When I’m doing my makeup, I act like I’m filming a Get Ready With Me-style TikTok. I introduce my products to the nonexistent camera and explain my application process to an imaginary audience. My views are always skyrocketing. My subscribers always begging for more. Just ask my fans: I’m the next big influencer
If you’re anything like me, you’ve been watching makeup tutorials since the YouTube days. Yes, when Jeffree Star’s honest beauty reviews were all the rage and people still used the James Charles x Morphe palette. NikkieTutorials and Jaclyn Hill were go-to makeup artists filming “easy” eyeshadow looks that never quite looked the same on me.
Now, the format has been replicated on TikTok. We doom-scroll through TikTok to consume 1-10 minute videos of everyone plugging new products and delving into makeup secrets. This content format is an even bigger marketing tool than we could have ever imagined— one used by celebrities, brand owners, and musicians flock to connect with new fan bases and become the Next Big Trend.
Times may change, but the goal stays the same: achieving celebrity-level makeup. How can I get the cheekbones of Kim Kardashian and the Kylie Jenner ombre blush? How do I make it look like I got my makeup airbrushed on my face?
Enter Patrick Ta: the longtime celebrity makeup artist for the likes of Bella and Gigi Hadid, the entire Kar-Jenner clan, Chrissy Teigen, Emily Ratajkowski, Shay Mitchell, and more. In 2019, after about six years as a MUA in Los Angeles, Ta launched PATRICK TA BEAUTY.
What is PATRICK TA BEAUTY?
Using formulas that are both good for your skin and perfect for the red carpet in inclusive shade ranges, Patrick Ta has created the beauty brand of your dreams. His makeup is the most viral brand of 2023, with his cream-over-powder blush method taking the world by storm.
I love a good celeb makeup artist’s brand: Mario Dedivanovic’s Makeup By Mario, Patrick Starrr’s ONE/SIZE, Pat McGrath, Charlotte Tilbury, the list goes on. So I don’t know why it took so long for me to do a full haul of Patrick Ta, especially since it feels like everyone has already tried it.
And unlike many celeb brands, it’s not just snake oil in luxury packaging. You actually get your money’s worth with his products — which often come with a powder and cream in one tin. Every influencer out there has raved about Patrick Ta, and for good reason. He even has his own TikTok to show the best ways to use his products. But is it all too good to be true? It was time I tried it for myself.
Perhaps Patrick Ta’s most viral product is the blush, which comes with both a powder and creme for the perfect duo. Highly pigmented with a subtle shine, you don’t need any other blush but this.
Not enough is said about this foundation and setting powder duo. It’s a full-coverage foundation in a pan, which already minimizes my waste — and there’s a protective cover over the creme foundation so it’s mess-free. Good enough to cover my imperfections while giving my skin this diffused, airbrushed look…and no primer is needed.
@patrickta @Patrick Ta Beauty Looks So Good On @Derek Chadwick ✌🏼 Foundation: Major Skin “Light Med 3” Contour: “Shes Sculpted” Blush: “Shes Flushed” Brows: Brow lamination Gel #mensmakeup♬ LALA - Myke Towers
Nothing excites me more than contour and bronzer in one product. Contour for sculpting, bronzer for warming the face-up. Easy for beginners, this duo is all you need for a facelift.
My favorite part about this palette, what sets it apart, is the two creme colors that make the perfect base or liner. With bold glitter shades and mattes, you have the foundation for the perfect eye look - day or night.
Body makeup and glow oils are trending heavily, but I had to go for the Glow Balm. Using a kabuki body brush, gives the ultimate glow (think Edward Cullen in the light) with a hint of bronze shimmer. Don’t expect a self-tanner level sun-kissed, but the perfect tint.
This lip gloss is special because it has legitimate glitter in it. If you want major shine, I chose the shade “She’s Expensive” for the perfect clear coat. The perfect wow factor for your lips.
As if she wasn't terrible enough, Chrissy Teigen has dubbed herself a member of the "cancel club."
After the deserved backlash following Courtney Stodden's revelations, Chrissy Teigen has done what most celebrities do: complain about the consequences of her actions.
Does it not stand to reason, Chrissy, that if you do terrible things ... people will call you a terrible person?
Apparently not, as Chrissy has addressed the internet's reaction to her despicable bullying, saying: "It just sucks. There is no winning."
In a long Instagram caption, she lamented how terrible she feels — not for what she did, but for how she has fallen from grace ... yet she is still living the same lifestyle she was before, even if she's no longer adored by the internet.
*
Chrissy Teigen posted a multi-part public apology to Courtney Stodden after The Daily Beast published an interview with the entertainer detailing Teigen's online harassment of Stodden when she was only 16 years old.
