After starring in a string of god-awful Netflix movies, things were finally looking up for Adam Sandler: He got a standing ovation at Cannes for his turn in The Meyerowitz Stories, sort of revived his stand-up career, and even started generating some Oscar buzz. But, alas, we regret to inform you that—as any right-minded individual could've predicted—Sandler is back on his bullshit.

After a set at New York City's Comic Strip Live on Wednesday, Sandler descended into the subway—completely incognito—where he managed to get his hands on some busker's microphone, TMZ reports. Sandler used the platform to sing about wearing shorts, "scary shit," and walking in on his parents having sex, while a man he'd probably never met before plunked away on an electric piano nearby.

It was a real return to his roots—there's something of a Billy Madison quality to his voice when he's singing about how "it's gonna be shorts again," whatever that means. Then all of a sudden he starts screaming, something he's proven time and again he's very good at. Apparently satisfied with his time in the spotlight, he brings his performance to a close with a nice little ditty about his parents boning. The refrain: "Daddy fucks my eye with his penis."

It wasn't quite "The Chanukah Song"—or parts two, three, or four—but, hey, maybe he's trying out a new avant-garde jazz phase, or working on a rock opera and looking for some notes.

Sandler drew a pretty sizable crowd for being dressed in multiple jackets and wearing sunglasses underground, but a few stoic straphangers breezed right by him, perhaps failing to realize that the strange, hooded man singing about dicks was a major celebrity. For them, it was just another day in New York City's subways.

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Related: Passengers Trapped on F Train

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

After performing in 29 cities on tour with RuPaul's Drag Race, Chi Chi DeVayne figured she had her routine down pat. So when she got to Oregon, getting extremely stoned on legal weed before her show seemed like a great idea—until it wasn't.

VICE sat down with Chi Chi to hear about what went wrong on that fateful night in Portland, when she tried to do a flip and accidentally slipped—flinging herself offstage, slicing open her leg, and winding up with a pair of bloody tights.

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When Anna Deavere Smith first started using the “documentary theatre” style of performance she pioneered—for which she interviews hundreds of people surrounding a particular subject and acts out excerpts from the transcripts—she trained her focus on riots that erupted from racial tensions in Brooklyn (Fires in the Mirror) and LA (Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992).

More than 25 years later, the Pulitzer finalist and Tony nominee is a staple of drama curriculums, and America’s racial divide is as fraught as ever.

With her latest work, Notes From the Field, which premiered Off Broadway days before the 2016 election and has been adapted into an HBO original film released February 24, Smith presents a sprawling array of personal narratives surrounding the country’s school-to-prison pipeline.

According to the ACLU, students who are suspended or expelled are three times more likely to have contact with the juvenile justice system the following year; and black students are expelled at three times the rate of their white peers. In adulthood, black people are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of whites, per the NAACP.

In Notes From the Field, we hear from people like Kevin Moore, who recorded Baltimore police loading Freddie Gray into the back of the van where he suffered fatal injuries. From Michael Tubbs, mayor of Stockton, California, who likens the resilience of the town’s poor young men of color to Tupac’s "The Rose That Grew From Concrete.” From Denise Dodson, an inmate of 23 years attending college in prison, who reflects on the choices she might have made had she been educated.

The film brims with insights from people on all sides of our country’s struggles with cyclical poverty, ailing and underfunded schools, persistent racism, and the endemic biases of criminal justice. The power of Smith’s piece, directed by Kristi Zea and intercut with doc-like footage of recent events, is the humanity it brings to systemic problems that can otherwise feel overwhelmingly vast.

In the wake of the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the question of what to do about violence in schools has reached a boiling point. From her experience researching what ails America’s education system, I spoke with Smith about tackling massive issues on a human scale, how racial politics play into the current uproar over gun control, and where we go from here.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

VICE: The documentary theatre style of Notes From the Field really humanizes your subjects and connects them through your performance, is that a quality you find is missing from our national conversation on these issues?
Anna Deavere Smith: I would never presume to say that. I think if your interest in people and their individuality supersedes coming to snap judgements or your need, for whatever reason, to fight for one side, then that’s [going to come through].

The other night I was interviewed at a screening where I don’t think the interviewer really liked Tony Eady, the man in the movie who says, "A lot of kids get in trouble because of their mouth." He wanted to know, what was my reaction when I meet someone I don’t agree with? When I’m sitting in front of Tony Eady, what I hear is, first of all, a very deep resonant voice that I know I’m going to enjoy listening to while I’m working. I also loved the way he expressed himself; I loved the way he moved. That’s what I’m doing. So I don’t have time to go, "Oh, that’s not a good way to think about these kids."

We’re in the midst of another major uprising over gun control. From your experience speaking with parents, students and school administrators, how do you think the issue of gun control affects the school-to-prison pipeline?
I would talk about the availability of guns in what we call the inner city, the hood. And for that matter, in small country towns in South Carolina. People talk about gun control, but that gun availability is certainly in the cities for kids, not to [commit] mass murders, but it’s really a part of how they live. I think if you and I were joking around that, "Oh, we know the man or whoever is listening into this conversation"—if we believe we have major surveillance, how come they can’t get those drugs and guns off of these city streets? Who is proliferating the illegal guns? I don’t have an answer for that, but they’re there for sure.

Do you think because the guns in inner cities are illegal and off the radar, that that’s a separate problem?
I don’t think it is, but I don’t know. If I weren’t on this press tour right now, I would be calling around to get an answer to that question, because I’m very interested in exactly what you’re saying. I did call psychiatrists I know at Stanford the minute that Trump was talking about mental health and not gun control right after the shooting. They of course think it’s terrible that he would pull that out as a diversion. I do think this is an opportunity to really talk about mental health: 17 million kids in America need service, and only one third of them are getting help. I think it’s really a time to talk about all kinds of guns, not just mass murder weapons, but all kinds of guns that are in the hands of people who are under 21 and using them for something other than shooting deer or truly just defending themselves.

How does race—of the perpetrator, and of the victims—function in our conversation about gun control?
It doesn’t. The way we’ve been talking about race lately has been about this large power structure of institutionalized racism. If you think of it as a house, inside that architecture are the police, and they’re the ones who are carrying guns and billy clubs. So we think about race in relation to that power structure that’s keeping the people who are seen to be the least valuable in line. That to me is how we talk about [guns] with race. But this story of these kids in Florida, it’s not racialized in any way, do you think?

I just wonder if it takes white lives to recharge the conversation in this way.
Oh, that’s very interesting. Black Lives Matter was about black lives, and it was about one-by-one black lives. They were very successful at raising awareness and taking up some space in the newspapers and everywhere else about the black body in the grips of power. One racial aspect of the issue is the ways in which white supremacy seems to be aligned with mass murder. That this kid was supposedly affiliated in some way with white supremacists, and that Dylann Roof—I deal with the mass murder that he committed in Notes From the Field—that Dylann Roof went in and murdered people in Mother Emanuel Church under the banner of the Confederate flag.

So much of what you talk about in the movie, which I know you researched right before Black Lives Matter really erupted, seems to say that, systemically, the problem is we’re overlooking black lives—17 black people I’m sure have died from gunshot wounds in the days since we’ve been talking about Parkland.
I see what you’re saying. As a rhetorical matter, I don’t make a claim like that. I’m sure it’s true, but the reason I wouldn’t say it is that I would be concerned that it could appear to be belittling the tragedy at Parkland. I just wouldn’t do that right now, in this moment. That’s not the gesture I would use right now. I’m not a political leader, but I’m an educator and I stand up on the stage and try to stand for something, though it’s through metaphor.

If you were really looking for how can we think about [these issues] together, I would think for a long time. I would wait until the news has moved on to the next thing, and I would do a whole play that would be an inquiry about that.

What do you think we can look for and find hope in terms of our country’s direction right now?
I think many people are looking to these kids as a hopeful moment. And this could be considered maternalistic—but I worry about them. That they’ve been through this trauma and we’re expecting them to lead us, I worry about the toll that takes on them. We should be being the adults, we should be thinking of how to soothe them. They probably feel they have to be a part of all this media right now, but these young people were not prepared to be in a battle. It’s great that they’re stepping forward. I mean who am I to say? But I do worry, probably as an actor because I know for us, when it’s just fake feelings, how difficult it can be to be in public.

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Fellow Newfadorians, I write you today in righteous fury. The Canadian government’s official Twitter account recently tweeted several images of Canadian-themed Pokemon in a desperate bid for brand engagement. Among the other hamfisted stereotypes presented as part of this G-rated thirst-trap, we are presented with a Newfoundland dog in an oil slicker named “Newfie.”

(The tweet has since been deleted, but screenshots live forever.)

Chalk this up to another foreign relations disaster. Everyone knows “real” Canada starts and ends in Halifax, and every culturally-insensitive tweet further proves it. We give Canada our sovereignty, our fishery, our resource revenues, our brightest minds and strongest workers, the thankless blood sweat and tears of 69 arduous years, and this is the best we can get? Maybe for Justin Trudeau’s next summer staycation he can come down to St. John’s dressed up in a rhinestone-speckled Sou’wester. The insolence of our Laurentian oppressors knows no bounds.

