Stills from 'People, Places, Things' courtesy of the Film Arcade

Jessica Williams is best known for her work as a senior correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (RIP), where she's satirically covered such hotbed issues as Florida's Stand Your Ground law, gay marriage opposition, and the Ferguson police department. But, in Jim Strouse's new romantic comedy, People, Places, Things, she plays Kat, an SVA (School of Visual Arts) graphic novel student who wants her mother, Diane (Regina Hall), to be happy and find a suitable partner. That potential partner turns out to be Kat's professor, Will (Jemaine Clement), a graphic novelist and father of twin girls, who is trying to put his life back together after catching his girlfriend cheating on him one year earlier, at their twin's fifth birthday party.

During our interview, Williams described the film as "a nice dessert, or a slice of cake, and not a huge, crazy dessert spread." She is right. This is a smart, economical film that eschews overt gimmicks around interracial romance by allowing its characters to exist freely. Kat is a burgeoning artist whose blunt demeanor and sharp wit ignites an artistic and personal awakening in her professor, Will, as he teeters on the brink of depression and pity.

I caught up with Williams by phone to discuss the film, her experience working with Strouse, and why roles like Kat and Diane are "one in a billion" for black actresses. The film opens August 14 in select cities.

VICE: Hi, Jessica. I thoroughly enjoyed the film. It had really smart humor. How did you become involved with the project?
Jessica Williams: I was approached by the director and writer, Jim Strouse, to do the film. I think at that point, Jemaine Clement had been cast but that was the only name. I had a really awesome lunch with Jim, and I really vibed with him, and I liked the character of Kat, and I was really excited. That's pretty much it. I remember initially reading the script before the lunch that I had with Jim, and I remember loving it because it was very funny and delightful.

It was really refreshing to see you and Regina Hall take on characters that aren't defined by the usual stereotypes attached to black women in mainstream films. Can you talk about how this might've contributed to your wanting to be part of the film?
Oh, yeah, it definitely did. There aren't, at the moment, many characters for black women that don't involve them being—black, like it's not specifically about them being black. Of course race is so complicated and it's naturally a part of me, but I don't walk around always talking about it. It's not like something that rules my entire being, even though it's very much a part of it. And what I liked about Kat, the character that I play in the film, is that it's kind of the same thing, where she is black, but she doesn't ever mention it, they don't talk about it, it doesn't come up, it's just the fact that it's her. That was really, really exciting to see. Those parts are one in a billion for black women in the industry, so it was really, really fun to do. Even with Regina Hall and Jemaine, the story wasn't about how they are an interracial couple. It was just that they're interracial and it's fine.

How do you think that affects the story?
If you like somebody, if you're interested in them, hopefully you can date them no matter what race they are, no matter what they look like. I think it makes it more real and more rich, because it's cool for people to be able to sit in the film and process race quietly or in the back of their heads. It makes it more interesting.

Definitely. It's also interesting how the main character, played by Jemaine, is from New Zealand. I was reading that his mother is Maori, so it's like there's a lot of cultural mixing in the film that comes in, in subtle ways.
Totally, and it's not about him being from New Zealand, you know. It is very interesting.

In terms of the performances in the film, everyone was so natural and had great chemistry with each other. How did you work with the director to craft your character and your performance? Was it a process with him, or did he just have a strict idea of how he saw Kat's character?
We worked together on it. The character Kat is an SVA student, so Jemaine and I went and sat in on a couple of SVA graphic novel classes, just to see how that works, and to see what an artist carries, what an artist draws, and how they even use their hands. So we filled in on all the major things, and then I worked with Jim to figure out who Kat was. He really allowed Regina, me, Jemaine, and Stephanie Allynne to bring what we wanted to the characters, while honoring the script that he wrote.

How was your experience at the Sundance premiere of the film?
The altitude really got to me so I couldn't party, because I couldn't really breathe that well. But it was very fun being in this very cool, big vacation home and the whole town felt like Disneyland. So many actors were walking around, and people would stop you on the street to say that they really liked the film. The biggest thing I was anxious about was watching the film, because I had never seen it. So, I was sitting there in this huge theater full of people, I was just holding my breath while watching with the crew. I was so nervous. I was like ripping my boyfriend's arm the whole time.

There are a lot of romantic comedies, and it's a genre that's so popular, but I love when I come across one like yours that's so smart, and pokes fun at a lot of the tropes of the predictable rom-com. When you read the script, how did this one stick out from so many that you've probably seen?
I think it's all in Regina Hall's performance and Jemaine's performance. They're very grounded but still funny, and I think that sometimes with romantic comedies, there's a push just to have an open, broad appeal, but I think with this romantic comedy, we got to cater it to all of the actors' strengths as opposed to what would make the most money. I think it's like a nice dessert, or a slice of cake, and not a huge, crazy dessert spread. Does that make sense?

Yes. How do you see this role fitting into your body of work on TV and in your larger career goals?
I definitely want to do more film. Especially while doing The Daily Show, it was a nice break. It's different from what I do on The Daily Show, so it's nice to kind of have that part of my catalog. I just think it's the beginning of a new film career for me.

How much of the performance in the film was improv? I know with Charlie's character there's this running theme of her taking this improv class after she splits from Will, so I wondered if that was a part of the actual process of your performance.
Jim was very much into improv, which was really fun because I know I'm sort of comedy-based. So we would do the original scene that was on paper as it was written, and then after like three takes of that Jim would be like, "OK, you guys can play, feel free to improvise wherever you want." So we would just go nuts and go crazy improvising, and then we would go back to doing what was on the paper. And it was really fun to do, because it took me out of my shell and it took me out of my head, and there were a lot of things we discovered while improvising. It gave us room to add or take away in the original dialogue. So it was really collaborative, and really fun.

That definitely came through so much in the film. What would you want someone to take away from seeing it?
It was really fun to do and I hope they enjoyed it, because I loved making it.

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Fossil fuels are hurting us. Photo via imgarcade.com

Read: A Massive Oil Pipeline Under the Great Lakes Is Way Past Its Expiration Date

Environmental activists and people with climate change anxiety have something to cheer about after the United Church of Canada, the country's second-largest Christian denomination, voted to divest its shares in any and all fossil fuel companies. The church has also decided to "commit financially to transitioning to an economy based on renewable energy."

The church-wide vote took place after conferences in Manitou, Toronto, and Alberta—Alberta!—put forward proposals regarding the church's involvement with fossil fuels. From the church's press release:

"During the debate on the issue, commissioners voiced concern for people in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and elsewhere who will need support to transition away from economies that are presently so dependent on fossil fuels.

"The General Council Executive will now chart the path for the Treasury to sell its holdings of the world's 200 largest fossil fuel companies, and to take active steps to re-invest those assets in green renewable energy co-operatives. Currently these holdings constitute $5.9 million, or 4.7 percent of the United Church of Canada Treasury."

Divesting from problematic companies and industries is a protest tactic with a long history, although it is arguably best-known as being one third of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign that played an important role in bringing an end to the apartheid government of South Africa. There is a growing BDS movement intended to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine (which is supported by many, though not all, veterans of the South African apartheid struggle).

The call to divest from fossil fuels and to promote a more sustainable economic system has also been gaining attention, with several universities approving motions similar to the one the United Church voted on this week.

The United Church is a Canada-specific denomination and has, from its inception in the 1920s, been dedicated to social justice-related causes. It was formed by members of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational churches in the prairies, and follows a rather loose doctrine a degree or two more religious than Unitarians. When the Great Depression hit Canada, the prairie farmers who made up a large portion of United Church members were hit hard, and many in the church advocated for a radical Christian socialist approach to both religion and community.

With that history, this latest move is perhaps unsurprising. Still, while the divestment movement has won a number of coups in recent years, it's a fledgling movement at best. The United Church has moved to the vanguard of climate justice with this motion.

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The ferry that connects the First Nation to the mainland broke down earlier this year, leading the Chief to declare a state of emergency. Photo by Allya Davidson

Anyone reading the words of outgoing Conservative MP Joy Smith yesterday could be forgiven for thinking the federal government has committed funding toward Shoal Lake 40's access road, also known as Freedom Road.

Not so, I'm afraid. It appears Smith confused her own party's spin with a promise to fund the road.

The First Nation that straddles the Manitoba-Ontario border has been on a boil water advisory for the past 17 years, and has been pushing for all three levels of government to split the cost of the $30-million access road so they can build a water treatment plant and have better access to the mainland. They already have funding commitments from both the municipal and provincial governments, so a federal funding commitment would be a big deal.

On Monday, Smith said she had spoken to the MP for the area, Minister for Natural Resources Greg Rickford, and he told her over the phone the federal government had committed funding for Freedom Road—leading to optimistic Canadian headlines. But later in the day, Smith walked back her comments, saying she was mistaken about the funding promise.

When VICE asked her exactly what Rickford told her, she read from a press release that did not match her previous comments: "He said, 'We support'—this is his direct quote—'We support the construction of the Freedom Road in principle.' He said, 'That is why we are funding the design of the Freedom Road.' What is your email? I'll send you his exact quote."

When I asked her if Rickford had told her they would commit $10 million to the access road, she replied, "No. No. No."

"You see when you do a design study, and I could see why, in a sense, because you know you might commit $10 million, usually it costs $1 million a kilometre to build a road, usually. Now the city and the province committed to $10 million, but there's no dollar commitment because what if the design comes out as more expensive? You know, you never know. But what was needed was the commitment in principle to construct the road."

