• Ryan Frankel and his wife, Evelyn, launched Thrift Vintage Fashion in 2020.
• The business supplies secondhand clothing nationwide.
• Thrift Vintage Fashion saw a 41% revenue increase after tariffs were announced.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ryan Frankel, a 36-year-old business owner in Miami. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My primary business is Thrift Vintage Fashion, which I launched in 2020 with my wife, Evelyn. We supply secondhand clothing — mostly men's wear, such as T-shirts, sweatshirts, and denim — to stores nationwide. When Trump took office in January, our sales took a steep decline.

Once he came into office, there was a lot of uncertainty. However, we noticed a significant incline once tariffs were announced in February. From February to March, we saw an unprecedented 41% increase in revenue (gross sales). Then we had our best March and April since we started the business.

I can't attribute our growth to anything other than the tariffs.

My family has been in this business for three generations

My grandfather began selling men's secondhand clothing after World War II. In the 90s, my father primarily sold denim and Levi's. When I started working with my father in 2010, we brought the business online and got our name out there.

After I launched Thrift Vintage Fashion, which is primarily a wholesale B2B business, it popped off right away. We did over $1 million in revenue in our first year working out of our garage during peak COVID in 2020. This was mainly due to my experience working with my father over the previous decade and improving the model and ordering efficiency through the TVF website.

Once Trump raised the tariffs, many of our clients reached out to us

Many clients — primarily secondhand clothing stores (big and small), vintage clothing stores, and online resellers — reached out to ask if the tariffs had affected our business. There was a lot of uncertainty, but we were able to confidently say, "No, we're not affected, and we're not going to raise our prices." Since then, we've just seen a slew of new orders come in, in addition to existing clients ordering a lot more.

Consumers preparing for prices to go up is another factor that has increased our secondhand sales. Everyone's talking about how fashion prices are going up, but since secondhand circulates within the US, no tariffs are affecting it at all.

It seems more people are interested in entering the reselling business

People are potentially looking into reselling more, which is positively affecting my wholesale business. We've seen steady growth across the US.

The US has been our primary market for the last three years, and we see increasing interest from new and existing resale clients. Our numbers are growing, our existing customers are doubling down on their business, and there's increasing demand in the secondhand market. I'm biased, as this is my career, but it's an excellent opportunity for shoppers and business owners to consider selling and buying secondhand goods.

There's so much of it out there: eBay, estate sales, garage sales, or storage units. A lot of secondhand merchandise is way better quality than most things produced today, and there's a growing demand for all of it. We're buying more goods and building our supply chain, prepping for growth in both wholesale and retail sectors.

The main challenges are the high costs of collecting, processing, and reselling these garments

Believe it or not, many used clothing articles cost more than many new clothing items made today. So, our company is always up against the perception of selling something used for the same price or more than new clothing. However, this perception is shifting daily, with people recognizing the value of secondhand versus cheap new fashion.

Every day, we're shedding the old stigma of secondhand shops being viewed as "less than." The fact is that the items we sell are in excellent condition. While many brands produce cheap, throwaway fast fashion, older clothes were often made more durably. Whether the clothes were made five or 15 years ago, many desirable styles have become rare by nature and hard to find, thus increasing their value.

The desire for secondhand items will probably continue

If you're already selling secondhand items, that's great; stick with it. You're probably seeing increases already, and I think it will continue. If you're not selling secondhand, especially if you're worried about tariffs, I would consider trying to implement it into your existing business.

There are so many significant factors in buying secondhand that the average American consumer slowly recognizes more each day. There are also opportunities to grow a brand reselling the billions of secondhand garments in circulation. I believe we're past the days of "thrifting" carrying a negative connotation. We're scratching the surface of what's possible with secondhand.

If you're a small-business owner with a unique story that you would like to share, please email the editor, Manseen Logan, at [email protected].

• College bed parties are a growing trend, with families spending thousands on celebrations.
• The trend became popular during COVID as a substitute for in-person celebrations and has grown.
• BI spoke with various small business owners and consumers about the party trend.

Gone are the days of wearing a college hoodie and snapping a selfie while posing with an acceptance letter.

Today, for young women in particular, college commitments call for an actual event known as a college bed party. This celebration involves decorating a student's bedroom with the colors, logos, and items that represent the college or university they've committed to — and sharing those images on social media.

The trend gained traction during COVID as a logical workaround for in-person celebrations. But instead of fading post-pandemic, it's only gotten bigger and bolder. Families are shelling out hundreds, even thousands of dollars, on the bed party craze, and small business owners riding the wave of this growing niche are here for it.

Business Insider spoke with a mom who spent about $2,000 hosting a bed party for her daughter; a college student whose mom relied on DIY projects and discounted merchandise for her celebration; and two young entrepreneurs who've turned lucrative side-hustles into six-figure businesses selling custom items for these parties.

Each response has been edited for length and clarity.

Allie Cohen sells over 1,000 blankets each year to high school graduates and bed party clients

Allie Cohen, 26, lives in Philadelphia. She is the founder of Creative Jawns, an online business specializing in college-themed blankets, which are often used as the centerpiece for bed parties.

When I was accepted to the University of Pittsburgh in 2016, I didn't have a bed party. I hadn't even heard of bed parties. All I got was a hug and a T-shirt with the name of my school on it.

Now, I design and sell college blankets for $88 each. I intentionally do not use school logos on my blankets so that I'm not infringing on any copyright, and every year I sell over 1,000 of them. Mine is just one of the 20 or 30 items people buy for their bed party. Most retail for around the same amount, so if you do the math, that's a lot of money.

During my senior year of college in 2019, I started doing digital artwork, making phone backgrounds, and selling them for a few bucks. It was just a hobby, and I had no intention of turning it into a business. Then I graduated in 2020, right when COVID hit.

I figured since I'd already made a little money from my designs, why not see if I could turn it into something bigger?

That summer, I hustled hard creating new designs focused on dorm room art, and eventually turned my side project into a full-time job the following year.

I saw a huge demand for college products and bed party merch. Since I already had a built-in audience of college kids from my dorm room art, I started designing custom college blankets. Today, I have a six-figure business, and my blankets are what I'm best known for.

Last December, I collaborated with Sunshine Sweets, a candy and gift concierge, to launch a $300 bed party box. The box includes my signature 50x60 blanket and other college-themed items.

New products are hitting the market all the time, so I'm very grateful that my blankets have been a mainstay since 2020.

Melinda Long spent about $2,000 on her daughter's bed party

Melinda Long, 48, of Lloyd Harbor, NY, spared no expense for her daughter Sienna's recent bed party, which celebrated her early decision to attend the University of Miami.

I love a good party, so when my oldest daughter, Sienna, was accepted to the University of Miami via early decision, a bed party felt like a fun way to celebrate all her hard work.

It took me about 30 hours to plan and source everything, and two hours to set it up the day of the party. Sienna loves the attention, so I knew I could really go all out for her. I spent around $2,000 altogether.

Thanks to social media, it's easy to find and buy all of the necessities: the branded blanket, the bling Champagne bottle, and a Dotcake covered in sprinkles in the school colors.

I went the extra mile with marquee letters and boxes of personalized balloons and even bought a $200 inflatable mascot and some blow-up palm trees. My mom lives in Florida, and my son already goes to the University of Miami, so we bought everything we could get our hands on.

Did I have to spend that much? No, you could easily do this on any budget, but I just went for it and did it how I wanted to do it. One thing is for sure: there's definitely money to be made in this business.

This year, Sienna has already been to at least 15 bed parties and probably has 15 to go. It adds up because you buy a gift for each one you attend.

Rachel's bed party decorations came to just over $500

Rachel, 20, from Easton, PA, had a more streamlined bed party in 2022, relying on DIY projects and practical merch on sale. BI is withholding her last name for privacy reasons.

