Does he seem too good to be true? It might be because he's a romance scammer called a "Yahoo Boy" who wants to steal your life savings.
The Yahoo Boys are an online crime group based out of Nigeria that creates fake online personas and uses them to target victims, according to the Department of Justice. Once gaining the victims' trust, the scammers use a pretense to solicit money, like the need to pay an emergency medical expense.
Last year alone, the FBI's Internet Crime Report estimated that Americans lost more than $650 million to romance scams. The Federal Trade Commission, which casts a wider net, reported that, in 2022, these scams netted a whopping $1.3 billion. Many of the victims are older and targeted for their life savings, family inheritances, and retirement funds.
Kate Kleinert, a 69-year-old widow, previously told BI that she lost $39,000 to an online romance scam. By the end Kleinart said she had lost most of her savings, her late husband's life insurance, pension, and income from Social Security.
"Losing the money — that was devastating. But losing that love and the thought of that family that we had? That's what crushed me," Kleinart told BI.
And if it wasn't bad enough, the scam is becoming more sophisticated alongside the latest technology. The Yahoo Boys now uses AI to create deepfakes to dupe even the most alert internet users. Over the last two years, the Yahoo Boys started experimenting with deepfake video clips and video calls, according to Wired.
"Deepfakes" leverage AI to replace the likeness of a person in a video or audio clip. David Maimon, a professor at Georgia State University and head of fraud insights SentiLink, told Wired that the scammers using deepfakes often set up calls through Zoom. They use a webcam paired with software that changes their facial features.
In February, a Hong Kong-based finance worker handed over $25 million to scammers who used deepfakes in this way to impersonate chief financial officers, according to CNN.
In February, a Salt Lake City jury indicted seven members of the Nigerian group. Prosecutors accused them of using money transmitters to help them launder funds obtained from the romance scheme overseas, according to the Justice Department.
The scam in Utah ran from March 2018 through June 2019 and cost victims more than $8 million, police said.
Trina Higgins, US attorney for the state of Utah, said in a public service announcement that victims in the state lost more than $3.6 million to romance scams in 2022. Higgins recommended people looking for love online be careful what they post on social media, ask lots of questions about the people they meet, and research anyone with whom they want to get romantically involved.
Above all, the US attorney's office warns to "never send money to someone you haven't met in-person."
Meta wants users to let their imagination run wild, with an assist from its AI model.
Meta announced a new image generation feature called Imagine this weekthat allows users to create images in real time. The company is rolling out the feature in beta to users on WhatsApp and the Meta AI website.
To use it, users simply type the prompt "Imagine" followed by a description of the image they're trying to generate. Meta said the image will change "with every few letters typed."
Once a user creates an image, they can "animate it, iterate on it in a new style or even turn it into a GIF," Meta said.
Meta's image generator is one of several updates to its AI assistant that the company announced last week.The assistant can now accommodate requests as specific as restaurant recommendations with "sunset views" or "vegan options," offer users interior decor inspiration for a new home, or help them study for a big test by explaining tough concepts.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg referred to the company's "big AI news" as "pretty wild," according to Axios. But Meta is still catching up to competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic. The company is still training its larger models of Llama 3, and when released it's likely to be on par with OpenAI's GPT-4 and Anthropic's Claude 3 Opus, which were both released in March.
See Imagine in action below:
Meta's new AI image generator changes with even a few words.
The world's wealthiest bosses are stepping out to an array of social events this spring, and their style choices are indicative of what's trending among the top 1%.
Tech billionaires are stepping it up from the basic t-shirt and jeans they're known for donning. Today, they accessorize with sunglasses, unique outerwear, and sometimes flashy watches.
"They're getting a little more attention, and I think they like it," Victoria Hitchcock, a fashion lifestylist and personal brander in the San Francisco Bay area, told Business Insider.
She added: "All of a sudden, they're standing out as potential future icons in areas they never intended to go."
Look no further than Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a real example of this fashion upgrade to his techy street style.The Facebook founder might still be wearing the classic t-shirt and jeans, but he's recently opted to pair it with a chain necklace and New Balance sneakers.