"Not a lot of people are lucky enough to be held accountable for all their past bullshit in front of the entire world," Teigen began her initial response on Twitter. "I'm mortified and sad at who I used to be. I was an insecure, attention-seeking troll. I am ashamed and completely embarrassed at my behavior..."
Teigen acknowledged that she "publicly fueled all this" and made the rote commitment to "being better" that all celebrities seem to make when they apologize for past abusive behavior. In a recent post on Medium, Teigen called herself a "troll" and apologized at length, once again.
"There is simply no excuse for my past horrible tweets. My targets didn't deserve them. No one does," she wrote. "Many of them needed empathy, kindness, understanding and support, not my meanness masquerading as a kind of casual, edgy humor.I was a troll, full stop. And I am so sorry."
Twitter / @Chrissyteigen
Chrissy Teigen is a lot of things — model, chef, author, TV personality, John Legend's muse (and sometimes plate holder), etc. etc. — but most people know her as the unofficial "Mayor of Twitter."
Famed for her clapbacks and relatability, Chrissy Teigen's Twitter might as well be her full-time job. Like anyone who spends most of their time on Twitter, it's not all good all the time. Chrissy has made a name for herself by calling out and clapping back at her trolls, building a fanbase of people who find her funny and who admire her outspokenness.
However, in March 2021, Chrissy notably left the platform, saying she had suffered relentless abuse and harassment on the site for years and it was starting to get to her.
In a now-deleted Twitter thread announcing her departure from the platform, Teigen said: "For years I have taken so many small, 2-follower count punches that at this point, I am honestly deeply bruised."
However, after 23 days, Chrissy was back on the platform, saying: "turns out it feels TERRIBLE to silence yourself and also no longer enjoy belly chuckles randomly throughout the day and also lose like 2000 friends at once … I choose to take the bad with the good!!"
Most people celebrated: The queen had returned! However, it now seems that Chrissy Teigen is part of this "bad" part of Twitter she referenced.
In an explosive interview with the Daily Beast, Courtney Stodden called Chrissy Teigen a hypocrite, revealing that the social media star "would privately DM [Stodden] and tell [them] to kill [themself]."
Chrissy Teigen Tweets to Courtney
The article, titled The Crucifixion of Courtney Stodden, is a candid conversation about how "at 16, Stodden was mocked and slut-shamed for marrying 50-year-old Doug Hutchison. As Stodden says, it's taken years to free themself from his — and the media's — abuse."
In the interview, Stodden referenced a video they made weeks earlier, during Teigen's Twitter hiatus. In the now-deleted video, Stodden calls out the similarities between the people Chrissy complained about and Chrissy's own behavior. Most of all, Stodden lamented that they never had the chance to forgive Chrissy, because she never reached out or approached Stodden to apologize.
Stodden also emphasizes the importance of recognizing power dynamics. They were a child being taken advantage of, and powerful media outlets and personalities attacked them with no provocation.
Stodden said: "People came out of the woodwork to beat up on a kid because she was in a situation that she shouldn't have been in. There were a lot of celebrities acting like playground bullies. Some of the worst treatment I got was from women, and we're not going to get anywhere if we keep holding each other back."
Stodden revealed how many other celebrities and media personalities harassed her, but only Perez Hilton has since apologized. While Chrissy Teigen is at the focal point of this revelation for her hypocrisy, she is part of a culture that often applauds malicious, thoughtless "clapbacks."
The interview comes in the wake of the Framing Britney Spears documentary, which exposed the relentless abuse Britney Spears underwent at the hands of the media at the height of her fame. Stodden feels owed an apology from the same system that exploited and ridiculed them at their most vulnerable.
Each week one of Popdust's disposable clones — grown in a vault deep beneath the Mojave desert — is exposed to the outside world through a relentless feed of news, pop culture, and social media.
The arduous process accelerates their dissolution back into an amorphous clone slurry. But before they go, they leave behind a document of what they've absorbed and what they've learned — a time capsule preserving a single moment in the slow-motion collapse of civilization. We call these End Times Updates...
End Times Update SNL, the Gas Crisis, and Courtney Stoddenyoutu.be
Transcript: Oh hi! Welcome to another End Times Update, presented by Popdust. I'll be your clone-host for this week, Pelvis Wrestley.
[Elvis Presley]: You ain't nothin' but a hound dog. C-cryin' all the time.
As always, we'll be looking through the news, pop culture, and social media from the last week, for the latest forebodings of societal doom.
This week has been a real show-stopper when it comes to signs of the imminent demise of the human race. For a start, second richest man on Earth Elon Musk became the first ever second richest man on earth to host Saturday Night Live. Musk also made history with his monologue, in which he revealed that he's been diagnosed with Asperger's, an autism spectrum disorder.
