We’ve all been there. You type, you hit tweet, you instantly regret not closing your replies…
When a truly rofl-worthy (sorry) thought seizes you and you cannot wait to impart that hilarity with the world, it’s easy to get carried away without thinking about your reply guys.
As Mashable’s Chloe Bryan put it, a reply guy often responds to women’s tweets in an overly familiar tone “as if they know the person they’re targeting, though they usually don’t.”
“They also tend to reply to only women; the most prolific reply guys fill the role for dozens of women trying to tweet in peace,” adds Bryan.
As a woman with internet access, I rely heavily on Twitter’s “who can reply?” settings to ensure my own rabble of reply guys are restrained from doling up unsolicited advice and all-round creepy comments in my mentions.
ICYMI, before hitting send on a tweet, you can select who you’d prefer to receive replies from. You can allow replies from everyone if you’re fine with that, but you can also limit your responses to people you follow or just people you’ve mentioned in your tweet.
SEE ALSO:
How to filter abusive comments and direct messages on Instagram
But there have been times where, in my overzealousness, I forgot to alter my settings in order to shut the gates on the reply guys. The great news is: you don’t need to delete your tweet and start again. As of July, you can edit who can reply after you’ve tweeted (!!!).
Groundbreaking news, right? I certainly think so.
So, how do you do it? Well it’s pretty easy.
1. First of all: compose a tweet. Here’s one I made earlier about an episode of Love Island.
Credit: twitter
2. Next, click on thee three dots in the top right hand corner of your published tweet. Then hit “Change who can reply.”
Credit: twitter
3. Now choose who you’d like to be able to reply to your tweets. You can choose from everyone (and that means reply guys and other randos), people you follow, or just people you mentioned.
Credit: twitter
4. And there you have it! Your tweet should now be reply-guy-proof.
Do you have a particularly strong desire to follow your former coworker’s spouse — someone you’ve never met and never plan to meet — on Instagram? How about your middle school arch nemesis? Of course not, no one does.
Yet, Instagram insists on trying to get users to follow accounts they don’t care about and it’s ruining the app.
I use Instagram to stay up-to-date with a mix of family members, close friends, and coworkers, along with celebrities, publications, and influencers I like. Currently, I’m following around 1,500 accounts, which some people might think is a lot. But each account I smash the follow button on holds a special place in my heart. (That, or I need to keep tabs on them for work.)
Sure I know a lot more people on the app, but if I’m not following someone I know on Instagram there’s a good reason why. The app’s deeply annoying “People You May Know” and “Suggested Accounts to Follow” features show Instagram doesn’t seem to get that. Or perhaps Instagram does get it and just doesn’t care.
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For anyone who’s lucky enough not to be pestered by Instagram follow suggestions on a daily basis, allow me to explain why the features are so frustrating. Instagram makes follower suggestions a few different ways, two of which are especially irritating.
The first annoying suggestion arrives by push notification. Every so often, Instagram will send you a notification announcing that someone you may know is on Instagram, like so.
Leave me alone! I’m well aware this person is on Instagram. Credit: SCREENSHOT / INSTAGRAM
I’ll admit I initially thought this feature was nice, but only because I thought it just alerted you of new users. It wasn’t until I started getting push notifications for the same people over and over again (all of whom have had Instagram accounts for years) that I became a little fed up.
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Tweet may have been deleted
Ultimately, the push notifications are spaced out enough that you have time in between receiving them to cool down. I only get a few every month. Their arrival has turned into somewhat of a running joke between me and my phone screen, and it’s gotten to a point where whenever Instagram begs me to follow one of the same three people again I can’t help but laugh.
But the other obnoxious way that Instagram suggests followers is no laughing matter.
In the spirit of shoving follow suggestions in your face, Instagram decided to get even more aggressive than occasional push notifications and started compiling selections of “Suggested for You” accounts. These suggestions don’t come via push notification, rather they appear out of nowhere as you’re mindlessly tapping through Instagram Stories.
The suggestions appear without warning in groups of three on one of Instagram Stories’ colorful Create backgrounds, shown below. Each suggestion includes an account holder’s profile photo, name, handle, and some additional info such as a list of mutual followers you share or if the user is new to Instagram. If you choose to hit the follow button for one or more users shown, new accounts appear. And if you don’t like the options Instagram presents you can roll the dice and click the “Shuffle Suggestions” button at the bottom of the screen.
