At a show in Durham, North Carolina, Grace, who is trans, kicked off the gig by burning her birth certificate on stage. A fan captured this video, in which Grace declares, "Goodbye, gender!" 

I think the real danger with HB2 is that it creates a target on transgender people specifically. When you feel targeted as a trans person, the natural inclination is to go into hiding. But visibility is more important than ever; to go there and have the platform of a stage to stand on and speak your mind and represent yourself.

She followed through on that last night, telling the crowd that "the way you affect change is by empowering the grassroots movement." Grace has been very active in raising trans visibility, hosting the AOL webseries True Trans and, more recently, explaining the divisive title of her upcoming book. 

In an interview with the Washington Post, she points out that this isn't just about bathrooms, though:

[O]ne of the other huge parts is that it takes away a transgender person’s right to sue for discrimination on the state level and that is huge. I mean, if someone else has the right to sue for discrimination and I don’t, how that is constitutional?

The U.S. Justice Department is currently suing the state of North Carolina for violating LGBT rights and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

H/T Vulture 

Jeremy Ellis has performed with the Roots and described himself as a “true virtuoso of MCP finger drumming,” and that’s on full display during a recent performance—even with the most minor of nitpicking from viewers.

The video, which appeared online through TheSoundYouNeed’s Facebook page, shows Ellis at his best. He's basically the Jimi Hendrix of sampler pads and drum machines. 

Here Ellis has an attentive audience and is left to play music and even joke; it’s so good you might not even initially notice that Ellis brought an old wearable back from the collective dead with him while he played.

H/T TheSoundYouNeed

Remember Ellen's 2014 Oscars selfie? NBC sure does.

The network announced its new fall lineup at Radio City Music Hall Monday, and a ton of celebs were in the audience to support the new projects. Jennifer Lopez was there for Shades of Blue, and sometimes-Today Show host John Cena made an appearance. 

But because her talk show tapes in Los Angeles, Ellen DeGeneres had to sit out the event. Luckily, Saturday Night Live's Kate McKinnon has a spot-on Ellen impression, and she was called in to do a little crowd work. 

"Being in this room, there's a real Academy Awards vibe, and I have to say, the only thing that's missing is a viral moment," host Seth Meyers joked.

But then, bizarrely, the show went ahead and had McKinnon stage a selfie with Lopez, Cena, Maya Rudolph, Andy Cohen, Martin Short, Elizabeth Hurley, and Sophia Bush (among others) just the same:

We're in a place where brands hope being "self aware" of their lameness will play off as endearing in an advertisement, the same way it does when your favorite comedian says something #relatable or goofy. But in virtually every case, it backfires. Why? Because America still knows you're selling us TV shows, guys. We can only suspend disbelief so much. 

While we all know the pressure to churn out moments like that must be enormous, perhaps reflect on how many memes have been generated through tremendous thought and willpower. The answer to that is none.

Toronto rapper Jazz Cartier just christened the sold-out JMBLYA festival, which is a nice way of saying that he performed first. As the Polaris-nominated newcomer with two free mixtapes and two hot singles floating around Spotify, that’s fine for now.

“I’m like a wrestler, I’m starting out,” he tells the Daily Dot backstage minutes after climbing a stack of speakers and stage-diving. 

It’s a stormy Saturday in downtown Austin, Texas. Sporting neon dreads, a red sweatshirt, overalls, and plastic bags to shield his snakeskin Nike Supremes from the mud, Jazz Cartier (born Jaye Adams) performs with the unhinged grandeur of post-Iggy Pop limb-shakers—the type of usually straight, white rock singers who kick over the microphone stand or hoist it high and twirl.

“I can’t sit here and tell you that I’ve been to a rock show ever in my life,” Cartier says when I mention that this parking lot day party, buoyant with youth, recalls the mosh pit-friendly Vans Warped Tours of the late ‘90s. “All my influences come from rap, watching documentaries.”

Cartier, who is labeled as a sort of eccentric, is quick to joke about his broad colorwheel of interests. (“I want to get into nude painting soon. Crochet, shit like that. Knitting.”) But musically, he’s mostly just interested in hip-hop. Whereas freaks and geeks like Theophilus London and A$AP Rocky boast about their flourish of musical knowledge, rap has expanded in ideas enough for Cartier to find everything he needs here.

“Dead or Alive” is chest-thumping, on-the-block paranoia; “Ring” is Auto-Tune, piano-layered R&B; “100 Roses” is a brass-blaring EDM drop that finds him screaming like OG Maco’s “U Guessed It.” Cartier’s latest video for “Read Alert/100 Roses” landed last week with a virtual reality component.

Like most rappers these days, Cartier is earning his stripes on the road. At South by Southwest, he says he performed eight sets. In the meantime, he’s online, scoping out the competition. (“I couldn’t imagine life without the Internet,” he says.)

“I’m the top dog. I’m the one. It’s me or nothing,” Cartier says about Toronto hip-hop. “You have Drake, then me. That’s how I see things. Period.”

Cartier chuckles immediately after the declaration. He’s also quick to douse the JMBLYA festival’s talent with praise, too: Future (“the fucking godfather”), Kehlani (“an angel”), Rae Sremmurd (“those guys are my n****as”), and white-guy-of-the-moment Post Malone (“I fuck with Post… That’s my dog.”)

He says that the next step, a proper album, is going to take him a while. A year from now? He expects to headline this thing. If that seems outlandish, keep in mind that the promoters behind JMBLYA—a two-day festival in Dallas and Austin boasting mirroring lineups that saw more than 27,000 cool kids attend—made a name for themselves by wagering on the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, Travis Scott, and Wiz Khalifa early in their careers.

