Article 17
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Mom puts a halt to son's racist Facebook tirade with one bombshell comment.
A man posted a racist meme about immigrants on his Facebook page, starting a grotesque conversation in the comments thread (how does that always happen?) about how horrible immigrants are for the country. Then, the original poster's mom chimed in with a revelation that she had been saving his whole life. It resulted in one of the best moments of Internet comeuppance we've ever seen.* She probably hadn't been saving it for a moment like this one, but it couldn't possibly have been better timed. See for yourself:
This is where mom jumped in:
Let this be a lesson to everybody: moms always win. And don't be racist. But mainly the mom thing.
*Sometimes, stories like this seem too good to be real. But as a wise man may or may not have said, "Just because it didn't happen doesn't mean it's not true" (in reference to a story that he dared L. Ron Hubbard to invent a religion, accidentally causing Scientology). This is a great example of that. It may well be too perfect, but even if it is, it's so deviously conceived that it deserves reading.
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Taylor Swift said 'Bad Blood' was about a guy, not Katy Perry. Then she kinda took it back.
In an new interview with GQ with Chuck Klosterman, Taylor Swift gets her public persona pretty carefully scrutinized, especially the story behind her huge hit, "Bad Blood." If you've somehow avoided knowing this (sorry), you're about to read all the hottest gossip from forever ago. Basically, Katy Perry stole a bunch of back-up dancers from Taylor Swift, causing a rift in their friendship that echoed through the halls of pop music and gave us this star-studded video:
Can you believe Taylor Swift got that many famous women to participate in such a public "f*ck you" to Katy Perry? Of course you can, because Taylor is the Squad Queen, and everyone is rightfully afraid to say "no" to her. Now, Taylor is saying that, actually, "Bad Blood" isn't about a superstar feud at all. It's about some imaginary(?) man. Twist!:
[Taylor Swift] You’re in a Rolling Stone interview, and the writer says, “Who is that song about? That sounds like a really intense moment from your life.” And you sit there, and you know you’re on good terms with your ex-boyfriend, and you don’t want him—or his family—to think you’re firing shots at him. So you say, “That was about losing a friend.” And that’s basically all you say. But then people cryptically tweet about what you meant. I never said anything that would point a finger in the specific direction of one specific person, and I can sleep at night knowing that. I knew the song would be assigned to a person, and the easiest mark was someone who I didn’t want to be labeled with this song. It was not a song about heartbreak. It was about the loss of friendship.
[GQ] But nobody thinks that song is about a guy.
[Taylor Swift] But they would have. I don’t necessarily care who people think it’s about. I just needed to divert them away from the easiest target. Listen to the song. It doesn’t point to any one person or any one situation. But if you’d listened to my previous four albums, you would think this was about a guy who broke my heart. And nothing could be further from the truth. It was important to show that losing friendships can be just as damaging to a person as losing a romantic relationship.
Okay, so there wasn't a guy? There was? The interviewer, veteran pop-culture writer Chuck Klosterman, adds his own commentary afterwards that Taylor's response seems somewhat deliberately confusing.
[Chuck Klosterman] Now, there are more than a few molecules of bullshit in this response. When Swift says, “And that’s basically all you say,” she’s neglecting to mention that she also told the reporter that the disharmony stemmed from a business conflict, and that the individual in question tried to sabotage an arena tour by hiring away some of her employees. These details dramatically reduce the pool of potential candidates. Yet consider the strategy’s larger brilliance: In order to abort the possibility of a rumor she did not want, she propagated the existence of a different rumor that offered the added value of making the song more interesting.
Actually, what makes that song interesting is Kendrick Lamar. Sorry not sorry.
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Someone rewrote famous quotes as if women said them in meetings. It's hilariously depressing.
Remember when Jennifer Lawrence said her 1,265,874th perfect thing earlier this week and asked why her male costars make more money than her? In addition to asking WTF is up with the wage gap, Lawrence also discussed how women are often expected to temper their feelings when stating their opinions, whereas a man stating the same thing can be as blunt as he likes:
Could there still be a lingering habit of trying to express our opinions in a certain way that doesn’t “offend” or “scare” men?
