A quick survey of your yoga class or brunch buddies can tell you what piercings reign supreme in your circle. But what if we lived in another part of the world? Would we still see countless constellations dancing across the earlobes of our nearest and dearest? It’s a question we took to an all-knowing oracle (Instagram, of course).
There, we spent hours tracking what people in some of the coolest cities, like Verona, Tokyo, Helsinki (and yes, New York and L.A.) are piercing. What we found revealed both inventive options (like edgy dermal piercings) and a few old-school styles that are having a major comeback (don't tell Britney, but belly button bling is back). Also in the mix: more types of ear piercings than we ever imagined were possible.
Some styles are giving us major ideas. (If you ask us, dermal piercings on the nape of the neck are primed to be the new patterned undercut, come summer.) And others we encountered? Well, we’re tensing up just thinking about them. (PSA: people are getting barbells put in their butt cracks. But don't worry — they haven’t made the most requested list just yet.)
Ahead, see the biggest body mods to hit Bogotá, Nairobi, and more.
Finland
Piercing: Tragus
The best way to offset a proper pair of pearl earrings? With a tragus piercing, which adorns the small bit of skin just outside the ear canal.
The U.S.
Piercing: Constellation
In L.A., the next wave of constellation piercings have arrived. That is, artful groupings that don't follow a set pattern or style. This latest uptick combines three styles that are popular around the globe right now: daith, conch, and helix piercings on the ear (represented here by an adorned hoop, simple hoop and gold stud, respectively).
Piercing: Flat Of The Ear
Meanwhile, in New York, tattoo and piercing studio New York Adorned is famous for getting the city's fashion crowd into the piercing scene with its dainty body mods. One of its most popular styles is a so-called “flat” that floats in the cartilage of the ear. (The turquoise stud shown here.)
Canada
Piercing: Septum
Like L.A., constellation ear piercings are big in Canada — but so is the septum, which gets a fancy upgrade, thanks to ornate hoops.
Brazil
Piercing: Dermal Sternum
Think dermal piercings are too edgy for the mainstream? Then you haven’t been to Brazil, where the style is a major trend.
Japan
Piercing: Industrial
Look at image after image of industrial piercings (in which two wide-reaching holes are pierced to accommodate a barbell that runs along the top of the ear) and one of Harajuku's biggest piercing studios, Extreme Body Piercing, will be invariably tagged.
The UK
Piercing: Smiley
Want an unforgettable smile? Forget about teeth whitening. Do like many women in the UK and go for a “smiley” piercing, which strings a bent barbell through the small fold of tissue inside the mouth near the upper lip (known as the frenulum) and adds a pop of bling to your happy face.
Singapore
Piercing: Nape
Nape piercing, which adorn the back of the neck, are huge in Japan and trickling into other locales, like Singapore.
Italy
Piercing: Philtrum
If only The Two Gentlemen of Verona could see their city’s current piercing du jour: an adorned philtrum that illuminates the Cupid’s bow like no highlighter ever could.
Piercing: Nape
Sticky summers in Italy scream for updos. The best way to show yours off? With a dermal piercing placed at the nape of the neck, a trend that’s also big in Asia.
Kenya
Piercing: Navel
Time to channel your inner aughts pop star: In countries like Zimbabwe, Kenya, and, yes, the U.S., navel piercings are making a major comeback.
Colombia
Piercing: Daith
Daith piercings have become one of the more popular ear piercings in the past few years — and in Bogotá, Colombia, it’s no different. This double daith fits perfectly in the nook of this woman’s ear.
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Monterey, California: a town full of beautiful people with not-so-beautiful secrets. The pilot episode of HBO's new drama Big Little Lies introduced us to perhaps the ugliest secret to ever grace the coastal community. Someone in the town is dead, and someone else killed them.
While many mystery dramas have fans speculating as to who the murderer is amongst the characters, Big Little Lies does one better. The pilot episode only teases the murder investigation through interviews with those living in Monterey — interviews that, frankly, sound a lot more like the chirps of gossip. From the cutthroat mom who will do anything to keep her kid on top to the dad with a history of abuse, anyone could be a killer — and anyone could be killed.
With the victim as much of a mystery as the person who did them in, it's worth wondering just who will die before the season is out. Click through to check out the people we most suspect of leaving the season in a body bag.
Renata Klein (Laura Dern)
Career mom Renata rubs plenty of people at school the wrong way — she even accused Jane's (Shailene Woodley) son Ziggy (Iain Armitage) of her hurting her daughter. Tensions certainly have been brewing between Renata and the other mothers — could it escalate to murder?
Photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/HBO
Jane Chapman(Shailene Woodley)
The mysterious Monterey newcomer has a reason for moving to Monterey that she doesn't like to talk about. Could her past catch up with her, and ultimately kill her?
Photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/HBO
Perry Wright(Alexander Skarsgård)
Perry may look like an upstanding guy, but hiding below his polished exterior is a dark, abusive nature — one he only lets his wife Celeste (Nicole Kidman) see. Could Celeste finally decide she's had enough of his abuse?
Photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/HBO
Bonnie Carlson(Zoë Kravitz)
The gorgeous, yoga-loving stepmom to Madeline's (Reese Witherspoon) kids is secretly envied by all the mothers of Monterey... and admired by their husbands. Could someone go after Bonnie?
Photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/HBO
Madeline Mackenzie(Reese Witherspoon)
The alpha mom holds plenty of grudges, but could someone have one against her?
Photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/HBO
Celeste Wright(Nicole Kidman)
Celeste's husband's abusive behavior puts Celeste at serious risk. Could he one day do more than just twist her arm?
Photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/HBO
Ed Mackenzie (Adam Scott)
Could Madison's husband be the one who dies? Right now he seems to be flying under the radar, but he did get into a tiff with Nathan (James Tupper). Could these two get into a brawl, to deadly consequences?
Photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/HBO
Ziggy's (Iain Armitage) Dad
We have no idea who Ziggy's father is, but we do know that he's a bad guy. Could he come back into Jane's life, only to die by murder before the season is out?
Photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/HBO
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On March 27, 2017, with only a few days left in women's history month, we're joining forces with MuslimGirl.com and a range of other publications from The Huffington Post to Teen Vogue to MTV to celebrate the inaugural Muslim Women's Day .
And that starts with elevating the voices of all women — which is why today, we're countering a narrative of oppression and fear with the stories of a diverse group of women sharing experiences of activism, persistence, and community. As Zerina Iman, a New York City high school student shared with Refinery29, "Muslim Women's Day is the celebration of Muslim women, who have thrived for thousands of years. It provides us, Muslim women, with a moment of pride, long overdue. It shows the world that we are not hiding, nor are we oppressed. Most importantly, it's a beacon for young Muslim girls, like me, across the U.S. and the world, letting them know no matter what hate they face in this new era, they should be proud of their religion, of their legacy, and of the women just like them who continue to change society each day."
With that in mind, we're partnering with MuslimGirl.com to right the trend of misrepresentation and under-representation in some small way. Alongside a range of other partner publications, we're committing today to amplifying powerful, positive messages of solidarity with Muslim women of all backgrounds. We're proud to celebrate the inaugural #MuslimWomensDay today, taking the opportunity to dispel stereotypes, showcase the diversity of this community, and share some triumphant stories of Muslim women inspiring us all. To participate yourself, you can do three things:
1. Amplify the voices of Muslim women in your social feeds. Reblog, RT, and share their stories and personal messages today.
2. Share the experiences of Muslim women. You'll see these stories, images, and videos publish across our site and many others today — highlight the ones that resonate with you.
3.Participate in the conversation. Use the #MuslimWomensDay hashtag to take part in the discussion going on all day long (and hopefully well into the future). The combatting of stereotypes and of hate starts with discourse first and foremost.
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Don’t lie. You’ve definitely spent a night in dancing to “Call Me Maybe” while cleaning your room. Or, at least, to Taylor Swift. Nothing has as much power as a feel-good song, which can transform any mundane task into an epic feat worthy of a montage.
Luckily, even if you tire of one song, there is always another that will inevitably lift your spirits. Here are the happiest songs we know that will always put you in a good mood. Blast these while driving down a highway in a convertible. Lip sync to them in your room (with a hair brush). Dance to these while doing the dishes or plug them in when you really need to get shit done. From classic oldies to modern pop songs, these happy tunes are ones you actually want to get stuck in your head. Click through to see the happiest songs, ever — and let us know your favorite feel-good tunes in the comments below.
"Elastic Heart" — Sia
Even when the biggest loves knock you down, get back up. You can do it.
Photo: Courtesy of Monkey Puzzle Records.
"Celebration" — Kool & The Gang
No matter where, when, or why, this classic perfectly compliments any get-together.
Photo: Courtesy of Island Def Jam.
"Blame" — Calvin Harris ft. John Newman
The blame game is never fun, but somehow Calvin Harris makes it seem like it is. We'll buy it.
Photo: Courtesy of Columbia.
"Your Love (Lifting Me Higher)" by Jackie Wilson
In Wilson's voice, you can practically hear the infectious joy that comes from a generous and uplifting romance. This could very well be the happiest love song of all time.
Courtesy of Brunswick Records
"Unwritten" — Natasha Bedingfield
Cue Blake Lively running through the sands of Mexico at soccer camp in Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants. Now it's your turn.
Photo: Courtesy of Phonogenic.
"I Got You (I Feel Good)" — James Brown
The godfather of soul. This song will never go out of style.
Photo: Courtesy of Polydoor.
"New Soul" by Yael Naim
Try not to be uplifted by Naim's graceful voice and catchy tune about perceiving the world with child-like joy. Just try!
"Finish Line/Drown" Chance The Rapper
The triumphant final track from Chance's album Coloring Book has a cool, reggae vibe that'll get you bopping in your seat.
"Paradise" by Jeremih
Kim Kardashian selected this simple tune to be the soundtrack for her "year in review" video in January, and there's a reason she chose it — it's pretty damn uplifting.
"What a Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke
For a little hope on dreary days...
"Cold Cold Man" by Saint Motel
A catchy piano riff and a Bond-inspired music video, in one poppy song.
"Feeling Alive" by Earl St. Clair
Just wait until the brass section hits...
"Make Some Room" by The Suffers
Something to play Sunday mornings (or, any morning, really).
"Another Day Of Sun" from theLa La Landsoundtrack
From the arguably best scene in the much-lauded film, this dance number has the ability to make a Los Angeles gridlock enjoyable.
“September” by Earth, Wind & Fire
Songwriter Allee Willis heard the intro to this song and immediately thought, "It was obviously the happiest-sounding song in the world." The lyrics are nonsensical, but the groove never ends.
"Solo Dance" by Martin Jensen
If the title of this track isn't enough to get you on your feet, just hit play and let your dance party commence.
"Cool Girl" by Tove Lo
This may be stuck in your head all day, but at least you'll be so cool singing it.
"1,2,3,4" by Feist
If the song doesn't get you, the joyful music video will.
"White Flag" by Joseph
The trio of sisters kill it with the harmonies, especially as we get to the rousing chorus.
"I Decided" by Solange
If you haven't listened to Solange's truly excellent album this year, go do it. In the meantime, her '60s throwback jam "I Decided" is the modern love song we need.
"Wonderful Life (Mi Oh My)" from the Angry Birds Soundtrack
Surprise! The Angry Birds soundtrack actually has a happy song.
“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper
This timeless classic is pretty much an anthem for doing what you want — and having a ball.
"Don't Worry Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin
You cannot listen to this song without singing along in your head, and you're guaranteed to feel just a bit better by the end.
"How Far I'll Go" by Alessia Cara
As an original song for Disney's Moana, it makes sense that Cara's anthem goes from heartbreaking to inspiring to get-everything-done driven. Perfect for any training montage in your head.
"Everlasting Sigh" by Moses Sumney
It takes a while for this song to get there, but wait for the song to start building right around 2:20. You'll find yourself inspired to get moving and get things shakin', especially when the harmonies start coming int.
"Dreamlover" by Mariah Carey
Honestly, you can never go wrong with some old school Mariah.
"24K Magic" by Bruno Mars
Okay so the music video is not original by any means (Mars partying in Vegas), but the song is annoyingly catchy and will probably be played at every wedding for the next year. For an extra boost of happiness, check out this dance video set to Mars' latest hit.
"Fidelity" by Regina Spektor
The singer has proven her talent time and time again, but we will always revisit her classic 2006 single.
“Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen
Fun fact — a random sampling of 2,000 U.K. adults found that this was the most popular "feel-good song. "
“Countdown” by Beyoncé
Another stellar love song from 4, which proves that great songs aren't all about unrequited love.
“Here Comes The Sun” by The Beatles
If laid-back chill is more your speed, this Beatles classic is meant for you.
“Shout” by The Isley Brothers
Another dance floor classic that mixes doo wop, gospel, and blues.
"You Can't Hurry Love" By The Supremes
Hands down one of the best karaoke picks out there.
"I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz
This song, released 2008, is pretty much the best song to sing along to as summer slowly fades away.
"When They Fight, They Fight" by the Generationals
It makes sense that G-Eazy sampled this song for "Make-Up Sex" — the chorus is simple, memorable, and oh-so-catchy.
"Closer" ft. Halsey by The Chainsmokers
It's a slow burn, but by the end of the song you're wishing for a fling to dance with.
"Merry Happy" by Kate Nash
A few basic chords, a simple beat, and something you can sing along to while you do the dishes.
"Hooked on a Feeling" by Blue Swede
Forgive the annoying intro and sing along with the chorus.
"Palmar" by Caloncho
If you're in need of the perfect escape song, this is it.
Need a little pick-me-up? Here's your song for the day.
"Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina & The Waves
How can you not smile while listening to this song? The lyrics literally say, "I'm walking on sunshine... And don't it feel good!"
"I'm A Believer" by The Monkees
A song to play at every beach-themed party — even in the middle of winter.
"Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes
Let's just ignore the fact that this song is about a man looking to stray and just focus on the chorus that everyone can sing along to.
"Valerie feat. Amy Winehouse" by Mark Ronson
Songstress Amy Winehouse is still in our hearts, which soar at the sound of this upbeat tune.
"The Bare Necessities" from The Jungle Book
This Disney song is up there when it comes to feel-good songs, right next to "Hakuna Matata."
"Roll Up" by Fitz and the Tantrums
Just in time for backyard barbecues, Fitz and the Tantrums comes out with yet another album full of jams. We plan on playing this song at every late-night dance session.
"Put Your Records On" by Corinne Bailey Rae
The British singer-songwriter is back with a third album, so here's a little throwback to one of her first hits. Sing along to this sunny medley and imagine yourself biking through a meadow.
"Can't Stop The Feeling" by Justin Timberlake
JT's first track since 2013 is the perfect mix of pop, dance, and funky beats. Even better, the video features puppies, Anna Kendrick dancing, and plenty of clapping.
"Stop Desire" by Tegan and Sara
Tegan and Sara are pros at writing incredibly catchy pop songs with sugary-sweet hooks and lyrics you can sing along to. Their latest summer song is no different.
"Dancing In The Dark" by Bruce Springsteen
If you were a teen in the '80s, there was no doubt that you listened to this song almost all the time.
"Cheerleader" by OMI
This laid-back jam set the stage for summer 2015.
"I Wanna Be Your Lover" by Prince
"Kiss" may be one of the most-played Prince songs on the radio, but this gem of a recording from Capitol Theatre in 1982 is equally infectious.
"Isn't She Lovely" by Stevie Wonder
Thirty years after this infectious jingle came out, and we're still humming along to it as we dance walk down the street.
"Sha La La" by Al Green
This isn't exactly a danceable tune by any means, but it is a feel-good one.
“This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” by The Talking Heads
Just four chords repeated in 5 minutes. Somehow, this is the most happy-go-lucky tune in existence.
“Dance Apocalyptic” by Janelle Monáe
While we wait for new music from Janelle, we’ll have to make do with this upbeat, infectious jam from Electric Lady. Snap along.
"Hey Ya!" by OutKast
This classic OutKast jam made Spotify's happiest songs in the world playlist, which makes perfect sense. Just try not to dance along in your head. Andre 3000, can we have another reunion tour, please?
“Happy” by Pharrell Williams
We swear this song was scientifically engineered to make you feel good.
"ABC" by the Jackson 5
One of the earliest signs of Michael Jackson's talent.
“Heat Wave” by Martha & the Vandellas
Sure, this has been covered many times (by The Supremes, The Jam, Phil Collins, etc) but this original Motown jam is just a little more rock 'n' roll.
“Do You Believe in Magic” by The Lovin’ Spoonful
Also see: Disney’s Aly & AJ cover.
“Dancing in the Street” by David Bowie & Mick Jagger
Two legendary musicians, one epic dance song that might just be the perfect soundtrack to your morning boogie jog.
“Friday I’m in Love” by The Cure
It may be about how dreary every other day of the week is, but this bright-hued song has become the soundtrack to many a rom-com.
“Sunday Candy” by Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment
Surf from Chance The Rapper and his crew is full of energetic, sonic explosions. "Sunday Candy" tones it down beautifully with the chorus.
“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” by Taylor Swift
Sure, "Shake It Off " is fun, but singing along to this breakup anthem is by far the best way to end the night.
“Brave” by Sara Bareilles
Go ahead — break out into this stellar dance routine in the middle of the street.
“Love on Top” by Beyoncé
4 is, by far, Queen Bey's happiest album, with anthems that sonically showcase just how in love she is. "Love On Top" is an instant boost of energy, with soaring vocals and a catchy background chorus. The key change half way through gets us every time.
“Roar” by Katy Perry
Okay, but seriously, pretty much EVERY Katy Perry single is happy.
“MMMBop” by Hanson
There is a reason Hanson is still so popular — and it's not because of their beer, MMMHop.
“Build Me Up Buttercup” by The Foundations
Then again, some of them are.
“Twist and Shout” by The Beatles
No real person can listen to this song and not smile (or think of Ferris Bueller).
“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Marvin Gaye
Best played when dancing with your BFF and swearing off anything that gets between your friendship.
“Dancing Queen” by ABBA
This is by far the most popular karaoke song to sing the wrong lyrics to.
“I Want You Back” by The Jackson 5
Please, also listen to "ABC."
“I Wanna Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston
Trying to figure out how to "chase [your] blues away?" Play this song. Get up and dance.
“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by The Beach Boys
To be honest, growing up isn't that great. Still a happy song, though.
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Instagram's latest statistic says there are more than 400 million people using the social media platform. That's a lot. And, that stat is from September of 2015. Since then, Instagram has given us a #blessed new update that allows users to sync multiple accounts on the app.
Among those nearly half a billion accounts are thousands of celebrity-run pages. Most of them are eager to share silly, glamorous, and behind-the-scenes moments with their followers and fans.
I'm sure you already follow your favorite singers, actresses, and artists, but did you know that some of the more elusive and private celebrities still indulge on the picture platform?
Consider this your crash course in The Most Interesting People On Instagram. They won't disappoint.
What You'll Find: Well, there isn't too much content since he just created his account in August, but we think he's got some good selfies up his sleeve. And maybe even some pictures with his girlfriend, Taylor Swift?
Who: Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer of Broad City Handle:broadcity
What You'll Find: As the official Instagram for duo behind the hilarious Comedy Central series, Broad City, expect to find hilarious memes and epic pictures of the two hanging out.
