Month: August 2020

It’s tempting to jump to a lot of conclusions about Seth Rogen’s intentions with An American Pickle. Rogen plays the dual roles of Ben – a contemporary web entrepreneur living in Brooklyn – and Herschel, Ben’s great grandfather, who has been living in a state of suspended animation for the last 100 years after a freak pickling accident. Now, what’s tempting about the whole thing is that we have Rogen playing off Rogen, so what’s he trying to say about himself? (What’s really tempting about it is there’s just not much else going on right now. It’s August, a bad time for movies anyway, but this year is especially bleak.)

Kind of surprisingly, the movie avoids a lot of the fish out of water stuff you might expect. Yes, Herschel is surprised Ben has as many socks as he does, but when Herschel’s lack of knowledge of technology is made a plot point, it’s usually used as a weapon against Herschel. But is this movie about Seth Rogen’s own id? Is this Rogen himself grappling with his own thoughts on fame, his online persona, human compulsion, or his own religious faith? (Which, with that last one, we are actually seeing play out in the press right now.) Or is this just an idea by Simon Rich that Rogen thought was funny? Probably the latter. But, I’m bored, so I’ll make a bigger deal out of it than it maybe needs to be.

An American Pickle is more interesting than laugh-out-loud hilarious. It’s introspective, without at all seeming that way. Herschel is brash and has a million outdated ideas about society, but has a good heart and his motivations are pure. And, yes, he winds up getting himself canceled after Ben (maliciously) recommends Herschel start a Twitter account and share his unfiltered thoughts with the world. Ben is envious of Herschel because Ben’s “big business idea” failed and Herschel becomes an internet sensation for making street pickles that everyone in Williamsburg loves. (Look, Williamsburg hipsters are always an easy target. I live in Manhattan and I have not been anywhere other than Manhattan since March, and even I kind of miss Williamsburg right now. So, I’m going to let this slide.) Again, I like to think there’s more going on here. It’s Seth Rogen, looking at his brash id, wondering why he can’t just run with that, then purposely sabotaging that id. (I point to the calendar one more time.)

Though, in comedies, one of Rogen’s biggest strengths is just riffing with other characters (a great example of this is last year’s Long Shot with he and Charlize Theron just trading lines). Rogen is so good at this and does it so effortlessly, I honestly think he makes the people around him better. I wouldn’t even call it a “trick,” because I think it’s just his natural reaction, but Rogen’s laugh is so infectious and so profound, it gives a person a sense of confidence to keep trying. (I’ve experienced this when interviewing Rogen. When he laughs at something dumb you say, it makes you feel really good. I can see how on set this would encourage actors to keep going with him.) But in An American Pickle, he’s doing this with himself and it’s not quite the same. The timing just feels a little off. There’s a scene in the credits where Ben and Herschel are watching Yentl and it’s just not quite as funny as we think it’s going to be. The whole movie is kind of like that. But like I said, it’s the premise that drives this film: a nice man from 100 years ago who becomes a media sensation, then gets canceled on Twitter.

As a bit of an aside: An American Pickle will be on HBO Max this weekend, a service there’s a good chance you already have and may not know it, at least if you already have an HBO subscription. I wouldn’t recommend subscribing to HBO Max just to watch this alone, but if you already have the service, it’s definitely “worth a watch.” (Please, someone put that pullquote on a poster! “An American Pickle is definitely worth a watch.” – Mike Ryan, Uproxx) That said, I’ve been pretty impressed with HBO Max so far. It has arguably the deepest lineup of films of any streaming service. It’s legitimately impressive. There was one week I watched The Battle of Algiers, Bonnie & Clyde, and When Harry Met Sally. So add in something like An American Pickle and I do really like what they’re trying to do. They don’t need a mass influx of new films like Netflix does, but something like this every now and then still makes the service feel fresh.

