As a teenager, Ibrahim Mohammad helped distribute food and clothing in the early years of Syria's war to refugees in the Bekaa Valley, a region in Lebanon that now holds over 360,000 refugees. Many were missing legs due to bombings, rockets, and artillery fire; many more were missing arms. The camp's inhabitants had access to few basic resources—let alone prosthetic limbs, or advanced technology that could mitigate their suffering.

While doling out rice to refugees, Mohammad could see firsthand how bad their living conditions were, and he could also relate to their feelings of hopelessness. A refugee from the Palestinian village of Beit' Anan, he grew up in a camp just outside Beirut. Electricity was largely unavailable—when he wanted to read after dark, he'd stand beneath a streetlight—as was fresh water.

Today, Mohammad studies mechanical engineering at the University of Rochester and works in a lab researching large-scale energy grid solutions. The opportunity came through AMIDEAST, an American nonprofit that works to help refugees and other youth from the Middle East obtain US scholarships and take part in cultural exchange.

The organization is one of many that could now face significant challenges in light of President Trump's executive order to temporarily suspend entry for all refugees and individuals from seven Muslim countries. Following a federal appeals court ruling that blocked key parts of the ban, Trump has said he is considering measures to restore it, including drafting a "brand new" order.

After the initial cost of the printer—approximately $1,300—each hand costs just $50 to produce. Not only are they inexpensive, but recyclable and environmentally friendly.

The chance to study at a Research 1 university equipped Mohammad with the resources needed to match previously unavailable technologies with humanitarian aid. As a refugee, his own experience has given him a keen awareness of the level of need and suffering in the camps, as well as a drive to help meet and alleviate it.

Palestinian refugees comprise approximately ten percent of Lebanon's population, yet they are officially without citizenship. "Palestine sees me as Lebanese and Lebanon sees me as Palestinian," Mohammad said when we first spoke in July, "which I guess means I'm stateless." They have virtually no political or social rights, and little economic opportunity—there's a 90-percent unemployment rate in the camps, and refugees are banned from over 20 professions, including law, medicine, and journalism. As a refugee, Mohammad was expected to sell drugs, join a militia, end up in jail. Sometimes, while helping his father sell orange juice from a street cart, he was harassed by the police. They'd try and take his daily earnings, as selling juice in the street is technically "illegal." He was once fined $100; at the hearing he asked the judge, "Would you rather I steal instead? I'm trying to earn an honest living, and you're punishing me." That time, the judge ruled him not guilty—but over the years, he and his father incurred over $1,000 in fines for similar charges.

Mohammad kept hoping that someone would come along to make life better for him and others in the camp, but no one ever came. Rather than let anger consume him, he decided that even if bigotry towards refugees existed, he wouldn't let it exist in his mind. He refused to believe that he was less than anyone, and that mentality sometimes helped to change the attitudes of those around him who thought otherwise. While working as a mechanic, he'd say good morning to a Lebanese client who came in daily; every morning, the client responded by spitting at him. He kept saying it, though, day after day. After a month, the client stopped spitting. And after six weeks, the client said good morning back.

During his junior year, advisors from AMIDEAST visited his UNRWA-run high school. Mohammad filled out an application for their Hope Fund program, which specifically secures US scholarships and cultural exchange opportunities for Palestinian refugees from camps scattered throughout the Middle East. That summer, while out buying cups for his father's juice cart, he got a call from AMIDEAST's educational advisors requesting an interview.

Mohammad initially assumed his father would say no—Mohammad was helping to support their family, so they'd need him to stay in Lebanon—but instead, he skipped work to take him to the appointment. With this new, tangible opportunity in sight, he decided that he would become the person who never came to help him.

Nancy Qubain, one of the founders of the Hope Fund, suggested that he consider the University of Rochester. He went to the school's website and was confounded by the pictures of students throwing water balloons at one another. It all felt too good to be true—almost artificial. "You don't see people throwing things at each other and being happy about it in the camp where I grew up," Mohammad said. He kept browsing the site and learned about their energetics lab's omega laser, the strongest in the US after Berkeley's. He was inspired by the school's motto, Meliora, which translates from Latin to "ever better." As someone who was personally invested in improving the way people live, it spoke to him.

Ibrahim in the lab. Photo courtesy of Ibrahim Mohammad

Mohammad had never been outside Lebanon when he arrived for his freshman year. Things in the States seemed incredibly hectic to him: his peers had different backgrounds, and he was reluctant to share a lot about his own. "It's hard to connect with someone who's never had to worry about being able to afford food, or whose parents came to help them set up their dorm room, or who doesn't have to work and still gets an allowance." But as he began to open up and make friends, he realized they didn't need to be from similar backgrounds to connect.

Mohammad was at work in the lab at Rochester when we last spoke in early January, despite the fact that it was winter break. He'd just come from the gym and was wearing a black sleeveless shirt, his shoulder-length dark hair pulled back in a bun. Now a senior, he took a class in his sophomore year with Douglas Kelley, a professor who specializes in fluid dynamics; he taught Mohammad the implications of liquid metal batteries. "They have enough capacity and enough electricity to power a city," he told me. "They can play a huge role in making renewable energy more efficient."

Mohammad also met Omar Soufan during his sophomore year while working on a water-related project in the Dominican Republic with Engineers Without Borders. Soufan grew up on the outskirts of Damascus; his family is still in Syria despite the fact that so many others around them have fled. They were both engineering majors, and both committed to putting the skills and resources they were gaining at school towards aid work. Recalling the suffering he'd witnessed while volunteering in the Bekaa Valley, he wanted to do something to help Syrian refugees in that region who'd been mutilated by the war.

Seeing so many of his friends get killed or end up in prison has pushed him to do as much as he can as soon as possible. "When you give someone like me an opportunity to study at a university in the US," he said, "you shouldn't expect anything less."

They contacted Soufan's uncle at the Syrian-American Medical Society, who connected them with the Syrian Medical Relief Office (SMRO) in Majdal Anjar, a village in the Bekaa located along the road that links Beirut and Damascus. They then spoke with SMRO's coordinators and asked what their facility needed most urgently.

While SMRO's facility had ample leg prosthetics for amputees, the clinic lacked upper limb prosthetics, which, as Ibrahim came to learn, can be much more complicated to produce. "With legs, you basically need something to stand on," Mohammad said. "But with arms you need hands, ones that match, and that allow you to at least grip." The problem was the price: Prosthetic arms cost a few thousand dollars a piece, and given the number of amputees, many of whom were children who would outgrow their prosthetics, such a high cost was infeasible.

Mohammad spoke with Professor Kelley about this dilemma. Through his cycling club, Kelley had met a professor at RIT named John Schull who researches 3D-printed prosthetics and participates in e-NABLE, a global network that provides free, open source designs for printable prosthetic hands and arms. e-NABLE's technology involves 3D-printed lower arms made out of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic that use a tension mechanism in order to clamp the hands on and off. After the initial cost of the printer—approximately $1,300—each hand costs just $50 to produce. Not only are they inexpensive, but recyclable and environmentally friendly.

After connecting with Professor Schull, Mohammad and Soufan set out with the goal of transferring e-NABLE's remarkable technology to the clinic in Majdal Anjar. They also solicited the help of 3D LifePrints, a UK-based company that helps amputees in developing countries obtain 3D-printed lower arm and hand prosthetics, and that prints from flexible rather than hard plastic, meaning you don't need multiple parts to each hand. The material that the palm is made out of is flexible filament—"flexi-fil"—which can bend and stretch.

Bending the finger of a 3D-printed hand. Photo courtesy of Ibrahim Mohammad

After they first contacted SMRO, Soufan and Mohammad raised $7,000 to purchase rehabilitation equipment for the facility. Last summer they established Prosthesis for New Syria, with the goal of raising enough funds to purchase two to three 3D printers and enough flexi-fil. They'd like to set up the printers in SMRO's facility, and then gather a sample of patients in need of lower arm prosthetics. So far they've raised $4,300, and have purchased a 3D scanner.

Eventually they'd like to make the entire process self-sustainable. Rather than asking a doctor to apply the prosthetic limb, they would 3D-scan and print the prosthetic, mold and print a socket for the limb using 3D-molding software, place the socket on the cut, and place a printed hand on the socket. Since many amputees can't afford to travel to the clinic, and since the idea of setting up a fixed facility in such a volatile, dangerous region seems unsustainable (at any moment it could be robbed or destroyed), making the process self-sustainable could allow for a mobile facility. They'd ideally place all of the necessary technology in a van—the 3D scanner, the printer, and a computer—and travel to each patient.

For Mohammad, one of the most valuable resources in life is time. He's comforted by the fact that no matter how rich you are you can't buy more of it: He has the same number of hours in a day as anyone. Seeing so many of his friends get killed or end up in prison—and knowing these are fates he may've narrowly escaped—has pushed him to do as much as he can as soon as possible. "When you give someone like me an opportunity to study at a university in the US," he said, "you shouldn't expect anything less."

Mohammad eventually wants to visit camps around the world—in Haiti, Kenya, others in Lebanon besides the one he grew up in, where his family still lives. He wants to meet refugees from different backgrounds, and use the tools he's gained at Rochester to help increase their access to electricity and other resources. He wants to watch a child regain the ability to catch a ball, and eventually, regain potential for a job that requires the use of hands. He wants to know that opportunities like the one he was afforded will continue to exist for refugees like himself, who had little hope for a future ahead and who now have the resources to help those still suffering.

