Month: July 2023

It is pretty wild to consider that Millennials are now entering their 40s and no longer hold the mantle of the young and up-and-coming generation. According to Pew Research, Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996, so these days they range between the ages of 29 and 42.

These are the years when people begin to settle down, start families and experience the first uncomfortable signs of aging.

The Holderness Family is headed by a Gen X couple, Kim and Penn Holderness, who are best known for their viral comedy songs. Their latest video is about welcoming Millennials to their next phase in life, one that’s less about spending all night in the club and more about embracing a quieter, more practical life.

In this case, “the club” isn’t a loud place to get a Long Island iced tea but a state of mind where you’re more likely to appreciate a good walk for your mental health.

---

Holderness Family Music has over 797,000 subscribers on YouTube and over 230 million views since they started their page in 2011. They “create original music, song parodies, and skits to poke fun of ourselves, the world we live in, and (hopefully) make you laugh.”

The “Welcome to the Club, Millennials” video is a bit of a departure from the usual intergenerational bickering we’re accustomed to seeing on social media. Instead, Gen Xers open their doors to the Millennials entering the next phase in their lives. “Well, Gen X is here to say ‘don’t be bummed, come on in, welcome to the club,’” Penn raps.

According to the song, if you’re a Millennial and have done any of the following, you’re officially in “the club,” whether you know it or not:

​Hung a calendar on your fridge

Have strong opinions on who’s the best “Jeopardy!” host

Play Wordle

Wore reader glasses

Drink seltzers

Had Gen Z call your clothes “vintage”

Gone Christmas shopping in October

Had a three-day hangover

Gone to a movie theater because it serves food

Took a mental health walks

Bought a chair for your back

Grooved to supermarket music

Own plastic houseplants

Taken supplements

Saved money for a Disney vacation

Have zero f**cks to give

Still love Blink-182

Millennials who are a little leery of aging should be happy to learn that they may be in the happiest times of their lives. According to developmental psychologists, the period of life between ages 30 to 45 is known as “established adulthood” and is a time of life when people are happiest.

Even though people in this age group are stuck in the “career and care crunch,” where they are likely to juggle a job while caring for children or older relatives, this developmental stage is also very fulfilling.

“Yes, people were feeling overwhelmed and talked about having too much to do in too little time,” Clare Mehta, Professor of Psychology at Emmanuel College, wrote in The Conversation. “But they also talked about feeling profoundly satisfied. All of these things that were bringing them stress were also bringing them joy.”

This article originally appeared on 5.01.23

Ahhh, siblings. Sometimes they’re your best friends and other times your living room turns into an MMA octagon over the remote control. If you grew up with brothers and sisters, it’s hard to imagine what it would be like to be an only child. (That’s not to say you didn’t dream about it when your sister stole your favorite shirt for the 30th time.)

But not everyone has siblings, so it can be equally as hard for someone who grew up as an only child to picture what it would be like to have them. Only children also likely had moments where they dreamt of having a little brother or sister, not realizing the literal torment siblings can inflict on each other.

TikTok creator Lonnie IIV recently posted a video of himself with two other friends seemingly out to lunch, when the girl in the group asked what it was like to grow up with siblings. In less than a minute she realized she lucked out being an only child because her two guy friends gave her a crash course in sibling behavior.

---

In the clip, Lonnie asked if she wanted her drink but then promptly told her she didn’t want it before swirling his fingers around in her cup. This prompted the other friend to throw his balled-up straw paper at her before repeatedly dipping chopsticks into her soup. The woman just laughed and looked seemingly confused at the nonsense her guy friends were displaying. Of course, no sibling experience would be complete without the classic “stop touching me” added for a little pizzazz.

“She got an entire childhood in less than a minute,” one user wrote.

A different user said, “This is so accurate.”

Other commenters started sharing the things they did to their siblings or vice versa. The comment thread was full of childhood sibling…nostalgia? Seems weird to look back on those memories with fondness, yet here we are.

Honestly, my brother used to ask if he could have a bite of my food, and when I said no, he would just lick it before asking again. In turn, when my brothers wouldn’t let me play video games with them, I would pinch my arm until it turned red and run out of the room crying to tell my mom they hit me.

Kids are weird sometimes and thankfully there are usually doses of love in between. But if you grew up with siblings, you’ll likely appreciate the video below. Or it’ll give you flashbacks. It’s a toss-up. If you don’t have siblings, you may feel the need to have us evaluated. We turned out alright…mostly.

@lonnieiiv

Don’t ask, just bring it

This article originally appeared on 2.17.23

Like his frequent cheerleader (though sometimes secret critic) Tom Cruise, Christopher Nolan prefers realism. They hate CGI and prefer to do things old school. But where Cruise will really put his life in jeopardy just to entertain, Nolan has a line. One of the big centerpieces of the director’s latest movie, Oppenheimer, is its depiction of the Trinity test, aka the very first detonation of a nuclear weapon. Nolan and team didn’t use computers to show the blast and subsequent mushroom cloud. But it should be pretty obvious that he didn’t go so far as to actually denote an actual atom bomb. Or one would think.

