Quantcast
Channel: BuzzFeed - Latest
Viewing all 214923 articles
Browse latest View live

If You Ask Siri What 0 Divided By 0 Is It Gets Brutal

0
0

Seriously, this is savage.

"Imagine that you have zero cookies and you split them evenly among zero friends. How many cookies does each person get? See? It doesn't make sense. And Cookie Monster is sad that there are no cookies, and you are sad that you have no friends."


View Entire List ›


People Re-Watch '90s TV Shows They Once Loved

Which "Mean Girls" Burn Book Girl Are You?

0
0

Don’t be a grotsky little byotch, OK?

Which Useless Pokémon Will You Catch?

0
0

You don’t really wanna catch’em all.

Kylie Minogue And Natalie Imbruglia Are Major #SquadGoals In France

15 Things That Didn't Last As Long As Australia's Political TV Scandal

0
0

Like you could watch every single episode of Game of Thrones back-to-back.

ABC TV

ABC TV

The PM's office told Barnaby Joyce to pull out of his scheduled appearance, just hours after the agriculture minister said he thought the ABC had dealt with the problem.

According to Fairfax Media, the boycott could last up to three months!!


View Entire List ›

Abby Wambach Running To Her Wife After The World Cup Will Destroy Your Tear Ducts

0
0

The USA striker knew exactly where to find her after the final whistle.

Despite the fact that Abby Wambach leads both men and women as the top international scorer (183 goals in 274 games, nbd), the Rochester, New York native had not won a FIFA Women's World Cup. Until today.

Despite the fact that Abby Wambach leads both men and women as the top international scorer (183 goals in 274 games, nbd), the Rochester, New York native had not won a FIFA Women's World Cup. Until today.

This World Cup will be Wambach's last.

Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images

So when the referee blew the final whistle, cementing USA's 5-2 victory over Japan in the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup final, Wambach made a beeline to the stands to celebrate the win with her #1 fan: Her wife.

Who's chopping onions?? ???

vine.co

Wambach married Huffman, a former women's professional soccer player, in October 2013.

Wambach married Huffman, a former women's professional soccer player, in October 2013.

They work with other players like Megan Rapinoe for the organization Athlete Ally, which advocates for an end to homophobia and transphobia in women's sports.

Evan Agostini / AP


View Entire List ›

Australian MP Says Marriage Equality Opponents Are In Search Of An Argument

0
0

“These are people in search of an argument.”

Senator Penny Wong has hit back at marriage equality opponents, labelling their arguments "illogical and offensive" and reminding them that many same-sex couples already raise children.

Senator Penny Wong has hit back at marriage equality opponents, labelling their arguments "illogical and offensive" and reminding them that many same-sex couples already raise children.

Australian shadow minister for trade and leader of the opposition in the senate, Penny Wong.

Mandel Ngan / Getty Images

Wong, who has two children with her partner Sophie Allouache, told the ABC that the arguments of marriage equality opponents denigrate families like her own.

"I find it sad that senior politicians in this country seem to want to tell my children and children of other same-sex couples that somehow they're not normal," she said.

"Does anyone believe that preventing marriage equality for more years is going to prevent same-sex couples from having kids?"

Wong had a strong message for employment minister Eric Abetz, who has been outspoken in his opposition to marriage equality over the past week.

"Memo to Eric: we've already got children," she said. "All you're doing is saying is the parents can't be married."

Throughout last week, Abetz and other government MPs spoke out forcefully against marriage equality after news of a cross-party bill was revealed.

Among the various arguments presented, senior government MPs expressed concern that marriage equality was not in the best interests of children, that Australia's Asian neighbours would disapprove, and the door would be opened for polygamous marriages.

Wong described those opposed to the reform as "people in search of an argument".

"People who oppose marriage equality, they fundamentally are saying to Australians, 'Look, I just think we should discriminate against gay people. That's my view'," Wong said.

"But because that's no longer a powerful argument in the comunity, we see a whole range of new excuses developed."

She also said she was concerned about how young LGBTI Australians might be responding to the debate.

"I always try to think of young people around Australia who might still be struggling with who they are, might be in the process of coming out, or having just come out, and how it is for them to hear some of the ways in which those who oppose marriage equality debate this issue," she said.

"It's not a positive experience."


View Entire List ›


This Global Megachurch Promises A Bright Future — If You Do What They Say

0
0

José Rocha went to the church because he had questions that needed answering. It was February 2000 in Bogotá, Colombia, and was, Rocha said, “one of those moments in life when you have to make decisions.”

When he walked through the door of the Iglesia de Dios Ministerial de Jesucristo — “La Ministerial” — there was someone tasked with spotting newcomers, greeting them enthusiastically, and seating them near the front. Toward the end of the service, the pastor turned to the novices and invited them to stay and receive la profecía. They would each hear a message from a member of the church who had the gift of prophecy, the pastor explained. Although it would be a human being uttering the words, God would be the one speaking, and his words would reveal to them things they needed to know — things about the future.

Rocha, despite already being an emergency room doctor at a prestigious hospital at the age of 29, felt lost.

His son was born the year before, thousands of miles away in New York City, where he lived with his mother, Rocha’s ex-girlfriend. “We separated when she was pregnant,” Rocha said. “And that was always my doubt. Did I do the right thing? What will the boy’s life be like growing up so far from his father? Am I selfish? Am I crazy?” The mother of Rocha’s child was also a member of the Ministerial, one of the reasons he went there seeking clarity.

