See also: Best Apps to Learn Serbian.

Serbo-Croatian grammar is no joke, and the language can be quite hard to learn for native English speakers who don’t already know another Slavic language. I’ve been making reference charts to help me in my Serbian language classes, and I’ve put a lot of love and innumerable revisions into them.

These charts can help you get started and continue your journey to mastery. I’ve shared them with many learners, native speakers, and language teachers and gotten great feedback that they’re the best such charts they’ve seen. They also look beautiful in print, if you want to take them with you to a classroom setting.

• Serbian Cases, Genders & Plurals
• Serbian Verbs: Commonly Used Verbs & Tenses
• Serbian Pronouns

Serbian Cases, Genders & Plurals

Perhaps the thing that makes Serbian the most difficult for English speakers is its seven cases (English has none, except with pronouns where you get e.g. they/them/theirs). Having so many cases would be hard enough on its own, but then the cases go and mix with both plurality and Serbian’s three different genders. Plus there are different case declensions for nouns and adjectives.

Cases are also the most important part of Serbian grammar to master since you can’t say almost anything without them. A good chart is essential.

Click the image to view the full PDF, with all seven cases, three genders, singular/plural, prepositions, exceptions, and more. The organization here is designed to clearly show patterns and overlaps, minimizing the case endings you need to learn. Many charts fill a whole page with the case declensions alone and look that much more intimidating as a result.

Download this as an A4-size PDF: Serbian Cases Chart.

Serbian Verbs: Commonly Used Verbs & Tenses

This next chart includes 88 commonly used Serbian verbs, organized by (1) their present-tense conjugations, (2) verb endings, and (3) alphabetically. It also includes rules and examples for present, past, and future tenses.

Download this as an A4-size PDF: Serbian Verbs Chart.

Serbian Pronouns

Pronouns can be quite complicated in Serbian with cases, genders, plurals, short forms, and long forms. Some charts and grammar books make this feel overwhelming and impossible to learn (at least for me). So I created this next chart to clearly show the connections between things and to use various organizational and design touches to help it feel more manageable.

Click the image to view the full PDF, with declensions, short and long forms, etc. for personal pronouns, possessive adjectives/pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and more, along with detailed grammar rules.

Download this as an A4-size PDF: Serbian Pronouns Chart.

All of these charts are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which means you should feel free to give them away or adapt them with appropriate credit.

References & Learning Sources

A lot of sources of learning and information went into building these charts over time. I started my Serbian journey at the Serbian Language and Culture Workshop in downtown Belgrade, and my many notes from their classes ended up being the starting point for a couple of these charts. They do online classes as well, so it’s worth checking them out, wherever you are. I’ve also attended classes at the Institute for Foreign Languages Belgrade and online with Go Speak Serbian. Additional references included Serbian: An Essential Grammar by Lila Hammond, Wiktionary, StudySerbian.com, Reddit, and many others. A ton of changes and improvements came from feedback! In particular, Daniel N. (Dan13l_N on Reddit) provided extremely detailed feedback on all of these charts that led to many improvements and corrections. Making these charts helped me learn and I hope they’ll do the same for you.

How can I improve these charts in future versions? Is there anything I’m missing that’s important to include? What parts are most helpful for you? What additional charts would be most helpful to create? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

• Studying on your phone? Check out the best apps for learning Serbian.
• Visiting Serbia? Check out my recommendations for what to see and do in Belgrade.

See also: Serbian Language Charts.

Are you looking to learn Serbian but aren’t sure which apps are available, or which are worth your time and money? You’ve come to the right place. I’ve been looking for a while now for the best apps to help you learn Serbian, and I’ll share what I’ve learned here.

Although in this post I’ll mostly focus on Serbian (since that’s what I’m personally learning), I’ll also cover Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. That’s because these are all the same language with some regional differences. The language is also called Serbo-Croatian, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, and various other names. For more info, see Wikipedia and this Quartz article.

Finding a Good Serbian Language App

Learning a new language as an adult is hard work. And Serbian is harder than many languages, given its complex Slavic grammar. So if you’re going to be putting in the work, you’ll want to ensure you’re using an effective method that you enjoy and works well for you, not only to get the most out of it but also to help you stick with it. Apps can also be a great way to supplement a course you’re taking in a classroom or with a language tutor.

• Drops
• LingQ
• Mango
• Ling
• uTalk

Searching the app store or the internet surprisingly doesn’t easily turn up some of the best options for learning Serbian. That’s because Serbian isn’t among the most popular languages like Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and others that are the breadwinners for language apps. So even the apps that support Serbian best sometimes don’t mention it prominently in their language lists on app store pages, etc.

When many people want to learn a language, they think of Duolingo, the most popular free language-learning app. Alas, it doesn’t support Serbian or any of its regional variants. So what are our options?

For my own benefit and yours, I’ve searched high and low. Here are some of the many apps I’ve considered:

• Apps that support some form of Serbo-Croatian:
  • Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian: Drops, Ling, uTalk.
  • Serbian and Croatian: Clozemaster, LingQ, Mango, Simply Learn.
  • Croatian: Mondly, Falou, Pimsleur.
• Connect with professional tutors or free language exchange: HelloTalk, Italki.

Other language apps that, as of this writing, do not support Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian include the following: Babbel, Beelinguapp, Busuu, Duolingo, FluentU, Fluenz, Innovative Language Learning, LingoDeer, Lingvist, Memrise, and Rosetta Stone.

So now we know which apps support Serbian, but which are the best at doing so? Read on…

In the remainder of this post, I’ll focus only on the top iOS and Android apps for English speakers that include Serbian (at least) and that come with premade study materials (rather than connecting you with tutors or a language community).

Montenegrin is not mentioned in the lists above because I couldn’t find any apps that specifically focus on learning Montenegrin. But Montenegrin and Serbian are extremely similar so you can use any of the Serbian language learning apps.

The Very Best Serbian Language Apps

Drops

• Website: Drops.
• Focus: Vocabulary.
• Supports: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian.

Drops has won Google App of the Year and Apple Editor’s Choice awards, and I can see why. It’s a beautiful, highly polished, and fun app that focuses only on vocabulary but is excellent at it. It has thousands of categorized words and phrases with well-thought-out images to represent each of them. And it has independent support for Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian (among other languages) so you can focus specifically on the language variation you’re most interested in. I’ve purchased a Drops lifetime subscription and used it for Serbian, Japanese, and Mexican Spanish. Based on my experience, I highly recommend it.

Drops is useful even if you don’t pay for it, since free users get all app features. The catch is that free users are limited to studying for five minutes a day. That’s enough to get a feel for the app, and enough to learn a lot over time if you’re disciplined about coming back daily (which they make it fun to do). The app also gets frequent updates (with new words/phrases and new features) and has gotten noticeably better since I started using it. And unlike some apps, a lifetime subscription to Drops gives you access to all languages.

My rating: 5⭐, but you’ll probably want to supplement Drops with another app, book, or course to learn the grammar.

Drops doesn’t currently list Serbian or Bosnian support on its app store page, but it indeed has first-class support for these languages with audio from native speakers.

LingQ

• Website: LingQ.
• Focus: Contextual understanding.
• Supports: Serbian, Croatian.

LingQ offers a different approach to language learning that—although it might not be the best for total beginners—seems promising as an effective way to learn more quickly than with other methods. In LingQ, everything is learned in context. Lessons are a series of stories with increasing difficulty that you read and listen to, and you learn words and sentence structure with relatively realistic situations and real content. Every word in a text starts out highlighted to mark it as not yet learned, and for any word or sentence, you can tap or select it to see a definition/translation. As you go, you can change individual words to new, recognized, familiar, learned, or known (at which point it’s fully unhighlighted). And as you progress, you’re able to review the words you’re learning. Progressively more of the words in new texts will start out unhighlighted/known, and it feels great to see entire pages rapidly becoming learned, implicitly crediting you for all your known and learned words. You can also import your own content in Serbian (e-books, news articles, YouTube videos, etc.) and use their system on it.

Unfortunately, the app severely limits free use, so you can barely get enough of a sense of whether you like how it works before they ask for money. That said, many people who use the app rave about it. Even though LingQ’s stories don’t explain things like grammar—leaving you to try to figure it out from context—I’m excited about their novel approach. Whereas other language apps can help you get familiar with a language, they won’t get you to fluency. LingQ seems to have the potential to do so, at least for reading, assuming you’re willing to buckle down for relatively intense study.

My rating: 4.5⭐. A brilliant approach to reading fluency that is somewhat lacking in ease of use.

LingQ currently doesn’t mention Serbian or Croatian on its homepage, but it indeed supports them.

Mango

• Website: Mango.
• Focus: Language construction.
• Supports: Serbian, Croatian.

Mango offers a well-designed and polished course that focuses on intuitive language construction and uses adaptive, spaced-repetition review to help you retain vocabulary. It starts at the beginner level and does a great job of progressively explaining things like sentence structure, formality, gender, etc. in context as you add more words to your vocabulary and start figuring out new sentences for yourself. They also have a cool feature where you can record yourself saying words/sentences and compare your pronunciation to a native speaker (with voiceprints).

Of the apps here, Mango feels the most like you’re going through a real language course with a tutor, partly because of the solid course design, partly because they actually explain new things in between exercises rather than leaving you to work out the differences, and partly just because they have a human reading those explanations.

Mango offers only one lesson for free, but that feels like enough to get a sense of whether you’ll like the app. Personally, I thought it was well made and it felt customized for the actual language I was studying. The flip side of them not just fitting each language into the same cookie-cutter course is that, although Mango has a tremendous amount of content for some languages (e.g., Latin American Spanish has more than 800 lessons split across various chapters and units), they have less for Serbian and Croatian. Each has 105 lessons in total. Still, that seems like a solid amount of content.

Finally, Mango offers free access through various organizations including public libraries. So, at least in the US, you can choose your local library and enter your library card number to gain access. Very cool.

My rating: 4.5⭐, as the best Serbian course in an app.

Tier Two

These next apps are still pretty good but have similar options listed above that I preferred.

Ling

• Website: Ling.
• Focus: A little of everything.
• Supports: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian.

Ling teaches both vocabulary and grammar in a series of short Duolingo-like courses. There are four lessons and an exam in each unit, and 10 units in each level. Levels progress from beginner to intermediate, upper-intermediate, advanced, and expert.

Although I haven’t taken the full course, I went through the two Serbian beginner units they offer for free users and was left a little disappointed. It’s okay, even approaching good, but I think they could use a little more investment in product and course design quality. They also occasionally dump tables of grammar information on you out of context, and sometimes make questionable decisions about word choices for beginners—e.g. teaching “Ja sam iz Sjedinjenih Američkih Država” (“I’m from the United States of America”, which is particularly challenging in Serbian) rather than the simpler “Ja sam iz Amerike” (“I’m from America”). That said, if there weren’t other options I felt were better for me, I’d be happy enough to pay for the app. It’s worth a try, and it has a decent amount of content to work through.

My rating: 3.5⭐.

uTalk

• Website: uTalk.
• Focus: Vocabulary.
• Supports: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian.

