Fewer and fewer Americans report sleeping well. Researchers from the journal Healthcare called sleep deprivation a problem back in 2019. The Sleep Science journal threw around serious words like epidemic that same year. In 2025, researchers from Proceedings B in London stated that our sleep duration and quality are actually better than ever, but our circadian rhythm is all jacked up, and that’s the real problem. For me, and maybe for you, some great something has to change. In an overabundant technological age of hacks, breakthroughs, devices, and specialists, where does one even begin?
The global sleep-aid industry—which includes smart mattresses, wearable trackers, CPAP machines, treatments, supplements, and the like—grossed nearly $100 billion in 2025, according to the market-intel firm Prescient & Strategic Intelligence. Perspective: Jeff Bezos owns a yacht that costs $500 million, which already seems like an unfathomable amount of money. Now imagine he bought 200 of those big boys. That’s how huge this sleep stuff is. And it’s predicted to grow to almost $150 billion by 2032. But it made me think: When a bodily function becomes a lucrative industry, do we have an actual problem, or has the market created one in hopes of making lots of money solving it?
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It is past 3:00 p.m. and Chris Hansen, the host of "To Catch a Predator," a recurring series on NBC's Dateline television news program, arrived here at 8:30 this morning, having gotten hardly any sleep the night before. He never gets much sleep on these shoots. Although aspects of his show are tightly choreographed, Hansen and the rest of his production team must always remain loose limbed, ready to adapt to changing circumstances and unpredictable hours. The show's protagonists, after all, are recruited on the fly, and everything depends on them. They drive the plot, and Hansen never knows exactly where that plot is going to take him. Before the unexpected series of events that began yesterday afternoon, for example, Hansen had no intention of ever being here, outside this house, waiting for a SWAT team on an overcast Sunday afternoon.
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As if planning a first date weren’t stressful enough, a new expectation for guys has emerged: sending their date an Uber to pick them up. Oh, and it better be an Uber Black! “It’s very weird not to send a car,” declared Madison Campbell, on the social-media platform X, when talking about what she wants for a first date.
Her July 30 post, in which she also said that “every good man I’ve ever been on a date with has sent a car (usually a black one),” became an instant Rorschach test for dating in the app era. Some screamed that demanding such treatment was an immediate red flag, proof that the woman is too entitled. Or, if a dude suggests it, he’s clearly a serial killer in waiting; do you really want a stranger knowing where you live and tracking you? Others called it modern-day chivalry—you absolutely send your date an Uber.
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Finally, you get the bartender’s attention at the trendy new spot in town. So what do you order? Probably something tried-and-true that you know you’ll like, right? A martini or Negroni, maybe a tequila soda? After you’ve managed to take a sip to lighten your mood, ask yourself: Did I even look at the menu?
Mixologists spend months developing a culturally relevant, epicurean cocktail menu before meticulously infusing liqueurs and fat-washing and hand-making garnishes, only for you to order a two-part mixed drink.
“I notice this mostly with men. By courtesy, I will always pass someone a menu, but most guys already have it in their minds what they want,” says Lauren Rojas, the head bartender at Jac’s on Bond in New York’s NoHo neighborhood, who helped craft the Esquire campfire martini. “More often than not, the guy will just lay the menu back down and be like, ‘We already know what we’re getting.’ ”
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Do you ever wonder who your favorite menswear experts’ favorite menswear experts are? Talk to anyone with a penchant for classic tailoring mixed with a healthy dose of personal flair and there’s a very good chance you’ll hear about brothers André and Keith Churchwell. Their fans run the gamut from fashion insiders and editors to writers like G. Bruce Boyer, the author of seminal books like Elegance: A Guide to Quality in Menswear (1985), and Derek Guy, an Esquire contributor you might know as @DieWorkwear—aka the “Menswear Guy”—on X.
“They really know what they’re doing,” says Boyer. “A lot of people will say, ‘Oh, well, he’s just a guy who looks good in clothing.’ That is never true. A guy who looks good in clothing knows why he looks good in clothing.”
The thing is, the Churchwells aren’t fashion guys by trade. The Nashville-born siblings are doctors—two of the most esteemed cardiologists in the country, in fact—who were born in the Jim Crow–era South and navigated their way to success despite the myriad obstacles thrown in the path of Black professionals. They’re fluent in good food, good music, good theater. And they just so happen to dress impeccably, which is why they’ve garnered a following of guys looking for an antidote to fleeting trends and unsubstantial influencers.
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You may have missed it, but last Saturday, August 1, 2026, two culturally significant events went down: 1) MTV celebrated the 45th anniversary of the day it launched on a handful of cable systems, and 2) the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) went live with Truth API, a new subscription service offering users early access to our president’s Truth Social posts. That’s right: For a low, low monthly fee, the president’s biggest fans can be among the very first to learn how he fared on the golf course, feast their eyes on the AI-generated image of him as a skinny version of ’70s Elvis, or find out whether he’s about to tariff bananas or bomb Iran.
In this case, his biggest fans are the institutional investors who can afford the $100,000 monthly fee, or $60,000 if they commit to a multiyear contract, to use the service. What they will do with that information is shift huge sums of money around the stock market to capitalize on its fluctuations related to the announcement they just got milliseconds before anyone else. Everyone profiting from this—including Trump and family—are hoping you are too distracted or too fatigued by the onslaught of Big Stupid to care whether the president should be selling early access to his brain farts.
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