Keep scrolling for everything you need to know about Lizzo’s lawsuit.
Alix Earle responds to backlash over kissing 17-year-old Sebastian de Felice
Alix Earle has addressed addressed allegations that she kissed a minor, claiming she didn’t know he was just 17 years old.
On July 24th, Deux Moi shared several submissions from people claiming that Alix had cheated on her athlete beau, Miami Dolphins receiver Braxton Berrios, with Sebastian de Felice, the grandson of DKNY designer Donna Karan.
However, soon after the photo surfaced, it was reported that Sebastian was 17 years old at the time of his hookup with Alix.
This led to backlash from internet users, with many noting that it’s an adult’s responsibility to verify someone’s age if they appear young. Others have defended Alix given that they reportedly met at a promotional event for a tequila brand, held in a nightclub - so, she likely assumed he was at least 21 years old.
In response to a TikTok comment that said, “GRWM for senior prom next!”, Alix seemingly confirmed she kissed a minor, writing, “I found out about this the same time you guys did”.
The creator continued to defend herself in subsequent TikTok videos, writing, “Just as shocked as you are” and “Get your jokes out” in response to users spamming her comments with the number “17”.
Read the full story via Centennial World.
Kierra Lewis, The Seattle Kraken & The Wennbergs: BookTok’s unexpected hockey controversy
NHL player Alex Wennberg and his wife Felicia have called out BookTok, TikTok’s community focused on reading and reviewing books, for inappropriate behaviour.
The controversy started after Kierra read PUCKING AROUND by Emily Rath earlier this year. The book is an adult novel based in the hockey world and it inspired Kierra’s interest in the sport.
She started making vlogs about watching hockey games and creating content about players she finds attractive, including Seattle Kraken player Alex Wennberg.
Soon, Seattle Kraken began capitalising off this viral moment, posting fan-style edits of players.
The team’s TikTok account and the official NHL page even made content referencing BookTok.
With BookTok being the Kraken’s key to virality, the team’s management invited numerous TikTok creators to watch live hockey games. Kierra attended game four of the playoffs earlier this year, where she was gifted a “BookTok” jersey.
As her popularity grew, Kierra began making increasingly inappropriate videos about Wennberg.
She also brought a sign to the hockey game reading “#KrackMyBack — a sexual innuendo about the players.
While the Seattle Kraken team was on board with all the BookTok content, the players were seemingly uncomfortable being sexualised online.
This issue came to a head over the weekend when Felicia Wennberg posted about it on her Instagram stories, saying the content is “predatory” and is “exploiting” her husband.
Kierra responded to Felicia in a series of TikTok videos, insinuating that Felicia’s request is hypocritical, given that she previously supported BookTok’s obsession with her husband and the Seattle Kraken.
Other BookTok community members have noted that consent can be revoked at any point.
In a written statement on the situation, Kierra noted how the Seattle Kraken had encouraged her to create such content, which left her puzzled by Felicia’s reaction and the team’s decision to delete all their BookTok-inspired videos.
Felicia later apologised to Kierra, saying her comments were not meant to be an attack.
“I understand that people are confused by the timing of my statement, but while the creator is hung up on it being four months since she posted the video, she and her following [seem] unable to grasp that the videos continued to show up in our life on a daily basis.”
Alex also issued a statement on Instagram, saying that he doesn’t want his child to grow up surrounded by this type of commentary.
“I’m all for the BookTok community to write books and fiction about hockey, but the aggressive language about real-life players is too much… this is not something we support or want our child to grow up with. All we ask for is a little respect and common sense regarding moving forward,” Alex shared.
Read the full story via Centennial World.
Lizzo’s lawsuit controversy, explained
Three former dancers, Crystal Williams, Arianna Davis, and Noelle Rodriguez, have filed a lawsuit against Lizzo that alleges sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment.
Lizzo, her production company Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc., and dance director Shirlene Quigley are facing a total of nine charges.
The charges fall under failure to prevent sexual or religious harassment, disability discrimination, and assault.
The suit includes allegations the dancers were pressured into attending sex shows and interacting with the dancers at these shows.
Many of the media headlines focus on Lizzo “fat-shaming” the dancers, which is not part of the official lawsuit. This positioning in the media is likely a tactic by the plantiffs’ lawyer to get the public onside.
Soon after the lawsuit hit headlines, Courtney Hollinquest, another former dancer, who is not part of the lawsuit, expressed her support for those suing Lizzo on Instagram.
Quinn Wilson, Lizzo’s former creative director, shared a screenshot of Courtney’s statement and said she was “echoing” everything Courtney said.
“I haven’t been apart of that world for around three years, for a reason,” Quinn wrote. “I very much applaud the dancers courage to bring this to light. and I grieve parts of my own experience.”
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sophia Nahli Allison, who was hired to make a documentary on Lizzo, has also come forward against Lizzo, claiming that she walked away from the project after two weeks.
“In 2019, I traveled a bit with Lizzo to be the director of her documentary. I walked away after about 2 weeks. I was treated with such disrespect by her. I witnessed how arrogant, self-centered, and unkind she is. I was not protected and was thrown into a shitty situation with little support. My spirit said to run as fast as you fucking can and I’m so grateful I trusted my gut.”
