The company responsible for the Mount Polley mine spill—one of the largest environmental disasters in Canadian history—has found out it’s not going to face any charges in British Columbia.

The news likely has billionaire Murray Edwards, owner of Imperial Metals and the Mount Polley mine (and the Calgary Flames) toasting with his rich friends in London (where he lives to avoid paying taxes).

If you’re not in BC, there’s a chance the aerial images of the disaster haven’t already scarred you forever. This is what the collapsed tailings pond at the Mount Polley mine looked like in August 2014.

Aerial image courtesy of the Cariboo Regional District.

The resulting spill was so enormous it lasted for 12 hours and, according to those who lived nearby, sounded as loud as a jet plane flying low overhead. The force of the 24 million cubic metres of mine waste, containing mercury, arsenic, selenium, copper, and other heavy metals, scoured the former Hazeltine Creek, tearing a 150-metre strip of forest clean from its roots.

Although a superficial cleanup of the creekbed has since taken place, the contaminated mine waste that entered Quesnel Lake—the source of drinking water for residents of Likely, BC, and home to about a quarter of the province’s sockeye salmon population—remains there to this day.

And while researchers studying the effects of the contamination on the lake and its fish say they need a few more years before they’ll fully understand the spill’s long-term impacts, the deadline for criminal charges to be laid under BC’s laws has already come and gone.

The door closed once and for all last week when the BC Prosecution Service announced it was staying charges filed against the company by Bev Sellars, the former chief of the Xat’sull (Soda Creek) First Nation in whose territory the spill occurred.

Back in August when Sellars realized the province wasn’t going to lift a finger to hold the company responsible for the spill, she decided she’d do it her own damn self and filed a private prosecution.

But after reviewing her case, which claimed Mount Polley violated 15 laws under BC’s Environmental Management and Mining Acts, prosecutors decided against seeking charges.

“The two reasons they gave for quashing the case was that it’s not in the public’s interest and they needed more evidence,” Sellars told VICE.

“I was shocked. I don’t understand how they can say there wasn’t enough evidence,” Sellars said. “Anyone can go out there or look online and see there was a spill.”

“This is setting a dangerous precedent.”

The BC Prosecution Service told VICE an investigation by the BC Conservation Service Office is ongoing but declined to comment further.

“There is an ongoing investigation that’s continuing but because of that we can’t speak too much to the specifics of the investigation,” Alisia Adams, spokesperson for the Prosecution Service, said.

BC Green party environment critic Sonia Furstenau said there is a lot of work to do to restore a sense of trust in British Columbians when it comes to the mining industry.

“There are so many examples in BC of mining companies that come in, extract the resources, extract the profits from it and then they walk away. They’re gone and it falls to government and taxpayers to clean up that mess,” Furstenau told VICE.

Red Chris Mine. Tailings Pond. View west across top of north dam, still working on south face of dam Northwest B.C., 2017. | Garth Lenz/Desmog Canada.

Canada has had seven tailings spills in the last ten years—the second-worst record in the world, just after China. There are currently 120 tailings ponds across BC and the independent panel that reviewed the Mount Polley spill estimated BC could expect about two additional tailings dam failures every ten years if better practices aren’t required (like moving away from building giant liquid waste pits, for one).

So far, BC has been criticized for introducing superficial changes to mining rules, which were written nearly 160 years ago. A major recommendation by an expert panel to end the practice of using wet tailings ponds has been largely ignored in BC.

“We absolutely need an update to the laws that govern mining in this province,” Furstenau said. “I think we’re talking about laws that were made in literally an entirely different era and don’t take in to account the reality of what BC is today.”

And Canada has a dismal record when it comes to actually making polluters pay. To see how other jurisdictions handle things like giant toxic spills we need look no further than the US.

In 2016 a massive sinkhole opened up under a tailings pit at a Florida fertilizer manufacturer, causing millions of litres of waste to spill into an underlying aquifer. The company was fined $2 billion USD for improper hazardous waste management.

Although Mount Polley may be one of Canada’s most notorious mines (and yeah, it’s back up and running with a new permit to pump mine waste directly into Quesnel Lake now) it’s a pipsqueak compared to other mines getting up and running in northwestern BC, home to some of the world’s largest untapped gold and copper reserves.

In fact, not long after the Mount Polley mine spill, Imperial Metals got the go-ahead to open up the much larger Red Chris mine, which has a liquid tailings pond that holds seven times the volume of Mount Polley.

The tailings facility for the KSM mine—another mine proposed for the same region—will hold more than 27 times the toxic gunk than the Mount Polley tailings dam did and will be 239 metres tall, which makes it higher than the tallest building in Vancouver. Originally, miners at KSM were going to have to dig under a glacier to get at a giant deposit of gold, but now that glacier has retreated (high-five to climate change).

There are at least 11 mines in various stages of development the region, which sits directly on the border with Alaska.

“The mines that are going up in BC drain right down in Alaska,” Sellars said. “Alaskans are worried.”

Earlier this week, a Lieutenant Governor and Senator from Alaska were in Ottawa pleading for someone, anyone, to deal with the risk BC mines pose to the state’s watersheds and salmon and, you know, way of life.

Ugo Lapointe, executive director of MiningWatch Canada, said what’s happened in BC is disconcerting.

“Something is wrong with BC laws. Something needs to change,” Lapointe told VICE. “If BC’s laws are too weak to bring about charges with such a disaster, it tells us that those laws need to be fixed at some level.”

In late 2016 Lapointe filed a private prosecution against Imperial Metals, Mount Polley and the government of British Columbia at the federal level. Those charges were stayed in early 2017.

But, Lapointe said, under the federal Fisheries Act, which prevents the pollution of fish bearing waters, charges can be brought for another 18 months. He’s hopeful the federal prosecution service will resuscitate his charges or bring a case of their own.

A spokesperson for the BC Ministry of Environment, David Karn, said the results of the ongoing investigation in BC will be considered at the federal level.

“The Public Prosecution Service of Canada will consider all of the information gathered during the course of this investigation, should charges be recommended under the Fisheries Act or other legislation,” Karn said in an emailed statement.

Holding the company accountable would help fight against the perception that there’s rules for mining companies and then rules for the rest of us, Kai Nagata, communications director at the BC-based democracy advocacy organization Dogwood, told VICE.

“In this case you’re dealing with literally a billionaire in London, who moved out of Canada to pay less tax...so you have this very 19th century situation where a rich guy in England runs a mine in the colony that is exempt or not accountable to local people.”

“I think it’s time to take a really close look at the rules that govern mines in BC and update them to a standard that reflects all the progress we’ve made over the last 150 years.”

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I have in front of me the September 1989 issue of Transworld Skateboarding. Gary Owens is skating a pool in Hawaii on the cover; inside, there’s a picture of Mark “Gator” Rogowski posing shirtless mid-stall, wearing Swatch kneepads, a cross necklace, sunglasses, and a sideways painter’s cap. If I flip to the back, there are mail-order ads for skateboard decks. The going price, depending on brand, is around $42.

All of this is to say that while some things in skateboarding have changed a lot over the past 28 years, the cost of boards has essentially stayed the same.

When I started buying skateboards in the late 90s, pro model decks were around $45. The shops I grew up with in East County San Diego have all closed, but about 20 minutes away is a shop called Pacific Drive, where pro models are still $45. I live in New York now, where skateboards are slightly pricier; at Labor in Chinatown, they’re $53, and at KCDC, near the VICE office in Williamsburg, they’re around $55. (Almost everything costs more in New York; a Chipotle burrito, for example, is $1.55 more here than the national average.) Every skateboarder I know—from around the country—has had a similar experience. Forty-two dollars in 1989 is the equivalent of $84 today, but somehow, give or take a few bucks, skateboards have stayed the same price, almost completely resisting inflation. While there are many potential reasons for the stagnant prices, it seems to be a rather extreme version of what economists call "price stickiness."

The first thing to realize is that skate shops make very little money from decks. As one KCDC employee told me, “Anyone that owns a shop will tell you, you’re not in it to make money off the skateboards. The skateboards are here because we’re providing a service for a community, but we’re making most of our money on soft goods and shoes.” Chris LaRue, a sponsored skater who’s worked at Pacific Drive for a decade, told me his shop usually buys boards from brands for between $35–37, giving them $8–10 profit per board. He says boards have been $45 for as long as he’s been at the shop. Part of the reason for this is competition with other shops and online retailers, but they also want to make sure kids can buy boards. “My boss always says, ‘If one shop’s doing good, as long as you’re true to the skate scene, your shop is going to be doing good too, because the skate scene is thriving.’”

One way stores like Pacific Drive supplement their income is through boards branded with their own graphics, also known as “shop decks.” They get these directly from manufacturers for around $15 and sell them for $30; it’s a higher margin product that also appeals to consumers looking to save money. Since they first appeared in the 90s, shop decks have been controversial, as brands view them as a threat to their bottom line. “We do get a lot of flack [from brands], but we’re a manufacturer,” Grant Burns, who owns BBS Manufacturing, a company that makes boards for several major companies, told me. “It makes it more difficult for the brands, because the brands are just an extra middleman that have to run a business.” For manufacturers like BBS, shop decks are a way to unload overstock; Burns estimates that they make up 5 percent of his sales. Similarly, shops say these decks are a necessary part of their business. As LaRue put it, “It’s one of the only hard goods that we really make any money on. Not to say we’re all about the money, but you have to make money.”

Low margins and shop decks help explain how stores are able to keep prices down, but wholesale prices haven’t gone up either. Burns told me that the price has been stagnant since around 1982, “when boards started to change from popsicles to short, no-nose boards that were ten inches wide.”

Related Video: What Young Skaters Think About Gender

“How did [the price] stay there? A lot of different reasons,” Burns said.

“BBS started producing in 1996 in the US, and we made a deck for around $12.50. We would ship it off to somebody that would silkscreen a graphic on, and it might bring the cost up to $18. It was a real artistic, painstaking process that cost quite a bit of money to produce. We would sell that to a brand like Expedition or Arcade. They would get a deck with graphic for $18, and they would sell it to a distributor for $27, the distributor would sell to retail for $30–35, and it would sell for $50. There were a lot of hands that things went through.”

A few key changes in how boards are manufactured actually lowered wholesale costs. First, heat transfer images brought the cost of silkscreening closer to $1 per board. “When you take away a few dollars, by the time you send it through everybody’s hands and they have to make their margins, it helps out quite a bit. That saves a couple years of inflation right there.”

The other big savings came in the early 2000s, when manufacturers began making boards in China or, in BBS’s case, Mexico. “We took our average labour cost at the time from $13 an hour in the US to down to $4 an hour. We were able to drop the price of our decks from $12.50 to $10.”

Furthermore, brands are upping margins by increasingly eschewing the middlemen. Many have cut out distributors and are selling to stores themselves. In some cases, they’re even selling straight to skaters via their online shops and subscription services. This mirrors the shop deck situation, in that skate shops view direct-to-consumer sales as a threat to their business and brands view it as necessary for survival. “I don’t want to name any names, but someone came out with a subscription thing and got into trouble with some of their retail shops,” Burns told me. “We’re constantly in a contest to become more efficient, and there’s some winners and some losers. Some brands have really stalled out in opening online sales [because] they don’t want to step on retailers’ shoes. Because they do that, they remain really popular with the retailers, but is that going to be the model in five years? I don’t know.”

Other issues come into play, too. As big-name board sponsors have struggled, shoe sponsors have become the dominant source of pros’ income. In turn, pros with significant shoe deals have left major board companies to start their own brands; these companies, with low overheads and less need to turn a profit, further threaten the major players. “I can think of at least three or four brands where the guys are like, ‘I’m doing this deck brand, but I really don’t give a shit [about profit] because all my money comes from my shoe sponsor. Maybe I’m even putting a little money in, but I want a deck brand,’” Burns says.

Tod Swank is in a unique position to gauge the health of the skate industry. A former pro, since 1989 he’s run Tum Yeto, the company that currently distributes Foundation and Toy Machine boards, Pig Wheels, Ruckus trucks, and Dekline shoes. Additionally, Swank owns Watson Laminates, a skateboard manufacturer based in San Diego.

In his mind, skateboard brands can’t raise prices because “there’s so much product out there for so cheap.” Shop boards are part of the issue, but it’s also just so easy for anyone to start a small skate company and keep prices down. “You could buy 50 [boards] one time for almost the same price we get [thousands] for, and when you go to sell them, maybe you’re going to sell yours to a shop for a lot less because you’re one person that has no overhead and no insurance,” Swank says.

