Month: January 2024

Donald Trump may be crushing it in the polls, but that’s only amongst Republicans. What about the rest of the country? For instance, how’s he — or any Republican these days — faring with the youth of America? Not very well! The most prominent young Republicans in 2024 are bedhair enthusiast Charlie Kirk, possible fake cryer Kyle Rittenhouse, and sexless anti-Semite Nick Fuentes. Surely the former president spending New Year’s Eve with Vanilla Ice, of all musicians, isn’t helping.

On Wednesday’s episode of The Five, token Democrat Jessica Tarlov got into an argument with the colleagues when she refused to buy wishy-washy polls that have the former president walloping the current president, except in the ones where he’s not.

“This idea that Trump is blowing him out of the water is just not supported by the data,” Tarlov charged. “Look at the last three or four polls. Trump’s up two in one, then it’s tied in the other, then Biden’s up one in the other.

“If you believe that Trump will win by 20 points of the Black vote, I have many, many bridges to sell you,” she continued. “Or the youth vote. The guy had Vanilla Ice at his New Year’s Eve party and you think he’s winning the youth vote?”

Co-host Jesse Watters tried to spin it as a joke, but Tarlov interjected, saying, “Ice, ice, baby, you’re losing the youth vote.”

It’s true: On the same day 90210 alum Ian Ziering somehow found himself embroiled in an all-out biker brawl, Trump threw a Mar-a-Lago bash featuring the early ‘90s’ most notorious whiteboy rapper. Vanilla Ice, aka Robert Van Winkle, has been a joke for decades, and has sometimes leaned into it. He’s even in multiple Adam Sandler movies, one time as Mark Twain. What he’s not is a sign of youthful with-it-ness. Instead he’s the opposite.

In other words, people can chill out over the guy who gets into fights with the Village People winning over Gen Z. For now.

(Via Mediaite)

Every now and then, a contestant on Wheel of Fortune will be their own worst enemy due to their inability to solve a puzzle because they can’t quite figure out a word. You’ve surely seen this happen before, the times when a contestant will have everything but, like, three letters left and they seem like the only person on the planet who can’t figure out what T_OPI_AL _ACATION is supposed to be.

And then, you get what happened on Wednesday night, when one contestant had an entire puzzle solved but still didn’t win the round. Basically: Shauna didn’t have a ton of money and there was only one letter left on the board, so she spun the wheel and was able to pick up an extra $700. The puzzle read “CONGENIAL COMPANY & CLEVER CONVERSATION,” and Pat Sajak treated this like a formality. But unfortunately, this happened, instead.

The good news is that this was not a huge sum of money, and ultimately, a different contestant on this episode would go on and win. Still, as a person who is extremely good at mispronouncing things, I think they should have just given Shauna the money for completing the puzzle and not worried all that much about how “congenial” got pronounced.

Britney Spears made a semi-return to music in 2022 by teaming up with Elton John for their collaborative single “Hold Me Closer,” which debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 2022. Still, Spears hasn’t released a full-length album since 2016’s Glory. So long as pop is a genre, there will always be a collective hunger for more Britney Spears, and there have been conflicting rumblings about a potential new album this week.

Is Britney Spears Working On A New Album?

Well, it depends on who you ask.

On Wednesday, January 3, Page Six reported that Charli XCX and Julia Michaels are involved in writing songs “for what Spears’ team hopes will become” her first album since 2016. However, “Spears has not recorded any new material yet, as the project is only starting to take shape.” (The US Sun also reported on the matter.)

Spears responded with a lengthy Instagram post that shot down not only the possibility of an album in the nearish future but also the possibility of her releasing music ever again.

“Just so we’re clear most of the news is trash !!!” Spears captained a Guido Reni painting. “They keep saying I’m turning to random people to do a new album … I will never return to the music industry !!! When I write, I write for fun or I write for other people !!!”

She continued, “For those of you who have read my book, there’s loads that you don’t know about me … I’ve written over 20 songs for other people the past two years !!! I’m a ghostwriter and I honestly enjoy it that way !!! People are also saying MY BOOK WAS RELEASED WITHOUT MY APPROVAL ILLEGALLY and that’s far from the truth … have you read the news these days ??? I’m so LOVED and blessed !!!”

