It appears the battle over who gets to tell (and critique) the traditionally hyper-masculine stories portrayed in American Westerns is alive and, well, annoyingly sexist in 2022.

On Saturday, March 12, Academy Award-winning director Jane Campion put actor Sam Elliott on blast for derogatory remarks he made recently about her new cowboy movie The Power of the Dog on the February 28 episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. It happened during an interview with Variety as Campion walked the red carpet line at the 2022 Directors Guild Awards.

Elliot, a longtime movie cowboy who may be best known for his brief appearance in The Big Lebowski, disparaged the 2022 Oscar frontrunner as a “piece of shit” for centering on homoerotic themes. The actor continued with other questionable justifications for his dislike of the New Zealand director’s take on an American Western, which notably earned Campion one of the top awards at Saturday’s ceremony and which also seems like a shoe-in to win at least some of the 12 Academy Award nominations it’s up for this year, including one for Best Director.

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“He was being a bit of a B-I-T-C-H,” she told Variety when asked about the comments. “I’m sorry to say it, but Sam’s not a cowboy. He’s an actor.”

Campion went on to call out the underlying misogyny of Elliott questioning her right to subvert the American myths embedded in the Western genre, which he claimed rubbed him the wrong way because she’s a foreigner who shot the movie in her home country of New Zealand. “What the fuck does this woman — she’s a brilliant director by the way, I love her work, previous work — but what the fuck does this woman from down there know about the American west?” he raged to Maron.

As Campion rebutted, though, “The West is a mythic space and there’s a lot of room on the range… And I think it’s a little bit sexist.”

There’s a double standard evident in Elliott gatekeeping Campion from the genre on the basis of her being a foreigner. Especially since, as she herself points out, renowned Italian director Sergio Leone, architect of the “Spaghetti Western,” famously shot some of the genre’s most celebrated classics in Spain.

If anything, the genre’s history has been uniquely defined by a global exchange of perspectives on this American mythos, as evidenced by the mutual inspiration shared between Western directors and Japanese Samurai movie directors. Further, Elliott’s comments ignore the highly relevant detail that Taiwanese-American filmmaker Ang Lee won an Oscar himself for 2005’s even more explicitly homoerotic cowboy movie, Brokeback Mountain.

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With all that missing context, Elliott’s disrespectful dismissal of Campion’s take on such an inherently international genre sounds a lot more like grasping for slightly less bigoted excuses explaining why he thinks American Westerns shouldn’t be queer or directed by women.

“I consider myself a creator,” Campion continued. “And I think [Elliott] sees me as a woman or something less first. And I don’t appreciate that.”

Valve’s Steam Deck is an impressive piece of gaming tech, but there’s definitely a learning curve.

Even if you’re familiar with the Steam store, and its TV-friendly “Big Picture Mode” that the Deck’s SteamOS resembles, it still takes time to figure out how basic features from Steam on PC translate to the portable device’s gamepad-style controls. It’s easier than you might think at first, though.

Valve doesn’t make it apparent up front, but Steam Deck users have a ton of button-based shortcuts they can lean on for help. All of those shortcuts involve holding the “Steam” button in tandem with one of the other buttons to produce different effects. Like I said, easy stuff.

The most important one to know just involves the Steam button. If you press and hold it at virtually any time, a whole list of all the available shortcuts pops up until you release the button. So for those times when you forget — like I have numerous times — you can refresh your memory painlessly, without having to turn to an internet search engine.

Credit: Valve / Screenshot by Mashable

In terms of what I’ve used most, the Take Screenshot shortcut (Steam + R1) captures whatever is on your screen and loads it into an on-device library. If you want to then make your screenshots accessible on a computer (or some other device where you have Steam installed), you can easily send them to the cloud. Head to the Steam Deck’s Media menu, highlight the screenshot you want to upload, press the Options button, and select Upload. That’s it!

The virtual keyboard shortcut is also extremely useful for the many Steam Deck-supported games that require occasional typing. Just press Steam + X to summon a smartphone-style keyboard in a flash.

There’s one catch, however. The virtual keyboard only works when Steam is actually running. In the standard SteamOS mode, that means you can call up the keyboard from virtually anywhere. But the feature is more limited if you’re using the Windows-style “Desktop Mode.” It still works in apps like Chrome, but you’ll need to have the desktop version of Steam running in the background (there’s an icon for it on the desktop). You probably won’t use the feature too often in desktop, but it’s useful for those times when you want to install non-Steam apps like Discord.

