Category: Viral

24kGoldn quickly rose to fame thanks to the success of his 2019 single, “Valentino,” which gave him his first Billboard singles chart entry and was later certified Platinum in April 2020. The San Francisco native quickly topped the success of the 2019 track with his following effort, “Mood,” which reached No. 1 on the singles chart in mid-October. Now, the 2020 XXL Freshman looks to keep his streak of success alive with a brand new video for his most recent track, “Coco.”

The Cole Bennett-directed video finds 24kGoldn and DaBaby, who appears on the song for a guest rap verse, at an ice-cold resort. There, 24kGoldn enjoys some time with a young woman as they go out for a jet ski ride and take a dip in a hot tub. They’re soon interrupted by DaBaby, dressed as Santa Claus. Rather than bring the couple a gift, he does the complete opposite and takes something away from them: a dog that rested in the arms of the young woman.

24kGoldn’s latest release comes as he continues work on his upcoming album El Dorado. He recently spoke about it in an interview with Variety. “I’m excited to put out the album, but I’m definitely not in a rush,” he said. “I’m trying to create a cohesive visual and auditory world for my audience to live in and that takes time.”

You can watch the “Coco” video above.

Outgoing president Donald J. Trump may not be on Twitter for much longer. The social media giant has said that as soon as he’s no longer commander-in-chief, he’ll be subject to the same rules as everyone else — and the only reason Trump, who’s violated just about all of them, hasn’t been booted is because he’s the President of the United States. But not only is he infamously bad with keeping state secrets, he’s apparently also terrible with keeping his social media accounts on lockdown. As per Vox, Dutch prosecutors confirmed that his Twitter account was hacked, in part because his password was comically easy to guess.

Word of the hack first cropped up back in October, when hacker Victor Gevers claimed he’d gained accessed the world’s most notorious Twitter account, not through some byzantine hacker method. He simply guessed the right password. And that password was — drum roll — “maga2020!”

At the time, the White House denied Trump’s account had ever been accessed. But on Wednesday, prosecutors in the Netherlands confirmed Gevers’ claim was accurate. What’s more they argued Gevers had acted in an “ethical” manner, immediately turning himself into authorities after gaining access. He even had a good reason:

Gevers said he was looking for vulnerabilities in high-profile social media accounts ahead of the US presidential election, just in case they got hacked by someone with malicious intent. That’s a good thing, especially since Trump apparently didn’t have two-factor authentication activated on his phone, which would have added an extra security step besides a password. Luckily, Gevers found a problem before someone else did. “The hacker released the login himself,” Dutch police said about Gevers’s actions two month ago.

So there you go: The President of the United States has never bothered to take the simple step of activating two-factor notification on his phone, despite being the President of the United States. Meanwhile, Gevers won’t face any charges. Hopefully the incident caused Trump to try a more secure password. But he probably just went with something about rigged elections.

(Via Vox)

When the NBA announced the results from its first round of COVID-19 testing after having players come back into their home markets, there were 48 positive tests out of 546 administered tests, making the positivity rate 8.8 percent, which, while high, was somewhat expected. The true test of the NBA’s plan was going to be how they progressed as training camp and the preseason began, to see if their protocols were working.

Thus far, that appears to be the case as they’ve seen just one positive test out of 549 tests administered since December 10, a precipitous drop-off and an indication that things are at least going as planned early on.

Of course it should be noted that this is not reason for a victory lap but instead simply a very good first step of many to getting this season going and, hopefully, completed without too many postponements. NFL teams had similar success early on in their testing, but as the season wore on and there was more travel and players were being asked to remain vigilant for longer, more and more positives have emerged. The NBA has to anticipate positive tests happening once the season starts, and it’s why they’ve released only the first half of their schedule to allow for them to reschedule postponements into the second half slate.

So far, though, this is a good start and hopefully players and staffers will be able to continue to produce negative tests and allow this season to progress without too many hiccups.