Hitchcock told BI that Zuck's new style is part of a larger "strategy" over the last few years to "make him approachable and show that he's a fun guy."
Here's what Zuckerberg and his fellow wealthy tech titans are wearing this spring, according to style experts.
The shacket
Bill Gates, 68, remains on trend with what his fellow tech bosses are wearing.
Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
In March, Bill Gates was spotted in a navy top while sitting in the crowd of a tennis match. At first glance, it's a basic collared shirt, but the Microsoft founder is right on trend with the look the men of Silicon Valley are going for.
"It looks formal, like an old dress shirt, but they're actually knit, so it's got a much more casual vibe," Hitchcock said.
Sometimes referred to as a shacket, the top is thick enough to be considered outerwear but can be styled as a shirt on its own.
It's unclear exactly where Gates picked up his shacket.
Hitchcock's clients, who include wealthy tech bosses in San Francisco, often opt for the luxury Italian brand Herno when purchasing similar clothing.
And Bob's Watches CEO Paul Altieri said it's intentional that the top dogs are choosing to wear "clothing that has no name at all" on its exterior. The choices are in line with the quiet luxury trend that continues to dominate runways and street style.
Their favorite sneaker brands
Sneakers from the brand Y-3 (right) are popular among Hitchcock's clients, and were recently worn by Sergey Brin.
Getty Image; On; End Clothing
Google founder Sergey Brin recently went down a red carpet wearing sneakers with his suit, and it's certainly not uncommon for tech execs to keep it casual.
"We have seen a decline in interest for limited edition sneakers, while interest in low-key luxury sneakers from George Esquivel and the Zegna Triple Stitch remain high," Nicole Pollard Bayme, CEO of LA-based styling firm Lalaluxe, said.
The New Balance sneakers — particularly popular with Gen Z right now — worn by Zuckerberg could be a hint that billionaires are also paying attention to current style trends.
And there's On, a brand that has more recently taken over the shopping lists of Hitchcock's clients over the last three years. Shoes from On go for less than $200.
Sporty sunglasses are in
Sunglasses from Nike cost around $100 on the website.
Getty Images
As for accessories, sporty metal-frame sunglasses are a favorite for men, especially when billionaires are attending outdoor sporting events.
It's no surprise that Nike founder Phil Knight blocks the sun with his own brand, but the silhouette of the shades is a great example of today's trends.
"When they're watching sports, they're not going to wear higher-end quality tortoise frames," Hitchcock said. "They go for metal, which is really funny because I don't think women switch out their glasses for sporting events."
The women in charge want kitten heels and expensive jewelry
Manolo Blahnik shoes go for around $900 brand new.
Victoria Hitchcock; Oscar Heyman
As for her female clients, Hitchcock said they're going for understated shoe options and eye-catching jewelry.
It's kitten heels — oftentimes Manolo Blahnik — with their jeans and blazers completed with "high-end luxury" jewelry for the elite women of Silicon Valley.
For example, a cat's eye chrysoberyl gem ring with 26 diamonds from jeweler Oscar Heyman (pictured above) runs her clients about $320,000.
A view of downtown Chicago that showed the Marina City towers, located adjacent to each other on the north side of the Chicago River.
Michael Lee/Getty Images
A24 is getting backlash for using images to promote "Civil War" that, according to a report, are AI-generated.
One image apparently meant to show Chicago had an iconic building in a nonsensical location.
Some wondered why A24 would use AI given how controversial its been in the film industry.
"Civil War," the most expensive film to date for film-industry darling A24, crushed at the box office in its first weekend — but some images used to promote the film have been met with swift and stark backlash.
The film, which had a production budget of $50 million, follows a group of journalists sometime in the near future when the US is in a full-blown civil war. The movie topped the box office on its opening weekend, selling an estimated $25.7 million in tickets in North America — a figure that includes me, as I saw the film on Sunday.
A few days after its successful opening, A24 posted a series of images promoting the movie to Instagram, but the post was quickly met with outrage over the apparent use of AI.
An unnamed source close to the film told The Hollywood Reporter that the images were AI-generated. A24 did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
In an initial swipe of the images, which appeared to show places across America destroyed and war-torn, you might not notice anything off — unless, of course, you're from Chicago, as I am, in which case you probably laughed out loud when you reached the fifth slide, as I did.
