Top Ten Epic Rap Battles of History

It's about to be the weekend, so I decided it might be fun to do a totally arbitrary list of sorts as a cleanser from a very long week (I'm hoping & praying that someday soon the weeks will be a bit more manageable).  When I'm stressed out, I tend to fall into a pattern where I watch the same show over-and-over-again, and for some reason the last couple of weeks it's been just repeat viewings of different Epic Rap Battles of History face-offs, and so I thought why not make lemonade here and do a Top 10 rundown of my favorite battles from the show (I double-checked, and despite being a fan of this series I've never done this before on the blog).  I know the show has myriad fans, so counter in the comments if you disagree!

10. "Che Guevera vs. Guy Fawkes"

Why This Battle: If you get into an ERB binge, you'll notice that perhaps the show's most noticeable flaw is that they use similar beats and rhyme schemes throughout the battles (inevitable after all of these years), so it was awesome in one of the most recent videos that we saw them mix it up with a slower beat, which allowed Rob Rico (incredibly sexy as Che Guevera) come alive against Nice Peter's Guy Fawkes.

Favorite Lyric: "All the children say we will be like Che, asthmatic, but I'll take your breath away"

Who Won?: Che, by a landslide.  Guy gets some of the better insults, but Rico's Che is too smooth not to fall for him.

9. "Jim Henson vs. Stan Lee"

Why This Battle: It's hilarious to me that two of the seemingly nicest men in entertainment got pitted against each other, and perhaps ERB realized this when they had the two make up in the middle...then hilariously watched as two artists get a "clobbering" by Walt Disney as a corporate overlord 

Favorite Lyric: "I'm impressed by all the vision that it took for you to sign your name on all of Jack Kirby's comic books"

Who Won?: I'd probably give it to Nice Peter's Jim Henson, though Zach Sherwin as Walt Disney is terrifying as the proper villain of this clip, malevolent with a smile.

8. "Adam vs. Eve"

Why This Battle: Arguably the raunchiest battle of the series, we have Jenna Marbles as Eve vs. Epic Lloyd's Adam, and they spit rhymes combining both insults about the biblical figures and just general gender stereotypes.  The best part is the ending, when Adam goes too far & gets hell for it.

Favorite Lyric: "One pump chump and you're hung like a weasel, ditch the fig leaf and get yourself a pine needle" (see, wasn't kidding about the blue)

Who Won?: You don't get into a "who can give the more profane insult" challenge against Jenna Marbles and come away walking.  Eve by a mile.

7. "Romeo & Juliet vs. Bonnie & Clyde"

Why This Battle: Having two star-crossed lovers both battle seemed like a no-brainer (as does the inevitable ending), but perhaps the best meta-moment in the whole video would be having real-life best friends Hannah Hart & Grace Helbig spit ruthless flow about each other.  Hartbig shippers beware.

Favorite Lyric: "Pop a cap in the ass of the last Capulet heiress, and give miss no nights in Paris a reason to cry to her parents"

Who Won?: Probably Bonnie & Clyde, who had the better rhymes and insults (Romeo & Juliet's were less original), but my favorite work here is Grace as Juliet, playing so against type you desperately wish she'd make more movies so we could see this side of her.

6. "Rasputin vs. Stalin"

Why This Battle: Unlike, say, a superhero movie, ERB is almost always at its best when it throws in extra and surprise MC's.  Here, we get almost an entire history of Russia, with not only Rasputin & Stalin, but also Lenin, Gorbachev, and Putin.

Favorite Lyric: "If your name ends with 'in' time to get out"

Who Won?: I'm going to go with Lenin, who gets some of the best historical references into his lyrics (I am a sucker for that on this show, as you'll see while we get further down), though Gorbachev is a close second.

5. "Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates"

Why This Battle: Of perhaps all of the videos on this list, this might be on here most because of the beat, and almost certainly from the first flow from Jobs, who doesn't even wait for the announcer to introduce him he's so eager to get started.  Throw in a Hal 9000 reference at the end, and I'm sold.

Favorite Lyric: "I make the product that the artist chooses and the GUI that Melinda uses"

Who Won?: Not even close-Nice Peter's Steve Jobs is possibly his best performance on the series.

4. "Artists vs. TMNT"

Why This Battle: This rap is also on this list  for its first verse.  Having Rhett & Link pair up with Ian & Anthony (arguably old school YouTube's most famous duos) to play the four legendary artists was clever, but having them all work SO well together was a testament to their natural chemistry with each other.  Listen to that intro-the transitions are flawless.

Favorite Lyric: "Deemed dope by the Pope and I boned til I croaked"

Who Won?: The artists-the turtles look almost winded after seeing how good the artists are.

3. "Gordon Ramsey vs. Julia Child"

Why This Battle: Perfectly succinct, and relatively evenly-matched, pitching the beloved French Chef against the irate British one feels inevitable, but they perfectly cast here with Epic Lloyd taking on none other than Mamrie Hart, sincerely the funniest person on YouTube and arguably the most-talented actress on the platform.  Her Julia Child accent is so good (not even a hint of her typical Southern twang) that I genuinely watched the behind-the-scenes video to figure out how she did it.

Favorite Lyric: "I served America dutifully and I slice lard beautifully, I reign supreme from shark repellents to charcuterie" 

(For reference, Child during World War II worked for the OSS and helped to create a shark repellent for naval ships, and eventually spaceships)

Who Won?: If you don't think I'll give this to Mamrie, we haven't met yet.

2. "Steven Spieberg vs. Alfred Hitchcock"

Why This Battle: Combining something I love (film directors) with enough references to make my movie-loving heart bounce, this is a visual delight.  Look at the way that each background matches the stylistic motifs of the actual directors (all five of them-it's an all-star battle), and you can appreciate the detail that goes into ERB and why repeat viewings are mandatory.

Favorite Lyric: "I rock the Academy and the DGA-you rock as many Oscars as that hack Michael Bay"

Who Won?: I'm going to go with Kubrick, who has the best combination of visual cues, raps, and is unique enough that it stands out against the other four.  But really-all home runs.

1. "Alexander the Great vs. Ivan the Terrible "

Why This Battle: Because it might be the best original video on all of YouTube?  Honestly, I think you should probably see a few other ERB's so you can appreciate how smart this is with a little context, but everyone is terrific in this video from ERB regulars like Nice Peter & Epic Lloyd to Meghan Tonjes getting her sing-rapping on (hiring Tonjes, an actual singer, to be Catherine the Great was choice).

Favorite Lyric: "Out of the gate first servant of state, oblique attack tactics ain't exactly straight"

Who Won?: This is Epic Lloyd's best rap-in literally 12 bars he'll leave your mouth hanging wide as Frederick the Great.

Ranting On...Logan Paul

My relationship as a YouTube fan could be described as going from a passionate affair to a sexless marriage.  For a while there, I was hot-and-heavy with YouTube culture, having it regularly consume my evening bus rides, and I believe I was subscribed to 30+ channels at one point, but in the ensuing years have dwindled my YT channel shows that I regularly watch to just five; for the curious, I still am religious with The Vlogbrothers (I don't think I've missed an episode in four years), usually catch Mamrie/Grace/Hannah in that order of likelihood (the so-called YouTube Holy Trinity), and will binge Nerdy Nummies pretty consistently (provided it's a baking video-I'm not as wild about the challenges).  Otherwise, my YouTube subscription list has almost completely dried up, or is filled with shows like The Lean Machines that I watch once in a blue moon.

