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Last week, Billy Eichner made a big bid for movie stardom. It did not go so well. The Judd Apatow-produced Bros opened with a huge release, hoping that in this franchise-heavy age there was room for a) a rom-com and b) one that was about gay men. (And also c) a movie starring a guy who’s made his name screaming at strangers on the street.) Turns out there wasn’t. Eichner went on a furious Twitter tirade, putting the blame on straight people for not turning up. Now, with a few days to cool down, he’s offering a more measured response.

Eichner participated at the New Yorker Festival on Friday, where he spoke alongside legendary performer (and Bros player) Harvey Fierstein. He slightly backed off his previous stance, but not by too much.

“Homophobia is a bigger problem than as it pertains to this silly rom-com we made, you know what I mean? But do I think it’s a factor? Yes. I think in certain parts of the country, it probably was a factor,” Eichner told the crowd.

But he acknowledged that it’s also about how moviegoing has changed in the last several years.

“There’s a lot of factors to it. To open this movie, in this many theaters, a rom-com in 2022 — there are rom-coms with mega-stars, which struggle at the box office, and a lot of the biggest comedy stars are taking their movies to streaming. And for good reason! That seems to be where people want to watch these movies. I still love seeing these movies in the theater. I grew up going to see all these romantic comedies at the movie theater with my parents.”

He admitted, “It was a bold swing to open this movie in this many movie theaters without big movie stars.”

Eichner, who’s said he was once told he was too gay to be on TV, came under some considerable fire when he lashed out after Bros‘ lackluster opening weekend, saying “Everyone who ISN’T a homophobic weirdo” should go see his movie.

Bros is now playing movie theaters.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

This article originally appeared on 03.09.20

Somewhere in Salt Lake City, a Girl Scout is getting allll the good mojo from The People of the Internet.

Over the weekend, Eli McCann shared a story of an encounter at a Girl Scout cookie stand that has people throwing their fists in the air and shouting, YES! THAT’S HOW IT’S DONE. (Or maybe that’s just me. But I’m guessing most of the 430,000 people who liked his story had a similar reaction.)

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“I just saw the most wild thing!” McCann wrote on Twitter. “A man started walking toward the Girl Scouts cookie stand in front of the grocery store and he yelled ‘My bitches are BACK’ and this Girl Scout just yelled ‘No. Walk away.’ AND HE DID.”

So simple. So straightforward. But it gets even better.

McCann wrote out the full story on his blog, It Just Gets Stranger, offering some extra details to his tweets.

“It was truly jarring,” he wrote of the man’s exclamation. “Like, it was sort of the last thing I expected anyone to say. My mind suddenly rebooted. The six or so other people who were all standing around in front of the grocery store froze and looked at him. I opened my mouth to say something, but then really didn’t know what to say.”

“It was unclear who he was calling ‘bitches,'” he continued. “If it was the Girl Scouts, well obviously that was terrible. If it was the cookies, I mean that’s kind of funny (don’t @ me), but totally inappropriate to say to a bunch of 12 year olds (is that how old Girl Scouts are?). Either way, he shouldn’t have said it and I don’t know what could have possibly made him think this was a fine way to approach a group of Girl Scouts.”

McCann said the girl’s response was immediate, and it floored everyone. “Her tone was so full of confidence and sass,” he wrote. “It was the most perfectly delivered line I have ever heard.”

“This dude completely froze. He just stopped walking. His face went bright red. His mouth was sort of gaping open. He did this very awkward and stilted nod, almost apologetic, abruptly turned around, and shuffled back to his car at like 6-minute-mile pace. The girl just death stared him all the way through his walk of shame.”

I still can’t process what I just saw. I don’t understand it at all. It was like witnessing the worst miscalculation he was bright red and just went back to his car. Everyone just stood in silence. This girl death stared him all the way through his walk of shame.

— Eli McCann (@EliMcCann) March 7, 2020

McCann says it took him a bit to digest what he’d just seen.

“I ended up walking into the store and the entire time I was shopping I was just trying to process what had happened. I kept replaying it over and over and wondering if I had misheard or misunderstood something,” he wrote.

“Who was this guy? Did he just make the biggest miscalculation of his life? Is he going to move away and start a new life now? Is that girl going to be president one day? Can I adopt her? Can she adopt me? Can I start a cult to follow her?”

As he was leaving the store, he went up to the girl to compliment her—then got another perfectly delivered line from the intrepid Girl Scout.

“Two adult women were standing behind the girl (the troop leaders, I assume),” he wrote. “I said to the girl, ‘I saw how you handled that man earlier. That was really really impressive. Your troop is pretty lucky to have you.'”