A few weeks ago at work, I spoke my mind and gave my opinion in a clear and no-bullshit way; no aggression, just blunt. The man I was working with (actually, he was working for me) said, “Whoa! We’re all on the same team here!” As if I was yelling at him.
Alexandra Petri at the Washington Post took that as an opportunity to look at the language of "Woman in a Meeting." As she describes it, "You start with your thought, then you figure out how to say it as though you were offering a groveling apology for an unspecified error." To demonstrate, she took some famous quotes from men and translated them into "Woman in a Meeting." It's a fun game, if by "fun" you mean "depressing" and by "game" you mean "current fact of life."
“Give me liberty, or give me death.”
Woman in a Meeting: “Dave, if I could, I could just — I just really feel like if we had liberty it would be terrific, and the alternative would just be awful, you know? That’s just how it strikes me. I don’t know.”“I have a dream today!”
Woman in a Meeting: “I’m sorry, I just had this idea — it’s probably crazy, but — look, just as long as we’re throwing things out here — I had sort of an idea or vision about maybe the future?”“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Woman in a Meeting: “I’m sorry, Mikhail, if I could? Didn’t mean to cut you off there. Can we agree that this wall maybe isn’t quite doing what it should be doing? Just looking at everything everyone’s been saying, it seems like we could consider removing it. Possibly. I don’t know, what does the room feel?”
You can read all of Petri's translated quotes (there are many more) on her Washington Post blog.
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Someone snuck amazing fake costumes into a Halloween store that you'll wish were real.
Consummate prankster, humorist, and surprise artist Obvious Plant (aka Jeff Wysaski) has delighted us many times with his projects to make the world a weirder and funnier place. He's filled IKEA with fake in-store reviews, inserted hilariously bizarre names for colors in a paint store, created adventurous new labels for animals in a pet store, stacked a bookstore full of insane self-help books, and went into a wine store to create deranged staff reviews and wine pairings. Now, it is Halloween, and that can only mean one wonderful thing: some Los Angeles-area seasonal costume store got the Obvious Plant makeover.
There are many more costumes on the Obvious Plant Tumblr, plus one you can only see by following him on Facebook. Savvy man, that Jeff Wysaski, tricking us with treats.
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High school principal fired for appearing in rap video, is literally too cool for school.
A high school principal lost her position after appearing in a Trey Songz video (technically it's J.R. featuring Trey Songz, but still, it's a Trey Songz video). Her name is Esther Adler-O'Keefe, and she was the principal of Southampton High School in New York before being reassigned to an administrative position for the larger school district. The video features her and her husband giving J.R. house-sitting instructions before they leave for vacation. You know, the way a million other movies and music videos about parties begin. The second they leave, J.R. throws a huge, rap-video-appropriate party and calls Trey to come over and take part.
The school district took offense to the video's depiction of "alcohol, marijuana and ladies in bikinis." Esther and her husband filmed their portion the video during one of Esther's summers off, and Esther claims she was “completely unaware of the content, lyrics, and title of the video and song.” Critics point out that taking a job like that without asking any questions isn't great judgment either, but c'mon—she literally played the lame square who gets fooled by rowdy kids. That's 90% of a school superintendent's job description.
School districts need to stop hating. #FreeEsther.
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Drinking
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You've been good today, so here's a tiny parrot using the kitchen sink as a shower.
Charlie is a 7-month-old green-cheeked conure parrot who loves showers. Either that, or he has an anxiety problem that constantly drives him to wash himself. Either way, he loves taking over the kitchen sink as his personal bathroom, and it's a lot more adorable than when humans decide to use the kitchen sink as their personal bathroom.
Here's another shower:
And here's a bonus video of Charlie desperately trying to drink a beer that he simply can't reach, but gosh darn, he's not going to stop trying:
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Embrace your antisocial tendencies with this dress that attacks when people come too close.
When you're shopping for a new dress, it can be so hard to find something that says "I look great" as much as it says "stay the hell away from me." But Danish fashion designer Anouk Wipprecht has just the thing for you: Spider Dress 2.0, a 3D-printed dress with motion-sensor-activated spider legs that attack anyone who approaches you too quickly. It's the perfect thing to wear to any overcrowded bar, house party, or wedding (let's see your overly touchy aunt try to get a hug in when you're wearing this thing).
