Month: November 2021

A member of the Sydney, Australia band Rhysics has pulled the ultimate “Mariah-roll” by singing Carey’s 1994 Christmas megahit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” over Radiohead’s 1994 self-loathing anthem, “Creep.”

On Monday, musician Jordan Siwek posted a TikTok video of him playing an instrumental version of “Creep” on the piano and invited people to sing it with him on the app. “Creep! Duet with Me!” he wrote.

The member of the Rhysics responded by posting a video that began with the ultimate misdirection. He says that every guy in their 20s and 30s knows “all the words by heart” to the song and then instead of singing “Creep” belts out “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

The interesting thing about the mashup is that the music to “Creep” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is actually pretty similar. Both have similar chord progressions that move from G to versions of B to C and then, the catcher here is the switch to C minor.

Both songs do the C to C minor switch at the same time, “Christmas” in the first verse on the word “underneath” and “Creep” on the word “cry.” Notice that both songs suddenly get melancholy when the chord flips from major to minor. It’s a jarring change, one that The Beatles used more than a few times.

While the member of the Rhysics’ vocal performance does a great job at bridging the gap between both songs, this isn’t the first someone has made a “Creep” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” mashup.

In 2019, William Maranci made a mashup of the two songs by splicing Thom Yorke’s vocal over Carey’s music.

Fresh off her last round in an ongoing Jimmy Kimmel feud, rootin’ tootin’ GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert has taken a break from attempting to channel Ronald Reagan and, instead, she’s attacked several of her fellow House members with conspiracy theories while waving the “jihad squad” term around. The lawmaker who got busted for paying rent with campaign funds straight-up accused Rep. Ilhan Omar (without proof) of handing “over a million dollars” to her husband “and not her brother-husband – the other one,” and that was only the beginning of her racially charged rant.

Bobert was all kinds of mad about the censure of GOP Rep. Paul Gosar after he posted an anime video that had been tweaked to show him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and President Biden, and one local Colorado news anchor has had enough. Next on 9 News (from an NBC affiliate) anchor Kyle Clark, unloaded a one-minute rant, in which he slams the “bigoted” things that come out of Boebert’s mouth. And he calls upon the press to start holding Boebert to a customary standard rather than letting her run amok.

Here’s part of Clark’s rant:

“It’s time to acknowledge something that may be obvious by now. We hold Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert to a different standard than every other elected official in Colorado. We hold Congresswoman Boebert to a far lower standard. If we held her to the same standard as every other elected Republican and Democrat in Colorado, we would be here, near nightly, chronicling the cruel, false, and bigoted things that Boebert says for attention and fundraising.”

That wasn’t all. Clark declared that, “Our double standard is unfair to all elected officials in Colorado, Republicans and Democrats, who display human decency.” He’s not wrong, and in other news, Boebert’s ex-campaign manager, Sherronna Bishop, was the subject of a recent FBI raid. Bishop’s apparently an ally of Mike Lindell, according to Salon, and she played a role in “stoking unfounded allegations of voting machine problems in the election.” Sounds like she fit right in with the Boebert mindset.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is facing pressure to resign following a report from the Wall Street Journal that revealed he knew far more about the allegations going on within many companies under the Activision umbrella, as well some allegations that have been levied towards Kotick.

Since the report’s release, employees within the company have begun to emphatically demand Kotick’s immediate resignation or removal. An employee walkout was held to further emphasize their demand for Kotick’s removal. So far, Activision and Kotick have chosen to dig in and are attempting to keep him within his role as CEO. This hasn’t quieted employees, who are now signing a petition demanding Kotick’s removal.

Via the Washington Post:

“We, the undersigned, no longer have confidence in the leadership of Bobby Kotick as the CEO of Activision Blizzard. The information that has come to light about his behaviors and practices in the running of our companies runs counter to the culture and integrity we require of our leadership — and directly conflicts with the initiatives started by our peers,” the letter says.

The petition comes around the same time as pressure for Kotick’s resignation increases outside the company. Both the heads of PlayStation and Xbox have sent internal emails to inform employees of their displeasure with Activision and Kotick’s response to the allegations. Both emails referenced the Wall Street Journal report and admonished Kotick.

