Smiles abound in the cord-cutting community as HBO has pulled the trigger on offering its pay TV to consumers who do not subscribe to either cable or satellite services.

"That is a large and growing opportunity that should no longer be left untapped," HBO CEO Richard Plepler told Time Warner investors of a standalone HBO service scheduled for 2015. "It is time to remove all barriers to those who want HBO."

One Twitter follower summed up the feeling of those 10 million U.S. homes that have broadband only and no cable service. Of those household, 5 million subscribe to a streaming video service. 

im so excited/just can't hide it RT @DKThomp: HBO’s Web-only product: More excitement than details at the moment. pic.twitter.com/qBCJMNQVjh

— Elise Hu (@elisewho) October 15, 2014

Plepler did not go into details about how the new service will be launched or proposed pricing, but he did say the premium service will continue to work with pay TV services (cable, satellite). One immediate reaction to the HBO announcement was a drop in Netflix stock, which was down more than 14 points as of 11am ET. Keep in mind, Netflix announces its Q3 results after market close today, so that may also be part of the reason for the wild price fluctuation. Investors are anxiously awaiting details on Netflix’s international expansion plans.

As Henry Blodget, former dot-com equity analyst and current Business Insider editor and CEO correctly points out, there is little rivalry between Netflix and HBO in terms of content overlap. The battle for the consumer digital entertainment dollar may be another story.

Netflix and HBO offer different content. Lots and lots of people will have both. Especially when they dump cable.

— Henry Blodget (@hblodget) October 15, 2014

Among those in the streaming entertainment business, Amazon is the most affected. Amazon’s Instant Video service now includes a hefty amount of content from the HBO catalog. In May 2014, when the distribution agreement was announced, no end date for the deal was mentioned.

Showtime, HBO’s smaller pay TV rival, will also be on the hot seat to follow suit and offer a standalone service for over-the-top viewers. Starz recently announced a standalone streaming service but only for non-U.S. customers.

Whether HBO’s disruptive announcement becomes the tipping point for over-the-top viewing will depend on its rollout strategy. One option is to offer it as a sell-through service to all streaming services giving them a bounty (plus perhaps ongoing revenue) for each sub they bring to the service. At issue, and this is the sticking point that led to a battle between Apple and Amazon over ebook pricing, is whether streaming companies can set their own price for the sale of HBO’s service or be forced to forgo discounting.

Much is made out of the impact on cable and satellite distributors, but given Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, and a few other major providers are also high-speed Internet service providers, the overall effect could be minimal. Offering HBO’s new standalone service as part of an ultra-high-speed Internet service (1 GBps or more) would just move revenue from one area to another. Consumers can also expect to see creative premium TV bundles that combine a variety of services resulting in a quad-play of cable, Internet, phone, and premium streaming. Premium streaming could include HBO, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and even sports programming.

Premium streaming could also become part of new cloud TV services from Dish and Sony. If the goal of those nascent offerings is to appeal to cord cutters, adding HBO to their packages would be a must.

HBO’s announcement brings with it many moving parts, most of which will be worked out in the coming months. On the surface, this nod toward the growing appetite for DIY television options appears to be a major win, but the world of cable, satellite, and now streaming OTT has technology and economic considerations that can take quickly take the promise out of possible breakthroughs. 

So, if you’re expecting to watch Game of Thrones via your Roku box or Samsung Smart TV, be patient and realistic.

Illustration by Jason Reed

Afroman, né Joseph Edgar Foreman, has churned out 20-odd albums since 2001 but is still best known for that year’s mega-single, “Because I Got High”—an ode to possessions, status, and relationships lost because of excessive marijuana use. But with arguments for legalizing the drug gaining momentum, it seems he’s changed his tune.

Behold, “Because I Got High,” redux: a “positive” spin on his classic track, produced in collaboration with the marijuana reform group NORML and Weedmaps, an online dispensary guide likened to Yelp. This time, instead of watching his life fall apart, Afroman marvels at pot’s medical applications, superiority to cigarettes or booze, and potential for swelling the coffers of government. (La da da da da da da da da.)

Afroman told Billboard that he has been in contact with NORML for several years now:

They’ve been educating me and giving me information. I got on a conference call with Sabrina [Fendrick, director of strategic partnerships], who enlightened me about some things: how states benefit from money raised from it, and how Colorado and Washington have money for drug treatment. There’s hope now, so I’m intrigued. This is a free track for education helping the legalization of marijuana.

The remix also kicks off Weedmaps’ Elevated Inspirations, a project designed to showcase the ways in which “weed powers creativity”—though good luck getting a prescription with that argument.

H/T Billboard | Photo via Weedmaps TV/YouTube   

Unfortunately, no one told us life was gonna be this way. For 10 long, Friends-less years, we've been relegated to DVD box sets and syndication like cavemen if we wanted a fix from Central Perk, but no longer. Fortunately, salvation has come thanks to the patron saint of streaming content, Netflix.

On Wednesday, the entertainment giant announced that come Jan. 1, every episode of Friends would be available streaming. The news was dispatched via Twitter, and included a video of The Rembrandts playing an acoustic version of the show’s theme “I’ll Be There For You,” which was filmed at Central Perk Pop Up in New York last week.

They will all be there for you, Jan.1, 2015 https://t.co/EdGNWtFsZl

— Netflix US (@netflix) October 15, 2014

So come New Year’s Day, ditch the Rose Bowl and nurse those New Year’s hangovers watching all 10 seasons of the show.

Screenshot via Netflix/Twitter

There’s a new king of late night, but he’s wearing the crown digitally.

