Category: Viral

Regardless of your preferred news source, you’ve likely seen recent stories about the nationwide worker shortage the service industry is facing. You’ve probably also heard that one of the reasons for this dearth of employees is because the current unemployment benefits are just too gosh darn generous. While the myopic person’s spin on the story is that Americans are lazy and don’t want to work, The Daily Show host Trevor Noah understands that the reality is much different.

On Tuesday, Noah got right to the point when he said that “those unemployment checks are not subsidizing laziness. They’re giving workers the rare opportunity to look for a job that’s more than just a way to survive until their next paycheck.”

Here’s the deal: While the federal minimum wage is a laughable $7.25 per hour, the minimum wage for tipped employees is just a fraction of that—$2.13 per hour. So when you hear a waiter or bartender talk about “relying on tips,” they mean it. But even beyond that paltry hourly wage, many hospitality workers don’t receive the bare minimum of benefits one would expect from a job. Forget health insurance or retirement planning—we’re talking about something as simple as paid sick or vacation days.

Restaurant work can be a thankless job, and the past year has given those workers the chance to look for employment in other sectors (the growing cannabis industry is reportedly seeing an influx of former restaurant employees join their ranks), where they have the opportunity to earn a genuine living that doesn’t have them panicking from check-to-check. As Noah said:

“It makes complete sense that restaurant workers are looking for better jobs, right? Because these are tough jobs. They’re on their feet all day; they take care of everyone; they pretend not to hear when you guys are breaking up at the table. And after all of that, they have to rely on tips. I mean, you know a job isn’t paying enough when every meal ends with a mini-GoFundMe. And aside from giving workers the opportunity to look for jobs that they can actually live on, these unemployment benefits are also giving them leverage to use against their former employers. And it seems like it might actually be working.”

Some restaurant chains, including Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Chipotle, have all reportedly increased their pay rates over the past several months. Employers are also adding in additional benefits, including paid family leave, stock options, 401k matching, and mental health care, in order to entice people back to their jobs.

“The point is, many restaurants are getting workers back by raising wages and offering benefits,” Noah said. “So I guess it turns out when they were saying ‘Nobody wants to work,’ what they actually meant was, ‘Nobody wants to work for the starvation wages that we were willing to pay them.’ And apparently, they were able to afford this the whole time. It just took some pressure from the workers to force their hand.”

Well, that and a pandemic that has so far killed more than 3.4 million people worldwide—and counting.

In late 2020, it was rumored that ASAP Rocky and Rihanna had started dating. Indeed, the two are a happy couple, and in a new GQ profile, Rocky offered an update of how things are going by declaring that she is “the one.”

The piece notes that when Rihanna was mentioned to Rocky, “he starts beaming like a teenager whose crush just accepted his prom invite.” It also notes that Rocky calls her “the love of my life” and “my lady.” Later, he was asked what it’s like to be in a relationship and he responded, “So much better. So much better when you got the One. She amounts to probably, like, a million of the other ones. […] I think when you know, you know. She’s the One.”

He also seems open to the prospect of fatherhood, saying, “If that’s in my destiny, absolutely. I think I’m already a dad! All these motherf*ckers are already my sons — whatchu talkin’ ’bout! [laughs] Nah, but like, I think I’d be an incredible, remarkably, overall amazing dad. I would have a very fly child. Very.”

Elsewhere, he spoke about visiting Barbados (from where his father emigrated to the US) with Rihanna, saying it was a moving experience: “It was like a homecoming thing. It was crazy. I always imagined what it would be like for my dad, before he came to America. And I got to visit those places, and believe it or not, there was something nostalgic about it. It was foreign but familiar.”

Read the full GQ feature here.

In the streaming era, documentaries have become more popular than ever, and though plenty of hip-hop and classic rock content has been coming through lately, it’s now time for pop to get its due. At least that’s what Netflix’s latest offering This Is Pop seeks to showcase. The eight-part docuseries brings together artists as disparate as Shania Twain, Babyface, and Abba. Premiering later this summer on June 22, a press release describes the series as seeking to “shine a light on racism, sexism, classism, queer politics and social injustice while also celebrating the levity and joy for which pop music has long been known.”

The series was created by Banger Films, the same team who produced music documentaries like Hip-Hop Evolution, ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band From Texas, and Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage. “We started with the question “What is Pop?”, and found answers we never expected,” the series Producer Amanda Burt of Banger Films said. “It’s more than the charts or what floats out of a car radio. It’s a perfect time capsule of how people were living as it was made and how they danced, loved, and cried as it was heard.”

Below is a list of the eight episodes, and you can watch a trailer for the series above.

1. “The Boyz II Men Effect”
2. “When Country Goes Pop”
3. “Auto-Tune”
4. “Stockholm Syndrome”
5. “The Brill Building In 4 Songs”
6. “Festival Rising”
7. “Hail Britpop!”
8. “What Can A Song Do?”