When I got accepted to Coastal Carolina in 2022, I hinted to my mom that I wanted a bed party. She made some of the stuff herself, bought other items on sale, and spent an estimated $550.

I didn't have an actual bed party, however, two of my best friends came over to see it and take pictures. Later that year, when I finished high school, I had an actual graduation party.

I know some people say bed parties are excessive, but my mom always said her love language is gift giving, and she likes to celebrate the good things in life. She didn't mind doing it because she knew I'd use the stuff for my dorm room, on game days, and Teal Tuesdays — a weekly campus spirit day where students and faculty are encouraged to wear the school colors. Honestly, I've used it all so much in the last three years at school.

Alex Posner pivoted from a career in medicine to baking college-themed cakes, a popular bed party item

Alex Posner, 25, planned on becoming a doctor before creating The Dotcakes brand. Her busiest season is during spring graduations.

A lot of people think bed parties began during COVID, but I was going to them in high school in 2017.

I didn't want to spend $80 on a gift for a bed party I was attending, so when I saw a sprinkle cake on Tumblr, I thought, why not make one in school colors? I had zero baking experience, but in my family, we have what we refer to as the "I can do it" gene, so I did it.

Back then, it was, dare I say, simple. The people I knew would go to Party City and Target and buy Gatorade and bags of chips in their school colors. That changed once I started making calls. Friends and friends of friends started reaching out and asking me to make them a cake. Suddenly, the people around me couldn't have a party without a Dotcake.

I opened my shop in Westbury, NY, in 2019, and in 2024, we moved it to Roslyn, NY. My mom ran the business while I was in college at the University of Texas, Austin.

At the time, I planned on becoming a doctor, but when I came home, business was booming. I had to make a decision — med school or cake. I figured there would be plenty of other doctors out there, but there was only one Dotcakes, so I stuck with the business.

Today, this business fully supports my life and my staff's, and has only gotten bigger, allowing us to create an entire Dot product line.

Some of our designs take 15 minutes while others take five hours and range from $55 to $300. We make 40 orders a day, 5 days a week, during our busy season — That's 200 orders. Forty percent of that is college-related.

Besides posting on Instagram, I haven't done an ounce of marketing. It's all word of mouth.

I'm lucky I have a bakery that doesn't rely solely on college-related orders. However, I do hope bed parties become a permanent niche market because I can see more companies tapping into this as time goes on.

• Ivan Leong won a $1 million lottery when he was 23.
• After years of working in insurance, he quit to open a Cantonese roast pork eatery.
• Now, he's rethinking his choice of laboring behind a hot oven and working 11-hour days.

Ivan Leong, 37, used to work as an insurance agent — a job with crisp button-ups, perfume, coffee meetings, and a flexible schedule. A decade later, he's behind the counter of his own Cantonese roast pork stall, carving up juicy slabs of meat. His life, he says, is a far cry from what it used to be.

Leong started out as an administrative assistant at a recruitment firm, a job he described as "stagnant." One day in 2013, his colleagues persuaded him to join them in buying lottery tickets.

The lottery ticket he bought with 10 Singapore dollars won him SG$1 million. The windfall gave him the confidence to quit his job, and he gave his one-month notice shortly after.

His first order of business was buying a government-subsidized apartment with his fiancé. Even with the lottery money, buying a condominium or private property was out of the question, he said, as was retiring early.

"Honestly, one million is never enough, especially in Singapore," Leong said. The tiny Southeast Asian island is one of the world's most expensive cities.

After trying his hand at selling insurance products for a couple of years, Leong felt he wanted to be his own boss.

"In Singapore, if you start an F&B business, you can be a boss straight away. It's the fastest way," he said with a laugh.

He said he loved cooking as a kid, particularly during Lunar New Year. To get back into it, he cut his teeth at his friend's roast pork shop in Singapore's Ang Mo Kio neighborhood.

In 2018, he and his wife opened their own roast pork, or char siu, shop in Bukit Merah, a residential area in the south of Singapore. Over the next few years, he would close his original outlet and open two others — one in Woodlands and another in Ang Mo Kio, both of which are residential districts.

Now, he spends 11 to 12 hours behind the counter every day. Feeding a hungry lunch crowd means reaching his stall at 7 a.m., and he rarely leaves before 6 p.m.

The roast pork in question

Some key things set Leong's roast pork apart.

He said he had always found char siu in other restaurants laden with food coloring. He also did not like that customers could not choose the type of meat they wanted.

For him, good char siu means roasting the meat for up to two hours in a charcoal oven instead of the regular 45 minutes. He also lets patrons choose between three different types of pork: fatty, lean, or half-fat.

For Leong, an average day involves earning around SG$1,500 from each outlet. That means selling five slabs of roast pork, 60-80 strips of char siu, and about seven whole chickens.

When I visited his stall, I ordered the SG$8 "trio" dish to sample all three types of meat. The dish consisted of chicken and two types of pork over fragrant rice, with fresh cucumbers and a bowl of hot soup.

The crackling pork skin was super crispy, balanced out by the tender meat under it.

The char siu was tender and coated with a sticky glaze, which paired well with the fragrant rice. The third meat, the roasted chicken, was light. The quantity was generous — I ended up taking most of it away in a doggy bag.

The most surprising part of the dish was the clear soup. It was salty, warm, and comforting, with boiled slices of vegetables at the bottom.

Some of Leong's regulars told me his char siu is unlike anything they've had before.

Eddie Soh, 36, said he's been eating at Leong's stall weekly since 2019. He said Leong "raised the bar" for char siu.

Soh, an IT product manager, added that Leong's roast pork has become a staple in his Lunar New Year reunion dinners. He said he sometimes buys "as much as 2kg of char siu and 2kg of roast pork" for his family.

Andrew Ong, a 49-year-old officer with the Singapore Armed Forces, said he found Leong's stall last year and has been having it about three times a week since.

Ong said the sides — the rice and jammy eggs, which deviate from the usual hard-boiled eggs served with char siu — are just as good as the meat.

It's not just regulars who rave about it — Sethlui.com, a prominent local food publication, said in a July review of Char Siu Lang that the pork was "caramelized to perfection."

The endgame is to get out of the kitchen

In Singapore, small hawker stalls like Leong's are known to serve world-class fare, including some that have been included in the Michelin Guide.

But many hawkers say the work is difficult, and the chance of failure in Singapore's competitive F&B business is high.

For Leong, trading corporate life for days sweating in front of a charcoal oven was tough. He had to adapt everything from his time-management skills to his physical appearance.

"When I was doing financial advisory, I dressed up, used perfume, and wore all the brands. But in the shop, I just wear whatever is comfortable, maybe a pair of shorts, my company T-shirt, and I need to wear safety boots," he said.

The insurance job also allowed for more flexibility, where he could just "push the appointment, change the timings" for client meetings. But reaching his stall at 7 a.m. daily is a schedule that requires discipline.

When I asked him about the future of the business, Leong immediately answered, "My endgame is to sell the business to big organizations."

He said he doesn't think he can sustain the long work hours in the long term.

But a return to a corporate job is off the table, he said. He wants to explore new business ventures and not have to answer to anyone.

"I would love to not only spend my time in the store," Leong said. "I really need to take a step back because I really feel like I spend too much time in this business."

• Beth Pratt, a baker from Denver, started a small cookie business in December.
• Since then, she's grappled with the skyrocketing prices of eggs and chocolate.
• As someone who relies heavily on products from China, she said Trump's tariffs will likely hit her hard.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Beth Pratt, a 29-year-old baker and small-business owner from Denver. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I am a classically trained pastry chef, and I previously worked for a restaurant group. But at some point in the last five years, I realized I hated my job. I was so tired of working for other people.