The image shows the iconic Marina City towers, a pair of buildings constructed in the 1960s that are adjacent to each other and span almost an entire city block on the north side of the Chicago River. Even if you're not from Chicago, you might recognize their distinctive appearance, famous for resembling a Midwest favorite: corn on the cob. (They were also featured on the cover of the beloved 2002 indie album "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" by the Chicago-based band Wilco.)
The image shared by A24 would certainly be evocative — one of the towers is burning — if you can get over the fact that the Chicago River is somehow now flowing in between the two buildings, meaning one of the towers now appears to be sitting on an island that currently does not exist.
Theoretically, there could be a time in the future when the landscape of downtown Chicago is fundamentally and absurdly altered to fork the river and create this island, allowing one of the towers to be relocated. But, um, what?
It also wasn't the only aspect of the images that raised eyebrows. One image appears to show soldiers in a boat somewhere near Los Angeles pointing their guns at a giant swan. Perhaps the swan is meant to be a paddle boat, like the ones you can rent on Echo Park Lake? It certainly does not look like it. Plus, if you zoom in, the soldier in the back of the boat appears to be entirely missing legs, with his upper body floating in space.
Another image that looks like it's supposed to be Miami features a car that appears to have three doors. And in an image that apparently is meant to be New York City's Washington Square Park, the historic arch now seems to have a street running between it and the rest of the park. Other potential AI fails in the images have also been called out.
The backlash in the comments was swift, with people blasting A24 for supposedly using AI-generated art. "Why do you keep posting these ridiculous AI posters. Hire an actual artist," one comment with more than 6,000 likes said.
"A24 using ai for advertising might be a sign, maybe its the beginning of the end for a company that used to rely on indie aesthetics," a comment that got over 3,000 likes said of the company, which made a name for itself in part for indie movies that were also accessible. "It's incredibly disappointing."
The source close to the movie who talked to The Hollywood Reporter said the AI-generated images were meant to convey the potential impact of a fictionalized civil war.
"These are AI images inspired by the movie," the source told the outlet. "The entire movie is a big 'what if,' and so we wanted to continue that thought on social — powerful imagery of iconic landmarks with that dystopian realism."
Some commenters also questioned the wisdom of A24 using AI, given the AI concerns expressed during the film-industry strikes last year and a recent controversy with another movie.
Promotion for the horror-comedy "Late Night with the Devil" has been bogged down by complaints that the filmmakers used AI. The directors have said that, in conjunction with their graphics and design team, they used AI for three still images that were then edited further and appeared in the movie briefly.
Marketing for "Civil War" has been controversial even beyond the use of AI, with some people criticizing it as misleading. For instance, none of the scenes depicted in the controversial ad images appear in the movie.
In part because of the marketing, when I saw the film, it was quite different from what I expected, and yet I loved it.
But a large reason I loved the movie was how terrifyingly plausible it all felt. I felt like I was watching a place I know intimately torn asunder. The result was deeply unsettling, a reaction I imagine the filmmakers wanted.
The images A24 posted do not do that feeling — or the movie they're supposed to be promoting — justice.
The Army veteran and Baltimore native has documented his dining on his blog Rideshare Foodie. After seven years, he's learned the most profitable times of day to drive, the best locations to find riders in each city and the optimal strategies for maximizing tips.
"You just got to work smarter, not harder," Torres said. "From my experience, I've been in every state, so I know how every city works now."
At the same time, he's been able to pursue his foodie passions. Torres is now working on a book called "Taste of the States," his recommendations app called Rideshare Foodies, and planning a series of events to honor dishes from various states and their history.
While driving for ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft can be a flexible way to earn money for people like Torres who have more than one hustle, it can also be a recipe for burnout. Among the dozens of drivers Business Insider has spoken with over the past few months, many are already dreaming of what's next — starting a business or finding new modes of employment.
And that's Torres' main career advice for those considering it. After all, he's not planning to do the job forever, as he hopes to transition away, though it helped him jump-start new paths for his future.