[Elon Musk]: I'm actually making history tonight, as the first person with Asperger's to host SNL... Or at least the first to admit it.
The Mother's Day episode then proceeded, with lots of references to Musk's business ventures —
[Elon Musk]: I reinvented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars in a rocket ship — I'm in charge of the whole Mars colonization project — Sure, I do like electric horses, and self-driving horses -- which are just horses -- but I've also built a machine that can dig a tunnel ten times faster than a gopher.
— and and his online presence —
[Elon Musk]: But I also write things like "69 days after 4/20 again haha." People are so mean online. — Okay, for a while I thought masks were dumb, but now I admit masks make sense.
— and also a weird amount of references to cousins being into each other.
[Mikey Day]: How many times have you found out too late that your lover is your cousin?
[Ego Nwodim]: What are you doing?
[Chris Redd]: What?
[Ego Nwodim]: You're my cousin.
[Chris Redd]: What? Oh no, I totally forgot. (Silently) Almost got away with it.
[Elon Musk]: Ooli, I think of all the good times we could have, eating fermented shark in the nude
[Chloe Fineman]: Oh my gosh. Okay, Ragnarok, stop. Cousin Check told us we were cousins.
[Elon Musk]: Exaclty, we have so much in common!
Speaking of electric cars, this was not a great week for for the other kind of cars, with the average gas price in the US topping $3 a gallon for the first time in years and hundreds of gas stations along the east coast running dry with some truly wild panic buying.
The panic was brought on by the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, which typically delivers hundreds of millions of gallons of fuel from refineries in Texas all the way up to New York and all along the eastern seaboard. But after being attacked by the corporate ransomware outfit known as "DarkSide," the Colonial Pipeline Company lost access to their billing software, so they just stopped delivering altogether, causing a federally declared state of emergency in 17 states.
Thankfully, service was restored on Wednesday night, though the company says it will take a few more days to get back to 100%.
It was also a big week for Ellen DeGeneres, who announced that the 19th season of her daytime talk show will be the last.
[Elen DeGeneres]: This show has been the greatest experience of my life, and I owe it all to you — The truth is, I always trust my instincts. Uh, my instinct told me it's time. As a comedian I've always understood the importance of...timing. And — recently I had a dream that a bird, a beautiful bird with bright red feathers, came to my window and whispered, "You can still do stuff on Netflix." And that was the sign I was looking for.
Beginning in 2003, the show made "Be Kind" its mantra, while — behind the scenes — the host earned a reputation as one of the meanest bosses in Hollywood.
[Hedda Muskat]: Toxic, phony, hypocrite liar, that's what she is. — We were told from the very beginning, "Don't talk to Ellen, don't do this, you can't, you know, go into her office." It was very nerve-wracking, very stressful, we all walked on eggshells all the time.
Speaking of hypocrisy —
[Courtney Stodden]: Hypo-Chrissy Teigen
— this week former child-bride Courtney Stodden came after model Chrissy Teigen for hurtful comments that the so-called "Mayor of Twitter" made about them when they was just a teenager — including wishing for the young celebrity to take a, quote, "dirt nap."
[Courtney Stodden]: It's ironic because, right, because she left, you know, social media, complaining about bullying. She has sent me so many different tweets, private DMs, um, up to a couple years ago.
Stodden, who identifies as non-binary, first came to the world's attention in 2011 when, at the age of 16, they married 51 year old Green Mile actor Doug Hutchinson. The "Don't Put it on Me" singer —
[Courtney Stodden]: Don't put it on me, girl. D-d-d-d-d-d-d-don't
— quickly became the target of ridicule and commentary, despite the fact that — as they've since recognized — they were clearly the victim of a predatory grooming relationship.
Courtney Stodden Calls Chrissy Teigen a Hypocrite Over Bullying | TMZwww.youtube.com
In response to Stodden calling her out, Teigen issued an apology on Twitter, saying, quote, "I was an insecure, attention-seeking troll. I am ashamed and completely embarrassed at my behavior."
But what else... Oh, right. Violence in Israel and Gaza reached new heights this week in the decades-long conflict between a powerful military ethnostate with nuclear weapons, and a group of displaced and disenfranchised people living under martial law.
Halsey just announced via Instagram that she's expecting her first child with her partner Alev Aydin.
The post reads, "surprise! 🍼🌈👼🏻 Photos by @samdameshek," she also tagged Aydin over her belly. Aydin soon re-shared the post on his Instagram Story, complete with a pair of red heart emojis.
In the comment section of the announcement, Aydin says, "Heart so full, I love you, sweetness," as Halsey replies, "I love you!!!!! And I love this mini human already!"
