If you needed proof that Tucker Carlson is just a pre-teen schoolyard bully inhabiting an adult man’s body, might we direct you to this moment from his show last night

Carlson, who harbors an obsession with his competition over at CNN (his former employer), dedicated the closing minutes of his show to dragging CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter for … wearing shorts under the anchor desk. Apparently, the sight of Stelter’s undraped calf muscles — he did a tongue-in-cheek taping about the struggles of broadcasting during the coronavirus pandemic — so disturbed Carlson that he felt the need to make fun of Stelter on air.

“On Sunday, the dwarf king aired footage of himself—oh, his chief minion rather—wearing no pants,” Carlson said during the segment. “The footage shows the little media hall monitor—calves and thighs fully exposed—when he appeared for a television report on CNN. Your move, Chris Cuomo!”

In case you were wondering what CNN host Cuomo and the name “dwarf king” are doing here, Carlson has been fascinated with — read: envious of — Cuomo’s physique, regularly deriding the TV personality for posting his workout routine on social media. “Dwarf king” is just one of the ridiculous, completely-reflective-of-Carlson’s-maturity-level nicknames the Fox News host has given CNN president Jeff Zucker over the years. It joins other humorless jabs like when Tucker called Stelter Zucker’s “house eunuch,” and sent the correspondent a box of jelly doughnuts as a prank a couple of years ago.

But it’s not just Carlson whose delicate sensibilities were offended by the sight of Stelter’s bare thighs. No, Sean Hannity was also, as he put it, “traumatized” by the image.

“OK, now you just traumatized me with Humpty Dumpty and I’m going to have that image seared into my memory for the rest of my life,” Hannity complained when Carlson asked for his thoughts. “Did you have to ruin my life? Ohhh, that is traumatic!”

While continuing to sift through the ramifications of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry‘s candid interview with Oprah Winfrey, The View’s Meghan McCain went on a rant about the British monarchy that left Whoopi Goldberg so visually stunned that her facial reaction has people cracking up on social media.

The incident occurred Tuesday morning as McCain used her time during the panel discussion to talk about her childhood playing George Washington with her siblings while touting the McCain family legacy of fighting in the Revolutionary War. While she eventually segued into an info dump on the popularity of Prince William and Kate Middleton and how some British citizens find Prince Harry and Markle’s interview to be poorly time due to Prince Philip’s failing health, McCain returned to her rant about the proud American tradition of toppling monarchies, which she called “stupid.” It was all very weird, and yet very in character for McCain, who tends to make every topic about her.

Whoopi, who has never been shy about shutting McCain down or letting her know when she’s going off the rails, didn’t even know how to react this time around and sat there with a puzzled look on her face before simply saying, “OK.”

After the clip of Goldberg’s reaction went viral, the social media reactions started pouring in as everyone couldn’t get enough of Whoopi’s face:

You can see McCain’s full rant below at the 4:40 mark. Although, you’ll find that Whoopi’s reaction was left out of this The View clip on Twitter:

(Via The View on Twitter)

This week in the best new pop music, several big-name artists returned to serve up some energetic hits. Justin Bieber offered another preview of his impending album, Charli XCX joined The 1975 and No Rome for a glitchy banger, and Bebe Rexha shared her first new track of the year.

Each week, Uproxx rounds up the best new pop music. Listen up.

Justin Bieber — “Hold On”

Justin Bieber continues to tease his upcoming album Justice with the soulful single “Hold On.” The track differs from much of the sultry R&B music heard on his last LP, as it instead teeters between heart-tugging verses and a shimmering verses.

No Rome — “Spinning” Feat. Charli XCX, The 1975

Charli XCX may have been busy releasing music in 2020, and it looks like this year will be no different. Joining The 1975 and No Rome, the three shared the energetic number “Spinning” this week, pointing to the potential of a possible supergroup between the three acclaimed artists.

Bebe Rexha — “Sacrifice”

Following her cutting single “Baby I’m Jealous” with Doja Cat in 2020, Bebe Rexha shares “Sacrifice” as her first new track of the year. “Sacrifice” sees Rexha leaning into her dance sensibilities, crafting a soaring chorus over a club-ready beat.

Silk Sonic — “Leave The Door Open”

Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars formed the group Silk Sonic after touring together in 2017, and this week, they dropped their debut single. “Leave The Door Open” previews a new era for the R&B duo, featuring both singers’ silky-smooth vocals over a lulling beat.

Finneas, Ashe — “Till Forever Falls Apart”

Finneas returned to share a soulful single, this time in collaboration with songwriter Ashe. In a statement about the single, Ashe said “Till Forever Falls Apart” is a reflection on acceptance. “If I’ve learned anything from ‘Moral Of The Story,’ it’s that accepting the hard truth is strangely comforting,” she said. “This song, while sounding like the most romantic song I’ve ever written, is about acceptance as well.”