"Do not make this the end all be all," Torres said, noting how Uber and Lyft have threatened to pull out of Minneapolis. "When it started, it was advertised as a gig, a side hustle."
Traveling the country as a gig driver
As a veteran, he said this job has been relatively stress-free and helpful for not feeling lonely, a similar sentiment he's heard from veterans with PTSD.
"I enjoy meeting and connecting with different people and getting to see different places," Torres said.
He decided to spend his next few years on the road using driving to fund his adventures and to meet locals who could point him to the best restaurants and experiences.
"The great thing is you get to learn about different cities and how everything operates," Torres said.
He moved to San Antonio, though he works mainly around the more-profitable Austin area, and has explored the South and Southeast.
While he doesn't make much money from his blog, he said driving has allowed him to try everything from Navajo tacos in Arizona to biscuits in chocolate gravy in Arkansas to huckleberry swirls in Montana. Driving has led him to some of his favorite restaurants like I693 Red Zone Grill in Jackson, Mississippi; Strawberry's BBQ in Holcomb, Missouri; and Rice & Roll by Xing Xing in Wichita.
Learning the most profitable places and times to drive
Torres noticed he would get more profitable rides driving around suburbs, airports, and sports stadiums, locations coveted by drivers as they get more tips and sometimes elevated fares.
He learned New Year's will always be profitable, though rides slow down around February before picking up in mid-March. It's led him to be more methodical about the types of rides to take, as well as planning when to save more of his earnings and when to splurge a little on food and travel.
"After seven years, I'm a lot more experienced. It depends on the time of the season, so I usually can do a lot more business in college towns," Torres said. "I would visit a city, see what they're known for, a little history behind it."
Torres was making enough to comfortably travel the country, though he's always been careful since he said passengers are sometimes confused by his out-of-state license plate. He also faced a permanent deactivation from Uber last year over a dispute over the color of his car.
He doesn't have a wife or kids, nor does he have an apartment, as he mainly lives out of his car to save money. He acknowledges that growing competition on the road and lower earnings could put a greater dent in savings for people with families or permanent residences.
Torres has transitioned to driving full-time for Lyft, and he typically is online for 12 hours a day but only actively drives five to six hours in between waiting around airports.
He said he's increasingly put himself in his passengers' shoes to determine the best places and times to drive — he likely won't put in the effort to drive during rain, and he's more likely to do later trips around concert venues or bars.
To continue supporting his travels, he said he sometimes does airport rides at 3 or 4 a.m., as well as rides between 6:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. during the morning rush. He also said being online around noon is fruitful for corporate workers, while 3 p.m. is right when schools let out. He usually tries not to drive around evening rush hours but sometimes resumes later at night.
He also devotes more time to driving between Wednesday and Sunday, when rides are more frequent, whether for "whiskey Wednesdays" or Friday afternoon happy hours. This is also when he can best network with passengers and hear their stories, as he said he occasionally gets to drive famous people.
Torres said drivers should consider this a short-term opportunity while working toward long-term goals. As he eases off the app, he has his eyes set on more international travel in the coming months. He's also investing more time in his food app, a local recommendation tool that functions like a Facebook group in which people ask questions about, for example, the best bartender in the area or where to go for particular dishes. It has launched on Android and set to be released on Apple by the summer.
"The most positivity that you can get out of it, do whatever you can and get the most out of it," Torres said. "The next few months will probably be my last time doing this because I'm focusing on other things, so I always had a plan for the things I was going to do."
Are you a ride-hailing driver who's struggling to pay bills or has had recent success? Have you recently pivoted to a new career from driving? Reach out to nsheidlower@businessinsider.com.
A millennial made $225,000 secretly working two remote jobs but ultimately decided to quit one of them. The worker in the story is not pictured.
xPACIFICA via Getty Images
A millennial earned roughly $225,000 secretly working two full-time remote jobs.
He used the extra money to buy a truck, start an Airbnb, and grow his savings.
But several factors led him to ultimately decide that "the juice wasn't worth the squeeze."
In 2022, Luke was making six figures annually working remotely as an e-commerce professional based in the South.
