GoneTrending

As Jimmy Kimmel prepares to host the Oscars for a fourth time, his day job might be coming to an end soon.

“It’s hard to yearn for it when you’re doing it,” he told the Los Angeles Times about hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live. He described a recent night of his when “I was very tired and I had all these scripts to go through — I had to revise and rewrite all these pitch ideas for the Oscars — and I was literally nodding off onto my computer. In those moments, I think, ‘I cannot wait until my contract is over.’ But then, I take the summer off or I go on strike, and you start going, yeah, I miss the fun stuff.” Like the dildo jokes.

Kimmel has been hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live since 2003 (!), but “I think this is my final contract,” he said. “I hate to even say it, because everyone’s laughing at me now — each time I think that, and then it turns out to be not the case. I still have a little more than two years left on my contract, and that seems pretty good. That seems like enough.”

Kimmel is under contract until 2025. If he does leave then, I’m pretty sure I know who his final guest will be.

(Via the Los Angeles Times)

Perfume Genius sure knows how to tell a poignant love story. His latest song, “What A Difference A Day Makes,” is another fine example of his lyrical abilities. Today (February 21), Perfume shared his contribution to the soundtrack for Apple TV+’s The New Look.

On “What A Difference A Day Makes,” a Dinah Washington cover, Perfume details the events that unfold as he falls in love. Over a romantic piano, Perfume waxes poetic as he has found the solace he has been looking for.

“What a difference a day makes / Only 24 hours / Brought the sun and the flowers / Where there used to be rain / My yesterday was blue / Now I’m a part of you,” he sings on the song’s opening verse.

The New Look is a World War II-era piece about the fashions of the time, looking into the lives of designers like Coco Chanel and Christian Dior. The entirety of the show’s soundtrack was produced by Jack Antonoff and features artists like Perfume Genius, Florence + The Machine, and The 1975.

You can listen to “What A Difference A Day Makes” above.

New episodes of The New Look stream Wednesdays on Apple TV+.

The New Look Original Soundtrack is out 4/3 via Shadow Of The City/Dirty Hit. Find more information here.

Philosopher Eric Hoffer once said, “You can’t get enough of what you truly don’t need to make you happy.” His point is that we can have enough of the things that truly satisfy us, such as a healthy relationship, necessary material possessions, or nutritious food.

However, the things that can’t satisfy us, such as junk food, toxic relationships, or status symbols, will always leave us feeling hollow, no matter how much we indulge.

This idea has popped back into public consciousness, although with a slight twist by TikTokker Celeste Aria, who refers to her version of the idea as the “Dorito theory.” “One thing I can’t stop thinking about is called the Dorito theory,” she said in a post with over 1 million views. “I learned about this, and now I see everything a little bit differently.”

---

Aria is a vintage fashion influencer and musician.

“When you eat a Dorito and finish your bite, you’re not fully satisfied,” Aria continues. “It’s not the same as eating a steak or eating a really satiating food that’s high in protein where after your bite, you really feel sort of that fullness and that warmth of satisfaction.”

Have you heard of Dorito Theory? 

@celeste.aria_

Have you heard of Dorito Theory? What types of things and experiences falls under it for you? #doritotheory #dopamine #addictivebehaviour #howtostoprotting #rottingtiktok #impulsivebehaviour #howtousetiktokless #howtoeathealthy #howtomotivateyourself #howtoimprove #thoughtexperiment #serotonin #mentalhealth #neuroscience #neurodivergent #adhd

“Eating potato chips is addictive because the peak of experience is kind of when you’re tasting it, and not after,” she continued. Put simply: “Experiences that aren’t truly satisfying are maximally addictive.”

The theory can even be applied to the platform where she went viral. TikTok may give us slight hits of joy (dopamine) as we scroll, but they can be few and far between. Eventually, when we put our phones down, the entire experience is little more than only a diversion. At worst, a waste of time and emotional energy.

The video received a lot of thoughtful responses on TikTok.

“In Gabor Maté’s book ‘In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, ’ he says ‘You’ll never get enough of something that almost works,'” C. Badger wrote. “There’s a line in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ that says something along the lines of ‘I love a cigarette it leaves one so unsatisfied,” and I think of it daily,” Louis said, referring to Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Celeste Aria (@celeste.aria)

“This is a unique TikTok video that is more like a steak than a Dorito. I feel I learned something and now I’m actually satisfied and don’t need to keep scrolling,” Stevesapao added.

