Month: June 2021

Confections, a bakery in the small town of Lufkin, Texas, is a wonderful example of why hate is no match for the power of acceptance, pride, and love.

Confections posted an innocuous photo of Pride-themed cookies on its Facebook page on Wednesday with the positive message of “More LOVE. Less hate. Happy Pride to all our LGBTQ friends! All lovers of cookies and happiness are welcome here.”

But evidently, some are bothered by the idea of having “less hate” so a “significant” number of followers disliked Confections’ Facebook page after the post. One customer went so far as to cancel a large order of five-dozen summer-themed cookies that had already been baked.

The small business was going to have to take a loss on the large order if no one stepped up to purchase the cookies.

“My heart is heavy,” one of the owners wrote on Facebook. “Honestly I never thought a post that literally said more love less hate would result in this kind of backlash to a very small business that is struggling to stay afloat and spread a little cheer through baked goods.”

After the small business made the post, the internet got wind of it and the summer-themed cookies were sold out immediately. Then, a line quickly formed around the block and the massive influx of customers cleaned out every shelf in the business.

But it didn’t stop there, the next day it happened again. So, the store began baking more LGBTQ-themed cookies and its shelves were cleaned out again. When there was nothing left to purchase, customers pre-ordered cookies to send to nursing homes and civic events.

Others sent direct donations to the shop that the owners are going to send to local animal shelters.

The response has been overwhelming for the shop’s owners Dawn and Miranda and their baker Felicia.

“In the 11 years we’ve been open we’ve never seen anything quite like this,” Dawn wrote, adding they “are just so humbled and grateful and moved by this outpouring of love.”

On Sunday, the store reported that it was hard at work making rainbow bows to celebrate Pride and baking the nursing home orders.

One Facebook commenter perfectly summed up the overwhelming reaction to Confections’ story. “For every nasty and hateful person, there are 2,500 or more that are amazing and loving,” Kimberly Gonzalez wrote.

“Your shop looks amazing and the hate and heartache you experienced was for a purpose,” she added. “It brings me so much joy that you are receiving this amount of support. Keep doing what you love and supporting who you want. You are all amazing people and wish you all the prosperity for you and your business.”

One of the most important aspects of Pride Month is visibility, but that’s not limited to members of the LGBTQ community. It’s a month for everyone who supports them to renew their commitment to visibility as well. For some, that’s showing up to a Pride parade, for others, it’s supporting allied businesses.

The story of Confections bakery is a wonderful example of Pride in action.

In 2017 and 2018, Bruce Springsteen was the toast of Broadway with his descriptively titled show Springsteen On Broadway. Now that Broadway is opening back up, so too is Springsteen On Broadway, as more performances of the beloved show are on the way. The revival will take place St. James Theatre, starting on June 26 and running through September 4. Tickets will be available via SeatGeek starting on June 10 at noon ET.

Springsteen offered a statement about his Broadway comeback, saying, “I loved doing Springsteen On Broadway and I’m thrilled to have been asked to reprise the show as part of the reopening of Broadway.”

Uproxx’s Steven Hyden previously wrote of the show, “The show works like this: Bruce stands on stage for two hours, mostly alone — save for a stunning two-song cameo by his wife, Patti Scialfa — and performs 15 tracks from throughout his 45-year recording career on guitar and piano. And he also talks about the things that inform those songs: His father, his mother, rock and roll, Jersey, The Big Man, fame, social justice, transcendence, America. Is it a concert? A play? Performance art? Whatever you call it, Springsteen On Broadway is one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.”

Check out the full list of dates below and get tickets here.

06-26 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
06-29 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
06-30 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-01 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-02 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-03 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-06 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-07 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-08 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-09 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-10 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-13 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-14 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-15 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-16 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
07-17 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
08-17 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
08-18 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
08-19 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
08-20 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
08-24 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
08-25 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
08-26 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
08-27 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
08-28 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
08-31 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
09-01 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
09-02 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
09-03 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre
09-04 — Springsteen On Broadway @ St. James Theatre

After releasing the deluxe version of her acclaimed EP After The Rain and becoming a viral star with the video for her breakout hit “I Am,” Yung Baby Tate is now aiming to take over America’s televisions. The rising Atlanta star is joining the cast of the VH1 reality series Love & Hip Hop for its 10th season, making the announcement with a tweet bearing a teaser featuring “I Am” and revealing the new season’s air date: Monday, June 5.