Similar to Drops, this is a word and phrasebook app. You won’t learn Serbian using just this app since there’s no development or explanations as you go, but it’s pretty good at what it does. Words and phrases here are represented by stock photographs. Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian each get their own male and female native speakers (who appropriately change word endings based on their own gender).

One thing that makes this app stand out is the massive range of languages it supports (more than 140). So if you enjoy dipping into exotic languages for the fun of it, this could be a great option. Free users get a standard set of 26 basic words and phrases that you can listen to and test yourself on in as many languages as you’d like.

My rating: 3.5⭐.

In Closing

It turns out there’s a decent selection of good apps if you know where to look. And since the top three apps here are all very different, they could be used in a complementary way to accelerate your learning. From the “tier two” list, Ling is comparable to Mango, and uTalk is comparable to Drops.

I haven’t spent time with the apps that support Croatian but not Serbian, so if you’re learning Croatian there are a few more options I listed near the top of this post that you might want to consider.

There are a couple of apps that I didn’t feature above despite them supporting Serbian because I consider them a lot less polished and useful. Clozemaster has you choose the missing word in a sentence, with thousands of sentences to randomly work through. It’s not great for beginners and is not very polished. Simply Learn is a pretty basic travel phrasebook and has separate apps for Serbian and Croatian. Free is nice, but Drops and uTalk both offer a much better take if you want to focus on vocabulary.

Finally, I’d love to hear about your own language journey in the comments. Which of these apps have you used, what are your favorites, and are there any I’m missing? What sorts of other (non-app) resources have been most helpful for you in studying Serbian or other languages?

Cheers and good luck! / Živeli i srećno! / Живели и срећно!

Edit (2024-04-25): There’s a new language app in town: OkyDoky. It supports Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin.

• Want grammar cheatsheets? See my definitive Serbian language charts.
• Visiting Serbia? Check out my recommendations for what to see and do in Belgrade.

When I mentioned this recently, a friend asked whether the cult made any actually good music, or whether it was all “chanting and stuff.”

No, it wasn’t chanting. They followed popular styles, though they were always at least a couple of years behind. Recall that even the cult’s musicians were technically not supposed to be listening to any “System music,” lest it negatively influence their faith or cause them to pick up evil “hitchhiking spirits.” For a long time, more modern styles of rock, hip hop, etc. were considered too “worldly” (an invective) or satanic, but they eventually came around even on those when more of their youth started leaving. And despite the constraints on musicians, the cult made a lot of music, mostly out of studios in Japan, Brazil, and the U.S. It all varied quite a bit in quality, but some was reasonably solid, and I still enjoy some of it in a nostalgic way.

Although the cult recorded plenty of music for the public, all of the songs in this post were intended to be listened to by members only.

A Digression on “Loving Jesus”

Essentially all of the cult’s internal music was, to one extent or another, about reinforcing their beliefs and practices. And since their beliefs were totally wack, so was a lot of their music. For example, there was a whole series of albums filled with love songs to Jesus. E.g., check out this power ballad of sexual desire for not-so-baby Jesus: Let’s Make Love. And this was just one out of well over a hundred songs with the same theme. Also note, the dude singing that song doesn’t want a gay relationship with his lord and savior, oh no. That would get you excommunicated. Rather, he’s imagining himself as a “woman in the spirit.” Spiritual transgenderism—although, because of their extreme homophobia, they never would have dared call it that. How it could be a massive sin to be male and gay (female bisexuality was condoned, though not full-throated lesbianism) yet it was totally righteous for an insatiably horny Husband Christ to want thousands of cult men to sacrificially visualize themselves as women so he could have sex with all of them is something I’ll never understand.

There was endless, endless “Loving Jesus” music like this in a variety of genres by both men and women. But the men were the best because their mental hoop-jumping could be unintentionally hilarious. To give another example, in a song titled Queen in the Sky, a middle-aged man sings about getting down on his knees to please Jesus, that he wants Jesus to transform him into a “queen in the sky,” and asks Jesus to “sock it to me, baby, sock it to me hard.” Yet I have no doubt this same man would have sworn he harbored no gay, trans, or otherwise queer thoughts/identity.

If you’ve seen the South Park episode where Eric Cartman starts a Christian rock band in order to win a bet and basically just does covers of love songs with religious double entendres thrown in… well, I want to say Cartman had nothing on The Family, but honestly this is a pretty good impression of your typical Loving Jesus song:

Okay, so the cult might have been off the rails, but I’ve definitely gotten off track. Let me return to what I meant to write about.

Music of the Counter-Rebellion

I’ve long been interested in the resistance movement against The Family. It’s an aspect of the cult’s history that hasn’t been written about much. One small but potentially interesting part of the story—which the conversation about cult music with my friend reminded me of—was The Family’s attempt to steel their youth against the rebellion via what I’ll call “persecution music.” These were songs written specifically to dismiss or attack siblings and friends who had left and were now speaking out about abuse within the cult. Perhaps a challenging topic for music, you might think, but here are some examples:

1. Religious Persecution relates the cult’s perception of investigations and raids against them by governments around the world. And oh the irony, one of the dudes in the song who mockingly impersonates a government agent arresting pure, innocent cult members without any evidence is none other than Jeremy Spencer, a well-known pedophile within the cult. I think he knows which witnesses to call on behalf of the prosecution.

2. Craving to Slake by Vas Myers was unusual for its nu metal style that imitated bands like Papa Roach, Linkin Park, and Limp Bizkit while yelling at second-generation members who’d gotten out, “Are you so deluded that you don’t know your story is full of holes?”, “Please stop complaining! […] The past, you can forget it!”, and “It’s dangerous when you poke your finger in God’s eye.” That last line was a well-understood threat that god could bring death, violence, or ruin against anyone who got in their way.

3. Yellow-Brick Road was another song by cult rock star and fervent bootlicker Vas Myers. (If he’s had his own journey to feeling differently these days, I’d respect that.) The title, which is of course a Wizard of Oz reference, seems to allude here to a commitment to following without question whatever path is set for you. The lyrics are an unsubtle rejection of accountability and empathy, with lyrics like the following: “I wish we could forget about what still makes some people scream and shout. The past is over; let’s focus on the future, and not waste precious time.” Also, the chorus: “So I don’t wanna talk about the problems anymore. I just wanna serve the Lord and leave the murmuring on the floor. And I don’t wanna hear the doubts you wanna send my way.”

There were other persecution songs, too, with names like We Can’t Recant and Speak for Yourself.

These songs and others targeted at teens are on XFamily.org because I was downloading them from the cult’s members-only website that I secretly had access to at the time. However, I limited how many songs I downloaded because I was worried about their server admins investigating leaks by checking their logs for large/irregular download patterns and shutting down my access. These days, a much larger chunk of the Family’s music is on cult-sympathizing site nubeat.org, but that came later.

This phenomenon of counter-resistance anthems by the indignant and confused fit well with the zeitgeist of the time. We also saw the Vandari prophecies (the revelation that everyone speaking out about abuse was, in fact, demon-possessed) and the founding of a website called MyConclusion where—for the benefit of the press—hundreds of cult members denounced their siblings, children, and former friends as liars. In hindsight, this all feels like it was a straw-grasping reach for whatever might work in light of the cult rapidly losing its second generation while gaining the realization that they were facing a new kind of threat. It was going to be a lot harder to dismiss this new enemy than they were used to. Their old-school, well-honed denials and attacks against a handful of “disgruntled apostates” just didn’t seem to cut it anymore when up against hundreds of young people publicly describing their own experiences as children.

Through it all, the resistance carried on—from the trenches and from out in the open. A power shift was underway, and the cult would never again recover momentum or the upper hand.

One of these days, I can only hope, someone will write a detailed history of the resistance. Its key events and actors spanned something like 15–20 years, from the early 90s onward (although there had been shots fired earlier). And although the cult’s leaders were never brought to justice, in the end, the resistance was broadly successful at deflating and defanging what was once a globe-sprawling and life-consuming cult, and preventing them from totally whitewashing their past. Many books have been written, podcasts recorded, and documentaries aired about the cult, and more will come. But the stories of the resistance movement are still fragmented, little known (many people operated in secret), or largely missing outside the heads of those who were on the front lines. So until such a history is written, inshallah, I hope to continue contributing bits and pieces of the story here like this.

Vive la résistance! ✊🏻

The question caught me off guard. I was 17 and I’d just shared Vanessa Carlton’s song A Thousand Miles with a musician dude who was a few years older than me and who was visiting the sort-of halfway home for ex-cult young adults I lived in at the time. There was no meanness directed at me specifically. He was just dismissing the idea that the song had any merit or novelty whatsoever, or that it could be popular if its singer wasn’t young and attractive. This was one of my earliest exposures to music snobbery, and it didn’t sit right with me.

“I’ll still like this song in 10 years,” I replied, after waiting a moment.

It’s not like this was my favorite song. But then, I’d shared it not only because I liked it but because I thought it stood out, and it had a fun music video, too. Other pop songs at the time mostly weren’t piano-driven, and they typically didn’t have orchestra sections, either. And while I’m defending it, I thought the song’s lyrics were reasonably good, and I liked Carlton’s vulnerable vocal style. Who gave a fuck if this dude thought pop was beneath the rock music he preferred? Hell, I loved rock, too. I liked angry music including death metal and gangsta rap. And I particularly liked psychedelic trance coming out of Israel and Goa, India. The cult of my very recent youth didn’t allow listening to music they hadn’t produced themselves, so I was busy taking in all kinds of musical styles. This was right at the time when peer-to-peer music sharing apps like KaZaA were all the rage, which made it easy to explore esoteric and underground shit.

But I also liked this new pop song.

I guess I already thought of myself as an individualist, although I could not have described it that way at the time. I’d just left a cult because I didn’t believe what I was taught all my life, and I was questioning everything. Who was this guy to tell me I was in fact just following crowds and that the music I liked was so indistinguishable that I’d forget about it in a week?

But now I’m overdramatizing. There was no outrage or offense taken. Just a calm and resolute desire to wait 10 years to prove him wrong in my own mind. And like some kind of rebellious elephant, I didn’t forget. For whatever reason, this simple exchange from 20 years ago has always stuck with me, despite nearly all memories of my childhood and teenage years fading completely. I don’t remember my interlocutor’s name, what he looked like, or any other conversation we had. Just this.

Yesterday, all of this came to mind again, and I thought it was funny how long I’d held onto it. And then today, whaddaya know, CNN informed me it was the 20-year anniversary of A Thousand Miles. Apparently, the song stood the test of time for a lot of people. Rolling Stone India, in their own article about the 20-year anniversary, called the song’s intro “the most easily identifiable first three seconds to a song of the last two decades, and quite possibly the most instantaneously recognizable piano riff ever.” They ended the article with the following line: “While Carlton is aware she’s likely never to achieve the same level of fame or success she did with her debut hit, we are very certain that even 20 years from now, the minute the piano riff for A Thousand Miles starts, we’ll be ready to sing along.”

I know wanting to cheer for that makes me pretty ridiculous. Yet somehow, this catchy little 20-year old pop song by a one-hit-wonder became a personal anthem of individualism, patient resoluteness, and anti-snobbery.

P.S. If you want to learn more about the song, check out this short documentary on Vice:

P.P.S. If you want to learn more about the music of the cult I grew up in, see Persecution Music: The Songs of the Gaslighters & the Counter-Resistance.

