While You Were Offline: Hollywood Gives You More Reasons to Hate It

Even for those not dealing with terrible weather this week, there’s been a lot going on over the last seven days. So much so, in fact, that you’ve probably been prioritizing what needs your attention and what can just slide. That is why we’ve come up with this short guide to what’s been happening on the Internet over the last week, in case someone suddenly demands your opinion on Justin Bieber’s new hair and you have no idea what they’re talking about.

Oh, spoilers: Justin Bieber has new hair. It’s blonde.

Stephen Colbert Takes A Victory Lap

What Happened: As The Colbert Report prepares to wind up its nine-year run, its host is suddenly appearing on the cover of Entertainment Weekly as the cast of The Hobbit, and the President is taking over his show (temporarily).

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs

via Tumblr

What Really Happened: Following Monday’s Colbert Report in which President Obama hijacked the traditional “The Word” segment—renaming it “The Decree”—ahead of a straight-up interview, Stephen Colbert ended up on three different covers of the latest Entertainment Weekly , cosplaying as Bilbo, Legolas, and Gandalf, respectively. A sign of a grateful nation recognizing Colbert’s contribution to America’s strength just before the Report comes to an end? Maybe so, maybe no—but considering the speed at which the images (and behind-the-scenes footage in GIF format) spread across Twitter and Tumblr, we feel confident saying Colbert’s approval ratings are definitely on an uptick this week.

The Takeaway: If this is how a nation chooses to celebrate a hero at an important crossroads in his life, then it’s an odd choice, but let’s be honest: he deserves this and probably more.

Sony Leak Proves Your Hollywood Preconceptions Didn’t Go Far Enough

What Happened: As a result of last week’s Sony hack, private emails and memos from Sony’s movie division went public, revealing plans that never came to fruition and the way movie executives talk to each other.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media thinkpieces

What Really Happened: As expected, the fallout from the Sony hack is continuing to … well, fall out. This week, we found out that the studio had discussed Spider-Man showing up in Marvel’s movies, and also a crossover between the 21 Jump Street and Men in Black movie series, but what caught more attention were emails between studio executives in which Angelina Jolie was called “a minimally talented spoiled brat,” President Obama’s movie tastes were discussed in a pretty racist manner, and Aaron Sorkin suggested there aren’t an Asian movie stars, closing out a banner week for the increasingly besieged writer (see below). There are, doubtlessly, many more such emails to be discovered amongst the leaked dump to date, but the short version is, Sony is clearly as dysfunctional as you might have suspected.

The Takeaway: As much as everyone is upset by the more outrageous things said in the emails, it’s worth pointing out that Sony shouldn’t be singled out as the one studio where all the bad people work. It’s simply the one studio that’s been unfortunate enough to have its private correspondence leaked so that we know these conversations are taking place.

The Newsroom Goes Out With The Wrong Kind Of Bang

What Happened: An episode of Aaron Sorkin’s HBO series provoked a lot of response from viewers—and from one former member of the show’s writing staff.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media thinkpieces, blogs

What Really Happened: In addition to a part in the embarrassing Sony leak, Sorkin got into more hot water this week after “On Shenandoah,” the latest (and penultimate) episode of The Newsroom, aired and featured a plotline about an alleged rape on a college campus.

The Washington Post’s Alyssa Rosenberg wrote that the show had become “the sourest, most staid series on television,” while Time’s James Poniewozik called the installment “a terrible episode even by the standards of the series’ earlier, most terrible ones.” The Atlantic’s David Sims described it as “the kind of down-in-flames wreck that sets the Internet to red alert,” and judging by the pushback on social media, he wasn’t wrong.

It wasn’t just those outside the show who took exception to it, however; Alena Smith, who’d been on the writing staff for the show this year, took to Twitter to share her experience of the writing of the episode, saying, “So when I tried to argue, in the writers’ room, that we maybe skip the storyline where a rape victim gets interrogated by a random man I ended up getting kicked out of the room and screamed at…” (She later deleted the tweets.)

Sorkin released a statement in response to Smith’s comments, in which he characterized the writers room response as “passionate debate,” and wrote, “I heard Alena’s objections and there was some healthy back and forth. After a while I needed to move on (there’s a clock ticking) but Alena wasn’t ready to do that yet. I gave her more time but then I really needed to move on. Alena still wouldn’t do that so I excused her from the room.” Elsewhere in the statement, he said that Smith gave the final scene “her enthusiastic support,” and said he was surprised “she had so casually violated the most important rule of working in a writers room which is confidentiality … I’m saddened that she’s broken that trust.”