I started a TikTok, and my content went viral in the first month. I posted a video last May asking if people would buy my cookies, and the response was overwhelmingly yes.

I launched this business in December. I sell the cookies by the half dozen, with five core flavors and one rotating seasonal taste. A regular box of six costs $27, and I sell about 3,000 cookies monthly.

All the cookies have fun names, like "Snarky Snickerdoodle," "Chocolate Fuckin' Chip," and "Oatmeal Raisin' Hell."

Expensive eggs and chocolate have hit me hard

The first blow to my business was soaring egg and chocolate prices. In December, the eggs I bought were less than $100 for a case of 180, but in mid-February, they were $145 for that same case.

I've seen chocolate prices rise 60% since December. That means the price of my ingredients skyrocketed, too. Ingredient costs went from 18.5% of my total costs to about 23% in February, which is huge for a small business like mine.

Trump's tariffs have made everything feel like it's in free fall. And there's a 100% chance I will be affected by his tariffs on China.

I source my cookie bags from a company called Pouch.me, which is based in Shanghai. I love them because they're so well customized and of good quality.

They are also way more affordable than what I can get in the US — I order 12 to 14 different designs from Pouch.me at a time, and they cost 52 cents when I was buying 3,000 bags at a go. Recently, I purchased a larger quantity of 6,000 bags at 38 cents each.

I emailed them a couple of days ago asking about the tariffs, and they said there's currently no change in prices on their end but that I should be mindful of price increases that will be coming.

After the tariffs started, I tried looking at other suppliers in the US. I found that these US-based suppliers are so used to working with big companies but not very good at working with small businesses like mine.

The cheapest quote was from a company charging $1.02 per bag, with a minimum order of 6,000 bags per design. It was just so far out of my price range.

Another one quoted me a $10,000 minimum order, and I just couldn't commit to something like that.

Lots of uncertainty in the business

I've thought about stocking up with a big bulk order from Pouch.me so that I'm covered for the next couple of months, but I'm hesitant — I don't know what impact the tariffs will have.

Maybe I'll regret not doing a bulk order. It's all so up in the air right now.

I want to maintain the same quality that I am proud of with my product, but I'm worried. What happens if egg prices skyrocket again? What happens if chocolate prices double?

I'm worried that if prices get too high, I won't be able to do that and will have to shift to cheaper alternatives.

People on TikTok and Instagram were supportive when I said the prices of my cookie boxes might go up.

But I don't think I'm going to do that. It just feels wrong. I'd rather find some other way to not pass that price on to the customer.

But we'll see. Maybe I'll eat my words.

• Andrew Chen, who owns a small fashion business, is laying out how Trump's tariffs will affect him.
• Chen founded his menswear brand in 2003.
• Costs, uncertainty, and a deterioration of his overseas market were top of mind for Chen.

Andrew Chen has thoughts on President Donald Trump's latest raft of tariffs.

Chen, the founder of the New York City-based fashion brand 3sixteen, took to TikTok on Friday and listed three major ways the tariffs could impact his brand.

Trump imposed a baseline 10% tariff on all imports from all countries on April 2. Some countries were hit harder than others — the European Union was hit was a 20% tariff, Vietnam with 46%, and Lesotho with 50%. Trump raised China's existing 20% tariffs to 54%.

Chen founded his brand in 2003. It makes menswear basics, specializing in Japanese denim. Most of 3sixteen's jeans cost between $300 and $400. The brand has two stores — one in New York and another in Los Angeles.

Cost

Chen said the most obvious effect of the tariffs is that costs will increase for 3sixteen. The brand imports materials from three regions hit with tariffs — Japan, India, and the European Union, predominantly Portugal.

"We're most concerned about Japan because all of our denim is woven there, and then it's brought over to the States where we cut and sew them into jeans and jackets," he said in the video.

Trump slapped Japan with a 24% tariff last week. Its trade minister, Yoji Muto, called the measure "extremely regrettable" and said the country would urge the US to exempt Japan from the levies.

Chen said an increase in fabric costs "cascades down at the wholesale and at the retail level." He said a $10 increase in raw materials could translate to about a $50 increase in the product cost down the line.

"When it gets to retail, somebody has to pay the cost," Chen said. He added that the brand could absorb the cost, pass it on to the customer, or some combination of the two.

Chen says he now has a shipment of denim arriving from Japan that he's still figuring out how to price.

"It got put on that boat a month ago, but because it is landing three or four days after the tariffs take effect, we will be liable to pay additional higher tariffs on that shipment," Chen said.

Uncertainty

Chen said Trump's tariffs mean he must deal with added uncertainty in his business.

He said he first experienced that heightened uncertainty when Trump announced 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico in January, only to roll them back for certain goods about three days later.

Chen said 3sixteen uses Jersey fabric knit in Canada. The fleece he uses is also cut and sewn in Canada.

"There was about a month, or a month and a half, where we weren't sure whether we were going to have to deal with 25% increases," he said.

Overseas market deterioration

Chen said the third way Trump's tariffs would impact 3sixteen was through the potential deterioration of its overseas market.

Chen said retailers outside the US may think twice about stocking up on American goods, adding that he also faced this problem during Trump's first term.

He said in Trump's first term, trade tensions between the US and the EU affected his brand.

"It resulted in a lot of stores liking the brand, having bought it for many years, but needing to reconsider their buys, maybe not even stocking the brand outright because it was just getting too expensive," Chen said.

Chen's concerns echo those of the retail industry at large. Numerous big retailers, like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart, have said that product price increases are inevitable in the new climate.

In January, BI spoke to the owners of several small businesses, who talked about bracing for tariffs and higher prices by stocking up inventory and placing advance orders.

Chen did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

In 2002, Microsoft launched Xbox Live with built-in voice chat as one of the main selling points of the then new service. Now, nearly 25 years later, Nintendo is finally giving its fans an easy way to talk to their friends online over a friendly match of Mario Kart World.

Considering some of the solutions Nintendo has offered in the past, GameChat is surprisingly elegant. A tap of the Switch 2's new C button, conveniently located below the Home button on the right Joy-Con, brings up a dedicated interface that allows you to quickly start screensharing, mute and unmute your mic and, if you decide to buy the optional Switch 2 Camera, enable video.

What's more, the Switch 2 has a built-in mic. We'll need to test the handheld to see how well the microphone performs in a noisy environment; Nintendo touted its noise-reduction features in today's introduction. But if nothing else, kudos to Nintendo for realizing it couldn't release a new console in 2025 without voice chat built-in and making that feature standard on all models.

However, if the demo Nintendo showed off today is any indication of the final product, the company has some work to do. Voice chat looks like it works well enough, with users allowed to invite up to 11 other people to join their conversation. That said, screen sharing and video chat look very rough. 

When everyone in the video started streaming their gameplay, it looked like the games were running at less than 30 frames per second, making it difficult to see how it would be possible to use the feature to guide a friend through a tricky section, like Nintendo suggested in the demo. Video chat was equally janky, with the footage from the Switch 2 Camera looking like something captured by a webcam from the mid-aughts. Moreover, if you want to see your friend's screen, there's an additional tradeoff. 

Nintendo showed off three different interface options, with two of them devoting a fair amount of screen space to tiles for your friends. I imagine this won't be a problem if you're playing on a TV, but even on the Switch 2's large 7.9-inch screen, the interface looks like it could get cramped fast.

To Nintendo's credit, the company has thought a lot about parental controls, with features that allow parents and guardians to decide who their kids can chat with online and if they can join a session with video. But the thing is none of GameChat’s capabilities are new. They've existed in apps like Discord for years, which begs the question why some of them look so rough this close to launch.

