Last night (August 3), Taylor Swift started her run of The Eras Tour concerts at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles (technically Inglewood). During the show, she shared a special moment with Bianka Bryant, daughter of late Lakers legend Kobe Bryant: Swift gave Bianka her “22” hat and a big hug.
Taylor Swift shares special moment with Kobe Bryant’s daughter Bianka, giving her the “22” hat at the Eras Tour in Los Angeles. pic.twitter.com/XpmDa41XC8
Kobe had a ton of respect for Swift, saying in a 2019 interview:
“I think it’s important to listen to people who do great things. […] Taylor’s been at the top of the game for a very, very long time. How and why? How did she write? How did she get into that mental space to be able to create things over and over and over? I mean, it’s a lot of pressure for her to follow up a No. 1 album with a better album. I don’t care if you like her music or you don’t like her music: Look at what she’s doing. It’s frightening stuff, it’s unbelievable to be able to pull that off over and over and over and over. So I’ll look at things like that to try to learn from them as much as I can. […] She’s a sweet kid. I mean, she was a sweetheart to my girls before she even blew up and became Taylor Swift, so that’s why I’ll always… if she needs anything from me, I’m always there. But you can’t have that level of consistent success and not be a killer. It’s impossible.”
When Kobe died in 2020, Swift tweeted, “My heart is in pieces hearing the news of this unimaginable tragedy. I can’t fathom what the families are going through. Kobe meant so much to me and to us all. Sending my prayers, love, and endless condolences to Vanessa and the family and anyone who lost someone on that flight.”
My heart is in pieces hearing the news of this unimaginable tragedy. I can’t fathom what the families are going through. Kobe meant so much to me and to us all. Sending my prayers, love, and endless condolences to Vanessa and the family and anyone who lost someone on that flight.
Doja Cat is no stranger to controversy. Last month, her social media posts regarding her fans proved polarizing. But perhaps the ruffled feathers are something she lives for. On her new single, “Paint The Town Red,” Doja seemingly alludes to the emotional consequences of the superstardom she’s achieved in recent years.
Over a jazz-influenced, Dionne Warwick beat, Doja addresses everything — fame, opulence, and pop-star status.
“Yeah, b*tch, I said what I said / I’d rather be famous instead / I let all that get to my head / I don’t care, I paint the town red,” she raps on the song’s chorus.
Elsewhere on the song, she seemingly alludes to the incident in which she said she didn’t love her fans, rapping, “Fans ain’t dumb but extremists are / I’m a demon, Lord / Fall off what? I ain’t seen a horse.” However, the title “Paint The Town Red” first appeared on an alleged tracklist Doja shared back in April, so it’s likely the song was written and recorded a long time ago.
Perhaps her anti-fan tirade was part of the song’s promotional campaign?
Who knows? But this new era of Doja sounds promising. Whether she wants it to or not.
In the song’s accompanying video, she channels the devil she’s constantly made out to be, conquers demons — both internally and within the video’s universe — and lays down the law of the land.
You can see the video for “Paint The Town Red” above.
Following a critically-acclaimed performance as Ariel in Disney’s live-action version of The Little Mermaid, Halle Bailey is finally putting out music of her own. For over a decade, Halle Bailey — who is simply going by Halle for her solo era — has been putting out music with her sister, Chlöe as the superstar duo, Chloe X Halle. Now, with her solo single, “Angel,” she is entering the landscape with her solo commercial debut.
On “Angel,” Halle reflects on growing up in the spotlight, and the painful words she received on the way. Over a piano-and-string-driven ballad, she rises above the heartache, and encourages others to follow.
“Heaven knows your wings can weigh you down / but angels make a way somehow,” Halle sings on the song’s chorus.
“Angel” is accompanied by an empowering visual directed by Wendy Morgan, which further cements Halle’s mission to uplift girls and young women like herself.
“This song for me is so very special and near and dear to my heart,” said Halle in a statement. “With everything I’ve gone through the past 3-4 years, suddenly finding myself in this bubble of all these eyes and new opinions, it was easy for me to feel doubt in myself and who I was. This song for me was my climb out of those feelings, a mantra and promise to myself that the work I’m doing here on earth matters and that I matter. I wanted to be able to embrace and be proud of myself and who I am naturally through and through. I hope other brown and Black girls and everyone in general feel embraced, respected, and inspired hearing the words of this song.”
While Cordae and his longtime girlfriend, tennis superstar Naomi Osaka, are still going strong, he has just dropped a situationship anthem for the summer. On the breezy “Make Up Your Mind,” Cordae shows off his lowkey R&B chops, tapping into a more rhythmic sound.