The tweet is brutally unfunny, which I consider an affront to both my cultural heritage and the established canon of good Newfoundland/Pokemon jokes.

But also, the word “Newfie” is very problematic and bothers a lot of people.

Historically, as far as anyone can tell, the term “Newfie” originated during World War II during the construction of the American naval base at Argentia. One American lieutenant expressed his opinion that the Newfoundland labourers were as “lazy and shiftless” as African-Americans, and from the mother of all N-words allegedly sprang the lesser Newfie epithet. (An equally plausible alternative is that future premier Joey Smallwood told a version of the “contemptuous American call us Newfies” story on his 1930s radio show The Barrelman.)

The sentiment wasn’t unique to the Americans; the British also saw us as a species of degenerate Irishmen. They just gave us a cutesy name that has stuck ever since, the shame-filled shadow cast by our fragile national pride. The Newfoundlander is sharp as tack and sociable, thrifty and hard-working, warm and generous. The Newfie is a drunken thief and a welfare cheat, a frantic maniac throwing garbage and screaming “K-ROCK ROCKS” out the truck cab window before flipping it 20 times on the Outer Ring Road. The brighter you light up the former, the darker the shadow it casts.

This may shock the casual observer because if you visit any store in rural Newfoundland or go to George Street, you will see the word everywhere and everyone seems cool about it. A lot of locals are pretty cool about it, because no one cares about the history of the term and it just means you’re from the island and you like to party. But a lot of other people—anyone who has been the Token Newf in a mainland workplace, certainly—find it distasteful, and that is totally fair. Or at least fair enough for someone to issue a memo to all the comms people about it. Doesn’t Canada’s youngest province deserve at least the same pedantic political correctness everyone else gets?

Anyway, they took it down so no harm no foul. Just bask in the power of social media activism, folks. The fury of the Newfoundlander scorned can indeed move mountains. Today it’s just some poor intern who wanted to tweet about Pokemon. But tomorrow? Tomorrow we take Mont D'Iberville.

Follow Drew Brown on Twitter.

At the beginning of Sebastian Lelio's Oscar-nominated film A Fantastic Woman (Una Mujer Fantastica), the Chilean capital Santiago seems like somewhere a person who identifies as trans can date and be treated with the same regard as anyone else. The film’s protagonist, Marina, played by trans actress Daniela Vega, dines at a restaurant with her partner Orlando; they canoodle, caress and no one cares.

This moment of bliss is short-lived for Marina, as the rest of the film narrates her struggles after the unexpected death of Orlando, and how those around her discredit their relationship while criticising her identity. It’s now favourite to win the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars this Sunday.

In Chile, it has especially resonated with trans viewers. "It is a story that is so human, that speaks of love but also of the discrimination that a trans person receives, which is something we see daily in our community," says trans activist, filmmaker and photographer Andy González.

Una Mujer Fantastica's Oscar nomination, and Daniela Vega's appearance as the first trans presenter at the ceremony, comes at a significant time for trans rights in Chile. Last July, the Gender Identity Recognition and Protection Bill – which allows trans people to change their name and gender without needing judicial permission or gender-changing surgery – was passed by the Senate for consideration. It was then sent to the House of Representatives, which approved the legalisation in January, and it has now returned to the Senate, where it is pending its final phase of approval.

It's a piece of legislation that has been debated by the government for an exasperatingly long time. "It has been a very long process and is slowly advancing," says Franco Fuica, Vice President of trans rights group OTD Chile.

Rally for Gender Recognition Act (OTD)

Individuals, LGBT+ organisations and groups such as Amnesty International have protested and rallied to catalyse political change in the country, stating that the Gender Recognition law is needed as a basic human right; that, without it, trans people are subject to social and professional discrimination and alienation, but Chile is notoriously conservative and has only recently started to change the draconian public policies entrenched by a 17-year military dictatorship that endorsed the traditional values of the Roman Catholic church.

Despite democracy returning in 1990, the political ideology of the dictatorship still attracts elite support, which has made the battle difficult for advocates of the Gender Recognition bill (which includes Chile's current president, Michelle Bachelet) to get it through.

Change is slowly underway; abortion was fully outlawed and criminalised until only last year; civil union between same-sex couples was legalised in 2015; and the gay marriage bill is still in Congress. Chile was even one of the last countries in the world to permit divorce, in 2004. "Chile is a conservative country. In some ways it is very modern, very neoliberal, but restrictive in others," explains Franco.

"They can send trans men to a gynaecologist or examine trans women by touching our genitals. If that is still not enough, they could ask to test our DNA, which makes no sense. It just takes up time, and after all of that they can still say no."

Trans people in Chile are currently dependent on the decisions of individual judges to legally change their gender identity, which can be a long, rigorous and frustrating process. Alessia Injoque, a trans activist and columnist, has not changed her name legally as she feels the current process is degrading and time-wasting: "To change my name is totally in the hands of a judge, who can subject you to humiliating medical exams. They can send trans men to a gynaecologist or examine trans women by touching our genitals. If that is still not enough, they could ask to test our DNA, which makes no sense. It just takes up time, and after all of that they can still say no."

The effect of being denied, or unable, to legally change gender and name is documented in the film; Marina is forced to show her ID, which states her masculine birth name, to a police officer, who refuses to acknowledge her as a trans woman. "All of the legal aspects in the film are a reality for trans people," says Alessia. "I am afraid when I drive that the police will stop me, which hasn't happened yet, but would they suspect I had fake identification? Every time I travel outside of Chile I have problems at the border control. They ask me, 'Why don't you change your name?' And I say, 'Well, I would like to…'"

To make things more difficult still, civil registration laws state that names must comply with a person's registered gender. So, for Alessia, a simple deed poll change isn't an option. "My legal name is Alejandro," she says. Daniela Vega has also been vocally critical of the lack of policy change. "I go out to represent Chile with a masculine name on my passport," she said in an interview with FACES magazine.

Supporters of trans rights wave trans flag on teh Plaza de Armas (OTD)

In March, Bachelet's left-leaning progressive government, which has moved forward a lot of public policy, will be replaced by Sebastian Piñera's conservative one. Piñera, a returning president, who led the country before Bachelet, from 2010 to 2014, has done little for the LGBT+ community. Instead, he has openly demonstrated his lack of support for the gender identity law, notoriously likening gender change to "a T-shirt which you change from day to day".

It is not expected that Piñera will retract Bachelet's popular social reform laws and proposals. "It's unlikely he will go back on them, but I just think they will be stalled for another four years," says Andy. But time is precious for many trans people in the country, who feel at odds with their registered names and genders. Daniela Vega has spoken of the urgent need to approve the Gender bill "…because people are dying. They commit suicide."

Whether A Fantastic Woman will win on Sunday or not, the film shows the difficulties which are a reality for trans people in Chile, and its international recognition has given activists in the country some much-needed support, helping to garner public empathy and understanding for trans issues and rights. "The film is really important for the community," says Franco. "If Chile wins an Oscar because of this film, thanks to Daniela Vega, it would be a huge step in helping trans people live better lives."

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

This article was published in collaboration with the Marshall Project.

Have you ever sat on the toilet while carrying on a conversation with a guy who’s looming over you drinking Kool-Aid and eating chocolate-chip cookies?

Have you ever felt the need to tape National Geographic magazines around your torso as makeshift body armor?

How about having someone peer up your anus with a flashlight after you visit with your family?

Or what about being addressed by a number instead of your name?

I have and do experience most of these things on a regular basis. You see, prison is all about “normalizing” abnormal behavior, to use a word popularized in the Trump era. Nothing about life inside prison is normal.

Prison is the very absence of normal.

When I first entered prison, almost everything seemed alien and disgusting. On day one, I was stripped of my clothes alongside a bunch of other men, marched around naked, and issued an ID number.

Let’s examine that for a minute. I’d been methodically shamed and humiliated, assigned a new form of identification, and then informed that not only was I no longer free, I was effectively the property of the state of Michigan—all in the course of a few minutes.

I was stunned. But today, 20 years later, that all seems quite normal to me.

“251141, report to your housing unit... Hey, 251141, where the hell d’you think you’re going? Get over here... 251141, you’ve got mail...."

As for strip searches, well, I’ve endured hundreds of them.

“Bend over and spread your ass cheeks... Lift your dick... Now your nuts... Hold your mouth open with your fingers... No, I don’t have anything for you to wash your hands with... Let me see the bottoms of your feet…”

On my second day in prison, I was among 20 or so inmates who were marched naked down a long, Alcatraz-like gallery past several open-faced cells to a grubby, dimly lit communal shower. The bath area was a huge, open chamber sporting several shower heads protruding from mold- and mildew-covered walls. There, a number of men huddled under the sputtering, scalding-hot spray were going to town on themselves as if having an audience of fellow inmates watch you masturbate were the most normal thing in the world.

Another norm in prison is the idea that friendships are fleeting. You might wake up one morning and discover that your best friend of several years is gone, transferred to another facility with the snap of someone’s fingers. He may even have been your cellmate, for you have no control over who you live with (another norm).

