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The horrifying side to the 'mail-order bride' industry — some men aren't exactly looking for love.

These marriages aren't always a bad thing, but when they are, they really are.

Oksana thought she'd met a kind man when Carl came to see her in the Ukraine.

But by her third month with him in America on a fiancee visa, Oksana Makarova was starting to suspect she'd made a big mistake. He'd begun tracking her ovulation during those first months she'd moved to be with him. He was hell-bent on impregnating her as soon as possible. He dyed her toddler son's blond hair black without her consent. He wouldn't give her a key to the house, reminding her when she asked for one that she had no one to visit and no reason to leave the house.

"Oksana, I thought you'd be obedient. This is the impression you gave me in Ukraine."

Image via iStock.

That's the line he would break out whenever he needed to put her back into her place. And as you can guess, he soon turned violent. Luckily, Oksana's story (told originally and in its entirety in Marie Claire) ended fairly well. She and her children safely moved out on their own, citizenships attained, and with primary custody given to Oksana. But it's not always the case for women who suffer the worst outcomes as "mail-order brides," as they're commonly (if somewhat insultingly) referred to.

The international marriage industry may inadvertently produce circumstances that can position a person as an ideal victim.

As mentioned in the first installment in this look at the international marriage industry, there are some very legitimate, understandable, and downright sweet love stories that can emerge from the practice. But what happens when a disturbed kind of man, put off by what he perceives as independent or hard-to-get women in America, turns to services where he thinks he can procure and isolate a "subservient" woman to yield to his more harmful tendencies?

Before heading to mixers where men assemble with the bride-finding company, hopeful women spend time beautifying. GIF from "Love Translated."

First, let's consider the motivations involved in how men and women meet in these kinds of matchmaking services. In some cases, the women, like Ekaterina from the first installment, can be already in a good place in life and generally happy; they're just seeking love, travel, and adventure. But sometimes, like in Oksana Makarova's case, there are women drawn to the matchmaking services because of a desperate need to provide for themselves and their children or to escape a dire situation in their home country.

That's the first indicator that major power imbalances between the two people are afoot.

That uneven distribution of power comes into focus again when the men and women meet at mixers planned by the matchmaking agencies. The agency Oksana used had the women line up to be evaluated and maybe chosen for an interview by a man.

The courtship, if it proceeds, may continue for awhile with the "bride" communicating long distance from her home country, or she and her suitor may apply for a fiancee visa so that she can go to America. Often, once she is in America, she is quite dependent on a guy she may not know very well and who may very well have been spurred to seek her out in the first place because of misogynistic tendencies.

This is the second obvious marker of that aforementioned power imbalance. There are language barriers, deportation worries, and financial concerns that all serve to place an international bride-to-be in a pretty precarious position.

Furthermore, in a place far away from home, if she's been successfully isolated by her new fiance or husband, it's very difficult for her family and friends abroad to verify her well-being or to report her missing in a worst-case scenario.

These situations have all the precursors to produce the perfect victims for the kind of person who looks to victimize — and like all of us, it's really just a roll of the dice if you will find yourself matched and then entangled with such a person.

There is the story of Gary Swierski, a California man who repeatedly reeled in foreign women through pen pal services and dated immigrants already living in America, serially and savagely abusing one after the other. He was finally turned in by his daughter, whom he'd forced to help dispose of the body of his second wife, Reina Swierski, after he killed her. It caused investigators to reopen the case of a former girlfriend of his who suspiciously drowned during a night out with him more than a decade earlier.

L: Gary Swierski. R: Reina Swierski, Gary's second wife and murder victim. Image from Sunnyvale Police Department/public domain.

After a string of disturbingly similar murder cases involving marriages started through international marriage brokers, the United States passed the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) in 2005. It stipulates that background checks must be run on U.S. citizens before they communicate through the services to potential women. But the law is easy to circumvent — all the company has to do is base itself outside the United States to not have to comply.

The gray area between international marriages and human trafficking gets murky sometimes.

National Organization for Women's Sonia Ossorio told Bloomberg in 2011, "The mail-order bride industry is a softer version of human trafficking."

"You take a beautiful woman from the Czech Republic and you bring her into your home, she does all your cooking and cleaning and ironing. At the end of the day, the [wife's] service is free."

