Entertainment
Buffy’s Meanest Character Secretly Called Out Show’s Laziest Trope In First Episode
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is, without a doubt, the tropiest TV show ever created. Thanks to geeky showrunner Joss Whedon, the series was always channeling some of the most popular tropes of film and television, all while creating a few of its own. Eventually, this led to a minor bit of internet history: the helpful website TV Tropes began as a Buffy fan site before it expanded to cover pop culture of all stripes. Long before that site was created, Buffy the Vampire Slayer ran a stake through the laziest trope of them all!
When Willow Rosenberg is first introduced in “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” she is presented as a mousy, geeky girl. This is mostly due to how she dresses, and the character’s fashion evolves over time, revealing her to be one of the sexiest of the Scoobies. In short, Willow is the living embodiment of the “Beautiful All Along” trope, in which minor changes to someone’s appearance reveal them to have been a secret hottie all along. Even wilder, resident mean girl Cordelia draws attention to this in the first episode when she dunks on Willow’s choice of clothing.
Mean Girls: Sunnydale Edition
Need a few crumbs of context? According to TV Tropes, “Beautiful All Along” is the trope in which a character (almost always female) is initially presented as someone who isn’t conventionally attractive. Eventually, she takes off her glasses, lets down her hair, and/or updates her wardrobe, and voila! The Ugly Duckling character is revealed to be a beautiful swan. It happens to Rachael Leigh Cook in She’s All That, Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries, Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality, and so many more examples.
It also happens to Alyson Hannigan in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the first two seasons of the show, she wears childishly bright, mostly oversized clothing that emphasizes that she is a very nerdy character trying to hide rather than stand out. Her fashion becomes fitted and confidently quirky in Season 3. As befitting Willow’s college debut, seasons 4 and 5 show her experimenting with a mixture of bohemian and contemporary styles, and she was often dressed far better than Buffy. She eventually settled into a sexy ‘90s style that alternated between darker palettes for Season 6 and warmer palettes for Season 7.
Buffy Called Out Its Own Lazy Trope
In retrospect, it’s clear the plan was to make Willow look more overtly sexy over time. That’s why we got early glimpses of Alyson Hannigan as a smokeshow, like when she dons a midriff-bearing Halloween costume in Season 2 and meets her leather-clad, dommy mommy vampire persona in Season 3. Those early episodes reminded us how hot Willow actually was, something that her geeky wardrobe from the early seasons did its best to obscure. But in a kind of meta-moment you can only find in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordelia actually calls out what the show is doing to Willow in the very first episode!
In “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” we get a vintage Cordelia moment in which she apparently gives Willow an earnest compliment. “Nice dress!” As soon as the geeky girl smiles, though, Cordelia follows up with her sick burn. “Good to know you’ve seen the softer side of Sears.” A sheepish Willow says that her mother picked the outfit out, allowing Cordelia to squeeze in yet another insult. “No wonder you’re such a guy magnet.” The scene is very effective at defining who these characters are: Cordelia is the sexy bully, and Willow is her mousy target. However, there’s more going on in this scene than you might think.
Black (Magic) Swan
If you pay close attention to Cordelia’s insult, she doesn’t actually call Willow ugly. In her overly cruel way, she is pointing out that Willow might just be a “guy magnet” (as in, attractive to others) if she wore better clothing. This is exactly what happens later in the show: Oz, her first serious boyfriend, takes special notice of her when he sees her sexy Halloween costume. She and Xander also share some forbidden smooching after he notices how good she looks in her homecoming dress. Furthermore, she meets Tara (the love of her life) at the height of her experimental fashionista phase in college.
Long story not very short? Willow is the ultimate Buffy example of the “Beautiful All Along” trope. All it takes is an improvement in her wardrobe to show everyone in Sunnydale how sexy she really is. Incidentally, that wardrobe change also helped audiences realize how gorgeous Willow actor Alyson Hannigan is. In 2004, one year after Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired its final episode, she was voted one of the sexiest women in the world by FHM!
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the king (or should that be queen?) of TV tropes, and Willow was the ultimate embodiment of the “Beautiful All Along” trope. But the show was also famous for turning tropes on their head and generally subverting our expectations. In the very first episode, not only did Cordelia effectively call this trope out, but she foreshadowed exactly what would happen to Willow: she’d eventually ditch the mousy clothing, start dressing stylishly, and become one of the loveliest ladies in all of Sunnydale.
Entertainment
Student sues matchmaking app for allegedly stealing her likeness for an ad
A 19-year-old University of Tennessee freshman is suing the makers of a social matchmaking app after the company allegedly lifted a video from her TikTok page and used it — without her knowledge or consent — in an advertisement suggesting she was looking for casual sexual encounters. The company then supposedly targeted that ad at men living in her own dormitory.
Kaelyn Lunglhofer filed the lawsuit on April 28 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee against Quantum Communications Development Limited, a British Virgin Islands-based company, and its Chinese affiliates. The defendants own and operate a social media and messaging app called Meete. Per the lawsuit, Meete claims to have 17 million users worldwide.
