He's won Mr. Olympia seven times, been the governor of California, married a Kennedy, and is one of the most recognizable actors of his generation.

So on Arnold Schwarzenegger's birthday Tuesday, what on Earth could the social news site Reddit have given the 66-year-old to inspire him to take a pen in his massive hand and write this heartfelt letter?

Nothing, actually—except for a few kind words and best wishes from Reddit's r/fitness community.

"Thanks for being the greatest lifting inspiration to so many young people," zuko_for_firelord commented. "Keep being the great man you are."

This is the greatness of Schwarzenegger, who has become one of the most beloved and involved r/fitness community members.

Under his official Reddit account, u/GovSchwarzenegger, Ahnold has dropped in on r/fitness to discuss dieting tips and how to motivate yourself to work out. Two months ago, he confirmed a story in r/TIL ("today I learned") about a dinner he had with Andre the Giant in 1983. When Schwarzenegger tried to pay for the meal, Andre lifted the former Mr. Universe like a baby and placed him back in his seat.

On July 11 Schwarzenegger popped into r/fitness once again to fire back against haters criticizing a cardio routine featured on schwarzenegger.com.

In celebration of Schwarzenegger's birthday, redditor jonthrei shared this touching story of when his dad met the Terminator.

Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr

In the past four years, Chicago’s Califone, fronted by principal songwriter Tim Rutili, has been quietly working on a follow-up to its 2009 album, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers. Dead Oceans will release the album in September. As a preview, the band created a pretty genius music video for the album’s first single, “Stitches.”

"Instead of writing from my balls and brain, this time I wrote from the nerves, skin, and heart," Rutili says of the album.

Califone circumvented a director, a script, and an hours-long video shoot, instead working with programmer Jeff Garneau and filmmaker Braden King and using Tumblr for the video’s imagery. The project, called Califone.Stitches, is “an ever-changing 'music video' that creates itself on the fly using imagery and animated GIFs drawn from a curated set of blogs within the Tumblr ecosystem.”

Once you launch the video, the viewer is instructed to “turn up the volume while we gather the ghosts.”

What follows is an eerily beautiful parade of dead bats, sinewy exoskeletons, and other somewhat gothic representations of nerves, skin, and heart that float by from right to left, soundtracked by Califone’s haunting harmonies—at least on my initial viewing.

Each viewing generates different black-and-white images—an emotive slideshow of the darker corners of Tumblr (some of the images, like the one below, are NSFW)—which you could get lost in for hours.

Musicians have certainly used Tumblr as a promotional tool, but Tumblr-sourcing a music  video is an interesting approach. You can click on any image and leave a message, reinforcing the interactive aspect, and letting fans stitch it together.

Screengrab via Califone.Stitches/Tumblr

On the surface, the VlogBrothers' new subscription service may not look like the kind of thing that can change the face of YouTube. But Subbable represents a fundamentally different approach to the business of YouTube: It’s about people—not pageviews.

Subbable is a crowdfunding platform that offers various rewards to subscribers for their contributions. Unlike Kickstarter, its closest comparison point, the service is focused on sustaining creative projects, not creating standalone products. While Subbable’s designed to support everything from webcomics to novels, its origins are very much a reaction to YouTube culture and its recent, ready-for-TV approach to content.

Few have been more outspoken about—or are more uniquely positioned to address—YouTube’s emphasis on premium content than Hank Green.

“I'm getting a little bit worried that in the future, only the big stuff will be able to support itself, and 99 percent of the people will watch 1 percent of the content, and the 1 percent of the content will be the same, like, boring stuff that's currently on television,” Hank said in March, “and there will be no new innovation and no new cool things happening, and there will be rich people who have a vested interest in keeping it that way.”

Since launching his first channel seven years ago with his brother, acclaimed Young Adult novelist John Green, he’s been at the center of YouTube's vlogging community. With the motto DFTBA (Don’t Forget To Be Awesome), the two have culled a substantial fanbase, known as Nerdfighters, and started numerous side projects that have tapped directly into YouTube's homegrown culture for success—including YouTube's major conference, VidCon, which opens today in Anaheim, Calif.

With Subbable, his message is not just that the community of YouTube doesn't have to end, but that the community of YouTube is only the beginning. Ahead of VidCon, the Daily Dot reached out to Hank to learn more.

What ideal existing project would you love to see come to Subbable?

I really love this podcast, Hardcore History. It's the only thing that makes me /want/ to go for a run, so I can listen to that guy tell me all about the Mongols or the Russian Front in WWII or whatever. I would love to support it, but there's just no way to do it. Any project like that, where people love the content so much the /want/ to pay for it, that's who we can't wait to work with.

You've basically said that you don't want to change the content but the model. What makes you have confidence this model can work?

Well, nerdily enough, we did research. We did a test case with the Brain Scoop (our zoology and taxidermy show) and were able to raise about 10 times what we were making from advertising (with no perks). I talked to other people who had similar systems (BlameSocietyFilms does this) and see how it worked for them (very well), and finally we asked our community in a survey if they would pay for content and, if so, how much. They said they would, and the numbers were impressive.

That doesn't mean it's not a risky bet. It's a low-margin business, and this is easily 10 times bigger (in terms of startup capital) than anything else we've ever funded. So it's scary and exciting, and I really hope it can sustain not just itself but a lot of amazing content.

If a project can't fund itself through Subbable, what happens to the project?

The creator tries everything else they can to keep it alive. If they can't, it dies and the subscriptions get cancelled :-(

Let's suppose that Welcome to Night Vale comes to Subbable, and fans give it all their money. But then Carlos and Cecil break up in the course of the narrative, and heartbroken fans refuse to give any more money. How do we keep crowdfunding in-progress creative projects on Subbable from turning into crowdfunding the narratives of those projects?

I think being beholden to your viewers is much more creatively freeing than being beholden to advertisers or granting agencies or whatever. If your viewers don't like your content anymore, if you piss them off, then yeah, you lose your audience and your funding. That's the same way it's always been. Also, I would LOVE to have Welcome to Night Vale as part of Subbable. Are you listening, Joe?

Would you say YouTube's single biggest challenge moving forward is just to get out of its own way? And how can Subbable help with that?

I don't spend my days in San Bruno, so I really can't say. But if I had to guess, I'd say YouTube needs to give its employees, as well as its creators, more freedom to innovate.  

But YouTube has great reasons for doing what they do. I think there are a lot of creators who could benefit from a new way of thinking about monetization and success. I'm not making a platform for YouTube or even for YouTubers—just for the people who think it'll work for them.

What about for video creators?

The biggest challenge is always how to maintain and grow your audience. Of course, that's been the case since the first poet, and it will remain the case forever.

One of the criticisms of crowdfunding, especially with projects like the Veronica Mars Kickstarter, is that fans don't really receive joint ownership in the stories they invest in, so if the story goes downhill, there's no way to really "refund" the customer. Is this a misunderstanding of how fans' emotional investment in shows operates?

