If you'd asked Jawsh 685 about TikTok a year ago, the producer behind smash Jason Derulo collaboration "Savage Love (Laxed –Siren Beat)" would have scoffed.

As far as the 18-year-old was concerned, the app was a "cringe" place to post dance videos and hardly the platform that would propel the music and culture of a teen from the modest suburbs of South Auckland, New Zealand to worldwide stardom.

"I heard of TikTok and thought it was cringe because all I saw was people dancing in front of their fence," Joshua Stylah says. "I thought it was not that cool, but then I downloaded the app for fun and started finding interesting stuff. I would scroll for hours looking at posts, but wasn't posting anything myself."

Keep ReadingShow less

The world is full of pain and horror.

Every day human beings inflict violence and cruelty on one another, and on the planet, for their own greedy purposes. And if you give it the chance, the dark weight of this reality can easily become overwhelming. Which is why it's so important to remind yourself of the points of brightness and joy that — though less dramatic — are far more common than the horror.

Keep ReadingShow less

Filter turns lawyer into cat during Zoom hearing

Associated Press // YouTube.com

This week the world found a new icon to love.

In a clip that ended far too soon, an adorable, fluffy kitten looked confused and worried in the lower right corner of a very official Zoom call and spoke in the voice of a flustered middle-aged man. Unable to turn off the filter that rendered him feline, Arvel "Rod" Ponton announced, "I'm prepared to go forward with it," adding, "I'm not a cat."

Keep ReadingShow less
Culture Feature

This Haunts Me: Kevin Spacey's Bizarre Christmas Video

Kevin Spacey plays Frank Underwood doing his best impression of Kevin Spacey. If that sounds unsettling, well, it is.

Kevin Spacey NYC Courthouse

Photo by John Nacion (Shutterstock)

Art cannot be separated from the artist.

There's almost certainly some truth to the 30 individual sexual assault and harassment allegations levied against famed Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey in 2018. Despite the fact that the legal criminal assault charges against Spacey have all been dropped, far too many people have separately corroborated similar accounts of abuse for the charges to be a series of misunderstandings.

Keep ReadingShow less
Culture News

Meet Nicholas Arnold Schock: The Racist Florida Man Getting Choked Out in a Viral Video

The white supremacist Trump fan is back in jail—again—a symbol of everything wrong with America's prison system.

"I am a white supremacist. The Aryan Nation will rule the world!"

If you think that sounds like the words of a man who is about to be deservedly choked out, you're partially right. But before 36-year-old Nicholas Arnold Schock got taken down by a group of brave bystanders in Nokomis Florida, he would do a lot more to deserve such aggressive treatment.

The viral video of the incident opens with a belligerent Schock, half-naked, shouting at the staff of Pop's Sunset Grille to "call Donald Trump, he's gonna come get me out of prison." It's not evident what sparked the confrontation—whether Schock was refusing to wear a mask in the popular open-air venue, or simply wanted to strip naked. Whatever the case, Schock was seemingly convinced that Donald Trump would have his back in the ordeal.

Keep ReadingShow less
A Guy Dancing then Being Chased by Gorilla

If you've scrolled through the front page of Reddit anytime over the past few weeks, there's a good chance you've stumbled across Frankie MacDonald.

Keep ReadingShow less