You can also tweak the screen brightness in an instant — which can help preserve battery life — by holding that Steam button and tilting the left thumbstick up or down to increase or decrease brightness, respectively.

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The last big one to remember: Steam + B (long press), which is the Steam Deck equivalent of Force Quit on Mac and Alt + F4 on Windows. Games mess up from time to time, and Steam Deck won’t always be able to fix it for you. It’s easy enough to reboot by pressing and holding the Power button, but the Steam + B “Force Game Shutdown” command gives you another option. I’ve used it plenty.

Take the time to dig through the menus if you’ve been lucky enough to score a Steam Deck. There’s a lot of not-so-visible features that are easy to miss if you’re not looking for them.

Zoë Kravitz, star of The Batman, is only the latest actor to take on the role of the Catwoman. That reminder was her (and our) jokingly painful takeaway from a guest-strewn opening monologue on Saturday Night Live.

What started out as a normal “actor talks to live audience” monologue quickly devolved into hysterics when Kate McKinnon showed up decked out in a Catwoman costume that’s almost identical to the one Michelle Pfeiffer wore in 1992’s perfect movie, Batman Returns. It’s a funny sight on its own, but it gets even better when McKinnon can’t contain her chuckles as she swings a whip around and talks about the Pfieffer Catwoman’s ridiculous origin story.

It’s not long before others show up, starting with Ego Nwodim dressed in a replica of the legendary Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman costume as seen on the campy 1960s Batman series starring Adam West. But then, instead of leaping from there to Halle Berry’s much-maligned 2004 take on the character, we get… Aidy Bryant as a “cat lady” (complete with an adorably fluff real cat), followed by Chris Redd impersonating Katt Williams. Cats on Katts.

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Colin Jost has some thoughts to share about cries of “woke Disney.”

The company’s sudden flip from half-assedly opposing Florida’s dystopian “Don’t Say Gay” bill to cutting off GOP politicians who supported said bill has prompted backlash from the political right. But as Jost sharply points out during this Saturday Night Live Weekend Update segment, there’s 90 years of sometimes-questionable cartoon history from the company that undermines any suggestion of Disney suddenly becoming radically progressive.

It was a busy news week, so there’s plenty as well about Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with high gas prices, a new and overdue hate crime law in the U.S., and antics from Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Trump-y governor.

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There’s some good comedy in this Saturday Night Live cold open, but you’ll forget all of it once Bowen Yang’s plunger nipple arrives on the scene.

The sketch riffs on a very real meeting the White House had with TikTok influencers on Thursday in an effort to counter Russian misinformation on social media that has framed Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a good and necessary thing. That meeting prompted SNL writers to imagine what happened behind closed doors, and it’s as deranged as you’d expect.

I don’t follow much on TikTok personally, so I probably missed a bunch of references. There’s a great moment with Kenan Thompson, who plays a roofer from Pittsburgh named Charles D’Amelio — a case of mistaken identity for a White House that meant to invite top TikTok follow Charli D’Amelio. And another with Aidy Bryant playing a cutesy animal makeup artist who turns out to be an alt-right wingnut. Also, James Austin Johnson, as Biden, refers to himself at one point as “the landline of presidents,” which is just great.

But Bowen Yang owns the best bit of the sketch. He shows up shirtless and with a plunger affixed to one of his nipples, which I assume is a riff on Japanese comedian Kazuhisa Uekasa’s own antics with the clog-breaking tool. He’s got the most insightful comments of the entire sketch, but the camera can only seem to focus on one thing. Just good visual comedy for the TV audience at home.

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TL;DR: As of March 13, you can get The Premium Microsoft Office Training Bundle + Lifetime License of MS Office Home & Business for Mac 2021 for just $79.99, which comes down to 94% off.

Working from home and using your own devices often comes with a few obstacles for Mac users. One being that they need Microsoft Office to interact and collaborate with their coworkers effectively. If you’re a Mac user who can’t hang with your PC-owning remote team any longer, this Premium Microsoft Office Bundle should be on your radar.

The Premium Microsoft Office Training Bundle and Lifetime License to Microsoft Office Home and Business for Mac offers not only lifetime access to the essential software, but training on how to use each program. And currently, you can get both for only $79.99.