Due to currency controls in Argentina, if you show up and use your credit card like in other countries, prices might seem cheap compared to your home country, but you’ll nevertheless be getting ripped off. You might get 100% (or even more) pesos for the same amount of money by using the methods below.

Currency controls in Argentina

First, what is creating this situation? Argentina’s peso (ARS) is a vulnerable currency undergoing rapid inflation—in fact, one of the highest inflation rates in the world with the government currently targeting ~50% annual inflation. But on top of that, the Argentine government wants to hang onto dollars and other currencies coming into the country to shore up foreign reserves and pay back dollar-denominated debt. So they don’t let you easily buy dollars, and within the country’s borders, they tightly control the “official” exchange rate in a way that overrepresents the value of the peso and allows them to skim a lot off the top of all your exchanges and purchases.

That creates a situation where there are two parallel exchange rates: the official one that you’ll get any time you use your credit card or an ATM, and the informal “blue dollar” rate that better represents the real (supply-and-demand based) value. A good place to see this difference is at bluedollar.net. The gap between the official and blue rates varies over time but is currently at record highs, with the blue dollar rate about 100% higher!

As a result, a lot of people visiting Argentina bring in enough cash for their trip and exchange it on the black market to get a better rate. But there are other options that can be better and safer, so I’ll detail all of the common/good options below.

Although I’ll mostly be talking about US dollars, the basic details for all of these options should work the same for other currencies like euros and pounds. That said, you’ll likely get more options and better rates with USD.

Following are six options for exchanging currency in Argentina:

Option 1: Use a credit card, ATM, bank, or official currency exchanges and get ripped off

This is a great option if you want to needlessly double all your prices. However, it might be unavoidable if you pay through apps like Airbnb. So you might want to favor hotels unless you already have an Argentine credit card or bank account you can use for payment. With Uber, you can pay with cash by adding a new payment method in the app and choosing “Cash” before you book a ride.

Option 2: Pay in dollars and get change in pesos

Some merchants are happy to accept payment in dollars and give you change in pesos. However, there’s a good chance you’ll pay and get change back at the low “official” rate, or at least a rate lower than what you can get elsewhere.

Option 3: Black market money changers

If you’re feeling adventurous, Florida Street (Calle Florida) is a crowded pedestrian street that’s the best place in the city for finding black-market money changers (arbolitos). Money changers are everywhere and easy to identify by their calls of “Cambio! Cambio!” (the word for “change”) as you walk by. This can be a good option, but you might need to negotiate and everything is at your own risk. Although most people have no problem, there have been stories of people getting ripped off or having a $100 bill replaced with a counterfeit and given back as unchangeable. Exclusively going this route also means you’ll have to bring enough cash into the country to cover your whole trip.

To work with arbolitos, first, ask them for their rate, and if you want to get the best rate you should then walk to at least one other person to compare. Use the “informal: buy” rate at bluedollar.net to make sure they’re in the right ballpark. You’ll get the best rate if you have $100 banknotes. The first time I tried exchanging on Florida Street, $100 bills were going for 200 pesos per dollar, whereas the best price anyone offered for 50s, 20s, or 10s was 195 pesos/dollar (some people offered much lower). After you agree on a rate and amount, they’ll typically take you to a small, nearby office where the exchange is done.

If you have friends in Argentina, they might be willing to exchange money for you since many people are happy to hold their savings in dollars instead of pesos.

Even if you plan to use the other options listed below, I’d recommend bringing some backup dollars with you to Argentina for exchange on the black market in case you run into problems and can’t get pesos in time through other methods.

Option 4: Western Union (recommended)

Western Union is fantastic for currency exchange in Buenos Aires since by sending dollars to yourself (through their website or app) and picking it up in pesos, you’ll get an excellent rate—sometimes even better than what’s listed on bluedollar.net. To do this, you’ll need a Western Union account from your home country rather than an Argentine account, so be careful about just going to westernunion.com to create an account if you’re already in Argentina. If you are, start at this URL to create an American account, or go here if you’re from the UK.

To send money, you can connect Western Union to your bank account (the lowest-fee option, but it results in a 0–4 business day delay), a debit card, or a credit card (highest fee). Using a debit card might be the best option since the fee is only slightly higher than using a bank account, and it allows cash pickup within minutes. That makes it possible to wait until you’re at a Western Union branch to initiate the transfer, which I like. I’ve been using promo code DIGITAL0FEE to fully waive the fee anyway, and although I expect the code won’t always work, I’ve used it repeatedly with success.

Western Union branches are everywhere in Buenos Aires, but they don’t all show up or have correct hours listed on Google Maps or even on Western Union’s own find a location page. So ask the staff at your hotel for the nearest option, and if that fails, fall back to Google Maps or just walk around nearby.

Finding a location that will actually handle your transfer might be trickier. After trying several branches without luck (some closed early and on weekends, others couldn’t be found where Google Maps said they were, and still others didn’t have any money to give out), I found a good one (address: Lima 1793) in Buenos Aires’ Constitución neighborhood that was easily able to handle my occasional USD $500 exchanges. They also had an English-speaking employee (most people in Buenos Aires don’t speak English, so start brushing up on your Spanish!) and they helped me connect to their wifi network while I was there (which could be helpful if you don’t have international data and want to send money via the app just before picking it up). One of the larger branches in the city is the Western Union at Montevideo 825. Although you might have to wait in a long line there, they reliably have cash and they can handle larger withdrawals.

Make sure to bring your passport. In the branch, send money to yourself via the app, and you’ll get back a transaction ID that they’ll need. After that, you’ll sign a document, and that’s it—you’ll walk out with a rubber-banded stack of bills.

Note that, although Western Union allows sending up to USD $5,000 at a time for cash pickup in Argentina, there are likely to be much lower limits that small branches can give you based on how much cash they have at the moment.

If you’re traveling with a partner or friends, use WU’s refer a friend program for everyone who signs up after you and you’ll each get a $20 Amazon e-gift card.

Option 5: Xoom

Xoom (owned by PayPal) is a similar service to Western Union. Compared to Western Union, however, their exchange rate for US dollars to Argentine pesos is significantly worse. As of this writing, they’re offering 195 ARS for 1 USD—much better than the official rate of 105 ARS but worse than Western Union’s 224 ARS. They also have far fewer cash pickup locations. On the flip side, their fees are lower than Western Union’s, which might make up much of the difference in rates.

Option 6: Cryptocurrency

For crypto enthusiasts, you can buy bitcoin in USD, sell it for Argentine pesos (ARS), and get a good exchange rate in the process. Binance is the most used platform for crypto in Argentina. Binance P2P (peer-to-peer) allows you to sell crypto with “cash in person” as your payment method and ARS as your fiat currency. Only choose vendors who have a great rating or a lot of transactions.

Avoiding “cash in person” while using an online exchange would require setting up an Argentinian bank account (where you’d transfer your sales for withdrawal), but unfortunately, that requires an Argentine ID. If you have one, though, you’ll have more options for where to sell your crypto for pesos. For example, Argentina-based Ripio Exchange has been operating since 2014 and seems like another good option.

There are also “cueva crypto” black market exchange shops on Florida Street that will buy your USD stablecoin (like USDT or DAI) for the blue dollar rate minus a 1–2% fee. Exchanging bitcoin or ether directly will be harder, so consider converting to a stablecoin first. If you don’t speak Spanish, go with a friend who does to help avoid being taken advantage of.

Saving money on hotels

Since hotels might be one of your biggest expenses when visiting the country, it behooves you to get a better rate (potentially saving ~50%!) by paying with pesos that you bought at the blue dollar rate. This is possible even if you book your hotel from overseas at a dollar-based price through a site like Booking.com or Expedia. You’ll just want to verify that the price you book for is paid at the hotel rather than through the website and can be paid in pesos.

For example, the first hotel I booked via Booking.com (before I knew about all the details in this post) subsequently emailed me to say they required payment in cash dollars. Because of personal circumstances, I ended up canceling my stay and later booked another hotel through Booking.com. When I arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to learn they accepted payment in pesos, and the price in pesos they quoted me was based on the official dollar-to-peso exchange rate (which is what they’d receive anyway if I paid via credit card). That allowed me to withdraw pesos at Western Union, pay the hotel in cash, and save about 50% on my stay. The same was true for all of my subsequent hotels in the city.

Share your tips

Hopefully, the information above will help you enjoy your stay even more by saving a bundle or getting more value during your visit. Feel free to share additional tips for visiting or living in Argentina in the comments below to help others who read this. I’ll try to keep this post up to date with the latest currency exchange information and advice.

Welcome to beautiful Buenos Aires!

It happened to me. I was scheduled to travel from the USA to Argentina. My flight and hotel were already booked. I had what felt like a mild cold, but I wasn’t too worried since I’d gotten my double shot of the Covid vaccine plus a booster, and Omicron news coverage was still early. I’d previously taken a Covid test when I had a similar cold a month prior and it came back negative that time. So a day before my flight I took the required PCR Covid test and was surprised when the result came back positive.

While I quarantined at home, I started searching for what I’d need to do and how long I’d need to wait to travel again. Unfortunately, finding reliable information on the subject was harder than I expected, since although there’s plenty of info online discussing travel during the pandemic, little of it is about international travel after having come down with the virus. I’ll share the most important details I learned here, but keep in mind that policies vary by country and regulations can change.

Sherpa has by far the best map I’ve found that shows countries open to travel. There are options to change the map based on your passport, origin country, and whether you’ve been vaccinated.

Get Refunded

First things first: See if you can get a refund for your trip. Many providers are sympathetic to catching Covid and will refund you even when their policies say otherwise.

I contacted American Airlines, which has a no refund / no change policy on Basic Economy seats. Nevertheless, I called them up. They told me what I expected, that refunds or changes were not possible. I was polite and mentioned I had gotten a positive Covid test. That was enough for them to check with a supervisor and grant a one-time exception. I’d just have to call them up and book a new flight over the phone within the next year. Great!

Next, I contacted my hotel, which had a cancelation fee. Again, when I mentioned my positive Covid test, they happily made an exception and waived the fee.

Get a Positive PCR Test ASAP

If you used a home kit, took an antigen test, or suspect you might have had Covid, you’ll want to get a positive PCR test that you can use for travel as soon as possible. That’s because the date of the test will start the clock for when you can travel—typically two weeks later.

This step is critical even if you’ve already recovered because, after contracting Covid, tests might continue to come back positive for up to three months. So you shouldn’t count on being able to show a future, negative test result. Additionally, for 90 days after getting a positive test result, you actually have travel advantages since you won’t need to get additional tests each time you fly, and won’t need to get tested again upon arrival (which some countries require).

If your flight back to the States will be more than 90 days after your positive Covid test, I recommend getting a pack of home tests from eMed. Unlike other home kits, these antigen tests are accepted by the USA for travel into the country because they require the test to be examined by a medical professional who observes over a video call. So this option is a lot more convenient and likely cheaper than the tests you’d otherwise need to get abroad.

Get a Doctor’s Note

Showing a positive PCR test that was taken at least two weeks ago is not all you’ll need to do. You also need to show a doctor’s note clearing you for travel that was written at least 10 days after the test. Both Argentina and the United States require a doctor’s note, so I’m guessing many other countries do as well.