“And this girl. This Goddess of a human. The one I’m for sure going to worship if ever she starts a religion. Without stuttering. With perfect comedic timing. She responded:

‘You gotta be pretty tough if you’re gonna go out in THIS outfit.‘”

OMG.

I just went and talked to her (tried to buy cookies but couldn’t because cash only). I told her I was impressed with how she handled that dude and she just said with perfect comedic timing “you got learn to be pretty tough if you’re gonna go out in THIS outfit!”

— Eli McCann (@EliMcCann) March 7, 2020

Let’s all give this girl a virtual high five for her gumption and wit. It takes a lot of courage to say something to an adult when you’re a kid, especially a man who is doing something inappropriate. The fact that she seemed to have been perfectly prepared for that moment, shutting him down so immediately and decisively that everyone in the vicinity stopped to take note, is so dang impressive.

This is what happens when you teach girls their true worth and encourage them not to accept anything less than respect and dignity. Gotta love it.

It’s less than a month from Election Day, and while some races are imploding, others are keeping on track. In the latter camp is the one between John Fetterman and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who are running for a vacating Senate seat in Pennsylvania. For months, Fetterman has pelted his opponent in creative ways, sometimes using his own words against him. Now he (or some poor intern) is reaching into the deep archives of his longtime show in order to mock him using his own words.

The latest ad, which dropped on Friday, intercuts a mock-standard campaign ad with clips of Oz saying weird stuff about sex and digestion on The Dr. Oz Show, which ran until earlier this year, when he up and decided to rebrand as a MAGA candidate. One juxtaposition starts with a faux-earnest narrator talking about “struggling” Pennsylvanians, then cuts to Oz using some questionable, carnival-like doohickey to guess the age of a woman’s vagina. (It’s 73, by the way.)

Elsewhere, Oz can be seen talking about penises that “bend to the left,” telling participants to act like poop, showing off a giant model rectum, and telling someone that their “anus looks like your lips.” This isn’t up there with Crudité-gate or enlisting Snooki, but it’s a reminder that there are 13 seasons worth of potentially humiliating Oz material, to say nothing of his stints on Oprah.

You can watch the ad in the video above.

(Via The Wrap)

On his latest single, “Poland,” Lil Yachty experiments with new sounds. Though the song clocks in at 90 seconds, the digitized, synth-heavy beat combined with his signature falsetto vocals, makes for a trippy track.

On the song’s chorus, Yachty sings, “I took the wock to Poland.” The verse is filled with clever one-liners, like “I been fiendin’ / like I’m Kenan / Ride around with a Kel-Tec.”

Though “Wock” is a slang term for cough syrup, Yachty and his friends are seen literally walking through Poland in the song’s video, as “walk” and “wock” appear to be used in a homophonous manner in the song.

This past summer, Yachty launched a line of frozen pizzas available in Walmart stores. In an interview with People coinciding with the launch, Yachty shared that his upcoming album will have a more “alternative” sound.

“I didn’t want to put out a couple rap songs and throw people’s energy off of what I’m about to drop,” he said. “I want to make sure the next thing they hear from me is what I’ve been working on, which is very high quality, but it’s a little different. I think everyone will have a lot of appreciation for it.”

Check out the video “Poland” above.

Nicki Minaj‘s latest single, “Super Freaky Girl” is the gift that keeps on giving. The song has reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and has spawned two remixes, including the star-studded Queen Mix, featuring JT of City Girls, Bia, Akbar V, Katie Got Bandz, and Maliibu Miitch.

On TikTok, users are dancing to an instrumental of the song while detailing accounts that may be stranger than fiction.

One TikToker, who is famous for grooming dogs, shared a story about why she will no longer groom pregnant dogs. While dancing to the “Super Freaky Girl,” beat, she shares a story about a dog who gave birth during her grooming appointment.

In another video, a woman shared a story about a time she visited her sister for lunch. She invited a neighbor in to see the house, only to realize that the car the neighbor was driving matched the description of one in an Amber Alert notification she received on her phone.

In a perhaps less dangerous situation, a man tells a story about a time his daughter brought his phone to him and his wife while they were in the shower, to discover after the fog had cleared up, that they were on FaceTime with the kids’ grandfather.

A TikToker known as “TikTok Sam” recalled an equally mortifying moment, in which two young ladies recognized him from TikTok and crashed their car near the UW Madison campus.

At the time of writing, the “Super Freaky Girl” sound has been placed in over 553,500 videos on TikTok. For more wacky stories, visit here.

