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The frog is considered a gay icon (Picture: Getty)

There are a number of unlikely gay icons in this world, from The Babadook to Peppa Pig, and it seems that frogs have made the list.

If youre a regular user of TikTok, you may have noticed that alongside videos of dancing and lip-syncing there is an abundance of frog videos.

Where dogs and cats reign supreme on other social media platforms, TikTok is full of sweet little amphibians. Sometimes its frogs sitting weirdly, sometimes its frog care videos for pet owners, sometimes its a girl raising hundreds of thousands of tadpoles in her back garden.

Not all of these videos are made by or featuring lesbians, but the two commonly cross over, with lesbian TikTok and frog TikTok inextricably linked.

Lets look at why.

Lesbian frog TikTok is a communion of two TikTok niches lesbians and frogs.

There are a number of subcultures to be found on the social media site, from alt TikTok to beans TikTok to the oft-maligned straight TikTok.

Because the platform alters your For You page depending on what you tend to like and interact with, groups formed based on what different people saw and found funny or engaging.

In this case, its being a woman who loves women and cute frogs.

Videos feature illustrations and crafts with frogs on them, funny frogs wearing funny outfits, and basically every manner of frog creativity.

The genre frog lesbian has fully sprouted, with the hashtag lesbianslovefrogs now boasting over 710,000 views, and a search for frog lesbian showing thousands of results.

There are a number of reasons why lesbians may gravitate to frogs (and not just because theyre cute and hilarious).

The frogs are gay meme came to prominence around two years ago when shock-jock Alex Jones claimed on the show InfoWars that water was being poisoned and was making the frigginfrogsgay.

His channel then uploaded a video titled Proof! Gay Frogs Are Real, cementing frogs status as gay icons forevermore.

Frogs have also been top meme-fodder for many years. Dat Boi, Kermit sipping tea, graphic design is my passion, froggy chair, and its Wednesday my dudes all had their moment in the sun (as well as Pepe, but the less we say about him the better).

In that sense, its understandable that TikTok (the social media site best suited to more surreal and younger comedy) would become the home of frog content.

Nearly half of those who use TikTok are under 24, and under 24s are the age group most likely to be queer. Ergo, frog lovers and LGBT+ people were bound to merge and become part of the TikTok canon at some point.

But why lesbians specifically?

Although frogs are gay (incontrovertible fact, please dont argue), the links between frogs and lesbians particularly might derive from an aesthetic movement titled cottagecore.

TikTok defines this as flower prints, knitting, plants and mushrooms. Basically nice, comforting, nature-based images and sounds to soothe us and be aesthetically pleasing.

i-D magazine spoke to one queer woman about why she identified with cottagecore so much, and she said: Lesbians tend to be oversexualised by the media. Cottagecore sees love as a connection between two souls.

Another stated, It especially makes me feel like the things I loved in childhood, like having farm animals and picking blackberries in the fields and getting lost in the woods, are cis- and hetero-coded. So for me, cottagecore is an ideal where I can be visibly queer in rural spaces.

In a world where we need to own a house to have a dog or cultivate our own gardens, frogs are one of the easiest ways to get closer to nature.

And if that desire (frog)spawns a new subculture where WLW and animals are celebrated and we get to see cute frogs on our feeds then that works for us.

Do you have a story youd like to share?

Get in touch at MetroLifestyleTeam@metro.co.uk.

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What is frog TikTok, and why does it so often cross over with lesbian TikTok? - Metro.co.uk

Feels Good Man took home the Best Feature-Length Documentary award. (Courtesy of LIFF)

The 2020 Lighthouse International Film Festival announced its award winners on Sunday afternoon, June 21, in a virtual ceremony.Not surprisingly, films that dealt with Americas racial crisis did well.

The Subject, directed by Lanie Zipoy, won the Best Narrative Feature competition, beating out Her Name Was Jo, Milkwater, A Case of Blue and 1986. The scripted feature is about a documentary filmmaker who had success with his last film, which caught the murder of an African American teen on tape. Now someone else is videotaping his every move, threatening his idyllic life.