When his turn came to receive prophecy, Rocha was approached by a man not much older than he. The man put both hands firmly on top of Rocha's head, then leaned forward and began murmuring into his ear. I have brought you here so that I can bless you, he started — general statements, intoned dramatically, in vaguely biblical rhetoric. I know you have been seeking me.

Then came the words that determined the next dozen years of José Rocha’s life. I will lead you to that foreign land, that place where your beloved lives, the one you love and value most. It was as if he knew exactly what to say.

The Ministerial temple in Bogotá where José Rocha converted.

Iglesia de Dios Ministerial de Jesucristo Internacional / Via commons.wikimedia.org

Rocha packed up his life and moved to New York City. He and his family, like many believers, built their lives entirely around the Ministerial, receiving prophecy on a regular basis and volunteering large amounts of time, money, and labor to the church and its political wing.

Twelve years later, Rocha wrenched himself away from what he had come to see as a damaging cult, one that exists to funnel wealth and political power into the hands of its leader.

That leader, a Colombian woman named María Luisa Piraquive, is revered by her followers as a prophet, the semidivine messenger of God on earth. Over the last two decades, she has used that influence to turn the Ministerial into a global empire with 868 locations in 48 countries. The church says it has more than 2.5 million followers worldwide, and while outside observers consider this figure exaggerated, defectors and experts still estimate its size to be somewhere in the mid to high hundred thousands. The bulk of its operations are in Colombia, where it also wields political power through an influential party with officials in every level of government.

Much of that political capital is accumulated abroad, where the Ministerial, according to its defectors, exploits the captive devotion of its immigrant members to advance its political project. In the United States, the Ministerial claims 89 locations from coast to coast, ranging from tiny storefronts to large temples in major cities. This is second only to the number of Ministerial churches in Colombia itself.

The rise of the Ministerial forms part of the relentless growth of Evangelical Christianity in Latin America and among its emigrants, a huge demographic shift that has shaken Catholicism’s once uncontested reign. But the church of María Luisa Piraquive stands apart for its zealous reverence for its leader, and for the strange rite at the heart of its doctrine — the practice of prophecy, a literal foretelling of the future that strays from Protestant orthodoxy. This ritual, according to the church’s defectors, is also the principal mechanism by which the Ministerial lures believers, isolates them, and manipulates them into submission to the church and its motives.

In a letter to BuzzFeed News, the Ministerial objected to defectors’ claims that it is a cult and said that many of the scandals that have afflicted the church over the years have been the result of defamatory fabrications motivated by religious persecution. “Out of 89 churches in the US alone, with thousands of congregants, it is telling that there are only a few vengeful detractors willing to make these false allegations against the church.” In other contexts, church leaders have pointed to the charitable work performed by the Ministerial’s affiliated nonprofits around the world.

To Rocha and a larger community of apostates, even the most seemingly well-meaning of the church’s endeavors are a ruse. “It’s not a church,” Rocha said. “It’s a business built on manipulation and fear.”

María Luisa Piraquive's supporters march in Bogotá.

Juan Diego Buitrago / EL TIEMPO

The Ministerial was small when Priscila Angulo found it in the early 1990s. Like many believers, she turned to the church in a moment of crisis. Her mother had suffered a brain aneurysm that left her in a vegetative state. Angulo felt trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage, having wed at 17 and quickly realized her husband was not the man she thought him to be. She needed a miracle.

At first, Angulo received vague prophecies about a person she loved who was ill. Later, the prophecies became more specific — one church member, who had accompanied Angulo to visit her mother in the hospital and had seen her improve, prophesied that she would be healed. Three months later, her mother recovered, and Angulo’s conversion was completed. At the time, the Ministerial was led by its founder, Luis Eduardo Moreno, María Luisa Piraquive’s husband. Moreno, a paternal figure beloved by his flock, saw a young devotee in the 21-year-old Angulo. Before she and her mother returned to their home in the state of Santander, half a day's drive from Bogotá, Moreno entrusted Angulo with a task: Find 10 people who are interested in starting a congregation, then call me.

Luis Eduardo Moreno

Iglesia de Dios Ministerial de Jesucristo Internacional / Via commons.wikimedia.org

She did as she was told. On February 29, 1992 — it was a leap year — 10 people gathered in Angulo’s living room. Moreno showed up with María Luisa in tow and gave a brief sermon on the subject of 1 Corinthians 12, the Bible chapter that introduces the gifts of the Holy Spirit. When he finished, María Luisa, who hadn’t otherwise spoken much, circled the room and gave everyone prophecy.

“All of my friends were excited, because they thought they had just been told their futures,” Angulo said. After it was all over, Moreno told them they would meet again the next month and asked them to bring one person with them — not two, not none, but one.

At the next meeting there were exactly 20 people in Angulo’s house. “Then there were 40, then 80, then 160,” Angulo said. They started meeting in schools and restaurants, and when they passed 500 Angulo rented a permanent space in a disused factory.

“It was the perfect way to start a business,” Angulo said. “It was a pyramid. That’s how I look at it now.”

