The video description states:

I am all that stands between you and a load of bullshit you guys.

With that out of the way, Barr reassures us as she holds a pipe that she "gets fuckin' high," and also speaks out about fascism, the privatization of prisons, and the war on drugs. The clip's only about a minute long, but it makes us wish there were 17 more episodes. 

H/T Death and Taxes | Screengrab via Roseanne Barr/YouTube 

Appraising an Adam Sandler movie is a difficult thing to do. 

Roger Ebert’s own scoring system was based on a curve, graded against other movies in the genre. But if we’re judging from Sandler’s own filmography, The Ridiculous 6—his first film with Netflix—has the rare distinction of both being one of the worst movies of the year and not really that bad. When you’ve been involved with Jack and Jill and That’s My Boy (two of the worst movies of the decade), any cinematic sins you commit afterward seem comparatively minor. For instance, if you had to witness your whole family being murdered in front of you, watching a bunch of adults giggle at their farts for two hours would seem much less horrifying.

For everyone expecting The Ridiculous 6 to be epically bad—due to the well-publicized controversy in which the film’s Native American actors walked off set in protest of the script—the problem is it’s nothing you haven’t seen in an Adam Sandler movie before. In Jack and Jill, Sandler cast Latino superstar Eugenio Derbez as his gardener, just to force him to spout racist and anti-immigrant jokes the whole movie. In one of the film’s strangest scenes, Derbez also plays a hissing, bug-eyed Mexican grandmother who is repeatedly knocked unconscious; her family revives her by cramming jalapeños in her mouth.

The Ridiculous 6 is, of course, littered with casual racism and sexism, particularly in its treatment of women of color. For instance, not a single Native American woman in the movie is given anything to do, except utter a few lines in a skimpy top, and even the characters’ names are nakedly honest about why these women are in the film. Sandler plays a white man who was raised in a First Nations tribe, and his love interest—I’m not shitting you—is named Smoking Fox. Other women in the community are referred to as “Beaver Breath” and “Wears No Bra.” The latter aggressively propositions Sandler the entire film, to remind us—yet again—that he might appear to be a normal schlub, but Adam Sandler is actually the most attractive and desirable man in the world.

This is a point Sandler movies make relentlessly: If Frank Capra provided us male heroes who stood in for the goodness of the American dream, Sandler’s guys are only reflective of their own awesomeness. In That’s My Boy, Donny might seem like a delinquent dad, an alcoholic, and a loser, but he’s actually totally rad. If Big Daddy’s Sonny Koufax raised a minor in any way resembling how he treats young “Frankenstein” (the name he lets Julian give himself), that child would be taken away by Protective Services immediately; however, in Sandler’s world, Sonny is both a misunderstood hero and a model of alternative parenting.

Sandler co-wrote the script for The Ridiculous 6 with Pixels’ Tim Herlihy and saved himself the best part: a hypercompetent assassin who can listen to the wind and scale tall buildings with his daggers. The script offers only the barest of plots: Six men find out they are half brothers after their libidinous father (Nick Nolte) is kidnapped, and go on a robbery tour to raise the money to get him back. That’s about enough story to sustain a few montages, but unfortunately, The Ridiculous 6 is 116 ungodly, interminable minutes long—padded with donkey diarrhea jokes, Taylor Lautner’s character repeatedly reminding us that he has a third nipple, and a bizarre interlude of Harvey Keitel running from a demonic dummy (a la The Conjuring).

But The Ridiculous 6 isn’t about revenge of the Old West any more than Pixels was about video games. This film is the fullest realization of Sandler’s artistic vision yet—which is to get paid to goof around with all his friends. The film has an absurdly stacked cast of Sandler comedy troupe members (David Spade, Rob Schneider), big-name character actors (Steve Buscemi, Steve Zahn), veterans who are way too good for this s**t (Nolte, Harvey Keitel), celebrity cameos (Blake Shelton, Vanilla Ice), and D-listers who presumably didn’t have anything else to do (Mr. Lautner). They all look like they’re having way more fun than you’ll have watching them.

Like Grown Ups 2 before it, there’s little actual movie here—unless you count “Taylor Lautner pretending to engage in bestiality” or “Rob Schneider wearing a sombrero and saying burro a lot” as an actual film. If Ridiculous 6 succeeds ever so slightly more than the usual Sandler outing, it’s because a few of his castmates are much funnier than the movie deserves. Lost’s Jorge Garcia is surprisingly amusing as Sandler’s half-brother, who is forced to communicate in grunts, while John Turturro gets the only genuine laughs of the movie as the man who invented baseball. He calls it “Sticky McSchnickens.”