Chaos is a norm, though it sounds oxymoronic to say so. I haven’t experienced a truly good night’s sleep—a sound, comfortable sleep—in two decades. Too much chaos. Too much uncertainty.

That brings me to violence, which in prison is the ultimate norm. Over the years, I've been stabbed, cut, clunked, almost raped, and had the crap kicked out of me on numerous occasions. And in self-defense—especially back when I was young and considered “pretty” by the sexual predators—I’ve been forced to do a number of those things myself.

Don’t get me wrong: Despite my crimes, I’m no monster. In fact, I think I’m actually a pacifist at heart, and I still sympathize with those who are abused, injured, or victimized. I once saved a man who was choking to death in the chow hall by performing the Heimlich maneuver on him. And while it’s true that half of the inmates eating dinner did applaud me—mostly for defying the guards who kept ordering me to stop—the other half booed me for not letting the guy die.

Another of our norms is growing accustomed to having everything we do planned out and tracked by authority figures. I’m told when to eat, when to sleep, when to go outside, when to talk with and see my family, when to shower, when to cut my hair or iron my clothes. My money is managed for me; I pay zero taxes; and my health care (what little there is of it) is free and monitored by others.

I can’t remember the last time I had to make a major decision like that for myself. I grow nervous just imagining the prospect. By the grace of God, and with a little help from my wonderful family and friends, I believe I’ll be okay when the day I’m free finally arrives. But what about those of us who have no loved ones left alive because they’ve spent a bazillion years behind bars? Who will help them adjust to having to make decisions for themselves? Who will help them forget 20 or 30 or 40 years worth of “normal”?

Maybe this is why so many of us fail when we get out.

Someone smarter than me will need to figure all that out. But I will say this: Every single man who's lived in prison long enough that he’s learned how to digest the food agrees with me. As I've worked on this essay, I’ve let every inmate I know read it, and they have all nodded their heads.

The question you must ask yourselves, readers, is this: What are you going to do about it? Some may say that we’re “getting what we deserve” in here, but that makes no real sense from a societal standpoint. Better people exiting prisons means a better society. Worse people exiting prisons means a worse society.

I think that’s simple logic—unless illogic has been normalized for me, too.

Jerry Metcalf, 43, is incarcerated at the Thumb Correctional Facility in Lapeer, Michigan, where he is serving 40 to 60 years for second-degree murder and two years for a weapons felony, both of which he was convicted of in 1996.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

In 2017, a survey of almost 1,500 adolescents and young adults across the UK found that social media use, and in particular Instagram, was linked to depression, anxiety, and a whole lot of sleep deprivation. Basically, it just seems that a constant diet of photos from people who are richer, better looking, and more on-holiday than ourselves just isn’t healthy.

But what about the people in the photos? How are the influencers feeling?

We reached to three social media influencers to see what it’s like to be so popular online, what pressures they face, and how their Insta-saturated lives impact their own wellbeing.

Dean Raphael

I’ve had the account from 2010, but it blew up in 2013 when I started posting more articulate images and using Instagram as my portfolio. In that first year, I went from 3000 followers to over 30,000. There were articles about me in Germany, Belgium, and France and I was having my work shared over tumblr, flickr, and Instagram.

The problem was that it created a great deal of anxiety and ego-identification problems, something I didn’t know how to deal with at the time. I was suddenly worth something because of this external validation. When I’d post something, I’d instantly get this dopamine rush because of the amount of likes. But then I remember catching myself on a low day, feeling like I needed to post something, [and asking] myself if I was doing it to feel good about myself.

When I’d meet people, I’d bring up my Instagram to get their validation to boost my own ego. In retrospect, I feel they would’ve recognised that, but I was so immersed that I didn’t even realise. And that anxiety doesn’t limit itself to Instagram. It becomes you. You become an anxious person walking around, unsure of yourself. Depression and low self-worth came from losing followers so much that I became addicted to checking who unfollowed me. I’ve since realised that the algorithm has a lot of influence over who sees your content and when, but I didn’t realise that at the time.

These days I’ve learned to disconnect through willpower. I’ll ignore Instagram for a couple of weeks. The clarity I get from that is incredible. It hasn’t controlled me in recent years, but I’d be lying if I said that feelings of gratification weren’t there. I don’t hate Instagram. It drove me into my own photography business which I’m able to live off happily, and Instagram also gave me a drive to put work out there, which made me better at my craft.

Red Shiraz

Social media has created many positives in my life and if it didn’t, I wouldn’t use it. Being able to connect with young girls, women, men, and LGBTQIA+ people from the Middle East has enriched my life in a myriad of ways, although like anything, it can be toxic.

I get more gratification from people relating to what I’m saying, but at times I feel some pressure knowing that some people find support through me, because I would hate to let anyone down. I try to reflect an authentic depiction of my character and influence people positively, so sometimes I do feel bad posting pictures of me smoking or stories of me being drunk and ridiculous.

There’s also guilt in not always being able to reply to those who confide in me—it can sometimes build up a sense of anxiety. When I meet people in person, whether it’s in a friendship or romantic setting, I sometimes get caught up thinking about the preconceived ideas they may have of me because of the open nature of my content.

I am only human and sometimes I can receive 100 loving and empowering messages and my brain seems to focus on that one rude message, or a degrading DM with a dick pic attached to it. If I’ve had a really stressful day, this can have a negative impact on my mood, but I remind myself that the people sending these messages are irrelevant to my life.

A couple of years ago that pressure did affect my day-to-day, but I’ve developed ways to deal with it. Before I sleep, I turn my phone on aeroplane mode, and meditate for 10 minutes on the beach when I wake up—this has been imperative for my mental stability. We constantly talk about the importance of detoxing the body, but somehow everyone forgets about detoxifying the mind. During high school I would get antagonised for the pictures I would post on social media but I learnt that I’ll never be able to please everyone, so I might as well do what makes me happy.

Of course, going to Lebanese events and worrying that someone there may judge my family for my online presence can be quite emotionally destructive. Strong kinship bonds are at the crux of my Middle Eastern background and despite the beauty in this unity, it can work as a double-edged sword. Everything I do is a direct reflection of my parents, which is challenging when you’re a woman who challenges normative Arab structures. But the positive feedback I receive overrides any sort of discouragement, as well as the clear conscious that I have knowing that I’m not doing anything wrong by my moral standards.

Cleo

I got Instagram in 2012 when it was still pretty new. At first, I was following all these amateur photography and healthy lifestyle accounts—lots of aerial pictures of pretty breakfasts and that. I remember noticing that all these accounts had all like 10,000 followers and hundreds of likes. I was doing amateur photography myself so I thought to myself, 'Why can’t I do it?'

After about a year, I was already on 3000 followers. Then one day I was featured in an article about Melbourne’s best Instagrammers on the Guardian. Some nights I’d get over 500 followers. Then I got featured in another article, and suddenly I was on more than 60,000 followers. I’d post a photo and get 1000 likes, which felt great. Seeing people be receptive to who you are is just a burst of serotonin.

At first it was great. There wasn’t too much of an impact day-to-day. I just had to be conscious of keeping the account going. If I was out for breakfast, I’d have to tell everyone to not touch their food until I got a photo. I got a lot of likes, my friends and family were supportive, and I even started getting contacted by business to post about them for money. One time, Volkswagen gave me $800 to drive a car of theirs for a weekend and post photos about it.

But after a while, I started to almost feel like I was a fraud. My friends and family told me not to give it up because it was such an opportunity, but I couldn’t help to feel that what I was doing wasn’t right. I remember around then, people were coming up to me in the street. That made me feel strange. I didn’t do anything to get here, and now I’ve got these people coming up to me saying I made their day.

My account used to just be for me, but when I was an influencer, it was just marketing for businesses and staged shots. The way you document your life via Instagram is a way of showing you’re different and your life is better. It made me feel that what I was doing wasn’t very honest. At the time I was also partying and kicking-on, so it felt strange to post about healthy living.

I found that it did all make me feel more anxious. I’ve always cared about what other people think of me, but having that exposure where it’s all about you and how people perceive you makes you concentrate on that. I don’t get as many likes anymore and my followers are steadily declining, and even though I know it’s not real and there’s an algorithm, it feels strange. At the time, it made feel feel like people weren’t interested in me, or I wasn’t as popular anymore.

Overall, I am happier stepping back from something that was making me overthink what people thought of me so much.

Sam is on Twitter

This article originally appeared on VICE AU.

The next time you’re listening to your economics professor explain (again) the difference between gross national product and gross domestic product, consider this: you could be at Carleton University studying magic instead.

Carleton is currently accepting applications for its new Allan Slaight Chair for the Study of the Conjuring Arts. The announcement, predictably, provoked a lot of snark on Twitter and in the halls of more traditional academic departments. As a way of filling your arts electives, it seems hard to deny that a course on magic would be, objectively speaking, awesome. But the job ad says that “the study of the conjuring arts is an evolving area that represents a respected and growing academic area of study.” VICE spoke with some experts to find out if this is true.