Nintendo has time between now and June 5 to polish GameChat, but in 2025, making a technically competent chat app shouldn't be so hard. Of course, I imagine most of the Switch 2's audience won't care if some of GameChat's features are half-baked. For the rest of us, the company plans to offer the feature for free until the end of March 2026. One would hope that's enough time for the company to catch up on two decades worth of progress in online gaming.

Apple’s Find My feature has finally been enabled in South Korea, according to a company announcement translated by Apple Insider. This comes after years of public demand in which the finding network tool was absent from the country. The omission was especially odd when you consider that Apple sold AirTags throughout the region. Without Find My, they are basically just puck-shaped paperweights.

The company never explicitly stated why it limited access to Find My in South Korea, but it appeared to be related to local laws that could have allowed the government access to the location data. The service first appeared during a beta test of iOS 18.4, but the official software update makes it available to everyone in the country. Find My has long been functional in South Korea’s outlying territories like Baengnyeongdo and Ulleungdo.

"Find My is an important tool that allows users to grasp the location of the most precious things to them, such as friends, family and personal items, and I am very happy to be able to introduce this function to Korea," said David Dorn, senior director of Apple's service products, in a statement on the company's local website.

The modern iteration of Find My launched in the US in 2019 as part of iOS 13. However, the tool actually dates back to a service called Find My iPhone that started in 2010. Apple recently expanded functionality to let users share the location of a lost item with other people on the network. This is helpful when negotiating the return of a lost item with a stranger.

OpenAI has been doubling its audience for ChatGPT at a rapid rate, and the addition of its latest image generation feature has increased the AI assistant's popularity. Today, CEO Sam Altman posted to X that the service "added one million users in the last hour," calling it a "biblical demand" for the image generation.

When the company announced the rollout of image generation in ChatGPT last week, the tool was meant to be available to all user tiers. However, the high degree of interest meant that access for free users was walked back. Now, the company is reporting "issues with new signups," which has been its status for more than a day.

While ChatGPT's ability to create original images has been a delight (and occasional horror show) for users, the AI platform continues to draw the ire of artists and creatives. Many of these people have their work taken, either as training material for the large-language model scraped from the internet or improperly taken and modified by ChatGPT users, without any credit or compensation. One of the more visible examples have been the many memes image inspired by the animation style of Studio Ghibli. Altman is currently using one such image as his X profile photo, but other users have used ChatGPT to apply the look of the studio's films to violent or triggering content, raising a fresh round of questions about how creators can protect their work from misuse. 

We hear Signal is in the news. As longtime fans of the app, and secure messaging more broadly, we feel like it's our duty at Engadget to ensure you know how to use the software properly.   

Download Signal

Signal is available on Android and iOS, as well as nearly every desktop operating system, including Windows and macOS. You can download the app by clicking one of the links provided above, or typing in "Signal Messenger" in your device's app store. Once you've installed the app, proceed to set up an account using your phone number or an alias.  

Note: If you want to install Signal on a workplace phone or computer, be sure to obtain approval from your employer; some organizations, such as the US government, either actively discourage or downright disallow use of the app. 

Create a new group

Wonderful, you've downloaded Signal! Now, to create a group chat, follow these steps: 

1. Tap the compose icon at the top of the interface. 

2. Select New Group.

3. Add participants by selecting their name from your contact list, or inputting their username or phone number. 

4. Give your group a name (and a profile picture if you want). 

5. If the contents are especially sensitive, you may wish to enable Disappearing Messages and select an expiration time.   

As you're in the process of adding new participants to a group, be sure to verify you're adding the right people. 

Some useful tips

I would also suggest making use of Signal's Permissions feature to limit who can invite people to your chat.     

1. Open your group chat and tap the group name to view the chat settings. 

2. Scroll down and select Permissions.

3. Under "Add Members," tap Only Admins.    

One of the ways someone can join your group chat is through a group link or QR Code. For additional security, you can set it so that admins must approve group link invites before the invitee can join. 

1. Open your group chat and tap the group name to view the chat settings.

2. Scroll down and select Group Link. 

3. Switch the toggle to on.  

Maybe you know exactly who you can trust, but the guy down the hall might not!

If you tend to get mixed up on names easily, Signal allows you to assign nicknames to users. After all, no one wants a case of mistaken identity.

1. Open your group chat and tap the group name to view the chat settings.

2. Under "Members," select the name of the individual you want to assign a nickname to. 

3. Type in a name. You can also add a note, say describing the person's profession, in case you need additional context.  

Nicknames are only visible to you, so don't be embarrassed to use them.  

How to remove someone from your group chat

Look, even the best of us can make mistakes. Thankfully, Signal makes it easy to remove someone from a conversation thread.  

1. Open your group chat and tap the group name to view the chat settings.

2. Under "Members," select the name of the individual you want to remove. 

3. Tap Remove From Group. 

How to delete messages in a Signal group chat

So you somehow got through all of the above steps, added someone you shouldn't have and sent information that a relative stranger likely shouldn't have seen. Lets be honest, you're an edge case. But there's still hope if you caught your mistakes early.  

1. Tap and hold the message on mobile (or hover the message bubble on desktop),

2. Select Delete.

3. Select Delete for Everyone.

Now there's less chance of, for instance, a record of your civil and perhaps even criminal mishaps being shared to a notable reporter in a form potentially open to legal discovery. 

Ultimately, no matter how secure the messaging platform, if what you need to talk about is very, very sensitive, it's probably best to just "get everyone in a room together."

• DC businesses are offering federal workers discounts and deals amid mass firings by the Trump administration.
• Five owners told BI they want to support the federal workers who make up a good chunk of their customers.
• The deals range from free pet exams to exercise classes.

A free coffee won't solve all of their problems. But it may give federal workers a much-needed moment of joy and a sense of community.

That's the goal for Matt Bormet, the co-owner of People's Book in Takoma Park, Maryland, 30 minutes away from Capitol Hill.

Bormet opened the bookstore with his wife in 2023 in a community largely populated by public servants. After President Donald Trump took office and began his plans to reduce the federal workforce and slash government waste, Bormet sprung into action.

"We pretty quickly started hearing from our customers and friends of the store that they were getting laid off, or their friends were getting laid off," Bormet said. "And so for us, it was really important to try to figure out how we could make people's day 1% better, and a free cup of coffee and a free book seemed like the least we could do."

Meanwhile, Andrew Katz-Moses, a certified financial planner in DC, started offering federal employees free one-on-one sessions, which would typically cost around $300.

He rattled off their list of concerns: "They're worrying about paying mortgages, what to do with their investments, whether they need to be moving, considering different housing situations, what do they do about healthcare and how do they handle all these things while grappling with a massive life change," Katz-Moses said.

From free workout classes to pet exams, business owners told Business Insider they're doing what they can to comfort the people who keep their establishments afloat. Over the past couple of months, the Trump administration has terminated thousands of federal workers and taken steps to dismantle federal agencies, leaving many DC residents who work for the government in extreme uncertainty.

"Bookstores are unique in their ability to bring everybody from the community in," Bormet said. "And that's really what people need right now, is to see all their neighbors in person and talk in person about how they're being affected, instead of just scrolling and being sad online."

'An important thing for us to do'

Mike Curtin, the CEO of DC Central Kitchen — a nonprofit aimed at combating hunger that operates cafés throughout DC — said that he recognizes how important federal workers are to the economy.

"It's a wildly important part of our local economy," Curtin told BI. "It's one of the reasons DC has survived a lot of the other economic turmoil that other parts of our country have not. And we don't want to take that for granted. We value that."

A February report from DC's chief financial office said that about 190,000 federal employees work in DC, which is about 25% of DC's total jobs. Administration officials said that about 25,000 federal employees have been terminated across all agencies, though that total is spread out across the country.