That’s probably that, considering Britney Spears has the final say as to whether Britney Spears will make an album, but Rolling Stone‘s Tomás Mier added more context following Spears’ Instagram post.

According to Mier, the Page Six report has some truth to it in that, while Spears isn’t actively working on music, people around her are working aggressively to spark her interest. Read an excerpt of Mier’s report below.

“Minutes before her post, however, a source close to the Spears project-in-the-works tells Rolling Stone that the singer’s team was preparing new music to get the singer to return to the studio, but that she had not yet been ‘actively in recording.’

‘Right now, management and A&R are trying to get her excited for the music,’ the source says. ‘As of right now, she’s not actively in recording but they’re getting [songs] done to present to her.’

‘Nothing is cemented or in stone,’ they add.

Spears’ team had tapped Julia Michaels and Charli XCX as writers, producer Cirkut, and several of the collaborators from Glory, including Jason Evigan, to make songs to present to the singer, the source says. Evigan worked on ‘Man on the Moon’ and ‘Liar’ from her 2016 LP, while Cirkut produced all of Ava Max’s Diamonds and Dancefloors last year, along with Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ ‘Unholy.’

‘The hype around this is that everyone wants her to make music again, but I don’t know if she’s there yet,’ the source says, adding that both pop ballads and uptempo songs had been prepared to present to the singer.”

Ava Max and Charli XCX are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

In October 2022, Rage Against The Machine canceled the 2023 North American leg of their reunion tour. The announcement came after lead singer Zack De La Rocha tore his Achilles during a July show in Chicago, leading to the cancelation of the UK and European leg scheduled for August and September 2022.

Come March 2023, Tom Morello, the band’s guitarist, told Rolling Stone that he didn’t know when (or if) Rage Against The Machine would take the stage together, adding, “When there is news, it will come from a collective statement from the band. There is no news.” On Wednesday, January 3, that sort of came true. It wasn’t a collective band statement, but rather an Instagram statement from drummer Brad Wilk.

“I know a lot of people are waiting for us to announce new tour dates for all the canceled RATM shows,” Wilk wrote. “I don’t want to string people or myself along any further. So while there has been some communication that this may be happening in the future… I want to let you know that RATM (Tim [Commerford], Zack, Tom and I) will not be touring or playing live again. I’m sorry for those of you who have been waiting for this to happen. I really wish it was…”

Wilk captioned the post, “Bottom of my heart.. Thank you to every person who has ever supported us.”

In October, De La Rocha returned to the stage with a surprise performance alongside Run The Jewels, but it was still radio silence on the Rage Against The Machine front. On November 3, Rage Against The Machine was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. What better way to go out?

While most people responded to Wilk’s statement with gratitude for any update at all, many were also very upset to learn of what sounds like the end of Rage Against The Machine. See some reactions below.

Donald Trump makes news every single day, and yet he’s still not as ubiquitous as he once was. He still holds rallies but not as frequently as he once did. He’s never returned to Twitter/X, even after the dork who paid a fortune on it unsuspended his account. Is he even trying to run for president a third time? Or is hiding himself from the public the only way he could get back to the White House? That’s what one of his former aides thinks.

Per Newsweek, Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served in his administration for years before decamping for The View, did some speculating about her former boss on CNN’s This Morning.

“I don’t want to overstate this notion he has a sophisticated team around him,” Griffin said. “Beyond the two individuals, it’s probably a mishmash of folks that have been clinging to him since 2016 or those that kinda stayed after January 6th.”

Griffin singled out his senior campaign advisers Suzie Wiles and Chris LaCivita for finding ways to keep Trump’s craziness — and increasingly brain mushy pronouncements — on the relative downlow.

“Those two individuals know that keeping Trump out of the public eye, more or less, is actually the best thing they can do,” Griffin said. “Donald Trump is not out giving huge rallies in the way that he was at this time in 2020. We’re going to see that tick up. He’s not on Twitter. He’s not giving big sit down interviews, he’s not on mainstream media in a regular pace.