Evva Karr was 19 years old and studying neuroscience at the University of Minnesota: Twin Cities when they had an important realization: despite starting with one goal in mind, they found themselves drawn to the world of game development. The only problem was, they weren’t quite sure how to get involved — a struggle they soon found many aspiring games industry hopefuls shared.

However, rather than finding that fact discouraging, Karr — alongside their partner, Nicolaas Vanmeerten — took action, applying for school grants, volunteering to host events and speakers, learning basic game design and development, and finding ways to get actively involved in the industry in any capacity possible. After years of education, contract work, consulting, and immersing themself in the games industry, Karr then figured out precisely what they both wanted and felt they needed to do within games: help those who were also struggling to find their place in an industry not always welcoming to those outside of it.

To help realize this dream, Karr and Vanmeerten established GLITCH, a “creator-led, cooperatively-owned movement backing bold new forms of play and the people who define them.” While the idea of a group existing solely to bolster up-and-coming game developers might seem too good to be true, that is exactly what GLITCH is doing, and is part of Karr’s push for a “revitalized games industry,” where diverse voices, ideas, and people are made to feel welcome.

“I truly believe that there’s a bigger, better, more inclusive, and also a completely revitalized games industry that’s possible. One that’s essentially sustainable, co-creative, and shaped by new types of player experiences,” Karr said. “Right now, if you’re looking at it — and there’s plenty of research out there about it — games is a hundred million dollar media giant. 49 percent of people who game are women, 50 percent of them are people of color. And the majority of the people who are playing games, don’t actually identify as ‘gamers’. But we continue to actually develop, fund, and create a lot of these games for ‘gamers.’”

Karr has a name for this phenomenon: the “gamer myth.” Despite research proving the average person who plays video games is not the young, white, cis male gamer we have been led to believe they are, many AAA studios — and society at large — keep perpetuating the idea that this is the case. According to Karr, this is precisely why we see so much redundancy in blockbuster games such as the first-person shooter series Call of Duty, which releases nearly annually and sticks fairly religiously to its tried and true formula. However, while this model does work, Karr said it’s their belief that plenty of other models work as well — they just haven’t had the chance to try. This is precisely where GLITCH and their Moonrise fund come in.

The Moonrise fund is the name given to the early-stage equity fund created by GLITCH that pools together various angel investors’ capital in order to back game studios creating something Karr refers to as “different modes of play.” As for what that entails, the possibilities are endless — which is part of what makes the fund both inclusive and exciting. While the fund is not inherently intended to fund marginalized creators, Karr said it just so happens many of the ideas that break the mold established by AAA gaming come from women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community, folks who have lived experiences not reflected in mainstream gaming. It just goes to show how the “gamer myth” has prevented so many from seeing both themselves and their desires in games.

“That’s what the fund and the DNA of the fund are set up to do: to look for and back people who are thinking bigger and thinking differently about play,” Karr said. “And a lot of them just so happen to be women, people of color, and queer folks because they have different experiences and they have different ways that they’re thinking about play, so that’s just been exciting to us. A lot of people of color, a lot of women, and a lot of queer folks have just some of the best fricking ideas and that’s really cool.”

When it comes to how Karr and the GLITCH team decide how to distribute the Moonrise fund, the company is fortunate to have a board of advisors with years of games industry experience that help GLITCH make the call. In addition, these advisors also help the studios that are inevitably backed by the fund, providing helpful insight on development, marketing, publishing, and more. Ultimately, however, Karr said the biggest thing that determines what teams they want to work with is a slightly unusual but revealing question: what do you believe is the future of play?

“With the Moonrise Fund, we ask people one big question that all of the successful teams have been able to answer with us, which is what do you believe is the future of play?” Karr said. “And the answer to that is very deeply personal. It’s shaped by individual experience and it also shows us a keen eye on their specific market that they might know quite a bit about. Like, do we, for example, know a lot about rhythm adventure games on mobile? No, but we’re actually very keen and excited to learn about them. We’d love to hear that team tell us what makes this different, what makes this unique, and why them.”