Saturday’s headliner, space-age Atlanta king Future, performed in Austin for the fourth time since October—an inspired 33-song set to boot. He’ll be back in the summer with Drake.

“I think it’s time for the show to start,” he said two-thirds of the way into his set. “Texas family, so we gotta do something special.”

The aforementioned Scott, having just opened for Rihanna at a nearby arena, closed the night with an unscripted exclamation point and performed blog wonder “Upper Echelon” and radio staple “Antidote.” But the rap Internet’s breakout favorites grabbed the mic in the sunlight.

Louisiana good guy Kevin Gates attacked bandwagon fans—who presumably haven’t borne witness to his stream-of-conscious Instagram videos—and didn’t even bother to perform his hit single “I Don’t Get Tired.” Kehlani, who trended nationally after a harrowing few days that involved being shamed over infidelity rumors and a reported suicide attempt, soared with her brand of DIY bedroom R&B that sparks on its personality and swagger.

Unfortunately, a cluster of trolls started a "Kyrie" chant as a reference to her ex-boyfriend and Cleveland Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving.

She only mildly, indirectly alluded to recent viral moments between songs: “We’ve had ups and downs in love.”

Post Malone, however, is the most obvious horse to bet on. He opened for Justin Bieber this year on tour, drew ire for accidentally saying the N-word in a video, and sang on Kanye West’s blockbuster album The Life of Pablo. On Friday, the 20-year-old Syracuse, New York-born singer likewise trended on Facebook when his debut mixtape August 26th landed on DatPiff.

“I just shaved my beard, I feel like a little kid,” Post Malone said onstage before zipping into inescapable single “White Iverson” as part of his 15-minute “special guest”-billed appearance.

Post Malone’s mixtape plays like the frank confessions of a fuckboi. “I just wanna see you, maybe talk about shit,” he sings on the Jaden Smith-assisted “Lonely.” It’s resoundingly open, an inner monologue for chill stoners who follow. There is weight and consequence to songs like “40 Funk” that find him terrified of all the Molly he just took.

On “Hollywood Dreams Come Down,” his posturing is undercut by fear. “I can’t feel my heart,” he sings. “Don’t let me go to sleep.”

Twenty years ago, his hip-hop-tinged harmonics could have made him Uncle Kracker or the lead singer of Saliva. But it’s 2016, and rap is the only genre that matters.

Editor's Note: This article has been updated for clarity and context. 

YouTuber Ryan Higa, known by his moniker Nigahiga, formed his own K-pop boy band, recruiting other famous friends to comprise the Big Bang-inspired group. The other members included Philip Wang, Justin Chon, Jun Sung Ahn, and David Choi—a.k.a. the group's "super Korean" member. Higa teamed up with Wong Fu Productions to make the group come to life. 

Their premiere track, "Dong Saya Dae" has it all: a catchy K-pop tune, a beat drop for the chorus, and—albeit comedic—Korean lyrics. The boys show the world that K-pop can be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of being able to speak or understand Korean. That's right K-pop fans—BgA helps solidify what we've been trying to justify to ourselves this whole time.

BgA definitely did its homework too, taking notes from the big K-pop names. "We don't want this to look like a parody video," Phillip Wang said in the official making-of video. After researching with existing K-pop clips, BgA incorporated those elements, such as multiple outfits, crazy K-pop hairstyles, different sets, and guyliner.

In addition to producing the actual song and video itself, the team created a logo, assigned stage names, released teaser images, and of course, three more videos to go along: the behind-the-scenes clip, a dance version of "Dong Saya Dae," and the dance practice. As producer Ashley Matsunami said, "The intent was to create a world in which BgA could actually exist."

Check out the hilarious teasers below. Who's your BgA bias?

In 2013, Phoebe Waller-Bridge performed a one-woman show at Edinburgh Fringe called Fleabag, which unloads her id: She's sexually liberated, overstimulated, pissed, grieving. And now Fleabag is heading to Amazon. 

A co-production with the BBC, the adaptation will debut this fall for Prime Instant subscribers, with Waller-Bridge in the lead role. Olivia Colman, who's also in the dark British comedy Flowers, co-stars, as does Brett Gelman (Married, Go On). Waller-Bridge relates that Gelman plays her brother-in-law, who is "bored and oversexed and likes making people slightly uncomfortable." 

Waller-Bridge described the play and her characters as "an amalgamation of a lot of my fears with jokes on top," calling it "one long scream at the industry and society." She manages to zero in on how modern women struggle with certain tenets of empowerment. In a 2014 interview, Waller-Bridge said, "I do feel that there's a loneliness in a lot of women that I've met or like a fear that we're not sure how to articulate ourselves about our sexuality." 

H/T Splitsider 

While fans of international professional soccer are used to seeing their favorite teams decked out in jerseys that display the names of presumably high-paying sponsors—and not the team's own nickname or the city from which it hails—that trend hadn't made it to the U.S. major pro sports market.

Until Monday, that is, when the NBA's 76ers announced that they had agreed to a jersey sponsorship deal with StubHub beginning in the 2017-18 season that will include a 2 1/2-inch by 2 1/2-inch patch featuring StubHub's new logo on the front left of Philadelphia's game jerseys.

In the past, the NFL has sold advertising space on its team's training camp jerseys but never for game jerseys. But the NBA Board of Governors approved the sale of game jersey sponsorships last month as part of a three-year pilot program.

“First off, hats off to [NBA Commissioner] Adam Silver,” Sixers CEO Scott O’Neil told USA Today. “He’s a commissioner who will take opportunities and will make the right decision and sometimes the tough decision and he continues to lead through policy. He gives teams the opportunity to drive our business.”

Not surprisingly, all the jerseys sold to fans at Sixers home games also will feature the patch, meaning patrons will pay to be walking billboards for the resale ticket-selling website.