You didn’t see a lot of D.L. Hawkins, who had the power to move through solid objects, on Heroes, the hit mid-aughts superhero show: He was killed off early in the second season, struck by a bullet (which apparently aren’t solid enough to move through him). But according to a new testimonial by Leonard Roberts the actor who played him, published by Variety, his role was originally supposed to be much larger. He was told that he didn’t have much chemistry with Ali Larter, who played Niki Sanders. But the actor alleges that the real reason was much more troubling.

Roberts’ account, which was corroborated by 10 people who either worked on the show or were familiar with the events in question, claims that the problems began even before he was cast. An early draft of the pilot described Hawkins, who starts of as a prison inmate, as “a white man’s nightmare.” But Roberts soldiered on. “Through the entire audition process, I found a connection to the character that didn’t traffic in stereotypes,” he writes.

But by the time the show had been picked up to series, things changed. His character was suddenly removed from the pilot. He was told he’d be introduced in Episode 2. He didn’t debut until Episode 6. Roberts also discovered he wasn’t being treated the same way as the other main actors.

“As production began, I looked forward to sharing my thoughts on my character with the writing staff, as I heard other cast members had done the same with theirs,” Roberts alleges. “Unfortunately, no such meeting ever materialized. Then I learned that despite the show’s three Black series regulars, there were no Black writers on staff.”

But the real problems, Roberts claims, didn’t begin until he finally started shooting. He alleges Larter was always cold, even hostile, towards him, especially during rehearsal of an intimate scene during what was his first episode that she abruptly ended over her refusal to play the scene with the straps of her top lowered. He later mentioned it to co-star Adrian Pasdar, who also had intimate scenes with her:

“After watching the episode, I asked Pasdar if there had been any concerns similar to what I witnessed during my episode. He replied to the contrary, and mentioned her openness to collaboration and even improvisation. I pondered why my co-star had exuberantly played a different scene with the Petrelli character involving overt sexuality while wearing lingerie, but found aspects of one involving love and intimacy expressed through dialogue with my character, her husband, disrespectful to her core. I couldn’t help wondering whether race was a factor.”

Soon rumors of tension between two co-stars on Heroes spread into TV Guide, which was assumed to be Roberts and Larter. Things got worse after the two posed for an Entertainment Weekly cover, which eventually led her to confront him:

“I’m hearing our cover is selling the least of all of them,” she told me. It was the first and only thing she said to me that night and I believed the subtext was clear: I was tarnishing her brand.”

The next day he learned his character was going to be killed off, due, he says, to “the Ali Larter situation.” He also says he was reassured by executive producer Dennis Hammer to not “think of this as a situation where the Black man loses and the white woman wins.” Roberts says “that was the first time my race was ever acknowledged while I was a part of the show: not for any creative contribution I could make, but for what I believed was the fear of me becoming litigious.”

Roberts eventually negotiated to film a death scene for Season 2, for which, he says, he was paid as a guest star, though he wound up getting the full amount he would have received had he been kept on as a regular. Since then he’s kept his mouth shut, only deciding to go public with his allegations this past August, in the wake of the summer’s Black Lives Matters protests, when questions about race in America, and in Hollywood, were being asked more forcefully than ever before.

Larter, Variety says, “did not provide any on-the-record response.” Heroes creator Tim Kring did, saying he “set out to cast the most diverse show on television,” though he acknowledges that “a lack of diversity at the upper levels of the staff may have contributed to Leonard experiencing the lack of sensitivity that he describes.”

(Via Variety)

Hallmark Channel Christmas movies are proudly predictable, full of cliches, and bland as virgin eggnog. But people love ’em. I mean they really love them.

According to Crown Media, the parent of Hallmark and its sister network Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, an average of 3.5 million people tuned in to Hallmark’s “Countdown to Christmas” during its nine-week run in 2018.

Laugh all you want at the sappy films, but Hallmark doesn’t care. In 2018, it brought in $600 million in advertising revenue.

