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      The Internet Is Obsessed With ‘Madame Web.’ The Box Office? Well …

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      The new addition to the Spider-Man franchise has been panned by critics and mocked on social media. But if all press is good press, why are its ticket sales so dismal?Ricky Valero walked into a mostly empty showing of “Madame Web” with a bucket of popcorn and an open mind.He had some idea of what he was getting into. The movie, which stars Dakota Johnson as a clairvoyant character from the Spider-Man comics, has been gleefully panned in the week since its release.The reviews were lousy, with critics calling the movie “a genuine Chernobyl-level disaster” that is “full of bad dialogue delivered badly.” The box office numbers were somehow worse, landing “Madame Web” among the lowest ticket sales ever for a superhero movie.The movie has been jeered on social media, where Mr. Valero, 37, had been seeing negative posts about it for weeks. But when he attended a showing on Thursday at a theater in Nashville, he was pleasantly surprised.“There’s a level of terrible that can be enjoyable,” he said, adding that he would rate the movie three out of five stars despite some cheesy dialogue. When he voiced mild appreciation for the movie on X, the responses were so vicious that he ended up muting them.“You feel like you’re standing alone on an island,” he said.Sony’s latest addition to the Spider-Man franchise has been inspiring memes for months. But after a dismal first week in theaters, it has come to occupy an odd perch in popular culture: It’s dominating online conversation, but not drawing all that many viewers to theaters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Reports of Cabaret’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

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      The art form has faced challenges as nightlife norms shift — and as its audience ages — but it has also evolved. Five figures from the New York scene discuss.Cabaret has been integral to New York nightlife for more than a century, but every so often, reports of its death — however exaggerated — cause a stir. The singer and educator Natalie Douglas, who arrived from Los Angeles in 1988 and has performed steadily at the storied jazz club Birdland and other venues, figures the premature mourning started “at least 70 years ago — as soon as people moved from the cities to the suburbs and had room to entertain at home.”Douglas (age: “Not as young as I look”) is noted for her tributes to Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and the great Stevies of pop (Wonder and Nicks). Recently on a brisk afternoon, she arrived at a loft in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, for a confab with four other veterans of the cabaret scene. Tammy Lang, 57 — who has earned a devoted following through her titular comedic persona as Tammy Faye Starlite, an evangelical country crooner, and through her homages to Marianne Faithfull and Nico — perched beside her on a sofa.Jennifer Ashley Tepper, 37, the creative and programming director of 54 Below — a Midtown hot spot known for showcasing Broadway stars, cult heroes and aspirants — joined, along with Lance Horne, 46, an Emmy-winning composer, arranger, singer and music director whose collaborators include Liza Minnelli and Kylie Minogue. Horne holds court Mondays at the East Village’s Club Cumming, playing piano for singalongs that stretch into the wee hours. Such late revelry is less common than it used to be, pointed out Sidney Myer, 73, who, as longtime booking manager of Don’t Tell Mama near Times Square, has nurtured careers for decades and is a performer himself.“I don’t appear onstage with all-white bands anymore because I can’t be the only Black person onstage, especially since my shows are so political,” Douglas said.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesMyer mused that when he got his start in cabaret, some 50 years ago, “the whole culture was different” in a few key ways. “People didn’t have a thousand channels at home; they didn’t have the world in their hands in the form of a phone.” And, he added, “They weren’t as health-conscious; there was smoking in all the rooms, and people weren’t watching their alcohol intake as much, or thinking about getting up to jog.”Since originating in Europe, cabaret has accommodated both traditional and experimental artists; here it has encompassed comedy, drag and burlesque alongside curated American songbook compilations and more contemporary and quirkier musical fare. In New York, venues range from the tony Café Carlyle to downtown “alt-cabaret” spots such as Joe’s Pub and Pangea. At 54 Below, where Tepper programs some 700 shows a year, guests can catch rising composers and performers or the cast of a musical on its night off; Myer noted that award-winning stars were born at Don’t Tell Mama — “even a Pulitzer Prize winner.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      After UMG Pulls Its Music, TikTok Users Encounter Silence