This is to say that I had never watched a Logan Paul video, though I was aware he existed as I follow a lot of Gay Twitter and they keep me abreast of such goings-on, and was largely going to avoid the conversation about his despicable video where he went to Aokigahara (the famed Suicide Forest), discovered an actual dead body, and instead of calling the authorities decided instead to use the footage for a YouTube video.  I really don't need to see the video (though I did catch clips of it in a news reel), as it feels like common sense that you don't exploit someone's painful depression and final moments to get clicks onto your YouTube channel; it in fact feels like the exact opposite of common sense.  Logan Paul, if you need a wakeup call that your life is a mess, when you have Rosanna Pansino of all people, literally the sweetest human being this side of Lin-Manuel Miranda, going after you relentlessly on Twitter you are doing something wrong.  Seriously-I've been following Ro on social media for years, and I've never heard her say anything bad about anyone (her mascot is a smiling cookie!), but she's posted about you at least four times that I've caught.  You have crossed the line into terrible person.

So, like I said, I wasn't going to say anything about Logan Paul, as it felt like most people had had their say and I agreed with it, and why bring attention to such a heinous act (and judging by some of the videos he and his brother have as their screen-grabbed titles, this is not an isolated incident).  But then I started to feel like an angle of this story was being under-exposed, and that was the power of simply boycotting a show or channel, not just saying you're going to do it, but actually quitting it and not looking back, because consistency when it comes to social media is truly a lost art.

Me talking about Logan Paul and saying I'm going to stop watching his videos is a moot point-I don't watch them now, and I never will.  But I've noticed through the years that people's calls for improvement in entertainment in some aspect, or disparaging a person's career but then continuing to follow it seems to be a hollower and hollower threat.  Public behavior in an entertainment field is not measured by the value of your love/hate ratio on Twitter.  It's valued by your worth to advertisers, which unless you reach a near-criminal level like Bill O'Reilly (which admittedly Paul may soon be at), is almost entirely driven by eyeballs.  So if you want to stop someone like Logan Paul, or someone whose artistic achievements you think are not worthwhile, you have to be willing to follow through and actually walk the walk.

This doesn't just have to be after something truly heinous like Logan Paul.  I can off-the-top-of-my-head think of several situations where I realized an entertainment culture was no longer providing value to my life or really to the world, and then simply just cut it out of my life completely.  The first would be YouTube culture.  For years I would watch channels like Marcus Butler or Zoella, thinking "this is cool"-a cheeky insight into a group of friends both individually and collectively.  It felt like harmless fun, and generally I liked some of the accent challenges and Q&A aspects of this culture.  But it continually became overtly dramatic (addressing even the most minor of slights or controversies with heavy-handed videos), uninspired (whereas it felt like previously they'd gone after unique spins on their channels, after a while it was just them doing Q&A's complaining about not getting enough time to do the videos they wanted to do), and perhaps most glaringly, insanely commercial.  I'm not aware of the monetary ramifications of being a fledgling YouTube star (I'm sure they're not the greatest), but turning virtually every video into a commercial for a different product you clearly don't use is a great way to turn off your audience.  I think the straw that broke the camel's back, though, was when Colleen Ballinger and Joshua Evans got a divorce mere months after making a fortune on their YouTube channel chronicling their engagement and marriage.  It felt phony and false, like they were the sort of people who would treat real life like a soap opera, and I don't condone that.  I'm not one of the impressionable young fans who watch this and think this is how you're supposed to behave as an adult, but millions of people are, and I said "I'm done, this is toxic," and then unsubscribed to virtually every channel that didn't have a specific purpose (like baking, fitness, or ASMR), or weren't the Holy Trinity or the Vlogbrothers (all of whom have stayed pretty grounded through the years, and in the case of the latter, is how I've ended my Tuesdays and Fridays for so long I don't know that I would be able to stop even on principle).

And unlike other people who I notice claim they're "never watching again" but then commenting on it again in a few weeks later, I just never looked back.  I've never watched any of those channels since.  In fact today is the first day in years I've checked to see if some of them still exist (and they do, in many cases doing the same tired format they did years ago).  And this is the point here-you have to be willing to actually follow-through when you say you're not going to see something of a person whose career choices you don't like or whose artistic choices you don't support.  I did the same thing 15 years ago when I decided that reality television was a cesspool.  Since that time, I have watched reality television only twice (not counting the occasional The Voice video on YouTube, as those auditions are a rabbit hole); one was Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List (which, as it's Griffin who is a comedian and an actress, was more a weekly standup act than a reality show) and Food Network Star this last year, a show I kind of liked but again because I like cooking TV shows & because it avoids the pitfalls of trying to be reality when it's really not.  I've never watched The Bachelor, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, or any Real Housewives installment.  I sometimes get side-eye over this, but I don't see the point.  I don't mind that other people do (I have a lot of friends who do), but I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't indulge in such things because it took away scripted programming hours and because what little shows I did see, I thought felt kind of stupid.  There are way too many movies, books, good TV shows, and life experiences to be had to be sacrificing hours upon hours devoted to something that's simply a guilty pleasure.  And if all you're watching is trash TV and guilty pleasures, you're neglecting yourself of art or substantive entertainment.  Stop watching Logan Paul, and take a critical look at what's actually on your subscription feeds or DVR lists or Netflix queue, and maybe add something that could challenge you a little bit as a replacement.  Some may complain that at 22 Logan Paul is too young to have his career in YouTube be over, but perhaps a better question is-has he done anything of value to warrant that career to begin with?  I suspect the answer should be obvious to anyone who's seen more than one prank video, and perhaps we should mourn less Logan Paul and instead mourn the actually talented young performers whose place in our entertainment world of whom he's taken the place.

Ten Mini Reviews

Usually at about this time each year, the amount of movies that I have gotten to has become completely overwhelming, and I am ridiculously behind on my reviews.  It's an unfortunate side effect of having my busiest time of year at work coupled with my busiest time of year in my personal life coupled with having the busiest time of the year on the blog.  Suffice it to say, it starts to get to me and while I always want to give every single movie I see its due, I also don't think I can get to all of these while the memory is still there for me to properly create a full review.  So with apologies to the filmmakers, I'm going to be doing short reviews here; we'll still have full reviews of all of the remaining Oscar nominees I haven't discussed from 2016, as well as A Monster Calls because I feel like I owe it to you to explain why I loved it so much, but these movies are going to just get the one paragraph.  If you want more of my thoughts, I'll gladly interact in the comments (incentive!)

