Bill Gates

Photo by FRANCK ROBICHON/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Every day, reality seems more and more like the outcome of a very bad Mad Libs.

Alas, "unknown activists" recently dumped a massive stash of almost 25,000 hacked email addresses and passwords on 4chan, all belonging to various organizations that have been aiming to combat the coronavirus. These include the WHO, the Gates Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health, amongst others. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the pandemic allegedly originated, was also targeted.

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Colbert, Fallon, and Kimmel to Host a COVID-19 Benefit That Could Be the Biggest in TV History

One World: Together at Home is likely to draw a huge global audience

One World - Global Citizen

via YouTube.com

On Saturday, April 18th, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon will be joining late-night forces to host a global television event.

The event, entitled One World: Together at Home, will promote the international fight to end the COVID-19 pandemic and raise money for the World Health Organization. From 8-10PM EST, it will be broadcast live on the big three American TV networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—as well as around the world and on a number of cable networks and streaming platforms.

Any TV event set to be broadcast on all three of those networks would automatically be a pretty big deal, but with a huge portion of the world currently under some form of shelter-in-place or stay-at-home order—and a lot of TV and movies being shut down or delayed—this event has the potential to draw in a truly historic number of viewers. Of course that depends on whether the organizers can put together the kind of entertainment that will convince people to put down Animal Crossing to tune in. With that in mind, let's take a look at the lineup as it currently stands.

Along with the hosts of The Late Show, The Tonight Show, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the event—which has been curated by Lady Gaga in cooperation with Global Citizen—will feature appearances from Alanis Morissette, Italian opera star Andrea Bocelli, Billie Eilish, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Nigerian singer Burna Boy, Chris Martin of Coldplay, David Beckham, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Elton John, Idris Elba, Colombian Singer J Balvin, John Legend, Kacey Musgraves, Keith Urban, Kerry Washington, Chinese pianist Lang Lang, Lizzo, Colombian Singer Maluma, Paul McCartney, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan, Stevie Wonder and some of the muppets of Sesame Street.

In other words, there will be recognizable stars for just about any part of the world and any age group. While it might not reach the level of the World Cup final—which draws an audience of over 500 million—One World: Together at Home has the potential to far-surpass the viewing numbers of an event like the Oscars. With any luck, it will, because the money raised will go to the WHO's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, which equips healthcare workers around the world and helps to provide food, shelter, and healthcare to people in need.

So tune in on Saturday at 8:00 PM, and donate if you can afford to. Because right now everyone could use the entertainment, and the whole world needs some help.

MUSIC

This Week, Lady Gaga Released the "Chromatica" Album Cover—and Raised $35 Million for COVID-19 Relief

Gaga's album has been delayed, but she's rolling out imagery that reminds us of the fashion that made her famous—and channeling all her time into raising money for coronavirus funds.

Lady Gaga and her dog Asia

Photo via Palace Lee/Shutterstock

Lady Gaga has performed so many different roles over the past decade that it's easy to forget that in her early days, she was a fashion pioneer.

Gaga's wild outfits—from the iconic meat dress to the Haus of Gaga "Bad Romance" music video creations—earned her a front page spot on tabloids and helped launch her pop career.

She's just released the cover art for her new album, Chromatica, and it's as futuristic, complex, and opulent as anything we've seen from her before.

Gaga's album release has been delayed due to COVID-19, which she announced in another Instagram post:

That doesn't mean that the perpetually and often mind-blowingly active star has been taking a break, though. Tonight, she's speaking (virtually) at the World Health Organization's press conference to announce the next #TogetherAtHome virtual concert series, slotted for April 18, which will feature Paul McCartney, Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Alanis Morissette, Billie Joe Armstrong, Common, Kacey Musgraves, J Balvin, and of course, Lady Gaga herself.

The show will be co-hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Stephen Colbert.


In a recent briefing, Gaga announced that along with Global Citizen, she's raised $35 million in the last week for The Who's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.