It's insane to me that anyone would say that the people who gave to the VMars Kickstarter don't feel invested in or have a sense of ownership in the project. The idea that you have to have a financial stake, or be on a board of directors to be a part of something is infuriating. This new kind of relationship between creator and community is fascinating, and no one understands it particularly well, but there's no doubt that it is almost always an extremely rewarding relationship for all parties involved.

You guys would consider applications to sponsor fanfic?

Fanfic is content like everything else is content. If people love it, it fits our mission. As to the copyright concerns... that's for the creator to work out.

Do you have tips for how a creative team using Subbable can make a strategic initiative to help them reach long-term funding goals?

Probably someday; at the moment, our advice for Subbable creators is the same as our advice for all creators: Imagine your audience complexly and be creative.

Advice to anyone applying to Subbable?

Don't be surprised if you don't hear back for a while... We are a very small team.

Illustration by Fernando Alfonso III

Something is going to happen on Sept. 24—we’re just not sure what yet.

That’s when Pronunciation Book’s eerie 77-day countdown finally ends. The once-quirky but banal YouTube channel has turned into a creepy, startling, and cryptic mystery, and sleuths from around the Web have created an entire 77 Day Wiki devoted to information-gathering and guesswork.

For reasons too numerous to list here, we believe the countdown is leading to a reboot of Battlestar Galactica, while Geekosystem has made a compelling case for a Halo connection. But there are an endless competing theories, many from 4chan, some more plausible than others.

We’ve gathered our favorite alternate ideas from the long and growing list below.

1) The Ecuadorian Coup

One theory holds that Pronunciation Book is counting down to a governmental overthrow and a possible presidential assassination attempt. Yikes!

2) This is My Milwaukee (TIMM)

TIMM is an alternative reality game (ARG) that purports to be a tourism guide for the city of Milwaukee but is actually a fabrication of Milwaukee "places" mixed with puzzles, cryptic messages, and other mysteries. Several references during the countdown have some viewers believing it's a continuation of the game.

3) Agents for S.H.I.E.L.D.

It hasn't escaped many people's notice that Marvel's much-anticipated TV show also premieres Sept. 24. However, the bigger question is, given that Marvel already has perhaps the biggest buzz of the year around the show that brought The Avengers’ Agent Coulson back from the dead, why would they need a cryptic viral campaign buildup?

4) The speaker was brainwashed by the military

From the Wiki: "He might have been under surveillance by the military and might have possibly been under some sort of technique in which he is brainwashed by making YouTube videos in a room where he’s probably monitored. The military has probably stopped reviewing his videos recently (Thus they still are titled “How to pronounce 77”) so he’s been able to speak within the videos to his audience. Rather than what he’s been doing originally which was leaving cryptic messages."  You heard it here first, folks.

5) Battlefield 4

Redditor jablome has a theory that the countdown is to the beta release date of a video game called Battlefield 4. "Lots of the words on the wiki page like riverboat, gasman, etc can be cross referenced with that. It also seems to have a war theme like the video game. " Keen eyes, jablome! Now if we could just figure out why the countdown would be pointing to the beta release.

6) Nirvana is back

In a jaw-dropping bit of acronym-juggling, one wiki editor found that a list of names referenced in Pronunciation Book seemed to be referring back to a Nirvana album released on, wait for it, Sept. 24, 1991.  Of course, the album is the dubiously titled Nevermind, so maybe we should.

7) Imminent global extermination

The "World Population Reduction Theory" suggests that Edward Snowden was just the beginning of a vast global conspiracy that will end in mandatory population control. Wait, did we say this was one of our "favorite" theories?

8) The Jonestown Massacre

One frankly chilling theory posits that the videos have a direct connection to the few survivors of the horrifying Jonestown massacre. Could a rare survivor from the 1978 cult suicides be trying to send us a message?

9) Machete Kills

The Rodriguez/Tarantino double film feature Grindhouse featured numerous short trailers for fake movies. One of them, Machete, was so popular that it's finally led to a real movie. Could the countdown be a viral campaign for a cult film favorite? From the Wiki: "Think about it, there’s Guac, tacos, South America, a conspiracy, someone in jail...just sayin’."  Of course, the release date for Machete Kills isn't until October, but why not?

10) This is only one half of the story

What if the reason we don't know what's going on is that somewhere else in the bowels of YouTube, or perhaps lurking on the rest of the Internet, there's another countdown, filling in the unanswered questions, and, perhaps, pointing to something even larger than what we already think we know?

11) Insert video game franchise here

In addition to Battlefield 4, the list of proposed video game tie-ins surrounding the countdown seem to be endless. Mass Effect, Minecraft, Guild Wars, RuneScape, Dota, Smite, Skyrim, Starcraft, Pokemon, Destiny, and a new Tom Clancy game have all been floated as having possible connections to Pronunciation Book. And we've undoubtedly missed a few.

12) The Hunger Games

Though it seems the most unlikely, an early countdown reference to "tension between the Districts" seems to have put many theory-makers onto the trail of a Hunger Games-related viral game. It wouldn't be the first time the franchise has tried to go interactive with their marketing, but it's a longshot that they'd choose this route to do it.

13) Microsoft is joining the National Security Agency

One 4chan thread posited that the numbers linked back to something called the Business Data Catalog, a feature of Microsoft SharePoint. Could Microsoft be implicated in a larger government conspiracy?

14) The Russian Mafia is taking over New Orleans

Among the ideas floated in 4chan's enormous info-gathering document is the idea that Pronunciation Book is referring to post-Katrina Louisiana when it references things like "escape from L.A."  Current local rumor has it that the Russian Mafia has invaded the town, which could be a tie-in to Pronunciation Book's repeated references to someone named "Don." And why wouldn't fearful Louisianans make a stealthy YouTube video series warning their fellow Orleanians to be wary?

15) Worldwide economic crisis

Several theorists have speculated that the countdown could be reference to an impending bank crisis. The Pronunciation Book's reference to a "combat lien" (or bank debt) seems to be the basis for this theory—but let's hope they're wrong!

16) The Syrian rebellion

Many of the Pronunciation Book videos seem to point towards the ongoing political unrest occurring in Syria. More than a few viewers are convinced the Syrian rebels may have something big planned—though why they'd take time out of their busy insurgency to write and edit videos about it on a three-year-old YouTube channel is anyone's guess.

17) Start your airplane engines

The Aerospace Defense Supply Chain Conference takes place Sept. 24 in Massachusetts. This could mean anything, but at least one 4chan-er is speculating that it could be linked to the testing of a nuclear power plant on that same day. Um, scary?

18) Renunciation Book

A 77 days countdown blog, Into the Deep, notes that this YouTube channel made in 2011, apparently in response to Pronunciation Book, has only one video—and it's scary as hell. Could this video be telling us what's going to happen in September? Let's hope not.

19) Pronunciation Book hasn't changed

Taken from a YouTube comment: "He is just giving an example of how to use the number in a sentence. is that so hard to understand?"  Well played, Pronunciation Book. Well played.