What You'll Find: Glamour shots from the set of The Voice, pictures from her themed parties, and a glimpse into her private life as a mother and fiancée.
What You'll Find: Pictures of her look-alike daughter and growing family, along with some funny memes. (Any Newlyweds fans will remember this iconic line.)
What You'll Find: The momager's Instagram is the ultimate destination for the Kardashian-obsessed now that both Kim and Kendall have cut back on their prominent social media activity.
What You'll Find: Ms. Tina Lawson has a really great feed full of special moments with her two talented daughters, Beyoncé and Solange. She's probably the proudest mom, ever.
What You'll Find: Jessica Biel is an actress, a mom, a wife (of Justin Timberlake), and a troll. The woman has it all! Her Instagram feed is full of mom moments and hilarious outtakes from her day-to-day life.
What You'll Find: For Scream Queens fans, Roberts is a must-follow for killer behind-the-scenes photos. And (like a true millennial) she loves reposting Snapchat screenshots.
What You'll Find: Chancellor Jonathan Bennett, better known by his stage name Chance The Rapper, has some solid Instagram game. He frequently posts pictures with his famous mentors and friends like Kanye West and Taylor Swift, and even indulges in the occasional mirror selfie.
What You'll Find: He just created his account earlier this week so there's only one photograph and it's pretty random. Maybe it's a teaser for a new music video project? Now we need him to get Snapchat next.
What You'll Find: Shaq, or Dr. Shaq as he calls himself on Instagram, is hilarious on social media. Just watch his #remixchallenge to Kanye West's "Fade" music video. It's iconic. And of course there's a healthy dose of basketball nostalgia.
What You'll Find: Action shots of the rapper on stage as well as behind-the-scenes pictures of him with his October's Very Own (OVO) crew. Also of note: His father, Dennis Graham, has an equally epic Instagram presence.
What You'll Find: Personal photos from family vacations or behind-the-scenes from her tour. It's the only inside look at Bey's life that we get and it's wonderful.
What You'll Find: Hilarious videos, memes, and other goofy moments from the rapper, actor, dad, and low-key comedian. He also loves his personal hashtag — #nowthatsludicrous.
What You'll Find: Inspirational messages, celeb photobombs (like the one pictured on a yacht with Valentino), and amazing #TBT posts to those early Princess Mia days.
What You'll Find: Exactly what you would expect from the quirky and always unfiltered Dunham. That would include pictures of her in crazy costumes, Tumblr-esque #TBTs, and inspirational messages.
What You'll Find: This Brit DJ always seems to be having the time of her life. From international escapades to stylish videos, her feed delivers both outfit and travel inspiration.
What You'll Find: Who knew that Aziz had an artsy side? His feed is full of impressive scenic photographs, complemented by some equally impressive captions.
What You'll Find: Glamour shots from her campaigns, behind-the-scenes photos from Chanel photo shoots, and tons of adorable shots of her perfect children, Ben and Vivian.
What You'll Find: A plethora of #relationshipgoals photos with Ryan Reynolds, as well as some killer outfits. Lively also likes to share pictures of delicious food, like an extra-cheesy pepperoni pizza. She gets it.
What You'll Find: Dawson dabbles in a bit of Insta-activism, some Internet memes, and video. All in all, she seems like a she'd be fun to hang out with.
What You'll Find: Aside from gorgeous shots from her modeling career, Prinsloo uploads a slew of candids featuring her husband Adam Levine. And, if there's anything great in this world, it's celebrity marriage candids.
What You'll Find: A behind-the-scenes look into the well-curated life of one of fashion's funnest designers. Plus, Lena Dunham pops up once in a while.
Who: Annie Clark, a.k.a. St. Vincent Handle:@st_vincent
What You'll Find: Annie Clark is as close to perfection as one human can get. Her mind buzzes at a different frequency, and getting a peek at what she sees is nothing short of thrilling.
What You'll Find: What, you thought Lady Mary remained in costume all the time? Puhlease! Michelle Dockery's living the good life and sharing it (and her dog), one Insta at a time.
What You'll Find: Sure, the life of Carrie Bradshaw is meant to be fiction, but SJP's Insta-adventures come pretty darn close to her HBO moniker. Though, there's less sex here because, well, Instagram has rules.
What You'll Find: Kloss' star has been rising faster than most. Fame, however, has not gone to her head. Her Instagram spans the gamut of gorgeous fashion shoots and quirky friend vacation snaps to inspirational messages about living your fullest life. It's honest and, despite the filtered images, completely unfiltered in content.
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Amazing news, TV lovers of the world: Since we first published this story in 2013, there have been leaps and bounds in the number of streaming platforms offering hours upon hours of programming to binge-watch whenever the mood strikes. In the interest of equal opportunity, we’ve decided to broaden the scope of this slideshow to look beyond the options available on Netflix Instant. There’s a whole wide world of streaming options out there and you deserve to know everything that’s available. Consider this the one-stop menu we'll be updating every week for your continued viewing pleasure.
We've been there. You've exhausted your Netflix queue, flipped through your entire spectrum of TV channels (twice), and seen every season of 30 Rock. It's tough, but don't despair. There's still uncharted territory out there! In fact, there's oodles of fun to be had from the comfort of your laptop this weekend. You just have to know what to look for.
These are our favorite finds on Netflix Instant Watch. Never heard of 'em? Good! Heard the word, but haven't gotten around to it yet? Now's the time.
Love The Walking Dead and Desperate Housewives?
Weird combination, we know. But Netflix's The Santa Clarita Diet appeals to both the gore aficionado and suburban drama-monger within. In the show, Drew Barrymore plays Sheila, a California woman who develops an insatiable appetite for humans. Instead of being repelled, her family rallies behind her. The family that kills together, stays together.
Saeed Adyani / Netflix
Love Downton Abbey? Try The Forsyte Saga. Featuring Homeland 's own Sgt. Nicholas Brody (a.k.a. British actor Damian Lewis), this show about a stuffy English family through the generations has all the period-piece drama of Downton, presented in a far more engrossing, realistic manner. Don't be thrown off by the massive time jumps in the first few episodes — once this show falls into place, it's unbelievably hard to turn off.
Photo: Courtesy of WGBH.
Love Seinfeld?
Then you have to add Arrested Development, one of the most critically-acclaimed comedies since Seinfeld, to your list. Michael Bluth moves back to California near his absolutely bonkers family, only to realize that he might be just as crazy as his magician brother, Never Nude brother-in-law, martini-sipping mother, and self-centered twin sister. By episode three, you'll be fully embedded in the series' running inside jokes and Easter eggs galore.
Wish you had a cool job?
Check out Netflix's newest documentary series, Abstract. Like Netflix's other show, Chef's Table, each hour-long episode spotlights a different pioneer in his or her field. You'll peer inside the work day and creative mind of New Yorker illustrators, Air Jordan shoe designers, and the Danish architect designing utopias one city block at a time.
Barbara Nitke/Netflix
MissingThe Hunger Games? Then the 3%, a sci-fi Netflix original, might sate your craving. Taking place in a dystopian future where most of the world lives in a dismal abyss of poverty, this Brazilian TV show takes socioeconomic inequity to an extreme level. But after your 20th birthday, you person has a chance to get out of poverty by passing a series of difficult team-building and individual tests called the Process. Only 3% of test-takers pass, and are granted access to the Offshore: a technologically-advanced utopia. The show offers a refreshingly diverse cast of likable characters, pushed to their psychological limits.
Pedro Saad/Netflix
If you like House of Cards... Then HBO's latest buzzy show The Young Pope needs to be on your radar. While House Of Cards is a sultry Washington-based political series, Pope is like a more high-brow, decadent — and shady! — version of Cards. Plus, it's got a surprisingly great soundtrack and some iconic moments from the legendary Diane Keaton.
Love Downton Abbey? If diving into period dramas is your thing, then the based-on-history Versailles, which tells the story of France's King Louis XIV, is up your alley. But we should warn you: Things get much steamier in Versailles than Downton. Like, so steamy that there was quite a bit of controversy in the UK early this year about the show's many, many sex scenes being too raunchy. But luckily for us Americans, the whole scandalous first season is on Netflix now.
Love Stranger Things? Then Netflix's latest series, The OA, belongs in your queue. The streaming service's latest original show is similar in that it centers on someone who mysteriously goes missing from a small town. But warning: This show is much darker — and way creepier.
Love Game of Thrones? Robb Stark may be long gone from the HBO series (RIP), but actor Richard Madden is back in another period piece, Medici: Masters of Florence. But this isn't the imaginary world of Westeros: It's Renaissance-era Florence, Italy, following the family of Giovanni Medici, played by Dustin Hoffman, after his death. Madden is yet again the son of a powerful man trying to create his own legacy. But the big question is: Will he? Or will he end up with the same fate as Robb?
Love all things supernatural? Season 1 of Glitch, the hit Australian show about a small town affected by curious paranormal activity, is now streaming on Netflix. Even better news? Season 2 of the chilling series will now be produced by Netflix, so there's even more of the Aussie thriller coming to America. Good on ya, Netflix!
Love House Of Cards? Check out The Fall, a British phycological thriller that follows a serial killer (Jamie Dornan, in a very un-Christian Grey-like role), and a female detective, played by Gillian Anderson. It's got all the ingredients needed for an irresistible binge: It's gritty, intense, and tantalizing. All three seasons are up on Netflix now. You're welcome!
Photo: BBC Northern Ireland.
LoveDownton Abbey? Then you may never leave the couch after settling in for the new series The Crown. The show is a glittering, fascinating look behind the scenes of the early days of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign — and her relationship to Prince Philip. It's gorgeous, British, and juicy, but if that's not enough to convince you, watch simply for the fact that this is Netflix's most expensive show ever.
Love Game of Thrones? If you're looking to sink your teeth into another large-scale, sweeping epic that will inspire you to theorize for weeks, HBO's latest mega series Westworld needs to be added to your watch list. But instead of Thrones ' medieval-like fantasy tale, here we have an imaginary amusement park — hosted by robots. We won't say too much more to avoid spoiling some of this show's coolest elements, but trust us, it's worth the binge.
Love The Walking Dead? Fans of TWD 's "what if a widespread epidemic ends the world" premise will appreciate The CW's Containment. The first season begins in Atlanta, where a contagion has spread through the city forcing a mandatory quarantine that causes loved ones, friends, and colleagues to question their love, morals, and human decency. Intense, right?
Love scary movies? Just in time for Halloween, the entire season of American Horror Story: Hotel is now on Netflix for your binge-watching pleasure. You can now get lost in the creepy, bloody world of the Hotel Cortez in Los Angeles. The murders, vampires, and specters portrayed by everyone from Lady Gaga to Angela Bassett may be fictional, but you might want to keep the lights on — just in case.
Love romantic comedies? Each of the episodes in Netflix's original original series Easy, is like a quirky miniature rom-com. Guest stars include the likes of Malin Åkerman, Orlando Bloom, and Dave Franco exploring everything from unplanned pregnancies to threesomes, breakups, and using Tinder to find a teacher for your child. (Ha!) And because this is an anthology series, each episode focuses on a different couple, making it perfect for the viewer looking for an enjoyable show with minimal commitment.
LoveJessica Jones? Marvel's latest comic book-based series, Luke Cage, stars Mike Colter as a regular human who ends up with super strength and capabilities after an experiment gone awry. Binge watch the Harlem-set series to see how Cage uses his new powers to fight the bad guys — and we're not just talking about superhuman villains.
Love comic-book movies and shows? Then Gotham is for you. The Fox series revolves around the characters created in DC Comics' Batman, specifically Bruce Wayne, of course, and police commissioner James Gordon. But you can also expect special appearances by everyone from Catwoman to the Penguin, Poison Ivy, and Two-Face.
LoveTwin Peaks? Sci-fi lovers, this one's for you. Netflix's hit series Stranger Things has captivated audiences with its tale of Joyce Byers, the mother of a little boy who goes missing from a small Indiana town in 1983. There are government conspiracy theory cover-ups, supernatural occurrences, and some really cute kids. So '80s.
Love family dramas? In Shameless, a gaggle of Gallaghers — that would be, the Gallagher family — are figuring out how to make it in life, despite their alcoholic father. And trust us, William H. Macy and Emmy Rossum's characters alone will keep you hooked. Seasons 1-6 are up now; happy bingeing.
LoveDownton Abbey? The U.K. already took on a family tale centered on three daughters of marrying age during times of war. Now it's Germany's turn with Ku'damm 56, a new series hitting America via Netflix, set at the family's strict dance school. But of course, just like Lady Sybil in Downton, one of the daughters rebels. Binge with subtitles and enjoy.
Love fairy tales? If magic, whimsy, and a contemporary spin on the fables you grew up loving sound like the makings of a great TV show, Once Upon a Time will keep you hooked. The fifth season of the ABC drama is now on Netflix; prepare to get acquainted with Snow White, Prince Charming, and the rest of their squad.
LoveBallers? If you love all things football — or even just the behind-the-scenes, off-the-field drama — then you'll easily become addicted to Netflix's docuseries Last Chance U, which follows NFL-bound college players from East Mississippi Community College. You'll get to know the men underneath the helmets and see firsthand the blood, sweat, and dedication it takes to succeed in the world of football.
LoveEmpire? Odds are fans of the Fox drama — and music-lovers in general — will enjoy the much-buzzed-about original series The Get Down. Baz Luhrmann's Bronx tale is set in the late-1970s and glamorously weaves together the coming-of-age stories of teenage love, New York history, and the rise of hip-hop. The show is perfect for binge-watching. Believe us, we know. Bonus: The soundtrack is just as dope as the show itself.
Love reality TV spoofs? Season 4 of BET's The Real Husbands of Hollywood hits Netflix this week. Kevin Hart's hilarious series trolls The Real Housewives franchise from a celebrity male perspective, starring everyone from Nick Cannon to Nelly. We promise you, it's worth watching just for the laughs. Seasons 1-3 are already on Netflix, so get to bingeing just in time for the new one.
Available on Netflix.
Photo: Courtesy of BET.
Love Robin Williams? Of course you do. You are a human. And that’s why you might enjoy Mork & Mindy. In this weird-as-hell sitcom, Williams plays Mork, an alien hailing from the planet Ork. And then he befriends Mindy, who becomes his roommate. An alien and a terrestrial in the same apartment? Hilarity probably ensues.
Love voyeuristic shows about New York City? Then it’s time to watch Gossip Girl. In fact, even if you already experienced this show in real time, you should re-watch it. It’s a guilty-pleasure dramatic view of how Manhattan’s elite live — fictionally, anyway. The show centers around Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) and Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester). They’re the cream of the crop at the fancy Upper East Side high school, which is basically a political landscape none of us could even begin to comprehend. Drama! Fashion! Get into it.
Love John Krasinski? Then you must experience him in his landmark role as Jim Halpert in The Office. Yes, technically Michael Scott (Steve Carell) is the main character, but you’ll see very quickly that the most addictive story line is the will-they-won’t-they between Jim and Pam (Jenna Fischer). It only helps that the show is hilarious.
Love Parks and Rec? Then Veep is for you. Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars as Selina Meyer, the vice president who inevitably becomes president. She and her team hilariously make their way through the political landscape, while trying to do actual good work and leave their mark as an administration that made a difference. Kind of like if Leslie Knope made it to the White House.
Love high school dramas? Then it's time to get into Friday Night Lights. Let me tell you something about Dillon, Texas. It’s the home of the top football team in the state, and also home to some real soap-opera crap. You would think that when you combine those two things, you get a terrible show. But it actually works, here. You will fall in love with Tim Riggins (Kitsch). You will wish Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) was your dad. You will wish Tami Taylor (Connie Britton) was your best friend.
Love a badass heroine? Then Buffy the Vampire Slayer is for you. Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a teenage vampire slayer, but she also is in love with a vampire. It's all very strange, but Joss Whedon delivers an incredibly satisfactory show around that otherwise ridiculous plot.
Love waiting until the buzz dies down to watch a great TV show? Then it’s time you committed to Breaking Bad. The hype is real, but it is justified. Walter White (Bryan Cranston) is a high school chemistry teacher who, diagnosed with cancer, must figure out a way to leave his family with enough money to survive when he dies. So, naturally, he starts making the best meth New Mexico’s ever seen.
Love openly weeping on your couch? Then Six Feet Under is for you. The Fisher family runs a funeral home in California. But when the patriarch dies unexpectedly in a car crash, they’re thrown into handling the family business — along with all of their pre-existing personal baggage. It’s five seasons of solid television, and the finale is bound to destroy you.
Love witty banter and Benedict Cumberbatch? Then you’re gonna freaking love Sherlock. Benedict Cumberbatch plays the modern-day Sherlock opposite Martin Freeman as Watson. Their chemistry — and comedy — is downright delightful. Don’t get put off by the hour-and-a-half length of each episode, either. This show’s so entertaining it’ll fly right by.
Love Making A Murderer? Then Five Days is for you. In this BBC mini series, a young mother and her children go missing. The show wastes no time, taking us right to the police investigation. It’s the perfect amount of length, too, so you won’t find yourself in the shame spiral of a 15-episode binge.
Love hilarious looks at everyday life? Well, that’s pretty much Louis C.K.’s brand of comedy. Maybe that’s why his series, Louie, feels like such a natural fit for him. The scripted series focuses on the trials and tribulations of the comedian’s day-to-day existence, but with the smart brand of commentary we’ve come to expect from him.
Love The Americans? Stay with us here: Imagine if the Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Italy, and Japan) had won World War II. That’s the scenario in The Man in the High Castle, Amazon’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s 1962 novel. The show is set in a dystopian version of the United States where the country has been divided into the Pacific States of America, a Japanese puppet state on the West Coast, the Greater Nazi Reich, a German puppet state that takes up the majority of the country through the midwest, and the Rocky Mountain States, which act as a neutral zone between the two.
Love The Mindy Project? Just like T.M.P., Catastrophe flips the script on traditional romantic comedies by upending all the usual contrivances. They have sex immediately. She (Sharon Horgan) gets pregnant. They live on two separate continents and decide to give it a go. The humor is blunt and British. In other words, if you’re tired of boring rom-coms, this is the show for you.
Love Downton Abbey? If you love a good Masterpiece production (that might have some quality eye candy), journey to Cornwall shortly after the American revolution to find out how the Brits fared after they lost the war for the colonies. Poldark is the story of Ross Poldark, who returns home from fighting in the revolution to find that his father has died, leaving Ross penniless.
Love Homeland? You really owe it to yourself to binge-watch all of FX’s The Americans. The tense, slow-burn series follows two Soviet spies (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys) deep undercover in the United States during the Cold War in the 1980s.
Love Grace and Frankie? Turn to another show about late-in-life personal discoveries that lead to larger familial repercussions: Transparent. As Maura Pfefferman (Jeffrey Tambor) — formerly Mort — transitions, tumultuous issues that had previously bubbled beneath the surface in her children’s lives also come to light.
Love sci-fi and amazing acting? If you aren’t on the Orphan Black train yet, you absolutely need to climb aboard. In the opening scene, a woman named Sarah watches someone who looks exactly like her commit suicide by jumping in front of a train. From there, things only get more involved. Sarah learns that she’s one of more than 10 clones (and counting) developed by a top-secret genetic engineering project. She also learns ther life is in peril, as is that of her daughter Kira. Tatiana Maslany stars as every single one of the clones. She’s amazing.
