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Is the latest iPhone operating system aesthetically appealing? No. But is it useful? Also no. At least I have company among the disgruntled.
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA—Shedding light on the age-old mystery of how anyone could afford the gigantic structures, a study published Thursday in the Journal Of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology And Heritage Studies revealed that ancient Egyptians received significant help from their parents while building the pyramids. “Though historians initially theorized that the civilization constructed the towering tombs of pharaohs with their own money, we’ve confirmed that their wealthy fathers gave them down payments for the limestone and even chipped in for utilities,” said lead research archaeologist David Bell, adding that high interest rates and limited job opportunities made it difficult for ancient Egyptians to get into the pyramid market on their own. “We also found evidence that their uncle let them use his barge to transport the stones down the Nile for free. However, having family involved caused issues—their mother demanded she pick out the sarcophagus since she was paying for it. And, despite all the assistance, ancient Egyptians lied to their friends about financing the pyramids with money earned from their art projects.” The study also found that once the ancient Egyptians finished building the pyramids, their parents paid for them to go to grad school.
The post New Research Reveals Ancient Egyptians Received Significant Help From Parents While Building Pyramids appeared first on The Onion.
NAPERVILLE, IL—Scurrying into the alley as employees chased her with a broom, Aldi CEO Atty McGrath reportedly had to be shooed away Tuesday after she was seen rummaging through the dumpsters behind a local Whole Foods. “We keep finding her rooting around our bins looking for food items she can stock her shelves with,” said assistant manager Ed Ruiz, describing multiple occasions upon which team members had found the discount grocery chain’s top executive peeling the 365 labels off expired cans of beans or scraping mold off a carton of raspberries. “I personally don’t mind if our excess food can be used to feed hungry Aldi shoppers, but it becomes a safety issue when she starts approaching our customers and trying to sell them a bruised cantaloupe she scavenged for 39 cents a pound. Everyone can hear her banging around in the garbage and rattling on about sell-by dates being merely a suggestion. We’re going to have to start locking the bins at night to keep her out.” At press time, the CEOs of Dollar Tree and Dollar General had been spotted behind an Aldi dumpster in Cleveland wrestling over a package of broken clothes hangers.
The post Aldi CEO Chased Off From Whole Foods Dumpsters appeared first on The Onion.
Remember that scene in Jurassic Park where Dr. Ian Malcolm explained the basic premise of Chaos Theory, where tiny changes can build up and cause unpredictable events downstream? Here’s a quick refresher:
The Pokémon Trading Card Game has seen its various ups and downs over the last two-plus decades, but not until lately has the secondary market ever played a significant factor in its fate. Oh sure, there have been high valued cards, but these were always predictable, known, safe.
But recently a new card has come along to challenge this expected system of card value. It’s not because everyone started chasing some full art reverse holo Charizard, Pikachu or Mewtwo… but rather because of a collector named Kabuto King and his quest to collect the lowly little 1st Edition Fossil Kabuto card.
Wait, what? Who?? Well, lemme get through some of the details then I’ll talk shop.
Your Guide To The King Of Kabuto
The Rise of Kabuto King
From the current, post–Logan Paul Pokémon TCG landscape enters Kabuto King. He’s not some online store, high stakes investor, or celebrity. Instead he’s just a regular guy with a regular goal: to give a home to every 1st Edition Fossil Kabuto card he can get his hands on. Apparently he’s doing it for the love of the game, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
In fact, this reminds me a lot of that guy who is collecting VHS copies of James Cameron’s Titanic, or the other guy collecting Stone Rain cards from Magic the Gathering. Basically: they’re cheap, they’re abundant, and it’s fun… so why not?
Guy loves his Titanic VHS tapes!
Guy loves his Stone Rain cards!
Kabuto King had this goal for quite some time, slowly building up his collection… scouting eBay, TCGPlayer, etc. It wasn’t until August 2025 when he shared his collection and his goals on social media, but even then he continued to collect in relative anonymity.