Hallmark has a formula and it’s sticking to it. Even it’s movie posters are formulaic, Dave Addyey created a montage of Hallmark Christmas movie posters, and their similarity is pretty hilarious. Each one features a white woman in red holding a Christmas ornament and a white man holding her wearing green. Both are bathed in beautiful, golden lighting.

Designer Jessica Jones has even made a bingo card so you can play along with all of the clichés throughout the holidays.

Canceled flight? Check.

Woman who quits a successful job for life in a small town? Check.

Scene where they decorate a Christmas tree? Check.

Child makes a wish? Check.

Gift wrapping scene? BINGO!

And of course, the movie has to have a female lead who was on the TV show, “Full House.” It just wouldn’t be a Hallmark Christmas movie without Candace Cameron Bure, Lori Laughlin, or Jodie Sweetin. But, of course, we’ll settle for other ’90s teen TV stars like Danica McKellar or Lacey Chabert.

Comedian Elizabeth Kemp had some fun with Hallmark Christmas movie cliches by creating a hilarious video where she plays the typical “big city girl who comes to a small town for Christmas” character.

But unfortunately, even though she puts herself in the position to find love it never happens. Hence the title, “Hallmark Movies Lied to Me.”

“I am over the age of 30. I have multiple graduate degrees, I’ve definitely prioritized my career. I’m single, but I have been in Vermont for five days now, and not once has anyone approached me about saving an inn or planning a fall festival or even just asked me to reconsider my priorities,” she says in the opening of the video.

Kemp then visits a Christmas tree farm and utters the phrases that should attract her some attention from the male protagonist. “I hate Christmas, I hate the fall. Nothing about the holidays appeals to me,” she says.

She even sets a trap for a paramour by grabbing a hot cup of coffee and posting up in a classic, small-town gazebo. But nothing happens.

Kemp goes so far as to take to the road and hope for a traffic incident. Narrowly missing a pedestrian with your car is a great way for couples to have a meet-cute in Hallmark films.

Sadly, Elizabeth didn’t meet the love of her life in a cozy, Christmassy, Hallmark fashion. But, the good news is, she didn’t accidentally wind up as the female lead in a Lifetime movie. Then she’d be in big trouble.

“Cocktails are about relaxing, having fun, bringing people together, and, of course, enjoying something delicious.”

Those are the wise words of Ryan Chetiyawardana or Mr. Lyan, co-founder of the much-lauded Lyan bars and recent MasterClass bartending instructor. And while the “bringing people together” aspect of his statement doesn’t fit with life in the pandemic, the thirst for relaxation, fun, and deliciousness all certainly holds up. In fact, those elements are more relevant now than ever.

While it goes without saying that 2020 has not been an easy year for anyone, that’s especially true if you work (or worked) in the hospitality sector behind the bar or serving tables. Bars and restaurants were the first to close and have been the last to reopen as lockdowns sweep the globe. We’re talking about millions of jobs, plus a massive supply chain linked to dozens of other industries from farming to distilling and brewing to soft drink manufacturers to ice companies — all shuttered or reeling from a loss of demand.

In the wake of this massive upheaval, innovative bars have attempted to diversify — with takeaway cocktails, liquor and beer sales, and outdoor-only seating — to varying degrees of success. Meanwhile, many bartenders have gone online to teach those stuck at home (and craving a stiff drink). And while the economic viability of demoing recipes on social media is dubious, there’s certainly an eager audience.

You don’t have to look any further than Google Trends to see that the demand for cocktail recipes skyrocketed in quarantine. That very phrase — “cocktail recipes” — began spiking in March 2020 and content creators immediately stepped up to answer the call. Drinks tutorials released on YouTube are booming, and TikTok, Instagram Live, and Zoom tastings have all been embraced by both the industry and consumers alike.

While the social aspect of bars and restaurants can’t be recreated online, we’re 100% supportive of people gaining new skills and learning the ins-and-outs of what it takes to actually make a good drink. (Hopefully, it leads to better tipping, too!) To do our part in finishing the year of at-home bartending strong, we thought we’d break down the best ways to indulge in a little amateur mixology while also offering a few “must know” recipes.