20) Edward Snowden is Pronunciation Book

The theories about a possible NSA connection to the countdown are everywhere. Conspiracy theorists have floated everything from links to Obama legislation to military hackers and enraged Ron Paul supporters. But Into the Deep goes a step further, suggesting that Pronunciation Book could be tied to Snowden's "leak" itself:

“[B]etween 2005 and 2010 contact could have been made between Snowden and PB, information was given to PB to leak and leave clues in his videos. While Snowden broke the initial story in June 2013, PB would provide further - potentially more damaging - leaks in September. The supposedly failed ‘mission’ mentioned throughout the channel's history could well be the botched leak attempt in 2008, with Chief, Don  and the others being the aliases of others connected to Snowden.”

Could Snowden have been the key all along? Probably not, but it's fun to guess.

Photo via cbrodie/deviantART

Netflix must be wishing it had Ensign Hoshi Sato's Universal Translator right about now.

The streaming video service is pullingStar Trek III: The Search For Spock from its U.S. offerings until it can make sure the subtitles for scenes in the Vulcan and Klingon languages are dead on, Radio Times reports.

Rather than switching to horribly dubbed versions of the dialogue—a good call since anyone who takes a dub over subtitles should be cast asunder—Netflix reckons it'll take about a week to fix the translations. Presumably it'll need to hotfoot it to the nearest Star Trek convention to ask the first person with pointy ears what "kreyla" means (it's a type of Vulcan biscuit, gang).

It's nice that Netflix cares enough about the accuracy in translation. It really is. Here's hoping the company can dedicate some of its resources to fixing the subtitles in the fifth season of Friday Night Lights (a few episodes have seriously terrible subtitles) and fixing its caption writers' questionable math skills.

H/T Neatorama | Screenshot via RayStyles300/YouTube

If you've ever tried to share your Netflix account with anyone, you know that things can get a little hairy when you drill down into the personal recommendations. It's taken the company a while, but Netflix has finally decided that your interest in low-budget cerebral cult horror films from the ’80s, featuring a strong female lead and starring Tara Reid, is no one's business but your own. 

So Netflix added individual user profiles to accounts. Now you can share your account with your whole household without worrying that your housemates will figure out about that time you caved and watched Flowers in the Attic. No longer will your significant other's carefully honed selection of Tarkovsky and Bresson be tainted with recs for "Goofy comedy" because you just had to watch Hot Tub Time Machine. 

Households can now have up to five individual profiles per account, with each profile letting you select your own genre preferences. Customers who go for the new profiles will lose access to all their old recommendation data—but come on, like you didn't want to wipe out all memory of having watched White Chicks anyway.

The individual user profiles will also allow parents to instigate much-coveted parental controls over their children's viewing preferences. There's no word on whether individual profiles are password-protected, but Netflix says they're still tweaking things to find out what works. It's still probably not a good idea to load up your recommendations with soft-core porn if there are prying eyes around.

Many users are worried the change could lead to a per-person pay scale in the future—something that's been on the company's radar for a while. 

The company hopes the user profiles will improve its track record for recommendations. At least now, there'll be fewer Netflix users around to witness your ignominy the next time Netflix decides that what you really need in your life is the entire oeuvre of Rob Zombie.

Photo via moneyblognewz/Flickr

Screenwriter Tommy Swerdlow yesterday took to Reddit for an AMA session that began as promisingly as one can: “I am Tommy Swerdlow, writer of Cool Runnings, Little Giants and Shrek… I wrote them all strung out on heroin.”

I mean, you try writing those movies sober.

Redditors had plenty of questions from that point forward, including “How was Rick Moranis to work with?” and “How 'bout I draw a line down yuh face so it looks like a butt?!” Moranis is now Swerdlow’s brother’s golf partner, and as to the latter query, a sophomoric line from Cool Runnings, Swerdlow replied: “one of the best jokes i ever wrote… very proud of that childish idiocy.”

Much of the conversation, of course, revolved around Swerdlow’s incredible story of smack addiction and getting clean, which involved a $1.2 million heart valve replacement (paid for by the Writers Guild) and “an evening with John Candy that transcends the word ‘party’. He was a beautiful, sweet and painfully insecure comic genius.”

Swerdlow, who has been off heroin since 2007, stopped by not just to ask questions but to promote the crowdfunding of his directorial debut feature, The House Itself. He hopes to expand his well-received original short film The High Road, starring himself and two fellow recovering addicts (and Bill Pullman), into a longer piece. With five days to go on his Indiegogo campaign, he’s raised a little more than $10,000, or a quarter of his goal.

In a video that serves as both pitch and preview, Swerdlow describes The House Itself as a drug movie without drugs, a Waiting for Godot in which, when Godot doesn’t show up, “we go and get Godot.” It’s also “just like Cool Runnings, except instead of four black guys in a bobsled, it’s three white guys in a Ford Contour looking for drugs in South Central Los Angeles.”

There was much interest, of course, in the link between drugs and creativity—especially when it comes to family-friendly entertainment—and Swerdlow had much to say about the topic. He loved heroin because of “the structure. it allows you to be rebellious and at the same time, completely structures your time and focus. it gives you everything and it asks for everything.”

Still, he feels it mostly held him back as an artist.

We just hope he can write another scene as inspiring as this one:

Photo via Mubi.com

We might have a winner for the most racist song of the summer.

It's called "Asian Girlz," and it's the newest song from L.A.-based band Day Above Ground. The band members ogle at model Levy Tran in a cage as she undresses in a room filled with stereotypical Asian items. All the while, the band sings about anal sex and how it's not sure whether she's "17 or 23."

Joe Anselm and Drew Drumm spend a full minute just naming different typical Asian food and pop culture, Asian towns in Southern California, and a chorus of "ra ra ra's," and the song also features other choice lyrics such as “I love your creamy yellow thighs / Ooh your slanted eyes” and “It’s the Year of the Dragon / Ninja pussy I’m stabbin’.”

It makes Brad Paisley and L.L. Cool J's collaboration on "Accidental Racist" look tame in comparison.

The band took the video down after people complained in the comment section, but they put it back up with a new video description.

"Our song 'Asian Girlz' was not written with any malicious, hateful, or hurtful intent," the band wrote. "We know it is racy and does push the boundaries further than other songs out there. Understand that we do not promote or support racism or violence."

However, nobody's buying their apology. The video is overwhelmed with dislikes and comments calling the band racist. And people are now attacking Tran online for agreeing to be in the video in the first place and accusing her of "selling out."

She, in part, apologized for her participation in the video and defended Day Above Ground.

I sincerely apologize to all who feels that I set Asian women back 50 yrs. I know I lost respect from a lot of ppl. It wasn't my intention

— Levy Tran (@MissLevy) July 31, 2013

It was meant to be light hearted and fun. Satirical. They are sweet boys and not at all racist. That is all I will say. I'm sorry once again

— Levy Tran (@MissLevy) July 31, 2013

H/T Gawker | Photo via DAYABOVEGROUND/YouTube

Atari Games’ 1984 release Paperboy was a major success on many gaming platforms. Now, its simplified play and nostalgia value have attracted the attention of developers armed with one of the gaming industry's most advanced tools: the Oculus Rift.