Dr. Jamie Sorenson says that the Dorito theory makes much sense from a psychiatric perspective. “Dorito theory is consistent with other addiction and behavioral theories,” she tells Fast Company. “The more immediate [the reward], the more likely we are to repeat that behavior, whether it’s eating Doritos, using a drug of choice, or scrolling on social media.”

The psychological underpinnings that drive people to overeat, engage in toxic relationships, or fall into the darkness of addiction are more complex than any idea that can be explained in a 90-second TikTok video. However, Dorito theory is a good test for whether we should indulge in certain vices, possessions, or people.

If you keep repeating a specific behavior repeatedly and it always leaves you feeling hollow, why not substitute it for something that is ultimately satisfying instead? Obviously, that’s easier said than done when you have a big bag of chips in your lap.

Some people fear heights or small spaces, some fear spiders or snakes, and some fear illness or death. When taken to an extreme, such fears can form of an anxiety disorder, but they are understandable fears to have because any one of those things could theoretically spell our demise.

But what about fearing something that isn’t physically dangerous at all, but rather psychologically uncomfortable, like…awkwardness?

For people with social anxiety, the fear of awkwardness is as real as the fear of death. “I’d rather cross a glass bridge over a 1,000-foot canyon than introduce myself to someone new” is a totally normal thought for a socially anxious person. The silences and pauses that mark most social interactions are magnified to painful degrees and the feelings of self-consciousness most of us experience in those moments are felt in extremes in the mind of a socially anxious person.

No one likes feeling awkward, of course, but why is it even a thing in the first place? What makes some interactions feel so uncomfortable to our brains? And more importantly, how do we overcome the fear of awkwardness, especially those who find themselves completely paralyzed by it?

---

The YouTube channel VSauce shared some of the science behind awkwardness, what’s happening chemically and emotionally when we feel awkward and some of the perspective shifts that can help keep us from fixating on awkward feelings.

First, the video explains that awkwardness is actually a social good because our feelings of self-consciousness prompt us to avoid certain actions in ways that actual laws and formal etiquette don’t.

“People who demonstrate self-consciousness when needed are communicating cooperative intentions, which helps them get along well with others,” host Michael explains. “It’s no coincidence that brains,susceptible to feeling occasional awkwardness, would become so common.They’re successful at cooperating,at social life. Feeling awkward shows that you understand and are keen on smooth social exchanges.Now, too much or too little concern for social rules isn’t healthy, but researchers found that just the right amount is great. When a person shows remorse or embarrassment or awkward discomfort, when appropriate,others perceive them as being more trustworthy, and their actions as more forgivable.”

In other words, having the capacity to feel awkward actually makes us more likeable. So why does it feel so awful?

Our brains actually respond to awkwardness similarly to how they react to pain or name-calling, flowing along the same neural pathways, resulting in similar physical sensations and triggering our fight-or-flight response. (Thanks, evolution!)

But there are ways to tamp down our overreaction to awkward moments, which can be especially helpful for people who struggle with social anxiety. One reason awkwardness sticks with us so much is that we worry too much about what people are thinking about us, and social anxiety magnifies that worry. The more we realize that people aren’t thinking about us nearly as much as we think they are, the more we can let awkward moments go.

In fact, there’s a word for the realization that we are just extras in other people’s stories, and not the main character—sonder. We are only the protagonist in our own lives. Other people are focused on their own lives.

“Acknowledging this makes your awkwardness look small,” Michael says, adding, “But it also makes all of you look small. Tiny. A needle in a giant haystack.” That’s both a positive and a negative, but that perspective can help us in those moments when we’re feeling the pain of awkwardness.

Watch:

You can follow VSauce for more insights on the human experience on YouTube here.

As Rolling Stone announced that Beyoncé just became the first Black woman artist to have a song hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, let’s keep the celebration of Black women busting through barriers in the genre going, why not?

Singer/songwriter and producer NYA, aka @nya.w0rld on TikTok, has given her followers all kinds of R&B versions of well known songs from artists like Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Avril Lavine. She’s even R&B-ified theme songs from popular television shows like “Friends.”

But it’s her recent R&B ballad of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” that’s so good, people are hoping it finds its way to the Queen of Country herself.

