• There are words in the English language that exist solely in certain regions in the US. 
• In the Northeast, they use words like "sneakers,""leaf peepers," and "wicked."
• In the South, they use terms like "sugar" (to describe a kiss) and "ragamuffin."
• In the Midwest, words like "Hoosier" and "ope" are commonly used. 

While English is the predominant language in the US, there are different dialects around the country. In some regions, in fact, there are words used that no other part of the country has heard. 

As slang words developed over time, regions created their own names for common things. For example, the majority of the country uses the word "soda" to describe the bubbly drink, but the Midwest calls it "pop." In the South, it is referred to as "coke," and some places simply call it "tonic."

Check out some more quirky words that regions have created.

In New England, children drink from "bubblers."

The term "bubbler"— more specifically heard in Boston and Providence — is used to describe a drinking fountain. In fact, a North Carolina State University study found that only 18% of people in the US use the term "bubbler" and most of them are in the Northeast. 

Southerners refer to a group of people as "y'all."

One of the most popular and well-known slang words from the south is "y'all. "

In the Northeast, people call their gym shoes "sneakers."

While the rest of the country refers to them as "tennis shoes," the Northeast calls them "sneakers."

• Millennials are considered the generation born between 1981 and 1996.
• A millennial Georgia Tech professor taught a class on "adulting" in 2016 to students who made up the youngest group of millennials.
• She found several differences between her students and herself, including their relationship with technology, their familiarity with traditional libraries, and what's expected of them academically.

Rebekah Fitzsimmons, a 34-year-old English professor at Georgia Tech, is a millennial.

So are some of her students.

Yet despite being members of the same generation, there are some pretty big differences between them.

Those differences became apparent in 2016, when Fitzsimmons taught a course called "Adulting: Coming of Age in 21st Century America." Over the course of the fall semester, the class used digital media and historical texts to define what it means to be an adult in today's world.

Fitzsimmons' students comprised the youngest members of the millennial generation, defined by Pew Research as the generation born between 1981 and 1996. Fitzsimmons is on the older end of that age range, a so-called "xennial" on the cusp of Generation X.

One of the most obvious differences Fitzsimmons noticed between her students and herself was their relationship with technology.

"I'm on the upper edge" of the millennial generation, Fitzsimmons told Business Insider. "We had computer classes in school and playing 'The Oregon Trail' is kind of a defining childhood memory."

"I distinctly remember the day where we got the internet, and by the internet, I mean AOL on my mom's laptop that was plugged into the modem of our phone of our house. And my students look at me, they're like, 'I'm sorry, what? There were, like, four words in there that I don't understand.'"

Read more:A college professor who taught a course on 'adulting' says millennials don't consider themselves adults until a milestone they're delaying longer than ever

Another big difference came up in the library. Although her students were proficient at navigating the university library's online database and finding information on the internet, working with physical books proved a little more difficult.

"I taught my students in the last couple of semesters, like, this is how you order a book, this is how you loan a book and use your library card to check out a book," she said. "And I have students that will ask questions like, 'OK, but how much does it cost?' And you're like, 'Oh, no, no, no. Library — it doesn't cost anything.'"

"So in some ways, it's the exact same education, and in some ways, the delivery is different," she continued.

The use of modern technology in the classroom was another thing that separated the two ends of the millennial generation. For Fitzsimmons' adulting class alone, students needed to know how to use social media, blogging platforms, and software for graphic design and film editing.

"They're having to navigate just so many more things, just the digital fluency that's required for them to navigate," Fitzsimmons said.

"All of those are skills that they're going to need to succeed in the modern workplace. And so it's just so much more, but it's still all condensed into the same amount of time."

SEE ALSO: A college professor who taught a course on 'adulting' says millennials don't consider themselves adults until a milestone they're delaying longer than ever

DON'T MISS: 23 things most millennials have never heard of

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NOW WATCH: Watch millennials try a McDonald's Filet-O-Fish for the first time

• Jordan Peele's "Us" will now open on March 22, a week later than originally scheduled.
• That moves it further away from expected hit, "Captain Marvel," which comes to theaters March 8.
• Peele's last movie, "Get Out," was a box-office sensation. Distancing the two movies is beneficial for both, BoxOffice.com chief analyst Shawn Robbins told Business Insider.

Writer and director Jordan Peele's follow-up to "Get Out, called "Us," is distancing itself from another highly anticipated blockbuster, "Captain Marvel."

Universal moved the release date for "Us" this week from March 15 to March 22. As Exhibitor Relations tweeted on Thursday, that gives "Captain Marvel"— the next installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that opens March 8 — a "free pass to rule the box office" for at least two weeks. 

READ MORE: 'Green Book' writer apologizes for anti-Muslim tweet as the Oscar frontrunner continues to be rocked by controversy

"Us" stars Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke as a couple that brings their children to a summer beach house. But their vacation is interrupted by violent doppelgangers.

Peele's last movie, "Get Out," was a box-office sensation in 2017, and grossed $255 million worldwide off of a $4.5 million production budget. Peele won the best screenplay Oscar last year for the film.

Universal likely hopes to replicate the success of "Get Out," and moving it as far away from "Captain Marvel" is a safe bet. Pre-sale tickets for "Captain Marvel"outpaced "Captain America: Civil War" in the first 24 hours at online-ticketing service Fandango, only behind last year's "Black Panther" and "Avengers: Infinity War."

Moving the "Us" release date is beneficial for both movies, BoxOffice.com chief analyst Shawn Robbins told Business Insider.

"'Captain Marvel' is breaking an important glass ceiling for Marvel and looks poised to deliver blockbuster-level numbers," Robbins said. "'Us' could similarly capture cultural intrigue as Jordan Peele's follow-up to 'Get Out.' If audiences respond well to both films, they'll be able to co-exist and dominate the box office in March."

If both movies do succeed, it could be a good sign early on for this year's box office after a record-breaking 2018, when the North American take was nearly $12 billion.

SEE ALSO: 'Green Book' has become an Oscar favorite, but controversies including an anti-Muslim tweet and genital flashing have piled up

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• Netflix posted strong third-quarter earnings and subscriber growth on October 16, but shares tanked more than 36% over the following two months as the broader tech sector came under pressure.
• After bottoming at $231.23 in late December, Netflix shares have surged by more than 45%.
• The company's recent rebound is overreacted in the eyes of short seller Andrew Left.
• Netflix's market-capitalization gain over the past 12 days equals 12 DreamWorks Animations, 12 Lionsgates, 10 Rokus, or 5 Hulus, Left said. 
• Watch Netflix trade live.

Netflix investors have too much confidence in the stock and lack adequate judgment, the short-seller Andrew Left's Citron Research said Friday. 

"NFLX investors at this level as blind as Bird Box," Citron Research wrote in a tweet. The firm said shares would fall back to the $300 level — more than 10% below Netflix's Friday closing price. Bird Box is a Netflix movie that stars Sandra Bullock as a mother who's trying to protect her children after a supernatural force that kills you if you see it wipes out most of humanity.

Shares of the video-streaming giant have been on a roller-coaster ride in recent months. 

On October 16, the company posted strong third-quarter earnings and subscriber growth, but shares tanked more than 36% over the following two months as the broader tech sector came under pressure. At the time, Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger linked the rising interest-rate environment, which tends to penalize companies, like Netflix, that are short of cash. 

