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Nobody should have to deal with this much loss. In the past year, Bay Area rapper Rexx Life Raj lost both his mother and his father and as he’s picking up the pieces of what the future holds, he’s navigating his grief and emotions in song. “Balance” is the first offering from his upcoming album and it’s an ode to his late mother and a powerful overall meditation on loss.

“We are battling obstacles in life and I know it comes with it’s challenges. But to me what separates the good from great is just the way you choose to handle it,” the rapper says on the hook over an affecting guitar and crisp snare drums. It’s an intense reminder of how music can help heal and find yourself amid insurmountable loss.

“Balance was a concept I’d had in my mind for a while because it was something I had been dealing with,” Raj said in a statement. “Trying to juggle being a caretaker, music, businesses, and relationships were weighing heavy on me. I wrote it as an affirmation to myself and hopefully the listener.”

The video plays out like a memory of spending time with his mother. She reads the boy a story, then he accompanies her to the doctor where she gets bad news. The next cut is outside of her funeral and it’s all spliced with footage of a grieving Raj leaned up against a hillside tree, delivering the song’s lyrics in a somber moment. The end of the clip is a cellphone video of Raj in the car with his parents, smiling together and enjoying life.

This is no doubt an impassioned introduction to the next chapter for Rexx Life Raj.

Watch the video for “Balance” above.

Choose your favorite stat from DeMar DeRozan’s eight-game scorcher. They’re all wonderful, an absolute defiance of the way basketball and the randomness of shot-making usually play out.

Sixty-eight percent true shooting. Seventy-seven percent of his shots from midrange. Fifty-nine percent on those shots. Twenty-two points on 82 percent true shooting in 11 clutch minutes across four games, where the Bulls are 4-0 and he’s averaging 38.4 points a night throughout the entire eight games. Extend the parameters to 17 games and he’s averaging 34.4 points on 66.4 percent true shooting. Whew.

During the eight-game run, he’s scored 100 points on 74.6 percent true shooting in 81 fourth-quarter minutes. That’s 44.4 points per 36 minutes. He’s in such a groove that you expect every game to be a continuation of it, but the groove is so outlandish that logic suggests it has to subside soon. But it hasn’t, even amid turbulent lineups.

Chicago’s roster has been demolished by injuries. He’s played some of these games without Zach LaVine, Lonzo Ball, and Alex Caruso. Perimeter defenses are entirely locked onto him, content to let Coby White or Ayo Dosunmu beat them. They’re good players, but you’ll tip your cap if the All-NBA-caliber star is quieted and young guards cook. Instead, they’ve all thrived. Thirty-five points has been his threshold and he’s met it every time during this stretch.

The All-Star break didn’t quell him, either. He scored 37 points on 21 shots in Thursday’s crunch-time win over the Hawks, including 12 points on 5-for-5 shooting (2-for3 at the line) in the final frame and the go-ahead bucket.

Over the years, DeRozan has developed advanced footwork and a collection of dribble moves that prime his pull-up jumpers. Once he begins the dance — whether it’s sweeping crossovers, between the legs hesitations, half-spins into fadeaways, or anything else — variance is the defense’s best ally.

Disrupting his rhythm and walling off the foul-line extended region before he gets there are the paths to containing him. But accomplishing those objectives is a Herculean task when DeRozan’s bag of counters seems endless and he’s often easily within earshot by virtue of his 6’6 frame. He’s relentlessly in control of the push-pull dynamic between defense and offense, while dictating how possessions unfold.

The concept of a “tough” shot differs for every star scorer and player. Many of the “tough” shots teams think they coax DeRozan into — fadeaways, contested pull-ups, whirling turnarounds — are looks he relishes. Slowing this version of him demands reorienting what the definition of tough is as it pertains specifically to him. In the heat of a game or possession, expecting defenders to alter preconceived notions is a lofty ask.

DeRozan is putting together a career season. He wields a strong case for First Team All-NBA. Choosing among him (who is listed as a guard, even if he plays on the wing), Stephen Curry, Ja Morant, and anyone else for just two guard spots is, uh, stress-inducing. Godspeed, voters.