The biggest issue with The Ridiculous 6, even more than its retrograde politics, is that it lacks any kind of comic discipline. Sandler’s own laziness—as a writer and producer—dilutes even the jokes that work a lot better than they should: The baseball scene goes on for something close to 10 minutes, simply because it can. This has always been a problem in Sandler’s movies (That’s My Boy likewise pushes the two-hour mark), but it’s unlikely to get better under Netflix’s “creative freedom” model. This gives the big names the streaming platform works with—including David Fincher and Judd Apatow—enough rope to either roam free or hang themselves.

If you’re wondering how Ridiculous 6 came to be, remember that it wasn’t made for you; it was designed to keep a multi-millionaire happy. Heralded as the first entry in a four-picture deal between Sandler’s Happy Madison production company and the ever-ubiquitous streaming platform, Ridiculous 6 might be the first post-audience movie. Netflix notoriously doesn’t publish its streaming numbers, which is perfect for a movie star of rapidly dwindling popularity, one more interested in getting a major studio to bankroll his vacations than making a good movie. Sandler doesn’t really care whether you like Ridiculous 6—or if you’re even watching.

If you think Ridiculous 6 is bad, remember that we’ve got three more of these left to go.

Photo by Ursula Coyote/Netflix 

A backlash has begun, though. Talented musicians have grown too bitter to be quiet, and they're slowly taking Nashville back. But Wheeler arrived in Nashville at a particularly bad time—spending the past 15 years in Nashville would make anybody bitter, and the experience has done a number on him.

Maybe that's why he's released the EP Fuck You Bitch, which can be heard on Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube. It has all the makings of a talented musician getting fed up, drunk, and jumping on a barroom table with a guitar to mock the music he despises. 

He lays all the cards on the table, deconstructing the tropes of pop country so surgically that nothing else needs to come from it for quite some time.

It's not, of course, a deconstruction that is painless for many popular Nashville musicians to hear—it's already caused him a Twitter fight with a Judd.

Wheeler’s Redneck Shit is out Feb. 12, and its second single “Drop ‘Em Out” debuted with an animated music video on Pornhub Saturday. 

Hi! Wheeler?

[Knocking in the background.]  Hold on one sec—got somebody at the door. Hold on, hold on... it always happens like this, ya know? You there? Sorry about that, man—word on the street is that you love the record?

I do, yeah. I’m a big fan of the record.

I gotta say, this is the best interview I had yet.

It’s off to a good start. 

I go after the fuckers who don't like the record. But when you like it, I got nothin’ bad to say to you. You’re my favorite journalist.

Thank you, I’m putting that on my portfolio, actually…

Put it on the portolio.

How long have you been working on this album? I first heard heard your music in 2013, on an appearance you made on Comedy Central's The Ben Show.

It came pretty easily, got a bunch of my buddies to play backup and record it. I just had a lot of deals gone bad… ya know, in Nashville, I don’t know if you’ve seen… are you a country music fan in general?

On and off. Mainly that Texas country.

The mainstream shit’s so fuckin’ bad. I thought I could make it, and bust through, but it wasn’t to be. I learned after about 15 fuckin’ years, so I just said “Fuck it, I’m gonna make an album my way, and on my terms.” And, uh, that’s what you’re listen’ to. I just had a bunch of bad fuckin’ deals, ya know? You sign with a major label, and you, ya know, ya fingerfuck the CEO’s wife, and you get in a little bit of trouble. Shit happens, ya know. I love Nashville.

I just said “Fuck it, I’m gonna make an album my way, and on my terms.” And, uh, that’s what you’re listen’ to.

Tell me about some of the people who you worked with in producing this album.

I knew this guy, Sturgill Simpson, from back in Kentucky. He heard me sing with this guy, Dave Cobb, who’s kinda doin’ all the best shit out there right now. Sturgill’s record, and Chris Stapleton [Stapleton won Best New Artist and Best Male Vocalist at this year's CMAs], Jason Isbell… kind of a go-to player. Leroy Powell, Brian Allen… and I think, ya know, these guys make the best records out there. I wanted a guy who could get the kinda sound I wanted, but, ya know, wouldn’t censor the content, because to me it’s serious shit. It’s just dirty, ya know?

The whole thing was, ya know, about country music is that you sing about real shit, and why would I censor real shit if no one’s’ s gonna fuckin’ listen to it, anyway? I mean, people will listen to it, but the raido ain’t gonna play it, so I may as well... They ain’t gonna play it, anyway.

Did you find that the album, and the songwriting process, was that kind of cathartic for you to revisit stuff?

You can’t really, in the normal life, you can’t actually talk like you mean. I can’t walk up to a girl who’s dumped me and say “fuck you, bitch.” I’m a gentleman, at the end of the day. But when you write it in a song, all of a sudden it sounds like poetry. I think. The song ain’t "women are bitches," or anything like that. It’s just… this girl dumped me, and that’s what I felt like at the time. Ya know, we patched shit up now. She’s not a bitch. But, ya know, at the time, I was pissed. Why pretend I wasn’t.