Love Big Love? And investigations into fringe movements whose beliefs don’t quite match those of mainstream society? Watch Hulu’s The Path. Aaron Paul (of Breaking Bad fame) makes his return to TV — well, streaming — in this drama about a creepy movement called Meyerism. It started out with good intentions, but it’s become a cult. Many viewers and critics questioned whether creator Jessica Goldberg based the Meyerist movement on Scientology, but that’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself as you watch. There are some very eerie similarities, we’ll tell you that much.
Love Skins? Are ne’er-do-well British teens who just DGAF and look effortlessly cool while doing so your jam? Then why not add a dash of superhuman abilities into the mix? On Misfits, a group of teens doing court-mandated community service are struck by lightning during a freak storm. Afterward, they discover that the storm gave them all different superpowers.
This isn’t your typical sci-fi show, though. We’re still dealing with cheeky teens who really just want to rub their parts together, but now there's an additional element of intrigue because the superpowered group needs to hide their abilities — and the fact that they accidentally murdered their probation officer. And yes, that is Iwan Rheon, who plays the villainous Ramsay Bolton on Game of Thrones, on the right. You’ll fall in love with him on Misfits, and then be very confused by your feelings for him the next time you watch GoT.
Love Billy on the Street? If you can’t get enough of Billy Eichner’s sassy, in-your-face humor, it behooves you to watch Difficult People. It’s a perfect blend of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Will & Grace.
Love Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt? You, Me and the Apocalypse is a sardonically dark and funny look at what happens to the people of Earth when they learn they have only 33 days left to live. It’s even got Rob Lowe as a Catholic priest tasked with discerning which people claiming to be the second coming of Christ are the real deal.
Love New Girl? The blink-and-you-missed it marvel Happy Endings is finally (finally!) on Hulu — and it is a gosh-darn delight. Prepare to meet a group of friends with even better inside jokes than the gang on How I Met Your Mother, better chemistry than the Friends, and more bodily function discussions than Abbi and Ilana on Broad City.
Love Glee? Well, the first few seasons. If you’ve been missing a show with diegetic musical interludes, you need to be watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. This series one-ups Glee, though, because all of the songs are original and Rebecca Bunch’s (Rachel Bloom) life is much more grown-up and relatable than those of the high-schoolers in Glee.
Love The Bachelor? But ready to see it’s way-too-earnest peddling of unironic romantic journeys parodied to the hilt? Burning Love is the satire for you.
Love Curb Your Enthusiasm? If you thrive on seeing incredibly awkward human interactions, cue up Nathan for You. Comedian Nathan Fielder adopts the persona of a rube who just wants to help failing small businesses — and the outcomes are so uncomfortable you’ll actually squirm in your seat.
Love The Office? Fans of the mockumentary-style comedy will definitely enjoy Parks and Rec, which follows the lives and times of a local parks department. Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) is kind of like the Michael Scott here, though more adept by leaps and bounds. Come for the jokes, stay for the cast of incredible weird characters.
Love anthologies? Then you’ll probably enjoy The Twilight Zone. You’re likely familiar with Rod Serling’s more timeless tales. (Think: William Shatner shouting that there’s something on the wing of a plane.) But there are so many episodes worthy of your attention, each more interesting and chilling than the last.
Love House? Nurse Jackie is for you. Edie Falco plays Jackie, a no-nonsense nurse who’s hiding a painkiller addiction. Her life begins to slowly spiral out of control. At moments, it’s hard to watch her make such terrible decisions. But you’ll want to stick with it for her sassy hospital friends and her babe of a husband (Dominic Fumusa).
Love Boy Meets World? Of course you do. That’s why 3rd Rock from the Sun is right up your alley. This '90s sitcom features Saturday Night Live alum Jane Curtin, John Lithgow, and yes, a baby-faced Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The show centers on an extraterrestrial family visiting Earth to learn about human behavior. If you loved the fish-out-of-water feeling from Boy Meets World, then you’ll be delighted by the utterly strange cast of characters in this one. Did we mention JGL is in it? Just wanna make sure you got that part.
Love old-school cartoons from your childhood? Guess what’s on Netflix? Animaniacs! That’s right; those zany-to-the-max creatures and their joyous antics are finally available to stream on the 'flix. Unfortunately, you may no longer be able to watch them during those prime after-school hours on weekdays like you used to (due to a little annoyance called work). Oh well; that's what weekends are for when you're an adult: watching cartoons.
Love Better Off Ted? If you can’t stand corporate doublespeak, buzzwords, and meetings that go absolutely nowhere (or in complete circles), watch W1A. This brilliant mockumentary follows Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville), the BBC’s new Head of Values — yes, a completely bullshit position — as he tries to sort out the institutional jeremiads plaguing the U.K.’s most important broadcast company.
Love Comedy Bang! Bang!? If you love watching comedians showcasing their weirdest, wackiest, most creative characters, Netflix Presents: The Characters is right up your alley. In each 30-minute episode (there are eight in total), one up-and-coming comedian writes and stars in a series of sketches straight from his or her witty, clever imagination. Some notable comedians who are already on your radar include Lauren Lapkus ( Orange Is the New Black) and Paul W. Downs ( Broad City).
Love Taylor Lautner? And wondering what he’s been up to lately? Why, ol’ T. Lauts has been across the pond starring in the Britcom Cuckoo. He took the reins from Andy Samberg during season 2 of the show after Samberg was forced to step aside due to scheduling commitments to Brooklyn 99. On Cuckoo, Lautner gets the chance to demonstrate his comedy chops. Seasons 1 and 2 are available on Netflix, so you get a chance to watch both Samberg and Lautner play off of one of Britain’s current funniest actor/comedians, Greg Davies.
Love You’re the Worst? There’s been a shifting tide in television over the past few years wherein shows like The Mindy Project, Catastrophe, and You’re the Worst are more than undoing the cloying, completely unrealistic romantic comedies that came out in spades in the early aughts. Netflix’s Love is the latest entry in this canon. The show follows nice, nerdy Gus (Paul Rust) and cool girl Mickey (Gillian Jacobs) as they try to find love in Los Angeles.
Love Girlfriends? You need to watch Being Mary Jane: The Series. Gabrielle Union plays Mary Jane Paul, the host of a successful talk show who’s also trying to support her extended family and find love at the same time. Her life is a whirlwind, her clothes are unreal, and the show is addictive AF.
Love House Hunters? But can’t stand the commercials you always end up watching during the H.H. and H.H. International marathons that always seem to suck you in on lazy Sundays? Sure, you could plan ahead and keep a few episodes stored on your DVR for whenever the mood for some shelter porn strikes, but that just sounds like something that would never happen.
Well, guess what? Our good friend Netflix has House Hunters, House Hunters International, and House Hunters Renovation collections at the ready for you to watch whenever you so please. Now, if only the couples where he wants to live in a one-story ranch located far away from the city, but she wants to be right in the heart of downtown could agree as easily as you will on what to watch tonight.
Love Chelsea Lately? If you’ve been missing Chelsea Handler’s signature brand of undercutting sass and refusal to accept the status quo since her late-night show on E! went off the air, tune into Chelsea Does..., the comedian’s new investigative docuseries on Netflix. In each episode, Handler explores a stand-alone topic, such as race, Silicon Valley, or marriage, from many angles. She doesn’t always reach a conclusion or even come to any groundbreaking realizations, but by looking at each subject through a unique lens, with help from many different interview subjects, Handler moves the conversation along in a way only she really can.
Love Game of Thrones? If your favorite part of George R.R. Martin’s sweeping saga is the various characters’ devious machinations and power plays for the Iron Throne, cue up The Tudors. There are no dragons or White Walkers, but the historical drama does tell the extremely scandalous story of England’s 16th-century royal court, led by King Henry VIII (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers), and there’s just as much sex as you’ll find on Game of Thrones. There’s even some Thrones crossover: Natalie Dormer, who plays Margaery Tyrell on GoT, stars as the doomed Anne Boleyn on The Tudors.
Love Degrassi: The Next Generation? Really, who doesn’t? The hallowed halls of Degrassi Community School saw more than their fair share of D-R-A-M-A throughout the show’s 14 (yes, 14) seasons. Not only did the series deal with serious issues, including teen pregnancy, drug addiction, eating disorders, and school shootings, it also introduced us to then-unknown actors like Jake Epstein (who’s now a Broadway star), Nina Dobrev, and Aubrey Graham (now better known as the rapper named Drake). The Next Generation had a long run, yet fans seemed surprised when TeenNick announced its cancellation in June 2015. Luckily, Netflix swooped in to make loyal Degrassi viewers very happy. Degrassi: Next Class premiered on January 4, 2016, with a whole new cast of characters and updated issues for a new generation, including cyberbullying in the world of e-sports.
Love Narcos? Sean Penn claims in his Rolling Stone interview with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman that Mexican actress Kate del Castillo is the one who connected Penn with El Chapo. del Castillo has since noted that some of the stories surrounding her involvement with El Chapo are untrue, but still, her involvement with a drug cartel leader is almost stranger than fiction. Why? del Castillo starred as Teresa Mendoza, who is also known as the “Queen of the South” on the popular telenovela La Reina del Sur. The telenovela is based on Arturo Pérez-Reverte's 2002 novel of the same name, which tells the story of the first woman to become the leader of a Spanish drug cartel.
Love Serial? It seems everyone came back from the 2015 holidays talking about one thing and one thing only: Making a Murderer. Netflix’s 10-episode true-crime docuseries follows the trial of Steven Avery, who was accused of killing 25-year-old Teresa Halbach in 2005. Avery had a troubled history with law enforcement officials in his home county of Manitowoc, WI, which led his defense attorneys to argue that he had been framed by the police. The series offers a riveting look at the criminal justice system that will leave you wondering what to believe.
Love The Shawshank Redemption? Sundance TV's Rectify tells the story of Daniel Holden, who was put on death row after being found guilty of rape and murder as a teenager. Almost 20 years later, his conviction is overturned after new DNA evidence nullifies it, and Daniel is released. He returns to live in the town where everyone is still convinced of his guilt, except for his younger sister, Amantha.
Love Office Space? Better Off Ted is a criminally underrated gem of a sitcom about Ted Crisp (Jay Harrington), who runs the R&D department at a soulless mega-corporation called Veridian Dynamics. It’s a send-up of everything that’s wrong with corporate America and evil companies content to destroy the environment without thinking twice. Yet the show always errs on the side of hopeful optimism while taking them to task. The biggest disappointment of all is that this delight of a series never got another season.
Love Friends? But looking for a half-hour show grounded a bit more in reality with up-to-date references? You need Aziz Ansari’s Master of None. The series is a combination of lessons from the comedian’s book, Modern Romance, aspects of his own life, and the overall experience of being in one's late 20s and early 30s. The result is a poignant, funny, and an extremely accurate depiction of what it’s like to be alive right now.
Love Daredevil? Netflix continues its dark dive into the Marvel universe with Jessica Jones. She’s not your typical superhero. Jessica (Krysten Ritter) works as a P.I. and floats along the outskirts of society. She’s suffering from PTSD after a mysterious man named Kilgrave (David Tennant) took control over her mind for months. The series has just the right amount of gritty badassary we’ve been longing to see from a female superhero. You can binge-watch all of season 1 along with us right here.
Love Top Chef? You need The Great British Baking Show (or, as it’s called in the U.K., The Great British Bake Off) in your life. Picture all the things you like about Top Chef (drooling at the culinary creations, and worrying whether the contestants will finish them in the time limit provided) without the things you don’t like (the heavily sponsored and overly branded everything, and how they make the contestants extremely stressed and frazzled by keeping them isolated from their families). Add to that the most quaint, idyllic British location you can imagine — a tent outside a manor complete with a pond, adorable sheep, and rolling lawns for days — and two judges who take baking more seriously than you’ve ever thought anyone could. It’s basically a recipe for the most charming cooking competition you’ve ever seen, and it’s finally on Netflix.
Love UnREAL? If shows featuring strong, take-charge women who aren’t afraid to show that they’re also flawed (because seriously, who among us isn’t) are your television milieu, you’ll easily sail through Rita. This Danish dramedy (yes, there are subtitles, but we promise it’s worth it) follows a fiercely independent teacher and single mother-of-three as she navigates through institutional bullshit and personal affairs.
Love Downton Abbey? Picture the beautiful period costumes and luxe settings, but transport them to a gorgeous hotel in Santander. On Grand Hotel, there's mystery afoot when a maid goes missing from one of Spain's most elegant hotels. Soon, her disappearance reveals other secrets, and the drama is positively Downton -esque.
Love Outlander? If you enjoy a bodice-ripping romance with dashes of true-to-life historical events mixed in, you’ll want to wait out the break between seasons 1 and 2 of Outlander with Reign. It’s a CW show, so the sex is much less explicit (sorry), but you’re still in for some sordid, nefarious plots against the monarchy in this story centered on the years Mary, Queen of Scots, spent in France during her youth.
Love Food Network? If watching skilled chefs do their thing is your jam, Netflix’s six-part documentary series Chef’s Table is ideal for you. Each episode follows a world-famous chef, from Dan Barber of the renowned Blue Hill restaurants in NYC and Pocantico Hills, NY, to Niki Nakayama at N/Naka in L.A. You might want to eat before watching, though, because this series is going to make your mouth water.
Love Breaking Bad? One of the taglines for Netflix’s newest original series, Narcos, which premiered on August 28, 2015, is “There’s no business like blow business.” It’s a pun on the famous line about show business, and also a true statement about the thriving drug empire run by Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar in the 1980s and ‘90s. This series chronicles the inner workings of Escobar’s life and cartel, and the DEA’s increasing attempts to take him down.
Love Reading Rainbow? Watch… Reading Rainbow! The beloved childhood show that instilled a love of reading in many generations is finally available on Netflix. Watching episodes from Volume 1 will make you feel all sorts of nostalgic for books like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and Miss Nelson Is Back. Take a look, it’s in a book …on Reading Rainbow.
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Love Wet Hot American Summer? The entire gang is back for Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, the prequel to end all prequels. Fifteen years after the cult classic film, head back to Camp Firewood for eight new episodes chock-full of absurdist humor, talking vegetable cans, and your favorite actors (Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper, Elizabeth Banks…the list goes on and on) playing 16-year-old camp counselors.
Love Empire & Beverly Hills, 90210? Throw in a dash of Melrose Place, and you’ve got The L.A. Complex. The short-lived cult favorite is a painfully honest portrayal of a group of twentysomethings pursuing stardom in Hollywood. In the most compelling and dramatic storyline, closeted rapper Kaldrick King (Andra Fuller) tries to stage a successful comeback while resorting to violence to hide his gay relationships.
Love True Blood? Drop in on the supernatural creatures of Bristol, England, including a ghost, a werewolf, and a sexy vampire, all shacking up in a house and doing their best to fit in with the locals on Being Human. Go for the original U.K. version (although Netflix also has the American remake), with Looking ’s Russell Tovey as the werewolf who hates his time of the month, Poldark ’s Aidan Turner as the brooding vampire, and A to Z ’s Lenora Crichlow as the ghost with unfinished business.
Love Lost & The Matrix? Sci-fi powerhouse siblings, the Wachowskis, have brought their flair for mind-bending, perception-and-reality-altering plotlines to the small screen with Sense8. The new Netflix original spares no expense in its scenic globetrotting (seriously, if you can’t afford to travel, this show might just be the next best thing) as it rambles through the lives of eight characters whose minds are somehow intertwined.
Love Supernatural? Go deep into the paranormal YA archives with Roswell, the now-cult classic that ran from 1999-2002. On Roswell, not only did a UFO crash at Area 51, but it had three alien children aboard. When the show starts, they’re in high school trying to be normal teenagers and stay under the radar. They’re falling in love with humans and want to share their secret, though, so there’s clearly going to be some D-R-A-M-A.
Love 9 to 5 and The Golden Girls? Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin star in Netflix’s newest original show, Grace and Frankie. The two play frenemies in their 70s whose husbands announce that they’re in love and are leaving Grace and Frankie to be together. What happens when you have to reboot your life as a septuagenarian? That’s what these two are bound to find out.
Love Gotham & Arrow? Watch Daredevil, Netflix’s gritty new original series about Marvel hero Matt Murdock: blind lawyer by day, masked vigilante who protects Hell’s Kitchen by night (and, still blind). It’ll completely make you forget about that Ben Affleck travesty from 2003.
Love Friends? Specifically, the episode where Joey models for a free clinic and unwittingly becomes the face of gonorrhea? Imagine a whole series using that conceit, only the protagonist (an affable British twentysomething named Dylan) really does have chlamydia, and he has to contact all of his past sexual partners to tell them. It winds up being sort of charming, because in the process, he reconnects with past loves who might have been the one. Also, the show is called Scrotal Recall, and if that’s not the best Arnold Schwarzenegger movie pun-based sitcom title ever, your pec-spectations are too high.
Love Flight of the Conchords? Cue up the dulcet sounds of comedy duo Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, also known as Garfunkel and Oates. The duo writes and performs satirical songs about their personal and professional lives, which get incorporated into the framework of this clever half-hour comedy named for the pair.
Love Dynasty and Dallas? Sounds like you love a good multi-generational familial drama. Dig into Netflix’s new original series Bloodline, which stars Kyle Chandler (Coach Taylor on FNL) as the supposedly good son in the hard-working Rayburn family, who run a hotel in the Florida Keys.
Love How to Get Away with Murder? It sounds like you enjoy watching strong female characters who know a thing or two about dabbling in the grayer areas of the law. Watch Damages, which stars Glenn Close as a ruthless, all-star attorney of questionable morals and Rose Byrne as her wide-eyed protégée.
Love Arrested Development? Watch The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. David Cross (who played Tobias Fünke) stars as the titular bumbling American businessman, who’s sent across the pond to promote an energy drink called Thunder Muscle in England.
Love Skins? But also feel like the show can be overwhelmingly serious at times? Get ready for some laddish hijinks courtesy of The Inbetweeners. The humor’s a bit sophomoric, but just try not to LOL as you watch Will, Simon, Jay, and Neil fumble their way through high school in England.
Love Game of Thrones? Swords-and-sandals-clad warriors get even sexier and more bloodthirsty in Spartacus. If you thought the Unsullied were treated brutally in Astapor, just wait until you see the dregs from which the gladiators of Thrace had to rise.
Love Homeland? Maggie Gyllenhaal just won a Golden Globe for her work in the political spy thriller The Honorable Woman. The eight-part miniseries follows a British-Israeli businesswoman as she tries to work toward peace in the Middle East.
Love Jane the Virgin? Watch JTV creator Jennie Snyder Urman’s last CW romp, Emily Owens, M.D. The short-lived show was a sweet mix of Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs — plus it introduced the talented Aja Naomi King, who’s now blowing audiences away on How t o Get Away with Murder.
Love The Fall? For starters, make sure you watch season 2, which hit Netflix back on January 16, 2015. Once you’ve done that, cue up Southcliffe, an extremely vivid portrait of a fictional English town wracked by a horrifying shooting spree. It’s a macabre study of the human condition you won’t forget.