This one-time purchase gives you a lifetime license to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and OneNote. For one Mac for use at home or work. You’ll get download links and software license keys instantly, so you can start poking around on each program immediately. Plus, you’ll have access to free customer service support if you ever have any issues.

Of course, most of those issues will likely be answered in the Premium Microsoft Office Training Bundle, which features six courses and 28 hours of in-depth content on each program, led by pros like Chris Dutton of Maven Analytics.

You’ll learn how to get started formatting and working in Microsoft Word. Whether you’ve been using it on and off since grade school or are a complete beginner, there are tips and tricks included in the course you never knew before. Similarly, you’ll dive into the basic tools, formulas, and analyzing abilities of Excel.

You’ll also learn how to streamline communication with your remote colleagues with Teams, set up your email effectively with Outlook, overhaul the way you take notes and organize data with OneNote, and create engaging presentations and designs with PowerPoint. Newbies and pros alike will find new ways to make the most of each program. 

For just $79.99 (a $1,549 value), get lifetime access to Microsoft Office and learn how to use every tool it contains.

Prices subject to change.

TL;DR: The JASHEN V18 350W Cordless Vacuum Cleaner is on sale for $209.99 as of March 13, making it 37% off its regular price of $336.

Dyson vacuums might have a cool factor associated with them, but it’s hard to justify their prices. Lots of brands have followed in the footsteps of Dyson’s ingenious bagless dirt collection system and trendy design — and most come up short. The Jashen V18 appears to be a worthy Dyson dupe, however, with many positive reviews across the web. And right now, it’s on sale for over $100 off.

Featured on Mashable before, the Jashen V18 is a super lightweight (just over six pounds) cordless vacuum that boasts impressive suction comparable to the Dyson V8, useful smart capabilities, and a battery life that offers 40 minutes of non-stop cleaning time. It’s similar to Dyson’s iconic stick vacuum aesthetic and modular design that can be transformed into a handheld model in an instant. 

If you have both carpet and hard floors in your home, you can easily swap the brush to suit your needs. The brush roller for carpet sits low to the ground, creating higher suction with zero opening and digging deeper into the carpet. The soft roller sits higher off the ground, allowing it to suck up larger dirt and debris on hard floors.

The Jashen boasts a four-stage filtration system designed to capture 99.99 percent of the fine dust in your home. Plus, it has a built-in dust sensor that automatically adjusts the suction to compensate for heavily soiled areas.

See it in action:

Keep an eye on your battery life and when your filter needs to be changed on the LED panel. And just like a Dyson, hang it up on your wall once your job is done. 

The Jashen V18 isn’t quite as powerful or capable as more advanced Dyson vacuums, like the V10 Absolute or V11 Animal, but it holds its own against the V8 Animal and beats its price tag at just $209.99 — 37% off.

Prices subject to change.

TL;DR: As of March 13, a lifetime subscription to Autowriterpro is just $39.99 when it would normally be $469 — that’s savings of 91%.

The key to driving traffic to your business online is constantly creating new content. Today, content comes in all shapes and forms (TikTok videos, blog posts, Instagram Stories, product descriptions, Facebook posts, etc.), which means you need to be churning out top-quality writing day in and day out. Unfortunately, not everyone is capable of doing so. That’s where AI writing software like Autowriterpro comes in.

A lifetime subscription to Autowriterpro, an all-in-one content creation platform with integrated AI features, is on sale for just $39.99. That’s a savings of 91% on a tool that could end up also saving you loads of time and money.

Autowriterpro comes with lots of automated copywriting tools and royalty-free editable templates to help you create the content you need on a daily basis. Templates can be used for blog posts, website content, social media, and other marketing needs. Pick your choice of template from the category and subcategory list, name and set a date for your writing, fill in custom details and preset tags, then let Autowriterpro get to work. 

At the click of a button, the software creates custom sales copy, blogs, social media posts, emails, meta tags, and more. There’s even designated blogging tools to take content to the next level. The AI article generator busts out 800-word articles in a click, while the AI article rewriter tool can rewrite your existing content or rewrite sentences for different websites.

Beyond just writing, other integrated features include productivity tools like WordPress integration, a content scheduler, a text-to-speech converter, SEO website research tools, and more. It’s like hiring a personal assistant who works quicker than you ever could. Of course, it’s not a real person, so it does have limitations. But for $39.99 for life, it’s worth consideration for your everyday toolbox.