The Ministerial, in its letter to BuzzFeed News, called Angulo’s statement “false” and said that “the Holy Spirit revealed from the very beginning that He would bring the people to the church, and that the founders of the church did not have to do anything to bring people because all the work would be done by Him.”

As the church itself has grown dramatically over the years, the Piraquive family has accrued significant wealth, including several million-dollar homes in South Florida. The Ministerial’s members are expected to donate a tithe (10% of all their income) to the church, and are encouraged to make extra “offerings” — gifts of cash or clothes or anything else of value. The church has its own publishing house, part of a larger network of corporate holdings affiliated with the Piraquives and the Ministerial, and some larger temples sell magazines, CDs, Bibles, and other goods to worshippers. Defectors say members also routinely devote large amounts of uncompensated labor to the church — people from doctors to real estate brokers to chefs say they have done free work for the Ministerial and its leading family.

Still, according to defectors, many church members are poor, and others are not always obedient about paying their tithes, raising questions about whether the Ministerial's aboveboard fundraising is enough to explain the Piraquive family’s wealth. Last year news broke that a Ministerial pastor in Argentina was arrested in a drug ring and that Colombian prosecutors were investigating María Luisa Piraquive for drug trafficking and money laundering.

Priscila Angulo

Courtesy Priscila Angulo

Over the course of their visits to Santander in the '90s, Angulo noticed that the union between Moreno and Piraquive was strained. He would silence her whenever she tried to speak, and she would glare at him with a “.38-caliber face.” No one spoke to Piraquive much, but Angulo forged a close relationship with Brother Luis, as he was known. She would call him regularly on the phone, asking for advice on all manner of things. “He became like a father to me,” Angulo said.

In May 1996, Moreno died suddenly. The publicly given cause was heart disease, although Angulo said she had always known Moreno to be a healthy and active man.

Moreno’s funeral in Bogotá was packed with his followers, including most every high-ranking member of the Ministerial. Piraquive called for a three-day vigil for her husband and predicted that it would culminate in his resurrection. On the third day, he was still dead. Piraquive told the church’s inner circle that the Lord had informed her that he would be keeping Brother Luis after all. (The Ministerial denies that Piraquive predicted Moreno’s resurrection.)

It came time, then, to choose the minister’s successors — the church was growing fast, and the flock was eager to know who would guide it into the future. Piraquive stood before the congregation and told them of her revelations, which dictated that leadership would be split between two of Moreno’s top lieutenants.

Piraquive cut a humble figure in those days. Video footage of the funeral shows a middle-aged woman with her jet-black hair in a shapeless cut, a far cry from the glamorous woman she would become. (Many years later, the church sued an anonymous person in the United States under copyright claims for posting the funeral video to YouTube.)

Brother Luis believed strictly that women were not to rise to the pulpit and preach, and that, Piraquive assured the flock, would not change. (The Ministerial has since changed this policy.) However, she informed the believers that she had always been the source of her husband’s divine inspiration. “The Lord used me to deliver the doctrine to Brother Luis,” she said. Earlier in her speech, Piraquive had reminded the believers that in the Old Testament one finds kings and priests, and then one finds prophets — male prophets and female prophets. “And God gave the same gifts and the same principles, the same power, to the female prophet as to the male prophet.”

Now Piraquive explained the meaning of that lesson. “The gift the Lord gave to me,” she said, “is the gift of the prophet.”

Mauro Fernando Diaz / Via commons.wikimedia.org

I will lead you to that foreign land…

The words had drilled directly into José Rocha’s core. “Caramba,” he thought. “How could it be that this person knows that this is what I’m going through?” On that first day in the Ministerial in Bogotá, Rocha was vulnerable. “There are moments in life when you don’t feel emotionally strong,” he said. “And the tendency is to look elsewhere for something that will solve the problem. You’re sensitive, and you get caught off guard. And you wind up believing that maybe it was God who spoke to you.”

“Now I understand that it’s simply a question of probability,” Rocha said. “Out of 100 people who sit down for prophecy, you might get it right with 30, and out of those, 10 will stay in the church. But those are people they’ll have tied down for a long time.”

That was February. By May, Rocha had quit his job, sold his car, packed his things, and boarded a plane to New York. His friends thought he was insane to abandon a stable career at the urging of a fortune-teller in an Evangelical sect. But to Rocha the move felt inexorable. The mother of his child was pregnant and alone the first time she went to the Ministerial, and was told in prophecy that the man she loved would return to her. This was fate — they were two sides of the same prophecy fulfilling itself.

Once in New York, Rocha and his girlfriend married and had a second child. The Ministerial’s presence in New York was small at the time, with some 40 believers gathering in a rented second-floor room in Jackson Heights, a heavily Colombian neighborhood in Queens. Rocha and his family went multiple times a week, spending the entire day on Sundays, riding the train an hour and a half each way from the Bronx. On weeknights they wouldn’t get home until after 10.

Their fellow parishioners lived similarly devoted lives, a level of commitment arising in part, Rocha said, from the immigrant’s sense of having been uprooted. “You feel a disconnection from your native land,” Rocha said. “So you arrive in this country, and you find in this group a way of feeling part of something related to what makes you who you are.”