Both of the New York baseball team made it to the postseason this year. While the New York Yankees will wait to see which team they’ll get in the American League Division Series, the New York Mets are slated to take on the San Diego Padres in one of the two National League Wild Card series, with the first game taking place at Citi Field.

The Padres jumped on New York early on Friday night, scoring two runs in the first inning and one in the second off of Mets ace Max Scherzer. By the time Scherzer left the game in the top of the fifth, San Diego scored seven runs and took the air out of one of the most raucous stadiums in all of baseball.

The game is taking place in front of some stars, and by some stars, I mean noted famous person Nathan Fielder, the star of the HBO series The Rehearsal. Look at him below, having a blast.

Ok, so, maybe “having a blast” was a bit of a stretch, as Fielder looks like, well, someone at the Mets game watching them lose. But don’t worry: A smile eventually came to Fielder’s face.

Hard not to have a smile on your face during a lovely night out at the ballpark.

Ghosts have been haunting stories across human culture since ancient times. Even in our modern age, with a scientific explanation for nearly every phenomenon once considered supernatural, many still believe specters of the past float among us.

Perhaps it’s a way to make sense of the unexpected, cope with loss or to create a universe that isn’t random and chaotic. On the other hand, no one really knows what awaits us on the other side—it’s all conceptual theories in the land of the living.

But whether or not ghosts are actually real, they can help us make meaning of life’s fragile existence and perhaps take a different view on death, reminding us that sometimes our legacy lives on long after we are gone.

Reddit user u/pyotrfojti asked people on the online forum to share experiences that made them believe in the paranormal, and the answers were certainly compelling. Even the biggest skeptic might get a kick out of these spooky stories. ‘Tis the season, after all.

Here are nine of the best, most bone-chilling tales of the paranormal:

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1.

“While working overseas, the office we would normally work in was being renovated. The building was once part of a series of palaces [which] was later used by the Nazis as an interrogation and torture center.

I personally saw two stories come to life.

1. The harpsichord piano in the grand ballroom began to play on its own. I know because I was the only person in the building at the time. Plus, it was missing several strings.
2. The windows to the bedroom where a royal stayed were known to fog up and then open on their own. Saw the fog. Looked at them again a half-hour later and they were open.”

– @JQuest7575

2.

“I was alone at home with my 2 year old who was sleeping in his own room. An arm and hand of an adult human pushed open my bedroom door and it creaked loudly, waking me up. I saw the arm and the hand holding the doorknob. It then let go and retracted. I was afraid that it might be a burglar and then I smelled smoke and burning. I got the courage to leave my room and noticed smoke coming from my son’s room. His window curtain was inside his night lamp and had just caught fire. I could put it out in time, thanks to whatever had woken me up.” – @Niqga4PolishBabes

3.

“I haven’t really had any super intense experiences, mostly just hearing my name clearly being called when I was a kid while everyone else was asleep. That and hearing a constant loud sound in a specific area of a known haunted park at night that had nothing to do with bugs flying nearby. There were no other people at the park and there wasn’t anything electrical nearby. Just in the middle of a park near a willow tree.” – @WumboWings

via GIPHY

4.

“I was six when I first saw her, in the woods. I followed my friend John even though he told me not to. I followed at a distance, watching my feet, making sure not to step on the bevy of fallen leaves…The first thing I saw was a small hut. Raw, bloody, and nailed into place. The second thing I saw was her on the stoop, eyes all white, lips red. John ran to her. She reached down and embraced him, and looked at me over his shoulder with her all white eyes.

I ran like hell. I ran, screaming like bloody murder, all the way to my father, who swooped me up in a way he never had, and hasn’t had to do since. He asked me what happened and I told him about John.

‘Who?’

I described the kid I had met at the playground weeks ago. The kid I had played with three times before all this. Even now, John’s face is crystal clear in my mind. I could count his freckles from memory.

My dad tells me: I was playing alone the whole time.” – @sentient_luggage

via GIPHY

5.

“When [my mom] died I couldn’t be there for her, I was away in another state for work. Thank God that I could come to her funeral (this was in November of 2020). I was in the house of my mom, [and] one night I was in my bed sleeping and I woke suddenly and saw her in pajamas, like she was alive. If I didn’t see her body early that week being buried, I would have thought that she was alive.” – @Upbeat-Ad-3316

via GIPHY

6.

“I was at my choir director’s house to practice a solo. I started my recorder and when I got home to practice the song there was a voice on the recording that wasn’t from either me or my choir director. I have let everyone listen to it and they always miss it the first time because it is so loud and clear they assume that it was someone in the room. Freakiest thing ever!” – @Euphoric_Device11

7.