Are we *not* supposed to accidentally follow someone this way? Credit: MASHABLE COMPOSITE: SCREENSHOT / INSTAGRAM
In my experience, the suggested accounts in these Stories are always bad. Half the time I don’t know who the people are, and I can tell they’re only being suggested to me because we share a few random mutuals. The other half of the time they’re accounts that I’d have no reason to want to follow. Crucially, the fact that they pop up as another Instagram Story also means they create the same danger as poorly places Instagram Story polls. One wrong slip or tap of your Instagram navigating finger and you’ve accidentally followed a suggested user you may never have intended to follow. It’s a flawed presentation.
It’s a flawed presentation.
Instagram’s algorithm thinks it knows users, but if it really knew me it would know to stop making these follow suggestions. All they do is disrupt my Story watching flow and make me more paranoid about thumb placement when using the app. I’m not the only one who dreads them either.
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Follow suggestions aren’t all bad
Since I trashed two of Instagram’s follow suggestions pretty heavily, I feel it’s only right to note that there are two ways Instagram suggests users to follow that I do like and find genuinely helpful.
The methods I like don’t appear on their own, which is why I like them so much. Instead of Instagram shoving suggestions in your face, you have to take action to prompt these methods or actively seek them out.
One round of good follower suggestions will appear right after you follow a user. Let’s use Bryan Cranston as an example. Once you click the follow button, a “Suggested for You” carousel of other people Instagram thinks you may like based on your recent follow appears. The results are usually pretty sensical, and you can click “See All” to navigate the list more easily.
Follow someone, get similar suggestions. How nice! Credit: MASHABLE COMPOSITE: SCREENSHOT / INSTAGRAM
You can get access to one of those thoughtfully curated lists of similar people to follow for any user on the app, as long as their accounts aren’t private. Whether you already follow a user or just want a list of accounts similar to someone you don’t follow, just navigate to a profile, click the user’s Followers or Following number at the top of the page, and hit the “Suggested” column to the far right.
How to find users similar to Simone Biles. (Though there’s only one GOAT.) Credit: MASHABLE COMPOSITE: SCREENSHOT / INSTAGRAM
If Instagram wants to suggestion a few account to follow when it makes sense — like if a user follows someone new — that’s fine. If Instagram wants to keep lists of suggested users available for people to browse whenever they’re in the mood, great! But please stop getting in our faces all the time and telling us who to follow.
Sure, I may know the people you’re suggesting. But that doesn’t mean I want to follow them. I’ve already connected with everyone I want to connect with on the app. And if there’s ever anyone else I want to follow I’ll manually search for them. Don’t worry.
Users don’t need Instagram constantly sending push notifications and slipping lineups of suggested people to follow in Stories. If you really want to help us, Instagram, let us search who views our Stories.
Climate 101is a Mashable series that answers provoking and salient questions about Earth’s warming climate.
Nearly 110 years ago, a New Zealand newspaper warned that carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels in the great “furnaces of the world” would raise Earth’s temperature. “The effect may be considerable in a few centuries,” the paper wrote.
It was a decent prediction. Yet it turns out a momentous climate effect has occurred faster, in just around one century, and earth scientists expect impacts — severe droughts, pummeling rains, rapidly-spreading wildfires, destabilized Antarctic ice sheets, and beyond — to grow worse as the planet warms.
On Monday, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, published its clearest picture yet on the updated science of planetary heating. The nearly 4,000-page report, authored by 234 scientists from 66 nations (and over 500 more contributing scientists), emphasizes that climate change is widespread and intensifying — but humanity has agency to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Linda Mearns, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research who worked as a lead author of the new publication, has worked on IPCC reports for over 25 years. Following the best available science, she used to say that “Climate change is serious, certain, and soon.”
“But that’s no longer accurate,” Mearns told Mashable. “It’s very serious, it’s very certain, and it’s now.”
“It’s very serious, it’s very certain, and it’s now.”
“Hopefully this report will make a difference in terms of showing this urgency,” Mearns said.
Here are some major points of the climate report:
Extreme weather events are growing more extreme
“Both the frequency and intensity of many climate extremes increase as the planet warms,” Greg Flato, a senior research scientist for the Canadian government who helped organize the IPCC report, told Mashable.
For example, as the climate warms the atmosphere can hold more water, resulting in increasingly heavy downpours. The heaviest precipitation has “increased since the 1950s over most land area for which observational data are sufficient,” the report concludes. These areas include much of North America and Europe.