Nick Jonas — “This Is Heaven”

Last week, Nick Jonas announced his upcoming solo album Spaceman and now, he’s shared another preview of the record with “This Is Heaven.” Jonas said the song was inspired by his loving relationship with his life after they spent months apart while she was shooting a movie. “It was just meant to encapsulate kind of that euphoric feeling of being with your person,” he said.

Jensen McRae — “Starting To Get To You”

After her faux Phoebe Bridgers song went viral on social media, Jensen McRae is flexing her songwriting skills with a buoyant new single, which she wrote about the euphoric feeling of falling in love. “‘Starting To Get To You’ is about the slow burn. It’s about being friends with someone for a while and always wondering if maybe you could be something more, and then after a long time, everything just sort of falls into place and you see each other in a whole new light.”

Girl In Red — “Serotonin”

Girl In Red gained a cult following after releasing a handful of mixtapes and singles. Now, Girl In Red is back to announce her highly-anticipated debut album If I Could Make It Go Quiet with the moving track “Serotonin.” “If i could make it go quiet is an attempt to learn what it’s like to be human; to deal with the scariest parts of myself; to live with the pain of knowing I’m only flesh and bones; to be angry, broken, and unforgiving yet still able to wear my heart on my sleeve.”

Remi Wolf — “Photo ID” Feat. Dominic Fike

After Remi Wolf’s “Montecarlo” became the unofficial song of last summer, the singer tapped Dominic Fike to hop on a hyped-up version of the fan-favorite “Photo ID,” which appears on her debut EP, I’m Allergic To Dogs!. Fike brings a playfulness to the already upbeat track that’s mirrored by Wolf’s vitality.

Maroon 5 — “Beautiful Mistakes” Feat. Megan Thee Stallion

Adam Levine may think pop bands are a “dying breed,” but he continued to press forward with Maroon 5’s Megan Thee Stallion-featuring single “Beautiful Mistakes.” The charming track details the fallout of a relationship, and Levine praised Megan for bringing “the song to a whole new level” alongside its release.

Tate McRae — “Slower”

Tate McRae may have gotten her start as a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance, but she’s made a name for herself in music through a handful of singles and EPs. “Slower” offers a lush look at her upcoming EP Too Young To Be Sad and features a snapping beat under McRae’s captivating vocals. She sings of wanting to move things along in a relationship, but feels as though it’s being stalled from the other end.

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

The New York Knicks turned heads during the 2020 NBA Draft with their second pick of the first round. After selecting Dayton’s Obi Toppin at No. 8 — a move that had been widely speculated in the lead-up to the Draft — the team decided to reach and nab Kentucky’s Immanuel Quickley at No. 25. While he was a nice player in college, the thought with Quickley is he didn’t do all that much other than shoot, and as a result, he was more worthy of a second-round selection.

Of course, that has not been the case, as Quickley is among the most productive rookies in his class. He’s averaging 12.2 points in 18.8 minutes a night off the bench while connecting on 38.1 percent of his triples, and while he still has a way to go as a rookie guard in the NBA, the early returns are more promising than anyone could have expected.

Well, almost anyone, at least. A new story by Yaron Weitzman at the New York Post details the Knicks’ brain trust entering this season, and as it turns out, executive vice president and well-documented NBA power broker William Wesley — known for his nickname “World Wide Wes” — kept repeating “we need Quickley, get Quickley” as the team went through the 2020 Draft.

Wesley had entered the night giddy, FaceTiming friends and passing out key lime pies from a bakery he loves in Margate, N.J. But now he was furious. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. His face twisted into a frown. He stood up and paced around the room.

“Coach says we need shooting, Quickley’s the best shooter,” he said out loud, referring to Tom Thibodeau, who due to the NBA’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols had to participate in the draft via Zoom. Wesley joined Walt Perrin, the team’s assistant general manager, Aller and Rose for a huddle at the front of the room. Wesley kept pushing his case. Finally, Rose relented. A few minutes later, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that Quickley was being selected with the 25th pick.

Wesley, apparently, is known for holding Kentucky prospects in ultra high regard, and when it comes to Quickley, a source told Weitzman that he “pushed him like crazy.” As the saying goes, the only rule is it has to work, and while Quickley’s at the very beginning of his career, banking that World Wide Wes saw something no one else did has paid off so far.

Oscar Isaac is one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood right now. He’s unpredictable on-screen, choosing roles that range from playful heroes in sci-fi franchises to morally-tormented crime lords and tech bros destroyed, quite literally, by their own hubris. And he’s talented — if all the awards and accolades he’s carted home over the years are anything to go by.

