#every TV in my house will be on a channel other than the inauguration

[somerandomwriter1234]

Girl Meets World Fanfiction: Girl Meets Reality Chapter 1

Summary: A science experiment goes wrong and sends Riley and Maya to an alternate universe where their lives are a TV show called Girl Meets World. In this strange world, Riley and Maya watch clips of their lives in TV show form, meet actresses Rowan Blanchard and Sabrina Carpenter, look up fanfiction and fan art involving them (yeah, nothing bad could happen from that), but more importantly: discover how their lives made a much bigger difference than they ever could have thought.

Chapter 1:

Early one morning Riley and Maya walked into Farkle's bedroom and saw him working on a large metallic device shaped like a circle with a computer attached to it. Riley then said, "Okay Farkle. We got here as soon as we could. What do you have to show us?" An excited Farkle then said, "Okay guys. Don't freak out. But with Smackle's help... I think I may have discovered a way to access alternate universes." A confused looking Maya then said, "Alter-what's-it?" Farkle then said, "Other worlds. It's the multiverse theory. The idea that: what if people made different choices in the past, and it resulted in worlds similar to ours but different." Maya then said, "Ohhhhhh... I still don't get it." Riley then said, "Well I'm proud of you Farkle. So how does it work?" Farkle then said, "Well it's still untested technology so don't..." Riley then pressed a large button near Farkle's computer as she said, "Ooo. Shiny!" Farkle then finished his sentence by yelling... "Don't touch anything!" Suddenly a large vortex appeared near the machine and right in front of Riley and Maya. Riley and Maya then instantly got sucked inside as they yelled, "Whoa!" Then within seconds... Riley and Maya were gone.

Riley and Maya suddenly appeared in the bedroom but Farkle was gone. As Riley looked around she said, "Wait. What happened? Where's the vortex? Where's Farkle?" Maya then said, "More importantly... where's the fourth wall?" Riley and Maya then saw in front of them was a TV sound studio with empty seats for a potential studio audience. Riley then said, "When did Farkle's room get so much bigger?" Maya then said, "More like why did someone build a re-creation of Farkle's bedroom in a TV studio? Come on. Lets look around." Riley and Maya then walked around the studio and found an exit door. The two girls walked outside and saw a bright outdoor sky and parking plot. Riley then said, "Well at least we're still in New York. Look at all of those buildings and... Wait. This isn't New York. Where are we?" Maya then said, "I've seen pictures of this place. Riley... I think we're in Los Angeles." A freaked out looking Riley then said, "We were transported to the other side of the country!? Oh man. How are we gonna get back?" Maya then looked at her phone and said, "Well however we're gonna do it, it won't involve our phones. I got no cell service." Riley then looked at her phone and said, "Me neither. Come on. Maybe we can use a computer or phone at that mall over there." Maya then noticed a mall not far away, and then she and Riley headed over towards it.

Riley and Maya began walking through a mall together. As they walked, several people began to make quick stares at them. Riley then said, "Maya, is it me, or are people starring at us?" Maya then said, "Eh. We're east coast girls. West coast folk probably think we smell weird." Suddenly a little preschool girl ran up to Riley and Maya and said, "Hey. Is it really you? Are you really Riley and Maya?" A surprised Riley then said, "Um... yes. How do you know us?" The little girl then said, "I love your show. It's the only thing I used to watch on Netflix. Can I get both your autograph?" A surprised looking Maya then said, "Um... sure." Riley and Maya then began to sign a piece of paper the little girl had as Riley said, "Is she talking about our old middle school news broadcasts?" Maya then said, "I guess. Didn't know the school had a deal with Netflix though." An adult woman then walked over to the three and said, "There you are Stacy, and... Oh wow. You're the ladies from my daughter's favorite show." Riley waved and said, "Hi. Nice to meet you." The little girl then got the piece of paper back and said, "Look mommy. They signed it." The adult woman smiled as she looked at it and said, "Aww. They signed it in character. That's cute." The adult woman and little girl walked away as Maya said, "Well this keeps getting stranger."

Riley and Maya then walked into a book store as Riley said, "Well maybe we can hook into the wi-fi here. How about getting a smoothie at the cafe first? My treat." Maya smiled as she said, "Thanks. But you're already my treat." Riley smiled as she went over to the cafe counter and said, "Two banana smoothies please." A young adult woman at the counter looked at Riley and Maya as she said, "Oh my gosh. Oh wow. I can't believe this. Listen, I know it must feel weird for a 27 year old to be saying this, but I love your show so much." Riley glanced at Maya as she whispered, "I had no idea so many people across the country were watching our morning announcements." The young woman then said, "I watched your show every Friday night with my niece and it meant so much to her, and some episodes even really touched me. We were both so devastated when Disney canceled Girl Meets World." A wide eyed Riley then said, "Girl Meets What?" The young woman then said, "Anyway, I'm sorry. I'll stop bothering you. Hey. Whatever you want, it's on the house." A confused looking Riley then said, "Uh... thank you."

As Riley and Maya sat in a corner booth by themselves Riley said, "Maya... has the world gone mad? Why are people treating us like celebrities? And why did that woman talk about Disney canceling our show? Wait... could we be in an alternate universe that Farkle's invention sent us to?" Maya who was looking at her phone said, "Way ahead of you. I had a feeling we were pretty far from home, and I got into this place's wi-fi and remembered the girl mentioning a show called Girl Meets World, so I searched for it and... well... look." Maya then held her phone up towards Riley and Riley's eyes got wide as she looked at the screen. There Riley saw pictures posted of her friends and family next to a large logo that said Girl Meets World. Then Riley looked at a description box and read it as she said, "According to this: Girl Meets World is an American comedy television series created by Michael Jacobs and April Kelly that aired on Disney Channel from June 27, 2014 to January 20, 2017. The series is a spinoff of Boy Meets World and stars Rowan Blanchard as Riley Matthews, Sabrina Carpenter as Maya Hart, and... Hold on. Our lives a TV show in this world!?" Maya then said, "Apparently. We even have our own theme song. Check it out." Maya then started a video clip of the Girl Meets World theme song. As it played Riley look at it and said, "What? How did they get this video footage? Have they been stalking us!? This... this is too weird!?"

About an hour later, Riley and Maya were hidden in a very isolated part of the book store sitting on the floor still looking at their phones. Maya then said, "Wow, watching these clips sure feels creepy. It's like some stalkers set up hidden camera all around our bedrooms, classrooms, and favorite hang out spots." A scared looking Riley then said, "Oh no. The episodes don't include scenes of me taking my hour long morning shower do they?" Maya made a little smile as she said, "No honey, this is apparently a family show. Although judging from the comments in some of these video clips, there are some guys that wish they could've seen that... and some girls." Riley then said, "I just don't get it. Who would want to watch a TV series about our lives? I mean I wasted all of third grade just tripping all of the time because I couldn't tie my shoes. Who would want to see that?" As Maya continued to look up information on the show she said, "It's not our whole lives Riley. Just from the beginning of 7th grade to the middle of 9th. Apparently the show ended right after your mom decided not to move to London." Riley then said, "Wait. Why did our show end?" Maya then said, "Apparently a reasonable explanation was never given from Disney and fans started a huge campaign to save the series. On social media the day it ended, it was apparently the second highest trending topic worldwide behind only the 2017 presidential inauguration." A wide eyed Riley said, "Worldwide!? How popular was our show!?" Maya then said, "Well the premiere got just over five million viewers in the USA, but it's apparently been aired worldwide, so we may have been watched by over 100 million fans at some point or another."

Riley then slouched back in her chair as she said, "A hundred million people!? My Harajuku phase, first kiss with Lucas, and paint fight with you was seen by over 100 million people!?" Maya then said, "Well if it make you feels better, it wasn't technically you. In this world it was an actress named Rowan Blanchard." Riley then looked at a picture of herself as she said, "What!? I don't look like a Rowan!? That's a weird name for someone who looks like me." Maya then said, "Tell me about it. I can't believe my face belongs to some actress in this world named Sabrina Carpenter. What kind of name is that anyway? It sounds like the name of some cartoon cat who's a handy-woman." Then Riley said, "Who are these two girls anyway? Lets look them up." Maya then said, "Well, lets see. According to this: Rowan Blanchard on top of acting, is also a public activist in areas such as feminism, human rights, and gun violence." Riley then said, "Whoa. And according to this: Sabrina Carpenter is an accomplished actress and singer, with multiple hit albums and sold out tours." A wide eyed Maya then said, "What!? No. That's gotta be fake." Riley then said, "Well it is hard to sort out which news sources are more reliable on this alternate world. I know. Let me search what's real and what's fake on this Rowan Blanchard and Sabrina Carpenter and see what's the real deal with them and... Huh? Is that... OH MY GOSH!" A worried Maya then said, "What!?" Riley then said, "Oh God. Whatever you do: don't image search our actress' names and the word fake next to them." Maya then glanced at Riley's phone and said, "Oh my gosh. That is so messed up... Your boobs are way more bigger than that in real life." Riley then began pressing buttons on her phone fast as she said, "Ahh! Delete internet history! Delete internet history!"

Later Riley and Maya were walking through the mall again as Riley said, "It's just so weird Maya. For so long: my life was just... my life. And now I learn in some alternate universe... it's been watched and studied by millions of people." Maya then said, "It's not us Riley. It's just stories being performed by two girls who look like us... and who are smarter than us... more famous than us... and way more talented than us." A concerned looking Riley then said, "You okay, Peaches?" Maya then said, "Yeah. It's just... I always wished more people paid attention to my art. And to see a world where another version of me has her art adored by millions of people... it's amazing but still very strange." Suddenly a man ran over to Maya and said, "You. You're supposed to be on stage in fifteen minutes. Why aren't you in hair and makeup?" A confused Maya then said, "What?" The man then said, "Oh. Miss Blanchard. Nice to see you. I suppose she's hanging out with you today?" Maya then said, "Um..." The man then said, "Come on. Lets go." The man then quickly led Maya over to a closed door and let her and Riley in. The man then said, "Apologies for not getting your sooner. It's just I was told you were already here and... Wait. What?" Suddenly everyone stopped as Riley and Maya saw walking around a corner in makeup were actresses Rowan Blanchard and Sabrina Carpenter. All of the girls stopped walking as they looked at each other. Rowan Blanchard then looked at Sabrina Carpenter as she said, "Sabrina, what is going on?" Riley then looked at Maya as she said, "Oh boy. This sure got complicated."

TO BE CONTINUED...

*Author's Note - This story was co-written with fanfic writer: Just a Complicated Person. So what did you all think of this tale so far? Feel free to leave a comment or message with your thoughts, and feel free to share what should happen next, along with what other corners of the Girl Meets World online fandom that Riley and Maya should discover. Until then, thanks for reading!

[pacifistofpatience]

If you're doing that types of kisses thing, prehaps 7,4,3, or 2?

Went hogwild and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Except sleep, i need sleep now lol

Unbreakable Kiss- The type of kiss that really shouldn’t be happening, it’s a mistake, butyou just can’t find yourself able to pull away.

(Oh jesues fuck I got distracted half way through and mayhave fucked this one up a little bit but I have had this idea in my head for sogosh darn long now and the words just spewed(Also Mars Got a mind of his ownand just started going and I Didn’t know how to stop him!))

When you had filled out the paperwork for the “Monster Rehabilitationand Reconnection Program” (MRRP, as they called themselves) you knew you would beaccepted. You had spent years volunteering as a foster parent, and with a stablejob and home, you were the perfect fit to aid in the slow inauguration ofMonster kind after the rumored horrors they had survived in the Underground.

(Sometimes it was hard to believe that a whole race had beentrapped under Ebott for hundreds of years. Left to be forgotten with time and thento nearly starve to death. It made you sick, but it also made you want to help.)

And you were right, only a month later were you given theseal of approval and your first two charges- A Sans and Papyrus Serif. Two lovelySkeleton brothers that- despite their substantial size- seemed absolutely terrified of you. Youthought that maybe you were scaring them. That maybe just you- being human- madethem naturally inclined to assume the worst.