“It was late at night, like 1 am or so, [and] I was walking home till I heard a lot of noises. The street was empty and the whole entire neighborhood was silent. The lights of the lamp posts started flickering. Then I saw a black dressed, dark eyed lady with a black robe and black fingertips standing in front of my house ‘Hello? Are you okay ma’am?’ She then left and walked away towards the back of the house. My house lights started flickering. I quickly ran to my next door neighbor. Thankfully they were there and they rang my parents and all the lights started to stop flickering.” – @sleevlyboring

8.

“I did not believe for most of my life, until about 4.5 years ago. I worked in a very old hospital that used to be run by nuns in 1880-1940. My office was in the basement (next to the morgue) and strange things that could not be rationalized away started happening. Daily. Whispering, footprints thru newly waxed floors (angry janitor swears he checked the camera to see who ruined his work and saw no one) papers flying off my desk with zero draft etc. I don’t work there anymore, thankfully.” – @glass_heart2002

via GIPHY

9.

“My dad died a few years ago. I had been living with him to give him assistance as he needed full time care and couldn’t afford a nurse. He always, always, freaking always complained about being cold, even during the summer. I came home several times to find the heater cranked up to 80, no matter the time of year. We used to fight about it often. A couple weeks after he died, I would wake up hot and find the heater turned up to 80. It only persisted for a few weeks and stopped after I woke up again sweating and yelled out ‘Damn it dad, you’re dead, stop fucking with the heater!’” – @DeaconStGone

Styles P of The LOX is apparently planning his retirement as a solo artist next year. In an Instagram post, Styles shared an image of text, revealing his plans to step away as the owner of his business, Juices For Life, and to call it quits as a solo act.

“I will be retiring late 2023 as far as my solo career is concerned,” He said. “I have two more solo projects for y’all and I’m Out!!! I’ll be on deck for all things LOX music, shows etccc.”

In the post’s caption, Styles elaborated, saying that he plans to prioritize his mental health, as well as his health product business, Farmacy For Life.

“I have noticed I have become less spiritually healthy than I used to be,” he said. “I believe I have run myself down a tad bit over the past few years. Being a super hard working emcee and a health advocate. For one, I’m not really that great at multi tasking it’s actually my drive that keeps me going and that slack falls back on my family, business partners and co workers. I thought about it harder and came to the conclusion that I need to walk away from my solo career period ( I think I gave y’all enough ). I will just do LOX sh*t and a feature here and there if it moves me.”

In other news, Styles shared that he is planning to become a board member of organizations, and to launch other ventures, both of which, he says he is not “at liberty” to discuss at the moment.

Check out the full post above.

Rapper Lil Baby has been rumored to have beef with Migos for the past couple of years. On “Messy,” a track from Quavo and Takeoff’s new album, Only Built For Infinity Links, many think Quavo is addressing their alleged beef, despite the fact that he doesn’t identify anybody by name.

Do Quavo and Lil Baby have beef?

On “Messy,” Quavo addresses an unnamed party with the lyrics, “B*tch fucked my dog behind my back, but I ain’t stressin’ / You wanted the gang, you should’ve just said it, we would’ve blessed it.” Many have assumed he is alluding to Quavo’s ex, Saweetie, who is rumored to have had an affair with former Migo, Offset. Offset and his wife, Cardi B have denied the rumors, and some have accused Quavo of milking the timing of the rumors to generate buzz for the project.

Some have also said that Quavo may be referring to Lil Baby, who was rumored to have taken Saweetie on a $100,000 shopping spree in New York City last year. Both parties have since denied any sort of rumors insinuating romance between the two,

But the alleged Migos and Lil Baby feud dates back to 2020, when Lil Baby’s crew reportedly got into a physical altercation with Offset, which reportedly left him in his boxer shorts.

Lil Baby took to his Instagram Story shortly after to shut down the rumors, saying, “Stop spreading fake news!! That sh*t fake!! Please!!,” according to iHeart.

At the time of writing, Saweetie, Offset, or Lil Baby had not commented on “Messy.”

Check out “Messy” above.

Saweetie and Cardi B are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

We live in a world that is full of dedicated people doing incredible things, but unfortunately, we don’t hear about most of them. Much of the work to solve global problems and move the human race forward isn’t glamorous or exciting, and most of the people doing that work aren’t in it for the limelight or fanfare.

So when changemakers are honored for their service to humanity, we have the opportunity to shift our focus away from headline and spotlight chasers and celebrate the people working diligently to make the world a better place.

The Goalkeepers Global Goals Awards has provided such an opportunity.

