The statement Brock Turner read to Judge Aaron Persky is one of the reasons he received an exceptionally light sentence (along with the support of friends and family who claimed he was generally a nice boy who never wanted to hurt anyone, insert jerkoff motion here). But not only did his statement fail to include any serious mention of the actual crime of which he was convicted (which Turner still doesn't seem to understand was rape, not drinking), it also failed to include the truth about his previous experience with drinking and drugs, both at Stanford and in high school in Ohio.

In his statement to Judge Persky, Turner painted himself as someone who had little to no experience with drinking, binge or otherwise. ("Coming from a small town in Ohio, I had never really experienced celebrating or partying that involved alcohol.'') But according to photos and texts on Turner's phone, which had been seized by police, that's not exactly true.

According to prosecutor Alaleh Kiancerci's sentencing memo, there was evidence that Turner had done his fair share of drinking and drugs well before he raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster during a frat party at Stanford in January 2015. Turner's phone records reportedly included texts he'd sent and received referring to smoking pot and taking acid as early as April 2014, before Turner even left for college.

On July 25, 2014, while still living in Ohio, Turner sent a text message to a friend saying, "Oh dude I did acid with [person] last week." On December 18, 2014, at Stanford, Turner reportedly sent a text to a friend reading, "Do you think I could buy some wax so we could do some dabs?" (Dabs are a potent form of marijuana that resemble honey or butter.) On December 24, 2014, someone sent a message to Turner suggesting they take acid over the winter break, to which Turner responded, "I'm down for sure." And on December 27, 2014, there was video "depicting the Defendant smoking from a bong and drinking out of a bottle of liquor immediately after taking a 'bong hit.'"

It's not surprising that college or even high school students want to and do try drugs and drinking, but it's interesting that Turner neglected to leave all of that out in his statement to the judge, instead blaming his behavior on the party atmosphere of Stanford. ("Living more than 2,000 miles from home, I looked to the guys on my swim team as family and tried to replicate their values in how they approached college life.'')

According to The Mercury News, Kiancerci pointed out the lies to the judge during the sentencing hearing, but Persky did not comment. Persky also doesn't seem to have considered Turner's propensity for dishonesty when dishing out a jail sentence of only 6 months out of a maximum of 14 possible years in prison.

Following the general uproar at the pathetic sentencing of rapist Brock Turner, Stanford University has released a statement that acknowledges Turner's wrongdoings much more than Turner's own in-court letter. Unlike Turner, the school goes as far to use the phrase "sexual assault" in reference to the act of raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster.

Stanford University did everything within its power to assure that justice was served in this case, including an immediate police investigation and referral to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office for a successful prosecution.

Stanford urges its students to do the right thing and intervene and we are proud of our students for stopping this incident. Many other student witnesses cooperated in the investigation. Once Stanford learned the identity of the young woman involved, the university reached out confidentially to offer her support and to tell her the steps we were taking. In less than two weeks after the incident, Stanford had conducted an investigation and banned Turner from setting foot on campus – as a student or otherwise. This is the harshest sanction that a university can impose on a student.

There has been a significant amount of misinformation circulating about Stanford’s role. In this case, Stanford University, its students, its police and its staff members did everything they could. Stanford University takes the issue of sexual assault extremely seriously and has been a national leader in taking concrete steps to implement prevention programs, to train students on the importance of bystander intervention, to provide support to students who may experience sexual assault and to assure that cases are handled fairly and justly.

This was a horrible incident, and we understand the anger and deep emotion it has generated. There is still much work to be done, not just here, but everywhere, to create a culture that does not tolerate sexual violence in any form and a judicial system that deals appropriately with sexual assault cases.

The undertone of the statement's last sentence infers that Stanford bears some level of responsibility for bringing the rapist on campus, and for being part of the culture of privilege he has enjoyed since he was a fetus, which is much more than Turner did. Turner simply talked about himself in his statement, and complained about how the party culture is so rough these days.

One would hope Stanford would be a "national leader in taking concrete steps" to prevent sexual assault, especially after the 2014 protests that occurred on campus. The Stand With Leah protests over sexual assault policies did not garner nearly as much attention as the Brock Turner case, so here's a refresher: towards the end of the school year in 2014, a senior's letter regarding her rape at the hands of a fellow student in Alaska over Christmas break circulated around the school, inspiring students to come together in protest over the school's sexual assault policies.

The school, according to the Stanford Daily, reprimanded Leah Francis's assailant by suspending him for five quarters, slapping him with 40 hours of community service, and making him undergo a sexual assault awareness program that was probably the easiest class of his undergrad career (depending on which IHUM he was in freshman year).