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon has surpassed Jimmy Kimmel Live on the shows' current battleground: YouTube.  Fallon’s subscribers hit 4.7 million to Kimmel’s 4.6 million this week. Their next nearest competitor is Conan, with 2 million.

While Fallon and Kimmel both started their channels around the same time in 2006 for their respective shows, Fallon only this year made the leap to the 11:35pm timeslot, while Kimmel has held it since 2012. Since his ascension to The Tonight Show desk, Fallon has made massive progress against Kimmel’s numbers, gaining on average 11,224 new subscribers a day to Kimmel’s 3,605, according to Tubefilter. Fallon’s also won professional accolades this year for his digital work, with his team winning the Creative Arts Emmy for Creative Achievement in Interactive Media, as well as a Streamy for Best Television Show.

Perhaps most interesting, however, is if we stopped looking at late night hosts and broadened the picture to any talk show host, we’d actually have a Queen. Ellen deGeneres boasts 9.9 million subscribers to her channel, which launched at the same time as Fallon's and Kimmel's. With more attention moving to time-shifting and digital consumption, the lure of late night might not matter so much in building your entertainment empire anymore.

H/T Tubefilter | Screengrab via Late Night/YouTube

In case his turn as a 14-year-old doctor Doogie Howser didn’t tip you off, Neil Patrick Harris is a bit of an overachiever. Since wrapping How I Met Your Mother this spring, the actor has showed no signs of slowing down, playing Hedwig on Broadway and starring in the fall blockbuster Gone Girl. But come February, he’ll be changing roles yet again, this time as the host of the 2015 Oscars.

On Wednesday, it was announced that Harris had been tapped to host the 87th annual Academy Awards on Feb. 22 in Los Angeles. It’s news that should comes as no shock to those familiar with the actor’s past hosting duties. Having hosted the Tonys four times, the Emmys twice, and now the Oscars, the triple threat is only one gig away from a hosting EGOT. Just look at these back-to-back-to-back opening numbers from the Tony Awards to get a taste of what's to come.

Harris confirmed the news on Twitter, where just one day prior, he'd announced the release of his autobiography.

http://t.co/ZG1EC9ooxK

— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) October 15, 2014

While not much else is know at the time about what NPH could have in store for next year’s Oscars, we’re guessing it will have to involve a bit of song and dance, like those three above and this opening number from the 2010 Academy Awards.

The only thing we’re looking forward to more than Harris’s Oscar hosting is what he will dress his adorable children up as for Halloween this year.

H/T The Wrap | Photo via vagueonthehow/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

There have been few bright spots for Michigan’s 3-4 football team. It’s tied for fifth-place in its division, the whole team seems to be injured, and fans are angry and calling for administrative scalps. Needless to say, the mood around Michigan Stadium has been somber as of late.

Thankfully junior wide receiver Dennis Norfleet injected a much-needed dose of funk into the atmosphere.

During a television timeout in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s 18-13 win over Penn State—just before a punt—George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog” was played over the PA system. Norfleet, who was back to field the kick, started “hopping” to the beat to the delight of the home crowd.

“Atomic Dog” is the unofficial theme song of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity—or the “Que Dogs” as they’re widely known—one that Norfleet is a member of. Whenever the song comes on, members perform “the Q hop.” It’s a form of step-dancing unique to the frat.

The fans in attendance weren’t the only one’s paying attention to Norfleet’s moves. The Prime Minister of Funk, himself, George Clinton, tweeted out his approval.

Michigan WR Dennis Norfleet I'm gonna Be Your Dog forever! WOOF... http://t.co/z4acd4vtVX

— George Clinton (@george_clinton) October 14, 2014

Michigan ended up getting a safety on that play. With results like that, maybe Norfleet just needs to bust his moves on every special teams play.

Screengrab via YouTube

Producer and rapper El-P is officially committed to making a hip-hop album full of cat sounds.

He’s got himself to blame. In September El-P and Killer Mike announced several gimmick preorder packages for the second installment of their Run the Jewels series. One, Meow the Jewels, promised that the hip-hoppers would “re-record RTJ2 using nothing but cat sounds for music” if it could raise $40,000. Fans launched a Kickstarter campaign, and Wednesday it passed $48,000. So, yeah—the cat remix project is on.

The good news is that El-P won’t be pocketing the lump sum. All proceeds will benefit the families of Eric Garner and Mike Brown.

WE DID IT, YOU CRAZY MOTHERFUCKERS http://t.co/JAuJ7ttvGG

— el-p (@therealelp) October 15, 2014

that said, LETS KEEP GOING! we still have 12 days to contribute and all the profit will go towards charity! https://t.co/X251yy5I9M

— el-p (@therealelp) October 15, 2014

.@JustBlaze@ZOLAJESUS@baauer@Alchemist@jetfury@nickhook@dantheautomator@DJPrincePaul@xskywlkr@bootsonboots about that cat album...

— el-p (@therealelp) October 15, 2014

I would like to thank all of u for ur generosity. This project means so much more than music.This just proves we can make a difference

— #MeowTheJewels (@MeowTheJewels) October 15, 2014

at its core meow the jewels is really about people, not cats. thank you everyone for having hearts and loving stupid ideas.

— el-p (@therealelp) October 15, 2014

There are 12 days left to help support the project. Run the Jewels 2 is out Oct. 27. Let’s hope the cat remix project gets fast-tracked this quarter.

Photo via Daniel Patlán/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

If you watched Channing Tatum strip in Magic Mike and felt as much contempt for the women in the audience as you did arousal at watching a gyrating Tatum, then we have an opportunity for you. While shooting has begun on the striptacular-sequel, Magic Mike XXL, in Savannah, Ga., not all roles have been cast.