Speaking at a public event later, Sorkin would go on to suggest that people’s problems with the episode were born of specific animosity against him personally, saying that if he’d written the series “under a pseudonym, the reaction would’ve been different.”

The Takeaway: Saying “Aaron Sorkin needs an editor” sounds like the setup for a joke, considering his renowned verbosity. Given the episode itself—which seemed curmudgeonly and self-righteous even to Sorkin fans—and his response to the subsequent criticism, maybe it would be better to say that he needs a handler. Or, you know, a long, long break to reflect on some stuff.

How To Get Away With Humbly Accepting Awards

What Happened: The creator of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away With Murder was given the Hollywood Reporter’s Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, and went on to quote Beyoncé in front of an appreciative crowd.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs

What Really Happened: Shonda Rhimes received the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award during this week’s Hollywood Reporter Women in Entertainment Breakfast, in recognition of her work and, in her speech accepting the award, proved once again why she is worthy of our adoration. “Getting an award today because I’m a woman and an African-American feels … I was born with an awesome vagina and really gorgeous brown skin,” she said at one point. “I didn’t do anything to make either of those things happen. To get all Beyoncé about it, people: ‘I woke up like this.'”

Later, she suggested that she didn’t deserve the award. “I have not broken through any glass ceilings,” she said. “If I had broken through any glass ceilings, I would know. If I had broken through a glass ceiling, I would have felt some cuts, I would have some bruises. There’d be shards of glass in my hair. I’d be bleeding, I’d have wounds.” Instead, she argued, she was simply building on the work of her forerunners. “My sisters who went before me had already handled it,” she said. “I just hit at exactly the right time in exactly the right spot.”

The Takeaway: Rhimes’ speech went viral, as expected, thanks to the good humor and humility on display. In a week when the fickle, brittle side of the entertainment industry was on full display, it provided a welcome reminder of the other side.

Justin Bieber Bleaches His Hair, Internet Explodes

What Happened: Continuing the impressively-lengthy trend of being as famous for his hair as for anything else in his life, Canadian pop moppet Bieber went public with his new peroxided ‘do this week. It turns out, a lot of people cared.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media thinkpieces

What Really Happened: Justin Bieber dyed his hair and the Internet was, surprisingly, very interested to know why. Beyond the obvious Twitter backlash (sample tweet: “Justin Bieber’s new blond hair makes him look like Screech, the time he wore a blond wig & pretended to be Zack to trick Penny Belding, no?”), websites asked the important questions: Did he do it to look like Miley Cyrus? Was he channeling his inner-Eminem? (Oh God, please no.) Was he trying to get Selina Gomez’s attention? (If so, it didn’t seem to work.) Perhaps he was merely trying to point the way for his entire gender; the sight of a blonde Bieber prompted the Daily Telegraph newspaper to suggest “every man should experiment with his hair,” which is just mean for those of us who are bald.

The Takeaway: Sometimes, the Internet has too much time on its hands.

Stan Lee’s Surprise Scene in Big Hero 6 Almost Didn’t Happen

Chris Williams, co-director of Big Hero 6. courtesy Walt Disney Animation Studios

Disney’s new hit film Big Hero 6 , loosely based on the Marvel comic of the same name, features a charming post-credits appearance by none other than Stan Lee. The film’s directors Don Hall and Chris Williams had long discussed creating such a “button” for their movie, but weren’t sure they could spare the time or resources to produce one. The notion took on greater urgency, however, when the pair attended opening-night screenings of Guardians of the Galaxy , and saw how the audience remained glued to their seats during the credits, waiting for that final scene.

“That Monday morning we basically ran toward each other and we were like, ‘We’ve got a problem,'” says Williams in Episode 128 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “Because yes, it’s a Disney film, but everyone knows there’s a Marvel connection. So what if people sit and wait through the credits, and there’s nothing?”

Williams hastily storyboarded the button, and together he and Hall recruited a small team within Disney who could produce the scene without alerting the rest of the crew, whom they were hoping to surprise. This involved secret meetings, secret knocks, and secret folders on the company network. It also meant recording Stan Lee’s lines at an off-site studio. But Hall and Williams discovered to their dismay that the studio could only be reached by climbing a long staircase, a task they were reluctant to inflict upon the 91-year-old Lee.

