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Yahoo
30-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
What your barista thinks of your small talk game
'Maybe it's just a midwestern thing, but can we please stop having the cashiers ask intrusive questions to the patrons as they check out?' a woman pleaded in a viral tweet this month. The 'intrusive' question: 'Any big plans for the night?' Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. Grumbling about small talk with service workers is the bread and butter (in a complimentary basket) of social media. Considered outside the context of likes and retweet buttons, these complaints can sound a bit like 18th-century gentry commiserating about the help. 'Uber drivers PLEASE stop trying to make conversation,' groused a rider on Reddit, criticizing the driver's 'constant yapping.' Another woman, ordering through Instacart, complained of her shopper's incompetence in failing to secure her Neapolitan ice cream without engaging her in a back-and-forth. Other commentary is friendlier - across social media, the theory that Trader Joe's employees are trained to flirt with customers is repeated as fact. Despite the rise in self-checkout, the quiet creep of robotaxis and the ubiquity of door-to-door delivery services, opportunities for small talk between customers and service workers persist. And while person-to-person interactions are more optional than ever, some things haven't changed: Some customers complain when they encounter small talk, and some customers complain when they don't. In a paper in the European Journal of Marketing published in 2022, a group of marketers laid out the argument for this phenomenon: In customer service, you truly cannot please everyone. There are 'exchange oriented' customers, who value efficient service and are impatient with small talk. ('Exchange oriented customers may be particularly well-suited to being served by virtual assistants or service robots,' the researchers mused.) Then there are 'communally oriented' customers, who value connection and positively glow in response to questions like, 'Any fun plans for the weekend?' Given this, the researchers suggested, 'Service providers should consider customers' relationship orientation before starting a conversation with small talk.' For America's 24.6 million service workers - who make an average of $33,396 each year, half of the national average income - this means trying to read body language, note eye contact and interpret tone in a matter of seconds, sometimes while working an espresso machine. 'I usually start my interactions by saying, 'Hey how's it going?' so they can either engage with that, or they can blow through it,' says Allie Lawrence, a barista and manager at an independently owned coffee shop in Brooklyn. 'It's kind of like you're having to micro-therapize people before even interacting with them because you're not sure what the energy is you're going to get.' Scotty Ross, who lives in Chandler, Arizona, and drives for Uber, starts with, 'How's your day going?' And then, 'I kind of catch the vibe from there,' he says. (When he's a passenger and doesn't feel like talking, he gives polite one-word answers. 'It feels like one of those 'Seinfeld' episode situations,' he says.) Customers who respond harshly to friendly overtures may not realize that at some businesses, small talk is a requirement for workers, not a personal choice. When Lawrence trains new workers, she suggests a few phrases, like, 'Hey, how's it going?' or, 'Good to see you, what can I get started?' At some places, she says, workers can get written up for skipping this step. 'It is kind of our job to give a 'wow' experience,' says William, a Trader Joe's employee in Seattle who asked to withhold his last name to speak freely about his workplace. 'Hey, how's it going?' is William's only prepared line. 'From there, if they seem like they want to talk, I'll ask more questions. If not, I'll let it be, I just ring them out and bag them and let them go.' Shoppers tell him about their ongoing chemotherapy and the death of their beloved cats. This kind of thing didn't happen when he worked at Costco, William says. During morning shifts at Trader Joe's, elderly people come in wanting someone to talk to. But the conversations aren't always pleasant. Customers have yelled at his co-workers for not engaging in sufficient conversation, he says. According to the American Psychological Association's 2023 Work in America Survey, nearly a third of respondents who worked in person with customers or patients said they had experienced verbal abuse in the past year, compared with 22 percent of office workers. For some service workers, small talk makes business sense. 'I would say most riders don't tip, and they're more likely to tip if they get into a conversation,' says Ross. When Ross started driving for Uber in 2016, he remembers keeping 80 percent of each fare. Now, he says Uber gives him only 30 to 50 percent of what each rider pays. Tips can make the difference, he pointed out, between making around minimum wage in Arizona (before the cost of gas, car maintenance and taxes) and making double that. Lawrence also sees a correlation between conversation and tips. 'The more of an experience or a show that I'm able to curate for the customer, potentially that results in higher tips,' she says. Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski is credited with first describing 'a type of speech in which ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words.' In 1923, he described these exchanges, which he called 'phatic communication,' as 'purposeless expressions of preference or aversions, accounts of irrelevant happenings, comments on what is perfectly obvious.' Like, say, exchanging observations about the weather with a stranger before making them an oat milk latte. Malinowski's definition hints at why small talk can be strangely polarizing - it is by design both meaningless and crucial. 'It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy,' Elizabeth Bennet demands, when her dance partner refuses to make small talk. 'I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.' The European marketers might say that Elizabeth is more 'communally-oriented' and Darcy is more 'exchange-oriented.' Ella Fuller, a server in Iowa City, says that these exchanges are a part of the job she enjoys. 