In the meantime, while we wait for Chromatica, we can rewatch the futuristic "Stupid Love" video and bask in the glory of Gaga's "kindness punks" dance cult.

Lady Gaga - Stupid Love (Official Music Video)www.youtube.com

FILM

Will the Coronavirus Finally Settle the Streaming Movies vs. Theater Debate?

With COVID-19 now a full-blown pandemic, industries are struggling to adjust, but the film and TV industry may never be the same

Photo by Myke Simon on Unsplash

Less than a year ago, at the 2019 Cinemacon in Las Vegas, Oscar Winner Helen Mirren shared her opinion on streaming movies in no uncertain terms: "I love Netflix, but f*ck Netflix!"

The comment came amid controversy over the criteria by which a film qualifies for consideration for the Academy Awards and other major accolades. At the time, Netflix and other streaming platforms were pushing for their original productions to be included for consideration without the need for traditional theatrical releases, and many in the industry balked at the prospect. Yesterday, Regal and AMC—the largest cinema chains in the US—both announced that they will be closing all their theatres starting today. Together, the two companies operate nearly 50% of theater screens in the US. Other chains have restricted theater crowds, and more closures are certain to follow.

With no clear end in sight for the coronavirus pandemic, there is an open question about how the movie and television industries will cope. While social distancing is creating increased demand for streaming content, and numerous scheduled releases and production schedules have been delayed indefinitely, will studios be forced to release their existing projects online? Will selection criteria be adjusted for the 2021 award season? And will movie theaters ever recover?

Almost every aspect of our society is in the process of restructuring to adjust to the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. More and more people are working from home. Entire regions are shutting down their restaurants and bars. And citizens and politicians alike are calling for measures that would have been unthinkable a few weeks ago—on the left, many people are pushing for freezes on evictions, as well as rent and mortgage payments, and even some Republicans (normally shills for heartless capitalism) are suggesting universal income measures to help people get by. In the short term it's causing unprecedented turmoil in the stock market, but in the long term, some industries are likely to never fully bounce back.

In some of the most dire cases—movie theaters being a prime example—the change has been a long time coming. American theater attendance peaked in 2002 and has been on a slow decline ever since—with audiences increasingly preferring the convenience of television and streaming services. Independent theaters have been hit hardest, with many closing down in recent years. Likewise, brick and mortar retail has been hit hard by the convenience of online shopping—with many local stores and even some major retail chains forced out of business. The restrictions imposed by the coronavirus—the latest guidelines advise against gatherings of more than ten people—are only accelerating the rate of change that was already occurring.

While many industry insiders would decry the loss of the theater experience—the immersive scale and the communal environment—most Americans have gotten used to viewing even epic films on screens smaller than a sheet of paper. While directors like Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan will argue that movies are made to be viewed on the big screen, when your nose is six inches from the action, it hardly feels small. None of this is to say that there won't be something real lost if movie theaters disappear—just that it might be inevitable, and that the coronavirus pandemic has sped up the process. Empty movie theaters may soon join the suburban blight of empty malls and abandoned factories that dot the American landscape. They may go the way of the drive-in.

With the narrow profit margins involved in the theater business, government intervention (as we've already seen with other industries) could help them stay afloat until things return to normal, but the more realistic scenario may be that things never return to normal. While AMC's closure is currently slated to last 6-12 weeks, there is no way of telling how long it will actually last, and it may end up consuming the rest of 2020 and beyond. Will the Hollywood Foreign Press and the Academy open consideration to streaming content and encourage studios to opt for Internet releases in the case of James Bond, Mulan, and others? Or will they cancel next year's award season entirely? Whatever the case, 2020 is looking increasingly likely to be the year that cements the supremacy of the Internet over going outside.