Because you can’t have a strip show without an audience, the casting director working on the film has taken to Facebook to recruit female extras for background work as strip club patrons. But these women won't be treated to any old male review: The lucky 300 women selected to fill the audience on Oct. 23, 24, 25 will get a chance to enjoy what is being called “The MAGIC MIKE Experience.” If you're confused about what that entails, allow the casting notice posted on Facebook to explain. 

So what does that mean?

You will not be paid, but we will feed you and you will get the official cast and crew American Apparel T-shirt at the end of the evening. (And you only have to work for one day and you still get to experience one of the performances!

So free lunch and a T-shirt in exchange for spending your entire day watching a shirtless Channing Tatum and Joe Manganiello? Seems like honest wages for honest work considering most women would actually pay for the chance to get up close and personal with the stripped-down actors.

"Please do not apply if you are offended by nudity and acts of a sexual nature," the post adds. We're guessing that if you found your way to this article, then that caveat doesn't concern you. Good luck to the ladies submitting, and may the odds be ever in your favor. 

H/T People | Photo via gageskidmore/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Reddit investor Snoop Dogg and Iggy Azalea have called an end to their war of words—and to be honest the whole thing was stupid to begin with.

The whole thing started when Snoop posted a disparaging photo of Iggy to his Instagram.

 

Laden

Weergeven op Instagram

Iggy was rightfully indignant and tweeted her displeasure with Snoop’s behavior.

The reaction from many onlookers was that Snoop is a known troll—nothing he posts can be taken too seriously, and Iggy needs to take a joke because Snoop meant no harm by it.

Egged on by his followers, Snoop released a video response to Iggy’s tweets, calling her a “bitch” and a “cunt.”

 

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Last one until she speak now shut da Fuc up ubitchu.

View on Instagram

Iggy Azalea’s boyfriend, L.A. Lakers guard Nick Young, jumped in to defend Iggy, but rather than defuse the situation, he seemed to ignite it more.

Ain't nobody worried about no SnoopLion .. This dude Just goin thru a midlife Crisis you Go get convertible yet . OG's out here losin

— Nick Young (@NickSwagyPYoung) October 15, 2014

Snoop posted more photos on Instagram attacking Iggy, and the Internet responded by both supporting and attacking her.

 

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Ok last one. Hahahahaha I didn't make this shit up I jus post smoke n chill Hahahahahahah. So says Todd

View on Instagram

People who say Iggy shouldn't be offended are the 1st ones that would be in their feelings when someone SUB TWEETS and they think its @ them

— Necole Bitchie (@necolebitchie) October 15, 2014

Any grown ass man talking shit to a woman is not a MAN.

— Alejandra Hernandez (@AleHerself) October 15, 2014

Where was the white media when T.I threatened to push me down the stairs though?

— AZEALIA ⚓️ BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) October 15, 2014

Snoop is fucking hilarious.

— AZEALIA ⚓️ BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) October 15, 2014

Even Snoop’s teenage daughter Cori voiced her displeasure with her father’s behavior.

Iggy fired another round of shots at Snoop questioning his current legitimacy as an artist, his parenting skills, and the reason for his constant personal attacks.

@SNOOPDOGG congrats on ur success but my dog taking a shit is news worthy now days & I dont need to troll for attention, can u say the same?

— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) October 15, 2014

@SnoopDogg i also don't have a young daughter at home looking at what i do… can you say the same?

— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) October 15, 2014

@SnoopDogg the real question is why IS someone SO accomplished trolling other artists?

— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) October 15, 2014

After an apparent conversation with Iggy’s label boss, rapper T.I., Snoop posted an apology to Iggy on Instagram stating he was sorry “it’s officially over” and he “won’t do it again.”

 

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It's over I'm bac on my cool shit no harm no foul. #ifitaintaboutthe💵💵💵much love @troubleman31t respect sorry bout that

View on Instagram

I appreciate the apology @snoopdogg

— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) October 15, 2014

Let that be that people, time to focus on the positive things I've got going on. no time to dwell on the negative.

— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) October 15, 2014

While it’s odd to be commending a grown man for admitting he is in the wrong, if history has taught us anything, apologies in rap beefs are rare if not nonexistent. It’s just a shame that a rapper as popular and respected as Snoop, one with high school age children to boot, would take so long to realize that what he was doing was essentially bullying—especially when his target was one as easy as a white female rapper in an industry crowded with black men. 

That’s not to say that Iggy can’t hold her own—she can—or that she can’t be every bit as successful as any of her male counterparts—she is—but she is undoubtedly viewed as an outsider and as such susceptible.

All that said, this “beef” was silly and never needed to happen in the first place. I yearn for the days when beef between platinum-selling rappers was settled with rap bars and not online memes and emojis.

Photo by Laura Murray/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

BY NICK LAUGHER

When that guy was making headlines with his “super wacky” potato saladcrowdfunding campaign a while back, I kept telling my friends that I thought it was way better and deserved more money than any musician’s crowdfunding campaign. I was not saying this to be all hip or edgy, I was saying this because it was true. Musicians are notoriously awful at crowdfunding.

I tried it with a 7” record once and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. The campaigning process is like pulling teeth, I felt like a self-involved jerk who just cheated a bunch of people out of their money, and the whole thing just felt like one big awkward loan with a boatload of expectations. Thankfully, I’ve since seen people mess it up way worse than I could have ever imagined, making me feel more at ease with my failures.