---

At the start of the clip, NYA asks her viewers if they’re familiar with the 70s hit, leading into “what would it be like if it was an R&B song?”

NYA proceeds to effortlessly glides through a flurry of high and low notes and a percussive beat plays in the background.

Suffice it to say, even in a sea of “Jolene” covers, NYA delivers a completely new version of the song.

Listen:

@nya.w0rld because not enough of you heard the first vrsn of JOLENE that i did #fypp #throwbacksongs #jolene #dollyparton ♬ original sound – NYA

Over 5 million people have watched the video, and that’s not taking into account the other social media platforms that it’s been shared to, and many began plotting how this cover could be shared with Parton.

“Someone put this on a cassette player and send it to Dolly Parton,” one fan said.

Another joked “Does anyone have Dolly’s fax number?” referencing the country icon’s famous preference for old school communication.

Perhaps, besides just being a bona fide banger, what makes NYA’s cover resonate so much with listeners is that we are beginning to have a more mainstream conversation about how country music, despite it being rooted in multiple cultures, has predominantly been catered to a white audience.

Those lines are being rightfully blurred now, as more country songs by non-white artists make it into the spotlight, and through meaningful collaborations, such as the iconic Grammys duet of “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs.

That’s one of the many great things about music, isn’t it? A song means so much more than the story its lyrics tell. It encapsulates a moment in time. And what this “Jolene” cover seems to contain within it is a merging of new and old in a way that’s oh so timely and important.

There is an arms race amongst parents these days to choose the most original name for their children possible. While it’s important to instill individuality into a child, studies show that people given unusual names at birth are more likely to suffer setbacks in their social and professional lives.

It can even make it harder for them to find a date.

Knowing that his daughter was setting her child up for a hard life by giving him a very unusual name, a dad staged an intervention—in person and online—to get her to realize what she was doing.

The father, known as MulledMarmite on Reddit, shared his dramatic story on the AITAH forum. He says this daughter’s interest in selecting such an unusual name comes from influencer culture.

---

“She is obsessed with this influencing thing, everything being about the numbers. Her husband has been evicted to the attic, because he ‘ruins her aesthetic’ that is for the videos. He isn’t allowed to bring his items or clothes outside of it, and whenever he as much as forgets a cup on the table, she will scream,” the father wrote.

“And now she is pregnant, which means it isn’t just her and my son in law’s problem, it is also a problem for my grandson,” he continued. “She wants no toys in the house for similar reasons, and has banned us from buying any. She doesn’t want colourful baby clothes, because the baby will stand out on her videos too much. And then… Then there is the name. Rawbhynne Marveigh Lynter.”

He later explained that Rawbhynne is pronounced “robin,” like the bird and the two middle names were composed of the names of both grandparents. He didn’t disclose the surname. She added that she wanted the non-traditional spelling for Robin because he won’t be a “sidekick” like the Boy Wonder in the Batman comics.

In another post, the father admitted that if his daughter was having a girl, she’d be named Jewleighaynnah, pronounced like “Juliana.”

“She doesn’t care that he will get bullied, that his name will be mispronounced, misspelled, and a nightmare on any official capacity. That he will grow to be an adult with the name, instead of staying as a baby,” the father added.

The daughter’s reluctance to change her son’s name and obsessive commitment to being an influencer caused the dad to stage an intervention involving “everyone we both know.” He also showed her his Reddit posts to let her know what the general public thinks about the name.

The commenters on Reddit were explicit that Rawbhynne Marveigh Lynter was a lousy choice for a name.

“Her kids are PEOPLE. They’re going to apply for college and jobs and official documentation with those names. She’s treating them like props or dolls for her amusement,” biwaterbender wrote. “It’s not about the NAME being unique, it’s about the PERSON. If she cares about how easily her kids navigate through life, then she should at least try to spell it more normally, even if it’s a weird bastard amalgamation name.”

The good news is that the father’s online and in-person interventions were successful and the daughter decided to choose a name from her husband’s culture. “One of my sons suggested the name Adler, as well as Arne, Arvid and Ari from my SIL’s culture. And she agreed to one of them,” the dad wrote.

The daughter and her husband also had a special Valentine’s Day ceremony where they recommitted to one another and she decided to return to therapy. She has also chosen to put her influencer career on the sidelines and focus on creating art.