‘An American Pickle’ begins streaming this coming weekend on HBO Max. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

In early 2020, Hank Azaria announced that he would no longer voice Apu Nahasapeemapetilon on The Simpsons. “What they’re going to do with the character is their call. It’s up to them and they haven’t sorted it out yet. All we’ve agreed on is I won’t do the voice anymore,” he said. Apu wasn’t the only Simpsons character voiced by a white actor, though, and in June, producers released a statement saying that “moving forward, The Simpsons will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters.” (Family Guy, Big Mouth, and Central Park followed suit.)

Harry Shearer doesn’t sound like a fan of this decision.

Shearer, who voiced Dr. Hibbert and Judge Snyder, among other non-white characters, told the Times Radio, “I have a very simple belief about acting. The job of the actor is to play someone who they are not. That’s the gig, that’s the job description.” When asked if he would get paid less for not voicing Hibbert, he replied, “We’re not paid by the voice”:

“I think there’s a conflation between representation, which is important — people from all backgrounds should be represented in the writing and producing ends of the business so they help decide what stories to tell and with what knowledge — and performance.”

Shearer never straight-up says he disagrees with the “no longer have white actors voice non-white characters” mandate, but the subtext is there. It’s a puzzling response, especially from someone who once quit the show. This whole thing, like the low-blow response to The Problem with Apu, could have been avoided by Shearer simply saying (and genuinely meaning), “I welcome a Black actor voicing a Black character.”

He’s getting paid, either way.

(Via the Times Radio)

In recent years, the NBA has become a more welcoming place for conversations about health, especially on the mental side. Players have begun using their platforms to promote mental wellness and the importance of taking care of your mental health in the same way as your physical well-being.

For Blake Griffin, he’s long been on a personal journey to explore the world of health and wellness, growing up in a health-conscious household and being a health and exercise science major at Oklahoma. Now, he’s taking that personal interest into the podcast space with his aptly titled “The Pursuit of Healthiness” podcast on Audible, which released all 10 episodes of its first season on August 4, available to all Audible subscribers — with a second season already greenlit.

Griffin’s guest list for season 1 includes Michael B. Jordan, Ariana Huffington, Chelsea Handler, Karlie Kloss, Deepak Chopra, and more, as he talked with each about their own wellness journeys and what they’ve learned as leaders in their respective fields. Griffin spoke with Dime this week about the podcast, the importance of having these public conversations about mental health, the mental side of injury rehab, and much more.

Before we get into the podcast, what has been your personal process for working out and staying healthy physically and mentally over the past few months?

I really just tried to put together sort of a routine, just to try and stay sane and to have structure to my week and days. So I do my workouts in the morning and that leaves the afternoon for different stuff, whether we were recording an interview or a zoom meeting or phone calls, whatever it may be. Then sort of saving nighttime for relaxing, and that way I just didn’t — like, the first week I felt like the days were slipping away from me if I didn’t have my routine in place. So I’ve really been doing that the whole quarantine besides the first week.

From a workout perspective, it’s a long time to go without being in a team facility. How have you adapted, because there is such a difference in being in basketball shape and maybe being in gym shape or workout shape and try to stay at least close to that basketball form?

Yeaaah, I think for the most part I’m lucky because I just moved into a new house, and I made a gym in it in one of the rooms. So I at least have pretty much everything that I need, so from that I was able to get those workouts in, and also just like, the team and my trainer personally sent different conditioning workouts to switch it up and emulate some sort of basketball shape, as close as you can anyways — it’s sort of impossible. That’s sort of how I’ve gone about it. Not perfect, but it’s definitely getting the job done.

Where did the idea for “The Pursuit of Healthiness” come from?

I’ve always had a pretty big interest in health and wellness. So like, my mom is probably one of the healthiest or most health conscious people that I know. Always reading nutrition books and had us taking vitamins and fish oil and drinking green juices since we were like 5, 6 years old. So, that sort of started me on this journey, and then once I got to college I was a health and exercise science major. Some of my favorite classes were the Kinesiology and health and all that, just because of the interesting things I was learning about my body and I felt like I could apply those to basketball and they can help me in that space.