While this will be Halsey's first child, it is not her first pregnancy. She told The Guardian in an interview that her song "More" is about a previous miscarriage she went through. "It's the most inadequate I've ever felt," she explains. "Here I am achieving this out-of-control life, and I can't do the one thing I'm biologically put on this earth to do. Then I have to go onstage and be this sex symbol of femininity and empowerment? It is demoralising."
As we wait in anticipation for more news about Halsey's baby, check out these other memorable celebrity pregnancy announcements.
Nicki Minaj announced via Instagram that she was expecting her first child with husband Kenneth Petty.The rapper shared the news by posting a photo of herself in a yellow wig and high-heels sporting a significant baby bump with the caption "#Preggers."
Minaj shocked fans with the news that she'd married long time friend and boyfriend Kenneth Petty in October. She posted a video showing hats that read "Bride" and "Groom" beside mugs that read "Mr." and "Mrs." She captioned the video: 👰🏽🤵🏽😢🙏🏽🎀 Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty 10•21•19
It's clear that Minaj had a photoshoot specifically to commemorate her pregnancy.
Beyoncé
<p>Few pregnancy announcements have been as iconic as Beyoncé telling the world she was pregnant with Blue Ivy in 2011. She multi-Grammy-award-winning artist dropped the news at the Video Music Awards, earning a huge reaction from the crowd. She even ended it with a mic drop. </p>
Katy Perry
In the music video for her ballad "Never Worn White," Katy Perry showed off her growing belly. The music video was the first news fans had of the star's pregnancy with fiance, Orlando Bloom. After releasing the video, Perry tweeted that she was relieved that the secret was out and she no longer had to hide her baby bump.
Chrissy Teigen is known for being the queen of Twitter, but her Instagram is pretty great too. To announce her second pregnancy with husband John Legend, Teigen had the help of her then-Toddler Luna.
Actress and Book Smart director Olivia Wilde announced the news of her second pregnancy with daughter Daisy by sharing this adorable photo beside her son, Otis. Wilde has two children with husband, Jason Sudeikis.
Grimes and Elon Musk announced their pregnancy earlier this year with this slightly disturbing image. The original photo featured Grimes' uncensored breasts, so was quickly taken down by Instagram. This censored version is somehow even more disturbing and alien. Grimes gave birth to son X Æ A-12 Musk earlier this year.
In an adorable photoshopped picture, Fergie shared the news that she and husband Josh Duhamel were pregnant with their first child. The picture depicts Fergie and Duhamel as toddlers, photoshopped side by side.
Cardi-B
Cardi B's pregnancy announcement was less of an announcement and more of a reveal. The rapper performed on Saturday night live in 2018 in a skin tight dress that made it very obvious she was expecting a child with fiance Offset.
Khloe Kardashian announced her pregnancy with Tristan Thompson in a moving Instagram post. The post read: "My greatest dream realized! We are having a baby! I had been waiting and wondering but God had a plan all along. He knew what He was doing. I simply had to trust in Him and be patient. I still at times can't believe that our love created life! Tristan, thank you for loving me the way that you do! Thank you for treating me like a Queen! Thank you for making me feel beautiful at all stages! Tristan, most of all, Thank you for making me a MOMMY!!! You have made this experience even more magical than I could have envisioned! I will never forget how wonderful you've been to me during this time! Thank you for making me so happy my love! Thank you to everyone for the love and positive vibes! I know we've been keeping this quiet but we wanted to enjoy this between our family and close friends as long as we could privately. To enjoy our first precious moments just us ❤️ Thank you all for understanding. I am so thankful, excited, nervous, eager, overjoyed and scared all in one! But it's the best bundle of feelings I've ever felt in my life! ❤️❤️❤️"
Justin Timberlake announced that he and wife Jessica Alba were pregnant with this adorable baby bump picture. Later that year Alba gave birth to the couple's son Silas.
Rightfully, Beyoncé makes this list twice. The gorgeous maternity photoshoot she posted when announcing that she was pregnant with twins simply can't be beat.
Miscarriages are deeply painful and personal. Some brave women have chosen to open up about their miscarriages in order to help others remember they're not alone.
Miscarriages are incredibly painful, personal events.
They're also shockingly common. Somewhere from 10 to 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriages, according to the Mayo Clinic, though the number may be much higher because many women don't realize they're pregnant.
Celebrities are not immune from reality. Some have eve chosen to share their stories in an effort to make other families feel less alone in their grief.
This September, Chrissy Teigen shared a heartbreaking post and a series of devastating photos taken just after she miscarried.
Teigen was 20 weeks along when she was diagnosed with "partial placenta abruption," which blocks the supply of nutrients and oxygen from the baby to the mother.
"We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we've never felt before. We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It just wasn't enough," she wrote in the post.
Later, she responded to critics by telling them that the post was intended specifically for people who had experienced similar grief.