The Oculus Rift, still available only as a developer's kit, is a hackable virtual reality headset. Since its introduction at E3 in June 2012, gamers and developers alike have scrambled to get their hands on a kit, eager to see which segments of reality—and fantasy—they could successfully replicate.

The game Paperboy was one such example. It was brought to life thanks to developers at Globacore—and a stationary bike. 

We discovered that Paperboy isn't alone. Despite its infancy, several interesting projects have already come together thanks to the Oculus Rift, ensuring that a very different world of video games awaits us upon the device's consumer release.

1) Skyrim

One of the most-anticipated titles in recent video game history surely wasn't going to go away without an Oculus Rift treatment! Thanks to Chris Gallizzi, you can now experience what it's like to be a true dragonborn.

2) Black Armor Drone

Surely you have wondered what a modern-day military attack or surveillance would be like. Erik Torkel Danielsson, cofounder of Intuitive Aerial, combined his company's black armor drone with the VR device.

3) Vertigo Simulator

Have you ever been at a stratospheric height, looked down at the Earth, and become upset that the sight didn't sicken you to the point of immobility? Thanks to Inition's "vertigo simulator," that dream can become a (virtual) reality!

4) Team Fortress 2

In a March update to its popular title, Valve actually developed a "VR Mode." As a result, upon the Oculus Rift's consumer release, players will be able to experience hassle-free gameplay through the eternal battle between RED and BLU.

5) Super Mario Bros.

Paperboy isn't the only classic game to undergo a complete virtual overhaul. At the Culture Hack Scotland conference in 2013, fans of gaming's most popular face got to see everything from question blocks to pipes from the hero's point-of-view.

6) Peripheral Vision

A popular hack for the Oculus Rift device wasn't for a certain game but rather for the headset itself! Caleb of Hackaday fame demonstrates how the addition of small LED lights greatly improves a player's peripheral vision.

7) Minecraft

Are you tired of your head always being round? Join the square-headed characters in Minecraft thanks to a hack developed by Martyn of InTheLittleWood.

8) Wicked Paradise

You knew that there had to be porn; modern technology cannot exist unless someone uses it for adult entertainment. Wicked Paradise promises to be a game in which you can do everything from ogle desirable people in a bar to have full-on sex. Could this be the beginning of the end of online dating as we know it?

9) Guillotine

All of us have wanted to experience the guillotine. After all, a medieval-style blade to the back of the neck is quite a thrill. Unfortunately, there is far too much messy cleanup and little chance of survival. Thanks to a project born at the Exile Game Jam, you can now experience what King Louis XVI's final moments were like.

H/T to Gizmodo / Screengrab via USEGAMERStv/YouTube

AwesomenessTV has created a teen empire on YouTube.

Founded by veteran TV producer Brian Robbins, AwesomenessTV recruited just about every new kid on the block to create a sprawling video network that encompasses more than 70,000 channels. It’s like The Mickey Mouse Club for the YouTube generation: programming featuring and intended for kids.

In a little over a year, AwesomenessTV has acquired an astounding 20 million subscribers and 1.2 billion views. That audience acquisition resulted in a reported $33 million deal with Dreamworks Animation earlier this year.

AwesomenessTV made the leap to TV on July 1 with a sketch comedy show on Nickelodeon that serves as a highlight reel of the network’s burgeoning roster, and this weekend the company is one of the main sponsors of VidCon, the VlogBrothers' YouTube conference.

But just who are these kids, and is there a Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus among them?

These are the stars your little siblings and tweens are following.
 

1) Bethany Mota

GIF via Tumblr

Age: 17
Before AwesomenessTV: YouTube's MacBarbie07
Tween star power: More than 2 million subscribers on YouTube
TV potential: Medium. Beth is a fashionista who does haul videos and collects make-up and clothes. She is one of the cohosts of IMO, Awesomeness TV’s teenage version of The View. She could eventually move to an adult The View like... The View, or to a makeover show.

2) Gracie Dzienny

Photo via Nickelodeon

Age: 17
Before AwesomenessTV: Nickelodeon star on the show Supah Ninjas
Tween star power: 51,000 Twitter followers
TV potential: Medium. Gracie is already an actress on a children’s TV show, and she’s Mota’s cohost on IMO. Her YouTube channel isn’t as popular as the others, so she’d need to do more to stand out.

3) Meaghan Dowling

Photo via Tumblr

Age: 18
Before AwesomenessTV: Running the popular Twitter account @TeenThings
Tween star power: High. Meaghan understands exactly what tweens and teens want to hear about, and what they’re feeling. And she captures it on her Twitter beautifully.
TV Potential: Medium. She’s relatable. Cute, but not intimidatingly so, like the best girl friend you always wanted as a teen. But is she an actress? Time will tell.

4) Audrey Whitby

Photo via Instagram

Age: 16
Before AwesomenessTV: Audrey was an actress on the Disney Channel shows So Random and Dog With a Blog.
Tween star power: She often appears in sketches on AwesomenessTV’s channel, rapping and playing characters like Hipster Cinderella and Overly Attached Girlfriend.
TV Potential: High. She’s a cute, blonde, and bubbly. She’s an actress but also a hostess for the channel. There’s tons of room in the entertainment industry for a girl like Audrey. She’s like a young Grace Helbig.

5) The Janoskians (Just Another Name of Silly Kids in Another Nation)

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Ages: Beau Brooks (20), Jai Brooks (18), Luke Brooks (18), Daniel Sahyounie (19), James Yammouni (17)
Before AwesomenessTV: A group of Melbourne skate punks and comedy YouTubers doing pranks for pageviews since 2010. They also sing and perform stunts.
Tween star power: More than 987,000 YouTube subscribers and 696,000 Twitter followers
TV Potential: High. They have crazed fangirls, fanfiction, and they’re a younger, accented version of the Jackass guys. It’s like One Direction with an edge.

6) Daniella Monet

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Age: 24
Before AwesomenessTV: Starred on the Nickelodeon show Victorious and helmed her own YouTube channel, xDaniellaMonet.
Tween star power: A little bit old for the tween crew, but that gives her the maturity to be Awesomeness’s leader.
TV Potential: High. She’s the host of AwesomenessTV’s Nickelodeon show and appeared solo in the all the promo for it. Monet could lead any number of reality shows, talk shows, or The Soup-like E! shows. She’s also a singer who’s made music videos with Drake Bell and Ariana Grande.