After bottoming at $231.23 on December 24, Netflix shares have rebounded by more than 40%. The gains have come after the Federal Reserve said its future rate hikes were not on a preset course.

The stock's recent rally is too much, in the eyes of Left. Netflix's market capitalization has soared by $45 billion over the past 12 days, the equivalent of 12 DreamWorks Animations, 12 Lionsgates, 10 Rokus, or 5 Hulus, Citron said. 

But Wall Street is bullish on the tech giant.

"After six months of stock underperformance & key debates emerging about competition, margins & [free cash flow], we think these debates are better understood by investors and reflected in the current stock price,"UBS analysts said on Thursday. The bank has a "neutral" rating and $400 price target.

Netflix was up 56% in the past twelve months.

Travis Clark contributed to this story.

Now read:

• Netflix analysts answer critical questions about the streaming giant and the future of the industry (NFLX)
• 'Long-term fundamental trends remain very, very, very much intact': Here's what Wall Street is saying about Netflix's record subscriber growth

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NOW WATCH: The equity chief at $6.3 trillion BlackRock weighs in on the trade war, a possible recession, and offers her best investing advice for a tricky 2019 landscape

• Getting over a breakup can be hard enough, without any other obstacles.
• INSIDER consulted a relationship expert to find out what things you should avoid if you're trying to get over an ex.
• Your social circle, social media, and ruminating on the past all make it a lot harder to get over a breakup.

Getting over a breakup can be hard, especially when there are added factors making it more difficult to move on. Oftentimes, however, there are things you can avoid that will make getting over your ex a lot easier.

INSIDER spoke with relationship expert Rori Sassoon to find out what's making it harder for you to move on after a breakup.

You and your ex are in the same social circle.

Friends oftentimes make getting over your ex worse without even realizing it. "The number one thing that comes to mind is a social circle," Sassoon said. "The longer you're together, the more you have friends together, and it's so annoying when your friends say, 'Did you see Steve? He's there, or here, or here's who he's hanging out with.'"

"Depending on how tight you were as a couple, [sometimes] you can't even go to a [friend's] party because he's gonna be there," Sassoon added.

You keep seeing their posts on social media.

"Social media in today's day and age is also a nightmare when you're trying to heal from a breakup," Sassoon said. "Because you don't want to see that stuff." Most of the time it's better to unfollow your ex on social media or take a break, so you can take the time to really get away from them.

You're getting stuck in your own insecurity.

"It depends on who broke up with who," Sassoon said. She said oftentimes if you were the one broken up with, you're thinking, "'Am I ever gonna find someone who's gonna treat me like that [again]?'"

"If you didn't end the relationship," Sassoon said, it can be easy to doubt yourself, whereas the person who did the breaking up is thinking, "'I really have to do this for my own sanity, because I don't like the person I'm becoming with this person.'" It's important to remember your self-worth, and that sometimes two people just don't work out.

• For years, "High School Musical" actor Corbin Bleu has had one of the most-translated Wikipedia pages of any person in history.
• His page has more translations than anyone else alive except for Barack Obama.
• It's bewildered people for years, since MIT analyzed Wikipedia data in 2016.
• A Reddit user may have found the culprit: a polyglot Bleu superfan who goes by the aliases "Chase Watson" and "Zimmer611" on Wikipedia.
• Corbin Bleu's page has gotten 20 more translations since the 2016 MIT study, bringing up his total to 213 languages.

In 2016, MIT's media lab conducted a study analyzing the most popular people on Wikipedia. They found the people with the most translated pages on the site. The top results weren't too surprising — Jesus Christ, Barack Obama, Adolf Hitler, Confucius — you know, the usual.

But sitting there at No. 3 was Corbin Bleu, the actor most famous for his supporting role in the 2006 Disney Channel movie "High School Musical." With 193 languages, his page had more translations than those for Mozart, Hitler, Da Vinci, and Einstein.

As BuzzFeed News noted at the time, it was bizarre. Why was a minor celebrity such a big deal on Wikipedia? And why did his page have more translations than even Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, or Ashley Tisdale?

Bleu's immense Wikipedia presence has been a mystery since. It recently became the subject of a post in the Unsolved Mysteries subreddit, where a Reddit user going by the name Lithide may have solved it.

According to Lithide, Wikipedia records suggest that a bulk of the Wikipedia translations were made and are maintained by a user using a handful of IP addresses based in Saudi Arabia. The user seems to have several different accounts on the site, and goes by the name "Chace Watson" in the English Wikipedia and "Zimmer611" in the Arabic Wikipedia.

It's possible, Lithide said, that Chase Watson and Zimmer 611 are two different people. But the identity presented on Watson's page — ostensibly a gamer in Germany — doesn't add up. The user doesn't use the account to edit Bleu's German page, for instance.

"I actually think there's a dedicated fan of Corbin Bleu from Saudi Arabia who wanted to make sure there were Wikipedia articles for their idol in every language possible and also spent a few dozen hours working on the Arabic-language article," Lithide wrote.

In the years since the MIT Media Lab study, there have been 20 more translations of Bleu's name on the site, bringing the total up to 213 languages, according to Wikipedia's own records. (Wikipedia uses "interwikis" as a metric to record page translations.)

But he's slid down in the rankings, now at No. 5. Ronald Reagan surged to the No. 1 spot of people with the most-translated Wikipedia page, with 248 different translations. In 2016, Reagan didn't even rank in the top 100, having had only 107 translations. He's now followed by Jesus (244 translations) and Michael Jackson (234 translations).

Barack Obama remains the person alive with the most translations and has the fourth overall, with 228.

Bleu would need 15 more translations to catch up to him, but he's also at risk of being taken over by Leonardo Da Vinci, whose page has just one fewer translation than him.

A representative for Bleu didn't immediately respond to INSIDER's request for comment.

• Read more:
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• On Jan. 15 and 16, the Trump administration's nominee for Attorney General William Barr will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation hearings. 

• Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a staunch Trump ally and conservative firebrand, now leads the Committee.
• Some of Barr's controversial comments — combined with the high-stakes nature of the nomination, and hyperpartisan environment in Washington — could lead to some tense partisan clashes on the Committee.
• Here are the key Senators to watch during Barr's confirmation hearings. 

On Jan. 15 and 16, the Trump administration's nominee for Attorney General William Barr will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation hearings. 

Barr, 68, previously served as attorney general in the early 1990s under President George H.W. Bush. Since then, he's worked as a corporate lawyer in private practice. 

While Barr is widely-respected in the conservative legal world, some of his opinions have garnered controversy. Barr came under scrutiny for sending an unsolicited 20-page memo to the DOJ criticizing the Mueller probe's line of investigation into possible obstruction of justice and witness tampering by Trump.

Read more: Meet William Barr: What you need to know about the possible once and future attorney general

The memo called Mueller's inquiry into whether Trump obstructed justice by when he fired FBI director James Comey "legally unsupportable" and "potentially disastrous."

Barr also said Trump's firing of Comey was "the right call," supported Trump's firing of Deputy AG Sally Yates, and expressed concern that special counsel Robert Mueller's team of prosecutors is biased against Democrats. As attorney general, he would oversee the Mueller probe. 

Barr's previous comments around the Mueller probe combined with the high-stakes nature of the nomination, and hyperpartisan environment in Washington could lead to some tense clashes. 

Conservative firebrand and Trump-allied Sen. Lindsey Graham, who made headlines for his angry attack on his colleagues during the Kavanaugh hearings, now leads the Committee. 

