McAdams doesn’t have a huge role in the Doctor Strange sequel, so it’s unlikely she’ll add another incredible line reading to her résumé. But she’s just happy that she was asked back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “I can’t believe it’s been six years,” she said about how long it’s been since the original Doctor Strange. “It didn’t feel that long. I sort of try to go with the flow on these things, and it all works out for a reason. There are real masterminds at work with the MCU. So I just really enjoyed the experience of the first one for what it was, and it was just wonderful and exciting and surprising to be back again. So I just went into it with gratitude, and here we are.”
First person who yells “oh no, he died” when someone bites it in Doctor Strange 2 gets $10.
With her upcoming album Face The Wall, Jordana is on a mission to stay true to herself. Face The Wall explores many themes, but above all, Jordana seeks to understand herself. She comes to terms with everything from pandemic isolation and breakups to her faith journey and veganism. With her anthemic album opener “Pressure Points” and groove-infused tracks like “Why,” Jordana pens power pop that packs a punch.
Because her songs seem to have been ripped out of a page in her personal diary, she made sure to take a very hands-on approach to the recording process. The 10-track effort was not only co-produced by Jordana, but she also recorded every instrument herself. Laced with smart and snappy lyrics, her songs draw from a mixture of pop and ’90s alt-rock influences, resulting in her most refreshing and confident project to date.
Ahead of the release of her debut album Face The Wall, which is out May 20 on Grand Jury, Jordana sat down with Uproxx to talk about her love of Grizzly Bear, video games, and tour tattoos in the latest Indie Mixtape Q&A.
What are four words you would use to describe your music?
Inviting, groovy, easy, wavy.
It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?
I want people to come to it and analyze it in their own way. Come to it for ease, relaxation, or even high-energy pre-gaming in the summertime, haha. I feel like there’s such a range that it could really be for anything in particular. And I’ll be expanding even more so we’ll see!
What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?
Honestly, Salt Lake City was so so so much fun. Everyone there is so nice and supportive. It was also the biggest show I’ve ever played in my life. But somehow there was a sort of intimacy in that I felt like i knew everyone. It was sick.
Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?
I’ve wanted to prove myself to myself the entire time, but as far as influence goes, I’d say Daniel Rossen. He’s just so effortlessly cool and talented. An actual musical genius.
Where did you eat the best meal of your life?
There’s this Japanese restaurant called Kajitsu in New York. There were so many courses I could barely finish it all, but damn, was all of it good.
What album do you know every word to?
Room On Fire by The Strokes.
What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?
Any time I’ve ever seen this band called Palm was the best time. Just a crazy, magical thing to see and hear a band perform like that together.
What is the best outfit for performing and why?
I honestly think anything you can wear pants/leggings with. Could also be with a dress or something. Just as long as there’s something covering down south. Especially if you’re moving around.
Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?
What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?
Sometimes we would have Real Estate Days, so I’ll say “Had To Hear” by Real Estate, but also Peter Bjorn and John days with “Amsterdam”…Although, I would always request “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Both with Money in My Hand” by Primitive Radio Gods. The TV Girl boys showed me that song and I’ve been obsessed with it ever since.
What’s the last thing you Googled?
“how to get streaming set up for ps4 camera and mic” HAHA. I want to start streaming. I love games, bro.
What album makes for the perfect gift?
In Rainbows by Radiohead all the way.
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?
Never anywhere too weird, but on the first stop, we stayed at the Club Congress (Hotel Congress) and that place is definitely haunted! The vibes were off in a way, but cool.
What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?
For my first tattoo, I was living in Wichita and my bff Sophie had this tattoo gun and we were just sitting with a group of friends in my living room and she was tattooing us! It was fun. For my favorite one, my most recent, it’s a mountain that covers my left forearm and it’s a tour tattoo with Wyatt from TV Girl. We didn’t get identical ones, but the meaning is still there!
What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?
Honestly I don’t really listen to them, but any Blink-182 is always fun when it comes on.
What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?
People I know have done so many nice things for me so it’s so hard to rank the nicest thing, but every time I go to LA, Brad from TV Girl just lets me stay with him, so I don’t have to figure out a place to crash. It’s an ongoing niceness. Very relevant even now. Thanks, Brad!
