The Brunch round-up for May 2: The week and how it made us feel

There’s lots of cat content in our cover story. Here’s more: In 2024, public library fines were piling up in Worcester, Massachusetts, and guilty members just stopped coming. Until the staff launched March Meowness. All month, readers who came in with a cat photo could have their records wiped clean. Around 4,000 cards we reinstated. Cats do save the world, guys!

We got matcha perfume, matcha dessert, matcha shower gel. And now... matcha toothpaste for those who cannot live without the rich, grassy aroma. It’s one step closer to cosplaying a cow, folks. We miss the days when the magic ingredient in toothpaste was fluoride?

Remember playing Hungry Hungry Hippos as a kid? A new movie is exactly like that – in absolutely no way. Hungry is about a man-eating hippo in New Orleans and the poster and the trailer is pretty grim. This better be a story about animal trafficking.

Japanese electronics brand Maxell is trying to make cassettes happen, again. It’s bringing back the Walkman, along with the headphone jack and an old-school belt clip. Pair it with a hot pink tracksuit, a mullet or a perm, kids. How else will you vibe with mom and dad’s playlist?

Have something to get off your chest, but don’t feel like anyone would understand? Gabe Szeto’s A Map of Us was made for precisely this. It’s like Google Maps, but for memories. Some people log their first dates, others pin the places where they had fun with their friends. Oh look! Someone met their SO at Churchgate’s Platform 4 in Mumbai, and said they always wait for them there. We didn’t come here expecting to cry, but OK.

Go lie down babe, sleep coaches have entered the market. They’re supposed to help doomscrolling addicts learn how to crash out. But they can’t wean you off your 2am spirals – they just get you to shift your existential crisis to another “designated worry time”. Aka, during the day. Boooooo. What’s the point? We do double-duty already.

AI has levelled up from desk jobs, it’s taking over spas and salons too. Tech companies are investing in robots that can paint your nails and apply your lashes (maybe even give you a massage). You know what? We’re down for this. Bots won’t ask us when we last shaved or why we’re so tan, the way parlour didis do.

NASA pulled out the big guns for Earth Day – unseen photos from the Artemis II mission, and a tool that sources satellite images that match each letter of the alphabet. Don’t be boring and spell your name. We did BRUNCH. See how green we look!