Immediately following Smith's comments, Rickford's staff put out the one-line press release declaring support for the road's construction, in principle.

But Rickford has been careful not to commit funding for the road's construction. During a highly-anticipated announcement on June 25 in the Shoal Lake 40 hockey arena, Rickford reiterated a previous promise that the Conservative government would commit $1 million toward the road's technical design. He then ignored reporters' questions about whether he would commit the $10 million the First Nation is asking for.

VICE was there to hear his announcement. His exact words were:

"I'm pleased to be representing the government of Canada and in particular my colleague Minister Valcourt, the minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, to announce that the Government of Canada will invest $1 million dollars in support of the design—not the study, not the proposal, but the technical design of the Freedom Road... I'm also happy to acknowledge the commitment of our partners in this joint venture for $1 million dollars apiece for the design phase. This is the basis for establishing the cost associated with the construction of the project, and once those costs are determined the discussion regarding the funding of that road can take place. This design phase, ladies and gentlemen, is an important step, a milestone in development of Freedom Road, the all-weather, all-season road linking Shoal Lake 40 First Nation community to the Trans-Canada Highway."

After his announcement, a construction worker who had stopped work on Freedom Road to hear the minister's announcement leaned toward me and said Rickford's announcement was "a slap in the face."

At first, Rickford ignored reporters and walked away when we asked for comment. He walked toward his wife and picked up one of his young children, who let out a wail in front of the cameras.

In response to questions about the road he said, "You're scaring my children, if you don't mind."

Repeated calls from VICE to Rickford's campaign went unanswered Monday and Tuesday.

Smith interpreted Rickford's new comment as different from his past statements: "Once you make that statement, then after 2016 [when the design study is finished] then you have to support the construction of the road. There's nothing really that would hold him back. But the number is not on there though, and I can see why."

Smith said she had been told not to talk about Shoal Lake 40 during the election.

"I know some people told me not to say anything during the election, I said, 'No no no, you just need to do it, election or not. We just need to get this done for the sake of the community.'"

When asked who told her not to talk about it, she said, "Well you know, just some of my friends who I was talking to them, you know, when you talk to people they said, 'Oh why worry about this?' And I said, 'Yeah it's a big worry.' And so, yeah, I just came to the forefront with it."

Though it's a local issue that affects a small community, the access road has ballooned into an election issue.

Following a crowdfunding effort for the road, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said, "Around Shoal Lake, simple answer: yes. A Liberal Party will step up and do its share."

Kenora Liberal contender Bob Nault, who is running against Rickford, also said, "Our commitment today is clear: A Liberal government would build the Freedom Road."

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has also implied support for Freedom Road.

"This should go beyond [the] election," Smith told VICE. "Anyone who makes an election issue out of this needs to be examined. This is an issue about people who are hurting, and people who are needing to have this road."

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The four damaged reactor buildings in 2011. Image via Wikimedia

The past couple of weeks have seen two stories draw attention back to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of March 2011, in which three nuclear reactors melted down after the plant was hit by a tsunami. Radioactive material was released in what was the biggest and most disastrous nuclear incident since Chernobyl in 1986.

One story concerned some pictures of deformed daisies near the Fukushima Daiichi site, which trended online for a while and got everyone all hot under the collar about radiation, until it was established that they occur all the time in nature. So no need to worry about that.

The other was a video released by Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear industry executive and engineer who's declared Fukushima "the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind." In it, he claimed that 23,000-tankers of water contaminated with radioactive isotopes have leaked into the Pacific from the Fukushima Daiichi site since 2011 and will continue to do so for decades—at a rate of three hundred tons a day. So maybe start worrying again.

On Motherboard: Scientists Are Using Cosmic Radiation to Peer Inside Fukushima's Mangled Reactor

Sure enough, a recent report by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) claimed that concentrations of radioactive isotope Strontium-90 have reached record highs in certain areas of the Pacific Ocean around Fukushima, with levels spiking by about 1,000 percent in three months.

What does this mean? Frustratingly, nobody seems to know for sure. Dr. Paul Dorfman of the Energy Institute of UCL says that views differ as to whether these enormous discharges will be diluted by the sea, and if not, where they will go. There are concerns over fishing in the area, as well the potential ways that this contamination can reach humankind—through the eating of those potentially contaminated fish, for example.

Any other reasons to be concerned? Well, if you're Japanese, you'd do well to be at least suspicious. Because both Gundersen and Dorfman are adamant that the thirty-year decontamination operation of Fukushima Daiichi, which the government is allegedly aiming for, is unfeasible.

We talked to Gunderson to ask him why he thinks the Japanese government is so intent on a cleanup that seems impossible. Gundersen has stated previously that the answer "has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics and money," so we asked him about that, too.

VICE: Hi Arnie, thanks for talking to us. You're saying that it's the Japanese banks that are pushing for a quick cleanup. Why do you think this is?
Arnie Gundersen: I can't reveal my sources, but they are very significant diplomats who have told me that the pressure on the Diet (Japanese parliament) from the electric companies is astronomical. The companies that own the plants want to get their money back, but these plants have been shut down for five years and the staff of approximately seven hundred people have been retained; and the taxes have been paid, and the towns that they are in haven't seen any decline in their economy... even though these plants aren't generating revenue. So where does the money come from?

The answer is that two or so billion dollars has been lent by banks to keep the utilities afloat, because utilities don't have two billion dollars in cash sitting around. Now, it's payback time for the bankers, and between the banks who want their two or three billion back, and the utilities that want their investment—which is probably in the order of $10 or $20 billion—back, then the pressure on the Diet is astronomical. Big money is pushing very hard to get these reactors started back up.

So you say they've proposed a 30-year cleanup, and you don't think this is possible, correct?
No, I'm sure it's not. A normal, clean power plant takes about ten years to decommission, and by "clean" I mean where literally the workers are working in street clothes most of the time. There are very few places in the plant where they'd have to put on what we call PCs—protective clothing. The white uniforms you see all over Fukushima... I've worked in nuclear power plants and only once or twice have had to wear those.

You can literally walk through most power plants in your street clothes, and the reason they have to wear them outside at Fukushima is because the radiation fields are so high. What's happening now is that the ground is highly radioactive. In some areas where the radiation level is so high they've even put steel plates on top of the ground so that people could walk there. That's not a normal decommissioning.

Related: Watch VICE News investigate the schoolgirls for sale in Japan

What does this mean?
It means the level of radiation is so high that my biggest humanitarian concern is that —if the Japanese push to get these plants dismantled quickly—they will burn out hundreds and hundreds of young men. It's usually young men because that's how the construction trade is, needlessly. My point is, walk away for a hundred years, then come back in a hundred. By waiting a hundred years you're reducing the radiation exposure to a significant, young virile gene pool that in my opinion doesn't deserve to be exposed right now.

So you're arguing there's a human cost to the fact that this is being pushed through as fast as possible.
Yes, quite. There's a very real human cost to thousands of construction workers who are being exposed and will be exposed. But they have to show the Japanese that they're dismantling that site because if the Japanese don't believe it can be cleaned up they won't let the other plants start back up.

It's a show. This is all about showing the Japanese that it's not too bad, and we can run our other 40 or so plants fine, trust us. It's definitely symbolic for the Japanese, but the real reason is the banks want their money back.

National Court Reporters Association President Stephen Zinone (right), with the assistance of several students, breaks the Guinness World Record for most Post-it notes stuck to a person in five minutes. It wasn't entirely clear what this had to do with court reporting or stenography. All photos by the author

Jen Oliver ran down the hallway double-fisting cups of water. It was day three of the National Court Reporters Association's (NCRA) annual convention, and we were late for Mirabai Knight's seminar. This was the speaker Jen had traveled from Kansas to see, and I was politely ordered to, "Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

Jen wore high heels, and the faster she moved, the louder she stomped on the New York Hilton Midtown's carpet. Her blue eyes were focused on the water as it sloshed around.

"People pay good money to hear Mirabai speak," Jen said. "She's a living legend."

When I think of living legends, I picture someone like astronaut Buzz Aldrin, not Mirabai, a Certified Realtime Caption (CRC) provider who transcribes lectures and meetings for hearing-impaired college students and professionals. Of course, this is what happens at trade conventions: Leaders of a specific field are treated as if they've walked on the moon. And don't get me wrong—Mirabai deserves admiration. She's 34, earns over $100,000 a year, and co-founded the Open Steno Project, an organization that's trying to attract a wider base of stenographers to the profession through free software and cheaper equipment. But the seminar's Q&A session, which Mirabai transcribed onto a screen, got a little awkward when one woman gushed, "I want to be you."

Minutes later, another woman proposed.

The NCRA has other bonafide rock stars, like speed champion Ed Varallo, the Frazier family (Tammy, along with sons Chase and Clay), and international freelancer Lisa Knight (no relation to Mirabai). July's convention was a crucial event for them, as it was the first national gathering since a study was released predicting the country will have 5,500 court reporter vacancies by 2018. This is a lucrative, female-dominated profession that's disappearing, and no one seems to care. The majority of millennials who are interested in the long hours and thankless work that this career entails don't appear to be good enough to fill these spots. And so the NCRA's leadership called upon their elite to encourage court reporters like Jen to keep up with new technology, earn more certifications, and "get the word out" about the less-than-sexy profession.

The hope was to also inspire the students in attendance to practice harder and never quit. After all, stenography schools have a staggering 85 percent dropout rate.

