Category: Viral

The NBA is officially (finally) headed back to NBC. After months of reporting about verbal agreements, the league finally announced the full framework of their new 11-year, $77 billion national media rights deal (which includes the WNBA) with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon. TNT attempted to match Amazon’s package, but the NBA declined their offer, noting a number of areas in which TNT/Max are unable to match what Amazon is promising to deliver.

As a result, there’s still some likely litigation to come on the Amazon/TNT section of the deal, but NBC is locked in and will now spend the Olympics hyping up their new NBA package starting in 2025 — with, yes, the return of “Roundball Rock”. As such, NBC will begin putting its plan in place for their crew in the weeks to come, and with games on three nights per week — Sundays and Tuesdays on NBC, Mondays on Peacock — they’ll need multiple broadcast teams plus a studio show.

The plan is to build out their Sunday Night Basketball package like Sunday Night Football, rolling straight from NFL season into the NBA stretch run on Sunday nights in February. That means an hour-long pregame show and TBD plans for postgame, as nightly news cuts into what they can do after, but Peacock offers a place for a lengthier window. As for the talent, NBC will have to make a number of external hires on the analyst side, but they have at least one play-by-play locked in, as NBC Sports president Rick Cordella told Richard Deitsch of The Athletic that the plan is for Mike Tirico to be the “A” team play-by-play announcer.

Tirico was previously in that role with ESPN and ABC, calling multiple NBA Finals, and it seems he’ll slide straight from the SNF booth next to Cris Collinsworth straight into the lead NBA team — how this impacts the other sports Tirico is involved in, namely golf, is also not quite known. The other questions will be whether he calls games on Tuesdays during the NFL season at all, and also how they fill out the rest of their team.

Maria Taylor would make a ton of sense to go from hosting Football Night in America to Basketball Night in America (assuming they stick with that branding), as she was previously ESPN’s top studio host for NBA coverage. Beyond that, Noah Eagle will call Olympics basketball alongside Dwyane Wade this summer, which could be a bit of an audition for one of the NBC play-by-play slots. NBC would almost assuredly love to keep Wade involved, but it’s not clear if he’s up for another full-time analyst gig after walking away from his role at Turner after a season. From there, most of the TNT broadcast teams seem likely up for grabs, with big names like Kevin Harlan, Ian Eagle, Reggie Miller, and Stan Van Gundy all without an NBA gig after next season — Amazon has already been linked to interest in Eagle for their top booth.

Studying a language other than your own native tongue is always a trip. Wrapping your head around completely different grammar and syntax rules, trying to create sounds your mouth isn’t used to, sometimes learning entirely new alphabets (or characters when there is no alphabet)—all just to be able to communicate with more of your fellow human beings. (Seriously, when are we going to decide on an actual universal language?)

Linguistics is wild, as evidenced by Japanese teacher Hikari’s video demonstrating what Japanese introductions would sound like if they were translated literally into English.

One of the first greetings you learn in Japanese is “hajimemashite,” which is generally interpreted as “Nice to meet you,” or “How do you do”—something you say when you meet someone. But the literal meaning of the phrase is “at the beginning” or “first time,” which of course sounds odd in English. (Similarly to if you were to literally translate “How’s it going?” from English to another language, the understood meaning of “How are you feeling right now?” wouldn’t come through, since the words “it’ and “going” have nothing to do with how you’re feeling.)

Then there are name introductions, which seem like they should just be straight up names, but aren’t because of what they mean. “I’m Under the Forest.” “I’m Inside the Field.” Huh? And wait til you see how they share their ages. Watch:

If Americans spoke like Japanese #japanese #japanesebelike #japaneselanguage #japaneseculture

To make things a little clearer, the name “Under the Forest” is almost certainly Morishita, a common last name in Japan. (Japanese people generally introduce themselves by last name.) The translation “under the forest” comes from Chinese characters used in Japanese, Kanji, that most Japanese last names are written in. Morishita is 森下 in Kanji, with 森 (mori) meaning “forest” and 下 (shita) meaning “below” or “under.” “Inside the Field” would be the name Tanaka, with a similar explanation, but with different characters.

As far as ages go, that’s a whole other cultural quirk. In Japan, time is separated into imperial eras based on whoever the emperor is, and each era has a name. “Shining harmony 63” means she was born in 1998, or the 63rd year of the Shōwa (“shining harmony”) era. Moons are months, and days are, well, days.