And why wouldn’t he remain anonymous? Afterall, who wants Kabuto cards anyways? There’s a million of them… what is he gonna do with them? It’s all just a joke… right?
The Joke Becomes A Little Less Funny
Kabuto King’s purchase spree didn’t go completely unnoticed; after remaining at about $1.50 for years, it cracked $2 around July 2025, and was around $5.50 by October. But OK, no worries; old cards could be worth that much, pretty normal stuff.
On November 26th, 2025, Kabuto King would post his usual update: 24 new cards, bringing his total to 1718. But that would end up being the update that blows up, bringing his collection into the limelight:
New Kabutos: 24
— Kabuto King (@KabutoKing_) November 26, 2025
Total Kabuto Count: 1718
Not stopping until every Kabuto has a homepic.twitter.com/msN89FHeTD
The effects of this are almost immediate: 1st Edition Fossil Kabuto prices immediately jumped to above $10, and continued to rise. The spike wasn’t gradual either; it was fast and visibly tied to social attention. By the time TCGPlayer is talking about it in their weekly Pokémon TCG price spikes on Dec 2nd, it had reached over $40.
The issue with all this is, Kabuto is a bulk common. Tons of them were printed. They’re not worth anything to either players or non-Kabuto King collectors. So I get wanting to collect them as a joke, but everyone else treating it as a new potential investment is something else entirely.
Whether Kabuto King wanted it to happen or not, his actions had created a bubble. Now if this was any other time, the worst thing that might’ve happened was Kabuto King’s DMs would’ve blown up for a bit until everyone got their fill of the joke. But we live in modern times, and modern times have modern problems. Frankly, the situation has got really bad, far beyond just a standard joke.
FOMO and their Consequences
The immediate effect was seeing Kabuto card prices skyrocket: from $6 to $40 in just a week, and now it’s up to $80. This wasn’t from Kabuto King himself but everyone else buying up stock in the hopes they can sell it to Kabuto King for more than they paid for, or at least sell it to someone who then hopes to sell it to Kabuto King.
Unfortunately, this all taps into the idea that 1st Edition Fossil Kabuto cards are a finite resource. They aren’t. Estimates suggest that there may be anywhere 100,000 or more Kabuto cards out there. In fact, there are 3,288 PSA graded Kabuto cards alone.
Despite their relative abundance, there are tons of Reddit posts where users are being told to “sell now, or regret it later!” Afterall, the market is currently irrational yet to YOUR benefit, so if you wanna get that bag, sell your Kabuto cards NOW NOW NOW!
Whether or not Kabuto King finds the increased cost of cards an issue has yet to be seen; so far he has only expressed his continued interest in buying more Kabuto cards:
The thing is, we all know this won’t last forever. Kabuto King isn’t going to be buying Kabuto cards five or ten years from now, and the current prices depend on the assumption that Kabuto King will always be there to buy them in the end. However, this is also based on perceived scarcity, not actual scarcity. These assumptions create a feedback loop: rising prices convince sellers to list, listings reinforce the idea of demand, and the idea of demand justifies even higher prices. Once no one buys them at high prices, that bubble will pop.
Cryptobros and Copycat Chaos
Welcome To The Meme-achine
To be honest, the thing about the modern internet that I still haven’t internalized yet is how integrated every stupid idea is into some kind of immediate extraction engine. With the rise (and thankfully FALL) of NTFs, along with the rise (and still hasn’t fallen yet) of memecoins, both of which are backed by social media, it has created a class of cryptobros who have developed immediate monetization systems for it: the meme-stonk. Nothing ever exists for its own sake anymore, there is some kind of system that allows people to—for lack of a better term—squeeze as much financial and/or social utility out of it.
Cryptobro cringe
Cryptobro cringe
Cryptobro cringe
I’m not here to accuse KabutoKing of anything, but I will say that his project was born into a world that allows others to quickly milk it for their own benefit. Here’s just a few extracurricular activities that I found other people try to do to get their share of Kabuto King’s 15 minutes of fame.
