Voxcali

After initially being rejected from Pixar’s internship program, Domee Shi returned with a stronger portfolio and became one of the studio’s most influential directors.

With an Oscar-winning dumpling and a giant red panda, Domee Shi went from a rejected Pixar internship applicant to the studio’s first woman to direct a short film.

Shi was born in Chongqing, China, in 1989 and immigrated to Canada with her parents when she was two years old. Her family briefly lived in Newfoundland, then settled in Toronto, where Shi grew up as an only child surrounded by Chinese traditions. Art was a major part of her childhood as her father was a college art professor and landscape painter in China. Shi developed a love for Disney movies, Japanese animation and manga, eventually joining her high school’s anime club and started posting her artwork online.

After high school, she enrolled in the animation program at Sheridan College in Ontario and applied for an internship at Pixar during her third year of college but was initially rejected. Rather than giving up, she improved her portfolio, reapplied the following year and was accepted. She graduated in 2011, joined Pixar as a story intern and was quickly hired as a story artist on Inside Out, then later contributed to The Good Dinosaur, Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4.

Her biggest opportunity arrived after Pixar employees were invited to pitch ideas for original short films and Shi presented the story of a Chinese mother whose homemade dumpling suddenly comes to life. That idea became Bao, which drew heavily from Shi’s relationship with her own mother. Shi even brought her mother to Pixar to teach the animation team how to properly knead, fill and fold the dumpling dough. Released alongside in 2018, Bao made Shi the first woman to direct a Pixar short and even won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2019.

In her next project Shi wrote and directed Turning Red, a coming-of-age story about a 13-year-old Chinese Canadian girl living in Toronto who transforms into a giant red panda whenever her emotions become overwhelming. Released in 2022, Turning Red made Shi the first woman to direct a Pixar feature film entirely on her own and also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature.

Shi has since been promoted to vice president of creative at Pixar, giving her a role in major creative decisions for films in development and production. Most recently, Shi co-directed Pixar’s Elio, earning another Academy Award nomination, and is reportedly developing the studio’s first full-length musical. By turning the most personal parts of her Chinese Canadian upbringing into universal stories, Domee Shi has helped expand who gets to create, and star in, a Pixar film.

A young man struggles to fight his dangerous passion for an unspeakably dark, rich beauty with a nasty bite.

Verse 1

Chorus

Verse 2

Chorus

Bridge

Verse 3 (quieter)

Final Chorus (big)

(tag, spoken: “...make it a double.”)

Cal safety Kingston Lopa leads the nation with five interceptions in his first season with the Golden Bears, bringing a major playmaking presence to a defense seeking to help the program reach its fourth consecutive bowl game.

Kingston Lopa has emerged as one of college football’s most productive defensive backs in his first season with the California Golden Bears.

The 6-foot-5 safety of Samoan and Tongan descent leads the nation with five interceptions, giving Cal a major playmaker in the secondary.  Three of Lopa’s interceptions came in the Golden Bears’ first win of the year, which included a pick-six to take the lead in the fourth quarter and a takeaway that sealed the game.

Lopa transferred from Oregon after spending two seasons with the Ducks, where he developed behind an established group of defensive backs before taking on a starting role in Berkeley.  During his time in Eugene, he appeared in 13 games, recording 12 tackles, one sack and one tackle for loss.  Last season the Ducks reached the College Football Playoff semifinal.

Lopa was a four-star recruit at Grant High School in Sacramento, where he played safety and wide receiver.  He was ranked among the nation’s top 250 prospects and received offers from programs including Michigan, Notre Dame, LSU, Texas, and USC before choosing Oregon.

The Sophomore’s breakout comes as Cal works through a challenging season.  The Golden Bears entered October with a 2-3 record after losses to UCLA, Clemson and UNLV, with offensive inconsistency and defensive struggles against the run contributing to their setbacks.

Cal is seeking bowl eligibility for the fourth consecutive season, a milestone that would extend the program’s recent run of postseason appearances.  In the middle of the conference schedule, Lopa’s ability to create turnovers could prove important as the Golden Bears pursue that goal.

Nagoro’s life-sized dolls may look unsettling, but they preserve the people and everyday life of a rural community disappearing with Japan’s population decline.

In a remote Japanese village, children sit inside a school that closed more than a decade ago, workers repair a road that leads almost nowhere and passengers patiently wait for a bus they will never board because none of them are real.

These life-sized figures belong to Nagoro, a tiny mountain community on the island of Shikoku that has become known as Japan’s “Scarecrow Village.” While only around 25 people reportedly lived there in 2026, they shared the village with approximately 350 handmade dolls.

The dolls may appear unsettling at first but their history is less frightening as they preserve the memory of a community that slowly disappeared as residents died or moved away in search of work and opportunity.

Nagoro was once home to approximately 300 people. Its population grew during the construction of a nearby hydroelectric dam in the early 1960s, when laborers and their families brought activity and money into the area. The village reportedly had stores, a post office, public bathrooms and even gaming halls, while forestry also supported local employment, but once the dam was completed and its operations became increasingly automated, many jobs disappeared. Younger residents continued leaving for larger cities, while the population that remained grew older.

The village’s unusual transformation began with Tsukimi Ayano, an artist who was born in Nagoro but moved to Osaka with her family as a child. In the early 2000s, she returned to care for her father and attempted to grow vegetables. When birds began eating the seeds, she created a life-sized scarecrow to protect the garden. The figure happened to resemble her father and after neighbors responded positively to it, Ayano continued creating more. 

Some were inspired by people who had died or moved away, while others represented imaginary residents performing everyday activities. She placed them in fields, outside homes, beside roads and at bus stops, gradually rebuilding the community with scarecrow dolls. 

Travelers can now visit the Scarecrow Village and the silent residents, bringing international attention to a place that might otherwise have quietly vanished. The people of Nagoro now may be handmade, but they once gave the town its life and this was just an artist’s way of making sure her disappearing community is still remembered.

