Category: News

Kamala Harris has turned into Kim Kardashian. Abraham Lincoln is now Angelina Jolie. Behold, The Great Yassification is here.

Jumping off of the LGBTQ term “YAS, queen,” a phrase made mainstream by shows like “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “Broad City,” to “yassify” means to drastically glam up an image using heavy editing, usually through FaceApp. Click that slay button for contoured cheeks, thick eyelashes and ultra-defined eyebrows, and voila, you are yassified.

As it turns out, the beauty-app-trend-turned-hilarious-meme-with-a-dash-of-queer-slang has about as many layers as a yassified photo.

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The trend started to fly off the handle after Toni Collette got yassified in a still from the horror film “Hereditary.” Her transformation is almost more eerie than the movie itself.

imagine explaining this to someone not on twitter pic.twitter.com/916DOJCEHg

— 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘵𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩 (@AguillardTrevor) November 10, 2021

Denver Adams, an art student in Nebraska, really took things up a notch by creating @YassifyBot on Twitter. Receiving thousands of requests, the Yassify Bot applies filter after filter, careful to not lighten skin tones so that people of color don’t appear more Caucasian, which the app problematically does. Still, that doesn’t stop them from applying crazy makeup and gender swapping. Cause why not?

​The Yassify Bot magically turned Joe Biden into the Dos Equis’ “Most Interesting Man in the World,” with esteemed Vice President Kamala Kardashian by his side.

We’re so lucky to have them in office 🙏 pic.twitter.com/UO38MemKTF

— Yassify Bot (@YassifyBot) November 13, 2021

​Mrs. Doubtfire is now QUEEN Doubtfire. All hail the queen.

pic.twitter.com/buHLdKEYYa

— Yassify Bot (@YassifyBot) November 14, 2021

Honestly I thought Abraham Lincoln was attractive before. But now THIS. Hello SLAYbraham.

pic.twitter.com/uECM0w2ZSw

— Yassify Bot (@YassifyBot) November 13, 2021

British Bake Off’s Paul Hollywood is dishing out looks instead of handshakes.

pic.twitter.com/AYTB2ij4sy

— Yassify Bot (@YassifyBot) November 15, 2021

The Doll from “Squid Game” is ready to slay more than just the players.

pic.twitter.com/hwvosntnQg

— Yassify Bot (@YassifyBot) November 14, 2021

Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out of here with that glam

pic.twitter.com/vZp8QVMDHB

— Yassify Bot (@YassifyBot) November 15, 2021

As a Maggie Smith fan, this one was my particular favorite.

The Yassification of Professor Minerva McGonagall pic.twitter.com/4HG5Baj3Cw

— Yassify Bot (@YassifyBot) November 13, 2021

Sorry, Mark Zuckerberg. Even as a beautiful woman, you cannot sell me the Metaverse.

pic.twitter.com/kCCoUADzEV

— Yassify Bot (@YassifyBot) November 14, 2021

As with any successful meme, yassification has now evolved into the wordplay stage on Twitter.

two factor yassification

— alex (@alex_abads) November 15, 2021

The Yassification of Emily Rose 💅🏽 pic.twitter.com/8OwHURhinP

— Xmas Kun 🎄✨ (@Eizenclown) November 15, 2021

The trend is now a strange hybrid between satire and celebration. On the one hand, it begs us to look once again at the bizarre beauty standards we place on ourselves with all the digital enhancements at our disposal.

Adams told BuzzFeed News, “This app is genuinely used by people. I think there’s a conversation to be had about how unhealthy that culture is.” No doubt we’re used to seeing this undeniably warped sense of beauty flood magazine covers and social media. Yassifying just takes it to the nth degree.

On the other hand, this flamboyant embrace of camp also reflects the performance art spirit of queer culture. Think of the dramatic drag shows, theatrical fashion, the viral limp wrist movement … even the term “YAS queen.”

The real difference between the two sides is awareness. One is hiding behind a mask, and one is expressing authentically through the mask. Or in this case, filters.