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      Content creators say they are considering the merits of Instagram and YouTube after a licensing battle led TikTok to pull songs by artists with Universal Music Group.When TikTok users open the app these days, they encounter a platform stripped of music by many of their favorite artists. Dancers bob and sway without a beat drop. People lip-sync to silence.Because of a licensing rift between the platform and Universal Music Group, which releases music by Playboi Carti, Taylor Swift, Drake, Ariana Grande and others, TikTok confirmed on Thursday that it had deleted music by Universal artists from its library and muted previously published videos that used those songs.Music from artists affiliated with Sony and Warner remains available on TikTok. But that did not stop some users from declaring they were departing to a rival platform, Instagram Reels, while others have made fun of Universal’s absence by dancing to songs in the public domain. The dominant feeling is frustration: What was the point of TikTok without one’s favorite melodies?“A lot of trends that have gone viral are of people who have millions of views on a single video because of an audio,” said Myah Elliott, 22, who pointed out that the TikTok logo looks like a musical note. “It’s going to be muted. That’s a scary thought.”For more than two years, 21-year-old Evan Cronin posted videos on the first of each month that show him going through a morning routine, garnering millions of views. Around midnight on Thursday, he published the latest in the series to the beat of Playboi Carti’s “Sky.”This time, there were barely any interactions from viewers.“It was essentially a dead post,” Cronin said.After TikTok removed Universal’s music, those who use the app to listen to their favorite songs or discover new artists expressed disappointment. Others publicly shared concern about the detrimental effect on emerging Universal artists who rely on TikTok for publicity.Shawn Desman, a Canadian artist, explained to his followers why his videos had been muted and bemoaned that he no longer had the ability to share his music through TikTok.“It is such an important tool for us to promote ourselves, our music, our creations,” Desman said in the video. “It’s just really crazy to me that now we’re not going to be able to use our music.”The sudden silencing of Universal’s music catalog also left TikTok’s content creators worried and exasperated. John Casterline, who has 3.5 million TikTok followers, said that at least 10 percent of his videos had been muted, resulting in a steep drop-off in views. He has contemplated pivoting to YouTube.“The minute TikTok mutes a video, they’re obviously not going to push it out to the ‘For You’ page,” said Casterline, 20, referencing the app’s algorithm-based recommendation feed. “Everything completely halts. So it’s definitely made my account take a massive hit.” More

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      in Music

      Cody Fry, Noah Kahan and Other Musicians Grapple With Universal’s TikTok Fight

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      Cody Fry and Noah Kahan are among the artists who are wondering how the battle between Universal Music Group and the social media platform might affect them.Things were going well for Cody Fry, a singer-songwriter and producer known for his lush pop songs. He was looking forward to a pair of concerts with Ben Rector and the Colorado Symphony at the Boettcher Concert Hall in Denver. And on Monday his management team called him with exciting news: One of his songs, “Things You Said,” a romantic duet with Abby Cates, was gaining TikTok traction in China.More than 750,000 videos were created with that song in a single day, Mr. Fry said in a TikTok video. It was the kind of organic viral moment that artists and marketers dream of, the kind that can’t be forced.But by Thursday, many of the fan-made videos featuring “Things You Said” went mute. The sudden TikTok silence came about after Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, pulled its catalog from TikTok after its contract with the platform expired.In addition to Mr. Fry, who is signed to Decca Records, one of the company’s many labels, Universal artists whose videos went silent include SZA, Taylor Swift and Ice Spice.Picture a TikTok video of somebody dancing to a snippet of Ms. Swift’s “Bejeweled.” Now picture that person dancing in complete silence.“Help, this is so awkward with no music,” a comment read on a recent TikTok posted by Ice Spice, a rapper whose music regularly sparks a big reaction on the platform.

      @codyfrymusic Am i muted yet? #music #musicindustry #universalmusic #umg #thingsyousaid #tiktokmusic #greenscreen ♬ original sound – Cody Fry We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Is TikTok Over?