But extremes don’t always act alone.
“One of the most important messages coming out of the report is the emphasis on extreme, but particularly compound extreme, events,” explained Mearns. A compound extreme event is when more than one extreme happens at once.
The current fires in the Western U.S. are a salient example. Modern fires out West are creating unnatural infernos, due to a potent combination of warming temperatures and mismanaged forests, among other factors. Yet drought — made worse by warmer temperatures and heat waves — further parches the land and evaporates moisture from forests and vegetation, creating more fuel ready to burn. The result? Amplified fire conditions on top of extremes in drought and heat.
“Those are a lot of heavy-duty extremes,” said Mearns.
For decades, the science has been right
Earth and climate scientists have known for decades that humans are causing the rapid warming of the planet, with many predictable consequences like rising sea levels, more extreme heat, and devastating flooding.
“This report really confirms information that was already previously available,” emphasized Flato, noting the inclusion of updated climate observations and analysis in the new IPCC publication. “Human influence has caused the climate to change,” is the bottom line of all the research, he added.
There simply aren’t any other recent factors that would push the climate to rapidly warm, like prodigiously erupting volcanoes or enhanced activity from the sun. In fact, during the last four decades the sun’s output has slightly decreased, while Earth warmed.
“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land,” the IPCC concluded.
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Tweet may have been deleted
The data, on Earth’s accelerated warming alone, is overwhelming and clear.
Since the late 1800s, the planet has already warmed by 2 degrees Fahrenheit (or 1.1 Celsius), though regionally many areas on land have warmed significantly more. NASA uses over 26,000 weather stations and thousands of ocean sensors to monitor warming temperatures. “Since the first IPCC report in 1990, large numbers of new instruments have been deployed to collect data in the air, on land, at sea and from outer space,” the IPCC wrote.
The oceans are changing in intense, unsettling ways
Land-dwelling humans may sometimes forget, but Earth is an ocean planet, dominated by marine critters. The latest UN report dedicates a chapter to how the oceans are changing. These changes, because they’re happening rapidly compared to the gradual, natural climate changes of the past, adversely impact civilization (especially along the coasts) and life in the seas. Adaptation isn’t like flipping a switch.
One glaring and well-predicted consequence of a warming climate is rising sea levels. Thick masses of ice, frozen on Antarctica, Greenland, and mountains, are melting into the ocean. Already, sea levels globally have risen by some eight to nine inches since the late 1800s. In the coming thousands of years, these changes cannot be undone.
“It’s one of the aspects of climate change that is effectively irreversible,” said Flato.
Sea levels rose faster in the 20th century than in any prior century over the last three thousand years, the IPCC found, based on research of fossilized coastal creatures. By this century’s end, under intermediate (not extremely high or low) carbon emission scenarios, the IPCC predicts sea levels will rise by another 1.5 to 2.5 feet, and then continue rising.
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The oceans are expected to change in other momentous ways, too, though the changes will be less extreme if carbon emissions are slashed this century:
By the end of many Arctic summers, the Arctic Ocean will “likely become practically sea ice–free” before 2050, the IPCC said. This has giant implications for weather, climate, and Arctic life.
The oceans, which absorb over 90 percent of heat trapped on Earth by human activities, will continue to warm for centuries, until at least 2300, even if carbon emissions are vastly reduced this century. A warming ocean means more rapid melting of ice sheets, profound habitat challenges for marine life, and added fuel for hurricanes.
Marine heat waves — unusual and prolonged warm ocean temperatures — became more frequent over the 20th century and will become even more frequent this century.
The ocean is losing oxygen as the climate warms, which is problematic for sea life that relies heavily on oxygen to function.
The ocean is growing more acidic as it absorbs more CO2, which will harm marine life, particularly species that can’t adapt to a notable surge in acidity.
We have control over the future
The amount of heat-trapping carbon humanity emits into the atmosphere this century will largely dictate Earth’s future in the coming centuries. The more carbon, the worse the impacts, particularly extremes in weather.
“Every bit of warming that we allow to happen increases these impactful extreme events,” emphasized Flato.
The crucial point is that we can still limit warming to vastly less adverse levels
Already, Earth (whose atmosphere is loaded with the highest levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in some 3 million years) will continue warming through at least mid-century, even if society radically cuts carbon emissions, the IPCC said. The agency finds Earth’s temperature may creep 2.7 F (1.5 C) above 19th century levels — the extremely ambitious goal agreed to by global nations at the historic Paris agreement — sometime in the early 2030s.