“We said, ‘We cannot be responsible for killing Stan Lee,'” says Williams. “Because then we would be marked men.”

Fortunately the ebullient Lee proved to have more than enough energy to climb the stairs and record his lines. The resulting button was added to the film just in time for the movie’s wrap party, where the finished product was screened for the crew for the first time. As the credits ended people began to stand, only to sit back down, whispering with excitement, as the final scene began to play.

“I knew we’d actually kept the secret,” says Williams. “And that was one of the most thrilling moments of the entire production.”

Listen to our complete interview with Chris Williams in Episode 128 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast (above), and check out some highlights from the discussion below.

Chris Williams on the origins of Baymax:

“Don [Hall] had gone off to Carnegie Mellon, I believe, and done a bunch of research. He’d gone to a lot of different robotics schools and things, but he had a real epiphany there where he was introduced to the idea of inflatable robotics. And they did say that it’s something that would have practical applications in the medical field, because, you know, they are what they are, they’re soft and they can’t hurt people, and also they’re not intimidating-looking like robots can sometimes be, and so people are very comfortable with them. And so really a lightbulb went off for Don at that point, and when he came back from that research trip he talked about this idea of an inflatable robot, and for us that was a real ‘hallelujah’ moment, because if you work at Disney animation—and certainly if you work for John Lasseter—and you embark to tell a story that features a robot, he’s going to ask you to put up an image of every iconic robot that’s ever existed in movies or TV shows or anything, and then say, ‘Give me something new.’ … And when Don came back from that trip and he had these sketches and these ideas, we all realized that we’d found a very special version of a robot, and once we had that character, design got resolved pretty quickly.”

Chris Williams on San Fransokyo:

“It came about because the original source material, Big Hero 6, was a Japanese superhero team, and so that’s why that was in our heads. And at the same time, one of the things that we love to do is create new worlds, and so we wanted to be not on our Earth as we know it. And so that got the creative juices flowing, and I think it was Don Hall, the other director, who first conceived of this idea of San Fransokyo—this hybrid, this blending of East and West, of San Francisco and Tokyo—and everyone got really excited about it. It’s cool, it’s different, but one of the things I like most about it is it’s a visual indicator of something that’s very important in the movie, which is this idea of synthesis, of a coming together of things. Because we knew that this movie was going to be a blending of what Disney is and what Marvel is and what the superhero genre is, and this coming together of East and West. And one of the things that I was very mindful of was that even genre-wise we had a melding of two things. We had a superhero origin story but we also had a ‘boy and his dog’ or a ‘boy and his robot’ story, and we had to tell these stories without telling one at the expense of the other—they needed to come together. And so I like that San Fransokyo seems to sort of fit with those other ideas.”

Chris Williams on making nerds cool:

“Working at Disney animation, this is sort of a mecca of nerddom in its own right, and a lot of us grew up spending a lot of time in our bedrooms writing stories and drawing pictures and sort of lost in our own heads, and so I definitely consider myself a nerd, and among nerds. And so the idea of celebrating nerddom certainly comes naturally, I guess. We started from a point where we wanted to have Hiro and his brother both be really intelligent, and we knew that Baymax was going to be designed and built by Hiro’s older brother Tadashi, so we knew we were going to be dealing with really smart characters. So it just naturally made the college setting right for us. And we knew that we wanted to have our heroes not be powered by superpowers or magic or anything like that, it was going to be something that was using technology. … One of the things that is most satisfying is when I hear people say that they saw the movie with their kids, and their kids were excited and inspired, and told their parents they want to go to college, and making that cool, making being smart and curious cool. If we can contribute to that, that’s great.”

Chris Williams on iterating the story:

“There was a scene where Hiro and Baymax fly through the city together. We call that scene ‘First Flight.’ And it’s really dynamic and cinematic, and that’s really let a lot of our departments really show their stuff in that scene—the lighting and layout and everything is just fantastic. And then after that in the movie there’s a very quiet scene between Hiro and Baymax. Initially in the reels that scene didn’t just have Hiro and Baymax on top of the wind turbine, it had the entire team, all six of the Big Hero 6. And it was more of a comedic beat, you know, we wanted to get the team more involved in that part of the movie. And I was convinced that was the right thing to do. I felt we needed to hear the team’s voices again and get them more engaged, and structurally it seemed very sound to me, but when we put the whole movie up, you just felt that there was something missing from Hiro and Baymax’s relationship, and so at that point we looked at that scene again and realized it would be much stronger and serve the movie much better if it was a much quieter and sweeter scene just between Hiro and Baymax. And that was a pretty late change in our schedule, and it ended up being huge. I think it paid huge dividends.”

