In The Buzz Cut, we bring you a round-up of all the weird, controversial, and wonderful stories we’ve been reading all week.
Famed music producer and DJ Mark Ronson has stepped in it, big time. In a recent interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Ronson ‘came out’ as sapiosexual — a person who is attracted to intellect. After getting hate on Twitter, he later apologized in an interview arranged with Rolling Stone, in which he added he did not consider himself a part of any marginalized community.
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Demi Moore released a memoir, Inside Out, replete with confessions — about a traumatic childhood, infidelity within her marriages, and possibly taking the virginity of Jon Cryer, of Two and a Half Men fame.
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Michelle Phan is arguably the world’s first beauty influencer — having started beauty tutorials on YouTube almost a decade ago. But she disappeared in 2015 — online and IRL — leaving her 9 million fans bereft. She has reappeared again, with no plans to return to a platform on which the “journalistic, democratic approach” to beauty has disappeared and been replaced by a more insidious beauty culture.
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All of us know who Brock Turner is: the Stanford-bound swimmer/rapist who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman at a frat party and barely served any time for his crime. But who’s the girl? For the longest time, she was known as Emily Doe — her identity remained a mystery. Now, the survivor, Chanel Miller, has a memoir, Know My Name — detailing the night of the assault and the chaos that ensued.
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Beware of apps created by Chinese developers, says Google — not explicitly, but through its actions. Google has increasingly mass-removed Chinese apps from its Play Store — a red flag that something is wrong with the apps, which range from games, to horoscopes and to photos. The tech industry is speculating the move signals concerns over consumer privacy.
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Young climate activists across the world are fighting to make their voices heard, as they plead with (and sometimes, chastise — Greta Thunberg’s “How Dare You!”) people in power to effect policy changes that will secure a healthy Earth. While they ask for a safe future, their advocacy is rendering them vulnerable to climate change deniers and horrible humans who are increasingly trolling, insulting, doxxing and threatening the kids online.
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As mainstream publications become aware of queer stories and increasingly incorporate them into their editorial routine, what happens to the niche queer blogs and outlets who have been doing the work all along, who did not need a cultural awakening to start paying attention?
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Who doesn’t regularly look for reasons to start watching The Office again? Two of the OG cast members — Jenna Fischer (Pam Beesly) and Angela Kinsey (Angela Martin) — are starting a podcast in which they will dissect each episode and give behind-the-scenes goss. I’ll binge right back.
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Queer Eye‘s Jonathan Van Ness, popularly JVN, is everyone’s favorite henny. In a New York Times interview, he opens up about living with HIV, struggling with addiction, and recovering from sexual abuse.
