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Most Americans have heard the term “Eskimo kiss” and probably have a mental picture of what one is. What many of us may not know is that 1) Eskimo is an outdated term that is generally rejected by the indigenous people of the north to whom it refers, and 2) what we imagine about that “kiss” is not actually accurate.

An Inuit daughter and mother duo shared what a kunik—the correct term for it—really looks like in a video on TikTok. Shina Novalinga shares a lot about Inuit culture on her TikTok channel, and her mother Kayuula Novalinga often joins her to demonstrate this expression of affection.

First, they showed what people usually think of when they think of an “Eskimo kiss”—two people rubbing their noses together. Then they shared what they actually do, which is press their nose against someone’s cheek.

Watch:

“Usually it’s done with a lot of emotion,” Shina says. “The more love you have for a person, the stronger you do it.”

The demonstration is adorable, with their giggles and obvious affection for one another. And people in the comments greatly appreciated the cultural lesson. How many of us ever even questioned what we’d been taught or even wondered where our impressions came from?

Many commenters from Southeast Asia—Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and more—shared that their family members also express close affection in this way.

Shina and Kayuula are Inuit throat singers as well, which is a unique and fascinating art form. Take a listen:

Traditional Inuit throat singing involves two people, usually women, standing face to face. Each makes sounds using their throat, belly and diaphragm, matching each other’s rhythm until one of them stops or giggles. Evie Mark, a throat singer and professor at Nunavik Sivunitsavut, told the BBC, “It’s a very intimate thing so for sure you’re going to be triggered to smile or laugh, especially when you start seeing the person’s eyes when you’re singing together.”

Shina’s mother has her own TikTok channel as well, where she shares more about being an Inuit woman. (Sometimes you’ll see the word Inuk instead of Inuit—Inuk is singular, Inuit is plural and also used as an adjective.)

We can all benefit from learning about cultures outside of our own, and social media makes it easier than ever to expose ourselves to people from all different backgrounds. Thankfully, some people use their channels for the specific purpose of sharing—free education everyone can benefit from.

Thank you, Novalingas, for sharing your gifts and culture with us all.

Quentin Tarantino has a long history of promising projects that have yet to see the light of day; no one is much surprised that he’s probably never making his R-rated Star Trek movie. But if he never gets around to doing those NFTs for Pulp Fiction that he recently announced, it won’t exactly be his fault.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film company that was his home for quite a long time is suing him over his plan to release seven non-fungible tokens related to his big breakthrough, which they distributed in 1994. The plan was to release digital versions featuring scenes that were cut from an early version of the script, as well as artwork and commentary from the big guy himself. As with all NFTs, these will only be available to the lucky ones who manage to finagle a single copy.

Alas, less than two weeks after the NFTs were announced, Miramax has sent a cease-and-desist letter, claiming that they’re working on their own Pulp Fiction NFTs and that Tarantino’s versions devalue those efforts.

In their letter, Miramax also claims that, should Tarantino get his way, all hell will break loose. “Left unchecked, Tarantino’s conduct could mislead others into believing Miramax is involved in his venture,” the letter read. “And it could also mislead others into believing they have the rights to pursue similar deals or offerings, when in fact Miramax holds the rights needed to develop, market, and sell NFTs relating to its deep film library.”

However, Tarantino’s attorney argues that he’s not broken any laws, pointing out that his contract stipulates that among the elements to which he retains rights are “screenplay publication.” But this may still lead to a contract dispute that may shape how other filmmakers are able to step into the still brand-new world of digital tokens.

(Via THR)

In addition to the school theme, each of Ye’s first three albums had another thing in common: Each one had a bear mascot somewhere on its cover. There was even a plan to create a line of the bear costumes for people, but that never came to fruition. After 2007’s Graduation, Ye would let go of the bear theme for future projects that include Yeezus, and his most recent album Donda. During a recent interview with Fake Shore Drive‘s Andrew Barber, Eric Arginsky, who worked with Ye’s team on the failed bear line, revealed he still owns a version of the costume that he’ll consider selling.

