Category: Viral

In unsurprising fashion, Drake’s Certified Lover Boy posted a huge debut last week. After delays that stretched out over eight months, the rapper released the album, which came with a stacked lineup of features: Jay-Z, Travis Scott, Future, Young Thug, Kid Cudi, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, 21 Savage, Ty Dolla Sign, and more all appeared on the project. It wound up giving Drake his tenth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, making him one of only eight artists to do so. Now, for its second week on the chart, Certified Lover Boy maintains its position at the top.

Certified Lover Boy held on to the top spot on the Billboard 200 thanks to 236,000 album units for the chart dated September 25. This number is comprised of 227,000 streaming equivalent album units thanks to 305.43 million on-demand streams of the album’s 21 tracks. The album also scored 6,500 pure album sales. It’s only the fourth akbum of his career to spend multiple weeks at No. 1, joining Views, More Life, and Scorpion.

Other highlights on this week’s chart include Kanye West’s Donda at No. 2, Kacey Musgraves’ new album Star-Crossed at No. 3, and Baby Keem’s The Melodic Blue at No. 5.

Certified Lover Boy is out now via OVO Sound/Republic. Get it here.

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

Halsey has a lot going on. The singer just released her fourth album, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. Prior to that, she gave birth to a son, Ender Riley. While she has the right to take a break and enjoy life, she’s already sharing plans for her next move as an artist. She recently took to Twitter to reveal her newest idea.

“One day I wanna press vinyls that are songs from my catalogue based on mood and vibe no matter what LP they were a part of,” she wrote in a tweet before revealing examples of what the vinyls could look like. “Like: “gasoline,” “nightmare,” “killing boys,” “easier than lying,” “the lighthouse,” “EOM,” etc on one.” Another example listed the following songs for another vinyl: “Darling,” “929,” “100 letters,” “forever is a long time,” “finally / beautiful stranger,” and “is there somewhere.”

Halsey went further and gave one last example of the mood-based vinyl. She named “Girl is a gun,” “bad at love,” “honey,” “alanis,” “I hate everybody,” “colors,” and “graveyard” as records that would appear on the collective project. Seemingly excited by the idea, Halsey concluded her message by writing, “Think of the MATERIAL.”

You can view Halsey’s tweets above.

Call of Duty: Vanguard had an open beta for players to get a taste of the multiplayer recently. These beta periods serve a lot of purpose for developers, because they can not only get some immediate feedback on the game but do some stress tests with actual players. Unfortunately, these are also an opportunity for players to expose flaws in the game and one flaw, in particular, has been a continuous problem for the developers of CoD.

Hackers are once again invading a Call of Duty game. Players of Warzone are well aware of the hackers that have been prevalent throughout the game’s history. As developers try to ban and come up with new ways to combat the hacks, ways to get around those safeguards always seem to be popping up. Unfortunately for the developers of Vanguard, it looks like they’ve found a way around whatever safeguards they had for the Beta because hackers have already been spotted throughout the weekend.

Obviously, the players who are caught hacking are going to be banned but this is a part of a much larger issue for Call of Duty and, generally, anyone who plays online shooters. Cheating is more prevalent than ever with the technology surrounding hacking becoming just as, if not more, advanced than most anti-cheat software that is being installed in the game. It leaves developers with two options. Either constantly try to work to stay ahead of these cheaters, which is a challenge in itself, or use anti-cheat devices that while effective are controversial and invade player privacy. Hacking has become such a problem in games like Apex Legends and Titanfall 2 that it has led to players protesting the game and uninstalling it in fear of hacks more malicious than cheating.

For players who aren’t on PC don’t think that this issue doesn’t impact you as well. As more games move towards allowing crossplay these cheaters are now gaining access to lobbies full of console players as well as PC players. This means that nobody is safe from the wave of cheating that is currently taking place in video games. It might not be a crisis right now, but it’s only getting more prevalent and it feels like fewer companies are aware of how to do much more than slow it down. This is a problem that isn’t going away anytime soon. If anything it’s about to get worse.

When Phasmaphobia first came out it surprisingly took the gaming world by storm. Despite being a game still very early in its development life cycle, people clung to its very simple concept. That house is haunted, use these ghost hunting tools at your disposal to try and figure out what kind of ghost it is, fulfill objectives to earn money, and don’t die.

While haunted houses are nothing new in video games, Phasmaphobia had a few very cool ideas that made it unique and fun to play. For starters, the game is best experienced with an active microphone and a group of friends, because the game actually listens to you while you talk. The ghost can respond to what you are saying and the player can even anger it if they start using a few choice words. It also creates tense moments during hunts where the radio cuts out and the players are forced to hide while the ghost looks for a new victim.

