Category: Viral

With The Daily Show back in full swing, Trevor Noah dove head on into the latest internet freakout over Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. Considering Halle Bailey was cast over three years ago, you’d figure people would have had enough time to come to peace with a Black actress playing Ariel. But when the the first trailer was revealed at D23 over the weekend, The Little Mermaid became the latest target of racist attacks.

Trevor Noah isn’t having it, as seen at the 4:40 mark above.

During Thursday night’s episode of The Daily Show, the late night host blasted people getting worked up about Bailey playing the classic Disney mermaid. “Really, people, we’re doing this again?” Noah asked after playing a news clip of online comments complaining about the casting.

Via The Hollywood Reporter:

After joking that the title character in Finding Nemo is Black because the movie is “about a fish who can’t find his dad,” Noah also delivered a sarcastic swipe at the plot of The Little Mermaid.

“Look, stop being ridiculous,” he said. “It’s imaginary. I hope this scandal doesn’t overshadow the rest of the movie. The Little Mermaid is a beautiful story about a young woman changing her core identity to please a man. Let’s not forget about that, people.”

The attacks on The Little Mermaid arrived on the heels of racist backlash against both House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which recently earned a stern rebuke from Whoopi Goldberg. “Get a job!” The View co-host said last week. “Get a job! Go find yourself, because you are focused on the wrong stuff.”

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Trevor Noah was full of fire on Thursday, as he kicked off The Daily Show with what he described as “one of the most amazing and positive stories involving a billionaire.” He went on to share how Yvon Chouinard, founder of the outdoor brand Patagonia, has donated his $3 billion company to fighting climate change. Then, unfortunately, he was forced to shift gears. “Because while the owner of Patagonia is trying to be the Earth’s biggest advocate, Florida governor Ron DeSantis is trying to be the Earth’s biggest dick.”

While DeSantis was probably already halfway toward that title, thanks to his fights with Disney and millions of everyday Americans over his “Don’t Say Gay” bill, his decision to use human beings seeking a better life in America as political pawns may have just sealed the deal.

Taking a cue from Texas governor and fellow ghoul Greg Abbott, who really seems to have amused himself by putting migrants on buses to Washington, DC, DeSantis really took basic humanity to new lows when he “borrowed” a group of Venezuelan migrants who came into Texas and sent two planes of them to the tiny island of Martha’s Vineyard — a move that prompted documentarian Ken Burns to compare him to Hitler.

What DeSantis might not have expected was that the tiny island community of less than 20,000 year-round residents rallied to welcome the unexpected visitors, and provide them with the food and shelter they needed. While the planes took off from San Antonio, DeSantis’ office proudly took credit for paying for them. Noah was almost at a loss for words in responding to the stunt:

You know, there’s a**holes, and then there’s this guy. No, because you know sometimes someone is so terrible the word ‘a**hole’ doesn’t quite capture their essence enough, you know? ‘Cause everyone is an asshole. Like, my neighbor’s an asshole. Drivers in traffic are assholes. Hell, I’m an asshole. But Ron DeSantis, he’s like the little edges, the little ridges around the asshole, that really catch all the sh*t.

Because he couldn’t show a picture of what that part of one’s rectum looks like, Noah instead shared a photo of a star-nosed mole, “so you know exactly what I’m trying to say.”

Noah’s main point, however, was that DeSantis is the governor of Florida. “So why is he grabbing refugees in Texas and shipping them to Massachusetts? Why, so he can prove that America’s immigration system is broken? Yeah, everyone knows that. But instead of pushing lawmakers to actually reform the system, he’s using taxpayer money to, what, go viral?”

What really pisses Noah off is that “if you told DeSantis to spend the same amount of money helping these asylum-seekers, he’d be like, ‘Oh, we don’t have the funding for that.’ But to troll the Democrats, suddenly he’s like, ‘Put it on my card!’

You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 2:10 mark.