Arginsky, who shared images of the costume with Barber, revealed that the costume has spent the better part of 20 years sitting in a closet. “My mom wants it out of her house soon,” he said. Barber then asked if he’d consider selling it, and Arginsky said he would. “I love business and opportunity so the best thing that could ever happen is someone from Ye’s camp sees this video and reaches out to you to bring this opportunity back and then you and I are producing bears tomorrow,” Arginsky noted. “That’s what I’m really hoping for. I know that the percentages are very slim on that one. But yeah, I would say at this point I’m really open to anything.” Barber then asked if $1 million would be a fair buying price and Arginsky replied, “Personally, I would say yes.”

You can watch the full interview between Barber and Arginsky in the video above.

Like Freaks and Geeks and My So-Called Life, Party Down is one of those shows too few people watched to keep it on the air, but which has blossomed into an unstoppable cult hit. The Starz comedy, about disgruntled staffers at a Los Angeles catering company, made it two seasons but only netted 20 episodes total. Ever since its cancellation in 2010, there’s been talk of a revival — a movie, another season, something to keep the party going. And now, nearly a dozen years later and half a year after it was officially put in motion, it’s finally getting one — with one major caveat.

As per Deadline, the Party Down revival is a go on its original channel, with six of its original cat members returning: Adam Scott, Ken Marino, Martin Starr, Ryan Hansen, Jane Lynch, and Megan Mullally. But there’s one big omission: Lizzy Caplan, who played struggling comedian/actress Casey Klein. The reason? Unlike her Party Down character, she has a pretty booked schedule. On top of nabbing the Glen Close role in Paramount+’s Fatal Attraction TV reboot, she just nabbed the lead in Fleishman Is in Trouble, Hulu’s take on Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s New York Times bestseller.

Good for Lizzy Caplan! But not so good for the Party Down revival. Though it was an ensemble show, without a single weak link (and scores of scene-stealing guests), the heart of the show was the on-again-off-again relationship between Kaplan’s Casey and Scott’s Henry Pollard, the sadsack semi-retired actor with whom she clicked.

There’s another major cast member who’s also AWOL: Jennifer Coolidge, who appeared in two episodes at the back-end of Season 1, after Lynch departed. (Mullally wound up taking up that space full-time in Season 2, ensuring that there were always six Party Downers, including Marino’s bumbling team leader Ron Donald.)

The Starz revival will only feature six episodes, and presumably it will retain the original structure: Each episode is set at a different function, for which the Party Down team has been hired. Previous outings included a shady investors dinner, a porn awards after-party, a funeral, an orgy, and Steve Guttenberg’s birthday party.

Even with the Caplan (and Coolidge) news, an almost-complete Party Down reunion is still quite the feat. The actors have gone onto fruitful careers, and getting even most of them back for a short period of time was so tricky it took over a decade. And what’s a reunion if it isn’t bittersweet?

(Via Deadline)

Deron Williams is on the verge of becoming the latest NBA player to appear in a boxing ring. Williams will go toe-to-toe with another athlete, longtime NFL running back Frank Gore, on the undercard on the upcoming pay-per-view headlined by a bout between Jake Paul and Tommy Fury on Dec. 18.

One of the recent events pitting Paul against someone included a matchup with Nate Robinson last year, which ended with a Paul victory by knockout in the second round thanks to a right that caught Robinson cleanly and sent him to the mat. Plenty of folks in the basketball world got jokes off at his expense, while Robinson said a number reached out in the aftermath.

During his press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Williams alluded to that fight and made clear that his history with combat sports is a bit different than Robinson’s, and as a result, he’s optimistic he will not suffer a similar fate.

“I watched it. I’m not Nate Robinson. I think I have a little more experience than Nate,” Williams said, per Eric Woodyard of ESPN. “I’ve been training stand-up and boxing for 8-10 years. I’ve sparred against high-level UFC guys that are bigger than me, that are my size and that are smaller than me, so, I think I’m a little more prepared than Nate was for that fight. And I don’t think anybody really respected Jake Paul at the time as a fighter, but obviously things are changing.”