In a new profile of the film by The Hollywood Reporter (in a bit teased out by Insider), Nolan responded to rumors that the atomic bomb detonation is the real deal. (Spoiler: It’s not. That would be nuts.)

“It’s flattering that people would think I would be capable of something as extreme as that on the one hand,” Nolan said, “but it’s also a little bit scary.”

Nolan didn’t specify what he meant by “a little bit scary.” Did he mean it’s scary that people think he would ever consider — or be able to acquire — nuclear weapons? Or did he mean that moviegoers could ever think that an atom bomb in a movie would ever be real — especially in a film that is almost certainly not gung ho about the possibility of nuclear warfare?

Or perhaps he’s distressed that people nowadays don’t know about “movie magic,” and that filmmakers were able to depict the impossible in creative, analogue ways, well before sophisticated computers had even been invented.

Whatever the case, Nolan’s own daughter volunteered herself to be one of the film’s (again, fake) victims.

Oppenheimer hits theaters on July 21, the same day, of course, as Barbie and the new Blur.

(Via THR and Insider)

Every now and then Donald Trump lets slip an inconvenient truth. Sometimes it’s that he knows he lost re-election in 2020. Last week it was that he, a purported man of the people, had no idea about the existence of one of Dairy Queen’s most popular items. “What the hell is a Blizzard,” the former president blurted out while buying ice cream for his fans on the campaign trail. Now his closest GOP rival is exploiting that — though it’s not exactly clear if he knows what one is either.

As per HuffPost, Ron DeSantis paid a visit to the ice cream (and burger) joint during a stop in Iowa, and he made sure to troll the guy who’s clobbering him by double digits.

“When you’re here you’ve got to do a Dairy Queen, and I appreciate Sen. [Chuck] Grassley setting that,” the Florida governor said, referring to his fellow Republican, who sang the chain’s praises last week.

That might have been merely a not-so-subtle dig had DeSantis not added something that made his words seem suspicious. “I’ve known what Blizzards are for a long time,” he said — something a normal person who’s eaten the confection before would definitely say, to prove their Dairy Queen bona fides.

To his credit, DeSantis reportedly ordered an Oreo Blizzard — one of the better varieties, which he then claimed he’d enjoyed since he was a kid. He said his kids also like the chain, which is more believable than if Trump had claimed Don Jr. and Ivanka always loved Blizzards, which they definitely haven’t because none of Trump’s kids, not even Barron, have ever stepped foot in a Dairy Queen.

Will DeSantis’ DQ stop save his floundering campaign? Perhaps someone at Fox News, which is reportedly souring on him, will notice the video and act accordingly.

(Via HuffPost)

It’s the beginning of a new era for JT of City Girls. After sharing her solo single “No Bars,” she’s already garnered much buzzy for her quick-witted punchlines and fiery flows. Today (July 15) she has shared the video for her viral new track.

In the video, she is seen dancing behind blue bars, rocking matching hair and a hoodie. This is juxtaposed with clips of JT partying and meeting fans across London and Paris, emphasizing the she and City Girls have become a worldwide sensation.

In a statement accompanying the song’s release this past week, JT said she hopes the song is the beginning of a new chapter in her artistry, and leads to more people taking her seriously in hip-hop.

“I hope this freestyle finds you in a great place and is a start of the respect I deserve in music,” she said. “I love music! I love my voice! I love poppin my sh*t.”

In addition to the song and the video, JT also launched No Bars Reform, a program designed to help formerly incarcerated women readjust to society by providing them access to employment opportunities, housing, and mental health services.

You can see the video for “No Bars” above.

Steph Curry is known for taking a ball and putting it into the thing it’s meant to go through from very far away. He normally does this on the basketball court, but on Saturday afternoon, Curry did this on the golf course, as the Golden State Warriors star got a hole-in-one while competing at a celebrity tournament.

A longtime golfer who has participated in the event in the past, Curry is one of the many big names participating in this year’s American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe. After shooting a 3-under 69 on Friday, Curry entered Saturday’s round atop the leaderboard. His performance on the seventh hole will certainly help his chances of winning the event for the first time, as Curry recorded the first ever hole-in-one on the 152-yard par 3 in the event’s history.

Curry has done a whole lot in his professional career, so it says a lot about how big of a deal this was that he reacted with so much excitement. We’ll see if he’s able to ride this high into winning the tournament — coming into the weekend, Curry was tied for the seventh-best odds to win the American Century Championship, with former NFL quarterback and three-time winner Tony Romo coming in as the favorite.

Having been in the rap game for nearly four decades, rapper Snoop Dogg has stories for days. And given the number of historic hip-hop moments he’s been a part of, it’s amazing he can remember them all. During a stop on his High School Reunion Tour with Wiz Khalifa and Too Short, Snoop caught up with Canadian journalist Nardwuar backstage. Nardwuar revealed that he was interviewing Snoop for the 11th time in 23 years.