“So I think the public is kinda forgetting the chaos and the crazy of Trump,” she concluded. “I think that’s reflected in some of the poll numbers that we’re seeing in how much he’s surpassing his challengers. The more that people see him, the more they’re gonna remember.”

If this is indeed the plan, could it be so crazy that it works? Sure, he posts like a madman on his rinky-dink Twitter clone, but no one reads it beyond die-hards and it’s failing anyway. Schedule more rallies and he may be confused about who’s president again or accuse Joe Biden of starting “World War II.” Of course, if Trump found out that his own staffers don’t trust him to speak in public, surely he’d have one of his signature meltdowns. Which would be a shame.

(Via Newsweek)

It’s January, which means that many people are clarifying the goals they’d like to accomplish by next year. But finding ways to actually stick to those lofty New Year’s ambitions isn’t always as easy as listing them out. Because, inevitably, pressure starts to set in.

But what if ticking off your resolutions list could be fun as well as productive? Sort of a blend of everything whimsical about a vision board and everything efficient about a to-do list?

Thanks to one work team’s ingenious idea, having the best of both worlds isn’t so impossible after all.

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As Michelle Wintersteen, owner and creative director of MKW Creative Co., shared in a TikTok following the holidays, her team decided to swap out the vision boards and instead make Bingo cards for their 2024 goals.

The concept is simple: each goal is designated to a square on the card, and will be ticked off once accomplished. The first person on the team to get a row of five goals accomplished wins a spa service of their choice, according to Wintersteen.

@mkwcreative.co Bingo Cards > Vision Boards ✨ #branding #marketing #branddesigner #branding #marketingagency ♬ What Love Is – Zimmer90

And while the Wintersteen’s card focuses on work targets, it’s easy to see how this idea can be fully customized, both in the types of goals listed and the prize to be won. Prefer a day trip to the aquarium or a fresh pair of boots instead? Go for it! The possibilities are endless.

The Bingo card approach is brilliant not only because it gives people something to look forward to but because it taps into a sense of play that keeps things fresh long after the novelty of making resolutions wears off—you know, by February 1st.

Plus, it’s not like you have to tick off every goal in order to get rewarded. All you need is five in a row to feel like a winner. What a great reminder that we don’t have to be all-or-nothing in our ambitions.

With nearly a million views, Wintersteen seems to have struck a chord with viewers eager to try it out.

“The cool kids do bingo cards,” one person quipped.

“Oooh, I’m so gonna do this!” added another.

Several chimed in with their own bingoal success stories.

“I did bingo cards last year and it was so fun and effective!” one person shared.

Some instantly began thinking up ways to contribute their own personal spin, like applying it to a book club. Obviously the reward for that group would be more books.

And perhaps the best part of all—it’s never been easier to digitally DIY your own Bingo card on Canva (though by all means, make it by hand if crafts are your thing).

And due to the overwhelming response to Wintersteen’s own Bingo card, her template is available for purchase here. Happy goal-setting, everyone.

Americans have a style and personality all their own, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s just noticeable when they travel aboard. Americans often stand out because of their outgoing personalities. They are friendly and enjoy having casual conversations with strangers.

This is an endearing trait to a lot of people in more reserved cultures, although it can also come off as a little brash.

An American characteristic that isn’t quite endearing to people in other countries is that they can be rather loud. In Europe, one can always notice the Americans in the restaurant because they can be heard from across the room.

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A Reddit user named Frosty-Ad3575 wanted to know the specific ways that Americans stand out when traveling abroad, so they asked the AskReddit subforum: “What’s an obvious sign that someone is an American?”

The post was popular, receiving nearly 6,000 responses in just 6 days. The most popular ones described how Americans’ unique personalities, style of dress, dental hygiene and body language make them easy to spot.

Here are 14 “obvious” signs that someone is an American.

