Category Archives: Blog

The woman behind the dance moves that rocked the internet in Childish Gambino’s provocative “This Is America” music video is a 23-year-old phenom named Sherrie Silver — and she has a thing or two to teach us all.

Silver appeared in a recent BBC video in which she talked about the inspiration behind her choreography, how she came to work for Childish Gambino, her upbringing in Africa and the United Kingdom, and more. 

“I stand for taking Africa to the world, and taking the world to Africa, through dance,” Silver said. Read more…

More about Africa, Dance, Childish Gambino, This Is America, and Choreography

Facebook said that apps’ data-scraping days ended in 2015. But that wasn’t the end of the story.

In 2015, Facebook says it changed the policy that allowed app developers — such as the Cambridge Analytica-affiliated researcher Aleksandr Kogan — access to the data of app users’ friends. That was the tactic that enabled Kogan to gather data on 87 million Facebook users, which he sold to Cambridge Analytica.

Now, in a document submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives, Facebook has said that 61 app developers had access to users’ friends data for nearly 6 months after the policy change. Facebook says it allowed the extension to give these companies time to comply with the new policy.  Read more…

More about Congress, Mark Zuckerberg, Cambridge Analytica, App Developers, and Tech

It may be a terrible year for the United States, but in Mexico, 2018 is “el año de la mujer” — the year of the woman.

A recent report from National Public Radio highlighted the abundance of women running for elected office in the North American country. Everything would’ve been great, too, if not for an extremely unfortunate language error when NPR tweeted the story.

“There are more than 3,000 women running for elective office in Mexico,” the original tweet read. “Some Mexicans are calling 2018 ‘el ano de la mujer,’ which translates to ‘the year of the woman.'” Read more…

More about Mexico, Culture, Npr, Culture, and Web Culture

Conservative doublespeak just got taken to a whole new level.

There are many reasons to balk at politicians’ and commentators’ calls for “civility” in response to Trump officials getting kicked out of restaurants. Say, the hypocritical fact of Trump’s own acerbic behavior, or the idea that “civility” is the least of our worries at a time when the U.S. government has separated migrant families at the border with no plans for reuniting them. 

Now, the people of Twitter have honed in on a particularly piercing rebuke of the civility balloon by invoking the idea that helped put Trump in office: that conservatives in fact ended “civility” themselves, by just calling it “political correctness,” and labeling sensitivity about the language we use as a problem. Read more…

More about Immigration, Trump, Hypocrisy, Immigration Ban, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders

This is such a perfectly 2018 thing to happen on the internet.

July 1 is Canada Day, the Canadian equivalent of Independence Day in the United States (basically).  And because Canada’s neighbor to the south has become an out-of-control tire fire of political and social unrest, folks in the U.S. are feeling some remorse.

So they’re using the occasion of Canada Day to apologize. The holiday’s celebratory Twitter hashtag is currently overrun with various flavors of “I’m sorry” from U.S. residents who are very much aware of and embarrassed by our shared racist uncle who’s been charged with running the country. Read more…

More about Canada, Culture, Donald Trump, Canada Day, and Culture

Ash is once again raining down upon California’s Bay area, as the parched land to the north ignites.

Not ten months after firestorms ravaged Northern California wine country, the flames have returned to the region. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, reports that the County Fire started at around 2:00 p.m. on June 30, and as of the morning of July 1, had rapidly spread to 16,500 acres. 

The agency says 110 fire trucks have been deployed to the Yolo County area, which abuts California’s famed Napa wine valley. Yolo itself is also rich in vineyards and tasting rooms. Read more…

More about Science, Fire, Climate Change, California Wildfires, and California Wine Country

Who doesn’t love it when the wedding shoot they’ve spent thousands on is suddenly interrupted by a dude wearing a T-shirt and shorts?

It’s a lot more exciting when said dude turns out to be Hollywood celeb Adam Sandler. The Wedding Singer star was out for lunch with his family and his glorious mustache in Montreal when he ran into newlyweds Kevin and Alex.

It was Alex who recognized him and waved, photographer Sana Belgot told the CBC. Sandler came over for a chat, and all of a sudden he was posing for the camera as well.  Read more…

More about Celebrities, Culture, Photobomb, Adam Sandler, and Culture

After watching people prepare turkey burgers and salads in a variety of different kitchens, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) researchers concluded that hand cleansing etiquette in America is pathetic. 

A government report released on June 28 found study participants in kitchens where they were actively being watched failed to properly wash their hands 97 percent of the time.

This is especially poor cleaning behavior for the kitchen, where microbes can easily cross-contaminate food with the help of our hands.

“You can’t see, smell or feel bacteria. By simply washing your hands properly, you can protect your family and prevent that bacteria from contaminating your food and key areas in your kitchen,” Carmen Rottenberg, Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety at USDA, said in a statement. Read more…

More about Science, Health, Food Preparation, Bacteria, and Usda

It’s been a big week for Drake. 

First the artist confirmed on multiple tracks off his album Scorpion that he is indeed a father. Now, one day after the new album’s Friday launch, we’ve also learned that Scorpion broke a big streaming record: It earned the most streams on its very first day, on both Spotify and Apple Music. 

Apple Music confirmed the broken record on Instagram, noting that Scorpion was streamed more than 170 million times in its first 24 hours of release. An earlier post also noted that the album had hit #1 in 92 countries. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Music, Spotify, Drake, and Apple Music

We’re all tired of “Donald Trump tweeted more BS” stories, but the lie he dropped on Saturday is too much of a doozy to ignore.

“I never pushed the Republicans in the House to vote for the Immigration Bill, either GOODLATTE 1 or 2, because it could never have gotten enough Democrats as long as there is the 60 vote threshold,” Trump tweeted on Saturday afternoon.

Here. See it for yourself. His own words, from his own tweet.

More about Twitter, Politics, Culture, Donald Trump, and Culture