It’s just… this girl dumped me, and that’s what I felt like at the time. Ya know, we patched shit up, now. She’s not a bitch. But, ya know, at the time, I was pissed.

You guys are friends, now? You’re close?

Let’s not get carried away now, man.

But you don’t hate each other? You wouldn’t write another Fuck You, Bitch about the same girl?

I give her credit— she put up with a lotta my shit. I ain’t no angel, ya know. When she dumped me, I probably deserved it. It’s more empowering to her, really, that she has that much power over me to get that kind of song out.

Did it take several songs with her? 

I was trying to cover that back and forth as much as possible, but I’m still a complete idiot with Twitter.

Look: I’m from Kentucky, so I ain’t gonna talk no shit about no Judd.

I’m not that good at it, and I think it’s pretty stupid. Look: I’m from Kentucky, so I ain’t gonna talk no shit about no Judd. But I try to act like a badass sometimes, and then Wynonna started lecturing me about how I can’t use that kind of language, and “that ain’t right,” and blah blah blah. And then, of course, ya know, you think I’m Wheeler and I’m gonna rip into her, but I just took it like a ltitle fuckin’ bitch. It’s almost like when my mom yells at me: I act like I’m cool, but I just take it like a little pussy, ya know? I just, like, apologized to her. Everybody thought I was gonna fight with her, but I was just, like, “Yes, ma’am,” ya know?

Screengrab via WheelerWalkerJrVEVO/YouYube

Via his proxy, Will Ferrell, Bush ran down the list of current Republican nominees and roasted them all, especially Donald Trump and his plan to ban Muslims from entering the country. "That's impossible to implement and not what this country is about," he said. "Heck, that's like saying, 'Let's keep all the leprechauns out." 

He had some especially pointed words for his brother, Jeb!, and that excessive piece of punctuation. Dubya is now the voice of reason. Let that sink in. 

In a video posted this weekend, Pepper said that if he raised $1.5 million on GoFundMe, he'd delete his YouTube account. The video has since been removed from his page, but copies have popped up elsewhere on the site.

"This isn't a scam, a prank, a trick, nothing like that," he says in the video. "I am genuinely gonna be deleting this channel."

In an email to the Daily Dot, Pepper said that the campaign was taken down because it "didn't meet [GoFundMe's] requirements," adding, "I had a look for an alternative platform but didn't find anything that had a trusted name." Pepper said that he deleted the accompanying video because he felt there was no point in keeping it up if the GoFundMe page was gone.

With this short-lived campaign, Pepper was basically monetizing the widespread hatred inspired by his YouTube presence, which spans murder pranks, sexual harassment videos disguised as "social experiments," and a series of sexual assault allegations. In his latest video, he advised his detractors to do something "meaningful" by crowdfunding to get rid of him, instead of just posting negative comments on social media.

GoFundMe was a smart choice for this idea, because unlike with Kickstarter, Pepper would be able to keep all the donations even if the campaign didn't reach its $1.5 million goal. Even if he only raised a few hundred dollars, he'd still profit from people thinking they could bribe him into deleting his YouTube account.

H/T Independent | Screengrab via Minion Master/YouTube

Until the unprecedented success of Adele's new album 25 knocked her from the top spot, Taylor Swift was the undisputed queen of pop music in 2015. Her fifth full-length studio album, 1989, topped the charts, her complaints regarding how Apple was paying musicians got the company to change its policies, and she more or less got away with awkwardly touching the Weeknd's hair.

All in all, a banner year. And now Swift wants to commemorate the occasion by trademarking that which she helped bring into the public consciousness. As the blog Tantalizing Trademarks reports, earlier this month, Swift filed a gaggle of trademark applications through her holding company, TAS Rights Management.

Swift is hoping to trademark the name of her newest album (“1989”), the name of one of the hit songs on that album (“Blank Space”), a lyric from that song (“And I'll Write Your Name”), the title of an unpublished novel Swift wrote as a teenager (“A Girl Named Girl”), and the term for Swift's random acts of kindness—such as writing a check to help pay off the student loans of a fan who made a video mashup of Swift having fun with her friends (“Swiftmas”).

The “1989” application only specifies use of term in a “stylized” form, meaning that, when Tim Burton's original Batman film is re-released, producers probably won't get hit with a lawsuit for boasting it was the highest-grossing film of 1989. Unless they replace Prince's original soundtrack with Swift songs and don't check with Swift first.