Meghan Markle
On November 25th, Meghan Markle told the world that she suffered through a miscarriage this year. In an article published in The New York Times called "The Losses We Share," Markle described the pain and fear she felt when she miscarried in July.
"Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few," she wrote. But in spite of the "staggering commonality of this pain," she continued, "the conversation remains taboo, riddled with (unwarranted) shame, and perpetuating a cycle of solitary mourning."
Her op-ed was an attempt to shift that cycle. She encouraged readers to check in with each other. "This year has brought so many of us to our breaking points. Loss and pain have plagued every one of us in 2020, in moments both fraught and debilitating," she wrote, encouraging everyone to ask each other a simple question: "Are you okay?"
Beyonce
Beyonce first spoke about her miscarriages in 2013, in the HBO documentary Life Is But a Dream. She described the events as "the saddest thing I've ever been through."
Her husband, Jay-Z, mentioned the event and the birth of his daughter Blue Ivy in his song "Glory," which featured the lyric "Last time the miscarriage was so tragic, we was afraid you'd disappear, but nah, baby, you magic."
In a 2020 interview with Elle, Beyonce opened up about the miscarriages she suffered before Blue Ivy's birth, and how motherhood has changed her.
"Success looks different to me now. I learned that all pain and loss is in fact a gift," she said. "Having miscarriages taught me that I had to mother myself before I could be a mother to someone else."
Michelle Obama
The beloved former First Lady told ABC News about how alone she felt when she miscarried, before the birth of her daughters Sasha and Malia.
"I felt lost and alone and I felt like I failed," Michelle said. "I felt like I failed because I didn't know how common miscarriages were because we don't talk about them. We sit in our own pain, thinking that somehow we're broken."
Eventually, Obama was able to conceive through IVF. "That's one of the reasons why I think it's important to talk to young mothers about the fact that miscarriages happen and the biological clock is real because egg production is limited — I realized that as I was 34 and 35, and we had to do IVF," she continued. "I think it's the worst thing we do to each other as women: not share the truth about our bodies and how they work and how they don't work."
Courtney Cox
The Friends actress suffered a miscarriage while starring on the show, and said it was "terrible having to be funny" while grieving. A scene where Rachel gives birth was particularly painful for Cox, who was later diagnosed with a MTHFR gene mutation, which often leads to blood clots that cause miscarriages. "I get pregnant pretty easily, but I have a hard time keeping them," she said.
Finally, with the help of IVF, she was able to welcome her daughter Coco at the age of 40.
Alanis Morrissette
When she appeared on Armchair Expert, Alanis Morrissette said that she "had a bunch of miscarriages" between having her three kids. Trust and hope kept her going even as she feared she'd never be able to have the three kids she dreamed of.
"We were chasing and just showing up and then surprises and then devastations and all of it," she said. "But, I mean, I do trust. I have this trust pilot light thing that keeps cooking along — even when there's a torrential downpour it's still flickering — of hope and faith and vision for something to work out, whatever it is."
The process was a learning experience as well as a deeply painful event. "I ... learned so much about my body and biochemistry and immunity and gynecology through the process," she said. "It was a torturous learning and loss-filled and persevering process."
Christina Perri
The Jar of Hearts singer experienced a miscarriage in January 2020.
"Today I had a miscarriage," she wrote. "Baby was 11 weeks old, we are shocked & completely heartbroken...I am so sad but not ashamed. ... To all the mothers who have been here and who will be here, I see you and I love you."
Meghan McCain
Meghan McCain discussed her miscarriage in a 2019 episode of Good Morning America, where she described the complexities of her feelings about motherhood and the surprising intensity of her emotional response.
"I've always been agnostic about having kids," she said. "I don't feel naturally maternal. I don't feel this natural draw to motherhood. And I think my response and how sad I felt afterward surprised me."
Like many of the other women on this list, McCain hoped to make other women feel less alone with her announcement. "Nobody talks about this kind of stuff," McCain continued. "The only experience I've ever had on TV when women are pregnant is streamers and excitement, which is wonderful and amazing, but I just think there's a lot of other women out there who have my experience and you are not alone."
Carrie Underwood
Carrie Underwood opened up about the three miscarriages she suffered in 2017 and 2018, saying, "I'd kind of planned that 2017 was, you know, going to be the year that I work on new music, and I have a baby. We got pregnant early 2017, and didn't work out."
At first she tried placing her faith in God, and tried to resist the urge to be angry. "I had always been afraid to be angry," she told CBS. "Because we are so blessed. And my son, Isaiah, is the sweetest thing. And he's the best thing in the world. And I'm like, 'If we can never have any other kids, that's okay, because he's amazing.' And I have this amazing life. Like, really, what can I complain about? I can't. I have an incredible husband, incredible friends, an incredible job, an incredible kid. Can I be mad? No."