And national experts agreed. In 2004, before Congress passed IMBRA, John R. Miller (then-director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons) clearly connected the dots between human trafficking and international marriage practices:

"I want to focus, if I can, on the worldwide perspective here. When you look at the slavery issue, we now have reason to believe that 80 percent of the millions that are in slavery, internal or external traffic victims, 80 percent are women and 50 percent are children. The two biggest categories are sex slavery and probably domestic servitude. I think these are two of the categories of slavery that you frequently have... What do we know about trafficked victims in general? Well, there are two or three characteristics. There is the vulnerability of the victims. ... There is the deception, the key tool of the traffickers, and often there is government complicity and corruption. Well, if you look at marriage brokering, you have these features, particularly the first two features, the vulnerability of the women and the deception involved. These are features that we have to deal with."

Pair that testimony with this excerpt and quote from an international marriage agency founder featured in Bloomberg, and the connection really begins to emerge:

"For some companies, such submissiveness is a selling point. Hand-In-Hand's website trumpets the fact that its females are 'unspoiled by feminism.' Company founder Weiner argues this form of chauvinism — like the mail-order bride business itself — is economically motivated. 'You take a beautiful woman from the Czech Republic and you bring her into your home, she does all your cooking and cleaning and ironing,' he says. 'At the end of the day, the service is free.' Hand-In-Hand estimates the potential savings of a homemaking wife at $150 per week."

And then there are the times would-be brides (and potentially their children) are duped into sex slavery. John R. Miller told of one such case in his 2004 deposition to Congress regarding IMBRA.

"Pou was 17 when a man came to her village and arranged through her sister to marry her. Shortly after the marriage, the man took Pou to a fishing village and sold her to a brothel. After years of abuse and torment, Pou was released by the brothel. Today her body is ravaged by disease, and this woman in her 20s looks decades older than her real age. Yet she wants her story told."

Clearly, there is a very real concern about the welfare of women who participate in international marriage arrangements.

And to be fair, there are also cases reported of the seemingly perfect, caring woman bilking lonely bachelors out of significant money and property and then disappearing. But since that's money, and not physical safety, again the risk-to-reward ratios are highly skewed between them.

Even in the less egregious, non-abusive situations, there is a lot to explore in the dynamics of modern society that cause some men to look to a more transactional, surefire method of selecting a life partner. Some bride-seekers are decent guys with extenuating circumstances that necessitate going outside of traditional dating. But...

Some men really just don't like how feminism is changing their world and all it entails for them.

As noted previously, some men are seriously averse to feminism and the shifting paradigm (or at least the effort to shift paradigms) to more equitable relationships.

To men who may struggle with that shift, the cultural dissonance manifests itself in various ways. There are countless OKCupid and Tinder horror stories from women who "swiped right" on a guy's profile only to have him go from seemingly nice to combative and bitter in minutes, all because she didn't display the desired level of enthusiasm at his advances.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images.

There are also "pickup artist" (PUA) forums, where men who don't hold with that "feminism crap" convene and share tips for getting women to respond to them.


The prevailing attitude in such virtual meeting places is that women are all similar enough, and universal reactions can be provoked from them if only you employ the right tactics, as if you're entering code into a computer. They even organize in-person events, where they hire marketers to recruit young women to attend, often under the guise that it's a free networking event. All the while, it's really a training ground for men who've paid good money to try out their newly acquired "skills" in manipulating women, with an experienced "guru" to encourage them in the wings. You just have to learn the right combination of psychological buttons to push on a woman to get them to comply with your wishes! It's a sadly reductionist coping outlet for the subsection of men who seem to struggle with one concept: Women are human beings who are complex and don't come with a guarantee — they're not vending machines and love isn't transactional.

None of this even touches yet on the way that toxic and twisted misconception of masculinity manifests when the Elliot Rodgers of the world shoot innocent people because girls reject them, and jilted high schoolers stab girls for saying no to being their prom date.

It's easy to see how a man who hasn't been taught that interacting with women is like interacting with any other human could progress through the various stages of frustration at his ever-calcifying ineptitude. And he might be attracted to a transactional kind of arrangement with a woman he perceives as powerless — his path of least resistance.