'If there's a place in between small talk and overshare, I've always really liked that part of service,' she said. Fuller works at a bar and cafe and had previous gigs at a barbecue spot and an Italian restaurant. At each of these jobs, she says, she had experiences where instances of small talk devolved into customers making inappropriate comments about her body. At the barbecue spot, she told those customers to knock it off. But at the Italian restaurant, she felt obligated to smile through all customer behavior. She eventually brought the issue to management and was supported. The idea that the customer is always right, writes researcher Dana Yagil, 'implies, for customers as well as for service providers, that customers are entitled to misbehave, while service providers are expected to put up with such misbehaviors.' A shift, as of late, is that service workers are responding to customers with their own complaints and screeds. On TikTok, nearly 6 million followers tune in to watch actor and longtime server Drew Talbert dramatize restaurant behavior from a server's perspective. Bartenders go viral for satirizing pushy customers. Lawrence, who does stand-up comedy, makes videos reenacting interactions with customers who inexplicably demand made-up coffee drinks. Servers have taken to TikTok to imitate the 'Gen Z stare,' a reference to the way some young adults stare coldly at servers, as if rebuking them for the question, 'Hi, what can I help you with today?' Finding the right balance of small talk is a customer-facing worker's struggle. 'I don't know why - I can't stop myself - I talk too much,' moans Willy Loman in 'Death of a Salesman,' comparing himself to more successful colleagues. Ross advises other Uber drivers to let customers do 80 percent of the talking. 'Try not to interrupt them and tell your own stories,' he cautions. 'Basically, be an interviewer.' He notices that he gets his best tips when he's drinking an energy drink and feels cheerful and energized. That service-oriented self isn't always accessible, and that affects his income. 'The first week after my dad died I don't think I got any tips because I was in a bad mood, but I still needed to make some money,' he says. 'You never really know what someone's going through,' he notes - whether driver or rider. Related Content The U.S. military is investing in this Pacific island. So is China. In a stressful human world, 'mermaiding' gains popularity in D.C. area 'College hazing' or training? Amid shortage, air traffic recruits wash out. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
An American mega-influencer flew to Lithuania. Then the chaos began.
When the YouTube mega-streamer IShowSpeed walked shirtless recently off a private jet into the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, the nation's economy minister was waiting for him on the tarmac with shots of šaltibarščiai, a cold pink beetroot soup. A mob of chanting fans was waiting, too, so the streamer - a 20-year-old from Cincinnati named Darren Watkins Jr., who has 120 million followers across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube - piled with his security detail into a minibus to drive to the city's historic Palace of the Grand Dukes, where the mayor served him cheese and honey and a troupe of young Lithuanian women taught him a traditional folk dance. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. 'These lyrics are about stabbing someone in the heart,' one woman said, with a smile. Speed, as his fans call him, became famous during the pandemic for his hyperactive, hours-long broadcasts, where he'd rage about video games, leap over Lamborghinis and perform unprompted backflips. But lately, his real star power has come from his international tours, during which he blitzes into foreign countries to see the sights while surrounded by screaming teenagers, all of it live-streamed. Speed's TikTok-era travelogues often descend into chaos, but government officials have learned to love them nevertheless. His two-week trip through China this spring, where he fawned over the country's state-of-the-art phones and luxury cars, went so viral that the Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper hailed it as a 'digital-age Marco Polo journey.' 'The U.S. has spent billions on anti-China propaganda, only to be undone by … IShowSpeed,' one report by the state news agency Xinhua said, citing a YouTube comment. This month, it was Lithuania's turn. When the Baltic nation learned that Speed's next adventure would cross through northeastern Europe, local tourism officials scrambled to craft him an extraordinary itinerary, including throwing a discus with an Olympic silver medalist, swinging swords in 14th-century armor and walking along the crown of Lithuania's tallest tower. They also extended Speed an honorarium worth about $23,500 and spent an additional $8,000 on minibuses, snacks and 10 security guards supported by the Lithuanian police. 'We want teenagers to know, just like London and Barcelona, that Vilnius is really, really cool,' Akvilė Lesauskaitė-Hu, an official for the city's tourism agency, said in an interview. 'How else do we reach them? They don't watch CNN. They watch TikTok.' The stream was watched live by more than 115,000 people at one point, and its clips have been viewed millions of times. Speed's wild trip showcased how the business of social media influencers, known as the creator economy, has helped mint a new kind of celebrity, upending traditional hierarchies of culture, authority and fame. It also revealed how governments are focusing on creators' giant fan bases as a new strategy for soft power, pushing novel methods of attention-getting that could reshape how nation-states portray themselves to the rest of the world. Speed's lighthearted visits to China, Saudi Arabia and other countries have drawn criticism as propaganda exercises that promoted the countries in ways they wanted, rather than reckoning with their more complicated reality. And they have become a model for broader ambitions: China last month invited American influencers with more than 300,000 followers to a 10-day, expenses-paid nationwide tour, where they would work with Chinese influencers on videos and other kinds of 'collaborative storytelling.' Creators' 'emotional capital' with their fans has made them 'a scarce resource that many governments seek to harness,' said Jian Xu, an associate professor at Deakin University in Australia who researches digital celebrity and politics. Speed 'aimed to explore the lucrative Chinese market … [and] the government effectively capitalized on it as a 'laid on a plate' opportunity.' Crystal Abidin, an anthropologist who studies internet culture, said it only made sense that governments would tap influencers, whose fame now rivals that of movie stars, for their ability to churn out viral moments of spectacle and surprise. Speed's giddy reaction to China, she said, was just how he acted everywhere - and was what his fans wanted to see. 