So, that was sort of what sparked it, and then from there I’ve always sort of had conversations with trainers or strength coaches or team doctors about health, about the body, and all these different things. It’s always been one of my biggest interests and I realized if I was going to do a podcast, why not do it about something that really, truly interests me. And I get to have these amazing conversations with people who are leading their field or inspiring others with their dedication to their craft. So really that’s what made me want to do this, and also sort of navigate and help people understand a world that can be daunting was something that was important to me.

Like you said, this first 10 episodes is a really wide array of guests.

Yeah.

What do you feel like you personally got out of this experience of talking to these other people who are at the highest levels of their professions in the sports and entertainment and health and wellness space?

Yeah, I mean, for me — it’s a great question — I think it’s about perspective. There’s some things that I never really — like you know about meditation, but when you’re talking about meditation with [Headspace founder] Andy Puddicombe it’s a whole different conversation that maybe I haven’t really thought about things a certain way. Or if you’re talking to, you know, Michael B. Jordan about functionally training versus trying to get ready for just a scene, it’s sort of an interesting perspective, and really it just makes me think about things in different ways. I think that’s what I appreciate most about these conversations. It opens up my mind to all new experiences.

I listened to the Michael B Jordan episode and him and his trainer talking about how they really craft workouts based on the role I thought was really interesting. I was wondering if that was something you connected to as a basketball player, cause it’s not like you just go in the gym and just work out. There’s so much of a plan that goes into what you work on based on what you need to do on the floor. Is that something you wanted people to get out of this podcast is how much effort goes into the plan and focus on health and wellness for people at the top of these professions?

Yeah, I think like, that version of that for me is just the amount of work that we do before or after workouts. It’s like the first 20 or 25 minutes of my workouts is all balance stuff. It’s all things that are functional, and for some other athletes too, but basketball specifically. And that’s, you know, the boring, tedious, monotonous exercises you don’t want to do, but you have to do if you want to be good. That’s sort of how I guess I would compare that conversation that I had with him is everybody, when you talk to somebody who really does this and dedicates the time, you really learn the details, and I think the more details you know about a topic the more well educated you are.

You also discuss the importance of mental health and him going to therapy, and how there’s this shift in perception with this current generation about allowing yourself as a man to be more vulnerable. How important is it to have those conversations about that publicly as a prominent male athlete and to be able to do that with a prominent male actor and do that in a public forum?

I think it’s very, very important. For so long, people in general have a hard time talking about feelings, and men are sort of taught from an early age that you don’t talk about feelings, you don’t show emotions, you do this and this. Especially Black men and especially Black men who are athletes. We’ve sort of chosen this world where it’s not a popular topic of conversation and I think that needs to change because it can really help people. A lot of the times when people are hurting and need to talk to somebody, it’s invisible to everybody else. You know, as athletes, being hurt physically, it’s very easy to see, but like that mental side, the part where people are struggling that you don’t see, you’re sort of going through life and nobody knows about that. And I think just normalizing that conversation is a step in moving in the right direction, because we all deserve to have the help that we need when we need it. That’s a huge part of it, is just people feeling comfortable with even talking about it.

You mention in that episode the toughest time in your career was having to sit out as a rookie. You just went through another surgery and rehab with your knee. What have you learned about the mental side of rehabbing an injury from your career? Because like you said, we can see the physical injury, but there’s a mental side of the rehab process and being off the court and trying to work your way back that I think that often gets lost in the discussion?

Yeah, I think one of the biggest things that I don’t think people truly understand is how mental or how tough mentally going through a rehab process is. Not only do you not feel great because you had surgery or whatever it is and you’re having to rehab this specific area, you’re also having to do all the other workouts and stay in as good a shape as possible. That’s one part of it, but for me, the other part is, basketball’s been taken away, you know. So, that’s the one thing that I truly, truly, truly love doing, and have for as long as I can remember. So when you take that away, it affects you mentally and that’s why in most of these episodes I hit on some sort of mental health or mental wellness, just because whether you’re an athlete, doctor, therapist, public speaker, that’s something you can really lean on and is important to address. So, those are sort of some of the things that go into rehab, but I think talking about that and making it aware to people that it’s a mental battle every day when you’re rehabbing an injury is important.