Nevertheless, intellectual property lawyer Fiona McBride told the BBC that convincing the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to rule in Swift's favor isn't guaranteed. “While she may well be granted protection for a stylized use of the number 1989 on her album and distinctive terms such as "Swiftmas," it will be very difficult to completely monopolize a song lyric and prevent others from using it," McBride said.

Swift has had good luck in the intellectual property arena so far this year. Last month, a California judge dismissed a copyright infringement lawsuit by an R&B singer who accused Swift of stealing lyrics from one of his songs for her hit “Shake It Off.” In her decision, the judge used a bevvy of Swift's lyrics to produce one of the most memorably clever court documents in ages.

Swift's legal team has been fairly aggressive in enforcing the rights to intellectual property they do hold. After Ronnie Cremer, Swift's childhood guitar teacher, registered the domain name ITaughtTaylorSwift.com, he was hit with a cease-and-desist letter from TAS Rights Management. Similar letters were sent to sellers on the online marketplace Etsy offering products bearing the singer's likeness and song lyrics.

Much of the reaction on Twitter to the news of Swift's applications was largely negative.

Illustration by Max Fleishman

The release was somewhat of a surprise, but apparently a teaser was shown Sunday afternoon in the midst of football games. Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman return in this sequel to the 1996 blockbuster to fight the "resurgence," along with Chris Hemsworth and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Will Smith's character, however, does not return. 

The description:

Using recovered alien technology, the nations of Earth have collaborated on an immense defense program to protect the planet. But nothing can prepare us for the aliens’ advanced and unprecedented force. Only the ingenuity of a few brave men and women can bring our world back from the brink of extinction.

The movie is set to debut June 24. 

Like it or not, we’re careening headlong into the heart of the holiday season, a runaway train bedecked with tinsel, seasonal depression, and fruitcake that nobody is going to eat. We’re betting you’re going to need some down time in between hearing “Jingle Bell Rock” for the thousandth time and navigating apocalyptic political debates with your relatives at the dinner table. Don’t worry; we’ve got your back.

In the tradition of the “12 Days of Christmas,” we’ve dug into our streaming queues and returned with a dozen numerically appropriate selections encompassing, we hope, a little something for everybody. The Dot invites you to grab a quiet moment when you can, settle in under a nice warm blanket, and enjoy a completely platonic, subtext-free version of “Netflix and chill.”

1) The One I Love (Netflix Instant)

We’ll start the celebration off with a trippy mindbender about a troubled married couple who retreat to a secluded woodland estate in the hopes of salvaging their relationship. After Sophie (Elisabeth Moss) has a romantic rendezvous with Ethan (Mark Duplass), things look to be on the mend… but when she mentions the encounter, he insists he doesn’t remember it. After Ethan has a similar strange encounter with Sophie in the guest cottage, the pair begin to suspect there’s more going on than just faulty memories or mind games. This couple’s retreat has been double-booked in a way that would make Rod Serling proud.

Young factory worker Sandra (Marion Cotillard) is in a serious bind. After a nervous breakdown forced her to take some time off from the solar panel production facility where she works, management decided it’d be easier to pay the rest of the workers a bonus to pick up the slack so they can just eliminate her. With a family to support, Sandra’s economic fate now rests in the hands of her 16 co-workers, and she’s got the titular two days and one night to convince them to vote to turn down the bonus and let her keep her job. Two Days, One Night has earned critical raves since premiering at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, with particular praise for Cotillard’s performance. It currently boasts a 97 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Sometimes you just need to return to the classics. Especially if the classics involve eye-gouging, comedic fisticuffs, and a trio of lovable doofuses bumbling through a series of improbable scenarios. Crackle might not be on your radar if you spend most of your screen time on Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu, but Sony’s free streaming service has a few gems worth mining, including over two dozen episodes of classic Stooges. And with episodes stretching across three decades of the Stooges’ long career, there’s something for everybody, regardless of where they fall on the whole Curly vs. Shemp debate. (Just don’t bring Curly Joe into this, or so help me...)

Halo is one of the biggest game franchises of all time, but in spite of several attempts, we still haven’t seen the world of Master Chief brought to life on the big screen. So, until such time as that Steven Spielberg/Showtime Halo TV series materializes, fans will have to make due with things like Forward Unto Dawn, which originated as a five-part webseries designed to hype the release of Halo 4. It follows several cadets at a military training academy, learning how to make war against mankind’s enemy, the Covenant. Unfortunately, their training becomes unexpectedly hands on when the Covenant attacks the academy itself. If you enjoy Forward Unto Dawn and are left craving more live-action Halo, you can check out the follow-up digital feature Halo: Nightfall—executive produced by Sir Ridley Scott, no less—on Amazon Prime if you have the Amazon Showtime subscription.