Here are the key Senators to watch during Barr's confirmation hearings: 

SEE ALSO: Republicans are worried about a 'Kavanaugh 2.0' scenario with Trump's attorney general nominee

Newly-named Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham

Graham used to be criticized as a "RINO" (Republican-in-name-only) for publicly opposing Trump during the 2016 Republican primary — but now he's one of Trump's staunchest defenders and most loyal surrogates on the Hill.

Graham commanded attention and earned the praise of his fellow Republicans in September during the Judiciary Committee hearings on sexual assault allegations facing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, when he lashed out at his Democratic colleagues and vowed revenge. 

"When you see Sotomayor and Kagan, tell them that Lindsey said hello because I voted for them. I would never do to them what you've done to this guy. This is the most unethical sham since I've been in politics," Graham said, referring to Obama-era nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

When Kavanaugh told Graham that he'd "been to hell and then some" over the allegations, Graham angrily responded, "This is not a job interview, this is hell."

Previously, Graham told reporters that Democrats can expect their judicial nominees to also face misconduct allegations in the future. "If this is the new norm, you better watch out for your nominees," he said.

Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris has been accused of hostility against Catholic judicial nominees — and is laying the groundwork for a 2020 presidential campaign.

Sens. Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono (also a Democrat on the Judiciary Committee), have recently been accused of anti-Catholic bias for questioning whether judicial nominee Brian Buescher's membership in the Catholic fraternal organization Knights of Columbus would compromise his impartiality on the bench.

Barr himself is Roman Catholic, although not known to be a member of the Knights of Columbus.

As Harris embarks on a book tour ahead of a rumored presidential announcement sometime in late January, all eyes will be on whether she questions Barr's faith during the hearings, and whether she takes advantage of the spotlight to bolster her campaign ambitions. 

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey is also reported to be mulling a presidential bid.

During Kavanaugh's initial confirmation hearings, Booker took the dramatic step of threatening to release documents purportedly proving Kavanaugh supported racial profiling.

Booker was mocked by some for then declaring, "this is about the closest I’ll probably ever have in my life to an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment"given that the documents had been released that morning.

The comment was a reference to Stanley Kubrick's 1960 film "Spartacus" about an unsuccessful slave rebellion in ancient Rome. 

Now that Booker is taking steps towards a 2020 presidential bid, political observers will be watching to see if he creates more "Spartacus" moments for himself during Barr's confirmation process. 

Join the conversation about this story »

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• We are on day 21 of the third government shutdown of the Trump administration, which means hundreds of thousands of federal employees are working without pay, or not working at all. 
• This hurts not only families but also states, particularly those who have a larger share of federal employees among their residents. 
• Here are the states most and least affected by the government shutdown, according to research by WalletHub. 

During a government shutdown, federal employees don't get paid, federal contract dollars are frozen, national parks are closed, and government-sponsored benefits, such as food stamps, are at risk of getting underfunded. This means states with a larger share of federal employees, with higher percentages of food stamp recipients, or with more federal contract dollars per capita are being affected by the shutdown more than states who don't depend on federal funds as much. 

According to research by WalletHub, a personal finance site, the government shutdown — now on its 21st day — is having an overall greater impact on blue states than red ones given their larger dependence on federal funds. This map shows which states have been hit the hardest: 

Based on five measures — share of federal jobs, federal contract dollars per capita, percent of families receiving food stamps, real estate as percentage of gross state product, and access to national parks — WalletHub found that the District of Columbia, New Mexico, Maryland, Hawaii, and Alaska are most hard-hit by the shutdown, while Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Iowa and Indiana are the least affected. 

Read more: Several House Republicans broke with Trump and voted with Democrats to pass 2 bills that would end the government shutdown

The District of Columbia, Hawaii and Maryland are tied for the highest share of federal jobs in the nation, while DC, Maryland, and Virginia receive the most federal contract dollars per capita. DC is also home to the highest percentage of families receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, also known as food stamps, followed by Mississippi, which is the eighth state most affected by this shutdown. 

The study did not measure the potential impact of the shutdown in Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands ,and the Virgin Islands due to lack of available data, but they are also being affected. For example, Bloomberg Law reported that the IRS has already used the shutdown as an excuse to get more time to object to a plan that would restructure Puerto Rico's sales tax bonds as part of the territories bankruptcy-like reorganization.

Federal Emergency Management Agency workers continue working unpaid in the Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico, while the Guam Daily Post reported that the National Wildlife Refuge in the territory remains closed due to the shutdown. 

SEE ALSO: The government shutdown is now in day 6 — here's how long previous government shutdowns have lasted

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NOW WATCH: MSNBC host Chris Hayes thinks President Trump's stance on China is 'not at all crazy'

Digital disruption is affecting every aspect of the fintech industry.

Over the past five years, fintech has established itself as a fundamental part of the global financial services ecosystem.

Fintech startups have raised, and continue to raise, billions of dollars annually, pushing incumbent financial institutions to get in on the action. Legacy players have begun using fintech to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving financial services landscape.

So what's next?

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, explores recent innovations in the fintech space as well as what might be coming in the future in our brand new exclusive slide deck, The Future of Fintech: How Fintech Is Taking Over The World and What Comes Next.

To get your copy of this free slide deck, click here.

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• The payments ecosystem is undergoing a period of digital transformation, which will spur tremendous growth in money moved around the globe in the next five years.
• Consumers and businesses will make 841 billion noncash transactions worldwide in 2023, up from 577 billion in 2018.
• The next five years will mark a pivotal transformation in how companies and consumers handle payments.

The impact of payments’ digital transformation is rippling around the world, in both advanced economies and developing countries.

Across major global regions, the total volume of e-commerce transactions is expected to rise 91% over the next five years to hit $5.7 trillion by 2023.

With such impending immense growth, it’s crucial for any business that even touches the payments industry to understand what’s ahead.

Take, for example, noncash transactions, which include debit card, credit card, direct debit, and credit transfer transactions that are conducted either online or offline. Consumers and businesses will make 841 billion noncash transactions globally in 2023, a 46% surge from 577 billion in 2018. The rise in global card and terminal penetration, coupled with increasing digital payments volume, will will be the key drivers in this growth.

To successfully navigate this changing landscape, individuals and organizations must understand the full extent to which digital transformation will affect the payments industry, the key drivers of this growth, and how it all relates to the work they do every day.

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has forecasted the future of the payments ecosystem in The Payments Forecast Book 2018— and the next five years will be critical for the following four areas:

• Global Payments: Asia, North America, and Europe will be the three main growth regions in the next five years, and will make up 70% of all noncash transaction growth by 2023.
• US Payments: In the US, P2P and retail payments combined will still be less than a quarter of the size of the B2B payments market by 2023 ($6.3 trillion vs. $27.3 trillion).
• US E-Commerce:Total e-commerce spending in the U.S. will surpass $1 trillion by 2023, and the average consumer will spend $2,959 online.
• US Emerging Payments: By 2023, 67% of US adults will have used BOPIS (Buy Online Pickup In Store) at least once in the last 12 months.

Want to Learn More?

People, companies, and organizations all over the world are racing to adopt the latest payments solutions and prevent growing pains amidst a technological transformation. The Payments Forecast Book 2018 from Business Insider Intelligence is a detailed four-part slide deck outlining the most important trends impacting the payments ecosystem around the world — and the key drivers propelling each segment forward.