This may be because the majority of the time, musicians who are using crowdfunding platforms are perpetuating harmful myths and misconceptions about how music is made and distributed, and as a result they not only end up looking out of touch, but they actually make things harder for the musicians of the world who don’t turn to crowdfunding to get a project going. Crowdfunding can be a great platform that allows fans to rally around an artist or a project they’re really into, which is a cool thing. Sadly, a lot of these campaigns are poorly run and misguided, and often it leads to musicians trying to raise unrealistically large sums of money while treating their fans like a bank.

Here are just a few of the ways in which musicians have been lousy at crowdfunding and are ruining what could be a really great platform for artistic exploration and creation. Please, bands, stop doing these terrible, terrible things.

If you’re going to beg someone for money to write and record a doom metal album based on a steampunk retelling of Great Expectations, you should at least give them an incentive to relinquish those hard earned dollars. By and large, musicians either have no idea how to do this, or just don’t care about doing it well. This gives rise to perks like “Take a video tour of our jam space for $200!” that are so inane and absolutely useless that it’s painfully obvious they just ran out of ideas to use to squeeze money out of people. So please, musicians, let’s start putting some thought into what people will actually want from you!

Here’s a newsflash, it’s 2014. Someone buying your digital download for $10 is just laughable, especially as a crowdfunding perk. I mean, come on, Thom Yorke just dropped a solo album for $6 and even that came with a video. So please, do not do this. Do not charge someone $15 for the 320kb/s mp3s of your album. A digital download should be a courtesy that comes with a perk, not a perk itself. If someone’s paying you $15, have the decency to at least buy a cheap blank CD and scrawl something on it in permanent marker. If you have a $15 digital download as one of your perks, you’re either woefully out of touch or just mean. Ditto for people who think that charging $75 for a vinyl record is acceptable just because it’s “limited.” Just because you only have the cash to press 100 of them doesn’t mean you can charge $75 for them.

Read the full story on Noisey.

Photo via Pete Ashton/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Jonah Rocks, an amazing 10-year-old self-taught drummer, has been tearing up YouTube with his impressive covers of rock tunes.

Rocks has been rocking out on YouTube since the age of 4.  According to his About page, “plays songs as he hears them, and how he thinks they should sound.” His ear is pretty impressive, with spot-on interpretations of massive hits.

Jonah scored his first super viral hit at age 5, with a cover of System of a Down’s “Toxicity” that hit more than 7 million views. There are now Jonah T-shirts and other merchandise. However, because Rocks has the best parents on earth, he’s declined all media appearances. That’s why you haven’t seen him on Ellen, Good Morning America, Jimmy Kimmel, or one of the other shows that mine cute YouTube kids for entertainment. As his parents state on his website, once Jonah is old enough to decide if he wants to do television appearances, he can, but until then, he gets to remain a kid.

As soon as Jonah is in high school, everyone’s going to be gunning for him to join their band. Until then, he’ll continue to entertain us on YouTube.

Screengrab via Jonah Rocks/YouTube

You weren’t planning on going out this weekend were you? No? Good. Because Steam is going all out with one of its famed promotions, offering nearly a dozen games completely free of charge. Destructoid reports that from 10am PT on Friday, Oct. 17 to 1pm PT on Sunday, Oct. 19, you’ll be able to get your grubby mitts on 10 titles from the Steam library without paying a cent.

Here are the games that Steam will be offering for free this weekend.

Awesomenauts. An arena battler in the vein of DOTA, Awesomenauts features “huge robot armies…in an enduring battle.”

Blade Symphony. A tactical hack-and-slash game that got its start through a successful Kickstarter campaign, this title enjoys a 9/10 rating on Steam.

Company of Heroes 2. You’re a tank commander in the Soviet Red Army. What else do you need to know?

Don’t Starve. “An uncompromising wilderness survival game full of science and magic,” Don’t Starve distinguishes itself with a unique art style that has been widely acclaimed.

Grid 2. Released in 2013 to positive reviews, Grid 2 is a street racer that normally retails for $29.99.

Injustice. Superman, The Joker, Wonder Woman, Aquaman—they’re all here in this DC Comics-based brawler.

Killing Floor. "A co-op Survival Horror FPS set in the devastated cities and countryside of England after a series of cloning experiments for the military goes horribly wrong." Damn, that sounds cool. 

Payday 2. A co-operative heist shooter with extensive personalization options, Payday 2 was lauded by Eurogamer as “phenomenal.”

Trine 2. Another sequel, Trine 2 is a cooperative puzzle platformer set in a rich fantasy landscape. 

XCOM: Enemy Unknown. A turn-based sci-fi planetary invasion/defense title, XCOM—like every other game on the list—has received incredibly positive reviews on Steam.

Good luck, soldier.

H/T Destructoid | Illustration by Jason Reed

BY SAHIL PATEL

SciShow, a science-focused educational YouTube channel from VidCon co-founder and Vlogbrother Hank Green, has launched a new series to answer the most-searched questions on the internet.

A 10-part series, “The World’s Most Asked Questions” will run through Oct. 28, covering topics ranging from how many calories one should eat to the messy, confusing, mysterious concept of love.

The success of SciShow, which has more than 2 million subscribers, coincides with the growing popularity of “pop science” as a category. For instance, science channels had three-times more subscribers in 2013 than in 2012, according to data provided by YouTube. Today, education videos are more popular than pet videos, per Kevin Allocca, head of culture and trends at YouTube.

SciShow specializes in “explainer” videos, in which complicated concepts are broken down into simple terms. In addition to Green, the channel’s roster of hosts include Michael Aranda and Caitlin Hofmeister.