After sitting down with the MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell last month, Jimmy Kimmel seems to be making it a habit to reach out to conspiracy theorists, but this time around, he took a different approach. As a noted critic of “anti-vaxxers,” who Kimmel has found to be “very frustrating” during the pandemic, the late night host isn’t above dunking on people spreading false information all over social media.

During his Tuesday night monologue, Kimmel took aim at a “new line of lunacy from anti-vaxx nation” called the Magnet Challenge. In short, people are filming themselves sticking magnets to the site of their COVID-19 vaccine injection and claiming the magnets are sticking because of the microchip inside. In one clip, a woman “successfully” completes the challenge and declares to the camera, “We’re chipped. We’re all f*cked.”

“Your children definitely are. That’s for sure,” Kimmel quipped in response to the clip. “What makes these people think anyone is interested enough in them to track them? Where could that woman be possibly going to? [pretending to talk into radio] ‘She just left Walmart. She’s en-route to JoAnn Fabric.’”

Kimmel then turned his attention to a man named Robert, who’s been posting a slew of Magnet Challenge videos on social media where he’s tested his arm with magnets, a compass, and even a stud finder. However, during one of his videos, Kimmel noticed that Jimmy Kimmel Live! was on the background, so he decided to leave Robert a special message:

“I’ve been watching you for years now, Robert. I see everything you do. I put those magnets not only in your arms, your whole body is filled with them from your ears all the way down to your feet. And when the time is right, I will summon you. You will be lifted up to our home planet COVAK-19 where we will live out our days magnetized to each other.”

“If we wasn’t out of his mind before, he is now,” Kimmel said.

Ted Cruz is a master of self-owning without intending to do so, like when The Princess Bride superfan tried to feud with Cary Elwes and, well, lost. And like when he recently went on TV to discuss the CDC on masks, and his anti-mask shenanigans came back to bite him in the butt. And like when he decided that a devastating (and deadly) ice storm in Texas was a good time to fly to sun-drenched Cancun while his constituents literally froze. Well, it seems that Ted still doesn’t get it because he thought it was a good idea to show he had a sense of humor about the Cancun fiasco.

“Awesome!” Ted tweeted about a Houston ABC News affiliate’s story about how “[t]his airline can hook you up with a cheap flight to sunny Cancun or even Las Vegas!”

Let’s just say that Ted’s decision to roast himself or “joke” or whatever he was doing didn’t go as he’d planned, unless he planned for it to backfire in his face. That’s exactly what happened, especially when people reminded Ted that the ice storm not only stopped Texas in its tracks, but the death toll, including an 11-year-old boy who perished from hypothermia, reached at least 111 and possibly more.

As of now, Ted hasn’t responded to the criticism, and if he follows his usual pattern of not speaking to his constituents on Twitter, his silence on the subject will stand.

The Voice has a roster of famous coaches, but they up the star power further every now and then with some big guests. Because of that, Nick Jonas has had the opportunity to work with Snoop Dogg. He discussed that on Late Night With Seth Meyers last night, where he and Meyers got to talking about the famed weed enthusiast’s distinct smell.

Meyers asked how his experience working with Snoop was and Jonas responded, “He’s brilliant. He’s obviously a legend. He is, I think, best known for his rapping, obviously, but his production, his awareness of musicality… he’s like a record player. He knows every single song ever recorded, it seems.” He then added with emphasis, “And he smells great.”

Meyers laughed and responded, “He does have a very unique… a very upbeat odor.” Jonas chimed in, “Yeah, it’s wonderful.” Meyers then continued, “I don’t know if it’s crazy to say this: You can kind of tell when he’s in the room.” Jonas agreed, saying, “Yes, totally. I think the whole crew, myself, we were all very happy.”

Jonas also talked a bit about his recent injury, where he cracked a rib after falling off a bike.

Watch the full interview above.

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who has made numerous transphobic statements over the years, unfollowed horror master Stephen King on Twitter after he tweeted that “trans women are women.” She also bizarrely deleted a tweet praising her fellow multi-millionaire novelist. King was asked about the interaction — and Rowling’s petty unfollowing — in an interview with the Daily Beast, where he said, “Jo canceled me.”

King says that Rowling is welcome to her opinion, even if it’s a sh*tty, hateful opinion, because “that’s the way that the world works. If she thinks that trans women are dangerous, or that trans women are somehow not women, or whatever problem she has with it — the idea that someone ‘masquerading’ as a woman is going to assault a ‘real’ woman in the toilet — if she believes all those things, she has a right to her opinion.” But “I just felt that her belief was, in my opinion, wrong. We have differing opinions, but that’s life.” The It author was also asked about the infamous Harper’s letter, in which Rowling, Noam Chomsky, and Salman Rushdie, among others, unsuccessfully argued that stifled free speech is creating an “intolerant climate,” something something cancel culture. He agrees that she’s said some vile things, but they also agree on many politicized topics.

“Jo’s opinion on trans women is an outlier in her entire political spectrum,” King said. “She was very much anti-Brexit and very much anti-Trump. She’s on the side of the angels in most respects, but she does have this one thing that she’s very vehement about. No doubt.” The days of them teaming up to troll Trump seem like forever ago.