But it’s really not fair to honor the career of this ska-punk-band-leader-turned-thespian without acknowledging all of the facets of his career that set him apart which is why, instead of giving you some dull, uninspired catalog of his greatest works, we’re ranking Isaac’s contribution to film using the prestigious, industry-accepted “Thirst-Trap-Scale.” The “Thirst-Trap-Scale” (like the rotten tomatoes and thumbs up and five-star rating systems of the past) attempts to quantify a film, show, or performance based on its innate carnality.

Now, let us be clear: though Oscar Isaac is in fact a beautiful human being, the “Thirst-Trap-Scale” doesn’t reflect our feelings on the actor’s own attractiveness. Instead, we’re judging the characters he’s played — their looks, their wardrobes, their charisma — and deciding which have left audiences the most titillated. And we’re doing it for science. This is all very above-board. It’s been vetted by unbiased sources. It’s quite official. There’s no personal gain to be had by myself, the writer, or anyone who regularly simps for Team Ethnic Hips on social media …

Really.

9. Duke Leto Atreides in Dune

What can we say about this performance that John Boyega hasn’t already? Not only is Isaac inheriting a major role in a beloved sci-fi universe he’s also fully embracing the “zaddy” status the internet has been trying to thrust upon him for years with that chin bush. That’s called creative growth, people. The only reason this role doesn’t rank higher is because technically, the movie has yet to be released so we have only limited glimpses of Isaac brooding with Denis Villeneuve’s muted apocalyptic wasteland aesthetic littering the background. But it was enough to carry us through a pandemic-driven-thirst-drought last year, and that’s nothing to sneer at.

8. Prince John in Robin Hood

Look, I saw that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry tell-all. I’ve watched every episode of The Crown. I know the British monarchy is really just a group of in-bred colonizers plagued by early-onset-balding who deserve no allegiance from a commoner such as I. And normally I’d be all for watching these Royals burn and giving the spoils to the poor. But if you’re talking about thieving from this curly-haired beefcake, we’re gonna have problems. Even Cate Blanchett couldn’t sway me against whatever bizarre Prince John cosplay Isaac is pitching here and though the rest of movie is a total slog, watching Isaac work out his mommy issues while lording over a bunch of peasants is oddly satisfying. He didn’t have to make a hated historical figure that horny, but he did.

7. Abel Morales in A Most Violent Year

That he could even pull focus from the exquisite Jessica Chastain is a testament to Isaac’s inherent swag but add in some perfectly tailored coats and a pinch of mob boss bravado, and you’ve got this master class in on-screen thirst trapping. Yes, this is a very serious crime drama and yes, Isaac is fantastic as a reluctant modern-day oil baron forced to get his hands dirty to make a profit. But you know what should really be illegal? For Isaac to look that good in a turtle neck with a salt-and-peppered bouffant to boot. The man is a damn criminal.

6. Kane in Annihilation

Is he a genius military specialist with a cheating wife or an alien symbiote posing as a genius military specialist with a cheating wife? Do we really even care as long as he keeps spouting nonsense in that weird amalgam of every bad southern accent you’ve ever heard?

5. Poe Dameron in the Star Wars Trilogy

If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around to hear it, did it really ever fall? If Oscar Isaac hadn’t alerted us to the size of his hips, would we have ever concerned ourselves with whether he could fit into the pilot seat of the Millenium Falcon? Ah, life’s sweet mysteries. But really, Isaac was one of the few bright spots of the sequel trilogy, playing a cocky wingman to Boyega’s Finn and the reluctant leader of the Resistance. He clearly had fun with the role, channeling the kind of roguish charm Harrison Ford patented in the original films and adding queer undertones to his bromance with the former Stormtrooper. We’ll never forgive Disney for denying Isaac the friends-turned-lovers space romance he so rightly deserved but we can reward his cheeky pandering by rating this spice smuggler above that previously mentioned spice lord. Side note: Oscar Isaac is proof Dune and Star Wars share a universe, no?

4. Llewyn Davis in Inside Llewyn Davis

He’s so damn tired. Why is Oscar Isaac so damn tired in this movie? Because he’s been running through our minds for so long, that’s why. A starving artist who treks across ’60s era New York playing folk music and toting a cat around? Isaac knew what he was doing with this role and what he was doing was planting a sexual metaphor deep into our subconscious. Think about it.