He wants other refugees to know his story, that even though he grew up in a camp, he had the chance to achieve something he's proud of. He graduates this May. And while the current landscape for refugees in the US is especially bleak, he wants his trajectory to remain an attainable possibility. "The best thing you can give someone," Mohammad said, "is hope."

Follow Zaina Arafat on Twitter.

Translating a work from one medium to another is a not insignificant creative challenge. When content has been conceived and crafted with a specific form in mind, changing that form wholesale leads to a number, typically a majority, of the core pillars inherent to the original no longer being communicated as intended. Quite simply, the form around which the content was written no longer exists.

As such, the translation often fails to make an impact given that the support structure has been removed. This is a fact you'll be well aware of if you've been unlucky enough to sit through most movies based on video games, and vice versa.

Memoranda, a point-and-click adventure recently released (for PC, Mac and Linux) by Canadian newcomers Bit Byterz, adopts the most plausible means of successfully translating one medium into another: It focuses on evoking a toneakin to its inspirations, as opposed to trying to mimic directly the narrative and/or the experience of consumption.

Read more on Waypoint

This week, the Trump administration announced that they were dropping Obama-era support for a lawsuit defending the rights of transgender students to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. The move was long expected, despite the fact that Trump and his supporters like to trumpet the president's support of LGBTQ people.

But for many on both sides of the political aisle, the fight for the rights of transgender children is a bridge too far, and though how we treat and should treat gender-nonconforming and transgender children remains one of the most controversial fights within the transgender rights movement, what's often lost among it are the lived experiences of trans kids.

Not all trans people know that they're trans when they're a child. But some, like me, did. The truth is that when I was growing up in the late 80s and early 90s, the existence of trans people seemed wholly confined to Jerry Springer guests or horrible movie punchlines. I didn't know that regular people, much less kids, could transition—and anyone I came across in the media that did transition were portrayed as freaks. What kid wants to grow up to be a freak? Even today, in an age of unprecedented trans visibility, transgender children are subject to horrific acts of violence; back when I was growing up, the idea of transitioning was that much more dangerous. From my earliest moments of self-awareness about my gender identity, I decided it was something I had to hide.

But I mourn now what I lost, and it's the everyday experiences of girlhood I missed that really bring me to tears today. Sure, I have some positive childhood memories—a cross-country family road trip in an RV, or the many great times I had on an athletic field—but those memories are always viewed through the lens of my gender incongruence. The most positive memories I have from childhood are those in which my gender didn't matter; the truth is, my girlhood was empty.

I grew up in a small town in the Berkshires, in the westernmost county in Massachusetts. It was one of the most progressive areas in the world, but even being gay was a scandalous idea at the time. In some instances, my parents tightly controlled my gender presentation; I remember moving into a new house and asking to paint my room red, white and blue, and being told by my mother that my father wouldn't approve, because red is considered a "feminine" color. If I couldn't even paint my room red, how was I supposed to grow out my hair or try out new clothing styles?

Being unable to explore my true gender stunted the development of what could have been deeper friendships with other girls, as well; because I tried so hard to fit into a cisgender, heterosexual identity, I often misinterpreted innocent acts of friendship as sexual attraction. I remember meeting a girl in ninth grade study hall, Sarah; she was extremely smart, and we had unexpectedly deep conversations for ninth graders. I interpreted everything I felt for her as a crush, but she politely declined when I asked her out, insisting that we were friends. And the truth is that it was always the thought of sleeping with boys as a girl that I found sexually compelling; I was a straight or slightly bisexual girl all along, but I lost out on what could have been the kinds of deep, sisterly friendships many women get to enjoy, because I did not transition and instead tried to fit the women in my young life into my careful heterosexual front. I can still remember the names of my many "crushes," and it's no coincidence that I'm still friends with many of them to this day.

And the thought of having missed experiencing my high school prom as a woman is especially saddening. My date Karis had essentially been one of my best friends for years, and she looked adorable in her long, deep purple dress, with her hair piled atop her head with curly tendrils falling off to the side. I, meanwhile, wore an ill-fitting, rented tuxedo with mismatched accents, and the contrast was striking. What is meant to be a cultural hallmark of American adolescence became a panic-attack-inducing ordeal for a closeted trans girl like me. I didn't even dance at my own prom, and though I was able to fake my way through the night, it left me completely empty inside. The chance to have experienced prom as my true self—as Katelyn—is now long gone.

It's important for those who stand against the existence of transgender children know the true effects of their ideology. There will always be children who experience gender dysphoria who decide to never acknowledge it to an adult, and there are many growing up in families and areas that make transitioning while young too dangerous or difficult to undertake. I hear from closeted trans teenagers on social media often, and I can sense how desperate and scared they are. Sometimes the only advice I can offer them is to wait until they're in a safer place in their lives to come out.

The more hostile our society is to the concept of a child who transitions, the less likely it will be that such children will ever even attempt to rectify their gender identities, much less do so at a young-enough age that they will have the proper childhood I was denied. While many Americans look back on their adolescence with nostalgia, for trans people who knew when we were young, ours represent overwhelming regret. Every advocate for conversion therapy for trans children and every dropped lawsuit in support of trans students' rights ends up sacrificing the childhood of more trans children. We must continue to work to make transitioning for children safer and easier, and to save those children from regret.

Follow Katelyn Burns on Twitter.

(Top photo: Alex Jones during an Infowars broadcast. Screenshot: YouTube/Infowars)

"Delete Your Account" is a new column by Hussein Kesvani, about everything that happens when politics meets the internet.

Last week I found myself in the unfortunate position of being quote-tweeted by Infowars commentator Paul Joseph Watson. Paul is now best known as the man who angrily shouts things in front of a big map, largely about why Donald Trump is good and, more importantly, why pop culture – particularly Beyonce, for some reason – is bad. Your dad might have emailed his videos to you under the subject line "SHARIAH UK 2017".

Anyway, my tweet suggested that perhaps some protesters at UC Berkley had taken the heat off Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos by allowing his views to appear reasonable. Not an unfair view, in my opinion, but somehow this tweet ended up in one of his videos, alongside a mimicking voice that sounds less like me and more like Gary Barlow on nitrous. As a result, Paul's followers – a merry band of actual white supremacists, tankies, suburban Christian mums and angry fathers with Union Jack avatars – ended up clogging my message folder for the next few days.

What surprised me the most about Paul's surprisingly neatly defined cabal of followers wasn't their relentlessness when it came to tweeting around the clock, but rather the lack of creativity in their offensiveness. Throughout the three days after he published his video, his followers tended to tweet the same sort of stuff at me – accusations of left-wing fascism, or of being a secret Islamic fascist, or of being the "actual Nazi". Every so often, one of his followers would direct message me poorly photoshopped Donald Trump/Pepe memes, despite the fact I kept telling them I wasn't American, and live in London. For a group of people wanting to rid the internet of liberal lefties in the age of Trump – an age in which they should feel more empowered than ever – they instead opted for repeatedly predictable and tedious lines of ridicule.

The whole incident made me think about the trajectory of Infowars in 2017.

Currently, Infowars is best known as the show hosted by Alex Jones, a stocky Texan who you may have seen suggesting that fluoride in water turns frogs gay, or that Donald Trump's ascension to POTUS is close to the second coming of Christ. At the time of writing, the Infowars homepage leads with stories like "EMERGENCY! Trump's plan to save humanity under attack!" and a listicle of Trump's "best tweets of the week". Meanwhile, Infowars' YouTube channel is largely filled with their reporters "exposing political correctness" on college campuses and advertising health supplements.

For many people who grew up watching Infowars in the mid-2000s, such as myself, all of this is a remarkable – but sad – transformation to watch. Like most losers who didn't get invited to parties, I spent most of my teenage evenings and weekends on the internet, often on conspiracy theory websites – an interest that intensified for me after the 7th of July bombings, which most of these sites considered to be a hoax.

Sure, this was a pretty dangerous trajectory; if I was a teenager engaging in this stuff these days, I'd probably end up somewhere on the alt-right spectrum. But Infowars back then was a weird, eccentric, but ultimately creative show that didn't care what anyone else thought of it. Sure, Jones still rattled off about the New World Order; he'd still rant about globalists; and he'd still interview self-appointed paedophile investigators, guys who ran UFO websites and 9/11 truthers. But for a generation of kids like myself – outsiders growing up in stuffy Tory suburbs – it was often the first step towards engaging in politics, even if we didn't agree with anything being said. Back then, Infowars was a space completely removed from the mundane routines of mainstream TV news. No matter how ludicrous the ideas it put forth, it was – ultimately – a place where outcasts could connect in an environment that outwardly rejected mainstream culture.

Some have joked that Infowars has decided, after more than a decade of raging against state-controlled media, to become the mouthpiece of Donald Trump.

It's remembering this era of Infowars that makes its current incarnation so depressing. A media network that once treated all "global elites" as the enemy of humanity has now capitulated into worshipping everything it used to rally against, seeing no fault in the American state and becoming its own vociferous defender. The channel's new enemies are now "shills sponsored by George Soros", despite the likeliness that a good number of these people – those protesting against President Trump – had probably grown up watching Alex Jones in one way or the other.

So what is Infowars in 2017? Some have joked that the platform has decided, after more than a decade of raging against state-controlled media, to become the mouthpiece of Donald Trump. In my view, this is a step too far. It's more realistic to view Infowars as another news organisation going through a rough patch.