(Via the Daily Beast)

The past few years have been a time of tremendous personal change for Demi Lovato. Aside from bouncing back from a drug overdose, the singer has also come out as pansexual, and now, they have shared some more major personal news: Lovato revealed today that they now identify as non-binary and have changed their pronouns to they/them.

Lovato shared the news in a video introduction to a new series titled 4D With Demi Lovato. They begin the video by explaining the meaning of the series, saying, “Living in the fourth dimension means existing consciously in both time and space, but for me, it means having conversations that transcend the typical discourse.”

They go on to reveal they now identify as non-binary. The caption of the post echoes a lot of the points Lovato makes in the video and it reads:

“Every day we wake up, we are given another opportunity and chance to be who we want and wish to be. I’ve spent the majority of my life growing in front of all of you… you’ve seen the good, the bad, and everything in between. Not only has my life been a journey for myself, I was also living for those on the other side of the cameras. Today is a day I’m so happy to share more of my life with you all — I am proud to let you know that I identify as non-binary and will officially be changing my pronouns to they/them moving forward. This has come after a lot of healing and self-reflective work. I’m still learning and coming into myself, and I don’t claim to be an expert or a spokesperson. Sharing this with you now opens another level of vulnerability for me. I’m doing this for those out there that haven’t been able to share who they truly are with their loved ones. Please keep living in your truths and know I am sending so much love your way xox.”

Check out Lovato’s post below. Lovato also shared the first episode of 4D featuring author and performer Alok Vaid-Menon as the debut guest, so watch that below as well.

Barack Obama isn’t saying it was aliens… but it was aliens. Maybe.

In an interview that would make Giorgio A. Tsoukalos proud, the former president stopped by The Late Late Show With James Corden (virtually) on Monday night, the day after 60 Minutes aired a mind-blowing report about the reality of UFOs or, as the government calls them, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena—UAPs for short, probably so that it doesn’t sound like they’re spreading bizarre UFO conspiracy theories. While he seemed to understand that the general concept of UFOs has been written off as something only people wearing self-styled tinfoil hats might want to talk about, Obama did corroborate that these reports are 100 percent real.

After joking that he asked about where the secret alien lab was after coming into office —”I was like, ‘Alright, is there the lab somewhere where we’re keeping the alien specimens and spaceship?’ And they did a little bit of research and the answer was no.”— Obama confirmed that there are people who take the investigation of these sightings very seriously, and that they should.

“What is true—and I’m actually being serious here—is that there’s footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are. We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory—they did not have an easily explainable pattern.”

Since we don’t know what these flying objects are, it would then follow that we don’t know how to defend ourselves against them if they ever decided to attack… which could mean that Tucker Carlson is right? [Shudder!] That—not an alien invasion — is just too terrifying to think about.

“Liam Neeson” is the name of the Northern Irish actor who earned an Oscar nomination for his role in Schindler’s List. It’s also shorthand for a very specific kind of movie in which a man (who is always Liam Neeson) with a very specific job (think snowplow driver) faces a painfully specific life-or-death challenge (rescue your teenage daughter from an Albanian sex trafficking ring) and uses his very specific set of skills in order to meet that challenge. Sort of like if Mad Libs were a movie plot. On Tuesday, Netflix released the trailer for its upcoming thriller The Ice Road, which sees Neeson chasing down the clock to save 26 trapped miners in less than 30 hours and dropping lines like “This is personal!” and “Now I’m angry!” in the Neesoniest way possible.

Netflix describes the movie as follows:

“After a remote diamond mine collapses in far northern Canada, a ‘big-rig’ ice road driver (Neeson) must lead an impossible rescue mission over a frozen ocean to save the trapped miners. Contending with thawing waters and a massive storm, they discover the real threat is one they never saw coming.”

Yep, that sounds about right.

It’s worth noting that Neeson was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to his action star status. It wasn’t until 2008’s Taken, which was co-written by Luc Besson, that the actor’s career took a turn for the action-packed. In the years since then, he has made what feels like hundreds of other thrillers with similar plots and almost identical posters.

Yet Neeson has also said that he, too, has made enough action-thrillers to last him a lifetime. In 2015, he announced that he’d be retiring from action movies in two years. In 2017, he claimed to be officially retired from the genre, telling journalists at the Toronto Film Festival: “I’m sixty-f***ing-five. Audiences are eventually going to go: ‘Come on.’”

But that was four years ago. And in January of this year, Neeson once again stated that the end of his days stunting and yelling at people are about to come to an end. “I’m 68 and a half—69 this year,” Neeson told Entertainment Tonight. “There’s a couple more I’m going to do this year—hopefully, COVID allowing us—there’s a couple in the pipeline and, then I think that will probably be it. Well, unless I’m on a Zimmer frame or something.”

Does he truly mean it this time? Don’t bet on it.

(Via /Film)