Catherine Tosenberger, a professor of English literature and cultural studies at the University of Winnipeg who specializes in folklore, and who practices traditional folk magic herself, confirms that it is. “Magical studies is a hot happening area of research,” she says. As she explained, there are several different areas that might be encompassed by “the conjuring arts.”

First of all, there is stage magic, of the sort practiced by Darcy Oake and GOB Bluth. Though there is now a school in India dedicated to it, stage magic is not much studied by academics at the moment. However, it could be incorporated into the curriculum as part of either the study of popular culture, or the study of performance, both of which are already taught at many universities. Then there are the forms of magic and witchcraft that have been part of European culture since classical times, and that are studied as part of cultural history. There is a large and growing body of scholarship on magic of this sort, and there are academic programmes, for instance at the University of Exeter and the University of Amsterdam, devoted to it. Finally, as Sabina Magliocco from the University of British Columbia’s Department of Anthropology told us, anthropologists study the role of magic and magical thinking in the world-views of cultures around the world, both western and non-western.

So what approach will the new chair take? “The conjuring arts” is not a term used by experts in the field, and the job’s terms of reference are somewhat vague. The president of Carleton, Alastair Summerlee, who has a great wizard name and actually looks extremely wizard-like, told CTV News that the scope of the job is “incredibly broad.” He says that the university is open to candidates from a variety of backgrounds, and would, in addition, like to find someone who will “use magic as entrée into the world of perception and deception.” This would include studying the techniques of persuasion used in politics and the media. So you might finally be able to get credit for your essay comparing every Trump administration official to a Harry Potter villain. But also, as Professor Magliocco points out, it could help us understand “how large groups of people come to believe things that are impossible and even dangerous.” She says this is of real value in an era when fake news is rampant and when thoughts and prayers are offered as the solution to school shootings.

The chair is named after Allan Slaight, one of Canada’s richest people, whose family foundation put up $2 million for it. (Carleton matched that sum from its own budget.) Before he sold out over a decade ago, Slaight was the owner of a broadcasting empire that included dozens of radio stations, a couple of television stations, and, at one point, the Toronto Raptors. Slaight spent several years when he was young touring the prairies as a performing magician, and he has remained obsessed with stage magic. He has edited and published two massive books on legendary Canadian magician Stewart James, which one reviewer has described as “the biggest books in the history of magic literature.”

If academic opinion is divided over the new chair, the practicing magicians VICE spoke to were, perhaps not surprisingly, all enthusiastic—although one of them admitted he initially thought the Slaight family had donated an actual magic chair, which would have, let’s face it, been even cooler. Along with the money, the family has donated a large collection of magic books to the university, and the chair’s occupant will help oversee the collection. Yan Markson, a Toronto-based magician and mentalist who grew up in a Russian circus, points out that books on magic are incredibly hard to find, and many people nowadays learn through videos instead. However, he says the videos mostly just teach superficial gimmicks, and as a result the fundamental principles of magic, which are found in the best texts on the subject, are in danger of being lost. The new archive could play a role in preserving them.

But another Toronto magician, Christyrious, may have put it best when he told VICE that the chair is a great idea because “it’s in magic and magic is amazing.”

Neil McArthur is the director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at University of Manitoba, where his work focuses on sexual ethics and the philosophy of sexuality . Follow him on Twitter .

It’s no secret that the Academy Awards loves a movie about Hollywood or the people who belong in Hollywood. It’s why La La Land went into last Oscar season as the clear favourite, why Shakespeare in Love defeated Saving Private Ryan back in 1999 and why the little-seen Birdman and The Artist took home Best Picture wins earlier this decade.

It causes you to shake your head a bit, but at the same time, there are some really good movies made about the world’s best/worst industry. I’ve compiled nine of the best available on Netflix to take you into Sunday night’s award ceremony (subject to work depending on whether you are in the USA, UK or Canada, sorry)

Boogie Nights

The best Paul Thomas Anderson-like film Paul Thomas Anderson has ever made. This is recommended because it isn’t viewed in that classic LA story way of making it in Hollywood, starting from the bottom, blah blah blah. This is instead a story about being on the top, literally, in that sex on camera sort of way. In the early 70s/80s, pornography was played in legit cinemas instead of being relegated to shady back rooms, and Boogie Nights brilliantly showed off the shadowy underbelly of showbiz that no one wanted to talk about. You have a young Mark Wahlberg as the well-endowed high school dropout Eddie Adams (aka "Dirk Diggler"), who lands the opportunity to take part in California’s fledgling adult industry, and a murderer’s row of supporting actors including Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Don Cheadle, Alfred Molina, and Burt Reynolds. Come for the fame, talent, greed, sex, and money, but stay for the only performance Wahlberg had the nerve to regret before apologizing for Marky Mark. (And also the killer soundtrack.)

Adaptation

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

There’s a reason why so many screenwriters—writers in general, tbh—are drunkards, losers, and weirdos who make their money putting words on a screen and/or paper. That's because writing is a HARD AND THANKLESS TASK—a point that every writer makes over and over again. Screenwriters are the sacrificial lambs that give the films we love the weight to that land that coveted Oscar nomination, and Nicolas Cage delivers a brilliant and surreal representation of that tortured dynamic in this 2002 Spike Jonze film (full disclosure: Jonze is VICE’s creative director). Cage plays “Charlie Kaufman” in a role written by Charlie Kaufman about the struggle to make an adaptation of Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief to film. It’s very complicated. I could only imagine what it was like for the Annihilation dude.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

If you’re a 90s kid or older, you probably recall this film from director Robert Zemeckis as this witty comedy about a live-action detective played Eddie Valiant, who enters an animated world to unframe a bunny. Well, you’re wrong. Instead, think of it as the cynical studio-approved movie about the dismal showbiz era of the 80s. It’s meta, it laughs at itself, and you’ll laugh too at all the cartoonish ways a showbiz-obsessed Los Angeles presents itself.

Being John Malkovich

We’re obsessed with celebrity. We spend idled moments watching said celebs do celebrity things on our tubes, our phones, our everythings. This film isn’t a celebration of fame, but instead a satirical view of how it's ingested by others. It takes a puppeteer in Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) who discovers a portal into the head of John Malkovich, who pretty much plays himself. It’s a film about obsession, self-loathing and the cycle that’s a 1:1 take on our own instagram’d John Malkovich’s.

Tropic Thunder

What if action stars were so damn ego-centric, so wrapped up in their bad-ass self-images that they could be tricked into bringing that shit into some real-life, bust-all-kinds-of-shit-up wars. With a cast that includes Robert Downey Jr. doing the only level of blackface I’m willing to accept, along with Ben Stiller, and our Canadian that could, Jay Baruchel, we got a play on The Expendables, if The Expendables took it itself seriously, which is debatable depending on who you ask from The Expendables.

Barton Fink

AGAIN I say, writing is HARD, and directors Joel and Ethan Coen embrace this same pessimism in their views on what can happen when said writers step foot in Hollywood—the broken messes by bureaucratic schemeable-folks that they become. Don’t become Barton Fink. Barton Fink, played by the criminally underrated John Turturro, is a New York playwright who eventually finds the ugly truth beneath his optimistic dreams. You’ll definitely empathize with Barton Fink, but will most definitely not want to be Barton Fink.

Birdman

Unless you’re incredibly lucky, there’s a point in every showbiz career when things drop off; publicists stop returning calls, autograph requests go un-requested, and it’s a middle aged guy sitting on an old sofa scanning for the next break after the big break that’ll lead to the even bigger break.

This is the Michael Keaton (Batman) biopic that Michael Keaton didn’t realize was actually about Michael Keaton.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s story about the former superhero actor star turned civilian, seems so intimately ripped from the Keaton’s life that it’s hard to believe that he didn’t take this one personally upon a first read. Minus the flying counter-ego thing taunting him at every waking moment, this one is pretty on point.

Sunset Boulevard

This one is relatable in the same way that just about every person can say they’ve been in a dysfunctional relationship; director Billy Wilder gives us a look into 1960s Hollywood and the down-on-his-luck screenwriter with the audacity to think he can have a functional relationship within it. We’re already so wise to the idea that celebrity couples don’t exactly last (Ben & Jen, Jen & Brad, Brad & Angie), but Sunset Boulevard was one of the first to give us a glimpse of the fuckery behind the tabloid images. Through our man (Joe Gillis) who gets into a dangerous relationship with a star (Norma Desmond) during a script rewrite, the personal complexities behind "celebrity" become clear.

Cinema Paradiso

Showbiz isn’t all doom and gloom, OK. That may be lasting impression being given by this roundup, but truth be told, making films and working within this industry, most often starts with a dream that can turn out pretty damn beautiful when met with reality (absent some of the aforementioned bullshit). French director Giuseppe Tornatore makes a celebration of the possibilities, and idea, that the power of cinema can easily compensate for the overall shittiness of life. I personally can relate with this selection. I once spent hours as a projectionist of sorts, watching films in a theatre without a single soul to join me. There’s an intimacy there that makes it hard not to fall in love with the art form. In Tornatore’s masterpiece, he takes that simple concept that involves a filmmaker recalling the moments he fell in love with movies through his friendship with a village projectionist.