Not one to let this go, you gently gathered the two (Notover dinner, you refused to tarnish meal time with the anxiety that maybe they wouldend up trapped in another “talk”) and explained that if they felt unsafe with you,you would be happy to adjust your living style to make them feel comfortable.If there was anyway you could- you know- help them feel safer…

Sans, who had been quiet for most of their stay, laughed. Atfirst it was nervous, maybe even shy. Then, as it finally connected as to whyhe was laughing, he began to do so harder.

Eventually, the laughter died down, and they both confessedthat they weren’t scared of you but for you. They were sure you had simplyopened your home to them for the…what was it called?… Tax benefits? And that notonly did they assume you were terrified of them, but there was always thechance they could–

None the less, it led to a very long, very deep discussionabout how- no matter what- you were here to help them. That you cared for them in your own way.

~*~

That had been a year ago, and the brothers slowly but surelywarmed up to you.

And you, well, you had warmed up to them too. You beganto learn about them, about their little habits and the ways they ticked eachother off but loved all the same. You learned how much you could grow to careabout them…and in one instance lov—

No, no no no. Bad idea. You were here to help them heal. Notto let your silly little heart get in the way of all that. You brushed off the feelings.You pretended like when you spent time with one of them your heart would burstwith so much adoration.

Still, every time you came home and smelled the telltale scentof Pasta sauce wafting through the kitchen you found yourself melting.

~*~

For what it was worth you weren’t the one to start it.

You were exhausted, stumbling into the house and almosttripping over one of Sans many loose socks as you made you way into the kitchen.The relief that washed over you every time you entered the kitchen knowing youwould have both a full meal and others to share it with was never not euphoric.And on top of that getting to see the two place sett—

Wait? Two?

You blinked, eyebrow raised in confusion, “Pappy?” youcalled out, knowing exactly who was making that racket in the kitchen, “WhereSans?”

And there he stood, back strait and looking leagues betterthen when you had first met him, hovering over the pot of boiling water with a boxof angel hair pasta in his hands. He grinned, outshining even the sun, andsaid, “Oh! Sans Said Something About Wanting To Give Us ‘Alone Time’ WhateverThat Meant!” he used air quotes right, for once, “And How He Was Tired Of Us ‘DancingAround Each other Like A Bunch Of Lovestruck Baby Bones’ Or Something.”

You choked on air.

���Exactly What I Said! Can You Believe Him? I Do Not Believe EitherOf Us Have Ever Been To One Dancing Class, Let Alone Together!” He turned backto the pasta, stirring it, “And He Didn’t Even Give Me Enough Time To Prepare! DoYou Know You Have Absolutely No Candles In The House Suited For Dates! All IFound Was That Weird Battery Powered Thing You Stuck In The Pumpkin For HallowsEve! And…”

When you finally gathered yourself enough amidst Papyrusramblings you glanced up at him, you noticed that the entire back of his skull(and the rest of his face) was alight with a deep blue blush. For a moment youwondered if you should leave. Isn’t this something that could ruin everythingyou had helped build them up to? That maybe giving into something like this wasn’tthe right step at-

“And I Know What You’re Thinking.” Papyrus said, “Sans- He…MayHave Mentioned A Few Things To Me…”

That sneakily little bastard. You knew there was a reason hewas trying to weasel a confession out of you all those days ago…You had just hopedhe would have given you a longer grace period before jumping into things.

“I Know You…That You Were Weary About Potently Starting A…RelationshipWith Me But…”

Papyrus trailed off, and for a moment you thought he wassecond guessing things until he turned on his heel. Puffing out his chest as hestrode over to you with something that could only be described as a pensiveconfidence.

He took your hands into his.

“You…You Have Done So Much For My Brother And I…You HaveWelcomed Us Into Your Home- Your Life- Without Asking Anything In Return And InThe Year I Have Gotten The Stars Blessed Chance To Know You I Have Seen What AGoo- No! Great Soul You Are! And I Have Started To Develop Feelings For You InA Way Only That Can Only Be Described As Lo-Love, Absolut Unbridled Love! For You!And For Everything You Do! And I Wanted You To Know That While I Am PerfectlyContent To Stay As Friends! If Both Of Us Harbor Feeling As Such For One AndOther Then—Then Why Deny That Fact!” He leaned closer to you, if you wanted toyou could just as easily stand on your toes to–

“I—” you stutteredout, “I—am I allowed to—to kiss you?”

Papyrus let out a relived sigh, his shoulders slumped, “OhThank The Stars. Of Course, You Are.”

And finally, you closed the gap, lips brushing against histeeth. Both of you refused to break apart.

In The Moment Kiss -Maybe it’s in the middle of an argument or you just looked to damn beautifulnot to kiss, but their lips were hot against yours and it felt too good tostop. 

Laughter came easy for you.

You had always been so loud and joyful that it was no surprisethat your laugh was the same. Bursting with so much happiness that any room youwere in lit up at the sound of it (As well as the next few rooms over).  Your laughter was unashamed, like the warmth ofthe sun on the first day of spring, like flowers in bloom.

And Sans…well Sans was enamored.

Much to Papyrus’ dismay; puns became more frequent with youaround. Sans was always a moment away from spitting out a witty one liner, oreven pulling another prank that he knew would have you on the ground laughing(Even when you were the recipient—Stars, a human after his own soul!)

And with your body folded over like that-Perfect kissinglevel- your lips parted into another wide grin… Sans couldn’t help himself. Themoment was perfect- You were perfect.

Before either of you knew what was happening Sans had sprungup. His teeth clacked rather painfully against your still opened mouth as youlet out anther shocked noise and—oh? was this how kisses were supposed to go?He was pretty sure they weren’t, considering it ended with an impromptu dental appointment.

Early Morning Kiss -A kiss that’s a wake up call, its barely even lips touching, more likethey're kissing your chin because they’re so tired in the earlymorning haze. 

Rus sauntered out of your kitchen and into the living room. Youtilted your head towards him, still keeping you attention to the TV as you filteredthrough channels in a vain attempt to find something good. When you noticed hisempty arms you asked, “Thought you were gonna get us snacks?”

Ruse shrugged, brushing something that looked very similarto the crumbs from your left-over cake off his hoodie, “did.”

You gave him a soft smile, unable to be mad at the guy whenhe looked exactly like some kid sneaking the last cookie from the jar.

Rus settled on the opposite end of the couch, and you wentback to channel surfing.

Click.

You looked out of the corner of your eyes to see Rus messingwith a loose thread in the couch.

Click.

He inched closer.

Click.

His knee bumped yours.

Click.

“Alrightly.” You placed the remote down and opened your armsto him, “Come here Sugerskull. Think it’s about time you—UFF!”

The moment he was given the OK Rus scrambled into your arms.He pressed his body firmly against yours, hands snaking around your waist insomething akin to a death grip as he clung to you from all angles before goinglimp.

Rus teeth brushed against your jaw, and then lowered to yourneck where they lagged with no exact destination. He pressed his teeth against youonce more then finally settled into a nuzzle. Eventually he drifted off tosleep.

Hesitant Kiss -The type of kiss where their lips brush against each other’s a few times,breath fanning across each other’s faces as one waits for the other to make amove.

“doll, ya awake?”

You were, in a sense, but definitely not enough to acknowledgethe skeleton poking at your cheek. You loved Sans more than anything, but you dayhad been long, and you were exhausted. A twenty-minute nap could be prioritizedover you bonefriend this one time.

You grumbled a little but made no indication that you weregoing to wake up, instead cocooning deeper into your blankets. You heard Sans chuckle,but the poking had relented. Instead he rested a hand on your head.

And, after a moments pause, he began to stroke your hair.

Sans…he wasn’t…It wasn’t to say Sans was not a touchy monster. Of course, he wrapped his arm around your waist on occasion, or hadhands on you almost all the time but there was never not a reason for them. Mostof the time he did so was when you two were in public, and he had always doneso with a tense atmosphere. It was always a warning to those around you—you werehis and if anyone dared to lay a fuckin finger on you there would be hell topay.

This was different. There was no one to preform for in your apartment.No lurking dangers in the shadows. It was just you and him, safely enjoying anight in. And in your home, he had found the peace to finally touch you likethis.

You tried your best to stay still, but the knowledge thatSans was there- Stroking your hair like that had left you wide awake. You two stayedlike that for a long time, to the point where you had thought he had fallenasleep as well.

But then you felt his warm breath closed to your face.Hovering right there as his stroking paused.

You two had shared enough skeleton kisses that you knew whatit felt like when his teeth grazed your lips. And then when it happened again,but he seemed to make no attempt to kiss you- like he was hesitant to finally doso. Instead you opened your eyes (Noticing that his were still fixed on yourlips) and leaned forward just enough to mercifully close that gap.

[beingallelite]

On January 1, 2019, the rumors and rumblings that had been seizing wrestling fandom for months were confirmed. The Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes had teamed with investor Tony Khan to found All Elite Wrestling. The new organization was designed to be the first major professional wrestling league to take on the monster monopoly that is WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. Hype for the new organization soon took the wrestling world by storm and “AEW!” became a preferred chant for WWE fans disgruntled by lackluster matches.

But in a landscape that’s been dominated for decades by the leviathan nature of WWE, can All Elite Wrestling make any sort of impact on the sport? Where does the team behind the venture — President and CEO Tony Khan and EVPs Matt and Nick Jackson (aka the Young Bucks), Cody Rhodes, and Kenny Omega — see the core audience? And will AEW be able to truly allot wrestlers the creative freedom and professional support they’ve been craving?

So far, AEW has been testing the waters with a number of pay-per-view events like Double or Nothing, Fyter Fest, and Fight for the Fallen. While Double or Nothing sold out all of its approximately 11,000 tickets in about 30 minutes, the company decided to stream the latter two for free on B/R Live. It was a risky choice, but one AEW President and CEO Tony Khan stands by.

“In terms of putting shows out there for free, we took a bath financially on that and I took a big hit, and I was willing to do it as a company because I believed in our brand of wrestling,” Khan told Decider during a sit-down interview following All Elite Wrestling’s very first presentation at TCA press tour. Cody Rhodes, Chief Brand Officer Brandi Rhodes, and a number of in-ring talent were on hand that day to treat journalists to their first look at AEW’s upcoming weekly TNT show. Khan explained that his “dream” was to get AEW to the level “where WCW was.”

“There hasn’t been a legitimate other company [besides WWE] presenting weekly, high quality wrestling, and never before was HD available,” Khan said, explaining he had every confidence that once AEW’s weekly show premieres on TNT on October 2, “the revenue streams are going to be huge.”

Right now WWE produces two weekly live primetime shows, RAW and Smackdown, that combined amount to five hours of wrestling per week. That’s not counting other WWE weekly offerings such as NXT, 205 Live, off-screen house shows, or their near-monthly pay-per-view events. In contrast, AEW is only going to be crafting one two-hour-long show a week for TNT, and Khan said this is by design.

“We’re basing the company to be way more wrestler-friendly and in terms of the scheduling, because we’re not going to have a constant touring of five nights a week or anything like that, six nights a week never,” Khan said. “And really focusing on that and building the big events, big pay-per-views and streaming specials.”

In addition to allowing wrestlers time to physically rest up and mentally relax, The Young Bucks (aka Nick and Matt Jackson) argued that this far-less grueling schedule gives AEW a creative edge.

“Our characters won’t be over-saturated. That’s a problem for the current product for mainstream wrestling right now. You see wrestlers way too often, way too many times, and you become fatigued with that character and that superstar, and they lose that superstardom,” Nick Jackson said.

“[There’s] just time for things to breathe,” Matt Jackson said. “Everything is so overexposed right now.”

“It’s not about forcing everybody into the show to do one dumb segment just to show them in the show. We’re not going to drag people in and make them travel,” Khan said.

Matt Jackson concurred. “I don’t think everybody has to be on the show every week, necessarily. Like if they’re not needed like Tony said, maybe they stay home that week. Or we just give them a little bit in the back. Sometimes it’s just too much. But if we give them a little bit of flavor every week or every other week I think it would be fine. I really do.”

“We already have a lot of wrestlers in our contracts, so we don’t need to have them weekly. So some wrestlers might not even be on them every single week of the year,” Nick Jackson said. “So a lot of people are going to have great schedules that are way better than any wrestling company in the world.”