If the writers of Saturday Night Live ever Frankenstein’ed a political candidate, they would probably end up sounding a lot like Herschel Walker. Even before the former NFL running back managed to secure the Republican nomination for Georgia’s Senate, his campaign has been a series of jaw-dropping moments. In between claiming that evolution isn’t real because “there are still apes” and asserting that there are 52 states in the U.S., we’ve learned about a lot of “secret children” he has fathered. Yet, just yesterday, Newsweek reported that he is at the top of the polls in Georgia — the same state that proudly claims Marjorie Taylor Greene as one of its own. But one person who isn’t a fan of the one-time football great? Cedric the Entertainer.

Earlier this week, the noted comedian held an impromptu roast of Walker, which The Washington Examiner notes was courtesy of the Progress Action Fund, a group that works to turn red states blue. As Cedric told viewers, it’s time for all of us to “fight against the ignorance that’s going on out there, especially in the state of Georgia.” He was only just getting started:

Lord, you know they said ‘Life is like a box of chocolates’? Well, Hershey’s Walker is one of these chocolates that you don’t want. You know the ones where you get a box of chocolates and you be, like, [gagging]? That’s him.

But Ced wasn’t all jokes. Referencing some of the more ludicrous (and outright incorrect) statements Walker has made, Cedric noted that “we just gotta be very concerned about the educational system, one.” He also noted that we’ve already got politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene — who’s “crazier than a mug” — running around out there, and “we don’t need to add no more crazy to that mix, you hear me? Especially not with the haircut and the extra muscles.”

Cedric went on to list some of Walker’s more bonkers theories, including the evolution bit and his whole bit about our “bad air.”

“What, bruh?,” Cedric asked. “I don’t know what this man’s talking about. Guys: We gotta defeat him, we gotta beat him. We gotta STOP him!”

You can watch the full video above.

(Via The Washington Examiner)

It’s been five years since the release of Paramore’s latest album, After Laughter. Of course, bandleader Hayley Williams has given fans a lot in the meantime, such as fantastic solo albums and a podcast about emo. However, a new Paramore album has been desired for a while. After some teasing earlier this year, they’ve at last announced a new song called “This Is Why” out September 28.

The “Ain’t It Fun” performers shared this announcement on Twitter, along with the artwork and the pre-order link.

In January, Williams revealed through email to Rolling Stone that they were working on the album and it was not necessarily a “comeback ’emo’ record.” She added, “The music we were first excited by wasn’t exactly the kind of music we went on to make. Our output has always been all over the place and with this project, it’s not that different. We’re still in the thick of it but some things have remained consistent from the start. 1) More emphasis back on the guitar, and 2) Zac should go as Animal as he wants with drum takes.” The trio has been teasing this album since last year when they posted screenshots of their text conversation about “Paramore 6.”

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

A few months back, I asked if it was too soon to call Barbie the most important movie of 2023. The answer was “no” then and it’s still “no” now, because never before in cinema history have Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling played Barbie and Ken, respectively, in a movie directed by three-time Oscar nominee Greta Gerwig. That’s history right there, you understand. But if my anticipation was a 10 out of 10, it’s now down to 9.5 after learning who was supposed to be in Barbie but had to bail due to a scheduling conflict.

“I was supposed to do a cameo because I live in London and they were [filming] there,” Saoirse Ronan told People. “There was a whole character I was going to play — another Barbie. I was gutted I couldn’t do it.” Her filming schedule for The Outrun made it impossible, but Ronan has since texted Robbie, her Mary Queen of Scots co-star, and Gerwig, who directed her in 2017’s Lady Bird and 2019’s Little Women, asking, “If you’re doing any pick-up [shots], maybe I can just walk through the background?”

What do Vito Corleone, the Joker, and Anita from West Side Story have in common? They’re the only characters to win Oscars with two different performers (Marlon Brando in The Godfather and Robert De Niro in The Godfather Part II, etc.). That’s impressive, but even more iconic would have been Robbie and Ronan, who have been up for a combined six Oscars, both receiving nominations for playing Barbie in the same year.