As for the MVP race, DeRozan has earned mention in the conversation, but faces the daunting hurdle of breaking into a race defined by the trio of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, and Nikola Jokic. It’s not diminishing what he’s done if he ends the season elsewhere in the top-5 of MVP — rather, his potential exclusion is a testament to the greatness of his contemporaries and the (scoring) seasons they’ve also put together. Everything DeRozan does this year and is doing over this recent heater warrants considerable praise.

Being recognized as one of the best guards in a given season is incredibly hard and should be celebrated. DeRozan is 32, playing his first year with a new team (who holds the East’s No. 1 seed) and touts a loudly justifiable case for First Team All-NBA. Plainly speaking, all of that kicks ass.

At this point in the year, I hardly find myself jotting down notes when DeRozan drains another bonkers jumper. I know another one is coming soon if I really need to study the details later. None of them are atypical anymore. All I can do is sit on the right side of the bus, smirk, and say “that boy nice.”

We’re just a few months into 2022 and pop culture has already delivered some major moments. So many in fact that we had to whip up a special episode of Culture Quick Bites just to break it all down. You know, for the fans.

Host Drew Dorsey signs on for the job this time, recapping the biggest pop culture plot reveals that this year has given us so far. We’re talking highly-anticipated season finales of shows like Euphoria, Pam & Tommy, and The Book of Boba Fett on Disney+. (We’ll be devastated to see them go but don’t worry, there are hundreds of other shows streaming your way soon.) We’re remembering the fun of Winter Olympics action complete with the reliably hilarious commentary of Saturday Night Live star Leslie Jones. We’re talking about the return of music festival season complete with new shows for the aging millennials who just want to hear My Chemical Romance rock out one more time. And, weirdly enough, we’re also talking about Pancake Day — a national holiday we plan to celebrate by consuming sweet syrups on a bed of delicious carbs … if we can ever figure out the right date.

For all of that, plus an update for gamers on a certain George R.R. Martin collab, check out the video above.

Pondering the entire history of the universe is an overwhelming endeavor for our finite human brains. We have a hard time even conceptualizing “a billion” as a number, much less trying to wrap our heads around the billions of years of the existence of the universe.

It’s even overwhelming just to try to imagine the whole of human history on Earth. There’s just so much of it. Diving into the history of just one country or region is a lot, and the more we zoom in, the more there is to learn.

But what if we zoom way out? Like, waaaayyyy out. How condensed could we make the history of the world if we took a 30,000- foot view of it? And how could we make it educational and entertaining at the same time?

Those are basically the questions Bill Wurtz answered in his video appropriately titled “History of the Entire World, I Guess,” which has been viewed on YouTube more than 139 million times since he posted it in 2017.

Wurtz uses an odd combination of simple animation and graphics, funny descriptions delivered almost in a monotone and some intermittent musical blips to tell the story of the universe from the Big Bang to recent history. And it’s impressively comprehensive for being a quick overview of, well, everything. Wurtz told the H3 Podcast that he spent 11 months researching and writing the video, which he originally hoped would be five to seven minutes long. The final product clocked in at just under 20 minutes, but it’s totally worth it.

The video starts with the basic fact of our individual existence: “Hi. You’re on a rock, floating in space. Pretty cool, huh?” Then it pulls us back to the very beginning of the universe before slingshotting us through the formation of matter, stars, planets, Earth, life on Earth and finally, the entirety of human history. It’s a super high-level overview, and yet you walk away with a better understanding of the basic chemistry, physics, astronomy and geology of the universe, in addition to the geopolitical, religious, military and industrial history of the human race.

It is, in a word, remarkable.

The original video is worth a watch if you’re cool with a handful of f-bombs. The version below has had almost all of the profanity removed to make it more kid- and school-friendly. My own kids have watched it at least a dozen times. Despite how quickly it moves, they get so excited when they recognize some slice of history that they’ve learned about, and they’ve been inspired to learn more about things Wurtz references in the video. They love it.

Honestly, getting this much history into one video and tying it all together in a coherent way is incredibly impressive. And to have so many clever, laugh-worthy moments thrown in for funsies is just delightful. It doesn’t include everything, but how could it? And it can be a little jarring to have huge, devastating events flash by in seconds, knowing how many people’s lives were impacted by them. That’s the nature of the 30,000-foot view, though. It offers a perspective that feels almost disturbingly detached, but it can also help us see our squabbles as momentary blips in the big picture.