One of the consequences of politics in 2016 was the rise of "budget Infowars" websites: established organisations like Breitbart, but also the huge number of "fake news" sites largely pushing similar lines as Infowars (think: "Hillary Clinton has satanist dinners"). Jones' YouTube presence – a key factor that differentiated his site from others – is also being undermined by a generation of younger right-wing commentators saying similar things in a more palatable form, across social media networks where Infowars has little, if any, presence.

When it comes to the decline of a media company, these are all natural and predictable things. So I'd argue it's something else entirely putting Infowars' future at risk: its near constant self-comparison to mainstream media channels. Nearly every Infowars show in the past month has attempted to pit Infowars against channels like CNN or MSNBC in order to reassert its credibility.

Though largely existing as a commentary site, Infowars hosts liberally drop terms like "fake news" and run segments "calling out" mainstream media, attempting to imply that only places like Infowars can truly be trusted. Infowars may see this as a moral crusade, but in reality they aren't doing anything that liberal new media companies haven't already done before.

To outsiders who only discovered Infowars during the 2016 election, the show may seem frightening, dangerous and wholly illustrative of the "fake news" endemic that has plagued social media since Trump started running for office. But for those of us who grew up watching it – and whose first political experiences were largely informed by it – the show has become little more than a theatrical Breitbart – which, at its core, is boring, mundane and wholly predictable.

@HKesvani

Previously:

What the Left Can Learn from the Alt Right

Your school didn't invent masochistic time-killers like The Circle Game or Bloody Knuckles. Nor were you the first to make questionable fashion choices like popping polo collars or covering your limbs and neck with grody hemp jewelry. But in the hallowed halls of education, where identities are pupating and hormones are roiling, you guys probably did some dumb shit that was fairly unique.

We asked people to share the most absurd fads and trends that made the rounds in their schools. Let these anecdotes be shining examples of the dangers of a herd mentality and cautionary tales for those still on their educational journeys.

"My senior year in high school was around the time Twilight came out and vampires were all the rage. This group of freshman got crazy into it, like they started wearing black and having blood drips on their mouths and shit. And I guess at some point they took it to the extreme and actually starting biting each other, like in stairwells and corridors and shit.

Somehow MTV got wind of it and came and did a story on it. I don't remember all the details but my mom kept me home a couple of days because of it."

- Marvell, Boston

"All of the scene kids at my high school would wear zip up hoodies from the five local elementary schools. They were the kind of sweatshirt a kid would buy from the school and wear it on spirit day or whatever. No one was buying them or borrowing them from siblings. Instead, we were all sneaking onto elementary school campuses at night and stealing them from the children's cubbies. You know, some real hardcore shit.

Also our school had a ton of soda vending machines. Underneath the plastic twist cap of the plastic bottle soda lived a little clear plastic ring shaped seal thing. We would take those out and stretch them out to be bracelet sized. This had to be done very slowly and meticulously to make sure it didn't snap, and we all had ones we were working on in class. The number of them you wore signified how many people you had hooked up with. Additionally, if someone walked up and snapped one off of your wrist, you had to make out with them right then and there."

- Brooke, Ventura, California

"In middle school, a few of us more rebellious boys (and it was definitely only boys doing this bullshit) figured out that if you took a foil gum wrapper, folded it in half and made into a two-pronged pitchfork, it could be inserted into a wall outlet that would pop the circuit, electric burn the plastic, and produce a ton of sparks, all while leaving the prankster unharmed. Pretty sure this would get someone taken to a CIA black site if done today."

- Eric , San Francisco

"In my elementary school, the sixth graders in my classroom started piercing themselves with safety pins. People did their ears and noses. Then, one kid pierced his tongue with one of the safety pins, and got the bright idea to stick pencil lead through the hole. Then, other people started sticking lead through their piercing holes. This fad was specific to my classroom. No one else in our school was doing it and we were foolishly sharing the pins used for piercing. All of this is extra ironic because we were in the class for "gifted" kids."

- Erin, Anaheim, California

"People at my high school allegedly shoved Cheetos up their asses. I was a non-conformist though. So, back in the day, all the 'popular' kids would have these parties where they would all do keg stands and then ostensibly shove Cheetos up each other's asses, trying not to break the Cheetos. I assume it was mostly ladies who were the Cheeto receivers, and I am unsure of other details such as whether they were puffs or crunchy. I was never "cool" enough to be invited to such parties and, in retrospect, I'm pretty glad about that.

- Molly, Seattle

"In middle school, the administration decided to crack down on girls breaking dress code by wearing shorts that were too short. Their solution was to completely ban shorts. For everyone—guys included. They did not, however, ban skirts or dresses. In protest of being forced to wear long pants in the incredibly hot weather, the guys started wearing skirts to school. The shorts ban didn't last long."

- Michelle, Philadelphia

"We had these things called hornets. You'd fold or roll up pieces of paper until they made a U shape. The bottom of the U was folded so tightly that it was hard as rock. Kids would take these 'U's, load them as ammo into rubber bands being stretched between their thumb and index finger and send them flying at their friends. The welts they left were the size of half dollars or bigger. I sort of remember hearing about someone going partially blind in one eye from one but who knows if that was true."

- Brandon, Hummelstown

"When I was a senior in high school, the freshmen were notoriously more mature than all the grades above them. Their first semester in the high school building, their grade allocated a pole in the student center to what they called the "No Strings Attached" club. If you wanted in, all you had to do was Sharpie your name onto the pole and you would get invited to these parties after school where everyone hooked up with each other, swinger-style. I was at least three years older than all of them, but very scandalized by the idea."

- Annie, Atlanta

London-based artist Claire Barrow does not want to sell me any more jumpers. Or trousers. Or scarves, or gloves. I'm pretty sad about it, to be honest, but I think she's quite relieved. Having spent years showing her clothes twice a year at fashion week, then dealing with production, wholesale, stockists and shipping – and all the while keeping everything UK-based and as ethical as possible – last year, the former fashion designer decided enough was enough.

Deeply interested in the political and social implications of art, her clothes have always been more like a canvas for her drawings – fragmented sentences and ideas about human experience in the digital age. The process of mass-producing and selling these pieces off to stores never quite sat right. Which is why her decision to stop arbitrarily showing a collection at the same time as everyone else really does.

From today, Thursday the 16th of February, Claire presents her most recent work, "Dancing with Dreams", an installation combining film, dance, sound and costume, created in collaboration with Melissa Shoes and open to the public at their King Street exhibition space in Covent Garden, London. I caught up with her to discuss the ideas behind the performance, and how it feels to be free.

VICE: Hi Claire, tell me about how this collaboration came about.
Claire Barrow: Well, I've wanted to combine sculpture and video for a while. Melissa have a gallery space in Covent Garden and there were lots of ways I could use technology within it, so it seemed like a really good opportunity to do this.

What was your initial idea and how has it developed?
I pitched to them that I'd make five sculptures and have real people performing next to them, which has now translated into video projections of people dancing. Now, in the space, the sculptures are there in real life and the people are projections.

What was the inspiration?
I wanted it to look like and sound like a Lowry painting, mixed with high glamour. I looked at things like Ballet Russes for inspiration when I started thinking about this project, but I also looked to 90s music videos and stuff that I liked as a child. Things that got something out of me, that made me feel.

Nice. What kind of performance is there in the video?
It's a mixture of dancers and actors. Performance art can be quite shit; there are certain elements of it which I find kind of dated and associated with something that's inaccessible unless you're in that world. It can feel like someone's vanity project very easily, so I really wanted to work with people who are genuinely really talented. That was super important. You feel like you're getting something really special and not just watching someone muck about a bit.

Who's in it who's wicked?
Everyone. There's this really amazing actress called Sameena, who was in a film called Catch Me Daddy, and actually won a Newcomer award from the BFI, even though it's kind of the only thing she's done. She's northern and from a really working class background, where she still lives and works full time. We've also got this guy Harry Alexander, who's a ballerina in the Michael Clarke company.

Is the piece choreographed?
I did the choreography myself. I've always been really interested in that.

Are you in it?
I wanted to be, but I'm still behind the camera. That is something I definitely hope to do in the future, though.

Who directed the video?
Joseph Bird. He's really new and hasn't made much except a couple of music videos [for Connan Mockasin and Rejjie Snow]. I met him through friends and we collaborate really well together. He's very raw right now; he hasn't done much and he's very technical. The soundtrack was done by Taigen Kawabe and Kenichi Iwasa. Taigen's in Bo Ningen – he's the singer – and he's rapping half Japanese and half English in it.

And does clothing feature heavily in the piece?
It's mostly costumes. I said I don't want to be part of the schedule and do fashion week in the normal sense, and this stands by that. It's not clothes you can wholesale; it's sculptures that are dressed in costumes and people in videos dressed in costumes. The art's for sale, but it wouldn't be separate garments – it's the whole sculpture. Then, with Melissa, I've created a few pairs of their shoes. They're sort of ballet-esque, with ribbons hanging off them and blowing around. While you're watching the huge screens with the film projection on it the ribbons are flying all over the room.

How does it feel not to be showing another season at fashion week?
For me personally, it's ideal. It means I get to think about my work and I actually have time to make it. For a young woman it was a lot of pressure – you've got to work with factories constantly, people that are older than you, interns that are your age… it's tough. This last year's been a lot more free, and I think my ideas are coming out stronger. I don't feel scared to experiment with things now.