According to USA Today, the three-year deal is worth $5 million per year, but the NBA hopes to make a total of $150 million each season of the pilot program.

“Jersey sponsorships provide deeper engagement with partners looking to build a unique association with our teams and the additional investment will help grow the game in exciting new ways,” Silver said in a statement last month. “We’re always thinking about innovative ways the NBA can remain competitive in a global marketplace, and we are excited to see the results of this three-year trial.”

Like many millennials, Anna Drezen and Todd Dakotah Briscoe graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with big ambitions but no clear paths to stardom. So they did what many of us with dead-end day jobs do: They started a blog about their experiences working as concierges in a Times Square hotel.

Much like its sister hell industry, the restaurant business, hospitality requires that all who work in it either have nerves of steel or literally not care about anything that ignorant people say. If this is the standard for not getting one’s feelings hurt while on the job, then Drezen and Briscoe found a way to detach and make fun of the situation—essentially making it less painful. 

Mark Twain once said: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” If this is the case, well, then it’s no wonder that their Tumblr, How May We Hate You?, about their experiences working at a Times Square hotel went viral in 2013 and became perfect fodder for a book of the same name.

The stories that Drezen and Briscoe collect on the Tumblr are fairly grotesque. Why would a guest ask this to a concierge at any hotel, let alone one in Times Square: “Is it alright to flush the toilets in the hotel while sitting on them or will something bad happen?”

On the Tumblr, the bizarre things that guests said are captured as script-like text posts. Because of the brevity and potential virality of such inane things, this Tumblr could have functioned as a Shit My Dad Says-like Twitter, which also landed a book deal and a short-lived network sitcom.

Whereas that Twitter functioned well on its own, with hilarious things Dad said distilled into simple tweets that doubled as marketing slogans for grumpy olds everywhere, these interactions needed the context of a Tumblr—a home base, so to speak. The guest’s questions could be a part of sketch comedy series about working in the hospitality industry; instead, they exist as text, and readers are left to place themselves in the shoes of Drezen and Briscoe. This technique fosters empathy from the reader—one oftentimes lost on Twitter due to lack of context and the graceless speed at which we skim our newsfeed.

But with all these fun things that happened just as a result of the How May We Hate You? concept’s Internet presence, what’s the point of a book? 

The book allows Drezen and Briscoe to do things that the Tumblr did not, photoshoots being one such example. On page 70, the two pose for pictures demonstrating “how to hail a taxi.” Apparently, their former hotel guests struggled with this one.

The book manages to bring the same sort of fragmented nature of Internet content to a print form, but leaves one wondering if there’s any sort of longer narrative story to tell.

The book also lets them expand on stories that wouldn’t get as many eyeballs if they existed only on the Tumblr. The book is divided into five thematic chapters: what a concierge really does, dirty little secrets of the trade, the grossness of the tourist industry, guest types, and a “who’s who” of hotel employee types. Chapter 4 is especially entertaining in its snarky rundown of types one would find at a hotel in New York, from people who are a part of small cults to rowdy Norwegian college guys.

How May We Hate You? was so successful as a humor Tumblr that it also became a variety show called How May We Hate You? LIVE! that features comedians like Josh Gondelman and Charla Lauriston. Comedian/writer Lane Moore did a similar thing with Tinder Live!.

This technique of taking a concept that begins on the Internet or mobile apps and moving it through different iterations on and offline offers another type of participatory creativity and performativity. It’s also pleasant to know that the printed word is still an option.

One of the main bonuses of this book is that it’s so damn pretty—a brown hardcover with golden imprints, lettering, and even a little crest on the cover. In fact, it could sit in the same drawer as a hotel bible. Much like the recent book by Kate Siegel, the daughter behind Crazy Jewish Mom’s Instagram account, How May We Hate You? has a type of Web-to-print versatility that makes one wonder if getting noticed really does have to start online. There’s an Internet quality to the book itself, in that it isn’t a straight read; it offers shiny stories that don’t necessarily connect to anything longer and more narrative aside from the writers’ own experiences. Most of the sections read like a one-off joke, standalone Tumblr post, or just a short story excerpt. In the book, one can find a quiz about hotel guests types on one page, followed by a dialogue between a guest and concierge, and then a short story by Briscoe or Drezen.

The book manages to bring the same sort of fragmented nature of Internet content to a print form, but leaves one wondering if there’s any sort of longer narrative story to tell or—as is the case with many creatives who gain visibility on the Internet—if eventually Briscoe and Drezen will leave it all behind to work on other types of comedy projects that are less personal and more fictional, eventually fulfilling their Hollywood dreams.

How May We Hate You?: Notes from the Concierge Desk by Anna Drezen and Todd Dakotah Briscoe, is available May 17.

In the wake of Donald Trump winning evangelical voters in the crucial Indiana primary several weeks ago, Samantha Bee dove deep into the rabbit hole of why religious conservatives would support a candidate whose life story defies many of their beliefs.

It’s a decades-long history, dating back to well before the Republican party became the party of Reagan. Initially, Christians were discouraged from participating in politics. It wasn’t until the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion that the Republican Party started courting them.

“The new evangelicals,” Bee said, “are happy to ditch the Bible for good old white nativism and anti-government anger.”

Cord-cutting services like Netflix may satisfy modern entertainment standards, but sports fans and politics wonks continue clinging to their cable subscriptions. The notion of livestreaming a must-win game—when you're at the mercy of buffering feeds—is too stressful to seriously consider.

The live event is a streaming problem BitTorrent is hoping to solve with BitTorrent Live, a multi-channel app it debuted Tuesday at the Internet and Television Expo in Boston. 