Even though Swank owns Watson and uses them for specialty boards, many Tum Yeto decks are now made in China and Mexico. Anything else would be economically unfeasible. “We used to put “Made in the USA” on all our boards, and nobody cared. There might be people out there who like Toy Machine, but when they see a Toy Machine board that’s $55 and a shop board that’s $30, most likely they’re going to go for a shop board.” And it’s not like boards made in China or Mexico are inferior. “A seven-ply maple skateboard deck is not rocket science. As long as whoever’s making it is doing an earnest job, the quality could be just as good as anywhere else,” he told me.

The problem is one of saturation. “Shops will sell boards for $45 and only make $10, when they should be selling them for $55 or $60, but they can’t because there’s another board right next to it selling for $30,” Swank said. When I asked him if he thinks there’ll be a correction—if shops will either raise prices or face closure—he was skeptical. “It seems like shops are always coming and going. We all know retail is hard, in pretty much any business. I don’t know if there is a correction. If wood shops catch on fire, and there’s no supply coming out, then maybe that might change it.”

Ultimately, it seems like everyone in the industry—from shop employees to brands to manufacturers—agrees that decks should cost more. As Burns of BBS told me, “I’ve been upset at most of my customers because they’re afraid to raise their prices. It’s like, ‘I have to raise my prices on you, but the only thing that happens is you guys are getting weaker because your margins are getting squeezed.’ When my mom bought my $45 deck in 1988, she only made $20,000 or whatever. Families can afford a little more in a lot of cases. It’s necessary for brands to succeed and continue as a business. The same thing goes for skate shops. But they’re all too timid about doing it.” Shops and brands want kids to be able to afford to skate, but they don’t help anyone if they go out of business. “If you could do an article for a push that everyone should raise their prices, that would be great. You’d probably get a heck of a lot of crap for it.”

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

In Early Works, we talk to artists young and old about the jobs and life experiences that led them to their current moment. Today, it's actor and comedian Thomas Middleditch, who stars in the just-released romantic dramedy Entanglement. (You've seen him in Silicon Valley too, obviously—as well as those ubiquitous Verizon commercials.)

This probably isn’t a huge shocker, but I was an odd duck growing up. I had a lot of alone time—not many friends, a fair amount of teasing and bullying. I always said that if I ever win an award, one of the first people I’ll thank is my drama teachers. We have this thing in Canada called Drama Fest—it’s basically theater sports, but you compete with your plays. You do regionals, provincials, and then nationals. It’s a really life-changing experience—a super supportive middle school bunch, so they’re screaming if there’s anything reasonably funny. I was like, The power I have!

My high school drama teacher Kim Wilson changed my life. He had an improv team—short-form, very rudimentary, both supervisors started in college. As someone who grew up in a small Canadian town, I was very fortunate it was Nelson. It’s a strong artist city, very hippie and LGBTQ-friendly. It’s a special place, and I was very fortunate that I had an invested drama teacher and local theater community that allowed a freak like me to find its place.

Improv and theater obviously gave me this focus, and I latched onto it, saying, "This is what I’m going to do forever." Also, even though I started eighth grade as an outcast, the word got out that I was funny. Now, I was the class clown, and I ended up being pals with all the kids that had been bullying me for years. At that age, you don’t care—you’re willing to let all that shit slide. Whatever man, just accept me. Just make this pain end.

From that point on, not only did I have actually friends, but I had friends from a lot of different social groups. I was approachable—even if people didn’t know what to talk to me about, we could goof around, and I’d do something stupid to make them laugh. I’ll have you know, sir, that in high school we voted for valedictorian—it was a popularity contest. Guess who won? What a Cinderella story.

I dropped out of University of Victoria to go to George Brown in Toronto, which has a more robust theater program in Toronto. In the summer between being accepted at University of Victoria and starting there, I met people who were just doing sketch comedy, and I was like, Wait, you can just go do that? Easy decision, that was that. I loved Kids in the Hall, and I either wanted to be in Kids in the Hall or make my own Kids in the Hall. You’re in rural Canada, you talk to the guidance counselor, and you’re like, “I want to be on TV,” and they’re like, “First, get your degree.”

I thought of myself as a budding thespian, but over the course of theater training, I realized that it maybe wasn’t for me. You can’t improv in theater—and I’ll never stop doing improv. I’m a cynic—you have to have a little bit of cynicism to be a comedian—and it’s almost too ridiculous for me to take improv so earnestly. Good theater is good theater, but it wasn’t the most efficient way for someone who was trying to figure out how to do comedy.

People always want to know the algorithm for success. “What did you do? What can I replicate? What’s the math involved?” My rebuttal to that is that there is no math—but there are things you can do. There’s so much serendipity involved, so I’m talking about things outside of what you look like—which you can’t control, unless you spend a lot of money—your talent—which you can’t control unless you’re born with it—and your moxie—which is just something you need to have. Outside of those things, it’s just the luck of the draw, and you can increase your odds by making your own stuff.

It’s also about doing as much stuff as you can outside of really terrible projects—but you’re also going to be involved in those, because you have to take risks. It’s like a craps table, and the best players at craps, so I’m told, are the people who place a lot of bets. My dumb analogy—and this is stupid, but I recognize it is—is that I recognize myself as an octopus. If you’re an octopus and if you’re not using all eight arms to grab onto stuff, then you’re not being a very good octopus—even though that’s not how octopi work. It’s a weird metaphor, but in my brain, that’s how it works. You have to be hungry for it.

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Shortly after HBO renewed The Deuce for a second season, James Franco—who stars in the show as a pair of twin brothers—was accused of sexual misconduct by five women. Now it looks like Franco is coming back to the critically acclaimed drama despite the allegations against him, Entertainment Tonight reports.

Megan Abbott, a writer for the show, told reporters on Sunday Franco would "of course" be coming back for its second season. Although HBO hasn't yet made an official announcement about Franco, Abbott's comment echoes co-creator David Simon's reaction to the scandal, telling Variety back in January that Franco had been "entirely professional as an actor, director, and producer."

"Personally I can only speak knowledgeably to The Deuce," Simon said in a statement. "We have no complainant or complaint or any awareness of any incident of concern involving Mr. Franco. Nor has HBO been approached with any complaint."

In January, Franco was accused of pressuring a woman into performing oral sex and exploiting his female students into doing orgy and nudity scenes that made them feel uncomfortable, according to the LA Times. He's since called the allegations "not accurate," but has still been cut from major events and digitally edited out of Vanity Fair's annual Hollywood Issue cover. After Franco won Best Actor at the Golden Globes for The Disaster Artist, he wasn't nominated for the honor at the Oscars—a snub some speculated might be connected to his alleged misconduct.

"James is disappointed in not getting an Oscar nomination," a source told E! News, after the Oscar nominations were announced. "But also very understanding and somewhat relieved."

Franco's return to the show would be a drastically different outcome compared to how sexual misconduct allegations have derailed other major TV stars' careers. Allegations against That 70's Show's Danny Masterson cost him his role in a Netflix series, and Kevin Spacey was booted from House of Cards and edited out of All the Money in the World after he was accused of serial sexual assault and harassment.

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Related: Ten Questions You Always Wanted to Ask a Sex Worker

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Cynthia Miller-Idriss is a sociologist at American University who became an accidental expert on the far-right. It all started when she was studying vocational schools in Germany in the late 90s and early 00s. Initially, her intention was to explore how young Germans constructed their identity. The Berlin Wall had just fallen, unifying the country. But the nation was also on the verge of joining the European Union. During this time of cultural change, the far right was incredibly active. Due to the construction industry's high level of overlap with extreme politics, Miller-Idriss ended up spending an entire year watching teachers at one such vocational school try to save their pupils from becoming involved in right-wing crime.

Then, around 2009, when searching for a cover photo for what would later become her book Blood and Culture: Youth, Right-Wing Extremism, and National Belonging in Contemporary Germany, she fell in with a group of photographers who had been tracking the far-right at public events. In studying their work, she noticed a pattern—something that she says constituted a huge aesthetic shift from the way these groups have operated since at least the 80s. Basically, she realized that somewhere along the line, skinheads had ceased to exist.

What's come to replace them is the subject of a new book by Miller-Idriss that hits shelves on February 12. The Extreme Gone Mainstream: Commercialization of Far Right Youth Culture in Germany is an exploration of the ways that fashion can serve as a gateway for young people who are flirting with racist ideology. And as its author explained to me, as those fashions come to the States, the book is also a roadmap for educators and others here who want to stop teens from falling in with hate groups. Here's what she and I talked about:

VICE: With the re-emergence of the far-right, why don’t we see the classic skinhead aesthetic becoming popular again?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss: The skinhead aesthetic originally emerged in the UK, and then it was adapted in the 80s and 90s. So it became kind of the dominant subcultural style for about two-and-a-half decades. That’s kind of all you saw. It was a completely uniform style that was basically like an admission to the scene. Everyone knew you got a bomber jacket, and you got these combat boots, and you shaved your head. That was the entry point.

What we’ve seen over the past 10 years or so in Europe and in the US is the complete breakdown of that aesthetic to what I call a fragmentation of the scene and of the aesthetic style. That just means there’s a lot of different subcultural styles that are reflective of far-right ideology and are deployed as part of the scene. Basically you don’t see the skinheads at all anymore. It’s dead, it’s gone. I think there are lots of different reasons for that. Part of it is generational. You see that with lots of different subcultures. They adapt over time.

Why did the right-wing youth subculture adapt?
I think some of it also has to do with stigma and this younger generation wanting to blend in with the mainstream more both in terms of kind of asserting their place in the mainstream. This generation is more likely to have multiple kinds of identities and ways they enter in and out of scenes, and the thing about skinheads and other subcultures is that they kind of stamped you as one thing all the time. So I think that’s part of what we’re seeing is people wanting to blend in and move in and out of these scenes more than was the case for their parents’ generation.

Has there ever been a far-right subculture that didn’t have a common fashion or music scene or cultural touchstone?
I don’t think so. The skinhead scene really only emerged in the 80s. There was a kind of gap between the end of World War II and the 1980s when the skinhead scene emerged during which I don’t know if there was a coherent far-right. I think when you’re talking about youth subculture it really started then. What people are saying about Germany at least is that it was sort of old Fascists, like old Nazis in the 60s and 70s, and then this new generation came along and co-opted this British working-class aesthetic and reclaimed it. That was it for two decades.

In Germany, it’s not that there isn’t a style anymore, it’s that it’s multiple styles. You can’t identify anyone visually anymore or automatically by what they’re wearing, which for me, as an educator, creates a bunch of pedagogical problems. People have relied on that for years to know with whom they need to have conservations with or intervention.

So they’re doing this to escape confrontation from authority figures. There’s a kind of plausible deniability to it.
Exactly. I think it’s a way of blending in, of evading notice, of not being as obvious. And that allows you to not have stigma at a workplace or wherever in a public setting. I’m sure that is a big part of the appeal.

On the flipside, are there benefits to a subculture having an easily recognizable aesthetic? Isn't the main appeal of joining one having a group to fit in with?
What I study is the deliberately coded signals that are on clothing brands deliberately manufactured to appeal to the far right. So what you’re seeing in Germany are codes and signals that are recognizable to people in the scene but not always to outsiders. I’m not sure we’re seeing that in the states yet. There may be subtle signals, but they’re not really coded signals. The German youths talk a lot about if you go into a bar or a soccer stadium that it helps a lot to be able to find what they call “like-minded individuals.” I think for sure that the skinhead aesthetic was a pretty easy way of finding other people. In the US, I’m not sure we have the same kind of scenario.

Can you talk a little bit about what's replacing the aesthetic we've come to associate with the far-right?
One thing we’re seeing in Europe is the co-opting of antifa style by the far-right. I would say the entire splintering of the subcultural style started with that. These groups called the autonomous nationalists who try to wear the leftist all-black style with a scarf across the bottom half of their face, and sometimes mirrored sunglasses. It’s called the Black Bloc. All dress the same. Move in a group. You’d see that for years in protests in Europe on the left side, and then all of a sudden, you’d see protests where dozens of right-wing protesters were wearing the same aesthetic and style. It was super confusing for journalists and intelligence officers, for everybody. They didn’t know who was who. It was a way to disrupt, also to move in a group and evade authorities. It’s really hard to see who was responsible for throwing a bottle or whatever.

What you’re seeing now is that these brands of clothing have appeared that kind of sell clothing laced with far-right codes. Some of them are sportier or preppy and some are a bit more alternative, which you can see in the way the models appear in the catalog pages. In the more alternative ones, they have tattoos and piercings and ear plugs. They have bigger muscles. Some are a little more crossover in the martial arts scene or use brighter colours to appear a bit hipper and not as fixated on camouflage type of colours. So that’s kind of the range we’re seeing right now in the brands.