Chris Williams on Fred’s underwear:

“Because we spend years on these things, we debate everything, and we go into the minutiae, and that line and his exact methodology actually did evolve. I can’t remember what it was, there was a different order of events, for his front-back-inside out and all that. I think we had written a few different versions of it. At one point T.J. Miller, who plays Fred—he’s a master ad libber and he’d come up with some of his own versions of it. I remember at one point even John Lasseter, who goes from being engaged on a macro level to a very micro level at times, gave his point of view on what he thought the line should be. So it did evolve quite a bit. And so I can’t remember exactly when we landed it, but it certainly went through some growing pains.”

What Makes Texts Feel Like Real Communication? The Smiling Poo Emoji

WIRED

“(Church emoji) (smiling pile of poo emoji), I can’t believe I get to see you in 24 hours,” I type to my sister with the help of the emoji keyboard. She replies with an excited, “I can’t wait! But fair warning, the house looks like (smiling pile of poo) because we’ve been so busy.” I put an end to her ridiculous idea that family has to impress family with a clean house with an “(Scissors) the (smiling pile of poo). I know you have a (smiling pile of poo) (dump truck) of work to do. You’re fine.”

“The Smiling Pile of Poo,” more commonly recognized by its image than its Siri-given name, has in recent years become a staple of computer-mediated communication. With its own oral history in Fast Company, a Buzzfeed article dedicated to its uses, and a permanent home on the recently used section on the keyboards of many, there is no denying its popularity. Aside from the alarming fact that the iPhone is Santa’s most popular request and seventh grade boys are in fact gaining access to the emoji technology at a much faster rate, we have to wonder why the seemingly strange and immature emoji was included on the keyboard and why it is used so often.

Megan Adams

Megan Adams is a writer and emoji user studying at American University in Washington, DC.

As everything becomes digitalized, we have fewer tools in our belts for communicating our emotions and the meaning behind our words. Recent research shows that our brains are wired to process emotion in a holistic manner that takes into account the tone of voice, facial expression, and other non-verbal cues. This makes it more difficult for us to process and understand emotions when they are communicated via computer-mediated communication such as through text messaging. That’s actually where emoji come in: They provide the flirtatious winks to a new friend from the bar down the street or the clapping hands to show support to your daughter when work keeps you from her dance recital.

“But what makes your favorite emoji, the smiling of poo, so important?” you may ask. “What about my favorite, sarcastic side eye emoji or the festive snowflake?” While I acknowledge the importance of sarcastic side eye in adding a sassy flair or annoyed tone and the cuteness factor of a snowflake at the end of a tweet published on December 1, I stand by the smiling pile of poo for its importance as something more. When dinner conversation and compliments to the chef have been replaced by Instagram uploads of dishes and computer-mediated conversation is rapidly becoming more common than a face-to-face interaction, the smiling pile of poo—with its relatability and versatility—is our only solace.

When your date is looking down at his phone at dinner and you’re fed up, what better way to get his attention than to shoot him a message with the sweet face of a smiling pile of poo? In a setting as limited as the emoji keyboard, every image counts so the more relatable, the better. While those who live on the island of Maui may have never seen snow or a sweet grandmother may have no understanding of the sarcastic side eye, the smiling pile of poo is something we can all identify with. After all, “Everyone Poops.”

The smiling pile of poo also has the ability to convey emotions from happiness (remember, it is smiling) to annoyance (as if to say, “Hey, you’re acting like this smug little guy right now and I’m tired of it). The smiling pile of poo also gives each of us the important ability to tell a friend that we won’t be meeting them for coffee because we feel like (piece of cake) (smiling pile of poo) or we’re just too (smiling pile of poo) (outbox). In this way, the smiling pile of poo has returned a sense of both complexity and friendliness to our everyday conversations.

In an increasingly cold world, all we need for a little warmth is a smiling pile of poo.

