Culture Feature

7 Ways Betty White Makes Us Smarter

She's often been called America's sweetheart, but she's more like our favorite grandpa's chill girlfriend.

By: Matt Sayles/AP/Shutterstock

Happy 99th birthday, Betty White!

Even though learning history is pointless (since it's for nerds and never repeats itself), we've all enjoyed the historical fact that Betty White is, in fact, older than sliced bread. But sliced bread can't serve as a measurement of time the way that Betty White can. Aside from her 70-year television career, the actress and comedian lived through the advent of traffic signals, sunglasses, and ballpoint pens.

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Culture Feature

9 Celebrities Who Need to Get Vaccinated (for Our Mental Health)

As COVID vaccines start to roll out, we're hoping these famous people don't hesitate to get immunized.

Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock

On Wednesday Lord of the Rings actor Sir Ian McKellen received his first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, and said that he felt "euphoric."

Frankly, we felt the same way. At 81 years old McKellen is in a high-risk category for a severe case of COVID. Knowing that the beloved actor and gay rights activist is on his way to immunity is one small anxiety we can remove from the heaping pile of fear and tragedy that has been growing since March.

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Culture Feature

Yes, Joe Biden Is Old: 9 Amazing Achievements by People Older Than 77

Because age is just a number... that tells us how incredibly old you are.

US President Joe Biden delivers remarks during a DNC post election event at the Howard Theater in Washington, DC, USA,

Photo by SHAWN THEW/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20th, 1942.

His teeth and hair were born quite a bit later and are likely immortal, but the point is: our President-elect is old. He's so old that "Robinette" probably seemed like a reasonable thing to put in the middle of your kid's name when he was born.

He's so old, in fact, that he's technically slightly older than the guy who is still president until January 20, and actively proving that old white guys are the milk-on-a-hot-day of politicians: a bad choice (also, they look and smell like spoiled dairy).

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The Betty White Show "Christmas Show" - 1954

Have you noticed the state of things lately?

They're not great. Frankly, the world kind of seems to be falling apart, what with the global pandemic and Great Depression-levels of unemployment. We could all really use some cheerful, brainless distraction from, you know, everything. And what's the best, most cheerful, and brainless form of distraction known to man? What a dumb question. It's obviously Christmas movies.

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TV

From Sitcom to Cereal – ‘The Golden Girls’ are Now for Breakfast

The round blue bites bring a retro touch to the kitchen table.

Fans of the 80s sitcom, The Golden Girls, can now have breakfast with those four funny senior citizens!

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Events

RECAP | The 70th Emmy Awards -  Celebrating TV's Best & Brightest

Colin Jost and Michael Che Make Pointed Cracks and Jabs All Night Long

The 70th Emmys were last night and it was basically a bunch of the same thing — self-aware jabs at the awards show itself, awkward scripted banter between presenters, and one show that seemed to win all the awards.

The introduction was pretty standard for an awards show — celebs Kristen Bell, Kate McKinnon, Tituss Burgess, Kenan Thompson, and others sang a song making fun of the bare minimum of diversity amongst shows. However, they did point us to the fact that Sandra Oh has become the first Asian woman nominated for an Emmy in the Lead Actress category — which is kind of sad.

Then, Michael Che and Colin Jost came out and basically did what they do on Saturday Night Live — take turns telling jokes, bantering, and taking chances with cracks about sexual harassment. I'm not going to lie — some of it was genuinely funny like the gag about a new show called 15 Miles Outside of Atlanta where white people call the cops on the cast of Atlanta.

The first batch of winners comes from the comedy realm — Henry Winkler won Outstanding Supporting Actor and Alex Borstein won Supporting Actress. Borstein went onstage with style, taking off her cardigan in the process, while Tracy Morgan openly stated his support for black nominees.

Amy Sherman-Palladino took home the award for both Outstanding Writing and Directing for a Comedy Series for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, beating both Donald Glover and Bill Hader in both categories. From the same show and category, Rachel Brosnahan won Lead Actress — announced by the hilarious Tiffany Haddish and her queen, Angela Bassett. Bill Hader won Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Barry, coming a long way from Saturday Night Live.

Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen then joined Jost and Che on stage in what became a horrible, horrible ongoing skit about the history of the Emmys — full of jokes that didn't land and unfunny faces from Rudolph, we surely could've done without the duo.

The next categories were of the limited series or movie — Merritt Wever and Jeff Daniels won Supporting Actress and Actor for Godless, the first presented by an ever-so-awkward Chrissy Teigen and John Legend. William Bridges and Charlie Brooker won Outstanding Writing for the "USS Callister" episode of Black Mirror.

Next, Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon come out to present Betty White, one of the more interesting parts of the show — White speaks about her tenure with television and how she still feels so loved by the industry. Even though her voice trembled a bit, White still kept her charm and even made a little inappropriate joke.

Regina King and Darren Criss won Lead Actress and Actor in a Limited Series or Movie, leading into a special short by Michael Che called "Reparation Emmys" where he goes back and gives Emmys to all the black actors and actresses who were glossed over for the award. Other than Betty White, this was another high point of the show.

Back to awards — John Mulaney and Glenn Weiss won Writing and Directing for a Variety Special, respectively.

Another very emotional and highly entertaining part of this show was the proposal of Glenn Weiss to his girlfriend. "Do you know why I don't like calling you my girlfriend? Because I want to call you my wife," said Weiss.

Afterwards, Tina Fey came out and presented their yearly In Memoriam montage which included names such as Anthony Bourdain, Jerry van Dyke, Aretha Franklin, John McCain and more.

In the drama series categories, Peter Dinklage and Thandie Newton won Supporting Actor and Actress for Game of Thrones and Westworld, respectively. Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg won Outstanding Writing for The Americans and Stephen Daldry won Directing for The Crown. The Fab Five presented Matthew Rhys as Leading Actor and Sarah Paulson presented Claire Foy as Leading Actress for a Drama Series.

An animation of Rick and Morty presented RuPaul's Drag Race as Outstanding Reality Competition Program and Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennan presented Saturday Night Live as Outstanding Variety Sketch series to no surprise. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver won Outstanding Variety Talk Series and The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story won Outstanding Limited Series.

Finally, the two big ones — Will Ferrell revealed that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel won Outstanding Comedy Series and Kenan Thompson revealed Game of Thrones as the Outstanding Drama series.

It seems like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel took most of the awards this evening while shows like Atlanta and Black-ish suffered a bit — perhaps the theme of the night isn't diversity after all.


Amber Wang is a freelancer for Popdust and various other sites. She is also a student at NYU, a photographer and intern at the Stonewall National Monument.


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