Chapter 14, first half, follows the thoughts of CIA Director Martin Underwood as he links incoming reports of large troop movements in East Asia to the intel he had received three years earlier of what he dubbed the Nightingale Provocation—an elaborate plan hatched by Jack Tang.

      The thin half-mile bridge that connected Las Ventanas to the Florida coastline added magic to Martin Underwood’s four-mile morning run, especially the outbound leg, with the early-morning sun at his back lighting the beach ahead like some vision of paradise. 

      The urgent vibration of the beeper in the pocket of his shorts returned the CIA Director from his endorphin reveries.  Underwood would rather be awakened from REM sleep than be beeped in the middle of his run, but the LED identified the caller as Kelly Forrester.  The code accompanying the phone number told him she wasn’t calling about a pre-emptive nuclear strike, assassination of the President, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or a North Korean invasion of the South.  Time-sensitive but not urgent.  Kelly probably just wanted to give him a good morning phone kiss, Underwood mused.  National security wouldn’t be compromised by taking another twenty minutes to finish his cardio-vascular workout. 

      Cutting short his morning run could mean losing a few million more innocent cells to those relentless free radicals.  The thought was abhorrent to Underwood.  Briefings on the leading-edge biotech research being conducted under DARPA’s auspices had convinced Underwood there was a chance he might live forever.  Recent experiments had even succeeded in regenerating brain cells killed by strokes.  That was only the beginning.  In four more years the human genone project would have completed the mapping of all 100,000 genes, locating every gene contributing to the aging process.  Five or six years after that gene therapies would be developed to turn the appropriate genes on and off.  That meant the body he managed to keep for the next nine or ten years could well be the one he would keep for all eternity, short of undergoing the kinds of invasive procedures he abhorred inflicting on his boyishly trim body.  Underwood was determined to complete his entire four-mile run before picking up his scrambler-equipped cellphone back in his lavish guest suite at Plumburger’s estate.

      A shame Kelly Forrester couldn’t be there to enjoy the place.  But it had been her turn on the weekend watch, and he couldn’t very well play favorites among his staff deputies.  Of course, there had been more than a little favoritism in having the petite 35-year-old brunette leapfrog senior analysts twice her age to win one of the coveted GS-17 posts in the office of the Director of Central Intelligence. 

      That didn’t mean her appointment had been wrongheaded, in Underwood’s opinion.  The beauty from Huntington Beach had been the sharpest international relations students ever to stir up male hormones in Underwood’s lectures.  What’s more, Kelly had proven her commitment to public service by giving up a fast-track career at the Tokyo office of the Hazard Brothers investment banking firm to take a low-level analyst post at the CIA.  Could anyone hold it against her that Director Underwood himself had spotted and rewarded her sterling promise?  You damn bet they could.  And they did.  Did they ever!  Underwood smiled at the memory of the subterfuge that had erupted three years ago when word went around that the hazel-eyed beauty who seemed to get all the breaks had been spotted smooching with Underwood in a dark corner of an Alexandria bistro. 

      A prudent CIA Director would have stopped the affair right then and there.  But then, Martin Underwood had never considered prudence his strong suit.  In fact, he had learned early on that he wasn’t really interested unless he was playing right up to the line—and stepping over it every chance he could.  As a kid he had seen his father slaving faithfully for his employer only to drown in his own bitter juices as he was passed up time and again by younger managers. 

      By the end of his first year at Princeton Martin Underwood had confirmed the suspicion that the top grades didn’t go to those who learned the most, but to those who best regurgitated what the professors wanted to hear.  Even those profs revered as intellectual giants, Underwood noticed, had built their entire careers around one or two pet ideas embraced early in their careers and graded their students by how well they absorbed these ideas.  Absorbing his professors’ rants, tangents, peeves and hobby horses, then spitting them back out on midterms and finals, Underwood learned, was by far the easiest way to do well.  Before long he was the department’s fair-haired boy, a wunderkind the profs fought over to claim as a protege. 

      Was this unfair?  Not at all.  What skill was more crucial than learning to read the tendencies and prejudices of those in power?  That skill made him the ideal CIA Director and DCI—the overlord of the US Intelligence Community.  And Underwood had been gratified—and, secretly, a little threatened—to see that Kelly Forrester of the flashing eyes and sensuous mouth evidenced the same skill in spades.  With her flair for pithy analysis, she could probably lay out better than him his view of the role the CIA must play in the life of the United States.  How well he directed the intelligence community to play that role, believed Underwood, determined the quality and duration of Pax Americana, the American peace.

      By the time Underwood ran into the Plumburger mansion and took the stairs three steps at a time, he was floating in his usual endorphin high.  He was now armed with the biochemical fix that would keep an infectious grin on his face from breakfast to bedtime.

      “What’s with the heavy breathing?” demanded Kelly Forrester.  It wasn’t seven yet but her crystal-clear voice sounded alert and relaxed, as though she had been up for hours.

      “You know how it is—my lady friends won’t leave me alone.”

      “The five of them?  Or are you using the two-handed technique these days.”

      “You’ll rue those words, Missy.”

      “Promises, promises,” said Forrester, yawning with exaggerated boredom.  “So how is that creaky old bod of yours holding up?”

      “Well enough to blow the shorts off any 34-year-old smartass.”

      “Good, because you’d better run it back up here.  Seoul thinks we’ve located the First Lady.  To top it off, Jim at the East Asian analysis office is reporting some unusual large-scale military activity.”  

      “Where is the First Lady?”

      “Underground facility in Pyongyang, apparently, one of several secret lovenests frequented by the North Korean leader and his top henchmen.  The report is ugly, Martin.”  Forrester paused.  “She may have been raped, sodomized.  Repeatedly.”