(Spoilers for the films may be ahead)

Dark Passage
Thoughts: The least viewed of the Bacall/Bogart pictures, it weirdly has the most famous gimmick of the bunch, where we have a "subjective camera" technique seeing the film almost entirely from Bogart's point-of-view as he escapes from prison.  The film is solid, if predictable (shocker-the third most famous cast member is the real criminal!), and I loved the way that Bacall's performance is both a brazen young woman and completely lovestruck (few people did that better than her).  Still, once the gimmick is over it's never quite as strong as the top half-part of me wished they'd have stuck with it, even if that would have meant Bogart only in voiceover.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

Deadpool

Thoughts: I had sworn to myself I wasn't ever going to see a Ryan Reynolds movie again, but somehow he and Jason Bateman continue to haunt me and I end up stuck with them in front of me even when I didn't want to do so.  Here it was me buying the last-minute hype that Deadpool could land in a major category (or at least Best Makeup) and I ended up stuck in a boring, tired pile of garbage that succumbs to the same cliches that it tries to disprove.  Reynolds may have found a role tailor-made for him, but that doesn't mean he's a good actor.
Ranking: 2/5 stars

Dirty 30

Thoughts: Arguably the film I wanted to review fully the most (give or take Paterson), this film, while not a follow-up to Camp Takota, is at the very least a sequel in terms of who is involved.  The Holy Trinity of YouTube come back, but this time it's Mamrie at the center and all the better for it as she's the most naturally-gifted of the actresses at the center.  Hollywood, in desperate need of a romantic comedy lead, is foolish if they aren't taking advantage of an actress who can sell even some juvenile humor with aplomb-when the script works for her, this is genuinely just a good movie-no YouTube curve needed.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

Eye in the Sky

Thoughts: A taut thriller, the last real performance from Alan Rickman before his untimely death (I'm not counting Alice in Wonderland 2), the film is intriguing and actually quite watchable; it's the rare thriller you're not entirely sure how it will end.  The film's treatment of Americans isn't kind, but considering the buffoon we recently elected...not unfair.  Mirren could do this in her sleep (in fact most of these actors could), and I thought the most intriguing parts of this movie (particularly the sly sexism that hits her harder than the other men, particularly when one of her subordinates disobeys) are skated over, but by-and-large this is imminently watchable to the point where I wonder if the director didn't notice it was happening in the script, even if nowhere near the Oscar nomination some were drumming for the dame.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

The Innocents

Thoughts: No actress in 2016 more fully landed on my list of "on the radar" in a bigger way than Lou de Laage.  Between this and her mesmerizing work in L'Attesa, I can attest that I'll be seeking her out in a big way in future years, and I suspect a Cesar is in her future.  The film is not always easy, and occasionally is very hard to sit through, but it's beautifully shot and a more complex picture than you'd normally expect from a mid-fall foreign art house hit.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

The Legend of Tarzan

Thoughts: It seems funny to review Alexander Skarsgard right now, knowing what he's capable of as an actor (is anyone else thoroughly enjoying Big Little Lies right now-I'm totally enamored?).  This film, of course, is not really an acting showcase, but Skarsgard's shot at movie stardom. The casting department could not be lazier (about the only way they could have found a more cliched set of supporting players would have been to throw Paul Giamatti in there for no reason), but the action is fun and I thought the movie itself was beautifully shot.  Still-this is silliness on-top of silliness, and oh man is Chrisotph Waltz terrible.
Ranking: 2/5 stars

The Light Between Oceans

Thoughts: I will admit that initially I had higher hopes for this movie-it was one of my most-anticipated pictures of 2016, particularly considering how much I've loved the three leads in recent years.  However, that disappointment shouldn't be confused with a bad movie, even if it's sadly a pretty predictable one.  Fassbender and Vikander are both great as the tragic romantic leads, and Weisz might under-emote as the grieving mother, but that feels more like the script's fault that she doesn't get any big scenes. Still, some of the film's best moments (particularly Vikander begging her husband to lie for her sake, to keep her from being lonely) show a movie with great unrealized potential.

Ranking: 3/5 stars

Miss Sloane

Thoughts: Sometimes it's hard to remember that not everything is about the Oscars.  This is particularly hard to stomach when a movie stars one of your favorite actors of the moment, one of whom you wish had an Oscar (hint, hint), but Miss Sloane isn't really an Oscar movie.  It's the sort of taut late-Summer thriller that used to get vacation homes for Julia Roberts or Ashley Judd but has somehow gone out of fashion (perhaps because it got completely absorbed by television?).  Either way, this is a fun movie even if it's wildly over-the-top, and is proof that if Chastain ever wants to just cash-out with big paychecks, she has that ability while still remaining watchable.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

Paterson

Thoughts: Surely the best film on this list, and the one with the best performance, I almost skipped including Paterson because I wanted to discuss it more, but that's technically true of all of these movies (I really just want to talk about movies all day long).  That being said, the comments are there if you want to go further.  Until then, remember that this is a fascinating little study of one single life, proving that you can make pretty much anyone compelling with good writing and good acting, and Driver's central performance exhibits a man that feels like he's being under-served in major movies even if he's cast almost everywhere.  That penultimate scene is a doozy, one almost every other actor would have underplayed or screwed up but Driver nails against the wall and keeps you guessing-when is he going to get some Oscar love?
Ranking: 4/5 stars

Sunset Song

Thoughts: Probably the biggest "who?" film on this list, I saw this because it was Terence Davies' follow-up to the sexy and brilliant The Deep Blue Sea. so it felt like a civic duty.  The movie shows the impossibly hard life of Scottish peasants right before World War I.  The movie is beautiful, and has that "case of the handsomes" in that it's rarely compelling, and never really lets up with the hardships even for a moment.  The central love story feels, in my opinion, to be too jumpy in the treatment of Ewan, which is a pity as there was a great movie somewhere in the pages of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's famed novel.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

Ranting On...Colleen & Joshua's Divorce (or How I Learned to Stop Watching Vlogs)

I don't watch reality television.  I quit roughly around the third season of American Idol, when I was watching in college and the idea of reality television was shifting away from being something competitive (like Survivor or Idol) and more toward the reckless, vapid stupidity of a show like Paris and Nicole.  It's something that I've largely felt good about through the years.  Yes, I missed out on a few shows that probably were pretty solid (Amazing Race and Top Chef seem like strong television), and have questionably watched a couple (Drag Race I couldn't get into, but did see an episode of, and I did watch My Life on the D-List, my only break from the sabbatical, though in that case it actually starred a talented comedian so it was easy to justify).  All-in-all, I just couldn't get into a world of Real Housewives and the like.

A few years ago, though, I had kind of found a workaround into the world of reality television with an ardent infusion of YouTube vloggers that I began watching.  First came the British invasion (an article that still stands as one of the most popular I've ever written on this blog), and then I began watching the likes of Connor Franta and Colleen Ballinger.  One-by-one through the years, though, I have become less-and-less involved with the YouTube culture, particularly with the vloggers.  It started with the British Invasion stars, particularly the likes of Marcus Butler and Zoella, becoming less about giving insight into their worlds, and becoming a pandering version of themselves.  They would do videos that felt deeply repetitive, less true to themselves, and more about getting a product placement into their video than anything else.  They would shill for products that felt less than loyal to their brand (all of the Audible.com people who weren't Grace or Mamrie or someone that authentically felt like they were reading left me less enthused about anything they were selling), and after a while it felt more like watching a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous situation than anything else.

But I held onto a couple of vlogging channels through the years, ones that kept a happy remnant of my YouTube days of yore when I felt deeply vested in the culture and what connections everyone had to everyone else, until this morning.  And that's because, while scrolling through my subscriptions last night I found a video where Colleen Ballinger announced her divorce from Joshua Evans, and I realized that I'd had enough of this world.