Over a thumping, percussive beat, Cordae tries to read the signals delivered to him by an elusive lady.
“I said she love me / She love me not / But she don’t got no damn clue about what she want,” he rap-sings on the song’s chorus.
While most of us can relate to the song, the groovy beat makes it easy to brush off any nebulous relationships, and just go with the flow.
“I just wanted to make a timeless song that makes people feel good,” said Cordae in a statement.
Outside of this particular song, it’s been a pretty busy summer for Cordae. Back in July, he and Osaka welcomed a baby girl. Beginning today (August 4), Cordae will also be supporting rapper NF on his Hope Tour, which kicks off in Glendale, AZ.
You can listen to “Make Up Your Mind” above.
Cordae is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Earlier this year, Kali Uchis teased that she had two albums in the works — one in English and one in Spanish. Back in March, she released her third studio album, Red Moon In Venus. Tonight (August 4), it looks like Uchis is kicking off her Spanish era.
On her new single “Muñekita,” Uchis has teamed up with JT of City Girls and Dominican rapper El Alfa for a sexy summer anthem, delivering on the Latin flavor.
Uchis and Alfa ride various rhythmic beats as they switch throughout the song, offering raunchy lines throughout the song.
“Tu angelita es lo que necesitas / Dale, gata, dale, muñequita,” sings Uchis on the song’s chorus.
Alfa’s verse is also full of raunchy one-liners and ad-libs, leading to JT’s contribution, on which, she offers a “sana sana, colita de rana” benediction to her haters.
The song collaboration came about after Uchis had DM’ed JT and Alfa various times over the years. Uchis first showed the track to JT, who recorded a verse in Uchis’ home studio, and then later shared the song with Alfa, who made his contribution shortly after.
“I love bringing artists together that you’d least expect,” said Uchis in a statement. “El Alfa is a Latino legend and JT is someone I’ve admired forever. Both of them are known for their summer hits and high energy, so I’m incredibly excited to bring them together for a fun, sexy song like this.”
But a little boy in Brazil is testing the boundaries of adorableness with his penchant for farm animals and his uncanny ability to get them to follow him pied piper-style.
In a series of mega-viral videos from @paidobebecampeiros on TikTok, we see a little boy giving various animals on what appears to be his family’s farm a ride in toy wagons hitched to his little motorized tractor. But it’s not just that he’s pulling them around—it’s the way the animals show zero fear and absolute trust in this tiny little person.
On one video that has a whopping 39 million views, the caption translated from Portuguese reads, “What a sweet kiss Campeiro gives his friend Tatá before starting the tour.” (“Campeiro” is a term used for fielders who work with cattle in Southern Brazil. Tatá is the name of a rooster.) The video starts off cute, gets cuter, and then somehow, miraculously, it gets even better.
Que beijo gostoso o Campeiro da no seu amigo Tatá, antes de começar o passeio
The duck and the goat? Come on.
And in another viral episode of “Young McDonald Had a Farm,” we see a similar scene but with a bunny thrown in—because of course—in addition to solid evidence that the duck, goat and dogs live for the young farmer’s caravans.
It’s not just the sound of the truck that lures the animals, in case you’re wondering. In other videos the boy pulls his friends in a wagon by hand and the duck and goat still walk happily alongside him.
O Campeiro é um encantador de animais 🐓🪿🐇🐑🐕😍😍❤️❤️🙏🏻🙏🏻
It’s seriously a Disney cartoon come to life. People in the comments remark that this kiddo is living their dream life. (And people are also super invested in that duck getting a ride—holy moly.) There’s just something so pure and wholesome and simple in the harmonious interactions between this little boy and his animals.
On the cold, fateful night of April 14, 1912, hundreds were spared a watery demise as they clamored onto the too-few lifeboats that accompanied the sinking Titanic on its one and only disastrous voyage.
Among the survivors was Masabumi Hosono, a 42-year-old civil servant and second-class passenger from Tokyo—and also the only Japanese passenger onboard.
Hosono would escape death that night, but his life would be forever changed, and not for the better. In many ways, he never escaped the Titanic’s curse.
Hosono had been working on a long-term assignment in Russia for two years and was eager to return home to his beloved wife and children. In 1912, Hosono appeared to have received his wish—his assignment had ended, and he was able to leave Russia. Not only that, but he was able to travel back in style aboard the prestigious RMS Titanic on her maiden voyage.
