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If one thing is certain, Taylor Swift never slows down. Swift started 2022 by becoming the first global ambassador for Record Store Day, encouraging fans to support their local indie music shops. She also appeared on a compilation, Portraits Of Her, that benefitted We Are Moving The Needle, “a nonprofit organization supporting female recording industry professionals.”

Her accolades didn’t end there. Swift went on to receive an honorary doctorate degree from NYU and presented a speech at the graduation ceremony — which, we now know, was riddled with Easter eggs for what’s to come.

Many of which were references from her eventual tenth studio album, Midnights, which surpassed 1989 as the biggest opening week of her career so far. It also became Spotify’s most streamed album in a single day and earned Billboard‘s record for holding all top ten spots on the Hot 100. She then announced her first tour in years, The Eras Tour. Given the heightened demand, many Swifties and politicians have since pushed back against Ticketmaster for their failure to purchase tickets.

Throughout the course of this year, Swift also leaned heavily into her film era. On the heels of her 2021 All Too Well: The Short Film, she appeared for conversations at various film festivals including Tribeca and TIFF. She made a brief appearance in the movie Amsterdam and directed two music videos so far from Midnights, with “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled.”

Most recently, Swift appeared alongside The Banshees of Inisherin director Martin McDonagh for a talk on Variety’s Directors On Directors series. She also has her sights set on the future, with the announcement of her feature-length directorial debut currently being in the works. Nice!

If you watch the video—which has gone mega viral online, with more than 18 million views—you might find yourself thinking, wait a minute, this thing’s in color … that can’t be right. But rest assured, while the clip floating around on Twitter might have undergone a makeover, it’s based on authentic footage.

Below is the original black-and-white film, shot in Lyon, France, and titled “Bataille de neige,” aka “Snow Fight.”

According to “The First Obsession,” which shared the video on YouTube, it was a short silent film produced by the Lumière brothers, pioneers of photography made famous for their inventions that revolutionized cinema—in particular, the Autochrome Lumière, which introduced color photography.

The original video was put through “DeOldify,” an open-source AI tool for retouching pictures and videos (yes, I know AI is a trigger word these days) by history/tech hobbyist Joaquim Campa back in 2020. The clip went viral back then as well, even getting featured by New York Times contributor Sam Anderson, who called the colorized, smoothed-out footage “shockingly modern.” And now it’s taking over the internet once again.

First ever recorded snowball fight (1897) pic.twitter.com/c6t6A0Mgo0

— History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics) December 11, 2022

Though that first recording might have been in the late 1800s, snowball fights date back much earlier. Some say that the trend began in Boston in 1770 between angry colonists and British soldiers, perhaps even being the real “shot heard round the world” that ushered in the American Revolution. But tapestries and artworks from all over the world have been found showing people engaging in this popular winter activity, one of the oldest hailing from the 11th century.

Basically, humans have always known on some primal, instinctual level that hurling softly frozen water at people is insanely enjoyable.

The San Francisco Giants went looking for a franchise cornerstone this offseason and managed to get one of the best players in baseball. According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, the Giants and free agent shortstop Carlos Correa have come to an agreement on a 13-year contract that will pay the former American League Rookie of the Year and two-time All-Star Game selection a whopping $350 million.

As Passan noted, this is the most money an MLB team has ever dedicated to a shortstop. Correa, who spent the first seven years of his career as a member of the Houston Astros, joined the Minnesota Twins on a three-year deal that afforded him the opportunity to opt out after each year.

Correa had a good season in Minnesota for a team that ended up missing out on the postseason, and shortly after that, he decided to hit the open market. The Twins and the New York Mets were mentioned in recent days as potential landing spot for Correa, who came in fifth place in American League MVP voting during his last year in Houston. But after striking out in their efforts to get Aaron Judge to come to the Bay Area, the Giants were able to get Correa on a deal that will keep him under contract through 2036. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reports that includes no opt-out clause and a full no-trade clause.

Last season, Correa hit .291 with 22 home runs and a 140 OPS+.

Shots, bagged wine, unexpected cocktails — Lizzo and Seth Meyers had it all at an unreasonably early time for Meyers’s day drinking segment. Earlier this year, he had Post Malone on to drink and play games, and now Lizzo is the latest to get wasted and have lots of fun.