Part I: Home Bar Equipment

“When advising individuals on the best way to make beverages in their homes, I always turn to utilizing items that they already have in their pantry or their fridge,” says Lauren Paylor, bartender at Silver Lyan in Washington, DC, and co-founder of Focus On Health.

The same goes for equipment. There’s this idea that you need a crystal mixing jug, fancy copper shakers, long bar spoons, the exact right glasses, dehydrators, smokers, etc… The truth is, you really don’t. These items are nice, but not a necessity.

“You could have a Mason jar or Tupperware container that you shake in and a shot glass you got for free to measure with yet still make a great drink,” Iain Griffiths, co-founder of the Lyan Bar Group.

Chetiyawardana adds, “Ice cube trays, a decent knife, and a means to measure — jigger, scales, tablespoon — are probably going to make the biggest impact.”

The other facet that seems to really pull people back from diving into home cocktail mixing is the actual booze. While you may have an old jar and spoon hanging around your kitchen, you probably don’t have a bar’s worth of liquor on your shelf. Our best advice when buying bottles is this: Don’t break the bank with expensive expressions when you’re learning.

A $20 bottle of whiskey goes a long way when you’re practicing your old fashioned game or tinkering with your Manhattan. Paylor, Chetiyawardana, and Griffiths all agree: when mixing at home, balance is what makes a good drink, not spendy equipment or even the most pricey alcohol.

SEE ALSO: Build A Home Bar Without Breaking The Bank

Part II: Easy Cocktail Recipes To Try Right Now

When you’re making cocktails, it’s key to stick to the classics. Develop a solid baseline before riffing and experimenting too much. Three of the five cocktail recipes below are pulled from our own cocktail recipe list from November 2020, “Easy Cocktail Recipes For The Blossoming Home Bartender.” The other two are stone-cold classics that we wish had made the cut last month. We’re adding one vodka and one rum cocktail since those are some of the most searched cocktails right now (also because we really dig both vodka and rum cocktails).

White Russian

The Drink:

This is the ultimate dessert drink that’s a bit of an eye-opener thanks to the coffee-liqueur base. It’s also super easy to make. It’s a three-ingredient drink that just takes a little finesse to nail.

Supplies:

• Rocks glass
• Jigger
• Stirrer

Ingredients:

• 2-oz. vodka
• 1-oz. coffee liqueur
• 1-oz. heavy cream (36 percent milkfat)
• Ice

Method:

• Fill your rocks glass with ice.
• Add the vodka and coffee liqueur and stir until well blended and the glass starts to get cold.
• Pour the heavy cream in a slow and steady stream against the inner edge of the glass so that the cream floats.
• Drop in the stirrer.
• Serve.

Dry Gin Martini

The Drink:

This is the one cocktail everyone should be able to make. A dry gin martini is simple yet overflowing with subtle nuance. This is the sort of drink that you need to stir up a couple of times to get exactly right.

Once you hit a stride, you’ll be whipping these drinks up non-stop.

Supplies:

• Cocktail glass or Nick And Nora glass
• Fruit peeler or cocktail stick
• Barspoon
• Jigger
• Mixing jug
• Strainer

Ingredients:

• 2.5-oz. dry gin
• 0.5-oz. dry vermouth
• Ice
• Lemon peel or green olives

Method:

• Add gin and vermouth to a mixing jug.
• Top with ice.
• Stir until the outside of the mixing jug is ice-cold to touch.
• Strain the drink into a pre-chilled glass.
• Garnish: Either spritz lemon oils over the drink and drop in the peel or spear a couple of olives and drop them in the glass.
• Serve.

Manhattan

The Drink:

If you can make a dry martini, you can make this classic. It’s the exact same concept only with whiskey in place of gin, sweet vermouth in place of dry vermouth, and a dash of bitters to give it a little more color.