A timely film that explores the complex issue of race in America, greatly acted not only by Jason Biggs but the entire cast, wrote the judges. A very compelling story, well told of a very conflicted character.

Feels Good Man took home the Best Feature-Length Documentary award. Directed by Arthur Jones, it follows Matt Furie, who created the indie comic character Pepe the Frog. Pepe was appropriated as a symbol of the alt-right movement, and the film follows Furie as he attempts to regain control of his creation, confronting far-right-wing personalities such as Richard Spencer and Alex Jones. Feels Good Man competed against Higher Love, The Long Haul, No Fear No Favor and Shoot to Marry.

We were impressed by the arc of the story, wrote the judges, the storys relevance, high stakes, and broad appeal. What impressed us most was how the filmmaker visualized Matt Furies jouney paralleled Pepes jouney and how their lives intersected. This of course concluded with Matt killing Pepe in order to redeem a part of himself.

Lost In Traplanta, directed by Mathieu Rochet, took home the Episodic competition honors. This French and Belgian production was filmed in Atlanta and tells the story of Larry, a slightly whimsical Frenchman who explores the music scene in Atlanta, where Trap, a subgenre of hip hop that originated in the southern United States, rules the roost. In his acceptance speech, Rochet declared, Everybody in France is looking at you.

The Shorts competitions are always hard fought because of sheer numbers. This year no fewer than 59 were shown virtually.

The Best Short-Documentary award went to Ashes to Ashes, directed by Taylor Rees and Renan Ozturk. It was practically a shoo-in in an age of racial tensions, considering it centers around Winfred Rembert, the only living survivor of a lynching, and Shirley Whitaker, who is on a mission to memorialize the forgotten 4,000 African Americans lynched during the Jim Crow era.

The level of the short films is equivalent to the level of cinema documentary that you can see in feature films, opined the judges. We wanted to give the award to a film we felt is even more outstanding, especially dealing with such an important topic right now in the U.S. and in the world, but also doing so in such a sensitive and interesting way.

Ashes to Ashes also won the Social Impact award.

Many parts of American history are hidden from us and now, better late than never, is time to educate ourselves, to know the history, to learn from the mistakes, not to shy away from them, and Ashes to Ashes shows personal stories we had no idea about, said the judges. We are grateful to the filmmakers of this documentary, for reminding us that movies do not only make us laugh, cry, escape to other worlds, but educate us.

The Best Short Narrative Film category was topped by White Eye, directed by Tomer Shushan. A man finds his stolen bicycle and it now belongs to a stranger. In his attempts to retrieve the bicycle, he struggles to remain human.

Tomer Shushan, already awarded with SXSW Grand Jury Award, made a heartbreaking story about African refugees in Israel and how important to stay human, be compassionate, and to not follow your ego, but your heart and soul, said the judges.

Empty, directed by Vic Pater of Middletown High School, took the Student Films competition, beating out 14 other entries. The Convergence, directed by Noah Lipsitz of Pennsylvanias Lower Merion High School, was rewarded with an honorable mention.

By using poetic language, the narration of the film was lyrical, wrote the judges of Paters film. The animations moved beautifully along with the narration, making the piece feel dreamlike. The films ability to highlight mental illness through various metaphors of bugs and animals allowed for the audience to understand a different perspective and way of life.

The Jennifer Snyder Bryceland Award, with its $3,500 special prize, went to Why Is We Americans? directed by Udi Aloni and Ayana Stafford-Morris.

The 2020 prize is proudly awarded to Why Is We Americans? an intimate and inspiring window into the poetic, progressive, and complex world of the renowned Baraka family and their revolutionary relationship with the city of Newark, New Jersey, said the judges. An insightful and layered film that would be an important and necessary story to tell at any point in time, Why Is We Americans? is even more timely and essential in todays world.

Chip Parham, who has volunteered with the LIFF for a decade and who coordinated the shorts competitions this year, won the festivals Volunteer Award. Beach Haven Mayor Nancy Taggart Davis won this years Community Award.R.M.

Read more here:
And the 2020 Lighthouse International Film Festival Award Winners Are - The SandPaper

Good morning, BroadwayWorld!