Thanks, Claire. Bye!

"Dancing with Dreams" runs at the Galeria Melissa for ten weeks, from Friday the 17th of February. It's free and open to the public at 43 King Street London WC2E 8JY.

@bertiebrandes

(Photo: Instagram / @realdonaldtrump)

Hey: which of these thumbs up is the least convincing? They are all, to a certain degree, unconvincing. I am going to posit a theory: that a lot of the people in this photograph have never popped a thumbs up before in their life. Like, I mean, come on – look at this guy:

Republicans don't want to be happy; it isn't their natural state. So the thumbs up – a very pure, human gesture of happiness and contentment – is unfamiliar territory for many.

They've just poisoned some water, though, so they are happy. This photo came yesterday, from Trump's latest legislation, a bill to undo one of Obama's final moves, abolishing the Office of Surface Mining's Stream Protection Rule. The regulation protected rivers and waterways from waste disposal from the coal mining industry, but that has gone now. Listen, I'm no mining expert – and the mining industry, who definitely don't have a vested interest in avoiding this, argue the rule will be costly to implement and lead to a loss of jobs – but I think signing a document that makes it OK to poison water again isn't the greatest of ideas. But what do I know! I'm no mining expert!

I am, however, a thumbs up expert, so we're going to go through every one of these fuckers, left to right, and ask: hey: which of these thumbs up is least convincing?

PENCE

This is how I imagine Frankenstein's Monster would do a thumbs up if they taught the beast to emote through gesture midway through the book. You know: halfway between killing all them kids and the bit where he fucks off to the wilds of the Arctic, Frankenstein sits him down and goes: "Let's try this. It's called 'a thumbs up'," and, for hours and hours and hours, until he cries with frustration at it, the monster tries. And this is the best shit they can coax out of his stiff, dead body.

2/10

THIS GUY

Pretty sure this guy is a dad from a 30-second German language bathroom spray commercial who is proud to have cleaned the sink without any help from his wife and daughter. "WENIGER ZEIT PUTZE MAN. MEHR ZEIT FLICKE MAN!" he yells at the end.

7/10

THIS FUCKING GUY, I DON'T KNOW

This is actually a good thumbs up. This is the guy who sold your dad his last three Toyotas. He does his own commercials for the car lot he has worked his way up to buy. "Hey, come down to Tony's," he says, while air dancers wriggle and piss behind him. "I'll cut you a great fuckin' deal. Hey—" and he pops a thumbs up, like he was put on Earth by the gods to do a thumbs up, like he spent his entire five years of junior high walking into a thumbs up, turning into it shoulder first, he coulda gone all-state with this thumbs up if he wasn't in that car crash, a thumbs up that makes the very angels sing above him, and he goes —"hey. Fuckin' buy my Toyotas."

11/10

PEANUT HEAD

This is the thumbs up your dad – who you haven't been able to coax much more than a sentence out of for the past decade-and-a-half, really, have you; I mean, he's never been a man of many words, but he's really let your mum do the conversational leg work since 2002 – this is the thumbs up your dad does when he's pottering about at the bottom of the garden, too far away for you to do much more than shout, and you yell at him, "DAD? DO YOU WANT A CUP OF TEA?"

6/10

THIS GUY

Illustrative photo from a long-read about what happened to all the Fonzy impersonators who made money in the 80s. A very "Six of my wives left me, one of them died!" sort of thumbs up.

5/10

DEAD GUY

This guy died halfway through this photo and didn't even pull a thumbs up before he succumbed to it, so they had to add that hand on in post. I have to give him a N/A for this one.

THE SARTORIAL MANIAC

This thumbs up is kind of weak and defeated, like a hostage who has spent just a little bit too long sympathising with his masters while chained to a radiator. The last time this dude pulled that thumbs up out was when he went to a neighbourhood barbecue party and ended up in a conversational group exclusively made up of Mexicans, and when his wife asked him "honey, are you OK?" he popped this out.

4/10

POTUS

Trump has form for the thumbs up, so in the context this is pretty good, but also I can't ever see him do this pose and think this is how he feels tits. I dunno, it's just a feeling: I just feel like, when approached with a pair of tits, Donald Trump coils his fingers into tight half-fists, extends the thumbs, hovers them over each nipple briefly, then presses them in. He might say "bop" as he does it, then sadly and quietly ejaculates. Listen: I have no evidence whatsoever to back this one up. But I am allowed to think it.

7/10

THIS GUY

"I just upgraded to Windows XP!"

1/10 BUT VIEW OF ENTIRE THUMBS UP SPOILED BY THE POTUS, HARD TO GIVE A PURE SCORE

THE ONE WOMAN ONE

This is the thumbs up your step-mum does when she finally convinces your dad to start charging you rent.

9/10

RED GUY

No visible thumbs up from this guy, but we have to assume that – in between having a visible reaction to shellfish, or whatever is going on with his big, ruddy face – he is popping one.

N/A

POPS MCKENZIE

This is a real "I just completed my year-long tour of every Burger King restaurant in the US" of a thumbs up. Look at the elbow action.

8/10

THAT LAST GUY ON THE END

This dude's physically inept son is playing cub-level soccer and, despite his hatred for him, his clumsy son, his stupid useless son, those legs you gave him are trash, Lynette! Despite that, he is on the sidelines, weakly cheering him on, giving him the "go on, buddy!" thumbs up whenever the fuckin' kid makes eye contact.

6/10

AND SO WE GET TO THE BIT WHERE WE SAY WHICH IS THE WEAKEST THUMBS UP

Oh, they all suck. But sadly the contest isn't about that any more, because remember the dying man? Remember the man who died? Look at this:

Look at this little hand cry for help.

"Maybe… if I just… touch my tiny… baby… hand… on the President's… shoulder… my heart won't… explode… in my chest." Bad luck, buddy. Your hand just became the most disappointing thumbs up in this photograph of disappointing thumbs up. And it's not even a thumbs up. I hope you rest in peace.

@joelgolby

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(Top photo, of Tobie Quainton's Air Max 95 x Atmos trainers, by Jayden Kimpton)

Tobie Quainton has spent eleven years looking for the same pair of Nike trainers. Eleven years. That's 132 months. Or 4,015 days, which is exactly half the time he's spent literally living and breathing on this earth. You could fly to Mars, hang about growing plants a la Mark Wahlberg for a year, fly back down and repeat another four times and you still wouldn't have reached the amount of time this guy has spent searching for an item invented to protect your feet from stepping in shit.

Still, it's a particularly special item. In Quainton's eyes, anyway. The trainer he hunted down for over a decade was an Air Max 95, a Nike collaboration with Japanese sneaker boutique Atmos. It's not what you'd call subtle: stripes of leopard, tiger, cow and cheetah print cover the entire foot. Released in late 2006, it's rumoured only 5,000 were made.

"I must have been about 11 when I first saw them," Quainton explains, "but the internet wasn't a big thing back then. You couldn't press a few buttons and get something delivered from across the other side of the world. You had to find it yourself. But they literally summed me up in a shoe, and ever since then I've been looking for them."

That search ended two weeks ago. When a different but similarly hyped sneaker dropped last year – the Supreme x Nike Air Max 98 Snakeskin – he bought two pairs and subsequently swapped one of those for his beloved 95s (a persistent seller came calling). After years spent scrolling through page upon page of Yahoo! Japan, he got what he wanted, and didn't even have to pay for the pleasure. Surely he was ecstatic to finally get his hands on them? Sated? A little relieved, maybe?

"I dunno – it's an odd one," he begins. "It's like completing something, I guess. A bit like closure. I didn't jump around my house celebrating or anything, but you do get a real sense of achievement."

The Air Max 95 x Atmos trainers on Tobie's Instagram

Welcome to the ruthlessly dedicated world of grails. If the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word "grail" as "any greatly desired and sought-after objective; ultimate ideal or reward" then this takes worshipping at the altar of rare streetwear and sprints, 100 miles an hour, off into the distance with it. It's the one item you want above everything else: unachievable, unobtainable, almost mythical in it's hard-to-find ness. A one-of-a-kind Supreme x Andrei Molodkin "Donald Trump" T-shirt, for example, last seen selling for over £18,000 on eBay.

Not everyone's a fan of the term, though. "Firstly, can I just say how much I hate the word 'grail," says freelance writer Ross Wilson, "almost as much as I fucking despise the term 'bogo' [slang for Supreme box logo]. I can honestly say I don't want anything badly enough to be worried about whether I actually own it or not. The only things that might come close would be items I've already previously owned and subsequently lost or used to death – an old Natas panther SMA skate deck, or an OG Gonz Vision board."

Here, he makes an important point: your grail isn't something you can simply chuck money at. Anyone can hit up a streetwear forum/Facebook groups and drop £500 quid on a black box logo hoodie. It's not about money, really; it's about scarcity. And obscurity. The reason Quainton spent so long looking for those Air Max 95s is because his feet are a size six and UK men's sizes tend to start from size seven and up. As he points out: "When people throw the term grail around for an item that's literally been out for two days and make it seem like they've somehow done something absolutely amazing [in buying it]? It's not the same calibre."

Not everyone finds what they're looking for, mind. Take 25-year-old Cash Cobain, a skater and tattoo artist who's currently hunting for a jacket from the first ever North Face x Supreme collaboration, in 2007. "It's annoying, because it's the one thing I haven't been able to get yet," he explains. "The only jackets I've seen with my own eyes were both large and XL. I've seen one – just one – in my size, on the Chinese market for a ridiculous price, but I'm not willing to spend that much money."