3. Santiago “Pope” Garcia in Triple Frontier

This movie may be the closest we’ll ever come to a Pedro Pascal/Oscar Isaac rom-com. The setting: a remote South American jungle. The premise: some ex-military bros wanna recreate the movie Girls Trip but with guns and a chopper full of cash stolen from a powerful drug lord. To be fair, each actor involved in this action romp was thirst-trapping in his own way — save Sadffleck, but Isaac’s got the most skin in the game. He’s the ringleader, the mastermind with a plan to bring about justice and get his friends paid. He’s got a haircut that says, “I’ve seen things, man.” You have to respect the drip.

2. Nathan in Ex Machina
Ex Machina is a terrific sci-fi movie, and not just because Oscar Isaac performs a bisexually-lit ’70s-inspired dance montage about midway through. Said routine is both delightfully vivacious and unsettingly sinister, performed by a man who has no regard for the rules that govern polite society … or zip-up hoodies. In Ex Machina, Isaac plays the original techno Gatsby, a guy named Nathan who is at once both an egomaniac consumed by his own genius and a chill West Coast hippie type who just wants to hang and talk about his organic diet with you — as long as you sign the NDA first. We can only assume it was Isaac who told director Alex Garland that his Silicon Valley bro would only wear tank-tops and rimless eyeglasses, that he’d have a shaved head but full beard, that his arms would be swole even though he spent most of his day rearranging post-it notes on his vision board and tinkering with the attractive A.I.’s he had enslaved. We can only assume Isaac meant to make us question the very fabric of what humanity finds attractive with these choices. Well, he succeeded.

1. Blue Jones in Sucker Punch

This is the movie I blame for making me irrationally irate over the Addams family reboot. How can you look at this pencil-thin mustache and think, “No, Oscar Isaac should only voice the animated version of Gomez Adams.” How?! Now, admittedly, only one version of the character Isaac is playing here, a man named Blue Jones, is hot — and it’s not the grey-toned psych orderly who harbors a strange obsession with one of his patients. Sure, his alter-ego is a corrupt brothel owner who pimps and abuses women in a film that tries to say something about the relationship between sexism, misogyny and pop culture, but is it so wrong that we think Isaac’s charisma on-screen is so hot, it’s causing his stage makeup and emo eyeliner to literally melt off his moneymaker? (It is, isn’t it?)

Next week marks one year since The Weeknd released his acclaimed album After Hours. Since then, the singer has had many accomplishments. He was invited to perform at the Super Bowl half time show, and even honored with his own day by Toronto’s mayor. Now, The Weeknd can claim another impressive achievement: “Blinding Lights” was officially the best-selling song of 2020.

According to a year-end report released by the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry (IFPI), “Blinding Lights” sold more units globally than any other song last year. Coming behind him in second place is Tones And I with her 2019 track “Dance Monkey,” followed by Roddy Ricch’s “The Box,” Saint Jhn’s “Roses,” and Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now.”

While The Weeknd had the highest-performing song of the year, he wasn’t the best-selling artist. That title was recently given to BTS after they had a wildly successful year. The Weeknd did, however, come in at fourth place behind Drake and Taylor Swift.

News of the massive success of “Blinding Lights” arrives shortly after the song secured another feat. On Monday, “Blinding Lights” became the first single to ever spend a full year in the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. “After Hours was always meant to be a very personal project. It’s a story I had to tell,” The Weeknd told Billboard about his chart victory. “The fact I’ve been able to tell it with the world listening is incredible. This Billboard chart record is truly a result of the fans. I’m so humbled and forever grateful to them.”

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

Quality Control has solidified its dominance over the rap game over the past three years thanks to the success of acts like City Girls, Duke Deuce, Lil Baby, Lil Yachty, and Migos, but the Atlanta-based label isn’t satisfied with just being hip-hop’s most successful label. Now, Coach and P have their sights set on Hollywood and won’t stop until they’ve tapped into every possible genre and form.

Not only do Lil Yachty and Migos have multiple projects coming down the pike, including Yachty’s heist comedy based on Uno and Quavo’s turn as a drug kingpin alongside Robert De Niro, but the label is also jumping into the horror genre soon, according to Deadline. The industry trade magazine reports Quality Control has partnered with Trioscope Studios in a co-production deal developing a TV series based on a graphic novel about the horrors of being Black in America.

Trioscope Studios is best known for its Netflix series The Liberator, a World War II drama using hybrid animation that blends CGI with live-action actors. The technique will be applied to QC’s upcoming series. The report doesn’t note exactly which horror comic will be adapted, but there’s no shortage of stories they could have chosen from, including The Ballad of Black Tom and The Box of Bones, while shows like HBO’s Lovecraft Country have proven that there’s certainly an appetite for more Black-focused horror-style work.