Chris Rock stars as Andre Allen, a comedian and recovering alcoholic who’s trying to change his image with a serious dramatic movie role. And nobody could blame him for wanting to prove his chops, since his career at that point is resting on the shoulders of a hit franchise where he plays a wisecracking cop in a bear suit. An interview with a New York Times reporter (Rosario Dawson) to promote his new film soon becomes a crosstown odyssey of personal introspection and brutal honesty, leading Andre to face down his demons and the nagging fears that he might truly be nothing more than the joke people have come to regard him as. Top Five is rocking an 86 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it was praised by many as a career highlight for Rock.

Composer Stephen Sondheim has been responsible for some of the most memorable Broadway musicals of all time, having earned a garage-full of awards for shows such as Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. This 2013 HBO documentary revisits Sondheim’s long career by focusing on the stories behind six of his most famous songs: “Something’s Coming” from West Side Story, “Opening Doors” from Merrily We Roll Along, “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music, “I’m Still Here” from Follies, “Being Alive” from Company, and “Sunday” from Sunday in the Park With George. I’m detracting points for nothing from Sweeney Todd, but that’s just ’cause I love that damn show.

Writer/director Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges is still one of my favorite films of all time, so I was understandably excited when his next flick, Seven Psychopaths, came down the pike in 2012. Like In Bruges, it’s a mix of action and dark comedy, featuring a stellar cast that includes Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, and Tom Waits. Farrell is Marty Faranan, an L.A. screenwriter struggling to finish his latest script, titled Seven Psychopaths. In between running a con where he kidnaps dogs and returns them to their owners for a reward, Marty’s buddy Billy (Rockwell) tries to help crack Marty’s writer’s block, eventually entangling them with both a real-life killer known as the “Jack of Diamonds” and violent gangster/dog lover Charlie Costello (Harrellson). Things only get more complicated from there. (And while you’re at it, In Bruges is still on Netflix, so we recommend a double feature.)

Partnering the Wachowskis (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas) and J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5), Sense8 is one of Netflix’s most ambitious original productions yet, a globe-hopping science-fiction adventure that explores notions of identity, gender, politics, and religion—you know, the little stuff. The series follows eight strangers, scattered around the world, who suddenly become psychically linked, able to access each other’s memories, skills, and experiences. The Wachowskis’ projects are often something of a mess, but they’re never short on ambition, and Straczynski’s experience with serialized science-fiction storytelling definitely seems to have been a good pairing with their sensibilities. It will be fascinating to see how the storylines of Sense8 play out in future seasons. (And there will be at least one more: Netflix renewed the show for a second season this past summer.)

If you’re a fan of slow-burn psychological horror, Brad Anderson’s Session 9 is probably already part of your movie collection. But if you’ve never seen it, settle in, flip off the lights, and let this tale of terror, paranoia, and subtly encroaching evil seep in and mess with your head. Filmed on location inside the abandoned Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts, Session 9 follows a crew (including David Caruso and Josh Lucas) given a week to strip asbestos out of the facility. The longer they’re inside the place, however, the more they’re overwhelmed by both their personal demons and the specters of the building’s dark history. Many of the film’s unsettling locales were shot as they were found, and the weight of the trauma infused into the bones of Danvers can be felt in every frame of the film. All of it leads up to what is hands-down my favorite horror movie ending of all time, a disturbing commentary on the banality of evil and the ways it can creep into “the weak and the wounded.”

The late, fiercely talented Heath Ledger first became a blip on the radar for many courtesy of 10 Things I Hate About You, a teen rom-com update of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. It all starts when new-kid-at-school Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) falls for the lovely Bianca, only to learn that her father has forbidden her from dating—unless her sister Kat (Julia Stiles) has a date as well. (Admittedly, some Shakespearean concepts work better than others when dropped into modern times.) So Cameron sets in motion an elaborate scheme to get Kat to fall for Patrick Verona (Ledger), the handsome bad boy who is rumored to have once set a state trooper on fire. At first blush, it should never, ever work, but therein lies the fun. Let the games begin.

The British cult hit Doctor Who has been running, off and on, for over 50 years now, so it’s understandably intimidating to find an appropriate diving-in point for newbies. There’s plenty of fun to be had exploring the show’s earlier years, but it’s probably a lot easier for the uninitiated to simply choose one of the modern Doctors and run with it, so in the spirit of this list, allow us to suggest Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor...whose tenure, appropriately enough, begins in an episode entitled “The Eleventh Hour.” It’s not an episode that’s likely to make any top 10 lists, but it’s Matt Smith being charming and silly, in introduces two of my favorite companions (Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill as Amy Pond and Rory, respectively), it gives you the bare bones of what you need to know about the Who-niverse, and it includes a lovely callback to the show’s long history in a killer climax. Geronimo!