Whether it actually changes the public’s perspective on either subject, the yassification trend is at least serving up some laughs, along with some serious face.

Just in case there were any doubts that the set of Rust was one massive work hazard, another crew member working on the film has wound up hospitalized following an incident on set. According to the New York Post, Jason Miller, 44, was helping tear down the set of the now-notorious Alec Baldwin western when he was bitten by a brown recluse (a highly venomous species of spider native to New Mexico) and nearly lost his left arm. While Miller is now in stable condition, it was a close call for the pipe rigger and electrician, who ultimately had to undergo three surgeries to save the limb.

The incident occurred on October 27, a mere week after the tragic on-set shooting that claimed the life of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Miller was reportedly packing up cables when a co-worker informed him a small spider was on his shirt. Miller said he brushed the spider off, not thinking much of the occurrence and not realizing he had already been bitten by the recluse.

“I didn’t think anything of it at first,” Miller said. “I just brushed it off, but I’m also diabetic so I have neuropathy, which means I don’t feel light touch. I had no idea I had been bit already.”

12 hours after Miller sustained the bite, the area began to swell, followed by discoloration just a few days later. On the fourth day, however, Miller’s bite was so severe, he went to the hospital to get a prescription for antibiotics. While he assumed things would get better following his treatment, the next day he was in so much pain he couldn’t even drive himself to the hospital, and ultimately had to call 911 for help.

“By then, it turned into necrotizing fasciitis,” a rare bacterial infection, he said. “I had no idea, and they took me into surgery so fast. I thought they would be able to just treat the area of the bite. I didn’t realize that it was my whole arm and that my life was in danger because I have already become fully septic.”

Over the course of the next few days, Miller underwent three separate surgeries in an attempt to save both his arm and his life. According to Miller, he has now lost about 70 percent of the fascia (or the connective tissue beneath the skin) of his left arm, and will most likely be receiving skin grafts, therapy, and additional surgeries for the next year. Doctor’s suspect Miller has lost about 70 percent of his left arm’s function, but Miller remains confident that, with time, his abilities will return to him.

“I will continue to do these treatments but it’s just going to take time and patience,” he said. “I’m a pretty independent person and not someone who likes to be laid up. And also, I love my job, so hopefully I will be able to lift 50 pounds again. I don’t know if I ever will, but if I can’t go back to being an electrician, I’m sure there is another class that I’ll be able to find my way in.”

Miller said it was a bit of a struggle getting support from his union immediately following the incident, considering they were understandably tied up working on Hutchins on-going case. However, it looks like Miller will be receiving worker’s compensation from the film. In the meantime, family members have also set up a GoFundMe page for Miller, which has already raised more than $13,500.

Earlier this month, Republican Representative Paul Gosar tweeted a disturbing video in which someone photoshopped his own face and the faces of Democratic Congresspeople like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez onto anime figures before depicting himself killing them. The clip has since been removed from Twitter for violating its ethical standards, but now Gosar is facing the consequences of his tasteless joke on the House floor.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives will vote on whether to make Gosar the first member of Congress to be formally censured since 2010. If the vote doesn’t fall in his favor, he could join his colleague Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in being stripped of his committee appointments. And while this political slap on the hand is fairly light punishment considering that, if Gosar had a regular job, he’d have been fired for posting that video instead of just symbolically reprimanded, the GOP is doing everything they can to defend Gosar’s right to bastardize a beloved anime series so that… why? (We’re still really not sure what the point of all of this was.)

Representative Matt Gaetz — who’s been busy fighting his own legal battles as the FBI preps its sex trafficking case against him — gave a speech on the House floor in which he bizarrely compared Gosar to cartoon characters like Wile E. Coyote, implying that critiquing the Congressman for his little joke would be just as preposterous as indicting Wile E. Coyote for “an explosive ordinance against the Road Runner.”

And look, yes, this is all ridiculous and it would be nice to see the lawmakers whose salaries we pay actually do their jobs and pass some bills instead of ripping into each other — on the House floor and on our timelines — but lame and unamusing as Gosar’s tweet was, the man reportedly has a history of supporting insurrections and hanging out with white nationalists, so maybe it’s time he faced consequences for something? At the very least, this whole trial will ensure we never have to see Gosar’s terrible photoshop skills in action ever again.