But he had a lot of downtime — and he's "not good with having a lot of downtime," the 37-year-old told Business Insider.
"I just figured I'd find a second role that paid well enough but wasn't overly demanding," said Luke, whose identity is known to BI but he asked to use a pseudonym due to his fear of professional repercussions.
Roughly three months later, he was secretly working two full-time remote jobs and earning about $225,000 a year in combined income. He said he used the extra money to make a down payment on a truck, start an Airbnb, and pad his savings.
But earlier this year, after roughly 13 months of being "overemployed," Luke quit his second job. While he considered carrying on, he said five factors were working against him: an upcoming promotionin his first role, a difficult boss,the recent birth of his first child, higher taxes, and a return-to-office mandate.
While working multiple full-time jobs can be very lucrative, fierce competition for remote roles has made this unattainable for many people. What's more, return-to-office mandates and burnout can make job juggling unsustainable.
Luke shared how he tried to keep both jobs going as long as he could — and why he ultimately decided to give one up.
Juggling both jobs felt manageable and worthwhile — until it didn't
Luke's overemployment journey was a bit of a roller coaster.
Before he found a second job that stuck, he said he started one that only lasted about a week before his employment was terminated. Luke wasn't sure if his job juggling had been exposed or if the company just changedits mind — he never found out.
When Luke started his more successful job juggling stint, it wasn't too difficult to manage both jobs. He said he only worked between 40 and 50 hours a week between the two roles and didn't have much trouble avoiding double-booking his calendars.
But he said the boss at his second job often left him frustrated.
"I hate my boss with a passion," he told Business Insider before he quit.
Over the past year, both work and home responsibilities made job juggling even more difficult. At his primary job, he said an upcoming promotion forced him to take on a bigger workload and put in longer hours. At home, he and his wife welcomed their first kid.
At the same time, the extra income from his second job — which paid about $80,000 a year — wasn't boosting his finances quite as much as he initially expected. That's because it slotted him into an income bracket with higher tax rates.
"Of the money I made from the second job, a third of it, I had to basically hold back just for taxes," he said.
"The juice wasn't worth the squeeze"
Earlier this year, Luke faced perhaps the biggest challenge in his overemployed journey: His primary job was switching its policy from fully remote to hybrid by the middle of 2024 — which would require him to come into the office a few days a week.
For many job jugglers, a return-to-office mandate would be the nail in the coffin — at least for their existing working arrangement. But Luke tried to figure out how to keep both jobs going.
On the days he had to work on-site, he could use his personal office to juggle both jobs without anyone peeking over his shoulder, he said. His main concern was that his employer would notice that someone from a different company was using the internet connection.
However, after weighing the challenges the hybrid policy would present, in addition to the other downsides of job juggling, Luke ultimately decided that "the juice wasn't worth the squeeze." His second job would have to go.
But he didn't immediately hand in his two-week notice. That's because he thought he could get a few easy paychecks first.
Luke said his company typically went through a multi-step process before parting ways with poor-performing employees, so it'd be possible to string out the process for at least a month.
But he soon decided this strategy wasn't worth the extra income either — and called it quits.
"I'm not going to try and juggle both jobs," he said in March. "I thought about it, but with the new baby and a promotion coming, it's just too much."
Are you working multiple remote jobs at the same time and willing to provide details about your pay and schedule? If so, reach out to this reporter at jzinkula@businessinsider.com.
Fooks' South Poorton Farm is a 17th-century cottage located in a small hamlet in West Dorset.
The couple purchased the long house in 2019 and removed the modern concrete floor during their extensive renovation.
The coins were discovered while digging down two feet to expand the downstairs area.
The discovery is the latest in historic and valuable discoveries made accidentally in people's backyards, basements, underfloors, behind walls, and in attics, and evidence that your home could be hiding an amazing secret.
Betty Fooks, an NHS health visitor, told the Guardian: "It is a 400-year-old house, so there was lots of work to do. We were taking all the floors and ceilings out and took it back to its stone walls.
"One evening, my husband was digging with a pick ax when he called to say they've found something. He put all the coins in a bucket. If we hadn't lowered the floor, they would still be hidden there," she said.