It was a lot of responsibility, but the call to action gave Mirabai an excuse to nerd out and make new friends. She set up an Open Steno Project booth among the convention's vendors and sat there for four days talking to people about ways to improve accuracy, the best software to use, and the Stenosaurus—a steno machine her company sells that's made of bamboo. Raised by hippies in Missoula, Montana, Mirabai was named after a 16th-century Rajasthan poet. She has short, brown hair and wears all black clothes. Not exactly the stereotypical stenographer—or at least that's what I would have thought a few months ago.

Steno historian Don Tursi interviews Mirabai Knight during a keynote panel discussion at the NCRA annual convention in New York

After learning about the 5,500 vacancies, I visited the Pennsylvania Court Reporters Association's annual convention in April. I expected to hear stories about courtroom drama, arrogant lawyers, and horrifying murders. There was definitely some of that, but my biggest takeaway was how underappreciated this group of professionals feel. I have to admit, prior to that weekend, if I had been asked to describe a court reporter, I would have envisioned a woman sitting up straight, wearing a business suit with shoulder pads, her hair pulled back tightly into a bun. Conversely, this is how many people in the industry fear the world sees them. The absurd stereotype persists for two reasons: The profession is about 90 percent female, and women ascended within it in the mid-1980s, when shoulder pads and buns were somewhat more popular than they are now. Before that, men had dominated the field since at least 63 BC, when Marcus Tullius Cicero taught his slave Tiro how to write down everything he said in front of the Roman Senate using shorthand. I know this because the following joke was run into the ground at the NCRA convention: "Court reporting is the second oldest profession."

I've heard some theories as to why women took over the field: good money, the chance to work inside a courtroom before law firm doors had fully or even mostly opened, people urging them into it because the work seemed secretarial. Whatever the reason, an entire generation of women seems to have dived right in, and the impending shortage is due to the high dropout rate, combined with retirement. The average age of a court reporter is 46, and what this generation has done is amazing.

Women have expanded stenography into three main categories. First, there's your official court reporter—this is the stereotype. Think Jen. She transcribes criminal cases in the Saline County courthouse, in Salina, Kansas, and lives comfortably. (The average income for an official court reporter is $46,000, and that should probably be higher.) After sitting in court all day, the fun begins: transcribing and editing transcripts. Jen works between 50 and 60 hours each week. She's 45 and has been a court reporter for almost 20 years. This was her first NCRA convention, and her second trip to New York. We met at the registration table, where there was a stack of free, church-style cookbooks.

Jen Oliver, an official court reporter in Salina, Kansas, shows off her name badge and tags of certifications after registering at the NCRA's annual convention.

Jen turned to me and, joking-not-joking, asked, "Is it safe to walk around here at night? I don't want to get kidnapped or mugged."

Next come caption providers, including certified realtime caption providers for live events, like Mirabai. And then there are broadcast closed caption providers like Anissa Nierenberger, who helps hearing-impaired Phoenix Suns fans know what the TV announcers are saying from her home in Michigan. Of course, we as a nation tend to make fun of these people. We've all been there, running on a treadmill, reading CNN, and an outrageous mistake appears in the captioning. Providers need over 98 percent accuracy to land the job, and they hate being taken for granted. At both conventions, I heard about the caption providers who worked for over 24 hours on September 11, 2001. But I also listened to court reporters laugh about mishaps where "pennies" accidentally appeared as "penises."

Finally, there are freelancers, including young ones fresh out of stenography school who are working to build their resumes, and veterans who don't want to be bound by a courthouse. Lisa Knight is the latter, and she estimated that there are about 50 freelancers who, like her, travel the world working for America's biggest law firms. An elite freelancer can earn half a million dollars if they bust their ass, and realtime experience is what sets them apart from the rest of the profession.

Realtime is the general term for software that translates shorthand code from a steno machine and displays it instantly on a computer or tablet screen. There are a bevy of different certifications in the field, and Annemarie Roketenetz, NCRA assistant director of communications, broke down the basics for me. Realtime certification demands 96 percent accuracy at 200 Words per Minute (WPM); however, most realtime reporters are writing at speeds well over 300 WPM with an accuracy of 99 percent or higher, according to Lisa and others I spoke with at the convention. Requirements for regular stenographers vary in each state, but according to NCRA standards, a certified court reporter needs to be 95 percent accurate for three five-minute tests: literary (180 WPM), jury charge (200), and testimony (225). The Certified Realtime Reporter (CRR) test is 200 WPM across the board. With those demands, that 1 percent jump in accuracy can seem like the difference between the major and minor leagues.

Sometimes freelancers have to sell law firms on realtime. At the NCRA convention, Lisa told an audience that if two parties at a deposition decline the software, she'll set up tablets on their tables anyway and show them what they're missing for an hour. When she removes the tablets, the attorneys usually break. It sounds easy, but realtime involves more prep work: Every steno machine has a dictionary that matches shorthand keystrokes to certain words. In order to have an instant translation, a realtime reporter needs to program every word they're going to hear. For example, if a court reporter is working a deposition involving Novartis Pharmaceuticals' new psoriasis medicine Cosentyx, which everyone knows is just a secukinumab injection, both of those made-up words should be in their dictionary. Depending on the case, adding new words to a steno dictionary can take hours. Realtime freelancers also hire scopists, who check for missing words and grammar mistakes, and proofreaders, who double check after the scopists are finished. Hiring extra eyes, along with the prep work, equipment, and experience, really adds to the final bill.

The NCRA's realtime speed competition was held on the first day of the convention. I sat with Mirabai at the Open Steno Project booth an hour before it started, and she checked the time every few minutes. Mirabai knew she wouldn't win, and she didn't (Douglas Zweizig, a court reporter from Maryland, dominated every category), but competing made her nervous. We talked about her life to take her mind off the competition. Mirabai met her wife online and chose moving to New York to begin dating her over serving in the Peace Corps. She was planning on getting a master's degree in English literature when she just happened to Google "stenography" and read about CRC on Wikipedia.

"I was like, 'I'm not going to pay to get a degree in English literature when I can sit in on 50 different subjects, learn a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and help someone else get an education in the process.'"

Mirabai transcribed our conversation using realtime—warm-up for the competition. At first it was cute, but it became distracting. She was looking into my eyes and typing, while everything we said appeared on a computer screen. After a few minutes, I asked her to stop, and she wrote, "Can you please stop? ... No, seriously, please."

Then she raised her hands and grinned.

That weekend, the Associated Press published a story about how Illinois's courtrooms are in such dire need of court reporters that many of its counties are turning to electronic recording devices. Some think this is the beginning of the end for the entire field, but Mirabai laughed off the notion that her profession could become obsolete.

"The one case in which voice recognition could supersede us," she said, "is if the singularity happens and machines become as intelligent as humans, but then a lot of people are going to be out of a job."

Recording devices have become a popular way for states save money, but they're not as reliable as humans. Colorado, Ohio, Florida, and New Jersey have each experienced electronic malfunctions or inaudible tape, which can have real consequences. In 2013, a Kentucky judge declared a mistrial in a murder case against Patrick Deon Ragland—who was later found guilty of manslaughter for beating someone to death with a frying pan—after a courtroom malfunction. However, if those projected 5,500 openings aren't filled, the jobs will probably be outsourced or given to machines, despite their inadequacy.

A stenograph machine

Mirabai has never stepped inside a courtroom—not once. It's easy for her to be confident about robots, but it's different for official court reporters in sparsely populated states, like Jen in Kansas. She doesn't know a single official court reporter who isn't afraid of being replaced by a machine. I went to Sky Room in Times Square with Jen and a gaggle of middle-aged official court reporters from Kansas and Oklahoma. They took group pictures with the night skyline behind them, and each could rattle off ways they're superior to digital recorders: they can understand accents, colloquialism, and specialized terminology (like secukinumab); they can tell witnesses to speak up, and they can stop the proceeding if the crosstalk becomes too intense.

Jen seemed to be the leader of the group. She has long blonde hair, a robust laugh, and sat in the back of every seminar, except Mirabai's. One morning, I found her sitting alone in a lecture titled, "Drones—What's New." She was one of six people in the room and couldn't explain what drones had to do with court reporting. She was playing on her phone, mad that the "Terminate Transcript Turmoil" event didn't have any remaining chairs.

We walked down to the Hilton's lobby and sat on a bench, where she showed me pictures from her sightseeing adventure. She bragged about going alone to Madison Square Garden, the Empire State Building, and the 9/11 Memorial. She rode the Staten Island Ferry, saw the Statue of Liberty, and snapped a picture of every American flag along the way. Patriotism has been an underlying theme to both court reporter conventions I've attended—the Pennsylvania convention had two seminars on Flight 93 because so many of the state's court reporters had volunteered to transcribe the memorial's oral history project.

Jen can be a bit goofy, but she became serious talking about the American flag. Her father is a Vietnam Veteran who earned a Purple Heart, but an old wound forced doctors to amputate his arm 41 years after he returned from combat. She has three daughters (and her oldest recently joined the Army), but Jen considers court reporting to be service work of its own, and sees herself as a guardian of legal transcripts. The pride she has for her job amplifies the fear of a machine taking it away. It forced her to think of ways to expand her skillset.

First, she earned a certified realtime reporter certification, and then, as she began thinking about getting a certified realtime caption certification, like Mirabai, a hearing-impaired defendant who didn't know sign language appeared in her courtroom this spring.