Representing thousands of hours of exhaustive research, our multipart forecast books are considered must-reads by thousands of highly successful business professionals. These informative slide decks are packed with charts and statistics outlining the most influential trends on the leading edge of your industry. Keep them for reference or drop the most valuable data into your own presentations to share with your teams.

Whether you’re newly interested in a topic or you already consider yourself a subject matter expert, The Payments Forecast Book 2018 can provide you with the actionable insights you need to make better decisions.

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• The traditional initial public offering process may be in the process of being disrupted.
• Spotify went public last year using a different process and may soon be followed by enterprise software company Slack.
• Startups have good reasons to spurn regular IPOs — they're costly and time-consuming.
• Thanks to the massive amounts of money that have flowed into Silicon Valley in recent years, many companies are likely well positioned to go public a different way.

The avalanche of money that's piled into Silicon Valley lately may be starting to disrupt more than just the taxi business and commercial real estate — it might upend one of the most celebrated and time-honored traditions of tech startups: the IPO.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Slack, the popular corporate messaging provider, plans to hit the public markets later this year through a direct listing. That's the unusual process that subscription music service Spotify used last year to go public. Should Slack's listing prove as successful as Spotify's, expect the floodgates to open for more of these listings.

Read this: Slack is reportedly following Spotify in going public through a direct listing. Here's how a direct listing works.

In a direct listing, a company's private shareholders sell some of their stakes more or less to investors at large on the open market. That differs from a traditional initial public offering, where investment banks typically line up institutional investors to purchase shares at a set price from the company and its early shareholders.

A big reason why companies hold IPOs is to raise additional funds. In a direct offering, the point is to allow insiders and early backers to freely sell some or all of their stakes; the company typically doesn't raise any funds from the listing event.

Slack and Spotify didn't need money from the public markets

The reason a company such as Slack and Spotify can go public and not worry about raising any funds in the process is that their coffers are already overflowing with funds. Before it went public last year, Spotify, for example, had raised $2.1 billion, according to PitchBook. It still had about $1.5 billion of that left and, because its operations were already generating cash, it was adding to that stash.

Slack is in a similar position. It's raised $1.2 billion to date, according to PitchBook. Even after CEO Stewart Butterfield said it had more than enough cash, he stuffed the company's treasury with hundreds of millions of more dollars. In fact, Slack had so much money in the bank that it started using some of it to invest in other startups.

Those companies certainly aren't alone in having a healthy surplus of funds. Over the last five years, some $445 billion was invested in venture-backed deals, including a whopping $130.9 billion last year alone, a new record, PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association said in a new report this week. More than a third of that total is going into software companies and large amounts are also flowing into other parts of the tech industry.

And more money could be flowing in. Traditional VC firms — which represent just one of several sources of capital for startups — raised $55.5 billion last year, a new high, according to PitchBook and the NVCA. SoftBank's enormous $100 billion VisionFund is helping to push traditional VC's to create larger and larger funds; last year 11 VC funds topped $1 billion in funding, another new high.

With so much money flowing into startups in the private markets, many companies don't feel much need to tap the public markets for cash. One result has been that on the whole, startups are waiting longer to go public.

For the last five years, the median age of technology firms that went public was at least 10 years old, and it hit 12 years old last year, according to data from Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida who closely tracks the public offerings market. By contrast, before the Great Recession, the median age never hit 10 years, and during the dot-com boom, it got down to as low as 4 years old.

IPOs are expensive and time-consuming

But the next place the effects of all that money may be felt is in how companies go public when they decide to do so.

Startup have good reasons for rejecting the traditional IPO model. It's expensive, for starters. The median gross spread — essentially the fee investment banks charge for taking companies public — has been stuck at 7% for the last 30 years, according to Ritter's data. What that means is that if a company raises $100 million in an IPO, it only sees $93 million of that; the other $7 million goes to its investment banks rather than to its bank account.

By contrast, when Spotify went public, its insiders and early shareholders registered to sell as much as $9.2 billion worth of stock. The company paid about $45.7 million in fees, including about $35 million to its bankers, according to documents it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That works out to less than 0.5% of the potential proceeds, or a huge bargain.

And that's not the only savings. Investment bankers typically price an IPO significantly below what the market will actually pay for them, thus guaranteeing that the stock will get a press-worthy "pop" when it debuts. But the difference between the actual market price and the IPO price represents an opportunity cost to the company and its early shareholders. Instead of them gaining from what the market will actually pay for the company's shares, that gain goes to the institutional investors who buy at the IPO price and turn around and sell stock to other investors when the stock begins trading.

In a direct listing, by contrast, the early shareholders receive more or less the full market price for the shares they sell.

The regular IPO process can also be a big time suck for corporate managers. Typically, executives have to tour around the country, meeting with and giving formal presentations to potential investors, hoping to sell them on the offering.

But a direct listing can be much more informal and take far less time. Instead of going on a roadshow Spotify, for example, simply streamed a live webcast of its presentation to potential investors all at once.

Direct listings might succeed where Dutch auctions didn't

Companies have tried to buck the IPO system before. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a handful of companies — most notably Google — went public through a Dutch auction process pioneered by investment bank WR Hambrecht. That process attempted to maximize the amount that companies could raise in an IPO by allowing a wide range of investors to place blind binds that stated how many shares they wanted to buy at a particular price. The company would go public at the highest price at which it could sell all the shares it placed to sell.

That process never gained much traction. The other investment banks and institutional investors — both of which lost out in the process as compared to a traditional IPO — never really supported it. And companies eager to raise funds in an IPO were generally willing to go along with the traditional process.

The direct listing process represents one of the first big efforts to reform the system since the Dutch auction effort. Spotify's IPO was novel. If Slack follows in Spotify's footsteps and its debut goes similarly well, it will likely embolden other companies to give the process a whirl.

And because of all the funding that startups have on their hands, many could feel freer this time around to spur the traditional process. If the company itself doesn't really need any cash and early shareholders can get a better price in a direct offering, why put up with the headaches and expense of an IPO?

To be sure, there are still going to be companies that go the traditional route, even if direct offerings catch on. Several of the biggest unicorns, such as Uber, Lyft, and WeWork, are still hemorrhaging money and almost certainly won't pass up the opportunity for an infusion of new cash from the public markets. And many smaller companies that aren't as well known as Spotify or Slack may feel they need the investment banks to get their names out and market them to investors.

But for startups looking to showcase another facet of an innovative spirit, the best way to buck the trend could be to go direct.

• Read more about the IPO market:
• This year has seen a boom in IPOs — but also a possible sign of bad times ahead
• Startups worth $8.7 billion went IPO in the first half of 2018, and Wall Street thinks the boom time is just getting started
• That this year's IPO market is considered a 'boom' shows how low our expectations are — and why we still haven't figured out the problem
• The tech IPO market has become a good predictor of a recession and this chart shows why we may be due for another one soon

SEE ALSO: Spotify just proved that the streaming-music business is like a black hole — and investors may not see it until it's too late

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• Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson shared a statement on Instagram, in which he says an interview posted Friday morning by The Daily Star was "completely untrue" and that the "interview never took place."
• The Daily Star's article was headlined: "EXCLUSIVE: The Rock slams snowflakes as 'looking for reasons to be offended.'"
• "You know it's not a real D.J. [Dwayne Johnson] interview if I'm ever insulting a group, a generation, or anyone," Johnson told his fans. "Because that's not me, and it's not who I am, and it's not what we do."
• The Daily Star did not immediately return INSIDER's request for comment. 
• INSIDER contacted Johnson's representatives and will update as necessary.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson made headlines Friday after an alleged interview with The Daily Star was published online, in which The Star reported an "exclusive interview" with the actor saying "this generation are looking for a reason to be offended."