Japan is the only country where Japanese is an official language, but thanks to the tech boom there in the 80s and 90s and the rise of the popularity of anime worldwide, the Japanese language has seen continually growing interest outside the archipelago nation. According to University of Pittsburgh, there are around 125 million Japanese speakers worldwide, with some concentrated pockets outside of Japan in Hawaii and Brazil.

(Side note: Having studied Japanese myself, I can attest that it’s a very fun language to learn. The alphabets and Kanji are the hardest parts—the phonetics are consistent and the grammar is quite logical, with far fewer exceptions to the rules than English.)

In addition to videos like this one, Hikari offers Japanese lessons on her YouTube channel. You can follow her here.

When you have kids, summers are a flurry of activities. Going to amusement parks and zoos, playing outside, eating ice cream—lots and lots of ice cream.

And then, the preteen years hit and all that changes. Suddenly a kid’s interest shifts. They spend less time hanging with the fam and more hanging with friends, or alone. Though this transition is natural, it can still be painful for parents and make them feel like they’re not doing enough to evoke that same kind of magic the season once held.

As Cyndy Gatewood’s three children have all entered teen and preteen chapters, she began to feel this particular kind of pain, which she called “summer guilt.”

In a now-viral TikTok, Gatewood described summer guilt as “the guilt that comes when you have teens and preteens during the summer, and you’re home with them, but they’re too old to go to a playground everyday … and now they just want to be in their rooms. And it’s like, should I be doing something? Should I be taking them somewhere everyday? But when I ask them … they don’t want to.”

“I still have that constant guilt that I’m not doing enough. That their summer’s being wasted,” she says, and these feelings only get exacerbated when she sees other families with younger kids enjoying themselves on social media.

Though she knows that this shame is something she’s putting on herself, Gatewood still asked if there were other parents out there who would relate. And boy, could they.

“The teen transition is so hard. It’s hard to bring them joy now, used to be so easy,” one parent lamented.

Another wrote, “My heart broke when my son stopped wanting to go explore the new parks.”

A few folks chimed in to reassure that just because teens preferred to be in their room, it didn’t have to mean that summer was wasted. In fact, that solitude could also contain some pretty wonderful memories.

“I still remember so clearly being a teenager and my favorite thing in the world was being in my room on my own doing my own thing. Don’t feel guilty, it’s healthy to spend time on your own. They don’t need to be busy, to be doing something every moment of every day,” one person wrote.

Another added, “…then I remember my own teenage years, and I know how peaceful I was in my room. I had my first Walkman, listened to music, translated the lyrics, read books. It didn’t feel like a waste of summer.”

Many reflected that perhaps the root emotion Gatewood was feeling wasn’t guilt, but grief. As one person put it, “It’s more like grieving a life that you no longer have which you recall was the best time of your life. And it’s nothing you did wrong and nothing you can do to preserve it.”

By opening up about her feelings, Gatewood told Good Morning America that countless people have commented to thank her for putting this very relatable situation into tangible words.

“It makes me emotional, because it really is such a beautiful thing when we can open up about our struggles, especially as parents, and find out that we’re not alone in these feelings,” she shared.

And since sharing her video, Gatewood has seemed to take on a more nuanced perspective on this new parenting chapter.

“It’s a beautiful thing to watch your kids grow up. But we have to evolve with that. And that’s what I’m learning right now.”

On July 4, Kesha declared her independence with “Joyride,” her first independently released single since fulfilling her Kemosabe Records contract and settling her years-long legal battle with Dr. Luke. Kesha dropped her Joyride EP Pack, but she’s also preparing to release her first album on her Kesha Records.

Kesha told Paper that she believes her unreleased songs are “the best songs, I think, of my entire career” and heightened the anticipation even more by likening this album to Animal, her 2010 debut LP that debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

“This is the first time in my life I’ve felt similarly to how I did in that point in my life, when I was making music from a purely joyful place,” Kesha said. “But you know, because of life, this is even more exciting, because it’s all really 100% me. That feels really good, just to step into my own worth, and my own power and not have anything in my mind or the external world say it’s anything but me. It’s pretty unavoidable that whether people like or hate ‘Joyride,’ it’s all me.”