What do you hope people can take away from listening to this podcast and take into their lives?

Honestly I hope that answer is a little different for everyone. I hope people get something out of it, but everybody’s so different. Some people need to hear different things. If they hear Ariana Huffington stress putting your phone down and really taking care of yourself or getting an extra 30 minutes of sleep a night, I think that’s important. If they hear Andy Puddicombe talk about meditation, you can go on and on down the list. Everybody had a very unique perspective and something to say that no matter what it is, I hope people can at least take something and feel like they’re living a better or healthier life or improving themselves in one way or another.

I know Season 2 has been greenlit already, what are your plans for expanding this series and where you want to take it next?

Um, obviously still staying on topic but for me it’s about finding more and more people that have the interesting perspective, that have something to say, and being able to navigate those conversations to make them make sense to people. I was really proud of Season 1 and I thought that our team did a great job of helping find guests and do research, and really just looking forward to improve upon that in Season 2.

The deluxe version of DaBaby’s Blame It On Baby is here, and with it comes new tracks featuring the likes of Gunna, Stunna 4 Vegas, and Young Thug. The latter song is “Blind,” a guitar-driven, sing-song ode to the North Carolina’s seeming overnight success on which he sings a bit like his guest before Thugger completely takes over the back half of the song with his strangled cat crooning. It’s an easygoing track that shows DaBaby’s growing versatility as a rapper, slowing way down from his usual breakneck, Indy 500 pace.

Another highlight is the previously-released single “No Dribble,” on which DaBaby trades verses with his North Carolina protege Stunna 4 Vegas in a much more typically high-energy outing for the chatterbox rappers. Gunna appears on the 9th new track, “TLC,” a bouncy, almost pop-esque production from Starboy & DJ K.i.D, which really stretches the sonic palette Gunna is used to working with. DaBaby also switches up his flow a bit on “Trouble,” adding a little more melody to his punishingly rhythmic delivery.

The ten new songs bring the total to 24, making for a near hour-long listen that also includes the BLM remix of “Rockstar,” DaBaby’s No. 1 single with Roddy Ricch. While the deluxe album trend receives mixed reviews from fans and critics online, Blame It On Baby adds another worthy work to the growing canon of redux albums that have become the industry standard for the foreseeable future.

Listen to “Blind” with Young Thug above.

Blame It On Baby (Deluxe) is out now via Interscope Records. Get it here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres recently apologized over allegations of her show’s “toxic” workplace. The criticism didn’t ebb with the host’s apology, however. Brad Garrett stepped up to claim that he knew multiple people who “were treated horribly by her,” and he further stated that toxicity “comes from the top.” Now, a former The Ellen Show producer has revealed her own experiences in working with the Emmy award-winning daytime talk series.

Hedda Muskat, who came aboard The Ellen Show in the early aughts (while it was being developed), spoke with The Wrap and accused Ellen of fostering a “culture of fear.” She also called Ellen a “toxic host” who merely “giggled” when executive producer Ed Glavin (who is now exiting the show following widespread accusations, including racist behavior) allegedly shouted at a crew member in front of the whole staff. The incident reportedly took place at a meeting, and Muskat alleges that Ellen responded like this:

“She crossed her legs up on the chair and she said, ‘Well, I guess every production needs their dog.’ And from then we knew. Ed was going to be the barking dog — her dog. You could just see everybody’s faces go stiff. We’re professionals; we’re adults. We don’t need a dog to get us to do our jobs… She was the only one giggling.”

For this incident, Maskat points the finger more at Ellen than Ed (“Ed was a bully, but he worked for Ellen. It was her show). She further related how Glavin asked her to give him a list of all her producing “sources,” and when she refused to do so (she told The Wrap, “I’ve worked 18 years to build these sources. Those sources are why you hired me”), she felt as though that was a turning point, and “I was really on everybody’s sh*t list.” Shortly thereafter, Muskat says she received less responsibility and was let go (in 2004) after only about a year in her producing position.

