The wait is finally over. Fifteen months and an $872,000 Kickstarter later, the dynamic duo of Bee and Puppycat is back on our YouTube screens with a full series to follow up their cult hit one-off.

The CartoonHangover short aired originally in August 2013. It’s only 10 minutes long, but it fostered a vibrant fandom community with art, crafts, and cosplay dedicated to the pair of Bee, a young woman who’s just lost her job, and Puppycat, the ambiguously puppy/kitten thing she finds on the street and takes in.

The original Bee and Puppycat video plays like an anime on shrooms, with Bee having mythical dreams that supplement her out-there life. She steals all the candy from her temp agency, smacks her potential love interest in the groin with an umbrella, and passes out after eating an entire lasagna by herself, all in the span of a few moments. Puppycat’s life is one of mystery, as he magically teleports them to take part in intergalactic temp jobs to earn cash, all while harboring the secret that he might be an transformed space outlaw in hiding.

The concept is the brainchild of Natasha Allegri, a staff writer for another Frederator project, Adventure Time. She set out to make something for girls like herself with Bee and Puppycat, although Frederator only had enough money for a single episode. Unlike many other YouTube channels, Frederator doesn’t sell its own ads and hasn’t found a sponsor for the show that understands the demographic, according to a Wall Street Journal profile.  

In the first two episodes of the new season, Bee and Puppycat enter a more structured plotline. On a quest to impress Deckard, the neighbor Bee has a crush on, they use up all their money to try out a new recipe. To earn more for a forgotten ingredient, they become intergalactic temp workers again. Meanwhile, back at home, Deckard’s roommate wonders if Bee will ever grow up. It’s a lot heavier than the whimsical original, but the premise seems meaty enough to stretch over several episodes instead of just a one-shot.

The team has also expanded the voice acting talent, including Hannah Hart as the voice of Temp Bot, a screen/portal that assigns Bee and Puppycat their jobs. Not that Bee and Puppycat needs any stunt casting: The new episodes have already been viewed half a million times combined since their release Thursday night.

Screengrab via CartoonHangover/YouTube

Tired of sending messages to friends that contain boring old words you came up with? There’s a solution. 

Crumbles is a website that allows you select words from a standard dictionary associated with a sidebar of corresponding movie and TV clips, which you can then stitch together into a message. There are also two themed dictionaries: one filled with the immortal words of Homer Simpson, and one made up of words from the popular animated show Bee and Puppycat.

Feeling existential? Finally, you can let Homer convey that for you. 

Also, acts of civil disobedience. This is hours of fun.

H/T Laughing Squid | Screengrab via Crumbles

Remember the “Shit People Say” phenomenon?

A couple of comics from Toronto created the Twitter account @ShitGirlsSay in 2011, which eventually spawned a YouTube series and what felt like a few thousand spinoffs over the course of a year or so until it trickled off.

Know Your Meme labeled it one of the “Notables of 2012” along with Texts From Hillary, Overly Attached Girlfriend, Kony 2012, and many others.

But one of the biggest trends to start 2013, the Harlem Shake, trickled out after a month. Now, you’re lucky if something lasts on the Internet for a week.

in 2013 it could be a year

— goodinthestacks (@goodinthestacks) November 4, 2014

And then there's the catcalling video.

On Oct. 28, we were introduced to the catcalling video from the nonprofit Hollaback and Rob Bliss, who runs a viral marketing agency. They recruited an actress, one who’s experienced street harassment on just about a daily basis, to walk behind a GoPro camera silently for 10 hours, and filmed it. What ensued was outcry and backlash from (mostly male) viewers, essays about racial disparities, and commentary on cable news shows. 

And over a week after "10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman" debuted on YouTube, it's still fresh in viewers' minds, thanks in part to countless parody videos that have sprouted up since its release. Here's what's wrong with that picture.

•••

The response video of what it’s like for a man to walk through New York City was practically a no-brainer for sketch comedians, and it only took two days for the first wave of parodies to hit, thanks to some quick production from Funny or Die.

It might not have been the first, but it was probably the first major parody to catch the Internet’s eye; it’s been viewed more than 6 million times on Funny or Die alone. Soon enough, we started spotting even more parodies.

i cant wait to see the hilarious parody videos men will inevitably make of the 10 hours in new york thing

— thomas violence (@thomas_violence) October 30, 2014

i imagine that right now you can’t walk down a street in new york without running into someone filming a “10 hours” parody video

— Steve Spillman (@spillman) October 30, 2014

You can now see what happens to a female character in Skyrim, a support in DOTA 2, a drag queen in Los Angeles, a Jewish person in New York, a hipster in Austin, and, for some reason, a horse. There’s plenty floating around the Internet using the same concept. Some feature men, some star women, and still others reference video game characters.

Curious as to how many of these videos were out there, I did a quick search on YouTube.

With mirror uploads, news coverage, commentary, and reaction videos accounting for a number of those results—and recognizing that my search may have been vague, I tried narrowing it down a bit.