I know I'm going to get hate for this, but I don't care at this point; some things need to be said.  I get that marriages break up, I really do, but this crossed an uncomfortable line into reality television for the sake of views and press that felt tacky and wrong.  For those unfamiliar, Evans and Ballinger were married last year in a deeply publicized wedding on their channels.  Both the engagement and the eventual wedding were shared on the YouTube site, likely to the joy of their fans but also, it has to be said, with a deep financial gain for both of the stars, as the videos enjoyed an intense popularity.  It was fun to watch their courtship go through the years, and they were a cute couple-arguably my favorite couple that actually publicized their relationship on YouTube (Grace & Chester See are still my favorite couple, but have been intensely coy about their relationship and only ever really acknowledged they were dating on SnapChat).  But it's also a relationship that became a hallmark of their marriage-something that they were still making videos together for as recently as last month.

And that's where I feel a bit cheated.  If they were struggling to stay together, then why were they still pretending in front of the camera?  It's one thing for you to acknowledge, repeatedly, that the person you're putting in front of the camera is a creation of sorts (like Ballinger's Miranda Sings, a channel I'll still tune into since it's more a TV show than anything else and I don't fault actors for their personal foibles as a general rule when it comes to creative content), but that wasn't what Ballinger and Evans had done in their relationship-they tried to show that they were being deeply authentic onscreen, to the point that it became the centerpiece of their channel.  To know how phony that had to have been-it's kind of hard to grasp.  I gave up largely on celebrity culture years ago except where it related back to a movie or TV or album-too often it felt forced, and only the best of celebrity couples (which unfortunately included Brangelina) were ones that could hold my attention.  I gave into that with YouTube because it felt so inviting and so much fun to live vicariously through, which of course is the appeal of reality television.  Watching people living preposterously wealthy lives or behaving abhorrently may be the hallmarks of reality television, but really the true appeal is we wish we were part of this universe.

That's the thing that made me click unsubscribe not to just Ballinger, but to pretty much every vlogging channel on my YouTube subscription feed this morning.  Ballinger did something that I find really cruel during her divorce video that YouTubers do repeatedly-she pointed out that she wished "only the people who truly care about Josh and I could watch this video, because I know I'm going to get criticism," as if it weren't possible that someone who has watched the videos for years and proclaimed to be a fan couldn't be turned off by a video such as this, one that felt deeply clickbait and in a lot of ways felt like it was more about preserving her fanbase than presenting anything real (the same, it has to be said, was somewhat true for Evans' video, but there it felt pretty clear that he wanted to preserve the marriage and had a level of authenticity that was lacking in Ballinger's, for me at least).  They have made their relationship, and the reality of it, a cornerstone of both of their YouTube channels.  If they truly wanted this to be a time for privacy, why not skip the video and just put out a press release like Hannah Hart and Ingrid Nilsen, instead of putting up two videos that are guaranteed to get more coverage and also millions of views?  It's hard for me to take them seriously as being authentic on their channels going forward if they give up on their relationship just a year after their much ballyhooed marriage.  At that point, it devolves into something like Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries, and while I find her interesting in a way (and wish her the best after the terrible weekend she had), I'm not devoting more than a passing glance at the supermarket tabloids to her, and the same will have to be said for Ballinger.

And with that, I also have cut down dramatically my YouTube subscription feed.  I'm still on the site, and still have a few shows I'm going to tune into, of course.  Hank and John are still a warm hug every Tuesday and Friday for me, and Rosanna Pansino is a wonderful reminder of how fun cooking shows can be (anyone else think Nerdy Nummies has been on fire this year?).  Even if they occasionally veer into vlogging, Grace, Mamrie, and Hannah are still to be treasured and are primarily there for the comedy anyway (and occasionally the actual recipes).  Pewdiepie, despite his weird journey this year on his channel (how I have not written about that yet?), will remain because I find him and his brand bizarrely watchable, and like I said I'll stick around for deeply scripted shows like Smosh, and yes, Ballinger's own Miranda Sings.  But with this announcement, I think I'm done with the vlogging angle of YouTube for good-it feels too fake to be even remotely believable, and for me the appeal disappears at that point.  I was a fan, but there are limits, and I think mine has been reached.

Clicking the Unsubscribe Button

I am currently in the process of streamlining my life, and it's a bit of a challenge.  Lately I've spent most days at work in a near constant state of busy-ness, even more so than usual, and then most evenings are spent trying to fight with every fiber of my being the urge to go to bed at 6 PM, and instead stay up longer, working through at least 1-2 projects that are on my To Do list before I inevitably give up the fight at 9 PM and go watching TV in bed.  One of my most recent tasks has been to sort through all of my closets, and just purging as I go, throwing out anything that I don't remotely need anymore and is just taking up space in my apartment.  After doing all three closets (and having a wildly large pile of clothes that need to make it to Goodwill in the next day or two), I decided I needed to start doing the same thing to my online life, getting rid of everything that was cluttering my internet world so I could focus solely on the things that are relevant (or, in some cases, mandatory).

This did not start, as one would assume, with dismissing all of the Facebook friends I don't actually like anymore.  Facebook for me at this point is one of those annoying things which I only use to reference someone I'm talking about, or to email someone I haven't talked to a while with a question.  In many ways, Facebook has become a combination of both an address book and a year-round Christmas letter, where people shamelessly brag about their lives in a way that would be insanely off-putting in real life, but since it's the internet you can get away with saying things like #blessed and talking about your family and spouse in ways that are deeply eye-rolling and would make anyone in real life never call you again.  No, what I decided to do was clean out my YouTube subscriptions page instead.

YouTube has not had a banner year, in my opinion, or at least my content creators haven't been up to the task, and I don't think it's just because I (and the content creators I enjoy) got older, as we were already well above the median age of the average YouTuber anyway.  No, I think it started when all of the YouTubers decided to write books.  This foray into print wasn't the worst idea, and in some ways it was a success.  After all, Grace Helbig's comic biography last year was an absolute delight, and Hannah Hart's hilarious cookbook was wonderfully offbeat, just like her channel.  Both were surprise hits, and as a result it seems every single YouTuber under the sun wrote a book.  The problem was that some YouTubers are not great at writing, or picking out solid ghostwriters, and so for every hilarious comic book like You Deserve a Drink, you got Miranda Sings doing a gigantic cash-grab with her oddly sketched together picture book.  By the time Tyler Oakley's Binge came out this year, I think I'd had enough and couldn't buy what would have been an easy purchase in March, and will probably just stick to the Holy Trinity's works later this year (and of course John Green).

The problem that erupted from this was not just that the YouTubers were creating shoddy product, but also that they had to sell it.  People like Alfie Deyes, whose Pointless Book is essentially just a children's activity book, were shilling these books constantly on their YouTube channels and social media, and this was in addition to the hodgepodge sorts of shilling they were already doing.  The British YouTubers (aka The Gleam Team) are sort of the most basic example of what went wrong with YouTube this year.  Like Deyes, many of them came out with rather tedious books, but they also spent at least half of their videos clearly trying to incorporate product placements into their content, and the other half are now focused on lifestyle sorts of blogs.  Whereas they used to make videos featuring challenges and seemed like a genuine insight into their world, they have now devolved into a series of adverts and highly-manufactured looks into the lifestyles of the rich and beautiful.  The voyeuristic style of their videos has vanished, and when they do attempt to be just "average Joes" they fail miserably, principally because they're in their mid-to-late twenties and yet act like they're thirteen.  This is fine when someone like Cameron Dallas or Nash Grier does this, but that's because they are actually still immature and not clearly pretending.  Watching a 26 or 27-year-old parade around with the silliness of someone at their junior prom is off-putting, and even their pushes at charity seem more highly-manufactured and yet another constant ask for money.