Muskat’s account follows a Buzzfeed investigative report, in which multiple employees alleged that Ellen’s “Be Kind” mantra rang false behind the scenes. This led to her public apology and her announcement of an internal investigation and promises to correct the issues. In the meantime, people are taking sides.

On Twitter, comedian Kevin Porter called Ellen “notoriously one of the meanest people alive.” He encouraged people to share “insane stories you’ve heard about Ellen being mean” in exchange for his donations to the LA Food Bank.

Whereas Ellen’s wife, Portia de Rossi, Instagrammed an “I Stand By Ellen” graphic with the following caption: “To all our fans….we see you. Thank you for your support.”

(Via The Wrap & Buzzfeed)

The release of Taylor Swift’s new album Folklore was a surprise to the world, as she dropped the album less than 24 hours after announcing it. The strategy paid off, as the album and its songs are breaking records. Like anything Swift does, Folklore has been talked about a lot, and a fair amount of that talking has come courtesy of Phoebe Bridgers.

Bridgers is an often hilarious Twitter presence, and she has been on top of her game since the Swift album was announced. Last night, she made a funny comparison between one of her Punisher songs and a Folklore highlight, tweeting, “graceland too is betty for people who hate themselves.” She also retweeted a fan who wrote, “phoebe bridgers is taylor swift for people who hate themselves.”

This isn’t the first parallel Bridgers has drawn between herself and Swift in the past couple weeks. Somebody recently tweeted the album covers of Folklore and Punisher and noted their compositional similarities, writing, “this looks like a long-distance duet scene from a goth disney movie.” Bridgers shared it and added, “bich I wish.”

Somebody else shared a video of clips of both Swift and Bridgers set to 100 Gecs’ “Money Machine,” and Bridgers re-shared, commenting, “name brand vs great value.” Last week, Bridgers also suggested her next album could be inspired by Swift, writing, “next record is called f*cklore.”

Meanwhile, Bridgers recently linked up with Courtney Barnett to cover a Gillian Welch song for a virtual festival.

Festival season is effectively shut down this year, so organizers have been getting their ducks in a row for their 2021 returns. Events like Rolling Loud, Mad Cool, and Outside Lands have started announcing their lineups for next year. Sadly for UK residents, though, the country’s biggest event may not have a 2021 lineup to announce soon, as it may not return next year at all.

Glastonbury Festival founder Michael Eavis spoke about the future of the fest in a recent interview, and while he’s hopeful Glasto can come back in 2021, he seems pessimistic that will actually be the case.

He said, “500 people is OK, isn’t it? But my job, 250,000 altogether is too many people I suppose, isn’t it, really. I’m still hoping I’m going to be running next year and I’m going to be moving Heaven and Earth to make sure that we do. But that doesn’t mean it will necessarily happen. That is just wishful thinking, really.”

Eavis was asked if he worries about the fate of the fest beyond 2021, and he appears confident the event will return better than ever: “No, I do not worry at all, I am so confident that it will survive. The only certainty, I think, is the year after, 2022, to be perfectly candid, so we might have to wait for two years maybe. But I am still hoping and we are fighting and working at it all the time to make sure it happens next year. You can’t kill it off just like that. It will come back. It will come back, probably stronger, actually.”

Before joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe to play Captain Marvel, Brie Larson confessed that she “didn’t know what strength was. I was truly an introvert with asthma before this film, so I had a lot of work to do, and I just started to fall in love with it,” she told E! News. She’s truly an inspiration to us asthma-sufferers everywhere. One day, we’re wheezing while lifting a kettlebell; the next, we’re pushing a 5,000 pound Jeep.

Larson worked with trainer Jason Walsh to get in peak physical condition for Captain Marvel, and while her usual workout can’t be completed during quarantine (bear crawls are doable; rock climbing, less so), the Oscar-winning actress did share an at-home workout on her YouTube channel. “It’s been a while,” she says. “I want to take it easy on myself, be realistic about where I’m coming from, and enjoy it while my mind flips out.” There are squats, body saws, sumo stances, and best of all, no equipment:

“It’s unclear if anyone’s actually going to do this workout along with us or just enjoy watching me struggle. If you liked it, if you didn’t like it — keep your comments to yourself.”