From CDC.gov’s page about traveling to the US:

If you have had a positive viral test on a sample taken during the past 90 days, and you have met the criteria to end isolation, you may travel instead with your positive viral test results and a signed letter from a licensed healthcare provider or a public health official that states you have been cleared for travel. The positive test result and letter together are referred to as “documentation of recovery.”

A letter from your healthcare provider or a public health official that clears you to end isolation, e.g., to return to work or school, can be used to show you are cleared to travel, even if travel isn’t specifically mentioned in the letter. The letter must have information that identifies you personally (e.g., name and date of birth) that matches the personal identifiers on your passport or other travel documents. The letter must be signed and dated on official letterhead that contains the name, address, and phone number of the healthcare provider or public health official who signed the letter.

CDC.gov: From the FAQ section “What if I recently recovered from COVID-19?”

Argentina had very similar requirements as the US, although their information online was not as specific.

So where can you get this letter? If there’s a local doctor you go to regularly, that might be the easiest and cheapest option. I wanted to find some way to get it online, but only found one option: QuickMD. See their page Traveling with Recent COVID-19 Infection: How to Get a ‘Documentation of Recovery’ Letter to Be Cleared to Travel. They can provide this letter for $75 during a video call that you schedule online. Although this might be a good option for many people in the US, it didn’t work for me because they don’t have their own medical professionals in my home state of South Dakota. So instead, I scheduled a “Covid consult” with a local doctor, and after explaining what I needed, they were happy to oblige. It didn’t seem like they’d done it before though, so I’ll provide the text of the letter below in case it’s helpful for you to guide your own doctor on what you need.

<date>
Steven Levithan, DOB: <date>

To whom it may concern:

Please be advised that Steven Levithan reports testing positive for COVID-19 on <date>. Based on the information they’ve provided regarding their symptoms, they have met the current CDC criteria to end isolation as of <date>. According to current CDC guidlines, they are not required to retest for 90 days from the date their positive test was obtained. They are cleared to travel.

Sincerely,
<signature, name, and NPI number>

With that document and my positive Covid test in hand, I had no trouble with my soon-following flight to balmy Buenos Aires.

Some countries require you to have medical insurance that covers Covid and will apply within their borders. If you don’t already have insurance that will cover you internationally, SafetyWing is a low-cost option and covers Covid.

Having this information upfront would have saved me a lot of hassle and worry. I hope it’s useful for you! Let me know any other Covid travel tips you have or how this process might differ for other countries.

My mom is Serbian and I had Yugoslav citizenship as a child. But I wasn’t raised Serbian. I never learned the language or spent any time in the country. And since Serbian citizenship used to require compulsory military service for men, I wasn’t rushing to apply. But recently I’ve become much more interested in the country and have enjoyed spending summers there. So when I found out the military switched to an all-volunteer force in 2011, I was very interested. Both Serbia and the USA have no problem with dual citizenship.

If you have Serbian heritage, you can gain citizenship by admission without permanent residence there (in fact if you go through a law firm you can do it without setting foot in the country) so long as you are at least 18 years old, have not been “deprived of business capacity,” and submit a written statement that you consider Serbia to be your country.

Benefits of Serbian Citizenship

• Although American citizens are granted a 90-day tourist visa on arrival, I want to have more flexibility to work within the country and stay for more than 90 days at a time. The tourist visa they grant is for 90 days within a 180-day period, so you can’t just cross the border after 90 days and reenter with a new visa.
• Serbia has a low cost of living, low income taxes, and universal healthcare.
• A Serbian passport used to be very limiting but recently it’s been rapidly rising in visa-free access to other countries. As of early 2022, a Serbian passport is ranked 36th in the world by the Henley Passport Index (compared to the USA’s #6 ranking) with visa-free access to 135 countries—including places like Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, Turkey, and some others that are harder for US citizens to gain access to.
• Serbia is in negotiations for membership in the EU, which could be completed by 2025. That would turn Serbian citizenship into an even more valuable EU citizenship. The biggest hurdle for Serbia’s membership is its strained relationship with Kosovo since the EU wants to see a more normalized relationship beforehand.

The Process for Citizenship

I’d originally planned to submit the paperwork myself. I got new copies of my Japanese birth certificate issued (Serbia requires documents to be issued within the last six months) and an apostille for my birth certificate. I needed the document and apostille to be translated into Serbian, so I first contacted the Japanese embassy in Belgrade, and although they couldn’t do the translation for me, they connected me with a court-appointed Japanese-to-Serbian translator in Belgrade. I also got newly issued copies of my mom’s Serbian citizenship and birth certificate which I would use to prove my Serbian connection.

Going to the downtown City Hall (gradska opština Stari grad), they weren’t able to locate records of my childhood Yugoslav passports. So I decided to use a law firm to apply for citizenship since I started to suspect the process would be a hassle and knew it would likely take longer than I would be able to stay in Belgrade on a tourist visa. The local police station that deals with passport records (policijska stanica Stari grad) recommended the law firm Petrović Mojsić & Partners (PMP) since they’re experienced with citizenship applications. Reaching out to them, they replied with a personalized email that included a reasonable flat fee and lots of helpful details. Just to be sure, I reached out to a half dozen additional lawyers and law firms in the city, but none of the others seemed as good (inconvenient locations, wanting me to pay high rates for an initial meeting, much higher overall prices, or not being able to quote a flat price). PMP charges USD $1,200 all-up, but they took $100 off that price since I’d already had my birth certificate translated and I was able to provide my mom’s paperwork.

It turned out this law firm had done about 2,000 such citizenship applications in the prior year, so I felt like I was in very good hands.

Here’s what I needed to bring:

• Officially translated birth certificate (reissued within the last six months) with apostille. The law firm was able to handle the official translation if needed.
• Notarized photocopy of my USA passport.
• Signed and notarized power of attorney document allowing the law firm to gather and submit the necessary paperwork on my behalf.
• I brought my mother’s Serbian birth certificate and citizenship papers (both reissued within the last six months), but I believe the law firm would have been able to procure those on their own given the power of attorney I granted them.

The notary company Javni beležnik – Jasna Vasiljević was conveniently located downtown near where I was staying, but they weren’t willing to notarize my Serbian power of attorney document without a court-appointed English translator present (since my Serbian is very basic) even though I’d gone over it with the law firm and understood it. I was able to go to another notary (Zoran Nedin, office at Šumadijski Trg 6a) to get it done without that.

Make sure to get a White Card from your hotel or Airbnb if you’ll be visiting police offices on your own. The law firm doesn’t need it though since you give them power of attorney.

So that’s it. My citizenship application is now in process and I expect to have it approved within 3–6 months of when it was submitted. I’ll update this post when it’s completed, and you can be sure I’ll be celebrating with plenty of rakija, delicious Serbian food, and a return visit to Belgrade to enjoy its lovely people, sights, and nightlife.

Edit: I am now officially a Serbian citizen. It took about 6 months to get an official decision, so at least that part was within the expected time range. However, after that, I spent about another 6 months waiting for the registration of my citizenship at the civil registry office to be completed. Only after that was I provided an official Serbian birth certificate and citizenship certificate, which I needed before I could apply for a passport.

This summer while visiting Serbia, I decided to fulfill a longtime interest and go skydiving. For anyone else considering skydiving during a visit to Belgrade, here’s my take on the experience and what to expect.

• Website: skydiveserbia.com
• Phone: +381-60-0292012
• Location: Lisičji Jarak Airport (LYBJ) ~30 minute drive from downtown Belgrade.

Details

We went as a group of three, including my girlfriend and a mutual friend. It was easy to reserve over the phone, and we were able to book a Saturday morning jump despite calling them only a couple of days in advance. Even though our friend lived in Belgrade, it was his first time hearing of Lisičji Jarak Airport, since it’s tiny and has only small planes. He drove us all out, which took about 30 minutes from downtown Trg Republic square.

When we got to Skydive Serbia’s small office at the airport, their staff was friendly and most spoke fluent English. All of the instructors seemed exceptionally experienced. The one guy I asked had a jump count of 1,200. Some of the others were ex-military types who’d been jumping out of planes since before they left the force. We felt like we were in good hands.

Their packages start at a reasonable but not cheap €170/person (also payable in Serbian dinars) for a jump from 3,000m. That’s nearly 10,000 ft., and standard for tandem skydiving. If you want, you can pay extra to jump from as high as 4,000m (more than 13,000 ft.). Higher than that and I think you’d need to bring oxygen with you. The packages are €50 more per person if you want photos and videos of the experience. That might seem like a lot, but I looked at one skydiving place in Arizona and they charged four times as much for their pictures and videos (although they did talk up their focus on quality). In any case, do you have much of a choice when it’s potentially a once-in-a-lifetime experience? (If you’re unsure, I’ve provided more details about the photos and videos below so you can decide if it’s worth it for you.)

They needed us to pay in cash onsite the day of, and all jumpers needed to be under 100kg (220 lb.). Our friend was the heaviest of the bunch and weighed in at 95kg, so no problems there.

Buildup and experience

We all suited up in optional jumpsuits (and required eyewear) they lent us free of charge, to help us stay warm at high altitude. And to look cool. They can accommodate large groups, but you’ll be going three at a time since that’s the max that can fit in their Piper Seneca II airplane. There are no seats in the plane, so the three of us all sat together with our tandem jumpers/instructors on the floor. They strapped us to themselves, then we took off from the grass, skipping the airport’s small runway.

Oh by the way, there was an open hole where the airplane’s door would otherwise be (to make it easier to jump), so if you go up with two other people, one of you will be sitting by this big open space. In our case, that was me. That allowed for amazing views on the way up, but it was a little scary despite having previously flown in doorless military helicopters (since in those cases I at least had something to hold onto). Although I was never in danger, I had to actively keep myself calm as we climbed higher so others wouldn’t notice my concern.

And then we were freefalling. I’ve been to an “indoor skydiving” wind tunnel, and I’ve been bungee jumping once, and honestly, this was nothing like either. The experience was probably the most intense thing I’ve ever felt, and it was a hell of a rush. Gently parachuting afterward (a much longer part of the experience) felt great. You can also take control of steering the parachute if you want to, but you might have to ask them.

We landed on the same field we took off from. If you have non-jumping friends, they can wait there and take pictures from the ground. There’s also a nearby café where they can hang out.

Photos and videos

Photos and videos were taken via wrist-mounted GoPros that the instructors brought with them. They sent us the photos and videos via a web link the next day. I’ve included the full video of myself below so you can get a sense of what they’ll give you. The photos were fun but relatively low quality at 1,280 by 720 pixels. I’ve included a few in a slideshow here, edited from their original 16:9 aspect ratio to 4:3. Each of us got a slightly different number of photos (55, 72, and 61).

Photo slideshow:

Video:

Overall, we all thought it was an amazing experience. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Visiting Serbia? Check out my recommendations for what to see and do in Belgrade.