Memes have become a viral part of the news cycle, as people boil down big stories into pictures or use a joke to help digest an otherwise horrible thing. In the midst of public, digital discussion about Brock Turner, the Stanford rapist who also happened to swim, a meme that simply says "My name is Brock, I'm a rapist" kept mysteriously disappearing off Facebook. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Gizmodo that they removed the original post.

Like many a meme, it likely originated on Imgur.

Facebook didn't flag the image for its lack of a proper apostrophe, but for confusion over whether or not it constituted bullying of a "private" individual.

Because people were sharing the post on Facebook, they noticed when it had been taken down. 

A user accused Facebook of a sexist double standard, pointing out the same white male privilege many called out after Turner's sentencing.

Facebook admitted to taking the image down, but insisted it was an error. “This content was removed in error, and we are currently working to restore it. Our team processes millions of reports each week, and we sometimes get things wrong. We’re very sorry about this mistake,” a Facebook spokesperson told Gizmodo.

The community standards of Facebook state that they do not tolerate bullying or harassment of private persons, but do “allow you to speak freely on matters and people of public interest.” According to the spokesperson, at the time when the meme was first shared, they were unsure whether Turner qualified as private, until discussion over his sentencing officially launched him into the public sphere. 

The original meme has since been reinstated.

In what is objectively the most horrific prank in the world, a bunch of "jokesters" on Egyptian prank show convinced actress Heba Magdy that she was kidnapped by ISIS. In reality, of course, these charming, whimsical fools were just joshing with their "machine guns" t0 make a woman think she had been captured by terrorists. Then—and here's the kicker—they forced her to beg for her life and she cries as they bark instructions at her. Hahahaha!

With the hidden camera rolling, the dudes went as far as putting on a fake suicide vest as police sirens ring outside. LOL! 

At the end, one of the fake ISIS members sits beside her to say it was a prank, but she is still has yet to recover from the traumatic experience. Tehehehe, classic television!

Adorable preteen Grace VanderWaal did such a good job with her America's Got Talentaudition that the judges rang the coveted golden buzzer after her performance, catapulting her directly into the live shows this season. This is the second time the golden buzzer was rung this season, the first being for 13-year-old opera singer Laura Bretan, because tweenage singing sensations are so in this year.  

Even infamous curmudgeon Simon Cowell called Grace the "next Taylor Swift," and said that he was annoyed that Howie Mandel pressed the golden buzzer for Grace before he could get to it. That voice, plus writing her own music and the ability to effortlessly pull off yellow skinny jeans? This girl is going places.

Hairstylist Jasmine Collins, owner of Razor Chic of Atlanta, is speaking out after years of watching young women cry in her chair because they are losing their hair.

The reason this is happening, she repeats every chance she gets, is that women are chasing a style, and hairstylists are chasing the money, but "nobody is listening to the hair." 

What people would hear if they did listen to the hair, Collins warns, is that the trend of sewing in weaves and hair tracks is causing permanent damage to hair follicles. The medical term for this phenomenon, traction alopecia, is a balding that can occur when the follicles are stressed from being pulled too tightly or for too long. Collins has been posting videos about this problem on Instagram, and people are finally starting to listen. This video she posted to Facebook May 26 has since gone viral, with over 3 million views and 40,000 shares.

Without proper attention to the hair, these can be the results. 

She isn't saying women should never wear a weave, just that they should do so in moderation. As she writes on Facebook, "AGAIN LET ME SAY THAT I'M NOT ANTI WEAVE U JUST CAN NOT LIVE BY IT ON A EVERYDAY BASIS."

And just because you have already suffered hair loss doesn't mean it's too late to embrace your natural hair. Here is a style she created for a client who has already suffered grave hair loss, without adding anything to her scalp:

It is beautifully done, but what about all the other women who can't make it to Atlanta to get into Jasmine's chair? She posts this desperate plea:

IF U ONLY KNEW HOW MANY TEARS ARE SHED IN MY CHAIR CAUSE OF THE MISTAKES THEY MADE CHASING STYLES AND CONVENIENCE. WHERE IN THE HELL IS ALL THE REAL STYLIST THAT KNOW HAIR????

Well, real hair stylists? Where are you? 

Twitter user @iBeKabir posted a video of two Google searches that have people wondering if the site reflects a cultural bias towards race. @iBeKabir enters two search terms: "three black teenagers" and "three white teenagers." If you're feeling that the photos will be quite different, you are correct.

It's reminiscent of this comparative tweet.

Oh, 2016.

The quick Google search video—which isn't exactly a new discovery—has garnered a lot of responses.

As it turns out, the search results for stock photos of black teens are also questionable.

It'd be great for everyone if more stock photo options were available. There are only so many times the Internet can see a white guy frowning at a phone from 2003.

Someone searched "three Asians teenager."

Are Asian women going around without pants all the time?

Other people have pointed out that this guy might need nail clippers.