That was one year ago, and thanks to Phasmaphobia’s popularity it’s been receiving steady development throughout the year such as patches, bug fixes, and the occasional quality of life update. A recent one actually made the ghosts more challenging, more aggressive, and forces the player to shut off any electronic devices. That update made the game more terrifying, but one particular update to celebrate the anniversary of the game made it a whole lot more fun. Party hats anyone?

Over the weekend, players logging on to Phasmaphobia were greeted with the waiting lobby being full of party balloons and music to celebrate the game being one year old. Also all the players will wear party hats into haunted houses which is hilarious. A stark contrast to the usual setting which is eerily quiet and lends itself to the spooky atmosphere that makes Phasmaphobia so interesting.

Is Phasmaphobia a good game? That depends on who you ask. Some people find the game too janky and buggy to enjoy, but the horror aspects of it can be very spooky. The best way to play it is with a group because it becomes a mix of social bonding and ghost hunting. The best part is that clearly this is a game that developers are committed to improving so getting in early is an opportunity to watch it grow and improve. It also means party hats sometimes. An essential ghost hunting tool.

The Delta variant continues to run roughshod over parts of the nation that still refuse to take the pandemic seriously. (Or maybe it should be called “the DeSantis variant.”) Right now the national hotspot is Mississippi. AP News recently reported that the Southern state has the highest COVID death rate in the country. And when its governor, Tate Reeves, went on CNN Sunday, host Jake Tapper wouldn’t let him duck some very serious questions.

Previously, Reeves had come out against President Joe Biden, who has called for a national vaccine mandate to get cases down. The governor, who also resisted lockdowns early in the pandemic, described it as a “tyrannical-type move.”

But when Reeves showed up on CNN, Tapper was ready. The host pointed out that Mississippi doesn’t just have the worst death rates in the country. “If Mississippi was its own country, you would be second in the world only to Peru in terms of death per capita,” Tapper reminded him. “With all due respect, governor, your way is failing. Are you going to try to change anything to change this horrible statistic from what you’re doing already?”

Did Reeves answer Tapper’s question? Of course not. Instead he suggested the high death rate would lower eventually, claiming it was a “very quick spike” like ones seen in Israel and the United Kingdom. He also attacked Biden, of course.

But Tapper didn’t move on. “My question is, what are you going to do to change this?” Reeves again didn’t answer, putting the onus on people to “protect themselves.”

“So you’re not going to change anything?” Tapper responded.

Reeves eventually said people are singling out “Republican governors” for their handling of the pandemic, failing to note that there’s a reason for that: For the most part, that’s where cases are surging. But it appears the plan of stubborn governors is to just wait it out. In other words, the plan seems to be to do nothing.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Daniel Craig’s final stint as James Bond is finally, after a year-and-a-half delay, hitting theaters in a couple weeks. After No Time to Die drops, the future is unclear for the franchise. Craig’s replacement has still yet to be chosen, although for years many fans have called for one person in particular: Idris Elba. Trouble is, Elba isn’t into the idea. (Or at least he wasn’t back in 2018.) But at least we know he’s a fan of the series.

Over the weekend, an old video started making the rounds. It’s from 1995 and it shows people in the United Kingdom emerging from a showing of GoldenEye, the first Bond film to star Pierce Brosnan, only to be interviewed by a camera crew, asking them about their thoughts on the new 007. “Spot anyone interesting toward the end?” the person who posted it wrote. Sure enough, about 25 seconds in there he is: Idris Elba, circa 1995.

“He’s really good,” says Elba about Brosnan. “He’s got all the charm. He’s got all the looks. And he’s fit and strong and blah, blah, blah. He’s all right.”

At the time, Elba had just broken into the industry, appearing on shows like The Bill, Brammel, even Absolutely Fabulous. The Wire, which would make him famous in America, was still seven years away.

When the video dropped, people online freaked out.

And there were jokes.

Anyway, not too late for Elba to reconsider. After all, he’s got the charm, the looks, etc., too.

(Via THR)

It’s been about a month since Kanye West’s finally released his tenth album, Donda, which arrived after multiple pump fakes, including three listening sessions and numerous un-met release dates. Now West has taken to Instagram to unveil a new video for “Donda Chant,” the album’s big opener. It finds the rapper using clips from the Chicago listening event for the album as well as images of his late mother, who died in 2007.

The video arrives after Mike Dean shared an interesting tidbit about the creative process behind Donda. “Kanye had three listening parties, so each listening party was like a test, kind of,” he said during an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “And after each one, I think he wanted… I can’t talk too much about his process. He took all the information he got from everyone — including online reviews, personal friends’ reviews — and he just kind of digested it all and adjusted the album the way he wants.”