But when it seemed like she was going to suffer through a fourth miscarriage, she "got mad," and began to ask, "Why on Earth do I keep getting pregnant if I can't have a kid? Like, what is this? Shut the door. Like, do something. Either shut the door or let me have a kid.
"And for the first time, I feel like I actually I told God how I felt," she added. "That was like a Saturday — and the Monday I went to the doctor to, like, confirm, another miscarriage." But the baby survived.
The year was formative for her. "It was … a very soul-searching year for me," she said. "There were some personal things that happened. And I had the accident and all of that to get through … and just life. Life is full of ups and downs, and I might have had a few more downs than ups last year." That same year, she suffered a bad fall on the steps of her Nashville home, which led to surgery and stitches on her face. The year shifted her perception of the world. "It was also a perception thing, because I look at myself [now] and I see it quite a bit, but other people are like, 'I wouldn't have even noticed.' Nobody else looks at you as much as you think they do," she said. "Nobody notices as much as you think they will, so that's been nice to learn."
Shay Mitchell
In 2019, Pretty Little Liars' Shay Mitchell revealed she suffered a miscarriage the year prior. "I miscarried and lost the child of my hopes and dreams," she wrote in a heart-wrenching Instagram story. "Sometimes it's easier to only showcase the good times on social media, which is what leads many people to criticize it for its lack of authenticity," she added, and shared a photo of an ultrasound alongside a broken heart.
"The support and affection that so many of you show me lifts me up during even my darkest days, one of which happened last year after I miscarried and lost the child of my hopes and dreams," she wrote.
Mitchell continued, "In the spirit of the new year, I think that we need to remember that we are all on this journey together — in good times and bad — and to remind ourselves that we seldom really know or understand the struggles and hardships that other people are going through."
Pink
In the song "Happy," Pink sings, "Since I was 17, I've always hated my body / and it feels like my body's hated me."
She later told USA Today that the lyric was about a miscarriage she suffered as a teenager. "The reason I said [that] is because I've always had this very tomboy, very strong gymnast body, but actually at 17 I had a miscarriage," she said. "And I was going to have that child."
The miscarriage made the singer feel broken, but her confessions and songs are aimed at helping others through the same struggle. "When that happens to a woman or a young girl, you feel like your body hates you and like your body is broken, and it's not doing what it's supposed to do," she continued. "I think it's important to talk about what you're ashamed of, who you really are and the painful s—. I've always written that way."
The singer suffered through a number of miscarriages since but now has two children with her husband Carey Hart.
If you or a loved one has suffered or is suffering through a miscarriage:
Visit www.sidsandkids.org or call the 24-hour bereavement line at 1-800-308-307
Screenshot from: QAnon: The conspiracy theory spreading fake news / BBC Newsnight / Youtube.com
Update 1/22/2021: Following the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20th, many believers in QAnon lore have begun to question some of their convictions.
Many saw the inauguration as a final deadline for "The Storm" and the mass arrests they expected to publicly expose the cabal of deep-state Satanists. And both Jim and Ron Watkins have issued statements seeming to indicate the end of the Q era.
Ron Watkins urged his followers on Telegram to "remember the friends and happy memories we made together," and to "respect the constitution," while his father Jim Watkins posted on the reactionary micro-blogging platform Gab about the "historical value" of the Q movement and the fact that "the culture of our country changed because of it."
That much is certainly true. And in the wake of the Capitol Hill insurrection on January 6th — which saw one of Q follower shot dead, another leaving Mike Pence an ominous note, and numerous others arrested — the apparent change of heart may be inspired by concern that these cultural changes will invite unwelcome scrutiny.
Still, there is little doubt that some Q followers — as flexible as the acolytes of any other cult — will find ways to adapt their beliefs to the post-Trump era. Some are already beginning the process. Even if Q never reappears, the disturbed and unhinged worldview of Q followers is likely to remain culturally relevant for years to come.
There is a growing belief system in the US that is beginning to spread around the world.
Tied to a mystical struggle between ancient forces of good and evil that are secretly operating beneath the surface of our society, adherents believe they have been given the key to understanding the world.
QAnon Conspiracy Theory Lands On European Shores | Morning Joe | MSNBCwww.youtube.com
They believe that their mysterious prophet has awakened them to a reality that you and I will soon be forced to face: that global elites from Washington DC to Hollywood are part of a Satanic (possibly Jewish) cabal of murderous, cannibalistic pedophiles who torture children in order to harvest their adrenaline-rich blood and oxidize it into the addictive drug adrenocrhome.
They believe that our civilization must be torn down to the foundations in order to be rebuilt—or perhaps just to bring on the apocalypse. And, as it turns out, the only politician heroically selfless enough to bring the whole system crashing down is the alleged peeping tom of Miss Teen USA and well-wisher of Ghislane Maxwell, President Donald J. Trump.
