Category: Trending

What do The Bear and Mad Men have in common? For one thing, they’re both very good shows. And one of the things that makes them both very good shows is another similarity: the refreshing lack of “will they, won’t they” between the male and female leads. There was no romantic tension between Don and Peggy on Mad Men; that’s also true of Carmy and Sydney on The Bear, although there’s some weirdos out there who want they to get together.

Sorry, but ain’t happening, according to Ayo Edebiri. The actress — who is having a year to remember with roles in The Bear, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Bottoms, and Black Mirror — told the Hollywood Reporter that the fan theories among Carmy-Sydney shippers can be “frustrating.” She added, “It’s really not our thought process when we’re making the show, and I understand it can be part of a show’s culture — but I don’t think they’re going to get what they want.”

Edebiri brought up not Mad Men, but another AMC drama when discussing whether sad-eyed Carmy should be romantically involved with anyone. “It’s TV, do you want to see Walter White go to therapy and then reunite with his family?” she joked. If Edebiri plays the therapist, then yes. I want to see that.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

City Girls’ JT is never one to hold back, and her recent Instagram Live was no exception. While she was chatting to fans earlier this week, one reportedly asked the rapper to send some merch — which she quickly addressed.

“Stop begging,” JT told the fan and the audience, according to HipHopDX. “You know what I don’t like? When a motherf*cker scared to beg a man but they’ll get on here and beg me. Don’t ask me for sh*t you won’t ask a man for, baby. Don’t ask me for nothing you won’t ask a man for. If you ain’t got no courage to ask the man that you texting or talking to for anything… do not think you can ask me for it because I ain’t got it just like that man.”

“The thing is don’t ask me for nothing that you can’t ask that man,” she added. “How bout you ask that man to buy you some merch? When the site open back up, boom. There you go.”

Those who have since seen the video aren’t fully here for JT’s reaction either, with one user responding, “These new artists can’t perform for sh*t & go out their way to alienate fans.” Another added, “I’d say she too fine to be so corny.”

Check out a clip of JT’s merch advice above.

In a feud that’s possibly more ridiculous than Zuck v. Musk (with the latter having yet another new excuse about why he probably cannot fight), the stare down between meatball Ron DeSantis and California Governor Gavin Newsom is also growing laughable. Granted, the two governors have been at each other’s throats from afar for over a year. Last week, however, Newsom challenged DeSantis to a debate for what goal?

That’s not entirely clear, but DeSantis talked a big game in the immediate aftermath: “I’m game, let’s get it done, just tell me when and where.”

Not so fast, though. Neither has technically pulled out as of yet, but DeSantis list of alleged demands borders on the truly ridiculous, as if he’s almost taunting Newsom to call this thing off. DeSantis is no minimal-rider type of Ice Spice performer, either. Nor is he as cool-irate as Jack White with the guacamole recipe. Maybe he’s more like an early-day Bieber? Nope, still not as cool there, either.

There are no lists of colored M&M’s here, and it’s not technically a “rider,” but DeSantis requires a cheering section and more, according to an irritated Newsome spokesperson, via The Independent:

“What a joke,” Mr Newsom’s spokesperson, Nathan Click, said in a statement. “Desantis’ counterproposal is littered with crutches to hide his insecurity and ineptitude — swapping opening statements with a hype video, cutting down the time he needs to be on stage, adding cheat notes and a cheering section.”

He added that “Ron should be able to stand on his own two feet,” and that “it’s no wonder Trump is kicking his a**.”

To be fair, the GOP is so broken and MAGA-ridden that Trump would probably be leading no matter who the candidate pool included for 2024, so DeSantis could never live up to that (low) bar. Still, if you are gonna unfurl a list of silly demands before you’ll step on that stage, at least add some chunky guac to the mix. Because at that point, why not.

(Via The Independent)

Cocoa, the key ingredient found in your favorite chocolate bar, has been a highly revered food product throughout human history. It’s been used for religious ceremonies in Peru, royal feasts in England and France, traded as currency for the ancient Mayans. And considering that many of us enjoy chocolate on a regular basis (mochas and candy bars, anyone?) it seems like that love is still going strong even today.

And if you are someone who looks forward to that sweet chocolate pick-me-up on a regular basis, you likely have the women of West Africa to thank.