How would a kid who wants to flirt with the far-right find out what to wear if there are so many options?
There are lots of different ways. Some schools and stadiums or even the Parliament building has banned some of the brands. So kids know because they’ve signed something at school saying they will not wear any of those brands. One of the kids I interviewed found out about a numeric code that was banned because he asked for it to be on his license plate, because it’s also in his birthday, but then was told it’s a Nazi symbol. Some of them talked about being at protest marches and seeing the brands that everyone’s wearing. Some are reported in the media and talked about in classroom settings. Some of the kids are super informed about what’s allowed in different clubs and how they get in and around bouncers who look the other way. They were remarkably well-informed. They say this is what you pick up in their neighbourhood.

In your book, you argue that the existence of these brands desensitize far-right consumers to extremist ideas, but how does that happen if the average observer isn't picking up on their messaging?
Academic reviewers have said a few times, “Isn’t this just clothing? How can it be important?” You do get people who think fashion doesn’t matter. I have tried to argue that it matters in a lot of important ways. It can be a gateway into the scene. Kids talk about when they got their first Lonsdale jacket or their first Alpha Industries jacket or whatever the brand is.

But also there’s a shirt right now that’s really contemporary referencing the migration crisis that has an anchor that says, “Raise the borders, batton down the hatches.” There’s nothing on the shirt but then on the website there’s this whole lengthy tirade. So there’s kind of a whole socialization aspect to the clothing. There’s like a guy dangling from a noose, or one that says, “We know where you live” which has the number 88 on it. The messaging is playful and it seems fun to manipulate the codes that way. There was another one that referenced 10 murders and a right-wing terrorist cell that was responsible for these murders. They’re trying to be flippant or funny or amusing or thinking that threats to an individual is funny. That’s the kind of desensitization that I talk about as being a way to making light of atrocities.

I didn’t realize that there were far-right clothing companies.
We have that in the states, too, but what’s unusual in Germany is they have these screen printed T-Shirt that are really high-quality like a J Crew or an Abercrombie and Fitch and they lace the clothing with these codes and symbols. It’s complicated. They’re not always far-right ideologically, but they’ll market to a far-right consumer base.

How is this any different from when people adopted Fred Perry and Doc Martens?
I think that it started for a bunch of reasons. Essentially because the brand’s logos in some way resonated with the far-right. In the German context, where it’s illegal to display a swastika, you can zip up your Lonsdale jacket, which displays the letters NSDA [the acronym for National Socialist German Worker's Party in German]. But if a police officer stops you, you can unzip it, and it’s just "Lonsdale." So they initially co-opted these brands for whatever symbolic representation they determined was connected from this logo and then somebody figured out there was a market to create their own brands and sell to their own market.

Do you think this a uniquely European thing because they don’t have the First Amendment, and have laws against overt hate speech?
I think it started off that way because of more restrictive laws around free speech, but I think what we’re seeing is that with the alt-right, the normalization and mainstreaming also appeals to them. So one of the brands called Thor Steinar has already trademarked in the US. They don’t have their own stores or website here, but they’re selling through a distributor. So there are brands that are trying to expand. But whether it will catch on in the US I think depends a lot on whether they’re selling these codes that are referencing the European situation or whether they adapt these codes to American issues.

So what I’m getting out of this conversation is that trying to describing the aesthetic of the alt-right is a bit of a fool’s errand because the whole purpose now is to not have an easily recognizable ‘look.’ Right?
I think that’s probably a fair assessment. But we just came to associate the skinhead aesthetic with the alt-right when that too was also just a random collection of signals.

I guess the question then is will it make it easier for them to grow as they become more mainstream and make it easier for people to flirt with the ideas, or do these wayward youths looking for direction see the lack of cohesion and uniformity as a turn off?
I suspect it’s the former. I hope it’s the latter, but I fear it’s the former. I believe that this does make it more palatable and more appealing to youths who might have been a little reluctant to take the big steps of shaving their head. You’re making a full-time commitment to that look when you do that. But with this, you’re not committed in any kind of way.

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A fundraiser for the man found not guilty of manslaughter and second-degree murder in the shooting death of Colten Boushie has raised over $90,000 and is rocketing towards $100,000—a response some critics have dubbed a modern-day “scalp bounty.”

The death of the 22-year-old Colten Boushie has, over the last two years, become a flashpoint for the relationship between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous people of Canada. This came to a head on Friday when news broke of Gerald Stanley’s not guilty verdict, after which thousands protested against the verdict in rallies across the country.

Boushie was killed by a gunshot wound to the back of the head after he and a group of friends driving a Ford Escape pulled into Gerald Stanley’s farm in Saskatchewan after puncturing a tire. According to the Globe and Mail, the court heard that Stanley and his son Sheldon were building a fence at the time and raced toward the vehicle that pulled into their yard, hitting the Escape as it tried to pull away. It then crashed into Stanley’s car. Stanley ran to a shed to get a handgun and ran out firing twice in the air—Stanley claimed he thought he only loaded three bullets and pulled the trigger to make sure it was empty and made his way towards the car.

When Stanley got close to the vehicle the gun fired, hitting Boushie in the back of the head at point-blank range.

One of the women left in the vehicle with Boushie—two people had run off at this time—said that Stanley intentionally fired and killed the 22-year-old man. Whereas Stanley said he was trying to turn off the vehicle’s ignition when the gun accidentally went off.

The verdict was based around the argument that while the gun did fire and cause Boushie’s death Stanley didn’t pull the trigger and it was a case of “hang fire”—when a gun goes off well after the trigger was pulled. After 13 hours of deliberation, the jury decided to acquit Stanley. When the verdict was announced the courtroom erupted with shouting and fervour and Stanley was rushed out with Boushie’s mother shouting “you're a murderer. You murdered my son.”

The GoFundMe for Stanley was first set up on Friday and aimed at raising $25,000 but pushed to $50,000 when it quickly broke that initial goal—the goal is now $100,000 and, at the time of writing, it sits at $90,000 from 1,225 donators and is climbing rapidly. The fundraiser’s description page states that the funds are “an effort to help them recoup some of their lost time, property and vehicles that were damaged, harvest income, and sanity during this entire difficult situation.” The fundraiser has drawn ire online with many reporting it hoping for its removal. The Huffington Post contacted GoFundMe and were told by a spokesperson that, "given the jury verdict, this campaign does not violate our terms of service.”

“The scalp bounty never ended,” reads a tweet that has been shared over 200 times. “Today it's collected through GoFundMe.”

In 2015, a similar GoFundMe page—this one supporting the six police officers charged with the killing of Freddie Gray—was pulled after it was found the fundraiser broke the site’s rules regarding raising money for those facing “formal charges, or claims of heinous crimes, violent, hateful or discriminatory acts” and that the site doesn’t raise money to benefit for somebody charged with a serious crime. When this fundraiser was pulled, the case had not yet been decided.

Prior to the Stanley trial, then-premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall made a call on Facebook to end the vitriolic racism directed at the Indigenous people of his province on social media. While it never went away, the racism directed towards Indigenous people has become more vocal since the not-guilty verdict.

Websites in support of the Stanley family and the killing of Boushie have popped up. On many far-right Facebook pages across the country, Stanley is being praised as a vigilante hero defending his property. Many posts—seemingly forgetting that Stanley claimed the shooting was an accident—stated they would do the same if put in the situation. One post indicative of many others reads, “Protection of life and property is a basic human fundamental right.... even though the justice system doesn’t see it that way most of the time. Those shits got what they deserved!!! And for ONCE justice prevailed!!!”

Federal politicians across the country, including the prime minister, have weighed in on the controversial verdict. On Friday, Justin Trudeau tweeted, “I can't imagine the grief and sorrow the Boushie family is feeling tonight. Sending love to them from the US.” Reaction to the tweet was mixed. Some Conservative politicians questioned if Trudeau should be weighing in on a jury’s verdict. Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer said that Boushie’s death was “tragic,” but told reporters in Halifax that “I think it is important that we remember that politicians don’t decide these types of things.” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh tweeted something similar to Trudeau, saying “there was no justice for Colten Boushie.

“Already Indigenous youth live with little hope for their future and today they have again been told that their lives have less value. We must confront the legacy of colonialism and genocide so They can see a brighter future for themselves.”

In some of the vilest corners of the internet, both Boushie’s death and Stanley’s not guilty verdict were greeted with celebration. Numerous 4chan posts went up celebrating that “there is still hope in Canada” and many on the site have unsurprising flocked to this fundraiser. The internet has opened a channel to anonymous fundraising in ways that we haven’t really seen before and many have used this for their gain.

“Over 55,000$ have been donated to a GoFundMe account to help the farmer pay off his legal fees and recoup money from missing harvest season,” gleefully reads the start of a lengthy 4chan post regarding the fundraiser. “This has further infuriated the left wing. Tensions between whites and natives have never been so high. This will be a full on race war.”

Several in the discussion said they had donated with some of them posting screenshots proving so. On Canada’s defacto Reddit home for the alt-right, MetaCanada, a “support Gerald Stanley” post has gone up with many of the users saying they will donate.

Due to the anonymous nature of this type of fundraising it is impossible to tell what percentage of the money is coming from concerted far-right efforts and what is coming from Canadians who wouldn't consider themselves part of the movement. For years now, these online fundraising platforms have become a key tool for those in the far-right—some prominent figures have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. Far-right commentator Lauren Southern was kicked off fundraising sites after raising money to disrupt refugee efforts in the Mediterranean last year. WeSearchr, another far-right funding site, raised over $150,000 to help a neo-Nazi website legally fight a case against the Southern Poverty Law Centre.

A separate GoFundMe page, this one supporting the Boushie family has raised over $100,000.

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Seventeen-year-old Red Gerard had a rough start to his Sunday, Yahoo reports.

He'd passed out during an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Saturday night and slept through his morning alarm. When a friend finally dragged him out of bed into the world of the living, Gerard realized his jacket was missing. Running late, he borrowed a coat and bolted out the door—and then promptly won a goddamn Olympic gold medal.

On Sunday, the Colorado teen took home the gold in slopestyle snowboarding, winning the US the first gold medal at this year's Winter Olympics in South Korea. Gerard was awarded a combined score of 87.16 out of 100 for his three snowboarding runs, earning him first place over Canadian snowboarder Max Parrot, who got silver. Not a bad way to end a shitty morning.

When the 17-year-old saw the results, he let out a triumphant "holy fuck" yell, which snuck past NBC's censors and into the live feed, inadvertently articulating the thoughts of viewers nationwide who were currently comparing his win to all the dumbass stuff they were doing at 17.

"I actually said going into all the contests that I'd love fourth place," Gerard later said, after he'd exhausted himself of excited expletives. "But first place is better, I got to say."

According to the Wall Street Journal, Gerard is now the youngest American man in the past 90 years to win gold at a Winter Olympics, following 16-year-old bobsledder Billy Fiske back in 1928. Gerard celebrated his win with members of his friends and family who were waiting for him at the bottom of the slope, who had been shotgunning beers since 8:30 in the morning in anticipation of his success.

Gerard will soon be on his way back to Colorado, where he can wear his gold medal as he sneaks into IKEA or whatever normal, non-Olympian teens get up to these days. Hopefully, he gets a chance to finally sleep through his alarm, too. The kid has earned it.

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Related: Carving on Cannabis with a Snowboard Gold Medalist

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When our documentary team first arrived in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario to explore the impact of the overdose crisis in the area last fall, there was only a single harm reduction outreach worker for an entire city of just under 75,000.

In Canada, much of the dominant narrative surrounding the crisis has focused on major urban centres, particularly Vancouver and Toronto. Smaller communities, though, are experiencing the impact of the crisis in a unique way, left vulnerable with minimal health and harm reduction resources. In places like Sault Ste. Marie, the onus falls on a handful of front-line workers who are struggling to keep community members alive.

“The Soo,” as it’s colloquially known, is a small city situated on the US border in northern Ontario near the Great Lakes. It’s relatively isolated and has seen its formerly prosperous industries shrink, particularly its steel plant (which used to employ thousands more than it does now) and a paper mill that shut down years ago. It’s a quintessential Canadian city: beautiful (especially in the summer, we’re told), big for hockey, and populated by many people who are proud of where they live.

Sault Ste. Marie is also a place where, by harm reduction and healthcare workers’ estimates, five people overdose a day. The public health unit for Sault Ste. Marie in 2017 had one of the highest rates of opioid-related emergency room visits in Ontario. And Desiree Beck, up until recently, was the only harm reduction outreach worker in Sault Ste. Marie and its surrounding area, servicing nearly 50,000 square kilometres, including numerous First Nations reserves.

“We have such a vast area, huge landmass; the [city of the] Soo itself is a condensed chunk of area… For three and a half years, there was one outreach worker, which was just myself. Even with two of us now, it’s still a struggle,” Beck told VICE.

There are other problems with providing harm reduction in a small city: an "inadequate" transit system and a lack of services on weeknights and weekends. Desiree and her colleague are working now on expanding services on weeknights.

