Social media is, generally, a mess these days. Clashes between people of varying ideologies are rampant, misinformation is everywhere, and many sites seem either unwilling to regulate things or are simply overwhelmed by problems. But even conservatives seeking the freedom of expression on the budding right-wing network Parler aren’t having the best time chatting with their Trump-loving pals.
According to OneZero’s Sarah Emerson on Medium, thousands of people joined groups named things like “Parler Invite Group” and “Who is moving to Parler” in order to share new usernames with the hopes of escaping platforms where they felt they were being censored. The movement picked up some momentum after the November election, where conspiracy theorists gathered together to invent ways they felt the election was stolen from Donald Trump.
But not everything is going well in the wonderland of “all takes matter.” As the story lays out, a lot of people are complaining that their posts aren’t getting the kind of exposure they can on other, more popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. And some less tech-savvy users aren’t even sure how to log in and exercise their First Amendment rights to push their grandchildren away with hot takes:
“I’ve talked to so many that can’t even figure out how to get on it,” another member posted. “They’re still on FB thinking they’re on Parler.”
“Can anybody help with this exasperating problem I’m having?! I can’t join the website at all because of the captcha loop at the beginning,” someone else wrote in the “Who is moving to Parler” group. The group is public and has nearly 5,000 members.”
Parler is also having some issues with security procedures it has in place, such as an apparent rule that you must verify your account by sending the company an official form of identification before you can send direct messages to contacts. That idea hasn’t sat well with some of those free speech mavericks who don’t want the company to have records of who they are.
And then there’s the main problem with an echo chamber social media site seeking to corner the market on a certain kind of fringe conservative: there aren’t a whole lot of people to talk to and, unlike Facebook, other less-radicalized members of society aren’t there to comment angrily on your posts:
According to one Facebook group member: “What’s the point of just seeing posts from conservative newsgroups, but not my friends or family? I’m just not sure about staying with it.”
The easy solution in all of this is obvious: just log off. But no, that simply won’t do here. The posting must continue unabated.
You’re almost done with this year’s holiday shopping list, but you’ve come to one name that’s got you stuck. A cipher. An enigma. A style-forward friend who’s constantly complaining about “taking an L’’ on the Nike SNKRS app and often seen browsing StockX and eBay for kicks that are marked up to double the retail price.
Puzzle over the matter no more. You, my friend, are shopping for a sneakerhead. And to a sneakerhead, shoes aren’t just shoes — they’re a way of life.
This raises the stakes on the whole issue of holiday shopping. But fear not, we’ve got you. 2020 has seen a bevy of great drops to choose from. Plus there are always accessories, socks, and books to cop — if that’s more your price range. Regardless of what you pick, the gifts profiled below will leave sneakerheads thrilled.
And they won’t be too hard on your wallet, either.
Part 1 — Sneaker Accessories
Literally Any Sneaker Cleaning Kit
Jason Markk
Price: $10-20
Picking up a sneaker cleaning kit is a no brainer. No worry about being too precious with the brands here. Jason Markk, Clean Kicks, Dead Stock, Pink Miracle… they all essentially do the same thing — clean sneakers. So pick whichever one fits into your price range and matches the general aesthetic of who you are gifting it to.
Again, no need to be precious about brands here. Just pick up a few pairs of socks in varying colors (unless the person you’re shopping for only wears white socks) from pretty much any store. Places like Uniqlo are sure to have a variety of different cuts and colors or you could just pick up a few pairs from whichever brand your friend is most loyal to, be it Nike or Adidas.
Socks help to pull an outfit together and kick up a pair of sneakers to the next level.
We’ve been putting together sneakerhead-focused gift guides for three years now and we’ve always made a point of purposely not including books about sneakers. Books aren’t for everyone, and they make really lame gifts for people who aren’t into them.
But this one is different.
Complex really made a book for sneakerheads of all stripes, covering 35 years of dope sneaker drops in full-color high-quality images, from the very first pair of Air Jordans to the latest Virgil Abloh Off-White collabs. This is a great book to just thumb through, no reading necessary. If you’re into the history of a particular pair of sneakers, that’s included too — in beautifully written, succinct passages.
Repel spray isn’t so much a shoe cleaner, as it is a stain preventer. If the sneakerhead in your life likes to keep their shoes looking pristine, a good repel spray like this one by Jason Markk should do the trick. A nice long spritz of this stuff on a fresh pair of kicks will keep them looking crisp and stain-free, which is essential if the sneakerhead in your life is all about rocking white kicks.
This is a bit of a cop-out gift, but sometimes a gift card is exactly what a sneakerhead wants. It’s hard to pick out a pair of fly shoes for someone who is obsessed with shoes, they’re incredibly particular! So load up a gift card with some cash, let them decide, and stop stressing yourself out about it.