Supplies:

• Cocktail glass or Nick and Nora glass
• Fruit peeler
• Cocktail stick
• Barspoon
• Jigger
• Mixing jug
• Strainer

Ingredients:

• 2-oz. rye whiskey
• 1-oz. sweet vermouth
• 3 dashes Angostura Bitters
• Ice
• Orange peel
• Luxardo cherry

Method:

• Add the bitters, whiskey, and vermouth to a mixing jug.
• Top with ice.
• Stir until the outside of the mixing jug is ice-cold to touch.
• Strain the drink into a pre-chilled glass.
• Spritz the drink with the orange oils from the orange peel and discard.
• Spear one cherry (two if you must but not more than that) and drop it into the glass.
• Serve.

Champagne Cocktail

The Drink:

Okay, this is technically the easiest cocktail on this list. You really aren’t “mixing” anything with this one. There’s no stirring, no shaking, no measuring. Yet, if you have a nice and dry Champagne (think Bollinger or Roederer), this cocktail can really take it to the next level by basically amping it up with a touch of bitters and sugar.

Supplies:

• Champagne flute
• Barspoon
• Fruit Peeler

Ingredients:

• Champagne
• 1 white sugar cube
• 4 dashes Angostura Bitters
• Lemon peel

Method:

• Balance the sugar cube in the bowl of a barspoon and hit it with four dashes of bitters.
• Let the cube soak in the bitters for about 20 to 30 seconds.
• Drop the sugar cube into the bottom of a pre-chilled Champagne flute.
• Top with ice-cold Champagne.
• Spritz the oils from the lemon peel over the drink and drop in the peel.
• Serve.

Rum Old Fashioned

The Drink:

Do you know what’s better than a regular old fashioned? A rum old fashioned!

Supplementing rum for bourbon or rye adds a funkier and fruitier dimension to the classic cocktail while still offering the oompf of a pure alcohol drink. It’s the same easy cocktail just with a little more going on. The added benefit of this drink is that, like the first one of this list, you can make it in the glass.

Supplies:

• Rocks glass
• Knife or fruit peeler
• Jigger
• Barspoon

Ingredients:

• 3-oz. Caribbean dark rum
• 4 dashes Angostura Bitters
• 1 barspoon white sugar
• 1 barspoon water
• Orange peel
• Ice

Method:

• Add the sugar, water, and bitters to the rocks glass and stir until sugar starts to dissolve.
• Add in the rum and stir until sugar has completely dissolved.
• Add in the ice and stir until the glass is ice-cold to touch and the volume of the liquid has doubled in size.
• Top with ice.
• Spritz the oils from the orange peel over the glass and run the peel around the rim and outside of the glass then drop it in the drink.
• Serve.

Creed frontman Scott Stapp is known for a lot of things. His long flowing hair (though it’s been cut since the band’s initial popularity), his incredibly deep voice, the ever-present chorus of “Higher,” one of Creed’s most popular songs. Additionally, he’ll soon be known as an actor, as Billboard reports he’s recently been tapped to portray none other than Frank Sinatra in an upcoming biopic about the life of president Ronald Reagan. The choice may seem a little surprising to some, as Stapp doesn’t particularly look like Sinatra, and he definitely hasn’t sung in a similar style… at least, he hasn’t yet.

Entitled Reagan, the film will feature Dennis Quaid as the titular former president, and apparently includes a scene at the Ambassador Hotel’s Cocoanut Grove club in Hollywood with of Stapp as Sinatra performing for a fundraiser in 1970 for Reagan’s second California campaign for governor. “Sinatra in performance mode was an exercise in restraint,” Stapp told Billboard in a statement. “He had this steely, stylish swagger and his sheer presence commanded a room. I was excited to join the cast and blown away by the on-set attention to detail, style, and overall production.”

Creed fans and beyond will definitely be eager to see Stapp in his silver screen role, and the film is coming in 2021.

The saying “elections have consequences” has never rung more true than it does right now, and in more ways than one. Right now, the consequence of the 2016 election is that we currently have a sitting president who refuses to accept the outcome of what state election officials have verified as a free and fair election, instead claiming that the election was “rigged” with “rampant fraud,” insisting that he actually won in a landslide, and continuing to peddle falsehoods in an attempt to remain in power.