American Buffalo, written by David Mamet and directed by Neil Pepe, will officially open at the Circle in the Square Theatre (235 W 50th Street) on Wednesday, April 14, 2021, exactly one year after its originally scheduled opening date. Performances for American Buffalo will begin the week of March 22, 2021 on Broadway.

Steppenwolf's production of The Minutes by Tracy Letts, directed by Anna D. Shapiro, will return to Broadway opening exactly one year after its original opening date of Sunday, March 15, 2020 at the Cort Theatre (138 W 48th Street).

Read more about these and other top stories below!

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Today's Call Sheet - Upcoming Online Events:

- Today at 2pm and 8pm, Seth Rudetsky will continue his Stars in the House series, featuring new Broadway stars performing and answering questions! Watch live on YouTube here!

- The Met continues its Live in HD broadcast series with L'Elisir d'Amore, tonight at 7:30pm. Watch here!

- Lauren Molina and Noodle host Broadway Song/Story Time, and Vasthy Mompoint hosts Broadway Dance Party, for Broadway Babysitters. Check it out here!

- BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge will interview Lea Salonga today at 12pm! Tune in here!

- Marie's Crisis Weekend Warmup returns today at 4pm! Stuck inside and dying for a reason to sing out? Well get your vocal chords stretched and ready, because you're about to belt your way into this weekend! Tune in here!

- Andrew Barth Feldman and Alex Boniello's Broadway Jackbox series returns today at 6pm with special guests! Tune in here!

- BroadwayWorld's Next on Stage continues tonight at 8pm! Today is the grand finale, featuring both groups of students! Tune in here!

Learn about more online streaming events happening today, and in the future, on our streaming calendar at /streaming-schedule/.

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In an exclusive video, Jenn Colella shared the story of her very first Pride event, in 1995.

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AMERICAN BUFFALO Will Now Open in Spring 2021

American Buffalo, written by David Mamet and directed by Neil Pepe, will officially open at the Circle in the Square Theatre (235 W 50th Street) on Wednesday, April 14, 2021, exactly one year after its originally scheduled opening date.

Performances for American Buffalo will begin the week of March 22, 2021 on Broadway.

THE MINUTES Will Arrive on Broadway in Spring 2021

There is big news for Big Cherry! BroadwayWorld has just learned that Steppenwolf's production of The Minutes by Tracy Letts, directed by Anna D. Shapiro, will return to Broadway opening exactly one year after its original opening date of Sunday, March 15, 2020 at the Cort Theatre (138 W 48th Street). The Minutes was a limited engagement and was originally scheduled to close Sunday, July 26.

See you bright and early Monday, BroadwayWorld!

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Wake Up With BWW 6/26: New Opening Dates For AMERICAN BUFFALO and THE MINUTES, and More! - Broadway World

[Note: In the wake ofSXSWs cancellation this year,The Hollywood Reporteris reviewing select fest entries that elected to premiere digitally.]

From its forbidden beginnings to its decades-long staying power, onstage and off, the love story of Johnny Cash and June Carter has had a mythic hold on the pop-culture imagination. Walk the Line burnished that myth, with Reese Witherspoons Oscar-winning portrayal of Carter as Cashs destiny and with Vivian Liberto, his first wife and the mother of his four daughters, reduced to a small-minded blip on the radar screen, angry and petty and too pedestrian to understand the great artist.

That 2005 feature was made with the involvement of Cash and Carters son. Now, Cash and Libertos four daughters tell her story, and their familys, in an engaging and revelatory film thats also deeply affecting. A welcome corrective to the abridged and widely accepted narrative that dismisses Cashs first marriage as troubled,My Darling Vivian relates a little-known love story, great in its own right and immortalized in Cashs first hit, I Walk the Line. And it offers a nuanced portrait, loving but not fawning, of a complex woman.

Director Matt Riddlehoover and his husband and producing partner, Dustin Tittle, enjoyed special access to a breathtaking selection of home movies, letters and other memorabilia; Tittle is Liberto and Cashs grandson. The helmer, who also edited, interweaves exceptionally well-chosen material from public archives as well. Seguing from comedy features to nonfiction with this project, he employs a straightforward chronological approach that suits the saga, opting for clarity over flair (notwithstanding the occasional whimsical addition of animated smoke to vintage photographs of cigarette-wielding people).