Love Orange Is the New Black? Get locked up in Wentworth, the equally compelling women’s prison drama from Australia. Bea Smith (played by Danielle Cormack) is thrown in jail while awaiting trial for trying to kill her violent husband, and the series follows her time behind bars learning the ins and outs of prison life.
Loved The Imitation Game? Watch The Bletchley Circle, a British mystery about four women who worked at Bletchley Park breaking codes during World War II and reunite in the early 1950s to solve new mysteries.
Love Boardwalk Empire? Journey across the pond for the British historical crime drama, Peaky Blinders. In the aftermath of World War I, a detective (Sam Neill) is tasked with taking down the Birmingham gang, Peaky Blinders, led by the quick-witted Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy).
Love The Twilight Zone? Watch the spectacularly twisted Black Mirror. The Brit anthology series has just six episodes, each one telling a uniquely haunting tale about near-distant futures where technology can recreate dead loved ones, get the prime minister to commit bestiality on national television, and allow people to rewatch old memories that might destroy their lives. The scariest part is just how much of a reflection the series is of our current fixation with gadgets and the lives we lead online.
Love The Sopranos? Watch Lilyhammer. Steven Van Zandt plays a New York gangster named Frank “The Fixer” Tagliano who tries to start a new life for himself in the titular isolated Norway town after he’s forced into the federal witness protection program.
Love Friends? Cozy up with the wry Britcom Coupling. It's a clever and humorous exploration of looking for love when you’re absolutely terrified of everything that comes with it.
Love Halloween? Cue up Netflix’s horror series, Hemlock Grove. Executive produced by gore-lover Eli Roth, the show focuses on the mysterious goings-on in the fictional titular town, which range from the supernatural to the just plain sadistic.
Love Breaking Bad? Take a gun-running thrill ride with Sons of Anarchy. Loosely based on Hamlet, it brings the intra-familial intrigue of Shakespeare’s Danish royalty tale to a motorcycle gang unofficially responsible for keeping things going in the fictional city of Charming, CA.
Love Television? We’re guessing you do because here you are, reading a slideshow of Netflix streaming recommendations. As an aficionado and appreciator of the finer TV series in life, we think you’ll also love The Writers’ Room. In this fascinating interview show, Academy Award-winning writer Jim Rash (who’s best known for playing Dean Pelton on Community) sits down with writers of some of your favorite shows to discuss how they’re crafted. In the first six episodes, he talks to the writers and creators of Breaking Bad, Parks and Recreation, Dexter, New Girl, Game of Thrones, and American Horror Story. If you’re a fan of television and love hearing about how it’s created, this is for you.
Love The Office? Watch the British gem that is Peep Show. Part The Odd Couple, part The Office (British version), and filmed through each character’s eyes, the offbeat sitcom is perfect for a weekend binge.
Love Supernatural? Tune your spidey senses into Psych. This playful show features the overly clever, extremely witty Shawn Spencer who uses his heightened powers of observation to serve as the resident psychic for the Santa Barbara Police Department. Come for the ridiculous fake clairvoyant act, but stay for the lovable characters like Gus, O’Hara, and Lassie. And, did we mention that there’s a musical episode? Because there’s a musical episode.
Love Flight of the Conchords? Get your New Zealand fix with Short Poppies, a mockumentary series created and written by Rhys Darby, who you’ll recognize from his role as Murray, the Conchords’ clueless manager. On Short Poppies, Darby plays David Farrier, an entertainment reporter. Farrier interviews people he deems "extraordinary New Zealanders," who live in a fictional town known as The Bay. With just eight episodes, this is the perfect Sunday Funday binge-watch.
Love Friday Night Lights? That’s a silly question; of course you do. You’re a human being with emotions and a heart, right? Also, you’ve seen Tim Riggins. Texas forever. Unfortunately, we don’t have any updates on the proposed movie (yes, that would mean a book that became a movie that became a show would be made into a movie again), but we do have a series currently streaming on Netflix that will make you feel as many feelings as FNL.
Jason Katims, the brilliant screenwriter who adapted Friday Night Lights for the small screen, also turned the 1989 dramedy Parenthood into a poignant drama now entering its fifth and final season on NBC. Warning: You will definitely need tissues for this one, but the emotional roller coaster of watching the Bravermans is so, so worth it.
Love The Mindy Project? Check out the short-lived but hilarious Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23. Krysten Ritter plays the titular B, a hustler and legend in her own mind with a gorgeous apartment and a best friend/ex-boyfriend named James Van Der Beek. Yes, the Beek from the Creek. He plays a heightened caricature of himself complete with a tragic stint on Dancing with the Stars. Enter into the fray Dreama Walker, a small-town girl with a business degree who just wants to make it in New York City — plus a pervy neighbor across the air shaft — and you’ve got yourself a delightful little sitcom.
Love Twin Peaks? After many requests, Netflix secured the rights to the newest British cult hit Happy Valley. Police sergeant Catherine Cawood is trying to cope with her daughter’s suicide, but things unravel when she spots the man she believes raped her daughter (which led to her death). She becomes obsessed with finding him, which uncovers an even larger mystery involving the kidnapping of a local girl.
Love Family Guy? Or, any animated show for adults, really, including The Simpsons, The Critic, Bob’s Burgers, South Park, and Archer? Netflix debuted its first foray into original animated programming for grown-ups this week with BoJack Horseman. Will Arnett voices the titular character, a washed-up actor who starred in a popular sitcom called Horsin’ Around 20 years ago and has done nothing of note since. The world of BoJack is populated with humans and anthropomorphized animals alike, so it’s a bit surreal. Aaron Paul plays Todd, BoJack’s sycophantic perma-houseguest, and Alison Brie is Diane, who’s been hired to ghostwrite his memoirs. Can BoJack and his ragtag crew somehow turn his downward spiral of a life around? Watch and find out.
Love Downton Abbey? If you’re especially attuned to the burgeoning role of women beyond the domestic sphere in Downton, cue up Call the Midwife. Imagine Sybil’s can-do nursing skills transported to a group of midwives in a convent in East London in the ‘50s. That’s exactly what you’ll find in this engrossing BBC series, which airs new seasons on PBS.
Love Pretty Little Liars? First of all, read the books instead. They’re even more engrossing than ABC Family’s frothy mystery about Rosewood. When you’re done with those (or concurrently), cue up Skins. The British show made international headlines for the reckless lifestyle promoted by “Skins parties ” and sent the U.K. into a nationwide panic about the hedonistic pursuits of Millennial teens. No matter what your takeaway, Skins will suck you right in.
Love True Detective? If you love a slow-build, extremely tense, psychological thriller, watch The Fall. Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan, here causing much inner turmoil when you find yourself attracted to a deviant sociopath) is a serial killer terrorizing Belfast, and Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) is the detective trying to catch him before he strikes again. Season 1 is only five episodes, so you’ll burn through them in no time. Luckily, they’re filming the second season right now.
Love Gossip Girl? Guilty pleasures: We all have them. Gossip Girl (well, the first few seasons) was one of ours. The South Korean series Boys Over Flowers follows the whole fish-out-of-water setup, only this time Lonely Boy is Jan Di, the daughter of a dry cleaner who finds herself falling for the spoiled rich kid whose clique runs their elite private school. It’s somehow even more addictive than Gossip Girl — maybe it’s the amazing vintage Bieber haircuts all of the boys sport. And, because of the subtitles, watching it feels a bit more highbrow. Get watching. XOXO.
Love American Horror Story? Dive even deeper into the uncanny valley with The Returned. The cult French show follows the lives — and afterlives — of a sleepy town where nothing is as it seems. Long-dead relatives return to life; residents try to leave — only to be thwarted by roads running in circles. There’s a serial killer on the loose, but no one seems to care. It’s a slow, eerie build but oh, is it worth it.
Love Silicon Valley? Try turning your machine off and on again, then booting up The IT Crowd (that’s a joke you’ll get when you start watching). This hilarious British sitcom chronicles an odd couple of IT guys trying to do as little work as possible in their dungeon of an office at a horrible corporation. Chris O’Dowd (before he became a household name in Bridesmaids) plays Roy, the ringleader, while Richard Ayoade is Moss, his introverted, nebbishy foil. And, just like the Pied Piper guys on Silicon Valley, Roy and Moss’ world is rocked when a female enters their daily routine. Fire up the Internet and get watching.
Love The Killing? You've undoubtedly heard of Top of the Lake — everyone, or at least everyone in this office, is talking about it. Like Twin Peaks and The Killing, it centers around a mysterious, troubled young girl and a small town with a lot of secrets to hide. Recipe for a good time, right?
Love Law & Order? You'll go crazy for Swedish crime show Wallander. Though it doesn't cover sex-based offenses in particular, this thriller reminds us of SVU (our favorite iteration, obviously) because of its focus on the cops' and detectives' personal lives. There's also a Masterpiece Mystery version, but we recommend starting out with the original Henning Mankel l.
Love House? Well, this is basically the exact same concept, but British. And that's usually a good thing. Doc Martin follows the antics of a curmudgeonly MD after he moves to a provincial town, abandoning his prestigious London surgical post for unknown reasons. Weird diseases, even weirder people.
Love Parks & Recreation? If you're a fan of all things dysfunctional, British sitcom Black Books is perfect for you. Focused on a perpetually down-and-out bookstore owner who regularly puts a mid-afternoon drink over customer service, this show should be heartbreaking — but instead, it's hilarious. Plus, if you're missing the glory days of TV, you'll dig the distinct early-2000s vibe.
Love Homeland? British series House of Cards is chock-full of political drama and underhanded scheming, guaranteed to get your blood pumping. It's also great if totally inappropriate and unethical sexual relationships are your thing. This is a great pick if you've already binged through the American version, but are still hungry for more!
Our goal here is simple: to help you curate the perfect Rolodex of movies that will help you deal if or when things with your loved one fall apart. And, to help us in our quest for catharsis, we’ve consulted the very academic Kübler-Ross model of handling grief, which divides the process into five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (because, above all else, we here at Refinery29 are nothing if not academics, of course).
There are many different types of breakup movies: the ones that are actually about breakups in the literal sense and the ones that deal with the different stages of breakups metaphorically. For instance: (500) Days of Summer. That’s about breakups. The Hours, on the other hand, is about handling grief, an emotion that occurs after any loss — especially the loss of a relationship. Because a list of breakup movies exists around every corner of the Internet, we’re digging deeper into the films that will help you cope with those separations in a far less overt but no less helpful way.
Movies, above all else, are therapeutic. The best ones allow us to relieve, relive, or re-evaluate our most tender experiences in a way that no other art form can. Click through to see our picks for the films that will aid you in getting through every one of those five stages — and straight on to renewal.
Before Sunrise(1995)
The plot of this acclaimed Richard Linklater film is as simple as they come. On his way to Vienna, an American named Jesse (Ethan Hawke) becomes smitten with a Celine (Julie Delpy), a French student going home to Paris. Jesse convinces Celine to go to Vienna for a night with him, and the movie tracks their wandering and their conversation. It reminds you of the adventures just around the corner if you follow your impulses. Think of all the great conversations in your future.
Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock
Amelie(2001)
In this acclaimed French movie, Audrey Tatou plays an imaginative and mischievous waitress who decides to interfere (and hopefully improve) other peoples' lives. Bursting with whimsy, this movie will remind you that the world is still full of magic and a new beginning's just a choice away.
Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock
Sliding Doors(1998)
In one version of reality, Gwyneth Paltrow’s character makes it onto a subway car by a second. In another version of reality, she misses the train. Following her down both paths, the movie envisions how her lives go on different tracks from that split-second instance. It’ll remind you of life’s unpredictability, and how this period of pain might be paving the way for something better down the line.
Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock
The Reader(2008)
Hey — at least your ex wasn't a former Nazi guard who finds herself on trial for the murder of hundreds of innocent people.
Crazy Stupid Love (2011)
When life throws you a lemon, toss it, and go make out with Ryan Gosling.
To Have Or Have Not (1944)
Channel your inner Lauren Bacall and go out on the town. You don't need anyone to tell you what to do.
Fifty Shades Of Grey(2015)
Take heart in the knowledge that though you may be single, you aren't dating a sociopath with a penchant for painful sex.
Pride & Prejudice(2005)
Any version of this Jane Austen classic will do the trick, but we suggest the 2005 adaptation starring Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennett and Matthew Macfadyen as a very broody, very sexy Mr. Darcy.
The Graduate (1967)
Breakups are tough. But the guy you're seeing cheating on you with your mother? That's some heavy shit.
2 Days In Paris (2007)
No matter how painful the breakup, it's probably better than introducing your non-French speaking American boyfriend to your sexually-liberated parents and a slew of exes.
Sometimes, schadenfreude is the best remedy for heartbreak.
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Bridesmaids (2011) If spending time with your best friends is a crucial part of getting over an ex, then why not spend it with a group of fictional characters who are sure to distract you from your pain for at least two hours? Plus, if you just got out of a crappy relationship, it's helpful to see what a good one looks like. (Sup, Chris O'Dowd?)
Photo: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock.
Heathers(1988)
"I just killed my best friend." "And, worst enemy..." "Same difference."
Of course, we aren't advocating any sort of accidental-murder crime spree here, but Heathers is the perfect reminder that sometimes the people stuck in your life are the ones who are the most poisonous. And, nothing feels better than Winona Ryder telling the psychopathic Christian Slater that all she wants is "Cool dudes like you out of my life."
Photo: Courtesy of New World Pictures.
Great Expectations (1998) Yes, in the end, Finn and Estella end up together, kind of. But Finn spends his entire life being punished by Paltrow's Estella and the Miss Havisham-styled Anne Bancroft, and he leads himself to incorrectly believe he can make himself be what she wants. In this version of Great Expectations, Finn denies that Estella is only there to break his heart, and it's true: Estella is only won when no one else wants her.
Photo: Courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
Brooklyn (2015) Sometimes, the hardest part of a breakup is starting over. It's learning how to get up in the morning and not talk to your former partner and how to make plans that involve only yourself. As such, this can also be the most depressing part of a split. So, if you need an affirmation that you will come out the other end of this a better, more confident person, watch Eilis immigrate from Ireland to 1950s New York.
Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures/Photofest.
Celeste & Jesse Forever(2002) They say you should marry your best friend. But what if you marry that person only to realize that you're better off as, well, best friends? This movie explores that heartbreaking grey area between a friendship and a relationship. Watch it. Cry a lot. Feel better about your breakup.
Photo: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock.
Silver Linings Playbook(2012)
There’s nothing sadder than watching someone refuse to accept the end of a relationship, but that’s what makes the burgeoning romance between Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence’s manic lovebirds so darn powerful. It's only once Cooper’s character learns to let go of the woman who abandoned him that he can see the woman who’s standing right in front of him.
Photo: Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.
Chasing Amy(1997)
Ben Affleck's Holden ends the movie by actually bargaining with his best friend and his girlfriend, offering a pretty stupid solution for all of the tension between them. And, the thing is, you can't persuade anyone — especially yourself — to accept the one you love.
Photo: Courtesy of Buena Vista Pictures.
An Unmarried Woman(1978)
Another man-leaving-for-a-younger-woman tale, this snapshot of New York in the '70s doesn't just address the end of a relationship but the sexual liberation of women as well. Jill Clayburgh, who was nominated for an Academy Award for this role, goes through the same five stages of Kübler-Ross outlined here, but she emerges from the other side empowered — and sexually fulfilled.
Photo: Courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
She-Devil(1989)
Imagine the premise of The Other Woman, except, instead of the pretty and palatable Cameron/Leslie/Kate trio, you have a maniacal Roseanne Barr with an angry mole. After being treated horribly by her husband, Barr's Ruth goes after her husband's four assets — home, family, job, and freedom — taking down the campy, WASP-y Meryl Streep (who is in true comedic form), who stole her husband. Brutal, evil, and demonstrative that hell hath no fury.
Photo: Courtesy of Orion Pictures.
My Best Friend's Wedding(1997)
Watching Julia Roberts play a woman who wants what she can’t have is like watching a cow go swimming. It’s not supposed to happen. But, as a lifelong careerist pining for her best friend as he plans his, duh, wedding, Roberts convinces us that falling in love with the wrong person is just as hard as it sounds.
Photo: Courtesy of TriStar Pictures.
Chinatown(1974)
Watching Jack Nicholson’s bandaged gumshoe roam through Roman Polanski’s bleak depiction of postwar Los Angeles is just as depressing as it sounds. This classic neo-noir — in which the rich get richer, the disenfranchised drown, and corruption is rampant — is a staunch reminder that the world we live in is a scary, scary place.
Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind(2004)
Have you ever wished you’d never met the person who broke your heart? In Charlie Kaufman’s oddball romance, Joel Barrish (Jim Carrey) has that wish granted via a mysterious procedure in which the memories of his ex-girlfriend (Kate Winslet) are erased. It’s only then that he realizes the love they shared was worth the loss, but simultaneously, we are destined to repeat our same mistakes — no matter how good our intentions may be. Sometimes, love is just not enough.
Photo: Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock.
The First Wives Club(1996)
Yes, this movie does work on the premise that, after a certain age, your husband will probably leave you for a younger woman, which kind of sucks. But, it also affirms the power of a womanly bond and what happens when determined, strong women focus on something other than men.
Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
(500) Days of Summer(2009)
Who else but Zooey Deschanel's crush-worthy manic pixie dream girl could take a man’s heart and totally pulverize it? In Marc Webb’s refreshing take on the rom-com, that man is Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a hopeless romantic who must suffer the pains of a disintegrating relationship, before he emerges clear-eyed on the other side.
Photo: Courtesy of Fox Searchlight.
Postcards from the Edge (1990)
Adapted from Carrie Fisher's true life story about getting clean and heading back to acting, Suzanne (Meryl Streep) has to sober up in order to continue with her film career, which means confronting sleazy producers, coming to terms with her overbearing mother, and dealing with addiction. Messy Meryl is both earnest and darkly dry. The film has a wise assumption: Many of us have dysfunctional relationships with our mothers, and the sooner we realize it, the sooner we can start laughing.
Photo: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
Blue Valentine(2010)
Derek Cianfrance's autopsy of a relationship-gone-bad is a staunch reminder that all things fall apart. Please forgive us for our doom-and-gloom perspective, but after watching Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams trade gut-punch after gut-punch as a couple caught in a downward spiral, we're sure you'll agree. Relationships. Are. Hard.
Photo: Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock.
Desperate Living(1977)
Within the first half-hour of this grating, disgusting, absolutely filthy John Waters film, Mink Stole curses out children, kills her husband, and goes on the lam with her lesbian lover. This pic teems with an urgent sense of discomfort and proves that bad guys get what's coming to them, often up their own butts. Literally.
Photo: Courtesy of New Line Cinema.
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Forgetting Sarah Marshall(2008)
Yes, this is the one where Jason Segel gets naked. But, he bares a lot more than his private parts as a lovelorn sound mixer forced to get over his famous girlfriend (Kristen Bell). He kicks and screams and begs and pleads for her back, before finally realizing they were never meant to be. How does he get there? Two words: Mila Kunis.