What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?
Stop being cringe, but stay excited. Figure it out, betch!
What’s the last show you went to?
Deeper and Spirit of the Beehive.
What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?
Shrek
What’s one of your hidden talents?
I can blink and clap really fast. I can do both at the same time, also while singing.
Face The Wall is out 5/20 via Grand Jury. Pre-order it here.
Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Tim Heidecker is of course best known for helping redefine alternative comedy in the 2000s as part of Tim & Eric, alongside Eric Wareheim. In recent years, though, he’s also gained some footing in the non-comedic music world, like with his well-received 2020 album Fear Of Death. Last month, he announced he has another LP, High School, on the way, and today brings a new single, “Punch In The Gut.”
Heidecker wrote of the song on Instagram, “This one started, thinking about how warren zevon might approach a high school parking lot, high noon style showdown…. but as I worked it, i recalled an incident where a friend of mine was visiting my school and was falsely accused of stealing. He was african american and it felt like profiling to me. There’s a lot of him in the song ‘Buddy’ too. more great playing from Mac DeMarco, Drew Erickson and Eric Johnson.”
Heidecker produced the new album with DeMarco, Johnson (best-known as a member of Fruit Bats, The Shins, and Bonny Light Horseman), and Erickson (who just in 2022 has worked with Lana Del Rey, Father John Misty, and Florence And The Machine). Also involved with the project is Kurt Vile, who features on a song called “Sirens Of Titan.”
Heidecker also recently announced a hybrid tour, on which he will perform both music and comedy. Dates are currently scheduled for July and August.
Listen to “Punch In The Gut” above.
High School is out 6/24 via Spacebomb. Pre-order it here.
Karma might have actually come around and hit the right person for once because a Trump-supporting House of Representative candidate who once made a rape joke at his daughters’ expense has lost his election bid.
Republican Robert Regan was expected to win Michigan’s 74th House District seat in a special election held on Tuesday. The seat needed to be filled after the GOP’s Mark Huizenga, who previously represented the district, was elected to the state Senate in 2020. Republicans have held onto that seat for nearly 30 years, and that part of the state voted red in the 2020 Presidential Election but, apparently, even conservative die-hards draw the line at rape jokes because Regan lost in a landslide.
Just to recap what a garbage-heap of a human being this guy is, earlier this year Regan guested on a Facebook Live panel with fellow Republicans who began suggesting that all of the avenues for overturning Donald Trump’s presidential loss had been exhausted. Regan, who spent most of his campaign harping on about “decertifying” results (because, of course, this guy is a conspiracy theorist on top of everything else) chimed in to make a crass and, frankly disturbing joke about his own daughters being raped.
“You know that’s kind of like having three daughters, and I tell my daughters, well, if rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it,” Regan said after others suggested Republicans should just accept Joe Biden’s win.
Regan is also a guy who once claimed that feminism was “a Jewish program to degrade and subjugate white men” and that the war in Ukraine was fake, just like the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, Regan is now so disliked by people in his district that his own daughter urged voters not to go to the polls for him.
So here’s a shout out to cosmic justice for doing its thing.
It’s been 10 years since the Avengers first assembled. And while this is surely an anniversary of note, it is a bit hard to feel nostalgic when we’re currently knee-deep in the superhero team-up era. Supernaturally gifted crusading crews are a dime-a-dozen and stories of good guys uniting to defend galaxies against all-powerful thugs and snap-happy genocidal maniacs are formulaic — even the best of them. But, then again, maybe the fact that supe-squads are now a staple on the big (and small screen) is proof enough of how monumental that first Marvel merger actually was? After all, where would comic book films be without the success ofThe Avengers and all it has inspired?
Looking back helps us imagine, but the short answer is “stuck.” Before Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, and Jeremy Renner lent their star-power to the MCU, comic book films had shown themselves to be in need of a catalyst for expansion that could build on the narrative and technical gains of the preceding 10-12 years.
The occasional sidekick notwithstanding, early superhero fare gave us one good guy, multiple bad guys, and a limited number of storylines to explore within its strict architecture. Even standout films with bold directors (like Tim Burton and Sam Raimi) felt constrained, shackled to tropes that told us to root for the hero and hate the villain, even if the villains felt infinitely more interesting.
