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Playwright and MPAACT founding member Shepsu Aakhu was inspired to write this campus sexual assault drama by a conversation initiated by one of his two college-aged sons, "two Black males living a life completely free from my daily protection." The fear he has on behalf of his family is palpable and, regrettably, well-sourcedconversations about the prevalence of misogyny and assault on universities often sidestep the reality that young Black men in this country still live under an unjust cloud of suspicion. And yet, as justified as Aakhu's anxiety is, the politics and attitudes behind Spoken Word are virtually indistinguishable from those found on men's rights forum comment sections, amounting to a panicked screed against the very idea of verbal consent.

If that reads as loaded or unfair, consider the plot here: Izzy (Jelani Pitcher) and Paris (Nadia Pillay), two young adultskids, reallyhave a clumsy but ultimately consensual (if nonverbal) attempt at sex. Misinterpreting her roommate's caginess about that night, a white SJW caricature (seemingly inked by alt-right favorite Ben Garrison) puts Izzy on social media blast, making him a pariah on campus.

After days of silence, Parishand in hand with Izzynotifies the college administration that no assault occurred, but a cartoonishly villainous administrator admonishes them both and insists the young man face consequences despite the supposed victim clearly stating no wrongdoing occuredbecause the word "yes," this play's other antagonist, wasn't spoken. Director Lauren "LL" Lundy's production features some strong performances, particularly by Veronda G. Carey as a dean (who sees no conflict of interest in sitting on the board overseeing her son's case), but the script's improbabilities cast an ugly pall over the whole affair.v

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Spoken Word muddies the issue of consent - Chicago Reader

For people who have (rightly) argued against Brexit, today is a pretty miserable day.

Were tearing ourselves away from our closest neighbours and allies, to sign our soul to an alt-right tangerine in the White House. Were sacrificing the rights of EU citizens living in the UK, and were ushering in decades of further economic stagnation, just because its what Nigel Farage said we should do.

The final day in a three year-long fight, Remainers on social media have been trying to make sense and make light of this unparalleled act of national self-destruction. Here are the best reactions weve seen today.

We write news that exposes the deception of populism and the hypocrisy of the elites who peddle it. We run campaigns that allow us to work together to fight back.

We hate Brexit. We hate Boris. We hate the far-right. We want climate action, the end of austerity, and a pro-European future.

Press for change.

Non-registered users are limited to three articles a month, so register today!

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All the best reactions to Brexit day from Remainers - Scram News

KEY POINTS

From fake news to fake comments, the rise of social media and the side effects of YouTube's free-for-all video publishing are acting as gateways to radicalize users into the Dark Side.

In a recent study presented by university researchers in Switzerland and Brazil at the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency in Barcelona, Google's YouTube algorithmic recommendations are somewhat guiding viewers to more radical videos. Along the way, median content slowly transforms into those with extreme information that, among others, indulge in racism, anti-Semitic and white supremacist ideologies, said Fox Business.

The researchers based their findings on a ton of YouTube videos, channels and comments and came up with a paper entitled, Auditing Radicalization Pathways on YouTube. As part of their study, the team analyzed more than 330,000 videos that were posted on 349 channels plus an outstanding 72 million comments. Here, they classified the videos as Media, Alt-lite, the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) and the Alt-right, according to Tech Crunch.

YouTube policies already ban explicit threats, but now "veiled or implied" threats will be barred as well Photo: AFP / NICOLAS ASFOURI

The outlet further suggested that the paper discovered that users who started as patrons on Alt-lite and IDW channels went down the proverbial rabbit hole and began commenting on extreme far-right videos over the years.

A significant amount of commenting users systematically migrates from commenting exclusively on milder content to commenting on more extreme content, the paper said, via Tech Crunch.

After the researchers presented their paper, author Manoel Horta Ribeiro was asked if they solely based their study on pure YouTube content and if the people that they were discussing were already radicalized in the first place.

For his part as well as the researchers Ribeiro didn't put all the blame on YouTube. However, he made it a point to detail that as host to these channels, the platform is responsible to the transformation.

We do find evident traces of user radicalization, and I guess the question asks why is YouTube responsible for this? And I guess the answer would be because many of these communities they live on YouTube and they have a lot of their content on YouTube and that's why YouTube is so deeply associated with it, he said, according to Tech Crunch.

Ribeiro also said that it's very hard to point all radicalization transformation are made by YouTube or some recommender system, but their analysis a solid evidence, at that exposes the truth that there are people who only visited milder channels in the past have transcended in their ideologies and ventured on a more extreme path.

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Down The Rabbit Hole: How YouTube Comments Help In Radicalizing Viewers - International Business Times

Staunch Trump supporter, alt-right sympathiser and GOP congressman Matt Gaetzfound himself a cosy spot in his happy place: Fox News.

And because middle-aged Republican men are literally obsessed with everything AOC(as are we, tbf) that was the topic of conversation. Specifically, her comments last week that the Democratic party is a "center or center-conservative party."

In response, Gaetzcalled her "a socialist" (he also called her "Alex" which we suppose is better than when he kept calling her "attractive"). The actual dictionary definition of socialism relates to the means of production being controlled by a collective (such as the government) as opposed to individuals. But Gaetz had an altogether different definition which we've never heard of, and are pretty sure would be pretty baffling to Marx too.

She wants to fundamentally change everything, where unless the government is forcing you to eat nothing but kale and quinoa while you're riding around on your non-gender specific unicorn to your next Pocahontas rain dance, you're just not woke enough.