But it doesn't really matter. It's all about the chase. Wondering whether the will-I-won't-I hard work will pay off. Twenty-year-old Colin Chu, for example, spent nearly two years tracking down a blue Cav Empt Icon Hoodie. "I first saw it in an outfit picture and had to have it instantly – the colour, the design, the 'cool' I believed it would bring," he says. It was too expensive first time around, so he waited, patiently, for the price to drop to roughly £200. "When it finally arrived from Asia after a month, it felt good to have put all that effort into buying something I really wanted."

Air Max x Patta "Lucky Greens" (Photo: Zoard Heuze)

Some, like 20-year-old Zoard Heuze, don't hold onto their grails. After immersing himself in the Air Max re-selling game at the age of 15, there was one pair he couldn't quite track down: the Patta "Lucky Greens", which were released, unannounced, in-store in 2009. After three years, Heuze finally got his hands on a pair, and wore them for six months before swiftly selling them to pay for a holiday in Budapest. "I got bored," he explains, "and it was actually pretty scary to see the trainers lose their condition. I wanted to sell them before they got too fucked, otherwise I wouldn't be able to get my money back."

For Quainton, re-selling is out of the question. "I haven't sold anything since I was 12," he says. "I've got 400 pairs of trainers, three wardrobes and a lot more stuff in storage. There's these new age hypebeasts who sit there, buy something, own it for a week and then sell it on again." Wilson, for what it's worth, agrees: "It feels like a lot of younger people track down these items purely to flex on social media to a bunch of strangers. You see people claiming: 'I've finally got my grail,' and then the same person selling said item 48 hours later... it baffles me."

Still, for those who aren't simply using it to rack up likes, this infatuation with the unobtainable is more than a dick-swinging contest. "It's kind of… filling a hole," laughs Cobain. "Once I've got something in my mind, I can't stop thinking about that thing until I've got it. [Aside from North Face x Supreme], the only other item I've really wanted that I actually managed to get was the first Stone Island Raso Gommato camouflage jacket. I'm pretty sure it's the only size small in the UK. I felt proud because I knew almost no one else has one."

Is that it then? Is that why grown men spend half their lives hunting down a pair of trainers? Do we simply want what we can't have? Colin isn't so sure. "For a lot of people, their grails are symbols of their own hopes and dreams, to be owned by better, future versions of themselves. They become physical manifestations of success. Most of us wouldn't be able to spend £1,000-plus on a pullover, just on a whim – but we'd love to be able to. It's something that makes managing to get one of your grails so much sweeter. That, and looking fly as hell wearing it."

@louisedonovan_

Previously:

The 14-Year-Olds Spending Thousands On Streetwear

US News

Harward Turns Down National Security Adviser Role
President Trump's choice to replace former national security adviser Michael Flynn has turned the job down. Retired vice admiral Robert Harward said it was "purely a personal issue," but had reportedly been keen to bring in his own staff to the National Security Council, which may have clashed with White House plans. Trump was said to be hoping to persuade Harward to change his mind.—AP / Financial Times

Trump Will Draw Up New Travel Ban Order
Rather than continue to appeal suspension of its travel ban, the Trump administration will instead focus on a new executive order. A Justice Department court filing said that order will
"eliminate what the panel erroneously thought were constitutional concerns." At his chaotic Thursday press conference, President Trump said the order would be "tailored" to overcome "a very bad decision."—CNN

Thousands to Attend 'General Strike' Rallies
More than 100 anti-Trump rallies are expected to take place in cities across the country today, part of an attempted no-work "general strike" organized by Strike4Democracy and other protest groups. More than 15,000 people expressed an interest in attending a Washington Square Park rally in New York City on the event's Facebook page.—NBC News

Vice President Pence Begins European Tour
Vice President Mike Pence is doing a stint in Europe in an effort to reassure US allies about the Trump administration's foreign policy agenda. Pence was to attend the Munich Security Conference in Germany Friday before meeting German chancellor Angela Merkel Saturday. On Sunday, he heads to Brussels to meet NATO and European Union leaders.—AP

International News

Pakistani Forces Kill 39 in Security Crackdown
Pakistan has killed 39 militants in security operations after a suicide bombing at a Sufi shrine in the Sindh Province left at least 88 people dead. ISIS has claimed responsibility for Thursday's bombing at the shrine.—Al Jazeera

Samsung Group Chief Arrested in Corruption Investigation
South Korean police have arrested acting Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee over his alleged involvement in a corruption scandal that has seen parliament impeach President Park Geun-hye. Samsung has been accused of donating to nonprofits operated by Geun-hye's friend, in exchange for special treatment by the government. Prosecutors have 20 days to file specific charges against Lee.—BBC News

Poll Shows Angela Merkel Losing to Rival
A new poll shows Martin Schulz, the German Social Democrats' candidate for September's elections, leading Chancellor Angela Merkel. The ZDF poll shows 49 percent of Germans want Schulz as chancellor, compared to 38 percent who prefer Merkel. A January poll showed Merkel leading Schulz by four points. German elections, however, do not directly choose a leader but rather a party and its candidates to parliament. —Reuters

Tony Blair Calls on Brits to 'Rise Up' Against Brexit
Tony Blair, the former prime minister of the UK, has launched a campaign to persuade fellow Brits to change their minds about Brexit, despite the country voting in favor of leaving the European Union last year. He called on supporters of the UK remaining inside the EU to "rise up in defense of what we believe."—The Guardian

Everything Else

Zuckerberg Shares Manifesto for 'Global Community'
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has extolled the virtues of globalization and rejected isolationism in a lengthy post. "Our greatest opportunities are now global… Our greatest challenges also need global responses," Zuckerberg wrote.—TIME

Bieber's Alleged Headbutt Investigated by LA Cops
The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department said it is investigating an incident in which Justin Bieber allegedly headbutted a man at a restaurant. The department said a witness saw the incident, but the alleged victim has not filed a police report.—AP

Future Drops 17-Track New Album
Future has released his new, self-titled, 17-track album that features no collaborations. In a Beats 1 interview with Zane Lowe, the Atlanta rapper said he "just focused on creatively coming out with something special on my own."—Noisey

Study Reveals Elite Wage Gaps
Female graduates from elite universities earn roughly 16 percent less than their male counterparts, according to a study in Social Science Research, while graduates from top universities in general earn 21 percent more than graduates from "lowest-tier" schools.—Motto

More Than 200 Republicans Skip Town Hall Events
More than 200 Republicans in Congress are reportedly skipping town hall events with constituents as they head home for a weeklong recess. Just 88 in-person town halls have been scheduled for February, according to data compiled by Legistorm.—VICE News

Walmart Sued Over Fake Craft Beer Claims
An Ohio man is suing Walmart over claims that its "Trouble Brewing" products are "craft" beers. The class action lawsuit filed by Matthew Adam alleges Walmart used "fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair" practices to sell the four beers in question.—Munchies

Women are no strangers to horror film. It's hard to find one that doesn't feature running women, scared women, screaming women, and brutally murdered women. We experience the fear of so many horror films through these on-screen proxies, but when it comes to the behind-the-camera talent—especially in mainstream theatrical horror—female filmmakers are not nearly as represented. The anthology film XX, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and arrives in theaters and on VOD today, seeks to put a dent in that imbalance. And veteran indie director Karyn Kusama, who's no stranger to genre films of all stripes, is leading the charge.

The film includes short films directed by Jovanka Vukovic, Annie Clark (AKA multitalented musician St. Vincent, in her directorial debut), and Southbound and V/H/S director Roxanne Benjamin. Several explore themes of being a provider, a caretaker, and a clean-up crew—both literally and emotionally. But it's Kusama's Her Only Living Son, the film's finale, where the idea of motherhood—specifically, being a mother to an adolescent boy—is taken to a demonic extreme. It follows Cora (Christina Kirke,) a single mom whose son is approaching is 18th birthday and exhibiting increasingly violent, antisocial behavior. His teachers and neighbors let him get away with it, citing something special about him, something he got from his father. Like her 2016 film The Invitation, Kusama uses enclosed spaces and withheld information to let us imagine the outside world and events that inform her characters' unsettling reality. She's haunted by the idea of parenthood—and the kind of surrogate body horror of watching a child go through the unimaginable in a world that's ill equipped to help him.

I talked with Kusama over the phone about cults, zombie people, and why a female perspective is fundamental in addressing our current American nightmare.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

VICE: You were one of the first filmmakers to be attached to XX, but the film went through several filmmakers before settling on the final four. During that development phase, how much were you in communication with the other directors? Did you do much in the way of collaboration with anyone?
Karyn Kusama: You know what's interesting, is that I didn't. Early on, I had considered an idea, and I realized [it] would be basically too expensive, the way that I wanted to execute it. So I abandoned it, but in doing so, found out that there would have been some thematic overlap between one of the [other] films and the idea that I had abandoned. So that was really the only way I would have known anything about any of the other projects. And so we were really kind of given the freedom to make what we thought we could execute within the budget and the constraints of the production, and I was surprised to see that there were areas of thematic similarity, but then also very different departures as well.