This ties into perhaps one of the most important aspects of GLITCH’s mission: backing people, not just products. Karr, GLITCH, and the company’s various advisors and investors first and foremost aim to support talented creatives with compelling visions and a solid grasp on why their work is needed. Earlier this month, we got a look at the first three teams the Moonrise fund is backing, and it’s clear to see just why GLITCH is so enthusiastic to work with them.

The first team GLITCH is working with is the co-op studio Future Club, which is known for its work on titles such as fighting game Skull Girls and RPG platformer Indivisible. The second studio receiving the Moonrise fund is Virtuoso Neomedia, which currently has three projects of varying genres in the works: Radmitton, Killer Auto, and Zodiac XX. Last but not least, GLITCH is also backing Perfect Garbage, the studio behind cyberpunk visual novel Love Shore. While Karr was not at the liberty to reveal any of the team’s currently unannounced projects, they did offer a small teaser on what’s to come at one of the studios.

“You know, I’ll say this,” Karr smiled. “It’s sci-fi, it’s a thriller, and there’s gonna be a lot of stuff about climate change.”

Luckily for us, GLITCH is just as eager to share what they can about their upcoming projects as we are to hear about them. Earlier this year, that desire manifested in the company’s first-ever digital conference: the Future of Play Direct.

Future of Play was born in the summer of 2021 when Karr and the rest of the team reached out to Summer Games Fest host Geoff Keighley with the mission of not only highlighting diverse creators and modes of play but doing so in a way that was both affordable and accessible. Whereas attending industry events such as PAX or E3 can cost studios thousands, creating a financial barrier in addition to the physical one inherent with in-person events, participating in a digital showcase offered Karr a free way to reach thousands of creators and players alike.

However, that’s not to say going digital doesn’t come with its own set of constraints and troubles — especially when you only have six weeks to prepare. According to Karr, that was all they and the team had when readying up for their Summer Games Fest showcase, yet that didn’t stop them from getting ambitious. Rather than presenting their games in a traditional way, GLITCH found themselves inspired by both Toonami and the recent VTuber craze, and elected to create a virtual avatar named Melios to host the event. With the help of Melios and all GLITCH’s various friends in game development, eager to show off all their creations, the team was able to assemble a twenty-minute showcase packed full of interesting indie titles in mere weeks. Even better is the fact that folks and outlets responded so well to it, another one — and subsequently even more fantastic games — is just around the corner.

“Since that was so awesome, since there were so many people who watched it, we had great coverage off of IGN and all these other outlets that were really pumped and excited about the show,” Karr said. “We’re doing another Future of Play Direct happening this year, in December, for the Game Awards. And luckily now, since we’ve had more than six weeks, we did offer an open call. It’s free to all developers. So expect some really fun things for that.”

You can catch the Game Awards (and GLITCH’s winter Future of Play Direct) when the event airs live from Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theater on Dec. 9.

The Lucifer method worked. A few months ago, Manifest fans made enough of a fuss over NBC’s cancellation (of the wildly popular, though not objectively good, series) and that Netflix read the room (and their own charts) and decided to pony up for a fourth and final season. Now, everyone will find out what really went down with Flight 828. Maybe? Fingers crossed.

Mostly, I’d like to see a resolution to all the drama that still overfloweth after five years of humanity continued while the passengers blipped away and didn’t even realize as much. A culty church and broken relationship fallout filled three seasons out, and one of the more disgruntled dudes on the show landed on my sh*t list. That’d be Detective Jared Vasquez, whose motives were not always fantastic when it came to Mick, but the guy who plays him, J.D. Ramirez, seems like an overall nicer guy. To that end, he alerted fans that Season 4 is shooting, and he has the Instagram post to (sort-of) prove it.

“I’ve been working in this business for almost two decades now,” Ramirez wrote. “And I know to land a team of Cast n Crew that is as Collaborative, Dedicated and in my opinion (Most Importantly) ‘Ego Checked’ as these Beautifully Talented Humans are… well it RARELY happens.” He then added that the cast and crew are all feeling appreciative, and “he reality is ALL of This Magic is happening because of YOU guys! You guys made this happen!”