While You Were Offline: Hollywood Gives You More Reasons to Hate It

Even for those not dealing with terrible weather this week, there’s been a lot going on over the last seven days. So much so, in fact, that you’ve probably been prioritizing what needs your attention and what can just slide. That is why we’ve come up with this short guide to what’s been happening on the Internet over the last week, in case someone suddenly demands your opinion on Justin Bieber’s new hair and you have no idea what they’re talking about.

Oh, spoilers: Justin Bieber has new hair. It’s blonde.

Stephen Colbert Takes A Victory Lap

What Happened: As The Colbert Report prepares to wind up its nine-year run, its host is suddenly appearing on the cover of Entertainment Weekly as the cast of The Hobbit, and the President is taking over his show (temporarily).

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs

via Tumblr

What Really Happened: Following Monday’s Colbert Report in which President Obama hijacked the traditional “The Word” segment—renaming it “The Decree”—ahead of a straight-up interview, Stephen Colbert ended up on three different covers of the latest Entertainment Weekly , cosplaying as Bilbo, Legolas, and Gandalf, respectively. A sign of a grateful nation recognizing Colbert’s contribution to America’s strength just before the Report comes to an end? Maybe so, maybe no—but considering the speed at which the images (and behind-the-scenes footage in GIF format) spread across Twitter and Tumblr, we feel confident saying Colbert’s approval ratings are definitely on an uptick this week.

The Takeaway: If this is how a nation chooses to celebrate a hero at an important crossroads in his life, then it’s an odd choice, but let’s be honest: he deserves this and probably more.

Sony Leak Proves Your Hollywood Preconceptions Didn’t Go Far Enough

What Happened: As a result of last week’s Sony hack, private emails and memos from Sony’s movie division went public, revealing plans that never came to fruition and the way movie executives talk to each other.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media thinkpieces

What Really Happened: As expected, the fallout from the Sony hack is continuing to … well, fall out. This week, we found out that the studio had discussed Spider-Man showing up in Marvel’s movies, and also a crossover between the 21 Jump Street and Men in Black movie series, but what caught more attention were emails between studio executives in which Angelina Jolie was called “a minimally talented spoiled brat,” President Obama’s movie tastes were discussed in a pretty racist manner, and Aaron Sorkin suggested there aren’t an Asian movie stars, closing out a banner week for the increasingly besieged writer (see below). There are, doubtlessly, many more such emails to be discovered amongst the leaked dump to date, but the short version is, Sony is clearly as dysfunctional as you might have suspected.

The Takeaway: As much as everyone is upset by the more outrageous things said in the emails, it’s worth pointing out that Sony shouldn’t be singled out as the one studio where all the bad people work. It’s simply the one studio that’s been unfortunate enough to have its private correspondence leaked so that we know these conversations are taking place.

The Newsroom Goes Out With The Wrong Kind Of Bang

What Happened: An episode of Aaron Sorkin’s HBO series provoked a lot of response from viewers—and from one former member of the show’s writing staff.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media thinkpieces, blogs

What Really Happened: In addition to a part in the embarrassing Sony leak, Sorkin got into more hot water this week after “On Shenandoah,” the latest (and penultimate) episode of The Newsroom, aired and featured a plotline about an alleged rape on a college campus.

The Washington Post’s Alyssa Rosenberg wrote that the show had become “the sourest, most staid series on television,” while Time’s James Poniewozik called the installment “a terrible episode even by the standards of the series’ earlier, most terrible ones.” The Atlantic’s David Sims described it as “the kind of down-in-flames wreck that sets the Internet to red alert,” and judging by the pushback on social media, he wasn’t wrong.

It wasn’t just those outside the show who took exception to it, however; Alena Smith, who’d been on the writing staff for the show this year, took to Twitter to share her experience of the writing of the episode, saying, “So when I tried to argue, in the writers’ room, that we maybe skip the storyline where a rape victim gets interrogated by a random man I ended up getting kicked out of the room and screamed at…” (She later deleted the tweets.)

Sorkin released a statement in response to Smith’s comments, in which he characterized the writers room response as “passionate debate,” and wrote, “I heard Alena’s objections and there was some healthy back and forth. After a while I needed to move on (there’s a clock ticking) but Alena wasn’t ready to do that yet. I gave her more time but then I really needed to move on. Alena still wouldn’t do that so I excused her from the room.” Elsewhere in the statement, he said that Smith gave the final scene “her enthusiastic support,” and said he was surprised “she had so casually violated the most important rule of working in a writers room which is confidentiality … I’m saddened that she’s broken that trust.”