It’s possible that the narrow search could be overinflated with mirrors, but it still means that a bunch of people saw that catcalling video and—maybe after an initial reaction of anger, doubt, or incredulity—thought to make a parody video with a disclaimer of not intending to make any statements about the original catcalling video. That’s like uploading a Taylor Swift song straight to YouTube and adding, “no copyright infringement intended” in the description. That's still copyright infringement, and you’re still making a statement about the original video, whether you intended to or not.

•••

A few months ago, I sat in a panel called “Intentional Virality” at VidCon and listened to some rather successful content creators talk about what makes a video go viral.

Having written about quite a bit of viral content—both things that come out of nowhere and the consistent late-night talk show circuit—I was doubtful and rather cynical about it. If you see enough Jimmy Kimmel pranks floating around the Internet, you start assuming that everything that goes viral is fake, and you’re only joking part of the time. My bar for laugh-out-loud funny is set higher than most people's, and I get more irritated easily by such content; I started tiring of Frozen parodies in January, and it took a girl singing about poop for me to warm up to them again.

Cynicism aside, it turned out to be a somewhat fascinating discussion, as the men behind the viral curtain spilled some of the tricks of the trade.

“The most viral stuff are things that anybody can share, connect with,” MinutePhysics’ Henry Reich told the audience.

Sometimes all it takes is to put a piece of content with a clever title on Reddit for it to go viral, but Reich, along with the other panelists, broke down what generally works for them and what they’ve seen work. If you make a video that follows up with something that’s already popular (like a parody) or tent-pole off trending videos, your chances of going viral are greater (though actual mileage may vary).

They also discussed video packaging and getting it to the right community, but the only problem for them is the window for parody is getting smaller every day—as well as people’s tolerance for them.

•••

My perception of what comes and goes online may be skewed slightly by being sucked into the circlejerk that is Media Twitter. There, jokes live and die by the RT and fav, and sometimes it only takes minutes for the entire lifespan of a meme to transpire. I can tune out Twitter to write an article, grab lunch, and come back, and I’ve already missed the next big thing everyone’s mocking.

Major events excluded (when the Internet’s comedy game is fully on), the cycle of virality doesn’t last nearly as long as it used to. More people jump onto the coattails of something viral as quickly as they can, only to fall off as it fades away into Internet obscurity. For me, it was slightly surprising, from a solely viral aspect, that people were still talking about the catcall video a week later.

From a cultural standpoint, I completely understood.

Reactions to catcalling parody videos have been mixed. When writing about Funny or Die’s video, HuffPost UK’s Brogan Driscoll called the video misogynistic and described it as being “not only … unremarkably unfunny but it completely undermines the entire premise of the original video.”

Less popular parodies received similar criticism. For example, take the Skyrim video. The female character appears to have a physics extension added to it to make her breasts bounce for no reason. The drag queen video makes light of situations that many in the LGBT community face on a daily basis. Even a video showing what a woman would do (or should do) to catcallers undermines the women who are too afraid of being murdered for speaking out or rejecting someone’s advances.

Are they highlighting street harassment or just mocking the very people who are being harassed (or claim to be, according to naysayers)? Regardless, it rubs me the wrong way, and not because I don’t have a sense of humor.

They’re largely not funny, and when it comes to a big social issue like this one, they don’t really promote any productive conversation. No matter how many disclaimers you put on a video, you’re saying something when you make a video miming it. Some will always ultimately be sexist and offensive.

The issue with parody videos didn’t just suddenly appear when a GoPro camera captured a day in a woman’s life, but it’s highlighting it more than ever. It’d be easy to tweet out “BAN PARODY VIDEOS” in anger, but I’ve been on the Internet long enough to know that’s never really going to happen—and such a genuine insistence would probably make them become even bigger.

For the next time something goes viral long enough to warrant an onslaught of parodies, I’ve created some guidelines to potentially help the Internet create something less shitty, offensive, and mocking.

1) Has it been done before?

Seriously. Go dig around YouTube or Reddit for about 10 minutes before making a video. Do you see at least a dozen videos with the same exact concept that you had in mind? Your idea may be better than theirs, but go back to the drawing board anyway and come up with something even better. It’ll just get lost in the woodwork of all the other videos.

Consider “Weird Al” Yankovic, one of the original kings of parody: He did “Blurred Lines” about a year after the rest of the Internet got their hands on it. Instead of focusing on an easy target like the misogyny and rape culture in it, he came up with a completely different twist, and it worked for the better.

2) Does it only portray stereotypes?

Target the right audience and you’ll get laughs, but you’re showing utter laziness when you rely on stereotypes. It’s boring, dirty, unoriginal, and not even funny. Look no further than the many stereotypes of men and women during sporting events. It’s the same shit every year, and you’re going to get a healthy amount of backlash for sexism. As you should.

An exemption to this rule is if it’s used to start a bigger conversation, such as Francesca Ramsey’s “Shit White Girls Say...to Black Girls.”

3) Does it add nothing to the conversation at hand?

Or, “Is your video a carbon copy of the original but with one or two things changed for humor only?” If the answer is yes, brainstorm again. You’re more creative than that.

4) Does your video undermine the point the original video was trying to make?