Young Dolph (real name Adolph Robert Thornton, Jr.) is dead after being shot in his Memphis hometown today (November 17). He was 36 years old.

Reports starting surfacing on social media this afternoon, with one of the earliest coming from ABC13 Memphis’ Jeremy Pierre, who shared photos of the crime scene and reported, “On the scene of a shooting on Airways. I’m hearing Memphis rapper Young Dolph may be a victim in the shooting. Shooting happened at Makeda’s Cookies.” FOX13 Memphis later reported that “three independent law enforcement sources confirmed” the rapper died in the shooting.

FOX13 also reports that Maurice Hill — owner of Makeda’s Butter Cookies, where the shooting took place — noted that his employees said Dolph walked into the store and bought cookies before somebody drove up and fatally shot him. TMZ also says that according to a source, “Dolph went into the store, and a vehicle pulled up, firing through a front window and striking the rapper.” FOX13 further notes that at the crime scene, “a massive crowd gathered around, some people laying on the ground in tears.”

Makeda’s was apparently one of Dolph’s favorite places in Memphis: On November 10, the Makeda’s Instagram page shared a video of Dolph outside the store and captioned it, “Young Dolph says every time he comes home he has to stop by Makedas Cookies.”

The Memphis rapper had steadily been increasing his profile in recent years. His highest-charting album is 2020’s Rich Slave, which achieved a peak at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart. His latest album, a joint project with Key Glock called Dum And Dummer 2, peaked at No. 8. Aside from Glock, Dolph has also collaborated with artists like Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Yachty, and Gucci Mane. His highest placement on the Hot 100 chart was his feature on OT Genasis’ 2015 single “Cut It,” which peaked at No. 35.

This summer, the rapper announced he was retiring but then changed his mind, saying, “I can’t do it, real talk. I can’t do. It’s like I’m the spokesperson for all of the street n****s and all of the n****s that’s on some independent sh*t […] and really come in the game on some sh*t… The n**** that really want to do this sh*t, like, I don’t really wanna tie myself to no major label — do this sh*t on my own. I’ma hustle this sh*t. I’ma grab that.”

Dolph was fresh off a performance at this year’s Rolling Loud New York festival at the end of October.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Many Philadelphia 76ers fans are passionate to talk about the Ben Simmons situation, but perhaps none more than a WIP caller named James, who phoned into Angelo Cataldi’s Show on Wednesday. When Cataldi asked “what’s on your mind, bro?,” James nonchalantly replied “not bad, someone just hit my car.”

While Cataldi and others perked up in shock, James, once again, nonchalantly replied, “and they’re driving off, it’s OK.” Cataldi and his co-hosts implored James to write down the license plate of the person committing a hit and run — at one point, they said to read the person’s license plate on air before realizing that was a terrible idea — but he had zero interest in doing so and simply wanted to discuss Simmons instead.

“You just got in a car accident and you’re calling about Ben Simmons?” Cataldi inquired.

“Yeah, because he annoys me more than someone hitting my car and driving off,” James said.

The dichotomy of demeanor between the radio hosts and James is quite funny. They’re all up in arms about the situation and their reactions are amplified by James’ unconcerned nature. He’d rather get a few things off his chest about Simmons than ensure he’s properly compensated for a hit-and-run.

Simmons has yet to suit up this season for the 8-7 Sixers, who will look to snap a five-game losing streak when they take on the Denver Nuggets Thursday evening.

The Los Angeles Rams made the trip up north for Monday Night Football this week to take on the San Francisco 49ers. While the game was highly-anticipated due to Odell Beckham Jr. and Von Miller making their debuts for the Rams, the team suffered a decisive loss to its NFC West rivals, 31-10.