Well… we’re finally here. After a brief postponement, the 63rd annual Grammy Awards will be taking place on Sunday, March 14. As with many awards shows nowadays, things will be presented a bit differently than we’re used to. Per The Recording Academy’s website, there will be a virtual red carpet ceremony and premiere ceremony, where artists like Burna Boy, Lido Pimienta, Rufus Wainwright, and more will perform.

The circumstances don’t negate the ceremony’s esteem, however, and some of the biggest names in music could take home some serious hardware. Given The Recording Academy’s commitment to diversifying their business and the industry at large, there are a handful of exciting nominations and possibly historic wins music fans may be treated to this year. They say “it’s an honor to be nominated,” and that certainly rings true this time around.

Read on to discover some major nomination moments and potential milestones that the 2021 Grammys hold.

Legendary Nominations

The Biggest Pool Of Potential Honorees

There were 23,207 entries submitted for nomination consideration this time around, which is more than ever before. After the nominations were announced in November, Recording Academy Chair and Interim President/CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said that this year’s honorees are “proof that the creative spirit continues to be alive and well.”

Women Rule Country and Rock

Here’s a first: never before in the history of the Grammys have there been only women or women-fronted acts nominated in the Best Rock Performance and Best Country Album categories. Phoebe Bridgers, Fiona Apple, Brittany Howard, Grace Potter, HAIM, and Big Thief are up for Best Rock Performance, while Ingrid Andress, Brandy Clark, Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde and Little Big Town could win the Best Country Album honor.

Best New Artists Bring Heavy Representation

Even more exciting: every nominee in the Best New Artist category is either a woman or a person of color. They include country singer Ingrid Andress, indie rock singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, rapper Chika, alternative act Noah Cyrus, rapper D Smoke, rapper/singer Doja Cat, deejay/producer Kaytranada, and rapper Megan Thee Stallion.

BTS Breaks Barriers

BTS is the first K-Pop act and the first South Korean group to be recognized by the Recording Academy. They are nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category for the 2021 ceremony, thanks to their song “Dynamite.”

The Potential Milestones

Taylor Goes For Three

If Folklore goes home with an Album Of The Year win, Taylor Swift would become the first woman to win the honor three times. Previously, Swift won the night’s top award in 2010 for Fearless and in 2016 for 1989. She would join Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra as the third solo artist in history to achieve the feat. (Paul Simon has won Album Of The Year three times, but one of those wins came for a Simon & Garfunkel album.)

Queen Bey Watches The Throne(s)

After securing nine nominations this year, Beyoncé became the second-most nominated artist in Grammy history, tying with Sir Paul McCartney. (The only other musicians with more nominations are Quincy Jones and her husband JAY-Z, who are tied for first.) If Bey wins three of those gramophones, she ties with bluegrass musician Alison Krauss for the most wins by a female artist in the show’s history. (If she wins four, of course, that means the record now belongs to her.) We also have to mention that her daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, is up for a “Best Music Video” nomination for her appearance in “Brown Skin Girl.” If the video wins, Blue would become one of the youngest Grammy winners ever.

Potential Sister Success

Haim’s Women In Music, Pt. III is up for Album Of The Year. If the group wins the night’s biggest honor, they’d be the first all-female group in 15 years to win the award. The last time this was achieved was at the 49th ceremony in 2006, when The Chicks’ Taking The Long Way nabbed the win. This would also be the first time since then that sisters would be winning Album Of The Year together. (Haim’s members are all sisters, while Martie Erwin Maguire and Emily Strayer from The Chicks are sisters.)

Dua and Posty’s Potential Big Three Wins

Dua Lipa and Post Malone have the potential to join an exclusive squad of just eight musicians who have won Album, Record and Song Of The Year in the same night. (Paul Simon, Carole King, Christopher Cross, Eric Clapton, Dixie Chicks, Bruno Mars, Billie Eilish, and Adele, twice.) Dua’s Future Nostalgia and “Don’t Start Now” and Post’s Hollywood’s Bleeding and “Circles” are up for the honors.

Female Rappers May Reign Supreme

If either Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, or Chika wins in the Best New Artist category, she will become the first female rapper to win in 22 years, and just the second to win (after Lauryn Hill). Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea were nominated in the category in 2012 and 2015, while genre-bending musician Lizzo, who began her career rapping and singing, was nominated in 2020.

Roddy Ricch and Megan Thee Stallion’s Groundbreaking Chances

There are a few possible milestones wins in the Best Rap Song category. If Roddy Ricch wins for “The Box,” he will be the youngest recipient of the award. (He is 22 years old.) If Megan Thee Stallion wins Best Rap Song and/or Best Rap Performance for “Savage (Remix),” she’ll be the first female winner in both of those categories. And how sweet would it be to share the honor with her idol and collaborator, Beyoncé?