Photo: Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
The Hours(2002)
One of the things this Oscar-nominated film does so well is depict the complex, isolating nature of depression. And, not just depression, but, particularly, feminine depression. Three different women, three different time periods, and one emotion connecting them all. The film is a deft reminder that, despite any perceived evidence to the contrary, no one is really alone.
Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Breaking the Waves (1996)
We don't normally turn to chronic pessimist Lars von Trier for tales of redemption, but in this mesmerizing tearjerker, he puts Emily Watson's fragile, young Bess through an emotional firestorm before bringing her back via a spiritual epiphany that will stay with you for days, months, and years.
Photo: Courtesy Artisan Entertainment
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Legally Blonde(2001)
There is one major takeaway from Legally Blonde: The best revenge is busting your ass to challenge yourself, meeting your goals, exploring new ventures, and not changing who you are in the process. So, you know, do that.
Photo: Courtesy of Metro Goldwyn-Meyer.
War of the Roses(1989)
No, this isn't about pre-Tudor England, but about a couple with a seemingly perfect marriage that begins to fall apart. Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner bitterly turn on one another and harness their possessions, pets, and, um, chandeliers to destroy the other. Spoiler alert: It works, and it is darkly, morbidly hilarious.
Photo: Courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
How Stella Got Her Groove Back(1998)
Terry McMillan's life-affirming tale of a middle-aged divorcée (Angela Bassett) who (what else?) gets her groove back is the kind of movie that will convince you that sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side. Especially when the other side is made up of a wise-cracking Whoopi Goldberg, the sun-drenched island of Jamaica, and Taye Diggs with his shirt off.
Photo: 20th Century Fox.
To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar(1995)
While this movie has no real romance (Chi-Chi's fling hardly counts), the lesson is powerful: You are who you are, and grace, class, and a sense of goodness are the best ways to be fabulous. That, and a "Say Anything Hat Day."
Photo: Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Up(2009)
The opening montage of Pixar's modern classic is admittedly one of the most devastating sequences ever put on film. But, after our curmudgeonly widower develops an unlikely friendship with a pudgy Boy Scout, our faith in humanity is restored.
Photo: Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone(2001)
Thematically, this is a story about beginnings. Just think about what a magical journey Harry (and film fans) have ahead of them. Let's all take the opportunity to start again.
Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Chasing Amy(1997)
Ben Affleck's Holden ends the movie by actually bargaining with his best friend and his girlfriend, offering a pretty stupid solution for all of the tension between them. And, the thing is, you can't persuade anyone — especially yourself — to accept the one you love.
Photo: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock.
Waitress(2007)
This poignant tale of redemption features Keri Russell as a stuck-in-neutral baker who finds new life in the form of a handsome doctor (Nathan Fillion) and a bun in the oven. No, not the kind that's cream-filled, but the kind that takes nine months to be done.
Photo: Courtesy of Fox Searchlight.
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If you only associate the blazer with your schooldays (or with buttoned-up work attire), think again. The traditionally preppy piece has been reimagined for spring and, trust us, you’ll want in. Thanks to the '80s revival seen on the spring '17 catwalks, along came power suits, oversized jackets, and slammin’ shoulder pads. These words may conjure a fear of permed hair and OTT colors, but fret not: the formal blazer has been revitalized and given a contemporary refresh.
Originally the uniform of old boys’ clubs – complete with naval-style gold embellishment and house crest – the garment's stuffy connotations were ripped up in the early ‘60s by Mods sporting boating blazers as they pounded the streets of London. After bands like The Who, The Kinks, and The Beatles donned the trend, the '80s rolled around, with women adopting the conservative style of corporate men. The era saw knee-length skirts, roll-neck sweaters and razor-sharp tailoring take the relationship between masculine and feminine dressing to a whole new level.
Come the '90s, Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker and Blur’s Graham Coxon brought the blazer to the Britpop scene (paired with battered Converses and a skinny tie), with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann layering over a band tee or a classic white shirt. Since then, we’ve seen Kate Moss bring a sexier edge to the rock’n’roll blazer, and it’s become a staple of French style when worn with rolled-up sleeves and mussed-up hair.
How did designers reimagine the jacket du jour on the runways for spring? Gucci gave it an eccentric and whimsical twist, with sharp lapel piping in bright colors, gold fabrics and floral embroidery, while Saint Laurent ’s were given a super-sexy Grace Jones touch. DKNY served up extreme proportions – think tiny waists, wide shoulders and extra-long sleeves – and Off-White put a sporty spin on white blazers with mismatched hems, baseball caps, and racing stripes.
We saw traditional grays and checks at Topshop Unique and Chanel, alongside Prada’s hyper-feminine red and yellow fitted number. In contrast, Demna Gvasalia supersized the shape at Balenciaga, while Céline presented – as you’d expect – the most wearable and chic workwear jackets.
So, there's ample proof from the catwalks that the traditional blazer can be spun every which way, so there really is a jacket shape, hue, and style to suit everyone. Click through to see how Instagram's most stylish women are bringing the blazer back.
Madrid-based stylist Maria Bernad schools us in the art of belting. The jacket is just oversized enough to add a masculine vibe, but the emerald-green platforms and cinched waist help avoid men's jacket territory.
We've fallen for Adwoa Aboah's relaxed style. She's made her pinstripe Ganni blazer look totally effortless with an over-the-shoulder bumbag, OTT pom poms, and a silk PJ shirt.
This pink and grey check was spotted by street style photographer Diego, a.k.a. Collage Vintage. Pair this heritage print with contemporary details, such as fishnet tights and the Gucci T-shirt of the moment.
Man Repeller's Leandra Medine doing what she does best: Here, she spins the formality of the YSL tuxedo with calf-length trousers and a colorful clutch.
Blogger and podcast host Pandora Sykes nabbed this camel Gucci wool blazer for around $60 at Portobello Market. Sykes keeps it relaxed with a slogan T-shirt and pinstriped trousers.
We love On Y Go blogger Dilan's oversized tailored blazer – and what better way to cinch it than a neon yellow airplane-style belt?
Maria is queen of the blazer, and this time around she shows us how to do earthy tones. Fresh-out-of-the-box sneakers and a crisp white roll-neck keep it current.
Camille Charrière 's textured blazer is the way to wear this transitional piece – extra points for those oversized shirt sleeves peeking out.
You can count on ASOS Insider Debbie Shasanya for two things: a good tailored suit, and a great pair of heels. Her pairing of brown and hot pink is genius; all that's needed is a cuff bracelet and Sade-style gold hoops.
Courtney Trop of style and music blog Always Judging wears the Céline suit of our dreams. This blazer would stand up on its own – as a complete package, it's your next dinner date outfit.
Here's Maria again, this time in a super-slick white number. With dark denim and pointed mules (which aren't going anywhere for spring FYI), she lets the icy-cool jacket do the talking.
If you're frightened of a formal look, follow the lead of Stockholm-based creative consultant and fashion writer Fanny Ekstrand. She makes the classic blazer casual with a denim jacket and leopard print flares, and the results are excellent.
Italian babe Francesca Cristini's Armani blazer is another vintage steal. This is the perfect, slightly countryside-apropos look.
Debora Rosa, fashion editor at Fashiion Gone Rouge, wears her Zara blazer in a classic way – the & Other Stories fanny pack brings it into 2017.
We love blogger Hanna Stefansson's kick-flare Hope suit. She gives the classic print a spring update with a pair of pointy-toed blue heels.
New York writer and stylist Indya Brown proves that when you wear a blazer, you're the boss. Her pinstripe number is teamed with a black roll-neck, for supremely profesh vibes.
Extravagant sleeves will be a staple of your spring wardrobe, and Manchester blogger Lizzy Hadfield's jacket sleeves are the ideal blazer refresh.
Another great lesson from Hadfield – don't be afraid to mix prints. Breton stripes and herringbone check are great bedfellows.
Round three with Lizzy, who tackles three trends at once. Head-to-toe white? Check. Backless slippers? Check. Checks? Um, check.
And here she is again, this time confirming that blazers don't have to be too serious. Paired with Topshop silk PJ-style bottoms and trusty Converses, this is how to do casual cool.
Copenhagen style maven Trine Kjaer's fitted grey H&M number is divine. Spy those cuff ruffles, too: those land the look firmly in 2017 territory.
It's another Zara winner, this time sported by ZhuZhu. There are three reasons this outfit steals the show: the waist-nipping Gucci belt, that J.W.Anderson Pierce bag, and the artfully placed off-the-shoulder blazer.
Avenue32 founder Roberta Benteler flips the rules, wearing checks – a print traditionally associated with jackets – on her legs, and letting her Balenciaga blazer complement her white roll-neck and cap perfectly. The teeny-tiny sunshine yellow Simon Miller bag brings a pop of color, too.
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The Walking Dead is a show built on suspense and surprises. For every season break cliffhanger, there's a herd of Walkers ready to burst into frame. While we now know that Glenn and Abraham are Negan's victims, the show still has plenty of mysteries to unspool.
We know that the Saviors are our newest opponent for Rick, and that Negan is the most formidable opponent yet. We're not yet sure what Carol's fate is, or how the survivors will cope with being tossed from yet another frying pan into yet another fire. We know that this is a show built on hopelessness, but is this the year some civilization begins to form?
Most importantly, the colonies of the living and their relationships to each other are constantly balanced on a razor's edge.
Here, we'll collect the best theories about The Walking Dead. Check back weekly to see what your fellow fans are predicting.
Bertie Is A Traitor
Negan has a “little birdie” somewhere in the Walking Dead communities and the double agent just might be Hilltop’s Bertie, one Reddit user theorizes. Although the woman is a background character, the writers ensured the audience learns Bertie’s name — and we all know how much Negan loves puns.
The Bertie-birdie word play isn't the only strike against the Hilltop resident. Bertie is also highly interested in joining Magie’s fight against Negan, so it’s possible she added her name to the cause to get information for the leader of the Saviors.
Photo: Gene Page/AMC.
The Zombies Won't Be Around Forever
Could our favorite survivors see a future without a single zombie? One Reddit user floated a theory pointing out the zombies of season 7 look much more "degenerated" than the zombies of season 1. It's possible the legion of the undead is dying once again and will eventually be wiped out completely.
That would leave the remaining humans to figure out a new world order without any zombies to worry about. We're definitely here for that.
Photo: Gene Page/AMC.
Carl Is Secretly Our Narrator
While it’s hard to imagine just how The Walking Dead will end, one theory gives us a pretty good idea. Some fans believe the final moments of the AMC drama will show Rick’s death, followed by a flash forward to Carl as an old man.
The now-elderly Grimes man will be telling a totally new group of survivors the tale of his father’s most dangerous zombiepocalypse adventures. That would mean the entire series was actually a years-long flashback of Carl memorializing Rick by sharing the stories of TWD.
This theory posits that Daryl might be the next survivor to bite it on The Walking Dead. He's given an interview to EW that made it seem like he would follow Glenn into death. Not only that, but fans have long speculated that this season would mean Daryl's end. Still, we're not buying this one.
As far as theories go, this falls into the rubric of " Malcolm in the Middle, Seinfeld, and Breaking Bad all take place in the same universe." You know, insane. Absent any real evidence of an ur-Cranston, this theory relies on the durability of Jessie Pinkman between shows. Basically it all boils down to someone saying his profane catchphrase a lot. Kind of thin.
If someone saw a Donald Trump walker, they weren't alone. This theory posits that there was a political zombie shambolically lurching forward, turning anyone he met into a fellow wraith and dedicated to depriving people of life and dignity. Also, supposedly an extra looked like Donald Trump. Wild.
Gene Page/AMC
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What’s an HBIC? It’s an acronym we use with fondness and admiration for a "head bitch in charge." These are the women who were leaning in before Sheryl Sandberg even filled out her first Harvard application. They innately know how to be the leader of the pack and the trendsetter everyone else wants to copy. They demand recognition when it’s not given, and if things aren’t going their way, they do something about it.
If it sounds like we’re describing one main HBIC, well, we are! Clueless came out 20 years ago this month, and Cher Horowitz — HBIC of Bronson Alcott High School — is on everyone’s mind. What other high school student successfully got her teachers to change her grades every single marking period? Who else could arrange for the inept Mr. Hall and well-meaning Miss Geist to fall in love through a series of well-placed sonnets and a few Thermoses of gourmet coffee? Who coordinated the Pismo Beach Disaster Relief drive and made it a massive success? One Cher Horowitz, of course.
Though she is the brilliant creation of writer-director Amy Heckerling, Cher comes from a long line of cinematic HBICs, and many more would follow in her stead. These women are some of the best characters to ever grace the silver screen — but cross them at your own peril. HBIC’s don’t like to surrender their crowns.
Samantha Kingston (Zoey Deutch),Before I Fall(2016)
On her way back from a party, Samantha and her friends get into a car accident and Samantha is trapped in an endless loop of the same day. In order for her to break the tortuous cycle, she must change her ways.
Domain: High school hallways, parties, and the winding, rollicking roads of her Pacific Northwest town
Minions: Her three equally mean friends collecting lots of Valentine's Day flowers, too.
Suitors: Rob (Kian Lawley), her trash boyfriend; Logan (Kent McFuller) as the nerdy guy pining for her.
Soundbite: “Chloe, could you please get your head out of your ass? It's not a hat!”
Courtesy of Open Road Films
Anita (Rita Moreno),West Side Story (1961) Anita tried to protect Maria (Natalie Wood) from the same heartbreak she experienced when she lost Bernardo (George Chakiris). Still, the sassy optimist preferred living in America to her homeland of Puerto Rico.
Soundbite: “Come in, come in! We won't bite you until we know you better.”
Photo: Courtesy of MGM.
Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd),TheLast Picture Show(1971) Jacy Farrow is the prettiest girl in the dying town of Anarene, Texas. She’s bored and needs attention, so she stirs up trouble by losing her virginity, coming between two best friends, sleeping with her mother’s boyfriend, and eloping. Eventually, she just up and flees.
Domain: Anarene, Texas
Minions: Genevieve
Suitors: Duane, Sonny, Bobby, Abilene, Lester
Soundbite: “What's on your feeble mind, Duane?”
Photo: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen),Carrie(1976) It’s her merciless teasing that triggers Carrie’s (Sissy Spacek) telekinetic outbreaks ... but Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen) gets hers in the end. Oh yes.
Domain: Ewen High School
Minions: Tina Blake
Suitors: Billy Nolan
Soundbite: “Watch it, you stupid shit, you're getting blood all over the place!”
Photo: Courtesy of United Artists.
Betty Alexander Rizzo (Stockard Channing),Grease(1978) The leader of the Pink Ladies has a rough exterior and a sarcastic 'tude, but a soft spot for Kenickie (Jeff Conaway).
Domain: Rydell High
Minions: Frenchy, Marty, Jan
Suitors: Kenickie, Danny Zuko
Soundbite: “I don't steal and I don't lie / But I can feel and I can cry / A fact I bet you never knew / But to cry in front of you / That's the worst thing I could do.”
Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald),The Breakfast Club(1985) She’s the princess, the prom queen, the spoiled rich girl, and she’s in Saturday detention because she skipped class to go shopping. Of course.
Domain: Shermer High School
Minions: Allison Reynolds
Suitors: John Bender
Soundbite: "Cause I'm telling the truth, that makes me a bitch?”
Photo: Courtesy of Universal Studios.
Heather Chandler (Kim Walker),Heathers(1988) The leader of the most popular clique at Westerburg High School is also the meanest and most beautiful girl in the joint. Heather Chandler wears a red scrunchie as a symbol of her power and tyranny over the school. She finally gets her comeuppance after a mishap with some bleach and a miscommunication between Veronica (Winona Ryder) and J.D. (Christian Slater).
Soundbite: “Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Teresa?”
Photo: Courtesy of New World Pictures.
Buffy Summers (Kristy Swanson),Buffy The Vampire Slayer(1992) A typical Valley Girl cheerleader discovers that she’s a badass vampire slayer, and suddenly she’s using her hairspray as a weapon against dark forces.
Domain: Hemery High School
Minions: Kimberly Hannah, Nicole Bobbittson, Jennifer Walkens
Suitors: Oliver Pike, Jeffrey Kramer
Soundbite: “All I want to do is graduate from high school, go to Europe, marry Christian Slater, and die. Now it may not sound too great to a scone head like you, but I think it's swell.”
Photo: Courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
Darla Marks (Parker Posey),Dazed and Confused(1993) She’s the senior who takes hazing just a bit too seriously. Now fry like bacon, you little freshman piggies. Air raid!
Domain: Lee High School
Minions: Freshman piggies
Suitors: None shown
Soundbite: “What are you looking at? Wipe that face off your head, bitch.”
Photo: Courtesy of Gramercy Pictures.
Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone), Clueless(1995) Even though she calls Elton (Jeremy Sisto) the social director of the crew, Cher was the sun around which the scene at Bronson Alcott High revolved. At 15 going on 16, she has a fully defined identity and style. She's saving herself for Luke Perry (or Jason Priestley doppelgänger Christian) because she just doesn't see the appeal of high school boys in their baggy jeans and backwards hats.
Domain: Bronson Alcott High School
Minions: Dionne Davenport, Tai Frasier
Suitors: Elton, Josh
Soundbite: “This is where Dionne lives. She's my friend because we both know what it's like for people to be jealous of us.”
Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Nancy Downs (Fairuza Balk),The Craft(1996) High school is full of bullies and assholes, which is why Nancy turns to her coven to wreak havoc on her tormentors. Praise Manon!
Domain: St. Benedict's Catholic School
Minions: Bonnie Daniels, Rochelle Gordon
Suitors: Chris Hooker
Soundbite: “You know, if I were as pathetic as you are, I would have killed myself ages ago. You should get on with it.”
Photo: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan), Scream(1996) Unfortunately, when you’re a fearless HBIC in a horror movie, it often means venturing into dark places by yourself. This, of course, can only lead to your demise. RIP, Tatum. At least you go out with a heavy dose of irony.
Domain: Woodsboro High
Minions: Sidney Prescott
Suitors: Stu Macher
Soundbite: “No, please don't kill me, Mr. Ghostface, I wanna be in the sequel!”
Photo: Courtesy of Dimension Films.
Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar),Cruel Intentions (1999) She’s rich, pretty, and bored, so why not toy with her step-brother’s affections and those of everyone around her?
Domain: New York City’s Upper East Side
Minions: Cecile Caldwell
Suitors: Sebastian, Court, Ronald
Soundbite: “Do you think I relish the fact that I have to act like Mary Sunshine 24 / 7 so I can be considered a lady? I'm the Marcia fucking Brady of the Upper East Side, and sometimes I want to kill myself.”
Photo: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), Election (1999) It takes a special brand of type-A teenager to completely destroy a teacher’s life during a high school election.
Domain: G.W. Carver High School
Minions: The entire student body, if you ask Tracy
Suitors: Jim McAllister (in a revenge-fueled way)
Soundbite: “Some people say I'm an overachiever, but I think they're just jealous.”
Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Courtney Shayne (Rose McGowan),Jawbreaker(1999) “She was the leader. She was like Satan in heels,” said the narrator in the opening sequence. That’s all you need to know about the leader of the Flawless Four, Courtney Shayne. Plus, she kills Liz (Charlotte Ayanna). She kills the teen dream. Deal with it.