Making a mockery of the original video only makes you look like a fool, and it derails the initial conversation started by the video in question. They’re the “not all men” of parody videos. Instead of talking about street harassment, we’re now talking about the sexist nature of the parody videos.

5) Does someone outside of your immediate circle of family and friends find it problematic?

It’s probably a good idea to get someone who isn’t afraid to tell you if something is terrible or someone who has a different mindset from yours to hear out your plan. They can often see something wrong with it that you may miss.

If you answered yes to many of these questions:

Come up with a new idea—or better yet, don’t. It’s likely already out there and done terribly.

Screengrabs via Street HarassmentVideo/YouTube

Though Vine has only been around since 2013, the social media platform has made some pretty massive contributions to our cultural lexicon in six-second bursts. From a young boy proclaiming “Chipotle is my life!” to Tish Simmonds joy riding in her mom’s car , the video-sharing app has blessed us with some of the year’s most indelible Internet moments.

But up until now, playing a soundbite from your favorite Vine required tireless scrolling and searching, wasting time and killing the joke said soundbite hinged on.Thankfully, Linda Brienza recognized the importance of being able to play some of the audio from famous Vines at the touch of a button. She created a new soundboard app called the Sound of Vine.

Containing 52 of the most recognizable and quotable clips, the app plays like a veritable catalogue of Now That’s What I Call Vine Volume: I. Between a young girl’s potato-centric version of Frank Ocean’s “Thinking About You” to a that cat that can’t stop “YASSSSSSS”-ing at the promise of treats, the Sound of Vine has everything.

Illustration by Jason Reed

The latest album by the mysterious iamamiwhoami is out on Nov. 10, announced by (bizarrely) Vogue. You can listen to the whole thing on SoundCloud right now, but iamamiwhoami’s work has always been more of an audiovisual experience. 

Iamamiwhoami first emerged in January 2010 with an enigmatic YouTube video of dark, glistening body parts emerging from a tree trunk. More music videos were released over the next few months, titled with seemingly random letters and map coordinates and showing strange, wordless visuals of mud, running water, and people building structures out of office supplies in the middle of a forest. At first viewers wondered if this was some kind of alternate reality game or viral marketing ploy, but it gradually emerged that this was an art project by Swedish musician Jonna Lee, along with various collaborators.

To give you an idea of the early days of iamamiwhoami, here’s the kind of video they were releasing without context or explanation, confident that someone out there would be interested in what they had to say.

Fortunately, people were interested. Not only were the music videos attracting interest on an artistic level, but this was a rare example of a successful Internet mystery. During the early months of the YouTube channel, fans wondered if it was a project by Lady Gaga or The Knife, but after a few months they came to the conclusion that the woman in these videos was in fact Jonna Lee.

The band’s first livestreamed concert aired in November 2010, but the surreally fascinating nature of the iamamiwhoami project was far from over. The live performance had an in-person audience of just one fan, who had been selected by online poll to be iamamiwhoami’s “toy.” This audience member, YouTube user Shootupthestation, was led into a coffin, which was set on fire as part of an elaborately orchestrated performance involving Jonna Lee and several masked figures.

As iamamiwhoami fan Henry Fry wrote not long after that first concert, “What amazed me about the entire thing was that, despite having no idea what was happening for almost all the time, hundreds of thousands of people have been following this for an entire year. Indeed, surely it is the element of not knowing that keeps us interested.”

Iamamiwhoami’s new album is their third, titled Blue. Although you can listen now, most fans will be waiting for the individual videos for each song to emerge, as they will fit into the overall narrative of the band’s ongoing visual saga.

Photo via twimclabel/Tumblr

It's now easier than ever to watch Finding Nemo on the go, regardless of what type of mobile device you're using.

Disney has finally reached a deal with Android market for its streaming service Disney Movies Anywhere. he new Google Play initiative allows the service to work across any device.

The original iteration of Disney Movies Anywhere launched in Februrary 2014  and included an iTunes partnership that allowed streaming across Apple devices. Now Disney fans who aren’t Apple devotees have a way to manage their Disney, Marvel, and Pixar content across their devices, thanks to a brand new partnership with Google Play. 

"We set out to create an exceptional Disney experience that made owning digital movies easy and fun, and with Google Play now on board following our successful launch in February, we are able to deliver unprecedented availability and ease for consumers across a broad range of mobile devices," said Janice Marinelli, Walt Disney’s lead for domestic distribution, in a statement.

Disney has been a stickler about access to its video content on video-on-demand services over the years, often excluding Disney titles from free promotions. However, as part of its own launch, the company is offering Wreck-it Ralph as a free download to get consumers invested in the Disney download experience.

This is not a gambit to fully erase the digital market for Disney consumers, as Disney Movies Anywhere users can redeem digital copy codes found in physical purchases for matching digital options, as well as view new and exclusive content through the platform. But for parents dealing with screaming kids demanding just one more viewing of Frozen, having the the Mouse’s catalogue at your fingertips is a welcome development.

Photo via Kevin Jarrett/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed

You don’t need to speak Spanish to appreciate Pablo Lopez’s captivating performance on Mexico Tiene Talento, the country’s cut-and-paste version of Britain's Got Talent, but you do understand his equally inspiring backstory. 