In small communities, the shame and stigma surrounding drug use can be magnified, too. While hanging out near the Resource Centre, where Beck works out of, our crew heard a man shout “Let them die!” in response to people discussing the overdose crisis.

“There are people who won’t access our health unit because their mother, or their sister, or their next-door neighbour, a kid they grew up with works there,” Beck said. “Most places it’s that 'six degrees of separation.' We don’t have that: It’s one degree of separation here.”

As well, Beck said, there is an economic divide in the community among people who use drugs.

“Because of the social stigma around drug use in our community and the hierarchical way of looking at [drug use]: If you’re rich and have money, a house, and a full-time job, you can do all of the drugs you want and we don’t care. But if you’re poor and you’re dying because you use drugs, then our community has a problem with that,” she said.

“We’re no longer just losing people who are living in poverty—we’re losing recreational drug users too,” Beck explained.

In 2017, it’s estimated that at least 4,000 people in Canada died from opioid overdoses. That number is even higher in the US, where opioid overdose deaths were in the tens of thousands last year. In both the US and Canada, the death toll of the overdose crisis has surpassed that of the peak of the AIDS epidemic.

The plight of small communities heavily affected by the overdose crisis is a story more common in the United States. One of the overdose capitals of the US is a historically industrial town of less than 50,000 people—Huntington, West Virginia.

I grew up in the middle of nowhere in northern Pennsylvania, another state particularly affected by the crisis. Hospitals are few and far between in the area I’m from, as are certain services for people who use drugs, such as methadone programs. If you live in a rural area and don’t have a car or a dependable ride, it could be difficult to get the help you need when you need it. The number of people I know from back home who’ve died from drug overdose or who’ve at some point struggled with opioid use is far too many for a place where high school graduating classes are fewer than 100 people. I still haven’t been able to bring myself to visit the graves of several childhood friends, though I intend to every time I return.

A feeling I’m now familiar with is finding out a former classmate has died and not knowing what exactly happened at first, yet noticing the suspicious “died suddenly” in their obituary. More times than not, I find out after that their death was drug-related. It’s not something that people usually want to talk about even though so many of us have been affected.

The truth is that overdose can affect anyone, and certainly not just those living in cities and industrial towns. According to an Angus Reid Institute report released in January, one in eight Canadians have a family member or close friend who’s become dependent on opioids in the last five years. It’s happening all over the US and Canada, regardless of demographics.

“The general population in the Soo is in denial that we even have a drug problem,” Beck said. “It’s becoming, as a harm reduction worker, emotionally exhausting for me to try to defend to people who just choose to be ignorant to drugs that there is a problem here. We’re losing good people because we have an issue with poisoned drugs right now.”

Sault Ste. Marie, like many places across the US and Canada, is dealing with the illicit drug supply—particularly heroin—being poisoned with the potent opioid fentanyl.

We hoped to show a portrait of a small community being affected by the crisis with Steel Town Down. But, it’s important to remember Sault Ste. Marie is just one of many places that is grappling with the biggest drug safety crisis of our lifetimes.

“I think that it’s important, it’s essential,” Beck said, “that our community is declared as being in a crisis so that people will start paying attention.”

When it comes to finding food, the animal kingdom can be a ruthless place where crabs feed on birds, gators feed on gators, and raccoons gorge on so much bread that they get stuck in sewers. But no gruesome cannibalistic scene or carbo-loaded feast compares to the sight of this freakishly sized boar rummaging through the trash in Hong Kong. Behold, the very hungry, very large Boar King:

Facebook user Tu Dong uploaded footage of the gargantuan beast last week, and the thing puts even that Planet Earth lizard-snake scene to shame. As you can see, it is large enough to prop its front two legs up on a dumpster and root through the trash inside, pulling this way and that on a particularly enticing bag with its massive maw. Meanwhile, its mini (or regular-size?) pig friends mill about on the sidewalk, waiting for their share of the feast. Somehow, the beast's tiny legs manage to support all that weight.

According to the Daily Mail, the Mack truck of a porker happened to be gorging on trash a few blocks away from an elementary school, which caused some concern among the folks who saw the video on Facebook. Mostly, though, people were just in awe of the giant beast, saying something to the effect of—if Google translate can be trusted—"just let the damn thing eat."

"It's so hungry," one commenter wrote. "Wild boar has the right to live and freedom. He is only hungry for food."

"Pityful," another chimed in. "They are hungry, my goodness."

Check out the full clip above and decide for yourself whether Boar King could take on that really, really big gator in a fight.

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Related: Wild Boars Are Getting Kicked Out of Deserted Japanese Towns

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Black Panther is breaking box-office records like a bad-habit. Black Panther is spurring black folks to celebrate in numbers. Black Panther is a 97 percent certified fresh film—and some folks, mostly of the non-black variety, still don’t get it.

As a black nerd, I’m frankly tired of the explanation. And despite the hundreth journalist, with their la-di-da press access, pushing out an explainer to the importance of a film like this (...me), we still get the sort dismissing “it’s not a big deal.”

Well I did my part, and will continue to do my part. But I want to give these people the benefit of the doubt here. I want them to hear from the very folks that don’t have a thing to gain from their vocal excitement. So I reached out to a few black nerds, some of which came from one of Facebook’s largest group of black nerds, PLANETEJOBN, founded by Jemal Baraka, to ask the simple question, “What does it mean to you to have this Black Panther film released?”

We’re on the eve of the public premiere, and sure, plenty more will be said by Friday. In the meantime, I can only hope that a few people will be able to understand what a big deal this is for the black community...but I won’t hold my breath.

From left to right, Daria Dee, Dre M. Evans, Pernell V. Williams.

It means everything. - Daria Dee

I'm expecting a lot from this movie. It's the movie that comes out on my birthday weekend. My older brother, RIP, introduced the character to me when I was a kid because it was his favourite character. "I know how much you love Batman; he's like Batman... and he rules an entire nation." The cast is amazing and this could be the movie that crosses racial gaps (I'm actually ashamed to have the need to type that last and the next sentence...) This movie could also be a day for ignorance to run rampant. It is a prime excuse for racists to protest for asinine reasons (attention). - Dre M. Evans.

This will be an opportunity to see us through our own lens, even if it’s through a fantasy. - Pernell V. Williams

From left to right, Numayr O. El-Amin, Jamil Asim Muhammad.

Simply put, it’s incredible. As a dude that struggled with identity growing up, it’s nice seeing representation in such a major way in a huge big budget movie. I love it. I’m going to see it like five times opening weekend. - Numayr O. El-Amin

This film really means a lot. My five year old son asked me why he couldn't be like his white classmates because all of the characters that he liked looked like them. Then the Black Panther trailer dropped, and now my sons want the toys, costumes, and the clothes. I love hearing my son say, “I never freeze” while playing with his T’Challa action figure. It’s a powerful heroic figure that my sons can be proud of, and one that looks like them. We need this. - Jamil Asim Muhammad

From left to right, Earl Grey Summers, Jennifer Coe, Oh Melly.

It means my kids, my nieces and nephews can see characters that look like them, representative in a positive, powerful light. It means for me to see black heroes done correctly as leads and the potential for more black characters that comes with that. - Jennifer Coe

It’s good for the culture and I never even cared for Black Panther. These moments sometimes feel forced, like you have to like him, but I can’t deny how great it is for future black superhero movies. - Oh Melley

The keyword here is calibre. Black Panther is a movie that should set the tone for what we should expect out of black films. It shows us that, while we should support films with black majority casting as a rule, we should also not expect such films to settle for low quality, repetitious, or stereotypical content. Majority black-casted films can not only be excellent, but avant garde. - Earl Grey Summers

It means the 20-year anticipation is over. The debates about who would make a Black Panther, about who should direct it, and all those thoughts that have now been answered. The movie should have came out years ago, but of course got pushed back because Spiderman came on board. Even then, I was so ready to see a Black Panther film. After the director was made official, the actor and then his role in Captain America: Civil War, all I needed was a good trailer and they gave us that. Loved them, and I didn’t hesitate to pick up them pre-show tickets. Now bring on the damn movie. - Jairus Davis

From left to right, Andre Schrock and Guens Delius.

I’m really glad to see representation like this. And it couldn’t come at a better time given the current political environment. - Andre Schrock

Having a Black Panther movie is the first major victory on the path of having black heroes hit the mainstream. It’s bigger for me because most of my favourite heroes are black; Static Shock, Luke Cage, Anansi, Falcon, Black Lightning and plenty more. - Guens Delius

From left to right, Edward and Charles Walker.

Aside from being one of my favourite Marvel characters it shows Hollywood and the world that an all-black cast can fill theatres and make millions just as an all-white cast can. Black power matters, and it’s time that everyone realizes that. - Edward Walker

As a Marvel fan, it’s great to see Black Panther get his shine. He was handled really well in Captain America: Civil War. My kids are going to get to see Africa painted in a really cool light. And it also means that black film-makers can do sci-fi and fantasy as well. We ain’t just gangstas, rappers and garbage ass Madea comedies. Maybe we could explore African mythology or some black space opera type shit. - Charles Walker

From left to right, Sherice Piece and Okamiko Nyothoun.

I’m happy that my niece will have some strong black female characters to emulate and look up to. Oh, and to cosplay as! - Sherice Piece

My father was the one who introduced me to comics. When I was little, he would read them to me as bedtime stories. He’d change his voice with each character and I’d be enthralled with these super heroes with flaws like me. When Spider-Man came out, my dad didn’t care for theaters, so we waited to watch it in the comfort of our living room, away from those “bad ass kids.” He told me that the movie was just like the comics. He had this wonder and excitement about him. He then lifted one finger and said, “Tiff, if they can do that with Black Panther..” he never finished the statement. He passed away on Nov, 2011.

When I heard about the film, I froze. It wasn’t like hearing about Thor or Captain America...this was deep. Something my dad couldn't even fathom. He went through segregation, he was called a “nigger” and I’m sure there were times when he had to swallow his pride. It’s not about the caliber of the film, it’s about the struggle. The plight and strength that stands within those beautiful dark skin tones. The hair, and familiar people with textures like mine. To me this is about little girls and boys seeing representation come to light without the stereotypes that make us out just as thugs, video hoes, athletes or rappers. They can see Dora Milaje and Black Panther and say, “hey, I can be a hero too.” - Okamiko Nyothoun

From left to right, Gabriel Cannon and Duane Foster.

It means I can be the hero. I have a good guy that I can cheer for that looks like me. Too many times, I had to see eye to eye with the villain or the comic relief with a black face. Now I can identify with the star, the leader, and the hero. - Gabriel Cannon

We as people need a movie of this caliber for such a time as this. This will be not only one of the greatest black comic book movies, but it will be a cult classic with tons of one-liners that will be etched in our memories. We will not be bootlegging this movie. This is too important to the culture. Folks are already ordering their T-shirts online that reveal about Wakanda and everything. We’ve been ready for this movie to come out [for] decades. - Duane Foster

From left to right, Nicholas Taylor, Brandon Smith and Stephanie LaShaun Hardy.

This film means that I and the black children and teens of this present generation have a figure to look up to that reminds us of the power and majesty that lies inside of each one of us. We are strong, wise, beautiful, cunning, benevolent, resilient, intrepid and glorious. We are capable of so many great things, if only we believe in ourselves, and not just take the opportunity but make the opportunity. We are Marvel-lous. - Nicholas Taylor

It means proper representation for young kids of colour. We are kings and heroes too. - Brandon Smith

It means the world to me for so many reasons. One, is that I’m excited for a fictional African nation to be portrayed as the future as opposed to being portrayed as poor and in need of America’s help. Another reason is that I live in a country that only looks to demean people like me and our places or origin, and seeing a movie like this will give us all a sense of empowerment that black people truly need and deserve. These are African people who haven’t had their identity tarnished by colonization. This is a movie that we need. - Stephanie LaShaun Hardy

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The first thing you need to know about Infrastructure Week is that any week and every week could be Infrastructure Week. When it's always Infrastructure Week, it's never Infrastructure Week, but when you think about it, isn't the real Infrastructure Week just the friends we made along the way?

The other thing you should know is that this week is Infrastructure Week, at least according to the president. But I don't blame you if you've been blissfully ignorant of Infrastructure Week. The infinite news cycle is always buzzing about something, and it's hardly ever about infrastructure. One week, the nation was taken by the president's exceptionally high marks on his dementia test; another week, we mused about how many Trump staffers have beaten their wives and whether or not will they punished for it.

Most weeks, we are concerned with who is bad and why. But if someone mentions infrastructure, it's like, Oh yeah, infrastructure! because in the back of our minds we know about the slow decay of American roads and bridges and also the subways. We know these things are falling apart. They were crumbling before Donald Trump got to the Oval Office and will continue to erode regardless of what he does.