Women like Barbara Sika Larweh, a mother of six who works as a cocoa farmer in Larwehkrom, a community located within the Sefwi Wiawso Municipality in the Western North Region of Ghana.

Mama Cash now empowers other women to gain independence

Nearly 60% of the world’s cocoa comes from both Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, where Barbara and other mothers make up over half of the labor force. These female cocoa farmers shoulder the same physical burden as their male counterparts—all while also running households and paying for their children to go to school. And yet, they typically don’t receive equal income. Nor do they have access to the resources that could help them achieve financial independence.

Thankfully, positive changes are taking place. Barbara’s story exemplifies the impact of programs offered by CARE and Cargill, such as Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA), which are small groups that offer low-interest loans to individuals living in poverty, helping them to build savings without going into devastating debt.

Through these initiatives, women, like Barbara, are equipped with vital knowledge like financial literacy to improve household incomes, sustainable agriculture practices that improve yields, and nutrition education to diversify their family’s diets.

“They came and trained me on the VSLA. I dedicated myself and volunteered so that I would be able to train my people, too,” Barbara explains.

Within the first year of using the programs, Barbara and the people she trained profited—earning her the nickname of “Mama Cash.”

This is no isolated event. In cocoa-growing communities supported by CARE and Cargill programming between 2019-2022, the number of households living below the national poverty line decreased by nearly 32% in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana – as a direct result of increasing and diversifying income through using these programs.

Like Barbara, who today is an executive member of the Community Development Committee, more than 2.4 million women have used their success as entrepreneurs to transform into leaders and decision-makers within their communities. Whether it’s giving most of their earnings back to their families, reducing child labor, or exponentially increasing overall farm yields, the rippling effect is profound.

The impact of the CARE and Cargill partnership goes beyond empowering cocoa farmers. The joint initiatives have fostered progress on complex global issues related to social justice, such as gender equality, climate change, and food security. By improving access to quality nutrition, water, and hygiene, the joint programs have positively influenced the cocoa communities’ well-being.

Suddenly there’s a lot more to think about the next time you eat a candy bar.

Find out more about the important partnership between CARE and Cargill here.

Last year proved to be a breakthrough year for singer and instrumentalist Steve Lacy. The multi-talented Lacy earned his first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 song with his hit single, “Bad Habit,” which had previously gone viral on TikTok. But before landing his big break with “Bad Habit,” Lacy had already garnered a large fan base as a member of The Internet, and as a producer for artists like Vampire Weekend, Mac Miller, and others.

He released his debut EP, Steve Lacy’s Demo in 2017, and took to Tumblr to chat with fans. One fan asked if Lacy would be open to dating men, to which he responded, “Sure, why not?”

Shortly after, any outlets reported this as Lacy coming out as bisexual. In a recent interview for Variety, Lacy said that he didn’t consider this a coming out, nor did he really care to make such an announcement at the time.

“But I didn’t really come out,” Lacy says now. “I didn’t try to — it just kinda happened. I don’t care to announce who I’m into sexually. I think it’s silly. I never felt like I needed to come out.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Lacy said that his queerness doesn’t necessarily inspire his art, nor does he feel he needs to be representative of any specific community.

“I never care to speak for anyone else, because I think all of our experiences are so different from each other,” Lacy said. “I guess I have a selfish perspective of myself in the world, and I’m just expressing myself. I’m not necessarily doing things for other people to feel good about themselves.”

Morning Joe wasted no time tearing into Republicans after a new bombshell report showed that Donald Trump and his inner circle knew that his efforts to overturn the 2020 election wouldn’t make it past the Supreme Court.

In a memo published by The New York Times, Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro acknowledged that the strategy to have then Vice President Mike Pence obstruct the election results process was “bold, controversial” and “likely” to be rejected even by Trump’s handpicked justices. However, the gambit “would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and ‘buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.’”

After learning of the report, Joe Scarborough was furious. The Morning Joe host likened the scheme to Russia’s election interference efforts in 2016 and blasted Republicans for continuing to remain silent.

Via Raw Story:

You shame yourself every day. You shame yourself every day if you don’t see a linkage here, if you don’t see the linkage of the Russians trying to sow confusion, and then Donald Trump on his own, learning from people that he’s always admired, on his own, to just create a process that will sow confusion, that’s illegal, that will sow delay, and if he’s lucky, will create riots in the streets, and they can use the Insurrection Act to declare martial law.