The clip has been widely circulated on Twitter overnight after it was posted yesterday by the actual show it was aired on. Somehow they must have thought it made them look good...

Delightfully, it appears to have backfired.

Gaetz might like to know that actually quinoa is now problematic and unicorns are genderless anyway. Next time maybe he could find a more accurate cliche.

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Trump supporting congressman bizarrely claims AOC wants to 'force you to eat nothing but kale and quinoa' - indy100

Welcome to Fan Theory Madness, your guide to what fan theories, good and bad, are taking the internet by storm!

With so many fan theories floating around the web, it can be hard to know which ones to take seriously and which ones are wildly off the mark. Some theories are brilliant breakthroughs that reveal a whole new understanding of what a work of fiction means, or they're spot-on predictions about what's going to happen in the next installment. Others are specious bunk, deeply flawed theories that nevertheless get aggregated by some of the less scrupulous news sites.

It wasn't the busiest week for fan theories, but there were still a couple of theories that made the rounds that are worth noting. First, there's a cockamamie theory about Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Then, we'll address a Spider-Man: Homecoming extra who sparked a Morbius fan theory. Finally, we'll finish with some news that is not a fan theory in the traditional sense, but it was packaged as one because you gotta get that sweet, sweet SEO juice, baby!

LEIA USED THE FORCE TO PROJECT KYLO REN'S BODY TO SAVE REY

This fan theory "solves" a problem that didn't need solving. Essentially, it argues that Kylo Ren actually did die when Palpatine threw him into that pit during The Rise of Skywalker's big final battle. It wasn't actually Kylo who climbed up from the pit to revive Rey after she defeated her grandpa. Instead, the theory posits, that was Leia, Force-projecting herself but altering her appearance to look like her son for Rey's comfort. This is why "Kylo" disappears so quickly after saving Rey, and why Leia's comatose body disappears at the same time because they were one and the same.

This is insanity. From a narrative perspective, it makes no sense that Leia and Rey would share their final moment, as the entire point of the trilogy seemed to be focused on the relationship between Rey and Kylo. For Leia to swoop in, even if she's essentially wearing her son's skin, misses the point of their relationships and it means that Kylo's actual last moment on screen was when he got chucked into a hole. That's not fulfilling storytelling.

Also, this theory would make the much-debated Rey-Kylo kiss even weirder, because it would mean that it was actually Leia going in for the smooch. This is one of those theories that's too busy looking for upvotes on Reddit and clues that aren't actually there, and as a result, it totally ignores the fundamentals of storytelling in favor of a nonsensical twist. It's bad.

MORBIUS WAS IN SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING'S POST-CREDITS SCENE

There's actually going to be a Morbius movie, which is still kind of unbelievable. But, it's not as far-fetched as this theory, which is really reaching to draw a connection between the MCU and Sony's Spider-Man franchise. Granted, Michael Keaton's appearance in the Morbius trailer seems to suggest that his Homecoming villain, Vulture, might really be in Morbius, but this theory attempt to retroactively create a cameo in the other direction.

In Homecoming's post-credits scene, a now-imprisoned Vulture encounters another Spider-Man villain (believed to be the MCU's Scorpion). As they talk, other inmates walk by them, including an out-of-focus man with long hair and a short beard. He kind of looks like Jared Leto's Morbius. Does this mean that Morbius was in Homecoming from the very beginning?

No, no, no, no.

Spider-Man: Homecoming came out in July of 2017. The Morbius movie wasn't announced until November of that year, and Jared Leto wasn't cast until June 2018. It seems pretty impossible, then, that Sony and Marvel Studios could have snuck him into the background of a Homecoming scene. It's definitely an extra, not Leto, and almost certainly not intended to be a Morbius cameo. (There's a chance that Sony could retroactively make the cameo canon, as Marvel did with the fan theory that young Peter Parker appeared in Iron Man 2, but that's a whole different beast).

Also, if we want to get too deep into this misguided theory, if Morbius is in jail in Homecoming, that would mean that the events of the upcoming solo film would need to take place in 2017 because Morbius the bold doctor certainly doesn't seem like an ex-con.

DC AND MARVEL AREN'T RIVALS WAIT THIS ISN'T A FAN THEORY

In a tweet, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad director James Gunn claimed that there isn't actually much of a rivalry between the Marvel movies and the DC movies. This is a worthwhile little news story. Gunn is one of a few directors who has worked for both franchises, as Warner Bros. hired him to direct The Suicide Squad after Disney fired him when a targeted alt-right campaign recirculated some of his old offensive joke tweets. (Disney later re-hired him to direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, although it was delayed because he needed to finish his DC movie first.)

"I can't remember anyone at either Marvel or DC ever condemning the other company," he tweeted. "I think there's probably slightly less competition between Marvel & DC than between Marvel or DC & all other movies. After all, we are in very similar boats, relatively speaking."

While I'm sure both Disney and Warner Bros. would prefer that their superhero movie dominate the box office rather than the competition's, Gunn's probably right that there isn't a fanboy-style rivalry or any real animosity. It's just weird that at least one entertainment news outlet framed Gunn's tweet as debunking a theory. Is it really a fan theory to think that Marvel and DC have a rivalry? Maybe not, but it apparently does make for a more clickable headline.

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Fan Theory Madness: Rewriting the Rise of Skywalker ending and a Morbius mystery - SYFY WIRE