      Underwood grimaced.  Exploiting the North Korean leader’s Hollywood-inspired taste for western women, CIA had placed numerous young female “entertainers”—Americans, Russians, French—all trained in the Korean language—in Pyongyang via “talent agencies” that catered to the growing flesh trade in western women.  Previous reports by these and other assets had left little doubt in Underwood’s mind of the North Korean leader’s talent for atrocities.  They weren’t mindless atrocities.  Each one was diabolically calculated to produce feelings of horror, rage and utter helplessness.  Upon learning of the First Lady’s abduction, Underwood had immediately placed the North Korea regime at the top of his suspect list and issued a directive to the Seoul office to devote every resource to locating her.  The directive had paid off, and quickly.

      “Tell me about the military movements.”

      “He says photos from the most recent flyover show Chinese troops moving toward the North Korean border.”  Kelly’s voice made it clear she was skeptical about the significance of this data.  “He asked for permission to divert a second KH-12 to extend our real-time satellite surveillance of the movements.  I okayed it.”

      “What scale of movements are we talking about?”

      “So far, it looks like four Chinese armies—about 200,000 men—are being shifted from the Russian border toward the Yalu River.”

      Underwood was stunned.  His gut churned, apparently reaching an assessment of what was happening on the other side of the world while his head grasped for other possibilities.  He could think of none.  It had to be that.  Three and a half years ago he had received a report from the Tokyo operations office.  It had been generated from conversations overheard and recorded by an operative under cover as a maid at Tokyo’s Akasaka Prince Hotel.  The memo detailed an international conspiracy intriguing enough for Underwood to read and code-name the Nightingale Provocation.  Then he had made the decision to let it settle into the murky bottom of his consciousness.  If that was in fact what the Chinese troop movements were, he would have to keep it from everyone in the CIA, even Kelly.  Allowing this to leak before a final resolution was put in motion would amount to laying down a political minefield on which half the US government could immolate itself.  There was no time to lose.

      “You there, Martin?” said Kelly.

      “Sorry, Babe,” said Underwood.  “I just thought I heard someone at the door.”

      “Anyway, I can’t believe it’s anything serious.  What could it be?  A Chinese invasion of North Korea?  That wouldn’t make sense.”

      “That’s what our own esteemed agency was telling Truman back in 1950,” said Underwood absently, “right up until the day 300,000 PLA troops moved into North Korea under cover of night and ate MacArthur’s Thanksgiving turkey.  So let’s keep an open mind.  After our fearless leader’s B-2 announcement the other day I can imagine the Chinese showing solidarity with an ally by moving troops to back up the KPA.”

      “I suppose,” said Kelly skeptically, “it could be a way to get more leverage in bargaining with the President for our WTO endorsement.  At least we no longer have to worry about a restive Soviet Union.”

      Anxious as he was to avoid giving away any of his true concerns, Underwood couldn’t keep himself from asking, “Any other unusual activity in East Asia?”

      “Let’s see.  There seems to be above-normal activity in Taiwan’s naval bases.  They’re loading a couple of dozen transports with tanks, APCs, artillery and other supplies.  No troops yet though.  Their air force bases are also buzzing like beehives.”

      “What do you make of it?” said Underwood.  The question was only to buy himself a few moments to think.  Kelly was brilliant, but she wasn’t clairvoyant.  She couldn’t possibly connect the dots that Underwood was seeing in the data derived from the thousands of high-resolution digital images beamed down from 170 miles above East Asia by one of the US’s four KH-12s, actually upgraded KH-11s.  The powerful telescopes aboard these state-of-the-art photo recon sattelites had a resolution of six inches.  Onboard infrared sensors could produce images at night and even see through the kinds of thin roofs that covered most aircraft hangars.  There were also the reports generated daily by the thousands of analysts, handlers, agents and “contractors” the CIA employed throughout East Asia to report on military, political, technological and economic developments.  But to everyone else in the CIA all this data would be meaningless until it had been pored over for thousands of man-hours by hundreds of East Asia and military analysts. 

      The Taiwanese activity removed any remaining doubt in Underwood’s mind that what had been set in motion was what he had playfully labeled the Nightingale Provocation three years ago.  The early indications suggested the scheme could succeed—something he had never believed.  But then, he mused, the biggest calamities the US suffered in World War II, Korea and Vietnam had resulted from the American tendency to underestimate Asians.  He, of all people, should have known better.  Jack Tang’s plan had somehow survived him.  Or had it? 

      Suddenly Underwood recalled the details of the Tang murder—the ground up limbs and severed head, the three hitmen—and felt a wave of humiliation wash over him.  His face burned with shame at the thought of having fallen for Tang’s decoy ploy—one of the hoariest tricks of the intelligence underworld.  How had that happened?  Again, the same answer—he had underestimated Tang and his scheme.  Not even Martin Underwood, with his unequaled hands-on foreign relations education—often at huge expense to American taxpayers—hadn’t managed to shake the deeply ingrained American prejudice that Asians had neither the ingenuity nor the knowhow to pull off the game-winning touchdown.

      It wasn’t so simple.  There had been other reasons for Underwood’s decision not to take action after learning Tang’s plan.  He had wanted to avoid political fallout for then presidential candidate Franklin Taylor—Tang’s buddy and Peyton Lachapelle’s son-in-law—who, after all, Underwood had armed with a choice bits of intelligence about the location of his predecessors’ skeletons, thereby helping to unseat him.  Second-term presidents often got strange notions about reforming agencies of the Executive Branch they knew little about—the CIA foremost among them.  And Underwood was determined to prevent what had happened to one of his most admired predecessors—being called to the carpet before congressional committees to reveal details of sensitive covert operations.  In the end, the humiliated CIA Director had been forced to fire over 200 of his most capable field agents, gutting the CIA’s covert capabilities and jeopardizing the lives of the other agents in the field.  Not to mention ending the career of the CIA director who, in Underwood’s view, had been the victim of an anti-spook hysteria. 

      If word had gotten out that Taylor’s best friend and leading campaign contributor—who had also been awarded a highly classified Pentagon contract—was concocting some international political intrigue with the First Lady’s dad, Taylor would not only have lost the presidential election, but his Senate seat as well.  He would be lucky to be padding fee statements in some third-tier Louisville or Frankfort law firm.

