All I want for Christmas is an all-consuming internet rabbit hole

The holidays are here, and that means you’ve finally (hopefully) got a little time to kick back.

Whether you’re off work for the holidays and need something to occupy your time — or distract yourself from your family — or simply in need of some late-night research material, look no further. In this list of rabbit holes, there’s something for everyone.

For the AI enthusiast :

If you’re into synthetic image generation GAN projects like “This Satire Does Not Exist”, "This Person Does Not Exist", or "This Rental Does Not Exist," check out the metasite called “This X Does Not Exist” which compiles all of them. Marvel at how real these fake fursonas look!

Or, read about how people are using AI to commune with the deceased. And yes, we’ve seen that episode of Black Mirror.

For the person who hasn’t quite found themself yet:

Take The Statistical “Which Character” Personality Quiz, which will match you with a fictional character based on your personality. This is no Buzzfeed quiz, it’s “slightly more scientific, but still silly.” There are 1,700 characters in the database.

For the highly specific celebrity hater:

Every so often, I remember Woody Harrellson’s 2012 Reddit “ask me anything” post, which was so bad that the Washington Post wrote about what a disaster it was. Do yourself a favor and dive into this mess. He had “just learned” about Reddit and instead of offering insight into his life, he just promoted his new (at the time) movie , Rampart.

Or, of course, there’s the Reddit dedicated to talking smack on the Duggars.

For the nostalgic:

Wikipedia Category:Nostalgia is a treasure trove of TBT gold. Defunct websites? Mallcore vaporware from the aughts? This one’s got it all. Throw on these old Kmart tunes while you’re at it if you really want to be transported to another time.

For the person who wears wired headphones as a chic vintage accessory:

Read the aesthetics wiki about McBling, the post-Y2K aesthetic marked by flip phones, trucker hats, Juicy Couture, and tabloids about messy female celebrities (Amanda Bynes, Britney Spears, Ashley Tisdale, etc).

Feel old yet?

For the person who needs to remember they are simply a blip in an infinite universe:

The Wikipedia article on “Timeline of the far future” will make your head hurt (how does one comprehend the number 10¹⁰¹⁰¹⁰¹⁰¹?) but you won’t be able to stop reading. A few highlights: in 24,000 years, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone will return to normal levels of radiation; in 7.2 million years from now, Mount Rushmore will be eroded; in 100 quintillion years, the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft will have likely collided with a star. Things get especially serious if you click hyperlinks to end up on the page for Boltzmann Brain.

All I’m saying is that you might have to reserve a few hours for this rabbit hole.

For the true crime obsessive:

Did you ever hear about The Murder of Elizabeth Olten, where a 15-year-old girl killed her 9-year-old neighbor and then wrote this in her diary:

I just f— killed someone... It was amazing. As soon as you get over the ‘oh my god, I can’t do this’ feeling, it’s pretty enjoyable. I’m kinda nervous and shaky though right now. Kay, I gotta go to church now lol.

Pretty horrifying stuff. There’s also The Disappearance of Brian Shaffer. Or lose yourself in this debate: Is Ghislaine Maxwell secretly one of the most powerful Redditors of all time?

If you’re still wanting more, I simply urge you to visit the unsolved mystery archive.