A few thousand dollars is easier to pull together than untangling decades of one's societal misogynistic programming, after all.

There's no easy answer to whether the international marriage industry is a net positive or a net negative.


In the end, an online tool or agency of any kind is only as good as the people using it and the safeguards it implements to protect regular users from the worst. In a world where hatred toward women isn't always actively discouraged, and companies don't always play by the rules, it can be a high-risk gamble to look for a love connection across the world in a place where one has no support system.

For some, like Ekaterina and Josh, it pays off and produces a beautiful new life together. But when enough people get unlucky matches with the worst outcomes, we have to evaluate where things went so devastatingly wrong and how it can be changed for the better.


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Gen Z is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents but Denmark has a solution

"Since the late 1800s, every generation has outperformed their parents."

Gen Z; Millennials; technology; cell phones; social media; teens and technology; teens social media
Photo credit: Canva

Gen Z is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents. Denmark has the solution.

Nearly every parent hopes their child will be better off than they are: smarter, more secure, and more well-adjusted. Many parents see this as a stamp of successful parenting, but something has changed for children growing up today. While younger generations are known for their empathy, their cognitive capabilities seem to be lagging behind those of previous generations for the first time in history.

Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, a teacher turned cognitive neuroscientist who focuses on human learning, appeared before Congress to discuss concerns about cognitive development in children. In his address to the members of Congress, he says, "A sad fact that our generation has to face is this: our kids are less cognitively capable than we were at their age. Since we've been standardizing and measuring cognitive development since the late 1800s, every generation has outperformed their parents, and that's exactly what we want. We want sharper kids."

kids, intelligence, sharp kids, generations, education, cognitive abilities Student smiling in a classroom, working on a laptop.Photo credit: Canva

Horvath explains that the reason this happens is that each generation has gone to school longer than the previous generation. Gen Z is no exception to the longer duration of time spent in school, but they're the first ones who aren't meeting this normal increase in cognitive development. According to the cognitive neuroscientist, the decline is due to the introduction of screens in the classroom, which started around 2010.

"Across 80 countries, as Jean was just saying, if you look at the data, once countries adopt digital technology widely in schools, performance goes down significantly. To the point where kids who use computers about five hours per day in school for learning purposes will score over two-thirds of a standard deviation less than kids who rarely or never touch tech at school," Horvath reveals.

In most cases, the decline in performance doesn't result in better strategies. The neuroscientist shares that the standardized testing has been adjusted to accommodate lower expectations and shorter attention spans. This is an approach that educators, scientists, and researchers went to Capitol Hill to express wasn't working. But not every country is taking the approach of lowering standards to meet lowered cognitive ability. Denmark went in the opposite direction when it realized their students were slipping behind.

France24 recently interviewed educators in Denmark following their seemingly novel approach to students struggling with cognitive development. Since the beginning of the 2025/2026 school year, Denmark has not only been having students turn in their cellphones, but they've also taken tablets, laptops, and computers out of the classroom. No more digital learning for the majority of the school day. Danes went old school by bringing back physical textbooks, workbooks, and writing assignments. The results have been undeniable. Even the students can't seem to deny the success of the countrywide shift in educational approach.

"I think the biggest issue has been that, because we kind of got rid of the books and started using screens instead, that we've noticed that a lot of the kids have trouble concentrating, so it's pretty easy to swipe with three fingers over to a different screen and have a video game going, for example, in class," Copenhagen English teacher, Islam Dijab tells France24.

Now, instead of computers being part of every lesson, Denmark uses computers very sparingly and with strict supervision. One student says that it has been nice not having screen time at school because she loves to read and write. But it wasn't just the lack of attention span children were developing, they were also developing low self-esteem and poor mental health due to the amount of time spent on devices.

kids, intelligence, sharp kids, generations, education, cognitive abilities Students focused and ready to learn in the classroom.Photo credit: Canva

The data showing the negative impact of screens on teens' brains has prompted a nationwide change in Denmark that extends outside of the classroom. Afterschool activities are eliminating or extremely limiting electronic use. There is also a national No Phone Day that encourages everyone to put away their devices for the day, and Imran Rashid, a physician and digital health expert, is petitioning parliament to ban social media use for children under the age of 15. The no phone movement in Denmark is a nationwide effort that hopes to right the ship before another generation feels the effects.

