Category: Viral

It’s pretty obvious that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is in some deep sh*t regarding the sex trafficking allegations against him. His indicted associate is cooperating with the Feds for leniency, which does not bode well for Gaetz, and even Tucker Carlson sprinted away from the scandal as fast as possible while declaring that Gaetz’s (poor) attempt to defend himself against the sex trafficking allegations against him, was “one of the weirdest” that he’s conducted. Gaetz’s desired Gaetzgate isn’t going well at all, and now, James Carville’s got some harsh words for the congressman, as related to MSNBC.

The Democratic consultant and strategist went on a bit of a rant while regarding both Gaetz and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who he called out for her stunt-queening on several notes. Carville declared, “It’s profitable to be crazy in today’s Republican party.” That’s stating the obvious, although it probably needed to be said, but then came some real bluntness from James Carville about Gaetz: “He looks like a character or something. That is the weirdest looking guy I have ever seen in my life.” He added, “And the weirdest acting guy.”

Well, Carville’s not wrong about Gaetz being “the weirdest acting guy” (or at least one of the weirdest), but as for the comments on Gaetz’s looks? Funny, but ouch. So far, Gaetz has not commented on the subject, although he’s probably, yeah, a little busy at the moment.

After Morrissey’s manager called out The Simpsons for its parody of the former The Smiths frontman, which featured Benedict Cumberbatch voicing the character “Quilloughby,” the singer himself released his own statement on Monday that accuses the cartoon series of “obviously taunting a lawsuit.” In a long-winded, and very Morrissey-esque message in the “Hello Hell” section of his website, the singer rails against everything from the accusations of racism that have plagued him to the lack of “Hate Laws” that he believes should be protecting him from the “scandal sheets.”

Via Morrissey Central:

Since my very first interview several decades ago I have lived with horrible accusations to such a degree that it is generally understood that ‘this is how we write about Morrissey’. In other words, I’m quite used to it. I’ve had enough horror thrown at me that would kill off a herd of bison. Accusations usually come from someone with a crazed desire for importance; they don’t operate at a very high level. Writing for The Simpsons, for example, evidently requires only complete ignorance. But all of these things are too easy for me to say. In a world obsessed with Hate Laws, there are none that protect me.

Despite dramatically accusing The Simpsons of opening themselves up to a lawsuit for daring to parody him like it does to countless other celebrities, Morrissey made it clear that he won’t be going down that road because it would require “more funding than I could possibly muster.” He believes this is why The Simpsons targeted him. “I think this is generally understood and is the reason why I am so carelessly and noisily attacked.”

(Via Morrissey Central)

Perhaps more than any musician (at least relative to his age), Jack White is famously old-fashioned. A few years ago, he was getting into Polaroid photography. The Nashville location of his Third Man Records label is famous for its vinyl record booth, a refurbished 1947 machine that allows people to record a song or any audio directly onto a phonographic disc. It’s probably not surprising to learn that White doesn’t have a cell phone, as he revealed in 2019.

Basically, he’s the last person music fans would expect to get into NFTs, which Uproxx’s Dane Rivera describes as “virtual collectibles that are one-of-a-kind and easily verifiable as such, due to a unique string of characters in the image’s metadata stored on the Blockchain, which if you’re unfamiliar, is the digital database that makes cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin safe and secure.” And yet, White has indeed gotten into NFTs with a new White Stripes release.

An unofficial remix of “Seven Nation Army” by The Glitch Mob has received acclaim from White Stripes fans since its release in 2011, and now The White Stripes are officially releasing the track. On top of that, The White Stripes, Glitch Mob, and artist Strangeloop have collaborated on an NFT collection that features “6 unique pieces of art, including a one-of-one full song visualizer that comes with a 7-inch vinyl test pressing of the remix.”

Learn more about the NFT collection here.