The multi-platinum-certified pop star added, “This is the first album I’m making where I’m 100% in control of everything. It feels like it’s my first album. It feels divine; it feels like it stands for a lot. It’s really beautiful, and I cannot wait to share it. It’s maybe the most beautiful time of my entire life! I am so excited I got to work with the people I did and capture this moment in time, and put it onto something other people can listen to. It’s been deeply life-changing and profound to make this album, but it’s also the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. If you thought Animal was fun, just f*cking wait.”

“Joyride” peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs chart and No. 6 on the Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, so Kesha has all the momentum to capture the mainstream like she did with Animal.

Tragically, the sixth season of Love Island USA ended on Sunday night, July 21, leaving an inescapable void at 9 p.m. ET every night until the finale airs on August 19.

The Peacock dating reality series became the most-streamed original series in the U.S., as reported by Variety. Serena Page and Kordell Beckham, brother to Miami Dolphins star wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., won this season. America also fell in love with fellow finalists Leah Ketab, Miguel Harichi, JaNa Craig, Kenny Rodriguez, Kendall Washington, and Nicole Jacky.

And then there was Rob Rausch, the self-proclaimed snake-wrangler who fell one episode short of the final. Fans held out hope that Rob would reunite with Leah, whom he had a spark with at the beginning of the season, but he might be coupling up with someone outside of the Love Island USA cast.

On Wednesday evening, July 24, this photo began circulating on X (formerly Twitter) showing Rob in a car with Nessa Barrett, a gold-certified pop singer-songwriter.

As of this writing, all we have to go from is a singular photo of Barrett and Rob seemingly innocently riding in the same car. Nobody should jump to any romantic assumptions, considering Rob was part of five (!) couples during his month in the villa.

Earlier Wednesday, Alex Cooper dropped her Call Her Daddy interview with Rob, and Cooper pressed Rob on whether he has lingering feelings for Leah. “I think after everything, I think we will be amazing friends, and I think I’d rather just focus on that for now,” he said.

Pertaining to his purported hang with Barrett, Cooper asked whether any famous women had slid into his DMs after the show, and he confirmed “a few” did but noted, “I think, right now, at this point in time, I’m pretty emotionally drained. I don’t know if I’m ready for anything like that.”

When taking on a daunting task, such as buying a house, starting a new career, or making a significant personal change, the most important thing is to establish one’s priorities to get the job done.

It makes sense to tackle the hard part first, but often, we get hung up on the smaller, easier tasks that prevent us from taking on the issue that could make or break the project. That’s when great thinkers use the “monkey and pedestal” analogy to decide where to place their time and energy.

The analogy is simple: If you’re going to create a show in which a monkey stands on a pedestal and recites Shakespeare, it’s best to first focus on teaching the monkey to memorize “Romeo and Juliet” rather than work on building the perfect pedestal.

If the monkey can’t do Shakespeare, then there’s no point in building the pedestal. “Tackle the monkey first. Don’t use up all your resources on the easy stuff,” Astro Teller, captain of Alphabet X, Google’s special project division, said, according to Inc.

So, if you are looking to buy a house, it’s best first to arrange a down payment because, without that, it doesn’t matter if you’ve found the best neighborhood or have chosen a real estate agent. If you are starting a new career, ensuring you are qualified for the next step and have proper credentials and experience is more important than searching for your dream company.

In other words, don’t waste your resources on the low-hanging fruit.

“Low-hanging fruit is, by definition, pedestal building, offering the illusion of progress rather than any real ground gained toward reaching an ultimate goal,” side hustle guru Steven Imke writes on his blog. “What makes them low hanging is the fact they are easy, and you already know how to do it. Building pedestals means spending time, money, and other resources on things that don’t bring you closer to the question of whether you can achieve what you are striving for.”

On his blog, Teller explains that Alphabet spent a lot of time working on a project to turn seawater into carbon-neutral fuel. The team got to work on the monkey, determining whether they could make their fuel cost competitive. Unfortunately, the team couldn’t do it, so the project was abandoned. But, if the team had started working on distributing the fuel for the first few years and then turned its focus on how to make it cost-effective, they would have wasted tons of resources to get little in return.

The California high-speed rail project is an example of failure to focus on the monkey.