It's worth noting that almost every single YouTuber has fallen prey to this highly commercialized, everything seems to be for a buck sort of attitude in some capacity.  Even YouTubers I genuinely love like Grace Helbig and The Vlog Brothers seem to have a product placement nearly every single week this year.  This is the nature of the beast, of course, and in some ways I like the reminder (I want to know if there are new shirts and such online).  However, Grace and the Vlog Brothers still make it feel like you're included if you don't have the money (or in my case, also the time) to purchase their products, giving their less affluent fans a way into this fun little world.  And they haven't started phoning it in-my god, the phoning it in.  Every single fun, clever challenge is instantly copied by every other YouTuber known to man, and if something is successful it's mimed over-and-over until I just can't watch anymore.  Daily vlogging is not that interesting if you can't add something unique into the mix, and I can only watch someone eat strange candy so many times before it loses all of its appeal.  I think YouTubers haven't realized that in some ways they're competing with each other.  If I've watched Joe Sugg do the Speech Jammer challenge, I don't want to also watch Alfie, Marcus, Zoe, Niomi, Caspar, and Connor all do the same challenge as well.  This combination of being highly-manufactured and not giving any real insight into the world of these YouTubers has meant it's time to purge.  And as a result, I hit the unsubscribe button on almost half of my channels this past week.  I still will be seeing Grace, Hannah, Mamrie, John, Hank, and of course Pewds on my feed, as well as new loves this year like Rosanna Pansino, but the entire Gleam Team got cut except Caspar, Louise, and Joe (all of whom at least tend to start trends rather than just follow them).  Every vlogging channel got cut (though if Pewdiepie could continue doing vlogging that would be marvelous, as it felt like an actual insight into him as a character), but while I am frustrated with their repetition this year, people like Connor Franta, Shane Dawson, and Miranda Sings are still in the lineup if only because I occasionally have videos I admire of theirs.  Even the insanely handsome guys who brought me to YouTube culture, Jacksgap, managed to bite the big one, as I just couldn't get past Jack's attempt at depth when his perspective seems skewed toward the insanely affluent, limited worldview of someone who can afford to go to non-western countries and look at them only with a camera.  As a result, I am far more likely to click most of the links in my YouTube lineup, but sad that in many ways I'm abandoning a huge chunk of my connection to YouTube culture.  It's smart in the long run (better to remove the clutter and focus on the worthwhile in every aspect of life), but it's a bummer that so many creators got stamped out by trying to be more accessible and merchandised.

Everybody's Linking for the Week

I know, it's Monday.  I'm bummed too.  Let's do this thing and hopefully feel a little better informed as we count the days until the next weekend, shall we?

In Entertainment...

-On Saturday the Governors Awards took place in Los Angeles, as the likes of Gena Rowlands, Spike Lee, and Debbie Reynolds won their long overdue Oscars.  Spike Lee urged Hollywood to embrace diversity, particularly from a business perspective, and AMPAS President Cheryl Boone Isaacs echoed these sentiments in her opening remarks.  Gena Rowlands was the major hit of the night, sharing a cute story about Bette Davis (it always pays to name-drop a Hollywood legend or two in a speech, particularly if you're a Hollywood legend yourself), while Debbie Reynolds was too ill to be able to attend, so her granddaughter Billie went in her place.  Congrats to all three, and here's to hoping both for a speedy recovery for Reynolds and for the three of them to be at the very least presenters (perhaps Best Picture?) at this year's Oscar ceremony.

-Due to the attacks in Paris, episodes of Supergirl and NCIS: Los Angeles that focused on terrorism-related plotlines were replaced by other episodes.  I do, of course, want to be sensitive to those directly affected by the tragedy but part of me becomes very uncomfortable when studios do something like this.  These episodes don't pose a security risk like the cancellation of live concerts and film premieres, but instead are just episodes of television, and as a result by not airing them aren't we giving the terrorists a victory?  I get that CBS doesn't want to suffer the backlash, but part of me wonders if a simple "we're not going to let terrorists dictate our freedom of expression" would be a better byline for the network.  In related news-should I be watching Supergirl?  I feel like it's a pretty populist hit, but no one I know is watching-is it any good, and what is it comparable to?

-Salon's Sophia McClennon wrecked Trevor Noah in an epic takedown, saying he can't hold a candle to Jon Stewart and points out that his approach will ruin The Daily Show's sharp position in the public debate and its place as a former of national opinion.  Clicking over to the link, it's easy to see her point-Noah is a voice of fresh air in the light night talk game, but more so because he's intensely handsome and has a wryness that lacks in comparison to the earnestness that dominates network late-night.  However, he hasn't really advocated for anything other than SNL level parodies, and that's SNL when it isn't acing it.  His show hasn't really done anything except cruelly malign Iowa (but not in a way that came across as anything other than regional stereotyping) and say Donald Trump was an African dictator (something that Stewart could have done in three jokes).  While McClennon is correct to point out that Stewart wasn't a great hit out-of-the-gate, in a media landscape where John Oliver is sharply gaining points and Jon Stewart is poised to be creating another show on HBO, Noah doesn't have that long to wait before he becomes old news.

In Politics...

-Politico, whose magazine may be the best thing on the web these days (their general site occasionally turns into a beltway gossip column), gives a remarkably thorough investigation into the months preceding the 9/11 attacks, particularly spelling out that (based on evidence provided by former CIA officials) President Bush had received numerous warnings about impending attacks from Al-Qaeda and hadn't heeded those warnings.  This is particularly timely both in comparison to how Bush was treated over 9/11 and how Sec. Clinton has been treated in regard to the attacks in Benghazi, as well as in the wake of the tragic events in Paris this past week.  I thoroughly recommend reading through the full article if you haven't yet.

-Speaking of Politico Magazine, Bill Scher raised yet another article wondering if Jeb Bush is still in the presidential game, but instead of calling back Sen. John McCain's triumphant return to the spotlight in 2008, he instead decided to compare him to a different comeback kid, John Kerry in 2004.  While the Bush camp would be loathe to compare themselves to the man who spent a year vilifying his brother, behind closed doors I suspect they are studying the Kerry campaign.  After all, like Bush Sen. Kerry was down in the mid-single digits before the Iowa caucuses (actually down less than a month by those kinds of numbers), and 2004 was more about a man who never had held office (Wesley Clark), a first-term senator who had become the establishment's new favorite (John Edwards), and someone from the fringe of the party that seemed to have inexplicably caught fire (Howard Dean) rather than longtime party stalwarts like Kerry, Dick Gephardt, and Joe Lieberman.  It's worth noting that Bush is actually mimicking in many ways the Kerry camp, not really succumbing to the urge to be outlandish or change his tune, but instead staying in and hoping that the others implode in a way similar to Kerry's challengers (when Dean, Clark, Edwards, Gephardt, and Lieberman, all of whom had a strong shot at the nomination throughout that campaign, ended up being unacceptable choices for a general and the establishment went to the longtime war-hero senator).  Some may mention that Kerry, of course, lost the White House (as did John McCain), but right now the goal is emerging victorious out of the primary-Bush doesn't care about Hillary Clinton until then.  He'd gladly settle for the hand that John Kerry got dealt at this point.