"A digital recorder wouldn't have helped him in the courtroom at all," Jen said. "I realtime everything now, so he came up and sat next to me so the judge could communicate with him. It worked famously, and it was one of the most personally rewarding experiences I've ever had."

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Mirabai knows that feeling well, and she doesn't mind being one of the profession's poster children if it means filling those vacancies. Her father in Montana is hearing-impaired; he was a repairman whose ears took a beating as he fixed the sound on a TV 30 years ago, and now, at age 88, he refuses to let Mirabai caption for him, which makes communicating from New York frustrating. Sometimes, she takes jobs with the hearing impaired on her days off because she can't stand to let people who want assistance go without service.

But even though she's comfortable being a leader, Mirabai rolled her eyes when I mentioned the word "legend." She thinks the attention is simple: She's enthusiastic about being a steno geek, and people feed off that energy.

The topic of geekdom brought Mirabai and I back to the glaring dropout rate. There's more to this job than typing fast: A student must possess an excellent vocabulary, incredible speech processing skills, eye-hand coordination, and the determination to give up a couple years to practice. Mirabai logged 50 to 60 hours a week when she first started, and she knows it's a touchy subject. Still, steno schools aren't attracting the best students.

"Trade schools don't have admission requirements," Mirabai said. "They can say something that's truthful, like stenography is a $100,000-a-year career, without advertising that 85 percent of steno students drop out. And so a lot of the students who get into the trade schools don't have all the information, they don't have the baseline literacy skills, and they're not the ones who are best equipped to succeed in the career. And conversely, people who are extremely smart and good at musical instruments and video games—the kinds of things that go along with skill in steno—they look at that 85 percent, and the reputations of trade schools, and they think, 'I have other options. I should go into a surer bet.'"

On day two of the convention, the attendees were invited to the Hilton's East Penthouse for a party with the NCRA's board of directors. This was Lucille Ball's apartment in the 1960s, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park. The message: work hard and you will be successful. The party reinforced what Victoria Zelaya already knew. Born in Honduras before moving to Atlanta, Zelaya's mom cleaned a court reporter's house when she was young. Now 23, she's in stenography school and wants to lift her family into the middle class after graduating.

Meanwhile, she's frustrated. It takes most students at least three years to graduate. Victoria is in her third year and plateaued on 180 WPMs for the past two quarters. She has to reach 225.

"There have been times, sometimes weekly, where I've thought about quitting," she said. Victoria set her coffee on the marble table in front of us. Her phone was on her denim skirt lap, and it seemed like everyone had taken pictures of Central Park. "But the convention is motivating me," Victoria added.

The President's Party was held on the convention's last night. It was "Broadway themed," and there were a lot of tuxedos and gowns. But some people looked as if they were watching the ball drop in Times Square. A few women were dressed like flappers, and one came as the Wicked Witch, green makeup and all. After dinner, NCRA President Stephen Zinone took the stage and assured the audience, "If we stick together, we can accomplish anything."

Raging at the last night of the convention

I sat at the Kansas-Oklahoma table next to Jen. She wore a black strapless dress with white frills around her shoulders. "The '90s called, and they asked me for their prom dress back," she said. Music began to play, and after a few songs, Jen stomped her foot. "I want country!"

The table's conversation turned to certifications. Jen talked about getting her certified realtime reporter exam results in the mail. That letter was proof: she's faster than she needs to be at the Saline County courthouse, and could travel the world as a freelancer if she wanted to. Her oldest daughter had read her the results.

"She was like, 'Mom, you rock.' It was one of the most rewarding..."

Jen was too choked up to finish the thought. Her eyes had filled with tears.

"You know, as a parent, you're always proud of them, and they're never proud of you."

Follow Gavin Jenkins on Twitter.

Feeling the rooftop vibes at a "Love Kulture Project" party in Brixton

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Clubbing has traditionally been a sacred refuge of the scum. When the towns and cities of the Western world shut down for the night, the decent, the modest, and the square would flee back to their living rooms on the outskirts, far from anywhere that served tequila in pint glasses, and in would flock the louts, the losers, the addicts, the creeps, the chancers, and the excited young, all looking to fuck and fight their way to sunrise.

Across the nation they have trooped to happy hardcore nights, "Grown 'n' Sexy" dress-code nights, £10-on-the-door nights, DJ Hype all-night nights, nights where the promoter puts their BB pin on the flyer, nights at which Spanish people in waistcoats play Ramones songs off jukeboxes, nights in greenbelt discos, nights where vodka is cheaper than bottled water.

Throughout this time the rule has been that while the majority of us, square or not, will dabble with clubs for a brief period, only a certain type of person will really stick it out, turn it into a lifestyle. For most, clubs are something that get put in the rearview once real life comes calling—because forcing someone on a comedown to help a child with their geography homework is tantamount to psychological torture.

But as society has evolved, these old notions of responsibility have shifted. Just as society learnt to accept parents having kids out of wedlock, or men taking their wives' surnames, it has recently became acceptable to go clubbing after you've found your responsibility. It's OK to bosh a couple of pills, as long as you've got a babysitter; OK to go see Tim Sweeney at Shapes, as long as you let your boss know, because they might want to come along too.

The effects are clear to see: the demographic of clubbers shifted, became older, the cost of entry and drinks went up, and ID checks became more rigorous. Earlier this week it was reported that nearly half of Britain's nightclubs have closed in the past decade, and that's quite possibly because, as clubbing became dearer and socially acceptable for the socially accepted, 18-year-olds started drifting off to listen to Scandinavian cloud rap in each other's bedrooms, rather than going out and keeping the smaller, cheaper, more financially-vulnerable clubs afloat.

What's emerged out of this cultural fluctuation is a new style of going out. A club culture that's affluent but not gaudy, urbanized but certainly not intimidating, often utilizing reclaimed, picturesque city locations such as rooftops and riverside spots. These events often have sideshows involving corporate sponsors, street food stalls, marquees, competitions, generic wedding-playlist DJs, and all sorts of additional activities on top of the old staples: "Getting fucked and dancing."

This is the rise of middlebrow clubbing, a new form of nightlife that softens the hard edges of an evening at FWD>>, or Sub Club, or Transmission, or any destination club night that doesn't boast an in-house photo-booth. It's a world where pulled pork replaces pickpocketing; where skyline views replace dirty black walls; where mixologists replace in-house drug dealers.

Another rooftop "rave" in Hackney

You can't look through your Facebook events, or the pages of Time Out, without spotting one of these nights: "Dalston Summer Roof Party"; "Dalston Roof Park—Funk & Soul Special"; "Brixton Roof Party—Funk & Soul Special"; "Summer Tales ft. a Bestival takeover set from Rob Da Bank"; "Netil360"; "The Summer Boat Party with Cirque Du Soul DJs."

All of those events are in London, yes, but most large cities throughout the UK are full of similar things. Of course, some of them are probably quite good fun when it comes down to it; getting drunk with a view of the city while listening to disco is never going to be a terrible experience. However, the sheer glut of them, with their no-mark DJs, extortionate ticket prices, microbrewery collaborations, and absolute lack of imagination just smacks of soulless organized fun.

It's nightlife aimed at a monied, Silicon Roundabout kind of clientele who enjoy the social posturing of being seen to go out without any of the unsavory bits (fighting, tough music, the danger of getting your Flyknits ruined). They cater to a post-graduate, first-time buyer sort who doesn't have the time to seek out real culture, so instead has it organized for them—a tasteful environment in which they can be photographed next to some fairy lights while talking about themselves. If Elon Musk became a promoter, his nights would probably be pretty similar.

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These nights have become such A Thing that a parody Facebook page about them, titled "Completely shit and pointless events in London this summer (probably on a rooftop, somewhere)," recently attracted over 87,000 "attending" clicks. But despite the backlash, they still seem to be spawning at an aggressive rate. Soon there won't be a rooftop in the country without a shit party on it, all these mediocre branded affairs creating an alternative skyline city—kind of like The Fifth Element, had the wardrobe been designed by COS rather than Jean Paul Gaultier.

That said, it's far from an immediate threat to our culture. While traditional clubs have been closing en masse, those that remain open still get packed to capacity. However, I worry about the influence of these nights in the long run. They seem to perpetuate an idea of fun that's derived directly from an EE advert: a bunch of healthy-looking people with quiffs and flawless skin standing on top of a luxury block of flats, drinking Negronis, and having a nice time to some nice music. It's something most of us would probably enjoy enough if we ended up there, but what is it really adding to the culture? Plus, not all of us can pay the £10 entry to watch some bloke who once supported Norman Jay play a couple of vinyls.

Most of us go out to escape, to become something else other than ourselves, to get something out of our system; not to attend what is essentially a boozy picnic on the eighth floor of an old telecommunications building on Gentrification Street.

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The beauty of nightclubs is that you don't need to be in a beautiful or even nice place to have that moment of transgression. The music and the atmosphere should be enough to give you the feeling that the world around you has changed, that you've stepped through something, that your existence has transformed. You can be in a decaying building in Catford on a Friday night, or a basement in Elephant and Castle at 6 AM on a Monday morning, and have an experience that challenges, thrills, terrifies, and lives with you.

The fact is that nothing genuinely exciting could ever happen at one of these new events. They are openly unfriendly to the different; a true club character like Leigh Bowery could never exist there. He'd presumably have to spend most of his time posing for selfies with people who play competitive frisbee on Clapham Common. Instead, these clubs are almost precision engineered to attract a straight, white, prosperous audience, in order to minimize noise and maximize profit. And as we've already seen in Hackney—where the council recently made it clear that granting licenses for new "night clubs and dance venues" was "not appropriate," given their claims that they cause too much noise pollution—there's a real danger that this might become the template for how future nightlife is run in the UK.