Annie Duke, author of “Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away,” shared the California high-speed rail project story on The Brainy Business podcast as an example of what can happen when we pay too much attention to the pedestal and not the monkey. The project, which began in 2008, is to create a high-speed rail from San Francisco in the north of the state to San Diego in the south. The problem? They started working on track in the state’s interior instead of focusing on the real problem, figuring out how to build track through two mountain ranges south of Silicon Valley and north of Los Angeles.

“Around 2015, they’re like, ‘Oops, wait. There are these big mountain ranges that seems like a really big problem for completing the line.’ They now estimate the budget to be somewhere around $80 billion,” nearly four times the original estimate, she says. In the meantime, California is still building the track in the state’s interior while it figures out whether it’s even possible to build through the mountain ranges. Or, in terms of this conversation, focusing on the low-hanging fruit.

The monkey and the pedestal analogy may seem like a warning against attempting anything too complicated. But at its core, it’s all about getting the hard part done first, and then once that’s achieved, all you have to worry about is the low-hanging fruit or the things you probably know how to do already. Do the hard part first, and then it’s smooth sailing until you achieve your goal.

Parenting has evolved, and perhaps we see that most clearly in the way that fatherhood has specifically adapted.

The once “traditional” image of the rigidly stoic father who, when not completely absent, acted as the family disciplinarian, is becoming more and more the relic of a bygone era. And in its place are dads who willingly and happily take equal part in childcare, prioritize emotional connection and essentially are the involved male figure they might have wished for as kids.

And what’s really beautiful about this is not only that future generations have a healthy foundation from which to grow, but that adult men give their own inner child a bit of healing, too. For that, modern dads really do deserve their kudos.

And what better way to do that than through a rap created by a millennial dad himself?

For Father’s Day, actor, rapper and proud girl dad Bret Green (aka “Dad Got Bars” on Instagram) released a delightfully fun but deceptively insightful song titled “Millennial Dad,” commending the next generation of dads who are changing what it means to be a father.

Sharing what inspired the tune, Green told Upworthy, “I realized that our generation was built different when it comes to fatherhood. I had so many friends who were amazing fathers and doing things that our fathers just did not do.”

Green’s lyrics touch on everything from changing diapers to disciplining without physical violence to a newfound enthusiasm for exfoliating, and applauds both the boy dads for “just trying to make a man out of a little boy” and all the girl dads for “showing baby girl what boys to avoid.”

Watch below:

See on Instagram

Of course there’s still progress to be made, but it’s no wonder why millennials are being hailed “the best generation of dads.” By and large they’re putting in the work on multiple levels. And that’s cause for celebration, in the form of a rap song or otherwise.

And if you think that’s the only wholesome millennial parent content that Green has to offer in the form of rap songs, guess again. His account is chock full of gems, including an oh-so relatable lament on never ending laundry.

In fact, Green shared with Upworthy that even though he’s technically been rapping since he was 19 years old, inspiration hadn’t really struck until he became a father. Now, the “songs write themselves.” Plus, it’s an opportunity to create “a special memory” with his daughter, whose voice is often featured.

Check out the full version of “Millennial Dad” on Spotify, and give Green a follow on Instagram.

Watching musically gifted children never gets old. Whether you credit it to being born under a lucky star, or a simple case of good genetics, it does at least feel like something of a miracle.

That was certainly the feeling evoked when shy 9-year-old Journeyy Belton stepped onto the stage for “America’s Got Talent” on July 23, 2024, and blew audiences away with his powerful original song “Paradise.”

Showing off not just an incredibly soulful voice that belied his age, Journeyy also shared his exceptional songwriting skills as he brought to life an imaginary dream world filled with “purple clouds” and “automatic lullabies.”

Listen below and tell me this kid doesn’t remind you of Sia:

9-Year-Old Journeyy Sings Original Song, “Paradise” | Auditions | AGT 2024

The incredible performance wowed the judges, the live audience and online viewers alike, many of whom hailed the kid a young “musical genius.”

“I have never felt so unskilled,” one person joked. “This child has so much talent! I can’t wait to see them grow their music.”

Another praised, “His ability to hear and create melodies, the sophisticated lyric writing, the piano skills, and his incredible voice tell me he will 100% be a star selling out stadiums!”

A fun surprise—Simon Cowell revealed moments before Journeyy’s audition that he had heard him perform before on TikTok only a few days ago. His account is full of amazing covers, like Oceans by Hillsong United, which has racked up tons of views and glowing praise.