In addition to “Donda Chant,” Kanye has also released videos for “24” and “Come To Life.” Donda also became the rapper’s tenth No. 1 album, making him one of eight artists to do this.

You can watch the video for “Donda Chant” above.

Family Guy has officially left the network that essentially saved it from oblivion more than a decade ago. Saturday marked the final time the Seth MacFarlane show aired on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, the animation showcase that gave it a home after an abrupt cancelation by Fox back in 2003.

Long before the MacFarlane staple was popular enough to spark spinoffs and stretch into Simpsons territory, the show was canceled after only three seasons. But airing on Adult Swim, along with the show’s strong DVD sales, eventually led to it being revived on Fox in 2004, where it has aired consistently ever since.

Family Guy is now slated to run at least 21 seasons, but as of Monday that catalog of 369 episodes and counting will run on Fox and FXX. As The Hollywood Reporter noted, FXX picked up the rights to air reruns, with the final episode running Saturday on Adult Swim, along with a fairly poignant promo bump.

As THR noted, Hulu will continue to be the streaming location for Family Guy, but the full 19 seasons of the show will now air on FXX on Monday–Tuesday (8:00 p.m. – midnight), Thursday (8:00 p.m.–10 p.m.), Saturday (8:00 p.m. – midnight) and Sunday (10:00 p.m.– midnight). The change gives FXX an impressive lineup of animated comedy, with Family Guy joining shows like Archer, Bob’s Burgers and The Simpsons, all airing on the same networks.

Daniel Craig didn’t always seem happy to be James Bond. He’s a serious, classically-trained thespian, and he didn’t always hide his feelings about playing an action hero in a sometimes retrograde franchise. But on his final day on the job in his last Bond movie, Craig got mushy.

A video clip surfaced online recently showing Craig addressing the cast and crew of No Time to Die. (Keep in mind, this is from nearly two years ago, shooting having wrapped in October of 2019.) Clad in a tux, he launched into a short but bittersweet speech.

“A lot of people here worked on five pictures with me,” Craig says, clearly holding back tears. “I know there are a lot of things said about what I think of these films, but I’ve loved every single second of these movies. And especially this one because I’ve got up every morning, and I’ve had the chance to work with you guys. And that has been one of the greatest honors of my life.”

Craig began his tenure as the sixth Bond in the franchise with 2006’s Casino Royale, which took an aging film series in a new and grittier direction. No Time to Die will only be his fifth stint as 007 in 15 years — two less than Roger Moore, one less than Connery (not counting the non-canonical Never Say Never Again), though one more than Pierce Brosnan. It’s still unclear where the series will go next, but, you know, maybe it should be one of the guys who pops up at the end of the video below.

(Via THR)

The New York Jets are a very bad football team and have been for quite some time. Taking a quarterback No. 2 overall wasn’t going to magically fix that overnight, but the Jets did hope that Zach Wilson out of BYU would provide them some promise and stability at that position that they haven’t had since, really, Chad Pennington.

However, things have not gotten off to a great start for Wilson in the NFL, as he has looked the part of a young quarterback playing on a team that is less talented than the rest of the league. However, while his first performance against Carolina was your run of the mill uneven young quarterbacking, his second game against the Patriots was downright awful. In the first 35 minutes of play, Wilson managed to throw not one, not two, not three, but FOUR interceptions, each getting progressively worse.

The first was a ball he forced into traffic under pressure that bounced in the air and got picked. It happens.

The second was a high throw that bounced off Corey Davis’ hands and was, again, picked off the tip. Not a perfect throw but, the old adage in the NFL is if it hits the receivers hands, it’s supposed to be a catch. Alright, that’s one bad luck pick and one unfortunate luck (but forced) one. Just gotta move on.

This is where things go from unfortunate to outright dreadful. This is a pass that is an underthrown duck with no chance to a receiver who is not open. Bad combination.

Somehow, though, that wasn’t the worst of them. That honor belongs to interception No. 4 in which Wilson either overthrows an underneath receiver or underthrows the deep receiver, fluttering a flat-footed ball directly to the DB despite having a clean pocket in front of him.

The last two picks are the most concerning if you’re a Jets fan, as Wilson’s footwork can get very sloppy even when not under pressure and those throws that maybe fell harmlessly at BYU end up getting picked off in the NFL. The good news is he’s not alone in the world of rookie quarterbacks struggling to start the season, as Trevor Lawrence is also piling up the interceptions (albeit with more flashes of great throws sprinkled in between). That said, if, like Sam Darnold famously said early in his time with the Jets, Wilson is seeing ghosts now, that can be hard to shake and it might be a long season in New York for Wilson and the Jets faithful (again).