“You call it free speech!” Scarborough said. “I call it un-American, and guess what, most Americans agree with me and not you. You’re disgusting! You’re absolutely disgusting if you’re going to forgive this type of behavior.”

The fired up Morning Joe host then proceeded to call out Republicans for their obsession with Hunter Biden.

“You talk about, oh, two standards of justice, and then you’re silent as Donald Trump threatens a federal prosecutor, an officer of the United States court system, saying, ‘I’m coming after you’ – silence.”

(Via Raw Story)

The Asian Hall Of Fame has unveiled their list of 2023 inductees, giving nods to sixteen big names across multiple industries, including music, business, video games — Nintendo (yes, the company) — and more. From the entertainment realm, Blackpink’s Lisa (Lalisa Manoban) is included as a “cultural icon,” according to Billboard.

Tokimonsta (Jennifer Lee) is a Grammy-nominated EDM producer who is on this year’s inductee list. One band, Far*East Movement, who some might recognize for their hit “Like A G6,” are also being included.

Ryuichi Sakamoto is an Oscar winner for Best Original Score for The Last Emperor, although he passed away in March and will be honored for his life achievements.

Freddie Mercury is also earning a posthumous induction for his clear impact as the lead performer of Queen and societal reach beyond that (Mercury’s parents were from India). Finally, Johnny Cash, although not having Asian heritage, is being recognized as an artist ambassador after passing away in 2003.

“Inductees and artist ambassadors inspire courage, character, and service for the betterment of our country and humanity,” Maki Hsieh, the Asian Hall Of Fame’s President and CEO, shared in a statement via the publication.

This year’s ceremony will be held at Los Angeles’ Biltmore Hotel on October 21, with tickets, sponsorships, and the full list of inductees available via their official website.

Donald Trump, who doesn’t believe in exercise because he thinks a person is born with a “finite amount” of energy and claims to know the McDonald’s menu better than the people who work there, called Chris Christie a “fat pig” during a rally in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

“He’s eating right now, he can’t be bothered,” the former president joked about his GOP rival from New Jersey. He then pointed to a person in the crowd and said, “Sir, please do not call him a fat pig. That’s very disrespectful. Don’t call him. See, I’m, I’m trying to be nice. Don’t call him a fat pig. You can’t, you can’t do that. So now, because you’re not allowed to do that, and therefore we’re not gonna do it, OK? We want to be very civil, right?”

Trump is now claiming he was actually “extremely respectful” of Christie because he was defending him from being called a “fat pig,” you see.

“I was extremely respectful of Sloppy Chris Christie today in New Hampshire,” he wrote on Truth Social following the rally. “During a speech in front of a large crowd of Patriots, somebody shouted out that ‘Chris Christie is a fat pig.’ Rather than acknowledging that, which many speakers would have done, I said, ‘No, No, he is not a fat pig.’ I’m sure Chris would have been very happy with my defense of him!”

Narrator voice: he wasn’t.

(Via the Daily Beast)

Taylor Swift continued her The Eras Tour run at SoFi Stadium last night (August 8) and the stars were out: Celebrities like Emma Stone, Taylor Lautner, Austin Butler, Laura Dern, Adam Scott, and Jeff Goldblum were spotted at the concert. Selena Gomez was there, too, and she appeared to have a particularly great night.

One particularly touching video from the show shows Gomez and little sister Gracie sharing a warm hug. As Swift sang “Lover,” Gracie appeared to be overwhelmed with emotion and Gomez sung along with Swift.

Elsewhere, Gomez shared a photo of all the friendship bracelets she got from fellow Swifties at the concert, enough bracelets to cover about half of her forearm. “Thank you to the fans that traded with me,” she wrote on her Instagram Story.

Gracie has proven herself to be a major Swiftie, and luckily for her, her big sister is actually pals with Swift. At an Eras Tour show in April, Gracie and Swift had a gift exchange during the show, with Gracie receiving a hat in return for a friendship bracelet. Upon the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), Gracie went as far as to dye her hair purple, as Gomez documented in a video.

