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Warning: our democracy won’t survive the death of reading. Read on if you still can | John Harris

While fascists protest in UK ports and purvey nonsense and poison online, ever fewer people have the perspective or analytical tools to challenge them Imagine this. Quite by chance, your TikTok feed presents you with footage of the fascists who recently took part in highly organised shows of strength in Dover and Portsmouth (and, on Wednesday, outside the London offices of the Daily Mail , demanding a new house for the mother of their leader, Daniel “Tommo” Thomas). For as long as the images hold your attention, you see and hear flashes of explanation, but then, as usual, you scroll away to someone leaping off a tall building, a fight on the London Underground, or a trick-performing dog. Hypothetically, TikTok users are able to skip through 260 videos in under 35 minutes . And it’s this distracted, quick-fire way that so many people receive information that may be responsible for a worrying statistic from YouGov last week . Its poll on the Dover and Portsmouth events showed that 53% of people aged 18-24 years old simply didn’t have a point of view on whether the masked demonstrations were “a legitimate way of protesting”. Further, 43% of those of all ages were either unaware of the story, or not following it at all. Continue reading...

The GuardianThe Guardian•John Harris13 Sept

Michael Barrymore becomes unlikely TikTok star with nearly 5m followers

Former primetime TV host films himself eating dog biscuits, doing ‘munchie runs’ and addressing pool death case Filming from the driver’s seat of his car, with his pet whippet, Lara, in the background, Michael Barrymore shows an array of dog treats he has collected to test to the camera. There’s a twist, though: it won’t be the dog doing the testing. In a series of quick edits, the fallen star of primetime 1990s television grimaces his way through cheese biscuits and pork sausages . The lamb spaghetti is particularly challenging, though he claims to quite like the chicken sausage slices. Continue reading...

The GuardianThe Guardian•Michael Savage Media editor12 Sept

Formula One 2026: Spanish Grand Prix qualifying at the Madring – live

F1 qualifying to begin at 3pm BST in Madrid (4pm local) Welcome to the Madring | And follow us over on TikTok Kimi Antonelli does not need luck. Last year his promotion to the second seat at Mercedes looked premature and he was exposed on occasion, but he thoroughly absorbed every lesson and is a deserved leader of the title race. But fortune has favoured him too, whether indirectly – such as the catalogue of agonies suffered by his teammate George Russell, who would otherwise be far closer in the standings than 66 points – or directly, as was the case with a red flag and a virtual safety car in last Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix, which enabled him to turn 19th place on the grid into a win. Antonelli does not hesitate to credit Toto Wolff and the rest of the Mercedes team, not just for producing the car. The biggest decision was promoting an 18-year-old into the seat for last season, but even in smaller ones they have been vindicated, such as choosing Monza, with its openings for overtaking, as the venue for Antonelli to take the penalties for utilising new power unit components. Russell observed the Madring was set to be an even sterner test than Monaco. “I would put this as a circuit that has less margin, purely because of the speed,” he said. “In Monaco the walls are closer but because you’re going slower – if you make a mistake you’re not into the wall as quickly, and you can recover it sometimes. It’s more lock-up. Here, there’s less margin.” The issue, explained Russell, was that the fast corners were combined with the angles of the barriers on exit. “You see at this barrier, it’s kind of like coming back on to the track,” he said, indicating where the smoking wreckage of Inthraphuvasak’s car was sitting. “So if you are to go wide and hit the wall, you’re not hitting it at the same angle as the car is going. The car is going towards the wall but the wall is sort of coming in.” Lewis Hamilton crashed his Ferrari in final practice for the ⁠Spanish Grand Prix at Madrid’s new Formula One circuit on Saturday, bringing the ⁠session to a ⁠halt ​with just over half an hour remaining. The seven-times world champion locked up and went ⁠into the barriers at the final corner. He managed to reverse out and tried to get ⁠the damaged Ferrari back to the Madring pitlane, virtually ​a whole lap, while ‌ignoring team instructions ‌to stop. Continue reading...

The GuardianThe Guardian•Philip Cornwall12 Sept

Deepfakes are wrecking influencers’ credibility, one fake ad at a time

Influencers aren’t just battling competitors for brand deals. They’re now battling AI versions of themselves Earlier this year, Emily Schuman, the creator of the lifestyle blog Cupcakes and Cashmere, saw a photo of herself she didn’t recognize on Instagram. In a sponsored ad, Schuman, who has more than 500,000 Instagram followers, is holding up a vial of GLP-1 drugs, advertising the telehealth company Gala. There was just one problem: Schuman had never heard of Gala and had nothing to do with the ad. The ad was based on a digitally altered version of a selfie Schuman had taken in her car and posted on Instagram years earlier. Once her followers got wind, they flooded her inbox with questions about the sponsorship as it didn’t seem consistent with Schuman’s personal brand. Soon after, Schuman discovered this was just the beginning. There was also an Instagram post where an AI version of her with darker hair appears to apply foundation to promote a makeup brand called Meroda Cosmetics, and TikTok posts with generated images of her promoting the blood testing company Superpower. Continue reading...

The GuardianThe Guardian•Arielle Pardes12 Sept

Mossy catwalks, mycelial designs and Monty Don: the growth of gardener style

Aspirational clobber, hot horticulturists and a TikTok content rise suggest gardening has never been cooler You could argue that photosynthesis, soil bacteria, chlorophyll and germination, by their nature, never go out of style. But somehow, as the news broke this week that Monty Don would step down from Gardeners’ World after 23 years behind the shovel, gardening is having a moment in the sun. On Saturday, New Balance will launch a pair of trainers alongside the jewellery designer Bleue Wickham-Burnham in a campaign fronted by Don himself, photographed shrinking into a bush with a pair of the trainers around his neck. In high fashion of late, the gardener Charlie McCormick became the face of JW Anderson’s spring 2027 campaign, and Alfie Nickerson, who grows flowers biodynamically in Norfolk for his brand Burnt Fen Flowers, has recently been plucked by Jimmy Choo for its autumn campaign, Wild Rose. Catwalks have been mossy, designs have been mycelial. Continue reading...

The GuardianThe Guardian•Ellie Violet Bramley11 Sept

Indie Comic Creator Sells Out Thanks to Viral Visit from Reviewer Who Stopped When Others Didn’t

It’s so tempting to dismiss social media as all doom scrolling through AI-generated slop and political arguments, but it also just turbo boosted this young comic book author’s career. @slow_comics has accumulated 40K followers on his TikTok account through his own series of comics, and by his passion of visiting comic book conventions and stopping […]

Good News NetworkGood News Network•Andy Corbley10 Sept

‘People waited 24 hours for a potato!’: how viral queues help – and harm – restaurants

It has become common for people to wait in long lines for cafes, bakeries and ice-cream shops. But why? And what do the owners think? At 9.45am on a warm Saturday in September, a queue snakes down the pavement in Notting Hill, west London. Stretching for 20 yards past office blocks, estate agents and cafes, the line is waiting peacefully for an unusual morning snack: frozen yoghurt. The purveyor is the dessert shop Yo-Chi , which opened only a fortnight ago, one of the many hospitality businesses making queueing an increasingly common part of the British dining experience. “We wait in line for everything now,” says 23-year-old Hannan Mahamud as she stands midway down the queue with three friends. “I queued for an hour the other week for a cookie, although it wasn’t worth it. We heard about Yo-Chi through a creator on TikTok who works in an office building across the road and posts queue updates. We thought it might be a fun day out.” Continue reading...

The GuardianThe Guardian•Ammar Kalia10 Sept