The collection was handed to the British Museum for identification and cleaning.
Dukes Auctioneers said on its website that the British Museum believes the coins were deposited on one occasion around 1642-4. The English Civil War began around this time, and the area around Poorton experienced much conflict.
The "Poorton coin hoard" comprising 1,000 coins is now set to go under the hammer on April 23 at Duke's Auctioneers.
The collection, which includes Elizabeth I silver shillings, Charles I gold unite coins, James I silver sixpence coins, and more, has an estimated value of £35,000, or $43,600.
Business Insider contacted Duke's Auctioneers for comment.
Spectacular discoveries
The painting entitled "Judith Beheading Holofernes" pictured during its presentation in Paris, France, April 12, 2016, attributed to the Italian master Caravaggio (1571-1610) and was discovered in an attic in Toulouse.
REUTERS/Charles Platiau
In 2019, a similar discovery was made by another couple in England.
The "Judith Beheading Holofernes," believed to be a canvas by Caravaggio, was later sold for $170 million.
The unnamed family who shared the astonishing windfall speculated that work may have been spirited out of Italy by an ancestor who fought in Napoleon's army in the early 19th century, reports say.
Female Russian soldiers during the rehearsals for the Victory Day Military Parade, April 18, 2022.
Contributor/Getty Images
Russia is recruiting female convicts to boost its military forces, a Ukrainian intelligence spokesperson said.
Moscow wants to recruit the convicts to auxiliary and combat roles, the Kyiv Post reported.
More than 100,000 convicts from Russian penal colonies have reportedly been conscripted to fight in Ukraine.
Russia is recruiting female convicts to bolster its war effort in Ukraine, the Kyiv Post reported, citing a Ukrainian intelligence spokesperson.
The women are promised financial incentives and the prospect of freedom in exchange for their service, the report said.
Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine's military intelligence service (HUR), told the Kyiv Post: "We are not only talking about auxiliary units, but combat units as well if needed."
The role of women in the war has expanded rapidly since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The fate of many of the Russian female convicts recruited is bleak, however, with only a few making it back alive, Yusov claimed.
"Most of the women prisoners recruited by Russia have been killed or returned with serious injuries," he said.
The practice of offering convicts freedom in exchange for military service in Ukraine began under Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late founder of the mercenary Wagner Group.
More than 100,000 convicts from Russian penal colonies have been conscripted to fight in Ukraine so far, Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian human rights activist who runs the prisoners' rights group Gulagu.net, told Newsweek in December.
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin, has defended Russia's use of prisoners in the war, saying that they "atone with blood for crimes on the battlefield, in assault brigades, under bullets, under shells."
In January, the UK Ministry of Defence reported that Russia was on course to lose 500,000 troops by the end of 2024 after turning its forces into a "low quality, high quantity mass army."
Business Insider contacted the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment.
"War doesn't care whether you are a man or a woman"
A soldier studies FPV drone control during training at a drone school on October 26, 2023, in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine.
Elena Tita/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Ukrainian women have been joining the military in significant numbers since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.
Ukraine's Ministry of Defense reported a more than 40% increase in female soldiers in its forces between 2021 and 2023, with around 43,000 women serving in military roles as of October 2023.
The BBC reported in August 2023 that 5,000 women were serving on the front lines.
"A war doesn't care whether you are a man or a woman. When a missile hits a house, it doesn't care if there are women, men, children – everyone dies," Sniper Evgenya Emerald told the BBC.
"And it's the same on the front line — if you can be effective and you're a woman, why wouldn't you defend your country, your people?"
Ukraine's defense ministry opened up more combat positions to women in 2016 and again in 2018, meaning they could serve in roles such as infantry or snipers, CNBC previously reported.
Helen Chandler-Wilde's belongings had been packed up into storage while she stayed with her parents after a break-up.
But then she got a call that a fire at the unit had destroyed everything she owned.
Losing everything was hard, she told BI. But it reframed her thinking about how much you really need to be happy.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Helen Chandler-Wilde about what it was like to lose all of her possessions in a fire. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I only heard about the fire a few days after it happened.