“Global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades,” the IPCC said.
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The crucial pointis that we can still limit warming to vastly less adverse levels: For example, stabilizing global temperatures around 3.6 F (2 C) above 19th-century levels would be considerably less severe than hitting 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 C).
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Avoiding the worst impacts of climate change requires systemic, societal changes. People can make better climate and energy decisions if they have the ability to do so — like a nationwide plan to vastly expand electric vehicle charging stations to spur EV adoption.
Right now, in a fossil fuel-dominated society, that’s challenging. “Even a homeless person living in a fossil fuel-powered society has an unsustainably high carbon footprint,” Benjamin Franta, who researches law and history of science as a J.D.-Ph.D. student at Stanford Law School, told Mashable last year. Our food, transportation, and beyond largely relies on burning ancient, carbon-rich fuels.
The picture is clear.
“We have a narrow window of time to avoid very costly, deadly, and irreversible future climate impacts,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration administrator Richard Spinrad said in a statement. “It is the consensus of the world’s scientists that we need strong, and sustained reduction in greenhouse gases.”
Just when it seemed like Hollywood was successfully creeping back to theaters, a resurgent COVID-19 is here to smack us back into the grim reality of a debilitating pandemic. The Suicide Squad, which opened Friday, earned around $27 million in North America — a low number for a star-studded DC superhero movie directed by Guardians of the Galaxy mastermind James Gunn. Especially given the stellar reviews from critics and audiences alike.
We can’t discount other factors that may have been at play, of course. The Suicide Squad started streaming for HBO Max’s ad-free subscribers the same day it hit theaters, and it did quite well there. Maybe some people were also turned off by the R-rating, or the uneven quality of DC Comics movies from Warner Bros., especially since the unconnected 2016 take on Suicide Squad was such a mess.
But let’s be real, folks: People are scared. The same loud-mouthed anti-vax movement in the U.S. that’s fueled embarrassingly low vaccination rates in some parts of the country, and in the process helped COVID’s Delta variant gain a foothold, carries most of the responsibility for any disruption to our stumbling recovery.
I’d say that’s the main reason why theaters didn’t fill up for The Suicide Squad the way they did for F9 and Black Widow. The fear is back. After a hopeful stretch of weeks, grim headlines and rising case numbers are influencing consumer behavior, even though returning lockdowns and mask mandates are still a scattered patchwork of city- and county-level decisions.
Box office reports are about numbers, right? So let’s look at some numbers.
On Aug. 6, the day The Suicide Squad opened, a whopping 168,343 new cases were reported in the United States. That brought the 7-day average case count up to 106,723. The last time we saw numbers like that was in Nov. 2020, as cases started to rise sharply ahead of a deadly 2020/2021 winter.
That stretch of months, from Nov. 2020 through early Feb. 2021, was the worst phase of COVID in the U.S. so far. So seeing the numbers creep back up into that territory now, at a time when responsible citizens who masked up all along and got their jabs expected to be returning to some semblance of “normal” life, is alarming.
Theater chains should move to immediately institute vaccine mandates, with proof required.
In recent weeks we’ve seen a series of compounding backward steps. Back-to-office plans are being delayed. Mask mandates are coming back. Even some who adamantly opposed masking requirements are seeing sense and accepting reality. There’s a reason Paramount moved just days ahead of The Suicide Squad‘s premiere to delay Clifford the Big Red Dog‘s September release.
A July poll found that, among U.S. adults who aren’t yet vaccinated, a combined 80 percent of that number “probably” or “definitely” won’t get jabbed. Nearly two-thirds of unvaccinated adults — a stunning 64 percent — describe themselves as “not confident” that the vaccines offer protection against the variants, in spite of ample evidence that they do.
The inescapable conclusion after looking all the data is that vaccine hesitancy is propelling the ongoing and increasing spread of COVID. The anti-vax movement existed long before the current pandemic, but its adherents have been energized by a brutally partisan political environment that’s turned proven lifesaving measures into a subject of debate.
While some have valid medical reasons for skipping their jabs — a decision that should be made after consulting your doctor, to be clear — many of the justifications that have been offered for forgoing the vaccine simply don’t hold water. A lot of this goes back to the tribal state of U.S. politics, and, frankly, the conservative news networks that have directly influenced vaccine hesitancy.
