In The Buzz Cut, we bring you a round-up of all the weird, controversial, and wonderful stories we’ve been reading all week.
On her 16th birthday, Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown opened up about the cruel media scrutiny and sexualization she has suffered since stepping into the spotlight at the age of 12, saying it made her experience pain and insecurity.
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Steven Spielberg’s daughter, Mikaela Spielberg, has just announced a career self-producing adult videos and her aspirations to become a stripper. Spielberg says he’s “intrigued.”
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Every time a rap star dies, or overdoses, or goes to prison, the conversation linking rap to drug use and crime starts up all over again. But as we see dozens of rappers of this generation get derailed from their careers, we have to ask: is it the drugs and guns we should blame, or the social inequality, lack of mental health resources, and the rampant scapegoating of black artists?
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Why are there more women vegans than men vegans in the world? Psychologists have a few theories: for one, meat is predominantly marketed as masculine, and not many men want to permanently relinquish the opportunity to eat meat — a.k.a prove their masculinity — at the dinner table.
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Corporate buzzwords — “growth strategy,” “circle back,” “synergy” — are jargon office-goers use to separate themselves from their personal life. The vocab serves as a band-aid on a professional’s imposter syndrome or a tool to elevate the worth of their daily duties. Either way, it’s useless — as anthropologist David Graeber says, “all-purpose business language is the language you use when you aren’t really doing anything.”
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Scams are aplenty on the Internet, one of the most popular ones being catfishing. But what if one of the most widespread catfishing scams today wasn’t about people, but concerned with pretty, pink plants? The world of horticulture is awash with the pink princess philodendron, a rare, vibrant plant everyone wants to adorn their house. But eager buyers are getting something else.
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Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite has been the talk of the town in 2020 — if you consider the town the world, and the talk an obsession. Between adoring the South Korean filmmaker’s technical prowess and applauding the actors for their stellar performances, however, lies a critique within the movie steeped in South Korea’s relation to U.S. colonialism and capitalism — a trope Joon-ho has managed to draw out, it turns out, without many people noticing.
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TikTok, basketball games, weddings — any event or medium that allows people to dance has been populated by “Renegade,” a dance routine created by a 14-year-old in Atlanta, U.S. Now, she’s finally getting credit for it.
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Niloufar Haidari has identified what heterosexual millennial women really want: a partner with the literacy level of an 8-year-old. Do women really want to spend all day dissecting world issues and reading up on current events, only to have to do it all over again with their partner at home? Or would they rather come home to a 21-year-old with rock hard abs? Well, Haidari will tell you the answer.