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Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman shares a simple, science-backed technique to stop hiccups

It's quick and it works.

hiccups, health, hiccup remedy, stopping hiccups, holding your breath
Photo credit: Canva

A simple method of stopping the hiccups takes less than 20 seconds.

Most of us get the hiccups on occasion, and some people have waged battles with persistent bouts of them. While harmless, hiccups are annoying, especially when it feels like they're never going to stop. There are all kinds of tips people have for getting rid of them, from drinking a glass of water upside down (which has never made sense) to holding your breath (which sometimes works) to having someone startle you (it's hard to be startled when you know it's coming).

Stanford University neuroscientist Andrew Huberman explains a science-supported technique to "reliably" stop hiccups in their tracks. It's a variation on holding your breath, with a couple of simple but important tweaks. Watch:

- YouTube www.youtube.com

"It's a technique that takes advantage of hypercontracting the phrenic nerve over a short period of time," he explains, "so that it then subsequently relaxes or alleviates the spasming of the phrenic nerve. And that simple method is to inhale three times in a row."

On the first inhale, you breathe in deeply through your nose. Then, without exhaling any air, you inhale again through the nose (however brief). Then you inhale a third time, which might be just a micro- or millisecond of breath, and hold your breath for about 15 to 20 seconds before exhaling slowly.

People in the comments said they tried it and shared their experiences:

"Amazing how fast this worked. 10/10!"

"It really stopped, I had them for 10 minutes and it worked, thank you!"

"Just finished first chemo treatment. Hiccups have been terrible. This helped me so much. Thank you!"

"This man is saving lives. I had hiccups for hours tried this and it worked right away."

"It worked!!! I have been hiccuping for the past 30 mins and it's started to get frustrating for me, then I came across this short and now I'm fine. Thank you."

What exactly are hiccups?

The Cleveland Clinic explains:

"Hiccups are repeated spasms of your diaphragm paired with a 'hic' sound from your vocal cords closing. Your diaphragm is a thin, dome-shaped muscle that separates your chest from your belly. It moves downward when you breathe in and upward when you breathe out.

Two things happen when you hiccup:

  • Your diaphragm pulls down suddenly between breaths, making you quickly suck in air.
  • The glottis (space between your vocal cords) suddenly closes to stop more air from coming in.

These actions make the 'hic' sound of a hiccup."

Hiccups usually go away on their own, but some people experience episodes that last much longer than expected. If they persist for more than two days, it's time to see a doctor.

hiccups, health, hiccup remedy, stopping hiccups, holding your breath Three inhales is all it takes.Photo credit: Canva

What causes hiccups?

As for the physiological cause, something irritates the phrenic nerve or vagus nerve, causing your diaphragm to contract and spasm. A number of factors can cause the irritation that leads to hiccups, and the Cleveland Clinic categorizes them as transient (temporary), persistent, and intractable.

Transient hiccups

According to the Cleveland Clinic, there's "often no clear cause for a random hiccup or two. But certain triggers might play a role, like:

  • Eating too much or too fast.
  • Eating spicy foods or foods that are very hot or cold.
  • Drinking carbonated beverages.
  • Swallowing excessive air (aerophagia).
  • Smoking tobacco or cannabis.
  • Drinking beverages containing alcohol."

chili pepper, spicy food, hiccups, hiccup triggers, what causes hiccups Spicy foods can trigger hiccups.Photo credit: Canva

Persistent and intractable hiccups

The Cleveland Clinic says "various medical conditions can cause persistent hiccups, including:

  • Gastrointestinal diseases, like GERD or gastritis.
  • Conditions affecting your central nervous system, like stroke, Parkinson's disease or multiple sclerosis.
  • Lung conditions, like pneumonia, pulmonary embolism or pleurisy.
  • Tumors or lesions, like mediastinal tumors, esophageal cancer, or pancreatic cancer.
  • Conditions that disrupt your metabolism and related nerve signaling, like uremia or hypocalcemia.
  • Certain infections, like flu, shingles, and herpes simplex.