On Friday afternoon, Johnson shared a video on his Instagram and Twitter accounts, saying, "the interview never took place. Never happened, never said any of those words, completely untrue, 100% fabricated."

"You know, I've gained such a great trust and equity with all you guys all around the world over the past couple of years," Johnson said, addressing his fans. "And you know it's not a real D.J. [Dwayne Johnson] interview if I'm ever insulting a group, a generation, or anyone. Because that's not me, and it's not who I am, and it's not what we do."

The Daily Star did not immediately return INSIDER's request for comment. The alleged interview, headlined "EXCLUSIVE: The Rock slams snowflakes as 'looking for reasons to be offended,'" was still online as of this article's posting.

"I don't have to agree with what somebody thinks, who they vote for, what they voted for, what they think, but I will back their right to say or believe it," The Star quoted Johnson saying."That's democracy. So many good people fought for freedom and equality — but this generation are looking for a reason to be offended."

However, in his Instagram statement Johnson tells all generations that "the interview never happened."

"To the plurals, the baby boomers, the snowflake generation — I don't even know where that term came from — the tequila generation! That's a generation I just started. That's a good one. You want to join it," he says. "I always encourage empathy, I encourage growth, but most importantly I encourage everybody to be exactly who they want to be. Have a good day."

INSIDER contacted representatives for Johnson for further comment. Read Johnson's full statement from the Instagram post below, and watch the video here.

"I can't believe I have to do this again and set the record straight on something, but I'm happy to do it. Earlier today online, an interview dropped with me — apparently it was with me — where I was insulting and criticizing millennials. The interview never took place. Never happened, never said any of those words, completely untrue, 100% fabricated. I was quite baffled when I woke up this morning.

You know, I've gained such a great trust and equity with all you guys all around the world over the past couple of years, and you know it's not a real D.J. [Dwayne Johnson] interview if I'm ever insulting a group, a generation, or anyone. Because that's not me, and it's not who I am, and it's not what we do.

So to the millennials, the interview never happened. To the plurals, the baby boomers, the snowflake generation — I don't even know where that term came from — the tequila generation! That's a generation I just started. That's a good one. You want to join it. I always encourage empathy, I encourage growth, but most importantly I encourage everybody to be exactly who they want to be. Have a good day."

Visit INSIDER's homepage for more.

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NOW WATCH: North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un is 35 — here's how he became one of the world's scariest dictators

• Video game studio Gearbox Software is engaged in contentious legal battle with the company's former general counsel, Wade Callender.
• Gearbox initially filed a lawsuit against Callender alleging that he misused company funds for to pay for tuition, a home loan, and other personal expenses.
• In a countersuit, Callender leveled multiple serious allegations against Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, accusing Pitchford of taking a $12 million bonus that was intended as an advance against profits of "Borderlands 2," its blockbuster video game. 
• Callender's suit also alleges that Pitchford once left a USB drive in a Dallas restaurant containing underage pornography — though Pitchford separately told a podcast interview that the model featured in the video was "barely legal." 
• In a statement issued to Kotaku, Gearbox said the allegations have "no basis in reality or law," and the company plans to settle the matter in court.

A messy split between a video game Gearbox and its former general counsel has led to a legal battle, resulting in some serious allegations against Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford. 

Kotaku reports that Wade Callender, former general counsel for Gearbox Software, has filed a lawsuit against Pitchford over several allegations involving the video game studio, as well as a co-owned joint real estate venture. Among other things, Callender alleges that Pitchford secretly took a $12 million bonus from publisher Take-Two Interactive that was intended to fund development of Gearbox's blockbuster game, "Borderlands 2." 

More seriously, Callender's lawsuit also makes allegations of improper personal conduct against Pitchford, including claims that Pitchford once left a USB drive in a Dallas restaurant that contained confidential Gearbox documents, as well as info belonging to business partners including Sega, Sony, and Microsoft — and that "upon information and belief," Randy Pitchford’s USB drive also contained Randy Pitchford’s personal collection of ‘underage’ pornography," says the lawsuit. 

The suit also says that Pitchford hosted parties where “adult men have reportedly exposed themselves to minors, to the amusement of Randy Pitchford.”

Gearbox shared the following statement with Kotaku in response to the allegations: "The allegations made by a disgruntled former employee are absurd, with no basis in reality or law. We look forward to addressing this meritless lawsuit in court and have no further comment at this time.”

Later on Friday, Gearbox also told Kotaku that it would pursue action against Callender directly over his claims about Pitchford's personal conduct:

"Gearbox will be filing a grievance with the State Bar of Texas against our former general counsel Wade for disciplinary proceedings for filing a lawsuit that includes accusations that he knows to be untrue," reads the statement, in part. 

Gearbox did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The background of the case

Callender joined Gearbox in 2010 and served as general counsel and vice president of legal affairs until August 2018. Callender and Pitchford were long-time friends for over 40 years, but the friendship fell apart over the last two years, according to Callender's lawsuit. An old Twitter post from Pitchford appears to back up that assertion. 

In November, Gearbox filed a lawsuit against Callender, claiming that he had violated the company's trust and used company funds for tuition, a home loan agreement, legal fees, and other personal expenses. The suit claims that Gearbox had agreed to pay Callender's tuition for an MBA program and home loan in exchange for his continued employment at the firm, but he left less than a year after obtaining his degree. 

Gearbox is asking for more than $1 million in damages, accounting for money Callender allegedly spent on firearms and family vacations, as well as other expenditures. 

"As an executive with the company and fully knowing that Gearbox’s special trust in him would result in Gearbox’s assured payment of his personal charges passed off as business expenses," Gearbox's lawsuit reads. "From 2016 up until his resignation in July 2018, Callender incurred thousands of dollars’ worth of charges from Disneyland, Frisco Gun Club, Gun Gear To Go, and sixpackshortcuts.com, just to name a few."

In December, more than a month after Gearbox filed its original suit, Callender countered with his own lawsuit, with claims that he had been "shamefully" exploited by Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford. He claims that he was instructed to help hide from employees the $12 million payment, which had been intended as an advance on "Borderlands 2" royalties.

The USB drive

In an interview with "The Piff Pod," a stage magic podcast, Pitchford gave what appears  side of the story with regards to the USB flash drive. The podcast episode was uploaded a day after Callender filed his lawsuit. 

According to a report in Ars Technica, Pitchford said that he left a USB stick containing confidential documents at a Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament restaurant. The stick was found by an employee, who accessed the drive, which contained information about future Gearbox projects — as well as pornographic material, he said.

However, it was a video featuring a model who goes by the online handle "Only 18," he said. Pitchford, a stage magic enthusiast, told "The Piff Pod" that he had saved this particular video to the USB drive because he believed that the model used a sexually-explicit magic trick in the video, and he was trying to crack the secret. He described it as "barely legal porn," seemingly in an attempt to refute allegations that it was child pornography. 