They were hardly alone in their devotion. The Ministerial identifies itself as a neo-Pentecostal denomination, an outgrowth of Pentecostalism. Over the last few decades, Pentecostalism and other charismatic faiths have exploded in size across Latin America, Africa, and their respective diasporas. Pentecostalism, a Protestant denomination that emphasizes the personal, spontaneous, mystical elements of worship, is said to have originated in 1906 when a black preacher, William J. Seymour, the son of slaves and blind in one eye, held a series of sweat-drenched revival meetings on Azusa Street in downtown Los Angeles. Quickly expanding crowds of converts — black, white, and Mexican alike — got together to cast out spirits, yell and shout in tongues, and otherwise feel the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit-filled denominations draw their theological authority from passages in Corinthians that explain the various gifts the Holy Spirit is liable to give the true believer, among them divine healing and speaking in tongues. Prophecy is in there too, but in the conventional reading, the word means simply a revelation from God, more often intended to strengthen the faith and uplift the spirit in the present moment. The future has little to do with it.

Not so in the Ministerial, where the fortune-telling version of prophecy overshadows every other doctrine. Defectors say the church’s predictions are almost exclusively positive. “Generally they don’t tell you that your mother’s going to die,” Rocha said. “They say: ‘You will get a car, you will travel, you will fall in love, you will get a job offer’ … Health, wealth, and love, basically.”

A gathering of worshippers in Colombia.

Pownerus / Via commons.wikimedia.org

Can The Government Prove Airlines Conspired To Keep Ticket Prices High?

0
0

The government is looking into allegations of collusion among big airlines. But where does loose talk end and conspiracies begin?

Scott Olson / Getty Images

When news broke Wednesday that the Department of Justice is investigating whether America's biggest airlines conspired to keep ticket prices high, few questioned whether the alleged scheme, if it really happened, has succeeded.

Despite fuel prices plummeting — and fuel is the largest single cost for airlines — domestic flight prices have hardly budged. Meanwhile, the U.S. airline industry is enjoying record profits, and analysts expect this to be its busiest summer ever.

So yes, ticket prices have stayed high even though fuel costs are down dramatically. And it happened amid less competition, thanks to airline mergers — it was just two years ago that federal government stated its opposition to the merger of American Airlines and US Airways on the grounds that it feared the consequences of less competition in the industry.

But with the DOJ looking into things, it needs to answer a couple of basic questions: Was there a real conspiracy? And how do you prove it?

The standard to determine whether collusion happened is based on the lengths the airlines may have gone to in making an agreement that would not have been in their best interest if they were each acting alone, said George Hay, a professor at Cornell University Law School.

"Agreeing on the fares would be very difficult because there are a zillion different fares, but an agreement not to expand capacity would be a much easier agreement to implement," Hay told BuzzFeed News.

"Let's assume over the past year they achieved this, how did they do that? Did they shake hands? Or did they just chitchat at a conference and in a public forum they said, 'Yeah, that's a good idea'? The question is if they had some sort of commitment. What the DOJ needs to find is a fairly specific commitment or a more elaborate mechanism for telling people what to do, exactly what routes on which to limit capacity, or some implementation mechanism that shares information that would not otherwise be public."

At a recent industry conference in Miami hosted by the industry trade group International Air Transport Association (IATA), multiple airline executives spoke publicly about their plans to be "disciplined" in their approach to pricing and adding extra flights on popular routes. Many saw such talk as a barely coded form of public collusion — "classic oligopoly-speak for limiting flights and seats, higher prices and fatter profit margins," wrote New York Times columnist James Stewart.

"It was very, very stupid for them to make comments like they did at IATA because that was certain to attract the interest of the DOJ," said Christopher Sagers, a law professor at Cleveland State University who testified before Congress about the antitrust issues related to the American Airlines–US Airways merger.

The government's eventual approval of that merger "left the industry feeling very, very cocky," he told BuzzFeed News. "They pulled off a merger that everyone thought they would lose, and I just think they're feeling a little immune."

But public statements complaining about widespread discounting and excess capacity — a common refrain at industry conferences and on corporate earnings calls — probably wouldn't be enough. There would likely need to be an actual meeting of executives, what multiple antitrust specialists contacted by BuzzFeed News cited as the "smoke-filled room" standard.

"To convict someone of price fixing, you need to show there was a so-called meeting of minds among the different airlines," said Scott Hemphill, a professor at Columbia Law School. "Sometimes a conspiracy is easy to show. Other times the line is hard to draw. And you can have high prices without there being any price fixing. Sometimes we say that mere 'parallel pricing' doesn't count. But there is disagreement about what exactly that means."

There's plenty of precedent for the DOJ proving these kind of pricing conspiracies really happened. Throughout the second half of the last decade, 21 airlines have been fined by the Justice Department for price fixing.

Airline executives have long been well trained on the particulars of price fixing rules and how to avoid exposing their company to the risk of prosecution, according to Bob Offutt, a senior technology analyst focused on aviation at PhocusWright, a travel industry consultancy. In the early '90s, Offutt work with airline technology company Sabre on the American Airlines account, where antitrust rules were drilled into staff.

"When I joined Sabre for American Airlines, I had to go to training classes to learn how to behave to avoid antitrust issues, which included a little card you had to carry that said, if you hear any kind of conversations where collusion happens, leave the room immediately and call this number," Offutt told BuzzFeed News.