Lopez was born in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila. At age 5, he wandered away from home and got to the city of Torreon. Lost and unable to return home, the Red Cross put him in an orphanage where American parents adopted him. But, he says, they sent him to Mexico City when they "got tired of him" as a teen; he lived homeless eight years. It was during this window that a friend gave him a tape recorder and he began to sing.

"Well there's more money at the subway," 43-year-old career busker told the judges, explaining why he sings in public, "And more people see you at the subway and so you bring joy to more people."

Seemingly out of nowhere, Lopez howls a gruff, soulful Bob Seger cover that literally brought one of the judges to tears.

"I don't know who your parents are, but I'm very thankful to them for having you in this world," director and judge Hector Martinez said.

"You're spectacular brother," singer and judge José Manuel Figueroa said.

The third judge, musician Ximena Sarinana, was moved to tears by the "beautiful art."

Mexico has a long romance with rock music—it's what the boomers in Mexico grooves to at adolescent dances. It was so popular that the country is littered with a lost history of early rock stars that made an almost Pat Boone-style living ripping off all of the pre-Beatles American icons, rewriting, for example, "Good Golly Miss Molly" in Spanish (Los Teen Tops's "La Plaga.")

But none of them sang like Lopez.

H/T Reddit | Photo via AztecaTube/YouTube

Contrary to multiple reports, Macaulay Culkin is not dead, though his career certainly leaves something to be desired.

Early Saturday morning, rumors started to circulate that the Home Alone star had passed away. The hoax has traced back to a since-deleted Facebook memorial page that proclaimed, “He will be missed but not forgotten. Please show your sympathy and condolences by commenting on and liking this page.”

It was a well-calculated hoax to say the least. The page linked to a spoof version of MSNBC. That site’s doctored report included bogus quotes from police officials, and it quickly went viral, becoming so widespread that Snopes deemed it necessary to debunk the rumors.

We're on tour you silly people / @anchovywarhol's 📷 pic.twitter.com/JK0Y28M4pM

— pizza underground (@cheesedayz) November 8, 2014

One of the great things you can do when you're alive is stop for lunch in Breaux Bridge, LA pic.twitter.com/SpTLHBEuQu

— pizza underground (@cheesedayz) November 8, 2014

Any Austin pizzerias want to supply the drums (pizza boxes) and some pies for our Fun Fun Fun show tonight? @funfunfunfest

— pizza underground (@cheesedayz) November 9, 2014

But if you still need further proof of Culkin’s existence, you should head out to the Belmont in Austin, Texas tonight. His pizza-themed Velvet Underground tribute band, fittingly titled the Pizza Underground, plays there tonight.

Just don’t say we didn’t warn you about how bad it’s going to be. 

Meet your new favorite webseries: a webseries about a webseries. While roommates everywhere are dreaming up the next hit webseries, Ian Stroud and his real-life roommates Matt Starr and Brady O’Callahan may have stumbled upon the greatest premise of all: Roommates Making a Web Series About Living in New York City: The Web Series.

Series writer and creator Stroud holds our own navel-gazing tendencies—specifically our ever-growing belief that our daily lives are excellent fodder for a watchable entertainment—right up to our noses, and the results are hilarious.

Episode 1 introduces us to Brady and Matt as they have an ordinary exchange in the kitchen of their New York City apartment. After some minor quibbling, Matt and Brady simultaneously reach an epiphany: The basic minor conflicts of living together are gold, and they simply have to create a webseries.

Stroud’s story and camera work expertly contrast the natural candor of daily human interaction with the absurd posturing of amateur creatives. When we revisit the scene, as reimagined by the roommates, they are cartoonish versions of themselves. Eager to demonstrate the brilliance of a ho-hum idea, Matt and Brady trip over themselves at each turn, belaboring the importance of every action and resting for comically long pauses on the most minor of details.  

The highlight of the series, however, may be the pitch-meetings between Brady and Matt. Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre performer O’Callahan’s gleeful reactions to his own pitches are priceless. He can barely contain his delight and giggles incessantly at his own simple ideas such as, "Maybe one of the roommates is, like, making too much noise late at night, but we find out he’s making birdhouses?… Where would he… Like, I barely see birds!”

Starr, who has perfected the art of deadpan delivery as a UCB1 Comedy Reporter, is the perfect foil. While Brady thrills at the genius of their ordinary creation, Matt takes the task as seriously as an oil tycoon negotiating a billion-dollar deal.

This humble little gem is chock-full of meta-jokes sure to delight fans of Portlandia or The Larry Sanders Show. The slyest joke of all, acknowledged in the first scene of episode 2, may be that thus far Stroud has only made two episodes, spaced over a year apart. Hopefully, there are more to come. If so, Stroud and his team may be poised to win the Internet.

Screengrab via Ian Stroud/YouTube

Nicki Minaj’s latest single is the talk of the Internet, but not because of the song itself.

The lyric video for “Only,” which features Drake, Lil Wayne, and Chris Brown, made its way to YouTube Friday. For once, no one wanted to talk about Minaj’s butt. All anyone saw was the Nazi symbolism.