Callender also alleged that Pitchford used Gearbox funds to host "Peacock Parties" at his home, where adult men had exposed themselves to minors. As the Dallas Morning News reports, Pitchford and his wife made a regular habit of hosting a private "Peacock Theater" in their home, featuring magicians and variety acts, though the content is not described as sexually explicit.

SEE ALSO: 'Red Dead Redemption 2' is getting a 'Fortnite'-style battle royale mode

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This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

The downfall of US brick-and-mortar commerce is overblown — despite sharp gains in e-commerce, which will nearly double between now and 2021, the lion’s share of purchasing continues to take place in-store. And that’s unlikely to change anytime soon, since the online environment can’t yet compensate for the reasons customers like brick-and-mortar shopping.

That means the point-of-sale (POS) terminal, which merchants use to accept payments of all types and to complete transactions, isn’t going anywhere. But that doesn’t mean it’s not changing. As merchants look to cut costs amidst shifts in consumer shopping habits, POS terminals, which were once predominantly hardware offerings used exclusively for payment acceptance, are evolving into full-service, comprehensive solutions. These new POS terminals are providing an array of business management solutions and connected offerings to complement payment services. 

This is where the smart terminal, a new product that’s part-tablet, part-register, comes in. Merchants are increasingly seeking out these offerings, which afford them the connectivity, mobility, and interoperability to run their entire business. And that’s shaking up the space, since it’s not just legacy firms, but also mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) players and newer upstarts, that offer these products. 

As merchants begin demanding a wide variety of payment solutions, terminal providers are scrambling to meet their needs in order to maintain existing customers and attract new ones. This is leading to rapid innovation and increased competition in both the POS terminal hardware and software spaces.

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has put together a detailed report on the shifts in this landscape, how leading players can meet them, and who’s doing it most effectively.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• Evolving merchant needs are impacting POS terminal players’ strategies. Merchants select terminal providers based on four key areas: payment functionality, user experience (UX), over-the-top (OTT) offerings, and distribution/customer service. Terminal firms need to innovate in these areas, or risk falling behind.
• Larger players need to double down on existing success. Smaller players can often be more nimble, which gives them the opportunity to innovate more quickly and build in-demand solutions. That’s a disadvantage to market leaders; however, they can, and should, leverage their massive distribution networks when upgrading or updating their offerings. Meanwhile, smaller players can win by focusing on niches instead.
• It’s all about the platform. No single feature is likely to make or break a merchant’s decision to pursue a specific provider. Above all, they want a robust ecosystem that can evolve over time. 

In full, the report:

• Explains the current state of in-store retail and why terminal firms need to evolve to meet it.
• Groups features that matter to merchants and explains why they’re important and what terminal providers stand to gain from focusing on them.
• Determines the leading players in the space.
• Assesses how the leading players stack up, and which offerings are the most comprehensive.
• Issues recommendations about how to develop an attractive platform that best serves merchants' needs as the market continues to shift. 

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• The FBI began investigating whether President Donald Trump was a witting or unwitting Russian agent after he fired FBI director James Comey in May 2017, The New York Times reported.
• At the time, the bureau was already investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow during the 2016 election, and Comey's firing prompted the special counsel Robert Mueller to open an obstruction-of-justice probe as part of the Russia investigation.
• But The Times' report is the first indication that the FBI believed it was possible the president himself was a witting or unwitting Russian agent.

After President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey in May 2017, the bureau became so concerned about his actions that it opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump was intentionally or unintentionally working for the Russians, according to a bombshell New York Times report.

At the time, the FBI was already conducting a separate investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 US election and, crucially, whether the Trump campaign secretly coordinated with Moscow to tilt the race in Trump's favor.

Comey's firing prompted the special counsel Robert Mueller to open a new thread in the Russia investigation which examined whether Trump sought to obstruct justice when he ousted the FBI director. But The Times' report on Friday is the first indication that the FBI was concerned the president himself was a Russian asset and mounted a counterintelligence investigation with him as its target.

FBI agents had already been suspicious of Trump's ties to Russia since his 2016 presidential campaign but, according to The Times' sources, there was some concerns within the agency about how to approach the situation given its sensitivity. His decision to fire Comey, however, prompted them to move forward with the investigation.

Read more:Here are all the key developments you might have missed in Russia news this week

Trump's frustration with Comey has been well documented.

The president began laying into the former FBI director after Comey publicly confirmed the existence of the FBI's Russia investigation in March 2017, two months before he was fired. Afterward, Trump repeatedly tweeted criticism of Comey and downplayed the significance of continued revelations of contacts between his campaign and Russians during the election.

When Trump abruptly fired Comey, the White House initially said he had been dismissed because of his handling of the bureau's investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. The White House also put out a statement from Trump which said he fired Comey upon the advice of then Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

But Trump later told NBC's Lester Holt during an interview that he had fired Comey, in part, because of "this Russia thing" and that he would have fired Comey regardless of what Sessions or Rosenstein had advised.

It later surfaced that two days after firing Comey, Trump boasted to two top Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting that firing the "nut job" FBI director had taken "great pressure" off of him. He indicated that the pressure he faced stemmed from the Russia probe.

A month after he was fired, Comey publicly testified that Trump had privately pressured him on multiple occasions to drop the Russia investigation and to "let go" of the bureau's inquiry into Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who was forced to resign after it emerged that he discussed US sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador during the transition period.

Trump has denied all of Comey's allegations, many of which have been supported by contemporaneous documentation from Comey and other senior Justice Department officials.

Trump's other public statements, including encouraging Russia to hack Clinton's emails during the campaign, also attracted scrutiny from the FBI, The Times reported.

It is unclear whether Mueller is still looking into the counterintelligence aspect of the investigation, according to The Times.

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who the newspaper said had no knowledge of the FBI inquiry, appeared to be unfazed: "The fact that it goes back a year and a half and nothing came of it that showed a breach of national security means they found nothing," he told The Times.

SEE ALSO: 'Somebody does need to challenge the president': Republican Jeff Flake calls for civility, says Trump 'owns' the government shutdown

DON'T MISS: Here are all the key developments you might have missed in Russia news this week

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NOW WATCH: MSNBC host Chris Hayes thinks President Trump's stance on China is 'not at all crazy'

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In recent years, we've seen a ballooning of activity in fintech — an expansive term applied to technology-driven disruptions in financial services. And 2018 has been no different, with fintechs' staggering influence on the market evidenced by record funding levels for the industry — by Q3 2018, overall funding was already up 82% from 2017’s total figure, according to CB Insights.

Additionally, this year marked a watershed moment for the industry, with the once clear distinction between fintechs and financial services proper now blurred significantly. Virtually every incumbent financial institution (FI) is now looking inward and engaging in an innovation drive, spurred on by competition from fintechs. As such, incumbents are now actively investing in, acquiring, and collaborating with their fintech rivals.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence details recent developments in fintech funding and regulation that are defining the environment these startups operate in. We also examine the business model changes being employed among different categories of fintechs as they strive to embed themselves further in mainstream finance and prove sustainability. Finally, we consider which elements of the fintech industry are rapidly rubbing off on incumbent financial services providers, and what the future of fintech will look like.