“Things are gonna happen for you. I can feel it,” Cowell told Journeyy. “You are somebody who has a God-given talent. And it’s rare.”

That certainly seems to be the case, no matter how the competition goes. Whatever happens, Journeyy, you’ve got loyal fans rooting for you!

There’s a housing crisis in America. It’s not that there aren’t houses available. Thousands of houses and apartments sit empty across the country, but the price for housing has reached levels that seem unsustainable for the middle class and those classified as working poor. Some might argue that middle class is now the working poor, though their yearly salary says they should be able to fair just fine.

Unfortunately, what used to be considered a decent salary for a middle class family to live comfortably is now barely enough to scrape by given the cost of housing. But some people from the boomer generation still struggle to understand why millennials and Gen Z can’t afford housing.

Freddie Smith, a real estate broker, took to social media to explain why younger generations are struggling to purchase a home when their parents didn’t. The real estate finance lesson was prompted when a baby boomer pointed out, “Don’t forget we had 13% interest rates in the 80s.”

A 13% interest rate seems like insanity upon first glance, but after Smith breaks it down, it doesn’t look so bad. “I wish we had 13% interest rates if we had your home prices,” the broker says before breaking things down.

Smith quickly starts speaking in numbers, revealing that in 1980 even with their yearly salary being only $22K with the 13% interest rate, their monthly payment only equaled to 26% of their monthly income. If millennials had the same circumstances, their median yearly salary would be $80k, their median price of a home $170K, and with a 13% interest rate the monthly payment would be $1,790–only 26% of their monthly income.

But that’s not the reality that Millennials and Gen Z live in. While the median salary is $80k, the median price of a home is $419K, and while the interest rate in 2024 is 7%, with the housing price so high it would make the monthly payment 42% of their monthly income.

Smith wraps up the video saying, “And here’s the kicker. Someone making $80K in most cases can’t even qualify for this.”

That certainly put things in perspective for people. The video was flooded with comments from exhausted and frustrated millennials.

“Oh and the wives got to stay home and care for the kids now we pay another $1600 a month for daycare for us both to work,” one person laments.

“Imagine if we had 140K homes with 13% rates. The gaslighting from them is WILD. I’d take 14% rates if the average home was only 140K,” another says.

“It’s fine.. we just have to stop getting our fancy coffees and we can afford it,” someone writes.

“We’re facing a 5K payment with 10% down on the average home. Same house cost 3K a month in rent. So we’re renting indefinitely at the moment,” a commenter shares.

But this isn’t just an issue in America. There were people outside of the U.S. sharing their astronomical cost of an average family home.

“Same here in Oslo, Norway. By dad bought his house for $22,500 in 1972. He’s selling it now for $1.75 million. And of course he says just this. ‘You just have to spend less and work more.’ Lol,” someone shares.

“It’s worse in Australia. Average salary $80k average house price $1m,” another writes.

While Smith doesn’t offer a solution, his breakdown may help older generations understand why their children and grandchildren aren’t buying homes. One can only hope housing prices go down or wages significantly increase so the middle class can afford a little more than their basic needs on top of being able to buy a home.

Destroy Lonely teased “Luv 4 Ya” at Coachella 2024 and officially released the single last month. On Wednesday, July 24, Destroy Lonely boosted the song’s shelf life by releasing a 91 Rules-directed video.

Destroy Lonely solemnly begins to dig a hole while smoking a cigarette. The video’s through line is Destroy Lonely fittingly alone in the desert, seeking “an exit” from an alternate reality by “digging through the surreal void.” But that is far from the most visually stimulating thing the video has to offer across nearly four minutes. At one point, he’s chillin’ while a woman in a swimsuit grins and executes impressively precise bicep curls. The next moment, he’s hanging upside-down like a bat in the dark. There are dirt bikes, snakes, an ever-growing hole in the ground, and older men getting into a fist fight.

“She tryna heat my wrist,” the Atlanta native and Opium artist sing-raps in the chorus. “She tryna suck my d*ck / I went to sleep dead broke / I woke up too rich.”

“Luv 4 Ya” serves as Destroy Lonely’s first single from his forthcoming sophomore album expected to release before the summer’s end. If Looks Could Kill, Destroy Lonely’s debut LP, released in May 2023 and charted in the top 20 of the Billboard 200.

Watch the “Luv 4 Ya” video above.