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CULTURE

This Haunts Me: Justin Timberlake’s Diss Track About Prince

Justin Timberlake's outsized ego really made him think he had license to write a verse about … Prince

Left: Prince // Right: Justin Timberlake

Uncredited/AP/Shutterstock // RMV/Shutterstock

Photos via Shutterstock

It wouldn't be hyperbolic to say that Prince is one of the most influential musicians of all time.

Beyonce credits Prince with taking her to the next level as an artist by recommending she learn to play piano. Lianne La Havas had tea parties with him. Frank Ocean — despite his own almost mythical status — was rendered starstruck just by the sight of him. And countless artists credit Prince's majestic performances and his iconic catalogue as major inspirations.

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Culture Feature

This Haunts Me: Did Scientists at CERN End the World in 2012?

Can the strangeness of recent history be blamed on scientists meddling with forces beyond their comprehension?

Do you remember 2012?

People were convinced that the world was going to end — that the Mayan calendar had predicted it more than 2,000 years earlier. Protesters and time-travelers continued to decry the cataclysmic dangers of CERN's Large Hadron Collider, where scientists were taking apart the building blocks of the universe to understand how they worked...

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TV Features

This Haunts Me: Amanda Bynes as Nickelodeon's "Ask Ashley"

The two public images of Amanda Bynes, that of the early aughts and the face-tattooed version of today, seem irreconcilable.

Amanda Bynes in a Marchesa Resort Dress

By Everett Collection (Shutterstock)

Growing up in the simpler times of the '90s, we had candy commercials featuring anthropomorphic humans, toys that jeopardized children's lives, and Nickelodeon raising latchkey kids to become the well-adjusted millennials who would later invent Instagram.

Alright, so maybe times were tougher than we thought. Maybe we should've seen today's tumultuous issues coming. From the climate crisis and political division to historic economic crisis and coronavirus panic, it's easy to idealize the past, but the '90s were actually bonkers in their own right. For instance, look at Nickelodeon's sketch comedy series for kids, All That.

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Culture Feature

This Haunts Me: "Jen from Appleton" and the Epic Bath and Body Works Rant

Sometimes you've just got to get yourself that Winter Candy Apple and Iced Gingerbread.

I hope Jen from Appleton, Wisconsin is doing well these days.

As for Angela, the star of the best Bath & Body Works rant of all time (and there are surprisingly many on YouTube), I hope she's living a Winter Candy Apple-scented life to the fullest.

In 2012, the aspiring vlogger posted a rant about her dire mission to acquire two coveted candles from Bath & Body Works: Winter Candy Apple and Iced Gingerbread. The outstanding 11-minute video recounts her harrowing journey to the store in APPLETON, WISCONSIN (it's very important the store is called out for their heinous treatment of Angela).

After the video was discovered and spread across Tumblr, it was recognized as a cultural masterpiece of our time, a treatise on the frailty of the human condition and our undying perseverance to end our own suffering at any cost.

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TV Features

This Haunts Me: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's Cameo on Gossip Girl

The question: Why?

Attention Upper Eastsiders, as they say, the Gossip Girl reboot airs its first episode on July 8th, and photos of the new "it" group of NYC have been plastered on billboards for weeks, watching over the city with judgment for weeks.

The trailer dropped on June 10th and anticipation is ramping up for the new series. The original iteration was based on the bestselling novels by Cecily von Ziegesar and captured audience attention from 2007 to 2012 with its gripping tales of the glamorous, dramatic lives of New York's Upper East Side teens. Starring Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford, and Ed Westwick, the cultish teen drama has earned itself a place in the cultural canon that obviously, almost a decade later, begged a reboot.

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TV Features

This Haunts Me: Mariah Carey Taking a Bath on MTV's "Cribs"

It was 2002, and Mariah Carey wanted a bath. Now we'll never be clean.

Mariah Carey

Photo by Evan Agostini-Invision-AP-Shutterstock

Before TikTok, before Snapchat, and before YouTube, there was MTV in the early aughts: a lawless land of velour tracksuits and diamond grillz, tiny dogs and spray tans.

And then there was Mariah Carey, who had barely survived 2001 after channeling her lifeforce into the beloved film disaster Glitter, along with the critically panned soundtrack of the same name. And yet, Carey persisted–and took a bath in front of millions of viewers on MTV's Cribs.

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