It ain’t a mosh pit if ain’t no injuries

Travis Scott, Stargazing

Ella loved Travis Scott since long before we started dating. Probably a lot more than you imagine. She’d listen to his song Goosebumps on repeat while exercising, and she was always happy to share it with others and request it from club deejays. For some time now, seeing Travis Scott live and being in a Travis Scott mosh pit was at or near the top of her bucket list. I’m all about live shows by my favorite rock and electronic artists, and I can appreciate the thrill of being near the stage and getting carried away with the energy of the crowd. I can understand the idea that crowd surfing and leaving with a few bruises or a missing shoe can be part of what makes it fun.

I’ve had fun in mosh pits at smaller rock shows in the past, but of course, they can be dangerous and people need to look out for each other. Over the last decade, it seems that live performances for a large subset of rap and hip-hop have increasingly taken on the aggressive crowd energy of hardcore and punk rock. That said, the “mosh pits” of hip-hop seem to be more about the intense atmosphere and crushing crowds than the actual moshing from rock concerts.

But returning to Travis Scott, his concerts are known to be intense and he’s built his whole brand around this vibe probably more than anyone else in hip hop. He even calls his fans “ragers”. We almost went to see him a couple of years ago, but he broke his leg during a concert and canceled his subsequent show which we’d planned to attend. Then Covid hit, further delaying the bucket list event.

Cut to Astroworld 2021

We flew out to Houston, Texas the day before the festival. We were psyched and were near the front of the line when the gates opened at 1 pm the next day. The festival was held on the grounds of an old Six Flags theme park and had the theme to match, complete with a Ferris wheel, rollercoaster, and other rides. After enjoying a food truck picnic and getting some booze, we explored the festival grounds and saw a surprise performance by deejay Chase B in a huge dome tent. The crowd inside the dome was already a bit rough—a small sign of things to come. When Chase B’s set started, people outside started cutting in line (with a few being willing to step over others who’d fallen) and throwing themselves at the front of the packed space.

We decided to skip the other performances throughout the day, but later we’d hear that the mosh pits even for artists like Don Toliver and Lil Baby were intense enough that people had passed out. However, all of this was merely leading up to the evening’s big show with Travis Scott, where more than 50,000 people would be in attendance.

We staked out our spot for the concert starting at 4:30 pm—four and a half hours before it began. That gave us a great location with only four rows of people separating us from the front of the general admission area. We were at one of the best possible positions (apart from the stage-adjacent sections for VIP ticket holders), and right at the epicenter of where we knew the mosh pit would be.

The crowd up front with us was an interesting mix. There was the skinny 6’6″ dude from Boston who we quickly made friends with, and another guy named Chris who’d broken into the festival grounds and had cuts on his arms, wrists, hands, and legs from jumping over a barbed-wire fence. This was his third Travis Scott show and ninth music festival he’d broken into, but he said this one had far more security and was a lot harder to get into than ever before.

Chris and others told us what to expect. Within two minutes of the show starting, Chris said, people would be passing out and getting crowd-surfed forward to concert staff. And when Travis brought out his special guest (people were guessing Drake or Kanye), things would get even crazier. But how could it get that bad within two minutes? Because, he said, they get dehydrated… they get stupid. What he didn’t explain at the time was that people would start crushing together long before the show started, so two minutes into the music was not two minutes after things got bad. But we came for the mosh pit, right? Ella and I understood we wouldn’t be in control of our bodies, and our best bet would be to go with the flow of the crowd, hold tightly to each other to not get separated, and enjoy the night for the new and likely intense experience it would bring.

Not everyone was as friendly. One young and petite woman on our left told her boyfriend she’d push people to the ground (a potential death sentence, she must have known) to get closer to the front if she had the chance. A burlier 22-year-old woman to our right (who we took to calling Rainbow because of her hair) was gradually making progress pushing forward at the expense of others. I knew this kind of thing was going to happen and figured the best way to stay safe was to let people who were determined to get through do so.

About an hour before the show, crowds from the left and right mosh pits (separated by barriers that allowed security and VIPs to pass) started a jokey feud about which side was best. That led to water bottles and beer cans flying dangerously between sides, and one guy within arms reach was hit hard on the back of the head. I kept an arm raised for protection, though with the crush of the crowd by that point, it meant my arm wasn’t coming back down. Security in the front periodically shouted and looked for people who were throwing but couldn’t identify anyone. At some point, the two sides made peace via heart-hand gestures that spread throughout the crowd and signaled a backdown. Great that they decided to stop stupidly endangering people for no reason. So far, though, nothing you wouldn’t sometimes find at a crowded concert elsewhere, except we were pushed more tightly together than I’d ever experienced.

As we got closer to the start of the concert, the crowd in the back started pushing forward more aggressively. We were swaying back and forth. Every time they pushed, we’d then push back as a group, which was necessary to prevent the masses from progressively taking one inch after another. And the music hadn’t even started yet.

Thirty minutes before the show, a countdown timer was shown on stage—yet another opportunity for the crowd to crush forward. We were in a human wave that was being pushed in all directions. First forward, then back. Right, and then left. Sometimes in all directions simultaneously.

A guy in the front row got righteously angry at the crushing and turned around to yell at the crowd, shouting that “y’all niggas need to back the fuck up and stop treating each other this way.” He was mad and trying to do what he could to protect the people in the front. But Rainbow Girl decided this was the time to be a social justice warrior and yell at him for using the word nigga while being white (like her). She tried to prod some black dudes nearby to beat him up, but no one took the bait. We were already seeing that, although most people around us were friendly and just there to have a good time, I think it’s fair to say this wasn’t universally the nicest crowd.

Then the music started

…and the crowd went wild. I don’t even know where the space came from for people to start throwing their arms and bodies around, but we all found a way. Although there was definitely a thrill to being a part of that energy, within seconds I knew it was time to start backing away. I didn’t mind if it remained intense, but surely being a little further back and having more room to breathe and avoid overheating would be worth a slightly worse view. So as the crowd kept pushing forward, I pushed backward while holding onto Ella and letting others slide in front. At first, it was working, albeit slowly. As we moved back several rows, at each new spot I overheard conversations from new people saying they should crush forward when others pushed back, which by that point showed they were willing to be reckless and weren’t thinking about how others could be hurt. That being said, there was no violence and no stampede.

Aside: The Wikipedia article about crowd crushes talks about journalistic misuse of the term “stampede”, and quotes people saying that its use in the context of crushes is the result of “pure ignorance and laziness … it gives the impression that it was a mindless crowd only caring about themselves, and they were prepared to crush people.” In reality, claims Wikipedia, “individuals are directly crushed by others nearby who have no choice, and those who can choose how to move are too distant from the epicenter to be aware of what is happening.” That definitely applied to many at the mercy of the crowd that night, but not to all. There were enough people around who were not concerned about the effect on other people and only focused on moving forward.

During the first couple of songs, we weren’t yet trying to escape the mosh pit altogether. At the time, I was just looking to get away from the very front, expecting that the further back we got, the better it would get. At each step, I just wanted a little more breathing room. But as we got further back, the crush kept getting worse. Not necessarily because it was worse in the back, but likely because it was getting worse for everyone. Later, I’d realize that waiting just a few minutes more before we started backing up could have led to a much more dangerous situation, and much more difficulty getting out.

Before long, we’d gradually changed from backing up to trying to get out and had turned ourselves around away from the stage. Fortunately, at no point did we panic. Ella and I regularly gave each other looks of reassurance, and I’d kiss the back of her head to let her know I was still with her and doing okay. We held onto each other the entire time.

Chaos without moving

As things continued to get worse, more and more people around us began to panic. Many were worried about passing out. “Please help”, others would beg. One guy pleaded for help by holding up his inhaler and telling the crowd around him that he had asthma. But no one had the power to let anyone through. People started grabbing necks and pulling hair in an effort to hold themselves up. Some of the most aggressive people were those trying to protect their friends or partners, who they were scared for. Ten minutes into our escape, there were maybe 50 people around us who were all facing away from the stage, all trying to escape, with none of us making progress.

Occasionally, people started chanting “help” or “stop the show.” I joined in the chants. But it never lasted long, since by then we already knew it was hopeless. Our shouts between songs weren’t working and songs were immediately continuing one after another, offering no reprieve to even make an inch of progress. The nearby camera crew who could see and hear us were unmoved. The music kept playing.

Keep in mind that many in the crowd (including myself and Ella) didn’t know how bad it really was. Most people wanted to help each other and would do what they could if you got their attention, but they just weren’t physically able to let anyone through. Everything we were seeing, hearing, and feeling was at least partially normalized for us based on what we’d heard about Travis Scott’s shows going into it. The two of us certainly never thought anyone would die. We didn’t see anyone on the ground, and although we could assume some in the crowd had passed out, we expected that to happen and hadn’t actually seen anyone who had. Ella and I were looking at it as a new intense experience that would pass and that would be interesting to discuss later. We were pretty uncomfortable, sure, but we could still breathe and didn’t feel in immediate danger, though we realized how dangerous it would be to fall over, or if things got a little worse. We kept our spirits up throughout, which helped us not panic and try to be reassuring to people around us, some of whom were much more panicked and begging for help.

But we also couldn’t move, and for maybe 20 minutes we weren’t making any progress despite being part of a large group that was mostly facing away from the stage and trying to get out with us. I became resigned to the idea that we weren’t going anywhere and considered turning our bodies back toward the stage to at least try to enjoy the show a little more (not that we’d be able to see anything with the crush of humans around us). But getting out seemed like the best way to help others, both by keeping the momentum going that way and by freeing space for others. Going straight backward just wasn’t working, though. Someone suggested we go diagonally to our left, which seemed to make sense since I knew the barricades were closer in that direction and we wouldn’t face the crush of people still trying to get in from our right. But no, after some time, we hadn’t gained even an inch since that direction was a human cement wall. (I’d later learn that might have been the most dangerous area because of the unfortunate barrier design the organizers had set up. The crowd surging from the stage’s left to the front gradually forced others into the back corner where they were ever more densely trapped, with no escape.)

That’s when I saw a space that had opened up a little behind and to the right of us. We pushed toward it and were met with both shock and involuntary relief. Two women had collapsed and were passed out on the ground. Just enough space had opened up around them that the temperature cooled and the fresh air allowed breathing normally again. Several people were already on the ground with them, trying to do what they could. They moved the heavier woman off the other one, tried to check their pulses, and turned them on their sides. Others shouted at the crowd and pushed people back so the women wouldn’t be trampled. Occasionally, a person or two would try to push around them anyway, but the crowd was managing it and looking out for them. Things were under control. But there was no way to clear a lane to actually get them out.

Nevertheless, finding those collapsed women was a turning point. The tamer crowd there and the open air around them allowed cooling off, breathing normally, and finally seeing how far we were from the barricades. As we pushed back into the crowd, we started making more progress, and it was only another 10 minutes or so until we got close to the chest-high fence at the back of the pit. There weren’t enough staff nearby to help much, though. Security was overwhelmed but doing what they could, whereas the camera and sound crews seemed to either not see the cries for help as their problem, or maybe they’d been desensitized from prior Travis Scott concerts that were almost but not quite as rough. Some concertgoers were actively helping out, and one reached over from behind the barrier to carry Ella over. I couldn’t immediately follow her as there were others who needed help more, so I kept pushing forward until I got to the barrier. At that moment, a guy on the other side asked for my help to lift his partner. After she was safely over, I asked him to help me, too.