Dope Sneakers For Under $100 — Reebok Club C Vintage
Reebok
Price: $70
Certain sneakers just look right in certain colors. That’s how I feel about these Club Cs in the vintage colorway of chalk, Glen green, and paperwhite. The shoe — which gives off 80s tennis vibes — is available for only $70 at Reebok.
Nike’s rarely dip under $100, but for whatever reason, the Air Max 90 is marked down to a cool $93. That’s a steal. The Air Max 90 is a classic sneaker silhouette, which means it goes out of style like an Air Force 1… never.
Seriously, do we need to say more? Yeezys are still the most popular modern sneaker label and the Yeezy Boost 350 V2 is easily the brand’s most popular shoe. So pretty much any sneakerhead would be psyched to get a pair. This week the brand is dropping in a legendary BRED colorway (that might sound like nonsense to you, but your sneakerhead knows what that means) and it’s rumored Adidas is bringing a high yield this time around, so it should be fairly easy to pick up a pair.
Ultra Hyped For A Steal — Jordan 1 Retro High Dark Mocha
StockX
Price: Around $200
Right now, these are totally sold out, which sounds like a bad thing, but it’s actually good. It means your sneakerhead friend probably doesn’t have a pair. But if they’re all about Air Jordans there is no doubt they’d love to cop a pair of the high top Dark Mochas.
“Sold out” in the sneaker world means you’ll just have to turn to the robust aftermarket where these around running in the $200-$300 range. It’s pricey, but the Dark Mocha is probably the best Jordan colorway released all year, something the sneakerhead in your life will be well aware and appreciative of.
Ultra Hyped For A Steal — Aimé Leon Dore 550 White/Red
StockX
Price: Around $250
Ultra hip Queens-based streetwear label Aimé Leon Dore officially brought back New Balance’s 1980’s silhouette the 550 with an elegant four colorway drop back in October that (unsurprisingly) sold out instantly.
The collection’s most popular pair of sneakers, the white and green iteration, sells for almost $500 on the aftermarket, but the white and red iteration can be copped for a much more comfortable $250, a steal considering the popularity of this line.
Ultra Hyped For A Steal — NOAH Adidas Gazelle Cheetah/Duck Camo
StockX
Price: Around $250
Adidas linked up with New York-based streetwear label NOAH for an ultra dope double drop of the Adidas Gazelle silhouette just this week. Both pairs are sold out at NOAH, but they’ve hit the aftermarket for near retail price hovering just under $250 for either pair.
Both looks are dope, but considering one is cheetah print (with long pony hair) and the other is a canvas Duck Camo, it goes without saying that these two pairs aren’t for everyone. Meaning that you have to really know the person you’re shopping for here.
For the right person? A gift like this couldn’t be more fire.
The problem with IP collabs like this is that they can veer toward cheesy so. freaking. quickly. One minute, you think: “Hey, let’s do tie-in shoe,” and the next minute both companies are getting roasted for sneakers with goddamn Wookie hair on them.
The Puma x Super Mario collab veered away from all that, which was wise. Instead, they touch the Nintendo IP in light ways — a Mario sun on the heel, cloud logos on the insoles, and the shimmery blue Puma swoosh. It’s all very subtle and, as such, much more low-key than the competition.
You know why the mellow approach works so well? Because the Puma Clyde is the coolest silhouette in existence. And because people love Mario but they don’t want his face on their toes, something Adidas never quite savvied out this year.
It’s Mariah Carey season. So far this December, the Christmas queen has debuted a new holiday special as well as a single with Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson. She spoke about both with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in a new interview, during which she also revealed which holiday song “is Christmas” to her: Nat King Cole’s classic rendition of “The Christmas Song.”
Carey acknowledged that it’s not the most upbeat holiday song before describing why she loves it, saying, “I understand why you would feel maybe a bit melancholy with that song. It’s so beautiful, the arrangement is so lush, the production, his voice. It really is Christmas to me. There have been so many other renditions of that song, but for me, I love that one. And I always, always will. Sometimes when there’s a classic, you just don’t need to mess with it. And I don’t get sad when I hear it. It’s like I’m getting goosebumps thinking of it now. That’s how real the whole Christmas thing is to me.”
She also discussed the meaning of Christmas to her, saying, “For me, it’s the birth of Christ. It’s the actual meaning of the holiday, but it’s the meaning of love. And it’s the meaning of I like to feel at peace. I don’t often feel at peace. At Christmas, sometimes I’ll just be by myself, steal a moment, and just be in the room, look at the tree, listen to the music. And there I am.”
