The Pudding is a journal for visual essays. You may have stumbled upon some of our projects, such as Women’s Pockets are Inferior, How Bad is Your Spotify or Apple Music?, or A People Map of the US.

In this issue, we put a spotlight on people and things that often get relegated to the shadows, including censored media in China, informal street vendors in Mexico City, and the signature sneakers of the WNBA.

But first, we celebrate the launch of our very own game, words against strangers.

The Pudding is a digital publication for visual essays. You may have stumbled upon some of our projects like How Ali Wong Structures Stand-Up, How Bad is Your Spotify?, or Women’s Pockets are Inferior.

This issue is devoted to the gods of different arenas, including music industry overlords, TikTok idols, sneakerhead icons and the Aztec pantheon.

We’ll also introduce you to our latest team member and celebrate a recent win.

In this edition of The Pudding newsletter, we’ll introduce you to four new stories that shed light on some of the things we take for granted. Whether they’re things we’re overly familiar with (like faces on our banknotes or our day-to-day weather), or stuff we simply fail to question (like research methods and pathways to success), we believe that with a bit more data and context, you’ll start to see the world around you a little differently.

Speaking of seeing things differently, did we mention we’re now on TikTok (@the_pudding)? See what happens when contributor David Mora uses our population data story to better understand some of the major metropolises around the globe.

As always, our work is brought to you in part by our Patreon supporters, whom we never take for granted.