The idea of bringing together four female filmmakers to do horror shorts is in itself a kind of statement about the possibilities of the genre. What's special for you personally about being a woman working in horror right now?
You know, I'll go back to some of my favorite […] film criticism I used to read that was about horror. So frequently, it would address the "American nightmare." I think it's fair to say that no matter what side, or from where on the political spectrum you cull from, I think we are squarely in an American nightmare. And it's very clear for all of us to see. And for those for whom it's not clear, I mean, I guess we can put them in the zombie category.

This is a highly politicized and activated and alert moment in history. We are bearing witness to something that will have potentially tremendous ramifications for the globe for decades. And so I feel like horror is just a way to contain some of the tremendous anxiety and fear that I actively feel on a daily basis because of where we're at. Maybe in giving voice to that stuff, and giving shape to it, and imagining outcomes that surprise us, or survivors who surprise us, we can slowly coalesce to find a way forward, and find a way to talk to each other. Because for me, the horror of the world we're living in right now is the lack of listening. People just are not listening to each other anymore. And I'm really disheartened by it, but I have to wonder about what got us to this place. There are so many factors, but it makes me feel like there is so much to explore in these more extreme storytelling forms.

I think this is why we turn to genre film in the first place. It's why there have been times of political unrest and turmoil that also produce great art and amazing stories. And I think we are probably entering that time again, or are in it right now. I feel very close to the horror genre because I think of how it's gotten me through periods where at the time I felt afraid of the world and afraid for the world. And I think that's why we keep returning to this storytelling form, because we're just trying to find new answers to these old questions.

One question your short in XX deals with directly is about parenthood, but specifically about a mother raising a son, and what it means to raise a boy—a potentially destructive, frightening boy—in our current culture. Is that all there, or did I read too much into it?
Well, it is, because I'm a mother, I have a son. I think a lot about what it means to be a mother to a son in today's America, in today's world. I do feel like there's something just fundamentally broken about our illusions and delusion of what maleness and masculinity has to be. I wanted to address the notion that men start as boys, and boys start as tiny children, and they learn about the world from not just the outside, but that sort of more protected inner world of their family. And I wanted to imagine a very strong bond between this mother and son in my short. I wanted to imagine that they, for better or for worse, felt like it was just the two of them against the world, even though the son is curious about that outside world, and wants to interact with it more.

That felt like a really plain and relatable reality of a single mom raising a kid on her own. And just the idea—do mothers make a difference? Can they change their children? Can they parent their children to make decisions differently than they would without that woman in their life? Of course, I hope that's true. And I know, too, that there can be styles of mothering that are tremendously destructive and problematic. But in this case, I wanted to explore how devotion is this almost dangerous energy, because this woman is so devoted to her son that it comes at a very high price.

It struck me as a very necessary continuation of the Rosemary's Baby story, and exploring that mother not just as a victim and a target, but someone with a real problem that she has to make the best of for the next 18 years.
I recognize that some people would just say, "Well, it's just based in another narrative, and there's nothing imaginative about that," and I totally understand people's beef with that. But for me, what became interesting was imagining that kind of character having to have some reality of running from place to place with her kid, who's going from school to school and trying to make friends and become a person. And then meanwhile, his manhood is looming. I think [it's] kind of the instructive, most fundamental element of horror storytelling—there's no relief from the fact that you live in the world. So even though this character has escaped one danger, she still has to face the other dangers that will confront her daily life as a single parent on her own, with this kid who is becoming increasingly out of control.

And so I thought there was something interesting about that, because it made me think about how horror pushes us to keep facing the music. Like, you can't run from yourself. And what you see in horror so frequently is people trying to escape their circumstances and themselves, and being unable to do that. And that seems very real to me right now. [ Laughs.] That seems, like, too real, perhaps. But it's instructive, and I learn a lot from that kind of storytelling.

Her Only Living Son also returns to some cult elements that you previously dug into in The Invitation. What is it about cults right now? Why do they resonate with us again?
I'm think, as I've had to think about this issue more, and really kind of confront our cultural/political condition right now, I think there's this fascinating thread that unites a lot of politics, a lot of religion, and a lot of what we could call "cults." A lot of corporate mentality, and military mentality, which is … kind of a dulling one's curiosity about the world, combined with an encouragement of unquestioning faith. I think we are struggling with the possibility that those two threads are intertwining and simply becoming the norm in culture. I'm struggling with it, but I feel like we're all kind of having to face what it means when—and I'll just kind of [speak] specifically, and for myself only—what does it mean when we watch essentially 99 percent of the Republican party completely lose any sense of its moral dignity? We've now seen them turn their back on decency. And that's fascinating. Where's that all going to land with history? Because they just got in lockstep with one another and kind of lost their soul.

What films—horror or otherwise—are getting you through these times?
It's so funny, I definitely find myself watching a lot of documentaries. I kind of need to see—I was really amazed at the very efficient dispersal of information in [Ava DuVernay's] 13th. I couldn't get over how many of those concepts stuck with me and how much it's changed my thinking about the nature of politics right now in America. So that was just something I'm really thankful for having watched.

I mean, you know, honestly I'm in a moment where I really need humor. So I'm probably watching bad lip readings of the inauguration or something. [Laughs.] I just need to blow off some steam and kind of laugh the surreal quality the daily world seems to have taken on. But in terms of film I felt very inspired by the outcome of Arrival and we could have this woman character be smart and capable and be able to sort of save humanity from its worst instincts. That felt really powerful to me. It makes one feel something, but it also has something really fascinating to say about the nature of listening and collaboration and cooperation. The ability to have those traits doesn't have to be a position of weakness.

Follow Emily Yoshida on Twitter.

During his press conference on Thursday, Trump tossed out a bizarre statement that drugs are cheaper than candy bars these days.

Desus and Mero, experts in both subjects, take on this polarizing statement about our "drug-infested nation" during Thursday night's episode. Is Donald just out of touch, or does he simply have a really bad dealer? Sure, chocolate bars can be pricey—especially if you're grabbing an organic one from Whole Foods—but does it break the bank in the same way as weed or blow?

Watch every episode of this week's Desus & Mero for free online now, and make sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.

Very little has felt as satisfying to watch as the famed white supremacist/founder of the "alt-right" movement, Richard Spencer, getting clocked in the face during an interview last month. The clip spurned a fervent argument online about whether or not it's OK to punch a neo-Nazi—but it goes without saying that as cathartic as punching white supremacists in the face might be, it won't get us much closer to figuring out how to reckon with them.

Talking with ex neo-Nazis themselves might, so we asked Angela King, Tony McAleer, and Frank Meeink to explain what's driving the rise of hate groups, what inspired them to leave theirs, and the threats they see in politics today. All are former neo-Nazis who are now directors of Life After Hate, a nonprofit that works to rehabilitate former hate-group members. Though their experiences span different eras and locales—McAleer was a Canadian skinhead recruiter, King a white supremacist in South Florida, and Meeink a young skinhead leader in Illinois—they all share one thing in common: an intimate knowledge of the conditions in one's life that can foster a turn to hate-based belief systems.

Interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity.

VICE: What was the appeal of joining the neo-Nazi movement?
Frank Meeink: Just the belonging. Feeling like I was part of something.

Tony McAleer: It offers power, notoriety, acceptance, and approval. You know how when you go to the grocery store, and you're really hungry, so you end up buying a bunch of junk food? That was the ideology. I went out into the world emotionally hungry.

When did you stop identifying with the movement, and what led to that?
Frank Meeink: In 1993—I was 19 years old, and it just wasn't what I expected it to be. [After four years], I didn't expect that I'd be in and out of prison already. And there were people who were starting to show me that no matter what color they were, they were going through the same things as me. I would talk with a young black inmate about our girlfriends on the outside, and it was like we had the same exact feelings and emotions, and we were both worried if they were cheating on us and stuff like that. But it was a slow process.

Angela King: I went to prison in a highly publicized hate-crime case. I expected that I would get my ass kicked all the time because of who I was. There were women there who I would have been very ugly to, possibly even violent, had we met under different circumstances. But even knowing who I was, they treated me with kindness and compassion. I honestly had no idea what to do with that. My whole life was anger, aggression, hatred, and fighting.

They were not easy on me. They asked me questions that I didn't want to answer for myself, because that would mean admitting what a shitty person I had been. A big part of the group I started to hang out with were Jamaican women. One asked me if I would have called her the N-word. She said, "Would you have tried to hurt me? What if my daughter was there, would you have tried to kill us?" Prison isn't the kind of place where you can just leave if you're uncomfortable.

Do you feel like if that hadn't have happened, your old self could have identified with the alt-right?
Frank Meeink: Oh, absolutely. It's the same movement. It's just cleaned up; it's well-spoken. They preach exactly the same stuff that I used to preach. Exactly the same stuff.

Angela King: The alt-right does not exist. It's nothing more than white supremacists who have repackaged the hate and served it up in a more palatable form for human consumption.

When I was 23 and on my way out of the neo-Nazi movement, what they were pushing at that time was that we were being too blatant. We started hearing, "Quit shaving your heads, quit getting tattoos, quit being so easy to identify, quit committing crimes that are going to bring bad or negative attention to us." That's what they were telling us to do. Go undercover. Go out and become a police officer, a lawyer, a doctor. Get into different aspects of society, and when the time is right, there was one goal: a race war.

Not to be alarmist, but seeing what's happening today with the people who call themselves the "alt-right," seeing the sheer joy that comes out of the violent far-right, that's more horrifying to me than neo-Nazis, because I know what it means.