We’ll get to those claims in a minute. But first let’s look at a story that highlights how the consequences of those claims are growing more and more dangerous.

A former Houston police captain has been arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after a police investigation into an incident that occurred two weeks before the 2020 election.

According to ABC 13 News, Mark Anthony Aguirre had spent four days surveilling a man who he thought was heading up a huge voter fraud operation. Believing the man’s truck was transporting 750,000 fraudulent ballots, 63-year-old Aguirre rammed his SUV into the back of the truck, forcing it off the road. When the driver got out to check his truck and the welfare of the person who had struck his vehicle, Aguirre pulled out his pistol. He held the truck driver at gunpoint on the ground with his knee in his back until the police arrived.

The truck was not full of ballots. It was full of air conditioner parts and tools, and the man was an innocent air conditioner technician.

But it gets even darker and unhinged. Aguirre explained to police that he was part of a private citizen group called “Liberty Center” who were “investigating” an alleged voter ballot harvesting operation that the truck driver was supposedly running out of his shed behind his mobile home. Aguirre said he and some friends had set up a “command post” at a Marriott hotel and had been conducting 24-hour surveillance of the driver’s home for four days. He claimed the driver was hiding 750,000 fraudulent ballots. He claimed they were using Hispanic children to sign them because their fingerprints wouldn’t show up in a database. He also claimed that Mark Zuckerberg had paid the man $9.37 million to conduct the illegal voting operation.

None of this was true, of course. Police searched the truck driver’s home, shed, and truck, and found no ballots. His home and shed contained normal home and shed things. And his truck contained exactly what you would expect an air conditioner repairman’s truck to contain. The poor guy thought he was being robbed at gunpoint when Aguirre confronted him after ramming his truck.

So what of this “Liberty Center”? A grand jury subpoena of Aguirre’s bank records show that he received three large payments from an organization called Liberty Center for God and Country—two for $25,000 in the month prior to the truck-ramming incident, and $211,400 the day after it.

The police officer who investigated the incident wrote in his affidavit that Aguirre told him he could be part of the solution or part of the problem, adding “I just hope you’re a patriot.”

Apparently, being a patriot means going along with someone being paid huge amounts of money to conduct bizarro “investigations” based on cuckoo conspiracy theories and committing felonies in the name of overturning a free and fair election.

We are so far past the point of “perusing legal channels” for ensuring the election was legitimate it’s not even funny. Every state has verified its election results, including states with Republican Secretaries of State that ended up blue. Trump’s legal team and other allies who have brought court cases have lost spectacularly. Every court case that has been put forth alleging either fraud or unconstitutionality of election changes due to the pandemic has been lost or dismissed except one, making Trump 1-59 in court. That includes rulings from Trump-appointed federal judges, the Supreme Courts of various states, as well as the SCOTUS itself.

There’s a widespread claim that all of these cases have been dismissed on technicalities, but that’s simply not true. You can read the court rulings here. There has been an unfortunately successful attempt at convincing a good portion of the public that there is evidence of widespread fraud, but multiple judges have been clear the evidence isn’t there. The vast majority of “evidence” that has been presented are affidavits from people either misunderstanding normal election processes or describing normal processes in suspicious ways. Some of it has been flat out false information (such as the “expert” who mixed up counties in Michigan and Minnesota) and some of it has been flat out wrong assumptions based on a lack of relevant knowledge.

We can’t get into every instance—and indeed, the absolute flood of b.s. is designed to make it virtually impossible to keep up with—but here’s one example from this morning’s Senate hearing. Much has been made of the forensic audit of the Dominion voting machines in Michigan, with countless breathless social media posts claiming a 68% error rate. Chris Krebs is a Republican who served as director of CISA—the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency—until he was fired by Trump for fact-checking him about the election. He explained in two minutes what the real story is with that part of the audit report.

Watch:

And yet Trump is still claiming to have won the election in a landslide, his pet media outlets are peddling the same fraudulent claim, and millions are eating it up.