All in all, well done, Bill Wurtz.

The Tiger King scriped series has been in production for what seems like forever, and the show finally comes to life next week. Peacock’s Joe Vs Carole takes a deeper look at the Tiger King reality stars Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin after their, uh, fascinating and bizarre Netflix docuseries from 2020.

Starring John Cameron Mitchell and SNL star Kate McKinnon as Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin respectively, the series will explore the complex history between the two rivals, which ultimately leads to Joe Exotic plotting to have Baskin murdered. The show will feature eight episodes, which will all stream exclusively on Peacock beginning Thursday, March 3rd.

Exotic and Baskins had a well-known feud for nearly a decade, which was chronicled in true-crime podcast Over My Dead Body, before becoming a hit Netflix documentary. Exotic is currently sentenced to 21 years in prison.

The series was ordered in early 2020, and after multiple COVID-related delays, it was finally shot last summer and fall, which is why McKinnon was noticeably absent from the first few episodes of Saturday Night Live. McKinnon was joined by Kyle MacLachlan as Howard Baskin, Dean Winters as Jeff Lowe, Nat Wolff as Travis Maldonado, and William Fichtner as Rick Kirkham.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt knows the world of big tech thanks to his experiences trying to raise money with Silicon Valley venture capitalists for his production company, HITRECORD. It’s something he took into his role as Travis Kalanick, the now-former CEO of Uber, for Showtime’s Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber (which premieres Sunday). But that doesn’t mean the star of Looper and Inception is a tech bro fanboy. To the contrary, he demonstrated concern for the culture that made a Travis Kalanick possible when we spoke recently about the series, which comes from David Levian, Brian Koppelman, and Beth Schacter, the minds behind Billions. Concern and curiosity. And who can blame him?

Take a broad view and expand out beyond tech to include adventures in scam artistry and the general efforts of the rich and powerful to game systems and bludgeon rivals with their wallets and you’ve got the aforementioned Billions, Succession, Inventing Anna, The Dropout, White Lotus, and Pam & Tommy — the buzziest shows in the world — all about or adjacent to toxic win culture. All fruit from the tree of The Social Network. All focused on people struggling to retain elements of their humanity while nearly morphing into Gods, their consolation often a golden parachute but sometimes ample legal troubles. What is it about these Icarus things that captivate us so (we’ll have thoughts on that from the Daedalus of Super Pumped, co-lead Kyle Chandler, next week)? It’s a fascinating question and one we got into with Levitt while also exploring how winning is defined within that culture, whether Travis is a villain and a cult leader, and approaching this tale with an eye on not creating an accidental pirate folk hero with too much verve and coolness for our own good.

Everyone knows who this guy is, but there’s a lot here. There’s some nuance, but this is definitely a villain, it feels like. How do you find your way into the character and is it just exhausting to play that much cockiness all the time?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: It’s definitely exhausting. It’s a lot of hard work. I was tired at the end of the day. But it’s also the kind of marathon I’m trained for, man. Like I’m good at this shit. [Laughs] Not to toot my own horn. But also the writing was really good and when the writing’s there it makes it pretty easy.

It’s interesting you say villain because, in a way, I think that’s true. There are a lot of highly questionable decisions and behavior from Travis. To me, what’s more interesting is not an indictment of that one individual human being but rather an exploration of what’s the system? What’s the culture? What are the macro components in place that drive somebody to do this? Ultimately, this is the game that’s been set up for entrepreneurs in our country. Travis just played it really well. Why is that the game? Why are entrepreneurs told that their only priority is to increase value for shareholders… is to grow stock price? “Grow or die,” as he says. Why? Why is that the thing? Why don’t we have an economy that also rewards benefiting the country or the human race as a whole and looking out for people’s wellbeing? And looking at the long-term future? And making sure that the things we’re doing are sustainable? None of that is built into our economy. And that, I think, that’s the problem! If we want to point a finger at, “Oh, this is bad, this is killing us.” It’s not Travis. It’s the larger system that Travis is a product of.