When the X-Men entered the game, the blueprint changed. Suddenly the big screen was filled with a more diverse lineup of men and women with singular abilities, distinct personalities, and their own motivating factors. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine may have been our introduction to the world of mutants, but he wasn’t the only reason why that first film – and some of the ones that followed – worked. With Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and his school for gifted children, an entire world was built, one filled with differently-abled individuals that appealed to the masses. Jackman’s Wolverine was a tortured government experiment on a journey of self-discovery. Anna Paquin’s Rogue was a young girl trying to find where she belonged. Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey was a woman with unlimited powers who was often at war with herself while Halle Berry’s Storm emerged as a natural leader, albeit one with a mysterious past. Instead of pigeonholing its audience into cheering for just one main character, X-Men gave fans a superhero buffet, a pick-your-flavor twist on the genre that opened up the scope of its storytelling and who that storytelling might reach.
But X-Men’s approach to creating a superhero universe had its flaws. Its “villains” were mutants, just like our heroes, but they fell on the opposite side of a moral dilemma about society and its treatment of mutant-kind that didn’t have a clear-cut answer. In a lot of ways, it was interesting, but was it also too cerebral and self-limiting in how many times you could go back to that well?
Jump to 2009, after the X-Men franchise had found itself in need of reinvention, and Warner Bros., inspired by the success of its Christopher Nolan headed Batman reboot series (and with a hunger to repeat that success), turned to the previously thought unfilmable comic classic Watchmen to give fans a more stylistic film with a more grown-up tone with a story that, at times, felt convoluted and grimdark.
Of course, by this time, Marvel had already begun laying the groundwork for its eventual cinematic universe. In 2008 it introduced Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, giving fans a charming, quippy protagonist who was less brooding and dark than those that came before – an aspirational a**hole just trying to do some good in the world. The idea that a hero could be earnest, charismatic, even funny, carried through to other solo outings too, making Marvel characters feel accessible and identifiable in ways their fellow comic book crusaders just didn’t. In Capitan America: The First Avenger, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) was an everyman with dreams of defending his country but even after science experiments and drug enhancements and a showdown with a skull-faced hell reject, the best part of his story was the idea that anyone could do something heroic – that anyone could be the good guy. Even Thor, a self-identified god, came across as the kind of himbo you’d want to hang out with — a hero who wasn’t self-serious with comedic underpinnings Marvel easily exploited for laughs. Despite facing world-ending threats and crippling internal issues, these original Avengers were just a bit irreverent, their stories filled with enough comedy and light-hearted moments to let audiences breathe a bit before the next catastrophe took place.
While that formula was being perfected, Marvel also started teasing its eventual team-up, dropping easter eggs and spinning connecting threads through its solo films. Howard Stark, Tony Stark’s estranged father, was behind the government project that gave Captain America his abilities. In Iron Man, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) approached Tony about a collective of gifted good guys he coined The Avengers Initiative. In Thor, as Hemsworth’s other-worldly royal castoff tried to regain favor by doing penance on Earth, Hawkeye (Renner), Fury’s right-hand man, was keeping watch. And, in RDJ’s second outing as Tony Stark, Johansson would eventually sneak in, teasing audiences by playing an undercover Natasha Romanoff whose job was to spy on Stark for her S.H.I.E.L.D. bosses. Some of these threads were more obvious than others, but they all worked to weave together the bigger picture Marvel had in mind and their payoff came with The Avengers.
With first impressions already made in past films, crafting a story that assembled the MCU’s original squad and tasked them with defeating a familiar foe was a subtly genius move. Fans already recognized the threat Loki – the trickster god who orchestrated much of the chaos in the first Thor film – posed to the team and why foiling his plan to raze New York and rule mankind would prove especially challenging for his brother. Thor couldn’t defeat Loki on his own – not with a Chitari squadron at his command – so he reluctantly sided with Earth’s human defenders.