So, after hopping over to London and buying a fresh new suit, Hosono joined the other passengers to marvel at the “Queen of the Ocean.”
In his writings, Hosono recalls the Titanic’s grand views, “enticing aromas,” and “lively music,” but what he treasured most of all was the thought of seeing his family again.
“With every golden sunrise, I was closer to home.”
Then, just after midnight on April 14th, Hosono received a knock on his door. He was told to put on a lifebelt and head to the boat stations. As he made his way to the boat deck, Hosono was told to return to the lower part of the ship, despite his repeated attempts to inform the crewmen that he was traveling second class.
Finally, Hosono was able to slip past two talking guards and get to the ship deck, where he saw women and children being put into the lifeboats. Realizing he would have to go down with the ship, he prepared himself to “die an honorable samurai death.”
But then, an officer yelled, “Room for two more!” and Hosono saw another gentleman hop on. Knowing this was the only way to ever see his family again, he followed the man’s “bold example.”
As he helped row the small boat away from the chaos, Hosono had already begun to sense there would be consequences to his decision.
“We rowed at least two hundred feet away from the sinking vessel. From our position, I clearly saw the Titanic as it broke apart, then plunged beneath the waves. As the frightful shrills and cries from the drowning met my ears, I bowed my head in silence. Sobbing and weeping engulfed our small boat. Women and children were worried about the safety of their husbands and fathers. And feeling depressed and miserable, I worried what would become of me in the long run.”
Hosono’s suspicions were correct. After being rescued and put up in New York, he was labeled a coward, accused of disguising himself as a woman and made the target of cruel jokes, later being dubbed by an American newspaper as the “Lucky Japanese Boy.”
Back home, the repercussions were even harsher. According to Metropolis Japan, the sweetness of reuniting with his family was cut short for Hosono after he was found guilty of nonconformity to the “women and children first” principle and of evading an honorable death. Because of this, he was subjected to “mura hachibu”—the Japanese term for social ostracism.
He was bombarded with hate mail, and he would have lost his career had it not been for his qualifications. Numerous times, he was urged to commit suicide by the media—all for not embodying the samurai spirit, especially at a time when Japan was eager to impress the West with impressive displays of patriotic self-sacrifice and fervent nationalism, Metropolis Japan reported.
Stigma followed Hosono for the rest of his life, forcing him to live in shame as a recluse and forbidding discussion of the Titanic in his home until his death from natural causes in 1939.
Hosono’s handwritten pages detailing his tumultuous ordeal remained hidden in a book at the bottom of a drawer until 1997, when his family published his writings. That’s when Matt Taylor, an American researcher and Titanic scholar, noted how his letter contradicted other stories at the time, which mistook him for another Asian man on a different lifeboat, who was accused of acting “ignobly.” Rather, Hosono helped save his fellow passengers by rowing them to safety.
The discovery immediately “restores his honor and credibility,” Taylor told the AP.
And to this day, Hosono’s gut-wrenching narration, written on Titanic stationery, remains one of the most expressive and detailed accounts of the anguish experienced by the passengers of the blighted vessel. Without it, a part of the story would be lost forever.
Hosono was portrayed by the media as a self-serving coward, but in truth, he was a man thrown into an impossible moral predicament, whose only sin was having a love for his family that outweighed any patriotic loyalty or societal expectation of chivalry. When seen through the eyes of compassion, knowing that we all fear what awaits us beyond that final goodbye, knowing that if given the opportunity, many of us would do the same to reach our dear ones, his decision seems anything other than disgraceful.
As Hosono wrote: “On that cold and terrifying April night, in a single moment, I seized an opportunity. And I chose life.”
There’s just something so uplifting about a person boldly, unabashedly letting their geek flag fly.
When someone dares to be “uncool” and is just enjoying being themselves—quirks and all—it reminds us all that cool is a little overrated anyway. Suddenly throwing on that Lisa Frank t-shirt from middle school that still fits doesn’t seem as embarrassing as we thought it would be, and creating a dumb parody music video just to get a few laughs sounds like a totally respectable way to fill a Saturday afternoon. We’re better able to fearlessly express parts of ourselves because someone else showed us just how fun that kind of wild abandon can be, and it’s a beautiful thing.
Cue: The Math Dance.
In a video posted to the Reddit Made Me Smile community, one teen girl asks another, “What is your go-to dance move?”
Without missing a beat, the girl replies, “You guys wanna see my math dance moves?” She’s already holding back giggles in anticipation of showing them off.
“Did you say math?” the other girl asks.
Oh, yes, yes she did. “Math operations and functions,” to be specific. You know…addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, etc.