Screengrab via SciShow/YouTube

Last month, Megan MacKay posted a video to her YouTube page in which she offered a “Ray Rice-inspired makeup tutorial.” Yes, the title might make you hesitant to click, but in the span of just three minutes, MacKay breaks down the NFL’s domestic violence problem and the culture of victim-blaming while applying foundation. The video now has more than 2 million views.

The 22-year-old Toronto writer and comedian has developed a very specific approach to her YouTube videos. They often present themselves as makeup, beauty, or food tutorials, then dive deeper into a topic in the news that week, pairing satire with a feminist or political take on the issue. MacKay has taken on Hobby Lobby, Nine West’s “husband hunting” shoes campaign, and Urban Outfitter’s tasteless Kent State sweatshirt. She applied to be Cambridge University's Doctor of Chocolate. Most recently, she addressed Celebgate under the guise of a Thanksgiving recipe tutorial. 

We asked MacKay a bit more about walking the line between satire and sincerity in her videos. 

I'm wondering how you decided to use makeup tutorials to talk about more important issues. How did that become your way into the discussions?

I’m an SNL junkie, so the idea of creating a “parody of the medium”-style channel was really appealing to me. SNL’s a TV show that makes fun of the stuff you see on TV, including commercials, game shows, soap operas, and the 6 o’clock news. If you watch makeup tutorials on YouTube, it logically follows that you would watch parodies of makeup tutorials on YouTube. The medium is the message, and all that jazz. Long story short: Marshall McLuhan’s ghost came to me in a dream and told me to do this. Spoooooooky. (Totally kidding.)

That makeup tutorial subculture is so popular on YouTube, especially with young women. Why do you think that is? Do you have some favorites? 

I personally love makeup because it’s a fun, creative way to express yourself. My best friend of 15 years is a professional makeup artist, and her favorite part of the job is watching clients look in the mirror and light up because they just straight-up feel awesome about themselves. Nobody “needs” to wear makeup, obviously, but makeup is fun and it’s about self-expression, and self-expressed people tend to feel more confident and all-around badass. If a vampy red lip makes you feel like you could slay a dragon, I don’t see anything wrong with wearing it as much as you want. If you’d rather conquer the kraken barefaced, do that instead. Makeup’s not obligatory. It’s about making people feel good.

Michelle Phan taught me how to apply foundation correctly, and Lauren Luke introduced me to the novel concept of not applying matte black eyeshadow all the way up to my eyebrows. Thanks, ladies.

Can you tell me how you approached the Ray Rice video? How do you find the right balance of comedy and seriousness?

All of the victim-blaming and indifference surrounding the Ray Rice incident made me nauseous, but I wasn’t sure how to tackle those feelings and make them into something productive. I knew I wanted to make something really structured and carefully worded, and I remembered that I had released my Hobby Lobby makeup tutorial about a month prior. I had really enjoyed playing with that format and I thought it fit the story really well, so I went to script with it.

Balancing comedy with seriousness is a finicky thing. Laughter is a visceral, involuntary response, so if you’re going to take your audience through different emotional stages, you have to be prepared to lay some significant groundwork. In the grand scheme of things, I’m a comedy greenhorn, so I’m still trying to figure this stuff out, but I’ve seen some incredible comedians at the Second City in [Toronto] and in Chicago take audiences of 300, 400 people from laughter to tears to laughter again in under 60 seconds. I think the common thread that they all share is that they’re honest, open, and vulnerable with their audience and with their scene partners.

What makes for good satire?

I think good satire deconstructs and subverts oppression and the oppressors. It holds people in power accountable and points out the flaws in systems that serve the people in power. Satire never goes after the little guy.

Is the topic of your video usually something in the news that week? Do you see your videos as sort of like an Internet version of Weekend Update?

I do tend to favor topical stuff nowadays. I think everybody likes to read and talk about what’s going on in the world around us, myself included. It’s very human, and it brings us together. Generally I start my writing process by reading the news and picking a handful of stories that make me feel something visceral. Then I try to zero in on the core idea behind that visceral feeling. From that core idea, I’ll build out and start structuring my script for the week.

As for being the Internet Weekend Update, that’s really high praise and I have no idea how to process that without being weird about it. Thank you. Growing up, I loved comedy, but I didn’t know I wanted to do it professionally until the first time I saw Tina [Fey] and Amy [Poehler] on the Update desk. Literally 30 seconds into the segment, I decided that comedy was gonna be it for me. So really, that comparison means a lot.

What were some of your earlier videos like? What did you discuss?

My early videos were definitely more random and surreal, and I posted more sporadically because I was still in school. I shot and edited whenever the mood struck me, and the sketches were less topical. "How to Drink a Pumpkin Spice Latte" and "How to Build a Gingerbread House" are both completely bizarro gross-out food videos with seasonal tie-ins but no real connection to any news story at the time. I also talked less, though I’m not sure what’s left to say when you’re running a beer-soaked cookie house over with your car.

In light of the recent Sam Pepper allegations, do you think there's been a signal boost for women creators on YouTube to speak out against abuse and sexism? Do you think YouTube has a creep problem?

I think the ladies on YouTube are doing an awesome job at demilitarizing the F-word. So many people are terrified of feminism because of the completely unwarranted negative stigma attached to the word. I think we’re more receptive to reprogramming our definition of feminism when we see a badass, 100 percent real lady break it down for us in an open, friendly way, and YouTube is the perfect space for that. I’m totally into seeing more of that.