From Evangelical Christians to New-Age yogis, basically anyone liable to distrust vaccines in favor of either prayer or organic vegetables is likely susceptible to Q's message of mainstream evil and corruption.
As it turned out, that April consensus would soon be undermined by Donald Trump and his ilk spouting off mixed messages, conspiracy theories, and anti-mask rhetoric. And under various states of lockdown and unemployment, increasingly disconnected, bored, and desperate people turned to weirder, darker corners of the internet for answers.
What makes the message particularly infectious is the way it's delivered. Originally posted on the /pol/ section of imageboard 4chan in mid-2017—amid a slew of similar anonymous posts from supposed political insiders —the cryptic "drops" delivered by a nameless informant claiming to have "Q clearance" (high-level access to classified government information) lend the whole thing a dire sense of secrecy.
As an added feature, the uncertain meaning and broken grammar of the posts allow individual followers to decode them communally—following the slogan "Where We Go One We Go All" (WWG1WGA), playing detective, and drawing conclusions that align with their personal assumptions about the world.
And if some of those conclusions—about Robert Mueller working with Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton being executed in secret, or JFK Jr. faking his death to live as a man named Vincent Fusca—turn out to be wrong, that's only one refutation of a particular interpretation. No amount of evidence can touch the infallible source itself.
Unlike Pizzagate, which came before it, there is no Comet Pizza for a delusional gunman to invade—looking for kidnapped children. In that instance, when he discovered that there were no abducted children locked in the basement—because there was no basement at all—he and others were forced to acknowledge that they had some fundamental details wrong.
But when it comes to the cryptic ambiguity of QAnon, followers find evidence of the worldwide pedophile conspiracy all around them.
You might think that in a world where actual elite sexual predators like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein were able to operate in the semi-open for years—using their power and influence to shield them from consequences—that there would be no need to construct elaborate fantasies.
Surely, with all their public connections to prominent cultural and political figures—some portion of whom were active participants in predatory behavior—QAnon adherents could simply extrapolate those relationships into the web of the secret pedophile network. While they certainly do that, even using phony, sloppily-made flight logs to Epstein's private island to implicate a then-teenaged Chrissy Teigen…that's not enough.
No, true devotion to Q means seeing evidence of Satanist activity everywhere. Let's say you're shopping for furniture online and stumble across an overpriced item with an odd name. Do you think, "That's weird, seems like a mistake?" No, you immediately start Googling the name to find a missing child with the same name. Boom, Wayfair child trafficking conspiracy revealed.
There's something undeniably noble about the role these people have assigned themselves in the imaginary reality they live in. They cut themselves off from friends and family, from church leaders and anyone else trying to convince them that they aren't living in a dystopian detective novel as part of the underground resistance. They give up everything to fight the deep state pedophiles.
In July, Q believers co-opted the #SaveTheChildren hashtag and organized rallies that lured in a lot of well meaning people with no idea about the conspiracy theory behind it. All that energy might have been useful if directed toward increasing awareness of the realities of child trafficking—and perhaps promoting some legislation to help fight it.
But the QAnon cult isn't interested in any of that. The only part of the government you can trust is the Trump administration, and anyone who tells you that child trafficking is not primarily the work of an elite Satanic cabal is probably working for the elite Satanic cabal—if Tom Hanks is one of the bad guys, anyone can be.
So how do you fight the spread of misinformation that is so resistant to refutation and authority—with a community that fiercely reinforces it? Maybe you can't.
Maybe QAnon is destined to become the full-blown cult that it is quickly trending toward—luring in confused and directionless people to trade their money and their real-world relationships for a sense of purpose and an online community of fellow believers. And maybe that cult will react very badly—violently—to a "deep state" victory in the form of Donald Trump losing reelection in November.
But if we want to avoid that outcome, perhaps the best chance we have is to expose the identity of Q.
Unlike many cults—which rely on the charismatic appeal of the leader—QAnon works because of the leader's anonymity. It allows followers to imagine Q as a perfect embodiment of their ideals, working deep inside the structures of government power.
In this framing, Q must conceal their identity and communicate through coded messages in order to continue operating in the upper echelons of the American government. If Q instead turned out to be a pig-farming smut peddler living in the Philippines…that might change things.
As it turns out, the founder of 8chan (since rebranded as 8kun)—where Q has posted those coded messages since abandoning 4chan in November of 2017—has been claiming to know the identity of Q for some time now. According to him, Q is a pig farming smut peddler living in the Philippines—and also the current owner and operator of 8kun…
In 2014, 8chan's founder, Fredrick Brennan, first partnered with a man named Jim Watkins, who had recently acquired the domain for Japan's most popular message board 2channel—through questionable methods.
