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From breathtaking jumps to mesmerizing spins, figure skating is one of the most popular sports at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. In a survey, 56% of 1,000 Americans who planned on watching the winter Olympics said they would be tuning in to watch figure skating, according to market research from Reviews.com. And all eyes are on the American trio of female skaters known as the ‘Blade Angels,’ on Tuesday with the start of the women’s short program. Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu, and Isabeau Levito are hoping to take home the gold in individual women’s figure skating, something the U.S. women’s team has not done since 2006. Only the top 24 women skaters in the women’s short program will advance to the compete in the free skate final on Thursday. Here’s what to know. Who are the ‘Blade Angels’? The “Blade Angels” as they call themselves, are three U.S. women’s single figure skaters representing Team USA in this year’s winter Olympics: Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu, and Isabeau Levito. They have captivated the nation not only with their skating, but their friendship, and lively, non-conformist, authentic personalities. Glenn is the first openly LGBTQ+ woman to compete in womens figure skating at the Winter Olympics. Their bravery and impressive skills have also garnered attention from celebrities like Madonnawho sent Glenn a video saying “Go get that gold”and Taylor Swift, who introduced them in an Olympic video. The three have an impressive amount of wins among them: Liu is the 2025 World Figure Skating Champion, Glenn a three-time skating champion, and Levito is the 2024 world silver medalist. “I haven’t seen a U.S. women’s team this strong in 20 years,” Olympic gold medalist and commentator Tara Lipinski told NBC Olympics. What’s the history of Olympic figure skating? Figure skating was first introduced in the 1908 Summer Olympics, but didn’t become part of the winter games until 1924. From early on, it was one of the first Olympic sports with a female category, and actually the only winter Olympic sport for women until 1936. In the years since the 1950s, the U.S. women’s team has dominated the sport, taking home the gold again and againfrom Tenley Albright, who was the first woman to win at the 1956 Cortina dAmpezzo Games, to more recently, Michelle Kwan and Kristi Yamaguchi.
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Reality Check: Inside Americas Next Top Model doesnt begin in 2003, when Americas Next Top Model premiered and took television by storm. It doesnt begin in the 1990s, when eventual host Tyra Banks rose to superstardom in the modeling industry. Instead, it begins in 2020, when the pandemic led a new generation to binge early-aughts reality TV, this time watching with a modern lensand, naturally, tearing it to shreds on TikTok. From there, Netflixs newest docuseries rewinds to tell the full story of Americas Next Top Model, from its pre-production through its 24 scandalous cycles and into its modern-day legacy, featuring interviews with contestants, producers, and judges, including Banks herself. Reality Check leans into the same trend that inspired its creation: reexamining years-old media, like a cult classic reality TV show, with a critical eye. What viewers casually did on TikTok in 2020, Reality Check does with finesse. It dissects the surface-level controversies fans already know about, from body shaming to the show’s infamous race-swapping photoshoot (and its oft-forgotten sequel four years later). Shandi Sullivan [Photo: Netflix] It also brings new revelations that cast the series in an even darker light, like Cycle 2 contestant Shandi Sullivan alleging that she was sexually assaulted on camera, with production doing nothing to step in or help her. Instead, the docuseries details Top Model portraying the incident as Sullivan cheating on her boyfriend, even filming her tearful call home to break the news to him. Through it all, Banks dodges accountability, even teasing that the show could come back for a 25th cycle. Reality Check is the latest entry in a trend of exposé documentaries around TV that many young adults watched in their childhoods, cashing in on nostalgia by peddling its opposite. In 2024, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV dove into the controversies surrounding Nickelodeon series, particularly those created under Dan Schneiders tenure as a producer and showrunner. (That series built on the fervor generated by Jennette McCurdys best-selling 2022 memoir Im Glad My Mom Died, which included stories from her time starring in iCarly and Sam & Cat.) Also in 2024, VICE released Dark Side of Reality TV, a 10-part docuseries with each episode focusing on the behind-the-scenes truth of a different reality TV show, including Toddlers & Tiaras, Hells Kitchen, Survivor, andyesAmericas Next Top Model. Even as the aesthetics of 2000s pop culture are celebrated and embraced, their actual pop culture artifacts are subject to renewed criticism. Everyone loves to binge-watch. Everyone loves to hate-watch. Documentaries like Reality Check provide the perfect crossover.
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E-Commerce
Snap is hoping to snap up another revenue stream in its quest to reduce its dependency on advertising. The social media company announced on Tuesday that it will begin offering subscriptions to select creators so they can earn income from their most engaged fans. In a move that supports both creators and its bottom line, Snap will begin testing Creator Subscriptions next week with a group of 15 Snapchat creators that includes Jeremiah Brown, Harry Jowsey, and Skai Jackson. Combined, these three creators have more than 3 million followers on Snap, and the company is betting that some portion of those followers will convert to paid subscribers to receive exclusive content, priority replies, and an ad-free experience. Creators will have the ability to set the monthly pricing for their subscriptions within Snap-recommended tiers that range from $4.99 to $19.99 per month, according to reporting by CNBC, and creators will receive approximately 60% of subscription revenue. Starting next Monday, Snapchatters will be able to subscribe to participating subscribers so long as they have Apple devices; the company hasnt said when the feature will be available for Android users. This launch builds on our continued investment in a creator-first monetization ecosystemone designed to help creators strengthen relationships with their communities and build sustainable, scalable businesses on Snapchat, the company said in a statement. MOVING BEYOND ADVERTISING By embracing the creator-to-consumer subscription model, Snapchat is hoping to build on the success of longer-running monetization offerings like the Unified Monetization Program and the Snap Star Collab Studio, both designed for creators. Snap is focused on revenue diversification, as CEO Evan Spiegel has repeatedly emphasized in recent quarters. Thats seen the Santa Monica, California-based company test the waters to gauge what (and how much) Snapchatters are willing to pay for social media content. The company launched Snapchat+ in 2022 for $3.99 per month, which unclocks some exclusive features, and about four months ago, it announced it would begin charging for storage plans for Memories on the platform. Both Snapchat+ and the Memories Storage Plans have proven successful, even if theres been some grumbling among users. Thanks to those subscription offerings, and others, Snap ended 2025 with 24 million subscribers, a 71% increase from the same period in 2024, according to the companys fourth-quarter results released earlier this month. CAN SUBSCRIPTIONS REVIVE THE STOCK? By looping in creators with the newest monetization features, Snapchat wants to give them the freedom to experiment while fostering connections on the platform. We want the next step in our long-term creator monetization journey to be one thats really rooted in real relationships, Jim Shepherd, Snaps head of content partnerships, said in an interview with CNBC. But the social media platform arrives late to whats already become a crowded market for subscriptionsand at a time when subscription creep is becoming a more vexing issue. Whats more, a recent survey found that Gen Z, a core demographic for Snap, is feeling the subscription fatigue with respect to streaming servicesa sentiment that might extend elsewhere. And investors remain skeptical about Snaps recent efforts to diversify its revenue stream. The stock fell nearly 2% in mid-day trading on Tuesday, extending a year-to-date selloff of more than 41%.
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E-Commerce
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