A list of curious facts
One: A connoisseur of book covers? Well, you gonna love the spredges—as in the sprayed edges of the pages. It’s the hottest trend in literary art, no longer reserved for chi-chi books:
The feature has spread from romance and fantasy to horror, thrillers and even literary fiction; it’s spread from works by famous authors with ravenous followings to those by debut novelists hoping to make a splash... On social media, readers show off floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed full of these books — spines facing inward, of course.
Now you can judge a book by its cover and its spredge. We’re giving five stars to this TikTok trend. (Washington Post, login required)
Two: There’s a new word to capture the sheer effed-upness of 21st century dating: Hetero-fatalism. It describes the mindset of straight women “fed up with the mating behavior of men.” Or to put it more darkly—the shame women feel about wanting men (who don’t seem to want them, or at least, not all that much).
It was coined by Asa Seresin—who first introduced the idea in her essay ‘On Heteropessimism’—which has since turned fatal, so to speak. Seresin’s essay was already controversial—but has now gained fresh notoriety thanks to Jean Garnett’s New York Times essay ‘The Trouble With Wanting Men’ (splainer gift link)—which is being condemned as appallingly sexist. Well, it’s mostly appallingly depressing.
Three: Yes, there is a museum dedicated solely to animal butt smells. You can sniff the backsides of cats, penguins or even tigers at Kobe's Atoa Aquarium in Japan. Just scoot up to one of the pictures, and put your nose right next to that little hole, like so:
To be fair, that’s unfair PR for the aquarium—which combines digital art and animals to create an amazing experience—way beyond stinky butts (as you can see below).
Bonus fact: As we said, we’re loving the spredges, but we’re not so sure about the Nicki Minaj Challenge—inspired by the music vid for her 2013 track ‘High School’—where she “poses poolside, one leg over the other, carefully balanced in high heels.” Except the 2025 version requires you to do all that—but preferably on a pyramid of bottles?! (Mashable)