According to the complaint, Lunglhofer posted a video to her public TikTok account on May 31, 2025 — the day of her high school graduation — showing off an orange outfit from her bedroom while music played in the background. Defendants allegedly pulled a 10-second clip from that video and used it as the backdrop for a Meete advertisement that ran on social media platforms like Snapchat.
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The ad, per the complaint, featured female narration stating, “Are you looking for a friend with benefits? This app shows you women around you who are looking for some fun. You can video chat with them.” Lunglhofer’s face was on screen, and the Meete logo was prominently displayed.
According to the suit, Meete allegedly used geolocation technology to serve the ad specifically to male users within the Knoxville, Tennessee area. This includes men living on other floors of her on-campus dormitory building. Lunglhofer found out about the ad because one of the male residents in her dorm alerted her to it, she said in an interview with local ABC affiliate, WKRN.
The suit brings claims under the federal Lanham Act (which addresses businesses’ use of misleading claims), Tennessee’s right of publicity statute — known as the ELVIS Act — and Tennessee common law defamation. Lunglhofer is seeking compensatory damages of $750,000, disgorgement of Meete’s profits tied to the ad campaign, and punitive damages. She is also seeking to have the ad removed entirely.
Mashable reached out to Meete but did not receive a response in time for publication. The firm representing Lunglhofer also did not yet respond to a request for comment.
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Entertainment
Amazon just dropped the new M4 iPad Air to an all-time low, but youll have to act fast
SAVE 13%: As of May 4, you can get the 11-inch Apple iPad Air (M4) for $519.99, down from $599 at Amazon. That’s a 13% discount and $79.01 savings.
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It’s not often that we get a good Apple deal on a non-big-sale day (e.g., Prime Day), but yesterday Amazon dropped the Apple iPad Air 11-inch (M4) to an all-time low of $519.99. That’s a 13% discount, or an extra $79.01 in your pocket.
If you’re still on the fence, Mashable’s Tech Editor Timothy Beck Werth recently awarded this tablet a Mashable Choice award and rated it a 4.5/5 on our very strict (we’re pretty tough) scale. And while it looks basically the same as the previous-gen, Werth says it “delivers faster performance thanks to an improved neural engine and Apple’s N1 and C1X connectivity chips,” adding that “artists and note-takers will definitely appreciate this one.”
If you order it right now, Amazon guarantees free delivery by this Wednesday, May 6 (exactly four days before Mother’s Day, just in case you’re trying to get some extra brownie points with Mom).
Thanks to Liquid Glass and iPadOS26, the newest iPad Air can do double-duty as a laptop, though you’ll need Apple’s Magic Keyboard. Fortunately, both the Magic Keyboard and the Apple Pencil Pro are also on sale at Amazon; both iPad accessories are currently $30 off, at least, for Prime members.
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Entertainment
Roomba inventor unveils a companion robot thats more pet than helper
At this point, most home robots are either glorified vacuums or far-off concepts that may never become commercially available. However, we just got a look at a new home companion robot potentially coming to market next year, and its inventor has a proven track record of putting robots into homes.
Colin Angle, co-founder of Roomba maker iRobot, fully unveiled his new company Familiar Machines & Magic at the Wall Street Journal‘s The Future of Everything event this week.
FM&M’s goal is to make home robots that act more as emotional companions than chore machines. Its debut product is a four-legged robot companion codenamed Ami (per The Verge). The robot looks like a cross between a dog and a bear, and it’s designed to spark a connection with its human owner.
“The next era of robotics is not just about dexterity or humanoid form — it’s about machines that can build and sustain human connection,” Angle said, per an official press release.
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Ami probably won’t launch until next year at the earliest, and we don’t have a price point yet, but it’s still quite fascinating to look at. In addition to its Roomba pedigree, a Familiar Machines & Magic press release states that the company’s employees have also worked with Disney Research, MIT, Amazon, Boston Dynamics, Bose, and Sonos.
The robot animal has 23 degrees of freedom and can move its head, ears, and eyes.
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Credit: Familiar Machines & Magic
According to The Verge, it can’t grasp objects or climb stairs, which would severely limit its usefulness, if it existed to be useful, anyway. It uses on-device generative AI to learn about its owner and respond to the owner’s needs on an emotional level.
One very important detail is that it doesn’t speak, instead purring and making other pet-like noises. A pet seems to be the best point of comparison here, as the robot seems almost totally incapable of performing practical tasks, and instead exists to make people feel less lonely.
Some other crucial points include a touch-sensitive coat that should, in theory, be pleasurable to pet, and onboard cameras and microphones that help the robot react to situations without streaming that audio or video anywhere. It doesn’t have to connect to the internet to work.
The idea of using AI to cure the loneliness epidemic isn’t necessarily new or without merit, even if it can sometimes feel a bit dystopian.
Last year, Mashable reported on a service that allowed the elderly to talk to an AI over the phone, just for the sake of providing company. Multiple companies are creating AI-powered robot companions for elder care applications, including startups like ElliQ and Abi.
Anthropomorphizing robots and artificial intelligence can be dangerous, especially given what we know about AI psychosis. However, some experts believe that companion robots could prove beneficial in specific settings.
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Student sues matchmaking app for allegedly stealing her likeness for an ad