1. Posture

“Apparently, the CIA trains American agents to not lean on things if they go undercover in foreign countries because Americans lean on anything they can while standing around.” — Clown1998

“I bet MI6 trains British agents to lean on everything if they go undercover in America because Americans lean on anything they can while standing around.” — KingoftheMongoose

2. The date

“MMDDYYYY.” — LowRevolution6175

3. Distances are different

“Anything under 4 hours is ‘close by.'” — Grey-Canary

“Everything in Europe is around the corner if you’re from the US. I can drive the whole day and not leave my state, but in Europe, I can pass through 4 countries in that same time frame.” — JayHitter

4. They’re polite to servers

“In the touristy cafe-restaurant I worked at:

If they asked me for the nicest spot we had

If they asked me my recommendation without seeing the menu first

I would walk to the table, and they would say right away ‘hey, how are you doing?’ This one threw me off a lot at first. Why is this person asking me how I’m doing?? I’m just there to take the order. I got used to it, and I think they found my awkwardness cute.

They would ask my name when I greeted them and took their order.

I’m Northern European.” — Muc_99

“It’s under-appreciated just how polite, friendly, and sincere Americans are in general. It blew my mind the first time I came to the US, and I love that my children are growing up with those same values.” — Irishweather5000

5. The water bottles

“I was told, ‘Americans carry water bottles around like they’re worried they’ll never have access to clean water ever again.'” — Kosher_Dill

“I don’t care what anyone says. If you think carrying a water bottle when walking a lot is weird, you’re probably slightly dehydrated all the time and are just desensitized to it. You seriously need to drink water frequently if you want to be ideally healthy.” — Tan11

6. Smiling

“I was in Germany this past summer, and I realized smiling at everyone you make eye contact with is very American. When I went to London on the same trip, they seemed less weirded out by it but would awkwardly return the smile. I was taught to always start with a disarming smile. Never realized it was American.” — 12ozFitz

7. “More ice, please.”

“I spent a year in Europe completely iceless to the point I forgot that was a thing. I stopped at a bar in Chicago fresh off the plane and not only did I get free tap water, but water with ice. I instantly felt at home.” — Outside-Crezz8119

8. Personal space

“As an American man, I’ve been told repeatedly by European and Asian friends that we simply take up space (not by being fat) as though we’re entitled to it. Men in other countries apparently don’t claim the same personal space we do.” — Potomacan

9. White teeth

“It’s even more bizarre that they assume we have braces or bleach our teeth because they’re straight and white. I have naturally straight white teeth. I brush them twice a day so they stay white. I don’t do anything special to them, but I remember being in London and some similar-aged students literally making fun of me for my teeth… it’s true that they don’t naturally look like headstones in an ancient graveyard, but there’s no need to make fun.” — DPretilloZbornak

10. Casual dress

“My friend went to Germany recently, and what people said about Americans is you can spot them a mile away because they’re the ones wearing pajamas in public. Apparently, in other countries, at least Germany, they dress a little more formally and in less baggy clothes than we do in America.” — MarcusWahlbezius

11. Baseball hats

“Baseball cap… even on an infant riding in a pram.” — SyntheticOne

12. Shoes

“Americans are shoe snobs (they don’t think they are, but they are). Setting aside wealthier business types, Americans generally wear more on-brand, on-trend, high-quality shoes than others.” — Mouflony

13. They’re loud

“That was my first thought. Americans yell at each other in normal conversation in public. I noticed it years ago in Europe, and now I can’t stand it in the US.” — SucccotashOther277

14. Occupation matters

“Immediately asking someone what they do for a living when meeting them. Our jobs and work are our entire identity.” — Bealzu

“I hate that about American culture. I’m an American and recently became a SAHM, so I don’t have an answer to ‘What do you do for a living?’ Half the time, I add the caveat, ‘Oh, my last job was with Apple,’ so that I’m not written off as an unemployed ‘loser.’ But it really is dumb to determine a person’s worth by what they do in order to afford food and shelter.” — WassupSassySasquatch

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the motion picture Saltburn.

Over the holidays, a lot of families enjoyed an awkward movie night. The stats for Saltburn, the dark comedy from Promising Young Woman director Emerald Fennell, which hit Amazon Prime before Christmas, were huge. How many people accidentally watched it with their parents and/or younger kids? It’s likely a lot. There’s a far amount of decadence contained within it, with two wild scenes in particular standing out. For one of its stars, it’s those scenes that partly made him want to make the movie in the first place.

