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2021 isn’t here yet, but it is in some part of the world. While it was morning in the US, South Korea was ringing in the new year, which was celebrated with Big Hit Labels’ 2021 New Year’s Eve Live livestream concert. Since BTS pretty much owns Twitter, a lot of the platform’s trending topics during the show were related to it, and Halsey was also a trending topic as she joined the group to perform their collaboration “Boy With Luv.”

The performance was a perfect summary of entertainment in 2020: It was different than usual, as the band members and Halsey were in individual video windows performing their parts in a distanced way. Still, though, the industry has adapted and learned how to entertain in this format, which is exactly what happened here.

BTS’ impact on the music industry and the internet overall was undeniable in 2020. Topics related to the group are regularly trending on Twitter, and of the year’s top 29 tweets worldwide, they had about two thirds of them. Meanwhile, Halsey made some noise on the platform as well, as she became a star of basketball Twitter by launching a new NBA-specific account and sharing her thoughts about the league.

Watch a clip of the “Boy With Luv” performance above.

As the NBA continues upon an ambitious and risky course through the 2020-21 season, it is bringing back some of the technology that made the Bubble successful, according to a report by Baxter Holmes of ESPN.

The Kinexon SafeZone wristband was one of the key elements used to keep the Bubble locked down this summer, as everyone inside wore the wristband, and in the case of a positive case (which fortunately never happened), the technology would allow the league to determine close contacts of the infected person. The wristband also would beep when people came within six feet of one another, though that function will be disabled now, Holmes reported.

Those in Tier 1 and Tier 2 in the league’s structure (this includes players, coaches, front office personnel, trainers and team staff such as communications staffers) will wear the band starting Jan. 7 at all team-sanctioned functions, including on the team bus, during travel, and during practices. They will not wear the bands during games.

Holmes also notes that GPS location will not be recorded, which means players will not be monitored moment to moment, but rather the technology will be used to measure “the distance and duration of in-person interactions” per a memo obtained by Holmes.

Other leagues such as the NFL have put these sensors to work already in 2020 and pro football has mostly had success when it comes to contact tracing during its season. Now, the NBA will try their hand as they attempt to build out a program that leads to as few infections as possible over the course of the season.

In 2017, a fun annual music trend began (as Know Your Meme notes). That was when fans started figuring out at what time to start playing certain songs on New Year’s Eve so a highlight from the song will happen the instant the clock strikes midnight and the next year begins. People have shared new discoveries in the trend in the following years, and now there’s a new batch of them for 2020.

One fan noted a discovery about Taylor Swift’s Evermore highlight “Long Story Short,” tweeting, “if you play long story short by Taylor Swift at exactly 11:56:32 pm on New Years Eve, Taylor will sing ‘long story short I survived’ at exactly midnight, and I think that’s a nice way of ending this effing year” Meanwhile, somebody else figured out how to hear Phoebe Bridgers scream at midnight, while another person worked out how to start 2020 with some encouraging words from Kid Cudi.

Check out more “if you play” tweets below, including some highlights from previous years.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Cardi B had both one of the most successful and most explicit hits of 2020, as “WAP” is all about a certain anatomical area in a moisture-heavy state. While the numbers have shown that a lot of people are cool with that sort of profanity in music, others wish Cardi would skew more PG. She drew the ire of a detractor on Twitter this morning for a similar reason, but Cardi had a strong comeback to their criticisms.

Late last night, Cardi B asked her Twitter followers, “What’s a good movie to watch on Netflix before I start f*cking?” That prompted one user to respond, “Ugh, why can’t you just stop being so raunchy? Do u talk to your daughter like that? Think about it.Do you think when your girl grows up she isn’t going to see her mom talking like this? There’s a time and place for everything. Do the right thing.”

In her reply, Cardi insisted that she picked her time and place pretty well, writing, “There’s a time & a place … girl this place is Twitter & the time was at 1am GROWN UP TIME ! Why would I talk to my 2 year old daughter like that ?like what ?”

For the record, the set of movie recommendations Cardi got was a mixed bag, including everything from Snowden to Home Alone to Mr. Bean. (Also for the record, there’s no movie called Mr. Bean, but the Rowan Atkinson character is in Bean and Mr. Bean’s Holiday.)

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

Oftentimes, the journey to our true calling is winding and unexpected. Take Lainey Morse, who went from office manager to creator of the viral trend, Goat Yoga, thanks to her natural affinity for goats and throwing parties.

Back in 2015, Lainey bought a farm in Oregon and got her first goats who she named Ansel and Adams. “Once I got them, I was obsessed,” says Lainey. “It was hard to get me off the farm to go do anything else.”

Right away, she noticed what a calming presence they had. “Even the way they chew their cud is relaxing to be around because it’s very methodical,” she says. Lainey was going through a divorce and dealing with a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis at the time, but even when things got particularly hard, the goats provided relief.

“I found it impossible to be stressed or depressed when I was with them.”