Participating in paternity leave offers fathers so much more than an opportunity to bond with their new kids. It also allows them to help around the house and take on domestic responsibilities that many new mothers have to face alone…while also tending to a newborn.

All in all, it enables couples to handle the daunting new chapter as a team, making it less stressful on both parties. Or at least equally stressful on both parties. Democracy!

TikTok creator and dad Caleb Remington, from the popular account @ustheremingtons, confesses that for baby number one, he wasn’t able to take a “single day of paternity leave.”

This time around, for baby number two, Remington had the privilege of taking seven weeks off (to be clear—his employer offered four weeks, and he used an additional three weeks of PTO).

The time off changed Remington’s entire outlook on parenting, and his insights are something all parents could probably use.

---

“It’s unfortunately the end of my maternity —ahem— paternity leave,” Remington quips at the beginning of his video, via voiceover. “I only joke because my wife is truly the man of the house. And call me what you want, but I am totally okay with that.”

He then shares that after getting to spend quality time with his family to create precious memories—losing track of time to “watch ants cross the sidewalk,” for instance—he feels “guilty” about not doing so with their firstborn.

“[It] made me realize how many of those small moments I missed out the first time, but I’m looking past that guilt and grateful that I had some time to make it up,” he says.

You’ll notice that during this entire video, Remington is also doing chores. Sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, washing dishes, wiping the countertops…you get the picture.

@ustheremingtons I (caleb) am getting ready to go back into work and i am not ready. Grateful for my four weeks plus 3 weeks of PTO, but i feel like we were just getting into a groove and i was finally getting to have some 1 on 1 time with my son. Picking up the house today because we all function better with a clean space and we haven’t had time to do much of it while surviving these past 7 weeks. I do work from home and find that I have a little more flexibility in helping out here and there but i am also pretty glued and have to be zoned in during work hours. I do however have some pretty awesome and understanding coworkers and company!Shout out to @SAMBAZON Açaí 👊 Tiff is an all star: working and stay at home mom. I am dedicated in doing better to help balance more of the domestic responsibilities. #paternityleave #dadtok #dadsover30 #dadlife #fyp #foryoupage #ditl #ditlvlog #maternityleave #newbornlife #newbornbaby #secondbaby #2under2 #toddlerlife ♬ original sound – Tiffany + Caleb

Why is he doing this? His wife, aka “the lady with the milk bags,” has been so stressed with the house being messy that Remington decided to focus on doing all the housecleaning so that she could spend time with the kids.

Doing a fair share of the domestic labor is something Remington admits to failing at their first time around. Spending seven weeks taking on more responsibilities, however, opened his eyes to the fact that what he previously saw as doing his “fair share” was actually doing “the bare minimum.”

“It has taken multiple conversations — and many ongoing ones — to truly master how to take on more of the mental load of raising children, growing our marriage and taking care of our investments like our home.”

Proof that having difficult conversations can lead to better understanding!

Lastly, Remington reflects on how the emotional turbulence of being new parents challenged his relationship, even though he and his wife were good communicators and aware of how much effort would be required.

“I honestly hated how much we fought, how much I felt misunderstood, and how much I misunderstood her…so now as second-time parents, I feel like we’re a little bit more prepared. Prepared in how we talk to each other, prepared in how I balance work, life, and personal life, and prepared to just let things go,” he says.

Definitely valuable insights for anyone navigating baby number one. Or number five, for that matter.

Remington’s story stands as a great example of just how beneficial paternity leave can be. It offers priceless bonding time, an equal balance of responsibilities, and more time for much needed reflection as parents begin a pivotal new chapter in their lives.

This article originally appeared on 9.7.23

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is in a state of flux. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels underperformed at the box office, Steven Yeun and Ayo Edebiri both dropped out of Thunderbolts, and the less said about Secret Invasion, the better. There’s also the matter of Jonathan Majors. The Kang actor was going to be the face of the MCU, culminating in Avengers movies, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, until he was found guilty of assaulting and harassing his ex-girlfriend.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, “Marvel dropped Majors hours after the conviction and is rewriting those movies, which will minimize the character or excise him entirely.” The studio is also renaming the next Avengers film.

The first of the new Avengers movies, due out in 2026, was initially titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty but will be getting a new title to remove the character’s name, though sources say that even before Majors’ conviction, the studio was making moves to minimize the character after Quantumania underperformed, grossing $476 million.

Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is now being unofficially referred to as Avengers 5. It’s currently scheduled to come out May 1, 2026, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars on May 7, 2027.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

School is finally back in session after a brief semester off. Season three of Abbott Elementary started up this month and the gang wasted no time getting right into it.

At the end of season two, it was revealed that Janine (Quinta Brunson) and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) decided to remain friends instead of pursuing a relationship, though this has seriously impacted their dynamic.

At the start of this season, Janine is working at the school district, which she hopes will bring real change. This shows a new side of Janine, which Brunson was excited about. “Her hair is different. She’s dressing different. We see immediately what kind of growth has happened for her in the past five months,” Brunson recently told Variety, adding that fans haven’t guessed where the season is going yet. “From what I’ve seen online or from people I’ve talked to, they have no idea. They’re not guessing what happens. And for people who have seen it already, there’s alarm on their faces.”

Get ready to be alarmed! Abbott Elementary season 3, episode 3 airs on Wednesday, February 21 9:00 p.m. EST on ABC. Just like previous episodes, it will be available on Hulu the following day.

Thankfully for Abbott fans, the series was just rendered for a fourth season, so there will be plenty more to come.

JJ Redick has been one of the fastest rising personalities in the NBA media space since he retired in 2021. Redick became a fixture on ESPN studio shows, launched one of the more popular NBA podcasts, and is now set to be part of ESPN’s lead broadcast booth after stepping into the spot vacated by Doc Rivers when he left for the Bucks job earlier this year.

What’s been fascinating is watching Redick put on different hats and learn some of the dirty truths about the sports media space, namely why things are the way they are. Redick, like many diehard NBA fans, wishes there was more actual basketball commentary and breakdowns provided to fans. He wants more discussion of actions and sets, defensive strategy and what works and what doesn’t, but he’s come to learn what TV networks have known for a long time, which is that fiery rants and hot takes draw far more eyeballs.

That frustrates Redick, but he also can’t help himself but to dip a toe in those waters. Most recently, he went on First Take on Tuesday and torched Doc Rivers for a lack of accountability, becoming the lead story in the NBA world on a day without basketball. On Wednesday, Redick expressed his frustration with how that took off while a breakdown video he spent a lot of time on detailing what the Pelicans are doing on offense gets a small fraction of viewership. For a brief moment it seems as though Redick has a crisis of faith, asking whether “fans want to actually be educated or not?” (starting at the 8:14 mark of the video above).

Stephen A. Smith seemed to delight in this moment of realization and couldn’t help but prod at Redick over it, as he’s heard the comments from Redick in the past about the issues with the sports media and how they don’t talk about the right things. Smith is someone that pores over viewership numbers and tailors First Take‘s approach directly to what draws the most eyeballs, which is also why Redick and others join the show to hop in the mud with him.

That said, there is an oversaturation of that approach and for those that don’t do it as well as Stephen A. and company, it doesn’t work nearly as well and there is a place for the kind of conversation Redick wants to have. While 54,000 views isn’t a staggering amount, it’s really not bad for a fairly niche post about the Pelicans’ offensive actions with Zion Williamson as the lead ball-handler. The problem that you run into as a national person trying to do those things is the only people that will particularly interested in the nitty-gritty of each team are fans of that particular team. That naturally shuts out the vast majority of your audience, even those who are interested in that kind of stuff, because most fans are only really interested in diving deep on their favorite squad.

The answer isn’t that there’s no market for deeper basketball content, but you have to be more targeted at a local level. It’s why the team-specific podcast industry is growing and why local coverage is so vital, especially as we lose beatwriters to belt-tightening at newspapers and other outlets that serve local audiences. Fans do want player breakdowns and deep-dives into schematics, but mostly just about their team. There are some who want to know everything about every team, but very few people have the time and energy for that. That’s why you end up with 54,000 views on a video about the Pelicans offense, because I’d venture a guess that 95 percent of that viewership is Pelicans fans (who probably greatly appreciated that).

The NBA is less localized than MLB but moreso than the NFL (but even there, fans aren’t going to engage as much with scheme stuff about other teams), and that means the deeper you go into one specific team, the narrower your audience gets. That’s why the big national shows talk about the things they do, because it’s what will get the masses to engage, as Redick begrudgingly is learning.