Speaking at a public event later, Sorkin would go on to suggest that people’s problems with the episode were born of specific animosity against him personally, saying that if he’d written the series “under a pseudonym, the reaction would’ve been different.”

The Takeaway: Saying “Aaron Sorkin needs an editor” sounds like the setup for a joke, considering his renowned verbosity. Given the episode itself—which seemed curmudgeonly and self-righteous even to Sorkin fans—and his response to the subsequent criticism, maybe it would be better to say that he needs a handler. Or, you know, a long, long break to reflect on some stuff.

How To Get Away With Humbly Accepting Awards

What Happened: The creator of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away With Murder was given the Hollywood Reporter’s Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, and went on to quote Beyoncé in front of an appreciative crowd.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs

What Really Happened: Shonda Rhimes received the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award during this week’s Hollywood Reporter Women in Entertainment Breakfast, in recognition of her work and, in her speech accepting the award, proved once again why she is worthy of our adoration. “Getting an award today because I’m a woman and an African-American feels … I was born with an awesome vagina and really gorgeous brown skin,” she said at one point. “I didn’t do anything to make either of those things happen. To get all Beyoncé about it, people: ‘I woke up like this.'”

Later, she suggested that she didn’t deserve the award. “I have not broken through any glass ceilings,” she said. “If I had broken through any glass ceilings, I would know. If I had broken through a glass ceiling, I would have felt some cuts, I would have some bruises. There’d be shards of glass in my hair. I’d be bleeding, I’d have wounds.” Instead, she argued, she was simply building on the work of her forerunners. “My sisters who went before me had already handled it,” she said. “I just hit at exactly the right time in exactly the right spot.”

The Takeaway: Rhimes’ speech went viral, as expected, thanks to the good humor and humility on display. In a week when the fickle, brittle side of the entertainment industry was on full display, it provided a welcome reminder of the other side.

Justin Bieber Bleaches His Hair, Internet Explodes

What Happened: Continuing the impressively-lengthy trend of being as famous for his hair as for anything else in his life, Canadian pop moppet Bieber went public with his new peroxided ‘do this week. It turns out, a lot of people cared.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media thinkpieces

What Really Happened: Justin Bieber dyed his hair and the Internet was, surprisingly, very interested to know why. Beyond the obvious Twitter backlash (sample tweet: “Justin Bieber’s new blond hair makes him look like Screech, the time he wore a blond wig & pretended to be Zack to trick Penny Belding, no?”), websites asked the important questions: Did he do it to look like Miley Cyrus? Was he channeling his inner-Eminem? (Oh God, please no.) Was he trying to get Selina Gomez’s attention? (If so, it didn’t seem to work.) Perhaps he was merely trying to point the way for his entire gender; the sight of a blonde Bieber prompted the Daily Telegraph newspaper to suggest “every man should experiment with his hair,” which is just mean for those of us who are bald.

The Takeaway: Sometimes, the Internet has too much time on its hands.

Stan Lee’s Surprise Scene in Big Hero 6 Almost Didn’t Happen

Chris Williams, co-director of Big Hero 6. courtesy Walt Disney Animation Studios

Disney’s new hit film Big Hero 6 , loosely based on the Marvel comic of the same name, features a charming post-credits appearance by none other than Stan Lee. The film’s directors Don Hall and Chris Williams had long discussed creating such a “button” for their movie, but weren’t sure they could spare the time or resources to produce one. The notion took on greater urgency, however, when the pair attended opening-night screenings of Guardians of the Galaxy , and saw how the audience remained glued to their seats during the credits, waiting for that final scene.

“That Monday morning we basically ran toward each other and we were like, ‘We’ve got a problem,'” says Williams in Episode 128 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “Because yes, it’s a Disney film, but everyone knows there’s a Marvel connection. So what if people sit and wait through the credits, and there’s nothing?”

Williams hastily storyboarded the button, and together he and Hall recruited a small team within Disney who could produce the scene without alerting the rest of the crew, whom they were hoping to surprise. This involved secret meetings, secret knocks, and secret folders on the company network. It also meant recording Stan Lee’s lines at an off-site studio. But Hall and Williams discovered to their dismay that the studio could only be reached by climbing a long staircase, a task they were reluctant to inflict upon the 91-year-old Lee.