The buzzed pair played a game based off the singer’s hit “Truth Hurts.” They had to answer questions truthfully or take a shot. When Meyers asked Lizzo who was more powerful, Oprah or Beyonce, he mentioned he had to answer wisely because both are loyal viewers. She burst into laughter: “Beyonce watches your show? I f*cking doubt it.” She added, “Not to be rude. I know Oprah watches.” Instead of offering an answer, she took a shot.

Unfortunately, she also refused to answer who was the most overrated artist, saying she didn’t want to break the internet. “The internet’s already in shambles,” she said. They end the video wishing the viewers a happy holiday.

Lizzo has been in the holiday spirit lately. She recently posted a video on Instagram of herself twerking in a cosplay outfit of the Grinch with the iconic caption: “100% That Grinch.”

Watch Lizzo and Meyers drink too much above.

Lizzo is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

This week there was more shocking news out of Warner Bros. Discovery, this time involving shows that were unceremoniously cancelled over at their streamer, HBO Max. It came a week after last week’s shocking Warner Bros. Discovery news, namely that the DCEU is in such a mess that the third Wonder Woman outing was probably not happening. There was some speculation about how much that had to do with series director Patty Jenkins, whose latest pitch had been rejected. Some put the blame on Jenkins, but now she’s pushing back, while offering updates on another of her simmering projects.

Let’s tackle Wonder Woman 3 first, and, as Jenkins put I, the “attractive clickbait false story that it was me that killed it or walked away started to spread.” That, she said, “is simply not true.” She said she “never walked away” and that she “was open to considering anything asked of me. It was my understanding that there was nothing I could do to move anything forward at this time. DC is obviously buried in changes they are having to make, so I understand these decisions are difficult right now.”

However, there is a silver lining: That Star Wars film she was working on a while back that seemed to be dead? It only seemed to die because she moved over to Wonder Woman 3. And now that that’s on hold or whatever it is, she’s back on that one.

“I originally left Rogue Squadron after a long and productive development process when it became clear it couldn’t happen soon enough and I did not want to delay WW3 any further,” Jenkins wrote. “When I did, Lucasfilm asked me to consider coming back to RS after WW3, which I was honored to do, so I agree.” They said they even made a “new deal” with her, and that it’s back in “active production” again. Still, she writes, “I don’t know if it will happen or not. We never do until the development process is complete, but I look forward to its potential ahead.”

Since the third Star Wars trilogy wrapped with The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, the franchise has moved largely online, with little hope for future movies. That’s begun to change over the last few months, with Taika Waititi working on his own, though it’s unclear when that will get off the ground. Still, cautious optimism!

The Golden State Warriors and Milwaukee Bucks faced off on Tuesday evening in a battle between high-profile teams from their respective conferences. There was intensity on both sides, as evidenced by a bevy of technical fouls, but the Bucks managed to put some distance between themselves and the Warriors on the scoreboard in what became a very nice home win. During the third quarter, however, Draymond Green had an apparent run-in with a fan that led to him consulting with the referees. At the end of their conversation, the fan got ejected from the arena.

Green’s meeting with the officials happened with 5:19 left in the third quarter in a game that the Warriors would go on to lose. One of the major questions that popped up in the aftermath of the incident was what led to Green asking the officials to have the fan removed, and after the game, Green told the assembled media that the fan said “some threatening stuff to my life.”

“I was this close to really going back and diving all the way in,” Green said. “But I just went back and told the official, and when I told the official, he said, ‘Oh, he’s gotta get out of here.’”

While there are no specifics about what the fan said, these are serious and troubling allegations by Green.

Lately, Charles Barkley’s ire for discussing the Los Angeles Lakers has always been evident during his appearances on “Inside the NBA.” Last year, the Lakers won 33 games. This year, they’re 11-15, 12th in the West and 2.5 games behind the No. 8 Dallas Mavericks. They’ve not been a good team over the past year and change. They also happen to be playing the Boston Celtics on the second half of TNT’s doubleheader, much to Barkley’s dismay.

Earlier this season, Barkley said every Lakers game on TNT should be replaced by the Sacramento Kings, a fun, high-powered offensive team vying for a top-four seed out West. Regardless of whether he still holds that specific sentiment, he made clear his unwillingness or preference to avoid discussing the Lakers prior to tipoff Tuesday. As the rest of the panel talked about Los Angeles, Barkley continually sighed. When Kenny Smith said he believes the Lakers will make the playoffs, Barkley gave him the stink eye before vocalizing his grievances.

“It just makes me sick. I don’t know who’s worse: us or the clowns on other networks, who, we feel like — we must get a bonus every time we talk about the Lakers,” Barkley said. “The Lakers stink.”