During the interview, Nardwuar and Snoop recalled various stories, including one about a roach who lived in one of his first apartments.

“He wouldn’t die so we called him ‘The Gooch,’” Snoop said. “We used to leave food out for him and everything. He just kept getting bigger and bigger. I stayed in that apartment for like about six, seven months — cuz grew to the size of about a whole dollar bill.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the two talked about some of Snoop’s iconic magazine covers, including that famous Vibe cover, on which, he was featured alongside Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Suge Knight.

Snoop recalls on the day of the shoot, “it felt like a mafia movie. Like the end was near.”

You can watch the full interview above.

A little more than a month after Lionel Messi announced his decision to come to Major League Soccer, his new club has finally completed the most consequential move in league history. A video posted to Inter Miami’s official Twitter account gave soccer fans their first glimpse of the greatest player to ever step foot on a pitch in the club’s kit.

In a statement, MLS commissioner Don Garber said the league is “overjoyed” that Messi decided to come to the United States following his departure from Paris Saint-Germain.

While both Messi and Inter Miami announced that he would join the team back in June, reports indicated that the hang-up revolved around getting the final details all sorted out in his contract, which runs through the next two and a half year and features an option for the 2026 season, according to The Athletic. It’s a move that has been in the work for quite some time, but Messi’s deal has reportedly been a bit more complex than the average contract, with stakeholders in the league like Apple and adidas being involved in getting all the details sorted out.

Now, that’s all been sorted out, and Messi is set to be unveiled to Miami supporters on Sunday evening at DRV PNK Stadium alongside another one of the club’s new signings, Sergio Busquets, a midfielder who played with Messi at Barcelona from 2008-21. It’s unclear exactly when Messi will play his first game for Miami, but the plan is for him to suit up for the first time on July 21, when the team plays Mexican side Cruz Azul in the Leagues Cup.

Messi will join a Miami side that has struggled this season, as the club has 18 points from 21 games to put them in last place in the Eastern Conference. They find themselves 11 points out of the final playoff spot in the East, although the team currently in that spot — the Chicago Fire — have played one more game.

One of the reported issues with a Damian Lillard trade to the Miami Heat revolves around Tyler Herro. While Lillard wants the Portland Trail Blazers to send him to Miami, Herro is the Heat’s most appealing young player, and he doesn’t make a ton of sense on a Blazers’ roster that includes Scoot Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe, and Anfernee Simons.

As such, a few teams have been brought up as a potential third squad to help facilitate a deal and land Herro in the process. The latest of which, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype, are the Toronto Raptors, which have reportedly expressed some level of interest in trying to be the team that gets Herro.

The Toronto Raptors can also be added to the list of teams that have expressed exploratory interest in acquiring Herro as part of multi-team trade talks between the Blazers and Heat involving Lillard, league sources told HoopsHype.

Toronto was among the NBA’s lowest-scoring offenses last year — they found themselves 24th out of 30 teams — and were the third-worst three-point shooting team in the league. To make things more difficult, the team’s top scorer in the backcourt, Fred VanVleet, left to join the Houston Rockets in free agency. Herro would make some sense, then, as someone who could provide a spark offensively, but of course, there’s a big difference between being interested in a player and a deal coming to fruition.

Falsehoods spread more easily and more widely in today’s techno future, where social media allows the masses to a) read total nonsense then b) find lots of others who buy the same bull. Often times said misinformation is bad, dangerous. Other times it’s all in good fun. Of the latter breed, take the following recent viral video.

It shows a parade somewhere featuring a man with a blindingly white head of hair marching down the street surrounded by others. People don’t appear to happy with the paraders. Someone throws a water balloon, which lands well behind the man with the white hair. Then a little girl shoots her shot. She scores, hitting said man directly in his head. He walks it off while the little girl chuckles, proud of herself.

Could the man with the blindingly white hair be former vice president and current presidential candidate Mike Pence? That’s what someone on social media claimed. (The answer, by the way, is no, but more on that later.) As the video spread online, jokes flowed. “give this girl the cy young for hitting mike pence in the melon with a water balloon,” one person wrote.

Others, making Jan. 6 and Mets jokes, followed.

Alas, it’s pretty obvious this isn’t Mike Pence getting dinged with a water balloon. For one, we not only never see the man with white hair’s face, but he’s very, very far from the camera.

Sure enough, it was soon confirmed that that was definitely not Mike Pence. As per Mediaite, the video was filmed at the annual Stewart Manor July Fourth parade on Long Island. The doused man was at least a politican: He’s Bruce Blankman, a Nassau County executive. The revelers weren’t venting frustration, though: It’s tradition for the parade to end in a water balloon battle.

Blankman himself joked about getting hit in the head, writing about his water balloon assailant, “The Mets and Yankees could certainly use her!”

Not that Pence hasn’t been dunked on recently. It just hasn’t been with water. Back in May he was roundly mocked on social media for a very strange trip to Dunkin’.

(Via Mediaite)