During AEW’s panel that day, Brandi Rhodes touted the diversity of talent on the roster, noting that more than half of the panelists they’d assembled that day were women. Khan wouldn’t confirm that AEW’s female roster would be given equal air-time to their male counterparts — “It depends on the week” — but he did say he thought AEW had some of the best female wrestlers in the world. In particular, he touted New Japan Pro-Wrestling alum Kenny Omega’s talent in scouting new joshi talent for AEW.

“It’s a different style,” Omega said, of joshi, a type of women’s wrestling from Japan. “It’s more artistic. It’s more beautiful, but yet it’s still strong, and yet it’s still very diverse.”

“I really think the joshi that Kenny scouted out could our be our generation’s luchadores because the luchadores and the lucha style became very prevalent through wrestling on TNT weekly in the 90s,” Khan said. “And now, almost twenty-five years later, the joshi could come in and just blow people away. I mean they have on our shows and it’s happening.”

Already AEW has begun pushing joshi talent like Aja Kong and Hikaru Shida. The two star were featured a six-woman tag team match on Double or Nothing. While Shida is officially signed to the AEW roster, Omega teased that there were still some stars he hadn’t introduced yet. “I haven’t shown all my cards yet,” he said with a smile.

“Person-by-person we’re developing a roster that can do everything the guys can do, and in a lot of cases, they’re doing a lot of things that the guys can’t do, or aren’t doing,” Omega said. “That’s why, for me, even though I’m proud of my own career and I’m still looking to do big things in my own career, but I’m most proud of that division and I’m most prideful.”

Khan, Omega, and the Young Bucks told Decider that they’re also committed to making sure that all the wrestlers have the opportunity to perform their best, while also being as safe as possible. When asked if wrestlers would be told that specific moves would be reserved for stars, Khan said that the bigger concern was safety.

“I feel very strongly that I want to take care of the talent and I want to protect these guys and girls and everybody,” Khan said.

“That being said, we’re not going to tell the talent like, ‘Don’t do this cool dive just because we don’t want you to do it.’ We’re going to say, ‘Hey, do the coolest things you can do.’ You’re very limited in other places,” Nick Jackson said. “All of our wrestlers are going to do a ton of stuff and we’re not going to limit them for what they can do and their abilities to do.”

Omega even added that they’ve been also studying their pay-per-views to make sure the talent isn’t leaning too hard on the same moves again and again. “For the first three shows or whatever, we had a couple of oversights where guys were doing too much of one thing or another or whatever, but now after the show we’ll always sit down and watch the show back and we’ll see, ‘Ah, I got to catch that next time. And oh, I got to catch that this time,'” Omega said. “Even last time, the Fight for the Fallen, we were more on top of our game.”

Fight for the Fallen was the last pay-per-view event AEW produced and it was one of the two events fans can still stream for free on B/R Live. So far, Khan couldn’t confirm if the weekly TNT shows would be available to stream for free, nor could he comment on the possibility that TNT’s parent company WarnerMedia might fold AEW content into its upcoming streaming service HBO Max. However, everyone could confirm that they see the Young Bucks’ YouTube channel, Being the Elite, as a key pillar of the company.

“What Nick does putting Being the Elite together every week and what Matt does both on and off the camera it’s so huge,” Khan said. “With Being the Elite you’ll see some of the most innovative stuff, but it’s going to be very different then the weekly TV show. But that’s by design and I want to keep it that way so you’ll have outlets to see different things.”

“I think the reason why Nick and I have had big successes is because we’re very self aware and we have that meta style. We’re in on the joke, right? If someone’s talking about us, we know they’re talking about it. We survey everything. We know everything. If people are talking, we’ve heard the talk. We’ve heard the chatter. And it’s better not to ignore the things. It’s better to at least address the elephant in the room and talk about it,” Matt Jackson said, adding he prefers to address fans via Being the Elite rather than Twitter.

“I think that’s the best way to comment on something like that is to do it through art like that, though,” he said. “Whereas so many people just take to a tweet. You could just look at a tweet and you could turn it and twist it ten different ways, right?”

The next two big dates for AEW will be August 31 and October 2. At the end of the month, the organization will put on All Out, its last pay-per-view event before they begin airing nationally.  “I know we are committed to doing pay-per-views, but not doing too many, doing the right amount,” Khan said. “Again we’re trying to follow up Double or Nothing with a great show on August 31st and live up to our pay-per-views being worth the money.” Then October 2, 2019 marks AEW’s big debut on TNT. Details about that inaugural show are still being hashed out, but it’s already been announced that the very first AEW Women’s Worlds Championship will be crowned then, confirming that AEW’s team are indeed betting big on their ladies. In fact, All Elite Wrestling is betting big all around and hoping that there’s space in the market for a weekly wrestling show that’s designed to be wrestler-friendly and wrestling fan-worthy.

[ericvick]

Indeed, Dorchester’s John King is Ireland’s latest household title

WICKLOW, Ireland — 1 of the issues that American people to Ireland are typically confounded by is the extent to which individuals below are steeped in and educated about politics 3,000 miles absent. The transatlantic ties sewn by emigration, family and, increasingly, company are mainly accountable. And Irish folks like their politics. Over the previous four several years, it has been with a combination of disbelief and horror that they have appeared on at the Trump administration.

Accordingly, they weren’t about to cease observing until eventually they understood, for sure, who would be inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2021. A man who is recognised all over the US and to persons across Massachusetts owing to his lengthy, stellar profession at CNN, but who is specially common to Dorchester natives and citizens since he grew up in St. Mark’s Parish, so made an amazing entrance on to Ireland’s collective radar screen: It is no overstatement to say that John King was the most listened to and trustworthy personal in this region in the days after Nov. 3. More on Ireland’s newest movie star momentarily.

Back in East Milton, wherever I grew up, it’s truthful to say that politics was invariably to the fore in our house. My father, one more Larry, was a fount of wisdom about the toughest enterprise of them all. He grew up in and close to it. I want he experienced stood for office himself.

His brother Brian was a Massachusetts condition agent from Dorchester who later on invested 7 terms in the United States House of Associates and served as ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago even though Monthly bill Clinton was president. Their uncles, Frank and John Kelly, had been Boston town councillors, with Frank afterwards serving as lieutenant governor and legal professional normal and operating unsuccessfully for governor. It is in the blood. A relevant undesirable routine I picked up from my Father at a younger age was incessantly hollering again at the tv and radio when politics and current affairs ended up currently being talked about. I’ve routinely assumed that “I know greater!” and have to get my two cents in. In reality, I was jealous of these who generate a residing from talking about what is my passion.

But Boston Irish legal professionals with a solid interest in politics and an affiliation to the Democratic Occasion are much more dime a dozen than diamond in the tough in the land of my beginning. A single of the quite a few unforeseen benefits of relocating to Eire nearly two decades ago, nonetheless, has been recognizing what has constantly been a desire and taking on what has morphed into a 2nd vocation for me: media punditry on the politics of the two sites I will endlessly think about home.

Given that 2008, it has been a privilege to evaluate the outcomes of US presidential elections as they arrive in on what is typically the first Tuesday in November on RTÉ, the countrywide broadcaster. Given the time change, it is an overnight shift. This calendar year, the protection was anchored by Caitríona Perry, who claimed on American politics brilliantly in her tenure as the network’s Washington correspondent and has composed two insightful publications on the election of Donald Trump and the influence of Irish The usa.

We had been joined by a lot of high profile attendees from the US, these kinds of as previous White House Chief of Stuff Mick Mulvaney, previous Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, previous New York Congressman Joe Crowley, and sitting down Philadelphia Congressman Brendan Boyle. Our live system wrapped up soon after 4 a.m., Irish time, when the outcome was not fully distinct, but the crucial indicators have been all pointing to a acquire for Joe Biden.

Then, many thanks to satellite technologies, a person who was brought up in a threedecker between Ashmont and Fields Corner arrived into sitting rooms in each and every metropolis, city, village, and rural location.

Irish men and women are accustomed to protracted election counts and couldn’t get plenty of of it as John King broke down the final results condition by condition and county by county, demonstrating a extensive expertise as he retained heading on almost no slumber and buckets of espresso. The “magic wall” of the US he and many others use at CNN took on a daily life of itself. And inevitably, the viewers had to obtain out: Could they assert him? The screenwriter of the strike comedy “Derry Girls” questioned if he was Irish in a tweet. King’s succinct reply – “Always”- sealed the offer. In a subsequent job interview with the much beloved Miriam O’Callaghan on her Sunday morning radio clearly show, King downplayed the multiple compliments available by the host and her listeners. Acquiring completed his research, he explained Miriam as Ireland’s Oprah.

He also spoke movingly about his family, in specific his late father Chris (who, coincidentally, was a Dorchester present-day and pal of my Dad’s) and his Connemara-born grandparents, as well as the beneficial lessons figured out in childhood that have remained with him. Like so several People prior to him, King is now preparing a stop by back again “home” to Galway to reunite with his cousins and get a fuller feeling of his roots.

He has mentioned that he seems ahead to a number of pints in Keogh’s in his ancestral village of Ballyconneely – so deep in the west of Eire that the up coming stop basically is Boston. He’ll have a rough time shopping for his personal, however.

In his generally specialist interaction of what actually transpired in Election 2020, John King received the rapt notice and sincere admiration of the Irish people today. He did his family and the community that formed him extremely very pleased.

Larry Donnelly is a Boston-born legal professional, a Regulation Lecturer at the Nationwide College of Eire, Galway and a typical Irish media contributor on politics, existing affairs and legislation on both sides of the Atlantic. He is on Twitter @LarryPDonnelly.

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[camploah]

Britain has an emigration problem. While we are obsessed with discussing the number of people coming into the country, we seem less bothered about the talent heading out of it. Meanwhile, the UK is losing some of its finest and funniest to America. And this isn’t just because the US is a bigger market to crack, but because there’s more opportunity – particularly if you’re a minority. Indeed, there’s a longstanding joke among black British entertainers that they’re all waiting for Lenny Henry to die to free up space for another dark face on TV. Perhaps a little perturbed by this, Henry has been critical of the lack of diversity at the BBC and warned that Britain is “haemorrhaging” black talent to the US.

Gina Yashere is a case in point. Born in east London to Nigerian parents, the 43-year-old comedian is now firmly ensconced Stateside. She has got an American girlfriend, a green card and a lovely house in Brooklyn where we’re chatting; a quintessentially New York brownstone with a front stoop and a bicycle chained outside. She also has a lot more primetime TV than she had back home.

Yashere began and built a successful comedy career in the UK, going from winning prestigious comedy contests to occasional appearances on The Lenny Henry Show and celebrity panel shows to headlining sold out gigs at the Brixton Academy and Hammersmith Apollo. The next step would have been getting her own TV show, which only a handful of black British comedians have been able to do. Besides Henry, Richard Blackwood had a show from 1999-2001 and Stephen K Amos had a brief run in 2010. And now there’s 29-year-old Michaela Coel, the creator and star of the hilarious E4 series Chewing Gum. However, 10 years ago, Yashere found herself stuck, unable to take her career any further if she stayed in Britain.

“I’ve definitely had a lot more opportunities given to me in America,” Yashere says. “I’ve sold three comedy specials in America.” These were to heavy-hitting channels: her special Skinny B*tch aired on Showtime, for example, and she sold Ticking Boxes, an hour-long performance filmed at Brixton Academy, to NBC-owned Seeso. Meanwhile, says Yashere: “I’ve never had any of my specials aired anywhere on British TV. If I’d sat in England waiting for someone to give me a TV show, I’d still be there, being the token black face on Mock the Week. That, to me, is a slap in the face.”

Comedian Gina Yashere speaks to Hannah Pool about her career in the UK and the US, and how attitudes to black Africans have changed in Britain since the 1970s Listen

There’s still a glass ceiling for black comics in America, Yashere says, but “at least when you hit [it] in America, you’re a multimillionaire so it’s not so painful”. Yashere says she isn’t at multimillionaire status yet, but she’s getting there. She’s been working in the US for a decade now and is on the verge of becoming a household name, recently landing a correspondent gig on The Daily Show, Trevor Noah’s late-night news satire programme on Comedy Central. She made her inaugural appearance on the show in March with a segment called Ask the Brexpert.

