Justin Timberlake edited to look like a rat

By Tarpley Hitt

How Erin Overbey, the ‘New Yorker’s’ longtime archivist, threw the publication into turmoil

Two weeks ago, The New Yorker fired its archivist, Erin Overbey, after the longstanding staffer wrote an extensive thread blasting the magazine and top editor David Remnick. As the thread told it, the magazine had put Overbey under a performance review, accusing her of being “disrespectful,” self-plagiarizing, and including factual inaccuracies in her newsletter.

Overbey saw the review as a response to her having “consistently & persistently SUWF — a.k.a. Spoken Up While Female” — a reference to a public thread that she wrote last fall, highlighting pay and hiring inequality within the magazine. The explicit takeaway from this latest thread, which was published July 19, was that the magazine was punishing a whistleblower by attacking her performance: “I also hope that speaking out on this,” she wrote, “will make other publications think twice about going after or seeking to punish whistleblowers & institutional critics.” She also tweeted a bombshell allegation: that Remnick himself inserted an error into her newsletter on purpose. Continue reading

By Olivia Craighead

Celebrity Scramble, of course

Welcome to Net Positive, a series about nice places and things on the world wide web.

So much about TMZ gives off a horrible energy. Anyone who has ever watched TMZ on TV could tell you that. Since launching in 2005 it has become one of the biggest names in tabloid news, but now is mainly a website I visit when someone has died. But there is one thing about TMZ that is pure, uncut joy: Celebrity Scramble.

While not something that TMZ is particularly known for, it is perfect — an odd little recurring feature that serves no point other than to drive up traffic numbers. Celebrity Scramble is at once a puzzle, a joke, and a way to humble the rich and famous.

Here’s how it works: TMZ takes a photo of a celebrity, expands and contracts their features until they are no longer recognizable, and then asks you to guess who it is. It’s not really a game you can win, as winning only means that you consume enough celebrity content to know what Justin Timberlake looks like when his face has been contorted in such a way that he looks like a rat. Continue reading

By Olivia Craighead

This is why Los Angeles needs Rick Caruso for mayor

When a woman no longer feels safe wearing her Rolex in Beverly Hills? That’s when we as a nation need to take action. Only one woman can lead the charge against “woke voters” and that’s American Idol season five winner Katharine McPhee. On Wednesday, she declared that Los Angeles needs to vote for billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso for mayor, because he’ll be the one who will make her feel safe wearing rings in public again.

The Smash star and outed Republican reshared a post that showed an older man with bruises on his face that claimed he had been mugged by three men in a Porsche SUV. McPhee added her own commentary, writing that she blames “every single woke voter” and that things like this are why Los Angeles needs Rick Caruso. Continue reading

By Kelly Conaboy

She’s hiding in the bushes, observing …

Well, hello there. Who are you? Based on your vibe … the Queen. Your stick is erect. You're not here to be ogled, but those broaches, they catch the eye. You like a little attention. Okay, I’ll bite.

Yes, according to a new report from People magazine, Kate Middleton has been quietly studying the Queen; hiding behind bookstacks, pulling her brimmed cap over her eyes, picking up on subtle cues missed by most. "Catherine has learned by observing," the Queen's biographer Sally Bedell Smith told the magazine. "She knows what resonates. She will have absorbed a lot from this Queen." Indeed, she will have absorbed a lot. All from … you.

All of this studying is to prepare Kate for her future role as Queen Consort, a title that means “the wife of a reigning king,” which to me just sounds like a Queen Regular, but I was not consulted. In their report, People makes a big show of how similar the to-be-deceased Queen is to the younger one. They share a “quiet stoicism, unerring discretion, and firm loyalty,” for example, as well as a decision to never share “their opinions on contentious political issues”; and yes that is likely because those opinions are the wrong ones to have. They also both wear bright clothing. Continue reading

By Allie Jones

Check out the fishnet lingerie reveal

Chrissy Teigen, a 36-year-old model and influencer who is definitely not canceled now, announced last night on Instagram that she is pregnant. She shared the happy news with two photos of herself swathing her growing bump in black fishnet lingerie. She looks great!

Teigen, who is already a mom to Luna, 6, and Miles, 4, with husband John Legend, had a miscarriage in 2020 which she posted about extensively. This time around, she seems to be understandably nervous about the pregnancy but eager to share it with the world. Continue reading