Trump loves to talk about infrastructure and generally throws in some lines about airports and highways in speeches, including his inaugural address. But America didn't get its first official Infrastructure Week until June. It was not a success, as it coincided with Trump firing the FBI director because he wasn't too keen on his campaign being investigated for collusion or obstruction of justice or something like that.

Trump's second Infrastructure Week was in August, which, as New York's Olivia Nuzzi pointed out, "was subsumed by his defense of the white nationalists in Charlottesville." By then "Infrastructure Week" had become something of a joke among political types, shorthand for the White House being completely unable to stay on-message, even about something as bland as potholes, for more than a few hours.

"These diversions turned Infrastructure Week into a giant joke," observed Alex Shepherd for the New Republic. And now it is Infrastructure Week again. This time Trump actually has released an infrastructure plan, but Shepherd pointed out that the administration was "no closer to passing a comprehensive plan than it was the last time it was Infrastructure Week."

This latest Infrastructure Week is still young and full of possibilities. What fresh horrors will distract us this time? Are we on the brink of nuclear war? What about all the hot shot directors and executives who have gotten away with decades of sexual abuse, or the laundry detergent that people aren't really intentionally poisoning themselves with, but maybe actually are? Perhaps this Infrastructure Week will be the time we talk about the forever wars our country has been in for the entire 21st century. Then there are the budding wars, the one between Israel and Iran for example, and of course, there's the problematic nature of the Peter Rabbit movie's depiction of "food allergy bullying," (#BoycottPeterRabbit) and the porn star who the president paid $130,000 to keep his alleged infidelity hush-hush—that last one now such old news it seems ancient, though it broke only last month. Or we could talk about some major media outlets "yaaas kween-ing" the sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, or the unending debate on what we should do with the loser of the 2016 presidential election—is she still coughing, and how loudly? Should she take up knitting, or is that too taboo of a suggestion?

Each unbearably loud news item makes up what has become the United States of America's Infinite Infrastructure Week, seven enormously long days where we take a moment to calmly examine in the literal and metaphoric Infrastructure of our country, in all its chaotic failure. We're always talking about Infrastructure, about whether we're equipped to handle this highly abnormal presidency, evaluating whether it's always been bad and we just started noticing, or if it's actually the worst it's ever been.

Infrastructure Week has never been about infrastructure. It's about words—the president's promises to fix what's broken and his disinterest in making good on those promises. Infrastructure Week reminds us that we really could fix what's broken, but instead things just get worse and worse and worse; as Trump continues to corrode America's faith in its political structures, we crumble.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

This article originally appeared on Thump

Can you remember where you were when you first heard "Dancing Queen"? The chances are it was at a wedding reception, or a 40th birthday party; you were probably five. It was probably mixed in the air with the croaking voices of older relatives pouring down on you, as you ran between their fat, pink legs in a church hall. You probably had a fistful of Wotsits in your possession. You were probably wearing a waistcoat. This is where "Dancing Queen" has made its home. ITV specials, Pierce Brosnan, TOTP2, your nan, buffets, desert island discs, Alan Partridge, Peter Kay routines and karaoke machines.

This is wrong. Because "Dancing Queen" is the saddest record ever made.

In order for this exercise to work, I'm going to have to ask you to forget everything you think you know about ABBA. Forget the cheese and the chintz. Forget the Eurovision song contest. Sit back in as close to silent as you can achieve in your current surroundings, and luxuriate on this:

First things first: what a record. In a conversation with THUMP that we stupidly didn't record, the ever-enlightened DJ Harvey once told us he believes "Dancing Queen" is the greatest disco record ever made, and it's hard to disagree. It's a song of such high-quality, a song so beloved, it's been nearly entirely ruined by the weight of it legacy. But even then it triumphs. That initial glissando, the endless, breathless, pirouettes in your ears. The tepid beat – barely faster than your heartbeat – the choral whirls and clambering strings. It's perfect. But you already knew that.

The basic point – the important point – here is this: you have spent your entire life believing "Dancing Queen" is a song about a 17-year-old girl, dancing. And to a point, it is. Yet, have you ever thought about the song's vantage point?

You are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen
Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tambourine
You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen

Make no mistake. This song is about the dancing queen, but it is most definitely not sung by her. Herein lies the tragedy. Our narrator has realised that she is no longer the Dancing Queen. She is no longer young, no longer sweet, no longer 17. Now, instead, she watches from the bar; the dancefloor a maelstrom of lost faith, memories and missed opportunities. She was once 17, and as such was totally oblivious that the moment would ever end.

"Dancing Queen" is a song about this end. Or at least, edging ever closer towards it. It is a song that respects the truth that the passing of time only moves in one direction. That the second after the greatest moment of your life, it is as far behind you as it will be forever. Fuck your inner child, fuck "you're only as young as the woman you feel". You are young once, it happens, and then the rest is a slow slide towards something both inevitable and unknown. Of course, that's not to say that the slide into adulthood can't be a rich and bountiful experience. For many, youth is an uncomfortable project, full of Muse albums and matted pubes, and as such something they are glad to watch turn to ash over their shoulder. That's fine, I get that. There are, however, a large percentage of people who only make sense when they are young. People who find a home away from home in the shimmering reaches of nightclubs.

A lot of cynics would have you believe that nightclubs are only good for trying to get off with people, or that those who purport to love them are merely extending some juvenile urge to deny "the real world". Sadly, for all their wisdom, the truth is they don't understand the confidence, the place, many people find when they go out – and just how out of place they can feel once those halcyon days are over. As soon as that moment passes – that moment when they were walking on air through the thick, black promise of the night – as soon as the sun starts to come up on the rest of their lives, they are destined to spend forever stewing on what has ended, or simply pretending it hasn't.

The front cover of 'Voulez-Vous'

To every wrong-side of 30 year-old still stubbing cigarettes out on coffee tables at 6 the next morning, everyone who has ever spent entire evenings listening to their terrible teenage CD collection, every aching back on a premature night-bus home: this one's for you. This is what it's all about. Watching the Dancing Queen flood the floor with light, a floor you used to own but now creaks under other feet. It's a beautiful scene, sure, but also an inescapably sad one. Yes, it sounds happy, but that's the point. The thick melancholy in every piano chord, the unmistakable, immediately singable nature of the chorus are all part of its power. Sometimes when I listen to "Dancing Queen", around the 2:57 mark, I'm sure I can even hear someone scream. This isn't joy. This is agony.

ABBA have been fucking depressing on many other occasions. They basically live-blogged their respective divorces via disco ballads. "Slipping Through My Fingers" captures, with devastating effect, the slow trickle of child ageing away from their parent. "The Day Before You Came" details the oblivious mundane existence that precedes a life-changing encounter. And "S.O.S." –your Aunty Mary's favourite – horrifically masters the point of total disembodiment from somebody you thought you'd spend forever with. Pretty much everything they have ever recorded is imbued with a wistfulness. A constant interplay between pop sensibility and twisted mentality.

Yet, for my money, none of their hits come anywhere close to "Dancing Queen" in the longing stakes. It is a song that says the best has been. The best now belongs to somebody else. The best you can now do is watch the best and remember when you were the best. It's a song for the moment when the value of your memories outweigh the value of your ambitions. "Dancing Queen", a song now most commonly preceded by a function DJ slurring the words "get yer dancing shoes on" into a low quality microphone or belted at West End audiences, is in fact a song about watching the party from the other side of the glass, knowing you'll never be on the list again.

"Dancing Queen" is a song about death.

@a_n_g_u_s

You were probably too busy obsessively checking that your crush had watched all 32 of your Instagram stories to have noticed, but new research released this week found the average age of a Facebook user in the UK is getting higher, as younger users desert the site for Snapchat and Instagram, while its popularity soars with pensioners.

Half a million new over-55s in the UK are expected to join Facebook this year, in which case they will be the second biggest demographic on the website, losing out only to the 16 to 34-year-old bracket. But what are they all doing on there? The reason we've all stopped using Facebook is because it's so boring; it's just full of people asking if anyone knows a locksmith in the area, as if there wasn't this other website called Google literally designed for helping you find locksmiths.

So, what is this secret entertaining Facebook that old people are flocking to use?

Dawn, 58

VICE: What do you get up to on Facebook?
Dawn: I don't post. Very, very rarely do I post anything on there. I tend to just look and see what other people are doing. I'm mainly on there for groups – like my Slimming World group. I follow local shops, the woman that looks after the dog when I go away. So I'm mostly on pages.

What does a usual day scrolling down your newsfeed look like?
Lately, Facebook itself seems to have stopped refreshing, and I have to manually go to "most recent". I get lots of pictures of people's food, which is probably because of the Slimming World page. Although I'm friends with loads of people you only see things from about half a dozen people, and I never go to see what anybody else is doing. If it doesn't pop up, I don't bother.

A screengrab from Dawn's feed

What's the sort of thing you like seeing?
I like when I see posts from the family and can keep up with their kids and that kind of stuff. I like to see the kids, I like to see the pets. I like the quizzes as well, that people do.

What quizzes?
Things like, "Can you name the film from these pictures?" or "If you were a unicorn what colour would you be?" That kinda crap.

Is there anything you don't like about Facebook?
I don't like when people post pictures of animal cruelty – I don't want to see anything nasty. I don't like when people rant about politics either, because for me that's not what Facebook is about.

What is it about for you?
Keeping in touch with what family and friends are doing, not as a sounding board for what you don't like in the world.

Heather, 60

VICE: Hi Heather. What do you mainly use Facebook for?
Heather: Keeping in touch with friends and family, and for events.

Are you part of any groups?
Yes. Music, feminism, pets.

What kind of things do they post? Animal videos? Status updates? Photos?
All of that, but probably mostly music and political posts.

A screengrab from Heather's feed

What do you most like seeing on your feed?
I suppose I like seeing stuff that makes me laugh. Or good news from family and friends.

And what kind of posts do you hate seeing clogging up your feed?
I find I get annoyed with certain people who post too much pointless shit. I usually unfollow them.

Thanks, Heather!

Minoo, 56

VICE: Hi Minoo, what do you like to use Facebook for?
Minoo: I use it to stay up to date with friends and family, especially those abroad in Iran and America who I don’t get to see often. And I like the recipe pages, but I never get around to making any of the recipes.

What do you usually see when you log in?
Recipes, news events, cute animals and quotes.

A screengrab of Minoo's feed

Can you tell me a favourite quote you saw recently?
“The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy." It’s by an American woman called Florence Scovel Shinn, who was a spiritual teacher.

Joyce, 92

VICE: Hi Joyce. What do you think of Facebook?
Joyce: It's the most dreadful time-waster! It drives me mad I get so angry with myself. I talk to myself while I'm scrolling; there's a voice in my head saying, "Why are you wasting your time looking at this rubbish – what people have eaten and where they are." I do more deleting.

Of people?
No, of posts. If somebody is in a restaurant, or whatever, I just delete – I don't care where they are or what they're doing. Most of it is rubbish, I have to be honest.

What do you most like to see on your feed?
I like to keep in touch with friends that I don't see. If there's something coming up in their lives that's interesting, like a divorce, or if somebody is getting married in the family. I'm interested in that, but mostly it seems to be all these acquaintances who have asked you to be their friend and I've accepted out of politeness, and then all I get is, "I'm out at so and so," or, "I'm doing this," and I just think, 'I don't care! I've got my own life going on around me!' There are certain things I like to see, like if people tell me about a new show coming up – but most of it I think is rubbish.

So your least favourite thing is food posts?
Yes! I hate it when they show what they've cooked.

Does it make a difference if what they've cooked looks good?
No, it doesn't to me. I'm not a foodie – I eat when I'm starving. I don't think in the morning what I'm going to have for dinner in the evening.

What kind of things do you post?
Where it says on the top, "What is on your mind Joyce?", I might suddenly think, 'I saw this wonderful show last night and I must say something.' But it's only if there's something that I've got to say. I never put on that I'm depressed or have had a terrible day – I'd rather think about that at home and get over it myself without worrying everybody else about it. But if I've seen a lovely show or something funny has happened when I've been on the bus, I might put that on to make people laugh.

So do you use it mostly for conversations?
Yes, I like conversations. But on the whole I find it a complete waste of time.

More on VICE:

We Are Only Just Realising That Facebook Has Lost All Meaning

Your Mum Has Ruined Facebook

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Hey! This is bad!