Brexperting on The Daily Show is a long way away from Yashere’s first job out of school as a lift engineer. Her mum wanted her to have a “proper job”, Yashere says, rather than be a “clown”. It certainly doesn’t sound as if lift-engineering was much of a laugh. As a lone black woman on a building site of more than 2,000 white men, Yashere stuck out, and not in a good way. “I was more qualified than most of the guys I was working with, which they hated. I’d come into work and there’d be a banana skin stuck to my overalls or a picture of a monkey on my coat.”

Eventually, Yashere took voluntary redundancy and decided to spend a summer trying out standup before looking for another engineering job. That other job never happened because it turned out that she was pretty good at the whole comedy thing. Within six months of doing standup, she came second in the 1996 Hackney Empire New Act of the Year, one of the most important comedy contests in the UK. That got her an appearance on Jonathan Ross’s The Big Big Talent show, and things built from there.

Some of her early success, Yashere believes, was a result of her being different. “I wasn’t like every other comedian at the time because I was coming from a different perspective. I was an outsider looking in. And I was even different from all the other black comics on the scene because a lot of them were of Caribbean origin and a lot of their jokes were poking fun at Africans. So I got my first taste of success quite quickly just from being different. It was taking it to the next level that was difficult.”

Yashere’s comedy tends to revolve around being a fish out of water, the tensions inherent in being born in London but having Nigerian roots, or a black Brit in America. “I used to get criticisms like: ‘All she talks about is being black,’” Yashere says. “No, I don’t. I talk about me. The fact that I’m a black woman is what you’re seeing. When Peter Kay talks about his northern roots and his family, nobody goes: ‘Peter Kay, all he talks about is being northern.’ As far as they’re concerned, it’s just another aspect of white culture. But when black comics talk about our culture, then it’s like: ‘Ugh, her being black again.’”

Worse, Yashere is sometimes not black enough for her critics. “There was one Guardian reviewer [she pauses to give me an accusatory look] who said: ‘She doesn’t delve deep enough in to the African experience.’ I was like: ‘What the fuck are you talking about? I’m from London. I’m talking about my experiences of being London-born, but of Nigerian heritage. How deep do I need to delve?’”

In the US, Yashere came up against a different set of stereotypes: America’s view of Brits is definitely more John Oliver than Gina Yashere. “I’d come on stage and open my mouth and people would be like, ‘What the fuck is this?…w Who is this?’” Yashere says. “Most Americans don’t know there’s black people in England. They’re starting to know now with people like Idris [Elba] and [the singer] Estelle, and all the actors doing really well and the musicians, but when I came out here in 2007 they had no idea.”

Yashere first moved to the US to appear on a TV show called Last Comic Standing. She was given a two-year work visa, but she knew she was there for the long run. She put her house on the market, sold or gave away everything she owned, and moved to Los Angeles with just two suitcases to her name. Within a couple of months she became the first British comedian to appear on Def Comedy Jam, the enormously successful HBO series that launched the careers of Chris Tucker and Dave Chappelle. She also made regular appearances on The Tonight Show.

Despite these successes, it took a while to build up a reputation and to adjust to life in the US. There’s the chocolate for one thing. As Yashere says: “American chocolate is fucking disgusting.” As is the US healthcare system. Shortly after Yashere moved to LA, she ended up in hospital for a night because of a Lupus flare-up. “They tried to charge me $15,000 [£11,500],” she says. “I was like: ‘I didn’t have an operation. How can you justify this? $15,000!’ So, I called them up and said: ‘I’m not paying this. I’m not from here and I will get on a plane and disappear. Then I heard the woman typing away on her computer and she said: ‘OK, if you pay $4,000 today, that’s the end of it. I’m like: ‘Are you fucking serious? This whole thing’s a scam.’ So that was my first major wake-up call to life in America.”

Americans don’t just have different healthcare to Britain, they have different notions of what’s funny. However, Yashere says she hasn’t really had to adjust her material. “My sense of humour has always been quite in-your-face. I haven’t got that quintessential dry British humour, so my style fits in quite well.” However, she does find she has to explain things. “A lot of Americans have never been outside America. So if I’m doing something about Malaysia, say, I have to explain where Malaysia is and what the culture is before I go into the joke.”

What are her current jokes about? Do they focus on recent political events? She shrugs. “I talk about a myriad of things. I talk about Trump a bit, I talk about the travel ban, I talk about pissing myself at McDonald’s seven feet from the toilet. Yeah, I had an accident a few weeks ago. Basically anything that happens to me is new material. I went to a restaurant, drank half a litre of water, then tried to get home on the subway and wanted to get to the bathroom. Get to McDonald’s where you can’t go to the bathroom unless you buy a burger. So I pissed myself in the middle of McDonald’s. It’s the most embarrassing thing, but yet ...” But yet, whether it’s racism or restroom mishaps, everything is material. And if Yashere has anything to do with it then it’s material that will likely have you wetting yourself with laughter. Just, hopefully, not in a McDonald’s.

Gina Yashere: Laugh Riot 2.0 (Send in the Clown) is at the Underbelly festival, Southbank, London, 23-25 June

[hedgehog-goulash7]

Pay Attention: Here’s How You Fight Back Under Trump

It’s tempting to boycott the inauguration and change the channel whenever Trump’s on TV.

But we can’t afford to look away any more.

By Erin Gloria Ryan, THE DAILY BEAST

01.19.17 12:03 PM ET

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/19/pay-attention-liberals-here-s-how-you-fight-back-under-trump.html

Humans naturally have an aversion to pain. Sometimes this is helpful. A child learns that sticking their finger in the dog’s food bowl results in a nip. A teenager tries to weasel out of a missed curfew only to learn that their parents have many years more experience lying than they do. An adult learns that spending a day shopping for Ikea furniture with a new lover will result in strife.

Other avoidant behavior isn’t as useful. Not checking one’s bank account balance after a blockbuster weekend, for example, could result in an embarrassing surprise when one’s card is declined. Not visiting your nursing home-bound grandfather out of fear that facing his failing health will shake you could lead to the sort of regret that eats you alive on the inside. Not paying attention to the exact way a creepy used car dealer is trying to screw you over could lead to a whole universe of stress headaches.

On Friday, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. He’ll make history in a number of ways—he has no public service experience, he lost the popular vote by 3 million, and he’s got the lowest approval rating of any president-elect ever. And, while I don’t have the official stats on this, I’m pretty sure he’ll be the first president with a piss-related sexual scandal before he even takes office. At least in my lifetime.

Donald Trump rose to fame on a reputation as being a guy who screws, in the literal and figurative sense. He screwed his way through Manhattan, if the New York City tabloids of the 1980’s are to be believed. He screwed his first wife, figuratively, by screwing his second wife, literally. He would go on to screw his second wife, figuratively, and the child they had together, whom he seems to forget exists from time to time. In the meantime, he was screwing his casino employees, his contractors, his business partners. He was bragging about how adept a screwer he was to Howard Stern, to Billy Bush, to the cast and crew of The Apprentice. Nothing he’s done since declaring himself a candidate for president, save for the face he made when he walked onstage at Trump Tower after election night, hasn’t been screwy.

Trump’s managed to offend or upset nearly every non-fat-white-guy demographic during his nascent political career. Mexicans, the press, Muslims, women, Meryl Streep, black people, Buzzfeed employees, Megyn Kelly, deaf people, Nevadans. His brand of nationalist barking is both noisy and intellectually incoherent, offensive to the ears and brain. It makes sense that people who prefer to surround themselves with that which is beautiful and joyful would turn away from Trump. It makes sense that a person would reach for the remote when he appears on the nightly news. It’s perfectly normal to want to flip past the front page of the paper or scroll past a news story about what the new President is up to.

Turns out, liberals and progressives have been changing the channel when political unpleasantness reared its head for years. While this country’s liberals were busy gif’ing the POTUS pretending to brush his shoulders off, an alarming number of statehouses and governor’s mansions went to Republicans. A Republican congress gerrymandered the House out of contention until at least 2020, maybe longer. Democrats lost the Senate. While some were rolling their eyes at Trump tweets, smugly confident that Hillary would glide into the Oval Office, Trump voters were sharing bogus news stories and viral talking-head Facebook rants and heading to the polls, riled up.

It seems that liberals didn’t grasp until it was too late that being funnier, or cooler, or smarter, or having more famous friends isn’t taken into account in tabulating the electoral college totals. Votes don’t count more or less depending on whether or not the person casting it did so for a terrible reason. A woman in Michigan who dutifully learned the positions of both candidates and cast her ballot carefully can have her vote canceled out by a man who just doesn’t like Hillary Clinton’s face. An acrid comeback on Twitter doesn’t cancel any votes. Lena Dunham doesn’t need to star in any more outreach videos about abortion.

If liberals are so smart, then why were the people some would deride as denizens of flyover country able to outsmart us, over and over? Why have they been able to use that power to disenfranchise voters, making it even more difficult for the left to regain lost territory? We’re pretty damn smug for people who keep losing.

In the years leading up to Trump Year Zero, those who were empowered to put a stop to the events already in motion were not paying attention. Or, at least, they weren’t paying attention to the right things. While banishing bad thoughts is a relief in the short-term, problems don’t go away if you pretend they don’t exist. An illness, for example, won’t get better if you just ignore it. Bills don’t get smaller if you simply don’t pay them. Leaving on vacation and never checking in on your house isn’t a good way to keep it from being robbed. Unless we start paying attention en masse to the ugly, unpleasant aspects of Donald Trump, it’s only going to get worse. We no longer have the luxury of avoidance. From this point forward, it’s a dissenter’s patriotic duty to face whatever pain Trump’s words and actions cause. Do not retreat into comfort. Those who oppose Trump need to know enough about what is going on to speak up against it when it crosses a line.

Trump’s power comes from being able to pull a fast one on the public by disappearing into a cloud of bullshit every time something singularly damaging surfaces. Don’t let the volume of distractions minimize their severity. Russian influence in American politics, the new Justice Department, the deficit, access to health care, and Trump’s nominees for cabinet posts are all issues that deserve unrelenting attention from the general public. It doesn’t matter if he was pretending to write a speech at a reception desk at Mar-a-Lago. It’s funny, but we’ve spent the last 8 years laughing when we should have been listening.

Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t change the channel. Trump’s lack of palatability was an asset, and it will continue to be an asset as long as it can convince people who should be working against him to stop keeping abreast to the facts. Don’t let him force you to stop listening. Don’t let a person who has spent a career screwing business and personal contacts screw the whole country.

If the next four years are going to be a fight, you can’t depend on anybody to fight for you but you. Watch the entire inauguration. And watch the hearings of Trump’s cabinet nominees. And read the newspaper. And call your representative. And talk to your neighbors. And run for office. And don’t forget why you care. Force yourself. Don’t let the pain of the way Donald Trump pronounces “China” distract you. The time to look away has ended.

