Top earner on Youtube ? After getting his start as a musician on MySpace, Jeffree Star moved to YouTube, where he found a following doing makeup tutorials. He now uses his channel to tout his makeup line, which he says does at least eight figures in revenue thanks to its popular lipsticks, highlighters and eye shadow palettes. Two of YouTube’s first stars, Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, host Good Mythical Morning, one of YouTube’s most popular daily show on which they eat foods like Cheetos-flavored Pop-Tarts and sing with stars like Kelly Rowland. They’ve expanded their brand of comedy to four channels, a podcast, two books and, earlier this year, purchased the multichannel network Smosh for a reported $10 million.
Isn’t it Romantic has a nice premise: an altered state takes Rebel Wilson’s character’s life and turns it into a rom-com. Problem is: she is the hater of all things rom-com. The film is charming enough and the big message at the end of the day is that Rebel Wilson’s Natalie was lacking the self-assuredness she deserves to have. How to Train Your Dragon doesn’t get enough credit for being the substantial animated trilogy that it is. The third installment is the perfect finale to the coming of age story, too. Bonus: it helps that the film boasts the voice acting of everyone from Cate Blanchett to Jonah Hill.
What’s funnier than seeing a man get hit in the junk? Apparently, not much, according to the 280 million people who have watched this video of a dad getting accidentally kicked in the crotch by his toddler daughter. The best part is listening to the mom, who is filming the scene, as she giggles behind the camera. Bad Lip Readings are always funny stuff, and the 2015 and 2016 NFL edits are the best of the best! The simple act of taking clips from athlete interviews and dubbing them over with ridiculously-weird subtitles is a surefire way to get someone laughing. Discover more amazing clips on YT.
Best video for a song in 2019 ? The east coast sibling to Lana Del Rey’s The Greatest: how did we get here, with antisemitism resurgent and “wicked snakes inside a place you thought was dignified”, Ezra Koenig asks? As with Del Rey’s valedictory ballad, he avoids obvious musical darkness and shoots for a more striking contrast by invoking the vivid, happy sounds of various 20th-century utopias: the pattering hand percussion calls back to hippies sitting in circles during the age of Aquarius; its sweet guitar filigree is straight out of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, the show that taught empathy to a generation of American kids. The rising piano chatter sits halfway between house music and Bruce Hornsby, and by the time the shaky beat kicks in, it’s turned into the ecstasy-laced optimism of the Stone Roses. These eras rise and fall, Koenig suggests, offering his own song so it might be remembered as a gesture of hope and intellect during a particularly senseless one.