Today, it was announced that east London's iconic gay pub the George and Dragon is to close. Before that it was People's in north London; before that, the Joiners Arms in Hackney; before that, Madame Jojo's in Soho. "But that's fine: Brixton has six new rooftop parties and a pop-up venue serving half-lobsters and burgers in brioche buns," you say.

Sure—and that's great for anyone who can afford to eat shellfish at a club night. But it's a terrifying prospect for anyone not involved in that world.

Follow Clive on Twitter.

Holloway prison. Image via.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Walking to sixth-form each day, the burgundy bricks of HMP Holloway were a daily presence in my life. I couldn't help but wonder who lived in Europe's largest women's prison. No doubt, I would have been surprised to learn then, as you may well be now, that 80 percent of women prisoners are inside for nonviolent crimes.

A recent report from the Prison Reform Trust has revealed the sharp disparity between male and female offenders. Women prisoners are twice as likely as men to have no previous convictions. As such, the vast majority of female inmates are imprisoned for nonviolent, low-level crimes, with theft and handling offenses being the main driver to custody. In short, women ultimately receive harsher treatment from the Criminal Justice System than men for equivalent crimes.

This is all the more shocking when you consider the life circumstances of female prisoners. According to stats from the Prison Reform Trust, not only have half of women in prison experienced domestic violence, 53 percent suffered abuse while they were children. On top of this, they are nearly twice as likely to suffer from depression as men in prison. Almost a third of female inmates had a psychiatric admission prior to entering prison.

Sophie Miller*, 35, has experienced the British prison system firsthand. "After being charged for internal company fraud, I spent eight months inside Holloway prison. Although my history was squeaky clean and I had no previous convictions, the judge said in light of your position, we need to make an example.

"My time inside was a chilling experience. I'll remember it forever," reflects Miller. "It was massively overcrowded and dirty with no real care and attention to detail apart from herding people around. The facilities are not even the bare minimum. I didn't have a mattress for the first few days, I was just sleeping on the bed frame.

"I think people forget that you go to prison to have your freedom taken away from you. Your punishment is not to have no clean environment to live in or no bed-sheets or fresh air and to not be able to read a book. Nothing in Holloway rehabilitates you."

During her time in prison, Miller encountered numerous women who were pregnant but many more who were already mothers. "I was continually told by inmates that I was very lucky that I didn't have children. Every single mother inside I met struggled with being so far away from her child."

On top of this, Miller also met an "inordinate amount" of inmates who suffered from mental health problems. "Once I saw them put a fire hose through the hole in the cell door to calm a woman down. But more often, they'd get riot guards to take women who were screaming and shouting away and then they'd bring them back and they'd be in their cell sedated for three days. These women shouldn't be in there in the first place."

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Psychologically, Miller still feels the effects of prison on her day-to-day life. "It's been really mentally damaging. I just feel completely differently about everything. I don't like people standing behind me. I'm always vigilant and on high alert for everything. It's proven research that that's what prison does to you. I should have been given a community sentence. What is the point of me being in prison for a few months to traumatize rather than rehabilitate me?"

Like many, Miller has struggled to find work since leaving HMP Holloway. "I was in corporate banking before so I applied for lots of jobs that were equivalent to that and lower but I didn't hear anything. There's no way in the world that they wouldn't have interviewed me for those jobs before I went to prison. But when you have a criminal record, employers don't want to touch you with a barge pole."

In Miller's view, the social stigma towards ex-female convicts is far greater than male inmates. "Judges view women who commit crime differently to how they view men. They almost think that because you're a woman, you should know better—that you should have more responsibility."

Miller is not alone. Britain has one of the highest rates of female imprisonment in the whole of western Europe. There are currently 4,320 women serving time inside British prisons—twice the amount that there were 20 years ago. In addition to this, it is estimated that 17,000 children are separated from their mothers each year because of imprisonment.

The majority of the women who wind up in British prisons have been failed by state services long before they are dragged into the criminal justice system.

It goes without saying that when a mother is sent to prison, her children's lives are turned upside down. Only 5 percent of children are able to remain in their own home. On top of this, it is often difficult for female inmates to see their children during prison visits—the dearth of women's prisons means women are held an average of 62 miles away from their home. And as life goes on, it comes as no surprise that the children of prisoners disproportionately suffer—they are twice as likely to have mental health problems and they are at a higher risk of offending in later life. And so history repeats itself.

What's more, it's worth noting that the majority of the women who wind up in British prisons have been failed by state services long before they are dragged into the criminal justice system. Plagued with mental health problems and histories of domestic violence and addiction, the female prison population is a deeply vulnerable and troubled demographic. To put this into context, women accounted for 26 percent of all self-harm incidents in prison in England and Wales even though they only represent 5 percent of the prison population.

And statistically speaking, female prisoners are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators. Their offending is more likely to be prompted by their relationships. For example, nearly half of women prisoners reported having committed offences to support someone else's drug use, compared to just 22 percent of male prisoners.

To make matters worse, once women leave prison, their struggle to readjust into society is even harder than their male counterparts. A mere 8 percent of women are likely to have positive employment outcomes when released, compared to 27 percent of men. As such, many female offenders are confronted with rising debt and struggle to access safe housing.

When you take all of the above into account, it becomes obvious that the majority of female inmates require support not retribution. The solutions to their problems lie in the hands of mental health services, domestic violence provision, safe housing, and education, not inside the four iron walls of a prison cell.

The British prison system remains a male institution in every sense of the word. From Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons to the Governor to the screws on the wing, prison is a secure environment that was created by men for men. In turn, the difference in the crimes women commit and the care that they require continues to be ignored.

For this very reason, the recent briefing by the Prison Reform Trust has launched a drive to reduce the number of women in prison. With the help of a £1.2 million [$1.8 million] lottery grant, it urges the courts to increase the number of community sentences dished out for nonviolent crimes and stop imprisoning women who pose no danger to society.

And for those in doubt of the moral arguments, community sentences also make greater economic sense. According to Vicky Pryce—the former cabinet minister who was convicted for perverting the course of justice after taking speeding points for her ex-husband, Chis Huhne—moving just 1,000 women out of jail and giving them a community sentence would save the Ministry of Justice at least £12 million [$18 million] a year. After all, the cost of placing prisoners' children in care is not just psychological. (For the record, Pryce only lasted four days in Holloway before being transferred to an open jail in Kent.)

It goes without saying that subjecting nonviolent women to the penal torment and social stigma of prison does a hell of a lot more harm than good. In disrupting the lives of the most vulnerable in our society and irreparably disrupting maternal bonds, we are in danger of perpetuating a cycle of violence and crime.

Follow Maya on Twitter.

Every now and then I like to scroll through my defunct Photobucket account to remind myself of what an asshole I was. Highlights of my first vanity-driven foray into image-making include snaps of my Converse-adorned feet inverted, toe-to-toe, and really crappy selfies used to get into Livejournal rating communities (RIP). Most were taken on my Canon Powershot S230 3.2 MP while I was bored on weekends or after school. Around the time of my last upload in 2008, I was onto embarrassing high school photo series involving tattooed girls in gas masks and nightgowns, along with the occasional macro image of a flower.

I reflect on these horrifying photos because that type of "bad" personal photography is exactly what I love looking at now. Doug Battenhausen has been trolling dead image-hosting accounts, rotted links, and maybe your tweenage MySpace for the past five years, amassing these types of gloriously depressing snapshots. I got the chance to speak with Doug about what draws him to these images and how the quality shift in personal photography has made it more difficult to find the gems that show up on his blog.

All photos via internethistory.tumblr.com

VICE: Why did you start Internet History?
Doug: I started posting found photos to my blog in late 2010. At the time, I felt like there wasn't much I wanted to see on the internet that I wasn't finding myself. A friend and I used to send each other links to the weird and/or depressing things we'd find on the internet while we were bored at work and I was like, "This is the kind of content I would like to see on a blog." So I made it.

Where do you primarily find the photos?
Thousands of the pictures I found came from a site called Webshots, which is now defunct and was something like a photo graveyard. Nobody who posted to that site had touched it in years and I think a bunch of teens used it as image hosting for their MySpaces, so it was a great place to find abandoned photo accounts. Since that site got deleted, I've been finding photos primarily on Photobucket and Flickr. Occasionally I'll find photos on other image hosting sites and blogs that haven't been updated in years.

Are all of the photos from America?
The photos are from all over. Sometimes I find accounts from Europe and Japan, but I hope it's difficult to tell they are from abroad. I found a photo site from the Czech Republic that is sometimes weirdly interesting, but the photos are typically and primarily American.

Most seem to be kind of trashy... is that intentional? You curate sections like "white girls dancing," which lead me to believe it may be.
When I first started out, the majority of photos I posted were pretty trashy: keggers in gross basements, sharpie doodles on passed out college kids... that kind of stuff. I got bored of those kinds of pictures pretty quickly. In 2011, I put out a 32-page zine called Strangers Playing Beer Pong, which was a booklet of 70 images of exactly what the title said, and that finished whatever interest I had in pictures of people drinking in public.

The Americana came out of what was left when I got tired of party pictures. Turns out, most of the people who threw parties in their basements, had internet connections, and could afford $300 compact digital cameras were white middle class Americans. I was left with photos of cars, fast food, proms, sleepovers, freshman years in college, strip malls, and backyards. What middle class white kids in America take pictures of when they are bored is infinitely more interesting to me than what they take pictures of when they're drunk.