Prices subject to change.

TL;DR: As of March 13, this Interactive Balance Feather Cat Toy is on sale for $18.99, which is 52% off its regular price of $39.

When you bring a cat or kitten home for the first time, you can’t just let it free in your home and expect it to adjust on its own. Even though cats have been domesticated for centuries, they’re still animals with instincts and curiosity. If you don’t get your cats the proper toys and accessories, your cat could take out their confusion and anxiety on your favorite leather chair instead of a gadget or gizmo that’s made for them.

With the Interactive Balance Feather Cat Toy, you can keep your cat challenged, motivated, and even maybe even alleviate some of their anxiety at the same time. This toy is equipped with two weighted balance wheels that allows it to always return upright after it’s hit by your cat. Your cat will have to stretch out and stand to hit the top of the ball or the feather, and will do it over and over again since the toy can not be knocked over. It’s a great way to sneak in a little exercise for your cat while keeping them entertained by the prospect of catching the feather. Plus, it could be a helpful gadget for cats adjusting to a new home or for those getting used to you returning back to work for the first time in awhile.

If your cat usually shows no interest in toys, this one’s different, thanks to the secret compartment that allows you to place catnip inside. It works best on hardwood floors, but can be used on flatter carpets as well. 

The Interactive Balance Feather Cat Toy retails for $39, but you can shave 52% off of the regular retail price and bring it home for just $18.99 for a limited time.

Prices subject to change.

The essence of David Dobrik, the puckish subject of Casey Neistat’s documentary Under the Influence, first crystallizes on screen during a high-pressure pitch to Netflix. It’s 2020, and the then 24-year-old sits in front of a laptop, his eyes shining with anticipation as he describes his dream gig: a serotonin supercut of a late-night variety show. “Do you watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition or any of those reaction shows?” he asks representatives from the streaming giant. “You’re really just waiting for that final moment. I kind of wish that there was a show that just skipped all that.” He gestures urgently, “I just want to get to that final moment, I want to be there constantly.“

Dobrik has made a career out of chasing those “final moments” on camera, uploading breakneck, stake-raising romps often enhanced by alcohol and sex to YouTube. His videos have earned him more than 18 million subscribers, a show on Discovery+, and enough money to be crowned one of the highest-paid YouTube creators of 2020. His success has also made stars of a recurring cast of more than 15 friends collectively called the “Vlog Squad.” Most now have their own social media followings, merchandise, and brand sponsorships as a result of their affiliation with Dobrik and appearances in his videos.

Casey Neistat and David Dobrik in a still from a May 2017 YouTube video posted to Dobrik’s second channel.
Credit: David Dobrik

Under the Influence examines Dobrik’s explosive rise to fame and inevitable reckoning in 2021 after two career-defining events: a March report from Insider alleging that Dobrik was complicit in the 2018 sexual assault of a college student who appeared in his vlogs; and the April reveal of a 2020 accident that left a member of his Vlog Squad with a cracked skull, brain damage, and double vision in one eye.

The documentary is directed by Neistat, a filmmaker who, from 2015 to 2016, honed a daily vlog style that redefined the genre on YouTube. His snappy, vibrant portraits of his global travels and New York City gambols inspired Dobrik, who found success with his own brand of semi-scripted vlogs combining Jackass-type stunts, stand-up comedy, and reality television. “Casey [was] my favorite vlogger on YouTube [until] about two years ago, and then I started and I just took over,” Dobrik joked in a video with Neistat from 2017. “That would be funny if it wasn’t the truth,” Neistat countered.

Despite Neistat and Dobrik’s friendly relationship as contemporaries — or perhaps because of it — Under the Influence is a balanced and compelling chronicle of the ways in which power warps, incentivizes, and exploits the motivations of everyone in its orbit. 

Dobrik’s content relies mainly on the willingness of the Vlog Squad to perform: as crude caricatures, amateur stunt people, and supportive hype men. Safety and consent seem to come second to getting the shot, if they’re considered at all. In the doc, Dobrik notes that a vlog he’s filming is “not funny, unless someone gets hurt.” His assistant Natalie Mariduena calls herself “Safety Sally” but is later shown pressuring Vlog Squad member Corinna Kopf to remove her shirt while filming a fake party scene in a private jet, even after Kopf expresses her discomfort with the idea. 