7) Lia Marie Johnson

Photo via IMDB

Age: 16
Before Awesomeness TV: She was a favorite commenter on Kids React, an Emmy-winning YouTube series by the Fine Brothers. She eventually moved to Teens React, and numerous other YouTube channels.
Tween star power: More than 391,000 YouTube subscribers, more than 94,000 Twitter followers.
TV potential: High. Lia appears in AwesomenessTV as a character called “Terry the Tomboy” and in various comedy sketches. She’s a beautiful girl and was often the most memorable and insightful on Kids React. She has potential to be a successful comedy actress.

8) Zay Zay and Jo Jo

Photo via Facebook

Ages: About 7 and 5, respectively
Before Awesomeness: Zay Zay started out as the “5-Year-Old YouTube Comedian,” which gained him a lot of press for his charming and precocious personality. His father filmed sketches featuring Zay Zay and his little brother JoJo that garnered millions of views and subscribers. Now the siblings host a show on AwesomenessTV, Crazy I Say. Zay Zay will also be in the Little Rascals reboot as Buckwheat.
Tween star power: Zay Zay has more than 14,000 Twitter followers, but he’s just a kid. They’re the adorable younger brothers of YouTube—not yet tweens.
TV potential: High. The boys are super young but super talented. If the cuteness sticks around, they could be the new Jaden and Willow Smith. Zay Zay wanted to be a comedian, the boys’ dad knew they were gold, and he got them an audience. They could both be funny, successful actors.

9) Hunter March

Photo via Facebook

Age: 22
Before Awesomeness: Hunter ran a YouTube channel called Hunter March Films and made videos like “Shit Valley Girls Say.” Hunter now hosts three shows on AwesomenessTV: The Daily Report, Dear Hunter, and Awesomeness Hollywood.
Tween star power: Getting there. Not a huge fanbase on Tumblr, Twitter, or YouTube, but he’s had a few hits with videos starring other YouTubers—like this one where Lia does his makeup.
TV potential: Medium. He’s got a real Bravo-style Joel McHale thing going so he could host a show and be really successful. Think young Andy Cohen.

10) Ingrid Nilson 

Screengrab via YouTube

Age: 24
Before AwesomenessTV: In 2009, Ingrid started a YouTube makeup tutorial channel about beauty, fashion, and “GIY” (Glam It Yourself). She currently has more than 1.5 million subscribers. On AwesomenessTV, Ingrid’s in the second season of Make Me Over, where she does make overs on average teenagers.
Tween star power: 300,000 Twitter followers, more than 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube. Her breakup with boyfriend Luke Conrad made her the target of intense speculation and “celebrity” gossip.
TV potential: Medium. Her show is part What Not to Wear, part Today Show’s “Ambush Makeover” and could easily fit on the Style Network, E!, or Bravo.

11) Meredith “Mere” Foster

GIF via Tumblr

Age: 18
Before Awesomeness: Her makeup and cosmetics YouTube channel StilaBabe09 has more than 1 million subscribers.
Tween star power: Her YouTube channel, which teamed up with Awesomeness TV, and her Twitter account, which has more than 226,000 followers.
TV Potential: Medium. Her videos are popular and stylized with great music and specific, usable tips. She’d be a good commentator on a show like Chelsea Lately, discussing celebrity style, since she often steals looks from the Kardashian/Jenners, Selena Gomez, and Miley Cyrus.

Illustration by Jason Reed

For anyone who’s ever drawn a stick figure, Dick Figures resonates. Slender and silly lead characters Red and Blue have been tearing up YouTube in 4 minute animated increments since November 2010, and the average episode of the animated webseries grabs several million views. 

But all of that will change soon, because Dick Figures is going full-length.

On July 30, the official trailer for Dick Figures: The Movie dropped on YouTube. Racking up 100,000 views in just over a day, it’s just a small slice of the buzz surrounding the future animated feature.

Series creators and voice actors Ed Skudder and Zack Keller posted the project to Kickstarter in spring 2012 with a goal of $250,000 for a 30-minute movie. The campaign eventually earned more than $313,000, enough to meet the stretch goal of a 40-minute runtime.

Since reaching their funding goal, the duo have been posting “making-of” videos for the project, which originally had a tentative release of spring 2013. According to the trailer, the movie is actually slated for Sept. 17.

Though longtime fans might miss certain small details—like being able to see the backgrounds through the characters’ heads—classic cast members like Pink, the raccoon, and Lord Tourettes all appear in the trailer.

Most importantly, it seems the perpetual pals Red and Blue will be up to more of what they’re good at: crude bathroom humor, romantic melodrama, fights with crowds of ninjas, and senseless gore. At the very least, the movie looks NSFW enough to satisfy fans of the series.

To catch up on Dick Figures before the big release, start with this fan-made supercut “movie” of the whole series so far or visit the show’s cleverly named website, richardfigures.com.

Screengrab via Dickfigures/YouTube

Comments disabled? Check.

Dozens of misogynist tropes? Check.

Instant Internet maelstrom? You got it.

Donning her now-familiar hoop earrings and pink-and-blue plaid shirt, accidental Internet feminist cause célèbre Anita Sarkeesian sallied valiantly forth into YouTube again yesterday for the third and final of her “Damsels in Distress” videos. We can only hope she also donned waders for the storm of hostility she unleashed. 

This trio of Damsels videos marks the beginning of her legendarily controversial Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series, the well-funded Kickstarter project that was met with scorn as soon as it began, from all over the gamer manosphere. 

This edition looks at “one of the most pervasive representations of women in gaming,” the portrayal of women as helpless weaklings who must be rescued by men.

In her previous two Damsels videos, Sarkeesian pointed out the long and jam-packed history of women being used to fulfill this role in gaming. She went on to point out the ways in which many “strong female characters” of more recent games still fell into the ultimate trope of the damsel, as well as the way that the tried-and-true “fridged women” (yes, literally fridged) trope often combines with the damsel to produce a double whammy of manpain for gaming’s usually male protagonist.

In video No. 3, she looks at subversions of the damsel trope, and the ways in which many of them only pay lip service to the idea of women as equals in the testosterone-dominated landscape of video game narratives. For example, Princess Peach (nee Toadstool) in the Mario Bros. franchise finally gets to be the hero in a 2006 outing—but she’s still lazily stereotyped and gendered.

“That’s right,” Sarkeesian notes. “Peach’s powers are her out-of-control, frantic female emotions... essentially, Nintendo has turned a PMS joke into a game-play mechanic.”

Tropes vs. Women in Video Games is itself part of an ongoing Tropes vs. Women vlog series that Sarkeesian has been doing for more than two years on YouTube. Why are people only just now getting upset? Mainly because in this round, Sarkeesian decided to take on one of the most notoriously misogynist media industries of all: gaming and gaming culture.

While the backlash to previous episodes has been severe, this time the army of Sarkeesian haters on the Internet seemed to shrug. Having exhausted their resources on the first two videos—first they fuelled a rage spiral over her choice to disable comments, then had the second video briefly taken down after flagging it repeatedly for abuse—the haters seemed to confine themselves to grumbling a lot. But don’t think that means men’s rights activists and irate gamers aren’t still sending her tons of hate. 