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      The app once offered seemingly endless chances to be charmed by music, dances, personalities and products. But in only a few short years, its promise of kismet is evaporating.How much time do I spend on TikTok? I can tell you which chiropractor is demonstrating their technique without even seeing their face. I know which fashion content creator is partial to Rei Kawakubo, and who has a preposterous Carol Christian Poell collection. I know which New York City microinfluencers go on vacation together, and which creators are building a modest following joking about the music of a small scene of rappers who make Playboi Carti sound like Kendrick Lamar.Through endless hours of scrolling — an hour a day, at least, for several years now — I’ve been accumulating hyperniche expertise predicated on my interests, conscious and subconscious. The result has been a gathering of online characters that, at this point, shape my cultural consumption far more than any celebrity or news source.This is what TikTok intends to do, tapping into pure id, drilling down on what you know and what you might want to know in hopes that you never leave the app’s forever scroll. Of all the social media platforms, it holds the greatest promise of kismet. It’s the one that has seemed most in tune with individual taste and most capable of shaping emerging monoculture.But increasingly in recent months, scrolling the feed has come to resemble fumbling in the junk drawer: navigating a collection of abandoned desires, who-put-that-here fluff and things that take up awkward space in a way that blocks access to what you’re actually looking for.This has happened before, of course — the moment when Twitter turned from good-faith salon to sinister outrage derby, or when Instagram, and its army of influencers, learned to homogenize joy and beauty. (Some apps, like the TikTok precursor Vine, were shuttered before ever becoming truly tiresome.) Similarly, the malaise that has begun to suffuse TikTok feels systemic, market-driven and also potentially existential, suggesting the end of a flourishing era and the precipice of a wasteland period.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Universal Music Group Threatens to Remove Music From TikTok

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      The company has been renegotiating the contract that licenses its vast catalog of songs to the social media platform. The agreement expires on Wednesday.Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, said it would revoke the licenses for its vast catalog of songs from TikTok after its current contract expires on Wednesday if the two companies could not reach a new deal addressing Universal’s concerns over artist compensation, artificial intelligence and other issues.In an open letter posted late Tuesday, Universal accused TikTok of responding to its requests with “indifference, and then with intimidation,” creating a public squabble in the remaining hours of the two companies’ existing contract. If the talks fail, TikTok users would be unable to use music by Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, U2, Bad Bunny and thousands of other artists in their videos.TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, is one of the world’s most popular and fastest-growing social media platforms, with more than a billion users, and its influence on youth culture around the world is unmatched. The company says it is used by more than 150 million Americans. For a majority of TikTok users, music is an integral part of the experience, with songs — often comically sped up — playing over the short clips that fill users’ feeds.In its public letter, Universal said that during negotiations it asked TikTok to address its concerns over three issues: compensation for artists and songwriters, online safety for TikTok’s users and “protecting human artists from the harmful effects of A.I.” Universal accused TikTok of allowing the platform to be “flooded” with songs created by artificial intelligence, which Universal said dilutes royalties for real, human artists and amounts to “sponsoring artist replacement by A.I.”In response, TikTok accused Universal of putting “their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.”“Despite Universal’s false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent,” TikTok said in a statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      in Movies

      Minute-Long Soap Operas Are Here. Is America Ready?

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      Popularized in China during the pandemic, ReelShort and other apps are hoping to bring minute-by-minute melodramas to the United States.When Albee Zhang received an offer to produce cheesy short-form features made for phones last spring, she was skeptical, and so, she declined.But the offers kept coming. Finally, Ms. Zhang, who has been a producer for 12 years, realized it could be a profitable new way of storytelling and said yes.Since last summer, she has produced two short-form features and is working on four more for several apps that are creating cookie-cutter content aimed at women.Think: Lifetime movie cut up into TikTok videos. Think: soap opera, but for the short attention span of the internet age.The biggest player in this new genre is ReelShort, an app that offers melodramatic content in minute-long, vertically shot episodes and is hoping to bring a successful formula established abroad to the United States by hooking millions of people on its short-form content.“The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband” is one of the many short features you can watch on ReelShort, an app that offers short dramatic content meant to be watched on phones. ReelShort