Well, I mean, yes. But while those are all valid and good points. And you’re right, what are the motivations behind those decisions? But a lot of it is just, “how cool would it be to have a hundred billion dollars?” and “How cool would it be to not have to listen to any rules?” And we’ve kind of seen what that looks like in a larger sense. So to me, that’s sort of why I go with a villain [label] because the system is what the system is, but he’s still choosing to exploit that system.

Right. But what else can he do?

Well, I mean, there are people that make the choice to work within the system, work within the rules, make things better.

They don’t win. They don’t win.

What does winning look like though? Is 100 billion dollars winning? Is 50 billion dollars not winning? Is 10 billion? Is it a scale? I guess that’s the question. What is enough success?

Winning is building the thing that everybody’s using. So let’s take Facebook, as an example, or YouTube. These are platforms that currently have established the framework for public discourse right now. They won in that way. They’re the medium through which we all have to conduct our lives, our public discourse, our democracy, our social lives. They state the claim. We can’t just say, “Oh, I won’t use Facebook. I’ll use this other social network that’s not driven by ads.” I mean, you could say that you’ll use that but no one will be on there with you. When a thing has succeeded like that and becomes the winner, the thing that everyone’s using, why does the thing that everyone’s using have to be optimized just for profits? I guess that’s the point that I’m making.

That’s a really good point.

If you don’t just optimize for profits… Why didn’t Vimeo win? Why did YouTube win? YouTube won because it made these decisions that are now the things that are breaking our democracy. Vimeo took the high road. It didn’t allow for the violation of copyright. It didn’t go the advertising route. It made a few of those big decisions. And now Vimeo is Vimeo and YouTube is YouTube. Vimeo came first. It wasn’t that YouTube had the first movers advantage. Vimeo launched before YouTube did.

I don’t necessarily subscribe to this view. But there are people that look at things like Goodfellas, The Sopranos, as having been things that glorified criminal enterprise, the mob. We talk about the system in place with these tech gods. And we all know what happened to this guy with Uber, at least. But is there a worry going into something like this that it becomes part of the cycle? Because some of this stuff, even if it’s still morally stunning to a lot of people, to others, perhaps people in that world, that’s some cool shit that he’s getting to do as this titan getting people to believe in him through these in-office sermons.

Yeah, I think it’s a wonderful question. It’s something I spoke actually at length about with Brian [Koppleman] and David [Levien]. You mentioned Goodfellas, Wolf of Wall Street is another example. And it’s a really important point that I think ultimately gets to the question of what’s the role of entertainment in our culture? And what happens when we’re all paying attention to entertainment, to the exclusion of other kinds of rhetoric?

In order to make this story a work of entertainment, you have to lean into the primal emotional stuff. That’s what makes entertainment, entertainment. And I think that it is totally honest, and I think it is worth acknowledging that that’s why… I think that’s a big part of why these things happen is because they are attractive. They do appeal to our animal selves to just take what you want and fuck everybody else. And there is something attractive about watching that. There’s something attractive about playing that. And that’s why it keeps happening over and over in history.

I don’t think that a work of entertainment can present a holistic argument of why not to do that. Because a holistic argument of why not to do that requires that we kind of set aside some of those primal animal, emotional feelings. And instead, start activating our logic, intuition, hard work, kind of as Daniel Kahneman calls it system 2 thinking. It’s stuff that we don’t want to think about when we sit down and watch TV. If you make a show like that, people won’t watch it because that’s not entertainment. That’s academia or that’s school or that’s work. And so to me, the role of entertainment here is to entertain you. Appeal to those urges, make you feel those feelings and simultaneously ask some questions.

I think an irresponsible version of Super Pumped would be the one that doesn’t ask those questions. That only shows you the fun parts and doesn’t show you any of the downsides. That doesn’t show you Travis’s shortcomings. And this show is unflinching in showing you.

Definitely.

And as glorious as he appears in episodes one, two, and three, he appears… if you watch the end, he’s inglorious for sure. So I love your question and it’s something we were talking about all the time. How do we ride that balance between, hopefully, not inspiring people to do more of this, but also being honest about why? Why all of us humans are drawn to this kind of behavior.

I read that you were cast as [cult leader] Jim Jones. I’m curious, are Travis and people in this position cult leaders, to a certain degree?