Curtin said that DC Central Kitchen is offering federal workers 50% off of whatever they want to purchase at one of the cafés, which he said he hopes is "a great way to welcome that particular part of our community who is now facing unanticipated and unnecessary obstacles and hurdles."

"We're looking at using food in a bigger way than just simply feeding people, and saying that food has the power to bring people together, to unite people, to bring comfort," he said. "This is an important thing for us to do."

Tina Latimer, a manager at exercise studio DC Row, said that when the studio saw how federal workers were being affected by Trump's changes to the workforce, DC Row started offering free classes. The offer will continue "as long as it's needed." The new member offer is typically $35 for two classes.

"We're in a ping pong kind of a situation where people are being let go, but then they're being brought back, but then there's also a period of shock and trying to figure out what their next steps are," Latimer said.

Latimer was referring to recent court orders requiring federal agencies to reinstate thousands of the probationary employees they had previously terminated. Some reinstated federal workers told BI that the back-and-forth nature of their employment has left them in a limbo state, and they're not confident they'll be able to retain their jobs once they're back.

By offering exercise classes free of charge, Latimer said she hopes it'll give federal workers "a kind of a therapy and mental clarity, clearing out your mind, but also getting a physical workout."

Some vet clinics are also stepping in. Allison Gross, a veterinarian at Union Veterinary Clinic in DC, said that being located on Capitol Hill, a lot of the clinic's clients are federal workers. The clinic decided to "take one stress off of people's minds" by offering a free exam for their pets, she said. Wellness exams can typically run from $50 to $150, dependent on the pet's needs.

"DC is a transient area. A lot of people are here without a lot of family or support system, and they come home to their cat or their dog at the end of the day," Gross said. "And I don't want to add any extra stress to their lives if they're worried that their companion is sick or even just needs their routine wellness care."

It's unclear what the Trump administration has in store for federal workers next. The Office of Personnel Management asked federal agencies to prepare reorganization plans, and some have started implementing those plans through return-to-office mandates and reductions in force.

Given the ongoing uncertainty, DC Row's Latimer said that businesses in the nation's capitol should view it as their responsibility to support a major part of their customer bases.

"It's important for businesses because each of us, as well as the community, we feed off of each other, and if we're not there to support the community, then why would we expect the community to support us?" Latimer said.

Have a tip or story to share? Contact this reporter via Signal at asheffey.97 or via email at [email protected]. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

These days, we all could use a bit of quiet time away from the rise and grind. That’s where meditation comes in. This practice may not be the ultimate cure-all for everything that ails you like some claim, but it can still help with sleep, stress, mood and focus. I’ve been meditating most of my adult life, with varying degrees of regularity, and I’ve tried plenty of different techniques. I’ve done silent retreats. I’ve done transcendental meditation (RIP David Lynch.) I’ve followed along in crowded rooms. This is something well worth your time and effort.

This is where meditation apps can come into play. Of course, practicing mindfulness doesn’t require an app; people have been doing it for thousands of years, with nary a smartphone in sight. But mindfulness apps can be useful in a number of ways. They provide access to all kinds of guided meditations to suit different styles. Some even offer social connections, which can motivate you to keep up your practice via the magic of peer pressure. They are also particularly well-suited to beginners, with many of them offering a free trial. With all of this in mind, I downloaded some of the most popular meditation apps and set about sitting calmly on a comfortable chair to test them out. What follows is a comparison aimed at real people just looking to squeeze a bit more joy and relaxation out of daily life.

How we tested meditation apps

Every brain is different, so I did not rate these apps based on if they sync up with my preferred meditation style. First and foremost, I looked for apps that cater to various methods and those that offer guided meditations that go beyond what’s free on YouTube. All of the items on this list are available on both Android and iOS, so you won’t have to worry about something being only for iPhone owners.

Of course, there’s lots of free stuff out there, from podcasts and videos on YouTube to audio tracks on streaming services. You can even find guided breathing sessions on an Apple Watch or Fitbit, as well as meditations in Fitness+, Samsung Health or any number of workout video providers. For this guide, I focused on apps that stood out in some way. I liked apps with huge libraries of guided meditations and those that offer additional mindfulness activities, like yoga routines. I also looked for easy-to-use apps with well-designed layouts. You don’t want to start your meditation journey with a clunky app that actually increases anxiety.

The most important thing with meditation is to keep doing it, so I awarded points for clever gamification elements, simple social network integration and anything else that encourages repeat visits. Finally, I considered extra features that set an app apart from the glut of competitors out there. For example, some meditation apps offer novel ways to track your progress, access to yoga routines and a whole lot more.

At the end of the day, each of these apps has its strengths. But if installing an app or using a device is not how you prefer to meditate, you can always turn off your phone and find a quiet room or environment. For those of us who need a little help from a digital guru, though, here are our favorite apps for meditation.

Other meditation gear we tested

Brain-tracking wearables have been around for years, but there are some newer devices that have been tailor-made for meditators. These gadgets track the brain during meditations and offer real-time feedback. It’s a real boon for the data-obsessed, but also a real bank account drainer, with some gadgets costing thousands of dollars. I took two of the more-popular options for a spin to see what they’d make of my brain.

Sens.ai Neurofeedback System

Sens.ai is a weird contraption that not only claims to track brainwaves, but gives real-time feedback to “teach” people how to meditate and enter a flow state. The device involves a giant headset that’s stuffed with brainwave sensors that detect beta, alpha, theta and gamma waves, in addition to heart-rate sensors. It also comes with a truly bizarre companion gadget that uses light stimulation (transcranial photobiomodulation) to keep an eye on focus and attention levels. The whole thing is combined with an app that keeps track of dozens of data metrics and allows access to various guided meditations.

I’m as surprised as you to say that this thing appears to work, with some caveats. It’s uncanny how well it monitors the brain during meditations. If I got lost in a thought spiral about lasagna at six minutes in, sure enough, there would be a dip in analytics at the six-minute mark. It’s also fairly easy to use, despite a process that involves wetting a number of electrodes. As magical as the accurate brain-tracking seems to be, however, I wasn’t as keen on the actual training portion, which often involves staring at a screen throughout the entirety of the practice. It’s also not for the financial faint of heart, as the Sens.ai device costs $1,500.

NeoRhythm Omnipemf

NeoRhythm’s Omnipemf is another wearable to help people get into that ever-elusive flow state. It doesn’t track your brain, but rather floods it with electromagnetic fields at specific frequencies to make it more susceptible to meditation and focus. This is supposed to prime your brain for the meditative state and, in theory, make it easier to capture that zen. However, I didn’t get much from it, other than a placebo-esque buzzing in my head.

To use it, you simply pop on the wearable and go about your day. You aren’t tied to an app, so you can meditate in whatever way you like. There are multiple modes that go beyond meditation, as this thing is supposed to help with focus, pain relief and sleep. I’d wait for some peer-reviewed studies, however, before buying this.

Check out more from our spring cleaning guide.

When it goes live, iOS 18.4 will allow some users to set a default navigation app other than Apple Maps. The software of choice can be set from the Settings app by going to Apps, then to Default Apps, then to Navigation. This way, users can opt for a program like Google Maps or Waze to be automatically opened when you're getting directions.

This sounds like a useful update that lots of iPhone owners would appreciate. But not all of them will be able to take advantage. Default navigation choice will only be available in the EU. The change was previously noted by Apple earlier in the month as part of its broader response to the bloc's Digital Markets Act.

There are some preferences iPhone owners in the US can set for default programs. Currently, Americans get options for setting the to-go apps for email, messaging, calling, call filtering, browser, passwords and codes, contactless and keyboards. And they've been thrown a bone in iOS 18.4, with the added choice to set a default translation app.