      @reelshortapp On your 18th birthday, the Moon Goddess granted you a RED wolf. She said a new journey awaited you, but there were also evil forces after your power… Called weak your whole life, what POWER could you possibly have?! #fyp #reelshort #binge #bingeworthy #bingewatching #obsessed #obsession #mustwatch #witch #alpha #werewolf #moon #wolfpack #booktok #luna #drama #film #movie #tiktok #tv #tvseries #shortclips #tvclips #filmtok #movietok #dramatok #romance #love #marriage #relationship #couple #dramatiktok #filmtiktok #movietiktoks #saturday #saturdayvibes #saturdaymood #saturdaymotivation #saturdayfeels #saturdayfeeling #weekend #weekendvibes ♬ original sound – ReelShort APP We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Fake Explicit Taylor Swift Images Swamp Social Media

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      Fans of the star and lawmakers condemned the images, probably generated by artificial intelligence, after they were shared with millions of social media users.Fake, sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift likely generated by artificial intelligence spread rapidly across social media platforms this week, disturbing fans who saw them and reigniting calls from lawmakers to protect women and crack down on the platforms and technology that spread such images.One image shared by a user on X, formerly Twitter, was viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended on Thursday. X suspended several accounts that posted the faked images of Ms. Swift, but the images were shared on other social media platforms and continued to spread despite those companies’ efforts to remove them.While X said it was working to remove the images, fans of the pop superstar flooded the platform in protest. They posted related keywords, along with the sentence “Protect Taylor Swift,” in an effort to drown out the explicit images and make them more difficult to find.Reality Defender, a cybersecurity company focused on detecting A.I., determined with 90 percent confidence that the images were created using a diffusion model, an A.I.-driven technology accessible through more than 100,000 apps and publicly available models, said Ben Colman, the company’s co-founder and chief executive.As the A.I. industry has boomed, companies have raced to release tools that enable users to create images, videos, text and audio recordings with simple prompts. The A.I. tools are wildly popular but have made it easier and cheaper than ever to create so-called deepfakes, which portray people doing or saying things they have never done.Researchers now fear that deepfakes are becoming a powerful disinformation force, enabling everyday internet users to create nonconsensual nude images or embarrassing portrayals of political candidates. Artificial intelligence was used to create fake robocalls of President Biden during the New Hampshire primary, and Ms. Swift was featured this month in deepfake ads hawking cookware.“It’s always been a dark undercurrent of the internet, nonconsensual pornography of various sorts,” said Oren Etzioni, a computer science professor at the University of Washington who works on deepfake detection. “Now it’s a new strain of it that’s particularly noxious.”“We are going to see a tsunami of these A.I.-generated explicit images. The people who generated this see this as a success,” Mr. Etzioni said.X said it had a zero-tolerance policy toward the content. “Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them,” a representative said in a statement. “We’re closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are immediately addressed, and the content is removed.”X has seen an increase in problematic content including harassment, disinformation and hate speech since Elon Musk bought the service in 2022. He has loosened the website’s content rules and fired, laid off or accepted the resignations of staff members who worked to remove such content. The platform also reinstated accounts that had been previously banned for violating rules.Although many of the companies that produce generative A.I. tools ban their users from creating explicit imagery, people find ways to break the rules. “It’s an arms race, and it seems that whenever somebody comes up with a guardrail, someone else figures out how to jailbreak,” Mr. Etzioni said.The images originated in a channel on the messaging app Telegram that is dedicated to producing such images, according to 404 Media, a technology news site. But the deepfakes garnered broad attention after being posted on X and other social media services, where they spread rapidly.Some states have restricted pornographic and political deepfakes. But the restrictions have not had a strong impact, and there are no federal regulations of such deepfakes, Mr. Colman said. Platforms have tried to address deepfakes by asking users to report them, but that method has not worked, he added. By the time they are flagged, millions of users have already seen them.“The toothpaste is already out of the tube,” he said.Ms. Swift’s publicist, Tree Paine, did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Thursday.The deepfakes of Ms. Swift prompted renewed calls for action from lawmakers. Representative Joe Morelle, a Democrat from New York who introduced a bill last year that would make sharing such images a federal crime, said on X that the spread of the images was “appalling,” adding: “It’s happening to women everywhere, every day.”“I’ve repeatedly warned that AI could be used to generate non-consensual intimate imagery,” Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said of the images on X. “This is a deplorable situation.”Representative Yvette D. Clarke, a Democrat from New York, said that advancements in artificial intelligence had made creating deepfakes easier and cheaper.“What’s happened to Taylor Swift is nothing new,” she said. More