'This idea of glamorizing or popularizing China as a highlight reel, Speed does that with all countries,' she said. The question, she added, is whether that's 'propaganda, or simply good advertising.' Povilas Kondratavicius, a 25-year-old Vilnius native who worked as a sales manager at a military industry company, first saw Speed on TikTok three years ago and has watched him ever since, admiring his high-energy social interactions and feats of athletic talent. He remembered thinking while watching Speed's China videos that the country he'd been taught was 'underdeveloped and authoritarian' actually seemed pretty advanced and culturally rich. So when Speed announced on stream that he'd be heading to Lithuania, Kondratavicius emailed the national tourism development agency and encouraged them to 'follow China's example' by taking the visit seriously. He said he felt it was his duty 'as a patriot' to ensure that Lithuania looked great online. 'We're a really small country, we're in Eastern Europe, so we immediately have a bad reputation,' he said in an interview. 'And for my generation, and Gen Alpha, he's one of the most famous people there is.' After they got Kondratavicius's email, agency officials met with the tourism boards in Vilnius - as well as in Estonia and Latvia, the other Baltic countries on Speed's European tour - to pull together an emergency plan, Lesauskaitė-Hu said. Speed had promoted the tour with an online poster showing him on a throne near the Eiffel Tower, but officials didn't learn his exact visit date until it was only a week away, thanks to a tip from the manager of a popular Latvian TikTok star. Members of Speed's team did not respond to requests for comment. But on stream, Speed has said his security detail works to keep his plans secret until the last minute, in hopes of heading off public mayhem. Speed's plan, the officials learned, was to visit all three Baltic capitals in a single day, spending a few hours in each before racing to the next in a charter jet. So when he began the day in Estonia, Lithuanian officials watched his stream closely, expecting he'd get a meager reception; the fellow Baltic country's culture, Lesauskaitė-Hu said, is 'very Scandinavian … very reserved.' Instead, Speed was mobbed at every turn - so much so that a waterfront dock swarmed by onlookers collapsed. (Speed raced over dramatically on a water scooter, though no one appeared to be hurt.) When Speed landed in Vilnius later that afternoon, crowds had already amassed in the rain outside the airport and in the city center, half an hour's drive away. His videographer - a minor celebrity in his own right, known as Slipz - trailed Speed closely as he exited the jet, wearing only bulky slip-ons and shorts covered in the McDonald's logo. 'Lithuania, we are here,' he shouted, mispronouncing its name. Speed shook hands with Lukas Savickas, the country's sharply dressed minister of economy and innovation, and was given a tie-dye shirt like those the Grateful Dead gave to the country's bronze-medal-winning Olympic basketball squad in 1992, a source of national pride. Then he continued his whirlwind tour, first with the folk dancers, then some basketball, a medieval sword battle with members of the military, a meeting with a Lithuanian illusionist and a flight in a hot-air balloon. 'Yo, look at the whole of Lithuania, though,' he said from the top of the Vilnius TV Tower. 'This looks so beautiful, bro.' Speed's sprint through the Baltics drew frustration from some locals, including in Latvia, where he did a backflip at the Freedom Monument honoring soldiers killed in the country's 1918 war for independence and sang to fans from the balcony of the nation's ailing public radio station. One journalist there wrote that the moment - 'an unregulated content creator peacocking at the home of Latvian broadcasting' - offered a foreboding symbol of how modern media had changed. The biggest debates, however, centered on the cost. Lithuania had offered 20,000 euros (about $23,500) to Speed's team, and the other Baltic countries extended similar packages, sparking debates in the local press over whether the streamer and his entourage truly warranted public funds. A columnist for the Lithuanian newspaper, Kauno Diena, wrote that the money could have helped stimulate the economy but was instead spent on an event whose main audience was minors - 'economically inactive people with unformed views and sporadic needs.' Others argued that the cost was worth it, compared with the price of a travel-agency billboard or TV ad. Lithuanian journalist Andrius Tapinas wrote on Facebook that it was a bargain for that kind of global name recognition, particularly among a young generation for whom 'there's simply no other way to catch their attention.' 'Now parents have seen what drives their kids crazy,' he wrote, in Lithuanian, 'and maybe even had something to talk about with them over dinner last night.' Beyond branding, some in the Baltics argued that the money was an investment in national security, given their borders with Russia and Belarus. Gediminas Užkuraitis, co-founder of a consulting firm in Vilnius, told Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT that raising national awareness was critical given the country's 'image as a front-line state' to the war in Ukraine. 'If, for example, the American public had to decide whether Lithuania is worth defending, it helps if they've actually heard of us,' he said. After about 12 hours of streaming, Speed ended his Lithuania trip at Hotel Pacai, a converted mansion from the 17th century, bidding the country a live-streamed goodbye as young people ran alongside his car. He continued his European tour the next day with a visit to Poland, then Slovakia and France. By then, Vilnius's social media team had already posted their own video recap of the trip on Instagram. 'IShowSpeed caused minor chaos in Vilnius,' the post said. '10/10 worth it.' Related Content In a stressful human world, 'mermaiding' gains popularity in D.C. area 'College hazing' or training? Amid shortage, air traffic recruits wash out. A 100-year-old on a bike? Yes. 'The right to wind in your hair' Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
29-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
An American mega-influencer flew to Lithuania. Then the chaos began.