SEE ALSO:
How to help people around the world get vaccinated
It might seem odd to put all of this weight on a single blockbuster comic book movie, but really, that’s the point here. When we fail as a society to seize an opportunity that could have cut off a rampaging pandemic, it’s all the little things and experiences — like the much-hyped movie you really want to see — that suffer.
With any luck, Hollywood and theater exhibitors both will heed the lessons of the past year and half, and act early. The industry is hardly powerless. Mask requirements are, of course, a no-brainer. But theater chains could — and absolutely should — also move to immediately institute vaccine mandates, with proof required, for all attendees, instead of relying on local officials to make that choice for them.
There would probably be some anger, but so what? The anger is already here, and things are getting worse all over again. Vaccine holdouts, particularly the ones who are operating in bad faith for political reasons, aren’t going to get their jabs until it’s painful for them to go without. For everyone’s safety, it’s time to stop catering to that crowd and time to start forcing people to face the reality that reckless behavior has consequences.
That’s why we can’t talk about The Suicide Squad falling short at the box office without talking about COVID, too. For any other factors that may have influenced the weak opening, we can’t ignore the critical role anti-vaxxers have played in sending U.S. society hurtling once again into the dark abyss of a resurgent and rampaging pandemic.
Even in a world where online dating has become the norm and it’s now possible to skip the tiring process of scouring bars and events for other singles in order to get a date, sometimes it’s just the thought of going on the date that’s tiring. No matter what kind of encounter you plan, it will always require some sort of physical effort.
We’re going to put this simply: we all have sexual needs, and sometimes we’d just like to satisfy those needs with human connection that doesn’t require the extra effort of meeting someone in person. For that, we have sexting.
Sexting is the act art of sending sexually explicit photos or messages to one or more people. And there are apps specifically for sexting as well as sexting features in apps that are otherwise for dating in person. (Several dating apps began offering more virtual services as a result of the pandemic.)
SEE ALSO: iHookup review: A straightforward dating app that delivers
Sexting tips
If you’re considering downloading a dating app for the purpose of sexting, it’s important to remember a few basic rules. Yes, there are certainly fewer inhibitions than using a typical dating app to find a potential romantic partner, but there’s still a standard set of boundaries and rules of etiquette you should follow in order for all parties to feel at ease.
No app can completely protect your privacy for you — that’s your job. Though apps like Confide and Dust have certain features that are designed to protect your identity/content, they don’t rule out all scenarios. For example, someone doesn’t need to take a screenshot to capture a picture you send. They could easily just use another phone or device to snap or record whatever you send. You should always keep this in mind before sending anything that could be compromising, and do your best to make sure you trust the person who’s receiving your messages.
Assess the situation and know your audience. Usually it doesn’t take much more than a few pre-sext texts (or pre-sexts) to gauge whether or not someone is interested in doing the cyber-dirty with you. Take the time to figure that out before you lead with something raunchy and uncalled-for. AKA don’t just start throwing dick pics at people left and right if they didn’t ask.
Be respectful: Privacy is sacred. The internet has the scary ability to make fleeting moments very permanent. If someone asks you to keep something to yourself, you’d better do it. While sexting can be light and fun, it also requires a serious level of trust. If you betray that trust, you’re ruining it for everybody.
Sexting vs. dating in real life
Real-life dating is obviously the best way to get to know somebody long-term, especially if you’re looking for any kind of serious, in-person relationship. And real sex will always be better than sexting. *However,* sexting is an alternative that may help you out in ways you didn’t even think about.
Convenience: Whether you plan on actually wining and dining your date or just meeting to hook up, it always requires some extra effort. For those with super hectic schedules or those who just don’t have room in their life (for whatever reason) for a steady in-person relationship, sexting is practically a saving grace. After all, your sex drive doesn’t go away just because you’re busy. Sexting allows you to take care of your sexual needs without putting yourself out.
Freedom: As is the case with most behind-the-screen activities, with sexting, you can let go of your inhibitions a bit and feel more comfortable exploring your sexual side knowing there’s a certain barrier between you and the other person. You can experiment with language and ideas that maybe you wouldn’t feel completely comfortable exploring in person.
Safety: We’ve touched on the reasons why sexting might not be completely safe in terms of privacy, but to its credit, sexting offers an element of safety that in-person meetings don’t. Sexting allows you to interact with both people you know and total strangers without putting yourself in dangerous or unwanted physical situations. Your experience should always be what you want it to be, and with sexting, if it’s not going in the direction you want, it’s just a matter of closing an app.