The animation—black and white with some splashes of red—paints Minaj as a dictator, Drake as the pope, Brown as a military leader, and Lil Wayne as a business-mogul type. Behind them is some very clear Nazi imagery. The military wears red bands. The red tapestry showcases a logo for Young Money (the record label Lil Wayne founded) that looks eerily similar to the swastika. It’s jarring. The intro looks like it comes straight out of Looney Tunes.

If the video’s intention was to shock, it’s doing a great job of it.

It’s got a lot of people online riled up. Many have accused Minaj of anti-Semitism. Others want Minaj to take the video down. Some of the people who have issue with it are descendants of Holocaust survivors.

hey @NICKIMINAJ thanks for the blatant nazi imagery in your new video! really great allusion to persecution &genocide pic.twitter.com/prjM58hhMQ

— Melissa Morgan (@melissamorgs) November 8, 2014

@NICKIMINAJ i <3 you. but making a nazi themed video, w/yourself as a sexy Hitler & your initials looking like a swastika? disrespectful :(

— Troye Sivan (@troyesivan) November 8, 2014

But the symbolism, whether intentional or not, goes further beyond the obvious allusion to Nuremberg and Nazism. There are tanks and soldiers, bombs dropped from planes, and propaganda shown on screens.

“You may also have missed that later in the video the words ‘CHAMBER’ are shown over a gas mask,” redditor stanfordy wrote in a thread about the video. “I don’t care if that was accidental, put that in the same video as Nazi imagery and it’s fucking alluding to genocide.”

“I could see them applying the Nazi regime imagery if the whole song pertained to the same ideas presented in the hook,” marknobs wrote. “Chris Brown's part somewhat fits the video theme, involving the exclusivity of a group of people. But the verses are about fucking each other.”

Some redditors were quick to point out that white artists such as Pink Floyd have used Nazi symbolism in music videos in the past and haven’t gotten the criticism that Minaj is receiving now for “Only.” Others dismiss the video as nothing but shock value to get people talking about it.

“Nothing was intentionally made or forced to make Hitler references,” nickitellem wrote. “It’s literally just a dictatorship being depicted to show how Nicki, Lil Wayne and Drake run the country (that is rap music) with an iron fist.”

As some have noted, Nazism is still an issue some countries are dealing with today. Far-right, Nazi-affiliated politicians in Japan, Greece, Hungary, and other European countries are being elected into office.

In the most bizarre maybe-coincidence of all, the release of “Only” came just two days before the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

H/T Jezebel | Screengrabs via NickiMinajAtVEVO/YouTube

Bill Maher has a bone to pick with younger generations.

Sparked by critics’ beliefs that California Governor Jerry Brown, at 76, is considered to be “too old” to run for president against Hillary Clinton, Maher went off on one of his many rants about what he called “the last acceptable prejudice in America.” Just because someone is older doesn’t mean that they’re incapable of doing great things, he argued.

Maher compared successful older people to younger folks who've royally screwed up. (He failed to mention the inverse: an entire generation of older adults who may have ruined the economy. Also, Congress.)

But he may have a point about one thing. Butts have always been around, even if the millennials are just noticing them now.

H/T Brobible | Screengrab via RealTime/YouTube

There have been food reviews on YouTube for as long as anyone can remember, but very few are presented with this level of professional quality and humor.

IGN’s Greg Miller and his production team recently rebranded their channel as Kinda Funny, and the title definitely undersells how great some of their food reviews are. Here is Miller’s review of Limeade Oreos:

Miller’s rebranding brought back a fan-favorite show Oreo Oration, from the loud and rambunctious host of Up at Noon. These cookie reviews are unlike anything else out there. Much like The Colbert Report’s ‘The Word’ segments, they feature Miller digging into a crazy new flavor of Oreo cookies while a panel on the side of the screen berates him with text.

Images via YouTube and Comedy Central

Who needs the Food Network when you have YouTube? Miller certainly has a handle on how to make food videos as delicious as the food itself.

Image via Mike Mozart/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson has often criticized Hollywood science-fiction movies for their shaky grasp of science, but the popular science communicator is giving Interstellar an unusually positive review.

Christopher Nolan’s latest film follows a team of astronauts through a black hole as they search for a habitable planet for humankind to colonize. Although its central storyline is arguably a fantasy, the film’s depiction of wormholes, relativity, and gravity are all grounded in real science, thanks in part to Nolan’s astrophysicist consultant Kip Thorne. One of Thorne’s most noticeable contributions is the shape of the black hole: a planet-like sphere rather than the popularly imagined window or hole into another part of the universe.

Tyson’s Twitter praise for the movie covered this and other aspects of Interstellar that clearly bore the influence of Thorne’s scientific scrutiny.