"We've got a system that has much lower latency than traditional livestreaming platforms where you're 30 seconds or 45 seconds behind and that's really frustrating when you're consuming sports," BitTorrent VP of Media Erik Schwartz told the Daily Dot. "Especially when you're consuming it and you're sitting there with Twitter open. It kind of removes all the drama, and the whole point of watching the soccer game is the drama. This solves that problem."

Schwartz said that BitTorrent Live—expected to debut on Apple TV this week—offers technology that is comparable to direct broadcast, satellite, or cable. In other words, you won't be more than 10 seconds behind. (BitTorrent Live will hit mobile devices and desktop within "the next few months.")

Following a reshuffling of executive leadership with an eye toward courting content creators, Live marks the first big new initiative toward leveraging BitTorrent's data-distribution technology that way.

"This is a new protocol from the ground up designed to do livestreaming on the Internet, but it really is inspired by a lot of the peer-to-peer work that Bram Cohen did creating the original," Schwartz said. "You have a livestream that is fundamentally powered by the audience. We only stream for like the first 10 viewers. After the first 10 viewers, everyone else is streaming from another viewer."

BitTorrent likewise has sights set on the YouTube generation of second-wave millennials, too: "There are a lot of MCNs and other folks that we're talking to," Schwartz said.

As the San Francisco-headquartered company noted via press release, pay-per-view events will be part of the business plan. The first wave of free original programming will contain a tier of free channels, all broadcasting live events. Those include:

AWE: Formerly known as WealthTV, AWE is a 24/7 network devoted to taking viewers on a journey of how wealth is achieved, used and enjoyed.

Clubbing TV:  The official media partner of some of the planet’s biggest electro festivals, Clubbing TV offers exclusive, quality electronic music content from artists and labels all around the globe embracing the entire the Dance Music lifestyle.

FAST&FUN is a new Television Channel offering an action-packed, adrenaline-including medley of extreme sports, from car racing and motocross to snowboarding and skateboarding; a large variety of disciplines, shows and competitions from all over the world.

Fightbox: From MMA and boxing to arm wrestling and sumo, Fightbox is a compilation of the finest combat sports from around the globe all on one channel.

Filmbox Arthouse: Every month FilmBox Arthouse also airs special presentations devoted to a particular creative movement (German Expressionism, New Romanian Cinema) or individual filmmakers (The Surreal Art of Salvador Dali, Rossellini’s War Trilogy, etc.)

Heroes TV: Delivers what action, adventure fanatics want.  Heroes TV targets audiences with Multiple programming categories to offer the most comprehensive action, adventure line up on TV.

Newsmax: Newsmax TV provides the latest news, expert views and live programming from your favorite TV hosts and A-list guests. (conservative programming)

NUsicTV:  Delivers the finest new independent artists at the forefront of music in a linear broadcast, allowing viewers to discover the vanguard in music without having to search the internet.  

OANN: Features political analysis programming and political talk shows, along with network special documentary-style reports; its news coverage attempts to maintain objectivity while its political shows illustrate a stronger conservative lean.

One World Sports: It features exclusive, live, world-class sporting events and premier matchups from around the world, with over 3,000 hours of unduplicated sports programming annually. Content focus is on live and same-day action of league, championship and qualification competitions in soccer, basketball, baseball, golf, table tennis, badminton, darts, and more.

OpenNews TV: OpenNews TV brings you live video talk shows from the best progressive talk radio personalities.

Pursuit Channel: Pursuit Channel is a television network that airs programming geared to hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation.

TWiT: The TWiT.tv Netcast Network with Leo Laporte features the #1 ranked technology podcast This Week in Tech, along with over 20 other top-ranked online shows.

"It's not going back to the old days of digging up streams wherever you could," Schwartz added. 

The now 20-year-old vlogger first went viral in 2014 after taking a selfie every day for six years and then editing them all together into one flipbook-style video. The project was inspired by a similar selfie video that artist Noah Kalina released in 2006, with the major difference being that Cornellier grows up before your eyes in his version.

He released an update of the video this week, now with over 2,500 selfies (and even more of a transformation), and it's going viral all over again: 

In the video's description, Cornellier writes: "See y'all at the 10 year mark. ;) This is an on-going project! I will never stop taking pics. Ever."

H/T Carbonated.TV

With digital stars gaining more mainstream traction, it partnered with People, Entertainment Weekly, and HelloGiggles for a mobile-first venture that will exclusively feature digital celebrities on video-focused apps.

“Just as People and EW have led and transformed celebrity and pop culture coverage for years,” said Jess Cagle, editorial director of People and Entertainment Weekly in a statement. “Instant will be the media authority on the new famous.”

While no specific stars have been mentioned as part of the coverage to come, Time Inc. called out platforms like YouTube, Vine, YouNow, and Snapchat as the focus of the project. 

“Digital artists are the most explosive and addictive phenomenon in celebrity and entertainment today,” said Will Lee, digital editorial director for People and Entertainment Weekly in a press release. 

The platform will feature content both created by digital stars, and news items about those stars. Content will be promoted on the EW and People sites. Time Inc. plans to reveal the project at VidCon, the largest gathering of digital video stars, fans and professionals, in June.

The post-hardcore band, which has been performing in various permutations since 2000, hasn't released a new studio single since 2009's Daisy album, although the band did release leaked demos and a holiday song during the years in between. (Last year's "Mene" was released on Spotify as a single, though singer Jesse Lacey has said that it was written around 2006.)

The single has racked up nearly 15,000 streams in a few hours, and the band is promoting a digital download and presale of a vinyl single. Brand New will tour this summer, both headlining standalone shows and with Modest Mouse, starting June 1 in Vancouver, Canada.