In January 2019, the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative concluded that two years earlier, the music industry saw a six-year low for female creatives. The contributions of women remain underrepresented in virtually every corner of the field — from singers and songwriters to A&R professionals and marketing mavens. Because of these findings, She Is The Music is a necessary network for women in music to facilitate meaningful change in order to diminish the “boys club” industry mentality, which is why we wanted to showcase them in this debut episode of our new The Show Up series.
Founded by Alicia Keys in 2018, She Is The Music is a non-profit organization aiming to amplify underrepresented individuals in the music industry through networking, resources, and impactful initiatives. In the above video, Michelle Arkuski, executive director of the organization, says that the “overarching” goal of the organization is to “[harness] inclusivity, opportunity and visibility to increase the number of women working in music.”
She Is The Music fosters connections between its members and music industry giants in order to provide support and advice. Like-minded individuals can link up through the organization’s global online database of 7,000 she/her-identifying music industry members. She Is The Music also features programs unifying its members, like their all-female songwriting camp, their partnership with Step Up empowering female high school students, and their newly-implemented virtual mentorship program, Connect TogetHER, whose members launched their own music team after the program ended to help an alumna release her debut album.
Through instilling confidence in established and prospective industry personnel, She Is The Music provides a look into how limitless the field could be for women. “When people put gender into a title, it knocks you down a few steps,” She Is The Music’s songwriting committee co-chair and L.A. chapter head Hannah Babitt notes. “We need all genders involved to push a change and shift the numbers.”
Check out the video above to learn more about the group.
If we’re going by her Twitter feed, we’d say Ivanka Trump’s feeling a bit nostalgic. The White House senior adviser has, up until now, supported her father’s push to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 Presidential election, but a string of recent tweets looking back on Trump’s major “accomplishments” while in office may signal that she knows he’s on the way out and deserves a tribute.
Along with posts commemorating the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and some Winter Solstice trivia, Ivanka tweeted and RT’d moments from her timeline celebrating some of the biggest milestones in Trump’s presidency, but it’s her Mount Rushmore “thirst tweet” that’s getting the most attention. Trump’s been a bit obsessed with getting his face on the national monument — he posted the same photo Ivanka used in her tweets today back in August — and it seems his daughter is now campaigning for her dad to be immortalized in stone next to some of our greatest presidents (despite his disastrous handling of a global pandemic and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died on his watch).
All jokes aside, there are much bigger things to worry about than the ability of the narcissistic first family to disassociate themselves from reality while people are actually suffering right now. But hey, we’ve got to find the humor somewhere, right?
“The bar, shockingly, is in a neighborhood with the second-highest COVID infections in all of New York, so the rule is that they’re only supposed to let people eat or drink outside,” Davidson said about Mac’s Public House. “And the owner said, no one wants to do that because they’ll go out of business. But the argument that people in Staten Island don’t want to drink outside can be disproven by going to literally any Little League game.” It’s a solid joke, but John Tobacco (JOHNNY TOBACCO) was not amused.
A Staten Island activist named Mr. Tobacco tore the SNL star a new one Monday during a news conference over the watering hole called Mac’s Public House — which has been in the news a lot lately for defying COVID closures. Welp, Mr. Tobacco says Pete’s words are a betrayal, considering people in town know him and his fam. He got very personal and even referenced Pete’s father … a firefighter who died on 9/11 in the Twin Towers.
“The ignorance level is so high now that you have mega-millionaires on the national spotlight, like the folks on Saturday Night Live,” Mr. Tobacco said during a press conference on Monday. “And instead of making fun of their friends and the local business owners who are broke and crushed and bankrupt, instead of coming down here as fellow Staten Islanders and standing up for them and bringing a positive light to this thing, what they want to do is go on national TV and humiliate the little man when he’s down. To me, that is quite disgusting.” He then mockingly called Pete “the King of Staten Island.”
Only in New York, baby. You can watch the clip here. Or the full thing below.
Like basically every festival did this year, Montreal fest Osheaga pushed back its 2020 event to 2021, so the 15th anniversary festival is now set to take place between July 31 and August 1 of next year. The full lineup hasn’t been unveiled yet, but the headliners have been announced: Foo Fighters (who were originally set to headline in 2020), Cardi B, and Post Malone.
Welcome back to YOUR festival Osheaga 2021 returns bigger and better than ever to celebrate its 15th edition! Meet your 2021 headliners: @foofighters, @PostMalone , @iamcardib Get ready for a magical reunion on July 30 – August 1 See you there! pic.twitter.com/Qx3pm8Xbaq
In a statement announcing the news, festival organizers assured fans that they will be following COVID-19 safety guidelines, writing, “We are aware that we are heading into uncertain times, and we have been working relentlessly behind the scenes to create the ideal circumstances for Osheaga to move ahead without a hitch. Of course, we will follow all COVID-19 guidelines (as they evolve) and continue to update the status should anything change, but we need to plan for the future, because there IS a light at the end of the tunnel! Osheaga is all about spreading joy and fun in a secure environment for everyone to celebrate along with live performances by Foo Fighters, Cardi B, Post Malone, and more!”