In #Interstellar, if you didn’t understand the physics, try Kip Thorne’s highly readable Bbook “The Science of Interstellar"

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014

In #Interstellar, if you didn’t understand the plot, there is no published book to help you.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014

In #Interstellar: They explore a planet near a Black Hole. Personally, I’d stay as far the hell away from BlackHoles as I can

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014

In #Interstellar: You observe great Tidal Waves from great Tidal Forces, of magnitude that orbiting a Black Hole might create

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014

REMINDER: Never look to me for opinions on new films. All I do is highlight the science one might or might not find in them.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014

The astrophysicist mainly discussed Interstellar's realistic portrayal of zero gravity and its plausible interpretation of black holes, but he also highlighted Nolan’s casting choices. All of the main characters, he noted, are scientists or engineers, and two of them are women.

In #Interstellar: All leading characters, including McConaughey, Hathaway, Chastain, & Caine play a scientist or engineer.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014

Tyson’s commentary will likely settle a few of the Interstellar-related arguments that have been raging online this weekend, but it’s still up to audiences to decide whether scientific accuracy makes Interstellar a better or more entertaining film as a whole.

Photo via Bill Ingalls/NASA (Public Domain)

“The lottery is in the business of selling people hope,” John Oliver explained on Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight, “and they do a great job of that.” It’s just too bad your chances of winning a Mega Millions jackpot are one in 176 million, roughly equal to that of “getting struck by lightning at the same time you’re being eaten by a shark.” 

But the lottery business isn’t just raking in billions by posing as a fun, life-changing investment opportunity for low-income families—it also does little to support state education systems while ruthlessly exploiting addiction. And even the actual winners get more than they bargained for: mo' money, mo' problems, right?   

So really, save your money under the mattress (or, you know, invest it). And if you simply have to gamble, do so responsibly. Like at a mafia poker game or something.

Photo via Last Week Tonight with John Oliver/YouTube

I recently discovered an old Polaroid camera while I was moving, and had to take a minute to marvel at its architecture and utility. Then I remembered some youngsters have never seen such a thing.

The latest Fine Bros. video puts old cameras in front of kids for inspection, and their reactions are about what you’d expect. The focus sound confuses them! They’re so bulky! What is film? And of course they immediately attempt to take a selfie to document their existence on these ancient artifacts (a Canon Sure Shot 85 Zoom, in this case).

When one girl is told she hasn’t actually taken a selfie, she reacts accordingly: “I just wasted my selfie time!”

As always, get ready to feel old(er). 

Screengrab via TheFineBros/YouTube

The YouTube community is facing another wave of sex scandals as more videos alleging rape and manipulation come to light.

Tate Wolverson is a British vlogger, and although he’s already made a video talking about his rape, he didn’t name alleged abuser until now. Since the accusations against Sam Pepper and Jason Viohni came to light in September, more people have alleged sexual impropriety against numerous other YouTubers, including rape, solicitation of nudes, and everything in between. Wolverson said he felt that he had to name the person who raped him after finding out that something similar happened to two other people he knew (one whose roommate has since come forward with his story).

Wolverson called out Craig Dillon, a fellow British YouTuber with around 48,000 subscribers, as his alleged rapist. Wolverson says that he asked to crash at Dillon's place when he needed somewhere to sleep but insisted he didn’t want to have sex (despite a previous sexual history with Dillon). Dillon allegedly proceeded to have sex with him anyway even after Wolverson said no.

Wolverson also featured messages he and Dillon sent to each other more recently. According to the texts, Dillon knew about Wolverson making the first video about sex abuse but begged him not to out him in it. Dillon noted that “all the other YouTubers are desperate for more scandals, it helps them to ruin people and create less competition for them.”

Wolverson’s video has been met with an outpouring of support from many in the YouTube community.

and also I wanted to remind you that amongst all this darkness YouTube is still a bright and wonderful place.

— Niki Albon (@NikiAlbon) November 9, 2014

Going off the internet for a while to decompress! Thank you all for the wonderful support I've had, you're all truly magnificent <3

— Tate Wolverson (@TateWolverson) November 9, 2014

But his video also gave more of Dillon’s alleged victims the courage to come forward.

Tonight, a close friend has contacted me to say that @craigtdillon raped him too. I am beyond angry. How many more?? pic.twitter.com/ZMt3AnAoNd

— Benjamin Cook (@benjamin_cook) November 9, 2014

Mike Jerry says he and Dillon met at a party when he was 17. He claims they hooked up there and that he was initially interested in Dillon. But once he invited Dillon over, he says he was pressured into having sex multiple times even after he didn’t want to do anything anymore. He plans to confront Dillon in another video.

Jamie Pine also alleges that Dillon had sex with him without consent after they both went clubbing, and he didn’t feel the need to tell his story until he found out it happened to other people.

Felix Mackow, an ex-boyfriend, tells a similar story, while Arran Armitage posted Dillon’s insistence for nude photos.

my Craig story idk ft @ArranArmitagepic.twitter.com/ff4ndE5HWg

— mxck (@FelixxMackky) November 9, 2014

repeatedly asking for nudes after i said no is harassment you absolute cunt pic.twitter.com/08fVMXdqfV

— Arran (@ArranArmitage) November 9, 2014

Drew Gilchrist, who used to hang with Dillon and had a past sexual relationship with him, alleges that Dillon touched him, even after he said no—and possibly when he thought Gilchrist was asleep.

