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In March, legacy content farm BuzzFeed conceded that there was “substantial doubt” about its “ability to continue” doing business. At the time, the company was reporting a net loss of $57.3 million for 2025, suggesting former CEO Jonah Peretti’s controversial decision to double down on AI content had officially blown up in his face.

Months later, it’s looking like BuzzFeed’s fears are coming true. A brief glimpse at its stock price this morning paints a horrifying picture [nice] after its grim Q3 earnings report: its stock price fell off a cliff, sinking to $0.57 from a high of $2.09 earlier this year — a nausea-inducing 38 percent drop in a single morning.

The company’s earnings per share (EPS) of negative $0.22, 13 cents worse than analysts’ already-gloomy expectations, clearly had investors spooked. That’s despite drumming up some muted enthusiasm back in May, after TV personality Byron Allen’s family affiliate company bought a majority stake in BuzzFeed. Peretti, who has for years been singing the praises of AI and announced a slew of ill-conceived apps powered by the tech, came away with the flashy new title of “president of BuzzFeed AI.”

“Our vision is to build on the iconic foundation of BuzzFeed and HuffPost by expanding into free-streaming video, audio and user-generated content,” Allen, who owns 13 network affiliate TV stations, proudly announced at the time. “As of this moment, with the power of AI, BuzzFeed is officially chasing YouTube to become another premiere free video streaming service.”

Establishing a free video streaming service at a time when even Google is admitting that ad revenues are plummeting thanks to AI takes some chutzpah, to say the least. But considering that BuzzFeed continues to hemorrhage money — it laid off 33 percent of its remaining staff roughly two months after Allen took over — it feels more like BuzzFeed is chasing MySpace, straight into the abyss.

BuzzFeed first started embracing AI back in 2023 after the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, using the tech to roll out forgettable quizzes and strange AI-generated travel guides that caught a world of flak. Since then, there’s never been a moment when the gamble hasn’t felt like a major unforced error.

In May, shortly after Byron’s acquisition, Peretti sat down with The Verge for an interview in which he enthused that AI was the thing he was “most passionate about.” He claimed that there was a “shift” in digital media “where AI is going to start creating a new medium for content that wasn’t really possible before.”

Needless to say, we haven’t seen any evidence of that yet.

More on BuzzFeed: BuzzFeed Lays Off 33 Percent of Remaining Staff After Bizarre Pivot to AI

Huge numbers of kids are turning to AI for schoolwork and emotional support — habits that are linked to poor mental health and suicidal ideation.

According to a new survey by the mental health advocacy group JED Foundation, 90 percent of nine to 17 year olds have used an AI chatbot. The majority of them, 58 percent, said they use AI for schoolwork. And nearly the same portion, 57 percent, said they also use AI when feeling sad, stressed, lonely, or overwhelmed.

“It seems like just a few years ago, no one was using” AI, Anne Maheux, a developmental psychologist at the University of North Caroline, Chapel Hill, who wasn’t involved in the work, told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “And now it seems like roughly the same number of kids using it for homework are using it to get emotional support or help with coping.”

Sometimes, their AI interactions go beyond emotional support. More than one in 10 students, or 12 percent, said they used AI for friendship or companionship. Other studies paint the same picture: in a survey last year, nearly one in five high schoolers said they or a friend have used AI to have a romantic relationship. 

AI as an educative — or cheating — machine may be in part intertwined with its emotional support. A 15-year-old named Arjun Sharda, in Texas, provided a typical example.

“With tests, for example,” he told OPB, “I was so scared of failing one of my first chemistry tests on conversions and moles that I kept asking ChatGPT ‘Will I be OK? Will my GPA still be fine?’”