As Smith tried to contextualize their record and noted they indeed roster arguably the greatest NBA player ever in LeBron James, Barkley repeatedly offered a simple refrain: “They’re still 11-15.”

Shaquille O’Neal chimed in by saying they’re only two games out of eighth. Barkley wanted no part of that, countering with the fact they don’t talk about other teams in close pursuit of the No. 8 seed. Ernie Johnson, the everpresent moderator that he is, proposed a change of subject. The Lakers surely have many more games on TNT over the final four months of the regular season, so we’ll surely witness more demonstrations from Barkley if Los Angeles can’t crack the top eight.

Future has finally revealed the “friends” he plans on bringing on his One Big Party tour, and they include some of the hottest artists in the rap game, like Polo G, Babyface Ray, EST Gee, and more.

The “Life Is Good” rapper will kick off his six-city tour in Charlotte before proceeding to his hometown of Atlanta and cities such as Chicago, Washington D.C., Boston, and Detroit.

Future made the surprise announcement about his new tour on social media last week.

“ShowTime. I’m ready To bring ONE BIG PARTY too your city! PLUTO,” he wrote.

One of the openers, Boston Richey, recently shared a list of the other acts, which include everyone from Kodak Black, Trippie Redd, and Babyface to artists from his Freebandz label, like Doe Boy, Herion Young, Test, and Lil Wookie.

“Get ya tickets now sh*t finna go Krazy,” Richey tweeted on Monday.

In March 2023, Future is also expected to appear at Rolling Loud Festival with Playboi Carti and Travis Scott.

Tickets for the One Big Party Tour are available for purchase here.

Check out the tour dates below.

01/07/2023 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
01/13/2023 — Charlotte, NC @ Spectrum Center
01/14/2023 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
01/20/2023 — Chicago, IL @ United Center
01/22/2023 — Washington DC @ Capitol Arena
01/27/2023 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden

For the last month and change, things have been a mess on Twitter. The once-thriving social media service has, during the Elon Musk Era, been a mess of bigoted slurs and misinformation, suddenly un-banned freaks, and weird mishegoss involving its blue checkmarks. There’s been drama offline, too. The former richest person in the world has been on a firing spree, including canning employees meant to keep the joint safe. His latest creative move: get way behind on paying rent, because why not.

As per The New York Times, Musk has been desperate to cut costs for the service e purchased for way, way too much. One of his solution has been to stop paying rent on various Twitter HQs, including those in San Francisco as well as its global offices, over the last few weeks. That’s not all: He’s also refused to pay a whopping $197,725 bill for private charter flights he made in the week before Musk forked over a fortune for a service he might not have actually wanted.

If stiffing landlords and airflight companies wasn’t enough, he’s also reportedly toying with doing the same to laid-off employees. Sources tell NYT that he’s been discussing denying the two-month severance packages he granted all the former employees who left in the early days of his tenure. The free speech absolutist who initially claimed to be an open book has already threatened any current employees with lawsuits if they leak anything to the press.

What is Musk’s end game for this or any of the other bizarre moves he’s made during his chaotic stint lording over Twitter? It’s unclear, but most of it is deeply troubling, from withholding payments to cozying up to far right extremists, including seeming to embrace QAnon. And he hasn’t even retaliated yet after getting booed by thousands at a Dave Chappelle show. It’s reminiscent of the daily headaches that unfolded during the Trump administration, except now it’s happening in a place where most people just like to make White Lotus memes.

(Via NYT)

The rap world was devastated by the tragic death of Takeoff last month when he was shot during a game of dice. The Migos member was only 28 and influenced countless musicians, some of whom have shared tributes for him. On December 2, the rapper’s alleged murderer tried to flee and was subsequently held on a very expensive bail. Now, he’s trying to bring that amount down.

According to TMZ, legal documents say 33-year-old Patrick Xavier Clark filed a motion to bring his $2 million bail all the way down to $100,000. If so, he would live with his parents, wear a GPS monitor, and follow a given curfew. He said he’s also willing to give up his passport, which had been part of his plan to flee to Mexico.

When revealing the news that Clark tried to flee, ABC News shared a report that read, “In requesting the $2 million bond, prosecutors argued that Clark posed a high flight risk because he had purchased tickets to Mexico two days before his arrest and applied for an expedited passport.” The Houston Police held a press conference confirmed that “the investigation is still ongoing” and explained it “was an argument that happened afterwards outside the bowling alley, which led to the shooting.”