Let’s be perfectly clear. Fake voter fraud claims aside, the idea of a landslide Trump win is absurd on its face. Nearly every single poll of likely or registered voters leading up to the election had Biden favored to win. And despite the fanatic enthusiasm of his base, Trump has been a historically unpopular president. His approval rating at the beginning of 2020 was 42.6%, the lowest of any president since 1976—and that was before his handling of the pandemic led to hundreds of thousands of American deaths. Forty-one separate polls show that he has never even reached, much less exceeded, a 50% approval rating during his entire presidency.

So yeah. Cheering, adulating, superspreading crowds at rallies do not a majority make. The idea that Biden could only have won if there were fraud doesn’t even make basic logical sense, and the idea that Democrats would have rigged the presidential election and not the congressional races is just plain silly.

The longer these allegations continue to be pushed, the more danger American citizens and the country as a whole will be in. One man’s insatiable narcissism is not worth destroying democracy. Enough is enough.

There’s this outdated image of what a gamer looks like, a caricature that’s been held up by pop culture and social media. It trades in some of the more harmful stereotypes and myths about what gaming is and who it’s for. It usually centers on lonely, emotionally stunted men living in their parents’ basement whose worst instincts are emboldened by the anonymity of a keyboard and WiFi connection.

To whatever extent those types of gamers exist, they in no way make up the bulk of people playing online, especially not in 2020.

It’s almost ironic, how a pastime once mocked for being the reason so many people struggled to maintain a healthy social life is now the preferred mean of connecting with friends, family, and sometimes, complete strangers on the internet. Some are happy to point to the global pandemic (and the months-long lockdowns we’ve all had to endure because of it) as the reason why these multi-player spaces have become so popular. They look at mind-blowing numbers — Microsoft’s reported 130 percent increase in multiplayer engagement across March and April, and Nintendo’s 22 million sales of Animal Crossing: New Horizons — and blame it on boredom and the side-effects of self-isolation. The most cynical might even predict that once vaccines become widely available and we’re able to frequent bars, restaurants, and friends’ backyards without the fear of a deadly virus looming over our get-togethers, these socially-minded gaming experiences will be discarded for the “real thing.”

But if 2020’s taught us anything, it’s that we should have more faith in, and a bigger appreciation for, co-op gaming.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the first sign that the multi-player gaming verse had crossover potential. Sure, titles like Fortnite and Halo had been around for a while. but it’s easy to pinpoint why they lacked broader appeal among first-time players. Expensive hardware, a certain level of experience and competitive drive, and an understanding of rules and objectives are a daunting list of prerequisites for even the most determined newbie. But in 2020, multi-player games, especially co-op friendly experiences like New Horizons, sidestepped the gatekeeping of better tech and skill-driven play for a more communal, collaborative, and frankly welcoming form of gaming.

Suddenly, buying turnips at a virtual market and picking up sticks on your personal island drove the discourse of multi-player gaming. Animal Crossing: New Horizons made it easy to create life-sim environments and share those experiences with others. And while New Horizons’ local co-op play drew controversy earlier in the year for limiting the number of shared islands per console to just one, the game’s multi-player promise paid off.

By introducing new designations and allowing up to eight players to visit an island at a time, the game created space for creativity and community to thrive. Friends could now invent virtual past times, create scavenger hunts, competitively net-bonk, terraform obstacle courses, dig up prizes together, and more. These weren’t traditional co-op experiences like the bank heists of GTA Online or beating back zombie husks in Fortnite: Save the World, but they managed to achieve the same end-game: a shared virtual adventure. They encouraged people to interact, to explore the social capabilities of gaming in a low-stakes setting, and it didn’t hurt that they added a bit of escapist whimsy to the whole thing.