She started inviting friends up to the farm for what she called “Goat Happy Hour.” Soon, the word spread about Lainey’s delightful, stress-relieving furry friends. At one point, she auctioned off a child’s birthday party at her farm, and the mom asked if they could do yoga with the goats. And lo, the idea for goat yoga was born.

A baby goat on a yoga student. Photo courtesy of Lainey Morse

Goat yoga went viral so much so that by fall of 2016, Lainey was able to quit her office manager job at a remodeling company to manage her burgeoning goat yoga business full-time. Now she has 10 locations nationwide.

Lainey handles the backend management for all of her locations, and loves that side of the business too, even though it’s less goat-related. “I still have my own personal Goat Happy Hour every single day so I still get to spend a lot of time with my goats,” says Lainey. “I get the best of both worlds.”

Lainey with her goat Fabio. Photo courtesy of Lainey Morse

Since COVID-19 hit, her locations have had to close temporarily. She hopes her yoga locations will be able to resume classes in the spring when the vaccine is more widely available. “I think people will need goat yoga more than ever before, because everyone has been through so much stress in 2020,” says Lainey.

Major life changes like Lainey’s can come around for any number of reasons. Even if they seem out of left field to some, it doesn’t mean they’re not the right moves for you. The new FOX series “Call Me Kat”, which premieres Sunday, January 3rd after NFL and will continue on Thursday nights beginning January 7^th, exemplifies that. The show is centered around Kat, a 39-year old single woman played by Mayim Bialik, who quit her math professor job and spent her life’s savings to pursue her dreams to open a Cat Café in Louisville, Kentucky.

Jeff Harry started making similar moves when he was just 10-years-old, and kept making them throughout his life. After seeing the movie “Big,”Jeff knew he wanted to play with toys for a living, so he started writing toy companies asking for next steps. He finally got a response when he was a sophomore in high school — the company told him he needed to become a mechanical engineer first.

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He did that, and eventually got a job with Toys R Us in the Labor Planning Department where he was almost immediately disillusioned. “There was no play, no fun, no high fives, and no kids,” says Jeff.

Soon after, in late 2001, he decided to quit the business and move across the country to Oakland, California. While there, he found a job posting on Craigslist for a STEM education company called Play-Well, which uses LEGOs to teach kids about engineering. Even though they only had 7 employees and only paid $150 a week, he thought it sounded promising and applied.

Courtesy of Jeff Harry

Over the next 16 years, Jeff helped grow the company to over 400 employees. By “embracing a play-oriented mindset, we said yes to everything even if we didn’t know if we would be able to figure it out,” says Jeff. “We were constantly doing experiments, open to failure, not fixated on certain results.” Through this method, they became the largest LEGO-inspired STEM organization in the United States.

Since they were teaching lots of kids whose parents worked in Silicon Valley, they were eventually asked to run team-building workshops with some of the top tech companies in the business. They did this for nine years and excelled at it, but eventually, Jeff began to feel like the importance of play was getting lost. In response, he created a consulting business called Rediscover Your Play, which uses positive psychology and play to help reinvigorate employees and help companies tackle workplaces challenges.

Now, he finally feels like he’s found his purpose because he’s living, and sharing, his passion for play every day.

Your life and career path don’t have to look like anyone else’s, in fact, it’s usually better when they don’t. If you follow your gut and buy some goats or apply to an unorthodox job posting on Craigslist, you might just open a door to one spectacular future.

So, this New Year…Quit your job. Open a cat cafe. Live your best life.

Call Me Kat premieres on FOX Sunday, January 3rd after NFL and continues on Thursdays beginning January 7th at 9/8c. Starring Mayim Bialik, the show is about a 39-year-old woman who quit her successful, yet unfulfilling, job to pursue her dreams to open a cat café. Kat couldn’t be any happier with her new life… despite her mother pushing Kat to get married already!

A month ago, Dua Lipa hosted her Studio 2054 livestream concert, and among the guests joining her for the performance was Kylie Minogue, who, like Lipa, also put out a disco-indebted album this year, DISCO. Minogue joined Lipa to perform Lipa’s Silk City collab “Electricity” as well as Minogue’s own “Real Groove.” Now the pair have turned in a studio version of “Real Groove” based on the performance, and it’s a ton of fun. The upbeat track could have fit right in on Future Nostalgia, which could really be seen as a sister album to Minogue’s DISCO.

Ahead of Studio 2054, Lipa sang the praises of Minogue, saying in one interview, “I love her. […] I’m just so happy because she’s based in London, was up for coming down and doing this and it’s gonna be a lot of fun, so I hope everyone enjoys it.” She added in another, “The queen, Kylie Minogue, is also joining me for Studio 2054, which I am so over the moon about, you have no idea. To be able to be there and share this space with her, I am just floored, honestly. I can’t believe it, I am so happy. That she would want to join me is just… I’m at a loss for words.”

Listen to “Real Groove (Studio 2054 Remix)” above.

Dua Lipa and Kylie Minogue are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

2020 birthed a lot of rumors about new Kendrick Lamar material, like when TDE president Punch said in October that the rapper has new music coming “pretty soon.” Now another source has backed that claim up: Roskilde Festival.