Eh, seems too hard. Gonna get back to my Animal Crossing animal. For everyone else, you can watch Larson’s workout with Walsh (who also trains with the other Brie) below.

Over the weekend, Cardi B teased that she had an announcement coming on Monday. Sure enough, last night, she revealed that she would be linking up with Megan Thee Stallion for a new song, “Wap.” The track isn’t even out yet (it drops Friday, August 7), and it’s already breaking the internet, or at least Cardi’s portion of it.

Last night at 8:15 p.m., Cardi told her Twitter followers, “Ya better start going to my website now ! Link in bio !” The link was for a store page to order vinyl, picture disc, and other editions of the single, including a limited edition signed by Cardi. These releases will only be available for purchase until this Thursday, August 6. About a half hour after Cardi directed fans to her site, it started not being able to handle the influx of traffic, as she tweeted, “Deum ya crash the site ! But keep going to that b*tch!”

As of press time, it is still a challenge to access the site. Attempting to view the site leads to a Warner Music Group “Queue-it” page, which puts users in a virtual line to get on the site. The page informed me that my number in line was 20,374 and that 9,734 users were in line ahead of me. My estimated wait time was “more than an hour.”

Also yesterday, Cardi B revealed that she plans to link up with OnlyFans for a partnership, and she teased what she might get up to on the platform.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Two years ago, I got off the phone after an interview and cried my eyes out. I’d just spent an hour talking to Tim Ballard, the founder of Operation Underground Railroad, an organization that helps fight child sex trafficking, and I just couldn’t take it.

Ballard told me about how the training to go undercover as a child predator nearly broke him. He told me an eerie story of a trafficker who could totally compartmentalize, showing Ballard photos of kids he had for sale, then switching gears to proudly show him a photo of his own daughter on her bicycle, just as any parent would. He told me about how lucrative child trafficking is—how a child can bring in three or four times as much as a female prostitute—and how Americans are the industry’s biggest consumers.

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But you know what he didn’t mention in our hour-long conversation? Pizza, hot dogs, Hollywood elites, or any of the other child sex trafficking conspiracy theories raging around the internet. Not one of them. Not once.

You know who else doesn’t mention any of those things? The organizations that have spent years and years battling child sex trafficking while most of us blissfully went along in our daily lives, largely oblivious to it.

No matter our political, religious, or ideological leanings, the unfathomable hideousness of child sex trafficking is something all of us should be able to agree on. But that doesn’t make conspiracy theories about pizza parlors and Satanic pedophile rings palatable, or even remotely acceptable.

Did people learn nothing from the man who believed the Pizzagate conspiracy and fired his AR-15 inside of Comet Ping Pong in Washington D.C. because he believed a baseless pedophile ring conspiracy theory involving the pizza parlor?

There are still people who think that Pizzagate thing is real. (For those who have been blissfully spared from that lunacy, you can read about it here.) But that’t not even the kookiest thing I’ve seen lately. There’s a veritable laundry list of child sex trafficking posts going around, including:

– Oprah, Tom Hanks, Ellen Degeneres and other “Hollywood elites” have actually been arrested, and the pandemic is all a distraction to cover up the crackdown on these celebrities. (Fact check here. Oh and another one here.)

– Model and wife of John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, is a pedophile because she’s tweeted a whole bunch about pizza and because she had a sardonic sense of humor about the sexualization of little kids on the show Toddlers & Tiaras back in 2013. (Fact check here and here.)

– Wayfair—yes, the home goods products store—has coded listings for missing children being sold at exorbitant prices in a child sex trafficking scheme. (No, they don’t. Fact check here.)

– Having children wear masks will make it easier for kids to be trafficked because no one can see the expression on the kids’ faces or identify them. (As if child traffickers weren’t already successfully trafficking kids without masks. Fact check here.)