Across the Atlantic, however European users can make more impactful choices around their Apple use. Most notably, they can use alternative app stores. Some features that were sparked by compliance with the Digital Markets Act have been rolled out in other markets, such as third-party access to the near-field communication that powers functions like tap-to-pay. Having an international consumer base will often lead to situations where different laws and regulations create different user experiences around the world. But at the rate EU users are getting a better experience, either initially or permanently, over Apple's home market, these instances are feeling more like an accepted strategy rather than edge cases.

iOS 18.4 is still in beta; the final version is expected to release in April.

Meta has admitted to CNBC that Instagram is experiencing an error that's flooding users' accounts with Reels videos that aren't typically surfaced by its algorithms. "We are fixing an error that caused some users to see content in their Instagram Reels feed that should not have been recommended," the company told news organization. "We apologize for the mistake." Users have taken to social media platforms to ask other people whether they've also recently been flooded with Reels that contain violent and sexual themes. One user on Reddit said that their Reels pages was inundated with school shootings and murder. 

Others said they're getting back-to-back gore videos, such as stabbings, beheadings and castration, nudity, uncensored porn and straight-up rape. Some said they still see similar videos even if they had enabled their Sensitive Content Control. Social media algorithms are designed to show you videos and other content similar to ones you usually watch, read, like or interact with. In this case, though, Instagram has been showing graphic videos even to those who haven't been interacting with similar Reels, and sometimes even after the user has taken the time to click "Not Interested" on a Reel with violent or sexual content. 

The Meta spokesperson didn't tell CNBC what exactly the error was, but some of the videos people have reported seeing shouldn't have been on Instagram in the first place, based on the company's own policies. "To protect users... we remove the most graphic content and add warning labels to other graphic content so that people are aware it may be sensitive or disturbing before they click through," the company's policy reads. Meta's rules also state that it removes "real photographs and videos of nudity and sexual activity."

Adobe has launched a brand new Photoshop app for iPhones, which it's also releasing for Android later this year. While there's already a Photoshop Express for mobile, the company says the new app was "designed from the ground up" with more features and has an easy-to-use mobile interface. The app, which is free to download and use, comes with Photoshop's core imaging and design tools. Users can make selections, layers and masks in the app to combine or blend images. They can also replace parts of an image with the Tap Select tool, remove elements from a photo with the Spot Healing Brush and add new elements by using its generative AI tools, such as Generative Fill and Generative Expand. 

Users will have access to free Adobe Stock assets and can link their apps with other Adobe applications, including Express, Lightroom and Fresco. Adobe is, as expected, offering premium upgrades to the app's capabilities for those willing to pay for the new Photoshop Mobile and Web plan. The $8-a-month service will add features to the app on mobile and iPad and will also include access to Photoshop on the web. Users who already have an existing Photoshop subscription, however, will also be able to enjoy the new Photoshop app's premium features. 

The premium features included with the new plan include the ability to transition editing from Photoshop mobile to the web if a user needs a bigger screen or more precise controls. Users are also getting extra generative AI features, including Adobe Firefly's Generate Similar, which allows users to create new variations of an existing image. Subscribers will get access to 20,000 fonts, be able to make precise selections of people and objects with the Object Select too, isolate objects with the Magic Wand, erase elements with the Remove Tool, copy and clone certain elements with the Clone Stamp and fill portions of an image with Content-Aware Fill. They will also be able to control an image's transparency and lighten or darken certain areas of an image. The new app for iPhones is already available from the App Store worldwide.

OpenAI has banned the accounts of a group of Chinese users who had attempted to use ChatGPT to debug and edit code for an AI social media surveillance tool, the company said Friday. The campaign, which OpenAI calls Peer Review, saw the group prompt ChatGPT to generate sales pitches for a program those documents suggest was designed to monitor anti-Chinese sentiment on X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and other platforms. The operation appears to have been particularly interested in spotting calls for protests against human rights violations in China, with the intent of sharing those insights with the country's authorities.

"This network consisted of ChatGPT accounts that operated in a time pattern consistent with mainland Chinese business hours, prompted our models in Chinese, and used our tools with a volume and variety consistent with manual prompting, rather than automation," said OpenAI. "The operators used our models to proofread claims that their insights had been sent to Chinese embassies abroad, and to intelligence agents monitoring protests in countries including the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom."

According to Ben Nimmo, a principal investigator with OpenAI, this was the first time the company had uncovered an AI tool of this kind. "Threat actors sometimes give us a glimpse of what they are doing in other parts of the internet because of the way they use our AI models," Nimmo told The New York Times.

Much of the code for the surveillance tool appears to have been based on an open-source version of one of Meta's Llama models. The group also appears to have used ChatGPT to generate an end-of-year performance review where it claims to have written phishing emails on behalf of clients in China.

"Assessing the impact of this activity would require inputs from multiple stakeholders, including operators of any open-source models who can shed a light on this activity," OpenAI said of the operation's efforts to use ChatGPT to edit code for the AI social media surveillance tool.

Separately, OpenAI said it recently banned an account that used ChatGPT to generate social media posts critical of Cai Xia, a Chinese political scientist and dissident who lives in the US in exile. The same group also used the chatbot to generate articles in Spanish critical of the US. These articles were published by "mainstream" news organizations in Latin America and often attributed to either an individual or a Chinese company.

Update, February 5, 2025, 10:02AM ET: The USPS swiftly backtracked on its suspension of Chinese packages. 

In an updated statement published Wednesday morning, the agency said, "Effective February 5, 2025, the Postal Service will continue accepting all international inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong Posts. The USPS and Customs and Border Protection are working closely together to implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery."

The original story follows...

The United States Postal Service has temporarily stopped accepting inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong, and according to Wired, it's already causing huge problems with e-commerce shipments to the US. USPS posted the notice on its website, announcing that the suspension will be in place "until further notice." As Wired notes, the international parcel suspension is a direct result of the Trump administration's order to end import tax exemption for small packages shipped into the US worth less than $800. The administration also imposed an additional 10 percent tariff on goods imported from China. 

The "de minimis" import tax exemption rule allows e-commerce companies like Shein and Temu to sell to customers in the US while keeping prices on their platforms low. It was originally intended to make it easier to send gifts stateside, but the US government has been considering removing or altering it in recent years due to the rise of e-commerce shipments. Now, the Trump administration has removed it completely, and so quickly, that shipping companies are apparently scrambling to find a way to get packages into the US. 

A Canadian trucking company owner told Wired that his trucks were turned away at the border because they contained packages from China. The owner said that border control was "actually going through the trucks and randomly checking the packages." He explained that it won't be easy to sort packages to remove everything coming in from China, so this development would most likely cause delivery delays. 

According to US Customs, there were over 1.36 billion de minimis shipments to the US within the 2024 fiscal year. If the agency decides to hold all de minimis shipments at the border, that means they may have to process around 3.7 million packages a day to check how much import taxes and other additional fees the receiver or buyer has to pay. That could cause a massive backlog in shipments. A customs and trade management business executive told Wired that the government could choose to keep packages moving instead and to charge people for the fees retroactively. In the future, though, China's e-commerce platforms could start adding those fees, along with the 10 percent tariff now required for Chinese goods, to a customer's total amount, making it more expensive to buy from websites like Shein and Temu.

Typically when we think of Apple and "invites," it's because the company is about to show off some new gear at a splashy product launch. But this time around, the product in question is a new invites app.

The idea behind Apple Invites is that you can create and share custom invitations for any event or occasion. You can use your own photos or backgrounds in the app as an image for the invite. Image Playground is built into Invites and you can use that to generate an images for the invitation instead. Other Apple Intelligence features such as Writing Tools are baked in as well, in case you need a hand to craft the right message for your invitation. 

It's worth noting that only folks with a paid iCloud (aka iCloud+) plan can create an invite in the app. There are no limits on how many events you can host, but each one is limited to 100 participants. As might expect, events will appear in the Calendar app (to which Apple has made some changes in recent months, including the integration of Reminders, amid the rollout of iOS 18).

