Political advertising is a doggedly straightforward beast: You either remind your constituents why you’re awesome, or you remind them why your opponent sucks. (Sometimes, if you’re feeling really ambitious, you do both.) The twist ending is rarely employed, presumably on the grounds that you don’t want viewers to have…
We’re not sure who, exactly, it was who first laid down the classic adage “Once you’ve seen Batman’s peener, you can never go back,” but it’s as true now as it was way back in Bible times. And yet, DC Comics is now trying to act like we have not, in fact, all taken a quick peek at Bruce Wayne’s shadow-clad bat pole…
There is no ideal place to live. Every city and town has pros and cons that keep it from being truly ideal. Maybe it’s the rent prices. Maybe it’s the weather. Or, in the case of the English town of Ipswich, maybe it’s the spiders that trigger an emergency broadcast alarm to play the sound of a child singing nursery…
PG-rated internet thirst trap Matt Adlard has been baking up sugary designer confections on his YouTube channel as the Topless Baker for about two years now. In a Sisyphean twist of fate, the British social media star’s success as an amateur pâtissier disqualifies him from consideration as a contestant on The Great…
Just in case you had any hope that the coming week was going to be easy, FEMA is going to test a system on Thursday that allows the president of the United States to send an emergency message to nearly every cellphone in the country. Of course, our president happens to be famous dickbag Donald Trump, so while this…
Sometimes it’s possible to have a nightmare so mind-numbingly horrifying that it colors the entire rest of the day with a lingering sense of dread. Despite the brain knowing that what it remembers isn’t real—that whatever it conjured up in sleep didn’t actually happen—the subconscious worries over that shapeless…
The podcasters: Journalist Bim Adewunmi and writer Nichole Perkins decided in mid-2017 to launch a podcast series dedicated to female thirst—one where so-called “thirst buckets” could enthusiastically and unabashedly gush about the gorgeous celebrities they desire, from A-listers to up-and-comers. Beyond being heaps…
Bitch Media editors Dahlia Balcazar and Amy Lam have an easy and playful chemistry. They kick off each episode of Backtalk arguing about things like the worst Mark Wahlberg film, yet they’re still able to tackle serious and complicated issues like the #MeToo movement when necessary. This episode finds them discussing…
Editorial corrections are typically boring—little notes explaining that a fine detail, like a date or the spelling of name, was slightly off and needed to be fixed. Though they’re important to identify, they’re also usually not particularly interesting. Journalist Cleuci de Oliveira, though, has been curating a…
Fulfilling the grand, dystopian dreams of playwright Karel Čapek—whose 1920 work R.U.R. introduced both the word “robot,” and the concept of people being dicks to robots, to the world—science has finally delivered unto us a robot boy who can bleed and cry on command. Per Wired, Hal—which, c’mon, people, can we at…
Today, in Taking Our Grim, Bitter Little Laughs Where We Can Get Them News: Donald Trump raised a powerful philosophical question tonight, forcing us to consider the following query: How the heck is he supposed to catch an anonymous, op-ed-writing resistance member, if he can’t actually say the word “anonymous”? Twice:
The life of a social media influencer can be utterly incomprehensible for those of us with real jobs (not that “pop culture news writer” counts as a real job), but it seems like even Instagram itself isn’t too sure about how its users are supposed to make money off of its now IGTV platform. People typically make money…
The Daily Beast reports today that, after weeks of hemming, hawing, and the odd bit of Congressional testimony, Twitter has finally, permanently banned Alex Jones and his show InfoWars from its platform. The decision comes as the social media company has faced mounting pressure to kick Jones off the service, and …
Gwyenth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand/activated charcoal dispensary/low-level marketing cult Goop has been hit with yet more criticism this week, this time with a semi-hefty price tag attached. The Mary Sue reports that Paltrow’s wellness empire has been successfully sued by the Santa Clara County District Attorney, plus…
In news that should surprise precisely nobody, a study reported on by Bloomberg says that telecom companies have already begun throttling video apps like YouTube and Netflix now that Donald Trump’s FCC has killed net neutrality. Using an app called Wehe that monitors when data speeds are actively slowed down by…
Some days it’s hard to feel like you’ve accomplished anything with your life. You look at those around you and, knowing it’s not healthy to compare achievements, nonetheless feel like there’s so much more you could be doing to truly make your mark on the world.
Language is a constantly evolving, ever-mutating thing, which is one of those “Oh God, I’m getting old”-affirming maxims that’s never easier to believe than when the folks at various dictionary publishers offer up their lists of new words being added to their collections every year. Merriam-Webster announced just one…
Vanessa Marquez, an actress best known for her recurring role as Nurse Wendy Goldman on the first three seasons of ER, has died. Marquez was shot and killed by South Pasadena police officers yesterday, according to The Hollywood Reporter. She was 49.
Marvel Comics artist—and Eisner Comics Hall Of Fame honoree—Marie Severin has died. Severin, whose contributions across decades of work in the comics industry include the co-creation of Spider-Woman, plus many years as Marvel’s head colorist, its most expressive cartoonist, and its go-to “fixer” for projects in a…
On Sunday night, Louis CK emerged from whatever hole he’s been hiding in to perform a surprise stand-up set at New York’s Comedy Cellar, just 10 months after rumors about him exposing himself to female comics and employees were confirmed in a New York Times article. CK had evidently decided that he had done enough…