Some medications can also cause persistent hiccups. Examples include:

  • Dopamine agonists.
  • Benzodiazepines (at low doses).
  • Some chemotherapy drugs.
  • Dexamethasone.
  • Azithromycin.

Persistent hiccups may also happen after certain surgeries or procedures, including those that require general anesthesia."

Whatever is causing your hiccups, getting them to stop is surely the primary concern. Try Huberman's three-inhale trick and see if it works as reliably as he suggests.

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Want your home to be 'the house' for your teens? Mom shares her 4 tips to make it happen.

Don't mistake being "the house" with being the "cool house."

parenting, teens, raising teens, teen hangout, high school, game night for teens, activities for teens, parenthood
hi.im.amywhite/Instagram

Amy White explains how her house became "the house" for her teens.

I grew up in "the house." In high school, my home was the designated place where my friends gathered, sometimes in big groups, sometimes just my small core squad. My three best friends spent the night there almost every Friday and/or Saturday night for four years straight. We devoured Totino's frozen pizzas by the dozen, inhaled soda, and laid waste to any snacks or leftovers that were brave enough to survive in the kitchen. Not only that, but my house was pretty small — four teenage boys took up a lot of space in the living room (the whole thing) and made a lot of noise playing video games deep into the night. It must have driven my parents and older brothers crazy. It's a wonder anyone put up with it.

Or so I thought when I was younger. When I became a parent myself, I started to understand a little more why my mom and dad were so willing to host and feed all my friends and me every single weekend. Why the outrageous grocery bill and constant chaos in the house were probably a small price to pay.

Mom explains how to make your house 'the house' where teenagers hang

One mom has perfectly encapsulated the value of turning your home into "the house" for your kids and their friends, and exactly how she did it for her family.

teens, teen house, teens hanging out, teens having fun, teenagers Teens hanging out in a living room.via Canva/Photos

Amy White shared a reel on Instagram showing her college-aged son hanging in her dining room with a group of friends playing cards. The text overlay reads "What makes your kids' high school friends want to come over, play cards & spend the night on their College Christmas Break." I think most parents can agree that we want our kids to keep coming home as long as possible! So how exactly did White pull this off?

Her explanation in the caption was spot-on.

First, White says that you have to start early. Become "the hang out house" in high school or even earlier. Then you have a better chance of holding onto the mantle into your kid's college years.


Next, be ready to stock the house with snacks and drinks, and don't make a fuss when your kid's friends have at it. "The kids knew we had food," she writes, "BUT they also knew I didn't care what they had. They knew they could eat anything in my pantry and fridge."

Third, and this is a big one, don't mistake being the "cool house" for being "the house." Some parents choose to allow their underage kids and friends to drink alcohol under their supervision, but you don't have to bend your morals and the law to lure the squad over to your place. Pizza and Coke is plenty to keep most teens happy. "We were not the house that served alcohol or even allowed the kids to bring alcohol to our house. And Guess What?? The kids still came and wanted to hang at our house!"

teens, teen house, teens hanging out, teens having fun, teenagers Teenagers eating pizza.via Canva/Photos

Fourth, always say Yes (as often as possible, anyway) when your kids want to have friends over. "They know my answer is 99% of the time YES," White writes. "You have to have your kids take the leadership of offering your home and if your home was 'open' to their friends in high school, they know it will be 'open' to their friends in college."

As a bonus tip, White pleas with parents not to worry about the mess having friends over makes. "I love a clean house and organization, BUT I would much rather have a crazy messy house for the kids where memories are made than a quiet house with nothing going on just to keep my house 'clean.'"

Should parents allow teens to drink at home?

There's an age-old debate over whether parents should allow teens to drink at home because it's better than if they do is unsupervised or keep their home dry as a bone. A recent study out of the University of Buffalo found that kids who grew up drinking at home had a greater chance of having addiction problems when they got older. "A robust relationship was found between parental permission to use alcohol during adolescence and increased alcohol use frequency and quantity, alcohol use disorder symptoms, and alcohol-related harms in young adulthood," the study says.

White writes, "It's worth being 'the house', so let go of control & get to know your kids friends." Commenters agreed.