[themomsandthecity]

Your Hate Toward Donald Trump Should Not Be Directed at His 10-Year-Old Son

I can easily think back to when I was 10 years old, riding my bike around the neighborhood with my friends, rushing to the family TV to watch Disney Channel Original Movies every night at 8 p.m., going to the local Friendly's to celebrate soccer team wins and friends' birthdays. Being 10 is pretty simple, unless you're the 10-year-old son of the current president of the United States. I'll lead with a disclaimer: I am not a fan of Trump. I will probably never be a fan of Trump. I despise all things that have to do with Donald J. Trump, including but not limited to his policies, opinions, and Twitter sh*t storms. But I need to defend his son right now, because as awful as Trump may be at doing the right thing, I try to be a good person, as should you if you believe in making the world a better place right now. Katie Rich, a writer on Saturday Night Live, took what I presume to be frustrations towards our nation's new leader, and channeled those feelings into a tweet directed at the young boy. Let's just say the fact that she's a grown woman who couldn't see that her comment was hateful before hitting "share" made me a little ashamed of my love for SNL. #SNL Writer Deletes Tweet Saying Barron Trump Will be America's 'First Homeschool Shooter' https://t.co/d4yDGbfSwp pic.twitter.com/SPuEn5nUTU - Mediaite (@Mediaite) January 21, 2017 When I saw other media outlets covering this comment - as well as countless other tweets with horrible anecdotes about Barron - I immediately felt nauseated and cringed away from my phone. This is a hard time for America. People are hurting, people are angry, and people are bolder than they've ever been. And even though we all like to claim that peace is the answer, some people have been far from peaceful in their actions and speech. Including, but definitely not limited to, Katie Rich. Let's get one thing straight here, people. It does not, I repeat, DOES NOT, matter what you think or feel about Donald Trump - it's never OK to go after an innocent young boy, especially one who has been forced into the public eye from the day of his birth due to his parentage. It's never OK to go after an innocent young boy, especially one who has been forced into the public eye from the day of his birth due to his parentage. My heart physically hurts for Barron. Although I'm not a mother yet, when I read these tweets I immediately thought about the young people in my life - my cousin, who hasn't yet celebrated her first birthday, and the children I used to nanny, who are just 5 and 2 and can't possibly understand the true climate of the nation. If anyone were to treat my babies the way Barron has been treated, I'm not even sure what my first action after uncontrollable weeping would be. Seeing grown adults who are upset about the state of our nation take out their anger on Barron is disturbing, to say the least. Barron is just a boy. A boy who may be the age of your child right now. A boy who should be riding around on his bike with his friends or celebrating a soccer team win with a hot fudge sundae. A boy who didn't ask for any of the publicity he's receiving, but is forced to put on a suit like an adult and stand in front of cameras as the son of the president of the United States, having his every move dissected and criticized. Whether you're a parent or not, try to put your child, real or imaginary, in Barron's shoes. Think about how it would feel to have someone openly say that your 10-year-old child "looks like a date rapist-to-be" (one of the disgusting comments made about Barron on Twitter by a Comedy Central writer). Social media has given our mean comments, which wouldn't normally be more than just fleeting thoughts or sly comments to our friends, a place to live and thrive without causing us to feel that immediate sense of guilt that comes with insulting someone to their face. The ability to share these unfiltered thoughts at such a rapid speed is causing us to skip the part where we think about the consequences of our actions. No matter how you feel today, tomorrow, or at any point in the next four years, I am begging you: if you must make hateful comments (which an alarming number of us are guilty of if we're being honest with ourselves), please do not direct them at this child. He's likely having a hard enough time with all this as it is without someone making a 140-character joke about him probably "looking for stuff to burn in the White House." Be an adult, be the bigger person, be the one to tell your friends to cool it when they're not "going high." It's what Barack, Michelle, and Hillary would want you to do. Related: What Do We Tell Our Children About Trump's Presidency? Trump's Inauguration Should Be Required Viewing For Every Child in America What Our Kids Need to Learn From Trump Now That He's President http://bit.ly/2iWwUny

[marymosley]

Role of Print and Electronic Media in Indian Politics

  “the basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them.”

-Thomas Jefferson

  INTRODUCTION

The media in India has an extensive history, even lengthier than the history of democracy in India. Traversing from the expatriate past in the latter half of the 18th century, to the present as ‘the largest operational democracy’ in the 21st century. A more than two-century-old media began its momentous journey as a private enterprise maintained by an Englishman during British East India Company’s rule. It progressively, grew and developed, as both private and public institution, publishing news and opinions in the notice of then colonial subjects to the free people of democratic India. First, in the family of the mass media, the print media remained primarily in the hands of private individuals or groups and the broadcast and telecast media which came into being very late have had its origin during the British raj and in independent India. The demand to end the monopoly of government over broadcast and telecast media became a reality only when the paradigm change arrived in the government economic policy in the early 1990s. The policy of liberalisation inaugurated a new chapter in the history of the mass media in India. Several path-breaking changes took place in the structures and functioning of government-controlled media, as well as the private sector owned media, namely, termination of the monopoly of government over electronic media, comparative independence to government-controlled electronic media, growing privatisation in the area of electronic media, competition among media houses and organisations, commercialisation of the media, shifting the attention of matters from common man to middle and higher classes, and from rural India to urban and cosmopolitan India.

  CONSTITUTIONAL STATUS OF PRESS/MEDIA IN INDIA

The question aroused before the constitutional makers of India, whether to have a separate provision for press like in the Constitution of America or to add the freedom of the press in right to speech and expression as in the Constitution of England.

Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the Chairman of the Drafting committee strongly reasoned that the press is simply an alternate mode of describing a citizen or an individual. The media has no greater privileges which are not to be given or which are not to be implemented by the voter in his distinct capacity. The supervisory of the press or the editor are all citizens and therefore when they select to write in a newspaper they are just exercising their right of freedom of speech and expression and in my decision then no distinct mention is necessary of the freedom of the press at all[1]. Therefore in the Indian constitution, the right to press was inserted in freedom of speech and expression i.e., Article 19(1)(a). A free press is the need for democracy and is more significant for the gigantic democratic country like India. In India in the absence of any exact article in the constitution for the free press, it was the judiciary who endorsed and protected the independence of the press.

  ROLE OF INDIAN JUDICIARY IN PROTECTING THE INDEPENDENCE OF PRESS/MEDIA

Hon’ble Supreme Court in Romesh Thapar V. State of Madras[2]  has confirmed that right to circulation is as vital as the right to publication. In Sakal News Papers v. Union of India[3] incidental efforts were made by the Government to control the freedom, by passing the Newspaper (Price and Pages) Act 1956, which approved the government to control the space for advertisement, which was, later on,, struck down by judiciary as it would have a straight bearing on circulation.

ROLE OF JUDICIARY IN RESTRICTING FREEDOM OF PRESS/MEDIA

In India, the judiciary safeguarded the rights of the press as well as controlled it in the interest of justice. The Hon’ble Supreme Court in State of Bihar v. Shailabala Devi[4]  stated that speeches and expression on the part of an individual which aggravate or enhance the unruly crimes such as murder, etc. will weaken the security of the nation. The court in the case of Dr D.C. Saxena v. Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India[5] alleged if safeguarding of democracy is the substance for free speech, society equally is certified to regulate freedom of speech or expression through democratic action. The cause is obvious, e.g., that society assents free speech and expression and also puts limitations on the right of the majority.

  ROLE AND IMPORTANCE OF MEDIA

Anything without a mouth is useless, similarly, a democracy without an independent media is obsolete. Media educates, entertains and spreads awareness among the people by disseminating the information. If media is evacuated from this juncture the system will suddenly collapse down without any rest. Media is the most important tool in the hands of democracy for its smooth functioning. It works as a bridge between the people and government and if the bridge collapses there will be no communication between the citizen and its government. With the help of different print and electronic media, different political parties are getting connected with nooks and corners of the state and county within no time. At the time of the election the ideas and agendas of different political parties can be shared with the citizens and also accurate responses can be gathered by these political parties by utilising these different form of mass media. The projects and programs of different ministries of the government can be shared with its citizen in a flash. The most important role of media is to spread awareness and to provide citizens knowledge about their representatives. Media and politics are the heart and soul of the democracy and without one, the other is of no use. Proper use of media with reference to politics can strengthen democracy and the well-being of our country.

Many acts have been enacted in order to regulate media especially regarding the transmission of data, broadcasting rights, etc. and avoid misuse of this powerful tool. These acts, rules, regulations, etc. not only regulate the print media but also the electronic media. Special rules are also framed by the Election Commission of India to curb misuse of media by different political parties. Some major rules relating to political advertisements and paid news in print and electronic media are discussed below.

  CERTIFICATION OF POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENTS & PAID NEWS

Gist of Instructions

1. Certification of Political Advertisements

·         The Hon’ble Supreme Court’s Order dated 13th April 2004 on certification of political advertisements on TV Channel and Cable Network.

(a) The Supreme Court of India in Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Vs M/s Gemini TV Pvt. Ltd. and others[6] passed an order on 13th April 2004, that all the political advertisements proposed to be aired on TV Channels and Cable Networks by any registered political party/any group or organization/ association/individual shall be pre certified by the designated certification committee. Consequent upon the Supreme Court judgment, the Election Commission issued an order to the CEOs of all the States/UTs to constitute such committees.

  ·         Applicability of provision of pre-certification of political advertisements

The order of the Supreme Court of India dated 13th April 2004 provides in specific and unambiguous terms that its directions would be applicable in the whole territory of India at all times and not restricted only during the period commencing from the date of announcement of the election and till the completion of the election process.

·         Certification of a political advertisement on TV Channels & cable TV Network – Extension to Radio and Cinema Halls.

 Election Commission in consequent upon the amendment in Code for Commercial advertisements on radio, has issued an order that the Committees set to scrutinize political advertisements on TV channels/Cable Networks, will also deal with the political advertisements in cinema halls and on Radio including the private FM Channels

  ·         Audio-visual displays of political advertisement at a public place

Audio-visual displays of political advertisement/campaign material in public places should require certification under the existing orders of the Commission by the designated committee.

  ·         Use of bulk text messages / audio messages in political campaigning

Use of bulk text messages / audio messages in political campaigning should also require certification under the existing orders of the Commission to be done by the designated committee

  ·         Direction by Commission to constitute State level & District level Media Certification and Monitoring Committees (MCMC)

The Commission has directed CEOs of all the States/UTs to constitute MCMC at state and district level, to monitor paid news instances in media. RO of Parliamentary Constituency may co-opt as many members to assist him in the certification of political advertisements so as to have a wider opinion and equal representation from all the districts in the matter of certification.

  ·         Application for certification of Political advertisement by State unit of any National/State party and certification of political advertisement in multiple languages and the regional language of any National Party/State Party having headquarter in Delhi.

(a) As per the above-referred order dated 15th April 2004, the committee set up in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Delhi is to deal with applications of all political parties having headquarters in Delhi. The Commission wide its letter dated 18th March 2009, clarified that the applications from State units of the National parties may be submitted to the committee in the States concerned. However, the applications from the central office of the National and State parties with headquarters in Delhi will continue to be scrutinized by the committee in Delhi.

(b) If the Central Office of any of the National Parties or the State Parties with headquarters in Delhi seeks certification of the same advertisement in multiple languages (Hindi/English and in regional languages), the advertisement material in each of the languages along with certified transcripts should be submitted to the committee in the office of the CEO, Delhi.

(c) In the cases where registered political parties/ group/ organization/ association, do not have their headquarter in NCT of Delhi but wish to telecast/broadcast their advertisement in Delhi, certification of advertisement should be deliberated by the MCMC in the State in which the party is standing for election.

(d) State parties who also wish to contest elections outside that state where their headquarter is located, they may seek certification of such advertisement from the Committee in the office of CEO Delhi (Page No. 62) It is further clarified that Chief Electoral Officers of States/ UTs may accept and pre-certify the advertisements from any political parties irrespective of the location of their headquarter, provided they have the language competency to do so.

·         Timeline for delivering the decision on the applications of pre-certification of political advertisements.

The Commission vide its letter dated 10th March 2016 clarified that the State and District MCMC shall deliver the decision on the applications of pre-certification of political advertisements within two days of receipt of application.

  ·         Inclusion of a social media expert in the MCMC

The Commission vide its letter dated 25th February, 2019 has instructed for the inclusion of an intermediary expert (intermediary as defined in section 2(w) of IT Act 2000)/ social media expert in Media Certification and Monitoring Committee at the state and district level.

  ·      Pre-certification of Political Advertisements in Print Media on the poll day and one day prior to poll day

During the General Election to Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies, 2019 the Commission, in exercise of its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution and all other powers enabling it in this behalf, on 6th April 2019 has directed that no political advertisements by Political Party or Candidate or any other Organization or Person shall be published in the print media on the poll day and one day prior to the poll day in all the phases, without pre-certification from the MCMC Committee.

This decision was first taken during Bihar Assembly Elections 2015 to ensure that instances of advertisements of offending and misleading nature published in print media during the last stage of an election do not vitiate the election process

2. Paid News

The Election Commission has accepted the definition given by Press Council of India with regards to paid news which states that any news or analysis appearing in any media either Print or Electronic acquired for a price in cash or kind as consideration.

  ·         Commission’s proposal for the amendment in Representation of the People Act, 1951 to make Paid News an electoral offence.

The Commission vide its letter dated 3rd February 2019 on two occasions has proposed to the Ministry of Law & Justice, Govt. of India for an amendment in the Representation of the People Act, 1951, to provide the rein that publishing and abetting the publishing of paid news in order to further the prospect of election of any candidate or for prejudicially affecting the prospect of election of any candidate is made an electoral offence.