      Believing Tang’s little scheme to have died with its originator, Underwood had seen no reason not to use intelligence of the President’s embarrassing connections to help Bartlett remove Taylor from the Oval Office.  If Tang’s ambitious scheme turned out to hurt American interests, Underwood would be crucified for his own failure to act three and a half years ago after reading the memo.  Now that he had fed Nancy Bartlett the tidbit about Tang and Lachapelle concocting some international intrigue, once the situation in East Asia exploded into headlines she would be the first to blab to the media.  Then his little meeting with Bartlett would boomerang.

      As he mulled the crisis, both national and personal, Underwood recalled a third reason why he had done nothing after reading what he thought of as the Nightingale report.  If the scenario played out as envisioned, he hadn’t seen how American interests would be hurt.  In fact, the creation of a new East Asian Federation would alleviate several big US headaches.  It would weaken China and Russia, eliminate the DMZ as a potential hotspot, and eliminate the moral burden of coming to Taiwan’s defense in the event China tried to reunify by force.  Only three questions had given Underwood pause—the threat to US servicemen and families in Korea and Japan, the isolation of Japan, and the effect on trade.  The memo had made no mention of these issues, though Tang had apparently alluded to his little international assembly the need for some bits of subterfuge to sway American public opinion.

From underground New York clubs to headlining the Royal Albert Hall, art-rock icon Karen O and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs continue to redefine their legendary catalog.

Karen O is the Seoul-born lead singer and songwriter of the art-rock trio Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  The band’s first live album was released this September, compiling recordings from their 2025 performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall.  The 13-track set revisits songs including their biggest hits in arrangements built around acoustic guitars, piano and strings.

“Heads Will Roll,” released in 2009 on It’s Blitz!, remains one of the group’s defining recordings.  Its sinister title, pulsing dance-rock production and imagery of a threatening night out have helped turn it into a de facto Halloween party song.  The song has surpassed 414 million Spotify streams, while its A-Trak remix has more than 381 million.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have released five studio albums, four of which were Grammy nominated for Best Alternative Music Album.  2013’s Mosquito was the group’s highest charting album in the U.S. with “Sacrilege” acting as the lead single.  Other major Yeah Yeah Yeahs releases include “Maps,” from Fever to Tell in 2003, “Gold Lion,” from Show Your Bones in 2006, and “Zero,” from It’s Blitz! in 2009.  The band’s most recent album Cool It Down in 2022 featured “Spitting Off the Edge of the World,” which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Performance.

Karen O grew up in Englewood, New Jersey and attended Oberlin College before transferring to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she met guitarist Nick Zinner who she formed the Yeah Yeah Yeahs with in 2000.  Annually on September 24th, the group posts on social media for Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ day, as remembrance of their first time taking to stage at New York’s Mercury Lounge in 2000.

Vietnam’s most common surname spread through centuries of dynastic change, political survival and migration, not through one enormous family tree.

If you are Vietnamese, there is a good chance you either have the last name Nguyen or know several people who do. While Smith belongs to less than 1% of the United States, estimates suggest that approximately one-third of Vietnam’s population shares the surname Nguyen.

A 2022 Vietnamese surname study placed the figure at 31.5%, although other estimates have ranged between 30% and 40%, but even at the lower end, that would represent tens of millions of people. Now this does not mean they all belong to one giant family. The name is properly written as Nguyễn, but outside Vietnam, the accent marks are usually removed, leaving the spelling most Americans recognize as Nguyen. 

Nguyễn is the Vietnamese reading of this Chinese character 阮, pronounced Ruǎn in Mandarin. The character has historically been connected to an ancient Chinese string instrument, even though surnames do not always retain a literal meaning for the families carrying them today. Oxford’s Dictionary of American Family Names notes that most Vietnamese surnames can be traced to Chinese names. Family names became more established in Vietnam during long periods of Chinese rule, when officials needed consistent ways to record households, collect taxes and organize the population, but surviving records from ancient Vietnam are limited, so historians cannot identify one single moment when every Vietnamese person began using a surname.

The reason Nguyễn became so dominant developed over several centuries of Vietnamese political shifts. When one ruling dynasty defeated another, members of the former royal family sometimes changed, or were ordered to change their surnames. 

One of the clearest examples occurred after the Trần dynasty replaced the Lý dynasty in 1232, when powerful official Trần Thủ Độ ordered surviving members of the former Lý royal family to change their surname to Nguyễn in attempt to weaken public loyalty to the dethroned family. Similar changes reportedly followed and descendants could adopt Nguyễn to hide their ancestry and themselves from a defeated regime or avoid retaliation. Each political transition added new and unrelated families to the growing number of people using the name.

The Nguyễn dynasty, Vietnam’s final imperial dynasty, ruled from 1802 until 1945 and made the surname even more nationally recognizable. Nguyễn was already widespread long before the dynasty took power, and the royal family specifically used the name Nguyễn Phúc. 

Therefore, two people named Nguyen are not automatically distant cousins. Their ancestors may have carried the name for generations or adopted it during a power transition. Migration later carried the name around the world. According to the 2010 U.S. Census Nguyen was America’s 38th most common surname, belonging to 437,645 people. 

Nguyen is so common because it represents much more than one bloodline. The name became a place where countless family histories converged, turning one surname into a living record of Vietnam’s complicated past.

In this episode, we explore why consumers are choosing affordable alternatives over luxury brands, the multibillion-dollar counterfeit industry, and the fine line between finding a good dupe and buying a fake.

Kelli (00:00)

Today I wanted to touch on another interesting topic: dupe culture. When did buying dupes become cool? And when did buying the fake version of something become something that people are really proud of? I feel like when I was growing up, if somebody had a fake designer bag, they probably weren't going around announcing that it was a fake. But now people are making entire TikTok accounts dedicated to finding dupes and finding the best

counterfeit products.