-While there were a number of retirements announced this past week from Congress (including Sam Farr, who is another close Nancy Pelosi ally who could be indicating that Pelosi will eventually resign from the next Congress should she lose out on the Speakership next November), perhaps no one set off a potential firestorm quite like Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming.  With Lummis, a relatively quiet Republican whom I thought would just bide her time until Mike Enzi retired in 2020, announcing a surprise retirement, we are likely to see the return of Liz Cheney, who last cycle ran an embarrassing and nasty campaign against Enzi, which she ended up withdrawing from in the wake of a 50-point voting deficit in the state.  Cheney is unlikely to have the field to herself, however, as more seasoned politicians in the state like State House Speaker Tim Stubson and House Majority Leader Rosie Berger are looking at the contest (openings in Wyoming don't come around every day, and whomever wins here will have right-of-first-refusal in 2020 when Enzi is expected to retire).  Considering the bad blood that Cheney had with the Wyoming State Republicans (as well as Lummis and Enzi, both still powerhouses in the state), and her father's still considerable profile in national politics, this could be one of the most intriguing primaries of the next House cycle.

Shameless Self-Promotion of the Week...

-I am loving the second season of The Leftovers (which, while lacking the wandering nature of the first season, still manages to take a look at the harshness of faith, tragedy, and dependance on others), but why do they have to make Matt so insanely stupid?  I won't share what he does (please be watching the show if you aren't-I can't lose this and Looking in the same year), but if you're watching sound off in the comments on Matt's story arch.

YouTube Video of the Week...

-The best video that Shane Dawson has done probably all year was his Fifi Fierce character (parodying the banal nature of YouTube beauty gurus), and thankfully she's back.  This is audibly NSFW, so keep the headphones on, but it's probably the sharpest satire Shane has done:

Just One More...

-HuffPo did a rundown of this past season's art auction highlights, which if you've been paying attention hasn't been particularly exciting outside of the insanity of Mondigliani's Nu Couche getting $170 million.  HuffPo is a little kinder to the auction houses than others in the art world have been, but it's definitely a worthwhile read if you're an art/museum lover and haven't been keeping up with the scene.

Everybody's Linking for the Weekend

Umm, what's that you say?  An Everybody's Linking for the Weekend on a Saturday?  This is madness!  However, in what is traditionally the weekend where I try to figure out what I want to do with the next month of my life (planning is highly-underrated), I figured I might as well start out November with a bang and scare you (see, Halloween) into thinking that I might get everything on-time this month.  Without further adieu...

In Entertainment...

-For those of you who are devoted YouTubers, nothing this week could quell your excitement over a second film from the Holy Trinity of the site, Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart, and Mamrie Hart.  The trio made Camp Takota last year, and unlike almost every other YouTube film that followed, it didn't endure horrific reviews as a result (cough Not Cool cough).  I personally am excited to see what these three bring as they're amongst my favorite YouTube content creators, particularly since the title (Dirty Thirty) seems to be about them owning their age a little bit more, which is rare on YouTube where everyone tries to be fourteen.

-I am so bummed that I missed the Leah Remini 20/20 interview last night.  I'm not wild about Remini (she was funny on an average sitcom and her brash persona occasionally rubs me the wrong way) and I find that most celebrity gossip is kind of boring these days, but man am I weirdly excited to hear the juice about Remini and her break from Scientology, considering it's one of the oddest and strangest things in Hollywood over the past several decades, and continues to be a really interesting topic considering stars like Tom Cruise and John Travolta are still involved with the church.  Remini is the biggest star to leave the organization, of course, and so likely had more access to the higher-ups in the Church.  The interview is chronicled pretty heavily in the article I linked above, so if you didn't record it or don't have access to a TV, read through as it's a fascinating look at Remini's involvement with the church and her relationships (that have spilled into the press) with Katie Holmes and Kirstie Alley.

-Every week I find Lady Gaga more and more phony and infuriating, and this week was no exception. Gaga apparently said a couple of years ago she wanted to quit music because she was tired of being treated as a "commodity."  This would potentially resonate (I'm sure celebrities get sick of being a product when they want to just create art), but Gaga made a point in her first album and every album after that about wanting to be a celebrity, and that was her primary goal.  One of her earliest hits was a song called "Paparazzi" and she demanded at the Grammys "take my picture Hollywood, I want to be a star."  Her latest sorts of comments feel just as manufactured as everything else about the singer-turned-actress, and seem to be launched more because her music career left her and not the other way around.  This sort of crap is what turned me off to her in the first place, and it isn't helping right now, and no amount of Julie Andrews musical moments are going to make me change my mind.

In Politics...

-One of the larger questions this past week has been around whether or not Sen. Marco Rubio should resign from the Senate.  I initially was going to do an article about this, but Smart Politics beat me to the punch, and it was so thorough I figured I'd just link.  I think Rubio himself did, in fact, quell this discussion with his epic takedown of Jeb Bush earlier last week, but the reality is that it's a question worth having. Rubio isn't running for reelection like Rand Paul, so it's not like he's going to be using the Senate seat anytime soon, and there is limited precedent but it's there for giving up his seat (Sen. Bob Dole resigned his seat in 1996, as the article points out).  I think it's a pragmatic question as well-look at Sen. Dean Heller who managed to gain a great leg-up in 2012 by being a temporary but real incumbent (it's likely he would have lost had it been a true open seat race, giving the Democrats a vital seat headed into 2016 where they're looking for anything they can grab to get five more).  Rubio, from a pragmatic side probably should give up his seat then, but doing so could invite comparisons to Sarah Palin when she resigned the Alaskan governorship and he wants to avoid that at all costs so I cannot fathom he will do so.  Expect Hillary Clinton to be eyeing how many votes he missed in comparison to her voting record in 2007, though, as this will be fodder in 2016 for certain as they appear to be the likely nominees.

-Speaking of the former senator, Mark Halperin did an epic takedown of the Republicans in a piece this past week for Bloomberg where he highlights that Republicans are stuck in an echo chamber on Hillary Clinton.  This is something, I think, we all are stuck in, quite frankly.  I talk with Democrats who are petrified of Clinton being the nominee because they don't think enough people like her, and yet every Democrat (and some lay people as well) seem to be willing to cast their votes for her, albeit with great fervor or a pinched nose (at the end of the day, though, they count the same).  Halperin correctly points out that Clinton's team is better at debates, and has a party that is much less likely to demand things of their nominee that could be deemed general election poison (it seems impossible, for example, for next year's RNC to not have speeches about Benghazi and email servers, which will not play well outside of a primary considering public polling on the matters).  It's also worth noting that, using the past four elections as a guide, the Democrats have more electoral college votes that seem likely to be in their corner than the Republicans (the Democrats don't need states like Florida and Ohio, for example, but the Republicans can't afford to lose them).  All-in-all, Clinton has an upperhand if you throw away the fact that historically she should have a tougher race.