The sisters, who range in age from late 50s to mid-60s, are interviewed separately. They sometimes disagree over the details of family lore, but theyre in sync when it comes to recalling Vivians elegance and beauty, her aversion to the spotlight, and her remarkable strength in often trying circumstances. Vivians voice is heard only once, at the very end of the film. And though it might leave you wishing for more, that final snippet works as a warm coda to a memory-piece quartet, skillfully orchestrated from the voices of siblings who are eager to tell an unsung womans story. (Liberto died in 2005 at 71.)

All of them singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, Kathy Cash Tittle, Cindy Cash and Tara Cash Schwoebel (whos credited as co-producer) are compelling interviewees, their anecdotes sharp and tender. Firstborn Rosanne, whos also an author, brings a writerly precision to her reminiscences, and also a psychotherapy veterans insights. Given the richness and wisdom of the womens recollections, the score might have been more judiciously used; its Satie-esque strains can provide the perfect punctuation, but at times it competes with the storytelling rather than enhancing it.

Liberto and Cash were married 13 years, and their relationship began with three years of long-distance courtship, an epistolary romance for the ages. After meeting at a San Antonio roller rink in 1951 she was 17 and he was two years older, an Air Force cadet on his way to Germany they wrote each other daily. A voluminous trove of letters attests to their long-distance devotion. (And a memento from their first encounter will appear, late in the film, with heart-stopping poignancy.)

Even though Vivians strict Catholic father forbade her to visit Cash in Europe, they became engaged across the miles (he mailed the ring), and they married soon after his return to the States. His music career took off fast, and so did their family. Out on the West Coast, wannabe actor Cash fared no better as the lead of Door-to-Door Maniac than he did as a door-to-door salesman back in Tennessee. So he went back on tour, leaving Vivian with four children, one of them a newborn, in their newly built hilltop dream house in a remote area north of L.A., a rustic setting replete with rattlesnakes, bobcats and rabid fans.

Then came the drugs, the arrests, June Carter, and the racist hysteria that ensued after a news photo ignited rumors that Cashs Sicilian American wife was black. He made an unequivocal stand against the idiocy, but it was Vivian, fearing a KKK attack, who stood vigil in their isolated home. Its no wonder that her fondest memories involved their penniless years in Memphis, before her husband became ensconced in the culture of celebrity.

The films most searing revelations involve the insults she was forced to endure, in her anonymity, after she and Cash were both remarried specifically, the way Carter publicly claimed Vivians four daughters as part of her brood, even though she wasnt raising them. The general image of Carter, promoted by Cash and embraced in Walk the Line, is that of a pistol with a touch of saint, the woman who saved Cash from his demons. But in this revisionist telling, she comes across as insensitive and self-aggrandizing while Cash was seemingly oblivious to the hurtful effects of her maternal boasting.

In this context, excerpts from the all-star Nashville tribute to Cash not long after his death are painful to watch, and proof of the way a half-told story becomes the official one. Only Vivians former son-in-law Rodney Crowell acknowledged her, and his remarks were cut from the broadcast version of the event.

Late in life, Vivian did tell her story, in I Walked the Line, a posthumously published memoir. It contains many of Cashs love letters that early torrent of affection and confession being perhaps the ultimate truth about their relationship for her. Riddlehoovers documentary, which could inspire many viewers to seek out the book, makes vividly clear that Vivian wasnt the harridan portrayed onscreen in various tellings of the Johnny Cash biography, nor was she an angel. Through her daughters memories, My Dear Vivian captures her contradictions, her suffering and joy, her vibrancy and resilience. Those memories are steeped in emotion, but also clarified through time and reflection. A woman of her generation, Vivian Liberto didnt analyze her life; she simply lived it.