If children and teenagers using AI for support is the norm, the question becomes what this dependence on the tools means for their mental health. At such a vulnerable and formative time in their lives, it’s critical that they’re receiving the right guidance and have people with whom they feel safe to discuss their emotions with. But as we’ve often seen, AI often only provides an ersatz substitute of the latter, acting as a sycophantic confidante that can exacerbate or confirm a user’s worst neuroses, in a phenomenon that many experts are calling AI psychosis. The advice it does offer can often be bad or dangerous. In extreme cases, some users have even taken their own lives after extensive emotional conversations with a chatbot.   

The JED survey, on this front, found some alarming links.

“We were able to look at how young people are using AI and then how that correlates separately with indicators of well-being, history of suicidal ideation and attempts, and poor mental health,” psychologist Kayla Anderson, vice president of research and evaluation at the JED Foundation, told OPB.

“When young people are using AI, when they’re in emotional distress they’re more likely to report poor mental health and well-being outcomes,” she said, while also reporting a greater history of suicidal thoughts and attempts.

Anderson cautioned, however, that there isn’t enough evidence to establish causation.

“It’s unclear, based on these data, whether AI use is contributing to poor mental health and well-being, or whether students who are already in distress in certain ways are more likely to turn to AI,” Anderson said.

Maheux, pointing to other research, suggests that both may be true.

“So kids who do have worse mental health are seeking out AI to help them,” she told OPB. “But that AI use may be exacerbating those mental health challenges instead of helping.”

AI chatbots, in a sense, may be acting like emotional training wheels — only they’re so addictive that the people who depend on them never want to take them off. As a result, they never develop the skills to handle the daily stresses of life, leaving them vulnerable and unprepared.

More on AI: ChatGPT Is Building Detailed Psychological Profiles of Its Users

Everyone always complains about how long Halloweekend goes on (we, personally, hope it never falls on a Saturday again), but as soon as the calendar hit Nov. 1, everyone put away their stage blood and fake fangs and dusted off their favorite scarves and fur-trimmed jackets. The weather in New York is not giving fall — an outerwear-themed party on a 60-degree night is unusual — but we persevered in the name of kicking off what is going to be a long holiday season. The theme of this week was staying inside even if you were outside, with cozy dinner parties, house gatherings, and collection launches that made us feel right at home despite being a few drinks deep and downtown. See where we landed this week and how the party set dressed for the pre-December yuletide merriment below.

Christopher John Rogers & The Rug Company Give Us That Fuzzy Feeling

Few designers are world-building like Rogers. Not only is his ready-to-wear line accomplished and selling, but he’s done J.Crew collabs, made paint, wallpaper, chairs, and now, area rugs made in partnership with The Rug Company. The resulting collection, “The Studio,” is all about the trace of a human hand and imperefections, and it got its due shine at The Rug Company’s creative director Will Cooper’s studio, where friends of Rogers’ all took time enjoying a mid-week catchup, taking a Jell-O shot, eating tarts, and using the area rugs as backdrops.

A Homey Toast To Aritzia

There is no modern host in New York that can bring together uptown, downtown, and out-of-towners quite like Athena Calderone. She graciously opened her stunning Tribeca home to Aritzia and friends for a night of gift-giving, perfectly realized light bites (she does a gourmet spread so well), and live caricature drawings.

Cabin Fever With Kanuk

It’s getting Canadian up in here. While we anxiously await the second season of Heated Rivalry, we have a fiesty winter to get through, and star of the show and native Canadian Sophie Nélisse played host for Kanuk’s campaign-launch dinner. For one night, Tribeca’s Square Diner was a Quebecois cabin complete with pine trees, taffy, and lots of martinis, with sounds by Francesca Keller and cozy vibes by the outerwear experts at Kanuk.

Raffles, Meet Raf’s

Raffles is like the Rolls Royce of hotels, and its exquisite taste now includes an ecommerce platform, The Little Shop by Raffles. In a brand-name kismet moment, Raf’s played host to Raffles on a particularly balmy New York night where Adut Akech and Carolyn Murphy explored the offerings now available online, including a Ginori 1735 collaboration and sublime pajamas inspired by the original Raffles in Singapore.