There's people online saying, do not spend $50 on this lip gloss because I found the exact same thing for $8. Or this handbag looks like the designer Louis Vuitton version, but I got it at Santi Alley for $35.

People are dying in the comments trying to find out where they got these items. And it's almost like finding a good dupe has become its own flex. Honestly, I understand the appeal because I love fashion, I love beauty products, and I love shopping. But I also know how expensive some of these things can get. I'm talking about the $40 lip oils, $300 fragrances, $1,000 shoes,

and handbags that cost as much as the monthly rent in Los Angeles.

So I completely understand why people are looking for alternatives, but I also started wondering how did we get to the point where there's an entire industry built around making products that look, feel, or perform like something else?

So now when does being inspired by a product cross the line into copying it? There's actually a major difference between a dupe and a counterfeit, and I think a lot of people use those words interchangeably without realizing they mean completely different things.

From makeup and skincare to designer bags, perfume, clothes, shoes, and even technology accessories, today we're going to get into why dupes are so popular and how social media has helped normalize them, how big the counterfeit industry is, and if buying a dupe is a smart financial decision or just part of a bigger consumer problem.

One of the biggest changes in shopping culture is how people talk about affordable alternatives. Like I said, there was once a time when people wanted you to believe they owned the real thing.

If somebody was carrying a designer-looking handbag, the whole point of it was for people to think it was designer. But now there's a completely different attitude because people will proudly tell you, this is a dupe and I only got it for like $300. And I actually think this is a pretty interesting cultural shift because now instead of showing off how much money you spent, you're showing off how much money you've saved.

And social media has made that into an entire category of content. You have Amazon finds, Amazon dupes, designer dupes, drugstore makeup dupes, and videos comparing the expensive to the original.

Sometimes the whole appeal of the video is watching somebody prove that you don't need to spend hundreds of dollars to get a similar result. Now here's a stat that really surprised me. According to consumer research company Circana, 58% of shoppers surveyed in 2026 said that they had purchased a dupe. More than half of people. And among beauty buyers, 51% said they purchased a beauty dupe.

So this isn't some niche on TikTok. It's a mainstream consumer behavior. And I think it represents a change in what people consider smart shopping. For some people, spending less isn't embarrassing anymore. They're the friend who knows where to find everything for cheaper and where to get the best deals. And honestly, I think everybody needs one of those friends.

Before we go any further, I do think we should clarify that a dupe and a counterfeit are not the same thing. Let's say there's a luxury lipstick that costs $45. Another brand releases a lipstick with a similar shade, texture, and finish for $10.

It's sold under that second brand's own name. It doesn't pretend to be the luxury lipstick. That's what people generally mean when they call something a dupe. It's an alternative designed to give you a similar experience at a lower price. Now, let's say somebody manufactures a product using the luxury brand's name, logo, and packaging without authorization and sells it as if it's authentic. That's a counterfeit.

And that distinction matters because a counterfeit uses protected branding without permission and may deceive customers who think they bought the right product.

A dupe generally presents itself as a completely different product.

But here's where things get complicated, because just because something is called a dupe doesn't automatically make it legal. A product can still infringe on trademarks, protected designs, or other property rights, even if it doesn't use the original brand's logo. So there's a spectrum. On one end, you have legitimate products that offer similar features or results. In the middle, you have products that imitate the appearance of something so closely that they may raise legal questions.

And on the other end, you have outright counterfeits pretending to be genuine products.

Across social media, all of these things kind of get blurred together because somebody will call a fake designer handbag a dupe because it sounds nicer, but changing the word doesn't necessarily change what the product is.

Let's get into beauty because I feel like this is where dupe culture has absolutely exploded. Think about how many viral products we've seen over the past few years: high-end blushes, bronzing drops, setting powders, setting sprays, different skincare products. and almost every single time something becomes popular, another brand will release something that promises a similar result.

Sometimes they'll promise a similar result for even less. Sometimes the packaging is even designed to remind you of the original. And I think makeup is one of the easiest categories for people to justify buying a dupe. Because at the end of the day, if two lip glosses look nearly identical on your lips, why would you necessarily want to spend five times more on one? Especially if you're someone who uses makeup every day, because

We know those costs add up.

A 2025 YouGov survey found that seventeen percent of American adults ages eighteen to thirty four said they had knowingly purchased duped makeup within the previous year and among customers who bought makeup dupes, forty four percent cited the lower price as a reason. But forty three percent said they believed the quality was close to the original.

So people aren't necessarily just buying the cheaper option because they can't afford the expensive one. Some genuinely believe the product is just as good.

And that raises a question I think luxury brands probably don't love. If somebody can get a similar result for $10, what exactly are they paying an additional $40 for? Is it the formula, the packaging, the brand name, the shopping experience? I think the answer can be different depending on the product. Some premium products genuinely offer better performance. A lot of makeup brands that are more expensive

apply much better than drugstore makeup. But a higher price doesn't automatically guarantee a better product.

Here's another interesting thing that I found. Circana's 2026 research found that 70% of beauty consumers would intentionally buy a dupe even if they could afford the original product. 70%.

So now it's not really about people being unable to afford luxury. People just don't think the luxury version is worth the extra money. We often talk about dupes as though they're only for people on a budget. But what if somebody makes a great salary and just still doesn't want to spend fifty dollars on a lip gloss? There are some people who would rather spend that money on a dinner, vacation, or something else.

That doesn't mean they can't afford it. It means they're making a choice about what they value.

And this is something we're seeing a lot more of in consumer culture. People are becoming selective about where they're willing to splurge. Maybe you love designer handbags and would never buy a dupe, but you don't care about buying expensive makeup. Or maybe you're willing to spend hundreds on skincare, but you refuse to pay more than thirty dollars for a pair of sunglasses.

That's completely reasonable because not every category has to be a luxury category for you.