Outside the pit

Once out, it was a night and day difference. No more crushing. Plenty of air. The crowd was acting calmly and keeping some distance from others. In fact, most people were not aware of what was going on in the pit. You might expect there was a mad dash over the barriers and out of the pit, but it was more like a steady trickle. Most people who needed help couldn’t get to the back barriers in the first place, and by the time you got there, there was already a little more room to breathe so it wasn’t dangerous in the same way. With the new vibe on the other side, things seemed like they’d be okay. Maybe there wasn’t an emergency after all. Maybe everyone just needed to do what we did, and they’d be okay. I forgot about the two women on the ground, back in the crowd. (Ella, to her credit, told me later she’d immediately told security about them once she got out, and they said they knew about them but couldn’t get in and had to wait for medical staff.)

As soon as I reconnected with Ella, someone asked for help carrying out a man who had passed out. I immediately grabbed his legs and together we carried him about 100 ft. down the mostly open walkway away from the crowd. By that point, he was conscious again but still mostly couldn’t stay upright on his own. Someone from the medical staff approached us and took him from there.

Ella and I still hadn’t realized the severity of what was going on in the crowd. Yes, we saw the women on the ground, but we knew people passed out at many concerts like this and the crowd was taking care of them. Yes, the production crew hadn’t paused the show despite people begging for help, but it seemed like folks were able to make it out (even if very slowly) and they were going to be okay. We had no sense we were at the site of an unfolding tragedy, but then, most of the deaths that night happened after we’d already gotten out. We found a comfortable spot in the crowd behind the sound and camera stages and enjoyed the rest of the show.

From where we were standing and with several rows of people in front of us, we couldn’t see into the mosh pits, instead only seeing the very tops of the heads of people there. The show was genuinely amazing now that we were able to enjoy it, and no doubt at least 95% of the massive crowd that night including everyone around us at that point was having a good time. Drake came out and the crowd went even wilder. The stage, pyrotechnics, fireworks, and music were all top-notch. Ella and I reassured each other that we didn’t feel in danger at any point while we were in the pit, though we acknowledged that things could have been worse. We weren’t calibrated on the severity of the situation, and we knew that although Travis Scott’s shows were always intense, they hadn’t been worse than a number of other popular hip-hop festivals.

At one point while Drake was on stage, I saw three people stand up over the mosh pit crowd and start dancing. Neither of us could figure out what they were standing on. Was it the barrier that was holding the crowd in? Nah, that was too narrow to dance on. I guessed there was a stationary object in there we hadn’t seen earlier. Only later would we learn from the news that they were dancing on top of an ambulance that was trying to reach people in the crowd. (An extreme example of people not looking out for each other, and I hope those particular people are arrested.)

After Travis performed Goosebumps (which he ends all his shows with) to crazy visuals, lasers, and fireworks, the crowd very quickly started thinning out. I was relieved to see the mosh pits open up like that. Everything seemed okay. We went to ride the nearby Ferris wheel (and admire the huge mass of people below us) before walking back to our hotel. The vibe of the departing crowd was normal and happy. No one we saw seemed to be aware of the tragedy that soon would be written about in newspapers around the world. That said, we did notice from our Ferris wheel birds-eye view just how many ambulances had their lights on in front of the medical tent behind the stage.

The next day

The next morning, we read the news coverage. Eight people had died, 11 went into cardiac arrest (at least one would later be declared brain-dead), and hundreds were treated for injuries. The second day of the festival had been canceled, and we had messages from friends, family, and coworkers asking if we were okay. We were confronted head-on with needing to reset our understanding of what we’d experienced, and just how dangerous it had been. How lucky we were to have started backing out right when we did.

Many people immediately assigned blame to Travis Scott, the crowd, or the event organizers. Many articles called it a stampede, which it definitely wasn’t. There was no space for that. I will say that many people quick to assign blame did not seem to have the full picture. The truth is that it was hard for most people there to tell what was happening or the extent of the problem. Travis definitely could have made things better by telling the crowd to chill out and make space, or by pausing to let people get out. You can find videos of him doing that at prior concerts, but that night he failed his fans when he could have helped more than anyone. That said, it’s hard to know what he knew and what he could see (the show was at night, and much of the affected parts of the crowd were not able to move or be heard). Organizers could have had better contingencies, better crowd management, or shut the show down, but then, there were a lot of staff on hand compared to similar events (even if some of them ended up being overwhelmed and ineffective). Some members of the production crew seemed to be callous and indifferent, but prior to the results of the ongoing investigation, it’s not obvious how much of a difference they could have made. The crowd was not without fault, but of course, most people were just there to have a good time and had no control over what was happening. The police probably did more than anyone by identifying early that there were problems and insisting to the producers that the show be shortened by 30 minutes (which no doubt saved lives). It’s understandable they were cautious about shutting the performance down entirely, fearing a riot or greater violence (given that this was a very young and excited crowd). But why couldn’t they have insisted on pausing the show and getting people out before continuing? Maybe then they wouldn’t have needed to shorten it.

One thing that I think hasn’t yet received nearly enough attention is the crowd barrier design used that night. Two mosh pits (left and right) were set up in front of the stage, both of which only let people in from one side and had no way out through the back.

It’ll be interesting to learn more when everything comes to light. My guess is we’ll learn that lots of things went wrong, and any one of them on their own wouldn’t have been enough to cause all the problems. I’d also guess that this show will be a turning point for hip-hop festival culture and that organizers and artists will start paying more attention to crowd safety.

Shortly after the show, lawsuits started coming in, Travis Scott refunded all ticket holders, a makeshift memorial for the dead was set up at the festival site, Fortnite removed Travis Scott items from their store, Apple Music scrubbed their social media of posts promoting the event, and TikTok went crazy with bogus claims of people being drugged en masse in the crowd and the concert being a satanic sacrifice.

For our part, with the second day of the festival canceled, Ella and I went to see Houston’s NASA Space Center. I cried during their video about constructing the International Space Station in fucking space. We then flew home with sore bodies, a few bruises, and our complex emotions over having enjoyed a night where too many people found themselves trapped in hell.

Note: Name changed in this post by request.

A note on tone: I tried to write this straight—without a lot of commentary—so people can form their own opinions. I’ve also tried to avoid any unearned attempts at making myself look good.

Vladimir, the professor at SAE, asked if I’d be willing to do a guest lecture where I talk about my experience as a software engineer and manager at Facebook and elsewhere. That sounded like fun, so I put together some simple slides, and here’s the result. It’s an hour-long presentation followed by a half-hour Q&A, and it got very positive feedback afterward from the students so I wanted to save it here for posterity.

The slides are here. The presentation includes fun facts about myself, some history of my early career in tech, a discussion of Facebook engineering culture and practices (as well as how I got a job at Facebook and what it’s like to work there), and a demo of some fun and advanced regular expressions.

Which animal has the best eyesight? The question is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. There are many aspects of vision we could consider, including visual acuity or sharpness, range of the light spectrum that can be seen, number of colors that can be discriminated, low light sensitivity, depth perception, field of view, speed of motion detection, ability to quickly focus on both near and far objects, blindspots, and more. There’s a spectacular array of eye designs in the animal kingdom, in part because eyes are thought to have evolved at least 40 times independently. All of this means it isn’t possible to definitively rank animal eyesight from best to worst, but there are certainly some amazing animals that far surpass us in various aspects.

So let’s meet them!

You might have specific questions like:

• Which animal has the sharpest vision?
• Which animal can see with the least amount of light?
• Do any animals have 360-degree vision?

We’ll get to all that, but first, it might be helpful to consider…

The Human Baseline

Although there are some things we don’t have—like good night vision, the ability to see ultraviolet (UV) light, or the ability to see well underwater—humans actually see pretty damn well compared to the broader animal kingdom. Primates (including us) have the best daytime vision among mammals, and humans are perhaps the best among primates. There’s even a case to be made that humans have the best all-around daytime non-peripheral vision of any animal, and some vision scientists do make this claim.

Why primates evolved such excellent vision is an open question, and there have been many theories proposed including that early tree-dwelling primates needed exceptional vision to hunt and grab insects, to judge distances when jumping between tree branches, and even that our evolutionary ancestors developed superior eyesight due to being stalked by camouflaged snakes. However, none of these theories are firmly established.

For visual acuity, we measure normal human vision (20/20) based on the clarity/sharpness that typical well-functioning human eyes see when standing 20 feet away from an eye chart. 20/40 means you need to be 20 feet away to make out what others can see at 40 feet, and 20/15 means your vision is so good that at 20 feet you see fine details that most others need to be 15 feet away to make out. 20/10 is thought to be the maximum acuity of human eyes. Another way to measure visual acuity is in cycles per degree, or how many black and white parallel line pairs can be distinguished within one degree of an animal’s field of view before the lines turn into a gray smudge. This can be estimated for other species based on eye anatomy or using behavioral tests. Humans can see about 60 cycles per degree, better than most animals.

The Animal Champions

Best visual acuity: Birds of prey like eagles, hawks, and falcons soar above their competitors when it comes to seeing the furthest during the daytime, easily beating human visual acuity. Eagles and hawks are thought to have the sharpest vision in the animal kingdom and some species have the equivalent of 20/2.5 eyesight, which means they can make out small details up to eight times further away than humans can, enabling them to spot a meal three kilometers away. They also see more colors than us, including colors in the UV spectrum.

Best night vision: Cats and owls are famous as night vision champs, but are they the best? Not by a long shot. For comparison, we can use lux, a measure of light per square meter. Bright sunlight is well over 10,000 lux, but human eyes can operate with as little as 1 lux. Domestic cats can see in just 0.125 lux, or one-eighth the light we need. Owls can do maybe 10 times better than that. Tarsiers need only 0.001 lux, and dung beetles take it down to 0.001–0.0001 lux. But for the ultimate night vision, a few stand out: The xylocopa tranquebarica species of carpenter bee needs only 0.000063 lux, enabling them to continue flying (a hard task), foraging, and seeing colors on moonless nights. The deep-sea gigantocypris is listed in some reports as the best of any animal at gathering light, though they see at low resolution. But the lowly American cockroach is likely the winner. Their sight has been measured in a different way, so I can’t directly compare them using lux, but they’re able to respond to light received by their eyes at less than one photon per second, making them essentially impossible to beat based on the laws of physics.

Special Mentions

Most complicated eyes: Mantis shrimp have got this one in the bag. They have independently roaming eye stalks, three pupils per eye (giving each eye independent depth perception), and they can see ultraviolet, far-red, and polarized light. They use 12–16 different types of photoreceptor cells to see color, which compares to our three (for red, green, and blue) and is more than any other animal (although the bluebottle butterfly is up there with 15 types). You might think this means they can see dramatically more colors (the Oatmeal’s popular comic about them hypothesized their vision is a “thermonuclear bomb of light and beauty”), but in fact, they seem to do rather poorly in tests for distinguishing color. That’s only one of the reasons National Geographic describes their way of seeing as “absurdly over-engineered.”

