Bad news, New York. You’ve been replaced as the city that never sleeps by the Internet, although admittedly that metaphor doesn’t really work if you try and apply real-world urban planning to it. (What is the sidewalk of the Internet? What are the parks? Is there a transit system, and if so, what is it? Also, who’s in charge of maintenance?) Nonetheless, what we used to call the World Wide Web has, as ever, been reliably busy with outrage and excitement this week, and once again, we have gathered together a short primer on some entertainment stories that you might have missed, just so that you’ll have an answer when a confused relative asks you what people are talking about on the tubes these days. No need to thank us.
A Year of Pop in 250 Seconds
What Happened: Proof we’re almost at the end of 2014 arrived in the shape of DJ Earworm’s “United State of Pop 2014″ mashup.
Where It Blew Up: YouTube, blogs
What Really Happened: Why bother paying attention to what happens in pop music—even during what’s been called a banner year for poptimism—when someone will come along and summarize the whole thing for you in under five minutes at the start of December? The emphasis really is on pop, here; Taylor Swift, Pharrell, and Iggy Azalea are all present, so this is very much a collection of songs that you’ll already be familiar with. Hell, even Idina Menzel’s “Let It Go” from Frozen makes an appearance, despite that movie having come out in November 2013.
The Takeaway: This is only the start of the deluge, so get used to hearing a lot of this kind of thing over the next few weeks. Use them as a starting point for your own Best-Of lists, or a shopping list if you need to catch up.
Chris Rock Becomes the Internet’s Elder Statesman
What Happened: Chris Rock gave a series of interviews in which he talked about race relations in America.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media thinkpieces
What Really Happened: Responding to recent events including the lack of indictments in both the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases, Rock talked to New York magazine and Grantland, as well as writing a must-read essay for The Hollywood Reporter .
To say that he was talking sense in each and every case is putting it mildly. Here he is, from the New York piece: “When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.” Or from THR: “I remember when they were doing Starsky & Hutch, and my manager was like, ‘We might be able to get you the part of Huggy Bear,’ which eventually went to Snoop Dogg. I was like: ‘Do you understand that when my brother and I watched Starsky & Hutch growing up, I would play Starsky and he would play Hutch? I don’t want to play f—ing Huggy Bear.’ This is not a historical drama. This is not Thomas Jefferson. It’s a movie based on a shitty TV show, it can be anybody.'”
The response has been overwhelmingly positive: in addition to the interviews and especially the essay being shared across social media, Gawker called Rock “America’s Real Black President” and lauded him for “telling the truth.”
The Takeaway: Instead of merely regurgitating safe anecdotes about funny things that happened on set to promote Top Five, Rock is using the opportunity to talk about important things that matter, especially now. More celebrities should follow suit.
The Fantabulous Rap Battle (Twitter Division, Part 23,982)
What Happened: Azealia Banks used the lack-of-indictment in the Eric Garner case as the launchpad for a Twitter rant against Iggy Azalea. Azalea responded.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media thinkpieces
What Really Happened: Let’s just take a moment to enjoy Banks’ rant from Wednesday night, shall we?
It continued like that for a while. (A day later, she was still at it, citing Azalea and Macklemore as part of an attempt by white America to “remind us that they are in control.” She added, “They are even trying to tear down our father figure BILL COSBY.”)
By contrast, Azalea was the soul of discretion in response:
The Takeaway: Banks is more entertaining (and, let’s be honest, more offensive), while Azalea is more helpful and productive. Then again, Banks has more reason to be angry. Coming up with conspiracy theories about Bill Cosby isn’t a good look, though. The winner of this face-off? Let’s just go with “nobody,” shall we?
Sony Gets Hacked, Disaster Ensues
What Happened: Someone hacked Sony Pictures Entertainment, and leaked some embarrassing things as proof: the financial details of those who work there, and also the new Annie remake.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media thinkpieces
What Really Happened: WIRED’s Kim Zetter unsurprisingly had the best round-up of the story, looking into who was responsible and when it happened. (Spoilers: In both cases, the answer is “It’s not entirely certain just yet.”) For the purposes of this round-up, this is the money shot: In addition to data including personal information and salaries of employees, “the stolen data also includes the script for an unreleased pilot by Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad as well as full copies of several Sony films, most of which have not been released in theaters yet. These include copies of the upcoming films Annie, Still Alice, and Mr. Turner.” Leaks of those movies have already started appearing online.
The Takeaway: The most obvious thing to say about this is, it’s very bad news for Sony. Not only has its internal security been decimated, leading to the chaos that will result from thousands of employees’ personal data being compromised, but the leak of a number of future projects could impact the company’s bottom line for some time to come. Until the full scope of the leak has been uncovered, it’s hard to know how much worse it could’ve been, but right now, it’s beginning to look as if the only people who can take any positives from this are those who wanted to see Annie without having to pay for it.
The Internet Reacts to Star Wars: The Force Awakens
What Happened: The Internet did what the Internet does, and responded to last week’s release of the first trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens with many parodies. No, really. A lot of parodies.
Where It Blew Up: YouTube
What Really Happened: It’s unsurprising that the new Star Wars trailer—which racked up views quicker than any other YouTube video to date when released the day after Thanksgiving—caught the attention and inflamed the imagination of the collective Internet. It is, after all, a new Star Wars trailer. Here are just some of the riffs released so far.
The Takeaway: Remember when you thought that you would never get sick of that 88-seconds of footage? Surprise! (Somewhere, everyone involved with Jurassic World is feeling a little abandoned when looking at their own paltry-by-comparison parodies. We’ll wait and see if Terminator Genisys proves to be as inspirational.)
Skeletor “Hacks” Honda
What Happened: Skeletor took control of the @Honda Twitter account as part of the company’s holiday promotional campaign. Not everyone on the Internet got the joke.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs
What Really Happened: Honda’s holiday promotion is based around the idea that getting a new car is just as exciting as getting a new toy when you were a kid—except, you know, far more expensive. As part of the promo, He-Man’s arch-enemy Skeletor “hacked” the official Honda Twitter account on Cyber Monday for a series of … almost funny tweets. For example:
What was amusing was seeing a lot of people apparently believe that the Honda account had actually been hacked for real by someone pretending to be Skeletor:
Because, obviously, linking to videos like this don’t make it abundantly clear that this was less “hack” than “wacky nostalgia play for the middle-aged dollar”:
The Takeaway: Apparently, the desire to see the corporate world be taken over by toys is so great that it overwhelms common sense; maybe we should chalk it up to tryptophan-inspired sleepiness. Still, whoever came up with the campaign for Honda deserves a raise considering how well it worked out in the end.
Nick Offerman Sings About Whisky
What Happened: Really, all you need to know is right there. Ron Swanson himself expresses his love for whisky (and music) in what is surely destined to become the folk song of the millennium.
Where It Blew Up YouTube, blogs
What Really Happened: As a preview of a series created for whisky manufacturers Diageo, Offerman gave the Internet an early holiday gift: A three-minute ditty about the problems that come from wanting to drink and play the guitar (or do carpentry or ride a horse) at the same time.
The Takeaway: If this is what a post-Parks & Recreation life looks like for Offerman (well, this and his his woodshop, of course), then the end can’t come soon enough. For all other reasons, of course, we wish that the show would continue forever. How else will we know if Leslie Knope’s kids rebel and become a libertarian?!?
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