Mike Lindell has replaced Donald Trump as every late-night host’s favorite target. During Monday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, host Jimmy Kimmel discussed the pillow man’s new “free speech” (minus the “four swear words”) social media website and his 48-hour telethon, which was continuously (and hilariously) interrupted by prank callers.

“Thank you for joining us on what was, I have to admit, one of the least productive days that we’ve had here at our office in quite some time,” Kimmel said to kick off the episode. “A lot of people said the CEO of a pillow company couldn’t successfully launch a major social media site — and those people were 100 percent correct.” Kimmel compared the “yell-a-thon” to Jerry Lewis’ annual telethons, “if Jerry was on a public access channel and crack.” Lindell actually mentioned Kimmel multiple times during the livestream, discussing all the times the host has “bashed” him. But Kimmel insists he’s an admirer.

“What Mike Lindell doesn’t seem to understand is, I’m his biggest fan,” he said. “I have no idea what he’s doing, but I love it.” Kimmel would even have him on the show, but with two conditions: “Number one, he has to actually come into our studio. I need to see him in person. I want to smell the Knackwurst in his mustache. And number two, I would like to conduct our interview in a bed, surrounded by pillows, just me and Mike, snuggled up side by side in a California king, surrounded by sacks of goose feathers.”

You can watch the clip above.

On Monday, the U.S. State Department had issued “Level 4: Do Not Travel” warnings for 16 percent of countries around the world. Today, that number is jumping up to 80 percent of all countries around the world in accordance with CDC guidance. And while just over 75 million Americans have been vaccinated, the CDC and State Department are still warning against travel, especially internationally.

So, what’s going on? According to an email sent to The Washington Post, “This alignment better reflects the current, unpredictable, and ever-evolving threat posed by COVID-19.” The missive goes on to say that American citizens — vaccinated or not — should “strongly reconsider” all trips abroad or cancel them outright.

Issuing travel warnings is nothing new for the State Department. They have four levels. Level One says simply “Exercise Normal Precautions.” Level two warns you to “Exercise Increased Caution.” Level three asks you to “Reconsider Travel.” And Level Four straight out says “Do Not Travel.” With 80 percent of the world’s countries now falling under the Level Four warning, it’s pretty clear that any travel Americans take this summer is going to be tied to the U.S.

The change in tactics, according to The Washington Post, is due to the State Department starting to “rely more heavily” on recommendations from the CDC again. The State Department is even adding stricter wording to some travel locations. The warning for travel to India came with an additional caveat that “even if you’re fully vaccinated” that you should still cancel your trip.

These warnings track with current CDC information on vaccines and travel in which they stated: “Fully vaccinated travelers are less likely to get and spread COVID-19. However, international travel poses additional risks and even fully vaccinated travelers are at increased risk for getting and possibly spreading new COVID-19 variants.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean that some countries aren’t trying to woo travelers to their shores. Iceland has opened up to American travelers as long as they can provide a vaccination certificate and negative test before entry (and also adhere to hygiene and social distancing rules). Still, it’s probably a much safer bet to look towards your own backyard, even if you’re vaccinated.

(Via The Washington Post)

Today is April 20, which of course marks one of the most widely observed unofficial holidays: 4/20. Naturally, Snoop Dogg will be celebrating the occasion and he got things started early with a new album, From Tha Streets 2 Tha Suites. The project features some songs about smoking, most notably wrapping up with “Left My Weed,” a collaboration with J Black and Devin The Dude.

On the narrative tune, Snoop begins by describing an unfortunate situation at a party:

“Yeah, pull up to front, party going live / Everybody happy when the Dogg arrive / […] Reaching in my Louie bag / Tryna find that King Louie stash / Yeah I’m ’bout to do em bad / Baby wanna take a flick / I’m like, ‘Cool, make it quick ’cause I still can’t find my sh*t’ / Reach a little deeper, now I’m mad / No weed in the party, all bad / I’m in the parking lot, heading to the whip / Cuz now this party ain’t sh*t.”