I think the world in general has a creep problem in that we let creepy people get away with doing deplorable stuff because we busy ourselves with victim-blaming behavior. It becomes more visible on YouTube because the medium is so much more personal than any other form of entertainment. Many successful YouTubers connect with their audience on a very intimate level, and they’re writing, directing, editing, and uploading their videos as a one-man wonder. With this direct-to-fanbase distribution model and complete creative control over their content, a creepy, terrible sociopath could manufacture a personality and manipulate their way into gathering a following.

That being said, there are so many awesome channels and creators on YouTube who have immense respect for their audience and for the process. If we have a creep problem, we also have an abundance of strong, capable people to drown out the creeps and blow the whistle when appropriate.

And, on that topic, do you read the comments?

I read most of the comments. I definitely have to gird my loins before checking out the comments on my more political videos. I’d say like 98 percent of the comments I read are from awesome people who are into what I’m doing and/or they have valid constructive criticism regarding the content of my videos. The remaining 2 percent consists of comments about irrelevant stuff, like my appearance. That stuff doesn’t really bother me. I’m finally at a point in my life where I’m very comfortable with who I am, how I look, and what I have to say. It took me so long to get here that I’m unwilling to let someone on the Internet take that away from me.

What are some of the videos you're most proud of?

It feels kinda cheesy to say, but I’m really proud of the Ray Rice video. The script, production, editing—everything just came together for me on that one. I admire comedians who have this ability to walk the razor’s edge when it comes to satire, so I’m always attempting to emulate that spirit and that attitude.

Screengrab via Megan MacKay/YouTube

When Julia Marchese began working on Out of Print in 2012, chronicling the history of the New Beverly Cinema, she didn’t know the film would eulogize her own eight-year employment at the theater upon its release. In the doc, Marchese speaks of her fondness for the New Bev in the present tense.

“I want the New Beverly to be around for another 20 years, or another 30 years,” she says.

The theater might be around, but Marchese won’t be a part of it. Following Quentin Tarantino’s takeover of the management at the New Beverly on October 1st, Marchese was given a promotion from her previously held hourly-wage position—which had required everything from working concessions to locking down a programming block from Edgar Wright—and given a salaried job as a manager at the theater. Marchese’s new position lasted all of two weeks, however, before, according to her, the general manager and Tarantino’s longtime personal assistant, Julie McLean, notified her that she wasn’t management material. McLean offered Marchese her previous hourly job at the concession stand as consolation, sans any guaranteed hours.

Marchese took to her blog to vent about the new management, citing issues with censorship and a lack of communication and claiming that her last words to McLean were “you’re going to turn this place into a fucking multiplex, and it’s a goddamn drag.” She wrote in the post that she’d intended on screening Out of Print at the New Beverly, on a 35mm print, but has now opted to release the film on Vimeo for free.

Details of Tarantino’s takeover of the New Beverly are still unclear. Neither Tarantino nor the theater’s previous owner Michael Targon—whose father started the business in 1978—have said much. Tarantino has served as the property’s landlord since 2007, when he saved the theater from being turned into a Supercuts and a Chipotle, but he maintained a hands-off approach with Targon’s management until a few months ago.

Rumors abound that Tarantino’s decision to force Targon out were prompted by a poorly timed article from The Wrap that made Tarantino look hypocritical. The article claimed that “Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema” purchased a digital projector shortly after a speech given by Tarantino at Cannes in which he called digital projection the “death of cinema.” In fact, Targon, still the actual owner of the New Beverly at the time, had purchased the projector using his own life savings.

Many people have expressed concern over Marchese’s blog post, and the general nature of Tarantino’s takeover:

@newbeverly Bring back Julia Marchese muthafuckas!

— Cole Smithey (@colesmithey) October 15, 2014

@newbeverly Way to alienate your loyal customers. I was happy QT took over until today. Sellouts!

— The Generalissimo (@dageneralissimo) October 15, 2014

If Marchese’s predictions prove true, and the spirit of the New Beverly is forever lost under its new management, Out of Print will at least serve as a historical artifact about the iconic cinema’s unique culture, which spanned 36 years of operation. The film is clearly a labor of love, a testament to the eclectic community built around the New Beverly and its ability as a tiny, single-screen theater to bring together people like Joe Carnahan, Patton Oswalt, and a regular attendee known as “Zombie Man”—for his tendency to fall asleep draped over the seat in front of him—to enjoy 35mm prints of films like All About Eve and The Big Knife. It’s a theater that presented screen legend and regular attendee Clu Gulager a plaque on his preferred seat. Rainn Johnson claims, in the film, to have picked his new apartment due its proximity to the place.

In one of Out of Print’s highlights, Joe Dante reminisces about his early days as a writer, when he attended screenings at the original Beverly to review the latest films screening there. Prior to Sherman Torgan taking it over in 1978 and adding “New” to the original marquee to avoid the costs of buying a whole new one, the Beverly was a porn theater.

“Porno’s particularly fun to write about,” Dante says in the interview. “You can be so snarky.”

Also interviewed in the documentary are Stuart Gordon, Richard Kelly, John Landis, Lloyd Kaufman, Mark Romanek, Kevin Smith, Edgar Wright, Fred Dekker, Seth Green, DC Pearson, Tom Hedlund, and Noah Segan. Clearly, names like these don’t appear in shoestring-budget documentaries unless they care very deeply about the subject matter, and it’s a great thing to see them reminisce about their viewing experiences, programming blocks, and deeply filmic conversations inside the New Beverly.

“The New Beverly is one of the very, very, very few who are not eating out of anybody’s hand,” Lloyd Kaufman says in the film. “They are totally independent.”

Well... perhaps that one was too soon to call, Lloyd.