Taylor Vaughn (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe),She’s All That(1999) She goes on spring break, meets some asshole reality star currently at 14:59 of his 15 minutes of fame, and dumps her charming high school boyfriend (Freddie Prinze Jr.) for him. Plus, she doesn't think she has to be nice to anyone because she hails from a long line of prom queens and Taylor Vaughan could win the title: “in fluorescent lighting, on the first day of my period, cloaked in T.J. Maxx, okay?"
Domain: Torrance High School
Minions: Chandler, Katie
Suitors: Zack Siler, Brock Hudson
Soundbite: “Honey, look around you. To everyone here who matters, you're vapor. You're spam — a waste of perfectly good yearbook space, and nothing's ever gonna change that. Oh, you aren’t going to cry, are you?”
Photo: Courtesy of Miramax.
Isis (Gabrielle Union),Bring It On(2000) Isis knows Big Red has been stealing cheers from the East Compton Clovers for years, and now that she's captain, she's finally going to do something about it. That’s an HBIC move right there.
Domain: East Compton High
Minions: Jenelope, Lafred, Lava
Suitors: None shown
Soundbite: “You wanna make it right? Then when you go to Nationals ... bring it. Don't slack off because you feel sorry for us. That way, when we beat you, we'll know it's because we're better.”
Photo: Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Chenille Reynolds (Kerry Washington),Save the Last Dance (2001) The strong, single mother takes Sara (Julia Stiles) under her wing, teaches her important slang (“slammin’!”), and brings everyone together at STEPPS.
Domain: STEPPS
Minions: Diggy, Sara
Suitors: Kenny
Soundbite: “[T]his is Diggy. She thinks she’s down.”
Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon),Legally Blonde (2001) Reese Witherspoon excels when it comes to playing HBICs. As Elle Woods, she surprises everyone as the California girl who only looked liked a ditz — but is actually smart and determined enough to get into Harvard Law (“What, like it’s hard? ”).
Domain: Delta Nu, Harvard Law School
Minions: Paulette, Margot, Serena
Suitors: Warner, Emmett
Soundbite: “Oh, I like your outfit, too; except when I dress up as a frigid bitch, I try not to look so constipated.”
Photo: Courtesy of MGM.
Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), the Harry Potter movies (2001–2011) More like head WITCH in charge, am I right? (Using a Time Turner right now to take back that joke.)
Domain: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Minions: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley
Suitors: Ron Weasley, Viktor Krum, Cormac McLaggen
Soundbite: “Are you sure that's a real spell? Well, it's not very good, is it?”
Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Regina George (Rachel McAdams),Mean Girls(2004) The leader of The Plastics is the undisputed queen bee of North Shore. She uses flattery, deception, and the Burn Book to destroy reputations, emotions, and lives. She thinks you’re like, really pretty, and that Aaron (Jonathan Bennett) looks sexy with his bangs pushed back. On Wednesdays, she and The Plastics wear pink.
Soundbite: “I like invented her, you know what I mean?”
Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Helen Harris III (Rose Byrne), Bridesmaids (2011) She's the type of person who wears ballgowns to engagement parties and distinguishes between regular wine and dessert wine. She’s basically the perfect bridesmaid and friend, and it’s the most frustrating thing Annie (Kristen Wiig) has ever encountered.
Domain: Country clubs, upscale bridal shops, Santorini
Minions: Lillian, Megan, Rita, Becca
Suitors: Perry
Soundbite: “She will be fine, okay. She’ll make friends. There is much more sense of a community in coach, I promise you.”
Photo: Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Aubrey Posen (Anna Camp),Pitch Perfect(2012) An unfortunate projectile vomiting incident proves to be a bit of setback for Aubrey at the beginning of the first Pitch Perfect, but she’s back to being the group’s HBIC by the time Beca (Anna Kendrick) arrives on campus.
Domain: Anywhere the Barden Bellas are
Minions: The Bellas
Suitors: None shown
Soundbite: “Chloe, could you please get your head out of your ass? It's not a hat!”
Photo: Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
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I signed up for The Knot. That was my first mistake. But days after getting engaged, I realized I had no idea how to put together a wedding — even a small, frill-free, relatively low-key wedding — and The Knot did. It was the wedding-planning website, and best of all, it had a checklist, telling me exactly what to do and by what time: When to send the invites, when to order the dress, and oh right, to make a Plan B in case of bad weather. I figured I could skip past the nonsense articles (“7 Ways To Dress Your Wedding Dog”?) and get straight to business with the checklist. But, no dice. The nonsense was waiting for me, right there toward the top of it: “Make A Fitness Plan.”
Now, I’m an out-and-proud fan of fitness. While I used to have a toxic, all-or-nothing attitude toward it, I’ve been exercising regularly, both in and out of the gym, for almost four years. Learning how to work out in a consistent, balanced, not-crazy way has improved my life in many ways, and my physical health is just one of them. It also plays a role in keeping me a balanced, not-crazy person. But The Knot was clearly not concerned with my mental health when it suggested that “now is a great time to get a fitness routine going.” It assumed, as did most bridal guides, dress boutiques, and anyone who noticed my engagement ring, that I was planning to start “sweating for the wedding” ASAP. In fact, I already was — but not so that I could “weigh less for the dress.”
Wedding weight-loss is not a new concept, but right now there seems to be a growing faction of the fitness industry specifically targeting engaged women. Bridal bootcamps and pre-wedding packages lure them in with these curious rhyme-based hooks: “Slim down for the gown,” “get hot before tying the knot,” “run mile after mile before walking down the aisle” — I could add more, but I’ll barf on the floor. I understand the desire to look awesome on your wedding day, but for me, that doesn’t mean becoming the thinnest possible version of myself. I no longer focus on weight loss, period, but even if I did, I can’t imagine a worse time to start that crazy-making process than in the midst of wedding planning. I have plenty of crazy on my plate, thankyouverymuch. Still, exercise has become even more important to me these past few months. And I would encourage every bride-to-be to hit the gym on a regular basis — not to get thin, but to stay sane.
I no longer focus on weight loss, period, but even if I did, I can’t imagine a worse time to start that crazy-making process than in the midst of wedding planning.
Perhaps you’ve heard, but weddings are stressful. In other breaking news, exercise is a super effective form of stress relief. While that's a generally accepted fact, that particular perk doesn’t get a lot of airtime in today’s mainstream fitness culture, which is almost entirely focused on appearance. It wasn’t until I went through a period of heightened stress that I truly understood just how great an impact exercise could have on my body and brain.
Quick story: Two years ago, I found myself juggling a full-time job with my first book and its rapidly approaching deadline. Then my best friend got cancer (arguably more stressful for him — but you can read more about that in his essay). Every day felt like an emergency, and the idea of squeezing in a workout seemed both impossible and frivolous. But on those days when I woke up before dawn, too anxious to sleep but too fried to work, I would grab a sports bra from the pile of unfolded laundry on the floor and stumble over to the gym. An hour or so later, I would leave, still anxious and tired, but somehow better. The volume on that noise in my brain had been turned down, and now I could think. My feet felt more grounded with each step, and my heart was simply beating instead of pounding. It was as if my body had been filled up with the wrong kind of gas — a speedy, neon substance that fueled only panic — and now, at last, it had been siphoned off.
I already knew that exercise was supposed to flood you with endorphins and fill you up with good feelings. But only then did I discover that it could also drain away the bad.
Photographed by Andi Elloway
“There’s only so much you can ruminate on when you're struggling to catch your breath,” says Lara Fielding, Psy.D., a clinical psychologist in California. That’s just one reason that exercise is such an effective form of stress relief. And it’s why exercise is, once again, not just a priority, but an essential to-do on my pre-wedding checklist. As a specialist in mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapies, Dr. Fielding has also spent time researching the relationship between health behaviors (like exercise) and the psycho-physiological effects of stress. Why is exercise so relieving? “As always,” she says, “there's both a biological and a psychological reason.”
“When you do cardiovascular exercise,” she says, “you raise the threshold of reactivity to a social stressor. In other words, if I'm jogging three to five times a week and getting my heart rate up, then it's actually creating flexibility in my system, so that when I get stressed from a social stressor” — like an important meeting at work, an intimidating party, or, say, a wedding-dress fitting — “I won't go straight to panic.”
Exercise can also help regulate cortisol — everyone’s favorite stress hormone. This fitness factoid gets a lot of attention, but, Dr. Fielding adds, it’s not as simple as more exercise equals less cortisol. “Exercise is also a stressor on your body,” she says. You release a certain amount of cortisol when you work out. And, when you do it consistently and appropriately, as in the example above, you gradually raise your body’s tolerance. But, as with most substances, the dose makes the poison. If you go too hard, for too long, too frequently, “you’re causing too much cortisol,” says Dr. Fielding. “And that causes a depressive reaction.” That’s why moderating your exercise is just as important as the exercise itself, she adds. When it comes to the mood-improving effects of exercise, she says, the ideal amount is, “three to five times a week, 20-30 minutes of cardio, at 70% of your maximum capacity.” Of course, no one but you can really gauge what your maximum capacity is. That’s why, says Dr. Fielding, “‘Know thyself’ is always the first step.”
And that means mindfulness — not to be confused with overthinking. A lot of us, myself included, look forward to the mental break that comes with a workout, when you plug in your headphones and just move. But carving out some time for mindful check-ins really helps make for the most feel-good workout. Luckily, there’s a shortcut: Your breath.
“It's the one thing that can automatically bring you out of your mind into the present moment,” says Michael Gervais. A trainer and yoga instructor with Equinox, Gervais created HeadStrong, a class designed to maximize the mind-body connection in a workout. It incorporates high-intensity segments with guided breathwork and mindful movements, emphasizing sensory awareness and staying absolutely present. “The class itself is really about being able to simulate the soothing part [of exercise]. So, it's not just amp, amp, amp, goodbye.”
Both he and Dr. Fielding agree that breath is a key element to stress relief in exercise. In any workout, Gervais says, “as much as you can, bring attention to your breath.” Doing so can help you recognize just what a huge impact this alone has on your mental and physical state. (“Just FYI,” Dr. Fielding says, “when you have a longer exhale than an inhale, you lower your heart rate.” I keep that in mind both in and out of the gym.) But simply pausing to notice your breath is a fast, easy way to keep you out of your head and in the room. Sometimes in class, Gervais adds, he’ll start by directing attention to the breath, then have students focus on a body part. “[I’ll say] ‘bring your attention down to your right heel, and feel that. Then feel the ground supporting your right calf,” and so on. He says doing these body scans “helps your brain to tune out the noise and then figure out the important information.” In that moment, the important information isn’t the theoretically worries in your head, but simply what’s going on in the room and in your body.
All these meditative and scientific factors really boil down to two things: fight-or-flight vs. rest-and-digest. (There is no escaping the rhymes.)
Photographed by Andi Elloway
The fight-or-flight response is a result of the sympathetic nervous system. It’s what makes your heart race, your palms sweat, and your lungs start taking in quick and shallow breaths when you’re feeling anxiety. This is an awesome stress response when you have to literally fight or flee for your life. It’s not so helpful though, when you’re hyperventilating over a guest list. Sadly, there is no semi-sympathetic nervous system that tells your body this guest list is not actually a predator coming to eat you alive, and you can neither run from it nor beat it into submission.
But exercise can help mitigate this response in the long term (that’s what’s happening when you gradually increase your body’s cortisol tolerance). And in the short term, you can incorporate these mindfulness techniques to activate your parasympathetic nervous system. This is the rest-and-digest response (sometimes it’s called “feed and breed,” but, ew) because it signals your body that everything is a-okay, so it can relax and focus on things like pooping and sex. (Ever notice how your digestion and libido get thrown out of whack during stressful times? It’s not all in your head! It’s in your whole autonomic nervous system!)
Gervais points out that most of us get a lot of opportunities to engage the sympathetic nervous system, “Because life — especially in a city — is so stimulating.” (A wedding, he adds, “is all about the sympathetic nervous system.” I would add: NO SHIT.) We often struggle to prioritize things like rest and mindful attention, so the parasympathetic system might need some practice. One of Gervais’ goals, he says, “is to train you to be able to switch gears between those two states.” That’s why he emphasizes the importance of breathwork and rest into your exercise routine. Oh, and, “leave your phone in your locker...that’s my number one tip.” Damn it.
The words “parasympathetic nervous system” might not sell many bridal bootcamp packages. It doesn’t look as snappy on a t-shirt as “kettlebells before wedding bells.” But it’s part of what’s keeping me from feeling like a maniac during what ought to be, at least in part, an exciting time in my life. Most importantly, it’s helping me to be present in it. I’d like to take that peace and groundedness with me, not just through this year, but through the rest of my life.
It might seem antithetical to give myself one more thing to do. But I now know that when I’m juggling a lot, squeezing in a workout is one of the best things I can do for myself. It gives my brain a time-out, drains away some of that pointless panic energy, and lets me come back to the world with fresh eyes and the wherewithal to stop and look around. Sure, there’s a lot to be stressed out about right now. And there’s plenty to be thrilled and joyful over. I can’t eradicate the bad entirely. But I can feel them both.
No issue — political, celebrity, or hypothetical — is off limits for the eclectic cast, which has consistently (and impressively) churned out new household names season after season. Regardless what sort of bleak situation is unfolding across the world, we can always count on SNL to pull us out of the darkness and into the comedic light. And for that, we are so grateful.
The best part about SNL is that it appeals to every viewer in a different way. Everyone has their own favorite skits and comedians guaranteed to make them giggle. And, thanks to the wonders of the internet, we can rewatch as many times as we want.
There's no shame in watching Ryan Gosling break character in the "Close Encounters" skit from April of this year. It's hilarious.
We rounded up our all-time favorite acts from the show that always leave us laughing in out loud. Literally.
America's Funniest Cats
Well, that got dark quickly.
I Just Had Sex
Sometimes, there's news you want to shout from the rooftops. We can't blame them for being excited about this.
Girl in Bar
This latest SNL season has been kilin' the social commentary game. This skit exaggerates an all-too-common phenomenon: men using their status as a feminist as a pick-up tactic.
Chippendales
This hilarious skit defined Chris Farley's career. Given that both Farley and Patrick Swayze have died since the sketch, the hilarity is tempered by their loss.
The Bubble Calling all coastal elites! Interested in living in a place protected from all outside opinions? This skit, which premiered right after the election of President Trump, advertises a utopia for progressive Americans to live as if November 8 never happened.
Back Home Ballers The women of SNL go home for Thanksgiving and bask in the glory of their parents’ devotion. For anyone who’s returned home after long stints away, this skit is painfully relatable.
Jake Tapper This political spoofs will never get old.
Sean Spicer Press Conference This is a must-watch, not only because it is hilarious, but because Melissa McCarthy sounds JUST like the infamous White House Press Secretary.
Hillary Actually Give us a Love Actually meets HRC mash-up any day.
La La Land Interrogation The story of one man who committed the most heinous crime of all time: not liking La La Land.
The Calvin Ads Justin Bieber will never, ever live this skit down. Kate McKinnon did an amazing job spoofing the buff and tatted singer. To full appreciate how spot-on this is, you have to check out the original for comparison.
Tidal Ariana Grande totally slays her role as an intern at Tidal who flawlessly impersonates any singer.
The Target Lady Kristen Wiig is a comedic genius, and this is all the proof one needs to support that theory. It's nearly impossible for me to enter a Target now and NOT hear this obnoxious nasally voice in the back of my head.
Melanianade SNL is really delivering on the comedic political commentary this season, but "Melanianade" is hands-down the show's best work yet.
Stefon Stefon is a true gem. Bill Hader's off-beat party extraordinaire highlights the best hot spot suggestions. The cast can barely get through his scenes without breaking character — it's that funny.
Only Maya Rudolph can pull off a Beyoncé (also known as Queen Bey, Bey, Oh Bey Bey, Bey Bey Bey) impersonation and not disturb The Beyhive. Oh, and we saw that clever Illuminati call-out Jay.
The Californians Apologies to any Californians who are offended by this skit, because few things are funnier than Bill Hader explaining which Lowe's he's going to while wearing that blond wig.
A true classic through and through. The skit is really hard to come across on the internet, and this is the best we could find. Here's a link to the Blue Oyster Cult song to make up for it. P.S. More cowbell.
I Can't I can't with this skit. I literally can't.
A Thanksgiving Miracle A defining moment in the rise of Adele's "Hello" that reveals the power of star's voice — a voice strong enough to silence even the most obnoxious Thanksgiving guests.
Close Encounter Ryan Gosling lost it halfway through the skit, but we couldn't even make it that far before falling out of our seats laughing. Kate McKinnon is a gem.
Star Wars Auditions Let me know if you don't instantly fall in love with Jon Hamm auditioning for the part of "Ham Solo."
The Day Beyonce Turned Black Politics meets pop culture.
It can be tough to find new stand-up comics worth your time and attention. Still, that's no excuse to have your go-to female comic list begin and end with Amy Schumer. She definitely deserves a spot on your roster, but there are so many more funny women to choose from. Some dominate Twitter in between gigs. Some have found fame as TV stars who still fit in a set or two on the side. While some are comedians you already love, yet maybe you had no idea they actually got their start in comedy with a mic, on a lonely stage. They tackle issues from navigating online dating to dealing with politicians who are constantly spouting anti-women rhetoric.
So use this list as a jumping off point for discovering new shows to see and comedy albums to listen to. Stand-up is still dominated by men, but you could be part of the wave of fans that take these female comics to the next level of fame.
Lane Moore In addition to being a stand-up comedian, Moore is a web writer whose work has appeared on The Frisky, Cosmopolitan, and The Onion. Paste named her Twitter account one of the best of 2015.
Jackie Kashian In addition to her stand-up career, Kashian is an actress who has appeared on many TV shows including Murphy Brown, Maron, and Lady Dynamite.
Jen Kirkman Kirkman's Netflix stand-up special was released last year. In addition to her stand-up, she also works as a comedy writer with credits on Chelsea Lately and Perfect Couples. She's also appeared on several shows including Chelsea Lately and Community.
Naomi Ekperigin Ekperigin has appeared on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, Late Night with Seth Meyers and Adam Ruins Everything. She's also worked as a writer on Broad City and has recently recorded her own half-hour stand-up special for Comedy Central.
Camilla Cleese Cleese has performed at The Laugh Factory, The Comedy Bar, and Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She's also performed in the Second City sketch show TMI.
Hadiyah Robinson Robinson was recently a guest on the popular podcast 2 Dope Queens. She has also appeared on Comicview, The Mo'Nique Show, and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.
Taylor Tomlinson Tomlinson made it into the top ten on season nine of Last Comic Standing. She has also appeared on Adam Devine's House Party and Hollywood Today Live.
Mary Mack Mack has competed in Last Comic Standing and will appear in the upcoming documentary The Girl In The Show. She's also performed at many comedy festivals including Vancouver Comedy Fest and Montreal’s Just For Laughs Festival.
Anna Drezen Drezen is best known as the editor-at-large of the women's comedy site Reductress. She will also be working as a writer on Saturday Night Live on the upcoming season.
Tig Notaro In addition to her successful stand-up specials and self-titled documentary Notaro has appeared on Transparent and Lady Dynamite. Her autobiographic Amazon show, One Mississippi, premiered on September 9.
Calise Hawkins Hawkins has appeared on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, and The Meredith Vieira Show. She's also worked as a writer on @midnight.