-And we'll finish out the political portion of this link roundup with an excellent profile of Al Gore and his look at An Inconvenient Truth ten years later from Politico.  The article is interesting not just because of a few choice little anecdotes in the write-up (how is it possible that Al Gore has never met Jeb Bush considering they've both been on the national stage for decades and considering Al Gore is very well-acquainted with his brother).  While he didn't endorse his former rival for the President's attention (Hillary Clinton and Al Gore are hardly good friends), he did point out the Democrats have his support more than the Republicans in 2016.  It's an interesting read, particularly for those who were inspired by his powerpoint ten years ago, so check it out.

Shameless Self-Promotion of the Week..

-Democrats can hug Republicans-it'll be all right, Freedom Caucus.  You can't catch liberalism.

YouTube Video of the Week...

-I feel a little guilty every year that I don't really celebrate Halloween, particularly since I feel like I'm abandoning the quintessential gay holiday, so in deference to that, I shall put perhaps the gayest moment in all Halloween movies below.  Check it out, and I dare you to not want to change your costume to match Bette's:

Just One More...

-If there's a name you need to memorize immediately before next summer's Olympic Games, it's Simone Biles, who became the first gymnast ever to win three consecutive world championships this past week, besting Olympic champion Gabby Douglas (who became the first Olympic champion to make a medals stand since 1981 at the world championships).  At this rate, it seems Team USA will be the ones to beat come next Summer, and expect a lot of NBC promos touting a rivalry between Biles and reigning Olympic champ Douglas, who is looking to become the first woman since Nadia Comaneci to medal in two consecutive All-Arounds, and potentially the first since Vera Caslavska to win the title back-to-back.

Everybody's Linking for the Week

I had family in town so we're doing the rare "Everybody's Linking for the Week" rather than the weekend.  Still, though, we have a lot to cover here so let's get started!

In Entertainment...

-Obviously the saddest news out of Hollywood this week was the demise of screen legend Maureen O'Hara at the age of 95.  The actress, most noted for her collaborations with director John Ford and actor John Wayne, was a major headliner of the Golden Age of Hollywood and a wonderful actress.  My first interactions with O'Hara were as a kid, particularly in one of my collective family's favorite movies McClintock!, a comedy western with Wayne where she plays a stuck-up woman coming home with her daughter for a divorce.  The sight of O'Hara in that gorgeous dress sliding down into the mud made me uproarious with laughter.  As I got older I got to see some of the other facets of her personality, especially in film classics like Miracle on 34th Street and The Quiet Man.  The Academy Awards thankfully honored O'Hara just last year with an Honorary Oscar after years of fans pleading with them to give her that trophy.  It was a career capper for a career like few others.

-Reese Witherspoon is either A) in need of another $10 million or B) recently suffered amnesia as she is advocating for a Legally Blonde 3 for some inexplicable reason.  For those who may remember, Witherspoon nailed her ditzy blonde legal savant act in 2001, but the followup was an absolute train wreck.  Witherspoon's coming off a truly great performance in Wild, but I really wish she'd continue that line of thought before coming back to this character, as I'm tired of us getting long after-the-fact sequels to films that weren't that good in the first place (see also Men in Black III).

-In time for her latest book as Robert Galbraith (I have my copy of Career of Evil staring at me from a shelf nearby), JK Rowling will be doing her first interview as Galbraith on November 2nd, discussing why she wrote under a pseudonym and discussing the Cormoran Strike novels.

-And in news you might have missed regarding everyone's favorite chanteuse, Adele made history once again with her spellbinding "Hello" video.  Directed by Canadian filmmaker (and master of the world's greatest hair) Xavier Dolan, the video is apparently the first music video ever shot in iMax.  I previewed the song last week on the blog-now that we have the full version, anyone want to give their opinions of the full thing?  Comments are below...

In Politics...

-One of the biggest stories of the week surrounded Canadian heartthrob (and also, the new Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau and his huge win for the liberals in Canada.  The Nation looked at how Hillary Clinton may be able to emulate this, with a focus on taxing the rich, infrastructure investment, and an embrace of diversity.  Clinton has made the diversity angle a key part of her campaign (every stump speech will name-check African-Americans, Latinos, women, gays, the military, and senior citizens with utter abandon), and thanks in part to Bernie Sanders influence, Clinton has gone after a more progressive economic platform.  However, infrastructure, an issue that we do need to address in the country does seem like a major winner, particularly as it's a way to start addressing economic issues in poorer areas of the country and might help Clinton with blue-collar male voters, a group she needs to improve her status with in order to take the White House.

-Easily the most press-shy of the former presidents, George W. Bush was all over the news this past week.  First it was his comments about Sen. Ted Cruz, whom he attacked in a pretty harsh way for a former president who has eschewed political fights constantly since he left the White House six years ago.  This is a bit surprising not only because Cruz is a former Bush employee (he was a domestic policy advisor to the then governor when he ran for president in 2000), but also because Cruz isn't exactly who Jeb Bush has been attacking on the stump.  The Florida governor has been most heartily going after Donald Trump, and most pundits (including yours truly) view Marco Rubio as the candidate that poses the biggest issue between Jeb and the nomination, so it's strange that President Bush decided to attack his home state's junior senator instead, as this was clearly a calculation from the governor's team.  The second thing that came up was the continued attacks on Jeb Bush for his defense of his brother, particularly in regard to how he "kept America safe" while he also attacks Sec. Clinton for her role in Benghazi.  The Atlantic wrote a piece agreeing with Donald Trump that George W. Bush didn't do enough to protect the United States in the months preceding 9/11, something that has become taboo to discuss in most corners of American politics.  Personally I think this may be one of the few advantages Trump's candidacy poses for the GOP-his stances on positions and ability to call out what he considers BS (which occasionally is and occasionally isn't just that) is more valuable than the ludicrous assertions of Ben Carson which just go as hard right as possible without more valuable discussion as a result.

-At the annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner this past weekend, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders went after Sec. Hillary Clinton by name about her stances on the big banks.  Sanders attacks on Clinton are the most pointed so far of the campaign, and a surprising change-of-pace for the senator, as #feelthebern has been celebrating his atypical approach to politics.  As a result of this, I wonder how this will do for his campaign, particularly for a man that has been using his bully pulpit to decry negative campaigning.

Shameless Self-Promotion of the Week...

-With the news that Gilmore Girls is back (HOORAY!!!), I want to know why Pushing Daisies isn't next.

YouTube Video of the Week...

-This video is super long, admittedly, but if you wanted to understand everything about the new paid YouTube (or YouTube Red, not to be confused with RedTube which is VERY different and highly NSFW) and why ESPN can't put YouTube videos out any more, please watch Hank Green explain it as only he knows how:

Just One More...

-The Christian Science Monitor takes a look at what scientists are doing to try and save the snow leopard as climate change has resulted in much of their territory being decreased.  This is particularly important considering articles like these, where they list out species that have gone extinct only in the past 15 years.

Everybody's Linking for the Weekend

We actually haven't had a chance to do this in a few weeks, but don't think that I forgot about the link updates, and we'll see right now some of the articles that we haven't had a chance to look through in-depth this week and can share from around the web:

In Entertainment...