Getting into designer handbags because this is where the conversation becomes a little bit more controversial. If you love the look of a luxury handbag, maybe a structured leather tote, a woven shoulder bag, but the original costs $3,000. Then you go to another brand selling a similar bag with a similar shape, with a similar fabric for $80. No fake logo, no claim

that it's authentic, just a similar style. Would you buy it? A lot of people would say yes, because most consumers aren't necessarily shopping for the craftsmanship or the heritage of the original brand. Sometimes they just like the look. But then you have the other side of the argument where luxury brands spend money developing products for years, establishing brand identities, and creating these recognizable designs.

So when a company releases something extremely similar, is that fair? That's where dupe culture gets messy because fashion has always borrowed ideas. Trends move from luxury runways into mainstream retail, into your local TJ Maxx.

A particular shoe shape becomes more popular, a certain handbag silhouette becomes trendy, and eventually dozens of brands are offering their own version. That's how fashion kind of works to an extent. There is a difference between participating in a trend and copying a product so closely that consumers could confuse the two.

And the legal boundaries aren't always obvious. I also think there's an interesting social question here. If you buy a designer handbag because you genuinely love it, that's one thing. But if you're buying it because you want other people to recognize that you can afford it, what happens when everybody can get a similar look for $50?

Does the handbag become less special? And if it does, were you paying for the design or were you paying for exclusivity?

So the actual counterfeit industry is actually pretty shocking. According to a 2025 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development global trade in counterfeit and pirated goods was estimated at $467 billion in 2021.

That's approximately 2.3% of global trade. And remember, that estimate is for counterfeit goods, not the entire legal dupe market. The report used international trade data and custom seizures to estimate the scale of this problem. And the category goes so far beyond handbags. I'm talking about clothing, shoes, perfume, electronics, automotive parts.

And even counterfeit medicines. And that's something people forget when they think about fake products. Most of the time, people picture somebody selling a fake designer purse. But counterfeiting can involve products where authenticity is a serious safety issue. Because imagine buying a counterfeit phone charger that hasn't properly been tested.

Or buying skincare products with ingredients that you can't verify. That's a completely different level of risk from buying a legally made handbag that happens to just resemble a designer's silhouette.

That's the reason why I think we should stop treating all dupes and fakes as though they're interchangeable, because they're not.

It's really not just fashion and beauty anymore. It's practically spread into every category. Take furniture for example. You might see a beautiful designer chair or sofa online that costs thousands of dollars. But then on TikTok shop, you might see somebody who posted a video showing a similar-looking version from a mainstream furniture retailer for a fraction of the price.

And now suddenly the comments are full of people asking where to buy it. Or kitchenware. People are finding alternatives to expensive cookware and appliances all the time. And don't get me started on fitness clothing because there are so many different fitness brands out there and they all feel and look the same.

I think part of the appeal of the dupe culture is that people can still participate in an aesthetic without paying the luxury price. You can decorate your apartment in a high end minimalist style without purchasing every piece from a designer showroom.

You should also be able to put together an outfit inspired by a luxury fashion brand without actually owning the labels. There's something really positive about that. Style and good taste should not be reserved exclusively for people who can just afford it.

I think social media is one of the biggest reasons dupe culture has grown so much because shopping used to be about finding something you wanted, but now discovering a cheaper alternative has become half of the You can watch somebody compare two products side by side. They'll apply the expensive foundation on one half of their face and the cheaper one on the other.

They might show you a designer bag, then show you a similar looking one. These videos are very interesting. They grab your attention. And it's because there's a reveal, there's a comparison, and there's this feeling that you've discovered a secret. Like you could have just saved $100 this entire time. And that is what makes dupe content very shareable.

People love feeling like they're helping their friends save money.

And then nowadays a lot of creators can even earn commission when viewers purchase their products through their links.

Now there's not anything wrong with affiliate marketing, but it does create an incentive to constantly recommend new things. And sometimes the product being advertised as a dupe might not actually perform anything like the original. It might just have similar packaging or a similar color. And I think that's why consumers should be skeptical of claims like this is the exact same formula or this is identical quality to this product, unless there is actual evidence.

Now moving on to something I think luxury brands are really paying attention to, it's what happens to exclusivity when everybody can just recreate the look. So let's say there's a designer handbag that's instantly recognizable. It's expensive, associated with status, and a part of the appeal that not everybody can afford it.

Then a similar looking bag goes viral online for $75. Now suddenly, thousands of people are carrying something with that same general look.

Does that make the original less desirable? Maybe for some people, but I think it could also make the original more recognizable, because the dupe is essentially introducing more people to the design. And that's where the relationship kind of gets complicated, because dupes compete with the luxury brands, but sometimes they reinforce the idea that the original product is what's desirable.

If everybody is trying to recreate a certain look, that pretty much tells you the original has cultural influence.

And that's one of the reasons why luxury brands continue to emphasize their craftsmanship, exclusivity, and their shopping experience, They're trying to sell something that can't be recreated simply by copying the appearance when you're ordering something on TikTok shop.

But consumers are increasingly asking whether those differences actually justify the price.

Another argument I hear a lot: is buying a dupe actually more sustainable? People say buying dupes is smarter because you're not spending as much money, but I think there's a distinction between saving money and buying more things.

So let's say you were going to buy one expensive handbag.

You love it, you use it for years, there's a possibility you can resell it later if you kept it in good condition. That could be a perfectly good reason to make that purchase. But if you buy ten different fifty dollar handbags because they're all trending, now you've spent five hundred dollars and now you have a closet full of bags that you might just use one or two times each. So even though

Each individual purchase was cheaper, you're not necessarily consuming less.

So I don't think the question should always be, can I find this cheaper? Sometimes the better question is, do I actually need this? Because the cheapest purchase is still money spent.

So are dupes good or bad? After researching, I don't really think dupes are automatically good or bad. I just think there's a difference between an affordable product that offers a similar value and a counterfeit designed to deceive consumers.

I also think there are valid arguments on both sides of the dupe conversation because on one hand, consumers deserve options. You should not have to spend hundreds of dollars to enjoy a certain style. Competition can encourage brands to offer better quality and pricing, and I think there's something empowering about not feeling pressured to buy expensive products just because they're popular.

