Tipping culture in America is pretty straightforward. If you're eating at a sit-down restaurant, it's expected that you tip your waiter 20% of the cost of your meal in total. This system is in place because paying servers far less than the minimum wage is legal and common, with restaurant owners assuming most of their income will be supplied by tips. Tipped employees in some U.S. states can make as little as $2.13 per hour , which is why it's so important to tip them 20%. Many Europeans visitin…

Twitter is officially one year away from being a legal adult. I have been on the bird app (or, in the pre-iPhone days, the bird website ) for over half of its existence, so you'd think I would have a strong opinion about Twitter being around for 17 years. At this point, I'm just glad that Twitter is still managing to function. Elon Musk's purchase of the company appears to be the beginning of the end. The website is not getting any better, and Musk's plans to drive new users to the site seem to…

It's your chance Katniss and Gale shippers!

They can't keep getting away with this!

It's no secret that many people have grown weary of Airbnb. The fees, the growing lists of rules, and work-intensive clean-ups (while still paying a cleaning fee) make hotels look a lot more attractive than when the site first came on the scene. Hotels are often less expensive, to boot. Why should travelers have to do double or triple the work, and have a hard time getting help, when they could be waited on at a Marriott or even a Days Inn? As customers rethink their options, it appears that so…

A strange place

...ok?

Recently, a Twitter user ( @PhadkeTai) has sparked outrage and anger among pet owners and animal obsessives by suggesting that our beloved pets are incapable of loving their owners. The tweet, which quickly went viral - generated quite a heated debate and a lot of criticism from those of us who believe (or know!) that animals are indeed capable of love and emotional connection with their human companions. @PhadkeTai's remarks were perceived as insensitive and dismissive of the deep bonds that m…

Being an Airbnb hater is a big part of who I am and what I do. I distinctly recall being on a family vacation, waiting outside in freezing weather for over an hour for the owner of the apartment to give my family the key. The owner drove a moped and I could tell that he did not feel sorry, not one bit. The best Airbnb experience I had was at a place virtually identical to a hotel, and honestly, that doesn't even count. Despite my bitterness, Airbnb's used to be novel and fun as a concept for mo…

Be careful what you tweet!

Ever see a movie title and think, “Man, they could do better”? Yeah, me too. While Cocaine Bear may not fall into this category, there are plenty of titles

Delete, delete, delete

Yikes!

Pitting the East of the United States against the West is nothing new. We usually hear it in the context of which coast has the better rap, but as is the case with most rivalries, almost anything is fair game. East Coast pizza vs. West Coast pizza is a no-brainer (Sorry, CPK). Any Californian would say that their coast boasts the best tacos and burritos. But what if the two sides of this massive country had to fight each other in a war? This is the sort of hypothetical situation that always get…

Puriteens are at it again

ChatGPT has been popping up in almost every corner of the Internet - and even at the parties that my friends throw. ChatGPT (which stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI. The tool can be used to create AI art, to write papers, and even to create the hard-hitting content that Buzzfeed is known for. We're definitely not even scratching the somewhat scary possibilities of the service, but it seems like every week we learn of a new use. This week, G…