“We said, ‘We cannot be responsible for killing Stan Lee,'” says Williams. “Because then we would be marked men.”

Fortunately the ebullient Lee proved to have more than enough energy to climb the stairs and record his lines. The resulting button was added to the film just in time for the movie’s wrap party, where the finished product was screened for the crew for the first time. As the credits ended people began to stand, only to sit back down, whispering with excitement, as the final scene began to play.

“I knew we’d actually kept the secret,” says Williams. “And that was one of the most thrilling moments of the entire production.”

Listen to our complete interview with Chris Williams in Episode 128 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast (above), and check out some highlights from the discussion below.

Chris Williams on the origins of Baymax:

“Don [Hall] had gone off to Carnegie Mellon, I believe, and done a bunch of research. He’d gone to a lot of different robotics schools and things, but he had a real epiphany there where he was introduced to the idea of inflatable robotics. And they did say that it’s something that would have practical applications in the medical field, because, you know, they are what they are, they’re soft and they can’t hurt people, and also they’re not intimidating-looking like robots can sometimes be, and so people are very comfortable with them. And so really a lightbulb went off for Don at that point, and when he came back from that research trip he talked about this idea of an inflatable robot, and for us that was a real ‘hallelujah’ moment, because if you work at Disney animation—and certainly if you work for John Lasseter—and you embark to tell a story that features a robot, he’s going to ask you to put up an image of every iconic robot that’s ever existed in movies or TV shows or anything, and then say, ‘Give me something new.’ … And when Don came back from that trip and he had these sketches and these ideas, we all realized that we’d found a very special version of a robot, and once we had that character, design got resolved pretty quickly.”

Chris Williams on San Fransokyo:

“It came about because the original source material, Big Hero 6, was a Japanese superhero team, and so that’s why that was in our heads. And at the same time, one of the things that we love to do is create new worlds, and so we wanted to be not on our Earth as we know it. And so that got the creative juices flowing, and I think it was Don Hall, the other director, who first conceived of this idea of San Fransokyo—this hybrid, this blending of East and West, of San Francisco and Tokyo—and everyone got really excited about it. It’s cool, it’s different, but one of the things I like most about it is it’s a visual indicator of something that’s very important in the movie, which is this idea of synthesis, of a coming together of things. Because we knew that this movie was going to be a blending of what Disney is and what Marvel is and what the superhero genre is, and this coming together of East and West. And one of the things that I was very mindful of was that even genre-wise we had a melding of two things. We had a superhero origin story but we also had a ‘boy and his dog’ or a ‘boy and his robot’ story, and we had to tell these stories without telling one at the expense of the other—they needed to come together. And so I like that San Fransokyo seems to sort of fit with those other ideas.”

Chris Williams on making nerds cool:

“Working at Disney animation, this is sort of a mecca of nerddom in its own right, and a lot of us grew up spending a lot of time in our bedrooms writing stories and drawing pictures and sort of lost in our own heads, and so I definitely consider myself a nerd, and among nerds. And so the idea of celebrating nerddom certainly comes naturally, I guess. We started from a point where we wanted to have Hiro and his brother both be really intelligent, and we knew that Baymax was going to be designed and built by Hiro’s older brother Tadashi, so we knew we were going to be dealing with really smart characters. So it just naturally made the college setting right for us. And we knew that we wanted to have our heroes not be powered by superpowers or magic or anything like that, it was going to be something that was using technology. … One of the things that is most satisfying is when I hear people say that they saw the movie with their kids, and their kids were excited and inspired, and told their parents they want to go to college, and making that cool, making being smart and curious cool. If we can contribute to that, that’s great.”

Chris Williams on iterating the story:

“There was a scene where Hiro and Baymax fly through the city together. We call that scene ‘First Flight.’ And it’s really dynamic and cinematic, and that’s really let a lot of our departments really show their stuff in that scene—the lighting and layout and everything is just fantastic. And then after that in the movie there’s a very quiet scene between Hiro and Baymax. Initially in the reels that scene didn’t just have Hiro and Baymax on top of the wind turbine, it had the entire team, all six of the Big Hero 6. And it was more of a comedic beat, you know, we wanted to get the team more involved in that part of the movie. And I was convinced that was the right thing to do. I felt we needed to hear the team’s voices again and get them more engaged, and structurally it seemed very sound to me, but when we put the whole movie up, you just felt that there was something missing from Hiro and Baymax’s relationship, and so at that point we looked at that scene again and realized it would be much stronger and serve the movie much better if it was a much quieter and sweeter scene just between Hiro and Baymax. And that was a pretty late change in our schedule, and it ended up being huge. I think it paid huge dividends.”