But then on the other hand, original designs and innovations do have value. Businesses invest time and money into developing products and their name, and when imitation becomes too close, there can be real ethical concerns. Plus, cheaper doesn't always mean better, and a product that looks identical doesn't necessarily perform the same.

So I think the most important thing is just knowing what you're buying. If you're buying a legitimate alternative, understand what that's going to offer you.

If you're buying a handbag because it's an identical dupe of a Gucci handbag,

Understand that that handbag might not last you as long as the real one.

I think what fascinates me the most about dupe culture is what it reveals about our relationship with brands. Because people are rejecting the idea that they need to spend a fortune to look good. And I think that's a positive shift. But on the other hand, we are still constantly trying to recreate that same luxury aesthetic. People want that designer look, the expensive looking apartment, a luxury beauty routine, and we don't really want to pay the original price.

If we're so against paying luxury prices, why are we still so obsessed with looking like we own the actual luxury product? Maybe we genuinely appreciate the design. Maybe it's because luxury brands are what influence everything to become fashionable. I think there's something refreshing about people just being honest about what they're buying.

and buying affordable alternatives. You don't need to pretend that something is designer if it isn't.

I also don't think we should get so caught up in finding dupes that we forget to develop our own personal taste, because not every expensive product is worth buying and not every cheap alternative is a bargain. If a $20 product looks and performs just as well as a $200 product, what exactly are we paying the extra $180 for?

Because then that leads you to an even bigger question, do we actually want luxury products or do we just want the feeling of having something luxurious? I think the answer to that tells us a lot about why dupe culture has become so popular. and that's all for today's episode. I will see you guys in the next one.

After helping the New York Liberty win their first WNBA title, billionaire Joe Tsai is looking to rebuild the Brooklyn Nets and end the franchise’s 59-year wait for an NBA championship.

The New York Knicks ended a 53-year championship drought by winning the 2026 NBA Finals, completing a turnaround after missing the playoffs seven consecutive seasons from 2014 through 2020.  Now, Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai faces a similar challenge: building a team capable of winning the franchise’s first NBA championship.  Tsai acquired a 49% stake in the Nets in 2018 before purchasing full ownership in 2019.  Over the past three seasons, the Nets have struggled missing the playoffs each year, following five consecutive playoff appearances that ended in 2023, including a run to the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2021.  Reaching championship contention again will require successful drafting, player development and roster construction, potentially taking years to accomplish.

Tsai has already experienced New York basketball championship success with the Liberty, which he also purchased in 2019.  Led by Breanna Stewart, the Liberty won their first WNBA title in 2024, defeating the Minnesota Lynx in five games.  The title demonstrated Tsai’s willingness to invest in building a team capable of competing at the highest level.

Tsai built his fortune through Alibaba Group, the Chinese technology company he co-founded in 1999 with Jack Ma.  He served as the company’s CFO after working in private equity for Sweden’s Investor AB and practicing tax law at New York firm Sullivan & Cromwell.  Alibaba grew into one of China’s largest technology businesses, with e-commerce marketplaces, cloud computing and artificial intelligence operations.  Tsai later served as executive vice chairman before becoming chairman in 2023.  His estimated net worth is approximately $12 billion, largely derived from his Alibaba holdings.

Born in Taipei, Tsai is 62 years old.  He moved to the United States at age 13 and grew up in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.  He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and East Asian studies from Yale College in 1986, followed by a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1990.

With the Liberty’s championship experience, Tsai now aims to establish a winning culture in Brooklyn.  After 59 years as a franchise without an NBA championship, Tsai’s goal is to lead the Nets to their first title, ending an even longer wait than the Knicks’ 53-year drought that concluded with their 2026 championship.

This popular old Korean folk tale points out the frightening consequences that can befall an eavesdropper with bad intentions.

Come close, my dears, and tuck your feet beneath the blanket.

Tonight’s story comes from Korea, where tigers once padded through the deep mountain forests—and where, if the old tales are to be believed, those tigers were sometimes fierce, sometimes wise, and sometimes just a little too willing to believe whatever they overheard.

Our tiger was a magnificent fellow. His coat was the color of autumn sunlight, with black stripes curling across it like strokes from a painter’s brush. His paws were enormous. His teeth were sharp. And his roar could shake pine needles from the trees.

He was afraid of nothing.

At least, that was what he told himself.

“I am a tiger,” he would say as he strutted along the mountain paths. “The wind steps aside for me. The moon keeps a respectful distance. Even thunder waits until I have finished speaking.”

Thunder had never agreed to this arrangement, but the tiger saw no reason to ask.

One cold autumn evening, the tiger came down from the mountain in search of supper. He prowled past rice fields silvered by moonlight and followed a winding path toward a little village. On the roofs of the houses, strings of orange persimmons hung beneath the eaves, slowly drying in the crisp night air.

The tiger did not know anything about persimmons. Tigers, as a rule, are not especially well informed about fruit.

What he did know was that his stomach was empty.

Rumble-rumble-rumble, it complained.

“Quiet,” whispered the tiger. “You will give us away.”

RUMBLE, answered his stomach, which had never learned to whisper.

At the edge of the village stood a small thatched house with a cowshed beside it. A gentle yellow light shone through the paper window. The tiger smelled warm rice, woodsmoke and a large, well-fed cow.

“Ah,” he thought, crouching beneath the window. “At last, supper.”

But before he could creep toward the cowshed, he heard a baby crying inside the house.

“Waaah! Waaah! WAAAAH!”

The baby’s mother rocked him in her arms.

“Hush now,” she murmured. “The moon is up, the birds are asleep and even the crickets are wondering why you are making so much noise.”

The baby cried louder.

“WAAAAAAH!”

The tiger flattened his ears.

“That is a very powerful baby,” he thought.

The mother tried a lullaby. She bounced the baby gently. She pointed out the moon. She even made a little rabbit shadow on the wall with her fingers.

Nothing worked.