Even for a film taken from the late 80s, this one puts a stake to the idea that the shittiness which exists within showbiz can can rarely compare to the goodness it often produces.

Follow Noel Ransome on Twitter.

Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.

US News

Trump's Tariff Plan Under Fire from Right
Leading GOP lawmakers condemned the president’s decision to introduce a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum. Senator Ben Sasse described the protectionist move as “weak, not strong,” while Senator Pat Toomey called it “a big mistake." It's also upsetting international leaders. “We will not sit idly while our industry is hit with unfair measures,” said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.—The Washington Post

Feds Reviewing California Mayor’s Warning About ICE Raids
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the Department of Justice was examining Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf's comments after she warned immigrant families of looming ICE arrests in the area out of a “moral obligation.” Sanders said she thought it was “outrageous that a mayor would circumvent federal authorities.”—CBS News

Weinstein Company Strikes Deal to Prevent Bankruptcy
The production firm agreed to sell to an investor group headed up by Maria Contreras-Sweet and Rob Burkle, despite announcing a plan to file for bankruptcy earlier this week. The new owners plan to rename the company and install a female-majority board. The current board of directors said the sale would provide a “clear path for compensation for victims.”—Los Angeles Times

Two More Trump Officials Reportedly Headed Out
The White House plans to replace National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster as soon as next month, according to five anonymous sources reached by NBC News. Ford Motor Company executive Stephen Biegun is reportedly under serious consideration for the role. Trump’s Chief Economic Adviser Gary Cohn might also be on the verge of leaving after a dispute over the president’s tariff policy. - VICE News

International News

French Embassy Attacked in Burkina Faso
Armed men reportedly opened fire Friday outside the French embassy in Ouagadougou, the country’s capital. The French ambassador confirmed on Twitter that an attack was “under way,” while local police said special forces had responded. There was also some kind of assault on a military outpost, but both attacks appeared to be contained.—BBC News

Turkey Attacks Pro-Assad Forces in Northern Syria
At least 17 people in the Afrin region were killed by Turkish air strikes overnight, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The monitoring group estimated 14 of those killed were fighters from militias loyal to Bashar al-Assad’s government.—Reuters

Dozens Killed in Fire at Azerbaijan Rehab Center
At least 24 people were killed and three hurt in the blaze that broke out early Friday at a drug treatment facility in Baku, the capital. Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev inspected the site of the Republican Narcology Dispensary after firefighters put out the flames.—Al Jazeera

Israeli Prime Minister Questioned by Police
Investigating officers interviewed Benjamin Netanyahu at his home Friday about an alleged corruption scheme involving a telecom company. Two people close to the PM have already been arrested on suspicion of helping the company with regulatory issues in exchange for favorable coverage from Bezeq’s news site.—AP

Everything Else

Taylor Swift Reveals Tour Openers
Swift announced Camila Cabello and Charli XCX will open for her on this summer’s Reputation stadium tour. Sharing the news in a video message on Twitter, Swift said she was “really excited about the whole thing in general.” - Billboard

Hasan Minhaj Gets His Own Talk Show
The correspondent for The Daily Show will front a new weekly show on Netflix beginning later this year. The company has already ordered 32 episodes. Netflix’s VP for content Bela Bajaria said she had been “a big fan of Hasan’s for many years."—The Hollywood Reporter

Mike Huckabee Quits Country Music Association Foundation
The former GOP governor of Arkansas resigned from the foundation’s board less than a day after joining. The conservative radio host blamed the “irrational vitriol” both he and the organization faced after he was appointed.—Variety

Gold Statue of Harvey Weinstein Installed Outside Oscars
Artist Joshua “Ginger” Monroe has installed a likeness of the disgraced Hollywood mogul on a casting couch near the ceremony’s venue as a protest against abuses in the industry. The gold Weinstein is shown clutching an Oscar at his crotch.—i-D

Offset and Metro Boomin Tap Ric Flair for a Video
The newly-released clip for “Ric Flair Drip” stars the legendary wrestler, who shouts his trademark “WOO” and even makes a brief speech. Quavo, Takeoff, and 21 Savage also feature in the video.—Noisey

College Coach Fired for Rejecting Colorado Player over Weed Concerns
Texas Wesleyan University baseball coach Mike Jeffcoat was let go after he said he could not recruit Gavin Bell because he was from Colorado and previous players from the state “had trouble passing our drug test.”—VICE News

Make sure to check out the latest episode of VICE's daily podcast. Today we’re addressing a gap in the dialogue surrounding the #MeToo movement: the voices and experiences of incarcerated women.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway will announce the Best Picture winner once again at this year's Oscars ceremony, TMZ reports, giving the pair another shot at actually reading the right name this time after that monumental La La Land/Moonlight screwup last year.

To be fair, announcing the wrong name last time wasn't exactly Beatty and Dunaway's fault. The whole thing can be blamed on a PwC accountant and a Final Destination–style chain of mistakes, so don't count on another fuck-up just because the duo is getting a do-over. But there is one thing that Beatty and Dunaway's shot at redemption all but ensures—some really dumb jokes about last year.

An ad-lib about making sure they have the right card? Likely. A joke about mixed-up envelopes? Probably. A terrible gag where Dunaway reads the wrong Best Picture winner on purpose or whatever? Almost definitely, so prepare yourselves.

According to TMZ, the pair are already working on their bad banter. During rehearsals at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood this week, Dunaway reportedly tried the line, "Presenting is better the second time around," before Beatty—likely taking a long beat to make room for an imagined uproar of laughter—announced that the winner is "Gone with the Wind."

The Oscars writers are still apparently "putting the finishing touches on the lines," TMZ reports, so don't count on those exact comedic gems to grace the stage this weekend. But judging by what they're working with right now, not even Hollywood royalty like Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty will be able to sell those terrible dad jokes.

It's impossible to say who'll take home the Best Picture statue on Sunday, but at least we can count on a groan-worthy line beforehand.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

For the second time, a small mistake in a court filing has led to the early release of a notorious gangster in BC.

The Parole Board of Canada Appeal Divisions ruled this week that Jarrod Bacon, one of three brothers who were a part of the infamous Red Scorpion gang, will be released on parole again in June of 2018. The reason for his release? A typo.

Bacon was initially sentenced to 12 years in a Quebec jail in 2012 on charges relating to cocaine trafficking. The charges stemmed from when Bacon and his father-in-law agreed to buy 100 kilograms of Mexican cocaine from police operative in a sting operation. After taking in account time served, Bacon was initially supposed to be eligible for parole after nine years.

However, someone in the court system screwed up, writing that he would be eligible for parole after seven years. Because of this, Bacon was released early in February of 2017, his parole ordered him to live in a halfway house, stay away from criminals and not be in any bars. Bacon lasted about half a year before he was found drinking in a strip club with a criminal—he also lied to cops about it by providing a false ID—and his parole was rescinded.

Upon returning to prison, Bacon and his lawyers discovered the typo and argued that because of it, his breach of parole couldn’t be counted as he should never have been released in the first place. The parole board agreed and Bacon is now set to be released in June meaning that, due to the typo, Bacon was released early not once but twice.

The Bacon Brothers—Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie—were some of the most notorious criminals in modern BC history. They were connected to a gang called the Red Scorpions who had a bloody turf war with the United Nations, a rival gang, over BC’s drug trade. The trio has been connected to murder—including the infamous Surrey Six slayings—drug smuggling, and a myriad of other crimes.

Prior to his conspiracy conviction, Jarrod was acquitted on weapons charges after he and Jamie were arrested following an attempted the youngest Bacon brother. Currently, Jamie Bacon is awaiting trial for the Surrey Six murders. Jonathan was murdered in Kelowna in 2011 when a trio of gunmen open fired on his SUV. Three men from the United Nations, the rival gang of the Red Scorpions are awaiting trial for his murder.

The CBC reports that the parole typo happened at the federal level and is most likely the result of human error. The story has sparked a conversation about Canada’s underfunded and overtaxed justice system. Criminal lawyer Paul Pearson told the CBC that the error is symptomatic of a bigger problem.

"If anything can be taken from the case it's that we can't ratchet down budgets and streamline staff down to skeletal crews and expect everything to go smoothly all the time," said Pearson. "If you want double-checks and no errors to be produced, you have to fund the processes properly."

Bacon will be released on June 14.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Thump

A fact: planet Earth is saturated with DJs. It's positively dripping with them. There are now so many DJs marauding through the airports of the world that scientists are started to notice a headphone shaped hole in the ozone. Your step dad's playing Tresor next week, your great uncle's Boiler Room set went down a storm, and your girlfriend's best mate's boss' nephew's niece is hosting a boat party at Dimensions. We've all gone bloody DJ mad.

Which is why you need to make sure that you stand out in a market that's absolutely heaving. Now, we'd all love to believe that talent, dedication, and determination are the three most important criteria for success, but we also all know that that's total bollocks. What you need is a name. A good name. A name that rolls off the tongue and stands out on stacked flyers.

