Month: March 2021

Miami Heat center Meyers Leonard became the focus of the basketball world on Tuesday, and not for positive reasons. Leonard used an anti-Semitic slur while streaming Call of Duty and, within a very short period of time, a firestorm formed. By Tuesday evening, Leonard released a statement of apology but, in doing so, he also claimed that he was unaware of the meaning behind the slur that he casually used on a live stream with the intent of it being derogatory.

Shortly after his apology surfaced, Leonard was banned from Twitch, the platform on which he uttered the slur. Twitch also offered a statement, per Jacob Wolf of Dot Esports.

“We do not allow the use of hateful slurs on Twitch,” the statement reads. “The safety of our community is our top priority, and per our guidelines we reserve the right to suspend any account for conduct that we determine to be inappropriate, harmful, or puts our community at risk.”

At the time of this post, both the Miami Heat and the NBA have indicated they are investigating the video, with no formal statements beyond that.

Prior to the official ban from Twitch, FaZe Clan released a statement, cutting ties with Leonard, who was prominently associated with the group as an investor and member — although his membership status was disputed by FaZe Clan in their statement.

It remains to be seen as to whether Leonard will incur any disciple related to his day job as an NBA player. Still, his actions were wholly unacceptable, and his apology doesn’t remove any future-facing accountability.

While most would take a break after a new album, Deante Hitchcock has been pushing full-steam ahead. The Atlanta rapper relaunched his freestyle series “NewAtlantaTuesdays” last week with a set of bars over Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III track “Let The Beat Build.” Hitchcock started the series earlier in his career as a way to bring attention to himself andto increase his following. Now he’s heading back to it in order to flaunt his fiery display of lyricism, and in its latest installation, he takes on SpottemGottem’s track “Beat Box“.

The new video for the song finds Hitchock rapping for nearly two-minutes about women. He makes it clear that he does not seek an exclusive relationship; a night of love-making with a woman will do. Throughout the video, Hitchcock also does the dance that accompanies the TikTok challenge to SpottemGottem’s “Beat Box” in various places, from on top of a car and in the middle of a street to a parking lot and even inside a store.

The freestyle arrives after Deante kicked off 2021 with a live version of his 2020 album Better. The updated release was delivered with videos from the performance.

Check out the “Beatbox” freestyle in the video above.

Matt Karsten, 40, witnessed an incredible example of the intricate dance between predator on prey recently while on a dinghy with his wife in the Gerlache Strait, near the tip of Antarctica.

Lucky for us, they caught in on video.

The travelers were touring icebergs when they saw a pod of whales playing in the water beside them. “They swam right up to the camera and said hello,” Matt Karsten said according to the New York Post.

However, the whales’ attention was quickly diverted when they saw a penguin swim by.

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This began a chase where it appeared the penguin had little chance of survival. But it saw a nearby zodiac and attempted to make a flying leap out of the water into the boat to evade the hungry whales. It narrowly missed getting inside the boat on the first attempt but that didn’t stop it from making a last-gasp effort to save its life.

Penguin escapes killer whales by jumping into tourist boat in Antarctica

www.youtube.com

After the penguin made the miraculous leap into the zodiac, it rested on the boat for a few minutes until it thought it was safe to get back into the water. The whales continued to follow the boat for a while but eventually swam away.

“After cruising for a little bit, the penguin said goodbye to the boat and hopped back into the icy water,” Matt Karsten said.

The brave penguin is a great example that we can all follow, if at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then again, that if you’re about to be eaten by killer whales, you have all the motivation you need for another attempt.

This past Sunday, the Recording Academy revealed its long list of performers for the upcoming 63rd Annual Grammy Awards. The setlist promises appearances from Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Cardi B, DaBaby, Lil Baby, Roddy Ricch, Doja Cat, and many other favorites. Despite the rather lengthy list of acts, there was a pair of artists who were particularly disappointed to not be invited: Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak.

The singers recently joined forces as Silk Sonic and shared their first single, “Leave The Door Open,” which was met with rave reviews. When they were not listed among the Grammy performers, they took matters into their own hands. Mars posted a letter to Twitter, which was co-signed by .Paak, which read in part, “Dear Grammys, If you can see it in your hearts to allow two out of work musicians to perform at your show, we would really appreciate it. We just released a song and could really use the promotion right now.” Thankfully for them, the message worked, as the Recording Academy delivered exactly the response they hoped for.

In a tweet, the Academy wrote, “.@BrunoMars & @AndersonPaak We have been trying to call you all week. Have you changed your numbers? We would love for #silksonic to make their TV debut at the #GRAMMYs.” They added, “Are you free this Sunday night? Follow back and we will DM for details.” Just like that, Silk Sonic will be on stage this Sunday.