-Nathaniel over at the Film Experience summed up my opinions so perfectly about Matt Damon and his ridiculous comments about gay actors and gay celebrities that I didn't feel the need to write an article earlier this week, but you should feel the need to read his post as it's excellent.  I hate this sort of celebrity who wants to not just apologize, go on and try to explain that what they said was wrong and that they should have been more clear, but instead we get a further hole-digging from the straight and extraordinarily privileged actor and him trying to use Ellen Degeneres to vouch for him (I hate when straight celebrities do this-Jay Leno did the same thing with Wanda Sykes a few years back, and it makes me extraordinarily uncomfortable-it's the equivalent of saying "I have a black friend" to get out of the "I'm acting racist" argument).  Damon's gained huge star points throughout his career both for his marriage to wife Luciana and his relationships with famed actresses like Winona Ryder and Minnie Driver.  He can lecture all he wants about "hiding your sexuality," but he's never done that, and to expect gay people to do it when he hasn't is pretty much the definition of privileged hypocrisy.

-Speaking of actors I love who are having a bad week with feet-in-their-mouth, Meryl Streep said while promoting her new film Suffragette (where she plays legendary women's rights activist Emmeline Pankhurst) that she is not a feminist, and prefers to be called a humanist.  This is on the heels of actresses like Sarah Jessica Parker, Shailene Woodley, Susan Sarandon, and Marion Cotillard all stating that they don't consider themselves feminists.  On the opposite end of the spectrum this past week presidential candidate Hillary Clinton defended the term (and endorsed herself as a feminist) during an interview with Lena Dunham.  My problem with Streep's defense of humanism but not feminism is that, like Sec. Clinton said, feminism isn't about hating men or about not giving men rights, but it is about representing that women are the underrepresented gender and are disproportionately affected by discrimination, so why not empower them through the term.  Dismissing feminism in favor of humanism in many ways feels similar to people saying "All Lives Matter" when confronted with the "Black Lives Matter" movement.

In Politics...

-The New Yorker has a fascinating insight into Carly Fiorina, who has found herself battling Marco Rubio for third place in the polls.  The article is interesting not just for the comments about her tenure at HP (which I have written about quite at length here if you're interested), but also about how poorly she ran a campaign against Barbara Boxer and pulled out a lot of the comments about appearance and gender that Donald Trump has leveled at her (which she has taken offense to, but of course still utilized against her Democratic opponent).  I do want to point out that, since I do write about Ms. Fiorina frequently, it's not because I think she's a serious contender for the presidency (she's not-that's increasingly Marco Rubio, followed by Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump, in that order), but it's because she's getting special treatment in the race due to her gender and I feel like that's setting back the cause for women in politics.  It's not something you're supposed to say, but it's true.  Fiorina's standings in the polls are there now because of her campaign, but she got to where she was because the GOP and the national media didn't like having a field with all men, and you can see that in the way they virtually ignore Democrats like Jim Webb in the Democratic field.  If Fiorina was either a major national celebrity like Trump (say if Ann Coulter had run for the presidency) or if she was an established member of the political community (Susana Martinez, Mary Fallin, Kelly Ayotte, or Nikki Haley all come to mind), I would consider this a legitimate reaction to her campaign, but she's a failed CEO and failed Senate candidate; the only thing that initially distinguished her was her gender.

-Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), on the other hand, demanded the media pay attention and it was partially the fault of the frontrunner Hillary Clinton (we forget in the wake of the email controversy, but let's recall that part of her problems stem from freezing out the media in the months following her announcement creating a vacuum that Sanders was happy to fill) that he came to the strong position he is in today.  The media has been all over themselves talking about how Sanders almost out-raised Clinton, but not all money is considered equal, and Politico has an in-depth look at how most party insiders in the early four primary states think that Sanders needs to nail down more high-profile donors in order to compete.  While I know this is anathema to the kinds of people whom Sanders has on his side, it's true.  My biggest problem with Sanders has long been not that I disagree with him on issues (I don't-I have never liked Bernie's odd "independent" status as he was clearly a Democrat trying to pretend to have "independence" and I think he's way too conservative on gun control but he's always been a solid senator and congressman for the left), but that his campaign is predicated on winning in a way unfamiliar to modern politics.  I have watched politics long enough to know that upsets are rare and that people who want to campaign and get "new voters" either don't succeed, end up having the same coalition as usual, or are Barack Obama.  And Bernie Sanders is not Barack Obama.  Sanders needs to show that he can win in traditional areas in order for me to take him seriously as a general election contender, even if his poll positions and fundraising have made me stand up straight on his primary chances.

-Every four years pundits will trot out this old adage, that the most important political issue that you're voting upon isn't climate change or the economy or national security, but instead the composition of the Supreme Court.  It never actually works, though, because it's impossible to tell when it will be true.  Most people would argue that had John McCain won in 2008 the Supreme Court would have been lost to a generation of Democrats, and they could be right but likely not, as both John Paul Stephens and David Souter retired of their own volition and are still living.  Though they may have resigned for health reasons it's safer to assume they did so because they wanted their seats to stay liberal; the same could be said for Sandra Day O'Connor.  Therefore elections like 2008 and 2012 didn't really mean much in court composition, and instead it was years like 1988 and 2004 that were the last elections where the court composition really mattered (where wins by Michael Dukakis or John Kerry would have meant that the likes of Clarence Thomas or John Roberts would have been replaced with much more liberal justices).  It's hard to know if 2016 will be similar to 2008 or 2004 in that regard, but with four justices in their eighties or set to be in their eighties in the next four years, statistics state pretty clearly that it could be a game-changer election for the Court.  If Scalia/Kennedy leave the bench under a President Clinton, it will have mattered.  If Ginsburg/Breyer leave the bench under a President Rubio, it will have mattered.  If anything else happens, it won't have mattered, but these are not odds you necessarily want to risk, particularly if you're a Democrat who is already down by one.

Shameless Self-Promotion of the Week...

-I didn't write an article about President Obama's conversation about gun control and the shocking need for gun control because I did it a few months ago and every word seems to hold true and will continue to hold true until we do something about it, so if you haven't read that piece I recommend that you do.  I will say, however, that I am sick and tired of liberals on Twitter lumping both sides together on this issue, because literally every time that there is a push for gun control legislation, it's always the Democrats carrying the torch, so get off your high-horse and stop saying both sides are equal on this issue, because they're not.  That sort of dismissive attitude is why we don't get anywhere on this issue, because if you're not going to help out Democrats (or, to be fair, the occasional Republican) who actually do something about gun control, what's the incentive (I can always tell someone's political IQ is low when they say that both sides are the same on an issue)?  When the Toomey-Manchin bill was in the Senate (the last real push for a gun control legislation) Democrats got 90% of their caucus to vote for the bill, the Republicans got 9%.  If that sounds like they're the same, then you're a moron.

YouTube Video of the Week...

-This is a few weeks old, and admittedly I kind of wish Colleen had just skipped Miranda in this one (but she knows where the views are).  Either way, Colleen Ballinger's performance of "Wildest Dreams" is better than Taylor Swift's:

Just One More...

-John Sutter, one of my favorite columnists on the internet, has a fascinating (if frequently terrifying) look at the world of climate change and the ways that we are impacting our planet.  After a recent survey where readers got to pick where Sutter would go with his next column, the audience skipped out on things like coal and instead went with beef production.  While it's long been talked about how we need to shift off of coal/oil production and into renewable forms of energy, the impact that the livestock industry, but particularly cows have on the earth is staggering, to the point where I have slowly but steadily worked beef out of my diet to the point where it's maybe only a once a month sort of treat.  How about you-have you taken the vegetarian (or at least no beef/lamb) plunge?  Share in the comments!