$KABUTO Meme Coin
A memecoin, $KABUTO, was started on December 1st, ostensibly created by someone who wanted to help Kabuto King buy more cards. But OH NO, it was a clear pump-and-dump scheme.
Who could’ve seen this coming??
The Copycats
The FOMO manifested itself in different ways. Did you miss out on getting in the ground floor of buying a ton of Kabuto cards to resell to Kabuto King? Never fear, there are hundreds of OTHER common cards you can tap into, like Totodile and Omanyte!
totodile_king
omanyteoverlord
Price spikes for Fossil Horsea? Are you kidding me??!
This is all just what people have publicly shared. The real insidious thing is seeing everyone else slowly convincing themselves that if they’re gonna miss out on Kabuto, then they’ll definitely not miss out on the next big trend.
None of this required Kabuto King’s participation; it only required YOUR attention.
Charity Sale
Of course all that jazz is what other people are trying to do in order to get their slice of the pie. Kabuto King himself has stayed pretty tight-lipped about his motives outside of “I want all the 1st Edition Fossil Kabuto cards”. But for what purpose? Is he (un)wittingly trying to manipulate the market? Still just for the lulz?
Barely a week after going viral, as people continued to debate his goals, Kabuto King announced a special charity auction where he will sell a special autographed 1st Edition Fossil Kabuto card and donate the proceeds to St. Jude.
He must be busy… let’s do it anyway
— Kabuto King (@KabutoKing_) December 4, 2025
KABUTO FOR KIDS
The auction itself took place over the course of just three days, and managed to amass a total sale price of $51,100. He even got eBay to waive the fees, allowing it all to go to charity. Pretty sweet deal!
Congrats to the winner! @cards_dot_fun
— Kabuto King (@KabutoKing_) December 7, 2025
Enjoy this forever 1/1 grail
Now if I was in his shoes, I probably would’ve done the same. Mostly for the meme potential, like the 4chan “This post is art” screenshot that got sold on eBay. Am I being serious? Am I just screwing around? Who cares, it’s hilarious to me.
But I probably would’ve done the auction in order to gain control over my own story. One week or two is hardly enough time for any proper narrative to form, yet everyone’s need to be certain remains strong, even my own. Even if I was doing this pseudonymously, it’s hardly been enough time for anyone to be proven right about anything. With tons of rumors and hearsay, I may even begin to doubt myself!
So something like this might let me use my newfound attention for some bit of good. Afterall, I’m just a guy trying to build my collection. Of course this is my own projection, not evidence… but it helps explain why the move matters without explaining intent.
So what does this all mean?
UPDATE: KABUTO CARD CRASH
Of course just as I’m writing this article, a cursory glance at Kabuto prices show a massive bubble pop. Depending on when I saw the graph, it dropped from $80 down to $23 or even $7. Regardless of it’s current price, it’s definitely a popped bubble:
December 13 = $83.73
December 14 = $7.80
December 15 = $23.78
This is consistent with the dynamics described earlier. It was bad enough that a bulk common was at $40 for a week, but $80 was absolutely unsustainable. I mean, I’m no economist but I definitely know that “TO THE MOON” is friggin’ awful financial advice.
Which brings us back to the broader question…
Oh yeah, what does this all mean?
For Kabuto King, it looks like this is all just a bit of fun… ride the wave and enjoy it while you can. I don’t blame him for just trying to keep whatever attention he has at the moment solely on his goals… versus that attention warping him into little more than a cryptoshill.
Personally speaking tho, right now it doesn’t look like Kabuto King has any plans for this to be a pump-and-dump or some other kind of scam. If it was, time was ticking the moment he went viral, and you would’ve seen him dumping all of his cards en masse. Instead he took the time to set up his charity event but otherwise kept collecting new cards. In fact, he recently just reached 2000 cards in his collection.