The number was usually that of American Airlines' general counsel. "Things are not as strict as back then, but they are very aware of [antitrust issues]. The reality is the fare structures are so complicated, and they each use their own revenue management software to determine them, so it would be too hard to get an arbitrary formula for each route. I don't think there is active collusion, but they are certainly watching the fares on their screens and that's informing their decisions."

It isn't the fares themselves that the airlines are being investigated for conspiring to fix, but the number of seats available on certain routes. The Justice Department is trying to determine whether airlines have colluded to manage overall capacity on routes, keeping flights full, prices high, and profits maximized.

The DOJ has not yet brought a formal case against any airline, but Spencer Weber Waller, a former staffer in its antitrust division, told BuzzFeed News that if a case is brought and won against the airlines, it will lead to headaches that go well beyond the government's own punishments — flyers themselves may be able to join lawsuits seeking compensation for high ticket prices.

"The fact that this has been publicized means it's a very, very likely that these companies will be facing class actions in the future," said Weber, who is now a law professor at Loyola University in Chicago. If a DOJ action is successful, these lawsuits would likely be easily winnable for the people who bring them, he said. "If the government wins, people will have prima facie, where the violation is presumed in any follow-on case. It's a very powerful weapon."

On The Road With The Teen Social-Media Sensations Of DigiTour

0
0

San Francisco, April 28

Hayes Grier is hungry. It’s well after 9 p.m., after a two-hour show and a long day, and the dinner delivery guy is running late, and the 14-year-old’s face is starting to get that wild-eyed, slightly manic look that was all but invented by overstimulated and underfed teenage boys. He can’t sit still but has nowhere to go, so he paces around the narrow green room in San Francisco’s Regency Ballroom, chewing gum and scrolling through his Twitter mentions, which stack up at a rate of dozens, sometimes hundreds, per minute. If you listen closely, you can hear the chatter of 2,000 or so fans, nearly every last one of them a teenage girl, as they spill out of the venue and into the street. But Hayes is single-minded, desperately rooting around the green room for something, anything, to eat. He finds a pack of fruit snacks and tears into them, never once glancing up from his phone.

With full lips, Bieber bangs, and piercing blue eyes, Hayes has the unsalted-butter looks of the love interest on a CW show or the villain in a John Hughes movie. He dresses in the superficially alternative but fundamentally nonthreatening uniform popularized by Urban Outfitters and adopted by every (white) Cool Guy in every high school in America: jeans, skate shoes, graphic T-shirt or baggy tank top with the armholes cut low. He speaks slowly and indistinctly, with a soft North Carolina accent. He has beautiful teeth.

Michael Short for BuzzFeed News

Hayes is one of the world’s biggest social media celebrities — a distinction that, in 2015, isn’t necessarily so far from that of one of the world’s biggest celebrities, full stop. He has a bevy of lucrative endorsement deals, a fashion collaboration with Aeropostale, a packed touring and appearance schedule, and upwards of a million followers on each of the half dozen or so social networks he uses. It helps that his 17-year-old brother, Nash, is arguably the most famous Viner on the planet, with nearly 12 million followers and more than 2.8 billion lifetime loops on the platform.

But the younger Grier’s star is rising swiftly in its own right: His Instagram account, whose shirtless pics and up-close selfies rocketed him to fame less than two years ago, has roughly as many followers — 3.9 million — as those of Neil Patrick Harris and Michelle Obama combined. All told, his Vines — which tend toward Jackass-lite stunts, innocuous physical comedy, and brief snapshots of life on tour — have been looped more than 300 million times. At this point, the Grier brothers are so famous that they can’t go to a mall or amusement park or high school football game without being mobbed. They are so famous that the rest of their family has become famous too, osmotically and apparently without even trying: At the L.A. stop of the tour we’re currently on, dozens of girls (and a not-insignificant number of moms) clamored to take pictures with their father, Chad, better known as “Dad” to many of the fans. Hayes and Nash’s half sister, Skylynn, who’s frequently featured in their videos and photos, has more than 1.3 million Vine followers. She’s 5.

And though this evening’s show, stop number five on a hugely popular 18-city bus tour thrown by a young and lucrative company called DigiTour, featured six other performers — five boys and one girl, each of them social media stars as well — Hayes was clearly the biggest draw. At the show, dozens, if not hundreds, of girls wore bright-red T-shirts emblazoned with his name on them in a blocky, football-jersey-style font, on sale at the merch table for $30 each. When he took the stage — rolling in on a dirt bike that he then dramatically dismounted, tossing those Bieber bangs back as he removed his helmet — the Regency erupted into an otherworldly roar that somehow managed to combine the upper-register shriek of a teakettle coming to boil and the solid, full-body wallop of a moving train coming very, very close to you. The girls rushed forward, mouths open and phones aloft. One burst into wild, jagged, wracking sobs.

Beyond the dirt bike stunt, Hayes doesn’t do much during the half hour or so he spends onstage. Though several DigiTour-ers harbor musical ambitions (and, in most cases, the talent to realize them), beyond moderate charisma and those pop idol looks, Hayes doesn’t seem to — or even purport to — have any of the qualities that one might equate with sell-out-a-theater stardom. He doesn’t sing or act or play an instrument or tell great jokes or even play sports exceptionally well; he just is, and that is far more than enough. As Meridith Valiando Rojas, DigiTour’s 30-year-old CEO, explains later, “Some of these kids, their talent is relating to their audience. They’re the coolest people you know, and they happen to have 5 million friends.”