The Danish event announced in a blog post yesterday that Lamar will be one of the headliners for their 2021 event. They claimed multiple times that Lamar has “new material” on the way. The relevant part of the post reads:

“Lamar first visited Roskilde Festival in 2013 when he played an unforgettable concert on the Arena stage. When he returned two years later, he had just released the masterpiece To Pimp A Butterfly, and the concert on the Orange Stage was a true show of force.

Two albums later — and with new material along the way — he is once again ready to take Roskilde Festival’s main stage with a concert that is likely to be one of the absolute highlights of the summer.

An artist like Kendrick Lamar doesn’t just make music that fits our current age, he also helps shape it. He is capable of giving a voice to those who might be needing it, and this kind of artist is essential to have right now.

With new material on the way, we have great expectations of Kendrick Lamar’s show on the Orange Stage.”

The festival is set to take place between June 26 and July 3, 2021, so if what Roskilde says is true, perhaps Lamar will have something new out before or around then.

Lauv (born Ari Staprans Leff) is a quickly-rising pop star who seems to churn out hit song after hit song with relative ease. The singer-songwriter released his emotional debut album, how i’m feeling earlier this year, and spoke about his unique experience as an independent artist in the pop world. Collaborating with other stars like BTS, Troye Sivan, Anne-Marie and more, he’s also just as great on his own, as standout singles like his early track “I Like Me Better” reveal.

Tonight, he dropped a surprise new song called “2021” that’s much more lowkey than some of the other songs on his debut album. The sweet, slow autotuned track looks forward to a future that’s brighter and more hopeful than the difficult year most people — and particularly musicians, who rely mostly on touring for income — have had in 2020.

“2021 we could have some fun, maybe we could run,” he sings. “I could be the one. It’s time to go hard for you.” In a tweet about the new track Lauv wishes his fans a safe and happy new year: “2021 out now,” he wrote. “Stay safe enjoy New Year’s Eve see u on the others side.” Listen to the track above and look for more from Lauv in the new year.

The Clippers played host to the Blazers on Wednesday night as Portland did the old L.A. back-to-back after having beaten the Lakers on Monday. Things didn’t go as well for the Blazers on this night, as the Clippers steamrolled them, thanks in part to the return of Kawhi Leonard to the lineup.

Leonard had missed their last two games after taking some friendly fire on Christmas from Serge Ibaka that left him needing stitches after an elbow to his mouth caused a bloody scene on the court. He returned on Wednesday donning a mask as so many have done in the past in the NBA, but unlike the Rip-Hamilton-style face shields that have become en vogue, the nature of Leonard’s injury required a, well, unique design.

The odd shape of Leonard’s mask drew a lot of comparisons to Hannibal Lector’s mask, with the tiny mouth hole — albeit without the bars on it — as NBA Twitter went to work on photoshops and jokes.

There were also lots of comparisons to Dwight Schrute from The Office, both in his Hannibal moment when he cut the face off of the CPR dummy and his own masked hoops look.

There were also plenty of wrestling jokes about Kawhi’s new look, among other lovely references, as NBA Twitter is at its best when someone comes out on the court with a new look.

The mask did its job, and Leonard seemed more than comfortable in his new look, as he had 28 points in three quarters of play as the Clippers put it on the Blazers. Still, it was certainly an interesting and unique look, one I wouldn’t expect many others to try out if they have their choice of design.

At the beginning of October, Nicki Minaj gave birth to her first child, one she had with her husband Kenneth Petty. As of this moment, the name of Nicki’s child is still unknown, but fans are aware that it is a baby boy. Her child’s sex is just one of a few things that her adoring supporters knew about the newborn prior to Friday. However, that changed a bit when Nicki hopped on Twitter for a Q&A session with fans where she answered questions about motherhood, gave some updates on her first child, and detailed some of the love and support she’s received along the way from others.

Nicki was asked about her experience breastfeeding her baby boy and she gave a detailed reply to the question while shouting out mothers all over the world who understand her feelings. “He had no problem breastfeeding. He latched on in the hospital which was very surprising to me. I was afraid maybe he wouldn’t. But breastfeeding is very painful. Pumping is too,” she said. “Women make this stuff look way too easy. Moms r really superheroes.” Another fan sought a brief explanation of the moment her water broke at home. “Yes. I was butt naked. Just got out the shower & I asked him to rub my back,” Nicki said. “As soon as I started scooting over to him in the bed I just felt the water start coming out. I was weirdly calm & I quietly said ‘omg, I’m about to be in labor’ He was very scared & I was laughing @ him.”

Elsewhere, she shared Ariana Grande’s reaction to her pregnancy saying simply, “She sent him some gorgeous gifts.” She also told fans that Ciara served as a big help to her through her pregnancy. “Ciara was sooooooo helpful. Bless her,” she said. Nicki then told her followers that some of the other questions they had would be answered in an upcoming documentary. “You’ll have to wait for the documentary,” she said when she was asked about her husband’s reaction to her pregnancy.

You can check out the other answers Nicki gave during the Q&A below.