360° field of view: Woodcocks, chameleons, dragonflies, and (depending on the position of their head) jumping spiders can pull this off. However, this vision isn’t perfect. E.g., less than 10° of a woodcock’s vision is binocular (seen by both eyes), which compares to humans’ up to 190° horizontal field of view with 120°–140° being binocular. Dragonflies’ fancy eyesight also comes at a cost: nearly 80% of their brains are dedicated to vision.

There’s also the California purple sea urchin and the box jellyfish, which both have photoreceptors all over their bodies, essentially letting them see all around them (though not without blindspots).

Largest eyes: The colossal squid is the winner for any living animal. Their eyes can reach up to an eye-popping 30 centimeters in diameter, significantly larger than a regulation soccer ball (22 cm) and five times larger than blue whale eyes. Why they have such gigantic eyes is still unknown, but it might help with detecting the faint glow of sperm whales (their only predator) as they disturb nearby light-producing organisms.

Bonus: Cyclopses: All species within the Cyclops genus of copepods have one eye. They’re the only animals like that if you exclude birth defects and microorganisms with eyespots. Fun fact: The one-eyed character Plankton (see image) from SpongeBob SquarePants is a copepod.

Other Super Senses

What about animals with the best senses of smell and hearing? Check out the next articles in this series:

• What Animal Has the Best Hearing?
• What Animal Has the Best Sense of Smell?

What animal has the best sense of smell? The question is not as easy as it might seem on first sniff. Different animals are most sensitive to different smells, so before we can answer questions about the best or strongest, we need to consider what we’re actually comparing and how we can do so.

Scientists who study smell and its variation across species have sometimes considered things like the number of olfactory receptors (ORs) an animal has in its nose, the number of functional OR genes in its DNA (we don’t want to consider nonfunctional smell genes which might be left behind when a species loses its sensitivity to various smells over its evolution), or the size of the olfactory bulb in an animal’s brain (on an absolute basis or as a percentage of brain size). The question then is whether these measures lead to valid predictions. Unfortunately, it turns out that cross-species comparisons of these things are not always good predictors of superior smell when put to the test by measuring different animals’ ability to discriminate smells. That said, there’s more to learn, and this study (for example) did find a positive correlation across species for the number of functional OR genes an animal has and its ability to discriminate subtly different odors.

Other factors we can look at include things like the presence of specialized smelling equipment (e.g., a Jacobson’s organ for detecting pheromones) and observed behavior such as how many miles an animal has been known to follow a scent. These are especially important given the shortage of cross-species olfactory discrimination studies.

The Human Baseline

Compared to many animals, humans have fewer OR genes, fewer scent receptors in our noses, less of our brains are dedicated to smell, our Jacobson’s organs are vestigial (preventing us from detecting pheromones), and smell just doesn’t play as central a role in our lives.

But while there’s no doubt that the sniffers on some animals outperform us, we might be underestimating ourselves. It turns out that humans can be trained to follow a scent trail, thanks in part to our stereo smell. There are also some scents we’re particularly sensitive to. For example, we’re better than dogs (who otherwise generally trounce us in the smell Olympics) at smelling some fruits and flowers, and we’re better than mice at detecting human blood.

The Animal Champions

You can find lots of articles online telling you how many thousands of times better dogs or bears are at smelling than humans, but it seems there hasn’t been a lot of science to back up those conjectures. However, we do know that many animals live in a different world of smell compared to us. A world where even when you can’t see or hear anyone around you, you’re aware of the presence of everyone nearby and others who were there before you.

But which animals do we think have the best noses in the world? Although this question hasn’t yet been definitively answered (for the reasons outlined earlier in this article), two candidates stand out: elephants and bears.

Elephants

A team of Japanese researchers studying olfactory receptor (OR) genes found that elephants have the most documented in any animal so far. African elephant genomes contain nearly 2,000 functional OR genes—five times more than humans and more than twice as many as dogs. Although the study didn’t examine the function of each gene, the huge number of smell-related genes strongly suggests those long trunks contain highly sensitive smelling abilities.

Elephant behavior backs this up. Both African and Asian elephants are particularly good at smelling water, which they can detect up to 12 miles (nearly 20 km) away. A 2007 study even found that African elephants can distinguish between members of two tribes in Kenya (only one of which hunts elephants) partly based on smell.

Bears

Bears are well known for their uncanny ability to smell food over long distances, and silvertip grizzlies and polar bears are often described as having particularly strong senses of smell. There are lots of stories about bears being able to smell animal carcasses from miles away (some say up to 20 miles or 32 km), and male polar bears have been known to trek 100 miles (160 km) following the scent of a sexually receptive female.

These claims should probably be taken with a grain of salt since there’s been little research actually quantifying bears’ sense of smell, but what we know about their biology corroborates the idea that they’re in a league with the world’s best. For example, bears have remarkably developed snouts containing hundreds of tiny and highly dexterous muscles. Their snouts are also estimated to contain more scent receptors than bloodhounds (who are certainly no smell slouches—see below), and bears have massive olfactory bulbs (five times the size of ours, despite their brains being only one third as large).

Special Mentions

Professional smellers: Dogs don’t quite make the list of champions, but they’re still ridiculously good sniffers and they’re a lot easier to train than bears. Dogs are employed to sniff out explosives, missing people, and even cancer. Among dog breeds, bloodhounds stand out as the best. They’re sometimes referred to as a nose attached to a dog, and for good reason, since they have more scent receptors in their noses (up to 300 million) than any other breed. That compares to 5–6 million for humans. Bloodhounds have been known to follow scent trails for more than 100 miles and detect smells over two weeks old. They’re so reliable that the nosewitness testimony of a trained bloodhound is admissible in most US courts.

Dogs aren’t the only ones with noses put to work by humans. African giant pouched rats are used in Cambodia and other countries to sniff out land mines.

An olfactory myth: It’s commonly thought that sharks can smell a drop of blood from far away (some say a mile), but is it true? Apparently not. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University put shark smell to the test and found that although shark smell is impressive and certainly better than your average human, it’s no better than a typical fish. A good article on the subject clarifies the myth: “sharks can smell a drop of blood in a volume of water about the size of a backyard swimming pool.”

Other Super Senses

What about animals with the best vision and hearing? Check out the next articles in this series to learn more:

• What Animal Has the Best Eyesight?
• What Animal Has the Best Hearing?

Every animal has a specific range of frequencies it can hear and is most sensitive to sounds in particular parts of its range. A couple of measures we’ll be looking at for comparison here are Hertz (Hz) and decibels (dB). We use Hz for measuring pitch and dB (a logarithmic measure) for loudness.

But before getting to the world’s best listeners, it might be helpful to first consider…

The Human Baseline

Humans have a decent pitch range, from about 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. We call frequencies below the range of human hearing infrasonic, and frequencies above our range are ultrasonic.

Prolonged exposure to infrasound at high volumes can make us sick, rupture our organs, and even kill us, despite being completely silent to our ears.

As for volume, the lower limit of audibility for humans (i.e., the quietest sound we can hear) is 0 dB.

The Animal Champions

Lots of animals can hear infrasonic and ultrasonic sounds beyond our capabilities. This includes most of our pets. Cats, dogs, rabbits, and guinea pigs can all hear wider pitch ranges than us.

But which animals have the best hearing? Below, we’ll look at a few different categories of best.

Highest frequency: The greater wax moth has the best ultrasonic hearing in the world by far, going up to at least 300,000 Hz. It also hears the widest range of frequencies, and its hearing is highly precise (e.g., it can distinguish between bat calls and equally high-frequency mating calls from other greater wax moths).

If you’re wondering why a moth needs such astonishing hearing, the answer is at least in part that these moths are often eaten by bats that produce incredibly high-pitched calls. So the evolutionary arms race has kept this moth’s hearing several steps ahead. There’s no sound any bat can make that they can’t hear.

Lowest frequency: Pigeons’ ability to hear extremely low-frequency infrasounds (as low as just 0.05 Hz) is second to none. They can use this superpower to detect distant storms, but at such low frequencies, they can even detect upcoming earthquakes and volcanos.

Elephants are another animal commonly associated with low-frequency hearing, but with a lower bound of around 14 Hz (some reports put it as low as 5 Hz), they don’t come close to pigeons. However, elephants still stand out for their low-frequency seismic communication that allows them to exchange information at long distances. Research has shown elephants are able to recognize unique calls of other individuals up to 1.5 km (or 0.9 mi.) away. They use their huge vocal cords to create infrasonic sounds humans are unable to hear, and other elephants pick up these sounds using both their large ears and feet. They can even use the difference between how long it takes a sound to reach them through the ground and the air to determine the approximate distance it’s coming from.

And while we’ve veered off course into long-distance communication (separate from specialized hearing), I’d be remiss to not mention the world’s experts at it: whales. Baleen whales (including the blue whale) and sperm whales are standouts. Just how good are they? The longest-distance whale calls can be heard and recognized thousands of miles away. They pull this off through the combination of:

1. Low-frequency infrasonics (lower frequencies travel farther with less scattering and distortion).
2. Crazy-loud volume (the loudest vocalizations of any creatures, with sperm whales being recorded at 230 dB, comparable to a Saturn V rocket launch—so you probably don’t want to spend a lot of time swimming with sperm whales).
3. The fact that sound travels much farther and faster through water than air.
4. Baleens’ mastery of using the ocean’s “deep sound channel.”

Most acute hearing: Wolves, cats, and some breeds of dogs are among the animals with the most sensitive hearing, enabling them to pick up low volume sounds at long distances. All of them are among animals that can rotate their ears to better capture sound, and all of them have been known to detect sounds as quiet as a ridiculous -15 dB (in the frequency ranges they’re most sensitive to). For comparison, most anechoic chambers (rooms designed to completely absorb sound reflections) can’t reach that low of a volume. A few bat species are also known for their highly sensitive hearing that enables them to detect the footsteps of insects walking nearby.

Special Mentions

Largest ears: This award goes to African elephants. Like other animals with big ears (including the long-eared jerboa, which has the largest ears relative to its body size), elephants use blood flowing through their large, thin ears to help dissipate heat. Compared to sweating, this is an especially useful adaptation/tactic in desert environments where conserving water is important.

Seeing by hearing: A number of incredible animals use echolocation to essentially see or map the world around them—even around corners—using the reflected echoes from sounds they make. Bats, dolphins, toothed whales, and in simpler forms, even a few birds, shrews, and humans can all do this (a handful of blind people are well known for developing their echolocation ability, among them Daniel Kish). However, although hearing plays a role in echolocation, it is a rather different sense.

Other Super Senses

Check out the next articles in this series to learn which animals have the most super senses of vision and smell:

• What Animal Has the Best Eyesight?
• What Animal Has the Best Sense of Smell?

Although the book could have been better, there were some insights. In particular, Leary described how happiness is in large part a personality. I’d never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. And like other personality traits, it’s partly genetic. Apparently, 30–50 percent of the variability in happiness across people is due to personality differences rather than the objective quality of their lives.

The book used the terms positive and negative affectivity for happiness and unhappiness, and explained that (1) they’re not opposites (e.g., you can rank high on both), and (2) they’re better thought of with the additional variables of frequency and intensity. Also related, there really are lovers and haters, who are dispositionally inclined that way toward any number of unrelated things and activities. Unsurprisingly, these traits correlate with openness to new experiences and ideas.