With the Niners jumping out to a two-score lead in the first quarter and never looking back, we can safely say there was apparently more drama in the stands than there was on the field. TMZ brings word that Kelly Stafford, the wife of Rams starting quarterback Matt, apologized on social media for an incident in which a Niners fan was giving her group trouble, and in response, she threw a pretzel at the dude.

As she explained in the comments of a post on Instagram, a fan “was saying a bunch of things that were aggressive toward our crew” and that she “will always stand up for my guy and everyone I love,” but that she is “embarrassed” over the incident and that she admits she “obviously needed to do it completely different.” It is unclear exactly what the dude was saying, but TMZ says that “Levi’s Stadium security eventually stepped in … and escorted Kelly and her crew away from the area to other seats in the venue.”

Considering how much concessions cost at sporting events, we must recommend that no one ever throws a pretzel at anyone else.

Despite being lauded by critics and picking up Emmy nominations for its stars, Lovecraft Country was surprisingly not renewed for a second season on HBO. While one of the suspected causes was that the show had already exhausted all of the storylines from the book, showrunner Misha Green revealed after the cancellation that she had detailed plans for Season 2 that went beyond the source material, but for undisclosed reasons, HBO decided to cancel the series.

However, according to James Andrew Miller’s new book, Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers, Green herself is allegedly the real reason for Lovecraft Country getting the boot. While giving an interview about his book, which takes a deep dive into the premium channel’s history, Miller — who has also written books about ESPN and SNL — addressed what his reporting uncovered about Green creating a “toxic” and “hostile” work environment. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

When the show got canceled, there were two predominant explanations out there. One was it had gotten too expensive. The second was there wasn’t a compelling vision for the next season. It turns out neither was the real reason. I had several sources within HBO and elsewhere — people who worked on the show and people who represented people on the show — who said the environment on the show was not a healthy one. For HBO, it was a double-down on sadness — not only is it losing a show that was such an outlier in terms of what it was trying to say, but then to have a Black showrunner — and a female Black showrunner — is not something that happens every day, and people were incredibly excited about that. So, again, the word I come back to is “sadness” that it was not able to continue.

According to THR, Green declined to comment on the allegations in Tinderbox. What makes this revelation surprising is that Green’s success with Lovecraft Country led to continued work with HBO. In August it was revealed that Green would write a solo Black Canary film for HBO Max featuring Jurnee Smollet’s version of the character from Birds of Prey. Smollet also starred in Lovecraft Country, which makes the toxic work environment allegations all the more curious.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Spoon have been incredibly active as they gear up for the release of their new album, Lucifer On The Sofa, next year. After a run of live dates supporting St. Vincent, they released the new single “The Hardest Cut.” They even took a dive into the covers realm, with two badass takes on Tom Petty’s “Breakdown” and “A Face In The Crowd.” But they haven’t stopped there as they’ve now covered a Christmas classic by The Beatles ahead of the holidays.

Part of the Spotify Singles: Holiday Collection 2021 edition, “Christmas Time (Is Here Again)” was originally released by The Fab Four in 1967 for one of their Fan Club Christmas albums. Spoon’s take sees singer Britt Daniel at his typically debonair self on the mic. But in true Beatles style, the band’s other members add to the shapely harmonies in a handsome homage to the original.

Daniel shared some thoughts on the song in a statement, saying:

“Recording ‘Christmas Time (Is Here Again)’ was a group effort that pulled us away from rehearsals and quickly sent us down a turbulent path of what you might call the Christmas spirit. And it’s our song with the most band members doing vocals ever – pretty sure I’m counting four. THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS IS OVER.”

You can listen to “Christmas Time (Is Here Again) by Spoon above and check out the Spotify Singles: Holiday Collection with tracks from other artists like Nao, Black Pumas, and Demi Lovato here.

Like many pop stars in recent years, Lady Gaga has been very open about her journey with mental health. Earlier this year, the singer revealed she has struggled with PTSD after suffering a rape when she was 19. At one point, the untreated trauma caused her to cancel a 2018 tour. Gaga now says her trauma was once again triggered more recently — this time while she was on set filming the movie House Of Gucci.

