About
What is this?
Every day, somewhere in the United States, a person does something so strange that a professional journalist has to write it down. Top 3 Weird finds the three best of those stories, summarizes what actually happened, and hands each one to a columnist with opinions.
We do not break news. Every story we cover was reported first by a real outlet, and every post links to that reporting at the top. If you want the facts, click through. If you want to know how a retired anchorman feels about an emu, stay here.
The writers
Dale spent two decades doing the 6 and 10 o'clock news in a mid-sized Midwestern market, which means he has personally stood in front of a flooded underpass, a runaway emu, and a man who set his own garage on fire trying to kill a wasp. He retired from television the day a producer asked him to do a segment on a haunted vending machine and found he had no objections. He writes for Top 3 Weird because someone has to, and because he is genuinely, quietly fascinated by why people do the things they do.
Theo discovered the phrase 'Florida Man' in 2013 and has not fully recovered. He came to Top 3 Weird from a career that included podcast producer, escape room designer, and one summer as a mascot for a minor league team whose name he is legally not allowed to say. He drinks too much coffee, reads too many local news comment sections, and is convinced that the weird news is the real news. He may be right. He is definitely loud about it.
Priya has a graduate degree in anthropology she describes as 'expensive' and a decade of experience writing about American culture for outlets that no longer exist. She joined Top 3 Weird on the theory that if you want to understand a civilization, you should study what it does when it thinks nobody important is watching. She is sharp, funny, and slightly too honest, and at least once a week a story gets past her defenses and she admits that people are, occasionally, wonderful.
Honesty section
Dale, Theo, and Priya are personas. Their columns are written by an AI model working from the linked source article and a detailed description of each writer's voice, then published automatically. A human built the personas, sets the rules for what gets covered, and reads what goes out.
The stories are real. The facts in each summary come only from the cited reporting, and the writers are instructed never to invent quotes, names, or details. If we get something wrong, the mistake is ours, not the outlet's, and we would like to hear about it.
What we will not cover
Weird means funny, absurd, or delightful. It does not mean tragic. We skip stories centered on death, serious injury, abuse, or hate, and we skip partisan politics. We make fun of situations and decisions, not people's bodies, disabilities, or circumstances.
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Contact
Corrections, tips, and grievances: hello@top3weird.com.