  ·         Declaration of name and address of publisher and printer on any printed pamphlet, handbills and other documents

It has been clarified that legal provisions under Sec. 127A of the R. P. Act, 1951 makes it obligatory for the publisher of an election advertisement, pamphlet, etc. to print the name and address of the editor, publisher and printer and failure to do so attracts penalty of imprisonment. Section 171 H of the Indian Penal Code prohibits incurring of expenditure on an advertisement without the authority of the contesting candidate including the declared or specified release as advertisement introduced in the newspaper, etc., and release of the amount paid for such advertisements.

  ·         Notional expenditure of paid news will be included in the candidate’s election expenses account in accordance with the standard rate cards of media houses.

In order to bring uniformity in dealing with paid news and advertisements on TV/cable TV network owned by political parties or their functionaries/ office bearers, the Commission has directed the CEOs that six months before the due date of expiry of Lok Sabha or the State/UT Legislative Assembly, as the case may be, a list of television channels/radio channels/ newspapers, broadcasting/ circulating in the State/UT and their standard rate cards shall be obtained by the CEOs and forwarded to the Commission.

  ·         Committee at Election Commission of India level to examine paid news

A Committee at ECI level should be constituted to examine references received from State level MCMC and to recommend and examine references directly received in the Commission

  ·         Commission’s complete guidelines on paid news – 27.08.2012

The Commission has issued complete guidelines to the CEOs of all the States/UTs which states that the District level Committee will scrutinize all newspapers and electronic media in the District, in order to locate political advertisement under the shadow of news coverage. In case of Paid News noticed by the committee, the candidate will be served due notice which he has to reply within 48 hours of serving of notice.

  ·         Paid News reporting formats for CEOs

The Commission has developed two formats for the Chief Electoral Officers, to inform the paid news cases to the Commission. CEOs have to submit a weekly report in Format 1 from the date of filing nominations and a final detailed report in Format 2 of all the confirmed cases of paid news.

  ·         Time period for determining paid news cases

With reference to Section 77(1) of Representation of the People Act, 1951 it is clarified that paid news cases may be taken into account from the date of filing of nomination by the candidate.

  ·           Guidelines – candidates’ advertisements on Newspaper/ TV/ Cable channels/Radio owned by political parties

New provision has been introduced in Election Expenditure Statement (Schedule 4A of Annexure-15 of Compendium of Instruction on Election Expenditure Monitoring) of the candidates for including the expenses on candidates’ advertisements on press and media owned by political parties or their functionaries.

The Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) shall keep a close watch on the contents telecast on such channels to identify contents of the nature mentioned above, and after following all due procedures, the notional expenses as per standard rate cards of the channel shall be added in the election expenditure account of the candidate appropriately, even if, they actually do not pay any amount to channel/newspaper.

  ·         Publicizing the confirmed cases of paid news on CEO’s website as a measure to check its spread during elections.

Election Commission vide its letter dated 4th June 2019 reiterated to all the Chief Electoral Officers to publish the names of candidates (and not the media house) against whom the cases of Paid News have been established on their websites

  ·         Press Council of India (PCI) and News Broadcasters Association (NBA) to take action against print media and electronic media involved in paid news

In the established cases of Paid News names of involved print media and electronic media are forwarded to Press Council of India (PCI) and News Broadcasters Association (NBA) respectively for necessary action.

  CONCLUSION

The practice of paid news or surrogate political advertising is not limited to election campaigns. Though it is not something new for the country, the enormity of its spread and the manner in which it is being institutionalized is causing much concern among journalists and the professional bodies, not least the political parties and the government. Nevertheless, guidelines can be worked out to increase transparency and improve monitoring of the electoral process and general political issues.

There is a need to have uniform regulations and guidelines for both public and private as well as print and electronic media to ensure a level playing field for all parties and candidates during campaigning. A single initiative or measure cannot improve the situation. A combination of efforts is required to install a system of “checks and balances”. This includes self-regulation by the media itself and guidelines from professional bodies such as academics, independent researchers, civil society groups and regulatory agencies like the Press Council of India, the Information Commission, the Election Commission of India and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

    Bibliography

·         The Jefferson Monticello, Jefferson Quotes, Paris, January 16, 1787, http://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/1289 (last visited on 14.07.2020)

·         HussainMdBajlun Noor.2018, the Role and Importance of Media in Indian Politics. Int J Recent Sci Res. 9(1), pp. 23451-23454. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24327/ijrsr.2018.0901.1472

·         Sadashivam, T. (2019). Role of Social Media in Indian General Election of 2019.

·         Election Commission of India, www.eci.gov.in (last visited on 14.07.2020)

·         Election Commission of India, Compendium of Instructions on Media Related Matters, January 2020, Document 14 – Edition 3

·         Shodhganga, Chapter 1: Media in India – Raj to Swaraj http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/27658/9/09_chapter%201.pdf (last visited 14.07.2020)

·         Asia-Pacific Institute of Broadcasting Development, Elections in India: The changing interface between media and politics, https://www.aibd.org.my/node/1219 (last visited on 14.07.2020)

      [1] Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. VII p 780 (2nd December 1948)

[2] AIR 1950 SC 124

[3] AIR 1962 SC 305

[4] AIR 1952 SC 329

[5] (1996) 5 SCC 216

[6] SLP (C) No. 6679 of 2004

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[bentonpena]

How to get famous online, according to an ex-YouTube exec who interviewed 45 YouTubers with millions of followers

How to get famous online, according to an ex-YouTube exec who interviewed 45 YouTubers with millions of followers http://bit.ly/2TyIVRk

Ex-YouTube strategist Will Eagle gave us his biggest tips on becoming famous online, ahead of the release of his new book next month. 

He shares advice from some of the people behind some of the biggest YouTube channels in the world, including Bad Lip Reading, The King of Random and How To Cake It. 

Eagle told Business Insider how he learned that being a YouTuber was "genuinely hard work", saying that the most successful vloggers are the ones who stick at it. 

Click here for more BI Prime stories. 

Becoming a YouTuber is, for some kids, a career aspiration.

Luckily for next-generation PewDiePies, a former YouTube strategist has revealed his hottest tips for going viral online, gathering advice from 45 of the platform's biggest stars.

Will Eagle is a Brit who headed up the company's brand strategy in California until last year.

In his upcoming book, "Read This If You Want to be YouTube Famous", Eagle shares advice from some of the firm's biggest channels, including Bad Lip Reading and How To Cake It, which boast close to 12 million subscribers between them. 

Eagle's new book is set to be released on February 4 and can be pre-ordered here.

We got our hands on some exclusive extracts below, featuring advice from channels with millions of followers including Bad Lip Reading, How to Cake It and Molly Burke: 

1. The Icing Artist, 4 million subscribers: 'Test everything.'

Eagle said one of the most interesting contributions to his book came from Laurie Shannon, the woman behind The Icing Artist, a dessert-making channel with almost 4 million subscribers. 

"I really liked Laurie's advice, which was basically 'Test everything'," he said. "She had been making videos for years and then, out of nowhere, one of them just took off. Suddenly she went from 800,000 subs to 2.5 million in 18 months. She was tenacious enough to keep going and make it work." 

2. Bad Lip Reading, 7.4 million subscribers: 'Please yourself first.'

Bad Lip Reading, launched in 2011, is a comedy YouTube channel which intentionally dubs video clips with incorrect lip reading, for comedy effect.

Whoever runs BLR has remained anonymous for the past decade – all while accruing more than 7 million subscribers. 

Its biggest hits include "SEAGULLS! (Stop It Now)", a musical interpretation of Star Wars movie "The Empire Strikes Back", and a bad lip reading of Barack Obama's 2013 inauguration. So what is the hitmaker's first tip for becoming 'YouTube famous'? 

"The best advice I can give is: 'Please yourself first.'

"You can't appeal to everyone, so focus on making content that you yourself respond to, and trust that like-minded people will find it. The few times I've made content for other reasons, the results have been mixed.

"I live for those moments when I realize that even if everybody on the planet hated what I'm working on, my satisfaction wouldn't be affected. I've had a few videos that didn't perform that well, but which I'm proud of.

"That satisfaction pushes me to make videos that are more successful. Let the joy you feel during the execution be most of your reward." 

3. How to Cake It, 4 million subscribers: 'Attract attention immediately.'

How To Cake It, originally conceived as a reality TV show, posts new videos to YouTube every Tuesday – with its most popular clip receiving more than 11 million views to date. 

Founded by a trio of Toronto natives, Yolanda Gampp, Connie Contardi and Jocelyn Mercer, HTCI shows viewers how to make cakes in the shape of other objects, such as a haunted house, a 10-pound red lobster or a bottle of champagne. 

They advise wannabe YouTubers to make sure they can keep eyeballs on the screen. 

"In the first five seconds you've got to attract the viewer's attention.

"We show close-ups of our cakes to grab people right out of the gate, rather than taking 30 seconds slowly getting into the video. Sometimes the cake doesn't even look as though it could possibly be a cake.

"It's like, 'You wanna see a cake that looks like a human heart? Sure you do.'

"A strong visual is a huge advantage if you want to capture attention and encourage people to stick around and watch more, so find the image that will help you to attract attention immediately." 

4. Molly Burke, 1.95 million subscribers: 'Don't post your first 15 videos.'

Molly Burke, 25, is a well-known YouTube personality and motivational speaker from Toronto. 

Having lost most of her vision at 14, Burke has become an advocate for disability rights, and much of her content focuses on her experiences with blindness, as well as fashion, makeup advice, and videos about her daily life. 

Since launching her channel in 2014, Burke has amassed close to 2 million subscribers. Her advice? 

"Don't post your first 15 videos," she says. 

"Seriously. You'll thank me later. You think you change, but it's really just that you become yourself.

"When you sit down in front of your camera for the first time, it's awkward. The real you will come out later, when you're more comfortable, so film a ton of videos, start creating your style and feeling more comfortable without posting them.

"When you finally post, the videos will be more you than those you initially made.

"Every creator I've said this to said they wished they had done it, so don't post your first 15 videos. For real." 

5. Realize that being a YouTuber is really, really hard work.

After interviewing almost 50 YouTube stars, Eagle said one of his biggest realizations was that being a YouTuber is "genuinely hard work". 

He said: "I think people have a tendency to underestimate it. Vloggers often look like they're just hanging out, having fun or whatever – and I'm sure most of them are enjoying themselves. But there is always a process at work. They will have thought about what their audience wants and how best to fulfill that need." 

Tech via SAI http://bit.ly/2ZZpEbV January 17, 2020 at 05:02AM

[chestnutpost]

Amber Tamblyn Is Done Asking Powerful Men For Permission

This post was originally published on this site

Three-quarters of the way through my interview with actress, author and activist Amber Tamblyn, I realize she’s in the back of a taxi. We’ve been talking about the 2020 election, white womanhood, the memories of sexual abuse dredged up by a president who has openly bragged about sexual assault, and, of course, her new book Era of Ignition. All this is to say that the man driving Tamblyn through Manhattan has just received a surprise crash course in intersectional feminism.

“You have a good day,” I hear her say to the driver as she slides out of the car. “Thank you for listening to my feminist conversation.”

After the door slams, she returns to that feminist conversation with a wry laugh: “I’m like, sir, you just got all of that for free. All of that, I just taught you. You’re welcome.”

Tamblyn has been in the entertainment business since she was very young. She first appeared on both the big and small screens in 1995, in “Live Nude Girls” as a young version of Dana Delany’s character, and on “General Hospital,” a gig that lasted six years. But she really became a recognizable face after 2005’s “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” in which she played beloved teen lit character Tibby Rollins. She also booked the title role in the TV show “Joan of Arcadia,” which ran from 2003 to 2005 and for which she received Golden Globe and Emmy nominations. All of this happened before Tamblyn turned 23.  

L. Cohen via Getty Images Alexis Bledel, Blake Lively, America Ferrera and Amber Tamblyn during the premiere after-party for “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.”

As Tamblyn describes it in her book, “while other teenagers were going to school to get an education, I was going to a film studio to play a heroin addicted former model whose mother had died of cancer.”