Ronan took pity on the competition, but it’s still a Barbie world — get used to it.

Barbie, which also stars Simu Liu, Kate McKinnon, America Ferrera, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Michael Cera, Issa Rae, and Will Ferrell, opens on July 21, 2023.

(Via People)

Ahead of her tenth studio album Midnights dropping October 21, Taylor Swift has shared the back covers of the four limited edition vinyl versions (jade green, moonstone blue, blood moon, and mahogany), which, when placed in an order sequence, resemble a clock. The pop star is also currently selling a clock assembly kit via her online store, where fans who buy all four records can make their own. The record holders on the clock also spell out none another than Swift’s key phrase of this album era, “Meet me at midnight.”

“Alright, I’ve been wanting to show you this for a while. So we have four different covers for the Midnights album. And if you turn them over, there is obviously a back cover to each one of them, they’re each different,” she shared in a video released last night. “What I wanted to show you is that if you put all the back covers together… She’s a clock. It’s a clock. It’s a clock, it makes a clock. It can help you tell time.”

As the video was also uploaded to Swift’s Twitter, many fans took notice of both her retro-inspired outfit in the video and the backdrop of the room she was in, sparking speculation that it was recorded from a music video set.

“blue screen out the window, bright lighting, glittery makeup, guys guys guys taylor swift is filming a music video,” one user wrote.

Others pointed out that the wooden paneling in the background might be the same that Swift used in the Midnights photoshoot. While the album has yet to have a lead single or tracklist reveal, Swift still has the fans counting down the days… or staying up until midnight each night until something else happens.

Midnights is out 10/21 via Republic. Pre-order it here.

Drake gets into some beef every now and again, and now his latest feud is with Anthony Fantano, the music critic best known for his popular YouTube channel The Needle Drop. How it all happened is a bit confusing, though.

Last night (September 15), on his personal YouTube channel, Fantano uploaded a video titled “Drake Slid Into My DMs,” in which he shares a nice-spirited and clearly fake series of Instagram messages from Drake, in which the rapper shares a vegan cookie recipe. Not long after the video went live, Drake took to his Instagram Story to share a screenshot of the real DMs he actually sent to Fantano, which read, “Your existence is a light 1. And the 1 is cause you are alive. And cause you somehow wifed a black girl. I’m feeling a light to decent 1 on your existence.”

Fantano took to Twitter to celebrate, sharing an image of a W and writing, “That b*tch shared the salty ass DM to over 100 million people. [crying laughing emojis].” He added in another tweet, “I made that man leak his own DMs. [crying laughing emojis].”

It’s not clear what exactly prompted Drake’s messages, but Fantano has often given the rapper’s album negative reviews, most recently with this year’s Honestly, Nevermind, which he deemed “not good.”

Once the dust had settled, Fantano took to Instagram Live to break down the timeline of how this all happened. Fantano said this situation started with him receiving an Instagram message request from Drake late Wednesday (September 14) night. In his explainer, Fantano throws shade back at Drake throughout, saying at one point, “A couple of things were running through my head. One: Why is Drake messaging me? I’m not 18 years of age. That’s kind of weird.”

Fantano also wasn’t impressed by Drake’s insults, saying, “This is why he has ghostwriters. That is the quality of insult you get when that man is working solo-dolo. If I wanted a good insult in my inbox, he would have to have paid somebody else to come in and do it.”

As for the progression of events from there, Fantano said he decided to make his video with the fake DMs (a “silly sh*tpost,” as he called it), then Drake shared the DMs on Instagram. In the screenshot Drake shared, Fantano had left him on read, although Fantano did note he has since responded to Drake’s message, saying he asked him, “When is the interview?”

He later concluded, “He was so angry that he got left on read, he had to leak his own DMs. Leak his own DMs! That’s sad. That’s unfortunate. That is a sorry state of affairs. That is a sorry state of affairs, that you couldn’t bait me in the DMs, so you had to show the whole world, you had to show the whole… ‘Look, I messaged him…’ [laughs] What is he saying by sharing that? ‘Look look look, I messaged this man in the middle of the night yesterday to try to pick on him’ [laughs]. Like it’s the schoolyard. Like it’s school. This is not Degrassi [laughs]. […] We should both be adults, being adults, doing adult things. So, too funny. Silly. Silly, silly.”