When the YouTube mega-streamer IShowSpeed walked shirtless recently off a private jet into the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, the nation's economy minister was waiting for him on the tarmac with shots of šaltibarščiai, a cold pink beetroot soup. A mob of chanting fans was waiting, too, so the streamer - a 20-year-old from Cincinnati named Darren Watkins Jr., who has 120 million followers across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube - piled with his security detail into a minibus to drive to the city's historic Palace of the Grand Dukes, where the mayor served him cheese and honey and a troupe of young Lithuanian women taught him a traditional folk dance. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. 'These lyrics are about stabbing someone in the heart,' one woman said, with a smile. Speed, as his fans call him, became famous during the pandemic for his hyperactive, hours-long broadcasts, where he'd rage about video games, leap over Lamborghinis and perform unprompted backflips. But lately, his real star power has come from his international tours, during which he blitzes into foreign countries to see the sights while surrounded by screaming teenagers, all of it live-streamed. Speed's TikTok-era travelogues often descend into chaos, but government officials have learned to love them nevertheless. His two-week trip through China this spring, where he fawned over the country's state-of-the-art phones and luxury cars, went so viral that the Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper hailed it as a 'digital-age Marco Polo journey.' 'The U.S. has spent billions on anti-China propaganda, only to be undone by … IShowSpeed,' one report by the state news agency Xinhua said, citing a YouTube comment. This month, it was Lithuania's turn. When the Baltic nation learned that Speed's next adventure would cross through northeastern Europe, local tourism officials scrambled to craft him an extraordinary itinerary, including throwing a discus with an Olympic silver medalist, swinging swords in 14th-century armor and walking along the crown of Lithuania's tallest tower. They also extended Speed an honorarium worth about $23,500 and spent an additional $8,000 on minibuses, snacks and 10 security guards supported by the Lithuanian police. 'We want teenagers to know, just like London and Barcelona, that Vilnius is really, really cool,' Akvilė Lesauskaitė-Hu, an official for the city's tourism agency, said in an interview. 'How else do we reach them? They don't watch CNN. They watch TikTok.' The stream was watched live by more than 115,000 people at one point, and its clips have been viewed millions of times. Speed's wild trip showcased how the business of social media influencers, known as the creator economy, has helped mint a new kind of celebrity, upending traditional hierarchies of culture, authority and fame. It also revealed how governments are focusing on creators' giant fan bases as a new strategy for soft power, pushing novel methods of attention-getting that could reshape how nation-states portray themselves to the rest of the world. Speed's lighthearted visits to China, Saudi Arabia and other countries have drawn criticism as propaganda exercises that promoted the countries in ways they wanted, rather than reckoning with their more complicated reality. And they have become a model for broader ambitions: China last month invited American influencers with more than 300,000 followers to a 10-day, expenses-paid nationwide tour, where they would work with Chinese influencers on videos and other kinds of 'collaborative storytelling.' Creators' 'emotional capital' with their fans has made them 'a scarce resource that many governments seek to harness,' said Jian Xu, an associate professor at Deakin University in Australia who researches digital celebrity and politics. Speed 'aimed to explore the lucrative Chinese market … [and] the government effectively capitalized on it as a 'laid on a plate' opportunity.' Crystal Abidin, an anthropologist who studies internet culture, said it only made sense that governments would tap influencers, whose fame now rivals that of movie stars, for their ability to churn out viral moments of spectacle and surprise. Speed's giddy reaction to China, she said, was just how he acted everywhere - and was what his fans wanted to see. 'This idea of glamorizing or popularizing China as a highlight reel, Speed does that with all countries,' she said. The question, she added, is whether that's 'propaganda, or simply good advertising.' Povilas Kondratavicius, a 25-year-old Vilnius native who worked as a sales manager at a military industry company, first saw Speed on TikTok three years ago and has watched him ever since, admiring his high-energy social interactions and feats of athletic talent. He remembered thinking while watching Speed's China videos that the country he'd been taught was 'underdeveloped and authoritarian' actually seemed pretty advanced and culturally rich. So when Speed announced on stream that he'd be heading to Lithuania, Kondratavicius emailed the national tourism development agency and encouraged them to 'follow China's example' by taking the visit seriously. He said he felt it was his duty 'as a patriot' to ensure that Lithuania looked great online. 'We're a really small country, we're in Eastern Europe, so we immediately have a bad reputation,' he said in an interview. 