At last she said, “Hush, little one. If you make such a racket, a tiger may hear you.”

Outside the window, the tiger sat up proudly.

“Now we shall have silence,” he thought. “Everyone is afraid of a tiger.”

But the baby was not impressed.

“WAAAH! WAAAH! WAAAAAAH!”

The tiger blinked.

“Perhaps he did not hear her.”

The mother tried again. “A great striped tiger might be waiting outside.”

The baby kicked his heels and cried harder than ever.

The tiger’s whiskers drooped.

“What sort of child is this?” he wondered. “He hears about a tiger and cries even louder. He must be the bravest baby in Korea.”

Then the mother noticed a bowl on the table.

“Oh,” she said. “Would you like a gotgam?”

From the bowl she lifted a soft, sweet dried persimmon, wrinkled on the outside and glowing orange in the lamplight.

The baby stopped crying at once.

Not slowly.

Not after thinking it over.

At once.

The house became so quiet that the tiger could hear the fire crackle.

His eyes grew round.

“Gotgam?” he whispered. “The child was not afraid of me, but one mention of Gotgam silenced him completely.”

He looked over one shoulder. Then the other.

“Gotgam must be enormous. Perhaps it has six legs. Perhaps it has twelve rows of teeth. Perhaps it eats tigers the way tigers eat dumplings.”

Tigers do not actually eat many dumplings, but fear is not known for checking its facts.

The tiger forgot all about the cow. He crouched lower beside the shed and listened for the dreadful Gotgam.

At that very moment, another visitor slipped into the yard.

This visitor was a cattle thief. He had been watching the village and knew that a plump cow lived in the shed. The night was dark, and he hoped to lead it away before anyone woke.

Now, stealing cows is both wrong and foolish. On this particular night, it was about to become extremely foolish.

The thief crept toward the shed with a rope in his hands.

The clouds covered the moon. He could hardly see his own feet. Reaching through the darkness, he felt a large furry body beside the wall.

“There you are,” he whispered. “What a fine, sturdy cow.”

The tiger froze.

“Something has found me,” he thought.

The thief patted the tiger’s back.

“A very furry cow,” he murmured.

The tiger trembled from nose to tail.

“It must be Gotgam!”

Before the tiger could move, the thief threw the rope around him and climbed onto his back.

The thief thought he was mounting a cow.

The tiger thought he had been seized by a monster.

And then the moon sailed out from behind the clouds.

The thief looked down and saw stripes.

He saw two round ears.

He saw a long tail flicking behind him.

“This is not a cow,” he whispered.

The tiger felt the thief tighten his grip.

“Gotgam has terrible claws!” he thought.

The thief saw the tiger’s enormous paws.

“This cow has very unusual feet!” he thought.

For one long moment, neither moved.

Then the tiger leaped.

He shot out of the yard, through the village gate and onto the mountain road. The thief wrapped both arms around the tiger’s neck and held on for dear life.

“Please slow down!” cried the thief.

“It speaks!” thought the tiger. “And it wants me to slow down so it can eat me!”

The tiger ran faster.

Across the moonlit rice fields they flew.

Past a sleeping ox they thundered.

Over a little wooden bridge they bounded—clatter, clatter, CLATTER!

A flock of ducks awoke beside a pond and quacked indignantly. A farmer’s dog barked once, took a closer look and decided the matter did not require his involvement.

The thief’s hat sailed away. His rope flapped in the wind. Every time he tried to loosen his grip, the tiger made another tremendous leap.

“Hold still!” shouted the thief.

“Never!” panted the tiger. “You will not devour me, dreadful Gotgam!”

“Gotgam?” gasped the thief. “Who is Gotgam?”

But the tiger was running too fast to explain, and the thief was far too busy not falling off to continue the conversation.

Up the mountain road they raced until the sky began to pale. The moon faded. The first birds stirred in the trees.

Ahead, a low branch stretched across the path.

The thief saw it and gathered what little courage he had left.

As the tiger passed beneath, the thief reached up, caught the branch and swung himself into the tree.

The tiger felt the terrible weight vanish from his back.

He skidded to a stop, glanced behind him and saw nothing.

“I escaped!” he cried.

Then he raced deep into the forest without looking back.

High in the tree, the thief watched him disappear.

“I escaped,” he whispered.

He remained on the branch for quite some time—partly to make sure the tiger was gone, and partly because his knees had forgotten how to work.

At last the sun rose over the mountains. Golden light spilled into the valley, warming the tiled roofs and turning every hanging persimmon bright orange.

Back at the little house, the baby slept peacefully. The mother covered him with a quilt, then sat down beside the window with a cup of tea.

She looked into the yard and noticed enormous pawprints leading away from the cowshed. Mixed among them were one lost shoe and a length of rope.

The mother raised an eyebrow.

Mothers notice things.

Then she saw that the cow was safe, the baby was asleep and the bowl of dried persimmons was still on the table.

“Well,” she said, “it appears to have been a busy night.”

Far up the mountain, the tiger finally stopped beneath a pine tree. He was exhausted, dusty and deeply embarrassed.

He thought about the crying baby. He thought about the creature that had landed on his back. And he thought about the mysterious word he had heard through the window.

“Perhaps,” he said slowly, “I should have discovered what a gotgam was before deciding it wanted to eat me.”

This was a very sensible thought.

It had simply arrived several miles too late.

As for the thief, he climbed down after breakfast time and hurried home. Some say he never tried to steal another cow. It is difficult to say whether he became more honest, but he certainly became much more careful about identifying farm animals in the dark.

And the gotgam?

It remained what it had always been: a sweet dried persimmon—soft, chewy and not at all interested in eating tigers.

So remember, my dears: when something sounds frightening, pause before letting your imagination give it claws, fangs and twelve rows of teeth. Ask a question. Take a closer look. The monster chasing you may turn out to be nothing more than a snack.

And if you ever meet a tiger who claims he is afraid of absolutely nothing, you might offer him a dried persimmon.

Very politely, of course.