J Black also comes through on the hook, “I can’t believe it, believe it / I do this sh*t every time, damn / Get so very high and forget / What I needed, I needed / Did one of y’all see if I, damn / Searching like CSI, yeah / ’cause I f*cked around and left my weed.”

Listen to “Left My Weed” above, stream From Tha Streets 2 Tha Suites below, and check out our 420-song 4/20 playlist here.

From Tha Streets 2 Tha Suites is out now via Doggystyle Records/Create Music Group. Get it here.

The Lakers lost to the Jazz on Monday night, but it was a game that fell to the backburner on Twitter, as Lakers fans had a much different focus. The story that follows is a wild ride that probably is not even at its conclusion, but we are going to try our best to explain what took place on Lakers Twitter on April 19.

Many of you may have very well seen tweets in the morning about a missing Lakers fan named Vivian, who’s @butterfly_424 handle had 15,000-plus followers, as many prominent Lakers fans on Twitter like O’Shea Jackson Jr. and even Markieff Morris retweeted to try and amplify the situation. The tweet about her being missing has since been deleted by Josh Toussaint, who plays a potentially much bigger role in this story.

Later in the day, Toussaint announced that Vivian had been found, and everyone was happy to learn she was OK.

https://twitter.com/OsheaJacksonJr/status/1384251637502341130

However, things took a very strange turn from there. After people started looking into the account more, they started to notice some things weren’t quite right about photos she had posted and one person said he had been texting with “Vivian” for some time. Then, when he tried to FaceTime with her, she refused and he started to think something was fishy.

Things moved quickly from there, and at one point Kevin Durant hopped on Twitter Spaces with The ETCs co-host Eddie Gonzalez, who had the aforementioned text relationship with Vivian, and others to discuss the entire thing as word of a long-time catfish having infiltrated Lakers Twitter started trending.

(WARNING: NSFW LANGUAGE)

The thing that tipped many folks off was when they started looking more closely at the very clearly photoshopped images of “Vivian” and recognized shenanigans were afoot.

The account had been active for over a decade, and some other incongruities became apparent.

The focus turned back to Toussaint, who had claimed to have been in touch with Vivian’s family and also claimed to have DM’d with the Lakers about the situation in since-deleted tweets, which were of course screenshotted and brought back at him.

Adding to the weirdness, Toussaint had a podcast where Vivian was a guest multiple times that quickly came under scrutiny for what seemed like some odd editing.

However, people on podcasts talk over each other all the time, so it might be as Toussaint says and is an actual catfish situation — someone modulated the Vivian voice down to what it would sound like on a lower frequency if someone was using a voice modulator and came up with this.

There are still more questions than answers about this whole thing, but it’s pretty clear that “Vivian” isn’t a real person. Who has been running the account, why they’ve been doing that, and a lot more remain unanswered, but if nothing else, it made for a wild night on Twitter and led to some very funny reactions from some very famous people that you don’t normally see involved in Twitter nonsense. For example, O’Shea Jackson Jr.’s journey into learning about all of this was, basically, the process everyone else went through.

The jokes, if nothing else, were tremendous as the story blew up.

It was all of two weeks ago that “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” singer Ted Nugent was mocking the coronavirus. “I guess I would ask you, because I’m addicted to truth, logic, and common sense, and my common-sense meter would demand the answer to why weren’t we shut down for COVID one through 18?” he said in a Facebook Live video. “COVID-1 — and there was a COVID 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 — COVID one through 18 didn’t shut anything down but woah, COVID-19!”

“Woah, COVID-19!” is also what Nugent said after testing positive for the coronavirus.

“I’ve got an announcement to make,” Nugent began in a new video on Facebook. “Everybody told me that I should not announce this. I have had flu symptoms for the last ten days. I thought I was dying. Just a clusterf*ck.” He continued, “I was tested positive today… I’ve got a stuffed up head, body aches. My God, what a pain in the ass. I literally could hardly crawl out of bed the last few day… So I was officially tested positive for COVID-19 today.” He also used a racist term for the virus, but no one needs to see that:

Even after his own infection, the rocker continued criticizing the vaccines.