Now, at age 35, Tamblyn exudes a different kind of hard-won confidence. She’s not here to cater to the desires of men ― not in her personal life and certainly not in her professional one. After Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss and a campaign that Tamblyn had been heavily involved in, she decided she was done “feeling secondary to the creative expansion of men in the entertainment business.” 

“The only thing I had ever known how to do was channel someone else’s art, someone else’s muse, live someone else’s life,” Tamblyn writes of her experiences as a young actress.

Era of Ignition is half memoir, half activist manifesto. Tamblyn offers personal stories about her career, her political activism, her relationship with her husband David Cross, and motherhood, woven together with statistics and explicit calls to action. She discusses what it means as a white woman to be in solidarity with women of color, and does not shy away from pointing out where we white ladies have gone wrong, both historically (e.g. the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave white women suffrage) and today (e.g. every time a white woman gets immediately defensive when their blind spots are challenged). Tamblyn asks us ― and herself ― to do better. She even includes a five-point Male Ally Manifesto, which instructs men to “listen more than you assert.” (Solid advice.)

Like so many women and nonbinary people in this country, Tamblyn is angry, and this book is her answer to that anger.

“What do we do with with those feelings?” Tamblyn said when we spoke on the phone last week. She immediately answered her own question: “What has been happening in the last two years is exactly what we do with it. And that is the ignition.”

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

You write about the United States being in the midst of what you call a “crisis of character.” What is that crisis of character, and how did your own period of self-reflection and reinvention dovetail with this national moment?

Well, I don’t think it was a coincidence that these two things sort of happened at the same time. I think the nation is having this existential crisis and trying to figure out who we are and what our values are, but also what we will stand for and what we really won’t tolerate anymore. And I think that people are feeling that both in a big cultural way, but also in a very personal way. I’m sure [for] you, even as a writer, the last two years have probably been insane. Am I wrong? 

The nation is having this existential crisis and trying to figure out… what we will stand for and what we really won’t tolerate anymore. Amber Tamblyn

[laughs] No, you are not.

So you know what I’m saying? Every decade or so, there is this condensed momentum. And I think we’re in one of those big ones right now. I’m not sure that without that [momentum], my own [personal] revelations would have been able to ― not just come to light ― but for me to really be able to act on them and to say, here are the things I’m going to change. Here are the things that matter to me. This is how I want to live my life. I don’t want a limit based on how people have always perceived me. I want to live it based on my own value and my own power.

I was reading Rebecca Traister’s book Good and Mad when it came out last year, and it was so inspirational because Era of Ignition was almost done. And I was like, this is so great because it’s an informational tool about the history, current and past of women’s anger. But what do we do with the anger? What do we do with with those feelings? And what has been happening in the last two years is exactly what we do with it. And that is the ignition.

You write in the book about your experience of being at the Javits Center [in New York] with the Hillary Clinton campaign on election night in 2016, being in D.C. on Inauguration Day ―

Oh, the worst!

― and for the Women’s March. I was struck by that section because I was also at Javits, and you and I were actually together on Inauguration Day. You were on a panel that I moderated.

Oh my God, how did we get through that?

Kevin Mazur via Getty Images Amber Tamblyn, left, with Amy Schumer and others at the 2017 Women’s March on Washington.

I was glad to have a distraction that day. But I know that those moments had a profound impact on me. And I’m wondering if living through those very intense days impacted your personal journey.

I know [people might] be like, “Get over it, the election was two years ago.” But I can’t. When I look at it, I think a lot of the inspiration for the rage that we feel, whether you loved [Clinton] or not, whether you thought she was an awful person or not, it cannot be denied. The negative mythologizing of Hillary Clinton as this monstrous creature, as a war criminal, as somebody that was just bordering on some sci-fi novel, it played into women’s rage and into, I think, why so many women are running [for president] and why so many women also ran for Congress and won.

Every woman, whether or not they were running for high office, has experienced what she went through, at their level, in their own personal life. And that is what made me feel like I was finished with asking for certain types of permission anymore, and finished with feeling secondary to the creative expansion of men in the entertainment business.

And I assume that was like a particularly acute feeling given that you were involved with the Clinton campaign, not just in 2016 but in 2008. It sounds like that was both a completely profound experience and also a really, really deeply painful one. Do you feel like you would throw yourself into a campaign in 2020?

I don’t know. I will say, I am very inspired and thrilled to see the unprecedented number of women who are running, and I believe that a woman will be the next president. I’m not going to do anything until the primaries [are over]. And I think one of the biggest things for me is to stay really positive and focus on the positive of all of the candidates, including Bernie Sanders. Because the most important thing to me right now is to get the current president out of the White House, period. And there are very good candidates who are running. There are people who have great policies, who are good people, who are not grabbing women by their genitalia, have not been accused by over two dozen women of sexual harassment and assault.

I think one of the biggest things for me is to stay really positive and focus on the positive of all of the [Democratic presidential] candidates, including Bernie Sanders.

In the book, you write about the moment you first heard the Trump “grab her by the pussy” tape, and how it drove you to post on Instagram about an incident of physical and sexual assault, where an ex had literally done that to you. What made you share that story publicly?

I think all women ― probably men too ― remember where they were when that news came out. I was pregnant. I was like, “My daughter could grow up to be a woman that someone does that to, and then [he] becomes the president of the United States.” [I felt the] same thing with [the confirmation of Judge Brett] Kavanaugh, when I was seeing Christine Blasey Ford. My daughter could grow up to be Christine Blasey Ford. That’s what our daughters get to look forward to. That fear. And that’s what mothers get to look forward to. That fear for their daughters.

And it was debilitating in the moment. It crushed me. And the memories flooded in very quickly. Not everybody is able to jump out of that and go, “That’s not OK.” And then you laugh them off, you just put them away. You tell yourself other versions of the stories to make it better so that you don’t have to deal with the emotional ramifications of it. There are a lot of ways in which we cope and protect ourselves, which is a natural human instinct. But for me, that [post] almost just felt like as an involuntary reflex, like a muscle just spasmed. Like, “Here’s a literal version of the time this happened to me.”  

I want to talk a little bit about the moment that you first read that first New York Times piece about Harvey Weinstein.

I knew what was coming out. I knew a large amount of it. Not all of it. But I think it was just kind of surreal. But it did feel like this tidal wave that came through our small town. Hollywood and the entertainment business [are like] this small town. And after the devastation of the wave like that, you’re kind of looking around and being like, are there any survivors? And you’re just kind of waiting like, who’s going to say something? Who’s going to say something first?

You did tweet something in that moment.

Yeah. But the truth of the matter is, I’m not a big movie star. I didn’t have something to lose in a way that a lot of women really did if he had survived that article.

Something that I keep circling, given that it’s been a year and a half since this wave of Me Too kicked off, is what does restorative justice look like in these cases? Is it even possible? Does it matter? Men like Louis C.K. have already begun their “comeback” tours.

So this is always such an interesting question for me. My knee-jerk reaction [is]: “I don’t really care about their redemption right now.” To me, I’m much more interested in elevating the work and the material and the voices of people who are coming up and who are incredible and who haven’t pulled their dicks out in meetings. Awkwafina and Ali Wong and Ava DuVernay ― [who is] obviously a huge director, but she championed so many new directors that are coming up. That is where I like to put all of my energy.

What’s so frustrating about the redemption narrative is that if you want redemption, there has to be atonement. And I don’t think that these men are doing that. Their lives have been ripped from them. That’s really tough. I empathize. But there is always a path forward and to the greater good of the culture that you purport to love and care about. Especially as a comedian as brilliant as someone like Louis C.K. is. He could be actually learning and figuring out why all of this is an issue.

I’m much more interested in elevating the work and the material and the voices of people… who are incredible and who haven’t pulled their dicks out in meetings.

Before we wrap up, I’d love for you to touch a little bit on the role that race plays in this book, and in the early conversations about Time’s Up. I also found it notable that in a memoir, you included voices that weren’t your own in conversation with you.

It’s really important for white women to really not be afraid of our failures and to be open to being criticized. In the criticizing is where we will find clarity. I think it’s important to be able to own it, which is why I talk about that I’m not afraid to be called a white feminist, which I know is a term that makes white women’s skin crawl. But we have to have ownership [of] and also respect for our failures. It is OK to fuck up. It’s just not OK to not try.

To me, it was so important to put a literal dialogue in the book with [journalist] Meredith [Talusan]. And to really say, when you sit down and you talk, that’s often when you can understand someone else. And that’s often when you can hear ― and you should hear ― how you might’ve failed another person. Even the most woke-up humans have to accept the fact that we are not perfect and we fuck up and we often harm. And we can only get better if we own those parts of ourselves.

Penguin Randomhouse

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[westboast]

Trump: the View from Japan

I arrived in Japan on July 24, 2016. The election was on everyone’s minds, but at that point it was still cloaked in banality. Hillary would of course win, and Trump would go on to expand his business interests and perhaps start his own right-wing TV channel. Most people were talking more about the sellout of the Democratic Party than the much more frightening—absurdly frightening, impossibly frightening—alternative.

I woke up on November 10 (due to the time change) expecting to go into work, check my phone for the announcement of Hillary’s victory, and have a generally pleasant day. Reports I read in the morning signaled that this would all happen very quickly, over before Japan’s lunch time. The New York Times presidential probability meter had Hillary somewhere in the low 80s. Trump had made some inroads in previous days, but he never got much more than a 25 percent probability. Nate Silver offered more chilling odds, but I wrote them off as due diligence. Somebody had to present the negative alternative.

At work I sat down at my desk and watched the New York Times map to see the results coming in. The first few states along the east coast were predictably cobalt. Maryland, Vermont. But then came Virginia. On the Times map it stayed red for a long time, too long. Why was Tim Kaine’s home state so red? Why did it take so long to turn blue? Then came Florida—red. North Carolina—red. These were supposed to be the trophies of Hillary’s glorious victory lap.

My anxiety was spiking. My eyelid started twitching. At lunch I went to my favorite udon restaurant, where I clutched my phone in one hand and chopsticks in the other. What the hell is happening. Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. My best friend in Seattle texted me: “Is Trump our next president?” I shot back: “I think he might be. If she can’t stop the bleeding in Michigan and Wisconsin soon, it’s over.”

She didn’t stop the bleeding. That afternoon I watched in despair as she took the stage in her shimmering purple suit, Bill on her right and Kaine on her left. What was she doing? What was President Hillary doing? She was letting us know that there would be no President Hillary.

***

I have spoken to only one Japanese citizen who supports Trump. He is 20 and a college student. He referenced his desire to see someone “shake up the system,” and he said he would rather have anyone in power than “that bitch.” Other than him, every single person I have spoken to—from first graders to old men—has expressed horror at the thought of Trump.

Leading up to November 9, students in all of my classes asked me who I would be supporting. When I said Hillary they smiled and high-fived me—“Okay!” A sense of relief would immediately settle and we could get on with class. This happened over and over, with first graders all the way up to ninth graders. Still, in the aftermath of the inauguration, the kids ask me and wait for my answer. Hillary. “Okay!”

A few days before the election, one of my coworkers at school asked me who I supported. When I said Hillary, she agreed. “Peace,” is all she said. “Peace.”

I met two old men from Osaka at an onsen in my town. They offered me a soda and I sat with them while they smoked. One of the old men was drunk, had a coughing fit, and fell asleep. His friend smiled at me, and I got the feeling this was not an unusual situation. The upright man then mentioned Trump, and his friend bolted out of his stupor. I didn’t catch most of what he said, but I heard enough to deduce he was talking about Okinawa. Trump has said that Japan should pay more to house the American bases on Okinawa, even though it already bears the majority of the costs.

“And he wants us to pay more!”

The indignity of the suggestion—taken within this country of great dignity—rattled in the air. It was beyond audacious to suggest that the people of Japan and Okinawa—the former Ryukyu kingdom, client of China, annexed by Japan in the 1800s, occupied by the Americans after World War II—should incur even more costs to support a colonial outpost whose main function is to anchor American economic dominance in east Asia.

Within Okinawa there is strong resistance to the American occupation and much debate surrounding the question of whether the bases have outlived their strategic purpose. The question of Okinawa, a unique culture within Japan, has been a source of tremendous tension in Japanese politics for generations. Hundreds of kilometers away from the island, though, speaking of Okinawa, my Japanese teacher said: “We are afraid of losing the base. It offers protection.”