Did the class of '03 emo heroes deliver? Or at least not suffer the fate of contemporaries who have grown stale and embarrassing with age? Yeah, I like the song. 

But I'm emo trash at heart, so of course I do.

Editor's note: This post has been updated for clarity and context.

When Jeff Neubauer took the Fordham men's basketball coaching job in March of 2015, his wife, Karen Neubauer, seemed excited and apprehensive. She blogged about their trip to New York when he interviewed for the job. In her writing she isn't shy about expressing her feelings, whether she's happy or disappointed and whether she's giddy or angry.

But, not unlike the latest album from Beyoncé, she's now accused her husband of cheating on her, and she recently began to unload on him via her Twitter account for the entire sports world to see.

Neubauer led the Rams in his first—who hadn't had a winning record since the 2006-07 season—to a 17-14 record that included a school-record 14 home victories. That resulted in a contract extension and, apparently, a $500,000 raise.

But he also proceeded to upset his wife—she alleges he cheated on her while on a trip to the Czech Republic—and her Twitter journey since March is uncomfortable and heartbreaking.

But it sounds as if she's been unhappy for quite a while. As she wrote on her blog in January:

The husband forgets what a pivotal role his wife plans in his success. I have made five moves and I can’t think of one time that my husband ever was present for a move. He never had to deal with the packing, prepping the house, selling the house, unpacking on the other end. He literally just changes his shirt and it is the wife that is left to “clean up” the place he abandoned. It is the sacrifices that the wife makes that is what gets him to reach his success. A wife gives up a lot to move her husband forward in his dream. It is his dream that becomes your dream whether you want it to or not. This is hard to swallow sometimes because it makes you think your dreams don’t matter in life because it is all about him.
Today represents a start of a new year for me. Turning a year older tends to make you rethink your priorities and not want to put off doing things. For 21 years my husband has been my priority. Well it is time for a change. I am excited about the new year and all the new adventures. I have 15 pounds left to lose and have never felt better about myself. Nothing will stop me now. Time to put me as the priority because heaven knows my husband hasn’t. It gets depressing every time I see his priority list and I’m like number 7 on his list with the first 6 being all basketball related.

It's unfortunate this has happened to the Neubauer family. It's doubly unfortunate that this is playing out online for everybody to see.

H/T The Big Lead 

Despite the fact they will become the first major American sports team to wear a sponsored jersey patch, the Philadelphia 76ers were horrendously bad this past year. The Sixers finished the NBA season with a 10-72 record—but that doesn't mean they automatically get the No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft.

Based on the way the NBA lottery works, Philadelphia had a 27 percent chance of being awarded the No. 1 pick. However, since many NBA fans believe the lottery is rigged—this goes all the way back to the 1985 draft when, somehow, the Knicks went No. 1 overall and got to draft Patrick Ewing because of, maybe, a frozen envelope—this tweet from former NBA star Dikembe Mutombo raised some eyebrows.

Since he tweeted it out hours in advance.

BY GEOFF WISE

At a time when digital platforms are making a serious play for sports-related content, Canadian multi-channel network BroadbandTV and the NBA have announced the launch of a new video network called NBA Playmakers that will feature content created by millennial basketball enthusiasts. 

Videos will live on a YouTube channel to be launched later this year, as well as other platforms, including nbaplaymakers.tv.

BroadbandTV and the NBA are tapping creators who have “passion” and a “unique voice,” according to a press release, and members of the network will gain access to NBA footage, games, and special events, as well as NBA production facilities and new merchandise. 

The NBA Playmakers network will kick off during the NBA Finals in June with a group of creators producing a digital version of the league’s ad campaign for the playoffs titled, "Every Second Counts," which features an original song by Timbaland.

“Sports is a passion-driven content vertical [and] a market with massive potential,” BroadbandTV CEO Shahrzad Rafati said in a statement. “We’re empowering creators to build the future of sports entertainment by partnering with one of the most renowned sports leagues in the world, and arming them with the content, tools, and solutions they need to be successful.”

The NBA already operates a highly successful YouTube channel, which was launched in 2007 and now counts nearly 7 million subscribers and more than 3.4 billion views—which is more than any other U.S. professional sports league, it says. 

Additionally, at YouTube’s BroadbandTV event during the NewFronts, the NBA announced it would be adding its clips to the Google Preferred advertising program and launching two new virtual reality series on YouTube, offering a behind-the-scenes look at top players and arenas.

BroadbandTV—which says it has 15.1 billion monthly impressions across its network of roughly 75,000 channels, making it the largest multi-platform network in the world—has a relationship with the NBA that dates back to 2009, when it began to manage fan-uploaded NBA content onto video platforms including YouTube.

The Daily Dot is celebrating Woman Crush Wednesday, better known as #WCW on Twitter and Instagram, by highlighting female creators on YouTube whose work we admire.

In an enormous, downtown Los Angeles studio—surrounded by gold glitter, confetti, and an empty bottle of champagne—I sat down to interview the women behind #hotmessmoves. Lyle Friedman and Ashley Skidmore would speak with me first in 2013, and several times since. That afternoon, I’d be the first reporter they talked to.

There is a magic between Skidmore and Friedman who see no topic, from iTunes sex playlists to therapy, as untouchable by humor. Together the former Upright Citizens Brigade alums write, produce, direct, and star in their YouTube webseries #hotmessmoves, which celebrates the hot mess moments every woman living in the big city during her 20s understands all too well.

Originally based in New York City, the pair decided to relocate part-time to Los Angeles and pursue standup comedy and television writing. In 2013 Friedman and Skidmore stood out as pioneers in pursuing female-driven sketch comedy on YouTube, building an audience with their minute-long videos. Their ability to capture the female experience beyond the typical period jokes instantly gained prominent fans such as Hannah Hart and Grace Helbig. The pair’s channel netted more than two-million views in no time. But after a year of success, Skidmore and Friedman suddenly disappeared from the YouTube waves.