Exploring trust and intimacy: Getting comfortable with another person in close quarters doesn’t always come naturally for everyone — but opting for sexting gives way to a new level of exploration in terms of intimacy and trust. You don’t ever have to meet the person behind the screen if you don’t want to, but being able to practice feeling vulnerable without any strings attached can be a great lesson in being more open.
Fun: Let’s be honest for a second here. A night of sexting is always going to be a lot more fun than endlessly swiping right on a dating app and starting the same conversation over and over. Having the option of opening an app on your phone and engaging in a little virtual foreplay offers instant gratification and (almost) guaranteed pleasure.
What to look for in a sexting app
Privacy features: What happens in a sexting app doesn’t always stay in a sexting app; there are no guarantees that your conversations or selfies won’t wind up screenshot on someone’s phone. That said, certain apps do delete photos and conversations after a certain amount of time if you’re hoping to try to help lessen the chances of something getting leaked.
Safety: If you’re looking for a night of no-strings-attached fun online, it doesn’t really matter all too much if the person on the other end of your conversation has been verified — but if you do want to ensure you’re not being catfished or chatting with a bot, consider an app that links social media or verifies users.
Ease of use: You don’t want to find yourself in a hot and steamy conversation trying to figure out how to attach an image or a voice note. When it comes to sexting, the more user-friendly the platform is, the better. You’ll want something that’s efficient and fast.
Subscription pricing versus free features: How much are you willing to pay for bells and whistles? There are many apps out there that charge a couple of dollars a month for premium features if you’re looking for something a little more catered to your interests, but just as many offer excellent free platforms.
The best dating apps for sexting
Since sexting, by nature, comes with a lot of factors to consider (consent and privacy, for example), we’ve picked out the best sexting apps to get you off — to a good start, that is. Our number one spot goes to Plenty of Fish for covering the most bases. Its huge pool of singles and strategic new conversation features put it at the top. For privacy-wary sexters, our favorite is Confide, which we like for their Screenshield technology. (More on that later.) Here are the best sexting apps for all your NSFW exchanges.
SAVE $134.91: As of Aug. 9, the 32GB Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 is on sale at Walmart and Amazon for just $179 (normally $229.99) and includes two months of YouTube Premium plus six months of Spotify Premium for free (an $83.92 combined savings).
Need a new tablet for the upcoming school year? While Walmart’s iPad Air deal is still pretty tempting, both it and Amazon just gave shoppers a compelling reason not to side with Team Apple.
If you head on over to either retailer and pick up a 32GB Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 — both have it on sale for just $179 as of Aug. 7 (normally $229.99) — you’ll get two months of YouTube Premium and six months of Spotify Premium for free (worth $23.98 and $59.94, respectively).
With a combined savings of just under $135, this is basically the second coming of Amazon’s Prime Day deal on the Galaxy Tab A7, only it was $20 cheaper then.
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Our favorite sub-$250 tablet on the market, the sleek Galaxy Tab A7 is an October 2020 release featuring a 10.4-inch, ultra-widescreen display and built-in speakers with Dolby Atmos surround sound. (In other words, you’ll be totally set if there’s no TV in your dorm room.) Making video calls home is easy thanks to its front-facing camera, while its long-lasting battery with a fast-charging feature is ideal for days that are jam-packed with lectures.
Perhaps best of all, the Galaxy Tab A7 is super portable at just over a pound, so it’s not a hassle to tote from class to class — we’d bet good money that most of your textbooks weigh (and cost) more.
Credit: Samsung
Save $50.99 at Walmart and Amazon + get 2 months of YouTube Premium and 6 months of Spotify Premium for free
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Welcome toFix It, our series examining projects we love — save for one tiny change we wish we could make.
Watching a movie about an airplane infested with vampires, you have certain expectations. A heartbreaking ending probably isn’t one of them.
And yet, Netflix’s Blood Red Sky — which tells the harrowing tale of a woman named Nadja (Peri Baumeister) and her son Elias (Carl Anton Koch) fighting to survive an airplane hijacking — is a tear-jerker. In fact, it’s the gruesome thriller’s emotional center that’s cemented its reputation as a hidden gem among many Netflix subscribers. Look up reactions on Twitter and you’ll get a slew of horror fans not just gushing over the film’s bonkers premise, but, as one viewer so aptly put it, “crying over a small German child and his vampire mom” with remarkable fervor.