The companies mentioned in this report are: Funding Circle, GreenSky, Transferwise, Ant Financial, Nubank, Cellulant, Oscar Health, Stripe, One97, UiPath, LianLian Pay, Wacai.com, Gusto, Toast, PingPong, Flywire, Deposit Solutions, Root, Robinhood, Atom, N26, Revolut, OneConnect, PolicyBazaar, WeCash, Zurich, OneDegree, Dinghy, Vouch Insurance, Laka, Cleo, Ernit, Monzo, Moneybox, Bud, Tandem, Starling, Varo Money, Square, ING, Chase, AmEx, Amazon, Monese, Betterment, Tiller Investments, West Hill Capital, Square, Ameritrade, JPMorgan, eToro, Lendy, OnDeck, Ripple, Quorom, Chain, Coinbase, Fidelity, Samsung Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Bank of America, TransferGo, Klarna, Western Union, Veriff, Royal Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Canada, Facebook, ThreatMetrix, Relx, Entersekt, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Gemalto, Lloyd's of London, Kingdom Trust, Aviva, Symbility LINK, eTrade, Allianz, AXA, Broadridge, TD Bank, First Republic Bank, BBVA Compass, Capital One, Silicon Valley Bank, Credit Suisse, Ally, Goldman Sachs.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Fintech funding has already reached new highs globally in 2018, with overall funding hitting $32.6 billion at the end of Q3.
• Some new regions, including South America and Africa, are emerging on the fintech scene.
• We've seen considerable scaling in older corners of the fintech ecosystem, including among neobanks and alt lenders.
• Some fintechs, including a number of insurtechs, have dipped into new markets to escape heightened competition.
• Emergent areas like blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT), as well as digital identity, are gaining traction.
• Many incumbents are undertaking business transformations that aim to reimagine everything from products and services to front-end systems and back-end processes.

 In full, the report:

• Details the funding and regulatory landscape in the US, Europe, and Asia.
• Gives an overview into a number of fintech segments and how they've changed over the past year.
• Discusses how incumbents are reacting to fintechs in order to stay relevant in the changing financial services sector.
• Evaluates what the future of fintech will look like and what trends to look out for in the coming year.
  

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SEE ALSO: How the largest US financial institutions rank on offering the mobile banking features customers value most

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• Warning: There are spoilers ahead for "Unbreakable" and "Split."
• INSIDER breaks down everything you need to know about the two movies as their sequel, "Glass," comes to theaters Friday, January 18. 
• "Glass" takes place approximately 15 years after "Unbreakable" and a few months after "Split."
• In addition to Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, two actors from "Unbreakable" who played David's son and Mr. Glass' mom are returning for the sequel.
  

M. Night Shyamalan's next movie "Glass" is in theaters Friday, January 18, and it's been a long time coming. 

While you may know it's a sequel to 2017's thriller "Split," starring James McAvoy as a man with multiple personalities, you may not have realized it's also a direct sequel to one of Shyamalan's first movies, "Unbreakable," distributed by Disney in 2000 under its Touchstone brand, which was created to release more mature movies.

The new film picks up right where "Split" left off. While "Glass" will explain everything pretty neatly for you, you may still find yourself confused over a few things. If you don't have time to watch both before "Glass" is in theaters, INSIDER rounded up what you need to know about Shyamalan's two previous films.

1. Bruce Willis' character, David Dunn, learns he has super strength after surviving a train crash

David is the sole survivor of a terrible train crash early in the movie. Not only does he survive the Eastrail 177 crash, but a doctor (played by "House of Card's" Michael Kelly) is astonished that he walked away without a scratch. 

Throughout the movie, we learn that David has never really been sick or injured in his life and it leads to the discovery that he has super strength. The origin of his powers are never really explained, but we see him lift around 350 pounds. (A deleted scene from the film shows him lift around 500 pounds.)

David also receives premonitions or feelings about danger just by touching others. 

2. David's weakness is water.

In "Unbreakable," it's revealed he nearly drowned in a school pool while young. As a result, he spent a week in a hospital with pneumonia. Again, it's never clarified how exactly water effects him, but it's referred to as his kryptonite and appears to weaken him. 

3. Elijah Price/Mr. Glass is the exact opposite of David. He has very brittle bones, which easily break.

Elijah tells David he was born with type I osteogenesis imperfecta, a disease that makes his bones extremely fragile. In "Unbreakable," he says he has suffered over 50 breaks in his body. Regardless, Price is also a mastermind who is well-versed in comic-book lore. 

We eventually learn he's responsible for the train crash and a number of other horrific accidents which have killed dozens. He set the accidents in motion, hoping to find someone who was his exact opposite.

4. Kevin Wendell Crumb is a man with dissociative identity disorder and exhibits 24 different personalities.

Introduced in "Split," Crumb (James McAvoy) takes on multiple personalities after his father mysteriously leaves his life. The other personalities become a coping method to protect him from verbal and physical abuse of his mother.

Collectively, the identities refer to themselves as The Horde. Kevin's 24th personality, the Beast, is revealed in "Split" and appears to have superhuman abilities. He climbs walls, becomes larger in size, and is able to bend bars. 

We never see McAvoy perform as all 24 personalities, but we do get to see all two dozen names pop up on a computer screen in "Split."

The main identities include Dennis, a man with OCD; Miss Patricia, a controlling matriarch; and Hedwig, who identifies as a nine-year-old boy. 

5. Kevin kidnaps and kills a few girls in "Split." The only one who escapes will appear in "Glass."

The main plot of "Split" revovles around Kevin's character capturing three teenagers and holding them hostage. Casey, a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of her uncle, winds up being the only survivor of Crumb's kidnapping when the Beast gleans they have more in common by seeing scars all over her body.

6. If you say Kevin's full name three times, he'll revert to his normal self. 

Kevin's therapist in "Split" made this discovery and we see it utilized effectively by Casey near the film's end. 

7. If you haven't already guessed, trains are very important to the franchise.

At the end of "Unbreakable," David learns Elijah is responsible for the Eastrail 177 train crash, connecting the two. As a result, Elijah is sent to an institution for the criminally insane.

In 2017's "Split," we learn Kevin's father left on a train and never returned home. Late in the film, Kevin heads to a train terminal and leaves flowers on a platform before becoming the Beast. It's never made clear in "Unbreakable" or "Split" whether or not the two trains are connected, but fans have theorized they may, leading some to call the collection of three movies the Eastrail 177 trilogy.

8. "Glass" takes place at least 15 years after "Unbreakable," but pretty soon after the end of "Split."

David Dunn tells a character in "Glass" he used to work as a security guard in a stadium 15 years ago.

"Glass" picks up not long after the end of "Split" where Crumb is on the run from authorities after Casey is found. At the very end of "Split," David Dunn is shown watching a news report about Crumb, who's being referred to as The Horde. He decides to take on his vigilante persona at the start of "Glass" to track him down.

9. Color is very important to the franchise.

If you didn't pick up on it from the "Glass" trailers, colors are used to dictate characters. In "Unbreakable," purple is representative of Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) and his mother while David Dunn's (Bruce Willis) green security guard poncho becomes a significant color for him. In "Split," a bright yellow handkerchief denotes the color viewers identify with Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy).

All three colors are denoted in one of the first images released for "Glass," seen above.

10. The boy who played David's son in "Unbreakable" reprises his role in "Glass."

If the man who plays David's son, Joseph, in "Glass" looks familiar from the trailers, it's because it's the very same actor who played young Joseph in 2000's "Unbreakable." Spencer Treat Clark told Da Man magazine the possibility of a sequel was something he had heard about for a long time.

