on the video, sees someone working in silence (or, in this last variant, someone watching him) and that helps him to work too. Long live Lofi Girl. The absolute reference of the genre is Lofi Girlthe French channel created by music producer Dimitri, launched in February 2017, and which showed the continuous broadcast, livelofi music with an anime girl studying by the window. The channel exceeded 15 million subscribers in 2025 and the image of the girl with headphones has become one of the most recognizable icons of productivity culture on the internet. In July 2025 the character symbolically “graduated” with a video on TikTok showing her wearing a mortarboard and a laptop with the phrase “THE END.” Thus closing the era of the character’s continuous stream, which had lasted more than seven years. More variants. The success of Lofi Girl generated multiple imitations: the subgenre “dark academy“It brought gothic atmospheres, fireplaces, rain, dark wood and a fanfare of violins for those who prefer to study imaginatively in a Victorian castle (the success of ‘Wednesday’, in fact, did not come out of nowhere). Then came the fantasy environments: the library of Hogwartsa elven forestthe spaceship…Each variant adds layers of schematic roleplay, a narrative excuse for the viewer to “get in the mood.” The Nazi or Soviet officer is the latest mutation of that logic, taken to the point of absurdity (and of course, there is a Spanish version with Pepe Viyuela, who is already a subgenre in its own right) Why we like to be watched. There is a technical concept that may explain why these videos work: the body doubling. It emerged in the ADHD community to describe the fact that performing a task in the presence of another person (even if you don’t interact, review your work, or do anything specific) significantly improves your ability to concentrate and get started on tasks. There are already studies that talk about how body doubling It generates a feeling of responsibility that helps you stay on task. The presence (real or not, that doesn’t matter) of someone creates an external structure that the brain uses to regulate itself, something especially valuable for those who have difficulties with executive self-regulation. and the theoretical foundation It goes back even further: the psychologist Robert Zajonc described in 1965 “social facilitation”, that the mere presence of others increases the level of alertness and performance on tasks that we already master. That’s why it works to go down to work in a cafeteria, where no one knows each other. That’s why Lofi Girl works, and that’s why, in its own twisted logic, the SS officer works. In Xataka | We are experiencing a crisis of concentration. Experts are beginning to think that the problem is not mobile phones, but the algorithm

A woman won the lottery and had to choose between a million dollars or 1,000 a week forever

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Brenda Aubin-Vega was 20 years old when scratched a lottery ticket in Quebec and saw the jackpot appear. What came next was not a celebration without complications: before it was a decision that unleashed months of debate on the networks. The game is called Gagnant à vie —”winner for life”—and offers the lucky person the choice between collecting one million Canadian dollars at once or receiving $1,000 a week for the rest of their life. She chose weekly payments. In networks they put it in broth. The criticisms. When his case became publicthe opinions on networks did not wait. Many users on Reddit and in X They debated their decision. Some argued that weekly payments were the safe option for someone young. Others argued that rejecting a full million (in Canada lottery prizes are not taxed) was a textbook financial error. Taxes, inflation, index funds, historical returns were mentioned. Who is right? The age factor Brenda was 20 years old when she won the prize, so to equal the million with weekly payments she needs to collect for 19 and a half years, that is, reach 40. From then on everything is net profit. If he lives to be 60, he will have earned more than 2 million Canadian dollars. Until 80, more than 3 million. Statistical life expectancy works completely in their favor. Of course, once you die, the payments stop and there is no inheritance left to leave, unless you have been very very saver. The advantages of a million. With the single payment, the numbers are also seductive. A million invested in a low-cost index fund with a conservative 6% annual return becomes more than 10 million by the time Brenda turns 60, assuming she doesn’t touch the money. There is also a nuance that the debates on networks overlooked: inflation erodes those $1,000 per week over time. That is to say, what allows us to live comfortably today may be a modest income in 30 years. The best of both worlds. There is a third way and that is to collect the million and manage it as a personal fund, withdrawing a salary equivalent to the weekly payment and investing the rest. The problem is profitability. With a return of 6% per year, the capital would probably be depleted before retirement age. For the million to last until 80 or more, a higher sustained profitability is needed, an ideal scenario, but one that requires a more aggressive investment strategy and, above all, not making a single serious mistake for six decades. Other factors. On paper it sounds impeccable, in practice it requires a lot of financial discipline sustained over decades and the ability to deviate from the plan, avoiding unforeseen situations or impulsive purchases. The history of lottery prize winners It’s full of bad decisions and million-dollar prizes that disappear in the blink of an eye. In this sense, the winner may not have chosen the most lucrative option, but she chose the safest and, above all, the most comfortable if what you want is to have a safety net without having to complicate your life. Image | Quebec Loto In Xataka | There is something even more difficult than winning the Lottery Jackpot: not making mistakes with the Treasury when collecting it

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