As the surprising grief of Blood Red Sky washed over me, I couldn’t help but question whether this movie had to be quite so sad. It’s not that I can’t appreciate a tragic conclusion to a hopeless horror story. But with a happy ending for Nadja and Elias seemingly just in reach, I completed director Peter Thorwarth’s blood-sucking action-adventure wondering why he and co-writer Stefan Holtz felt they “had” to finish things the way they did. (Blood Red Sky is really best enjoyed without any spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the movie, turn back now.)
Believe it or not, this is Nadja with everything under control. Credit: netflix
Here’s a quick recap of how it went down. We know Blood Red Sky ends with a fraught final act from the beginning. In the film’s first shot, we flash forward to see good guy Farid (Kais Setti) seated in the cockpit of a grounded commercial passenger jet telling police about explosives on board.
By the time the jam-packed plot, which sees Nadja become a terrorist-fighting Noseferatu look-alike, loops back to that moment, however, we know the explosives are just one part of a hugely complex and volatile conclusion to our story. See, not only is the airplane rigged to explode but thanks to sadistic villain Eightball (Alexander Scheer) everyone on the plane — except for Elias and Farid — has been infected with Nadja’s violent strain of vampirism.
And, although Nadja has spent years fighting her urges and looking for a cure to her affliction (she was actually on her way to an experimental treatment when these plane-stealing assholes showed up), Nadja’s hungry new cohorts send our heroine into an uncontrollable feeding frenzy. So, once Elias and Farid are safe on the runway, Elias chooses to detonate the hijackers’ device, vanquish the vampires, and, consequently, kill his mother.
Yeah, the “vampires on an airplane” movie ends with a kid blowing up his own mom.
You guys really don’t got this. Credit: NETFLIX
According to one interpretation from Looper, this devastating turn of events marks the collision of two of Blood Red Sky’s major themes. First, it’s the logical conclusion to the emotional arc of a mother’s undying love. Nadja would do anything for Elias, and in the end, Elias knew that included sacrificing her life for his — even if Nadja wasn’t in her right mind to suggest the idea. Second, Elias’ choice allows Nadja to vicariously claim victory over her mysterious illness. It may have taken her life, but this type of vampirism will presumably stop spreading thanks to Nadja’s sacrifice.
Ostensibly, that silver lining should be consolation enough for the viewers who spent more than two hours rooting for this mother-son team. But if our collective sorrow is any indication, it didn’t actually make this catastrophic ending sit all that well with us post-credits.
Because while Nadja did start the film in dire condition, the symptoms of her hematophagy regularly being confused for signs of leukemia, her health seemed salvageable, even manageable to the bitter end. The idea that, even as Elias held the detonator in his hand, Nadja might just “snap out of it” and return to her human form felt at the very least plausible. It could have been one of these subtle scenes where the color of Nadja’s eyes change just before she dramatically collapses to the floor, loses her fangs, and regains her soul. Or, at least, something like that.
Uh, hey. Credit: NETFLIX
So why didn’t the writers go for the happy ending? Well, Blood Red Sky‘s commitment to executing a dark and gritty vampire movie is what makes its whackier elements work. I’d understand the argument that committing to this pessimistic finale helps drive home the realism of a movie you’d think would include Sam L. Jackson screaming about these “mother fucking vampires on this motherfucking plane” but is actually fairly gripping. Maintaining the tension between Nadja and the terrorists responsible for the hijacking is essential to the movie’s believability, and Elias being orphaned by this whole ordeal does seem likely.
Still, at this point in the story, I think giving these characters’ the ending they deserve should outrank suspending disbelief. I’m not suggesting we needed a peppy slideshow of Nadja and Elias celebrating holidays throughout the years, or even a particularly thorough explanation of what happens to them next. I just would have liked them to live, because it felt like they earned it.
Before there was Geralt of Rivia, there was Vesemir.
Netflix’s upcoming anime film The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf is a prequel to The Witcher that tells the origin story of Geralt’s mentor, Vesemir (voiced by Theo James). The trailer gives us a glimpse into the painful process by which Vesemir becomes a Witcher, as well as his time as a monster hunter. Add a powerful witch named Tetra (voiced by Lara Pulver), terrifying monsters, and magical fight scenes to the mix, and it looks like we’ll be in for an epic journey across the Continent.
The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf is on Netflix August 23.
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Credit: AncestryDNA
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