"For almost two decades there has been chatter about a sequel to 'Unbreakable' but I never thought it would happen,"said Clark. "'Split' caught me completely off guard. I had no idea there was a crossover with 'Unbreakable' until my phone started blowing up with messages from friends who saw it on opening night."

You may recognize Clark from roles on "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D,""Animal Kingdom," and Netflix's "The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" over the years. 

He won't be the only other returning character from "Unbreakable." Charlayne Woodard will also reprise her role as Elijah's mother. A photo released for the film shows her character interacting with both Joseph and Casey.

11. McAvoy's character from "Split" was originally written for "Unbreakable."

You can appreciate the connection between the three movies when you know that Kevin Wendell Crumb was a character who appeared in the original script for "Unbreakable." M. Night Shyamalan told The Hollywood Reporter he removed Kevin from the film because it wasn't working and he had a big idea for the character.

"Kevin Wendle Crumb was a part of the original, original script for 'Unbreakable.' I pulled him out because it just wasn't balancing right," Shyamalan told THR's Aaron Couch. "But a bunch of the scenes that are in this movie, I wrote 15 years ago. They were as is. Patricia opening the door. Hedwig's first scene. Those were all written already."

"Glass" is in theaters Friday, January 18. You can read our review here.

Visit INSIDER's homepage for more.

• Read more:
• 30 movies we can't wait to see this year
• "Glass" is a satisfying watch, but its ending will undoubtedly leave fans conflicted
• How "Split" pulled off its incredible ending

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NOW WATCH: Bernie Madoff was arrested 10 years ago — here's what his life is like in prison

Liam Hemsworth's breakout role happened in 2010 when he starred alongside future wife Miley Cyrus in the movie "The Last Song." Shortly after, he starred in the wildly popular dystopian franchise called "The Hunger Games" with Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson. And by the time the final movie hit theaters in 2015, Hemsworth had already become a household name in Hollywood. 

Even though Hemsworth has shared details about himself (and his famous family) over the years, there are some facts that people might not be aware of.

Here are nine things you probably didn't know about Hemsworth. 

His pre-fame jobs included working at a bakery in Melbourne and at a bowling alley.

"I lived on a tiny island and I must have done every job you can do on that island," he told Vanity Fair. 

He also worked as a park ranger and would tell people where to sit at an event called the Penguin Parade.

Hemsworth's brothers, Chris and Luke, used to call him "Diplodocus," which he says is a large slow-moving dinosaur.

Hemsworth revealed the fun fact after explaining to Men's Fitness that he's a "complete goofball."

He had another nickname, too. His uncles used to call him "Triple Six," a reference to the devil's number, because he was so mischievous. 

When he was 10 years old, his favorite show was "Charmed" and he had a crush on Alyssa Milano.

Milano starred as Phoebe Halliwell on the '90s supernatural show about three witches. 

• Warning: Minor spoilers ahead for "True Detective" season three.
• HBO's "True Detective" anthology series is back and critics have mixed reviews. 
• Many are rejoicing, because it's far better than the second season. 
• But others think that's a low bar, and instead it's simply redundant of the first season.
• "True Detective" returns to HBO on Sunday at 9 p.m. ET.

After a lengthy hiatus following the notoriously messy second season, HBO's "True Detective" crime series is back for a third installment. This time starring Mahershala Ali, Steph Dorff, and Carmen Ejogo, the season is a standalone from the previous two. 

Taking place in Arkansas, the story revolves around the disappearance of two young kids. Ali's character, Wayne Hays, takes center stage as a brilliant investigator with reconnaissance experiences thanks to his time served in the Vietnam War.

The story is told across three different time frames (1980, 1990, and 2015) as the case is opened, re-opened, and then documented for a true crime series TV show. Let's see what critics are saying. 

The new story has a lot in common with the first season — for good or bad

"So let’s go ahead and address this right away: 'True Detective' creator Nic Pizzolatto has taken the right lessons from the successes of season one and failures of season two to pen a highly engaging whodunnit, one which borrows heavily from the show’s debut season to great effect."

— Collider's Allison Keene

"'True Detective' season three — which made the first five episodes of the season available for review — is more than a return to Season one’s spooky, winding excellence. It tackles different issues to previous seasons and focuses more sharply on issues and realities that were left unexamined in its previous iterations."

— Mashable's Alexis Nedd

"The first five episodes are stirring entertainment, steadying a very rocky boat and teasing an end that feels far more likely to exceed expectations than spoil a strong setup. 'True Detective' is good again, and that alone is worth celebrating."

— IndieWire's Ben Travers

"If you score 'True Detective' season three on originality, it fails — for repeating both its own history and the already-dated cable genre of glum loners confronting the evils men do. But if you treat it as a do-over — if the series, like one of its haunted antiheroes, is retracing its steps to try to get things right — then it’s fine. Often quite good. Far more consistent."

— New York Times' James Poniewozik

Some say the choice to mimic the first season leaves season three with the same problems "True Detective" had before

"Is being better than the second season really an accurate use of the word 'better'? Is being 'worse' than the first season all that bad? Then I wondered what I would think if neither of the previous seasons had existed, and I realized—I probably wouldn’t be thinking about it at all."

— Slate's Willa Paskin

"Season three is marginally better than season two, at the very least. But despite a tremendous lead performance from Mahershala Ali, it doesn’t quite reach the heights of season one, either. More than anything, it feels unnecessary, hitting the same self-consciously grim notes we’ve seen plenty of times before."

— TVLine's Dave Nemetz

"Despite 'True Detective' season three’s attempts to recreate what worked with season one, the show still lacks what made that season so memorable: a clear vision. Pizzolatto’s writing was often good, and the performances – particularly McConaughey’s – were great. But the secret weapon of that first 'True Detective' was Cary Joji Fukunaga."

— SlashFilm's Chris Evangelista

"Season three, which is set in the Ozarks in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and the recent past, doesn’t answer that nagging, fundamental question about the series — namely, what, exactly, is 'True Detective,' besides a collection of stories involving cops and murderers, encrusted with literary affectations? It also has that familiar post-millennium-TV problem of seeming as if it doesn’t have enough story to justify its running time."

— Vulture's Matt Zoller Seitz

The plot is too slow for others

"Unfortunately, it’s no big surprise that things drag along in a very 'True Detective' sort of way, at least until the season is more than halfway finished (there are eight episodes in all, five of which were made available to critics). Even when the show is viewed with an open mind, the experience is a lot like coming home and discovering you forgot to set your slow cooker to actually cook the meal."

— Hank Stuever, Washington Post's Hank Stuever 

Mahershali Ali delivers a fantastic performance 

"He’s great — simultaneously charismatic and vulnerable, kind and self-destructive, in every era — and the Hays/Reardon relationship allows Pizzolatto to do some interesting and relatively nuanced work about growing up black in a place where you’re always looked at as something alien."

— Rolling Stone's Alan Sepinwall

"At the very least, the new 'True Detective' season is a three-tiered showcase for Mahershala Ali, who stays consistently mesmerizing even if the mystery around him does not."

— The Hollywood Reporter's Daniel Fienberg

Fans of the first season should be prepared to dive in with both feet

"The premiere episodes show a lot of promise plotwise, teasing out a season that gets to the uniquely spooky roots that hooked audiences in the first go-round. If the devil really has come to Arkansas, we’re happy to fall under his spell."

— Polygon's Lindsey Romain

"True Detective" season three premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

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