'And for my generation, and Gen Alpha, he's one of the most famous people there is.' After they got Kondratavicius's email, agency officials met with the tourism boards in Vilnius - as well as in Estonia and Latvia, the other Baltic countries on Speed's European tour - to pull together an emergency plan, Lesauskaitė-Hu said. Speed had promoted the tour with an online poster showing him on a throne near the Eiffel Tower, but officials didn't learn his exact visit date until it was only a week away, thanks to a tip from the manager of a popular Latvian TikTok star. Members of Speed's team did not respond to requests for comment. But on stream, Speed has said his security detail works to keep his plans secret until the last minute, in hopes of heading off public mayhem. Speed's plan, the officials learned, was to visit all three Baltic capitals in a single day, spending a few hours in each before racing to the next in a charter jet. So when he began the day in Estonia, Lithuanian officials watched his stream closely, expecting he'd get a meager reception; the fellow Baltic country's culture, Lesauskaitė-Hu said, is 'very Scandinavian … very reserved.' Instead, Speed was mobbed at every turn - so much so that a waterfront dock swarmed by onlookers collapsed. (Speed raced over dramatically on a water scooter, though no one appeared to be hurt.) When Speed landed in Vilnius later that afternoon, crowds had already amassed in the rain outside the airport and in the city center, half an hour's drive away. His videographer - a minor celebrity in his own right, known as Slipz - trailed Speed closely as he exited the jet, wearing only bulky slip-ons and shorts covered in the McDonald's logo. 'Lithuania, we are here,' he shouted, mispronouncing its name. Speed shook hands with Lukas Savickas, the country's sharply dressed minister of economy and innovation, and was given a tie-dye shirt like those the Grateful Dead gave to the country's bronze-medal-winning Olympic basketball squad in 1992, a source of national pride. Then he continued his whirlwind tour, first with the folk dancers, then some basketball, a medieval sword battle with members of the military, a meeting with a Lithuanian illusionist and a flight in a hot-air balloon. 'Yo, look at the whole of Lithuania, though,' he said from the top of the Vilnius TV Tower. 'This looks so beautiful, bro.' Speed's sprint through the Baltics drew frustration from some locals, including in Latvia, where he did a backflip at the Freedom Monument honoring soldiers killed in the country's 1918 war for independence and sang to fans from the balcony of the nation's ailing public radio station. One journalist there wrote that the moment - 'an unregulated content creator peacocking at the home of Latvian broadcasting' - offered a foreboding symbol of how modern media had changed. The biggest debates, however, centered on the cost. Lithuania had offered 20,000 euros (about $23,500) to Speed's team, and the other Baltic countries extended similar packages, sparking debates in the local press over whether the streamer and his entourage truly warranted public funds. A columnist for the Lithuanian newspaper, Kauno Diena, wrote that the money could have helped stimulate the economy but was instead spent on an event whose main audience was minors - 'economically inactive people with unformed views and sporadic needs.' Others argued that the cost was worth it, compared with the price of a travel-agency billboard or TV ad. Lithuanian journalist Andrius Tapinas wrote on Facebook that it was a bargain for that kind of global name recognition, particularly among a young generation for whom 'there's simply no other way to catch their attention.' 'Now parents have seen what drives their kids crazy,' he wrote, in Lithuanian, 'and maybe even had something to talk about with them over dinner last night.' Beyond branding, some in the Baltics argued that the money was an investment in national security, given their borders with Russia and Belarus. Gediminas Užkuraitis, co-founder of a consulting firm in Vilnius, told Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT that raising national awareness was critical given the country's 'image as a front-line state' to the war in Ukraine. 'If, for example, the American public had to decide whether Lithuania is worth defending, it helps if they've actually heard of us,' he said. After about 12 hours of streaming, Speed ended his Lithuania trip at Hotel Pacai, a converted mansion from the 17th century, bidding the country a live-streamed goodbye as young people ran alongside his car. He continued his European tour the next day with a visit to Poland, then Slovakia and France. By then, Vilnius's social media team had already posted their own video recap of the trip on Instagram. 'IShowSpeed caused minor chaos in Vilnius,' the post said. '10/10 worth it.' Related Content In a stressful human world, 'mermaiding' gains popularity in D.C. area 'College hazing' or training? Amid shortage, air traffic recruits wash out. A 100-year-old on a bike? Yes. 'The right to wind in your hair'
Yahoo
25-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Mass starvation stalks Gaza as deaths from hunger rise
Mass starvation stalks Gaza as deaths from hunger rise After four months of a near-total Israeli siege, Gaza's few remaining hospitals now have wards for the growing number of malnourished children whose tiny bodies are just the width of their bones. Doctors are famished to the point that they have dizzy spells as they make their rounds, medics say, and the journalists documenting their caseloads are often too weak to even walk to the clinics. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. For months, aid agencies had warned of the coming crisis, as Israel halted the flow of aid to the Gaza Strip before attempting to replace U.N. relief efforts with distribution points inside military zones. It was a move Israeli officials said was aimed at pressuring Hamas, whose fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and continue to hold about 50 hostages who were abducted that day, about 20 of whom are still believed to be alive. But testimonies from doctors, relief workers and Gazans this week make it clear that a worst-case scenario is finally unfolding: Nearly 1 in 3 people are going multiple days without eating, according to the United Nations, and hospitals are reporting rising deaths from malnutrition and starvation. In a video filmed Tuesday inside Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, families fretted over babies with distended bellies and tiny fists that they clenched as they cried. In one of the newly established malnutrition rooms, the mothers and children were so quiet that the loudest sound came from a pair of fans that beat weakly in the cloying heat. The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that 10 people had died of starvation in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total number of those killed by hunger to 111 since the start of the war. Among them was 6-week-old Yousef al-Safadi, so small in photographs from the silver table of the hospital morgue that the white sleepsuit peeled back to show how his jutting ribs dwarfed his slight body. The International Rescue Committee, a global relief and development organization, said Wednesday that its teams had reported an increase in the number of children being rushed to hospitals because of malnutrition in recent days. 