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

The Tuesday after the All-Star Game is typically a day where the NBA news cycle is slow. As such, it came straight out of left field when Meyers Leonard was trending on social media on Tuesday afternoon, and the reason for that was him using a terrible anti-Semitic slur during a Twitch stream of Call of Duty.

Leonard ended his stream after taking a phone call, saying his wife needed him for something, but the assumption of most was that he had been informed the video of him using a slur had gone viral. The Miami Heat and NBA have not offered an official statement, instead saying they are reviewing the video of the incident and will have comment later. FaZe Clan, the eSports organization Leonard is an investor in, cut ties with him earlier this evening.

Leonard broke his silence with a statement on Instagram that insisted he “didn’t know what the word meant” when he used it, was ignorant of its history and why it’s offensive, and said he “promises to do better.”

The chief issue with this apology is that the excuse of not knowing what a slur means doesn’t really work when it was clearly used as a derogatory remark, forcefully saying it to accentuate “b*tch” in this instance. Also, the way he seems to recognize he screwed up in the video with his “…anyways” transition doesn’t exactly match up with someone who was unaware what he said was a slur.

We will await word from the Heat and the NBA, but Leonard will have a lot of work to do beyond just one apology to show he’s learned from this, has changed, and understands why what he said was so heinous.

A new app called MyHeritage Deep Nostalgia turns static photos into short, animated videos that seemingly bring their subjects back to life. The video uses deepfake technology to animate the photos so they smile, blink, and turn their heads.

The app then allows you to post the videos on social media so you can share your heritage with the world.

The app has given millions the chance to see their ancestors come alive like never before. It’s especially powerful to see moving pictures of those whose likeness was never captured on video.

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The new app has started a trend on TikTok where people share their reactions to seeing their family members come to life, many for the first time.

TikTokker CarolLigh30 has no video of her mother so seeing an animated version of her was beyond words.

This woman can’t believe she’s seeing an animated version of her grandmother, great-grandmother, and great-great-grandmother.

This TikTokker showed his parents animated photos of their parents and their reactions were powerful.

The app isn’t just used to bring older relatives back to life, TikTok user hallietannery used it to reconnect with her bestie.

When we look at old, black-and-white photos it can be hard to really connect with the people in them because we are used to seeing the world in vibrant colors. But the MyHeritage app makes them move in realistic ways so they become much more relatable.

While the technology is pretty groundbreaking, the sky’s the limit for this new form of artificial intelligence. So the only question is, when will it be so good that we can actually have a conversation with the people from our past or even have them over for dinner?

Over the last year and change — the last five, really — we’ve gotten used to news that could best be described as Mad Libs. This genre combines a number of random, perhaps even incongruous elements together in one surreal piece of news. Remember murder hornets? So when places like The Hollywood Reporter reported Tuesday that Elizabeth Banks, actress-turned-successful cineaste, was directing a movie called Cocaine Bear, there was no way its epic absurdity wouldn’t go over well on social media.

Maybe the best part: It sounds like an amazing movie! Actually, no. The best part is it’s based on a true story. It’s inspired by an event reported on The New York Times in 1985, in which a 175-pound black bear died after consuming the contents of a duffle bag fill with more than 170 pounds of coke. How did the bear get so much blow? It fell from a plane piloted by a convicted drug smuggler, who himself died while parachuting with too heavy a load. The bear was found dead, surrounded by 40 opened containers containing traces of cocaine.

It’s not clear how much of the real deal will wind up in Banks’ film, but it’s safe the approach will be at least partly comedic: Her producers are no less than Phil Lord and Chris Miller. But it’s clear a film entitled Cocaine Bear has set a very high bar for itself. Once news of its existence broke, social media went wild.

There were memes.

And casting ideas.

And ambitious plans.

Maybe there can be an MCU crossover?

And there were jokes. When people saw the words “Cocaine Bear,” not a small amount of people thought of Don Jr.

And Alfred Molina in Boogie Nights.

Cocaine Bear wasn’t the only good title on Tuesday. There was also Nightbitch, starring Amy Adams.

In any case, Cocaine Bear will shoot this summer, though details, such as who will be in it, are currently being kept under wraps. But honestly with a title like that, Banks is already halfway there.

(Via THR)

Last summer, Lil Nas X shared a video of him singing to an unreleased single as he drove around town, a track that was later revealed to be called “Call Me By Your Name.” While some may have thought the singer would release the song soon thereafter, it never arrived. Instead Lil Nas continued to promote and tease it through his TikTok page, using it as background music for his numerous comical posts, the most recent example being his excellent Tekashi 69 troll. Now, after more than eight months, the “Old Town Road” singer has finally given a release date for the long-awaited track.