Brennan had founded 8chan at the age of 19 to operate as a version of the troll-haven imageboard 4chan, but without moderators to interfere with "free speech" (i.e. hate speech and worse). After partnering with Watkins—then around 50—Brennan moved to the Philippines to work with him more closely.
At the time, Brennan was a vocal proponent of the misogynist "Gamergate" movement, and while he still holds onto some of the ideas of that movement, it's clear that he has matured a great deal and abandoned notions of free speech absolutism. In tweets he has disavowed much of the toxic behavior associated with gamergate and claims to have "moved on."
No doubt seeing the community he'd created become a haven for neo-Nazis, pedophiles, and mass shooters played a part in his growth. He resigned as the head of 8chan in 2016, selling the company to Jim Watkins. In 2018 he severed ties with Watkins and 8chan entirely and in 2019—following a string of mass-shooters posting their manifestos on 8chan—began actively calling for the site to be shut down, accusing Watkins of being "senile."
That was enough for Watkins to have Brennan charged with cyberlibel under the Philippine Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. Facing possible prison time—likely a death sentence for Brennan, who suffers from a genetic condition commonly known as brittle bone disease—Fredrick Brennan fled the Philippines back to the US earlier this year.
So perhaps he has a bit of a vendetta against Jim Watkins—who has denied being or having any close connection to Q. Nonetheless, the case Brennan makes is compelling, and Watkin's biography makes him sound like exactly the kind of person who would pretend to be a secret government informant in order to manufacture a conspiracy and prop up the presidency of Donald Trump.
A helicopter mechanic and recruiter for the U.S. Army at the time, Watkins got his computer training through the military, but he left the service during the dot-com boom to fully invest himself in "Asian Bikini Bar" and the related ventures of his company, N.T. Technology.
Is it the only place on the Internet where a secretive Government insider can be certain that coded messages won't be traced or altered? Or is Jim Watkins—who labels any criticism of his site as "a smear by the press"—driving traffic to his platform and using it to throw some smears back at the mainstream media? After all, how can the mainstream media judge 8chan's content if they are implicated in the Satanic pedophile cabal?
Evidence of Watkins' Connections to Q
This is not to say that Watkins invented QAnon. There are other likely suspects for that. But, perhaps, around the time that QAnon announced that 4chan had been "infiltrated" and switched to posting on 8chan in late 2017, Watkins may have taken over the role—which would explain how Q developed an interest in yoga and fountain pens...
At this point, QAnon is responsible for most of the traffic to the rebranded 8kun, and Watkins has not only promoted and defended the conspiracy theory and its merchandise through various venues, he even started a super PAC called Disarm the Deep State, with a stated mission to "mobilize a community of patriots in order to remove power from Deep State members."
The PAC has bought ads for QAnon-friendly candidates—with more than one QAnon adherent likely to enter Congress next year. And a number of those ads happen to be running on 8kun…
Watkins being at the helm of the movement would also explain some of QAnon's antisemitic underpinnings and obsession with propping up a fascist leader, as Watkins previously used his news site The Goldwater to spread messages such as, "The third reich of germany corrected a crashing economy, and was brilliant in transforming Germany from a broken nation to a superpower in a rapid, methodical way."
Perhaps Watkins noticed that Donald Trump's brand of fascism (though replete with the usual trappings of nationalism, violent authoritarianism, xenophobia, aggrievement, false nostalgia, and militarism) lacked the structure of conspiratorial occultism that served the Nazi party so well. Maybe he felt he could provide that added structure from the sidelines.
If, as this seems to indicate, Watkins operates both 8kun and QMap.pub, Brennan argues that there is nothing to stop Jim—or perhaps his son Ronald Watkins—from posting as Q and faking the "tripcode" verification system.
We may never find out if this is true, and even if we do, it's likely that many QAnon adherents would never believe it—following the mantra of "do your own research" in order to confirm their biases, rather than listening to any legitimate sources of information.
But maybe, if we can spread this information about Watkins to enough prospective targets, we can prevent more people from falling prey to QAnon's cultic conspiracy movement. Maybe we can prevent more families from losing their loved ones to paranoia and delusion. Maybe we can prevent American Fascism from reaching its full, terrifying potential.
President Donald Trump—whose every move is already interpreted by QAnon followers as being secret messages directed toward them—was asked about QAnon at a recent press conference, and stated: "I don't know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate."
When the reporter followed up, noting that the movement believes him to be "secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals," he seemed to embrace the idea without much concern for its absurdity, saying, "Well, I haven't heard that, but is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing? ... If I can help save the world from problems, I'm willing to do it."
Twitter / @Chrissyteigen
Chrissy Teigen Tweets to Courtney
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