This isn't Wipprecht's first dress that reacts based on the location of people nearby. Her SMOKEDRESS emits a personal smokescreen whenever it senses someone approaching. It's perfect for super-villains or anyone else who would like to be engulfed in cloud of mystery:
You can see more of Wipprecht's designs, including her insanely cool Tesla coil dress, on her website.
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Boss's Day
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Boss's Day
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Boss's Day
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Can do.
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All yours.
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Non-violent praise.
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Who's who.
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Boss's Day
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Undercover boss.
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Here's a breakdown of how much everything costs in these 5 celebrity Instagram posts.
One of the true joys of following celebrities on Instagram is getting a voyeuristic peek at rich people things that are often out of view to normals. What follows is a highly researched, completely unmathematical, totally unproven estimation of how much cold hard cash lies in the subtext of five intriguing Instagram photos from the past week.
1. @bellahadid
Model Bella Hadid uses a Chrome Hearts 100% cashmere beanie as a bag for her puppy, Hendrix, while out to lunch. (She mentioned the brand and material in a separate Instagram post which has since been deleted. Isn't that weird? What is she hiding?) Chrome Hearts is a luxury (aka hella expensive) brand, so this is one fancy pup. A similar beanie made out of wool (ugh) sells online for $232, while a true cashmere one is currently on ebay for $599. So let's guess $500.
2. @mindykaling
Mindy Kaling tries on a rack packed with clothes chosen by The Mindy Project's costume designer, Salvador Perez. Perez has said that he frequently dresses protagonist Mindy Lahiri in "go-to favorites like Lela Rose, Tory Burch, Alice + Olivia, C Wonder, LK Bennett and Kate Spade" and also custom creates about 20% of her clothes with his team. It's damn near impossible to tell from this photograph exactly how many clothing items are on the rack, but I have extensively squinted at the image and my best hypothesis is 8 dresses, 5 blouses, 1 skirt, and 3 unidentified garments. Based on typical price points for the aforementioned brands, the total comes to about $8395.
3. @reesewitherspoon
Reese Witherspoon shared a selfie in a mysterious floral arena and asked in the comments, "Any guesses where I am?" Commenters, who are really on the ball when it comes to these things, knew that WItherspoon was in Singapore inside the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay. Admission is $28, and a first class flight from LA to Singapore on Singapore Airlines costs $1693.46. So that puts this Instagram photo at $1721.46.
4. @lennyletter
Famous (the most famous?) feminist Gloria Steinem wore her infamous "clit ring" to her interview with Lena Dunham for her Lenny Letter newsletter. The ring, which is an anatomically correct representation of the internal clitoris, was handcrafted by jewelry designer Penelopijones. It can be purchased in sterling silver for $122 or 14K gold for $535. Steinem appears to be wearing the gold version, so that's $535.
5. @chelseahandler
Comedian Chelsea Handler posted a picture of herself lying on the floor and wrote, "I don't know why I can't stay upright. All I had was a green tea and a haircut." Green tea from Starbucks commonly costs around $2. As for the haircut, Chelsea Handler used to go to stylist Kim Vo until he burned off her hair and she called him out on Twitter and TV. She probably doesn't still frequent his Beverly Hills salon, where haircuts start at $300, but might still splurge for that price level. That puts estimated totals for this Instagram photo at $302.
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Someone made a mobile home out of 215,158 Legos and it makes your apartment look downright comfortable.
"Ow, ow, ow, #$@&." That's the sound of you, walking barefoot through your new vacation pad. That's right, the latest stunning Lego achievement is a full sized Lego mobile home. Constructed with 215,158 of the colorful bricks, the impressive RV was unveiled at the Motorhome and Caravan Show in London this week.
Bigger than most NYC studio apartments, the Guinness World Record-holding Lego caravan stands over 7 feet tall and over 11 feet wide. It's complete with electric lights, a sink with running water, and a super uncomfortable bed.
If that's not impressive enough, there are also Lego toothbrushes, a Lego frying pan, and Lego eggs. (What, no Lego waffles? They blew it!)
This tornado's wet dream took 12 weeks (11,000 hours) to construct, but you can see it all come together here in just 2 minutes.
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