'Their small bodies are shutting down. They can't breathe; their immune systems are collapsing,' said Scott Lea, the organization's acting country director for the Palestinian territories. Tess Ingram, a spokeswoman for the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, said rising rates of child malnutrition were preventable, but that the health care system needed to treat it was 'running on fumes or hit by strikes.' 'These numbers are rising fast because children are being denied enough food, water and health care. It's as simple as that,' she said. Throughout the war, which has killed more than 59,000 people in Gaza, according to the local health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, Israel has imposed severe restrictions on the amount of food and other aid entering the enclave. At times, it allowed more trucks to enter, including during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year. But on March 2, Israel reimposed its blockade, lifting it only partially in May after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 'pictures of mass starvation' could cost his country the support of the United States and other allies. In a briefing with reporters on Wednesday, an Israeli military official said there was a 'lack of food security inside Gaza,' but blamed a failure to distribute aid on the U.N. 'There is no limit. The crossings are open - just bring the trucks and take the aid,' he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, in line with the rules of the briefing. 'We're seeing the pictures also, and I want to tell you that we are taking it very seriously,' he said. 'We are analyzing the number of calories per capita inside Gaza.' The U.N. says Israeli authorities are the 'sole decision-makers' on who, and how much, aid enters Gaza, as well as the type of supplies that are allowed in. 'Once inside Gaza, movement requires navigating an obstacle course of coordination with Israeli forces, through active hostilities, traveling on damaged roads, and often being forced to wait at holding points or pass through areas controlled by criminal gangs,' U.N. relief chief Tom Fletcher told the U.N. Security Council in New York last week. When vehicles do make it through, he said, starving people often try to grab flour from the backs of the trucks. Gaza's ability to make its own food has been almost entirely destroyed as Israeli military operations have wiped out farmlands and factories. As the summer heat bears down, hungry and thirsty civilians have run out of reserves to fall back on. Palestinians in the enclave are reliant instead on humanitarian aid that most people under Israel's new system cannot easily access. According to local health authorities, more than 1,000 people have been shot dead as they raced through territory controlled by the Israeli military toward distribution points run by U.S. security contractors, where supplies are first-come, first-served. When victims of Israeli strikes, shelling or gunfire reach the hospitals, photographs show, their bodies are often visibly emaciated. In Gaza City's Sabra district, Ayat al-Soradi, 25, said she was so malnourished during her pregnancy this year that she gave birth to her twins, Ahmed and Mazen, two months early. They each weighed about two pounds, and for almost a month, she had watched over them in their incubators as the nurses fed them with powdered milk. But even the hospital staff were running out of food. The flour, milk, eggs and meat that were available during an earlier ceasefire had disappeared from the market. A bag of flour and lentils could fetch almost $200. In WhatsApp groups, Palestinian families bartered for baby formula like the one doctors recommended for Ahmed and Mazen. The family could barely afford it once the twins were discharged. Ahmed died 13 days later. 'He was 2 months old,' Soradi said. And feeding Mazen alone was still a struggle. His baby formula was almost prohibitively expensive, when the family could find it at all, Soradi said. She mixed it with rice water to make it last longer, but the child barely grew. Ten days ago, he was readmitted to the hospital at a weight of 6.6 pounds as he ran a fever and struggled to breathe. Relief workers say parents throughout Gaza regularly forgo meals, and sometimes days' worth of food, to feed their children. When there is still nothing in the cupboards, they find a way to explain why no one eats. In Deir al-Balah, Taghred Jumaa, a 55-year-old women's rights activist who described herself as relatively better off than most Palestinians in Gaza because she still had a salary, said that rationing the family's food meant her hair was falling out. Parts of her body felt numb, she said. In the northern district of Sheikh Radwan, relatives of 2-month-old Sham Emkat said Wednesday that she had been pronounced dead at 11:30 p.m. the night before in al-Rantisi Hospital. They were still waiting for her death certificate, said Ekram Emkat, the child's aunt. 'I'm sorry, Sham's mother is in a very bad condition,' she said, adding that the girl weighed less than four pounds when she died. Sham was so small that the family could count her bones. In an open letter published Wednesday, 115 organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, Mercy Corps and Save the Children, said Israel's blockade and ongoing military operations were pushing Gaza's more than 2 million people, including relief workers, toward starvation. Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said that colleagues had begun receiving 'SOS messages from staff who are hungry themselves, who are exhausted themselves.' In conversations with Washington Post reporters this week, doctors, health officials and aid workers have all apologized for their lack of focus, citing hunger. Many were surviving on lentil soup only, said Ahmed al-Faraa, director of the Nasser Hospital's pediatrics wing. During an interview Wednesday, Eyad Amawi, director of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, apologized and said he needed to pause because of a headache and dizziness. His family of six had obtained two kilograms (about 4.4 pounds) of flour the day before, he said, which he estimated would last a day and a half. 'The main problem is that you are all of the time busy, thinking about where and how we can obtain any amount of food,' he said. Amawi said he had lost 15 pounds since the war began; others have lost more. Doctors and nurses were struggling to work long shifts on empty stomachs. Some 'have not been able to stand,' he said. In a statement this week, a group of journalists from the Agence France-Presse news agency warned that the Israeli blockade and subsequent hunger crisis had made conditions for their Palestinian colleagues in Gaza 'untenable.' The AFP's principal photographer, identified as Bashar, had posted to his Facebook page, saying that he no longer had the strength to work. Other colleagues were starting to say the same. 'Over the last few days, we have learned from their brief messages that their lives are hanging by a thread and that the courage they have shown for months to bring news to the world will not be enough to pull them through,' the statement read. 'Since AFP was founded in August 1944, some of our journalists were killed in conflict, others were wounded or made prisoner, but there is no record of us ever having had to watch our colleagues starving to death.' - - - Loveluck reported from London, Mahfouz and Shamalakh from Cairo, Berger from Jaffa, Israel, and Cheeseman from Beirut. Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report. Related Content Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors? Hulk Hogan was a well-known Trump supporter. Their ties go back 40 years. Mendelson reaches deal with Commanders on RFK site amid growing pressure
Yahoo
24-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How the rise of dupes and store brands could change the way you shop
Adrianna Rinaldi has enough high-quality leggings to last a week of remote work in New York without having to do laundry - and it didn't cost her a small fortune. Instead of continuing to spend up to $118 for one pair from Lululemon, she now buys a version that is a third of the price. CRZ Yoga has built a cult following for its near-perfect dupe - short for duplicate - of Lululemon leggings. 'The quality is just the same,' said Rinaldi, 34. 'There's more acceptance around not going for the brand name.' Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. From copycat brands to store-label groceries, budget alternatives to everyday essentials and indulgences are having a moment. Rather than the cheap knockoffs of old, they often come close to their brand equivalent in quality. More Americans are prioritizing price and value in lieu of national brand loyalty, according to spending data and company earnings calls - while influencers are also embracing the change. 'The dupe feels like you've cheated or one-upped the system … especially in a time of economic uncertainty,' said Lauren Beitelspacher, a professor of marketing at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Brands and retailers are hustling to meet the moment as persistently high grocery prices, increasing personal debt levels and tariff uncertainty weigh heavily on consumers, creating a sense of urgency to save. Albertsons CEO Susan Morris told investors last week in its first quarter earnings call that the grocery retailer is 'leaning heavily into own brands,' looking to meet customer demand for more options at lower prices. This expansion could also be a 'great solution for our customer' when tariffs push up grocery prices, she said. Even mid- to high-income consumers are changing how they spend, despite 'still doing pretty well' on paper, said Chedly Louis, a retail analyst and vice president at Moody's. They are trading down to retailers such as Walmart, Dollar General and Dollar Tree, which historically serve low- to mid-income consumers. And the increasing popularity of store brands signals 'higher caution from the consumer,' she said. The same is true in some discretionary categories, where there are more options for quality products at attainable prices. 'People may not feel so beholden to a single brand - rather it's more about an overall aesthetic or niche that they want to express,' Jenna Drenten, a marketing professor specializing in digital consumer culture at Loyola University Chicago, wrote in an email. 'For every single one of the brand name 'must-haves', there are suggestions for the cheaper (but still good) version to buy instead.' - - - The private-label boom The trend is most evident in the grocery aisles, said Sally Lyons Wyatt, of the market research firm Circana. Large supermarket chains, big-box stores and value retailers have been leaning into private labels, which have higher margins than name brands, for decades. But they doubled down in 2022 as prices surged, noted Lyon Wyatt, the company's senior adviser on global packaged goods and the food service industry. By 2024, sales on private-label food and nonfood grocery products hit an all-time high of $270.6 billion, a 4 percent increase over 2023, according to a report from Circana and the Private Label Manufacturers Association. That is about a fifth of total sales last year. National brands climbed 1 percent. 'The investments have certainly been worth it for grocers,' said Neil Saunders, a managing director at retail analytics firm GlobalData. 