Tate, whose tales of romantic entanglements have formed the foundation of some of her standout projects like Boys and After The Rain, will join a cast that has included longtime mainstays Rasheeda, Karlie Redd, and Mimi Faust, as well as Atlanta rap veterans such as Lil Scrappy and Yung Joc. The New York iteration of the show previously helped turn Cardi B into a household name; perhaps Tate hopes that the added exposure will help do the same for her.

Yung Baby Tate is already thoroughly established in the entertainment world thanks to her links to Insecure creator Issa Rae — whose label Raedio put out After The Rain — and her string of well-received albums, mixtapes, and EPs, as well as her appearance on Dreamville’s “Don’t Hit Me Right Now.”

Yung Baby Tate is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The structure of professional sports teams makes it so that, often, the person in charge of evaluating the roster is the same person who was tasked with building the roster. As such, they can have a difficult time admitting fault or avoiding looking at their creation through rose colored glasses. It’s why the first person to get fired is always the head coach, because that’s someone else to put the blame on for a team falling short of expectations, but at some point, all eyes turn to the person in charge of it all.

This is what is currently playing out in Portland, where longtime head coach Terry Stotts “parted ways” with the Blazers with two years left on his contract, which is the nice way of saying he was fired — a courtesy Charles Barkley pointed out is rarely extended to Black head coaches who just get fired. A coaching search is underway and it has already gotten off to a rough start, with Damian Lillard publicly stumping for Jason Kidd who quickly withdrew his name from consideration because he didn’t want that endorsement to become a distraction.

While coaching certainly could play a factor in turning Portland around, particularly defensively, one can’t help but see some roster holes that need to be addressed. The backup center position come playoff time was untenable and there are so few positive defenders on the roster that it will be hard for anyone to come in and make significant improvements on that end without some upgrades. It is widely accepted that changes need to be made, including by Damian Lillard, but the one person who needs to understand that seems to be pushing back on that idea and trying to lower the expectations of what changes could come this offseason.

President of Basketball Operations Neil Olshey did his exit interview with the virtually assembled media in Portland on Monday, and while no one expects a GM to bury themselves going into an offseason, the brashness with which he shrugged off responsibility for the Blazers’ first round exit was truly breathtaking.

Not even a little bit? Like, at all? Roster construction was just a complete non-factor in the Blazers losing to a shorthanded Denver team in six games? Sure. Still, surely you can look at this roster and note that it’s just not filled with strong defenders and that you need to be there to assist your new coach with roster upgrades on that end to bring more balance to the team, right?

Oh, alrighty then. To be sure that no one expected the Blazers to be able to do much this offseason to make drastic upgrades, he got on the old “woe is me” train about being the poor little general manager of a small market club no one wants to sign with.

There are absolutely hurdles for smaller market teams to landing top free agents. No one would dispute that, but complaining about it rather than trying to make your pitch of how you can come play in a fantastic place with one of the league’s absolute best players seems like just a weak way to go about this.

No one is asking the Blazers, who don’t have much cap space, to make a huge move in free agency, but just to simply construct a roster that, top to bottom, has a bit more balance. Everyone knows any major move the Blazers make is going to have to be via trade — we only need to look back a few months to them dealing for Norman Powell, which worked out pretty well all things considered. The only real trade chip they have is CJ McCollum, who would be incredibly difficult to part ways with as a player who has grown and developed his whole career in Portland, but those are the decisions you have to be able to make as a GM for the betterment of the team when you yourself can point out that this team has plateaued.