How do you decide which photos to post?
In all seriousness, an underlying sense of sadness. These pictures depress me, but in a good way and I'm not sure if that makes sense. Maybe something about nostalgia and abandonment and the fact that, to me, a lot of the pictures are bleak as hell.

I like to imagine the ideal viewer of Internet History is scrolling through it on a smartphone, alone and drunk at a bar. Those are certainly the only times I feel like I'm consuming it properly.

What do you think about the shift in the quality of personal photos now as opposed to the early 2000s?
It seems to me that as the quality of cell phone cameras gets better, the pictures themselves become more sterile and less intimate. I think this also has a lot to do with in-phone picture editing where you can fix a lot of your mistakes before uploading the picture (with sepia filter) to your Instagram, which is linked to your Facebook, where your mother is friends with you and doesn't like to see you and your friends smoking.

Now your pictures look better, but you try to make them look old, and you care a lot more about who is going to see them, like your parents or potential employers. I don't think this was nearly as much of an issue back then, when your camera sucked, your parents didn't know how to use the internet, and you were only known on the internet as "xoxo_torn_paper_hearts."

A lot of the images you find have this sense of nihilism and absurdity that we apply to them. Do you wonder who took them and how they would feel about finding them again through your blog?
Typically, I don't know anything about the people who took these pictures outside of what their photos tell me, but I wonder all the time about who they are and what they are doing now. If there is ever a chance I can find out more about the photographer, I'll put what information I can into google and see what I can discover. Two interesting cases off the top of my head: I found the Flickr account of a man who was murdered in an abandoned warehouse in some West Virginia town and another Flickr account of a woman who is currently in jail for burglarizing and burning down her neighbor's house. Usually, though, the only interesting things I can find is that they wrote an article in their college newspaper and then the trail gets cold and boring at Facebook or sometimes even Linkedin.

This whole project reminds me of Penelope Umbrico's Sunset Portraits and Eric Oglander's Craigslist Mirrors. What do you think about those and finding the zeitgeists in personal imagery the more you collect?
The closest I've ever gotten to doing something like Sunset Portraits or Craigslist Mirrors was when I put out that zine I mentioned earlier, Strangers Playing Beer Pong, which was 32 photocopied pages of pictures of strangers playing beer pong. I sent one to a friend of mine who had no idea the title was completely literal. She wrote back to me and gave me the answer to why I think projects like Sunset and Craigslist Mirrors and (hopefully) the archive of Internet History are so appealing: "there is something useful about seeing a whole lot of one thing."

How long do you think you'll keep the blog running?
I had no idea Internet History would still be running this long, so who knows? As long as I'm still bored at work probably.

All screens captured by the author

The more I play of Batman: Arkham Knight, the more I like it. After completing the game's main storyline, I'm now swooping over the moonlit streets of Gotham City, solving the hundreds of riddles and puzzles left everywhere by a very OCD Riddler. I find myself admiring the exquisite care taken in the construction of this city. As developer Rocksteady's Arkham series universe started in media res, with Bruce Wayne already Batman, the city's details are often world-building in nature: supplying backstory and broadening the Arkham universe by commandeering elements from other depictions of Batman. It makes sense because, after all, by the time we reach Arkham Knight, the purportedly final game in Rocksteady's trilogy (as it stands, at least), Batman is supposed to have been assaulting mentally ill people in Gotham for over a decade. (I actually overheard this factoid while listening in on a conversation between two street thugs, before I landed on one and broke both arms of the other.)

My appreciation for the minutia painstakingly crafted into Arkham Knight has only grown after a Photo Mode was added to the PS4 version through a recent update. I find myself walking around the city, as the Dark Knight and taking pretty photos, including carefully orchestrated selfies, while ignoring the looters trying to break into, say, a pawnshop. Photo Mode allows you to pause the game and move the camera around the frozen figures in the frame, in an effect not unlike those notable sequences in The Matrix. You can also adjust the depth of field and exposure and apply filters a la Instagram—although here the filters bear names such as "Robin," "The Killing Joke," and "Crusader."

There are worlds within worlds to discover in the three islands that make up Gotham City. Here is some of what I found.

The Wayne Enterprises Buildings Reveal the Truth

The Ryker Heights district on Founder's Island is home to many high-rise corporate buildings, including the Wayne International Plaza (not to be confused with Wayne Tower). Despite the fact that Batman loves to creep about in the shadows about as much as a puppy loves to roll in a pile of freshly raked leaves, his penchant for theatricality actually leaves him, ultimately, severely lacking in subtlety. And so, before the main entrance of the Wayne International Plaza, Bruce Wayne has erected a statue of a nude girl with batwings.

Even more tellingly, at the other big Wayne Enterprises building, Wayne Tower over on Miagani Island, the Wayne Enterprises logo glowing against the sides of the adjacent balconies, actually forms a bat symbol.

The American Indian Heritage of Miagani Island

As the Riddler puts it as he taunts you: "There are still riddles to be solved on Miagani Island, Batman, which is named for the tribe who lived in Gotham in pre-colonial times. They worshipped bats, you know. Idiots."

This is why the Miagani Botanical Gardens makes use of a bat motif.

This Miagani Tribe's influence can be felt elsewhere in Gotham, such as through the faces with Native American features carved into several buildings throughout Gotham, including on the facade of the GCPD building.

The Miagani mythology includes a devil bat called Barbatos, who has evidently been incorporated into Gotham architecture as a gargoyle.

In perhaps a bit of commentary on the part of the game's creators, Bruce Wayne's office, standing dominant over Miagani Island which, again, is named after the fictional native tribe that use to live there, features a prominent painting of what appears to be Columbus landing in the New World. Here Batman wears the "New 52" suit, which up until very recently was the contemporary suit depicted in the comics.

Chinatown and Japanese Batmen

One of the most spectacular looking neighborhoods is Chinatown, on Bleake Island, which includes Osamu Tower. This is another building owned by a superhero, and named after The Batman of Japan, Jiro Osamu. For a brief period in the comics, Batman had been trying to start "Batman Incorporated," franchising out the Batman persona to qualified candidates in other countries. The Batman of Japan's secret identity, Jiro Osamu, is an amalgam of the real-life manga creators Osamu Tezuka and Jiro Kuwata. Kuwata wrote and drew a Batman manga series in Japan in the 1960s. The Japanese Kanji on Osamu Tower simply reads "tower."

While we're on Japan, it's worth mentioning that Arkham Knight also includes access to the free "Anime Batman" costume, which is based on one segment of the compilation film Gotham Knight. The film is made up of visuals by a variety of Japanese animators who each put their own spin on the batsuit. The Anime Batman costume includes a neck shield and a slightly different arrangement of the bat ears.

The Anime Batman's cape has a different cut, which can be seen while gliding.

Foreshadow Diner

Arkham Knight's opening sequence places you in Pauli's Diner, likely a pun on Batman: The Animated Series writer Paul Dini, who co-created Harley Quinn.

Everything you look at here foreshadows events to come, from the newspapers, the conversations taking place at each table, the ads pinned to the walls, and the music that comes on the jukebox if you wait around long enough. Even the Halloween display has a scarecrow (the namesake of one of the game's main villains) and bats.

If you listen in to the conversation held at one of the tables, you'll hear the backstory of Christina Bell, who went insane after a miscarriage and a blood transfusion, and killed a bunch of men in a boardroom with a knife: "The best part of breaking the glass ceiling," Christina Bell is quoted as saying by the woman sitting at the table, "is playing with the shards."

The detailing goes down even to the text in the menus, which feature full descriptions of the food on offer.

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Batman's Gotham Bases

The Shakespeare busts that Batman uses to conceal or reveal the true nature of his clock tower and Wayne Tower bases are based on the bust Batman used to reveal the entrance to the Batcave in the 1960s TV series.

In the picture above, Batman uses one of the busts while wearing the "Batman of Zur-En-Arrh" costume, another freebie made available the same day as the Photo Mode.

The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh originally appeared in 1958. He's a Batman of a different planet, inspired by observing the earth Batman. In modern comics, he's an alternate, more brash personality hidden within Batman's psyche.

Oracle was Batgirl before being paralyzed by the Joker. In Oracle's clock tower HQ, there is a bookcase with a miniature version of the nude batwinged girl from the front of Wayne International Plaza standing on it. If Batman uses the Remote Hacking Device, the bookcase opens up to reveal a secret closet with Batgirl's costume.

Batman also has a base at the abandoned Panessa Studios with a variety of film sets. It looks like the director died making the western because there is a skeleton in the director's chair on top of the fake jail.

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Pretty Dolls Parlor

No spoilers, but the Pretty Dolls Parlor in Ryker Heights, may or may not be a front for a supervillain, with whom Batman may or may not have to engage in hand-to-hand combat in a torture chamber in the basement with very lovely lighting.

Flashpoint Batman

In a massive crossover event called Flashpoint, in which the timeline of the DC Universe was altered, young Bruce Wayne was killed by a mugger in Crime Alley rather than his parents. As a result his father, Thomas Wayne, became a very lethal, two-gunned incarnation of the Batman. Bruce's mother, Martha, driven insane by the death of her child, became the Joker. The red-eyed, Thomas Wayne version of the Batman suit is available as an alternate skin.