Dillon, for his part, is not keeping silent. On Twitter, he has denied the allegations and told rape victims to call the police. (Of course, that's often easier said than done, and even going to the police could result in nothing, as the roommate of one of Dillon's alleged victims revealed.)

I have never raped anyone. if you have truly been raped, please contact the police rather than posting a YouTube video about it.

— Craig Dillon (@craigtdillon) November 9, 2014

Earlier today, Dillon released a reply to Wolverson’s original video to explain his side of the story. He denied that it was rape and said it was probably a mistake that they slept together.

Reactions from fans have been mixed. Some viewers aren’t sure who to believe as alleged victims continue to speak out. Gilchrist revealed that Dillon may be deleting comments from everyone who isn’t supporting him.

Craig's video is in the same boat as Jason's, making you feel sorry for him. Let me tell you this now. He doesn't deserve it.

— Jamie Pine (@JamesMathewPine) November 10, 2014

Craig deleting comments one by one to make it look like people are supporting him, my comments already been deleted. pic.twitter.com/8HXco686UM

— Drewsif (@DrewIsSharing) November 10, 2014

This is just the latest string of allegations in a long line of sex abuse scandals on the video platform. A website has been created to make it easier for viewers to unsubscribe from every YouTube creator who has been accused of sexual abuse with a single click.

Illustration by Jason Reed

On paper, it looks like British Vine star Dapper Laughs has hit the big time. He’s got his own TV show, he’s on a comedy tour of the UK, and his debut single reached the top 10 on iTunes in the UK. But outside his core audience of Vine fans and wannabe pickup artists, Laughs is probably better known for mocking homeless people and having his TV show described as “ a rapist’s almanac.”

Dapper Laughs, real name Daniel O’Reilly, has managed to rack up 594,000 Vine followers and 1.7 million Facebook fans thanks to his comedy Vines and one-liners about sex, girls, and drinking. A typical example involves him running away from a girl’s bedroom on the morning after a one night stand. Don’t bother trying to find the punchline, because there isn’t one.

O’Reilly’s most famous catchphrase is “proper moist,” which, incidentally, is the title of his first single. Sample lyric: “They'll be hatin' on me for just havin' a bit of fun/'Cause I'll track her down and fuck her mum/She knows/And if she's lookin at me but playin’ with her hair/By the end of the night she'll need a wheelchair/She knows.”

“She knows” is O’Reilly’s other catchphrase. It usually comes into play when a woman notices he’s filming her for one of his Vines.

His TV show Dapper Laughs: On The Pull frames him as a dating advice expert who uses a combination of British lad culture and pickup-artist tips to help guys get laid. It’s easy to see why so many people consider O’Reilly to be an idiot, a misogynist, or both. There’s a strong case to be made that O’Reilly got his TV deal as a result of Vines that border on sexual harassment.

@Liam_Mooree if your not sure if she likes you show her your cock, if she cries she's a lesbian.

— Dapper Laughs (@dapperlaughs) November 9, 2013

Remember, its only sexual harassment if she's more attractive then you

— Dapper Laughs (@dapperlaughs) May 29, 2013

O’Reilly isn’t very famous overseas, but he is something of a C-list celebrity in the UK, mostly thanks to his various controversies. 48,000 people have signed a petition demanding that his TV show be cancelled, and the homeless charity Shelter is refusing to accept any donations from his Christmas charity album, “Proper Naughty Christmas.” Despite O’Reilly’s repeated protests that the album is meant to benefit “the homeless,” it includes songs with titles like “A Walk To The Pub... With A Tramp.”

A tramp just asked me what I was looking at,"Your tooth" I said,he laughed, which revealed two more random teeth, which ruined the joke.

— Dapper Laughs (@dapperlaughs) June 25, 2014

Just to confirm: we won’t be accepting donations (however small!) from @dapperlaughs for reasons @UsVsTh3m make clear http://t.co/hWfS3CM3nX

— Shelter (@Shelter) November 6, 2014

Last week, after the website Usvsth3m suggested that people donate money directly to Shelter rather than buying O’Reilly’s album, he allegedly used Snapchat to tell his fans to harass two Usvsth3m writers on Twitter. This week, he fell back into the spotlight after someone unearthed footage from a recent comedy gig where he said a female audience member was “gagging for a rape.”

“Do you want to come backstage after?” he added. “Bring two of your mates, you’ll need them."

O’Reilly had been commenting on the accusations that his TV show and social media persona promoted rape culture. "If it was a guide to rape, I would have done one five-minute episode,” he joked about Dapper Laughs: On The Pull. “[I’d] come on and go 'Oi oi, I'm Dapper Laughs, go down the shops, get some rope, bit of duct tape, rape the bitch, well done, see you later."

With more and more people accusing O’Reilly of sexism and calling for his show to be cancelled, ITV, the network airing his show, was forced to respond. “Comedy is subjective and we appreciate the content of the show might not be to everyone’s taste,” said a spokesperson from ITV. “We regret that any of our viewers were offended. However, as with all of our shows, the series content was carefully considered, complied and deemed suitable for broadcast.”

O’Reilly himself posted a rather nonspecific apology on social media, saying, “Some comedians push the boundaries in the name of entertainment. That means taking risks. But I think it's important that if we over step the mark and cause people upset that we apologise."