Changing the voice at head coach isn’t going to fix all of their shortcomings. Roster changes are required and likely more than just a few new complementary pieces. Maybe this is a massive smokescreen, but Blazers fans are understandably frustrated after hearing Olshey shovel blame on just about every possible person that isn’t himself for falling short of expectations this season. No one expects him to necessarily come out and say he failed the organization or something that dramatic, but simply saying, “we’ll be evaluating the roster and ways we can make this team a championship contender around a championship player in Damian Lillard,” would’ve been a much smarter way to have gone about this rather than insisting nothing could possibly have been the fault of him.

In the summer of 2018, Deafheaven offered their fourth album, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. It was a critical favorite, but that was three years ago now and fans want more. The post-metal band tends to release a new album every two or three years, and based on their latest social media post, it appears another could be on the way soon.

The band shared a video this afternoon that simply reads “08.20.21,” suggesting that some sort of news on the Deafheaven front will be unveiled on August 20 of this year. Furthermore, they also captioned the post “5,” which suggests the news will be related to a new album, which will be their fifth one. The 14-second visual is also scored by some synth music.

At the very least, it appears they’ve been at least working on new material. In May 2020, the group shared a photo that indicated they were in the studio cooking up something fresh.

Futhermore, they also teased new music last year when they released their live album 10 Years Gone. In a statement about the project, the band wrote, “We’re thankful we were able to do this project and that fans have stuck with us as we make new music for 2021. Thank you for helping us move forward and I hope you enjoy this record as a small interim in the Deafheaven story. We’ll see you soon.”

Revisit our review of Ordinary Corrupt Human Love here.

Loki’s midweek arrival on Disney+ has plenty of Marvel fans excited to see the trickster god back in fine form and, well, alive. You know, maybe.

But before all that gets underway on the Disney streaming service, there are some convenient product tie-ins to show off. And the latest one is a very cleverly-named cereal that certainly fits the bill for the chaotic neutral superhero. Lucky Charms detailed a tie-in and a name change on Monday: Loki Charms, with a slightly modified catch phrase that matches Loki’s nature: Mischievously Delicious.

The cereal company set up a website specifically for the ad, in which Lucky the Leprechaun names off all the marshmallow shapes in Lucky Charms, then makes a mysterious portal he gets sucked into. He reemerges as a cartoon version of Loki, then swaps out the regular box with a special Loki-themed one.

According to the site, the special Loki Charms go on sale Wednesday, just in time for the show’ debut. But there’s a bit of a twist here: if you can figure out the encrypted password, you’ll get access to the sale two hours early. For those who really want to complete their Marvel merch collection, that password might be a bit of a project. But knowing the rabid fans Loki and the MCU has, I’m sure it’s a task they will crack in no time.

BTS’ new single “Butter” debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart last week, making it their fourth song to debut at No. 1 in just the past nine months. Now the new charts are out, and on the Hot 100 dated June 12, “Butter” remains on top for a second week. Of the 54 songs that have ever debuted at No. 1, “Butter” is now just the 23rd of them to stay on top for its second week.

The group shared a grateful message upon learning the news, writing on Twitter, “Billboard #Hot100 No.1 AGAIN. We topped HOT100 chart with #BTS_Butter for two weeks straight! Thank you again, #BTSARMY.”

As Billboard notes, part of the reason “Butter” was able to remain on top were due in part to a “Hotter” remix of the song that was released on May 28, as well as the original and instrumental versions of the song. Meanwhile, the other new versions of the song, the “Cooler” and “Sweeter” remixes, came out on July 4, and those will factor into the June 19-dated chart, which reflects sales from June 4 to 10.

Meanwhile, the group also achieved what must be another No. 1 feat: An Among Us-shaped chicken McNugget from McDonald’s BTS Meal has sold for $100,000 on eBay, which is likely at least a contender for the most expensive chicken nugget of all time.

Battlefield 6, or as some rumors are calling it ‘Battlefield 2042‘ is going to be revealed to the world very soon. We were teased an announcement about the game for June 9 and ever since a rather odd marketing campaign has begun.

Early Monday morning, Battlefield sent out a tweet teasing the upcoming Battlefield updates, but similar theming has started to appear across all Battlefield titles. The Battlefield V news page has odd distorted text all over it.