Anyone can RSVP to invites in the app or on the web. You won't need an Apple Account or device to do so. You can also add photos and photos and videos from the event to a Shared Album (in case you need to feel like it's 2008 and we're all living on Facebook again). Best of all, you can help decide what to listen to during the get-together by collaborating on Apple Music playlists. There's Weather and Maps integration to provide guests with directions and a forecast on the day of the event.

Privacy is a factor here. Hosts can choose whether to share their home address in the invite, while guests have control over how their details appear to others.

The app seems useful and pretty fun. The Shared Albums and Apple Music collaboration features make it seem more interesting than a boring-ass Outlook invite ever could be.

Update, February 4, 1:18PM ET: A previous version of this story indicated that an iPhone and Apple Invites were required to add photos and videos to the Shared Album for the event. This isn't the case, as it's possible to do so via the web on any device. 

• Jess Evans founded Bored Of Dating Apps after being constantly disappointed by dating apps.
• Her events offer an alternative to meeting someone online, focusing on real-life connections.
• There's one very important rule: no ghosting each other.

When Jess Evans was going through a horrible breakup a few years ago, she did what many people do in that situation: downloaded some dating apps.

"What I found there was just your usual string of disappointing experiences," Evans, 33, told Business Insider. "It was just one disheartening experience after the next."

Vowing to ditch the apps for good, Evans thought about other ways to meet someone. Uninspired by the options, she called up a friend and told her she was going to put on her own one-off dating night.

As a journalist with no events experience, Evans worried it would be a flop. But it wasn't. More than 200 singletons looking for love showed up.

That was in February 2022, and Evans hasn't looked back. Bored Of Dating Apps events now take place in London and Manchester in the UK, and launched in New York last year.

It's been so successful that BODA is now Evans' full-time job. She also met her now-fiancee at one of the events, so she swears by how effective they can be.

"Even if they haven't met someone romantically, people go home feeling so much better," she said. "They're like, oh my goodness, I can't believe how many amazing single people there are. It's just about getting off the apps and actually getting people in the same space."

People crave real-life connections

Many agree that dating apps aren't fun anymore, with Gen Zers in particular rejecting them. A Forbes Health survey of 1,000 Americans last year found that 79% of Gen Z respondents said they were experiencing dating app burnout.

This trend has left some apps struggling. Shares in Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge, and Match.com, have fallen 64% over the past five years as the number of paying users dips. Match also announced layoffs last July.

Evans has also noticed people fighting back against the surface-level dating culture that apps promote.

Rather than judging someone on a few photos and a list of vague interests, you get to take them in as a full person. After all, a profile cannot tell you whether you will have chemistry in person.

When she was on the apps, Evans said she felt like she was constantly battling against the perfect idea of a woman. The curse of dating apps is that they encourage you to think the grass is always greener, rather than see all of the good traits of the person you're seeing. Some call this the paradox of choice.

"There's always someone hotter or taller or thinner or someone with a better job, or someone who holds their pen in a particular way so you don't get the ick," Evans said. "As long as we were only ever hooking up, the apps would always have you back in their pocket again."

One of the biggest lessons Evans has learned is for people to embrace dating outside their "type."

"When we look at exactly what that type is, it's often quite an outdated tick list of ours," Evans said. "Someone that we think we ought to like layered over time with our 14-year-old teen crush on an American show doubled with a familiar face of an ex-boyfriend in university that it didn't work with."

Dating apps have led people to shut out people who they could have had a "beautiful relationship with," Evans said, simply because they didn't look exactly right on the surface.

"Because they haven't fitted their rigid, on-paper litmus test, they haven't given it a go," she said. "We've been judging people so much on just a few words on a page."

Finding love and a community

There's one golden rule anyone attending a BODA event must follow: ghosting is strictly prohibited.

"We want everyone to look after each other," Evans said. "So if you meet someone tonight and go on a date with them, please don't ghost them after."

Evans said this basic rule of social interaction has been lost along the way, largely because of dating app culture.

Ghosting and standing people up have become the norm, with little consideration for someone's feelings.

This cycle is particularly frustrating for people in their 30s who may have friendship groups full of people settling down, getting married, and having children.

Evans felt this way herself. She felt isolated as her friends became more occupied with their own families, and spare cash once devoted to nights out with the girls was set aside for family holidays and living expenses.

BODA gave Evans the opportunity to socialize and find people in the same situation, and it has become a community as well as a place to find love.

"It felt amazing to have those friendships where we could have loads of fun together and go out on a night out together and wing woman for each other," she said.

The art of the spontaneous flirt

BODA events include socials where singles can mingle and "meet-cutes" in bookshops, which mimic the old ways of flirting and meeting a potential match in the wild as depicted in romcoms.

"So many people, both men and women, have just really, really wanted to lean into the element of that romance," Evans said. "People are really, really craving romance right now."

Other past BODA events include hikes, supper clubs, painting evenings, and yoga, where people can practice the art of what Evans called "the spontaneous flirt."

The goal is for people to find deeper connections — and that's working for some. Evans told BI there have been 15 engagements and a "BODA baby" since the events started.

That's what makes all the hard work worth it, she said. "I'm such a hopeless romantic. I love that I get to watch people fall in love."

When Wuthering Waves launched about half a year ago on iOS, Android and Windows, there were serious issues on day one. While some can be forgiving when a game launches, especially a live-service game that will get lots of updates, the errors that many experienced were catastrophic. However, developer Kuro Games didn’t give up on the title, and it has more than recovered from its launch, even becoming a nominee at The Games Awards last year.

For those who aren’t familiar with Wuthering Waves, it’s an open-world, free-to-play action RPG similar to Genshin Impact in many ways. However, its combat is more focused on spectacular combos, perfectly-timed parries and dodge counters after avoiding attacks at the right moment. Some players say that the combat is inspired by Devil May Cry games. Heck, there's even a reference to Vergil's (modded) chair in the game.

Screenshot by @deviltakoyaki on X

Wuthering Waves suffered from a disastrous launch. Many people had performance issues, experienced crashes and dialog text was often cut off. It wasn’t uncommon to see people complaining that they couldn’t play at all despite being excited about its graphics. Some also criticized the voice acting, which reminded me of ASMR-style vocals and didn't fit the usual video game voice acting direction. Fortunately, Kuro Games apologized quickly and promised to make things right.

In fact, someone took a picture of Kuro Games’ Guangdong, China office between 10 and 11PM. The lights were on, and the company seemed to be taking its vow to improve the game seriously.

Over the next few months, Kuro Games would work hard at fixing the most pressing issues while also introducing much-needed quality-of-life fixes. The first highlight of this improvement process was giving all players another free standard banner 5-star character and 5-star standard banner weapon box. After that, they even let users get a limited 5-star character, Xiangli Yao, for free when they played an event to a certain point. The game even has 120FPS mode on PC, something all other games made by direct competitor miHoYo don’t have, except Zenless Zone Zero.

Plus, as of the 2.0 update, it has come to PS5. Limited character Camellya finally became playable during November, much to the delight of many after months of waiting. Wuthering Waves made it to the final rounds of The Game Awards' best mobile game category but didn’t win, losing to Balatro.

Kuro Games

Kuro Games also released the drip marketing for a new area Rinascita early on to build hype, and many gamers were excited to visit it. Kuro Games’ early efforts to fix things paid off, as even the latest character teasers looked better and even provided crucial information like character roles, playstyles and materials. These teasers allowed players to farm resources ahead of time if they wanted, instead of relying on leaks.

