Link Tank: How The Good Lord Bird Captures the Tragicomedy of America
The Good Lord Bird on Showtime, the history of the Garbage Pail Kids, Netflix's Emily in Paris, and more in today's Link Tank!
The Good Lord Bird on Showtime, starring Ethan Hawke as the abolitionist John Brown, is well worth a watch.
“Toward the end of his career, as he grew increasingly despairing and cynical, America’s greatest humorist soured on jokes. ‘The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow,’ Mark Twain wrote in his 1897 travelogue, Following the Equator. ‘There is no humor in heaven.’ It is with this caveat that I describe The Good Lord Bird, a seven-part miniseries that premieres Sunday on Showtime, as a comedy.”
George Takei and the LGBTQ+ community flooded the hashtag #ProudBoys over the past week to reclaim it for queer love.
“In an effort to mock and disarm the Proud Boys, actor and activist George Takei tweeted, ‘What if gay guys took pictures of themselves making out with each other or doing very gay things, then tagged themselves with #ProudBoys. I bet it would mess them up real bad. #ReclaimingMyShine.'”
Our friends over at Mental Floss take a look back at the snotty and stinky history of the Garbage Pail Kids.
“For a few years in the 1980s, kids were obsessed with the Garbage Pail Kids, a bunch of snot-covered characters with names like Messy Tessie and Acne Amy. But did you know some card concepts were just too gross for mass distribution, a cartoon was yanked from airwaves, and Sean Astin’s brother starred in a live-action movie?”
Spotify has added the ability for users to search for songs by lyrics, a game-changing move for music streaming.
“This week, Spotify is rolling out the ability to find songs by searching for their lyrics. It’s a feature that’s been a long time coming and it will undoubtedly become second-nature for users in no time at all.”
Instagram turns 10 years old this week. To celebrate this anniversary, the platform has rolled out new anti-bullying features.
“Happy birthday, Instagram! To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the social network is launching a handful of new features, including anti-bullying measures, IGTV Shopping, a private Stories Map, and more…. It’s unclear whether these unique icons are available only during Instagram’s birthday month, or if they’ll stick around as part of the new homescreen customization trend.”
Netflix’s Emily in Paris may not be objectively good, but it’s well worth a watch. Here’s why (with spoilers).
“Emily in Paris gets rid of any pretense of a creative profession for its titular heroine and just makes her a straight-up capitalist: Emily is a marketing exec who loves to sell shit. For her, marketing is a passion, and she brings that passion to Paris at the agency Savoir, where the French employees turn up their noses at her giddy enthusiasm and love for publicity stunts.”
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