Interestingly, eagle-eyed gamers noticed a similar video to the update tweet will play when starting up Battlefield V itself. It seems like a safe bet that hacking and digital warfare will be a major part of the upcoming Battlefield if this is what their marketing looks like.

Viral marketing like this isn’t uncommon with games, but it’s rare to have a title influence other ones in this way. We might see Easter eggs, but a whole new intro? That was a surprise to see. Of course, anyone that is playing Battlefield V is likely going to be even more excited for Battlefield 6 after seeing an intro like this when they start their game.

That said, if you’re not a fan of Battlefield it comes off as a little weird. As Giant Bomb’s Jeff Gerstmann pointed out, the news page just looks bizarre and isn’t really helpful at the moment.

Either way, this is definitely different from the standard way that games are marketed so points for creativity and trying something new. But we’ll have to see what Battlefield actually has in store for gamers later this week.

Over Memorial Day weekend, some decades-old photos (from 1999) of The Office and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star Ellie Kemper caused a fuss on social media. In the process, Kemper’s participation in a debutante-styled event, called the Veiled Prophet Ball (in St. Louis) was resurfaced. Kemper — who was a 19-year-old college freshman at the time, as detailed by The St. Louis Post-Dispatch — had been crowned the Queen of Love and Beauty at the ball. And given the event’s racist origins (which were spotlighted in 2014 by The Atlantic), there was a swift pile-on, yet many did not agree with the rush on Twitter to “cancel” Kemper.

A week later, Kemper has addressed the subject with a lengthy statement on her Instagram page. In doing so, she has apologized and explained that she wasn’t aware of the Veiled Prophet Ball’s history, but she’s not making excuses:

“Hi guys – when I was 19 years old, I decided to participate in a debutante ball in my hometown. The century-old organization that hosted the debutante ball had an unquestionably racist, sexist, and elitist past. I was not aware of this history at the time, but ignorance is no excuse. I was old enough to have educated myself before getting involved… I want to apologize to the people I’ve disappointed, and I promise that moving forward I will listen, continue to educated myself, and use my privilege in support of the better society I think we’re capable of becoming.”

She made her position on white supremacy clear as well:

“I unequivocally deplore, denounce and reject white supremacy. At the same time, I acknowledge that because of my face and my privilege, I am the beneficiary of a system that has dispensed unequal justice and unequal rewards.”

Kemper’s taking ownership of her involvement and viewing it as a learning experience. She also wrote that she was initially tempted to believe that the criticism was “all wrong,” but she has “realized that a lot of the forces behind the criticism are forces that I’ve spent my life supporting and agreeing with.” She adds that she believes in “kindness, integrity, and inclusiveness,” and “[i]f my experience is an indication that organizations and institutions with pasts that fall short of these beliefs should be held to account, then I have to see this experience in a positive light.”

You can read Kemper’s full statement below:

While Meghan McCain‘s outbursts are usually of the more contentious variety, The View co-host was uncharacteristically giggleish on Monday morning during a segment on Donald Trump’s pants. As the panel attempted to have a discussion on the state of the former president’s pants, which appeared to be on backwards during a rare public appearance at an event for North Carolina Republicans, McCain couldn’t stop herself from bursting into laughter for most of the conversation.

The situation started going south after Joy Behar kicked in with her assessment on the pants debacle: “On Fox News, they talk about how Joe Biden is suffering from dementia. Hello, Joe Biden is riding his bike and leading the country quite well,” Behar quipped. “This guy is wearing pants that look like he pooped in them!”

You can see McCain started to lose it below:

When co-host Sunny Hostin kicked in with a “legal note” that Snopes had debunked the presidential pants rumors, McCain lost it even further, and she can be heard cackling all the way through the end of the clip:

While the backwards claim went quickly viral on Sunday, as Snopes notes, there are clear photographs that show Trump was wearing his disheveled pants the right way. “Snopes looked through photographs taken at the event and published by the visual media company Getty Images that clearly show the former president on stage wearing pants with a zipper in the front.”

Uproxx was able to verify that claim through our own subscription with Getty, and you can, in fact, see Trump’s zipper in the front of his pants. This is, in some ways, journalism.

(Via Justin Baragona on Twitter)