Destin Daniel Cretton adapted and directed this 2013 drama based on his own 2009 short film, both inspired by his own experiences working at a group facility for teens. The title refers to one such institution, a group home for troubled youths. Grace (Brie Larson) spends her days trying to counsel kids who’ve faced some of the worst life has to offer even before they can legally vote, and who are now on the cusp of leaving the system and having to fend for themselves. Short Term 12 follows Grace’s relationships with her charges, her soon-to-be husband, and her own inner demons. The film premiered at the 2013 South by Southwest Film Festival and has received near-unanimous critical praise, currently sitting at 99 percent Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

The clip showcases the 37-year-old rehearsing his singing and dancing to the song with at least 20 backup dancers syncing to the choreography. While the seemingly small practice room is packed, it proves no trouble for the group, whose moves are strong, popping, and perfectly matched up.

K-pop idols often release dance-practice videos as a tribute to fans—whether to give them something new to fawn over or as an expression of gratitude for supporting their newest track. For Psy it could be both. The music video for "Daddy" has accumulated almost 57 million views, and also earned Psy a first-place win this week on Inkigayo, one of Korea's most popular weekly music programs.

With official music videos, the theme or concept is usually emphasized, so the choreography isn't always as prominent. These are fan favorites because they're a clean shot of the stars showing off often spectacular new dance moves.

If you liked Psy's video, here are some examples of dance practices from EXID and BTS, two idol groups challenging Psy on the Inkigayo charts.

The amount of secrecy surrounding Star Wars: The Force Awakens just days before its release is at an all-time high, but Andy Serkis managed to share one major tidbit with fans before the movie hits theaters.

That tinfoil theory about an evil Jar Jar Binks? Despite what J.J. Abramssaid on the matter, Serkis confirmed to Conan O’Brien that yes, it’s totally true. Have you seen how much the two look alike?

The only thing greater than Darth Jar Jar is seeing just how expertly Serkis can slip into Supreme Leader Jar Jar Snoke. It’s almost as if he’s had a lot of practice in perfecting it.

Representatives from 195 countries approved a landmark agreement to address the growing issue of climate change, but at least one Republican presidential candidate wants to bring that agreement to a screeching halt.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is surging in the polls in Iowa, but it's his climate-change hearing in the U.S. Senate that’s currently raising Trevor Noah’s eyebrows. Cruz not only denied that global warming exists, he manipulated the available data so that it supported his conclusions. On Monday night's Daily Show, Noah, who already went after Cruz once before, demonstrated just how silly Cruz's strategy would be in other situations.

“Ted Cruz is using a small piece of the truth to misrepresent the whole truth," Noah said. "It’s like if somebody told you that Star Wars is a story all about kissing his sister. Now that did happen at a certain point in the movie, but that’s not the whole movie and it would be misleading to say that.”

Can women be funny? Can women have it all? Can women write?

These are questions you won’t hear discussed when you listen to The BinderCast, a new podcast for women and gender non-conforming writers. Its primary focus is, refreshingly, the craft and business of writing.

Hosted by Lux Alptraum and Leigh Stein—the organizers behind BinderCon, a conference and community for women and gender non‑conforming writers—the podcast brings the resources of a vast community right to your fingertips. Or rather, your ears.

“Oftentimes when we talk about women’s writing, women’s voices, and the female experience it gets flattened into this kind of stereotype,” Alptraum told the Daily Dot. With that in mind, the hosts consciously selected writers from diverse fields and backgrounds for their first season. From TV writer Aparna Nancherla to poet Morgan Parker to memoirist Jillian Lauren, no two guests bring quite the same perspective to the table.

Alptraum and Stein set a tone that's practical but thoughtful, never hesitating to pleasantly disagree. “Leigh and I work well together because we’re very different,” said Alptraum. “It’s interesting to see [which guests] we have a rapport with.”

Many of their guests speak with a disarming mix of humility and confidence. They are eager to share their experiences and knowledge, but never speak condescendingly or adopt didactic tones. “I haven’t always had control over the experiences I’ve had in my life, but I have control over how I tell the story of them,” says guest Jillian Lauren in episode 2.

Alptraum and Stein are hopeful that the podcast can extend the work they’ve done at BinderCon and bring resources to a larger writing community. Now women who live in cities far from the usual BinderCon locations of Los Angeles and New York can experience the depth of a panel conversation in a more intimate and immediate way. 

And, Alptraum poses, in the spirit of inclusion, even men can benefit from the podcast. "Our conference is not open to cisgender men [but] men can benefit from being exposed to the voices of women," she said. "So the podcast is also a way for men to understand and appreciate and see what we’re doing."

The primary aim of the podcast, as Alptraum sees it, is to continue building community and spaces for underrepresented voices. Rather than dwelling on issues of inequity, Alptraum and Stein are working to build a framework for something better.

