In The Buzz Cut, we bring you a round-up of all the weird, controversial, and wonderful stories we’ve been reading all week.
In a candid interview with U.S. self-help publisher Hay House, Ed Sheeran opened up about his personal life, sharing how he resorted to binge-eating, and vomiting up junk food, to deal with anxiety and body image issues he had at the height of his career. Sheeran becomes one more artist in a pool of a select few famous men who have shed light upon how disordered eating affects men too.
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Taylor Swift dropped “Folklore” without much notice this week, sending people — especially those who are queer — into a frenzy, with her song “betty.” When fans dug into what Swift was really saying with her lyrics — as Swifites do — it became clear: “Folklore” is queer canon. Here’s why.
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Axone, the oft-celebrated film about North Eastern migrants in Delhi, released almost a month ago, to glowing reviews from critics, most of whom not from the Northeast. Here’s one that dissects the movie for misrepresenting casual racism and gaslighting, for not doing justice to how migrants from the Northeast are often expected to shrink themselves to fit in.
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The coronavirus pandemic has made us obsessed with surfaces, with entire governments dispatching teams to disinfect public areas, often with harmful chemicals. This “hygiene theater,” science now concludes, is not really necessary. Here’s why.
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Anveshi Jain, 28, is an actress who made her debut in ALT Balaji’s erotic series, Gandii Baat. In this candid interview with Vice India, Jain talks her rise to fame, from a small-town girl to one of India’s most popular erotic stars.
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What would it be like not to have sex for 10 years? Empowering, says BuzzFeed contributor Laura Bogart, on why she decided to go long-term celibate. She writes, “My sex life as a fat woman was a trickle of accumulated humiliations and loneliness, so I decided to try enjoying my own company instead.”
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We do not live in the world of Dark, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have time-travelers — or at least, self-professed ones. Mel Magazine delves into the time-travelers that have graced our reality, and whether their YouTube confessionals are to be believed.
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Clove beans, sunberries, air potatoes — these are ingredients a food science scholar found in his grandmother’s ancient cookbook, but nowhere in present-day Chennai. Then followed his quest to locate these vegetables, as he started to make his way through the recipes — through public posters, and relentless interviewing of all cooks in his neighborhood. What can the journey of these missing vegetables tell us about India’s agricultural produce?
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The U.S. is currently facing severe, ongoing, deadly police brutality after the first spark of #BlackLivesMatter protests following the murder of George Floyd. But what of the countries that have been experiencing similar police violence but not the U.S. level of international outrage? In The Baffler, six writers give first-person accounts of police violence from their own countries, including from Brazil, India and Germany.