Michael Short for BuzzFeed News

Perhaps for this reason, the DigiTour show itself seems mostly designed to enable the boys to mug for the crowd as much as possible and the crowd, in turn, to scream as much as possible. All told, it feels less like the kind of event you’d expect to nearly sell out a massive ballroom than it does a summer camp talent show, running through a sort of cartoon version of a typical day at a typical high school in a typical town: First, there’s homeroom (introductions), lunchtime (food fight), cheerleading practice (a goofy, strutty dance sequence set to Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl”). And then, of course, the denouement: prom, during which six girls and one boy are plucked from the audience and matched with a cast member for an onstage slow dance set to Wiz Khalifa's summer funeral banger "See You Again." Between these bits, the more musically oriented cast members sing, covering songs by nostalgia or Top 40 pop acts such as Journey and Drake. Four of the kids do a Fallon-style lip-synch battle, and Hayes and another cast member, Tez Mengestu, rap along sputteringly to Rae Sremmurd’s “No Flex Zone.” But by and large, the cast do not really perform so much as appear. Roughly once every show, a booming voice prods, “Now, let’s — take — some — SELFIEEEES,” in the way another announcer might implore a crowd to make some noise. The fans oblige.

Last year, according to Valiando Rojas, DigiTour sold 120,000 tickets for 60 shows. (In 2013, they sold 18,000.) This year, it’s on track to more than double last year's numbers. Nearly as soon as this tour is over, a slightly new arrangement of stars will gather for DigiFest, a six-city outdoor festival circuit that Valiando Rojas calls “Coachella for the YouTube generation.” After that, a new iteration of DigiTour, with different talent and different tour stops, will rev up: The cycle is endless, because the demand is bottomless. Though Valiando Rojas declined to reveal exact revenue figures, industry estimates suggest that DigiTour will bring in up to $20 million this year.

Other than the dads, who tend to huddle near the bar, exchanging looks of befuddled resignation, there are less than a dozen boys at each show. DigiTour is manifestly, happily, a place for girls — about 95%, mainly between the ages of 10 and 18 — and for a particularly girly-feeling, completely un-self-conscious kind of fandom. It’s a kind of fandom with no irony and no limits, a kind of fandom that seems to be almost exclusively practiced by people old enough to understand the vector of their desires but young enough not to be embarrassed by them.

Michael Short for BuzzFeed News

The show ends, as it always does, with a group number, all seven cast members onstage singing a song by fellow social media stars Jack and Jack, arms around one another's shoulders. And then the floor lights come up, and the fans stream out, and the kids head backstage to wait as the crew packs up and prepares for the overnight drive to L.A. Alec Bailey, an 18-year-old from North Carolina who hopes to use this tour to kickstart a contemporary-country music career, fiddles with his new Polaroid camera. Alyssa Shouse, 19, a YouTube singer and the tour’s only girl, sips water — she’s had a brutal sore throat all day. Daniel Skye — a very young-looking 14-year-old from South Florida — strums a guitar. They chew Sour Bubble Tape and look at their phones and sift through the gifts tossed onstage and nervously passed off by fans: stuffed animals, letters, candy. Finally, at around 10, dinner — burgers and fries delivered from the diner around the corner — arrives at the Regency, and the kids abscond to their tour bus to eat it.

Michael Short for BuzzFeed News

The bus is so comically close to what you might imagine a tour bus full of teens would look like that it almost feels set-dressed. In the narrow, couch-lined area that serves as something of a rec room on wheels, a Costco-grade box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch rests on a counter next to a bottle of vitamin C (everyone on tour “gets sick basically constantly,” a handler explains). A basket of fruit sits heroically on a table, untouched. A beach ball has, somehow, managed to become wedged between a cabinet and the ceiling. Farther back is the narrow bank of triple-decker bunk beds that serve as claustrophobic sleeping quarters for the kids and the handful of twentysomethings that serve as their chaperones-slash-bodyguards-slash-assistants. Beyond that, there’s another set of couches. I am told they play a lot of Mario Kart back there.

After spending four days with them and asking the question as many times and in as many ways as I could, it became clear to me that DigiTour’s talents do not fully understand their own appeal. Or perhaps that their appeal is exactly as simple as it looks. “They just like our videos, really,” Aaron Carpenter, another cast member, tells me backstage in Tucson. Aaron has more than 1.8 million followers on Instagram and gains about 4,000 a day, a figure he can recite from memory. “Like, there's not really any other way to explain it,” he continues. “It's like, uh, it's, like, a phenomena. I don't know. It's weird.”

Michael Short for BuzzFeed News

“Teenage girls like to be obsessed with something,” Alyssa offers authoritatively. She is tiny, dark-haired, entirely sweet, and very pretty, with a Tinker Bell tattoo on her hip and a giant head. It’s not clear if she remembers that she’s technically a member of that group.

But for all this — the tour, the millions of followers, the stuffed animals and letters and candy — the kids don’t consider themselves famous, exactly. “[When] you can go somewhere and every single person is like, ‘Whoa, that's him’ — then you're famous,” explains Jonah Marais, a lanky 16-year-old with cornflower-blue eyes.