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

Selena Gomez has been one of the most successful pop stars of the past decade: All three of her albums have topped the charts and she has eight top-10 singles to her name, including “Lose You To Love Me,” which was a No. 1 single in 2019. That said, Gomez seems to think she’s not getting the credit or respect she deserves, which has left her seriously considering leaving music.

In a new Vogue cover story, Gomez says:

“It’s hard to keep doing music when people don’t necessarily take you seriously. I’ve had moments where I’ve been like, ‘What’s the point? Why do I keep doing this?’ ‘Lose You to Love Me’ I felt was the best song I’ve ever released, and for some people it still wasn’t enough. I think there are a lot of people who enjoy my music, and for that I’m so thankful, for that I keep going, but I think the next time I do an album it’ll be different. I want to give it one last try before I maybe retire music.”

When asked about that again, Gomez replied, “I need to be careful,” and clarified that she’d like to spend more time producing and giving herself “a real shot at acting.”

Following publication of the story, “WE LOVE YOU SELENA” became a trending topic on Twitter as fans showed their support for the artist.

Gomez certainly has plenty of coals on the fire outside of music. She has her HBO Max series Selena + Chef, her status as one of the most-followed people on Instagram, her Rare Beauty cosmetics company, and many other endeavors. So, while it would be unfortunate to see a talent like Gomez leave music, she would likely fare just fine if she did.

Read the full Vogue feature here.

It started like many things did in 2020: over Zoom. Fred VanVleet sat for post-practice media availability seven weeks into the NBA’s Orlando Bubble, and by now, the routine had grown rhythmic — a second to get himself settled, a welcome from one of the team’s remote PR people running the call, then the familiar order of beat writers called on for their questions. Only that day was different. Jacob Blake had been shot by police in Kenosha, Wisc. on August 23 and footage of the event quickly spread across social media.

Social unrest ran parallel with the league since its return to play. It was a prerequisite from players that the league show visible support for the Black Lives Matter movement during broadcasts and throughout the Bubble so that the protests and social action many players had been involved in after the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd not lose momentum. But the shooting of Blake seemed to suddenly put things in stark perspective: Nothing had changed in the world that existed outside of their Bubble.

What unfolded can be unpacked a few ways. Sports media, traditionally, has not been the most adept at sensing when to shift the familiar line of questioning in the face of what could be taken as aberration, whether from an event or its emotional fallout. There is a weird propensity to press on as usual even when the situation is anything but. Then factor in that most media members weren’t in the same room with a player, who wore a mask, and more social cues that might’ve been picked up via proximity were lost.

Still, within the seconds it took for VanVleet to be asked his first question that morning — whether he was excited about Toronto’s upcoming series against the Celtics — some palpable signs of discomfort were there. His shoulders square, his blinking gets more rapid, his chin tenses in the way that happens when pressing your lips together.

“I was pretty excited,” VanVleet says, crossing one of his arms against his chest, tucking his hand under his elbow, “and then we all had to watch Jacob Blake get shot yesterday.

“Coming down here, making the choice to play, was supposed to not be in vain,” he added. “It’s just starting to feel that everything we’re doing is going through the motions and that nothing’s really changing.”

It was an honest, painful disclosure. The gravity of what VanVleet just said made the follow up question feel perfunctory: Where was he when he saw the video, and how did he try to make sense of it?

“I don’t know,” VanVleet says calmly, the only thing betraying his steadiness are his hands just out of frame, running up and down his legs. “I would like to ask you, what do you think about it? How do you make sense of it?”

The reporter, TSN’s Michael Grange, is clearly caught off guard. His response, in the moment, academically abstract. When he’s finished, VanVleet just nods.

“We’re the ones with the microphones always in our face,” he says. “We’re the ones always who have to make a stand. But like, we’re the oppressed ones and the responsibility falls on us to make a change to stop being oppressed. That’s my point in asking you the question. At what point do we not have to speak about it anymore? Are we going to hold everybody accountable? Or we’re just going to put the spotlight on Black people, or Black athletes.”

“I’d say what was probably missing the most was off the top, I regret not reading the room better right off the start,” Grange recalls. “Because clearly I think I was a little bit out of tune when I was looking to ask about the playoff series when that wasn’t what was top of mind. I think sometimes when you’re in your own little bubble, your own environment, and you don’t sometimes sense the weight of that moment as they’re experiencing it, as Fred was, clearly that was the wrong opening question.

“I respect him for doing it,” Grange adds. “He was asking a pretty sincere question. I was doing my best to give a full answer on a massive topic, and I wish I’d done a little better.”