Tony McAleer: [What I was known for] when I was part of the movement was to make the unreasonable sound reasonable. So you could take the Nazi ideology and use a different language to make it sound very reasonable. If you put on a shirt and a tie with a suit, and tell people to go to college, don't get tattoos, and go mainstream, it makes white supremacy appear reasonable. I did that during my time in the movement. And it's funny to see it 20 years later, and that's exactly what the whole movement looks like now.

Is there a serious threat that this extreme, violent, far-right white nationalism could gain more control?
Frank Meeink: They've gained power. They're there. Their main people are in power. Bannon just got put on the National Security Council. Spencer will be running somewhere, and he's going to win, wherever he runs this next election, because he's going to pick the right spot to run.

Tony McAleer: If you look at ISIS's recruiting techniques for kids in Europe, it's not like they sell it on the idea of becoming an Islamic scholar. They find these kids who are almost delinquents, and they sell them on the sense of purpose and a sense of meaning that they can find through the group. It's like they're selling a fantasy where you get to be a hero. You see in a lot of the far-right stuff, where there's a lot of viking warrior imagery. It's a hyper-masculine, twisted hero's journey that's a great thing to feel like you're part of when you don't have a lot going on in your life.

What do you think is emboldening the alt-right to speak out?
Angela King: I think it's all the misinformation out there. We have pockets of people in our country who aren't inherently racist or hateful, but whose lives haven't gone great. They're not out there getting rich—they're barely getting by. They can't take care of their families, and it's apparent that those calling themselves "alt-right" have thought critically about how to hook them. The language being used creates an "us versus them" narrative. They're saying that refugees and immigrants are our greatest enemies—not that they're fleeing for their lives, but that they want to come here and destroy America.

Follow Annie Armstrong on Twitter.

This story was published in collaboration with the Marshall Project.

In 2008, Marilyn Shankle-Grant's son, Paul Storey, was sentenced to death. He and an accomplice had been convicted of shooting and killing 28-year-old Jonas Cherry while robbing the putt-putt golf course where Cherry worked in Hurst, Texas.

This is Shankle-Grant's account of the experience and the years since.

I was on vacation, in New York, when I found out my son had been arrested. I became numb. This is not happening, I thought. This is not true. There is not a day since where I don't think about the victim's mother, the devastation she must be feeling knowing she's lost her only son.

When I visited Paul in jail before the trial, he was very depressed. He said, "I don't want to live if I have to go to prison. I would rather die." I kept trying to keep him strong, telling him that miracles happen every day.

I couldn't understand why Paul was sentenced to death. When you think of the death penalty, you think of serial killers. You don't think of a robbery-murder, like my son committed. For the first couple of years, I did nothing but cry. I remember our first visit at death row, a week after he'd arrived, he already looked a lot thinner. He seemed like he was starving himself. It broke my heart.

I decided I needed to see him as often as I possibly could. I took on extra hours at work just to get money to drive the four-and-a-half hours to the prison.

When I'd go to see him, the female prison guards would call me "Mama," and say, "Mama, he's been good this week." They say he gives them the utmost respect. I've always taught him, no matter where you are, you keep your dignity, so I can't tell you how proud I am when the guards say nice things about him. He gets letters from pen pals, and I think a lot of people assume Paul—a black man from a single mother in the inner city—is not that educated. But he surprises them, and then they write me to say, "Wow, he's such a good writer!" And that makes me proud, too.

Last year, I lost my job; I was going through so much emotionally that I couldn't work. Unemployment benefits were enough to pay the bills, but not to travel to see Paul. So I started baking cookies and selling them. I made a Facebook page for Marilyn's Old-Fashioned Tea Cakes. I went to car washes and beauty shops, anywhere they'd let me sell them.

Appeals take a long time, and we never talked about what might happen. Last fall, he got an execution date in April 2017. His younger brother and I went to see him. He told us, "You've got five minutes to cry, scream, yell, whatever you need to do. And then we're going to enjoy our visit."

We didn't talk about it again. We never talk about the execution, or the burial, or anything like that. I don't want him to give up hope. We're still holding on to our small piece of hope, so we don't reflect on what's coming. I have an enormous amount of faith in his lawyers, and I'm praying to God they find one thing in his case that gets a stay.

But the closer it gets, the more it weighs on me. I was always the life of the party, this fun-loving, outgoing person, but I've totally changed. I exclude myself from family and friends. I don't go anywhere.

I get asked all the time if I'm going to witness the execution. As a mother, how could I not? I cannot let my child die without me. It's unnatural for a kid to not outlive their parents. But this is not a long illness. It's not a sudden automobile accident. It's watching your healthy child be strapped to a gurney and pumped full of chemicals. And there's nothing you can do.

I try to live it in my head, I think, What will it be like? Am I going to survive it? I've had nightmares. I wake up screaming. I tell Paul all the time, "We're God-fearing people. God can do anything." But I worry that when he's on that gurney he'll look at me and ask, "Mom, did you lie to me?"

When I go to see him on death row, I can't touch him and comfort him. I've heard that after the execution, they'll send him to the funeral home. They allow you to come in while they're still warm. That will be the first time I've touched him in more than ten years.

A previous Life Inside column featured Sven Berger, one of the jurors who sentenced Storey to death.

It's been a minute since we heard from Chicago suburb brat-rock outfit The Orwells—more than two years to be exact. Following the success of 2014's Disgraceland, the quintet broke into the mainstream with their standout single "Who Needs You," landing them play in Apple commercials and the festival circuit alike. Now the group has returned with a new fully-realized sound and aesthetic on their follow-up Terrible Human Beings, which drops Friday on Atlantic subsidiary Canvasback.

The new album found the group recording in Chicago legend Steve Albini's Electrical Audio Studios and reunited them with acclaimed Arctic Monkeys producer Jim Abbiss. The re-vamped experience brought a rich sound and depth to Terrible Human Beings, a record that details everything from tour party lifestyles to their love-hate relationship with hometown fans.

Read more on Noisey

Winnipeg, Manitoba is home to Canada's largest urban Indigenous demographic—about 91,000 people, according to a 2011 National Household Strategy—a population big enough for some to call it an "urban reservation." Which means the challenges faced by Indigenous people across the country are often concentrated and intensified in the city. These residents earn substantially less than their counterparts. They are more likely to live in dilapidated housing, which probably has something do with the fact that 43 percent of Indigenous people live below the low income cut-off, according to a 2006 census.

In the city's North End, on the north side of a rail yard, is where a predominantly Indigenous population lives. The neighbourhoods located there deal with high rates of violence. Since the start of 2017, there were 12 shootings, eight sexual assaults, and five people were killed, according to preliminary statistics published on a Winnipeg Police Service crime map. (The city at large had the fourth highest homicide rates in the country in 2015, according to a Statistics Canada report.)

But many in the city's north end refuse to wait for police or provincial agencies to alleviate problems like these: They are taking them into their own hands instead.

There are 14 grassroots organizations that make up "The Village," as Michael Champagne calls the collective. Together, these groups vow to mitigate high rates of violence, connect Indigenous youth to cultural outlets and help keep families together, among other things.

"The area that The Village is working on are the issues of our community," the well-known advocate and community organizer behind Aboriginal Youth Opportunities told VICE. "I never like to isolate the issue from the action or the solution that we're trying to implement ourselves."

This week's episode of RISE, VICELAND's documentary series about Indigenous peoples of the Americas, delves into the inner-working of Winnipeg's north end. This installment, hosted by Gitz Crazyboy, taps into some of the root causes behind issues affecting the community, like the rippling impacts of the residential school system.

Bear Clan Patrol, which is featured in the episode, is an associated organization that is working towards proactive resolve. It's a group that Champagne considers the "eyes and ears of the street." Volunteers from the group patrol the community five days a week to make the north end a safer space. The organization is comprised of about 420 members across Canada who are eager to bolster protection of those most susceptible to violence.

It was initially established in the 1990s to protect Indigenous women from harm, then later revived in 2014 for the same reason. When Tina Fontaine's lifeless body was pulled from the Red River that year—a death that became a flashpoint for nationwide attention to the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls—executive director James Favel and his cohorts knew the community could no longer remain on the sidelines and watch horrific events unfold.

"The community's been crying out for direct action, boots on the ground over the topic of missing and murdered Indigenous women for so long," Favel told VICE. "There's a lot of revitalization going on here over the last five or so years and we're a part of it. We're tending to the sociological needs of our community members. Our mandate is to protect and empower the women, children, and elderly—the most vulnerable."

A further problem the community is dealing with is the apprehension of its children. About 85 per cent of kids in foster care in the province are Indigenous, according to a study by Statistics Canada in 2016. Child and Family Services is the provincial department that determines when a child must placed into the hands of the state.

Mary Burton is part of a north end group called Fearless R2W, which was established to help families stay together. She went through the CFS system; her children did, too. She considers state-run foster care to be a vicious cycle—kids typically find themselves in a toxic milieu with few rules and little guidance. Some of them have nothing to turn to when they are spit out, which can result in a life of hardship. An example of system failure, in simple terms.

"We're getting sick and tired of CFS taking our kids," she told VICE. "In the R2W postal code area, one in six kids are being apprehended in this neighbourhood daily. Right now, 84 percent of apprehensions are due to poverty, not neglect, not abuse."

Cindy Blackstock, executive director of First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, believes it's imperative kids remain at home with their families—if it's workable, that is. Providing adequate supports to address poverty would help, she said.