With good reason: 2015 marked the beginning of Skidmore and Friedman’s blossoming into the Hollywood sphere. Following the success of their YouTube channel, they were hired to write for TV Land series Younger, starring Sutton Foster and Hilary Duff. The two even appeared as topless music festival gals in one of the show’s episodes, recognizable for their fluorescent wigs and censored boobs.

Shortly after getting picked up by Younger, news broke last year that Skidmore and Friedman had partnered with Transparent creator Jill Soloway to write and produce a feminist comedy for MTV. As Soloway told the Hollywood Reporter, “Lyle and Ashley have a magical ability to tap into the female psyche, and through their own special brand of truth and humor they absolve us of our most humiliating moments. I’m so excited to godmother this show and bring Lyle and Ashley’s fresh take on lady power to MTV.”

“We have had many experiences in the interim of writing Younger for three years and the things that didn't make it into scripts, we decided some of the offbeat stuff could go on the Internet instead,” Skidmore tells the Daily Dot about the pair’s return to YouTube.

This month the pair uploaded a new sketch without warning, officially signaling a return to YouTube. As for what we can expect from upcoming episodes, Skidmore teases, “Just some good old-fashioned mess. We are pairing with Fullscreen to re-release the old stuff later this month, so we decided to top it off with some rediscovered material to get people watching again. And to know we're still alive. That's important.”

Stephen Colbert is just as much of a Marvel fan as anyone, but even he's got a bone to pick with the company.

Colbert noticed the lack of female superheroes in comparison to all of the male heroes (many whom have a “Man” suffix in their names) in Captain America: Civil War, and he was even more disappointed after a recent interview with Iron Man 3 writer and director Shane Black revealed what could’have been.

Black told Uproxx that he originally wrote the true villain of Iron Man 3, Aldrich Killian, as a woman, but he was ordered to make the character male after Marvel decided that the “toy won’t sell as well if it’s a female.”

To Colbert, the idea that girls don’t play with dolls is ridiculous.

The first Ghostbusters trailer focused more on the new team than the ghosts themselves, but in the latest trailer, those ghosts are sliming, possessing, and fighting their way through New York City.

In this trailer—which, perhaps in an attempt to not repeat its own record, has yet to be uploaded to Sony's YouTube channel—Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig), Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy), Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), and Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) face quite the uphill battle between a possessed secretary, government interference, and a giant dragon ghost. But the Ghostbusters have the technology and the brains to take them down—yes, even Slimer.

In addition to plenty of nods to the original movie, the new trailer even coincidentally manages to comment on some of the discussion around the reboot film, as one newscaster asks if the Ghostbusters are to be taken seriously.

“Whatever it is, no one should have to encounter that kind of evil,” a character played by Michael McDonald tells the Ghostbusters. “Except you girls; I think you can handle it.”

Streaming services have completely changed the rules of television in the past decade. Since Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime launched original programming, these platforms are seen as leading the way to the future of television. But how do their lineups actually stack up against cable and network television?

To answer that question, the Daily Dot consulted Metacritic, the website that catalogs reviews from widely respected film and TV critics. We looked at the scores from 21 of the most watched channels and platforms to see how streaming compares when it comes to quality control. 

The verdict is both good and bad: Although streaming is way ahead of the big four networks like NBC and CBS, it continues to lag behind the most critically acclaimed channels on TV. In fact, Netflix barely cracks the top 10.

Notes on methodology

• MTV, Amazon, and PBS all had more than one Metacritic listing, so we averaged them for expediency.
• Networks with a very small number of programs were excluded. This includes Yahoo Screen (two shows) and Cinemax (four). 
• If two networks had the same score, we gave preference to the channel or platform with more Metacritic-rated programming. PBS, while having the same overall score as BBC America, has more eligible shows and is, thus, ranked higher on the list.
• Metacritic's scores are primarily based on shows released in the past five years. However, in the case of long-running networks (NBC, HBO), programs outside that range occasionally trickle in. 

See where your favorite streaming platforms ranked below. 

1) SundanceTV: Overall score, 75

Highest Rated: Rectify (92)
Lowest Rated: Rebellion (57)
Recent Scores:Hap and Leonard (73), The Returned (82), The Last Panthers (73)

What makes SundanceTV (formerly known as the Sundance Channel) better than its competitors? Consistency. Nearly every single program in the channel’s history has received a positive rating on Metacritic. Critics particularly love Top of the Lake and Rectify, a slow-burn character study about an ex-death row prisoner trying to reintroduce himself into life in a small town.

2) HBO: Overall score, 74

Highest Rated: The Larry Sanders Show (99)
Lowest Rated:The Leisure Class (25)
Recent Scores: Veep (88), Silicon Valley (90), Confirmation (72)

Although HBO is no longer at the creative peak the network reached during its heyday of The Wire and The Sopranos, the network is still going very strong. HBO has churned out a string of acclaimed shows in recent years, including Getting On, Girls, Show Me a Hero, Silicon Valley, and True Detective (the first season at least). The network has its duds (Ballers, anyone?), but there’s a reason it remains the gold standard for prestige programming.

3) PBS: Overall score, 73

Highest Rated: The Hollow Crown (91)
Lowest Rated:Lennon Naked (32)
Recent Scores: Downton Abbey (76), Sesame Street (79), Mercy Street (61)

It should surprise no one that PBS, which is synonymous with quality, sits near the top of television’s best networks. Although Downton Abbey remains the channel’s most popular program, reviewers fell even harder for The Hollow Crown and Wolf Hall, the 2015 miniseries starring Oscar- and Tony-winner Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell and Damian Lewis as King Henry VIII.