I wouldn’t go so far as to call Travis a cult leader like Jim Jones. He [Travis] was a magnetic personality that rallied a lot of people, his team, as well as his drivers.

Well, obviously not to the same level of the thread running to the end there. I just found like the Koresh comment from Kyle Chandler’s character in, I think it was the first episode [of Super Pumped], really interesting. Cause it obviously seems like he believes that they’re cult leaders. [Laughs]

Yeah, it’s really true. First of all, there have always been these figures throughout history. But I think they’re playing an outsized role in our particular era because of how social media currently works. The way the sort of attention economy, the mass surveillance advertising model that optimizes for the kind of lowest common denominator… It plays very well into the hands of cult leaders, authoritarians, et cetera. We’re seeing a rise in authoritarianism throughout the world. Not just the fact that we elected an authoritarian.

It’s just so odd to me that people are drawn to them. They just get tunnel vision when someone speaks with authority and with confidence, it’s very troubling.

Yeah. Well, I think it’s basic human nature. Again, we’re animals. And this is why I think social media has to do with it. And this goes back to the profits at all cost question. Does our current social media frames public discourse to maximize profits? And the best way to maximize profit is to appeal to the most, basic, and sort of universal, human instincts. That’s how you’re going to maximize your profit. If you’re getting a fraction of a penny for every bit of public discourse, you’ll get more, if people are mad or if they’re scared, or if they’re adhering to a strong-man cult leader authoritarian figure that’s going to do better at sucking in all of our monkey brains. Whereas a framework that was trying to optimize for logic, reason, evidence-based, nuanced conversations… you’re making a brain work harder and it’s going to be harder to siphon profits off of that. So this is why I say that these sorts of cult leaders are probably having a heyday right now because they’re swimming in the fishbowl of Facebook and YouTube. And those platforms are why Trump was able to get elected. And, Trump’s not the only one around the world.

‘Super Pumped’ premieres Sunday on Showtime

John Mayer is in the midst of a tour, and so far, COVID has taken its toll on proceedings. A few days ago, Questlove filled in for Mayer drummer Steve Ferrone, who tested positive for COVID. Now, Mayer himself and other band members got COVID, too, so a few upcoming tour dates have been postponed.

In a post sharing the news yesterday, Mayer wrote, “Whelp. More members of the band tested positive for Covid today, and I was one of them. This means we have to reschedule the next four shows, which we’ve already rescheduled and posted above. I’m so sorry to make you change your plans. This is a bummer for everyone in the band and crew, to say nothing of the question hanging over everyone’s head — mine included — as to how I tested positive on PCR twice in two months. (The first was extremely mild, but this one’s got the better of me.) We’ll give you everything we’ve got at these upcoming shows, just as soon as we rest up and regroup. With love and appreciation… me.”

As for the altered shows, they were originally scheduled for tonight (February 25) in Pittsburgh; March 1 in Belmont Park, New York; and March 4 and 5 in Boston. Those concerts have been moved to May 5, 7, 9, and 10, respectively. It appears Mayer’s next show will be at Las Vegas’s The Grand Garden Arena in March 11.

The Russian invasion and deadly bombing of Ukraine has left a lot of people staring at their TV and computer screens and wondering what, if anything, can be done to help. There’s not much direct action for most of us to take, unfortunately, although Chris Evans has called attention to how a former Ukrainian president was poisoned and disfigured while running against a pro-Russia candidate. That’s more than a few other prominent social media users and TV/WWE stars have done. However, the Anonymous collective group of hackers claims to be doing a lot from behind their own screens.

Anonymous, of course, doesn’t exist behind verified accounts on Twitter, given the nature of their anonymity, but they’re apparently standing with Ukraine. One purported Twitter account declared that they’re intending to “change the world” and “stand up against anything.” The account also called for the Russian people to take a stand against this war as well.

The customary “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. Expect us” mantra does not bode well for Russia so far. The group claimed to have breached (and subsequently leaked) database information from the Russian Ministry of Defence.

In addition, the group announced that they took down the RT News website that corresponds to the Russian state (propaganda) TV station of the same name.

