Sarcastic Speakers May be More Creative

In a new study published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process, researchers from Harvard Business School attribute creativity to an advanced understanding of sarcasm. They found that after participating in a sarcastic conversation, both the quick-witted speaker and the listener performed better in creative tasks. According to the researchers, the increase in cognitive function is due to the critical thinking necessary to …

A Mexican Pueblo Becomes a Massive Mural

Germen Crew—a youth organization and street art group—has transformed a Mexican hillside into one of the world’s largest murals. The Mexican government commissioned the creation of the massive art work as a way to revitalize the small Sinoloa pueblo—which has been called “the drug capital of Mexico.” Germen Crew (similar to Haas&Hahn’s project in Brazil) spent five months painting the white-washed walls of over 200 …

Why Memes Use the Same Font

No matter how diverse their images or messages may be, internet memes are bound by one common thread: their font. That bold, white lettering is actually a typeface called Impact, and was released in 1965 by designer Geoff Lee. After becoming a “core font for the web” and securing a spot in Microsoft Paint, it reached international meme-dom when an explosive “I can haz cheezburger?” …