White's video went viral to the tune of 8.5 million views and hundreds of comments. Parents shared their own experiences of what it's like being the default hang out house.

"Our house was the high school hangout for my son and friends... every weekend... I loved it!! Miss it now that they are all college graduates and have moved away. I love seeing them when they do come home for the holidays"

"A wise man once said don't be the house with the alcohol. Be the house with the food."

"Amy 1000% agree!!! My house is full of teenagers on the weekends and I love every bit of it. Even though I wake up to a kitchen that looked much different from when I left it"


teens, teen house, teens hanging out, teens having fun, teenagers Teenagers eating pizza.via Canva/Photos

"We never allowed alcohol, drugs, bad language, always respectful, and guess what, our house was always the house where the kids hung out. First my daughter, then my son. Through grade school, high school, then when my kids went out of state for college their college friends would come spend a couple weeks during the summer. I always thought of it this way, I loved knowing my kids friends and, who knows, maybe some of those kids, especially during the younger years, just maybe those kids just needed an adult to care. Anyway, it was always fun to have them here!"

"It used to crack me up when my daughter would bring over a bunch of her friends (girls and boys) in high school and instead of hanging out in the family room they all wanted to crowd into either the kitchen with me or our tiny office and happily share all the gossip with me."

Experts say that knowing your kids' friends, and their parents, can have huge benefits. Not only will it bring you the peace of mind of knowing where your kid is and who they're with when they get to those crucial high school years, it has been shown to tangibly improve kids ability to create positive relationships and problem-solve collaboratively. Plus, it can actually be really fun! Kids and teens are the funniest, silliest, most interesting people on the planet. Having a house full of them is messy and loud, but it's always a good time.

One caveat: "don’t feel bad if your house isn’t the chosen house," one commenter reminds us. "Just be happy your kid has a good group of friends and be thankful they have somewhere safe to hang out."

This article originally appeared last year.

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Americans share 11 funny times Europeans couldn’t comprehend the size of the United States

Wake up in LA and have lunch in San Francisco?

map, san francisco, tourist, california tourist, map of us, european tourist
via Jo Guldi/Flickr and Canva/Photos

Tourists looking at a map in San Francisco.

A few years ago, there was an online trend in which Americans posted things the “European mind can’t comprehend,” a series of memes featuring photos of vast spaces, incredibly huge restaurant portions, and Costco shopping sprees, to name a few. It was basically a joke about American grandiosity, which contrasts with more modest European sensibilities.

A significant difference between the European Union and the United States is size. Europe comprises 47 countries spread across 3,837,083 square miles, and the United States is one country covering 3,796,742 square miles. Therefore, in the U.S., the distance between major cities, especially in the west, is hundreds, if not thousands, of miles. Europeans may casually think that the U.S. is the size of a single country, such as Germany, when in reality, each state is the size of a European country.


The difference in distance and size leads to some rather funny moments in which Europeans assume they can travel from one coast to another in the same day. Or, at least, to different destinations in the same state in an hour or two. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

A Reddit user on the Casual Conversations subforum shared a funny story about a friend from the UK who thought they could wake up in Los Angeles, drive to the Grand Canyon for a quick hike, and then have dinner back in West Hollywood. In reality, even on a weekend, this round trip would take about 17 hours in the best-case scenario. That's without factoring in time to hike the canyon. The story inspired other Americans to share funny stories about friends in Europe who seriously underestimated the size of the U.S.

road trip, touring american, maps, mountains, snow, car A tourist takes out their map.via Canva/Photos

Here are 11 funny stories about Europeans who misjudged the size of the U.S.

1. Detroit for the afternoon?

"Not me, but my grandparents. They'd emigrated from Germany to the US in the late 1920's while in their 20s. Lived in the NY metro area. Somewhere in the 1960 or 70s or so, they had friends or relatives (I don't remember which) visiting from the old country who asked if they could perhaps drive to visit other friends of theirs, maybe for afternoon coffee one day... in Detroit. They politely explained that wouldnt work and how far it was.... but chuckled about it for decades after the visit."

"Detroit for coffee?! That is a 600-mile latte run."

2. Stop by Seattle?

"Distant relative from Austria was visiting his friend in Connecticut. Asked if he could stop by and see me on his week-long trip. I live in Seattle."