I play the game in Mandarin Chinese dub and text, so I didn’t catch this detail. But an upcoming character, Zani, actually speaks in an Italian accent (with some Spanish and Greek influence, apparently) if you choose the English dub. When the game first launched, the English voices sounded incredibly forced since some of the voice actors were British but were forced to adopt American accents. Zani’s Italian accent is a major improvement in voice acting direction, and now I’m more willing to give the English dub another chance.

(Zani also recommends you eat pineapple pizza, though. But don’t judge me, because I like that stuff. Sorry, not sorry.)

Now that the 2.0 update is out, I saw some players calling it a wonderful experience. As for me, I’m definitely enjoying the update and have been farming for my characters. I haven’t finished the available story missions yet, but I do think Kuro Games has improved its writing compared to the first chapters. I noticed the tendency to show more than what I’ve experienced playing Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, both games that often utilize black screens with text. Wuthering Waves tends to stay away from those. I admit that the story isn’t completely riveting, but I’m still having fun exploring Solaris-3. The word salad from the first chapters has been reduced, allowing me to take in the story without being overloaded by too many new terms.

Kuro Games

I also play Genshin Impact and can appreciate the differences between them, as Wuthering Waves’s combat system satisfies an itch Genshin Impact’s doesn’t. Farming is quick, and the story is improving. The events are fun, except for the Tower of Adversity endgame mode and the Pincer Maneuver event series that comes back once in a while. Maybe it’s a skill issue, but I find these modes rather challenging if you don’t have the latest featured character or a featured recommended element. The Depths of Illusive Realm roguelike mode needs some more variety, but I suspect that’s in the works as it rotates back in soon.

Despite any faults, I still play Wuthering Waves daily on Windows and look forward to future content; It’s good enough that I’m taking any faults in stride. Earlier this month, Kuro Games CEO Solon Lee released a letter in Chinese thanking fans and revealing that Wuthering Waves reached its highest single-day revenue when version 2.0 was released. I felt encouraged by the letter, and I can confidently say I’m glad I gave the game a chance last year. Whatever the company has in store, I’m all for it.

• The LA fires destroyed thousands of structures, and times are tough for the businesses that remain.
• In Malibu, Pasadena, and other areas of LA County, the wealthy were not the only ones affected.
• Small business owners report slowing sales and lower foot traffic.

Small businesses are struggling to get up off the mat after the LA fires walloped them — and some owners are asking people to remember that not everyone affected was a wealthy Hollywood star.

While many businesses in the path of the fires were destroyed, the ones that remain standing face their own set of challenges.

In the Pacific Palisades and Malibu alone, which were devastated by the Palisades Fire, there was a 64.7% decrease and a 67.7% decrease, respectively, in businesses open the week the fires started relative to the same week in January of last year. That's according to data collected by Homebase, a small business operations platform.

Similarly, Homebase reported that Altadena and Pasadena, which were hit by the Eaton Fire, saw a 32.5% decrease and a 19.4% decrease in businesses open for the same week relative to January 2024.

Meanwhile, according to Homebase, small businesses across the Los Angeles metropolitan area saw a 5.3% to 8.9% decrease in employee hours worked from January 9 through January 13.

Christopher Tompkins, the owner of Broad Street Oyster Company, opened his first restaurant in Malibu in 2019 and has since expanded to add a coffee and ice cream shop next door and three other locations in Southern California and one in San Francisco.

Just a few weeks ago, he was still reeling from the Franklin Fire, which burned through over 4,000 acres of Malibu in December and forced him to close his doors for the first time in five years, he said.

"That felt devastating and also terrifying because everything was so close," Tompkins told Business Insider. "The fire was on our road. The fire was around the restaurant. Personally, I thought we were done for, I thought everything was gone."

Then, when the Palisades Fire broke out two weeks ago, he said he "couldn't believe it."

The Palisades Fire, which started on January 7, burned through 23,000 acres and destroyed over 6,000 structures as simultaneous fires raged across other parts of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.

The Palisades Fire forced Tompkins to again close his Malibu location, which is normally open 365 days a year, for over two weeks.

Tompkins said he finally got full utilities, like gas and internet, back over this past weekend, and now, he's doing everything he can to reopen this week under limited hours and with a "skeleton crew."

Though his building was not hit by the fire, being closed for so long has already taken a toll, he said.

Tompkins estimates the loss of income from the Malibu location to be around $600,000 to $750,000, not to mention the staff who have been out of work.

He said that out of 55 crew members there, he's only been able to find work for fewer than 10 elsewhere.

"Malibu is a huge generator of revenue for our company. It's our busiest location. It's our first location. It's the one I hold most dear to my heart," he told BI.

And as he's trying to get back up and running, Tompkins wants people to know it's not just the wealthy who've been affected by the devastating fires.

"I don't want that to be the narrative for the rest of Malibu and for the rest of the Pacific Palisades because I personally know some customers of mine who have supported me from day one that live in Pacific Palisades. They are not these rich people on the beach," Tompkins said.

They're not all celebrities who lost their multimillion-dollar homes in the fires, Tompkins said. They're regular people, too — "and they don't know what they're going to do next," he said. "They don't have another property to go to."

People's lives depend on the many small businesses that line the Pacific Coast Highway, he said, and the small businesses still need customers to stay afloat.

That sentiment was echoed by Amara Barroeta, who owns a Venezuelan café, called Amara's Café, in Pasadena.

After the Eaton Fire devastated parts of Pasadena and neighboring Altadena, Barroeta said her business has been struggling.

Since reopening after three days of closure due to the fires, Barroeta said her café has had only about 20% of its usual business, and as a result, she's had to reduce her staff members' hours down to 60% or 70% of their typical schedule.

And Barroeta said she worries about people in the restaurant industry who might not have the same access to government help and other resources — especially if they're newer to the country or living off the traditional grid.

The Migration Policy Institute conducted a study in 2019 estimating that in Los Angeles County, the population of unauthorized, employed workers was around 600,000 — and about 15% of those work in the food services, accommodation, arts, entertainment, and recreation sectors.

It's not just businesses near the fire-affected areas that are suffering in the aftermath of what has become one of the costliest natural disasters in US history. Businesses across the city, even those farther away from evacuation zones, have reported things slowing down.

Jack Biebel, who owns Ggiata Delicatessen, told Business Insider that foot traffic at his deli's five locations — in Melrose Hill, West Hollywood, Venice, Highland Park, and Studio City — has been down since the fires started.

Biebel said that having to close his five locations for a total of seven working days the week the fires started had a substantial impact on his business.

His Highland Park location was closed for a few days because of power outages. And for the first few days he reopened it, he closed off the dining room, which normally seats 30 or 40 customers, to turn it into a donation collection center for people affected by the fires.

More than a dozen owners and managers at restaurants throughout the city told Eater they saw reduced business in the week following the fires. For example, Mark Nechols, the general manager of N/Soto in Mid-City, told the outlet he saw about half as many diners as usual, while Bret Thompson, the chef and partner at Pez Coastal Kitchen in Pasadena, said his restaurant lost 85% of its business in one week following the fires.

With thousands of homes and businesses destroyed or damaged, the losses from the LA fires are mounting. AccuWeather estimates the total damages could be up to $275 billion, and Goldman Sachs predicts the fires will remove between 15,000 and 25,000 jobs from the Labor Department's January employment report.

But there may be some help for those struggling to get back on their feet. For example, the US Small Business Administration has approved $52 million in disaster loans, LA Mayor Karen Bass said Thursday. And LA County has launched both a small business relief fund and a worker relief fund providing grants to eligible applicants.

Aside from the official channels for support, many businesses — including Ggiata's, Broad Street Oyster Company, Amara's Café, and countless others — have also taken it upon themselves to offer grassroots support for their communities, including collecting donations, hosting fundraisers, donating food to first responders, and helping neighbors navigate the bureaucracy of relief.