Production companies: This Heart of Mine, Element Twenty TwoDirector: Matt RiddlehooverProducers: Dustin Tittle, Matt RiddlehooverDirector of photography: Josh MoodyEditor: Matt RiddlehooverComposer: Ian A. HughesSales: The Film Collaborative

90 minutes

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Originally posted 2020-03-30 09:56:57.

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Scarface, Capone, and Pepe the Frog Are Your Villains Today - News Lagoon

Among dozens of addled tweets from the commander in chief over the past few days, one in particular deserves pausing over because it demonstrates not just the weak-mindedness of our president but also the way his leadership is sabotaging conservatism.

Trump retweeted a post featuring disgraced columnist Michelle Malkin, who complained about being silenced on social media. Trump responded: The radical left is in total command & control of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google. The administration is working to remedy this illegal situation. Stay tuned, and send names & events. Thank you Michelle!

In the name of standing up for aggrieved conservatives, Trump soils the brand. First, a detail. The radical left is not in control of those outlets, and even if it were, they are private entities and therefore perfectly free to make their own judgments about content. There is nothing illegal about it. If the administration were working to remedy the situation, that is what would be illegal. Another detail: Trump has 19.7 million followers on Instagram, 26.7 million on Facebook and 80 million on Twitter. Perhaps what keeps him so popular is his audiences inexhaustible appetite for whining.

The woman Trump thanked is a columnist and social media entrepreneur who was a respected member of the conservative commentariat emphasis on the past tense. In the past two years, she has been shunned by respectable conservative outlets. She is no longer welcome at CPAC. The Young Americas Foundation has dropped her, and the Daily Wire and National Review discontinued her syndicated column.

The occasion for the deplatforming was Malkins swan dive into the right-wing fever swamps. In 2017, she endorsed alt-right candidate Paul Nehlen (Paul Nehlen slams ... corporate open-borders elites!), and contributed to the VDARE website which frequently hosts white nationalists, racists and anti-Semites.

Her most grotesque relationship though, and the one that got her booted from the Young Americas Foundation, was with a group calling themselves groypers, led by a 21-year-old YouTube host named Nick Fuentes. To get a sense of just how loathsome this figure is, have a look at this video in which he wonders, grinning, about whether 6 million cookies could really be baked in ovens and how the math doesnt add up. Holocaust jokes. How droll. Fuentes, you will not be shocked to learn, is one of the very fine people who marched with neo-Nazis at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Remember Pepe the Frog? Hes their mascot. He described the mass murder in an El Paso Walmart as an act of desperation. Turning Point USA is too tame for his tastes, and his group has lately been heckling speakers like Ben Shapiro, Dan Crenshaw and even Donald Trump Jr.

Yet, Malkin has declared herself the mother of groypers and called them good kids. When she was rebuked by mainstream conservatives, she declared her allegiances proudly:

They want me to disavow Nick Fuentes and VDARE and Peter Brimelow and Faith Goldy and Gavin McInnes and the Proud Boys and Steve King and Laura Loomer and on and on.

They did want that, but now Trump has vitiated that work by praising Malkin. The thing Trump retweeted was not actually a Malkin post, but a tweet of Malkin speaking to a Fuentes event. America First Clips is a feed for one of Fuentes outlets. Naturally, Fuentes is gloating.

Trump defenders will no doubt protest that Trump knew nothing of Malkins descent into neo-Nazi land. But thats no excuse. In fact, Trump probably did not know much about those he praised, either Malkin or, by extension, Fuentes. But he has a duty to know. Yes, hes an indolent ignoramus, but guess what, the taxpayers are paying for a huge staff. He has people who can check. He doesnt use them because he doesnt care. His moral reasoning is primitive. If you are pro-Trump, no matter what else you are (a murderous dictator, a racist troll), youre fine in his book. Loutish protesters harass a TV journalist using the F words (fake news and, you know, the other one), and Trump proclaims them great people. He has no objective moral standards. Everything is about him. On a scale of moral reasoning, he is subzero. But the world of conservative opinion-shapers does still attempt, however weakly, to maintain some guard rails. With every passing day of Donald Trumps leadership, those standards crumble a bit more.

Mona Charen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Charen: Trump smashes the right's ability to police itself - Standard-Examiner