"There are way too many kids in care," she told VICE. "When you look at what's causing First Nation children to be in government care, it's poverty, poor housing and caregiver substance misuse related to intergenerational colonization, including residential schools. We have so little quality assurance that we're actually putting these kids in a better place."

Burton doesn't want her grandchildren to wind up in foster care, she wants them to grow up knowing their culture—who they are—like most families do.

"If the agencies went into these homes with a harm reduction model, they could probably keep the kids at home and put in supports for the families," she said, "But they don't because the system is created to take kids. There's no reason for families to be ripped apart because of poverty."

The self-sufficiency and cohesion of community networks has the potential to soften problems affecting the area, and while this may be true, Favel said there's still ways a to go, in terms of the level of remediation residents want to see.

"It's been an uphill battle," he said of the issues affecting the north end. "We're all advocating for people's human rights. We're just trying to make everybody's life a little bit better."

Follow Julien Gignac on Twitter .

RISE airs Fridays at 9 PM on VICELAND.

With the exception of the occasional inconsiderate asshole, most people know how to behave at the shops, the hairdressers or when they're catching an Uber. They know not to skip the queue, to tip and not to barf all over the backseat. But a lot of people don't know how you're supposed to behave when you visit a sex worker, or when you're drunkenly trying to stay upright in a chair while a stripper grinds on your lap.

Considering the men and women who work in the sex industry offer up their bodies, it's only fair that you try and be polite and considerate. But what are the dos and don'ts? Can you ask a sex worker to lower the going rate for a blowjob because you're such a loyal customer? And exactly how handsy can you get when you have a half-naked stripper grinding on your lap?

I asked a Dutch escort, a prostitute, and two strippers what you should and shouldn't do when you are enjoying their services.

Kevin Talle, 35 years old, has been working as a stripper for 10 years

As a male stripper, after the show people often say: "Hey, we didn't even get to see your dick!" But the whole point of a striptease is seduction – leaving the most exciting parts to the imagination. I think that an entertaining show is more important, but if you just want to see my dick then I'll do a lap fully naked and then immediately put my clothes back on.

And don't book me to embarrass someone else. I often get booked as a surprise for women that don't know how to deal with a striptease. They'll be sitting there looking very uncomfortable, and holding their hands up in the air. You can tell by the look on their face that they don't enjoy it. And that, of course, is exactly why her friends booked me in the first place – because it's funny to see the birthday girl get embarrassed by a half-naked, dancing guy. The thing is that I do try my absolute best to make her feel comfortable. And look, I'll do my whole routine and all, but it's just a lot more fun to dance for someone, who is smiling and impatiently waiting for you to get closer.

The most important thing is that you join in and hold me or touch me when I signal you to. But there is definitely a line. The other day I was performing for a group of older ladies. The lady in the chair must have been in her late sixties. She was brimming with enthusiasm throughout the act, and near the end I was standing before her smiling face with nothing but a little flag covering my penis. In her excitement, she grabbed my dick and yanked it really hard. It hurt like hell. The whole group was laughing, and after taking a few deep breaths I laughed as well, but I still wonder what the hell she was thinking.

Pweeeep!!! Illustrations by Ben van Brummelen

Liv, 24, high-class escort with Vialet EscortService

The other day I was meeting a new client in a hotel in Germany. We decided to grab a bite to eat first, and over dinner he told me that he was going through a divorce, that his wife hadn't given him a blowjob for months, and that he missed his kids. While we were talking, I noticed that his nails looked absolutely hideous; gnawed down little stumps that looked like they could start bleeding any moment. Even during dinner, he would occasionally put down his fork so he could bite down on his nails instead. Apparently he noticed me staring, because he told me that he had started biting his nails since the divorce. After we got back to the hotel room we ran a bath, and he started kissing me passionately. After we had sex, I felt something hard and sharp in my mouth. I spat it out and – holy shit. It was a bit of fingernail.

What I'm saying is: Hygiene is important. I don't know you, so make sure you're fresh and clean when you go on a date. That's what I do too.

Besides that, one of the most important rules is wearing a condom. It's unbelievable how many guys try to bend the rules on that. "I'm really clean, I got tested recently," they'll say. Come on. It ruins the mood and besides, you knew in advance that safe sex is one of the conditions when you book me. The same goes for asking for my contact details. "Come on, you can tell me your real name, can't you? Don't you have a mobile number so I can reach you directly?" No. Being an escort comes with so many risks, so we all value our privacy. Usually they do give me their own business card, in case I want to call them. I always take it and then throw it in the trash as soon as they're gone.

Michele, 34, has been working as a stripper for 14 years

Don't be blindly drunk. I often get a last-minute booking from a group of guys that want a striptease around 1AM. Usually they've already had quite a lot to drink and are having trouble sitting upright in their chairs. They often try to grope me, of course. At my agency, we use whipped cream and lotions that they can rub on us – so it's not that touching is strictly forbidden. But it's the stripper that decides when, how and what. Sober clients understand these boundaries, but wasted clients often ignore the rules.

A simple but important rule: stay in your seat! Clients often try and get up and start dancing with me. They mean well, but my whole act is built around you. I have a whole choreography set to the music, so if I have to get you back on your chair before I can continue, that disrupts the whole thing. Once I was performing for a drunk guy that wanted to dance with me, and grabbed me by my waist and lifted me high in the air. I often use ice cubes in my act, and some of them had landed on the floor earlier and had started to melt. You can guess what happened next: The guy slipped and I took quite a fall. So yeah, if something like that happens, the show is over and I just go and get my things.

Molly, 26, has been working as a prostitute for four years

Don't be the guy with the saviour complex. There are two types of clients like this. The first one is the overprotective client: They want to spend half an hour talking to you about your personal life first, and asks you way too many personal questions, including whether you're really doing this voluntarily. And then there are the clients that like you so much that they want to save you from this "awful life" that they think you lead as a sex worker. These clients constantly say things like: "But you're so cute and you're so smart. You don't need to do this kind of work" or "Shouldn't you try and get a real job?" It's super annoying, because it means that you're not taking me seriously. I understand it's coming from a good place, but it is also very condescending. I am a professional and I take my job seriously.

Then there are the 'boundary pushers' – the guys that always want more. "We've known each other for a while now, can't we do it without a condom for once? Or "Could we discuss the rate?" That really takes the fun out of it for me. Before I always tried to calmly and nicely explain that that isn't how it works and that I have a few very clear rules. Except that never really seemed to work, so now I immediately give whoever attempts anything off the book, a stern lecture.

One of the most frequently asked questions I get from clients is: "What do you like?" That's sweet, but it doesn't really help either one of us. First of all, in these situations it's not about what I like, and second of all, I doubt we like the same thing. Of course that stems from the excellent idea that sex should be fun for both parties, but paid sex is different. People often struggle with the notion that they get to let loose and I'm completely focused on them.

The best thing a client can do for me, is be clear about what they want. I often get first-timers that are very nervous, and never learned to talk about sex. They find if hard to articulate what they do and don't like, and what turns them on. The more you tell me about what you enjoy, the better our date will be.

Mean Dreams
We're so used to seeing Bill Paxton as an all-American dad or a patriot willing to sacrifice it all for the good of humanity that it's genuinely hard watching him fully embody a menacing sheriff in this new film. Directed by Canadian Nathan Morlando, this incredibly tense rural thriller has a sharp devastation as we watch two troubled teens on the lam from corrupt cops. Morlando is a Canadian talent to watch.

The Bad Batch
The latest from Ana Lily Amanpour ( A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night), The Bad Batch (co-produced by Anapurna and VICE )  is a post-apocalyptic cannibal thriller set in the heart of Texas. Starring Jason Momoa, Suki Waterhouse and Keanu Reeves, Bad Batch looks like an acid-washed Mad Max. Is anyone more deserving of a comeback than Keanu Reeves? I mean, it's not like he ever really went away but with the John Wick movies quickly turning into a major franchise, Reeves seems to have embraced his uh, stoicism let's say and gone full Matrix and I am extremely here for it.

Colossal
I'll admit to being wary of this Canadian co-pro directed by Nacho Vigalondo ( Timecrimes) at first but this trailer is honestly delightful. Anne Hathaway has proven herself to be adept at playing a woman in recovery (I still cry every time I watch Rachel Getting Married) and embracing her darker side makes her infinitely more likeable. In this fantastical story about an alcoholic who has somehow conjured a Godzilla-like monster, Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis find a way to bring lightness, humanity and joy to a monster movie.

The House
Relatively fresh writer/director Andrew Jay Cohen isbreathing new life into the kind of loud, slapstick style that made Meatballs a cult hit. He managed to refresh the frat house comedy with Neighbours and he's making Will Ferrell funny again with his latest, The House. I expected to be disappointed in this trailer (Have you seen Sisters? It was not good) but Ferrell, Amy Poehler and Jason Mantzoukas seem to be on their game in this film about a 40-something couple who start running an illegal casino in their suburban house to pay for their daughter's college education.

The Devil's Candy
Wait so it's a horror movie about a graffiti writer who is just too committed to his craft? Personally I don't find movies about "the devil" all that scary. Why does the devil care so much about this Banksy forger? Why is the devil making you paint these awful paintings instead of doing some real devil shit? You know what's genuinely scary? Student loan repayments. Why doesn't someone make a movie about that?

Follow Amil on Twitter