The following 10 DJs have got it very, very wrong. Now, this list has nothing to do with their quality as DJs. Some of this lot might be as good as Jeremy Underground or Paula Temple or DJ Bone, but we'll probably never find out because they've decided to give themselves names that are less appealing than the prospect of sharing a baked bean bubblebath with Michael Gove and Douglas Carswell. So here it is: here are the absolute worst DJ names out there.

10. DJ TWAT

The "TWAT" in DJ TWAT stands for There Was a Time, which is somehow worse than it just being the word TWAT shouted by a bloke who's stubbed his toe. Or stepped on a brick of Lego! Or something similarly domestic and relatable!

9. Minghead

Remember the old days, the good old days, the golden days of yore, when Jade Goody was still alive and helping to slide the word "minger" into our daily vocabulary? It was a happier, free, friendlier time. Our naivety knew no bounds and we all believed that the concept of the minger was here to stay. We bought minger T-shirts and dried our bodies in minger towels. We ate off minger plates and drank pints of Kia Ora out of minger tumblers. We were minger mad and we loved it. Then it all stopped. As quickly as the minger had embedded itself in a national psyche, it departed, leaving us bereft and alone. Only one man's brave enough to fly the minger flag and that's Minghead. Which would be fine if "Minghead" didn't sound like the name of a poorly-attended Bill Bailey tour that saw the West Country comedian's career die slowly in front of him in half empty 100 capacity rooms night after night.

8. Bass Bumpers

The Bass Bumpers are a German Eurodance production outfit known for birthing classics like "Axel F" by Crazy Frog, "Rhythm Is a Dancer 2003" and, err, that's it. They've also picked one of the most strangely vile names imaginable. There's something ineffably terrible about "Bass Bumpers" as a name that it's difficult to pinpoint exactly what's so vile about it. It's like seeing the remnants of a hundred failed poached eggs resting in a sink. It also sounds a bit like Basshunter, but that only reminds you of what a 10/10 name "Basshunter" is.

7. Pants & Socks

Life's boring enough without having to be reminded of that boredom. Which is why "Pants and Socks" is such a terrible name. It's not offensive or boorish like some of the other monikers on here, but you can't help but wonder about the ambition of a pair of blokes who'd willingly call themselves Pants and Socks. If we blindly accept that one of the primary aims of art is to take us away from the toil and the life we trudge through on a daily basis, the decision to name yourself Pants and Socks is beyond baffling, and even if we refute that theory, it's still absolutely atrocious.

6. The Cool Willy Brothers

The Cool Willy Brothers are Benjy and Miles Platting-Estate, a pair of 24-year-old twins with a passion for frozen yoghurt, a can-do attitude and a rapidly-depleting trust fund. The Cool Willy Brothers are Rupert and Olly Wilde-Water, a pair of 24-year-old twins with a passion for rafting, a can do-attitude and a rapidly-depleting trust fund. The Cool Willy Brothers are Tristram and Archie Sumac-Dressing, a pair of 24-year-old twins with a passion for potted salads, a can-do attitude and a rapidly-depleting trust fund.

5. DJ Fanny

Maybe it's because I grew up in a part of the country where vowel sounds are elongated and relaxed to the point of becoming a kind of yawn, or maybe it's because I grew up with four brothers and no sisters and didn't really speak to a girl till I was about 22, but I've always been slightly repulsed by the word "fanny". It was a word I only heard used in hushed voices, a lexical object that rolled under tables and between coats in the cloak room at primary school. It became something strange and out of reach and unknown. We sort of knew what a fanny was. We were pretty sure we knew what a fanny did. Someone once claimed they'd seen a girl using the boy's toilets and had seen a fanny as a result. Still, that pre-pubescent sense of dis-ease and uncertainty haunts me to this day, and every time I see DJ Fanny's name pop up on the internet, I'm there again, a lost innocent hurtling headfirst into a world of debased depravity.

4. Chinese Man

Chinese Man are a French electroswing group. None of them are Chinese.

3. DJ Gary Glitter

You know what's really, really funny? You know what's gut-bustingly hilarious? You know what's so outrageously humorous that even thinking about it is enough to reduce me to a puce-faced puddle of piss? Paedophilia.* There's just something uniquely funny about the sexual abuse of children isn't there. If I was going to become a DJ I'd definitely think it was really funny to name myself after a disgraced glam rocker turned registered sex offender. Just for a laugh, like. Just for a really fucking good laugh. That's what I'd do. To hell with the consequences. So what if I'm shunned by friends and family and have difficulty making it through customs? I'm still having a laugh. And that's all that matters.

2. Inflatable Führer

If there's anything funnier than child sex abuse, it's Nazism.** While it's possibly possible that the mastermind behind Inflatable Führer is actually making a point about how the best way to deal with fascism is to laugh at it, I'm not sure I totally buy it. The Brighton-based DJ seems to have named himself after a character in stoner cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which is a cartoon made solely for adults who talk about different strains of weed and enjoy cartoons that make references to different strains of weed. He also seems to play semi-regularly with an adult who goes around calling himself "ShittyFISHhead", which says it all really. ShittyFISHhead just missed out on a top ten placing, as it goes.

1. Armand Van Hard On

You're down the pub on a Tuesday night. It's a pub you don't normally go to. In fact, you're pretty sure this is the first time you've ever been in. There are £3 scotch eggs on the bar and locally brewed ale on tap. They don't do Stella. They don't show the football. They make you do a Morris dance on the bar top before giving you the wifi password. It smells like bleach and vintage shops, all must and crust. There's a dog in the corner and the dog has slobbered over everything and you're meant to pat the dog and coo at it. You sit down, slowly start supping on a five pound pint that blends Fairy Liquid with burnt sourdough. You notice the faintest of buzzes in the air. It's pub quiz night. You and your mate join in. You play to win. You take it more seriously than you should. And you think you've got it in the bag, You're quietly confident, and that confidence's mutated into pint after pint. You're £25 down and you don't care. The results are incoming. You're preparing a humble face to flash at the rest of the pub as you strut out with your winnings. The quizmaster shuffles the papers. Your heart's beating out of your chest. Team names fly by. Yours is yet to fall from his lips. "And this week's winner," he says, pausing to ramp the tension up to an almost unbearable level, "is... Armand Van Hard On!"

You weren't Armand Van Hard On. Armand Van Hard On are cheering. Whooping. Hollering. Armand Van Hard On are going absolutely fucking wild. You kick your table over. You storm off into the night, tears melting into the rain. Fuck it, you say. Fuck it all. Fuck hard ons. Fuck DJing. Fuck every fucking thing.

* This is obviously a joke. ** This is obviously also a joke.

@Bain3z

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

The very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929 lasted 15 minutes. That figure should shock award show lovers and hate-watchers who will tune in at 8 PM EST on Sunday, March 4, 2018, (a school night!) for a potentially four-hour 90th Academy Awards show.

The Oscars are too damn long. Maybe it’s ABC’s need to pay off the now-$75 million broadcasting rights with as many $2.6 million ad spots as possible. Or it’s Hollywood’s desire to pack as many famous people as they can in one room. Live shows like these are also always unpredictably full of shitty shticks, impassioned speeches, and uncomfortable sexist jokes. Either way, I’m more interested in why we put up with these long, boring-ass award shows that weren't even created for us.

To imagine the average person’s perfect Oscars ceremony, look no further than the content media companies (VICE included) produce around the show. We snip out the few good jokes and inspiring speeches, then package the winners in an SEO-optimized, shareable article. According to ABC's programming schedule, its goal is to get this thing done in three hours, but that hasn't happened in three decades. Ideally, I could get my Oscars info downloaded into my brain with about 15 minutes of reading—which is exactly how long that first, pre-mass media ceremony was.

The Academy Awards shot up to nearly two hours in 1930 as the ceremony was broadcast for the first time through local radio station KNX, which had the good sense to air it for only an hour. The Oscars didn’t break the three-hour mark until 1974, when The Sting won Best Picture and a man streaked in the background of the broadcast.

The 80s and 90s Oscars were consistently a three-plus hour commitment. Billy Crystal hosted in 1998 and broke four hours for the first time, ironically with an opening line that compared the Academy Awards to the Titanic. “We are huge, we are expensive, and everyone wants us to go a lot faster,” he said. Crystal’s show was dethroned in 2002 by Whoopi Goldberg’s four-hour-and-20-minute extravaganza. Whether it was the added security for the first post-9/11 Oscars, the chaos of establishing itself at the Kodak Theatre for the first time, or simply careless scheduling, the Academy Awards have never dragged on longer.

It’s hard to imagine how the 270 attendees gathered in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on May 16, 1929, spent the rest of the evening. No celebrities’ bloated attempts at comedy? No extravagant performances? No political statements? No smarmy back-patting? No one today would even recognize that show as the Oscars.