This is bad, isn’t it! I think we can all agree this is bad! And it’s not like I was living a life like, 'I'll be fine from the eventual robot uprising: I’ll just close the door on them, that will confound them and their primitive hands.' No. I always that assumed robots, when they choose to murder me, will just burst through doors, exploding them with their mighty shoulders. But there’s something in this video that just: euch. It’s like watching an animal wiggle to life and gain just an extra click of sentience. It’s like watching intelligence bloom and immediately eclipse us. It’s like watching the future, and the future wants us to die. Again:

Obviously all I can think of right now is: can this robot dog kill me? And the answer is: not yet. I mean, under certain circumstances, the robot dog could kill me – I feel if it propels itself up to high enough speed, for instance, scrabbling towards me on all those gun-like legs, topples me down like I’m being hit by a small low car, I’m on a well polished floor and I go down like a sack of shit, head gone, clok, instant brain bleed, agonising death, the dog just robotically pants at me – or perhaps it could pound me to a mush by repeatedly slamming and unslamming a door upon me, head then legs then head again, until I stop twitching.

But, fundamentally, the robot dog cannot kill me because it does not yet have the desire to kill.

Soon come, though. That’s the thing with robot dogs that can open doors: they just keep evolving, a snowball of progression barrelling down a hill of technology. Soon, the dogs will be able to undo jam jars and tie intricate knots. They will be able to sieve flour and change a kitchen bin-bag. They will be able to choke you unconscious with their rigid plastic pincers, tiny lasers scanning your eyes for the last final flickers of life extinguishing inside you. They’ll be able to blast an unerring forearm into the softest meat of you and pulse around inside until they find the organ they want, which they will snip out neatly as you bleed beneath them on the floor. They will be able to crush your skull like a Coke can. They’ll be able to flick through a telephone book. They’ll be able to break your nose with a single peck. They’ll be able to strike a match. They’ll be able to slosh your warm body with petrol and light the building on fire.

No, come on, I’m a smart man. I can defeat this robot dog. I reckon with one outstretched leg I could tip it over on its side and it will scrabble and struggle to get up, like literally every robot in the first season of Robot Wars. The arm bit of it looks good now, obviously, but I reckon with a decent enough attack to the joints of it, it would fold and crumple beneath me. Think: the backseat of a Toyota Prius seems quite sturdy, doesn’t it, until you start beating the shit out of it with something, and then it starts to bend and yield. This robot dog is just that, but with a door-claw and death on its mind. Could I fuck it up with a baseball bat? I feel like I could fuck it up with a baseball bat. I am immediately going to Sports Direct and getting a baseball bat.

Soon the robot dogs will be baseball bat-proof, though, won’t they, and then it’s time to worry. The clunking dread of the door dog is this: this isn’t even the freakiest and most advanced robot you will see in your lifetime. This is just the horrid start of Skynet closing in. Soon the robot dogs will stand, and jump, and sprint, and squeeze us to death in monstrous robot bear hugs. Human blood will seep into the concrete beneath us. Only those on the side of the monsters will survive the onslaught.

What can we learn from the beasts? They are polite: in holding the door, the robot dog literally has more manners than I do. I’m going to start saying "cheers, mate" to bus drivers and helping old ladies cross roads. Figure out what side plates are for. Give my change to the homeless. I’m going to be nicer to technology, too: un-peel the tape from my laptop webcam, stop using my phone on the toilet, do that thing less where I throw a remote control in a perfect arc across the room. Your iPad is on the side of the victors, now, so stop downloading meaty porn onto it that makes it run all slow. Maybe, together, we can appease the beasts long enough to stave them off. But when they turn, O. When they turn. You will not even hear the knock on the door. It will just shudder open. And then: death. Sweet, sweet death.

@joelgolby

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

If you could cum out of any bit of you, which bit would you cum out of?

I have to tell you immediately: this is not as good a Tinder opener as you might have first thought. But it’s something to think about, sometimes, isn’t it, in those quiet moments you sometimes get to yourself: perhaps you could open up some valve in the back of your knee and cum out of that, or a flap in your elbow crook. Perhaps you might like to cum out of an ear, or mouth. Maybe you think the nipples a viable cum option. I’m just here to tell you: there are alternatives available. That archaic methods of cumming have been scrapped, all of them, and replaced with this:

This, according to Designboom, is a "seeding finger" – the idea of South Korean industrial designer and artist, Koo Hyeonjeong, who intends for the device to be used by women of the future to self-impregnate.

Yes! I! Have! Some! Questions!

WHAT

What exactly am I looking at here? As best I can tell – and I have to be honest, here, despite trying very hard to understand this by reading about it, I am also quite alarmingly distracted by the very reality of it, I mean I have never seen a hand surgically augmented w/ a bellpiece, so – as best I can tell I am looking at a surgical concept here that would add a sort of erection-having optional organ to the hand, and that this would allow women to impregnate others without the involvement of a man. So – and this is a very base, very dismissive, reductive way of looking at it – I mean, what you're looking at here is a dickfinger. It’s a dickfinger. It’s a finger that is also a dick. It is a dickfinger.

WHAT

So, like, yes, again, it is quite difficult conceptually to get your head around this, due to the fact it seems to involve assembling a rudimentary dick cypher in the place of an otherwise normal middle finger. But I think what I’m basically getting from this is: with the help of a three-piece dickfinger kit consisting of a "stem", a "pouch" and a "tube", surgeons of the future will theoretically be able to convert a middle finger into a sort of erection-having semi-dick, whereby the pouch will produce sperm (details are very "??????????" on how such a pouch will produce such a thing) which will then be honked up the tube and out through the tip of the stem, which has a cum-hole in it. And then, boom: man-free pregnancy. Look, here’s how your finger is going to look in a hundred years, before it gets hard enough to fuck w/:

WHAT

What

WHAT

I mean: do you want to fuck that thing? Would you fuck that thing? The monster finger. That is also a dick. Would you? Would you fuck it? Perhaps a different question: would you type a text on a smartphone with it? Can you imagine trying to do a roll-up with that? What about: you know when you go to Costa Coffee and get a hot chocolate to drink in, and they do it in those large bowl-like mugs that come with tiny, rudimentary handles on them? And you have to grip the handle with a thumb and forefinger, in a sort of loop, to pick it up from there? Yeah? What I am saying is: now try picking that mug up with your dick. And your dick is in the middle of your hand. And it is the future. And every time you squeeze too hard on anything – every time you squeeze too hard on a honey bottle as you drizzle it over your breakfast porridge, or every time you grip a bathroom door handle too viciously, or every time you catch a tennis ball, lightly lofted towards you from a low to medium-distance – every time you in any way clench or squeeze your hand, you set your pouch off again and get cum everywhere. This is the future liberals want.

ADDITIONAL, SIDE QUESTION:

Imagine doing even basic karate with this thing

ADDITIONAL, SIDE QUESTION:

But then on the flipside: how good would it feel, how hefty, to flip off a traffic warden with it? I mean, that person is really going to know they got flipped off. So you see now I’m coming round to the idea of the D.F. (the D.F. is what I now call the dickfinger)

ADDITIONAL, SIDE QUESTION:

Quite often I absent-mindedly tease a frond of hair from the front of my face and tuck it back into place using the gentle application of my middle finger. Is that out, now, or—?

WHAT

Obviously it’s great that we’re thinking of embedding dicks in our collective fingers – it’s just, I dunno: it feels like I have heard tales about tinkering with the physiology of the human condition for a while, and they all end badly. I can’t remember exactly how Frankenstein goes because I read it for A-level ages ago, and I’m 99 percent sure the monster did not have a dick in the middle of his palm while he was out murdering all those wives and kids, jizzing out of his hand in the middle of the Arctic, one frantic last finger-blast for solitude. However: I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t use science to construct wild mid-palm erection organs in the pursuit of a manless society. But then, I am a cynic.

"As people can have two kinds of sexual organs, the stereotype of innate sex will change," designer Koo Hyeonjeong told designboom. "The discourse that [the] seeding finger will bring will be a catalyst to redefine the relationship and reality among people about the direction of biotechnology development."

Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m short-sighted. Maybe if we all had dickfingers, gender would slowly be eroded, the balances of power would shift somewhere towards a middle common ground, everyone would get along better, handshakes would undoubtedly be more awkward but maybe we could fist-bump instead. Sometimes you have to stare right down the stem of a dickfinger to find truth: that hey, maybe you're the one who's behind the times, for not wanting a sort of dick thing instead of a finger. This robotic hand-cock has actually made me really appraise some stuff. The dickfinger has burrowed deep into my mind and – slowly, gently, carefully – teased a whole new flap of it open within me. And I have to say: thank you, dickfinger, for that. If nothing else, I have a new perspective now.

@joelgolby

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

By now, you'd think most people would know about catfishing considering there's an MTV show about it. But not everyone can process the red flags. For instance, Karla, a mother of two who works for the Department of Homeland Security is convinced that she's married to actor Tyler Perry. Although the warning signs are as clear as day—they've never actually met, he asks for money, and they only communicate over text—she refuses to believe she's not Madea's boo.

On Monday's Desus & Mero, the hosts went down this rabbit hole and watched as even Dr. Phil couldn't convince Karla she was being duped.

You can watch last night’s Desus & Mero for free online now, and be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

At some point, most of us have probably pumped a fist out of a vehicle’s window, hoping for a long honk, or even a friendly toot, from the truck or train driver beside us. But if you’re like me, you may have caught yourself wondering about these people and their long, lonely journeys across the country. Who are these mysterious travellers, so often hidden from view? What have they seen from those elevated perches behind the wheel?

We already know from hitchhikers who choose to ride with truckers that the highway can be a lawless place full of drugs and dark nights. Given how many extra miles a long-haul driver endures, it stands to reason they encounter even more deadly conditions, drug-smuggling weirdos, and of course “projectile shitting.”

That theory checks out, as shown by the stories below, which feature exhibitionists, drag queens, roadside butcheries and a variety of unexpected cargo: coke, a kitten. (Don’t worry, the kitten is not at all connected to the roadside butchery.)

Let’s also note that, despite being absent from this article, women also drive big rigs. But currently they only make up about three percent of drivers in Canada, and four percent in the US.

This job will kill ya

As a driver, you have to learn about bathroom breaks and how to train your body not get the runs on the road and stuff. It’s really a big issue. So this one time I’m waking up at a truck stop, getting out of my sleeper, rubbing my eyes, and having a cigarette. Then in my rearview mirror I see this truck parked behind me. So, picture this: there are two steps leading to the entrance of the truck, and this guy is on the bottom step, pants around his ankles with one hand holding onto the mirror and the other grasping a handle. And he is projectile shitting—like three or four feet away from him! It looks like pure coffee coming out of his ass. I was mortified. It was a life-changer for me.

I’ve seen so many ridiculous things, though. Once, this couple drove by me, honking and trying to get my attention. I looked down and it was pretty obvious that...well, felatio was being performed. I pulled over afterwards to see if they’d been honking to warn me of a defective load or something. But everything with the truck was OK. I can only assume they were getting my attention for their own thrill.

Then up in Yellowknife, I drove by what looked like a big moose that was a road kill victim. But surrounding it was a group of people and they were just carving it up, tearing out pieces. It was a bloody scene and pretty shocking, to be honest. Everyone had tools for carving and sheathing, and they were in a hurry, likely just taking the useful pieces and getting the hell out of dodge. Because I believe it’s illegal to do that.

This winter has been really eye opening for me, though, because I’ve seen some of the most horrific accidents of my 15-year career. It makes a guy’s testicles recede. For example I had an accident where I rolled my truck with a full load—90,000 pounds of lumber pushing me into the ditch. It was a life changer for me. I also saw a truck go off the cliff of the Coquihalla highway, like right over the edge and he was gone. I never heard if he made it or if he died, but two days later when I drove by the same accident scene, the truck was still there, about three stories below and on its roof.

I also had a little pick-up truck slip on the ice some distance in front of me and get thrown into the air like a toy. He landed on his roof in the middle of the highway. The exact middle. It was icy, I had a full load, and it was nighttime so not only could I not stop, but I also couldn’t see him clearly. I missed him by inches and narrowly avoided killing him. Thankfully I didn’t hit him but it could have been fucking catastrophic for many people. Then, after I passed him I still wasn’t able to stop—fully loaded on an icy hill. Finally, at the top of the hill I got cell phone reception and was able to call 911 and say, look, I wasn’t even able to stop and see if he was still alive.

Truck driving is in the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the world—depending on cargo, of course. In my career I’ve probably driven half a million miles and I think I’ve hit the ceiling. Recently I’ve been driving through these horrid winter conditions up in the BC mountains and in the Yukon, and I’ve questioned whether I’m going to make it home dozens of times. So I’m done. I’m aging far too quickly in this career. Especially since the accident, I’m sure I’m suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, or whatever they want to call it. — Aaron, 37

Drive-by Drag Queen

I was a freight conductor for the railway so I used to drive trains up the Fraser canyon. Up near Cheamview there’s this tunnel on a corner, and when I’d come around that corner and out of the tunnel at night, I often saw this person dressed in big, sparkly wigs and fancy outfits. Like huge ball gowns and 50s-style dresses—that super girly stuff you associate with crossdressing. And they’d be dancing away, caught in the lights of the train as it whizzed by. Didn’t matter if it was raining or if there was a storm. There they’d be, putting on a show.