Yep, thanks to the fans (including one Stephen King), there’s another batch of 20 episodes on the way. Collider reports that each episode will have up to a $5 million budget, which is wild for a “cancelled” show. Talk about a detour that worked out well.

“How heavy is this glass of water?”

That was a simple question posed by a professor to his students. This video initially came out in 2019, but recently was reposted by @thementorhouse on TikTok and has gone viral yet again.

The students began to guess. 8 oz? 12? 16?

Their answers all received a shake of the professor’s head, because the lesson wasn’t about physics. It was about stress.

With a gentle sincerity, he tells the class, “The absolute weight of the glass doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold onto it. If I hold it for a minute, nothing happens. If I hold it for an hour, my arm will begin to ache. If I hold it all day long, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. While the weight of the glass hasn’t changed, the longer I hold onto it the heavier it becomes.”

Nods of agreement fill the room, and the professor continues.

“The stresses and the worries of life are like this glass of water. If you think about them for a little while, there’s no problem. You think about it for a little bit longer … it begins to hurt. You think about them all day long and you’ll feel paralyzed, incapable of doing anything.”

Placing the glass on his desk, the professor concludes, “Always remember: put the glass down.”

@thementorhouse

POWERFUL story on stress.

♬ original sound – The Mentor House

This video seems to be a staged reenactment of a lesson originally taught by a female psychologist (or at least, that seems to be how the story goes). However, the moral stays the same: Carrying the burden of the past memories—or fears about the future—causes unnecessary pain. Find a way to lighten the emotional load, otherwise you’ll be weighed down and unable to move freely.

Letting go sounds easy in theory. But it’s often easier said than done. PTSD, chaotic homes and unfair systems make stress next to inescapable. There are some proven ideas for “putting the glass down” though, even when it’s difficult. Things like:

• Writing out your negative thoughts
• Calling a supportive person
• Taking a walk in nature
• Cuddling with a furry friend
• Listening to empowering, uplifting music

No matter what glass of water you’re holding onto at the moment, setting it aside, even momentarily, whenever possible might be the best way to overcome it. After all, everyone deserves a lighter load these days.

Last year, Arca released the sweeping Kick, which featured appearances from Björk, Rosalía, Sophie, and promised to be the first in a series of albums. Little did we know that the Kick anthology would feature four installments and that the next three would all come out on the same day a year and a half later.

Announced today, Kick iiii will be released on December 3rd, along with the previously announced Kick ii and Kick iii albums. Following the recent release of singles in “Born Yesterday” and “Incendio,” Arca has also dropped “Queer” featuring fellow Queer producer Planningtorock. The interplanetary number is another unclassifiable installment from Arca, and Planningtorock explained that “the lyrics ‘tears of fire’ and ‘queer power’ are words I live by and where we connect,” adding that “I love her so much and I’m so grateful she exists.”

Kick iiii will also feature a collaboration with Garbage’s Shirley Manson, composer Oliver Coates and NYC performance artist No Bra. Arca shared a statement on the final piece of her endeavor:

“kick iiii is an entry of sensual charge in the cycle; my own faith made into song, a posthuman celestial sparkle, psychosexual pulsewidth modulation, queering the void, abyss alchemically transmuted into a deconstruction of what is beautiful, it is a healing spell, recognition of the alien inside, a bursting apart of old skin, fresh new sinew rippling outward from a beating core, the first prenatal kick — proof that there is a sentience with a will beyond its creators’ control expressing itself from within the womb”

Listen to “Queer” featuring Planningtorock above and check out the Kick iiii album artwork and tracklist below.

1. “Whoresong”
2. “Esuna” ft. Oliver Coates
3. “Xenomorphgirl”
4. “Queer” ft. Planningtorock
5. “Witch” ft. No Bra
6. “Hija”
7. “Boquifloja”
8. “Alien Inside” ft. Shirley Manson
9. “Altar”
10. “Lost Woman Found”
11. “Paw”

Kick iiii is out 12/03 via XL Recordings.