Sarkeesian acaba de lanzar la tercera parte de Damsel in Distress. GET READY FOR THE SHITSTORM.

— Víctor von Posuelen (@VictorMPozuelo) August 1, 2013

Since discussion at YouTube was turned off, many confined themselves to grumbling on Twitter, or discussing the actual merits of her videos at places like Kotaku. One of the most common criticisms of Sarkeesian’s work on the videos is that her critiques are too broad or biased. In this video, many fans honed in on her comments on games that attempt to ironically comment on actual gaming misogyny. Sarkeesian pointed out that this kind of attempt to utilize tropes like the damsel by mocking them is, for games like Spelunky, actually part of the culture of misogyny itself.

Meanwhile, Sarkeesian was inadvertently starring in another Internet controversy—the contentious fight of British feminists to add a “report abuse” function to Twitter. As one of the most notable recipients of constant Internet backlash, Sarkeesian has been the hot topic for many who oppose the idea of allowing people to “report” the voices of anyone they don’t like.

To those claiming an abuse button will solve misogyny on Twitter & won't be abused, explain Anita Sarkeesian's videos being deleted from YT.

— Kayleigh Anne (@Ceilidhann) August 2, 2013

And Sarkeesian herself noted that she’d been unable to get Twitter to respond to what abuse reports she had filed:

Reported this rape threat days ago @twitter has yet to take any action. Tweet/account still online. *Trigger Warning* pic.twitter.com/eN85fREK4v

— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) August 2, 2013

Photo via YouTube

Forget U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron's recent attempts to ban Internet porn. Forget the recent revelations that the number of British workers on unpaid contracts is higher than anyone thought. Forget the controversy over the British government's racist crackdown on immigrant laws.

No, the most heated political controversy of the year in Britain is about to come to a head today at 2pm ET—when millions of fans learn whether the Twelfth Doctor Who is going to be yet another white dude. Update: Meet Peter Capaldi!

Steven Moffat, creator of the popular Doctor Who revival, fanned speculation last year that the next Doctor could be a woman, when he remarked that "a Time Lord could potentially turn into a woman. The more often it's talked about, the more likely it is to happen someday." 

Many people have campaigned for a female doctor over the years, most notably Helen Mirren, who's been outspoken in her repeated suggestions that it's time for a woman to helm the Tardis.

Meanwhile, other fans have campaigned equally hard for the next Doctor to be someone not white. Considering that the only characters of color on the series's main cast so far have been companions or sidekicks, it's high time that the Doctor step into a less pasty skin—perhaps British heartthrobs Idris Elba or Chiwetel Ejiofor, both names that have been bandied about by fans.

But the suggestion that Twelve—who by definition is a regenerating alien who could take on any human form he or she likes—might actually be the first Doctor to break the mold has led to an onslaught of backlash and handwringing. It doesn't help that Moffat himself is notoriously uninterested in the criticisms that his legions of fans have raised about the racism, sexism, and homophobia in his shows.

"The only way to write anything is to write it for yourself," he commented at this year's Comic-Con. "It's witless and completely pointless to try to think of what other people would like."

But when you, yourself, represent the top of the sociocultural food chain as a straight white dude, it helps to think, at least a little, about how your actions and representations of the world impact the other people around you. Moffat's continual thoughtlessness in this regard is readily on display. A Tumblr fandom critique blog called feministwhoniverse compiled Steven Moffat Is a Douchebag: The Master List. Unstated, but still topping the list for many audience members, is that all of these reasons together are why there won't be a female Doctor Who.

Speculation has run rampant about who the next Doctor will be, but as the clock winds down, one clue may be forthcoming already:

Just photographed the next Dr Who for tonight's announcement. Let me know what you think of the photo? He's going to be an ace Dr.

— Rankin (@rankinphoto) August 4, 2013

If it's true, then we can only hope for Tumblr's sake that the next male Doctor breaks the longstanding British mold—because in a world where lack of representation is a hot-button topic, what may be only "someday" for Moffat is right now for many of his fans.

Illustration by ynaninja/deviantART

As told to Cooper Fleishman

I went to Lolla and survived. But barely. Zero service. No phone calls. No tweets. Nothing. A random text every two hours or so. Impossible to enjoy without tech. People seem to be having fun, but once you lose your friends that's it.

Saturday, 1pm: We agree to split up. One girl has to find a ticket. We have a set meeting spot for 4pm.

1:25pm: Found a ticket. Use GroupMe to text everyone to say we're in. Text doesn't go through.

2pm: Wander over to the Bud Light stage to get good seats for Ellie Goulding. "Should we just stay here and tell them to come meet us instead of having to walk back to the meeting spot?" Seems like a good idea because the seats are GOOD. If we leave we won't get them back. Call one of the girls in our group. Phone doesn't go through. No texts either. Hmm. OK.

2:30pm: Still not sure what to do. We don't wanna lose seats. No service. 

3pm: Texts in GroupMe come in hours late. We try to use regular text. But then the plan changes and not everyone gets the memo.

3:30pm: There's advertising everywhere to download the Lolla app and tag photos. It's almost insulting. We couldn't send a text for hours.

3:45pm: There were 12 of us. Most of us ended up with just one buddy. Smart people who were clearly seasoned have walkie-talkies. 

5pm: I saw Adventure Club alone because I got lost. Phone is at 45 percent battery.

6pm: Finally found people at the fountain (central) around 6pm. Texts from hours earlier were coming in and throwing us off. "Meet us here!" …Wait, was that now? Or is that from hours ago? 

7:15pm: Go see the Lumineers with five people. Crowd building for Mumford and Sons. People standing with balloons at random places. "I'm near the purple balloon!" "Don't move!"

8pm: I have 7 percent battery. I make my way up to a landing to send a Hail Mary text: "Guys I can't find anyone gonna head out see you back at the house."

8:15pm: Mumford strike their first chord and the crowd just floods. I snap this pic:

Yeah, no finding them now.

Sunday, 10am: In the cab, I get this: "Just got all of the texts." "Me too."
 

Photo via Leyla Arsan/Flickr

After months—even years—of speculation, the wait of millions of fans is finally over. The Twelfth Doctor is in.

It's not Helen Mirren, Chiwetel Ejiofor, or any of the prestigious names being bandied about in the buildup to today's dramatic BBC announcement.

It’s Peter Capaldi, known to Brits as the wiry spin doctor from the hit series The Thick of It, a wry dark satire about British politics based on the Blair government. The 55-year-old actor is a complete reversal in many ways from Matt Smith, who took on the role of the Eleventh Doctor when he was just 26.

In a live broadcast witnessed by what seemed like everybody on earth, or at least everybody on Twitter and Tumblr, Steven Moffat's hit show officially braced everyone for the departure of floppy-haired Smith and introduced Capaldi to the world.

There's no word on how the franchise will get around the fact that Capaldi has already played two other characters during the show's run, but considering that it routinely defies logic in other respects, it shouldn't be too hard.