This person was a die-hard. Every person that worked the Fraser Canyon knew them. Sometimes they’d even change outfits over the course of a night, which I knew because drivers behind me would describe completely different outfits from what I’d seen. I guess it must have been their kink or fetish? Anyhow, they did it for at least three years. It never bothered me—I got quite a kick out of it, actually—but I heard they were busted by the cops eventually. I think for trespassing on railway property. — Rob, 27

Shootin’ guns, smuggling drugs

I was hauling oversized equipment for a company out of Saskatchewan. I met this guy who was telling me that back in the day truckers would fill their sleepers up with a bunch of whiskey and cigarettes and carry it over the border, and they’d make a lot more money. I was kind of interested, but I was only 20 years old. Then he said, “Well, you’re gonna be by the border in Thunder Bay in a couple weeks so how about we set something up?” I said, “Well, I’m not going over the fuckin’ border.” And he said I wouldn’t have to because there would be a guy waiting for me on the other side.

So I decided to do it, and eventually met this guy who was driving what looked like an unmarked delivery van. The guy hops out and opens up the back and there are hundreds and hundreds of bottles of whiskey and cigarette boxes. Then we spend about two hours on this random grit road in Ontario playing Tetris and trying to fit all this stuff in my bunk in the back. Finally we get it all in there just as his buddy comes up to drive the van away. So he hops in with me and tells me where we are headed, which is this very remote location in Manitoba where he’s going to get paid cash for dropping off all the stuff.

A little while later we’re heading down this grit road and he asks me if I want a little bit of blow to keep me going. We do a couple bumps and then he starts asking me what guns I like and if I’ve ever shot a handgun. I’m like, “No, I’ve never shot a handgun. Do you have a handgun?” And he says, “You’re fucking right I’ve got a handgun. Want to shoot it?” And I say, “Well yeah, but I don’t think it’s a great idea, you know, we’ve got all this shit in the back and we’re high on coke.” He tells me not to worry cause we’re in the middle of nowhere, so we pull over and start firing this gun off the side of the road and it’s pitch black out, and as we’re doing this I realize there’s a good chance that we’re not just carrying whiskey and cigarettes given that this man is toting two handguns and has a lot of cocaine on his person.

I ask him if we’re carrying more than just Marlboros and Jack Daniels, and he says, “Alex* didn’t tell ya? Oh yeah, there’s a lot of cocaine back there.” So I ask if he’ll give me five grand instead of three. He says, “How about four and a half?” I say, “Sounds good, man.”

I’d only done cocaine like once before, and later realized that I’d done about the equivalent of a gram. So I’m really feeling my blood course through my veins, you know? We unload the stuff and the guy says, “Alright, thanks man.” And then I drive away in the pitch dark on a gravel road in Manitoba, high on cocaine, to finish the last leg of the 36 straight hours I’d been driving. — Alex*, 30

Attack of the Turkey

It was the one and only trip I took with my ex-wife. So she’s laying in the sleeper, up in the bunk, and it’s coming on six in the morning. The sun’s about to break and I’m doing 68 miles per hour. And then this turkey jumps out of the ditch, rolls up the hood and smash, the windshield breaks. If you’ve seen those cartoons where a person crashes into glass and then just sticks in it? It was like that. And turkey’s are, you know, 50 pounds. Anyway my ex-wife jumps out of the bunk, screaming, “What the fuck just happened?” I’ve got glass all over my face. All I can think is, don’t crank the wheel just keep ‘er still. Luckily the bird stays out, and I’m able to pull over, get him out and throw him to the side of the road. Then we just carry on to the safest place where I can get my windshield repaired.

But here’s my favourite story. At the end of one busy day, I park my truck at the mechanic’s shop. He’s standing on one side and I’m standing on the other, and he jumps. “Oh my god,” I say, “What’s that?” He goes, “it’s a cat!” Now I’m thinking it’s a cat on the engine that’s been hurt. Well I walk around and it was the smallest kitten you’ve ever seen, sitting on top of my motor and just screaming at me. And I do believe we was riding on that motor for half the day—because I hadn’t stopped. So I grab him, put him in my sweater, and take him home. Now, well, he’s still around my house today. My best friend, Diesel, that’s what I call him. — Tommy, 49

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US News

Trump Proposes Replacing Food Stamps and Gutting Medicaid
The White House’s budget proposal for 2019 has revealed a plan to slash spending on food stamps and introduce “America’s Harvest Box,” a monthly supply of non-perishable food. The Department of Agriculture has estimated the boxes could cut government welfare spending by $129 billion over the next decade. Other proposed measures include ending the extension of Medicaid benefits and expanding work requirements for welfare recipients.—Politico/The Washington Post

Baltimore Detectives Convicted in Massive Corruption Trial
Police detectives Daniel T. Hersl and Marcus R. Taylor were convicted of robbery and racketeering by a federal jury Monday. The court heard evidence the two members of Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force took money from drug dealers and innocent city residents. They now face up to 60 years in prison.—The Baltimore Sun

Jeff Sessions Praises ‘Anglo-American’ Law Enforcement
The attorney general was criticized for his remarks at the National Sheriffs’ Association conference on Monday. Sessions said the office of sheriff was “a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement.” Brian Schatz, the Democratic senator from Hawaii, called the comment a “dog whistle," and the NAACP said it was “racially tinged.”—ABC News

Vanessa Trump Unharmed in White Powder Scare
Donald Trump, Jr.'s wife and two others were hospitalized as a precaution Monday after a letter containing white powder was delivered to the family’s home in New York City. Police said the substance was harmless, with officials noting the powder appeared to be corn starch. Trump, Jr. described it as an “incredibly scary situation.”—NBC News

International News

South Africa’s Ruling Party Demands President's Resignation
The African National Congress has formally urged leader President Jacob Zuma to step down, giving him 48 hours to quit. Zuma, however, has reportedly refused to go, forcing his party to consider ways to impeach him through parliament. The 75-year-old has seen his stature dented by multiple allegations of corruption.—VICE News

Commonwealth to Discuss Who Succeeds the Queen
The 53 countries that make up the Commonwealth have formed a group that will review who becomes the ceremonial head when Queen Elizabeth II dies. Prince Charles will not necessarily assume the role when he becomes British monarch. “I imagine the question of the succession, however distasteful it may naturally be, will come up,” said one source of Tuesday's meeting in London.—BBC News

South Korean Court Convicts Former Presidential Aide
Choi Soon-sil, a close friend of ousted president Park Geun-hye, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for bribery and other offenses Tuesday. In addition to taking bribes, Choi was found guilty of leaning on businesses to give money to her foundations, a major part of the scandal that led to Park’s impeachment.—AP

Julian Assange Faces Crucial Court Ruling
A judge will decide whether to uphold or reject a British arrest warrant for the WikiLeaks founder on Tuesday while he's still holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assange’s lawyers argue the warrant, which relates to violation of bail terms, has “lost its purpose and function” since Swedish prosecutors have ended their probe into sexual assault claims against him.—The Guardian

Everything Else

Omarosa Manigault Calls Mike Pence ‘Extreme’
The former White House staffer and Celebrity Big Brother contestant claimed the vice president thinks “Jesus tells him to say things.” She told fellow contestants: “We would be begging for days of Trump back if Pence became president.”—CBS News

‘Black Panther’ on Course for Mammoth Opening
The Marvel superhero movie was reportedly set to take in $165 million over the upcoming four-day holiday weekend, according to tracking company NRG. Its estimated draw at the North American box office has risen twice in the past two weeks.—The Hollywood Reporter

Oxfam Deputy Head Quits Amid Haiti Scandal
Penny Lawrence, the NGO’s deputy chief executive, said she took “full responsibility” for inadequately responding to allegations of sexual misconduct at the organization. Former Oxfam staffers stand accused of patronizing young prostitutes in Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in what has been described as a "full-on Caligula orgy." —AP

Marshmello Drops Lil Peep Tribute
The DJ has released a video for the track “Spotlight,” his collaboration with Gustav Åhr, who died last year at 21. The visuals include a series of nods to the late star, including a diner referring to his tattoo.—Noisey

Olympic Gold Medal Winner Says ‘Holy Fuck’ on TV
NBC cameras captured Red Gerard, the 17-year-old US winner of the Winter Olympics' slopestyle snowboarding competition, shouting “holy fuck” after he claimed the gold. The teen reportedly overslept on the morning of the contest, having stayed up watching Netflix the night before.—VICE

Convicted Terrorist Watched ‘Arrested Development’ at Gitmo
Ahmed al Darbi, a Saudi national who plead guilty to taking part in an attack on a French oil tanker, was reportedly granted special privileges after providing testimony to prosecutors. He was allowed to watch the Bluth family sitcom and play PlayStation 3.—VICE News

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Money can’t bring back 5Pointz—the bright yellow warehouse in Queens that became a "graffiti mecca" for street artists from around the world. When the building's owner, Gerald Wolkoff, unceremoniously whitewashed its art-covered walls one night in 2013, an unparalleled cache of world-class street art was irreversibly destroyed.

But in a landmark ruling on Monday, a judge awarded $6.7 million in damages to 21 of the artists whose work was obliterated, the Washington Post reports. In his 100-page decision, Judge Frederic Block ordered Wolkoff to pay $150,000 for each of the 45 works destroyed—the maximum damages possible. His ruling represents a decisive victory for street artists in the fight to legitimize and protect their work.

After years of renting out the building to artists, letting them spray paint the building's walls, Wolkoff moved to tear down what had become the country's "largest collection of exterior aerosol art" to build luxury condos. The artists tried to stop Wolkoff under the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA)—which protects "works of recognized stature"—but the owner destroyed the artwork before a court decision was made.

"Rather than wait for the court’s opinion, Wolkoff destroyed almost all of the plaintiffs' paintings by whitewashing them during that eight-day interim," Block said. "The sloppy, half-hearted nature of the whitewashing left the works easily visible under thin layers of cheap, white paint, reminding the plaintiffs on a daily basis what had happened," he added.

5Pointz after it was defaced with white paint. Photo by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

The outcome of the landmark case validates the outrage felt by New York City’s artistic community, which is accustomed to being displaced by the interests of real estate developers. In June 2015, the artists brought a suit against Wolkoff, seeking cash damages for the "devastating losses" caused by the destruction of their murals. In November 2017, a jury ruled in favour of the artists, but it remained up to a judge to determine the extent of the damages. Judge Block's ruling sets a powerful precedent by recognizing ephemeral work like graffiti as art with material value.

"Since 5Pointz was a prominent tourist attraction the public would undoubtedly have thronged to say its goodbyes during those ten months and gaze at the formidable works of aerosol art for the last time," Block said. "It would have been a wonderful tribute for the artists that they richly deserved."

"The court’s decision is a victory not only for the artists in this case, but for artists all around the country," 5Pointz attorney Eric Baum told artnet News. "Aerosol art has been recognized as a fine art. The clear message is that art protected by federal law must be cherished and not destroyed. Anyone who violates the law will be held accountable and punished for the destruction."

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On the 14th floor of the Pacific Design Center's Red Building in Los Angeles, two men who had never met took a seat in two different rooms. Each picked up an iPhone, tapped a familiar icon and opened a Grindr profile—except the photo displayed was not his own. “That’s me?” asked a surprised white man. “I have never been Asian before,” he mused.

The blue-eyed, square-jawed white man—a 28-year-old identified only by his username, “Grindr Guy”—had traded accounts with a 30-year-old Asian man, known by the username “Procrasti-drama.”

This scene opens the premiere episode of Grindr’s What the Flip? The gay dating platform’s first web series has users switch profiles to witness the oft-negative and discriminatory behaviour many endure on the app. It appears on the web magazine INTO, which Grindr launched last August. It’s part of an attempt to shake the company’s reputation as a facilitator of casual hookups and reposition itself as a glossier gay lifestyle brand, a move that follows Grindr’s recent acquisition by a Chinese gaming company.

In doing so, the most widely used gay dating app in the world is wrestling with its demons—namely, the sheer volume of intolerant content and behavior that’s so rife on Grindr and apps like it.

This installment of What’s the Flip? narrowed in on racism. At first, the white guy scrolled through his profile’s messages and complained about its relatively empty inbox. Before long, racially charged comments began trickling in.

“Kinda a rice queen here,” read one.

“That’s weird,” the white guy said as he composed a reply. He asks why they mentioned that particular slang term, one used to describe a non-Asian gay male who has a fetish for Asian men.

“They’re usually good at bottoming … most Asians dudes are,” the other user wrote in response, conjuring a derisive stereotype that deems receptive sex a form of submission and casts gay Asian men as submissive.