The fourth wall VanVleet pressed up against by turning the question back around on media had been one perceptibly closing in, at times uncomfortably, awkwardly, or outright strangely, by the day. When play resumed at Disney following a league-wide stoppage in response to Blake’s shooting, media did along with it, and Zoom calls became a daily routine for team beat writers.

Initially, there was a friendly sense of reunion, calls featured two-way video and the novelty of seeing faces after months of hiatus lent an affable tone, at least in one area, to the resumption of play in arguably the most performative place in the world. There was added levity in on-the-fly troubleshooting, media figuring out how to ask questions, and team communications staff adopting and adjusting best practices both on the ground at Disney and remotely.

“I honestly had never heard of Zoom before March,” Phoenix Suns communications manager Cole Mickelson says, laughing at the disbelief of a pre-Zoom world. “And so it [was] kind of a whole new world in terms of navigating that. The NBA were the ones who set up everything as far as all the infrastructure, these giant TV monitors that had cameras attached to them that each of the practice gyms and the game gyms had. Setting up in front of those was definitely an adjustment. The first time having each player, when they did the Zoom, having to give them a brief beforehand just saying, this is something you haven’t seen before but this is how it’s going to be in the Bubble.”

While acknowledging the NBA did an incredible job creating everything from scratch, Mickelson says “constant little corrections” were necessary, like making sure microphones and monitors were ideal for each press availability. He recalls the first Zoom presser for Suns coach Monty Williams, who prefers to be seated when meeting with the media. The issue: He had nowhere to sit.

“So I got him a chair at the last minute but because of that, just the way the camera was set up, the quality of the shot was really terrible,” Mickelson gives a little groaning laugh, recalling the mistake. “For that first one, you could only see the top of his head.”

Mickelson made sure to get the same kind of chair for every call after that and eventually noticed, as other teams followed suit, a readily available ocean of high seats. Teams began to emulate other blanket best practices, too, notably switching mid-Bubble from two-way Zooms to a one-way model.

With about 90 percent of the media accessing Orlando remotely, there was a noticeable uptick of attendance in every team’s availability. Access, for the first time, wasn’t bound by physical location — media could now “attend” any team scrum so long as they made the request through that team’s PR channels. With double the attendees, it made sense to shift away from two-way video, as calls could get cacophonous. Mickelson claims two-way calls weren’t as popular, saying “it was almost as though the player was talking to themselves in the mirror.”

But it was in that zeroing in, however necessary, that some crucial elements began to get lost. Remote video communication platforms, as much as we’ve grown familiar with them since last spring, have made us painfully aware of the things we miss from traditional face-to-face communication. Subtle facial expressions don’t do well with video delay, and the subtle and second-nature elements of human interaction that stem from social cues, are lost in something as scheduled and expedited as a remote scrum.

While Grange didn’t want to paint Zoom as the villain in his exchange, he noted that in person, “you’d have a sense of the room, the energy of the room, and maybe you’d be a little bit more … you’d just sense things better.”

In person, there are ways to potentially soften what might be a difficult or pointed question. A reporter can talk about the game that just happened, or talk about something completely unrelated to the game, signaling their intention and giving a player time to absorb their meaning. With scrums turning one-way, it became evident, even without the traumatic events that prompted VanVleet’s earnest exchange, that questions from media were growing bolder by virtue of their remove.

“I would think the very first and most significant loss is simply setting the tone for a friendly interaction,” Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University and New York Times bestselling author of a dozen books on discourse analysis and interpersonal communication, says. “Things like a smile, a facial expression of goodwill, a friendly remark, some comment. It’s easy to make fun of human interaction because people so often are not talking about anything substantively important, talking about the weather, but all that is very important because it’s what establishes the human relationship. That is the basis for whatever information is now going to be exchanged.”

Tannen says not seeing one another and establishing those initial markers of connection can, in effect, skip ahead to the activity “before you’ve established the relationship.”

“Things are coming at you but you don’t really see where they’re coming from,” she says of the one-way Zoom set up in the Bubble. “I would think that would make you feel bombarded, cornered.”

Another byproduct of this acceleration in communication was that interviews began to feel transactional. In even the most hectic of scrums there’s a necessary attentiveness required when asking questions, even if it’s to gauge when it’s time to ask one. In a Zoom scrum, attendees just need to press a button to raise their hands and wait to be called on. Preparedness, in some cases, felt secondary to the urgency to just get in the queue.