Chris Williams on Fred’s underwear:

“Because we spend years on these things, we debate everything, and we go into the minutiae, and that line and his exact methodology actually did evolve. I can’t remember what it was, there was a different order of events, for his front-back-inside out and all that. I think we had written a few different versions of it. At one point T.J. Miller, who plays Fred—he’s a master ad libber and he’d come up with some of his own versions of it. I remember at one point even John Lasseter, who goes from being engaged on a macro level to a very micro level at times, gave his point of view on what he thought the line should be. So it did evolve quite a bit. And so I can’t remember exactly when we landed it, but it certainly went through some growing pains.”

What Makes Texts Feel Like Real Communication? The Smiling Poo Emoji

WIRED

“(Church emoji) (smiling pile of poo emoji), I can’t believe I get to see you in 24 hours,” I type to my sister with the help of the emoji keyboard. She replies with an excited, “I can’t wait! But fair warning, the house looks like (smiling pile of poo) because we’ve been so busy.” I put an end to her ridiculous idea that family has to impress family with a clean house with an “(Scissors) the (smiling pile of poo). I know you have a (smiling pile of poo) (dump truck) of work to do. You’re fine.”

“The Smiling Pile of Poo,” more commonly recognized by its image than its Siri-given name, has in recent years become a staple of computer-mediated communication. With its own oral history in Fast Company, a Buzzfeed article dedicated to its uses, and a permanent home on the recently used section on the keyboards of many, there is no denying its popularity. Aside from the alarming fact that the iPhone is Santa’s most popular request and seventh grade boys are in fact gaining access to the emoji technology at a much faster rate, we have to wonder why the seemingly strange and immature emoji was included on the keyboard and why it is used so often.

Megan Adams

Megan Adams is a writer and emoji user studying at American University in Washington, DC.

As everything becomes digitalized, we have fewer tools in our belts for communicating our emotions and the meaning behind our words. Recent research shows that our brains are wired to process emotion in a holistic manner that takes into account the tone of voice, facial expression, and other non-verbal cues. This makes it more difficult for us to process and understand emotions when they are communicated via computer-mediated communication such as through text messaging. That’s actually where emoji come in: They provide the flirtatious winks to a new friend from the bar down the street or the clapping hands to show support to your daughter when work keeps you from her dance recital.

“But what makes your favorite emoji, the smiling of poo, so important?” you may ask. “What about my favorite, sarcastic side eye emoji or the festive snowflake?” While I acknowledge the importance of sarcastic side eye in adding a sassy flair or annoyed tone and the cuteness factor of a snowflake at the end of a tweet published on December 1, I stand by the smiling pile of poo for its importance as something more. When dinner conversation and compliments to the chef have been replaced by Instagram uploads of dishes and computer-mediated conversation is rapidly becoming more common than a face-to-face interaction, the smiling pile of poo—with its relatability and versatility—is our only solace.

When your date is looking down at his phone at dinner and you’re fed up, what better way to get his attention than to shoot him a message with the sweet face of a smiling pile of poo? In a setting as limited as the emoji keyboard, every image counts so the more relatable, the better. While those who live on the island of Maui may have never seen snow or a sweet grandmother may have no understanding of the sarcastic side eye, the smiling pile of poo is something we can all identify with. After all, “Everyone Poops.”

The smiling pile of poo also has the ability to convey emotions from happiness (remember, it is smiling) to annoyance (as if to say, “Hey, you’re acting like this smug little guy right now and I’m tired of it). The smiling pile of poo also gives each of us the important ability to tell a friend that we won’t be meeting them for coffee because we feel like (piece of cake) (smiling pile of poo) or we’re just too (smiling pile of poo) (outbox). In this way, the smiling pile of poo has returned a sense of both complexity and friendliness to our everyday conversations.

In an increasingly cold world, all we need for a little warmth is a smiling pile of poo.