It's cool how Dr Who is an immortal time lord from a planet beyond human comprehension but luckily always shows up as a white British man

— J. Shea (@ExpBelieve) August 4, 2013

In the days pending the announcement, U.K. bookies said the odds on Capaldi, who had been codenamed "Houdini" prior to the reveal, were so high they'd had to suspend betting on his name. Wikipedia readers were so chuffed for the announcement they briefly updated his Wiki entry with the announcement well in advance.

Prior to the announcement, the entire universe was glued to their TV or social network of choice.

Doctor Who is finally trending in America :)))) its about time ffs

— Courtney ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (@nighthawk1029) August 4, 2013

NO MOTHERI AM NOT GOING TO COMPLETE AN M&S SURVAY, DOCTOR WHO IS ON!!!

— Cats On Toast (@Niiamhhhhhh) August 4, 2013

Earlier in the day it seemed the cat might have been nearly let out of the bag by one lucky photographer—putting paid to the rampant speculation that we were getting a female Doctor:

Just photographed the next Dr Who for tonight's announcement. Let me know what you think of the photo? He's going to be an ace Dr.

— Rankin (@rankinphoto) August 4, 2013

But while many people had been holding out hope for a nonwhite and/or nonmale doctor, most seemed resigned to their fate. Moffat is notoriously cantankerous about being called out on the lack of representation in his shows, and he stirred up controversy instantly when he mocked the massive campaign for the next Doctor to be a woman. 

When he joked that he wanted the Queen to be "played by a man," the outragewasimmediate.

"I'd like to go on record and say it's time for the Queen to be played by a man." Fuck you, Moffat, oh my God. #DoctorWho

— christycorr (@christycorr) August 4, 2013

Meanwhile, Tumblr and Twitter immediately exploded in excitement over Capaldi's casting.

Geeking out over Peter Capaldi being cast as the 12th Doctor! Excellent choice #doctorwho

— Tessa Belle (@tessahumphrey) August 4, 2013

That's quite exciting, genuinely think its a good choice! Doctor Who just keeps on going! :D #doctorwho

— Dan Fishburn (@DanFishburn) August 4, 2013

There were, of course, some for whom the news wasn't quite as thrilling.

now that I know who the new Doctor Who is I'll go back to reading Harry Potter

— Sara Hussain (@_Sara_Hussain_) August 4, 2013

Illustration by phantoms-siren/deviantART

OK, so you know this dude is the newly announced Twelfth Doctor. You know he's a wiry-looking British actor. You might know he's the star of a dark British satire called The Thick of It.

But is all of that enough to get you through pub night tonight with your favorite Whovians?

No, it isn't. But if you get them really drunk, having the following facts at your disposal might just be enough to convince them you're an expert on all things Peter Capaldi. The 55-year-old is going to be on everybody's minds when Matt Smith says goodbye to the Doctor Who franchise, so you might as well get started now with phrases like "But didn't you know he's won an Oscar?" in your most snobbish, insider-y voice.
 

1) He won an Oscar for a short film about Franz Kafka.

The film, a 22-minute sort-of-absurdist comedy, was called Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life, and featured Richard E. Grant as the put-upon writer struggling to pen the famous "Metamorphosis" in the middle of constant late-night interruptions. 

2) He also won a BAFTA for it, but whatever, he's won three.

Okay technically he's won two BAFTAs and one Scottish BAFTA, but he's also been nominated nine times total. This year he got nominated in two separate categories: one for BBC's acclaimed-but-canceled The Hour and one for his role as Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It, the role that made him famous, and made profanity-laced political wonks even more of a thing than Rahm Emanuel. 

Basically, Britain thinks this guy is a critically acclaimed comedic genius.
 

3) Malcolm Tucker is why you're seeing so many profanity-laced Doctor Who jokes right now on my dash.

Photo via emomarrypoppins

In his role as Malcolm Tucker, Capaldi famously said, "Don't call me a bully—I'm so much worse than that." Suffice it to say his character, based off Tony Blair's communications guy Alastair Campbell. is not known for politeness.

4) There's a whole Tumblr devoted to his hair.

And it's amazing.
 

5) This one time, he pulled a mongoose out of his kilt.

In 1988 the has-to-be-seen-to-be-believed Ken Russell masterpiece of weirdness The Lair of the White Worm featured Capaldi alongside Hugh Grant as they faced off against, what else, a giant blood-sucking lamprey and its host of evil vampire queens. The highlight? Capaldi pulling a giant live mongoose from inside his Scottish kilt, because of reasons.

Also we have no idea what this has to do with anything, we just wanted to show you this.

Photo via meddow/Dreamwidth

6) He's already been in Doctor Who—twice.

If Capaldi looks familiar to Whovians, it's because he plays the historical Roman citizen Caecilius in the season 4 Doctor Who episode "The Fires of Pompeii." He also guest stars in the third season of the Who spinoff series Torchwood.
 

7) He's a lifelong Who fan.

Capaldi, the oldest actor to play the Doctor since William Hartnell created the role in 1963, grew up with Doctor Who and like both Moffat and Tenth Doctor David Tennant before him, is a huge fan. In the live BBC broadcast of Capaldi's reveal, he confessed that he was a "full anorak" fan of the show, and that he had once written fan mail about the series to Radio Times.

His fellow Whovians on Tumblr naturally reacted to this disclosure in classic Tumblr form: with all the feels.
 

8) He's not Helen Mirren, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Romola Garai, Patterson Joseph, Sophie Okonedo...

And that's really the point, isn't it? As talented as Capaldi undoubtedly will be, all anyone has been able to talk about so far with regards to the fabled casting of the twelfth doctor has been the fact that it's beyond high time for the role to go to someone who's not, well, Peter Capaldi. 

As British as they come—Capaldi's Scottish accent in The Thick of It was the real deal—the aging actor can't help who he isn't, but that won't stop many fans from being bitter that once again, the role of Britain's most beloved hero short of Harry Potter has gone to a white man, instead of to the manyotherworthy men and women who could have done the role justice. A cursory glance at any discussion about Twelve immediately finds heated resentment over the subject of the long line of white male doctors; now that Capaldi has been cast, expect the discussion, if anything, to grow even more pointed and angry.
 

9) But if anyone can do it...

Look, we're not saying we're happy that now fandom has yet another white British dude to, alternately, fawn over and argue about. 

But with decades of comedy under his belt, and hair that looks like the actual older sibling of the hairstyles of David Tennant and Matt Smith, we're guessing that Capaldi is at least interesting, and entertaining, enough to make the new series worth tuning in for.
 

Illustration via podbots/deviantART

High Maintenance, a Vimeo webseries that's drawn rave reviews from all corners of the Internet and beyond, is not your typical stoner comedy. There are no comically giant joints. There are no far-fetched capers to carry out while baked. There are only the people who love weed—and the quiet hero who brings it to them.