4) BBC America: Overall score, 73

Highest Rated: The Office U.K. (98)
Lowest Rated:Tatau (41)
Recent Scores: Orphan Black (80), Luther (68), Broadchurch (73)

BBC America, the British channel’s stateside imprint, has always shined through a mix of well-made procedurals and offbeat programming. The Ricky Gervais-starring The Office became a massive international hit, spawning successful remakes in multiple countries, while shows like Doctor Who, Orphan Black, and Sherlock have gained a strong cult following in the United States.

5) Amazon Prime: Overall score, 72.5

Highest Rated: Transparent (94)
Lowest Rated: Hand to God (44)
Recent Scores: Catastrophe (87), Mozart in the Jungle (71), Bosch (76)

The only streaming service with better ratings is Yahoo Screen (which unfortunately only has two shows). That means that for the purposes of this list, Amazon Prime rules the Internet. Its most critically beloved show remainsTransparent, starring Jeffrey Tambor as the transgender matriarch of a dysfunctional Jewish family in Los Angeles. However, Amazon has plenty to love, including the strongly reviewed second season of its rom-com hit, Catastrophe.

6) FX: Overall score, 72

Highest Rated: Fargo (96)
Lowest Rated: St. George (31)
Recent Scores: The Americans (95), American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson (90), Archer (78)

FX has some of the highest-rated shows on all of network television. TV reviewers swooned hard for the second season of Fargo. The Noah Hawley-produced anthology series, inspired by the Coen brothers' 1996 dark comedy, set its sophomore installment during the Reagan era. The Russian spy drama The Americans, starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, remains one of the most underrated yet critically adored shows on TV.

7) AMC: Overall score, 72

Highest Rated:Breaking Bad (99)
Lowest Rated:Immortalized (37)
Recent Scores:Better Call Saul (85), Fear the Walking Dead (54), The Night Manager (82)

For a couple years, AMC was the new HBO: Mad Men and Breaking Bad made the basic cable network into an underdog Emmy juggernaut. Now that both of those shows have retired, AMC is forced to console itself with The Walking Dead, the biggest hit in cable history. It’s had less luck with zombie spinoff Fear the Walking Dead, which earned lukewarm reviews at the dawn of its second season.

8) Hulu: Overall score, 70

Highest Rated: The Mindy Project (81)
Lowest Rated: The Awesomes (60)
Recent Scores: Casual (77), The Path (70), Difficult People (76)

Hulu is relatively new to original programming, but landing Fox’s The Mindy Project was a big get for the platform, the Mindy Kaling-produced sitcom that was finally starting to find its voice. Season 4 was the best reviewed yet. (You can also watch earlier seasons on the platform.) The company still has a small collection of shows, but that has allowed Hulu to focus on quality: Casual, The Path, 11.22.63, The Wrong Mans, and The Hotwives of Orlando all received positive scores.

(On the Metacritic site, the second season of The Mindy Project scores lower than The Awesomes, but the show was still on Fox at the time. The site, however, still factors season 2 into the network’s overall score.)

9) Showtime: Overall score, 69

Highest Rated: Homeland (96)
Lowest Rated: Gigolos (30)
Recent Scores:Penny Dreadful (83), Dice (56), Billions (69)

In the mid-2000s, Showtime made its name on dramedies about middle-aged women in crisis: Weeds, about a mom who starts dealing pot; The Big C, about a mom who gets cancer; and The United States of Tara, about a mom with multiple personalities. These days, the network is all over the place—in mostly a good way. There’s the flawed but promising dramas Masters of Sex and The Affair, as well as Penny Dreadful, John Logan’s horror-drama about a band of supernatural misfits headed by Eva Green.

10) Netflix: Overall score, 69

Highest Rated: Master of None (91)
Lowest Rated: Fuller House (35)
Recent Scores:Chelsea (50), Grace and Frankie (62), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (82)

Critics rank Netflix as the lowest-rated streaming service, despite boasting one of the best-reviewed comedies on any platform, Master of None. The problem is that Netflix balances out its successes with poorly regarded misfires (Real Rob, Hemlock Grove). If the platform often mistakes quality for quantity—launching a new show every few weeks—it’s left viewers with a lot to love: Jessica Jones, Orange Is the New Black, House of Cards, and BoJack Horseman.

11) Starz: Overall score, 67

Highest Rated: Outlander (85)
Lowest Rated: Crash (43)
Recent Scores: The Girlfriend Experience (78), Power (75), Ash vs. Evil Dead (75)

Starz is one of those cable channels, like Cinemax (which didn’t have enough original shows for inclusion on this list), that often gets forgotten about. As recent critical hits like The Girlfriend Experience and The Knick show, the network is slowly building a strong base of programming by working with respected indie auteurs. Steven Soderbergh produced both programs. There’s also Outlander, the network’s biggest hit with both audiences and critics.

12) Comedy Central: Overall score, 65

Highest Rated: Broad City (89)
Lowest Rated: American Body Shop (29)
Recent Scores: Inside Amy Schumer (62), Moonbeam City (52), The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (64)

Comedy Central is in something of a rebuilding period. After the loss of Jon Stewart from The Daily Show, the end of Key & Peele, and a recent downturn in the quality of Inside Amy Schumer, the network is figuring out its next move. But while Broad City wraps its well-received third season, reviewers also like Another Period and Review, the idiosyncratic comedy about a critic who reviews everyday things.