Or maybe it’s all part of his secret plan…
On the other hand, time has a habit of making fools of us all. Reading up some of the other conversations about Kabuto King, it might not be so innocent afterall.
Dr. Omanyte from the PA! Discord brought up his concerns that focusing solely on 1st Edition Fossil Kabuto cards is unrealistic and especially rife for abuse… all the cryptobros and copycats focusing on a card that they otherwise wouldn’t have cared for before if it weren’t for the meme-stonks effect are definitely evidence of this. Besides, there are better Kabuto cards to collect that won’t affect the market so intensely.
Dr. Omanyte on Kabuto King
Dr. Omanyte on Kabuto King
Dr. Omanyte argues that a more healthy collection would be to focus on getting actual rare and unique cards because that won’t actually have negative downstream effects, and I kinda agree with it. I mean, the act alone is fun and pointless, and if this happened before 2020 no one would’ve cared. However it inadvertently encourages the cryptobros, copycats and meme-stonks to blow up the market, and we just saw that the price of 1st Edition Fossil Kabuto just collapsed under its own weight. You could argue that Kabuto King leaned into this instead of being a hapless fan swept up in the meme, and so you might also feel he’s just as culpable.
The Onion Kings
Now I’m not claiming Kabuto King will do anything like this, but if you want an idea of what a worst case scenario might look like, look no further than the Onion Futures Act of 1958. Long story short: back in the 1950s, traders Vincent Kosuga and Sam Siegel had bought up a ton of onions in the United States in order to control the supply and their value. The thing is, they’re onions: they’re plentiful, cheap, nothing special… sound familiar? But Kosuga and Siegel bought so many of them that they started being the sole inventory for onions, reaching the point where they basically blackmailed buyers to buy their stock lest they flood the market.
Well they decided to flood the market anyways, and that bankrupted a lot of farms; bags of onions went from $2.75 to $0.10. This forced the US Government to act, and now it’s illegal to buy and sell onions for the purposes of futures trading.
To be fair, Kabuto cards are not a necessity like onions are, and I don’t expect the US gov’t to step in to regulate Pokémon trading. But I am concerned about the cryptobros force-meme-stonking Kabuto King’s idea to their own benefit, causing other people to be rug pulled over and over again. Because when collectables stop being collected and instead become hoarded, their value gives way to speculation feedback loops.
i can be your angle or yuor devil
In the end, this isn’t really about Kabuto King at all. Whether his project remains a curiosity, fades quietly, or becomes an important community case study doesn’t change the larger point: the conditions that turned a bulk common into a speculative asset already existed. Whether intentional or not: all Kabuto King did was apply pressure.
The speed of the rise AND the speed of the correction showed how fragile value becomes when it’s driven by meme attention instead of use, rarity, or long-term interest. It didn’t take years for the feedback loop to wobble. It took just three weeks.
If there’s something unsettling here, it’s not that a Fossil Kabuto briefly became expensive. It’s how quickly a joke was absorbed, monetized, and replicated by people who had no interest in the card itself. When collecting gives way to hoarding, and then hoarding gives way to speculation, the object stops mattering… only the exit does.
Kabuto King didn’t invent this dynamic, and he won’t be the last person to reveal it. The question isn’t whether another Kabuto King will come along, it’s how much of the hobby will be reshaped before anyone admits the next time is no longer an accident.
The post Kabuto King: A Case Study in Meme Economics first appeared on Pokémon Aaah! The Website.
While some teams require fans to return game balls that enter the stands, the NFL says it has no such formal league-wide policy.
In 1985, a 29-year-old Tokyo woman named Mariko Aoki wrote to a Japanese magazine called Book Magazine with an embarrassing confession: for years, walking around bookstores had inevitably made her need to rush to the bathroom. The editors published her letter thinking it was amusing. — Read the rest
The post Why do bookstores make some people urgently need the bathroom? appeared first on Boing Boing.
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