Since this video went viral, the resulting searches have changed a  bit.

This video from Antoine Speaks explains how these search results came up.

So, it's not Google that's racist, it's the Internet? 

Either way, July 3rd is coming up.

Well, it is official. Despite being separated for quite a while now, Amber Rose and Wiz Khalifa are finally divorced. TMZ is reporting that the former couple celebrated the occasion in the exact place you'd expect—a strip club. Mazel tov, you two!

Although you may have your opinions on Kanye's ex and the "Black and Yellow" singer, these two are obviously have a ton of respect for each other. They're also mature enough to put their past aside and get along for the sake of their 3-year-old son, Sebastian. And for the strippers.

In their settlement, they agreed that Amber would get a million dollars under their prenup, as well as $14,800 a month in child support. Wiz gets to keep their home and ten cars, including a '68 Camaro, '69 Chevelle, and a Porsche. Most importantly, they will share custody of their kid. And their favorite strippers, presumably.

On Wednesday, Netflix released the results of a study tracking how viewers binge. They tracked how quickly subscribers watched the first seasons of over 100 different television shows, new and old, over a period of seven months. The findings showed that people who start watching a show and manage to successfully finish the whole first season typically do it in about a week, watching for roughly about two hours a day. Screw your 5K races and graduate degrees, that's an accomplishment.

Cindy Holland, Netflix's VP for original content, told The New York Times that people also watch different kinds of shows at different rates. The television shows that people consume the fastest are the "propulsive" horror or thriller shows like Sons of Anarchy, American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, and Breaking Bad (wait, Breaking Bad is a thriller, not a crime drama?). Viewers tend to finish the first seasons of these shows in a median of four days, watching for about two and a half hours a day.

After horror/thriller shows, the next most addictive type of programs are dramatic comedies, crime dramas, and superhero shows. People go through seasons of these in a median of five days, watching two hours and 10 minutes a day. These are shows like Jessica Jones, Orange Is The New Black, and Fargo.

The shows that last the longest are the comedies and political dramas, like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, The West Wing, Homeland, and House of Cards. These take a median of six days, with viewers watching (only!) an hour and 45 minutes a day. According to Holland, people tend to take more time to digest joke-heavy shows, and also need to "take a breath" between episodes of political dramas.

All that is just for the first seasons of shows. As it turns out, people tend to watch subsequent seasons at an even faster rate. This information reinforces Netflix's policy of releasing all the episodes of a show, new or not, at the same time. Left to their own devices, viewers will stay glued to their screens as long as their bodies, jobs, and lack of social lives will permit. So thanks, Netflix, for making it possible for people to lose themselves in television in ways never before thought possible!

Brock Turner received an excruciatingly light sentence after raping an innocent women behind a dumpster at a Stanford University party—but it's likely he wouldn't have been caught at all if two Swedish doctoral students, Carl-Fredrik Arndt and Peter Jonsson, hadn't been biking by and stopped to catch him.

We have read the harrowing letter written by the victim, as well as the nauseating excuses from Brock, his father, and his friends, but it was the testimony from these PhD students that was crucial in securing Turner's three felony convictions. For the first time since the trial, they have addressed the events publicly in the Swedish paper Expressen.

As they tell it, on the night of January 17th, the two had been riding to a Stanford party on their bicycles when they saw Brock and the victim laying on the ground behind a dumpster and recognized that something was deeply wrong.

​"We see that she does not move, while he was moving very much. So we stop and think this seems very strange," says Carl-Fredrik.

"Peter goes back and asks what he's doing and I follow. When [Brock Turner] gets up, we see that she still is not moving in the slightest, so we go back and ask something like, 'what the hell are you doing?'" Carl-Fredrik continues

They explain that Brock immediately took off and began to run. In a moment of quick thinking, Peter ran after Brock and tackled him about 100 feet away, while Carl-Fredrik stayed with the victim. 

"Peter managed to catch him, then we held him down until police arrived," Arndt explains.​

As the victim points out in her letter, this was the clear moment of guilt. She wrote, 

When they tackled you why didn’t say, “Stop! Everything’s okay, go ask her, she’s right over there, she’ll tell you.” I mean you had just asked for my consent, right? I was awake, right? When the policeman arrived and interviewed the evil Swede who tackled you, he was crying so hard he couldn’t speak because of what he’d seen.

While Peter suspended Brock until the police came, Carl-Frederik says he leaned over the woman who "was still alive, but remained perfectly still."

We know from the victims own recollection of her assault that what Carl-Frederik and Peter saw was worse than stillness. As she wrote,

 I was found unconscious, with my hair disheveled, long necklace wrapped around my neck, bra pulled out of my dress, dress pulled off over my shoulders and pulled up above my waist, that I was butt naked all the way down to my boots, legs spread apart, and had been penetrated by a foreign object by someone I did not recognize.