I was 25 at the time and living with my parents for a few months following a breakup. All my belongings had been packed into storage while I looked for somewhere new to live.
I had thought that the worst-case scenario would be mice eating a couple of my books.
But on New Year's Eve, a fire started at the storage company. Everything burned down.
When my parents sat me down at the kitchen table and told me the news, I genuinely thought it was a joke.
I cried all night long, and then I just felt really, really angry that I had lost everything.
My birth certificate, all of my books, jewelry, my bed, my dining table, kitchenware, blankets, and curtains had all been in there. All I had left was a suitcase of clothes.
Those items had felt like a part of my identity —something I could rely on to show other people and myself who I was.
Helen and her cousin at the launch of her book "Lost & Found."
Helen Chandler-Wilde
Losing them made me question, "Am I really this kind of person if I don't have all of that stuff to prove it? "
There was also this purple cardboard box filled with sentimental bits of paper: cards, letters, tickets from gigs, and photos of my university sports team. Those little things connected me to other people.
That's the one thing I wish I could have saved.
The first things I replaced
You don't realize how expensive everything you own is until something like this happens. I was completely overwhelmed by the financial cost of replacing my furniture.
I was earning peanuts at the time and only got £2,000 ($2,500) of insurance even though it was worth far more.
A friend of a friend gave me a bed, a mattress, and a sofa, which was invaluable. Then I just headed to the secondhand store across the road from my apartment and had to buy basically everything in there.
Helen Chandler-Wilde's book "Lost & Found" explores why we buy and hold on to things..
Helen Chandler-Wilde
I bought a dining table, plates and crockery, some rickety chairs, and a mirror — turns out you really need one for getting dressed in the morning before work!
There was no time to browse; I just needed to have the bare necessities that I could afford.
Having stuff doesn't make you happier
The fire has reframed my way of thinking.
I definitely have less now than I did before. That's partly because I feel like my belongings could go at any point, so I don't trust owning stuff anymore.
But truthfully, I can't even remember some of the belongings that were in the storage unit, which shows how they didn't actually benefit me.
I have learned not to get attached to physical objects. Beyond the basics, the vast majority of stuff doesn't actually make you happier. Now I prefer spending money on going out for dinner with friends.
There are also advantages to not having so many things. It's easy to keep clean, and there's less stress associated with it.
A dangerous cycle of thinking
It's really tricky for me now to have conversations with friends about shopping because their ideas are so different. I find it challenging when people say, " Oh, I really need this."
I always say, "Okay, you might want it, but you definitely don't need it."
Helen explored why
Helen Chandler-Wilde
Our generation spends more time alone and looking at ads, and that has an impact on how we see the world. It's become a default state to look at what others have and want it yourself. People browse constantly on Instagram or social media and convince themselves that they won't be happy unless they buy certain things.
And that's not true at all. Your life will be perfectly fine.
It's a loop you can get stuck in, but as soon as you stop browsing, you stop wanting stuff.
Obviously, there are people who don't have everything they need, and that's completely different.
Work out what you need
I'm not judgmental at all about how much people own, and I'm not a minimalist myself.
But what I think is important is to work out what you need for yourself, not copy what everyone else has. Reconsider how much you buy and why you buy what you do.
It's about selecting the things that actually have value in your life and are worth the space in your home.
For me, memories make you who you are. So, I have lots of pictures on the walls of my house; it's cozy and creates a sense of space. And, though I definitely do still keep those sentimental things, I have tried to pare them back a bit because anything can become sentimental if you let it. Having one amazing picture of your best friend's wedding is enough.
If you focus on the good things, you understand that you most likely already have everything you already need.
Helen Chandler-Wilde's book "Lost & Found" was published in March.
Many workplace experts will tell you that sharing too much about your personal life on the job has never been a great idea. But in the years since the gauzy "whole self" notion became something of an HR cliché, the idea has frayed even further.
That's what some Googlers found out after the company fired more than two dozen of them recently for taking part in sit-ins at company offices in California and New York. It seems increasingly clear that now, in a year when nearly half of humanity is expected to vote in national elections, it might be extra risky to hoist your political stripes at your 9-to-5.