Priyanka Wali Like many stand-up comedians, Wali has a day job — as a doctor specializing in Internal Medicine. She's performed at many comedy festivals including Bay Area Desi Comedy Festival and San Francisco's Hella Gay Comedy Festival.
Corinne Fisher Fisher has performed at the New York Comedy Club, Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and The Stand. Her stand-up show The Comedienne Project was part of 2015's New York Fringe Festival.
Emily Heller Heller has appeared on Maron, Inside Amy Schumer and Ground Floor. She's written for Crowded and Surviving Jack, and this winter Paste named her Twitter account one of the best of 2015.
Maria Bamford Bamford has voiced characters on Hey Arnold!, CatDog, Adventure Time, and many other shows. This year she starred in her own Netflix show, Lady Dynamite, which has been renewed for a second season.
Liza Treyger Treyger has headlined at Caroline's on Broadway and has also performed at the Green Mountain Comedy Fest and the Just For Laughs Festival. In addition to her stand-up performances, she has appeared on the Louis C.K. miniseries Horace and Pete, as well as Chelsea Lately and Adam Devine's House Party.
Fortune Feimster Feimster is best known for her role as Colette Kimball-Kinney on The Mindy Project and her frequent appearances on Chelsea Lately. She also worked as a writer for Chelsea Lately and has made guest appearances on Glee, 2 Broke Girls, and Workaholics.
Jamie Lee Probably best known for her appearances on Girl Code and Chelsea Lately, Jamie Lee is also a writer, with credits on Ridiculousness and The Pete Holmes Show.
Rhea Butcher Part of a comedy power couple (she's married to comedian Cameron Esposito), Butcher has appeared on Last Comic Standing and in several video shorts.
Jacqueline Novak Novak is the author of How to Weep in Public: Feeble Offerings on Depression from One Who Knows, which garnered positive reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly. She's also the host of the RIOT YouTube series How to Weep in Public.
Jo Firestone Firestone performs her relatably awkward stand-up routines across New York City, and is a host of R29's RIOT YouTube series Womanhood. She's also appeared on several TV shows including The Characters, Broad City, and Boy Band.
Lori Mae Hernandez Lori Mae Hernandez hasn't even reached high school yet, but her stand-up career is already on the way up. After performing for the judges on America's Got Talent, she received a unanimous "yes" from the panel, sending her to the next round.
Zoe Rogers Rogers' stand-up often focuses on the challenges of being a mother. She's performed at Edinburgh Fringe and New York's She Devil Comedy Festival, and has been featured on Nickmom.com (now defunct).
Ali Wong Wong's latest comedy special, Baby Cobra, was just released on Netflix. She's has appeared on Are You There, Chelsea? and Inside Amy Schumer. Wong's also a writer on Fresh Off the Boat.
Margaret Cho Cho is basically a stand-up legend. She has many filmed specials to her credit, including last year's Margaret Cho: psyCHO, and she's appeared on series including Drop Dead Diva, 30 Rock, and Ghost Whisperer.
Carmen Lynch Lynch's TV appearances include Inside Amy Schumer and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. She also co-starred in the web series Apartment C3.
Michelle Wolf Wolf has appeared on The Daily Show, @midnight, and Late Night with Seth Meyers. In 2014 she was named one of Time Out New York's "Top 10 Funniest Women in NYC."
Ophira Eisenberg Eisenberg is probably best known as the host of NPR's Ask Me Another, and for her memoir, Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy. But she's still performing stand-up, most recently on the podcast 2 Dope Queens.
Beth Stelling Stelling recently performed stand-up on the comedy podcast 2 Dope Queens. She has appeared on Chelsea Lately, @midnight, and Last Call With Carson Daly.
Emmy Blotnick In addition to performing stand-up, Blotnick has an impressive writing résumé, with credits on Best Week Ever, @midnight, and Not Safe with Nikki Glaser. She's also appeared on Comedians Crashing Couches and Nikki & Sara Live.
Megan Gailey Featured on Conan this past October, Gailey has also performed at many well-known comedy clubs, including the Laugh Factory in Chicago and the Knitting Factory in NYC.
Dulcé Sloan Sloan recently appeared as a featured stand-up comedian on Conan. She has several comedy festival awards on her résumé, and has also appeared on Resurrection and Meet the Browns.
Cristela Alonzo Alonzo is probably best known for her self-titled sitcom, Cristela, which ran from 2014-2015. This year, she'll lend her voice-acting skills to the upcoming animated film adaptation of Angry Birds.
Nikki Black Nikki Black performed this hilarious set about facing a breast cancer diagnosis, just a week after receiving the news. In addition to her stand-up, she also writes for the humor site Reductress.
Jenny Zigrino In addition to appearing as a stand-up guest on Conan, Zigrino's screen credits include Fifty Shades of Black and the upcoming Bad Santa 2. She performs live frequently and has made appearances at UCB, The Knitting Factory, and The Laugh Factory so far this year.
Sasheer Zamata Zamata is best known as an SNL cast member (she's been on the show since 2014). She's also written and directed several comedy videos, and appeared in films like Yoga Hosers and Sleight.
Shelby Fero In addition to her stand-up, Fero has an impressive comedy-writing résumé, with credits on @midnight and Robot Chicken. But you might know her as Denise.
Vijai Nathan Vijai Nathan's hilarious stand-up focuses on dating woes and parental expectations. Her jokes have been well-received — she's gotten great press from Washington City Paper and the Los Angeles Examiner.
Gina Yashere Yashere delivers great material about her experience as British woman living in America and visiting her parents' home country of Nigeria. She was also a contestant on season 5 of Last Comic Standing, where she made it to the top 10.
Francesca Martinez Martinez, who has cerebral palsy, finds the humor in her daily struggles living with a disability, weaving them into her stand-up routines. Her book, What the **** Is Normal?!, has received warm reviews from The Sunday Times and The Telegraph.
Chelsea Davison Davison appeared on @Midnight this January, where she coined a solid Harry Potter pickup line. She's also appeared in UCB digital sketches, and was selected for the NBC Late Night Writers Workshop.
Ashley Barnhill Barnhill is a woman of many talents. She's a law school graduate, was a finalist for Project Greenlight, and taught the world a little more about Muhammad Ali (kind of) when she appeared in an episode of Drunk History.
Sarah Millican Millican's jokes on everything from body image to dating can be self-deprecating, but she always gives herself (and the audience members who can relate) a break. Her U.K. "Outsider" tour is currently running through September.
Cameron Esposito Esposito made internet headlines last February when she told a gross, but incredibly accurate joke about periods. Her Twitter account is also well worth checking out, with 40,000+ followers enjoying her thoughts on Star Wars, her family and Elf on the Shelf cakes.
Mae Martin Mae Martin is a pro at weaving pop culture references into her sets in a way that doesn’t alienate some audience members. In recent routines she's dealt with whether she wants, as a comedian, to be labeled and boxed in by her sexuality.
Maggie Maye In addition to her appearance on Conan, Maggie Maye has performed at SXSW and dozens of other comedy festivals. She also performs improv comedy, and her humor pieces have appeared in The New York Times and Variety.
Leslie Jones Leslie Jones has blown up as an amazing addition to SNL and one of the four female Ghostbusters. But her incredibly physical stand-up is what launched her comedy career. Watch this set with friends, and I promise for days you'll be saying, "It's not a kitchen lion."
Aparna Nancherla You might have seen Nancherla on @midnight with Chris Hardwick reminding us all exactly what state Walt Disney's head is. She has also appeared on Conan and Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Chelsea Peretti You know her as the endlessly entertaining Gina on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. But Peretti's latest stand-up special, One of the Great s, premiered on Netflix last year to fittingly great reviews.
Phoebe Robinson Robinson has made a brief a appearance on Broad City, where she works as a consultant. She also works as a writer for Fuse's late night White Guy Talk Show.
Nicole Byer Best known for the hilarious viral sketch "Be Blacker," Byer has also made appearances on 30 Rock and Comedy, Bang Bang.
Megan Kelly Dunn Trained in improv at the legendary Groundlings, Dunn has also written for a CBS comedy pilot and has appeared on several web series.
Sabrina Jalees Jalees has an impressive résumé — that includes a role in a "cautionary tale" Lifetime movie. She also has a weekly podcast, My Sexy Podcast, which features her musings on stand-up, among other subjects.
Suzi Ruffell A comic from the U.K., Ruffell has the perfect riff on when it's actually okay to use the phrase "that's so gay." Her stand-up has gained rave reviews from The Guardian and Time Out.
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We know you're smart enough not to fall for absurd email scams, but just in case, we thought you should know about this email from "Melania Trump" that's going around.
There are many different versions, but one of them comes from "Mrs. Melania Trump" and the email "mrs_melaniatrump13@yahoo.com." It starts:
"Good Day. I am Mrs. Melania Trump this is to officially inform you that your overdue payment from West Africa Benin Republic total sum of ($20.000.000) twenty million US dollars is currently here in my office white house Washington DC and the funds will be delivered to you as soon as you get back to this office and comply with the requirement as needed to deliver your total fund to you as well. Your home address and your cell phone numbers is highly needed to complete this delivering to you as well."
She signs off: "First Lady United State [sic] Of America."
It goes without saying that first lady Melania Trump is not going to wire you $20 million from Benin. There are so many red flags in these emails, as the Huffington Post reports — for example, one of them uses a Japan-based email address and California area code phone number. That should tip you off. It also falsely suggests she lives in Washington, D.C., when she is currently residing in the Trump Tower.
And then, of course, there is the question of why Melania Trump would be giving you millions of dollars from a tiny West African country.
The Huffington Post reports that its replies to the email and calls to the phone number have gone unanswered. This is what's called a 419 scam — it promises a generous return for an upfront fee. Please, please, don't fall for stuff like this!
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Many of us have a friend who "just needs to vent" pretty much every day. Friends give great advice, and that's what friends are for. But, if it starts to feel like you're telling a friend the same advice over and over again, and nothing is helping or changing, it can be exhausting and a sign that maybe the exchange isn't as mutual as it should be, says Andrea Bonior, PhD, LCP, author of The Friendship Fix.
"In some cases, it's clear the person is just using you as a sounding board and they feel better after," Dr. Bonior says. "But, in other cases, they just keep coming back for more, and there's no limit to how often they come to you, because you're just not having an impact."
Dr. Bonior says there's a personality type that attracts this kind of behavior: Complainers like to find people who are willing to listen a little too long, or sympathizers who they know aren't assertive enough to tell them to stop. After a while, this back and forth can breed resentment. That's not to say that you should feel guilty about how often you go to your friends for advice; you should just actually listen to them.
"For friendship to survive, you have to draw boundaries," Dr. Bonior says. "If you resent the person, it's not fair to them, unless you've spoken up to change the situation — nobody wants to grow to be hated without their knowledge." So how do you change the situation without feeling like you're leaving your friend hanging?
Dr. Bonior suggests you put the pressure on yourself, instead of on your friend, by saying something like, "I wonder if I'm doing you a disservice, because I know this has been bothering you for some time, and I don't know if what I'm saying is helpful." Telling the person that you want them to get better, but commenting that you haven't noticed any changes suggests that you can tell they're just not listening to you without feeling like a jerk.
You could also turn the table even more, and tell your friend, basically, to ask someone else. If they complain about their parents, why don't they talk to their sister about it? If it's their coworker who they can't stand, have they considered going to HR? "It doesn't have to be a therapist that you're suggesting, but help to open the door to solutions that are directed," Dr. Bonior says.
Of course, if you do feel like your friend could be in danger and needs to see a professional, you should encourage them to see someone by saying, "Have you thought about going a step further and talking to someone who's better at this than me? Someone who's a professional?" If they push back ("But you're always so good about this!"), try saying something like, "Look, we're going in circles together, and I don't think I'm being helpful."
At the end of the day, you don't owe anyone therapy, Dr. Bonior says. Even if you are a mental health expert, there are some things in your friend's life that you won't be able to solve. "You do owe your friends empathy and respect, but after a while, you can't be expected to be a professional if you're not." It's important to take care of yourself and make sure your needs are met — in other words, don't forget to be friends with yourself, too.
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Everyone has that song that makes their blood rush, their face flush, and their pulse quicken. It's the jam you always have queued up when there's even the slightest chance of an overnight guest. It's baby-making, hypnotic hip-swiveling, take-me-now music.
And, there's a lot of it. Sometimes it's the lyrics that get us fired up. Sometimes it's the beat. Sometimes it's just Janet Jackson's voice or the fact that it makes you think of Ryan Gosling. By the second chorus, you're a quivering mess.
From "Drunk in Love" to "Closer," these tunes always seem to do the trick. We'll be adding more songs each week, so keep reading and keep updating that "sexy times" playlist. Don't act like you don't have one.
"Lover, You Should Have Come Over" by Jeff Buckley
Buckley's breathy, heartsick voice cracks as he talks about the one who got away. This trembling song about desire starts slow and soft, and then, quite literally, climaxes. It might be too late for Jeff, but it's not for you.
"Sexual Healing," Marvin Gaye
As if this song about the medicinal properties of intercourse needed an introduction.
"Pyramids" by Frank Ocean
At ten minutes long, this epic jam will carry you away on the wings of Frank Ocean's sultry voice and Cleopatra references.
"Coffee" by Miguel
The PG-rated version of this song fills in the word "coffee" for a different word. Watch the video, and it won't be hard to guess what Miguel is really singing about in this song that practically oozes sex appeal.
"Wicked Game," Chris Isaak This is the sexiest music video of all time, right? Helena Christensen romps on the beach, Chris Isaak gets emo, everybody melts.
"Sex (I'm A...)," Berlin The new wave group that gave the world "Take My Breath Away" showed off their more X-rated side with this 1983 single. The song's sex-positive lyrics got it banned from many radio stations.
"Set Adrift on Memory Bliss," P.M. Dawn Getting busy to the Spandau Ballet hit ("True") sampled here seems ridiculous. This 1991 hip-hop update, however, is just so heavenly and sensual that making out seems mandatory. Rest in peace, Prince Be.
"Can't Get You Out Of My Head," Kylie Minogue While the lyrics could read a little Fatal Attraction -y, the hypnotic beat and Kylie's sultry vocals will probably have you "la la la, la la la la la"-ing all the way to the bedroom.
"Slave to Love," Bryan Ferry This very well might have been the song your parents were listening to when they conceived you. Try not to let that ruin your listening experience.
"Crimson and Clover," Joan Jett and the Blackhearts Tommy James and the Shondells' 1968 original has been covered by the likes of Joan Jett and Prince, and one thing remains constant: These lyrics are not about plants.
"No Ordinary Love," Sade Frankly, every Sade song feels like slipping into a bubble bath with your lover, a bottle of champagne chilling on the side.
"Pony," Ginuwine Who knew equestrian events could be so thrilling?
"Sex on Fire," Kings of Leon So long as your mind doesn't wander to possible STD symptoms, this rock anthem is particularly useful for ramping up a middle-of-the-dancefloor smooch sesh.
"Gimme Your Love," Morcheeba Morcheeba should be on everyone's bedroom playlist.
"Midnight City," M83 This tune has soundtracked so many makeout sessions, it's a wonder there's not an entire generation of babies named M83 as a tribute.
"I'm On Fire," Bruce Springsteen Bruce Springsteen has a "bad desire." What are you going to do about it?
"I Want Your Sex," George Michael Subtlety is overrated. Raise your hand if you thought George was singing this to you.
"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover," Sophie B. Hawkins All you had to do was ask, Sophie. All you had to do was ask.
"Video Games," Lana Del Rey The perfect song to switch on when that sexy skateboarder comes over to "Netflix and chill."
"Naughty Girl," Beyoncé "I'm feelin' sexy..." This song turns even the biggest wallflower into Sasha Fierce when the DJ blasts it at the club.
"Fever," Peggy Lee Though Peggy Lee is famed for this vampy classic, her version is actually a cover. The song was first recorded by R&B artist Little Willie John in 1956, two years before Lee got her smoky vocals on it.
"Oops (Oh My)," Tweet feat. Missy Elliott Long before Twitter, Tweet was seducing us with this lyrical striptease. She's totally talking about masturbation, right?
"Paradise Circus," Massive Attack Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star contributes the drowsy vocals on this hypnotic track which, yes, also doubles as the theme tune for Luther.
"Any Time, Any Place," Janet Jackson Which is sexier: the song, or the accompanying video, in which Ms. Jackson and her fine neighbor bone on the regular? Also, do you think he prefers chamomile, or Earl Grey?
"Nightcall," Kavinsky The Drive soundtrack is basically a sex playlist of its own, but this synth-heavy track is the standout. Crank it up and burn rubber in the bedroom with the Ryan Gosling surrogate of your choice.
"6 Underground," Sneaker Pimps Raise your hand if you spent the late-'90s making out with your sweetheart after school to this track featured in Can't Hardly Wait and The Saint. Raise your other hand if you thought it was called "Sex Underground."
"Christiansands," Tricky Damn, that croak is hot. The trip-hop legend's 1996 single seduces with a combination of low warbling and a beat that practically begs you to take your clothes off.
"Untitled (How Does It Feel)," D'Angelo You knew this was going to be on here, didn't you, you little minx? Hell, you could just play the video with the volume muted and still get turned on.
"Slow," Kylie Minogue When you name your album Body Language, there had better be some sexy tracks involved. The OG Kylie delivered with this number, which finds her softly cooing the line, "Skip a beat and move with my body, yeah, slow."
"I Feel You," Depeche Mode This tune's blazing guitar riff never fails, especially if you chase it with its 1993 B-side (Google it, kids), "One Caress." Lead me into your darkness, indeed.
"Need You Tonight," INXS Pretty much everything Michael Hutchence sang was scorched with his innate sexiness. Between this and "Never Tear Us Apart," you'll never need porn again.
"Doin' It," LL Cool This is why the ladies love cool James. You can thank Grace Jones (whose single "My Jamaican Guy" is sampled here) and collaborator LeShaun (who used the racy lyrics and sample as far back as the 1980s) for really getting this bedroom anthem underway, however.
"Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus," Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg Is that really the sound of Jane Birkin having an orgasm? What exactly is Serge saying? And how does this still manage to get us hot despite its recurrence in 3 million films and perfume ads?
"Sexy Boy," Air Sexy boy, sexy song. Though you may still know this electronic track best for its inclusion in 10 Things I Hate About You(never forget), its pulsating beat and not-sure-what-they're-saying-but-it-sounds-hot French lyrics should give it an R-rating.
"Staring at the Sun," TV on the Radio How can a song that's not actually about sex be so intoxicatingly erotic? Tunde Adebimpe's voice may have something to do with it.
"Closer," Nine Inch Nails Trent Reznor announcing that he wants to "fuck you like an animal" may not be subtle, but it's effective. Who hasn't fantasized about doing it against a wall while this rock classic blares?
"Drunk in Love," Beyoncé ft. Jay Z Pre- Lemonade, the Carters were getting hot and heavy over surfboards and Champagne on ice. Save this one for bae, not some random Bumble conquest.
"Ooh La La," Goldfrapp Now that's some sexy synth. To be honest, Alison Goldfrapp could read our tax return aloud and we'd be aroused.