3. Stop by Dallas for dinner?

"My mom speaks Italian and on her way home one year, her plane was about to land in Chicago when she heard the two Italian men behind her excitedly talking about their plans. One said to the other, 'Okay. We'll pick up the rental car and then we'll drive to Dallas for dinner.' My mom eventually got them to realize that they'd be spending two full days in the car just getting to Dallas if all they did was drive. She suggested they find some food in Chicago instead."

dallas, texas, dallas freeway, sallas skyline, dallas sunset, The freeway leading into Dallas.via Canva/Photos

4. Shopping in San Francisco?

"My uncle is from Hawaii. He thought we could drive from LA to San Francisco to shop that morning and then maybe hit Venice Beach before dinner."

5. San Francisco for dinner?

"Fellow Angeleno here. When I was still in my last retail job, we got a lot of overseas tourists, and it wasn’t unusual for them to not realize how BIG the USA is. One customer asked me 'We’re thinking about going to San Francisco for dinner. What time should we leave?' He was so shocked when I explained that San Francisco was about an 8-hour drive with afternoon traffic."

It is about 380 miles to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

6. LA, DC, Miami in a single day?

"I had a group of EU friends who wanted to visit the US for a week. By the time I got out of that 5hr group call, they cancelled the whole trip. They wanted to land in Seattle, spend about 3 hours with me giving them a tour of the city, get a rental car, and explore LA, DC, and Miami all in a single day. The next day, hit up Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and mt rainer. The day after, hit up a Buckees for breakfast in Texas, eat lunch in NYC, and have dinner at my place in Seattle with my family, then go to Las Vegas after dinner to go party... Oh, and they only had $500 each (2k total), with plans to individually pay their own way, no travel insurance, and no temporary "travel" phone plans (meaning no phone service OR insured hospital visits if something went wrong). First thing i did when i got added to the call was pull up a pic of the US overlayed on top of Europe, and pointed out where seattle was, and all the other places they wanted to go, in comparison to Europe. Instantly deflated in excitement, then i went into cost of living for each state they wanted to visit."


7. 9/11 worries

"A Scottish family we knew lived in the States during 9/11. They got several concerned calls from friends and family wanting to make sure if they were okay and asking if they could see the Towers. They were in Michigan."

8. Why American's 'don't travel'

"I think this misunderstanding is at the root of a lot of how Europeans can judge Americans for “not traveling.” If it takes someone two hours to get to a different country and it takes me more than two hours to drive across Massachusetts, then the cost and time burdens aren’t equivalent."

9. How close is Florida to California?

"I was in Belfast earlier this year. The woman at the hotel front desk asked how the 'long drive' from Dublin was. As Americans, we were like, Oh, it wasn’t bad at all. Everything is a long drive in America. And she said, 'Yeah, it’s probably like twelve hours from Florida to Cali.'"

In reality, it would take about 45 hours to drive from San Francisco to Miami.

10. Walk from Syracuse to NYC?

"Years ago, a friend in the former Czechia was thinking of going to art school in NY. They were excited that they would be able to study, and have fun in the NYC clubs at night. The school was in Syracuse. It broke both his heart and brain when I told him it would be a 4.5-hour drive to NYC. He was under the impression he could 'just walk there.'"

11. Disney to Disney in 6 hours?

"Had a friend who wanted to rent a car and drive from Disneyland to Disney World. When they told me I immediately started laughing.They had no idea of how big the USA is and thought it might be a 6-hour drive tops."

In reality, it would take around 40 hours to drive from Disneyland in Anaheim, California, to Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

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A random woman wrote this Dr Pepper jingle just for fun. It's so good that now it's a real commercial.

"I love when amazing things happen to people who dare and have good intentions."

piano, keyboards, music, jingles, Dr. Pepper, commercial advertisement
Photo Credit: Canva, www.flickr.com

A TikToker writes a Dr Pepper jingle.

When a young person with the TikTok handle @Romeosshow belted out a few bars of a made-up Dr Pepper commercial last December, they probably didn't envision that it would become a full-fledged advertisement. Or that its virality could be life-changing.