The four-round fight features Williams, who has a six-inch height advantage, as a -225 favorite. However, Gore had 742 yards from scrimmage for the New York Jets last year, while Williams last appeared in the NBA in 2017.

Released late last month, Red (Taylor’s Version) is already charting heavily on country radio and breaking Spotify streaming records. There are numerous versions of the vinyl edition, but none are more coveted than the limited edition red-colored four disc vinyl set from Target. Trouble is, some fans have been none-too-pleased with the recording quality and it’s not for the reasons you might expect.

“Vinyl looks ok and the color, is beautiful, but the sound is really scary, it’s like a Taylor’s voice from beyond the grave… is this a disgusting joke about halloween? Not sure,” wrote one reviewer. Another shared a similar sentiment, saying that, “As a few other reviews mention, it sounds like a man is singing the album. I thought it was a problem with my record player but I tried playing it on another and it was the same.”

Trouble is, it seems as though these folks are listening to the record on the 33rpm setting of their record player instead of this pressing’s set 45rpm. They could fix this “voice from beyond the grave” effect with a simple flick of the switch on their player, but then we wouldn’t have hilarious reviews from vinyl noobs like this:

Or this simply-stated review that nevertheless “would recommend” the vinyl edition despite it being sung by a man (and not Taylor Swift):

Bless these people’s hearts, for vinyl is clearly a new foray for many of them. But at least there’s “Gabe” popping into the 1-star reviews section to hopefully save the day for the Swifties:

Eric Trump has always been the lesser of the older Trump sons, lacking his older brother’s flamboyance (or at least willingness to tweet out videos he recorded at 3am while his eyes were crimson red). But every now and then he surprises. He can’t even spread voter fraud misinformation without being owned online. So when Eric tried to blame the selling on another of his failing businesses on Democrats, it seemed like he wasn’t even trying.

As per The New York Post, the former president’s organization has been forced to sell the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C., located in the 122-year-old former Old Post Office building. The Trump Organization bought it for $500 million in 2012 and spent an extra $250 million to turn it into a luxury hotel. Since its opening, around the same time Trump won his one-term presidency in 2016, it’s lost more than $70 million.

The lucky new owners, CGI Merchant Group, paid a mere $375 million for the hotel. They will strip the building of its debatably iconic Trump logo and turn it into a Waldorf Astoria.

The D.C. hotel sure has fallen on hard times. When Trump was president, it was one of three of his properties that he strongarmed the Secret Service to use, on the taxpayers’ dime.

Some mourned the D.C. hotel’s changing-of-the-guard, as well as its history of political corruption and, in the style of many Trump properties, multiple bankruptcies.

Another mourner was Eric Trump. “Heavy hearts all around,” he told The Miami Herald. “I think it’s safe to say no public figure in the history of the United States has been persecuted the way President Trump has.”

What does the Trump business having to sell one of their failing properties have to do with the Democrats? Best guess: CGI is led by Raoul Thomas, who, as per the Herald, has a focus on “socially conscious investing,” with plans to donate 1% of room revenue to nonprofits. And while he donates to both Democrats and Republicans, last year he gave almost three times as much to Joe Biden as he did to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Or maybe the guy who didn’t seem to be joking when he slammed Biden for not spending enough time at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. has simply given up.

(Via NY Post and Miami Herald)

Earlier this year, Wu-Tang’s Once Upon A Time In Shaolin album was sold by the government to pay off part of ultra-weasel Martin Shkreli’s $7.4 million forfeiture judgment. But members of The Wu-Tang Clan have stayed plenty busy with other endeavors. For starters, the second season of the Hulu show Wu-Tang: An American Saga came out, and one of its members, RZA, re-launched his series Saturday Afternoon Kung Fu Theater on his platform 36 Cinema, which hosts screenings of old school kung-fu and blaxploitation films, complete with guests and live commentary.