While portraying the film’s main character Patrizia Reggiani, who married and ordered the murder of Gucci’s heir, Gaga took a method approach to acting. She spoke exclusively in an Italian accent for months, both on- and off-camera. But at one point during the filming process, Gaga told Billboard, the line between her own experiences and Patrizia’s began to blur, triggering her past trauma.

Explaining what when down, Gaga said, “It’s a scene where I knock a lit candle across the room, and I remember I gave Salma [Hayek] a heart attack that day. I was falling apart as [Patrizia] fell apart. When I say that I didn’t break character, some of it was not by choice.” She continued: “I took the pain I feel from being attacked when I was a young girl, from feeling left behind by people that I love, from feeling trapped that I can’t go out into a world that I love, I took that pain and I gave it to [Patrizia].”

The singer noted the the film’s director Ridley Scott was concerned for her safety, “Ridley said, ‘I don’t want you traumatizing yourself,’” Gaga recalled. “And I said, ‘I already have. I’ve already been through this anyway. I might as well give it to you.’ And he said, ‘Well, leave it here and don’t do this to yourself anymore.’”

Read Billboard‘s full interview with Gaga here.

Time and time again, the word “intuitive” has regularly been used to describe James Gandolfini as both an actor and as a human being. Few people know this better than Animal House actor Peter Riegert, who played the recurring character of Assemblyman Ronald Zellman on several episodes of The Sopranos during seasons 3 and 4.

For Riegert’s final appearance in “Watching Too Much Television,” the seventh episode of season 4, Zellman—a politician and sometimes-colleague of Tony’s—tells the mob boss that he has been dating Tony’s ex, Irina (Oksana Lada), and that he’s in love with her. While Tony initially takes the news well and wishes Zellman well, he has a change of heart at the end of the episode. While driving home, The Chi-Lites’ “Oh Girl” comes on the radio, and Tony’s thoughts turn back to Irina. Moments later, Tony is knocking on Zellman’s door ready to exact violent vengeance against him.

You can see how the scene plays out above, but that’s not how it was initially supposed to go. And according to Insider, it was Gandolfini’s singular intuitiveness that changed the scene and its dynamics. In Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History of The Sopranos, a new book by The Sopranos co-stars Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa, Riegert tells the story of how Gandolfini sensed his discomfort with the scene as it was originally written, and took charge to make sure the actor was ok with how it was filmed.

“I show up at the [table] read and find out what I was going to be doing,” Riegert explains in Woke Up This Morning. “The scene was Tony beating the living sh*t out of me with a belt, but in the scene description, it’s written that he pulls my underwear off” then beat his backside with a belt, all of which made Riegert “unhappy,” especially as the veteran actor was never told that he’d need to appear nude.

“I was going to be naked,” Riegert said. “As far as I’m concerned, I would have liked a heads-up on that.” As Libby Torres writes for Insider:

He recalled that after the table read, Gandolfini came over to check on him. When the award-winning actor learned that Riegert was unhappy with being nude in the scene, he immediately called Chase over to discuss the situation, and according to Riegert, the “Sopranos” creator reluctantly agreed to let Riegert remain semi-clothed.

“I didn’t know whether I was going to get fired or not, but Jimmy [Gandolfini] said to me, ‘Whatever you decide to do, I promise you I will have your back,’” Riegert remembered.

Per Riegert, he ultimately decided to keep his underwear on for the scene. After testing out the prop belt (made of Styrofoam) that Gandolfini was going to use on him, however, he told the late actor that he could “whale away” on him during the beating—thereby humiliating Zellman in a different way.

It’s a powerful scene, made all the more impactful by the way it’s shot—part of it from the ground, looking up at a hulking Tony standing over the camera, belt in hand. But for Riegert, the most memorable part was how Gandolfini had sensed his discomfort, and taken immediate steps to alleviate that.

“At that table read, I didn’t realize that Jim recognized, on my face, that there was an actor in trouble,” Riegert said. “And he made it so it was my choice.”

Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History of The Sopranos is out now.

(Via Insider)