Just as Facebook is designed to benefit advertisers who purchase human data en masse, the truth is that the Oscars aren’t for the viewers. Louis B. Mayer created the Academy as a public-relations machine and a mechanism to block the entertainment industry from unionizing. That ship has sailed, but the cameras are there so the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can pay for its fancy party.

That's not to say that there's no value in the Hollywood's biggest night. The platform can occasionally be subverted with a media blitz that shames some of the powerful into pretending to be responsible. At the end of the day, there’s no better validation for an artist’s hard work, timeliness, and skillful campaigning than a gold statue. But in four hours, I could watch Sean Baker's tragically snubbed Florida Project twice—with room for a bathroom break—and it would be a better use of my time.

Follow Beckett around and yell at him about how great the Oscars are on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

In 2016, sculptor Joshua "Ginger" Monroe created life-size statues of Donald Trump in the buff in five cities across the US, complete with a saggy, old-man ass and a micro-peen the size of an acorn. But within a few days, the masterworks were decimated—ripped down, spray-painted, and otherwise torn to shreds by folks who just couldn't stand the sight of our future president's rotund, naked bod.

Now Ginger's moved on to another accused sexual predator, building a golden statue of Harvey Weinstein on a casting couch, basking in the Los Angeles sun just blocks away from the Dolby Theatre where the Oscars will take place. And judging by what happened to Ginger's last batch of monuments, it'll be a miracle if the thing makes it to Sunday.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Ginger collaborated on the statue with Plastic Jesus, a Los Angeles street artist known for work that's critical of Hollywood. The duo dressed Weinstein in slippers, pajamas, and a bathrobe, a garment he reportedly liked to don while allegedly sexually assaulting and harassing dozens of women over the course of his career. The disgraced mogul also clutches a teeny, tiny little Oscar by his crotch, which—given what Ginger's Trump statues were endowed with—might say something about what the artist thinks Weinstein's working with downstairs.

There's a spot on Weinstein's casting couch where passersby can snap a selfie with the disgraced producer, at least until someone comes along and turns him into a pile of dust. Considering what people are willing to do to the real Harvey Weinstein, it probably won't be long until some impassioned Californian throws a pie at his face or takes a baseball bat to his head, or—even better—his accusers band together and drop by before the Oscars to rip him apart, reduce him to a pile of rubble, and spread his gold, plastery ashes in a bush somewhere.

Until they do, Ginger told the Hollywood Reporter he hopes folks can derive some meaning from the sculpture—or better yet, just laugh at it.

"To be able to knock the monster down a peg and poke fun and ridicule it helps remove its power," he said. "That's how you take these powerful people down."

Well, that's one way. But we can think of a few others.

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Related: Will #MeToo Change the Rampant Harassment in Hollywood?

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The Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro once called his Oscar-nominated film "a love letter to love and cinema," but the thing is more like a love letter to sexy-ass amphibians, since the movie has done more to eroticize sea creatures than every Ninja Turtles romantic subplot combined. Del Toro's fish god/man/stud character looks like the creature from the Black Lagoon if he went on Whole30 and started doing CrossFit. Look at that six pack! Do fish even have abdominal muscles? Who cares!

Naturally, the hot-ass fish man inspired a legion of doting fans, all swooning over his smoking, scaly bod. So sex-toy maker XenoCatArtifacts did what any normal, business-savvy person with the know-how to manufacture custom silicone wangs would do—sold fish man dildos based on The Shape of Water character. The dildos were a hit and sold out almost immediately, but apparently not everyone was so smitten with the colourful fish dick.

Doug Jones, the actor who played the fish man himself, isn't too happy with the new dildo based on his character's scaly peen, he told the Wrap this week.

"With a light chuckle, I can tell you it’s not exactly what I’d hoped for," Jones said. "After pouring my heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into this romantic, beautiful, magical role, the last thing I want to be remembered for is a silicone appendage that comes in two sizes."

Del Toro has previously expressed his own unhappiness with the custom dildo, saying that he doesn't "think it's an accurate representation" and joking that he's "sure Dunkirk doesn’t have that problem." And while, yes, del Toro is right that we have yet to see a sex toy based on Tom Hardy's pilot character in Dunkirk, it's not actually a terrible idea. Could this fish dick dildo be the first in a whole line of sex toys based on Oscar noms? Maybe a Call Me by Your Name–branded fuckable peach?

Get on it, XenoCatArtifacts—just don't mention it to Doug Jones.

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Researchers have discovered the earliest figurative tattoos on Egyptian mummies dating back 5,200 years. The tattoos depict a wild bull and barbary sheep on the upper arm of the Gebelein Man A, and a series of S-shapes on the shoulder of the Gebelein Woman in the British museum.

Photo: Trustees Of The British Museum

The Gebelein Man A and the Gebelein Woman, are two of the six predynastic mummies discovered by Wallis Budge near the Egyptian ruin of Gebelein (Naga el-Gherira) in 1895. Together, they are considered the first complete bodies discovered from the late Predynastic period of Ancient Egypt.

The recent discovery predates the Alpine mummy Otzi’s line tattoos by 1,000 years, and contradicts the view that only women wore tattoos in ancient Egypt.

Infrared scans revealed two locked horns, that initially appeared to researchers as dark smudges. The wild bull symbol has been described as being adorned by ancient civilisations as a symbol of bravery, strength or virility.

CT scans from a previous study found that the Gebelein Man died from a stab wound to his back when he was approximately 20 years old.

The Gebelein Woman also had a series of S-shaped motifs inked on her shoulder. These are speculated to represent batons or clappers used in ritual dance.

In a bid to rewrite tattoo history, the findings were published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, which detailed the research of the mummified couple from 3100 BC, the period of Predynastic Art that precedes the Pharaohs unification of Egypt.

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If you happened to miss senior Toronto cops’ Twitter tantrum yesterday, here’s a brief recap.

In an op-ed in the Globe and Mail Monday, CTV personality Marci Ien, a black woman, wrote about how she’s been repeatedly stopped by police while driving in the last eight months, despite having broken no laws. Ien said the most recent stop took place in her own driveway. A police car was parked behind her, but when she got out to ask him what was wrong—on her own property—she said he yelled at her to get back inside.

“That I have lived in the neighbourhood for 13 years didn't matter. But being black mattered. Maybe the hooded parka I was wearing mattered, too,” Ien wrote. “I was at home. My safe place. And I was scared.”

As the officer looked through her identification, Ien said he asked if she lived in her house. He told her she had driven past a stop sign but that he was going to let her off with a warning.

Ien wrote that she told the officer she would pay a ticket if she’d done something wrong. She said she explained to the cop that this was the third incident of its kind she’d experienced in eight months.

“I asked the officer point blank: ‘How do I explain this to my kids? I teach them to be respectful, fair and kind, but I'm not feeling respected, served or protected right now,’” Ien wrote. In response, the officer said goodnight and left, she said.

Perhaps because it struck such a chord, the article was shared widely. And it seems that triggered some Toronto police brass, because yesterday they hit back at Ien on Twitter.

“I have viewed the video footage of your vehicle stop. You were stopped because of your driving behaviour. You failed to stop at a stop sign. It was dark. Your race was not visible on the video and only became apparent when you stepped out of the vehicle in your drive way,” wrote Staff Supt. Mario Di Tommaso in a tweet that garnered hundreds of likes and retweets.

Const. Ryan Willmer chimed in, retweeting Tomasso’s tweet with the comment “When the truth comes out. #VideoEvidence.”

Deputy Chief Shawna Coxon tweeted, “We are accountable. The whole event (incl. the traffic infraction) is on camera. The ethnicity of the driver is not visible until after she was pulled over, when she exits the car. The Chief invited her last night on @CP24 to come in & view the video.”

Toronto police association spokesman Mike McCormack tweeted “the double standard is when opinion is presented as fact. The @TorontoPolice dashcam video presents a different version of facts than those put forward by @MaciIen.” He also screenshotted part of a takedown of Ien that referenced an old interview in which she admitted she likes speeding.

Retired cops were also quick to jump into the fray, and it’s no surprise whose side they were on.

“It is essential for Police Leaders to call BS when BS is served. Calling Race when its got nothing to do with Race hurts everyone,” tweeted retired Niagara police chief Jeff McGuire.

VICE reached out to Toronto police for comment but has not yet heard back.

I'm going to put aside the specifics of Ien’s anecdote because I wasn’t there.

What I can say is the cops’ haughty reaction to a private citizen’s concerns about racial profiling seems entirely inappropriate. And responding in that manner publicly has a number of consequences. It subjects Ien to racist trolls who were already no doubt skeptical of her story to begin with; it bolsters the idea that police culture is like a fraternity, where backing each other up comes before public accountability; and it serves as an intimidation tactic for other people of colour who may also have experienced racial profiling or racist crimes. We already know that hate crimes are underreported. Who would want to report one to cops when this is how dismissive they are to a very valid charge of systemic bias?

To that end, I have no idea what the Toronto police are so self-righteous about.

At this very moment, one of their officers, Michael Theriault, and his brother Christian Theriault, are facing charges of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon for beating black teenager Dafonte Miller with a steel pipe to the point where his left eye had to be removed. Michael Theriault is also accused of lying to cover it up, while his dad John Theriault, a cop on the professional standards’ unit, has been accused of interfering with the investigation to protect his son.