– There’s a concerted effort to make “age fluidity” a thing, and to make pedophilia an accepted sexual orientation. (There is one very small group called NAMBLA, which has been trying to abolish consent laws since the 1970s,, but claims that there’s some kind of “movement” to normalize pedophilia as a legitimate sexual orientation is actually an effort to harm the LBGTQ+ community. Fact check here.)

– Obama and Clinton are satanic leaders of a global child-sex-trafficking cabal—which includes most Democrats and Hollywood, apparently—who feast on children’s adrenal glands in order to increase their power. (Fact check here, although if you seriously need a fact check for this you are already too far gone, my friend. On a related note, this article about the parallels between QAnon and “alternate reality games” is suuuuper fascinating and explains a lot.)

– Obama spent $65,000 on a “hot dog” party, which is code or little boys and pedophilia. (You know what? I’m not even going to fact check this, because come on.)

And that’s not even all of them.

Of course, there are some legitimate questions to be asked about how much involvement certain celebrities and politicians, including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, had with known pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Having watched a beloved figure like Bill Cosby fall from grace over sexual misconduct, we know what’s possible. But none of those Epstein connections are a secret. It’s all being reported on in the real news and has been since Epstein started being investigated. (There’s also a lot of misinformation about who was involved with Epstein, and to what degree, and in what capacity, and none of these conspiracy theories are helping us get to the truth of the matter.)

The main problem is this: When you conflate the actual issue of child sex trafficking—which is absolutely real and serious and deserves our attention—with totally off-the-wall, debunked conspiracy theories, it causes people to put their energies in the wrong places.

The Polaris Project, a national organization that fights human trafficking, had to release a statement asking people to stop calling about Wayfair because it was overwhelming the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

“While Polaris treats all calls to the Trafficking Hotline seriously, the extreme volume of these contacts has made it more difficult for the Trafficking Hotline to provide support and attention to others who are in need of help,” the group said in a July 20 press release. “We strongly encourage everyone to learn more about what human trafficking really looks like in most situations, and about how you can help fight trafficking in your own community.”

What it often looks like is family member trafficking a child, such as Melody Cholish’s story she recently shared with us. Sometimes it looks different, and you can find all kinds of stories and information about child trafficking from the many organizations that have worked for years on this issue, including Save the Children, Operation Underground Railroad, the Polaris Project, Love 146, and Stop the Traffik. (Please use those sites for “doing research” instead of Twitter or QAnon or YouTube or memes that come through your feed.)

The other problem is that the issue of child sex trafficking is suddenly being used to deflect from every other important issue, because “Oh yeah? What about CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING???” is a fairly effective deflection. I mean, who doesn’t think that child sex trafficking is the absolute worst of the worst things humans do? Black Lives Matter? What about CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING? Horrible pandemic situation due to inept leadership? What about CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING?

I mean, we can care about more than one thing at a time. The question is, why did all these conspiracy theorists not care this much about child sex trafficking until they thought it was “evil liberal elites” doing it? Why was no one calling child sex trafficking a “pandemic” until we were in the middle of an uncontrolled literal pandemic? Why were there no widespread protests against child sex trafficking until there were widespread protests for Black Lives Matter?

As I mentioned, Tim Ballard didn’t say a single thing about Hollywood elites or pizza parlor basements or adrenal-sucking rituals or anything of the sort in our hour-long conversation about child sex trafficking. And he’s an expert on this topic. He’s also a conservative Trump supporter. He’s not peddling any of these conspiracies, and neither are any of the legitimate organizations that are working to end child trafficking. Not one.

Either every major organization working to end child sex trafficking is a part of The Big Evil Global Elite Pedo Ring Plot or people who spend too much time on social media are being taken by baseless, politically-driven nonsense that’s probably being pumped out of some guy’s basement. My money is on the latter.

Stick with the organizations that have been doing this work for decades. Get your information from them. Stop sharing crazy internet conspiracies simply because you want people to know you care about children, or because it justifies your hatred of people you see as your enemies. We can—and must—unite to fight child sex trafficking without resorting to insane, debunked rumors that muddy the waters and distract from the real problem.