'They'll probably push on it even harder.' Canned food company Del Monte, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month, and General Mills, the maker of Cheerios and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, have pointed to private labels as being increasingly tough competition. In a 2024 Ipsos poll, a third of respondents said most or all of their groceries within the previous week were store brands, while only 24 percent said the same of national brands. (Forty-one percent responded that the share was half and half.) These products often look strikingly similar to their national-brand equivalent, Beitelspacher said, 'to signal to the customer that they're the same quality.' Customers are also more clued in, with a better understanding that store brand products are sometimes manufactured in the same facility as the national brand, according to Saunders. Stephanie Olson, 31, said it wasn't until she lost her job during the coronavirus pandemic that she started planning her grocery lists around sales and coupons. Olson said she shops at Kroger in part because she lives in its hometown of Cincinnati, and because the store brands often have the best discounts and coupons, making the price gap against national brands even wider. 'They definitely make it enticing to buy their brand,' said Olson, who works in talent acquisition. In the past few years, retailers not only announced new private-label lines, but also improved branding, quality and selection, Saunders said. Target invested in its organic line Good and Gather and its indulgent offerings from Favorite Day. Albertsons' line of sweets - Overjoyed - is reminiscent of Target's, using brightly colored packaging and whimsical font. Meanwhile, Walmart has seen success with Bettergoods, which features organic and 'healthier' products that have been a draw for higher-income customers. Amazon turned to the other end of the spectrum, announcing Amazon Saver, a no-frills line of grocery staples. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Then there are the wholesale chains, most notably Costco and its Kirkland Signature brand, which have long dominated in the space, Lyons Wyatt said. The brand, which includes apparel, alcohol and groceries, accounted for 23 percent of Costco's revenue last year, generating $56 billion, according to the PLMA report. Those sales alone exceed those of Best Buy, Coca-Cola and Dollar General. Newer competitors are the Germany-based value retailers Aldi and Lidl, which have been rapidly expanding in the U.S. Aldi opened 120 new U.S. stores last year and its U.S. sales grew 14 percent over 2023, reaching $54 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. One quarter of U.S. households now shop at Aldi, Dave Rinaldo, then the president of Aldi USA, said at a PLMA conference. Jack Salzman, 29, doesn't mind walking a bit farther outside his neighborhood in Chicago to go to Aldi because his money 'goes a lot further,' the freelance TV and film production assistant said. 'I can spend under $100 and have enough stuff for a full week, and then some, at Aldi.' Plus, he often can't taste the difference between the store brand versus the national brand. Sydney Patterson, 30, feels similarly about over-the-counter medication. Growing up, she was used to seeing Tylenol, Advil and Aleve in her medicine cabinet. Now she thinks twice before reaching for those familiar brands, looking instead to the 'Target version that's $5 cheaper,' the fundraising consultant in Dallas said. - - - Discretionary dupes While it's true that aspirational brands still hold weight in the fashion and beauty space, consumers are more open minded about trying cheaper alternatives, said Drenten, of Loyola University Chicago. Influencers were the catalyst, she added, because by speaking openly and enthusiastically about a dupe, it gives permission to followers to do the same - and even brag about it. Brands like Quince, E.L.F. Beauty, Few Moda and Dossier have built their customer base by explicitly duping expensive, popular products. Dossier, which went viral on TikTok for its 'impression perfumes' of designer brands, recently opened its first store in New York City. Instead of spending $335 on Maison Francis Kurkdjian's Baccarat Rouge 540, Dossier has its own version called Amber Saffron for $49. Sales of fragrance dupe brands surged 103 percent in mid-June compared to the same period last year, according to NielsenIQ. Cosmetic dupe sales increased almost 10 percent and facial skin dupe brands were up about 27 percent. Consumers are also allocating more of their spending to cheaper goods over expensive ones, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracked sales from June 2024 to June 2025. In apparel, the share of the cheapest goods increased about 9 percent, while the share of most expensive goods decreased by 5.7 percent. Quince, which sells apparel, accessories, suitcases, homeware and kitchenware, is more reminiscent of a private label model, in which its products are made and sold by the factories making them. While its website doesn't advertise the brand it's copying, Quince has made the comparison in marketing texts: 'Our answer to the $5K Bottega bag is here,' one text read. 'Same luxe craftsmanship. Same premium handwoven Italian leather.' Quince's version costs $130. Few Moda, a membership-model fashion website, asserts that its products are 'made by the same manufacturers as the leading brands you know and love, at cost' and that it bypasses 'the middlemen and the markups.' Most items on the website note which pricey brand's manufacturer it shares, such as that of Staud, Theory and Ted Baker. Then there is Amazon, where many fashion and accessory sellers dupe trends - as CRZ Yoga does. Rinaldi, who works in ad tech in New York, said she and her friends are often sharing and showing off their finds. 'I just complimented my friend's outfit and … 50 percent of what she was wearing was from Amazon,' she said. 'Now, it's socially acceptable.' Related Content 'Buckingham Nicks,' the missing link of the Fleetwood Mac saga, is back Family adopts a shelter dog — then learns he's the father of their late dog Can the Fed stay independent? Trump-era adviser may put it to the test.