Division, many a commenter noted, went particularly hard.
The NFL was back on television for the first time in six months as the Hall of Fame Game kicked off the preseason in Canton, Ohio with the Jets and Browns getting their first game action of the summer. The game is merely the start of the weekend’s festivities, as the main event comes this weekend when the Class of 2023 is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, with a number of stars of the not too distant past getting honored.
Among them is DeMarcus Ware, the former defensive end who starred for the Cowboys and later the Broncos in his terrific 12-year career. Ware wasn’t just honored before the game alongside his fellow inductees, but he also took center stage before kickoff to sing the national anthem, putting his all into a memorable performance.
Hall of Famer @DeMarcusWare sings the Star Spangled Banner
The first reaction of many was to ask why Ware chose to sing the anthem, but he did so for an incredibly heartfelt reason, as when he was with the Broncos he used to stand on the sidelines and sing it with Demaryius Thomas, per Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News.
Yes, Ware is going to sing the national anthem before a game. Ware used to sing the anthem on the sidelines with late teammate Demaryius Thomas when both played for the Denver Broncos.
Ware said he’s going to sing the anthem for Thomas, who died in 2021.
For Ware, it was his way of paying tribute to his late teammate and pushed him to step well outside of his comfort zone. Ware told the Dallas Morning News he was more nervous in the lead up to singing the anthem in Canton than he was for the Super Bowl,
“Therapy speak” or “psychobabble” has infiltrated the daily lives of average citizens thanks to social media apps like TikTok and Instagram. Everyone seems to be an expert on something, and terms get thrown around with a very loose understanding of their actual meaning, which can cause confusion.
Chatter about knowing your “attachment style” has been making the rounds as of late. There seems to be a belief that if you know other people’s attachment styles then you can better understand their behaviors and pick a more compatible partner if you’re on the market. The problem is, attachment style isn’t everything. It doesn’t tell you everything. It’s not even a very good predictor of your potential as a mate.
Attachment styles are simply part of a whole. Imagine a car being a whole person and attachment style being the doors. Are the doors important? Sure. Do they make up the entire car? No. Can you drive a car safely without doors? Hello, Jeep Wranglers.
The thing about people obsessing over new words, phrases or concepts they’ve learned from an influencer who went to therapy with their own layman’s understanding is that some things get a gold star while others are deemed evil. There are four basic attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant and fearful. Of those four basic styles, there are multiple different subsections such as anxious-avoidant or disorganized-fearful.
This is why attempting to pin down or diagnose your own or your potential partner’s attachment style isn’t particularly advisable without the help of a professional. But that doesn’t stop social media from doing the social media thing and declaring one attachment style king and the others unfortunate tragedies to take pity on. Everyone wants to stake claim on having a secure attachment style as a sort of badge of honor for not having childhood trauma or being well-adjusted.
But Jeff Guenther, LPC, takes a moment to highlight the benefits of having an anxious attachment style and simultaneously creates a collective sigh of relief for those who may have felt shame in holding that title.
Guenther starts the video off by validating the viewer, explaining that having an anxious attachment style isn’t the person’s fault.
“It’s the fault of the environment that you grew up in. It’s because you have parents or caregivers that were inconsistent with their love and attention,” Guenther says. “It’s because you were taught that love was something you had to fight for, not something that was freely given.”
He goes on to explain that, if given the choice, people would opt for a secure attachment style and jokes that, “No one’s producing an HBO series about securely attached people.” They aren’t, because that would lack a significant amount of drama, trauma and character arc. But Guenther doesn’t stop at the explanation of an anxious attachment style; he lists benefits of being someone with an anxious attachment style, starting with being excellent at bedroom adult activities.
It’s not your fault that you have an anxious attachment style. #therapytiktok #mentalhealth #relationshiptips #dating #anxiousattachment #anxiousattachmentstyle
“You possess a level of emotional intelligence that makes everyone jealous. Your dedication is off the charts. Your ability to read your partner and be there for them is unparalleled,” Guenther says.
The list goes on and a quick peek into the comment section let’s you know his video was much needed.
“This is so sweet to hear. Every anxious attachment video I see is calling us the problem that needs to be fixed and adjusted,” one person writes.
“Thank you for bringing positivity to this. I have felt like I’m supposed to cure who I am for way too long,” another commenter writes.
No matter your attachment style, it’s just a part of who you are, not the entirety of your being. Thanks to Guenther, those who have been concerned about possibly having anxious attachment can breathe a little freer knowing what that attachment style can bring to the table.
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