In recapping his experience, the white guy admitted to series host Billy Francesca that many men responded negatively to his assumed ethnicity. Frustrated, he had starting posing a screening question when chatting: “Are you into Asians?”

“It felt like I was working just to talk to people,” he told Francesca—a sentiment many might share about their experience with Grindr and similar gay and queer dating apps, especially people of color, effeminate men, trans men and women, and people of various shapes and sizes.

"You can educate people all you want, but if you have a platform that permits people to be racist, sexist, or homophobic, they will be."

One need only to scroll through a few dozen profiles to understand what INTO describes as “a discrimination problem that has run rampant on gay dating apps for a while now.” “No Asians,” “no fems,” “no fatties,” “no blacks,” “masc4masc”—prejudicial language can be seen in profiles on nearly all of them. It might be most prevalent on Grindr, a pioneer of mobile gay dating, which remains the largest player in the market and thus has an outsized influence on the industry it practically invented.

Peter Sloterdyk, Grindr’s vice president of marketing, told me that he believes many users might not register that they are perpetrators of discriminatory behavior. “When you’re able to see the real-life experience, like on What the Flip,” he said, “it causes you to think a little bit differently.”

It’s fair, however, to wonder if merely prompting users to “think a little bit differently” is enough to stem the tide of discrimination—especially when a study conducted by the Center for Humane Technology found that Grindr topped a list of apps that left respondents feeling unhappy after use.

While Grindr recently introduced gender fields to promote inclusivity for trans and non-binary users and taken other small steps to make the app a friendlier place, they've mainly focused on creating and publishing educational content to address the thorny encounters so many cope with on the app. And in the past year, Grindr’s competitors have enacted a markedly diverse range of measures to address concerns like sexual racism, homophobia, transphobia, body shaming, and sexism—actions that reveal a gay social network industry mired in divergent perspectives on the responsibility app creators have to the queer communities they foster.

On one hand are Grindr-inspired apps that use GPS to show nearby profiles in a thumbnail grid, such as Hornet, Jack’d, and SCRUFF. Like Grindr, many of these seem to have taken a more passive approach to in-app discrimination by, for example, underscoring their pre-existing community guidelines. Hornet has also used its digital content channel, Hornet Stories, to produce its own educational campaigns.

On the other hand are Tinder-like apps that show a continuous stack of profiles users can swipe left or right on. In this card-based category, apps like Tinder and relative newcomer Chappy have made design decisions like foregoing features such as ethnicity filters. Chappy has also made a plain-English non-discrimination pledge part of its signup process. (Jack’d and SCRUFF have a swipe feature, though it’s a more recent addition to the people-nearby grid interface.)

How companies respond to discrimination on their apps is made especially crucial in our current era of political toxicity, in which issues such as racism may be worsening on their platforms.

“In the age of Trump, we’re starting to see an uptick in discriminatory profiles and language used to communicate the kinds of people [some queer men on dating apps] do not want to see,” said Jesus Smith, assistant professor of sociology in Lawrence University’s race and ethnicity program, citing his own recent work researching gay dating apps as well as the broader rise of online hate speech and offline hate crimes.

The relative anonymity of gay dating apps gives Smith a less-filtered look at societal bias. For his graduate research, Smith explored homosexuality in the context of the US-Mexico border, interviewing men about sexual racism within the gay community. He analyzed hundreds of randomly selected Adam4Adam profiles, noting that discriminatory language in gay dating profiles seemed at the time to be trending toward more coded euphemisms. But now he sees a “political context that is shaking things up.”

He suggests that this context gives license for men to express more overtly biased sentiments. He recalled, as one example, traveling to College Station, Texas, and encountering profiles that read, “If I’m not here on Grindr, then I’m helping Trump build a wall.”

“This is the thing: These apps help engage the sort of behavior that becomes discriminatory,” he told me, explaining how men use gay dating apps to “racially cleanse” their spaces. They do so through the content of their profiles and by using filters that allow them to segregate who they see. “You can educate people all you want, but if you have a platform that permits people to be racist, sexist, or homophobic, they will be,” he said.

Of course, gay dating apps have come under fire many times in the past for allegedly tolerating various forms of discriminatory behaviour. For years queer men have called them out using websites like sexualracismsux.com and douchebagsofgrindr.com. Loads of articles touch on how gay dating app users frequently disguise sexual racism and fetishism as seemingly benign “sexual preferences,” a defense echoed in interviews with app leaders like Grindr’s recently resigned CEO Joel Simkhai and SCRUFF’s co-founder Eric Silverberg.

The specific traits people—both queer identified and not—desire in their partners is a complex issue, one surely influenced by conventional notions of beauty as well as highly contextual personal bias. Dating technology—starting with websites in the 90s and mobile apps in the 00s—did not create such bias, thought its mass adoption has made it increasingly visible. And we’re beginning to see how online dating affects such user behaviour more broadly.

A new study, ”The Strength of Absent Ties: Social Integration via Online Dating” by Josue Ortega and Philipp Hergovichis, is the first to suggest that such technology has not only disrupted how couples meet, but it is also transforming the very nature of society. MIT Technology Review summarized the research, noting that online dating is “the main driver” in the rise of interracial marriages in the United States over the past two decades. Online dating is also the number one way same-sex couples meet. For heterosexuals, it’s the second. Might that give dating apps themselves the power to change a culture of discrimination?

Till now, much of the reporting about discrimination on dating apps has honed in on whether user “preferences” around race, body type, masculinity, and other factors amount to discrimination. But as research shows that dating apps can have measurable effects on society at large, an equally important but far-less-discussed issue is that of responsibility—what different design and other choices they could make, and how precisely they should respond to speech on their platforms that many classify as racism, sexism, weightism, and other discriminatory “-isms.”

In one view, this is a question of free speech, one with pronounced resonance in the wake of the 2016 US election as tech giants like Facebook and Google also grapple with their power to regulate all manner of content online. And while a covertly racist comment appearing in a dating bio is not the same as white supremacists using platforms like Facebook as organizing tools, similar issues of free speech arise in these dissimilar scenarios—whether it’s Tinder banning one user for sending racially abusive messages or Twitter’s revised policy that prohibits users from affiliating with known hate groups. Through this lens, apps like Grindr—which some say fail to adequately address the concerns of its marginalized users—appear to fall on the “laissez faire” end of the spectrum.

“It is of such paramount importance that the creators of these apps take things seriously and not fubb you off with, 'oh yeah, we think it’s a wider problem.' It is a wider problem because of apps like Grindr—they perpetuate the problem.”

“We really rely heavily on our user base to be active with us and to join the movement to create a more equal sense of belonging on the app,” said Sloterdyk. In opaque terms, that means Grindr expects a high level of self-moderation from its community. According to Sloterdyk, Grindr employs a team of 100-plus full-time moderators that he said has no tolerance for offensive content. But when asked to define whether widely bemoaned phrases such as “no blacks” or “no Asians” would result in a profile ban, he said that it all depends on the context.

“What we’ve found recently is that a lot of people are using the more common phrases—and I loathe to say these things out loud, but things like ‘no fems, no fats, no Asians’—to call out that ‘I don’t believe in X,’” he said. “We don’t want to have a blanket block on those terms because oftentimes people are using those phrases to advocate against those preferences or that kind of language.”

SCRUFF operates on a similar principle of user-based moderation, CEO Silverberg told me, explaining that profiles which receive “multiple flags from the community” may get warnings or requests to “remove or modify content.” “Unlike other apps,” he said, “we enforce our profile and community guidelines vigorously.”

Nearly every app asks users to report profiles that transgress its terms and conditions, though some are far more specific in defining the kinds of language it will not tolerate. Hornet’s user guidelines, for example, state that “racial remarks”—such negative comments as “no Asians” or “no blacks”—are barred from profiles. Their president, Sean Howell, has previously said that they “somewhat limit freedom of speech” to do so. Such policies, however, still require users to moderate each other and report such transgressions.

But dwelling solely on issues of speech regulation skirts the impact intentional design choices have on the way we behave on various platforms. In September, Hornet Stories published an essay, penned by an interaction-design researcher, that outlines design steps that app developers could take—such as using artificial intelligence to flag racist language or requiring users sign a “decency pledge”—to create a more equitable experience on their platforms. Some have already taken these steps.

“When you have an app [Grindr] that actually limits how many people you can block unless you pay for it, that is fundamentally broken,” said Jack Rogers, co-founder of UK-based startup Chappy, which debuted in 2016 with financial backing from the dating app Bumble. Rogers told me his team was inspired to launch a Tinder-esque service for gay men that “you wouldn’t have to hide on the subway.”

They’ve done so by making design choices that Rogers said seek to avoid “daily dosage of self-loathing and rejection that you get” on other apps: Users must register with their Facebook account rather than merely an email address. The sense of anonymity “really brings out the worst in almost every individual” on Grindr, Rogers said. (He also acknowledged that “Grindr needed to be anonymous back in the day” so that users could sign on without outing themselves.) Additionally, photos and profile content on Chappy goes through a vetting process that requires everyone show their faces. And since December, each user must sign the “Chappy Pledge,” a nondiscrimination agreement that draws attention to rules which often get hidden in an app’s service terms.

Rogers said he does not believe any one of these steps will solve issues as ingrained as racism, but he hopes Chappy can prod other apps to recognize their “enormous responsibility.”

“It is of such paramount importance that the creators of these apps take things seriously and not fubb you off with, 'oh yeah, we think it’s a wider problem,'” said Rogers. “It is a wider problem because of apps like Grindr—they perpetuate the problem.”

While it’s unlikely that any individual design decision would fix these wider problems, one common feature present in most apps has become a point of contention—search filters that allow users to sort by ethnicity, body type and so on. Apps such as Chappy, Bumble, and Tinder do not let users filter potential matches by the color of their skin. But Grindr, SCRUFF, Jack’d, Hornet, OKCupid, and many others do.

A spokesperson for OKCupid—known for transparency in sharing data, such as its 2014 report about racial bias—told me that “the percentage of members who filter or search for people by a specific race or ethnicity is down” to less than 10 percent. Other apps mentioned in this piece did not immediately respond to requests for the percentage of their users who filter by ethnicity.

But why have the feature at all?

It’s a question that seems to choke spokespeople up. SCRUFF declined to comment on their search filters. Jack’d and OKCupid did not immediately respond to requests for comment. And Grindr did not articulate a direct answer. “I think we as an industry and as a collaborative community have a lot of hard thinking to do around those kinds of opportunities to filter,” Sloterdyk told me.

However, the president of Hornet wrote in an email that their ethnicity filters were, in fact, “designed with men of colour in mind,” who Howell said make up more than 50 percent of its worldwide users. “We came to learn that men of colour find the filters helpful in easily locating other men of colour in their region,” he said. “This can help foster a stronger sense of community, and it often allows them to avoid some of the common issues around race that come up when they aren't engaging with other men of colour.”

Watch Peter Staley discuss his work with ACT UP in the fight against AIDS:

There’s a similar logic behind the dating app Colour. While not an exclusively queer platform, it aims to improve engagement for people of colour on dating sites by prioritizing racial preferences.

Smith, the Lawrence University sociologist, acknowledged that there is some validity to this perspective. “It’s the reasons behind our preferences that’s the point here,” he said. But when it comes down to what gay-focused apps should do, he said: “I think, structurally, when you create a space that allows for discriminatory behaviour, that’s totally unnecessary and only fosters uglier environments.”

Many have made the case against filters and other such segregating features, such as Dartmouth College professor Sonu Bedi, who has framed equal access to the intimate sphere as a “matter of justice.”

But for most of the major gay apps, eliminating filters entirely could actually cut into a revenue stream. On Grindr and SCRUFF, ethnicity and other filters (including height and weight) are premium features reserved for paying subscribers. Other apps—including Jack’d, Hornet, and OKCupid—may not charge for ethnicity filters, but do have other premium search capabilities that users can unlock for a fee. And therein lies a design conundrum: Swipe-based apps like Tinder offer basic filters (such as for age and proximity), but filters are less essential to the user experience as they are on apps that have a scrolling-grid interface. Because Grindr and similar grid-based apps limit the number of profiles that any one user can see in their immediate radius, it thereby necessitates the need for filters to see more matches. In a way, this “freemium” experience is intentionally flawed, since apps profit off of providing extra filters to paying subscribers.

From that standpoint, sassy videos with a body-positive or anti-racism slant seem less like a bandaid and more like a PR ploy.

After watching What the Flip?, Smith concluded that a web series is not at all a suitable substitute for removing the “structural obstacles that keep us from integrating and keep us from engaging” as a community.

“I saw that video on Grindr, and I thought, you could just listen to people of colour, you could just listen to fem men, you could just listen to fat men,” said Smith, echoing those calling not only for educational resources, but for structural design changes to the user experience. “But sure,” he added, “why not just let people keep going through it.”

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