Meanwhile, with Stephen Colbert delivering his Late Show monologue from home (from his bathtub, to be specific), will we see other productions following suit—delivering much-needed entertainment to the isolated masses while limiting the spread of the virus? The term "bottle episode" refers to the trope—particularly common in 90s sitcoms—wherein a small number of characters are trapped together in a confined space. Will we see a resurgence of that concept with an influx of quarantine content? Or will television networks and studios take it to the next level and invest in concepts that allow performers to work remotely from the safety of home, either with animation, or with live-action shows that play with the fact that no one is in the same room (e.g. the episode of Modern Family that took place entirely on FaceTime) If not, TV may also be left behind by the vast array of independent content creators who are more than capable of working with the current conditions.

Whatever else happens in the coming months—and as much as this all feels like a throwback to a different era—we should all be thankful, for once, that culture has increasingly embraced isolation with streaming and delivery services that prevent the need to leave our homes. We all thought we were just being lazy. It turns out we were training for a pandemic.

MUSIC

How to Help Musicians in the Age of the Coronavirus

South by Southwest is canceled and Coachella is postponed, but smaller artists don't have sick leave.

The World Health Organization recently declared that the coronavirus had spread enough that the outbreak can officially be considered a pandemic.

The impact of the virus isn't just physical; self-containment advisories mean that music festivals are taking the hit. Many events have been canceled in the wake of coronavirus.Austin's South by Southwest, the Australian Bushfire Relief Concert in Melbourne, and Ultra Music Festival are just a few that have been called off entirely, while Coachella and its sister country festival Stagecoach are being postponed until October. Though it's better to be safe than sorry as the coronavirus ravages the U.S., musicians—primarily independent touring artists—are taking a huge hit.

Because streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music pretty much pay artists in pennies, many smaller bands rely on live events for their income, from ticket sales and merch profits to exposure that'll hopefully reap benefits in the future. As "festival season" becomes virtually festival-less and artists also cancel tours due to coronavirus-related fears, a vicious cycle ensues: You have to make money to be able to tour, but you have to tour to be able to make money (not to mention artists often don't have health insurance or paid sick leave from their day jobs).

As fans, we can help! Here are a few small ways that can help out your favorite band during these trying times.

Buy Their Music

This is a no-brainer. According to CNBC, artists typically earn between $0.006 to $0.0084 per stream on Spotify. That means that one hundred streams of your favorite song earns that artist less than a dollar. Streaming has done wonders for artist discovery, but in order for those bands to actually make music, you have to go about it the old fashion way: actually buy their music. Googling the artist will likely bring up a link to their webstore, where you should be able to buy physical and digital copies of their albums.


Head to Bandcamp

Bandcamp is perhaps the most artist-friendly streaming site out there. Besides being a great platform to discover your new favorite band or underground artist, when you purchase something from Bandcamp, 80-85 percent of your money goes to the artist directly. It's a pretty sweet deal. If you're feeling extra generous, you can even pay above the minimum price, too.

Show Labels Love, Too

Indie labels do a ton of work, and they deserve your love, too. Check out what labels your favorite smaller artists are signed to—you can see on Spotify when you're looking at an album. They'll likely have merch, as well. Let them know you appreciate their hard work!

Donate, If You Can

This one extends beyond music artists, but many creators also have a Patreon to help fund themselves. If you feel compelled to donate, give a few bucks to an artist/performer who would normally be making live appearances right now.


Spread the Word

Are the people in your circle big music fans? Even if you don't have the cash to shell out on merch or digital copies of music right now (we get it), use social media to get a conversation going about how the coronavirus is negatively impacting musicians, especially right now. Their work is hard, so let's try to make it a little easier for them.

Photo by Pam Menegakis on Unsplash

If there's anything that's spreading faster than COVID-19 is spreading across the globe, it's rumors and misinformation about the virus.

You may have heard any number of things about the new coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China by now, but odds are that only a fraction of that information is actually accurate. Here are the craziest, falsest, and just plain funniest coronavirus conspiracy theories.

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