Check out Fantano’s explanatory Instagram Live broadcast below.

In recent years, Fred Armisen (previously the drummer for punk band Trenchmouth) has really leaned into music when it comes to his comedy. In 2018, for example, he released the comedy album Standup For Drummers. When he pops up on late-night TV, he tends to address similar topics, like he did on The Tonight Show yesterday, much to the delight of The Roots drummer Questlove.

On the show, Armisen had a bit in which he impersonated different types and eras of drummers. Taking to a kit set up on the stage, he began with an “Instagram drummer,” who he noted have a lot of “gimmicks” on their kits, which got an off-screen laugh from Quest as he explained it and played.

Armisen then went through how he drummed during different periods of his life, and while the astuteness and humor of the observations may be lost on non-drummers, Questlove got it, as he could be seen smiling and laughing and nodding in agreement at various points in the routine.

Elsewhere on the show, Armisen sat down for an interview with Jimmy Fallon, in which he showed off a not-so-magical magic trick as well as a number of different Spanish accents.

Check out the segment on The Tonight Show above.

If there’s some things Blackpink can do, it’s shutting down the internet and shutting down their haters. And, ironically, that’s exactly what happened the moment K-pop powerhouses revealed the striking music video to “Shut Down.”

Surpassing 2 million views in 10 minutes, Blackpink’s new lead single off their newest studio album Born Pink is a refresher to the Blinks from day 1, a crash course for the new ones and a clapback to haters and some. As the group rang in their sixth year in the industry last month, the themes of “Shut Down” can play off as a celebration to Blackpink’s power in the music industry and a big flip-of-the-finger to the haters and wannabes since debut.

Sets with posters and signage that reference their past hit singles, the individual sets that pays homage to past eras, and just the lyrics themselves (“It’s not a comeback since we never left,” or, “Praying for my downfall / many have tried, baby,” or, “Bunch of wannabes that wanna be me / Me three if I was you”) symbolizes the Blackpink’s global success as a group and individually.

As Blackpink’s Born Pink era has officially begun, we’re not the only ones feeling the excitement for the promotion cycle, the content to come and the world tour (here’s how to buy them, by the way), these are some top reactions we came across on Twitter.

“Shut Down” was written and produced by YG Entertainment’s in-house producer TEDDY and co-produced by 24. The group is set to perform live on Jimmy Kimmel next Monday, September 16.

EST Gee’s new album I Never Felt Nun is out now, and listeners are very pleased with a certain hometown collaboration on there. Gee’s fellow Louisville lyricist Jack Harlow, with whom he has collaborated three times already, appears on “Backstage Passes” and it has fans reflecting on their overall body of work together.

Harlow opens the record saying “I became what you fantasized about becomin’ / Had to quit sendin’ music out ’cause somebody f*ck around and leak somethin’ / Every girl that I’ve messed with knows what’s up but they keep comin’ / Pretty sure at this point they don’t want to know the secrets I keep from ’em.”

Gee joins the song around the one-minute mark and trades lines back and forth with the “First Class” rapper before taking off on his own. “Lights camera action / Don’t stop, keep goin’, it’s relaxin’ / You ain’t comin’ on tour, how you actin’? / She seen my Con’, got to ask me,” Gee raps.

“Backstage Passes” has fans saying that the two have never missed on a song together and some fans are even requesting a collaborative project, which Gee has spoken on before. Their previous records together include “The Department,” “Rotten,” and “Route 66.” With such an impressive track record and Gee’s seal of approval, a joint project between the two may not be such a far-fetched idea.

Check out “Backstage Passes” and the fans’ reactions above.

I Never Felt Nun is out now via CMG and Interscope. Listen here.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music Artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.