The Vlog Squad have made a lot of money by putting their lives on the line and sacrificing their dignity in front of Dobrik’s audience of millions. Jason Nash, the oldest Squad member at 48, was a divorcee struggling to support his two children before befriending Dobrik, who he says has made him a millionaire.

Dobrik and members of the Vlog Squad, including Nash and Wittek, at the 9th Annual Streamy Awards in 2019.
Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for dick clark productions

“Are these people sort of being coerced into doing this because of the platform it gives them and the money it gives them?” asks Kat Tenbarge, the Insider reporter who first broke the story about the alleged rape of a woman by Vlog Squad member Dominykas Zeglaitis. “It’s only when you think about how that power dynamic is actually affecting those people’s decision-making that you can begin to see it as something that’s more exploitative.”

The documentary includes graphic footage of the result of that decision-making gray area: a 2020 stunt gone wrong. Dobrik is illegally operating an excavator on a shallow lake in Utah. Vlog Squad member Jeff Wittek, who made his first appearance in Dobrik’s videos in 2018, is attached to the crane by a thin rope, swinging in a circle, when Dobrik panics and stops the machine. Wittek crashes into its metal arm and dangles upside down from the rope, his head below water, floundering as he waits to be rescued.

“People are gonna say you’re a fucking idiot for getting on that rope and allowing somebody to control your life like that,” says Wittek, whose face has been reconstructed and whose brain and eyesight are permanently damaged. “I wasn’t thinking about it like that. I was thinking, ‘Let’s do what we got to do to make this video great.'”

A screenshot from Jeff Wittek’s YouTube documentary about the accident that permanently damaged his brain and vision. Wittek is seen here mid-air, seconds before crashing into the excavator’s metal arm.
Credit: Jeff Wittek

Early in the documentary, Neistat asks Dobrik, “What do you do for a living, David?” It’s 2018, and Dobrik is floppy haired and boyish, with an impish charm. “I convince people I am having fun,” Dobrik smiles playfully. “It’s all part of my act.” As Under the Influence digs deeper, that act begins to feel like a ploy to avoid accountability for the high-intensity, fast-and-loose environment he nurtured on and off camera. 

He seems to brush Wittek’s accident off as a result of Wittek’s own recklessness. “Jeff, for some reason, thought that I wasn’t getting the shot,” he tells Neistat. “So Jeff was like, ‘Let’s do something more exciting,’ and I am always down for more exciting, if someone brings up an idea of doing something cooler, I’m always down for that.”

When Neistat asks if the Insider article was “fair” Dobrik replies, “No. This article was written because this place wanted clicks,” he says while sitting in a $13 million house financed by near-death stunts, a podcast named Views, and a line of “clickbait” merch. He seems to see the woman’s account of rape as a pesky rumor, more harmful to him than to her. “I don’t want to respond to it because I don’t want to feed the fire of just gossip and hate and drama. I’ve always wanted to be a person that when you see me, you’re just like, laughing or smiling or you’re pumped to have me around… now I’m stained forever with something that I don’t necessarily think I should be stained with.”

Dobrik wields a Boring Company flamethrower in a vlog titled “THIS STARTED A FIRE IN HIS HOUSE!! (SURPRISE)”
Credit: David Dobrik

Have these events been a stain on Dobrik’s image? It’s hard to say. In June 2021, he made his return to YouTube, Vlog Squad in tow, with videos that usually rack up more than 9 million views each. Sponsors like SeatGeek have returned to finance him. And he’s promoting his Discovery+ series Discovering David Dobrik. Though Dobrik continues to spar publicly with Wittek and recently opened up about the rocky state of his mental health, the 25-year-old remains more successful than almost anyone his age. Most importantly, he still has millions of young people following his every move.

As it weaves a complex tapestry of power, abuse, and coercion, Under the Influence also communicates the scope and seriousness of Dobrik’s global influence beyond YouTube. Among other ventures, Dobrik has developed a perfume and a photo-sharing app, and has a pizza chain in the works. He transcends the platform that made him famous, and so does his impact on the people who watch his videos. Netflix ends up passing on Dobrik’s show because “they don’t see how a YouTuber can transition into that world.” Neistat knows that Dobrik already has.