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The awards, given by the Gates Foundation, honor global changemakers who are helping to move humanity closer to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. In 2015, 193 world leaders committed to 17 Sustainable Development Goals (aka Global Goals or SDGs), a series of ambitious objectives and targets to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and fix climate change by 2030.

“While the world is far from being on track to reach the Global Goals by 2030, there is still cause for optimism,” said Blessing Omakwu, head of Goalkeepers. “We’ve seen how human ingenuity and innovation can lead to game-changing breakthroughs and progress toward our shared goals, and that’s exactly what we see in this year’s Goalkeepers Global Goals Award winners.”

Omakwu tells Upworthy that having women sweep the awards was not planned, but it’s telling that that’s how it turned out. “These women represent some of the best of humanity,” she says. “Women are central to the future of progress.”

Attended by global leaders and influencers, the awards ceremony included award presentations by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, Angelina Jolie, Malala Yousafzai and Lilly Singh.

Meet the honorees:

2022 Campaign Award: Vanessa Nakate (Uganda)

The Campaign Award celebrates a campaign that has raised awareness or built a community by inspiring action and creating change.

Vanessa Nakate’s work highlights the disproportionate impacts of climate change and the inequalities it exacerbates, especially for women and girls in Africa. Nakate founded the Rise Up Climate Movement, which amplifies activist voices from Africa and around the globe. She also founded the Green Schools Project, which addresses energy poverty in rural schools in Uganda using economical and sustainable solutions. One of those solutions is equipping 24,000 schools with solar panels and eco stoves, which Nakate says will both drive a transition to renewable energy and reduce the consumption of firewood, as most schools in Uganda use firewood to prepare food.

Nakate tells Upworthy that the initial inspiration for her work was Greta Thunberg’s school strikes for climate change action. “But right now, I’m really inspired by the resilience of the different young people across the world that continue to mobilize and organize and demand climate justice,” she adds.

She says this award will help her message of climate justice reach new audiences. “For me, this is an opportunity to use these new platforms to talk about the impacts of the climate crisis and the solutions that are already working, especially in our communities at the grassroots level,” she says. “I believe in our fight for climate justice we need everyone involved, and it’s an opportunity to meet new people and tell them, ‘This is happening, but you can do something about it as well.'”

2022 Changemaker Award: Zahra Joya (Afghanistan)

The Changemaker Award celebrates an individual who has inspired change using personal experience or from a position of leadership.

Zahra Joya is an Afghan journalist who is dedicated to ensuring women’s stories are told and shared with the wider public. Joya founded and self-funded Rukhshana Media, an online news agency focused exclusively on covering issues that affect the women of Afghanistan—the first national news organization of its kind.

Joya tells Upworthy she named her media company after an Afghan woman named Rukhshana, who was arrested, stoned and killed by the Taliban after fleeing a forced marriage in 2015. The name is a reminder of all the women who have lost their lives to traditionalist and extremist governments and Joya’s goal is to defend the humanity of all women.

“For me, [winning this award] is huge,” Joya says. “It’s my goal that one day Ruskhana Media can work as international media, not only in Afghanistan…and we can hire female journalists from across the world, and we can publish the stories and issues that affect women’s lives.”

2022 Progress Award: Dr. Radhika Batra (India)

The Progress Award celebrates an individual who supports progress via a science, technology, digital, or business initiative.

Dr. Radhika Batra tackles health inequalities by providing healthcare solutions to disadvantaged children. While working as a resident doctor in a hospital in the slums of New Delhi in 2017, Batra founded Every Infant Matters. The organization has saved 74,173 children from blindness and given prenatal vitamins to more than 40,000 disadvantaged women. Every Infant Matters has also provided education to prevent gender inequality and to battle the stigma of TB, HIV/AIDS and blindness for more than 65,000 families.

2022 Global Goalkeeper Award Winner: Ursula von der Leyen (president of the European Union)

The Global Goalkeeper Award recognizes a leader who has driven progress toward achieving the SDGs on a global scale.

As a champion of global health and equitable access, von der Leyen helped created a global collaboration to get COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines into the hands of people around the world. She led the EU efforts to support lower-income nations in responding to and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and announced a new European Commission’s contribution of €300 million to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

We can all take inspiration from these changemakers to make our own unique contribution to humanity’s progress, however large or small. Omakwu reminds us that despite being recognized on a global stage, these women have done most of their work in isolation and against many odds.

“[These award winners] are not that different from us, but they’ve had passion and consistency and fearlessness,” Omakwu says. “Progress is possible if we do our part.”

Learn more about the Goalkeepers Awards here.