"I don’t like to sit around and complain," she explained. "I’d rather take action and I’d rather take positive action. If we feel like voices aren’t being featured or highlighted, we’re going to do it ourselves."

The BinderCast is available on iTunes and Soundcloud. New episodes are released on Tuesdays.

Photos via BinderCon

It’s truly something to watch a master impressionist at work, but it’s almost just as entertaining to witness a terrible impression.

Both Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey have their fair share of celebrity impressions under their belt from their Saturday Night Live days, but going outside of their comfort zone is another story. Fey’s bad Robert DeNiro impression led to a game of First Impressions, in which they have to read random phrases as various celebrities—with no prep time.

While they’re both delightful, their cracking up is nearly as great as the questionable impressions themselves. And Fallon and Fey are able to guess every one, so that’s about as much as you can ask.

Screengrab via The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon/YouTube

A new era of weed TV is upon us!

Amazon announced Monday that a new dramedy called Highland, starring Margaret Cho, is in development. The series stars the standup (who is very outspoken about her weed use in her personal life) as a woman who moves back in with her pot dispensary-owning family after spending some time in court-ordered rehab. 

Episodes will each be an hour long, with Cho as executive producer and Liz Sarnoff (of Deadwood and Lost) writing. 

So get your lighters ready, we're in for a dank 2016.

H/T Flavorwire | Photo via matsuyuki/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)

Nothing is ever going to top the hope and excitement you get from John Williams’s Star Wars theme when you finally seeThe Force Awakens, but the cast's a cappella rendition of the theme comes pretty close.

Jimmy Fallon and the Roots wrangled most of the main cast of The Force Awakens for an a cappella medley of different iconic themes, including the Main Title, the Imperial March, and the Force Theme. John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Gwendoline Christie, Lupita Nyong’o, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford belt out their best bahs and bums and take their vocals to the max. (Still, someone is definitely missing here.) If for some reason the whole Star Wars thing doesn’t work out, these folks could easily start a wonderful a cappella group.

There’s a real excitement in the air. Have you felt it? Only a few more days! 

Imagine opening your door to find a gaggle of your favorite YouTubers singing “Silent Night” on your stoop. That’s exactly what happens in this collaboration video, organized by the Mormon Church in celebration of Christmas.

Last year several Mormon and religious YouTubers banded together to perform the world’s largest nativity scene with 1,039 people. Posted on the Piano Guys’ channel and loosely associated with the Mormon Church’s #sharethegift campaign, the video garnered more than 10 million views. 

“It was such a great experience for me and my family,” said Peter Hollens, who was involved in the nativity last year. “I was so thrilled to help them come up with this year's caroling idea.”

For 2015, the church decided to keep the Mormon momentum going even longer, teaming up with social media celebrities for a 12 Days of Christmas promotion as part of the #ASaviorIsBorn campaign. Each day a different celebrity posted a special Christmas video that also directed their fans to  #ASaviorIsBorn, the church’s own holiday video, which has racked up 2.3 million views since the end of November. The series culminated with the caroling clip, posted on the Shaytards’ channel to their 3.9 million subscribers, and featuring YouTubers like Hollens, Alex Boye, Tiffany Alvord, and the Gardiner Sisters.

The majority of the Mormon YouTubers involved were musical acts, but prankster Stuart Edge also got in on the campaign with a heartwarming video where he surprises a family friend with Christmas decorations and the money to buy a memorial marker for her husband’s grave.

“When the church asked me to be part of [this] campaign, her family immediately came to mind,” said Edge, who’d previously bought the grieving family a new bed for their home. “It was a personal video to make. It was hard to put something out there so personal and share it with the world.”

“I think there’s a huge trend of people getting disenchanted with certain religions,” said Hollens. “If I was the Catholic Church, I think it’s obvious why they put in a very liberal minded Pope. They need that, because they're losing their younger demographic.”

Plus, getting a religious stamp of approval can benefit the creators as well. For Hollens, his Christmas video has been the fastest-viewed video by his audience of all time, jumping over a million in less than a week.

“I’m just honored to be a part of it,” he said.

Screengrab via Shaytards/YouTube

BY AARON PRUNER

Netflix found the perfect time to begin the promotion for the new season of “House of Cards” and it was during Tuesday night’s (Dec. 15) Republican Presidential Debate.

While the candidates consistently attacked each other’s policy and berated each other with shouted insults and name calling, a message from Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) alleviated the debate chaos, if only for a few seconds.

Here, President Underwood’s advertisement showcases the greatness of our country and pledges comfort and safety to American families from sea to shining sea. Putting people before politics, the commercial highlights Underwood’s refusal to settle. By the looks of things, this TV President is only getting started.