This is also the same police force that disproportionately cards—street checks—black and brown men and refuses to destroy its database of information gathered from those random stops, which are now illegal in Ontario.

As an exclamation point on just how shitty Toronto police have handled themselves this week, Chief Mark Saunders essentially blamed the LGBT community for not providing cops with tips leading them to alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur quickly enough.

“Nobody was coming to us with anything,” Saunders told the Globe and Mail. This, despite the fact that residents of the Gay Village have been ringing alarm bells about a potential serial killer for years.

When it comes to building trust in racialized and marginalized communities, the Toronto police have a hell of a lot of work to do. They’re not going to get there by publicly flogging those who rightfully point out their flaws.

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Flint, Michigan, is in rough shape, and not just because of the water issue. Economic downturn after manufacturers abandoned the city has caused Flint to consistently place as one of the most dangerous and poorest cities in the nation. A severely understaffed police department meets at this intersection of poverty and violence, as 98 officers with limited tools and resources look to enforce the law for a city of 100,000.

This impossible challenge is the focus of the new Netflix series Flint Town, debuting today, which sees documentarians Zackary Canepari, Drea Cooper, and Jessica Dimmock spending a year with the city’s police. White-knuckled ride-alongs—spanning the gamut from active shooters to car chases to raids—are paired with intimate interviews with the officers, as the trio of filmmakers examines race relations and cops’ personal lives in equal measure. The cherry on top of an already compelling narrative is the year Flint Town was shot: 2016—a time that saw both the death of Philando Castile and the rise of Donald Trump.

VICE caught up with Flint Town’s directors to discuss filming on Election Day and how the series fits into today’s discussion of gun control.

VICE: What was the community's response to you making a series about the police department?
Jessica Dimmock: I think overall that was really positive. There were always going to be people that didn't want to talk about the police because there's a distrust there. Flint overall is a small city. It's 100,000 people. Lots of people have been there for generations. I think there was a real willingness on the part of the community to talk to us during interviews or engage with us on the street. A couple of times we got to situations before the police arrived, and I think that made for a really interesting perspective. We had the opportunity to see how the community felt about the lack of police, or needing them and waiting a long time for them to show up. I think it was validating for us to be there and witness that.

How was shooting on Election Day?
Dimmock: For the most part what we witnessed in Flint is a pretty harmonious department with a group of officers who are all in the same boat more or less, and in the same boat with the community they serve, more or less. There's a lot of commonality there. It's not just outsiders coming in. It's a mixed department racially, and they usually seem to see eye to eye, but on this issue they saw so differently. It was hard to understand how officers working side by side, policing a community with so many issues that became divisive with Trump's rhetoric, how they could work side by side. Were they seeing the city through the same lens? Eventually the dust settled, and they went on and did their job. In that high-stakes moment, it felt like things were really divided.

Drea Cooper: I think in retrospect, what we saw is the reality of America and the reality of American history. It culminates with how people grow up, how they think, and who they align themselves with politically. Those things don't just come down to your job. There are so many other factors that play into your political position. I think we were fortunate to have the ear of the police. It's a tricky episode, and I think it's going to be problematic for a lot of people, but I think the idea is not to beat around the bush. I would just hope the people trust the candor that comes out. If anything, the series is about pulling back the curtain and showing how people think and feel inside a place like Flint and inside a police department.

December 2015. A very gray morning outside of a party store in Flint, Michigan

How do you feel the series fits into the national conversation that's going on today, specifically related to gun control?
Dimmock: This is something we'd talk about in interviews. Police officers believe often in their guns and the ability of people to carry guns. This is something we'd debate with them a lot on. They would also talk about how much there's an assumption that when they pull any car over there's a gun inside, and that's because there are so many guns. We always talked from the standpoint of their safety and how much they need to be on guard.

Zackary Canepari: I think one of the factors to simplify this is they tend to just sort of lean into whatever the law is. They're like, "It is legal for people in Michigan to carry weapons, and that is the law. We enforce the law." That's the box they have. We did try to push them into more conversations about gun control. While they were so open to talk about so many different things, they didn't see the gun control issue being for them—even though, as Jess mentioned, they go up to every car like there's a gun in it.

January 2016. Police cadets DIon Reed, 20, and his mother, Maria Reed, train together at Mott Police Academy. The academy is a four-month program, and both Dion and Maria will be joining the Flint Police Department right after graduation. The Reeds will be the first new hires for the Flint Police Department in three years, after a series of massive cuts. And of course, they are the first mother and son to join the FPD together.

Could you talk about the visual style of the series? I found the imagery to be very vivid and beautiful, while also often incredibly terrifying, as you seemed to use tropes from action movies that when applied to real life are overwhelmingly intense.
Canepari: The answer to the first part of that is that Jess, Drea, and myself come from a very cinematic place. We're trying to make beautiful stuff. I think in a sense, we engage an audience and we want things to be beautiful and well-shot. Yet proactive policing is not pretty. It's ugly. There's a lot of going through doors, hitting people, tackling people. It's a lot of stuff that makes you cringe. Whether you're terrified or generally upset about what you might see in the show, hopefully it provides a complicated POV. Why did these guys do this stuff this way? Most of the time they can actually give you an answer for that question, and sometimes they can really prove it to be an accurate answer.

Dimmock: You mentioned the use of tropes, and I think that we want to do things that are familiar from narrative films or that feel familiar in a more dramatic setting. Then when viewers are engaged, they're engaged in a way that's immersive and has the ability to transport the viewer.

Cooper: For us, it's about getting the specific shots of seeing the guns and the clips and all that. It's an opportunity, where you can go, "Holy shit, these guys are not messing around."

August 2015. The Northwestern High School dance team performs during half time of the first football game of the season. As the population of Flint declines so does school enrollment. It’s gotten to the point that the city is considering consolidating all the remaining students into one high school.

How do you think this series could affect the relationship between communities and their respective police departments?
Dimmock: We didn't go into what we thought was a corrupt police department in hopes of unearthing something we were going to expose, but we did go in with a set of questions. We found it's a complicated relationship, and it's different from department to department. We hope it further complicates this relationship. As a New Yorker and someone who is coastal, I thought I had it figured out about the police, and I don't think that anymore. I hope our audience engages on that level too. I hope people who are anti-cop feel different watching this. I hope people who are solely pro-cop also feel different after watching this. That's our biggest hope.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

It's time to finally accept the truth: Humans were never meant to fly. The Wright brothers' century-long experiment may have helped us achieve our skyward dreams, but at what cost? We sent our pets to a watery grave for a seat on a plane. We endure flaming carry-on bags and noxious shit smells for a chance to soar through the skies. We put up with the nightmare of TSA just to spend a few hours cramped in a flying metal tube.

But when will the world realize that our attempts at flight are just another sad example of the hubris our species? These are not hypothetical questions. The answer is right now, thanks to a new story that should scare us all away from air travel once and for all.

On Friday morning, a flight landing at Dulles International Airport near DC ran into a bit of the late winter storm that's currently nailing the East Coast, and the turbulence was so bad that "pretty much everyone" was puking in their seats, the Baltimore Sun reports.

Sun reporter Justin Fenton unearthed the NOAA's Aviation Weather Center report from the vomit-splattered journey, and it sounds pretty ghastly. Usually these pilot reports are full of robotic shorthand to track bad weather, like "MOD CHOP" and "RM TB ON DEPARTURE," but a few longer sentences amid the standard jargon paint an almost haiku-like description of the scene.

"VERY BUMPY ON DESCENT," the report says. "PRETTY MUCH EVERY ONE ON THE PLANE THREW UP. PILOTS WERE ON THE VERGE OF THROWING UP."

Sure, there's not a whole lot there on the brush. But it doesn't take much reading between the lines before the entire spew session comes into focus: An airplane cabin bouncing and rocking, mothers frantically tightening the straps on their children's seat belts as turbulence rips them back and forth, alarming shouts in the background growing into gurgling wails as vomit bubbles up in throats.

Then, hands frantically reaching into seat-back pockets, fumbling to find the barf bag that's always missing when you need it the most before finally accepting defeat and puking heartily between the pages of last month's Sky magazine. The sound of one man retching multiplies until whole rows are hurling in unison, the plane filling with the general din of guttural animal noises and the sharp smell of stomach acids. The air stinging the eyes as it cycles through plane's air system.

And up in the cabin, fingers white-knuckled on the controls, a pilot and co-pilot swallowing back half-digested Panda Express from a stopover in DFW, trying to take shallow breaths to not fully inhale the scents that still manage to slip in through the closed cabin doors as they hurtle toward the runway, and...

Uh, OK, well, maybe all of that doesn't quite come through in the brief report, but you get the idea. Air travel is horrible, so let's just give up and collectively accepts our land-bound fate. Next time you're on a plane and turbulence hits or someone is drying a pair of underwear in the air vents next to you or whatever, remember this moment, right now. We tried to warn you. We tried to help.

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