There are three specific moments from this film that I want to call out for their impact on the genre and pop culture. First, CGI Hulk picking Loki up and slamming him repeatedly into the ground in Stark Tower — a moment that stands as a reminder that sometimes the simple pleasures of these things are worth leaning into. Second, the real triumph of The Avengers came when an uneasy standoff amongst the newly-formed team culminated in a brawl that temporarily fractured the group. It’s that scene engineered by Marvel, one years in the making, that proved a superhero team-up could not only work, but it could also make individual characters more interesting and predictable comic book tropes exciting again. Lastly, the most memorable scene of the movie might be that climactic battle to save Manhattan, raising the bar for everything that followed in terms of craft and scale.
After The Avengers, Marvel and Warner Bros. realized bigger was better (both in terms of villainous ambitions and the size of these stories and casts) and they began cramming as many familiar faces as they could into these epic adventures. Some, like the Russo Brothers’ Endgame and Infinity War installments, worked, some, like David Ayer’s The Suicide Squad and that second Guardians of the Galaxy outing, didn’t. But its influence is still being felt.
The superhero world continues to expand on-screen, introducing innovative ways to unite its heroes with Spider-Man Into The Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and series like Loki and WandaVision introducing multiverses and diverging timelines that present internal dilemmas that end up roping in other characters to help solve. It’s a new phase of storytelling, but it’s one that wouldn’t be possible without Marvel betting big with its Avengers Initiative.
The upside of all of this is obvious for these studios and for audiences who never tire of these projects, but while the floor is higher for these things, the ceiling is non-existent, creating risk and stress by way of a mandate to make these things interesting, compelling, fun, and oftentimes, bigger with more and more spectacle. Because if they don’t, then the less committed portion of the audience might get bored and start focusing on any number of other entertainment options with the bigness to captivate and succeed with the masses. It’s an interesting legacy, to be sure for this one film, one that has its positives and negatives, but the anniversary of the thing that opened up the sky is worthy of remembrance for what it inspired.
May the 4th be with you. What was originally an internet meme has now, for many, turned into an unofficial holiday to celebrate the Star Wars franchise. May 4th is when the internet becomes filled with people posting Star Wars memes, brands throw out Star Wars themed specials, and everyone takes a moment to celebrate one of their favorite sci-fi franchises.
Since it is May 4th though we thought it would be fun to go through some of our favorite Star Wars games and reminisce about them. If you’re a gamer that also loves Star Wars and wants to celebrate the franchise today then you can also consider these our picks for the best games to do that with.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
One thing that we know about most movie tie in games is that they’re not very good. While Star Wars is slightly better about this than others, most of their games that directly follow the movies range from mediocre to bad, and that can make experiencing the movies through a video game unenjoyable. This is also what makes the LEGO Star Star Wars franchise, and the recent LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, so incredible. These games take the well known Star Wars movies, reenacts them with LEGOS, and makes the entire franchise a little easier to play through. Fun for all ages, these games do an incredible job capturing the heart and fun of what makes Star Wars so great.
There are three different games in the LEGO Star Wars franchise but we have to give our recommendation to the newest one, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Not only is this the only game to include the entire sequel trilogy, but it’s a complete collection of movies 1-9. There isn’t a better place to jump in and enjoy a movie, or trilogy set, than this game and while it’s a goofy fun romp through the Star Wars universe it never insults the fans. It’s a love letter to Star Wars and the best way to spend a day celebrating the franchise.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
So much of the Stars Wars movie timeline has been explored by other media, but almost all of it focuses on the time before the prequels, or between the original trilogy and the sequels. An often underappreciated portion of the timeline is the time period between the prequels and the original trilogy. The Republic has been defeated, the Empire has risen, and people are now under the control of the Dark Side of the force. Surely there are stories to tell during this timeframe?
One game did exactly that and it did a pretty good job of handling it all. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is set shortly after the fall of the Republic and Order 66 has wiped out most of the Jedi. However, some remain and the Empire is attempting to hunt them down. Cal Kestis, a former Jedi that managed to escape, is the star of Fallen Order and much of his journey is about reconnecting to the force. What Fallen Order does extremely well though is go through the trauma that Kestis and his new mentor Cere Junda went through when they themselves dealt with Order 66. It’s an emotional journey and a really well told Star Wars tale.