It’s the perfect climate for Underwood’s return and it won’t be too much longer of a wait before Francis and Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) return to continue following their onslaught … err, leadership.

“House of Cards” returns for its fourth season on Friday, March 4, 2016 on Netflix.

Screengrab via House of Cards/Twitter

Twenty-one years after "All I Want for Christmas Is You" first soared to the top of the charts and changed Christmas forever, Mariah Carey has partnered with Funny Or Die and Verizon's Go90 streaming service for an eight-day holiday extravaganza. 

They're calling it Mariah's Holiday Sketchtacular, and a new sketch will drop every day from Dec. 15-22. 

"These videos are fun, festive and full of holiday cheer," she told the Hollywood Reporter. "I had an absolute blast making them." 

H/T Tubefilter | Screengrab via Funny Or Die

“Is this racist?”

That's not exactly the sentiment a director wants to hear on set after weeks of planning for a complicated production, but that’s exactly what happens in the newest episode of RocketJump: The Show, Hulu’s series following the YouTube-based production company as it make its most ambitious short projects ever. What's unique is how RocketJump handles the situation in this episode.

Creators called out for racism in their videos usually apologize on social media. Sometimes they remove the offending videos. Sometimes they stand by them. Regardless, the damage is done, and the content has already circulated to their fans, with the potential to live on in re-uploads. What’s different about the RocketJump episode is what happens after they realize that they’ve inadvertently created something racist.

In the show, the creators stop themselves and document that choice and the following decisions. During the production process, a costuming choice meant to show a group of abductees who have escaped experimentation on an island went from a scrubs-meets-cyborg aesthetic to something resembling Native and Polynesian cultures.

Midway through filming, Anthony Burch, the show’s head writer, questions the intentions of the costume he's wearing, but it’s not until they look at the footage a week later that the crew decides to reshoot and change course. What follows is a frank discussion among the RocketJump crew about intention, racism, and people’s blind spots.

“I have started diversity initiatives for the video-game culture, and after six hours in that [costume], only then did I go, ‘wait a minute,’” Burch says in the episode.

In the end, RocketJump reshoots the scene with adjusted costumes, ties up some plot holes, and produces a satirical look at vloggers' quest for subscribers through ridiculous circumstances. For the team, it was important to step back and show not only the resolution but also the process.

"I hope this episode can show that no matter how many decisions stack up on one another, or how late in the process you are, you always have to step back and look at the final product with fresh eyes," said director Ben Waller. “It's important to ask, ‘What am I saying with this film?’ The ability to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has a completely different experience than you is vital to filmmaking, and ultimately contributes to the strongest product possible.”

RocketJump creator Freddie Wong put the responsibility of filmmakers more bluntly.

"These days I've noticed people tend to decry others for being too ‘politically correct,’ confusing the hot-button issue du jour with ‘basic human empathy,’" Wong said. “I think it all boils down to a very basic and fundamental human responsibility to not be assholes to each other.”

RocketJump: The Show airs Wednesdays on Hulu.

Image courtesy of RocketJump.

The Daily Dot is celebrating Woman Crush Wednesday, better known as #WCWonTwitter andInstagram, by highlighting female creators onYouTube whose work we admire.

It was the month before Christmas and all throughout YouTube, all the creators were vlogging, even PJtheKick.

With the end of 2015 nearly upon us, it seemed most apt to not only honor one, but three #WCW who this month helmed the video trend known as Vlogmas: powerhouses Zoella, Sprinkle of Glitter, and Tanya Burr.

For Zoella (aka Zoe Suggs), the most popular beauty creator in the U.K., Vlogmas has been focused on providing festive holiday tutorials, lookbooks, gift ideas, wrapping tips, and highly asked-about collaborations to her 9.6 million subscribers. Each video is beautifully shot and wrapped up for her fans as a video thank-you for giving her a year of NY Times bestselling books and a 2015 Teen Choice Award. For makeup artist Tanya Burr and founder of the Sprinkle of Glitter empire Louise Pentland, Vlogmas has been a way to connect more deeply with their fans on a more frequent basis.

In the last 16 days, each of these beauty creators has created winter hauls that have in turn pointed their millions of subscribers to shops and beauty lines for the holidays. This year, Love Magazine and Deadpool both took a cue from Vlogmas in releasing their own video advent calendars on YouTube.

So while the rest of us jot down resolutions and reminiscence into a glass of spiked cider about the past 12 months, Vlogmas will continue to to thrive as a time capsule of the best moments of the year. And to the three women who continue to inspire through YouTube, happy holidays to all and to all an unplugged, social media-less night.

Screengrabs via Tanya Burr, Zoella, and Sprinkle of Glitter | Remix by Fernando Alfonso III