Escapism has become gaming’s superpower this year, giving us all a needed distraction from the real-life chaos forcing us indoors. But while traditional single-player games can sometimes reinforce reality — or at least inadvertently reminds us that we can’t visit a bodega with a cat in our backpack a la Miles Morales or that Marvel hasn’t released a movie in theaters all year despite Earth’s mightiest heroes debuting a new title — multiplayer verses and co-op experiences, in particular, can offer a different kind of immersive experience. They require our full attention and participation, a level of engagement that comes from knowing others are counting on you, a social component that rewards communication and cooperation. When you’re hunting poltergeists in Phasmophobia or investigating a murder on your ship in Among Us, you’ve got to fully commit to living in the game to survive, to win. That opens up new channels for chatting and interacting with each other — it adds another dimension to play that encourages gamers to invest and spend time in this shared setting.

In a report from Flowplay, 36 percent of respondents (and almost half of Generation Z and Millennials) said they were most interested in the social community aspect of online games. One-quarter of respondents stated they rely on online games for social interaction, which means gaming has caught up to other forms of social media like TikTok, in terms of how younger generations connect. Online platforms like Roblox, where users can create their own games and invite others to collaborate on them, became a hit with younger gamers looking for ways to connect with school-friends once learning went virtual. Easy-to-play battle royales like Fall Guys took on new life with first-time players, letting them engage in single-player competitions while sprinkling in team dynamics with certain arenas.

Streaming, which has exploded since the pandemic began, earned legions of newcomers. Some were looking for more personal interactions in their gameplay sure, but plenty more tuned in just to watch over-the-top personalities and talented gamers compete for fun. People scratched their heads at how Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could earn 400,000 views on a live stream of Among Us. Those people didn’t understand that co-op gaming extends past the people maneuvering inside a multi-player universe. There’s a second-life that co-op gaming enjoys — from memes to fanart to Reddit forums — that feels inclusive and inviting in a way single-player games just don’t.

Once you’ve been on a Phasmophobia team where members abandon you in the observation van, once you’ve gone into debt over turnips or watched a crewmate’s pet mourn over their owner’s body in Among Us, you want to talk about the experience, or tweet about it, or craft a TikTok in honor of it. Your experiences in co-op gaming aren’t solely your own, which fosters a sense of community that transcends whatever device you happen to be playing on. And these games tend to infiltrate pop culture because of that, in ways even beautifully rendered, story-rich titles like The Last Of Us Part II just can’t, which only furthers their popularity and invites more prospective players to their worlds.

We’re not claiming co-op gaming and multiplayer gaming is better than single-player modes — preference depends on what adventure you’re looking for — but in 2020, these experiences gave us things we desperately needed: Connection, the opportunity to work together towards a common goal, a way to bridge divides, meet new people, and interact on a different level.

That won’t just go away once this pandemic ends … and we’re thankful for it.

Since HBO Max launched in May 27, WarnerMedia’s streaming service slowly made itself accessible to platform after platform with Roku users sitting by, not-so-patiently, waiting for their turn. Soon enough, workarounds made it possible for some Roku devotees to climb aboard and watch original HBO Max shows including Love Life and The Flight Attendant, along with a vast back catalogue of content. Still, millions of users remained frustrated with the two services seemingly at odds over how to seal a deal. On Wednesday morning, even, word that even Sony PlayStation 5 users could now stream HBO Max made the Roku issue stand out even more, but finally, word has come down that HBO Max and Roku are friends.

Via a press release, WarnerMedia announced that, beginning on Thursday, December 17, Roku users can nab HBO Max from the Roku channel store and subscribe from there. As long as they’ve got HBO subscription credentials, they can access the entire HBO Max library for streaming. This deal arrives shortly before Wonder Woman 1984 lands on the streaming service at no additional cost. From a statement from Roku Senior Vice President Scott Rosenberg:

“Reaching mutually beneficial agreements where Roku grows together with our partners is how we deliver an exceptional user experience at an incredible value for consumers and we are excited by the opportunity to deepen our longstanding relationship with the team at WarnerMedia.”

As Rosenberg points out, this should make the over 100 million people with Roku devices pretty happy, just in time for the holidays and while waiting for those vaccines to start circulating in abundance.