There are a lot of people talking about lessons lately when it comes to movies. Specifically, what we’ve seen from the combined box office strength of both Barbie (a movie that’s now made over a billion dollars) and Oppenheimer. There are the right lessons. Oh, then there are those wrong lessons. And who or what is going to learn a lesson. And if it will be one of those aforementioned right lessons or wrong lessons. Lessons! Wading through all the lessons, the conventional wisdom of “right lessons” seems to be somewhere along the side of more original films by great filmmakers. And, I guess, technically, those labels could be used for both Barbie and Oppenheimer, though, you know, Barbie isn’t exactly a brand new character but, for the sake of all this, sure. The wrong lessons seem to fall into the category of making clones of both movies or more sequels and doubling down on IP. Though, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that if there’s any lesson to be taken from the success of both Barbie and Oppenheimer, it’s that there is no lesson.

Last week I saw Meg 2: The Trench at a theater on the Lower East Side that I had only been to once before in my life. (But one I’ll never forget: Seeing an early screening of A Quiet Place Part II there on March 5, 2020. The next movie I’d see in a theater of any kind would be May 6, 2021.) As I was in the lobby, waiting to see Jason Statham do battle with a massive prehistoric shark (again), a woman came into the theater by herself wearing a bedazzled “Barbenheimer” t-shirt. She stopped near a Barbie poster, took a selfie, then went on her way. For whatever reason, this knocked me out of my “movie bubble” a bit. No matter what profession you’re in, when it comes to something that involves that profession, you’re only going to come to think of it in terms from that profession. That it must be something that can be controlled or harnessed by the forces of the companies that make this product. That customers for this product are telling something to those companies with their wallets. But, what if they’re not? I started thinking about this from outside the movie bubble.

Remember being “Iced”? If you don’t remember (oh, and lucky you, by the way), back in 2010, basically on command, someone would hand an unsuspecting person a Smirnoff Ice. The person now in possession of the Smirnoff Ice had to kneel and drink the whole thing. Pictures and videos of someone being iced would then be posted on social media. This caused a big spike in people buying Smirnoff Ice. This is what’s happening with Barbie and Oppenheimer. It’s become a cool thing to do on social media and it just happens, this time, to involve movies. Sometimes it does! Like when people started dressing up in suits to see Minions: The Rise of Gru. But it’s too unpredictable and almost impossible to replicate. It’s like trying to predict the phenomenon of planking. (Ken would no doubt be good at planking. And Icing, actually.) Or when people were dumping buckets of cold water over their heads for charity. Chasing trends rarely works out.

I’m sure every liquor company had meetings on how they could replicate “being iced.” I can see, say, a suit at Mike’s Hard Lemonade being like, “Hey, what if instead of being Iced, we tell people they should be Miked instead!” And I’m sure this was met with a lot of pleased executives who all went to work on this project that of course never happened. I promise every nonprofit had meetings about how they, too, could create their own version of the ice bucket challenge. “Wouldn’t it be great if our charity went viral?” Yes, that certainly would be great. But it didn’t happen. And the thing is, most people who work at studios know this. They know the combination of these two movies became a social media sensation and there’s no real way to replicate that. But that doesn’t mean they won’t get orders from some executive who doesn’t understand the randomness of the trends that become popular on social media. Someone, right now, is being told, “Make it happen again” fully knowing that it’s impossible. Like videos of the Harlem Shake, people will eventually find something new. There will be no “Strays Turismo” coming later this month.

Have you ever had a tweet (I’m sorry, an X) in mind you just know will take off, but then you post it (“that’s gold!”) and it gets maybe 15 likes and dies a humiliating death, while something fairly benign that you post later actually does go viral? (To this day, one of my most popular tweets was a picture of a Han Solo bookmark I got off eBay, mailed inside a DVD case for Halle Berry’s Catwoman. No clue why.) My point is that what’s happening right now is almost impossible to actually manufacture. And that’s not to even imply either of these movies wouldn’t have done well on their own without the added plus of becoming a social media phenomenon. And both of these movies being actually good and getting great reviews probably did help extend what’s happening. But people who never go to the movies are going to the movies right now because they want to be part of an online event. With this specific phenomenon, there really aren’t any lessons. It’s like trying to explain why planking was such a huge deal that it became an entire cold open for an episode of The Office. If you love that people are going back to theaters in droves to see Barbie and Oppenheimer, just be happy this time it doesn’t involve having to chug a bottle of a citrus-flavored malt beverage.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.