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Everyone has a favorite moment in the Star Wars franchise such as the attack on the Death Star or the Battle of Hoth. Now, what if we could play those moments alongside many original moments with airtight flight controls? Then we would get Rogue Squadron, easily one of the best Star Wars adaptations out there. Fans love it so much that when it was implied a remake could be made fans immediately began begging for one.
There are three mainline games, but the easiest one to get these days is Rogue Squadron 3D on Steam. The games all feature Luke, alongside fan favorite pilot Wedge Antilles, as they go about the Galaxy fighting the empire in a variety of vehicles such as X-Wings, Y-Wings, and even snowspeeders. What’s really great about this game though is that it lets us experience the thrill of a fight in the universe of Star Wars. Very few games have managed to capture that feeling even today. It truly is an experience that only Rogue Squadron managed to capture.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
While the Star Wars movies are great, what really makes the franchise as amazing as it is has to be the universe it’s set in. There’s endless potential and we’ve seen that potential explored in numerous spin offs, books, TV shows, and yes even video games. Few games managed to capture the potential of the universe the way Knights of the Old Republic did. That’s because KOTOR dared to do something many others didn’t: It went bigger and grander.
A challenge that many licensed games have is they can’t change anything that happened in the mainline series. So that means you can’t blow up the Death Star before Luke did, or have someone kill Darth Vader, because that would harm the continuity of the universe’s story. So what KOTOR did was it set its game over 3000 years before the original trilogies began and it dared to tell an epic story within the Star Wars universe. The result is one of the best stories the property has ever had and a game that is still beloved by fans even today. It’s a masterpiece of not only Star Wars but video games as a whole and a must play for any fan of the franchise.
As another wave of Covid takes over Hollywood, many celebs have been canceling or rescheduling shows and appearances. Jimmy Kimmel, on the other hand, went a different route for his show: asking one of the guests to host for him. In this case, his guest was comedian Mike Birbiglia, whose name is pronounced exactly how it’s spelled if you sound it out, though you would think it was full of some silent letters based on the way some TV anchors butchered it.
The host poked fun at the pronunciations, which included names like Berbillya, Birgbiglia, Bigaberly, which Birbiglia says, “rolls off the tongue.”
— Jimmy Kimmel Live (@JimmyKimmelLive) May 4, 2022
The temporary host chronicled his trip to California by joking that a new Southwest Airlines promotion includes free hosting duties with every flight. “I am your substitute teacher for the night,” the comedian joked before showing the clips of his name being mispronounced by various news anchors. “If you don’t know me, I’m just one of those guys who you sorta recognize but probably don’t.” He then showed a series of texts from Kimmel asking him to host.
The comedian, whose TV credits include Girls, Broad City, and Orange Is The New Black, says he is in town for the Netflix comedy festival. He was able to step in and interview one of the most iconic comedians, Mike Meyers, and Birbiglia described himself as a “superfan.” Check out the monologue above.
The fallout continues for Netflix after the streaming giant announced that it lost over 200,000 subscribers in its first fiscal quarter of 2022, prompting it to slash several projects as it attempts to get its astronomical spending under control. The company had projected that it would gain subscribers, which was clearly not the case, and now, shareholders are claiming fraud in a new lawsuit against the streaming service.
The aggrieved investors are seeking “compensatory damages in favor of Plaintiff and the other Class members against all defendants, jointly and severally, for all damages sustained as a result of Defendants’ wrongdoing.” (Read: Money. Lots and lots of money.)
Netflix misled investors about declining subscriber growth over the course of six months — leading to a massive drop in its stock price, according to a shareholder lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal district court in San Francisco, alleges Netflix violated U.S. securities laws by making “materially false and/or misleading statements” and also because it “failed to disclose material adverse facts about the company’s business, operations and prospects.”
As for the subscriber issue, well, things don’t look to be improving there either. According to Variety, Netflix is already projecting that it expects to lose an additional two million in its second quarter. Yikes. Interestingly, analysts blame Netflix’s mammoth success on its subscriber growth issue. In a nutshell, the streaming service has such vast market penetration that there are very little left to sign up. Take away the pandemic, which created a captive audience, and a subscriber plunge was inevitable.
Netflix also has to contend with users growing complacent with its original offerings, its quick hooks of series after just one or two seasons, and a diminishing back catalog as other studios and networks build up their own competing streaming services. It’s also reportedly dropping over $30 million per episode on Stranger Things. So there are a few culprits here. That’s the point.