H/T Julia Marchese | Photo via  Unhindered by Talent/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)

Like the rest ofThe Hunger Games films, Mockingjay Part 1 is going to be far from a happy movie. The latest trailer, though, really brings home just how high the stakes are for Katniss Everdeen and the rebellion.

Here we see Jennifer Lawrence’s character return home to District 12 as President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) and Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) discuss whether she’s ready to be the face of the rebels in Panem. Heavensbee’s solution is to send Katniss to District 12, where she can view firsthand the destruction that the Capitol has rained down on her home.

It’s heartbreaking to watch Katniss discover her destroyed home, and it’s hard to ignore the chill you get from watching her find President Snow’s little gift—his trademark white rose—in the ruined building. Lorde’s song“Yellow Flickered Beat” playing in the background completes the atmosphere of the trailer and foreshadows the darkness that we can expect from Mockingjay. Given the potent combination of Lorde’s soundtrack and the footage from the film, fans had better get ready for an emotional ride.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 will arrive in theaters Friday, Nov. 21.

H/TMTV | Screenshot via The Hunger Games/YouTube

When it comes to talking to Brad Pitt, ordinary methods of conversing just will not suffice.

The last time he and Jimmy Fallon met, they went to the rooftops to yodel their way through a conversation. They’ve resorted to something a lot more extreme this time around: breakdancing.

On one hand, it’s certainly more interesting to watch them go through all of this just to discuss Pitt’s new movie, and it feels in line with other stunts performed on The Tonight Show, but does it really take all that work just to say, “Nothing much”? And it’s apparent that they’re both using stunt doubles, but Pitt almost makes you believe.

He had you fooled about Tyler Durden the first time around, did he not?

Screengrab via YouTube

“It’s an open secret that the mainstream media has special access to the halls of power,” National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Thomas Drake says in The Hacker Wars, a new documentary from director Vivien Lesnik Weisman.

“There was a phrase I used to hear at the NSA: ‘We’re gonna tell them what we want them to hear, not what they need to know.’ That’s pure manipulation. That is a [psychological operation], that is [information operations]. You’re saying that because you can, you control the narrative.”

One potent solution to this problem is the hacktivist, Internet freedom crusaders, hellbent on liberation through technology.

Enter Jeremy Hammond, the American hacktivist who breached the security of private intelligence contractor Stratfor and released over 5 million internal emails that have helped shed immense light on the opaque and powerful "intelligence-industrial complex."

When Hammond decided that the mainstream media was at best complacent and impotent and at worst complicit in crimes like those Stratfor is accused of—spying on activists, defaming journalists, building vast surveillance systems in secret, insider trading, government-sanctioned assassinations—he took action into his own hands. 

“Even if you want to call them criminals,” Northwestern University professor Peter Ludlow says of hacktivists, “they’re coming up with this information that looks a lot like criminal activity.”

Hammond’s story is but one chaotic chapter in The Hacker Wars, which focuses on the pandemonium sagas surrounding self-styled, hurricane-force hacktivists: Andrew “weev” Auernheimer, Hector Xavier Monsegur (better known as Sabu), Barrett Brown, and Hammond.

A patchwork of these character’s stories, The Hacker Wars pinpoints the common denominator of the gross power imbalance between individuals and governments and corporations that characterizes cyberspace today.

“If I know every single thing about you, about what you think, how you reason, what your fears are, what your plans are, what you’re doing, and you know nothing about me because I’m shielding my behavior behind a wall of secrecy, I have incredible power over you,”  journalist Glenn Greenwald explains in the film. “The power imbalance between us is now immense because I can now manipulate you, I can threaten you, I can alter your behavior, I can anticipate your behavior, I can always stay many steps ahead of you.”

The protagonists’ stories could each be a film in their own right, so this documentary only begins to scratch the surface on some of the most important issues in these dramas. That’s a problem—but, as far as drama goes, it’s rich ground that makes for a fun watch.

Instead, The Hacker Wars  is an electronica adrenaline rush, a hacktivist pump-up jam music video with the volume turned to 11, distorted for style, featuring the rare unembarrassing Guy Fawkes masks, endless video game sound effects, and a lot of long cigarette drags.

The Hacker Wars’ flashing lights, blaring soundtrack, sarcastic-joke overload might all be too much to be taken very seriously at times, if not for the massive gravity and consequences these stories hold—a characteristic it shares with parts of the hacker culture it covers.

It’s deliberately over the top, but in the current golden age of surveillance, it’s a necessary spotlight shone on a community dedicated to pulling back the curtains on a few of the most powerful forces at play online.

All of the stars of the show are ready made for the spotlight: Auernheimer (weev) is an obnoxious racist, a clever hacker, and an undeniably articulate and bright asshole—a hell of a combination for a movie star. 

The documentary sees weev sentenced to jail, convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) after finding a bug in AT&T’s website that allows him and a friend to gather the identities and other personal information the wireless provider’s iPad subscribers. He was later released due to a technicality about his trial’s location, his charges dropped.

Inexplicably, the film fails to delve into the biggest drama point here: Weev’s case set an important precedent and brought him legions of defenders from the tech world even as he crystallized into one of the most easily dislikable figures online. Many of the people who passionately defended his actions could barely stand the guy.

Weev’s story is surely great drama material but ultimately too much time is wasted on him. The Hacker Wars is far from empty calories, but it leaves me wishing it would do us a service and dive much deeper into what happened in each of these actual cases rather than give weev an inordinate amount of time to defend why he acts like an asshole so often. 

Weev talks so much and says so little, sucking away minutes Weisman could have spent diving into the much more important issues of Stratfor, Brown, or even the many aspects of weev’s criminal trial that are far more important than his admittedly sharp personality.