Lizzo has since responded to the allegations via Instagram, calling them “false” and “sensationalized stories.”
“These last few days have been gut-wrenchingly difficult and overwhelmingly disappointing. My work ethic, morals, and respectfulness have been questioned. My character has been criticized. Usually I chose not to respond to false allegations but these are as unbelievable as they sound and too outrageous to not be addressed. The sensationalized stories are coming from former employees who have already publicly admitted they were told their behavior on tour was inappropriate and unprofessional […] I am not the villain that people and the media have portrayed me to be these last few days. I am very open with my sexuality and expressing myself but I can not accept or allow people to use that openness to make me out to be something I am not.”
Read the full story via Vanity Fair.
Why can’t we stop scrolling, even at the movies?
Over the past few days, social media users have debated about why we struggle to consume content without scrolling at the same time.
On July 31st, Twitter user @silvergelpen posted about their experience seeing Oppenheimer in cinemas, saying the theatre audience was “one of the worst crowds I’ve ever been in” because people were taking photos and scrolling TikTok throughout the film.
This tweet went viral and has sparked discussion about our recent inability to consume art without centering ourselves.
Writer Linda Holmes noted the similarities between people using their phones at the cinema and the new trend of fans throwing objects at artists on stage.
“You have to be *part* of the story. You have to be doing something. In order for an experience to be validated, it has to be shareable, and to be shareable, you have to be a character. You can't be an observer. Sitting quietly and watching a movie and then leaving won't work. […] But this entire idea of forcing the art to interact with you individually -- getting an artist to react to something you did, making content *while watching* -- it all feels like part of the same thing, with is a lack of experience with things you just take in,” she wrote in a Twitter thread.
Others have suggested this phenomenon is due to internet addiction and the state of modern attention spans.
Ryan Broderick, an internet culture reporter, questions if this indicates that online entertainment has finally surpassed more traditional forms of entertainment, like TV and film, to become our “default”.
“It’s also worth considering that we are starting to enter a world where sitting down to watch a TV show or a movie without using your phone feels as weird as old photos of people sitting down to listen to the radio […] I just think we’re still phrasing movies and TV as the default when maybe it has finally tilted to the other side,” he tweeted.
Read the replies to @silvergelpen via Twitter.
‘Everything you’ve been told is a lie!’ Inside the wellness-to-fascism pipeline
A new piece by James Ball for The Guardian explores how the wellness industry fuels conspiracies and fascist beliefs, aiming to answer the question: How did the desire to look after yourself become so toxic?
Ball spoke to several people who were clients of wellness practitioners, yogis, therapists, spiritual advisers, and personal trainers who had been exposed to conspiracy talk during their sessions.
“One person recounted how her pole-dancing instructor would – while up the pole, hanging on with her legs – explain how the CIA was covering up evidence of aliens, and offer tips on avoiding alien abduction.”
In exploring why people under the wellness umbrella might be more susceptible to being induced into conspiracy, Ball offers three non-exhaustive theories:
When it comes to men in the fitness industry, “this group spends a lot of time online, there is a supposed crisis of masculinity manifesting in the ‘incel’ movement and similar, and numerous right wing influencers have been targeting this group. Add in a masculine gym culture and a community already keen to look for the ‘secrets’ of getting healthy, and there is a lot for a conspiracy theory to hook itself on to.”
Ball suggests the lack of research on the female body might have a lot to do with women in the wellness space, especially older women, falling for conspiracies.
“Women are overwhelmingly more likely to suffer from auto-immune disorders, chronic pain and chronic fatigue – and such patients often hit a point at which their doctors tell them there is nothing they can do. The conditions are under-researched and the treatments are often brutal. Is it any surprise that trust in conventional medicine and big pharma is shaken? And is it any surprise that people look for something to fill that void?
The decline in religion leaves a gap to be filled in helping humans explain many of life’s questions.
“In a strange way, the idea that a malign cabal is running the world – while far more worrying than a benevolent God – is less scary than the idea that no one is in charge and everything is chaos. People who have a reason to mistrust the mainstream pillars of society – government, doctors, the media, teachers – are more likely to turn to conspiracy theories for explanations as to why the world is like it is.”
Ball ends by noting that society’s discussion of conspiracies like QAnon and anti-vaxx is too heavily focused on “what happens in digital spaces” and rather, we should shift our focus to what makes the wellness industry so susceptible to these messages in the first place.
“For QAnon to be the most convincing answer, what someone has heard before must have been completely unsatisfactory.”
Read the full article via The Guardian.
The transformation of GwenGwiz: From bisexual ASMR YouTuber to tradwife TikToker
This week’s infinite scroll podcast deep dives into the career of Gwen The Milkmaid, formerly known as GwenGwiz. We aim to explore how a bisexual ASMR YouTuber and OnlyFans creator becomes a conservative tradwife TikToker in just a few short years. We first look into her sharp pivot as a creator and her journey down the alt-right pipeline. We finish by sharing our opinions on if we think she is cosplaying as a tradwife for views and money, or if she has genuinely flipped on her previous progressive beliefs.
Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.