This morning, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame announced its class of 2022 inductees, which features Eminem, Duran Duran, Lionel Richie, Pat Benatar, Eurythmics, Carly Simon, and, perhaps most notably given her recent history, Dolly Parton; After she was named a nominee, she rejected the nomination, saying she didn’t feel she had “earned that right.”
Sure enough, she did indeed get voted in the Hall Of Fame and now she’s offered a reaction, writing on social media, “I am honored and humbled by the fact that I have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Of course I will accept it gracefully. Thanks to everyone that voted for me and to everyone at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I will continue to work hard and try to live up to the honor. Love, Dolly.”
This echoes what Parton recently said about how she’d respond to being voted in: “Well, I’ll accept gracefully. I would just say thanks and I would accept it because the fans vote. But when I said that, it was always my belief that the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame was for the people in rock music. I have found out lately that it’s not necessarily that, but if they can’t go there to be recognized, where do they go? So I just felt like I would be taking away from someone that maybe deserved it, certainly more than me, since I never considered myself a rock artist. But obviously, there’s more to it than that.”
Check out more reactions from this year’s inductees here.
Dreaming about moving to another country and starting over is no longer just a dream for some people. A growing number of millennial expats are finding their American dream in another country. And they’re taking to social media to invite us to follow their journeys. Living comfortably in America is merely a dream for most people, so seeing expats doing it in other countries is inspiring more people than ever to seek a better life than they can achieve in the United States elsewhere.
Thirty-three-year-old Olumide Gbenro, has made a life in Bali that would be unattainable to most Americans. When Gbenro was around 13, his family immigrated to Columbus, Ohio after living in London as a child. Gberno spent the first six years of his life in his home country of Nigeria, so relocating was not new to him when he decided to leave the states to find his future home. Before deciding to leave it all behind, Olumide was on a different path. A path his parents had set before him, but it wasn’t the path he wanted to follow.
In 2016, Gberno graduated with two master’s degrees from San Diego State University. One master’s was in epidemiology and the other in behavioral sciences. The new graduate was primed to go on for his PhD just as his parents wanted, but enrolling in a PhD program meant traveling the world would be off the table and the soon to be expat wasn’t ready to give up on that dream. The choice then became to become a doctor or travel and since traveling was in his blood it was a no-brainer.
Gberno told CNBC Make It, “All of my life, I just followed the rules, whether it was from my parents, religion or society,” he says. “But deep down I knew that if I took the position in the PhD program, I could never go back, I could never travel abroad…I’d be stuck to a lab, so I decided to say ‘no.’” Shortly after coming to the conclusion that a PhD wasn’t for him, he packed up his belongings and headed out of the country.
Olumide took some time in a few other locations before settling in Bali; the new expat first stopped in Berlin on a three month tourist visa, staying in hostels and couch surfing at friends’ houses. Gberno didn’t have much savings when he left America, so not working wasn’t an option, and eventually he struck success with his online business in social media marketing. He was able to grow his Instagram following fairly quickly by posting photos of his adventures and dance videos. With a larger following, he started reaching out to other creators and businesses offering to help improve their social media strategy for the small fee of $250. Eventually, enabled him to turn it into a lucrative business that helps sustain his lifestyle.
After Olumide’s three months in Berlin were up, he traveled to Mexico and then back to San Diego where he launched his business, Olumide Gbenro PR & Brand Monetization, in 2018. While scrolling through Instagram he saw a post from a friend visiting Bali at the time. The scenery appealed to him, so he decided to go. After many flights back and forth to Singapore and Malaysia to extend his visa 30 days at a time, he was granted an investors visa.
Gberno earns about $140,000 a year and his biggest expense is his rent and utilities which total $1,010 a month. He spends about $600 a month on take out and eating at restaurants and continues to travel at least once a month. Gberno told CNBC “I’m probably spending about the same amount of money I would each month if I was living in San Diego, but my quality of living is much higher,” he says. “I’m living a life of luxury.”
These expats make living abroad look like a feasible goal and for some it is. Be warned that following these adventurous souls on social media may make you want to pack a few bags and never look back.
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