If there is one thing everyone knows about Nintendo it’s that they aren’t always the friendliest when it comes to esports. Super Smash Bros. has been one of the most popular esports in the world ever since Super Smash Bros. Melee came out on the Nintendo GameCube. These days, people who want to play Smash either still play Melee or Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on Switch. The community is large and very passionate, but it has frequently struggled to get the support of Nintendo. While it has been hosting unofficial tournaments of both games for years, it’s not uncommon for them to be shut down.

Fans of Smash Bros. have always found this frustrating because Nintendo has traditionally not given them support, but that may change in the near future. On Thursday, in a surprising move, Nintendo announced that it has partnered with esports organization Panda Global to host the first official North American Super Smash Bros. tournament. The real shocker? Not only will this circuit support Ultimate, but it will also support Melee.

Does this indicate a possible change in Nintendo’s attitude towards esports? Maybe! It would be fantastic if Nintendo would start allowing some of its more competitive games to host official esports tournaments and receive the support they deserve. Esports is, in many ways, free advertising for the games themselves, so there’s no real downside for allowing these tournaments, sspecially when fans of the game are going to host their own anyway.

All of that said, let’s wait and see how long Nintendo continues supporting tournament circuits like this before we say for sure the company stance has changed. Nintendo has a history of supporting events and communities only to suddenly change course. It wasn’t that long ago that then Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé played Super Smash Bros. Melee champion Hungrybox to reveal Ryu’s arrival to Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Of course, that moment of public outreach didn’t lead to official support from the company until this circuit.

The mercurial nature of Nintendo is part of what makes it so frustrating sometimes for communities like the Smash Bros. community. They just want to play their game and know Nintendo’s stance on it. Hopefully, this is a sign of positive change within Nintendo.

Amy Schneider, a transgender woman from Oakland, California, has just become the new Jeopardy! champion — and by a landslide, too. The engineering manager earned the title (and a whopping $31, 600 in winnings) on November 17, putting an end to five-time champion Andrew He’s winning streak. Ultimately, Schneider secured her big win when she was the sole contestant to correctly answer the final Jeopardy! question (“A cemetery on this island has the graves of Robert Fulton and 2 of the first 4 treasury secretaries,” “Manhattan”), demolishing the lead He had on her going into the final round.

While already exciting in and of itself, Schneider’s triumph also comes during the show’s annual Trans Awareness Week, giving even more cause to rejoice — especially considering public controversies with Netflix, Dave Chapelle, and J.K Rowling weighing heavy on the community However, in the midst of celebrating her achievement on Twitter, the champion took a moment to remind people she is neither the first openly transgender contestant nor champion to play Jeopardy!. Schneider was quick to thank the “handful” of transgender contestants that came before her for “blazing the trail,” before also acknowledging the success of former champion Kate Freeman, who won the competition December 16, 2020 and subsequently became the first openly trans person to win the game.

“FYI, I am not the first out trans person to appear on Jeopardy (a few friends have asked),” she wrote. “There have been a handful before, including one, Kate Freeman, who was the first out trans champion on 12/16/20. My thanks to all of them for blazing the trail!”

Schneider will continue her run on Jeopardy! tonight, at 4 PM PT on ABC.

After the South Korean series Squid Game basically dominated anything and everything in its path since making its massive debut on Netflix, the global phenomenon has been knocked out of its top spot on the U.S. Nielsen streaming chart by a surprising contender: You. The third season of the Penn Badgley-starring series, which was recently at the center of a very weird viral moment on Fox News, has officially dethroned Squid Game.

According to Deadline, You claiming the top spot for the week of October 18 to 24 wasn’t a close call either. The series racked up 2.7 million minutes of viewing, putting it far ahead of Squid Game:

The tally was more than double that of Squid Game, which remains the most successful original in Netflix history but is now in its second month of global release.

After starting out as a show on the Lifetime cable network, You shifted to Netflix for its second season and quickly expanded its following. The third season of the cheeky thriller starring Penn Badgely began streaming on October 15, so it had the benefit of a full week of viewing being captured.

Despite its juggernaut-like run starting to lose some momentum, Netflix is obviously very pleased with Squid Game and has already greenlit a second season. On top of that, the streaming giant is seemingly doing everything in its power to keep Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk happy. Three of his films were recently added to Netflix where they’re being lapped up by fans of the deadly (fictional) game show series.

(Via Deadline)