The RT News editor-in-chief confirmed (via Twitter) that the site was attacked but that “RT has been able to repel the hit on their servers.”

The decentralized collective can be found across many Twitter handles, but one account in particular is expressing a lot of the group’s apparent rationale. “When the world turns to chaos because of fools leading other fools to violence, we may feel powerless,” they wrote. “Understand together we are not powerless. Even a singular voice of reason in the darkness can be a beacon of light for many. Speak out. Be heard. Be righteous in all that you do.”

And if anyone wants to thank Anonymous, they’re not having it. “No need to thank us, seriously,” they wrote. “We’re just doing what we think is right because if no one stands up against oppression, who will? Everyone should be standing up at this point. We’re in 2022, not 1922.”

Rudy Giuliani may be considered persona non grata by Donald Trump and his cronies, on Fox News, or behind the desk in courtrooms in New York or Washington, D.C., but at least Newsmax still wants him. Even if, based on what he was wearing on Wednesday, he had to duck out of a golf game in order to get some airtime.

In what was a bad look for the already disgraced former New York City Mayor, Giuliani seemed to relish the opportunity to show his face on TV shortly after Russia launched its first attacks on Ukraine. But Rudy wasn’t there to speak ill of Vladimir Putin or the long-brewing tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Nope, he just wanted everyone to know that he blames that “dope” Joe Biden for the current war that’s raging between Russia and Ukraine, as The Independent reports.

“He looks like a weakling,” Giuliani—whose head once leaked a greasy black goo—said of the current president. “He’s always been a weakling. His own cabinet secretary said he’s never gotten anything right in foreign policy. He was always a dope.” Giuliani went on to suggest that the motivation behind Putin’s attacks on Ukraine are actually the Russian president’s way of “testing” Biden. “You don’t think they don’t think he’s demented?,” Rudy asked. “I mean, they’re not silly liberal fools like in America who lie to themselves. So this was going to happen and he did everything he could to create it.”

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has been echoing his own version of this sentiment. In between complimenting Putin for being so “smart” and “savvy,” the former president has been telling anyone who will listen that the Russia Ukraine War “never would have happened” if he were still president. “Had I been in office, not even thinkable. This would never have happened.”

(Via The Independent)

Though this decade feels like it just started, there has been a lot of stuff to talk about since January 1, 2020. We don’t need to get into it, but a lot of us spent the last two years binging show after show, then taking to Twitter to discuss the drama. As it turns out, the show that everyone is talking about is HBO’s hit teen drama Euphoria, which is in its second season.

Ahead of the season finale, a Twitter representative told Uproxx in an email that Euphoria is the most tweeted about show of the decade so far in the US, with 30M tweets around the second season, which is up 51% vs the first season, which aired in 2019.

From Sunday to Sunday, Tweets about the latest Euphoria episode fill the timeline and trend on Twitter — from memes about who could “end Nate Jacobs” to reactions when Rue exposed Cassie. Ahead of the season finale, Twitter reveals Euphoria as the most Tweeted about show of the decade so far in the US with 30M Tweets around the second season (+51% vs. S1).

Twitter’s Head of TV Partnerships Jenna Ross also commented on the acclaim of the series and its dedicated fanbase:

From hilarious memes, to plot predictions and fashion inspiration, Euphoria has dominated Twitter this season. The show has built a strong community of dedicated fans who not only root for their favorite characters and scenes but also openly voice their frustrations and fears, especially as it relates to the fate of characters. Their passion on the timeline, mixed in with live cast Tweets, contributes to the viewing experience every week and has led to Euphoria being the most Tweeted about TV show of the decade so far.

This all comes after the explosive season has spawned a million memes, thanks to the entire internet hating on Nate Jacobs and Maddy roasting Cassie in the girl’s bathroom.

It’s hard to escape spoiler-free conversation, with celebs like Drake and Jack Harlow tweeting out Rue-related memes, so you have to watch live just to keep up. While the season was off to a rocky start, many fans have been praising the show’s breakout star Sydney Sweeney for her Emmy-worthy performance and Zendaya’s gut-wrenching portrayal of Rue. The season two finale airs this Sunday, and HBO has already renewed the series for a third season, which will presumably air sometime next year, and probably break more Twitter records.