Yes and no. They don’t turn heads everywhere they go, but they are famous, at least among a small, very vocal group of people. But they don’t necessarily have mainstream followings or record deals or even Wikipedia pages. In some ways — from the outside, at least — it seems like the worst of both worlds: famous enough to have your life disrupted, not quite famous enough to reap all the perks. For now, the guys prefer the term “known.”

Michael Short for BuzzFeed News

“Famous is like walking down the red carpet at the Grammys,” says Tez, a Vine star and childhood friend of the Griers. “I have followers on social media.” But what social media has done is decentralize celebrity and the celebrity-making apparatus, even while a tour like this employs familiar music biz tropes like long bus rides and screaming teenage fans. Rather than studiously following a worn path to fame, the kids get famous first, while a new infrastructure tasked with figuring out what to do with them gasps to catch up.

The girls are all enthusiasm, all the time. They line up for hours in the punishing, brittle heat of Los Angeles or Tucson or Las Vegas in the early spring, sweating off their makeup before they even enter the venue. They skip school for DigiTour, cash in their allowances for DigiTour, beg their parents to drive them hours from the suburbs to be at DigiTour. In Los Angeles, one will manage to get past security and sneak inside the venue; she will be discovered hours later, curled up under the stage. In Tucson, one fan will show up with two or three dozen apples, apparently inspired by an offhand tweet from Aaron about his appreciation for the fruit (“Apples are so underrated”). In Las Vegas, three of them will wake up at 3 a.m. and camp out behind the Hard Rock Cafe just to see the bus roll up in the dark.

But right now, it’s late and cold and they are mostly subdued, shivering in their brand-new T-shirts behind the barricade, hoping for a glimpse of the boys as they amble between the bus and the venue’s back door, hamburgers in hand.

“It’s my birthday,” one tells a security guard in a nakedly desperate bid to be let beyond the gate.

Everybody says it’s their birthday,” the guard replies, unmoved. And then suddenly the buses shudder awake and roll down the hill, headed for Los Angeles, the girls waving goodbye long after they’re out of sight.

Michael Short for BuzzFeed News

Los Angeles, April 29

Los Angeles is hot in that headachy, too bright way that only Los Angeles manages to be. We’re in direct sunlight. It’s just before 3 p.m., and the talent are preparing for the meet-and-greet portion of the show, which, today, takes place in a Spanish-style courtyard adjacent to Belasco Theater’s auditorium. Hayes’ father, Chad — stoic, broad-shouldered, very nice — stands off in one corner, reminding everyone to drink water. “I coach football,” he offers as explanation.

Basic DigiTour tickets run an allowance-friendly $25, but at $120 a pass, the meet and greet is the company’s cash cow, killer app, and flagship product: The company offers a couple hundred of these tickets at each show, and they typically sell out first. The meet and greet is organized essentially like an assembly line, except the object being produced is Instagram photos, on the order of thousands a night. The talent stands, receiving-line-style, ready for the stream of girls to go from one to the next. About three feet away, a parallel line of seven adults — most of them DigiTour staffers, one for each performer — stand ready to snap photos, passing the phones down the line on pace with their owners.

The interactions themselves are about 30 seconds long. First, the boy offers a greeting and, often, some kind of compliment. Sometimes the girls ask questions; sometimes they’re too stunned to say anything at all. The ones hoping to be discovered sing. Then there’s the picture: Most girls opt for a hug or a kiss on the cheek, but some go bigger and more theatrical — favored poses include boy behind the girl, hands around her waist, prom-style; hands clasped, looking into each other's eyes; forehead kiss; piggyback ride. The most ambitious fans try to leap into the boys’ arms (a practice discouraged by a black-clad DigiTour staffer who strolls up and down the line periodically yelling to that effect). Occasionally, they dive in for a kiss on the mouth.

And then repeat, and repeat, and repeat: 200 to 300 girls for each of the seven stars. The whole thing can take up to two hours and is mesmerizing to watch in the manner of any exercise — synchronized swimming, industrial food production — that is both spectacularly well-organized and also kind of on the verge of complete anarchy.

16 LGBT Books That Will Actually Change Your Life

The Abortion That Let Me Be a Mother

0
0

Chile is one of six countries in the world where abortion is forbidden under any circumstance. It has been illegal there since 1989, when the dictator Augusto Pinochet imposed an absolute ban. A new bill advanced by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and being debated by Chile’s lawmakers would allow abortion in cases of rape, or when the mother or the fetus’ life is at risk.

Chilean journalist Paola Dragnic found herself in the middle of the debate. You can also read this essay in Spanish.

When I was 36, all I really wanted was to have a baby. My partner Marcelo had been asking me to conceive a child for many years, but I was too busy being a workaholic reporter. It wasn't until that precise moment of my life that I felt the urge to become a mother.

The whole process of trying to get pregnant was fun and successful: after two months of trying, a pregnancy test gave us the great news. We joyfully toasted with a bottle of champagne.

It was too soon to celebrate. Now I know.

That same night, a couple of friends came over with some “ad hoc” presents, some of them so cute we laughed our heads off. It seemed unlikely that a tough feminist and independent journalist (me) would end up embracing the tacky minutiae of motherhood.

I still remember the crocheted booties Vicente gave us as a gift. They were white, he explained with his very unique sense of humor, because “since the morula is still so small, it’s impossible to know the gender.”