Such was the case for Romeo. The song itself is quite simple. The lyrics are: "Dr Pepper, baby. It's good and nice. Doo Doo Doo." That's it. In the chyron overlaying the close-up shot of their face while singing, they wrote, "Had to act on this before someone got sent this in a dream and steal it from me so I impulsively posted this."

@romeosshow

@Dr Pepper please get back to me with a proposition we can make thousands together. #drpepper #soda #beverage

With more than 5.5 million likes, the clip has received nearly 53,000 comments and counting. Many checked in to say they loved their voice and overall vibe. Some even offered advice if they wanted to expand on the jingle. "Second verse 'Dr. Pepper baaaabaaaay," one person wrote. "It's great with ice. Do D do.'" Another got straight to the business end of things: "I am waiting for Dr. Pepper to offer a massive contract."

Over on Instagram, @Bantrbusiness (among many other accounts) posted the same video, noting, "Yes, she got paid." The comments are equally supportive. "I love when amazing things happen to people who dare and have good intentions," one person wrote. Another shared, "This is the wholesomeness I needed today."

What amazing things were they referring to? Just nine days after Romeo's initial post, Dr Pepper's official TikTok account entered the chat. "CHECK YOUR DMS DOODOOODOO," the company exclaimed. Sure enough, they turned the tune into a banger and aired it in a commercial on January 19 during the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.

Dr Pepper commercial written by @Romeosshow www.youtube.com, Dr Pepper

From there, an avalanche of other corporations began rolling into the comment section. And while the jingle itself is ultra-catchy, it's also an excellent way for brands to score some pretty good coverage.

Popeyes, for example, wrote, "GET HER ON THE PHONE NOW." Wingstop, Tic Tac, Mentos, Hyundai, and even Denny's (among countless others) followed, each hoping to get in on the viral game.

An Instagrammer pointed out, "Jingles work. It's been decades and anyone can recognize a Mentos tune, lol."

According to an article by Ad Skate:

"The first commercial radio jingle aired on Christmas Eve, 1926, for Wheaties cereal. A barbershop quartet sang 'Have You Tried Wheaties?', repeating the brand name in a way listeners couldn't forget. The result? Sales soared, proving music could sell as well as entertain.

By the 1930s, jingles had become a staple of radio ads, giving brands a personality and making them stick in consumers' minds."

First ever jingle from Wheaties cereal. www.youtube.com, Francisco Paez

Ad Skate notes that as jingles rose in popularity, they eventually fell out of favor: "In 1998, about 12% of TV ads used original jingles; by 2011, it was just 2.6%. Even jingle powerhouses like Oscar Mayer dropped them altogether in favor of other approaches."

But they're making a comeback. According to Insider Radio:

"Jingles — those snappy, melodic hooks that stick in your brain and resurface when you least expect them — are making a comeback. A friend hums 'Ba da ba ba ba' and you instantly respond with 'I'm lovin' it,' maybe even craving a Big Mac. These catchy tunes have long been a key weapon in the advertising arsenal, embedding brands into our memories with just a few unforgettable notes."

Insider Radio adds that there's a pretty simple science to it:

"Music activates multiple areas of the brain, making it easier to recall. That's why you can still hum jingles from your childhood, even if you haven't heard them in years. This effortless recall is invaluable for brands. A well-crafted jingle doesn't just promote a product; it creates an emotional connection. When paired with nostalgia, jingles can evoke warmth and familiarity, reminding consumers of simpler times. It's a shortcut to creating brand loyalty without overloading audiences with information."

(In an article I wrote for Upworthy about earworms, I cite ways to get a song unstuck from your head if it becomes too embedded.)

As for Romeo, they're continuing to enjoy their newfound fame online. They made a follow-up video styled as a mock awards show, in which they genuinely thank Dr Pepper and all of their TikTok supporters: "THANK YOU GUYYYSSS THAT WAS AWESOME I LOVE YOU #drpepper #commercial #nationalchampionship."

@romeosshow

THANKYOU GUYYYSSS THAT WAS AWESOME I LOVE YOU #drpepper #commercial #nationalchampionship

The moment has been inspiring to jingle writers, to say the least. And just try to get this song out of your head after listening. As one commenter put it, "Well it did what it was supposed to do. It's gonna be stuck in my head all day."

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