“Nobody knows what’s in it,” Nugent declared, proclaiming that he won’t take a vaccine “if you can’t even honestly answer our questions of exactly what’s in it and why are you testing it on human beings and forcing it on people in such a short period of time.”

This is not the first time Nugent has spoken out against the “scamming pandemic,” as he called it. “It’s not a real pandemic, and that’s not a real vaccine… I ain’t taking no vaccine. You come at me with a needle, and I will be in fear of my life, and you know what I’ll do if you come at me with a needle. ‘Hi, I’m from the government. This needle is good for you.’ F*ck you!” I wouldn’t expect anything less from the guy who wrote “Yank Me, Crank Me.”

(Via Ultimate Classic Rock)

A few weeks ago, The Weeknd indicated that there is still more to come from the After Hours era, tweeting, “p.s. this chapter isn’t quite done yet … still tying some loose ends.” At the time, he didn’t make clear what exactly that meant. Now, though, it looks like we know one thing that may be coming soon: a new remix of “Save Your Tears” featuring Ariana Grande, which both artists teased on social media yesterday.

Both Grande and The Weeknd shared the same audio clip on social media and tagged each other in their posts, all but confirming the collaboration. The video runs for eight seconds, and during that time, isolated, reverb-heavy vocals from the pair, singing what seems to be a melody from “Save Your Tears,” can be heard.

The pair have of course collaborated multiple times, once on Grande’s “Love Me Harder” from her 2014 album My Everything and again on “Off The Table,” from Grande’s 2020 album Positions. Of course, it’s also widely believed that the two were once linked romantically.

Meanwhile, Grande has also recently spent some time revisiting one of her recent albums, as she shared a behind-the-scenes clip of herself recording some vocals on “Positions.”

Check out the teaser clip above.

Stephen Curry stole the show during the early NBA slate, erupting for 49 points and his fourth 10-three pointer game in his last five to beat the Sixers on national TV, and with that performance, the latest in a ridiculous 11-game run, there was plenty of conversation about whether he should be entered into the MVP discussion.

That MVP race is one led, for most, by Nikola Jokic in large part due to his consistent effort throughout the regular season, as he has dominated from start to finish for a Denver team that is looking to hold on to a top-6 seed in the West without Jamal Murray in the stretch run. With Curry buzz circulating the NBA space when Jokic and the Nuggets took the floor against Memphis, the frontrunner did as well as one could hope by responding with a sensational performance of his own. After a slow start, Jokic took control of the game and never let go, scoring 47 points, pulling down 15 rebounds, and dishing out eight assists in a wild, 139-137 Denver win in double overtime against Ja Morant and the Grizzlies.

He was tremendous down the stretch, particularly in closing things out in double overtime when he put in nine of his 47, including…whatever this shot was that is emblematic of the shot-making he’s displayed all season no matter the defensive effort of the opposition.

Ja Morant was phenomenal for Memphis, as he has been all season, with 36 points, 12 assists, and eight rebounds, but the Grizzlies simply couldn’t find answers for Jokic — which to be fair, no one has really had this season. When doubled, he always makes the right pass to an open shooter, and when left in 1-on-1, there’s simply nothing most defenders can do with him. His quickness has improved to beat bigger centers off the bounce and his craftiness and size allows him to simply get to a spot and put up a shot, always on his time and in his own, weird rhythm that no one can disrupt. The MVP conversation will surely continue, and what Curry and Joel Embiid and others are doing this season are worthy of heaps of praise and celebration. But provided he continues on as he has been, it is still Jokic’s award, and if anything, the amount he’s going to be asked to do for Denver with Jamal Murray out is likely going to continue forcing him to put up ridiculous numbers for Denver to win games, which would seal the deal in the season’s final month.