O’Reilly is far from the first social media star to make a career out of harassing women. Sam Pepper , a YouTube “prankster” whose best-known videos involved him groping women on the street, was recently accused of multiple accounts of sexual assault. This particular genre of prank video is now so common that it almost feels more boring than offensive.

While O’Reilly seems to think of himself as a risk-taker who “pushes the boundaries” of comedy, others consider painfully simple sexist humor to be about as old-fashioned as you can get. The only difference between O’Reilly’s Dapper Laughs persona and his previous work as a cruise-ship entertainer is his viral success online. This may have created the illusion that Dapper Laughs is yet another cool millennial trend just waiting to be monetized, but his promoters are now learning the hard way that Vine success does not always extend beyond that six-second video loop. Despite ITV’s assurances that his show was “deemed suitable for broadcast,” it’s likely that some people are now seriously regretting their decision to give him a TV deal.

The Daily Dot reached out to ITV and Daniel O’Reilly for comment and we will update if they respond.

Update 12:25pm CT, Nov. 10: On Monday evening, U.K. time, ITV backtracked and announced that it would not renew O'Reilly's show for a second season.

Photo via DapperLaughsFans /Facebook

It’s not often that a shapeshifting, sonically challenging electronic artist popular in the ’90s can harness the power of the Internet to get on the mainstream's radar. Aphex Twin is currently living that dream.

Earlier this year, Richard D. James, a.k.a. British musician Aphex Twin, became relevant again after fans successfully crowdfunded an obscure 1994 album on Kickstarter. Then the founder of Minecraftpurchased a copy of the album on eBay for $46,300, turning even more eyes to James’s work—including a younger generation that was perhaps unfamiliar with it. 

A couple months later, James announced the details of his new album, Syro—his first in more than a decade—via the Deep Web (and a blimp). Last month, artist David Rees produced a mashup of Aphex Twin and Taylor Swift, causing a glorious generational collison.

This is the Aphex Twin of 2014, and the Internet is ready for him. 

James is on a roll, and is now offering fans even more to froth over. Over the last few weeks, he’s dropped a wealth of demos, studio experiments, and a 21-track modular synth album on his SoundCloud page. He's also offered some demos allegedly made by his 5-year-old son. James’s work has always been a little tongue-in-cheek, so who knows if that’s actually true. Still, taking in all this material illustrates just how important James has been to shaping the sound and vision of electronic music over the decades. 

In an extensive two-part interview with U.K. blog Noyzelab, James gave a partial explanation for why he’s back on our radar:

… mankind needs as much positive/trippy/awakening/next level non dark thought provoking  vibes as possible right now, we are living in a mega dark spiritual age and its 2easy to channel that into our music but I think we have to try really hard to drag ourselves out of it and dream up new mind expanding music & art, thats definitely not boring nu age yawnsville.

You can dive in right here.

H/T Fact Mag | Photo via Aurelien Guichard/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The ladies of Broad City have been keeping us appropriately stimulated for season two of the Comedy Central series with the Hack Into Broad City webseries. Now, finally, we have the first trailer.

There are plenty of awkward and amazing moments in this teaser, including a dressing room mirror exploration of Ilana’s untweezed nether regions, twerking, the consumption of "titty chips," bong hits, Seth Rogen, and Abbi quoting a line from Pretty Woman.

Season two debuts Jan. 14. We’re gonna eat a bunch of titty chips and hopefully just wake up then.

H/T Vulture | Screengrab via Comedy Central

In case her reputation or music hasn’t preceded her, sentient 1950s bathing suit Taylor Swift is known for being a bit boy crazy. It’s a persona the 1989 artist decided to take back with a bit of humor on her latest LP with “Blank Space.”

The track, which begins with a hypnotic beat and syncopated verse, quickly takes a turn for the sadistic as Taylor croons a deliciously deranged chorus with a wink to all the tabloid covers she’s appeared on. But never one to be satisfied with the bare minimum, Swift decided to antagonize the haters who are gonna hate, hate, hate with a music video for the track that makes her schizophrenic “Shake It Off” persona look well-adjusted.

After Yahoo! accidentally posted and then removed the video early Monday morning, Swift's camp moved quickly to officially release "Blank Space" on Vevo by the afternoon. Though the official video, originally scheduled for Tuesday, is a bit different from its Yahoo! counterpart, the message is still the same: If you mess with Taylor’s heart, she will go full-fledged Single White Female on you.

Directed by Joseph Khan and featuring model Sean O’Pry as Swift’s latest lover-turned-victim, the “Blank Space” music video holds nothing back. Between stabbing cakes, setting fire to dress shirts, and bashing priceless antique automobiles with golf clubs, the video hits all the classic “nightmare dressed like a daydream” tropes.

For all those concerned, “No animals, trees, automobiles or actors were harmed in the making of this video,” the video explicitly states. But after seeing what Swift can do to a cake with a knife, I'd watch my back if I were the intern that goofed the posting in the first place. 

H/T Stereogum | Photo via TaylorSwiftVevo/YouTube