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All images via Know Your Meme

Death by meme is the worst way to go. Your comical, retweetable downfall is instantly archived for the world's convenient future access. This was the fate of Scumbag Steve, Antoine Dodson, the Interior Semiotics lady, and countless others who are added to the list on a weekly, even daily, basis. One of the more recent, high-profile additions is Australia's former speaker of the house, Bronwyn Bishop, who was turned into a meme last week thanks to a few too many taxpayer funded holidays and liberal use of government helicopters. While it's not surprising the former speaker got sledged on social media, it's impressive that so much of her takedown came in meme form.

Political scandals don't often make for great memes. But Choppergate, as it became known in Australia, is a different story. The meme consists of Bronwyn performing various mundane tasks from her preferred position—in a helicopter hundreds of feet above the earth.

Related: This Is What Happens When You Become a Meme

To the untrained eye, the emergence, spread, and disappearance of a meme might look completely random. It might seem, to that amateur's eye, that Brownyn's flight to meme notoriety was based on simple timing. But we wanted to know if there was something more going on, so we asked Ari Spool, a "meme scientist" at meme bible Know Your Meme, what makes a meme catch.

VICE: Hey, Ari. Why was the Choppergate meme such a hit, while other political scandals aren't? Is it simply a ridiculous situation with a strong visual hook?
Ari Spool: You're absolutely right. The visual aspect of the meme is probably more important than the content, because it needs to instantly be a joke. For most tax-based government scandals, the visuals would be bland, or perhaps repetitive—maybe an old politician sitting on a pile of money or something. Boring. But for this one, you could use these images of a helicopter walking a dog or picking up a bus, which are absurd.

You've seen a lot of different memes. Have you identified the secret recipe for success?
It's definitely not a science, but my personal opinion is that the formula often involves absurdity, and it also requires a certain inside-joke quality. If you're in America and you see a Choppergate meme without knowing the backstory, you might still think the image is funny, but you won't know exactly how funny it is to someone in Australia who understands the background. This gives people who created the meme a sort of ownership of the joke, which they are sharing with people who "get" it. I think people like humor that seems tailored directly to them, and memes, while they may appeal widely, have the appearance of an inside joke that everyone is sharing and owning and creating.

What's the deal with meme lifespan? Any idea why some memes take over Tumblr for a week (like stealing breadsticks or snails/snakes) while others (like forever alone) seem to never die?
It seems more related to the platform from which the meme originates. Things that originate on Tumblr seem to stay on Tumblr most of the time, which causes them to have a pretty short lifespan. The joke doesn't spread off of the Tumblr platform that frequently because it doesn't have that universal quality. Vine memes are even shorter; they often last less than two days, and it's possible to track Twitter hashtag memes to the hour.

A lot of the more eternal memes, like Forever Alone, come from 4chan or other communities where people have one foot in, one foot out. 4channers enjoy seeding the rest of the world with their inside jokes, like when they managed to get the anchors on this television station during the riots in Baltimore earlier this year to say things like "Jet fuel can't melt steel beams." When they do stuff like that, people Google what it means, and then they learn that the meme is supposed to spread in this subtextual fashion, and it gets distributed throughout all platforms.

Is there a king meme? I'd say Pepe the Frog, but I think a lot of people would disagree.
I have some metrics. According to our data, Slender Man is the most popular meme of all time on our site, followed by Forever Alone, then Zerg Rush, then Doge. Pepe doesn't even rank in the top 20, but he's growing. However, that's based on site visits, which can also indicate confusion—perhaps more people visit those pages because they see a mention of Slender Man online somewhere and they search for it because they aren't aware of what it means.

Certainly, the Slender Man criminal incidents influenced that meme's "popularity." So that statistic is a little like saying "what is the most Googled word?" and then asserting that it's the most used word in the English language; obviously, those two things are different.

Are there other ways to measure how popular a meme gets?
A meme's popularity might also be calculated by how many people create new versions of it. For that, I'd try to look at the largest image galleries on our site and how many sub-entries [new popular derivations] there are. If you calculate it that way, I'm pretty sure the most popular meme of all time is My Litttle Pony: Friendship Is Magic. This conceptualization also has issues, though: perhaps MLP is just the most popular meme among our users, and not in the world at large. Certainly, a high amount of people have no idea what a Bronie is.

Finally, what's your personal favorite meme?
I'm a huge Pepe fan; My boyfriend even sculpted me a real Pepe planter for my birthday. I also love the galleries of Mildly Interesting.

Thanks Ari.

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An earlier headline of this article misidentified Spool as the founder of Know Your Meme. She is, in fact, a "meme scientist." We regret the error.

Image of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott via

Read: How I Infiltrated a White Pride Facebook Group and Turned It into 'LGBT Southerners for Michelle Obama'

Two-thirds of Australia's coalition government have voted to deny their colleagues a conscience vote on gay marriage.

This means that government MPs aren't able to vote in favor of gay marriage unless they cross the floor, a move Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott warned against, telling ABC Radio National's AM, "If a frontbencher cannot support the party's policy, that person has to leave the frontbench."

During the program, he defended this decision, explaining he had a pre-election mandate to put this debate before the "Coalition party room in the usual way."

But this "usual way" is subject to dispute among his own ranks, with Education Minister Christopher Pyne accusing the Prime Minister of "branch stacking" after National MPs were allowed to weigh in on the vote—a party with very few members who support change.

This decision is bound to cause controversy on a number of fronts: internationally, domestically, and within Abbott's own party.

Right now, there's slim chance of another marriage amendment bill passing anytime soon. While Abbott conceded that he'd launch a referendum or plebiscite on same-sex marriage in the next term of parliament, that's a promise that might kick in from late 2016. So even if that moment did come, this relies on Abbott holding onto power, holding his word, and having a successful referendum or plebiscite (basically the only two ways legislation can change via popular vote in Australia).

A plebiscite is largely a cop-out, considering that plebiscites don't change constitutions, nor do they force the government of the day to adopt the outcome.

As for referendums, the country has been notoriously bad at passing these. Only eight out of 44 referendums have passed since Australia was federated—and the last one that passed was in 1977.

So where does this leave supporters of marriage equality?

For avid watchers of Abbott, a PM who has repeatedly voiced his displeasure at same sex marriage, policing of the status quo is what you've come to expect. The same goes for his senators, with Tasmania's Eric Abetz saying that not all gay men want to get married because Dolce and Gabbana don't want to, presumably, presupposing that the Italian fashion designers have a hotline to all Australian gay men.

It's fair to say Australia sits in an awkward position on this one. To the globe, we're just a lame duck when it comes to aligning ourselves with the rest of the developed world. We're the country that still likes to hold inquiries into whether wind power is harmful, while other places get on with fighting climate change.

This latest decision may also tell the world that our elected representatives aren't actually reflective of the people they serve. About 72 percent of Australians support marriage equality, so it's hard to understand why Abbott tells ABC's AM he's "kept faith with the electorate."

But don't think this is the first time an Australian leader has let their whims define life for a bunch of people. Our constitution gives the Parliament power to rule on marriage, and reading between the lines, that power usually rests with the government of the day—meaning they can decide a lot of things for people who might not agree with them.

This allowed former Liberal PM John Howard to amend the Marriage Act to define marriage as between "a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others" in 2004. During the subsequent Labor years under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, both Prime Ministers voiced their opposition to same sex marriage. Rudd eventually changed his mind by the time he was facing electoral wipeout, while Gillard defended the traditional view of marriage despite being an atheist, unmarried PM (she later came out rejecting marriage as a construct).

By the time the Australian Capital Territory decided to pass same sex marriage in 2013, the High Court had no other choice but to strike it down, as it conflicted with a hetero federal marriage law.

But as depressing as these conditions are for people who just want to get this passed in order to focus on more pressing issues within Australia's LGBTIQ communities, there is still hope.

Next Monday will see another bill for same sex marriage thanks to Government MP Warren Entsch with support from Labor backbencher, Terri Butler. And if Butler's comments are anything to go by, political pragmatism just might hold us in good stead, telling the ABC:

"There's no point throwing your hands up in the air and saying the Prime Minister's a dinosaur so we should all give up."

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A detail from the box art for 'Quest For Glory'

When I was coming up in the video gaming world, it was all about jumping on the goomba, slashing the shrubbery, and powering up your charge-shot. Running, jumping, dashing, platforming: In the early 1990s, as a console kid, I knew only to move and to move fast. Time was running out; the screen was pushing my character, me, to the right; the enemies were closing in. So when I first played Sierra Entertainment's Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero, I actually kind of hated it.

Move slowly, look at everything on the screen, type in your commands. What? I've never been comfortable with PC games, I find the sheer volume of buttons you can press overwhelming, and in Quest for Glory it felt like I could do anything. Needless to say, I wasn't initially a fan. But a friend pushed the floppy disks into my hand (all nine of them), and told me to give it time, saying I'd get used to the typed commands. Now, looking back some 20 years later, I realize how right he was. And I think Quest for Glory may be one of the best video games ever made.

The game, full of bright pixels, silly animations, and puns that threaten to overwhelm the uninitiated, offered the player a simple choice when first booted up: Did you want to be a Fighter, a Magic User, or a Thief? From there, you could spend a certain amount of ability points on building up your hero. And then you're off: no real instruction, just a keyboard, a town full of non-player characters waiting to spill their info, and an intriguing, engrossing plot.