"When managers and leaders say, 'Bring your whole self to work,' they're leaving out the terms and conditions," Megan Reitz, coauthor of the book "Speak Out, Listen Up," told Business Insider.
"Really, they're saying, 'Bring your whole selves to work, as long as we can cope with what you have to say, and please keep within the realms of the rules of the game in this organization, and don't be too disruptive, and for God's sake, don't be an activist,'" she quipped.
It's easy to see how this all got a bit muddled. Ping pong tables. Group yoga. Tech founders wearing activewear during the day on Silicon Valley campuses. Even before the pandemic, there was a movement toward showing more of what makes us us while on the job.
The pandemic blurred boundaries even further. From the early days, when anyone who could was working from home, we all got used to "meeting" their cats, spouses, or kids. There's been a certain normalization of peeking behind the curtains at your coworkers' non-office lives, which is only exacerbated by a firm shift to hybrid work.
But one thing has seemingly changed back to the olden days — and that's that even the most "woke"-seeming companies don't want you to bring your political views to work. At all.
The Google workers who protested the company's $1.2 billion cloud-computing contract with the government of Israel certainly found out that there might be quite a lot of nuance to what's acceptable, even for a company that has encouraged people to bring their whole selves to the job.
The event spurred CEO Sundar Pichai to admonish employees against dragging political debates into the office.
"This is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics," he wrote this week. It was part of a broader memo about a corporate reshuffling meant to help the company accelerate its progress on artificial intelligence.
Of course, there's a difference between talking politics and staging a protest that disrupts work. Yet Google's decision and a recent political dustup at NPR following a longtime staffer's criticism of the nonprofit news organization are a reminder that while Doc Martens and midriff-revealing crop tops might cut it at the office these days, baring your politics might not.
'Bring your whole professional self'
The whole-self idea grew in popularity in the 2010s, Ella Washington, a professor of practice at Georgetown University, told BI. Yet it has to be within reason — and fit within what's acceptable at an organization, she said.
"It is said in a way that is supposed to encourage authenticity, but the reality is in most workplaces, you can't bring your whole self. You can likely bring your whole professional self," she said.
Washington said business leaders need to communicate what's acceptable, and workers need to weigh whether an organization's stated values align with theirs.
"When it comes to business, it shouldn't be just based on our personal politics. And I know that's difficult for people to say because it's like, 'OK, wait. I can bring my whole self to work, but I can't talk about politics,'" she said.
This is where nuance comes into play: Political talk at work can be necessary.
"When it is connected to the work that we do, we absolutely need to have those conversations," Washington said.
Deciding what's political
Still, Reitz noted that people don't always agree on what's political. Perhaps, she said, it's a conversation about race that one person sees as being fraught and another person views as essential for discussing in the context of work.
Regarding work, "There is no clarity on what politics means. So any conversation — about whether it's in or out — is already extremely problematic," Reitz said.
"Leaders are saying, 'Bring your whole selves to work — speak up.' And then a few people are kind of going, 'Oh, OK. Thank you very much for that invitation. Let's talk about climate. Let's talk about race. Let's talk about modern slavery. Let's talk about the war. Let's talk about abortion rights,'" Reitz said. But then some leaders say, "'Oh, I didn't really mean that.'"
Both Reitz and Washington said having discussions at work shouldn't mean the actual business of the organization gets put on hold.
Reitz also appeared to concur with Washington that business leaders and employees need to discuss the types of conversations appropriate for the workplace.
It might not be easy. "That means that we're prepared to make mistakes. We're prepared to have fallout. We're prepared not to please everybody," Reitz said.
But, "if you have an environment where you can't tolerate diverse opinions and views without the whole thing exploding, then your problem is bigger than politics," she said.
When companies don't engage with issues and then someone gets squashed for raising something that management deems out of bounds, the rank and file can become distrustful of the idea of bringing one's whole self to the job, Reitz said, adding, "All that does is breed even more cynicism."
However, Washington said workers have to remember what bosses are often really after.
"They don't want to walk back 'bring your whole self to work,' but the reality is that they don't actually mean bring your entire self, including your worst self, and your mean self, and your cranky self," she said. "They don't need those things."