“A nameless cannabis delivery guy delivers his much needed medication to stressed-out New Yorkers,” the show’s description reads, and indeed, most pot smokers in that city will be familiar with the archetype, played by Ben Sinclair (who is also a co-creator and executive producer): a bearded man on a bike, with earbuds plugged in and a messenger bag over one shoulder.

Sinclair’s is the lone recurring character, and often a peripheral one at that, only called when someone’s desperate to get high. Each episode (there have been 10 so far, appearing in three separate “cycles”) features one or a few of his customers, whose lives he always gains some small but striking insight into: The series kicks off with a scene in which a buyer has no qualms about leaving porn playing on his widescreen TV at top volume while discussing the difference between “head high” and “body high.”

“Episodes,” however, doesn’t quite get at the magic of these pieces, which vary from five minutes in length to more than 10; they have more the quality of short films than TV. That’s probably because, unlike much of what passes for episodic comedy online, there are real pros at the helm. The other co-creator and executive producer is Katja Blichfeld, who got an Emmy nod as casting director for 30 Rock and has an agency partnership in Blichfeld + Daniels Casting.

Blichfeld and Sinclair, who happen to be married, collaborate on High Maintenance with a third executive producer, Russell Gregory, a talent manager who runs his own company. With that much experience in the room, it’s no wonder the series is deft and fluid, beautifully shot and acted with marvelous subtlety. (They also keep a weed-themed Tumblr.)

But what is it actually about? Again, it’s nothing so cartoonish as visiting one wacky New York pothead after another, though each certainly has his or her idiosyncrasies. By and large they are instead just normal people, suffering through the rat race in one way or another: evil bosses, disgusting roommates, failure to become “real adults,” despair and loneliness. At least one customer buys weed just to get close to the dealer himself.

The occasional awkwardness of having an illegal substance personally delivered by a guy on a bike makes for good comedy, but High Maintenance reaches much higher than the humor of discomfiture. These characters all aspire to something—and if it’s just out of reach, getting stoned might help. A standout episode featuring stand-up comic Hannibal Burress even goes so far as to stage a horrific (and jarringly realistic) shooting at one of his sets; we follow Burress in the trauma’s aftermath, when even his favorite drug does little to improve his catatonic depression.

In world where webseries and video sketches are so often made on the fly with no budget or real equipment, High Maintenance is setting a new standard. Patient, clever, and refreshingly intimate, it manages to accurately reflect those aspects of life that seem small and meaningless but come to dominate our waking thoughts.

It’s not Cheech and Chong. It’s Chekhov.

Photo via helpingyoumaintain.com

Thanks to Walter White, teachers with under-the-radar side jobs have never been cooler. Just ask this New Orleans math teacher who just dropped his debut synth-pop album on Reddit. It’s actually pretty damn good!

In between grading papers, swelo spent the last 10 months producing and mastering his first album.

Swelo released the 12-track Escalator Music on Reddit's popular r/music forum Thursday. He used Apple's Logic Pro software, a M-Audio KeyRig 49 keyboard, and a $50 Blue Snowball mic to create his sound. And that was more than enough. 

Escalator Music is clean, simple, and fun. Tracks like "IDGAF" sound like it could have been straight out of Flight of the Conchords, combining catchy rap lyrics with smooth electronica beats. The standout song on the album is "Brighton," a perfect summer track that's equal parts alt-indie rock and dance.

Redditors are digging it. "This is SO good!" djchainsmok3rcommented. "You have this Portugal. The Man feel to your music. I really, I really hope you share this with more people!"

Listen to the five most popular tracks on Soundcloud:

Photo via swelo

"Balus."

This word may not look like much, but it is an essential piece of Twitter history. Not once, but twice, it has set a record for the most tweets in a single second.

According to Hollywood Insider, the word set a record on August 2 by being tweeted more than 143,000 times in a single second. The tweets originated from Japan, where "balus" is a popular response to the 1986 Hayao Miyazaki film Castle in the Sky. Each year, when Castle in the Sky is shown on television, its thousands of viewers tweet "balus" during a climactic final scene. The term is a magic word that sets off a massive amount of destruction when uttered by characters at the film's climax. 

“Balus” unseated previous record-holder "ake-ome," also native to Japan. It was set on January 1, 2013 in response to the New Year. "Ake-ome," which is an abbreviated version of "Happy New Year" in Japanese, was tweeted over 33,000 times per second.

This is actually not the first time “balus” has held honor of "most-tweeted word in a second,” It first won the title during 2011’s showing of Castle in the Sky, setting a record of over 25,000 tweets per second.

The practice of posting “balus” online during the annual airing of the film is actually older than Twitter itself, originating on Japan’s popular 2channel message board in 2003.

The "balus" phenomenon only serves to strengthen the relationship between television viewers and Twitter. Events from the 2012 Video Music Awards to President Obama's second inauguration have all resulted in an onslaught of tweets, conveying the message that the television medium has quite the notable influence on Twitter.

Screencap via DoReMiLand/YouTube

The answer: "Some serious Facebook heat." 

"What is the game show Jeopardy! currently facing?"

Correct. You win the Daily Double and control of the board.

Producers of the hit television game show—and Alex Trebek himself—are under pressure to apologize to a young contestant after he lost a recent "Kids' Week" matchup on a technicality. 

You’ve probably seen the video. Deadspin called it "the most heartbreaking wrong answer ever." Thomas Hurley III correctly answers the clue "Abraham Lincoln called this document, which took effect in 1863, 'a fit and necessary war measure.'" But his answer is disqualified when he adds an extra t to "Emancipation." 

"Because you misspelled it badly … the judges are ruling against you," Trebek says, alerting Hurley that the blunder would cost him his $3,000 wager. 

Trebek goes on to congratulate winner Skylar Hornback on correctly spelling the same answer.

Lots of fans are miffed—not just at the slight, but at how Trebek treated the young contestant. The Jeopardy! Facebook page has been flooded with over 1,200 comments since the video of Hornback's victory—with Hurley's loss edited out—was posted July 31.

Funny but Alex can't even read the answers correctly! Ask him how to pronounce INXS. He pronounces it like 'inks'. And thats not the only word he cannot read. Lol. So lets talk about spelling AND pronunciation! Get it right Alex, and quit picking on little kids!

You cannot tell the adults, in final Jeopardy, that they won't be penalized for spelling... and the penalize a child for doing so. THAT is why so many are angry. He was cheated! I sure hope they make it up to him. I really do.

Other Facebook users sided with the program's decision, reminding fellow users that Jeopardy! is a show that tests merit and intellect—something that a misspelled word does not illustrate.

The child misspelled the word. Rules are in place for a reason. Now, because this kid is whining and claiming he was cheated, the stellar achievement of the boy who did win is being overshadowed. How sad. Thomas' parents do him no favors if they do not teach him to lose gracefully.

I am sure a lawyer is licking his chops right now. Rather than teach kids about failure, lets blame someone else. Spell it right next time.

Neither Trebek nor other Jeopardy! representatives have publicly commented on the segment.

Screengrab via LGTVNEWS Hub/YouTube