I'd wanted a game that pushed the player, rushed the player, but this wasn't that game. So You Want to Be a Hero showed me the value in paying close attention to details. As the years have gone by, I've become particularly enamored with this game. It, and its four sequels, hold a rarefied place in my nostalgia. Like staying up late on a Friday night to watch Mystery Science Theater 3000, the QFG games elicit a special, strange, internet 1.0 thrill.

'Quest For Glory' screenshot via YouTube

If you've played this series of games, a couple of names are sure to stick out to you. Corey and Lori Ann Cole, the husband and wife team of co-developers of the first four Quest games, are synonymous with the adventure/RPG series.

I reached out to the Coles, in part because I've idolized these game developers for the last two decades, but also because I wanted to understand the conditions that went into making QFG. Calling in from their office in Oakhurst, California, we talked about how they came to make such a wonderfully weird set of games.

Article continues after the video below

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VICE: Why did Sierra want to make a game like Quest for Glory?
Lori Ann Cole: It was a series of fortuitous incidents that led to us getting hired at Sierra, one of them was the fact that Sierra had published previous Ultima games and Lord British (moniker of Ultima series creator Richard Garriott) decided to take them away. And Ken Williams (co-founder of Sierra) really wanted to have an RPG.

Corey Cole: He said, "OK, Sierra owns the entire adventure game market," which it did at the time, "but there's this other roleplaying game market and we don't own that yet, and we'd like to." So he was trying to make the same amount of splash with roleplaying games that they had with adventure games.

I've read somewhere that your experience with Dungeons & Dragons, the tabletop roleplaying game, helped you land the job at Sierra. Is that true?
Corey: We had a friend who we knew through science fiction conventions, and she was a contractor for Sierra. She did all the animation for Kings Quest 4, and she was in our meetings with Ken [Williams] and he had said, "We want to find a top-level, prize-winning, tournament-level dungeon master to write these games for us." Which was a completely ridiculous phrase to say. But she'd played in D&D games with us, and we'd had another roleplaying game system we'd invented, that was skill-based, rather than the level-based advancement of D&D. And that got us as far as the phone call.

Did your experience as dungeon masters influence your development of QFG?
Corey: We had an interesting challenge; they were looking for a roleplaying game, they didn't want an adventure game from us. But the Sierra tools were specifically designed for adventure games. And they were really, really good for making Sierra-style graphical games, but they weren't designed for doing math, and moving square by square. It was designed for scenes, for "rooms." Each room of the game, whether it was indoor or outdoor, it was called a room.

So given these tools, what kind of roleplaying game could we make? Our tabletop games were always about actual roleplaying. Each character had a persona, and you were visiting caverns and all that stuff. And we thought OK, that we can do. So it looks like an adventure game, but it plays like a roleplaying game.

The thrust of this article is how the slowed-down pace of the game, the way it asked players to really take their time, was a huge influence on me. I'd never come across a game that wasn't forcing you through from one platform to the next. Can you tell me about that process?
Lori: The only way we had to create this sense of continuity and sequence was the idea that makes an RPG feel right, which is there are areas that you can't go to only because you can't deal with them. You're not strong enough to handle them. So that became the gating mechanism of the game.

Corey: And technology played a part in that. The restrictions that we had actually worked really well in getting us movie-like, script-like sequencing. Because back then most players didn't have hard drives at all. The game had floppies, and every time you went from one area to another you had to swap out a floppy disk. And we ended up shipping the game, the low-res version actually took nine disks. And we couldn't have people constantly switching disks so we had to really break it up into areas. So you got to one area at a time. Strangely enough, even though it was incredibly frustrating for us, it helped us with story structure and pacing.

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'Quest For Glory' screenshot via YouTube

After the success of the original Quest for Glory, you went on to create several more inspired games in the series before "retiring." But now you've just successfully Kickstarted a new game, called Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. How did QFG influence the development of this new game?
Corey: We went through many different iterations of what this game should be. First we tried building a text-based game, and we thought that wasn't good enough. And then we considered a web-based with clickable hyperlinks, and that wasn't good enough, and it turns out what Sierra was doing originally was pretty close to good enough! But we are taking advantage of having 3D space.

Lori: The reason we went 3D is that we really did want to open up the world. Even with Quest for Glory it was all about immersion and making sure that the user interface was invisible and easy to not think about. We want you to be there in that game as part of that world, as part of that character.

So much for retirement, then?
Corey: We actually retired about ten years ago, around 2005, when game companies decided they all wanted 20-somethings and we couldn't get jobs in the game industry. And essentially this game pulled us out of retirement.

Lori: It isn't Quest for Glory, and yet it is. What we did was take the best parts, the parts that fans loved about Quest for Glory, and created something really different.

Corey and Lori Ann Cole, now of Transolar Games, are currently hard at work bringing the successfully funded Hero-U to life.

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Photo by Instagram user myhealthydish_

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Scrolling through Instagram, watching the #cleanandlean #eatraw brags roll in while you're slumped over last night's chicken burger, is pretty depressing at the best of times. But for some people, the endless pictures of avocados and bowls of zucchini masquerading as delicious spaghetti are genuinely anxiety-inducing rather than more Insta fodder to make fun of.

Orthorexia nervosa is an anxiety disorder whereby sufferers have an obsession or fixation with healthy eating. And it's a disorder that's arguably gaining increased prominence since the advent of the so-called "clean eating" trend and all the various diets—the 5:2, the paleo—it has spawned that are so loved by Instagram users.

Maddy Moon, who now runs a website helping those whose relationship with food and "healthy eating" has become distinctly unhealthy, suffered with orthorexia and says her life disintegrated as a result.

"Orthorexia is a disorder of the mind, where obsession becomes a 'safe place' for sufferers. Anything outside of their food boundaries makes them feel they lack control. It's a terrifying and controlling disorder that extends into all areas of life," Maddy tells me.

For Maddy, it was the rigorous diet of chicken breast, green beans, and protein powder that came with the culture of bodybuilding, a culture she was party to in her life as a fitness model, that pushed her into panicking about food all day, every day.

"I began restricting major food groups and obsessing over 'clean eating' when I started bodybuilding in 2011," Maddy said. Two years later, she realized she had orthorexia. "I always broke down in tears and anxiety if I was confronted with any food not on my fitness competition meal plan," she says. "It was exhausting."

In that time, Maddy lost a worrying amount of weight, her periods stopped, she was bloated, had zero sex drive, was constantly tired, and yet she was unable to sleep through the night. Just getting through the day was a challenge, because she was so concerned with sticking to her limited list of "safe foods" and burning off the calories as quickly as possible.

But despite all the very many drawbacks, Maddy was trapped in an orthorexic cycle owing to the gym culture and what is perceived as attractive and healthy. "I was doing bodybuilding competitions, so my trainer praised me when the weight came off," she explains. "I was severely underweight for my height but since I had my safe cover up, nobody really said anything."

Would the idea of, say, eating a Big Mac make her feel physically sick? "Yes, definitely, but truthfully—and this is much more embarrassing to admit—I felt scared around just... fruit. I was taught that fruit has sugar and would ruin my body and figure for my competition, so I wouldn't even have that.. I didn't really eat salads either because they have 'too many ingredients' and that scared me."

One of almost 26 million pictures tagged #eatclean. Photo via Instagram user Bikbambi

It might sound improbable to some, but does she think the health food bloggers and relentless shots of green juice on Instagram promote orthorexic attitudes? "Yes, absolutely. I think blogs are a breeding ground for comparison. Within two minutes you can see somebody's diet, workout routine, lifestyle, and body. Yet, what you don't realize is that you're only getting the highlight reel of their life.

"Somebody could have a 'perfect body' but could be suffering emotionally, spiritually, physically, and sexually. Exactly like I was. You simply can't know these things from social media."

Orthorexia is defined as "an obsession with eating foods that one considers healthy." Maddy says that there's one key word in this definition: "considers."

The term "orthorexia" was only coined in 1997. "The fact that it's so new means it cannot be put into a box with limitations and restrictions. Certain individuals may be attached to the idea that fat is unhealthy and therefore they create an obsession around low-fat foods. On the other hand, someone else may only believe smoothies and kale salads are healthy, therefore they strictly limit themselves to those two meals."

But it should be underlined that orthorexia is a disorder of the mind more than anything else. Mary, an advisor from eating disorder charity Beat, tells me that orthorexia isn't really an eating disorder, but more like OCD.

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"Orthorexia is not seen as an eating disorder," she says. "It can in fact often bear more resemblance to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in that it is characterized by a fixation on righteous eating, eating only 'pure' foods, and trying to avoid contamination by food."

That's not to say that orthorexia, like anorexia or bulimia, isn't bad for your health. "People who are obsessed with eating only 'pure' foods and eliminating entire food groups could be putting their health at risk."

Hearing about how your colleague is on the paleo diet is obviously the most boring thing in the whole world. But it's now become so normal to completely freak out about eating a potato, that it's hard to recognize warning signs that yours, or others', relationship with food isn't OK. Is turning down pizza a sign of orthorexia? Is making your own "healthy" chocolates out of raw cacao? It's very difficult to know where to begin to categorize it, but it helps that former sufferers like Maddy are able to point out that if fruit makes you want to cry, then it's a very real issue that should be addressed.

Maddy's advice for people who worry they're orthorexic? "Purge your life from fitness and dieting articles, books, social circles, movies, and social media accounts. Take out all of the little voices around every corner telling you to change your body."

And if you needed any more encouragement, it might be worth bearing in mind that hemp milk really is kind of gross, and only assholes eat zucchini.

For more on orthorexia and other eating disorders, visit the National Eating Disorders Association's website.

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