One gets the feeling that because weev is extremely open to interviews—unlike many other hacktivists in the film, he’s not in prison—he got the majority of the camera time by default. That’s a poor way to choose the focus of an important documentary.

Barrett Brown, another focus of the film, is a sharp-tongued “fuck you” journalist with a voice and smoking habit reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson, matched with the drive, humor, and abilities to place him among reporting’s best. 

Brown’s case—which is closely connected with Hammond, who supplied the journalist with hacked emails from the surveillance mercenaries at Stratfor—is given just enough time to drive home the film’s main message, which is laid out explictly by Drake:

"There is a congruence between whistleblowing and hacktivism and hacktivists. The similarity is speaking truth to enough power, revealing the power structure.

...

“They [the government] want to own you. That’s a power relationship: Superior, inferior.”

“They can watch us through our webcam, they can listen to our phones, there’s no privacy left,” journalist Chris Hedges tells the film’s audience. “We are the most watched, surveilled, monitored, eavesdropped population in the history of the human race.”

This is a highly stylized, high-octane movie about hackers with giant personalities, the kind of movie that will undoubtedly catch the attention of a new generation of Internet natives.

In a larger sense and at its best, however, The Hacker Wars is about a massive power imbalance and those with the ego and ambition to attempt restoring some balance. That’s worth documenting.

The Hacker Wars opens Friday, Oct. 17 in select theaters.

Disclosure: An interview with Daily Dot reporter Dell Cameron appears in the film.

Photos via The Hacker Wars

CBS has joined the parade of content providers, networks, and over-the-top services hoping to take advantage of cable-cutting. 

CBS Corporation has launched CBS All Access, a new $5.99 per month digital subscription video on demand service that will offer current season and past season programming as well as classic shows on demand. The service will also stream local CBS television stations live in 14 of the largest U.S. markets at launch. Though Showtime is owned by CBS, All Access will not include Showtime content or live sporting events. 

Unlike HBO’s cord-cutting service announcement, CBS’s service will not be initially available via over-the-top streaming appliances such as Roku or connected gameboxes such as Xbox and PlayStation. The service will be available via CBS.com and on mobile devices through the CBS App for iOS and Android.

“Our focus is to develop the best cross-platform video experience possible," said CBS Interactive President and CEO Jim Lanzone in a press release. "We want our audiences to be able to watch CBS’s industry-leading content live and on demand whenever and wherever they want.”

The move is a smart but risky one for CBS. In some ways, it protects the broadcast network from having to continually fight cable networks over fees paid in retransmission agreements. In 2013, CBS and Time Warner went to war over what the cable provider would pay the network for the rights to broadcast its content. Going directly to consumer would circumvent such disputes but flies in the face of a comment CBS CEO Les Moonves made in early 2014 when he said the company should expect $2 billion in retransmission fees by 2020. 

Currently, CBS is in a good position with cable TV operators, as it owns six of the top 10 shows in the Nielsen weekly ratings headed by NCIS, the top-rated non-sports weekly show. The decision to offer a cable/satellite-independent service, which would appeal to younger demographics, would complement its decidedly older broadcast audience. The gamble on CBS’s part is whether its shows have appeal to younger viewers, especially if the service does not include live sports or Showtime’s popular series such as Californication and Ray Donovan.

There is also the practical matter of existing access to network TV shows. For the vast majority of U.S. TV households, over-the-air networks such as CBS are available without cable or satellite service, and in high definition for most TV sets with digital tuners. With an inexpensive VCR or recording device to facilitate time-shifted viewing, that eliminates a lot of CBS All Access’s value save for classic TV shows such as Star Trek and Cheers (which first aired on NBC). 

In addition to likely announcements, which will include support for streaming devices, it would seem logical for CBS to make its content available for cloud TV services for Dish and Sony. The new direct-to-consumer service could be a venue for distribution of new content from such CBS Interactive properties as CNET (which used to have its own network), Gamespot, and Chow.com. CBS Sports, which owns the rights to college football games, the U.S. Open (tennis), the Masters (golf), and other sports through its CSSN subsidiary, could also be in a position to option streaming rights to that content.

Photos via C Jill Reed/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0) and CBS | Remix by Fernando Alfonso III

It's October, so that means endless reiterations of classic horror franchises—none more iconic, or more likely to be played in marathon form on a basic cable network near you, than the Halloween franchise.

But what do you do if you're attending a costume party and need to be ready to whip out a casual bon mot about how incestuous and loving Jamie Lee's farewell to the Mikester was in Halloween H20? Do you carve time out of your busy schedule to rewatch the entire lengthy series as a refresher? Or do you save that time for more meaningful pasttimes like watching Scary Movie 3?

Thanks to Cinefix, now you can do both. A new YouTube animation from the bite-sized experts who brought you the 8-bit Matrix has all the thrills of the original John Carpenter masterpiece without all the boring scenes of teens walking down sidewalks or Donald Pleasence looking harried and fretful. 

Even better, "The Entire Halloween Series in 2 Minutes" is just that—a condensed yet utterly accurate whirlwind through all 8 installments plus reboots of the franchise. The only thing missing is a tinny edition of the ya-da-da ya-da-da theme song delivered at helium pitch.

As the Daily Dot's own Joey Keeton said after watching this masterpiece:

Please let there be a Friday the 13th version in the future. I need to see a boat somehow going to Manhattan from Crystal Lake in cartoon form; it's on my bucket list.

Personally I'm holding out for an 8-bit Freddy Kreuger.

Screengrab via YouTube