If I had to guess where I land on the bell curves for each of these, I’d say that I’m average for frequency of happiness and unhappiness, a little below average for intensity of happiness, lower than that for intensity of unhappiness, and high on openness. Although I might adjust these if I could, I’m grateful for where I land. It doesn’t sound fun at all to be generally inclined toward unhappiness and disliking things.

I had a meaningful realization in the process of writing this. I’ve long thought of myself as pretty mellow/chill, without a lot of high highs or low lows. I seem to move past negative emotions and experiences faster than most, which is something I’ve tied to my aphantasia ever since I learned about it. I definitely haven’t thought of myself as an unhappy person. But now I see that this was colored by thinking of happiness and unhappiness as opposites rather than orthogonal. So I had to rewrite my first draft of this. It used to claim I’m “higher than average on happiness.” My updated version above nearly reverses this, acknowledging that I’m likely lower than average on intensity of happiness. That change felt like a meaningful discovery, and a success story for why writing a blog filled with introspection might be worth the effort. Listening to the audiobook got me started on self-examination, but it was in fact the process of writing about it here that made me realize I’d been wrong about myself.

This was originally written as a section in my post on aphantasia and hyperphantasia, and was moved here.

I like music about vices: drugs, sex, alcohol, or preferably mixing all three. For funsies, I’ve often gone hunting for over-the-top sexual lyrics. So whether you’re looking for dirty music purely for the humor, for getting down to business, or you’re in search of a song to sing on your wedding night, I’ve got a well-honed list I’ve built up over the years. Hopefully you can find a new dirty favorite here to share with your lover or grandmother.

• Dancehall
• Rap & Hip Hop
• Pop
• Comedy
• More Genres
• The Classics

Advance warning: These are some of the dirtiest songs out there that are still actually good music. Of course, dirtiness (like goodness) is subjective, but making the cut required more than just singing a few lines about happy naked time. These songs mix in-your-face vulgarity (no mere double entendres here), a singular focus on getting it on, and some element of clever, funny, or unusual lyrics. The list is broken down by genre and is (unintentionally) biased toward music by women, partly because that’s true for most of my music but also because I think women have generally written better musical smut. Or maybe I just prefer women talking dirty to me.

Below, 🎦 marks music videos and 🎵 is used for tracks without music videos. In some cases I’ve skipped music videos because they were available only for a song’s clean version.

Dancehall

Jamaican dancehall music has a knack for combining affection and explicit sexuality in a way that’s uncommon in other genres. Artists that stand out to me for their especially explicit (yet affectionate) lyrics include Spice, Vybz Kartel, and Lady Saw. Spice in particular is the queen of this category.

🎵 Go Go, by Spice — 2015; Lyrics

As you step through the door panty drop to floor
Give it to me baby fuck me hardcore
Have so much in store come mek we explore
Best in the world you never get this before
Mi pussy does a jump like a kangaroo
I’m like dripping so wet I’m so into you
Pussy tight, have the glue, grip like a brake shoe
Oh yeah, beat it till it black and blue

🎦 Conjugal Visit, by Spice feat. Vybz Kartel — 2014; Lyrics

🎦 Romantic Mood, by Spice — 2018; Lyrics

Foot pon shoulder, drop soap
Back shot, lizard lap
Skin out pon head top
Roast duck, mi know that
Doggy style, missionary, seesaw, mi nah flop
Wheelbarrow, monkey bar
Womb turn, I don’t stop

Spice describes her sexual repertoire. You’ll have to use your imagination because even Urban Dictionary doesn’t know what most of these are.

More dirty winners:

• 🎵 Heels On, by Lady Saw — 2012; Lyrics
• 🎦 Romping Shop, by Vybz Kartel, Spice — 2008; Lyrics
• 🎦 Back Way, by Vybz Kartel, Spice — 2019; Lyrics
• 🎦 Foreplay, by Shenseea — 2019; Lyrics
• 🎦 Good Comfort, by Shenseea — 2020; Lyrics

Rap & Hip Hop

Hip hop and rap have no shortage of x-rated raunch. Let’s dive in with this classic by one-hit-wonder Khia:

🎦 My Neck, My Back (Lick It), by Khia — 2002; Lyrics

Khia’s anthem for fans of getting their cooches smooched and peaches gobbled includes detailed instructions on how to combine cunnilingus and analingous to pop her wigglies. It’s so ridiculously over the top that a number of artists have created inspired covers, including my favorites by Elle King and Dan Henig. The contrast in these covers between their acoustic/soothing music and the underlying lyrics about the king of feasts results in even greater hilarity.

And let us not forget nympho-rap trailblazer Lil’ Kim, who preceded artists like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and others who followed in her footsteps.

🎵 How Many Licks?, by Lil’ Kim feat. Sisqo — 2000; Lyrics

More recently came rapper CupcakKe, who rose from YouTube virality and whose name is a play on the bukkake fetish. She outdid basically everyone in the world on brazen hypersexuality, with an eight-inch helping of wordplay and horny humor.

Some representatively ridiculous lyrics:

Oops, last night this nigga couldn’t pull out
Because I accidentally sucked his dick with gum in my mouth

Gum, by CupcakKe

I want to eat yo’ dick
But I can’t fuck up my nails
So I’ma pick it up with chopsticks

Deepthroat, by CupcakKe

Here you go. Porno slapstick tunes (and low-budget music videos) by rap’s filthiest wordsmith:

• 🎦 Deepthroat, by CupcakKe — 2015; Lyrics
• 🎦 Spider-Man Dick, by CupcakKe — 2016; Lyrics
• 🎵 Gum, by CupcakKe — 2020; Lyrics
• 🎦 Duck Duck Goose, by CupcakKe — 2018; Lyrics
• 🎦 Vagina, by CupcakKe — 2015; Lyrics
  • CupcakKe said she was inspired to write this song by Khia’s My Neck, My Back.

You’ve no doubt heard this next song and possibly sing it in the shower. It was a critically acclaimed breakout hit, and there’s no denying it deserves a spot here.

🎦 WAP, by Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion — 2020; Lyrics

WAP is another song with a selection of amusing covers. I’m partial to the renditions by Zane Hijazi (the church choir is a nice touch) and Qveen Herby.

Last of the featured tracks for this genre, here’s a song with a music video that manages to be simultaneously creative, funny, ridiculous, and highly suggestive:

🎦 Throat Baby (Remix), by BRS Kash feat. DaBaby, City Girls — 2021; Lyrics

More rap and hip hop:

• 🎵 Look Back at Me, by Trina feat. Killer Mike — 2008; Lyrics
• 🎦 I Got Bitches, by A2M — 2017; Lyrics
• 🎵 Trill Luv, by Yakki — 2015; Lyrics
• 🎦 DDLG, by ppcocaine — 2020; Lyrics
• 🎦 The Bad Touch, by Bloodhound Gang — 1999; Lyrics
• 🎵 Put It In Your Mouth, by Akinyele feat. Kia Jefferies — 1996; Lyrics
• 🎵 Panties to the Side, by Rich Gang feat. French Montana, Tyga, Bow Wow, Gudda Gudda — 2013; Lyrics
• 🎵 Stapleton Sex, by Ghostface Killah — 2009; Lyrics
• 🎦 Want It All, by Young Dolph — 2016; Lyrics
  • I’m cheating with this song, since the lyrics don’t make the cut. It’s just here for all the bare-ass ladies in the video. If you pay close attention, you might even notice there’s music in the background.

See also: Wikipedia: Dirty rap.

Pop

All of the following pop songs are by female artists. For whatever reason, the most explicit put-your-face-in-my-asscheeks pop music tends to come from women. Explicit pop songs are also great because they often strike a lighter, more fun tone.

This first song hits all those notes, and has a fun music video to boot:

🎦 Bathroom Bitch, by Holychild — 2018; Lyrics

The remaining pop songs are all by gay/bi women. I’m not sure what that tells us, but I’m listening (and watching) intently.

• 🎦 Bestie, by Sizzy Rocket — 2016; Lyrics
• 🎵 Lipgloss, by Charli XCX feat. CupcakKe — 2017; Lyrics
• 🎦 Smoke Weed Eat Pussy, by Ängie — 2016; Lyrics
• 🎵 Fuck the Pain Away, by Peaches — 2000; Lyrics

Comedy

It’s not hard to find at least unintended humor in most of this post’s songs, but the comedy songs below are clearly intended to amuse you more than turn you on.

🎦 Work It, by Ylvis — 2012; Lyrics

Girl, I wanna get you into my bed
But we ain’t gonna sleep, we make love instead
Your vagina is a self-cleansing muscular tract
With over 50,000 nerve cells ready to act
In fact 6.5 inches side to side and with a pH-value of 4.5

I appreciate Ylvis’s educational focus and scientific precision.

🎦 The Loophole, by Garfunkel and Oates — 2013; Lyrics

Fuck me in the ass ’cause I love Jesus
The good Lord would want it that way
Gimme that sweet sensation of a throbbing rationalization

Comedy-folk duo Garfunkel and Oates brilliantly skewer the practice of Christian girls retaining their technical virginity by thinking “outside the box.”

More comedy:

• 🎦 I Just Had Sex, by The Lonely Island feat. Akon — 2010; Lyrics
  • The video for this singalong anthem includes guest appearances by Jessica Alba and Blake Lively as unsatisfied girlfriends.
• 🎦 My Vag, by Awkwafina — 2012; Lyrics
  • A gender reversal of My Dick by Mickey Avalon.
• 🎵 It’s So Hard to Say I Love You (When You’re Sitting on My Face), by Marty & the Muff Tones — 1986
• 🎵 Doo Doo Eyes, by A2M — 2018; Lyrics

More Genres

Country, pop-rock, folk. A few more songs from genres that don’t often reach the same lyrically dirty depths (heights?).

• 🎦 Puss In Boots, by Wheeler Walker, Jr. — 2017; Lyrics
  • I chose this song for its music video (because tiddies), but Wheeler has plenty of other hilariously dirty country songs that could be here including Sit On My Face, Family Tree, and Eatin’ Pussy/Kickin’ Ass.
• 🎵 Cum Captain, by Landon Tewers — 2014; Lyrics
• 🎵 Too Repressed, by Sometymes Why — 2005; Lyrics

The Classics

I’ll close out with some popular older songs that deserve a place here for being incredibly attention grabbing during their time.

• 🎵 I Touch Myself, by Divinyls — 1990; Lyrics
• 🎦 Closer, by Nine Inch Nails — 1994; Lyrics
• 🎦 Me So Horny, by 2 Live Crew — 1989; Lyrics
  • The music might be outdated and the lyrics tame compared to many other songs here, but back in its day this song (and others from its album) were considered so obscene that the band was arrested for performing it and music store owners and employees were arrested for selling it. An obscenity ruling against 2 Live Crew was overturned on appeal and the reversal was upheld by the US Supreme Court.
• 🎦 Baby Got Back, by Sir Mix-A-Lot — 1992; Lyrics

For truly old-school dirty blues from the 1920s–50s, see Wikipedia: Dirty blues.

Hopefully you’ve found something new here that you liked. Let me know which are your favorites! I’d also love to hear about your favorites that aren’t here but really should be.