In a post to Twitter, Lil Nas X revealed that the upcoming single — whose full title is “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” after his government name, Montero Hill — would arrive on March 26. He also shared the cover art for the track, which depicts a black-haired version of himself shooting an arrow at a red-haired version of himself. The image reimagines Michaelangelo’s The Creation of Adam painting, featuring clouds and vines that cover the nude singer’s private parts. “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” will also be Lil Nas’ first single since last November’s “Holiday.”

The news of the new single comes after Lil Nas celebrated being a first-time homeowner at only 21. He shared some selfies of him inside the new house and revealed that his next home would be built from scratch.

Democrats are often accused of not being as fiery or as ballsy as their Republican colleagues. There’s the ever-brave Squad, plus some new congresspeople who’ve followed in their footsteps. But by and large they tend to stay low-key, hoping — often unsuccessfully — that they’ll guilt trip those on the other side of the aisle to do the right thing. Then there’s Tim Ryan.

You may not know who that is. He’s not a household name. He’s just some Democratic representative from Ohio. But on Monday — as the House was giving a second vote on Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, which received few of their votes — he had enough. After they raised a stink about bills seeking to raise the minimum wage to support unions, not to mention being more worried about culture war grandstanding over the Muppets, over Mr. Potato Head, over Pepé Le Pew, and over Dr. Seusss, he took them all to the woodshed.

“Mr. Speaker, one of the earlier speakers said this is the most dramatic change in labor law in 80 years, and I say, thank God,” Ryan averred. “In the late 1970s, a CEO made 35 times the worker, today, it’s 300 to 400 times the worker, and our friends on the other side running around with their hair on fire.”

But he was truly only getting wound up:

“Heaven forbid we pass something that’s going to help the damn workers in the United States of America! Heaven forbid we tilt the balance that’s been going in the wrong direction for 50 years. We talk about pensions, you complain. We talk about the minimum wage increase, you complain. We talk about giving them the right to organize, you complain. But if we were passing a tax cut here, you’d be all getting in line to vote yes for it. Now stop talking about Dr. Seuss and start working with us on behalf of the American workers!”

Ryan’s rant was a long time coming, and people loved to see it.

And they wanted to see more Democrats do the same.

Will it work? Will it inspire Republicans in both chambers of Congress to stop misrepresenting the Dr. Seuss Foundation’s decision to yank a few books from circulation, only due to racist imagery, and start cooperation on legislation that could actually help struggling Americans during a once-in-a-century pandemic? Probably not! But it may inspire other Democrats to grow a pair. And it may show more regular folks where Republicans’ priorities lie, which is to say with a cartoon skunk, not them.

You can watch Ryan’s rant in the video above.

(Via Mediate)

From the very moment WandaVision debuted on Disney+, Marvel fans were convinced that the demonic villain Mephisto would appear as the show’s “big bad.” The character, who is essentially the Marvel Universe’s version of Satan, has a complicated history with Wanda/Scarlet Witch in the comics, especially when he relates to her twin sons, Billy and Tommy. Once the two made their debut in WandaVision, the Mephisto theories only heated up even more as fans searched for clues that he was the real mastermind pulling Wanda’s strings, either personally or through Kathyrn Hahn’s Agnes.

However, as the show neared its epic finale, it became more and more clear that Mephisto wasn’t appearing, as the show began making it very clear that person wreaking havoc on the town of Westview was entirely Wanda. Sure, Agnes was revealed as a villain, but only in the sense that she craved Wanda’s chaos magic for herself. Nevertheless, Marvel fans still held out hope that Mephisto would make his presence known, but when WandaVision wrapped, he was nowhere to be found.

In a new interview with Deadline, series creator Jac Schaeffer explains Mephisto’s absence, and why making him the villain would’ve taken away from the story that WandaVision wanted to tell:

We didn’t think this series needed a big bad. I mean, the big bad is grief, you know, and that’s the story that we were telling, and then we got a bonus baddie in the form of Agatha Harkness who ended up facilitating Wanda’s therapy, so yeah, I think we feel pretty good about that.

However, Schaeffer is candid about how the show did set out to make audiences think that there was “some nefarious force” out there by sprinkling “red herrings” throughout the series, and as a narrative choice, it was pretty effective. The viewer is essentially placed in the same confusing situation as Wanda as she tries to piece together who’s truly controlling Westview, only to learn it was her all along.

(Via Deadline)