Author Archives: Carol Edwards

If you aren’t already familiar with Be More Chill, a Broadway musical that opened Sunday, it’s likely a teen in your life can clue you in.

The show, adapted from the YA novel by Ned Vizzini about an anxious high schooler who takes a pill to become popular, originally premiered in New Jersey in 2015, and, despite lukewarm reviews, slowly found a cult following, with a cast album that’s been streamed tens of millions of times. Needless to say, the show has serious buzz, with The Wall Street Journal noting, “It’s gonna hit big,” and a movie adaptation already in the works. 

Unfortunately, for all the excitement of another musical aimed at young people, this one lacks the emotional depth of Dear Evan Hansen, the powerful music of Spring Awakening, or the mostly-sharp satire of Mean Girls (though it does have a very similar number about teens on Halloween!).  Read more…

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Well, this is some defence system.

A paraglider had an unexpected clash with a kangaroo, after landing at the Orroral Valley Space Tracking Station in Australia. 

In a video posted on Friday, the kangaroo hops over to Jonathan Bishop as he lands, only for it to take a few swings at him on the ground.

“I had been paragliding cross country for two hours near Canberra and had reached a position where I had to land,” Bishop explained in the video description.

“I was concentrating on the landing and didn’t notice the kangaroo until after I landed. As it ran towards me I thought it was being friendly so I said, ‘What’s up, Skip?’ It then attacked me twice before hopping away. I packed up my paraglider and had to walk several kilometers to get phone reception and call a friend to come and collect me.”  Read more…

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Donald Trump supporters are turning to a Yelp-like restaurant review app in search of safe spaces.

Dubbing the society-wide repulsion to the president’s signature red hats as “MAGAphobic,” Trump fans are using the app “63red Safe” as a guide to conservative-friendly restaurants. The Daily Beast reports that the app’s users rate businesses based on if the owners “make political social media posts” and if customers are allowed to carry weapons. 

63red Safe founder Scott Wallace told the Daily Beast that he’s “trying to position it as an everyday ‘where can I go to eat safely’ app” — similar to the Green Book that African American drivers used during the Jim Crow era to determine what establishments were safe, except it’s to protect people from name-calling and getting their hats taken, not keeping them safe from hate crimes.  Read more…

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Good news everyone: The jaguar who attacked a woman taking a selfie will live. 

The woman reportedly crossed over a barrier near the jaguar enclosure at the Wildlife World Zoo in Arizona on Saturday to take a photo with the cats when one reached out and slashed her arm. Paramedics took her to a nearby hospital to treat the non life-threatening injuries, according to a statement from the zoo. 

“Please understand why barriers are put in place,” the zoo tweeted. “Sending prayers to the family tonight.”

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One of Mark Zuckerberg’s earliest allies in Silicon Valley says the Facebook CEO’s recent privacy manifesto is little more than a PR stunt that won’t solve the company’s most serious problems.

Speaking at SXSW, Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor and and onetime advisor to Zuckerberg, called the CEO’s recent promise to rebuild Facebook as a “privacy-focused” platform “a very effective public relations move that once again is deflecting us away from the core problem.”

McNamee, who once counseled Zuckerberg not to sell Facebook to Yahoo, and to hire Sheryl Sandberg as COO, has become a vocal critic of the social network in recent years. (He’s currently promoting his book, Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, in which he says Zuckerberg and Sandberg ignored his warnings about Russian activity on Facebook in 2016.)  Read more…

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YouTubers have found a new way to make fun of TikToks without getting hit by copyright claims, and it makes cringeworthy videos actually funny.

Reaction video culture thrives off of making fun of TikTok. Since the app was Musical.ly, YouTubers garnered millions of views from curating bad lip syncs and pointing out how embarrassing they are, from the overtly sexual, sped-up dancing to the bizarre song selection. But thanks to copyright takedowns, YouTubers who make these videos ether risk losing a monetized video and dealing with hefty fines, or avoiding any coverage of viral TikToks that use copyrighted music.  Read more…

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Nobody loves staring at a bright white screen all day, which is why dark versions of popular apps are useful for people whose eyes need a break. Workplace communication tool Slack has finally joined the ranks of apps that offer a dark mode — but there’s a catch. 

Dark mode for iOS and Android Slack users is only available in beta for the present moment. If you’re not already in the Slack beta, it’s not hard to sign up — but there’s no telling when your tester availability will be approved. 

More about Tech, Slack, Dark Mode, Dark Mode Apps, and Tech

Whatever people might think of Saturday Night Live these days, it’s still a badge of honor for celebrities to host an episode of America’s most popular sketch comedy show. 

On March 30, Killing Eve‘s Sandra Oh will become the second Asian-American woman to host the show, after rapper/actor Awkwafina became the first in late 2018. 

Oh’s most recent gig is her SAG and Golden Globe–winning performance as Eve Polastri on Killing Eve, but she’s long been a part of the TV landscape with acclaimed roles in Grey’s Anatomy (for which she won another Screen Actor’s Guild and Golden Globe Award) and HBO’s Arliss. Read more…

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Jordan Peele changed the horror game and won an Oscar for 2017’s Get Out, so there was a lot of pressure on Us, his new horror film that debuted at SXSW. 

Peele described Get Out as a “social horror” movie, and the consensus among critics is that while Us tackles different elements of societal horrors, the overarching themes of the movie play more into the personal. 

Here’s what the critics are saying.

Lupita Nyong’o is the star of the show

Matthew Monagle, Film School Rejects

David Crow, Den of Geek

Justin Chang, LA Times Read more…

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Adnan Syed, the focus of the first season of the hit podcast Serial, has been denied a retrial.

The highest court in Maryland, the Court of Appeals, overturned a ruling to grant Syed a new trial and vacate his previous murder conviction.

Since 2000, Syed has been in prison serving a life sentence for the 1999 murder of his high school girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. Syed has maintained his innocence throughout the years behind bars.

His argument rested on the failure of Syed’s defense lawyer at the time to call a witness who saw Syed in the library on the afternoon of Lee’s disappearance. The court ruled that while his lawyer was “deficient” in not having this witness testify, Syed was not “prejudiced” by the “deficient performance” because there was other evidence that proved him guilty. Read more…

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