Per Insider, Jacob Elordi spoke with Stream Wars about said scenes. Saltburn finds the actor’s character, Felix, a young, handsome, rakish reprobate, invites Barry Keoghan’s Oscar, a fellow Oxfordian and social climber, to his wealthy family’s estate for the summer. In one scene, Felix whacks it in the bath, after which Oscar, obsessed with him, licks what’s left of the semen-y remains out of the tub. It’s all but designed to get attention, and that worked on Elordi.

“I was just really excited when I read that scene, because you don’t really see things like that in mainstream movies a lot of the time,’” Elordi said. “So it’s just great that Emerald was allowed to kind of push those boundaries and expose people like that.”

The other shocking scene happens after Felix has died under mysteriously circumstances. A distraught Oscar goes to his grave and, well, humps it. Elordi remembered watching the scene with a rapt audience.

“It was unbelievable because everybody was engaged and sort of gasping at the screen and yelling at the screen,” Elordi explained. “And I haven’t been in a movie like that in a really, really long time.”

There’s also a nude dance scene Keoghan does at the end, which has also nabbed considerable attention.

If you enjoyed the bathtub scene, you’re in luck: An Etsy dealer is already selling a candle entitled “Jacob Elordi’s Bath Water.” Everyone else can watch Saltburn on Amazon Prime.

(Via Insider)

The New York Knicks sit at 18-15 on the year and just pulled off a major trade to acquire OG Anunoby from the Toronto Raptors. It was the sort of swing New York has been trying to make for some time, because while Anunoby isn’t the sort of franchise-changing All-Star talent whose name alone would sell tickets, he’s a rock solid player who fits perfectly alongside Jalen Brunson, Julius Randle, and co.

And yet, one of the nation’s most prominent Knicks fans is a bit disappointed. Stephen A. Smith was on the NBA Countdown desk prior to Wednesday night’s game between New York and the Chicago Bulls, and expressed his frustration over the team’s inability to land the star — which, in fairness, is a take that plenty of people beyond Smith hold. It got so bad that Smith straight up said that he believes he is a bigger star in the city than most players on the Knicks.

“This is the Mecca, this is Madison Square Garden, this is New York City, baby,” Smith said. “They can’t get a star. They cannot get a star. You had a chance! You had a chance and you passed up. Woj is excellent information, all the inside info, he will break it down to a science and make you say, ‘Yeah, it makes sense.’ But it doesn’t change the reality: It’s the Mecca, and the stars come to visit. We never have any.

“Do you realize a legitimate argument could be made that Stephen A. Smith is one of the biggest stars in New York?” he asked, fully in his bag at this point. “Do you realize that? That’s a damn shame. Bad knees, 56 years old, ain’t thought about playing basketball in about 30 years, and I am a bigger star than most of the New York Knicks. It’s a damn shame.”

The solution to all of this, in my eyes, is simple: Let Stephen A. Smith play for the New York Knicks.

The RICO trial featuring Young Thug and other YSL members as co-defendants resumed on Tuesday, January 2. It had been delayed due to one of the co-defendants, Shannon Stillwell, getting stabbed in jail in mid-December. While the trial is presumably a source of immense stress for Young Thug, he’s also leveraging the increased attention to his advantage.

The Business Is Business rapper announced the existence of ActNormal, his forthcoming apparel brand, on his Instagram Story. Young Thug (real name Jeffrey Williams) reposted from the new ActNormal account. The photo shows a sewn-in tag reading, “Manufactured in Paris ACTNORMAL” alongside the quote, “Be the reason the world changes.” ActNormal’s caption teases, “Round 1 #actnormal #freejeff #coming soon.”

ActNormal’s official website doesn’t give away much, other than a promise that it’s “coming soon” and is “dedicated to providing you with the best experience and highest-quality garments possible.”

In the meantime, Young Thug will continue to stand trial. According to The New York Times, Thug faces “a maximum 120-year sentence,” but a verdict is likely far off. As per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Prosecutors are expected to call hundreds of witnesses to the stand in the coming months and officials say the trial could take up to a year. A weeklong break is scheduled to start January 15, which is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.”

Young Thug is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.