The statement continued, “The Osheaga family would like to extend a huge thank you to fans, numerous sponsors and public partners for their continuous support. One thing is certain, when we can all gather and celebrate together again, it is going to be unforgettable! We cannot wait to see you at Osheaga Music and Arts Festival 2021!”
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Flatbush Zombies have had a stellar few years and have begun work on a project with James Blake, but it looks like the trio’s individual members are looking to broaden their personal horizons as well. The first to branch off is the group’s primary producer, Erick “Arc” Elliott, aka Erick The Architect, as he announces his debut solo project, Future Proof. A five-song EP, Future Proof is due January 22, 2021, and features British rapper Loyle Carner and electronic duo FARR on the lead single, “Let It Go.”
FARR’s Linden Jay is the producer on the project, which will also contain features from Col3trane, Sophie Faith, and Pip Millett. FARR vocalist Roméo contributes the chorus to “Let It Go,” while Carner and Erick trade heartfelt verses over the downtempo beat.
Earlier this year, Flatbush Zombies released their own new EP, Now, More Than Ever, with a well-rounded rollout including the group’s Tiny Desk Concerts debut. They also dropped off the music video for “Afterlife,” one of the songs they co-produced with James Blake.
Loyle Carner, meanwhile, recently released his Madlib-produced single “Yesterday,” kicking off the rollout for the followup to his standout 2019 album, Not Waving, But Drowning.
Following his well-received performance as an older, battle-weary yet still badass Boba Fett on The Mandalorian, Temuera Morrison sat down with The New York Times to talk about how he got a chance to give Star Wars fans version of the character that they’ve been hoping to see for over 40 years.
Morrison’s time with the franchise goes all the way back to 2002’s Attack of the Clones, in which he played Boba’s father, the bounty hunter Jango Fett, who was cloned for the Republic’s clone army. (Boba himself is a clone of Jango, but he ages like a normal human.) While Morrison’s voice has been dubbed into The Empire Strikes Back, officially making him the voice of Boba Fett, he’s never played the character on-screen until The Mandalorian, which was an experience that he couldn’t believe was happening. As for how the heck Boba Fett is still alive after being unceremoniously knocked into the Sarlacc Pit during Return of the Jedi, not even Morrison knows.
“There’s quite a bit of loose ends, and I’m not one of those guys that knows too much about the actual history,” Morrison told the Times. “The fans of ‘Star Wars,’ they have better knowledge of, What’s happened? How can he still be alive? I thought he was stuck in this place? I can find out more on the internet.”
Of course, what happened to Boba Fett between Return of the Jedi and The Mandalorian seems like the perfect material for the recently announced Boba Fett miniseries, which Morrison hopes to be a part of. Although, for now, he’d settle for a chance to connect with the franchise’s biggest star: Baby Yoda.
“I never got to work with him very closely or with the people who move him around,” Morrison said. “I was using him in a not-so-good way, as bait. But hopefully I’ll get to meet him and we can have a little bonding session.”
It’s pretty wild how after watching every star from Doja Cat to Lil Nas X get dragged for old, offensive, edgelord tweets, stars still don’t delete everything from before they blow up. Even having a fellow group member get censured by fans wasn’t enough to convince JT, recently released from prison and resurgent thanks to the new City Girls album, to delete her old tweets — and now she’s paying the price.
The more lyrical half of the Miami duo deleted her Twitter account after fans resurfaced some of her reckless and offensive tweets from 2015 and before which found her making jokes about everything from R. Kelly’s alleged sexual abuse of teens to Osama Bin Laden. Naturally, there’s a little bigotry sprinkled in, because it wouldn’t be a Twitter controversy if someone wasn’t being a little racist or homophobic. With her account deleted, the original tweets are, of course, gone but they live on in screenshots captured before she reached her limit and hit a hard reset.
For her part, JT seemed unrepentant on Instagram, addressing the controversy in a Story post reading, “Nah all jokes aside stop searching them tweets cause I don’t feel like slapping a bitch back into the same year I was talking about them in!” She also posted a screenshot of what appears to be a new account — one with an apt handle: @fuckyallbitches11.
Still, though, as the commentary continues, this might be a good time for any and all aspiring entertainers to download a Tweet deleting app and get to work. Also, be a better person — it’s not that hard.
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AP /Alex Brandon) 
Susi 
Miriam B Sayer 
(@SayerMiriam) 
Get ready for a magical reunion on July 30 – August 1 
See you there! 
(@stargirl1z) 
(@keemzjamyle)