13) TNT: Overall score, 63

Highest Rated: Southland (87)
Lowest Rated:Ricochet (33)
Recent Scores: Agent X (43), Public Morals (69), Proof (59)

It might surprise you to see TNT so relatively high on this list. Outside of Southland and Men of a Certain Age, TNT has few outright acclaimed programs, but many that are rather well-liked. It’s the network of shows that could be described as “workmanlike” or “solid.” Recent examples of TNT’s fundamental decency include Major Crimes—the spinoff of the network’s long-running hit The Closer—and the Ed Burns-starring Public Morals.

14) USA: Overall score, 63

Highest Rated: White Collar (79)
Lowest Rated:Donny! (32)
Recent Scores: Colony (69), Mr. Robot (77), Complications (55)

Mr. Robot is one of the best shows on television. The Sam Esmail techno-punk thriller about a computer hacker (Rami Malek) tasked with taking down an evil corporation quickly grew into the year’s biggest cult success. USA’s crown jewel, however, is not its only gem. White Collar and Suits have been underrated successes for the network, which is more widely known for quirky, middle-of-the-road procedurals (Royal Pains, Psych).

15) Fox: Overall score, 58

Highest Rated: The Simpsons (92)
Lowest Rated: 21 Jump Street (13)
Recent Scores:The Passion (40), Grease: Live (75), Houdini & Doyle (52)

Fox ranks as broadcast television’s best network, at least according to critics. And luckily, the network’s biggest hit also happens to also be a smashing success with reviewers: Empire, the Lee Daniels-produced hip-hop soap opera that gave the world Cookie Lyon. The Rob Lowe-starring The Grindr, which was sadly cancelled by Fox, was also one of the most warmly received comedies of the 2015-2016 fall season.

16) MTV: Overall score, 57.5

Highest Rated: Austin Stories (78)
Lowest Rated: Twenty Four Seven (33)
Recent Scores:The Shannara Chronicles (52), Scream (57), Eye Candy (54)

The former music video channel rebranded itself as the home for trashy reality television programming during the mid-2000s, when Jersey Shore introduced Snooki, the Situation, and “Gym Tan Laundry” to America’s living rooms. But aside from genre shows that never caught fire (The Shannara Chronicles, Scream), the network has its bright spots. Critics dig Faking It, the comedy about two female high school students who pretend to be in a relationship.

17) NBC: Overall score, 57

Highest Rated: Homicide: Life on the Street (94)
Lowest Rated:The Real Wedding Crashers (19)
Recent Scores:The Carmichael Show (80), Heartbeat (37), Game of Silence (57)

NBC is, to put it lightly, a very mixed bag. The once-dominant network has struggled with a central brand identity in recent years, throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. That programming model has led to high highs (Community, Hannibal) and harrowing lows: The debut of last fall’s See No Evil, starring Steven Pasquale, was the lowest-rated premiere in broadcast history.

18) TBS: Overall score, 57

Highest Rated: Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (84)
Lowest Rated:The Bill Engvall Show (35)
Recent Scores: Angie Tribeca (78), The Detour (69), Clipped (55)

TBS has long been TV’s premier refuge for dad comedy. In addition to housing Bill Engvall’s long-running sitcom, it’s best known as a place for reruns of syndicated comedies like The Big Bang Theory and Family Guy. But since bringing on Conan O’Brien in 2010, the network has desperately been trying to step it up. Landing Samantha Bee’s first post-Daily Show gig and True Detective-spoof Angie Tribeca, starring Rashida Jones, was a step in the right direction.

19) CW: Overall score, 56

Highest Rated: Everybody Hates Chris (88)
Lowest Rated:The Game (22)
Recent Scores:Containment (48), Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (78), DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (58)

Traditionally, the CW isn’t known for quality programming. This is the network that brought us Beauty and the Beast, featuring a “hideous monster” whose deformity is a slight facial scar. (He otherwise looks like a runway model.) But the network has majorly turned around its fortunes in recent years by banking on daring comedies like Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It’s also the home of well-reviewed superhero properties like Arrow and The Flash.

20) ABC: Overall score, 56

Highest Rated:Murder One (99)
Lowest Rated: Work It (19)
Recent Scores: The Catch (59), The Family (58), The Real O’Neals (62)

ABC, the most diverse network on broadcast television, has had trouble in recent years launching critical successes to rival its mid-2000s juggernauts—like Desperate Housewives, Alias, and Lost. The Ken Jeong-starring Dr. Ken marked yet another low for ABC, following previous duds like Work It! and Cavemen. But critics like Fresh Off the Boat and American Crime, the well-reviewed anthology starring Regina King and Lili Taylor.

21) CBS: Overall score, 55

Highest Rated: Murphy Brown (100)
Lowest Rated: Stalker (17)
Recent Scores: Rush Hour (46), Angel From Hell (56), Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (28)

Of the big four networks, CBS is nestled at the very bottom—if only by a hair. The elderly skewing network is better known for generic procedurals (Blue Bloods, NCIS) and not critical darlings. Recently departed Emmy-winner The Good Wife has long been its marquee program. However, what CBS lacks in quality it makes up for in ratings: The channel remains the top network in overall viewers.

22) Lifetime: Overall score, 55

Highest Rated:The Trip to Bountiful (86)
Lowest Rated:Liz and Dick (26)
Recent Scores:And Then There Were None (82), The Unauthorized Full House Story (34), A Deadly Adoption (44)

To be fair, quality has never exactly been at the forefront of the Lifetime channel’s mind. In recent years, the women’s network has gone all-in on cheesy movies about '90s TV shows (Full House, Saved By the Bell) and poorly made biopics on female celebrities who died too young (Aaliyah, Brittany Murphy). But the channel isn’t without its bright spots: The success of 2015’s UnReal, a dark comedy about a reality dating show, was a rare critical hit for Lifetime.