While Western reality TV is busy trying to find people a soulmate, Chinese reality TV is trying to get people a job.
One of the biggest genres in China right now is basically career survival shows.
Programs like 'Offer' throw fresh graduates into internships at some of the country's top firms and make the whole thing a competition.
And it’s not some staged office simulation either.
The contestants are doing real legal and finance work, reporting to actual bosses, and getting evaluated like normal employees.
Mess up, and you're out.
Make it to the end, and you could walk away with a full-time offer.
Honestly, it’s kind of hilarious that after a long day at work, people are going home and relaxing by watching other people get stressed at work.
🟩 Why haven’t we bounced from the bear?
Tune in tomorrow for an exciting ThoroughScan sesh, where our panel deep dives into “Web3's Biggest Bottleneck?”
Guest Speakers:
@RishAhuja@retrimentum@genekmkz@pukerrainbrow@pukecast@RugRadio
📅 2nd June
⏰ 2:00 PM UTC / 10:00 PM HKT
Set your reminders 👇
The AI black market is officially a thing… and it’s selling ChatGPT access for basically pocket change.
Over in China, there are "transfer stations" popping up on GitHub and Telegram offering ChatGPT API access at prices that seem way too good to be real.
We're talking about $1 for 100 million tokens.
So how are they doing it?
Some are reportedly using leaked API keys, some are outsourcing identity verification to get around KYC requirements, and others are pooling together thousands of subscriptions into giant shared gateways.
It’s honestly kind of impressive... and also incredibly sketchy.
Because the catch is that some of these services may be logging everything users type and reselling that data for AI training.
So sure, you might save a few bucks on AI access.
But your prompts could end up becoming the actual product.
Tis' the "to get high on Shroom" season in Yunnan is basically turning into a full-on tourist attraction.
Every year, people head into the forests with handwoven baskets and local guides to hunt for wild mushrooms growing in the mountains of Yunnan, China.
And this isn’t just some casual nature walk either.
Yunnan has over 800 types of edible fungi, and some of them sell for hundreds of dollars per kilo in places like Shanghai and Beijing.
These mushroom foraging tours are booming because everyone wants the “find your own luxury ingredient” experience.
The only problem?
This is also 'mushroom poisoning season.'
Every year, hundreds of people end up hospitalized after eating the 'wrong' shrooms, because some of these mushrooms look almost identical to the safe "approved" ones.
Still though… wandering through the mountains collecting expensive mushrooms sounds kind of amazing.
Just maybe let the tour guide do the tasting first, unless you want a lil' some some, heh.
🟩 AI has come far, but it still hits walls.
Tune in today for an exciting ThoroughScan sesh, where our panel deep dives into “AI’s Biggest Problem Nobody Talks About”
Guest Speakers:
@web3hayk@baton_xyz@aaf_sol@pukerrainbrow@pukecast@RugRadio
📅 26th May
⏰ 2:00 PM UTC / 10:00 PM HKT
Set your reminders 👇
How a $300 million deal became just $60 million after one simple data error.
During the last World Cup (2022), China accounted for nearly 50% of global digital viewing hours.
This led to FIFA commanding a $300 million for the 2026 China broadcast rights.
But there was one problem: Chinese platforms measure engagement very differently.
Short clips, reposts, and social shares were reportedly counted as full viewing hours, massively inflating the numbers.
China Media Group only budgeted around $60 million and had zero intention of paying FIFA’s absurd new price tag.
Now reports say FIFA backed down… settling for the original $60 million instead.
Do you think India will follow suit?
You've heard of the 17 CEOs Trump brought on his visit to China, but...
Have you heard anyone talk about the 17 CEOs Xi Jin Ping brought to represent China?
Talk about going band for band bros.
You can learn a lot about a country just by looking at who they bring to the table.
At the Beijing summit, Trump showed up with the titans of the Western world: Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Larry Fink and more.
Basically a giant flex of America’s dominance in ai, chips, software, platforms, and money.
Xi Jinping went a completely different direction.
His side brought CEOs of companies like Xiaomi, ByteDance, Lenovo, Hisense, Haier, Lens Technology… the people making the actual physical stuff the world uses every day.
Phone screens. TVs. Fridges. Car displays. Laptop parts. Factory supply chains.
The US delegation felt like:
“We control the systems.”
China’s delegation felt like:
“We build the things those systems run on.”
Lesson to learn here is, always be reminded that when global tensions rise, the people controlling the physical supply chain suddenly become very hard to ignore.
Who do you think is ahead in this global race to the top: China or USA?
Apple has never been interested in building the smartest AI.
Their plan was always to own the front door.
With iOS 27, Apple is adding a feature that lets you pick your AI model straight from settings, Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, whatever you want.
But here’s the catch:
If these companies want access to Apple’s 2 billion devices, they still have to go through Apple’s ecosystem and play by Apple’s rules.
Which is kind of the perfect Apple strategy honestly.
Let everyone else spend billions fighting the AI war while Apple collects the traffic and becomes the gatekeeper you can't refuse.
And meanwhile OpenAI went from being Apple’s golden child to reportedly poaching Apple engineers after struggling to keep up with bugs and performance issues.
What do you think of Apple's play?