That's what they saw. 

They didn't have to stop and investigate, but they did. They didn't have to risk themselves chasing after a predator, or involve themselves in what became a horrendous legal battle. And while the world is angry that Brock will not be punished correctly because Judge Aaron Persky failed to sentence him appropriately (which is why you can sign here to petition to remove him from bench), we can be thankful to these two men that any justice was served at all. 

It's something to take comfort in, and something the victim takes comfort in as well. As she wrote in her letter, "there are heroes in this story."

Most importantly, thank you to the two men who saved me, who I have yet to meet. I sleep with two bicycles that I drew taped above my bed to remind myself there are heroes in this story.​

Vimeo user SentioVenia is a current Target employee, but he's also on his way to being a great voice actor à la Hank Azaria. Using end-of-day Target shoppers as a built-in audience, SentioVenia got in the habit of showing off his character voices during the store closing announcements. He does them all, from Valley Girl to Russian Oligarch.

He's certainly got more talent than Alex from Target, and has his act ready for the talent portion of the Mr. Target pageant.

If you enjoyed that, he made a follow-up video where he shaved off the scruff and did some more voices with just the 'stache.

Including free comedy definitely makes Target the best deal in town.

London-based prankster and magician Julius Dein took to the street to gently humiliate random people with a simple yet very effective prank. With a little mind manipulation, Dein got Londoners to repeatedly yell "I am a penis!!" in a way that's guaranteed to make your inner school-child giggle. Sure, roll your eyes and say it is immature, but don't act like you're not going to try this on your friends and family later. 

The only thing funnier than someone in a crowded street yelling that they are male genitalia is their face the moment they realize what they're saying.  

With Bernie supporters being the most vocal on Facebook, some people are having a hard time believing that Hillary indeed won the popular vote for the Democratic nomination. (Of course, Trump supporters are the most vocal in general. Even their hats are all-caps.)

Some people are even singing (to the tune of "Eleanor Rigby") "All the Hillary supporters...where do they all come from?" (Author's note: no one else is humming that? It's just me? Okay. Moving on.)

Writer and comedian Joanna Castle Miller wrote a Facebook post that is going viral on Twitter (she took a screenshot of the original). Miller has a lot of insight into the campaign—even though she's a liberal, her father is Darrell Castle, the real, live third party candidate of the right-wing Constitution Party. Traveling around the country and meeting voters and supporters of all kinds, she noted something unique about Hillary supporters. It maybe explains why you see (and hear) Sanders & Trump supporters all over the Internet but only saw Hillary supporters in vote tallies. Here's the solution to the mystery of the missing Hillary fans. 

She writes:

Over the last week, I spent time with all of the 3 major campaigns here in CA as part of the show I've been working on. Everyone I met was polite, energized, and passionate. But I noticed one big difference between Hillary's supporters and everyone else. 

When I spoke with Trump and Bernie supporters, they were most eager to get in front of the camera. They spoke with a lot of confidence, and they spoke very freely.

Almost all of Hillary's volunteers (approx the same number as were at Bernie's office on the same day) were women, of varying age and race. Her supporters did *not* clamor for the camera. It was the opposite. They wanted to be interviewed, but they debate it for what seemed like forever. They got quiet and asked questions like, "Will my name be used?" "Where will this be seen?" and "Can I wear sunglasses?" Some of them thanked me and said no, and they looked really sad about it. When I pressed them, they told me they were terrified of the online threats they might receive, and in some cases had already received. Even lead organizers admitted they hadn't put up a yard sign or bumper sticker for fear of retaliation. When women walked in to volunteer for the phone bank, they were assured they wouldn't have to give their names if they were too afraid.

Hillary's office was tucked away in a dying mall, with little hand-drawn posters taped up, cheerleader-style. It was cheery, but quiet and nearly invisible. A lot like those volunteers.

This is not to generalize all women as Hillary supporters or as timid – of course not! But I personally believe there's a correlation between her largely female volunteer base (as of now), her unexpected voter turnout, and the fear so many women have expressing themselves online, or on the street, or in the board room.

A lot of people on social media have wondered where all of Hillary's votes came from, because there was no signage no outpouring of love on Facebook. It shouldn't surprise us that when we fail to listen to women's voices well in the public sphere, we mis-calculate what women are actually thinking and doing in private. We didn't know where Hillary's votes were coming from because they didn't feel it was safe for them to tell us in the first place.

So, there you go: they were there, a lot of them were women, and they didn't trust the general public not to act like general a-holes if they spoke up. Whether or not you support Clinton, it's worthwhile to note that in the same year that a woman has become the first nominee of a major party, reprisals and harassment made supporters afraid to publicly endorse her.