“What you’re describing, in the way it was before, the athlete knew they were speaking to someone with whom they shared a lot of basic information: what happened in the game, the person was there, they know that you’ve waited to see him. So you have made an investment, too. And so, I would guess, they would feel motivated to make more of an investment in answering you,” Tannen says, when asked how speed and ease of access may have changed media’s approach to conversations. “But now it’s a situation where you might’ve just popped in, you certainly didn’t attend the game because nobody could, and so the answer may be abrupt for a lot of reasons. One could be they don’t know how much you’ve invested, so why should they invest more than necessary?”

While what was happening in the Bubble was in some ways a microcosm of what was going on in the wider world, the shift in personal investment brought on by wider access and the lack of opportunity or desire for preamble had another adverse effect: a loss of empathy.

Jamie Aten, a disaster psychologist, told Dime that we’re in a kind of paradox with the pandemic in that we have less physical access to one another but more means of remote access to conversation than we’ve ever had before. Like Tannen, Aten agrees we’re missing out on non-verbal communication even over video, and that to some degree, our brains have grown rustier to once familiar social cues. He went as far as to compare “an informal walk up and small talk,” once a constant in everyday life, to “that scene from Mission Impossible where you’ve got Tom Cruise’s character hanging down and there’s the lasers on the ground.”

“If you were to ask something that was more of a bold question, you probably wouldn’t do that in a large town hall situation, it would probably be in a situation where you had the ear of that player,” Aten says. “You know that certain questions should be asked in certain circumstances where you’re more likely to get an authentic response based on when, where and how you ask it. What I’m starting to notice is now, we’re treating every interaction with the people being interviewed in the same way. And that’s probably one of the reasons the players are starting to pull away to some degree.”

This overarching slackening of attention and empathy via video conferencing, while not unique to the Bubble, did combine with the ongoing social and power dynamics to create a very specific set of circumstances. Players were being asked again and again to not only emote, but to explain deep feelings of grief, anger, and incredulity by a disassociated voice coming out of a computer. If they didn’t get it quite right, there could be a follow-up, then a completely different question about, say, their shooting percentage, then another cursory prompt to explain their reaction to racialized violence by someone who’d just entered the scrum because they clicked on a link instead of walking into a room and being able to read it. It was an exhausting, bizarre, and wholly disconnected loop.

“The power imbalance between journalists and the people they’re writing about, it’s a very interesting thing. Access, of course, is to some extent in the power of the people being interviewed or being covered,” Tannen says. “But the power of how they’re going to present you and the power to make you look good or bad, the power to put you on the spot in the way that they’re not on the spot, from that perspective the journalists have the power.”

What made the disruption of play in the Bubble so powerful, aside from the players’ palpable frustration and quick and actionable demands for change, was how abrupt it was. In an environment controlled down to the minute, that could only really exist under the continual renewal of the players to opt-in to that state of control — and those watching, in silent contract to the belief that control was possible when the rest of the world was spiraling out of it — they, for a few days, opted out. VanVleet’s turning around of a question that in some ways was meant to maintain the same rhythm was the same. They were real, reactionary moments. They were also adept at pointing out how embarrassing it was that it needed to take all of that for players to be better understood as not needing to appear sanguine in the face of staggering emotions, or to always answer the questions asked of them, to be authoritative to the league or those involved in it.

“Maybe it is an offshoot of what we’ve been talking about that the players are more, freer, to turn that around,” Tannen says, speculating on a potential upside of the hot seat players have been put in. “And say, you’re not the only one who gets to ask questions here. Why can’t I ask questions? You should have some skin in the game, too. You should have to answer to what’s going on as well.”

The remote approach to scrums first utilized in the Bubble has remained in place in all markets, even where some media have returned to games. It varies from team to team, but two-way video is now largely the best practice, with the choice to have a camera on or off left up to the individual. This falls in with the suggestions from experts like Tannen and Aten on improving a sense of connectivity, to have video for both participants on in an interview setting, or at the very least a photo, as well as with what Mickelson felt would be an improvement to give players a better sense of mentally placing reporters.

But remote media still presents its challenges and biases — journalists being called on in a fixed order, limited player availability, technical constraints, and the reality of life in anxious times inevitably entering into conversations a screen-length away, with both parties physically distant and not as emotionally equipped to handle them. It’s possible to attend more than one team scrum simultaneously but impossible to have a sense of investment in either, our mental capacity static or, in some ways due to Zoom and pandemic fatigue, much worse.

The hope is that we will all bounce back from this period as equipped as we were before for the in-person interaction we’re currently so bereft of, but the larger, psychological fallout from going through the motions and this kind of generalized “flattening” of human contact remains. There should never need to be an occasion where a player, like VanVleet, is put on the spot by tragedy, but the reality is that at some point they will be. Our concern has to be that in this interim of being unable to look someone in the eye, we’re able to retain the crucial, connective sense of what that leveling can feel like.