In a recent interview with Mic, where RZA spoke about An American Saga, the 2019 Sacha Jenkins-directed documentary Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men, and the need for Black voices to tell Black stories. He also revealed that he is working on a biopic about Ol’ Dirty Bastard. If you’ve heard about this before, it’s because in 2018, The Hollywood Reporter ran a story revealing the project was green-lit by Columbia Pictures, that it would be produced by RZA, and that a search for a director and screenwriter were underway. Not only that, but he shared that it’s part of a bigger vision:

“The documentary was to capture the story as best we can in the reality of it, and then the TV series was to dramatize it. The third tier of the plan, which I’m in progress of, is an ODB movie biopic. Like the five-year Wu-Tang plan, this was a five-year media plan that I concocted, I meditated on, and I’m striving to live out. So far, it’s working well.”

ODB was a polarizing figure, to say the least, and his life was shrouded in equal parts flamboyance and mystique. A RZA-produced biopic is sure to shed light on his fantastic and mad existence.

After years of keeping their metrics under wraps, only divulging their most-watched shows when true pop culture phenomena (such as Squid Game) occur, Netflix is finally coming clean with their analytics. Earlier today, the streaming service took to Twitter to announce they are creating a website entirely dedicated to listing their weekly top ten films and television shows. The website, topten.netflix.com, will allow visitors access to the service’s global top ten lists, as well as various filtered lists based on language and country.

This site comes as quite the surprising following reports earlier this year that Netflix was shifting away from its longtime two-minute viewing time metric in favor of ranking shows by total number of hours viewed. Considering the streamer has always been a bit secretive with their numbers and was undergoing that aforementioned shift, folks weren’t necessarily anticipating this new feature. However, it comes as a welcome change for both curious subscribers and most assuredly advertisers.

Netflix’s Weekly Top Ten is scheduled to refresh every Tuesday, but will keep a record of previous weeks as well. As of right now, users can track metrics as far back as the week of June 28, 2021, though Netflix has not revealed if earlier data will be lost as new weeks are created.

In addition to merely listing the top ten, the site will also keep track of how many weeks a title has been on the top ten as well as the total number of hours the title has been viewed. Right now, Netflix’s original film Red Notice holds the global, English movie record with nearly 149 million hours viewed. Narcos: Mexico: Season 3 holds the title for most-watched English series this week, with just over 50 million hours watched. According to Netflix (via The Wrap), the company will also give proper credit to hours rewatched, meaning more shaming Netflix users for watching far too many hours of The Christmas Prince is surely coming soon.

After LeVar Burton went on a roller-coaster experience as a potential contender to become Alex Trebek’s successor as the permanent host of Jeopardy!, the gig ultimately went to executive producer Mike Richards. He lasted less than a week at the podium, and LeVar Burton has landed on his feet with a new game show hosting gig. The beloved Reading Rainbow host has teamed up with eOne to develop a new show based on the classic board game Trivial Pursuit, which falls directly into Burton’s wheelhouse as a purveyor of knowledge.

“Trivial Pursuit is one of the best-known brands in the gaming universe. I am thrilled to have partnered with Hasbro and eOne to bring this beloved game to market as a premium show for television,” Burton said in a statement to Deadline:

“LeVar Burton has been an iconic member of American pop culture for decades from Roots to Reading Rainbow to Star Trek and beyond. His love for intellectual curiosity paired with his ability to connect with audiences worldwide make him the perfect partner to bring Hasbro’s beloved trivia game to households in a new and exciting way,” added Tara Long, President, Global Unscripted Television, eOne.

Clearly, Burton’s time on Jeopardy! hasn’t soured him to the world of TV game shows, but don’t expect him to be calling out Daily Doubles again. When asked back in October if he’d take the now-vacant Jeopardy! hosting gig if it was offered to him, Burton told an interviewer exactly what he’d say to Sony Pictures Television, “‘No. You’ve got to be kidding me! You’re out of your mind. Goodbye!”

(Via Deadline)