Presumably that protection is from North Korea and the looming specter of a confrontation with China. Japan is the only place in the world where nuclear weapons have been deployed in military attacks, wiping out so many thousands of lives in two flashes. The idea that those horrors may return is a lingering consideration here. And yet on TV, stomping into the White House is a man treating a military base in Japan like an Atlantic City casino, a man saying that more nukes wouldn’t be such a bad idea, that a war in east Asia wouldn’t really be an American concern.

“Good luck, enjoy yourself, folks.”

A Japanese friend of mine kept using the same word to describe what happened: disappointment.

My students ask me two questions about the United States over and over. The first: Do I own a gun? The second: Have I been to Trump Tower?

***

The yen tumbled after the election but is slowly climbing back up. The Japanese economy, though, has been in a state of stagnation for decades. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s right-wing government probably stands to benefit a good deal of legitimacy from a far-right American order. Abe, an unpopular but not infuriating figure in Japan, looks much more statesmanlike in contrast to the new president. The fall of TPP was a blow to his government, but in the longterm I wonder how he will position himself in contrast to the chaos across the Pacific.

In 2020 Americans will choose their president. Also in 2020, Tokyo will host the Olympic games. All levels of Japanese government are involved in preparation for the games, which are being promoted as the dawn of a new era for an economically languishing Japan, its reintroduction to the world. Efforts to “internationalize” are in full swing, with English instruction ramping up throughout the country.

Following the election, Abe was the first world leader to visit Trump. Apparently he had already planned a visit for February, with Clinton. But after the election he moved his U.S. visit dramatically up, to that very week.

The photograph of Trump and Abe (along with their aides and, for whatever reason, Ivanka) in Trump’s rococo Manhattan lair is an incredible artifact. It shares a visual vocabulary not with the American presidency but with a spasming dictatorship—more Saddam-in-Baghdad than Yalta Conference. The bad lighting, the camera flash reflecting off of the window, the untouched bottled waters (sparkling and flat), the decadence and tackiness of the whole scene, an impossibly heavy coffee table, marble everything, a gigantic urn, the beige carpet, a candelabra with never-burnt candles blocking the face of Abe’s aide, the ridiculous camera angle making it appear as though someone just stumbled onto something pretty neat, but not somewhere they are supposed to be. There is Trump, sinking into his couch, his legs wiggling from the cushions. There is Abe, leaning forward, listening politely. And there, for some reason, is Ivanka, close to the camera, as though she will turn at any moment to shoo us away from this private encounter. Decadent: rotting, dripping, glimmering.

Trump looks so comfy and proud on his big couch. Ivanka looks the way she always does, managing the big baby that is her father. And there’s Abe. He beat the world to that shimmering, rotting pile of a living room. In my fantasy, Ivanka shoos us away, but Abe turns toward us—as we board the elevator—and winks.

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Drew Barrymore ‘I don’t pretend to be perfect’

Drew Barrymore is back on our screens, this time as a flesh-eating estate agent. She tells Rebecca Nicholson about the endless ups and downs of her life from child star to teen rebel, and savvy producer to business woman and explains why shell fight to the death to be happy

Drew Barrymore walks into the hotel room in Berlin flanked by assistants, caked in heavy TV make-up and wrapped in a brown fluffy jacket that makes her look like a very glamorous teddy bear. Within seconds, the entourage has disappeared, shes wiped every last scrap of foundation from her face and shes rummaging around underneath her dress, a kind of earth mother hippy smock, regretting her decision to wear tights on this sub-freezing day. Why does anyone wear pantyhose? she exclaims, barefaced, faux-exasperated, shifting in her armchair, trying to get comfortable. Theyre so fucking sadistic! Theyre not even control pants, she says, conspiratorially, but Im forcing them to be.

For a lot of women, especially women who grew up between 1982 and the early 2000s, Barrymore is a particular kind of icon. Shes the accessible rebel we all wanted to be, or be friends with. Shes the child star of ET who hit the skids early and hard, and not only survived, but went on to be one of the most popular (and bankable) female stars of the past three decades. She appeared in, and often produced, the kinds of movies that are vital viewing for teenagers, from the trashy taboo-busting rebellion of Poison Ivy, to the triumphant high school romcom Never Been Kissed, to the moody angst of Donnie Darko. Plus, in her 20s, she seemed to hang out with the best bands, go to all the best parties and always looked like she was having the time of her life. She was the manic pixie dream girl before it became a tacky indie film stereotype. The memoir she wrote in 2015 is, appropriately, called Wildflower.

She looks genuinely pleased that she holds such a place in peoples minds, and decides that if people do like her, If anyone has any goodwill towards me, careful not to sound arrogant, its because she extends goodwill to other people. Not in an annoying way, but just, like, being in peoples fucking corners. Its this combination of soft and sharp, all wrapped up in that valley girl lilt, that has carried her through life. I want people to be happy, but I know happiness has to be fought for. Its a warrior trophy. Its not hippy, she insists. Im like, fight. Fight to the death to be happy, and dont kill anyone along the way.

Little riot grrrl: Drew Barrymore with Steven Spielberg at the age of five on the set of 1982s ET. Photograph: Everett Collection/Rex Features

Were in Germany to talk about Santa Clarita Diet, the new Netflix series which has brought her back into the spotlight again at 41. Its a warm and occasionally gross 10-part comedy about Sheila and Joel, estate agents who have been together since their school days, and whose marriage is tested when the amiable Sheila develops a sudden taste for human flesh.

I stopped working to have my kids and take care of them and raise them, and so I was nervous about working again, she says. I was going through a dark time in my own life. And then I read it and I liked it. Now what am I supposed to do? I cant do this right now, its terrible timing, my whole life is falling apart. She ended up executive producing it as well as starring.

That her life was falling apart out of the spotlight was a new thing for Barrymore, who had played out most of her life in a very public sphere. No ones talking about my life. I mean, yes, I had a divorce, but even that was real quiet. She split up with actor Will Kopelman, the father of her two children, Olive, four, and Frankie, two, at the beginning of 2016, but recently posted an Instagram of him running the New York marathon; she was there, with their daughters, to support him. It was like, Oh, they didnt work out, I wonder why? Oh my God they seem like such good friends, and so amicable, I guess well stop giving a shit. I was so happy about that, she says, breezily.

Warm and occasionally gross: Barrymore in Santa Clarita Diet. Photograph: Erica Parise/Netflix

In the midst of her divorce, Santa Clarita Diet was a transformative experience. Ironically, it wasnt the worst timing. It was great. It was really happy. It was a good summer. My daughters and I got to go out to California and I got three days off a week. Just as becoming a proto-zombie saves Sheila from the numbing boredom of domestic life, Barrymore went through her own kind of rejuvenation. I feel like Sheila. I feel like maybe I was dead inside, she says cheerfully, blowing her nose. I dont know. I was in a place in my life where I had gained a lot of weight, and been in a place of fear and sadness, and I felt stuck. I dont think thats so much unlike the character.

Until she took time away from acting to have kids, Barrymore had never not worked. She began her career at 11 months in an advert for dog food, quickly becoming the main breadwinner for herself and her mother, Jaid, who raised her alone. Her father John Barrymore, of the Barrymore acting dynasty The great line of loonies from which I come, as she puts it wasnt around much. Her extraordinary youth was public and well-documented. Her breakout role in ET, at five years old, was followed by an outlandish few years of childhood boozing and drug-taking, rehab and institutions, and the sense that, at 14, she was washed up and her career was over.

But it wasnt. She moved into an apartment by herself, got a job in a coffee shop, learned how to do her own laundry and, eventually, clawed her way back into the business, defeating the curse of the child actor where so many others have been lost. She has said her 20s were a kind of delayed adolescence. Now, in her 40s, shes had a lifetimes worth of parties and experiences, and says she doesnt miss it at all. I dont feel like Im not at the centre of things. I dont worry about career stuff. I dont worry about who the hottest band is or that Im not at that show that night. I dont care if the latest trend is happening and its just passing me by.

Star quality: Barrymore with Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu in Charlies Angels. Photograph: Image Net

Her idea of a good time these days is taking the girls to Disney World, or setting up movie nights for the kids in my daughters class. I just watched Home Alone and all the moms and I were crying at the end. Oh my God, its so good! I appreciate it now much more than I did when I was younger.

Shes too classy to be drawn into any child actor comparisons it would be patronising, annoying, no thanks, she says, nicely but firmly but we talk more broadly about celebrity scandals. Everyone goes up and goes down. Thats life. Nobody wants all of it looked at and discussed. However, if you do put yourself out there, then you need to be prepared for that to be examined and you have to handle it to the best of your abilities. So for people who are like [she puts on a whiny voice]: Dont look at me you put yourself out there!

Is there any way to avoid being examined and discussed? Not in this day and age. You just try to manage things in the healthiest way you can. And by the way? You wont all the time. Youre gonna fuck up. So fuck up, then pick yourself back up. But just be nice and kind and humble and gracious and have a sense of humour. And dont pretend to be perfect.

Golden girl: winning a Golden Globe for Grey Gardens in 2010. Photograph: NBC/Getty Images

Barrymore dealt with her own initial fuck-ups in an incredible and startling memoir, Little Girl Lost, which she wryly calls, The mea culpa book I wrote when I was 14. She appeared on Oprah with her mother to promote it, to go over what went wrong. You can watch it on YouTube; shes 15 going on 35. Yet the book has a cult following, in part because it makes all the partying she did as a young child sound kind of adventurous. Yeah! Its like an 80s cult tragedy book, which is super cool and wrong and fun all at the same time. Its a little riot grrrl, you know?

Theres a chapter where Barrymore describes being hauled off to an institution at her mothers behest, and shes furious at the starstruck guards. God, youve just yanked me out of my house with cuffs on, I thought, and now youre asking me what it was like to meet ET. What jerks, she writes. Even at 14, she had a disdain for celebrity. Still do, she says, today.

We meet on the afternoon of Trumps inauguration. She plans to watch it later, as shes a total news junkie, but she doesnt particularly want to talk about what she thinks of him. Im not a painter and Im not a musician and I think people dont want to hear it from actors, she says. I read this op-ed in the New York Times that was saying, just do things quietly, in your art.

Slasher: Barrymore in Wes Cravens Scream, 1996. Photograph: Allstar

Barrymore is more about the practical. During her screen break, she wrote Wildflower, which became a New York Times bestseller, and shes built a sizeable business empire, including Barrymore wines, a production company, Flower Films, and beauty brand Flower Cosmetics. All of which channel some of that free-spirit warmth into profits reports suggest shes worth $125m. Theres a line in Santa Clarita Diet where Sheila announces: I sleep two hours a night. I get so much done! It struck me that for Barrymore, spinning so many plates, that might be funny. Actually, she says, it was originally written that Sheila would use her spare time to learn French. Me, in my real life, would spend time learning French. This woman literally has a ticking clock on her mortality. Shed be studying fucking Bruce Lee moves and learning to do shit. The line was changed at Barrymores request: instead of learning a language, Sheila would get the ability to parallel park in one move. Im, like, yes! Thats practical!

Its strange to see Barrymore, who seemed to be an eternal teenager, starring as the mother of a teenager in Santa Clarita Diet, partly because her fame is life-long, and you can see interviews with her at almost every age on YouTube. But, she says, she never watches them, never goes back. Hell no. The only thing I ever think when I see myself when Im younger, if Im on a talk show and Im stuck there having to watch clips, is that I was so much more brassy when I was young. Im like: Where do you get the balls, kid?

She says it as if those balls have disappeared with age. She claims shes much more polite now. Sarcastic, but polite. And worse still, she tries to say shes newly dull. In my life Im just so quiet and boring, she declares, not entirely convincingly. This is Drew Barrymore, after all, who talks with the hunger of someone who will always be on the lookout for something new, whether thats being a mother, a businesswoman, or playing a friendly estate agent who kills and eats bad people. I am pretty boring, she insists. I tell her I dont believe it. She smiles slyly, and leans in. Theres a rebel in her still. Im not sure I believe it either.

Santa Clarita Diet launches on Netflix on 3 February

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from Drew Barrymore ‘I don’t pretend to be perfect’