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From Meryl Streep shouting to the infamous Michelle Obama inauguration side-eye, 2017 has already produced a plethora of internet memes to suit our every emotion. And to think, it's only March!
So, what’s a meme? We’re glad you asked. Memes are the language of the internet. They’re the chatter of Reddit, manifested into image form. They’re the informal editorials on current events, distilled into endlessly customizable images.
Some memes are distinctly of the moment and generated in real time. We can thank the Oscars for “Whispering Ryan Gosling,” amongst others. Other memes are evergreen and forever funny. So long as people continue to dream up hilarious combos of images and captions, we’ll have hilarious commentary on current events.
As long as we have memes by our side, we won’t be alone going through the ups, downs, and upside-downs of 2017.
It took this photo of Meryl Streep at 2015's SAG Awards almost two years to emerge — but it was well worth the wait. After Debbie Reynolds won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the ceremony, Streep voiced her support. Now, Streep's gleeful whoop is used as a meme for just about any emphatic remarks, including singing backup vocals.
@blingspice
Ryan Gosling Whispering
Remember that parade of people who walked across the first floor of the 2017 Academy Awards? At one point, Ryan Gosling seemed to whisper a wild secret in one woman's ear. Judging by her bewildered expression, the woman must carry the secret with her forevermore.
Danielle Bregoli quickly achieved Doctor Phil, and internet,infamy. While appearing on the show, Bregoli spoke about stealing cars, beating up her mother, and living a lawless life on the edge. After the audience chortled at her, the 13-year-old threatened them with the now-famous phrase, “Cash me ousside, how baw dah?” When Dr. Phil expressed confusion, her mother translated that this is her slang for: Meet me outside and we’ll settle things there.
Shaq Singing
Sometimes the simplest memes are the funniest. Doesn’t get much better than Shaquille O'Neal, mid-song. This meme is deployed during particularly soulful song riffs.
@jay_zimmer
Roll Safe
This meme originated from Hood Documentary, a BBC3 series from the mind of Kayode Ewumi, a British-Nigerian comedian. In mockumentary format, Ewumi plays Reece Simpson (alias: Roll Safe) as he struts through his neighborhood with bravado. In this particular clip, Roll Safe makes a reference to his girlfriend’s talent at oral sex and then does the head point, now memorialized in meme form.
The Roll Safe meme is used for giving terrible, nonsensical advice.
@ryanwindoww
Salt Bae
In the meme's original video, Turkish chef and Johnny Depp lookalike Nusret Gökçe prepares a steak. Actually, he caresses a steak like it's a precious good. To finish off the seasoning process, Gökçe sprinkles salt and strikes quite a dramatic pose. Since the Instagram post went viral, it's spurned parodies and street art.
Michelle Obama Side-Eye
Turns out we weren’t the only nervous ones on the day of Trump’s inauguration. Michelle couldn't suppress shooting out laser-beams of side-eye throughout the ceremony, especially after Melania gifted her a bright blue Tiffany's box.
Tiny Trump
If regular Donald Trump's hands are small, just imagine how small tiny Trump's hands are. This endlessly versatile meme photoshops a miniature Donald into various political scenarios.
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A woman who survived sexual assault by a colleague now faces slander charges, after the court threw out her case, according to BBC News.
Her case was dropped from the courts because the judge didn't think the woman had a strong enough emotional reaction to prove she had been raped. During the trial, the survivor testified that she had said "enough" to her attacker during the assault, according to BBC.
The survivor worked in hospitals in a city in Northern Italy when a coworker forced her into sexual acts and threatened that he would stop providing her with work if she didn't have sex with him, BBC reports.
When the judge chose to acquit the defendant, the reason given was that the woman had not "betrayed the emotion that a violation of her person had to inspire in her," and said that her rape "didn't exist."
When the court asked why she hadn't reacted more strongly the survivor said, "sometimes saying no is enough but maybe I did not use the force and violence that in reality I should have used, but that is because with people who are too strong, I just freeze."
We'll just stop for a moment to say that saying no is enough. It should always be enough. And no woman (or person) should ever have to use force or violence, or have to scream, to stop a someone from forcing them into sex.
The court throwing out this woman's case because they don't like her reaction — even though she clearly said no and was forced into sex anyway — is the very definition of victim blaming. And it has rightfully caused an outrage in the country, according to BBC.
"Certainly, you cannot punish the personal reaction of a woman terrified by what is happening to her," Annagrazia Calabria, a member of parliament, said according to BBC.
The Justice Minister — who is the head of the ministry of justice in the country — Andrea Orlando, has launched an investigation into the case, BBC reports.
If you have experienced sexual violence and are in need of crisis support, please call the RAINN Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
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Some people say the only way to stop online harassment is to stop going online. Well, we aren't going anywhere.ReclaimYourDomainis Refinery29's campaign to make the internet (and the world outside of it) a safer space for everyone — especially women.
The canon of things we’ve called “trolling” is as sweeping as the word is imprecise. There are Instagram comments that contain nothing but bee emoji, shade from Beyoncé fans. There’s that one hissing-cat photo that shape shifts into any meme; Facebook replies that point out a “your” that meant to be “you’re.” There are forum conversations full of alt-right code words, like “kek,” and tweets that call Leslie Jones an ape. And then there are rape threats, incitements to violence, and people who harass families in mourning. A recent Wall Street Journal report summed up trolling as the things we all do online when we’re grumpy.
But the idea that a bumble bee icon and a rape threat would exist on the same spectrum, that both could be dismissed as moodiness, is insane. How is all of that called the same name?
Here, an internet folklorist and an Ivy League linguist pick apart a variety of web-based bad behavior, so we can finally call a spade a spade — or, in this case, a troll. It turns out most online antagonism already a name: racism, misogyny, and rudeness among them.
We have an online antagonism problem because we have a violence against women problem.
Increasingly, as our lives are being lived online, it’s becoming harder and harder to demarcate what is just an “online” behavior in the first place. Increasingly, making that distinction doesn’t matter. For Whitney Phillips, internet folklorist at Mercer University and author of This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture, the main problem she has with the "trolling" label, which she has all but stopped using, is that it suggests anything happens purely in web spaces anymore. As if what happens to us online isn't real.
“We have an online antagonism problem because we have a violence against women problem,” she says. These things exist on land. The anonymity and boundless reach the internet affords us only embolden our more abhorrent habits. Telling a woman who's being harassed to “just get off Twitter if it bothers you,” Phillips continues, utilizes the same exact victim-blaming logic that says she wore or drank or said something she shouldn't have — and that’s why violence happened to her.
In the earliest aughts, when the concept of trolling was being solidified, trolls, like the rest of the web, were a relatively harmless bunch of nerdy white guys hanging around in chat rooms, trading barbs. Light pranking and internetty colloquialisms were pretty much the meat of it.
If you’ve ever clicked on an interesting-sounding link only to find yourself eyeballs deep in a denim-clad Rick Astley — it was that kind of thing. If you've heard the term “butthurt” (or: "u mad bro?"), or been sent images of cats talking about hamburgers — that came from trolling. Trolls were a specific, self-identified group, according to Phillips. They used certain ungrammatical phrases and loped around 4chan trading “lulz,” just like schoolboys tapping “58008” into a calculator and turning it upside-down to reveal “BOOBS.” But it wasn’t all harmless fun, she hedges. “It always had a very antagonistic undertone. It was gendered, it was raced, it was classed.”
Using words that betray where we're from, our education level, or align us with a certain community is something we all do, consciously or not, says Robin Clark, linguistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. It’s “signaling,” a kind of call-and-response to folks who'll get us. By using "fag" as if it meant nothing more than "dude," and using "rape" interchangeably with "take," that’s what trolls were doing online. They were in on the jokes, and the jokes were crude.
While many of us groom a sort of best life on social media — to borderline fantastical degrees — people on these seedy forums (especially Reddit with its anti-censorship libertarian ethos, but also 4chan's many "interest"-based boards) cultivated their worst. The cat memes were still there, but so were the anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, misogynist, and racist (and so on) ones. The joking went from inward to outward, targeted attacks. Meanwhile cyberbullying was going mainstream.
By 2013 there had been a youth exodus from Facebook because of the unmitigated harassment teens faced there. Twitter's been overrun by Nazis. (Now even Snapchat, that disappearing-ink of social media, isn't safe.) If there ever was a line between fun and not remotely okay, it’s been blurry since the start, and so it’s understandable that we went on calling anything that once came from those back-alley web forums “trolling.”
It's only gotten harder to separate the trolls from the chaff, and that's why it’s more urgent than ever that we do. Below are several ways people behave badly online. Let’s call it what it is — and watch it lose some of its edge.
This Is Word Salad
This appeared on a Refinery29 article about Planned Parenthood rallies. See how the commenter mixes sexist and crude words in a sentence that literally doesn’t make any sense?
“You get this image of some nut in a tinfoil hat pounding at the keyboard,” Robin Clark of University of Pennsylvania says. “But they always seem to have some deliberate plan of action behind it.” That plan is the following: bypassing community moderators who are trained to look exclusively for personal attacks and getting a rise out of anyone with either a basic respect for the English language or a vested interest in the topic at hand. “I think it’s a deliberate attempt to derail the thread. What they want is that a lot of people will start commenting on it, [responding] to some lunatic assertion.” And there you are talking to nonsense, which then makes you look loony, too.
Grammar-policing can be insufferable, obnoxious, and petty-seeming, but grammar is a system of rules in which certain things are correct and others are not. When a person points out the objective truth (where an apostrophe goes; how to spell Kirsten) it may piss you right off, but that might be your problem. “It’s not always clear who is really being an asshole about spelling or grammar and who is looking to cause trouble, even indirectly satirizing the impulse to correct grammar sarcastically, or even sincerely trying to help,” Phillips says. If you don't know that they're ribbing you, why bother calling this a troll? And more importantly: Who among us can’t stand to improve their grammar a touch?
This Is Unbridled Narcissism
FAKE NEWS media knowingly doesn't tell the truth. A great danger to our country. The failing @nytimes has become a joke. Likewise @CNN. Sad!
Ah The Donald. Truly in a class of his own. So very alone. SAD!
Trump has a very distinctive Tweet style, Clark says. “It’s always ‘X is so negative adjective,’ [the] word ‘so,’ and the period. And then ‘sad.’ Period.” Using “so” amplifies or exaggerates whatever simple adjective the president’s using — whether that’s “great!” or “sick.” Following that with a period makes the judgment final, and this M.O. works, Clark explains.
While opponents on the left spent too long feeling confident that Donald Trump’s first-grade level vocabulary made him look foolish, what it really did was make his messages incredibly digestible.
And it’s still working for him: When he says something like “the failing New York Times,” his followers may actually believe The New York Times is failing (it’s not). What we can’t know is if he’s always lying, or if he himself believes things that are provably false. Probably the latter, because he considers himself a very reliable source. “When you’re a narcissistic individual,” Clark explains, “you come to believe in your own mythology. So I’m sure that Trump in his own mind is a legend, and godlike in that way.” And that, my friends, is sick and BAD!
This Is Being Popular — But Also A Total Instigator
trump furiously trying to ban television right now
Celebrities are able to enjoy online provocation without anonymity, and they don’t even have to say anything all that impressive to rally thousands. The power, in this case, is in the people (who follow them).
So when Chrissy Teigen taunts Donald Trump, which she’s been doing expertly since 2011, her four-and-a-half million followers amplify it, collectively laughing at his expense. “This can go both ways, of course,” Phillips warns. “The same reduced social risk that allows feminists and people of color to clap back [at antagonists like Donald Trump] also allows bigots to spew their hate online with less fear of embodied repercussions. The tools and affordances of digital media can be harnessed — sometimes simultaneously! — for positive and negative ends.”
This Is Basically Tour Merch
Once upon a time in a RollingStone interview, Kid Rock said he preferred "skinny white chicks with big tits" to Beyoncé, and her fans will never forget it. The comments illustrated here are anonymized, but are inspired by the 'hive coming for him...still. Certain sects of super fans assign icons to the object of their affection: bees for Beyoncé’s Beyhive, snakes to remind Taylor Swift that Kim Kardashian has all the receipts. Even Rob Kardashian has an emoji gang, which plastered four-leaf clovers all over Tyga’s Instagram, when Kardashian proposed to his ex, Blac Chyna; a marriage that would make Tyga the step-uncle to his own son. (It’s a whole thing.)
Phillips says spamming these emoji all over someone’s comments is “performing an identity and affinity with people who are like-minded,” which is something we do offline all the time, like wearing baseball hats. But people don’t wear baseball hats at each other. There is something specifically combative about these Stans.
Clark says, because we're all about image now, “a war of images and emojis is inevitable." He calls Bey's bees a nice example of "iconic symbolism, particularly the way that they’re presented in swarms (which is so simple as to be ingenious).” Some practical advice? Never doubt the genius of the Beyhive — and don’t bring a knife-emoji to a gun-emoji fight.
This Is Being Afraid, But Mostly Racist
Hate groups have been inventing secret lingo since well before the internet, which is why we can’t label anything the alt-right does as “trolling,” which still sounds like light teasing. Using coded language like “kek” or “cuck,” some of their current faves, is a wink to other white-nationalists out there looking for a friend. They do it hiding behind anonymous screen names and their own lingo, just as they first hid beneath bed sheets fashioned into hats. Bunch of hateful 'fraidy cats, these guys. (This example came from Twitter, but we've anonymized it further with a made-up screen name.)
“You’re going to find weird little turns of phrase that may mean nothing to you, but to them it is a signal of allegiance,” Clark says. He points to Dylann Roof, the white-nationalist terrorist who murdered nine Black congregants in a Charleston church in 2015. He used the code 1488 to allude to a 14-word nazi slogan and “heil Hitler,” double-eights, because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. These digits mean nothing, unless you know what they mean.
Clark also points to bigots using the word “Skittles” to refer to Muslims. So when Donald Trump, Jr, tweeted that remark about refugees being like a bowl of Skittles, was it really just a blatantly racist analogy? (Or was it a blatantly racist analogy plus a nod and wink to literal nazis?) “The genius here is that it may be a signal to the alt-right or it may be coincidence. That’s the whole idea.” It can be “canceled,” he explains, as simply as saying you just meant candy. Simply knowing what these words mean can take the air out of them.
This Is Just Racist
This comment came in response to Riz Ahmed's remarks about the importance of representation on television, but that almost doesn't matter. Any time the concept of "back where you came from" is tossed into a conversation, at the heart it is just plain racism. And it's right out there in the open, like painting a swastika on a gravesite or hanging a scarecrow by a noose in your front yard. It is never anything less serious than that. It does not need to be decoded; it is obvious and needs to stop. But sometimes, instead, it makes people famous.
This Is Being SO Racist, It Makes You Rich
Judge Derrick K. Watson issues opinion holding all illegals now legal, to protect the constitutional right of Hawaiians to cheap gardeners.
Sometimes people turn their ability to shout hurtful things into a career. Like Ann Coulter. Her message is the same as those secret bigots, but because she has a large following and the kind of physical attributes television executives like to pay for, she’s reached a vaunted position. From there, she can “drop a rhetorical bomb without any support or discussion,” Clark says, “entering whatever assertion is made into our store of common knowledge without being vetted or investigated.” (Also a Trump move.)
Why is it different when Coulter Tweets that immigrants rob the economy versus when your everyday scumbag with a Twitter says it? Because she’s famous, and has been afforded some level of authority by being taken seriously by her peers in the media (at least when she’s not at someone else’s roast). When all her followers hear, accept as truth, and repeat her missives, Clark adds, “it’s a kind of debate by brute force.” People like this cultivate outrage while clinging to some shred of deniability. (See also: Milo Yiannopoulos.) And in that way, it’s also cowardly.
This Is Gaslighting
Any commenter who takes the time to write “who cares” is trying to incept us, egging us into conversation to defend why this should be a conversation in the first place. “You dismiss the person as not having any particular expertise, or being in no position to know anything about anything,” Clark says. “This derails the thread by throwing out some ridiculous assertion that then just stops comments in some sense.” This is another perfect example of something commonly dismissed as “trolling” that happens to women constantly, in living color.
This Is Sexism (No Really. That's All.)
A “sandwich” has become shorthand for saying women belong in the kitchen, and attaching it to stories about women succeeding — or using it to respond to successful women’s tweets — simultaneously derails the conversation while weaving blatant sexism right into it. (This particular comment appeared on Refinery29's Facebook page in response to our coverage of A Day Without Women.) It takes us back to those second-phase trolls who were just joking around, but used the word “rape” any time they wanted to pack a punch. (A meme that went mainstream was “raped” from them; a person caught in a funny gotcha moment was “raped with logic.”) “The underlying issues are deep and they’re cultural,” Whitney Phillips says.
“Nothing that twitter does is ever going to fully address systemic racial injustice. These are things that are baked into the culture. How do you deal with online antagonism toward women? Um, educate boys about respect toward women. How do you deal with antagonistic behavior toward people of color on Twitter? Solve racism! Those are the solutions.”
Saying this, she begins to pull a knitted blanket she’s been fidgeting with up over her eyes, as if to hide from the reality of our times — a reaction that’s as valid and communicative as any all-caps reply.
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When the going gets tough, the tough take a look at the love lives of the tangentially famous. Today's salve for the horrors of the world: the delightful couple that is Billie Lourd and Taylor Lautner. We warned you back in February that this couple was dangerously 'shippable, and they've only proven us right. Lourd herself provided their couple nickname: Baelor. (She's a fan of puns.) As E! Online points out, the Scream Queens co-stars took to a poppy field to practice the art of looking adorable and in love — they're quite good at it.
"I went to the poppy reserve and all I got was this bizarre pic of me in a kimono making a mildly awkward face surrounded by 4ish dying poppies," Lourd wrote on an Instagram post. In the picture, she is indeed lying prone among a few wilted flowers.
A post shared by Billie Lourd (@praisethelourd) on
In another photo, the two are together, schmoozing for the camera. Lourd included the hashtag "#itspoppyingoff" in the caption. (Like we said, she loves a pun.)
A post shared by Taylor Lautner (@taylorlautner) on
Reports of this new couple surfaced in late 2016, shortly before the tragic deaths of Lourd's mother, the iconic actress Carrie Fisher and Lourd's grandmother Debbie Reynolds. These reports came courtesy of Keke Palmer, who snapchatted the oblivious duo kissing at the Scream Queens wrap party. In early 2017, during the emotionally taxing fallout of Lourd's dual loss, it seemed the social media floodgates opened and the two started posting about each other on Instagram. There were pictures of the two wearing matching onesies. There were poolside pics. There are serious posts, like Lautner's heartfelt photo of two the captioned, "This girl is one of the strongest, most fearless individuals I've ever met. Absolutely beautiful inside and out. I'm lucky to know you @praisethelourd." And there have been silly posts, like this elevator mirror selfie that includes the hashtag #fashun.
Throughout it all, Lourd has used the hashtag "#findingthefunny," a positive mantra that references her wisecracking mother. In a heartfelt tribute post to Fisher, Lourd wrote, "Finding the funny might take a while but I learned from the best and her voice will forever be in my head and in my heart." It seems Lautner is helping her find the funny — and the punny — among the poppies.
I know it's early to call it, but I'm going to anyway: Baelor is the It Couple of 2017.
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