Paola Dragnic celebrates her new pregnancy a year later with her partner Marcelo Araya.

Courtesy of Paola Dragnic

Back then, I had the job of my dreams: I was part of a growing investigative and interpretative journalism project, the likes of which were very rare in post-dictatorship Chile. Quite a luxury. Plus, I was earning a decent salary in an over-saturated journalism market.

But then, my pregnancy, which was supposed to be one of the happiest moments of my life, slowly began taking over my body and soul, and soon became a nightmare.

By my third week, I could not stop vomiting. I was puking up to 30 times a day. My stomach couldn't even tolerate water. And in spite of that, I swelled up grotesquely.

I knew something was dreadfully wrong. Our bodies speak to us, but we have lost the ability to listen to them, especially during pregnancy and motherhood, when we simply surrender ourselves completely in the hands of doctors.

The reality was that when I went to Dr. González, worried about my constant nausea, he told me (after the briefest of examinations) that I was an “older first-time mother.” He said that I was probably “somatizing” my symptoms — that I was vomiting more than usual in pregnancy because I was physically expressing my psychological stress. He said that all the vomiting was part of the typical hormonal changes of pregnancy.

There was no test, only the first biased judgment in a long chain of obstetric violence that would continue throughout my pregnancy.

Thus, with a linguistic slap in my face and an “older first-time mother” label, I came back home, filled with “anti-vomit” pills that didn’t make me feel better.

A couple of days went by and some heavy bleeding drove me back to the doctor. This time I was not only vomiting but also bleeding, with clear miscarriage symptoms.

The ultrasound showed a placenta detachment, but no other anomalies. I was prescribed hormone shots to preserve the pregnancy that my body was rejecting, and I was told to rest for a month in bed… with my legs elevated.

The nausea made my eyes sore. I felt numb and suffocated most of the time, and I could not stop vomiting. It was the worst nausea I’ve ever had in my whole life.

As a health reporter, I was aware of the 14th week nuchal translucency screening. It’s a common test in developed countries, but very new in Chile. It measures the amount of fluid at back of the neck of the fetus in order to screen for possible problems.

I asked my doctor to run this test on me.

Outraged, he stared at me while he held the ultrasound over my belly: “How do you know about that, huh?... You’re not planning to abort if there’s something wrong, are you?”

His reaction was so brutally harsh that I realized that the pregnancy was not mine but his, and that I wouldn't know for certain what was going on.

I hadn’t reached the 14th week of pregnancy, and my physical condition was dismal. I had gained more than 65 pounds and none of my shoes would fit me — the liquid retention alone could have killed me.

“How do you know about that, huh?... You’re not planning to abort if there’s something wrong, are you?”

I was terrified, but also sure that something was going very wrong. I called my brother, who is a pediatrician, and asked him to help me find an expert in fetal medicine. This new doctor got us the best 4D ultrasound machine so that we could enjoy the session and eliminate our doubts. But it didn’t go as we had hoped.

If the nuchal translucency result is more than 2 millimeters, there is a high risk of health problems with the fetus. The nuchal translucency in my case was abysmal.

Three days later, we came back to the doctor, and this time we had no doubts: the measurement was about 9 millimeters. The new doctor spent about 20 minutes measuring my belly as much as he could.

Back in his office, pencil in hand, he explained: “This means the fetus has some kind of problem. Most of the times, nuchal translucency is caused by Down Syndrome, but in this case I can rule that out, since the fetus has a nasal bone.” The doctor thought there could be some heart malformation that could be fixed in utero, or when the baby was born. Then I asked him for a genetic test.

Amniocentesis (the extraction of amniotic liquid) can only be performed after six months of pregnancy, so we chose the “chorionic villi” test: they punctured my belly to extract material from the placenta, analyzing its genetic composition.

The procedure involved a risk of abortion, but I was sure that wouldn't happen, and I was also positive that the results would be as bad as I expected.

The test took a couple of days, and we were asked to pick up the results in person. I told my brother in advance that it must be a case of triploidy. As a journalist, I had been doing my own research on my condition while the doctors were trying to diagnose me.

Back in 2006, none of us had smartphones, so we went to an internet café to search for clues online. We typed in the term “triploidy.” Sitting on three different computers, my brother, my husband and I started reading: “The patient could die,” “it could generate an invasive mole,” “it could unleash a kind of cancer that can easily metastasize.”

Broken and confused, we headed straight to the clinic. The doctor confirmed that it was triploidy and told us: “It’s serious, we have to take it out, but we can’t do it in Chile. Do you have enough money to travel?”

Marcelo and I stared at one another. The answer had to be yes, even though we were broke.

So I had two overwhelming things to add to my unbearable physical state: I was not going to be a mother, and I was going to die if I didn’t leave the country to abort my pregnancy.

It's taken this long for me to be able to talk about the degree of violence I had to endure, especially from the Chilean government. In a matter of seconds, I stopped being a cute, chubby pregnant woman and became a kind of walking coffin for a half-dead unborn child who was killing me.

If all this grief and horror wasn't enough, I had to figure out how to get an abortion in order to save my uterus and my life.

The doctor explained all the details about the “genetic mistake” that had happened, several times. Most people usually have two copies of each chromosome, but my fetus had three.

This genetic anomaly brought about such a lethal disorder in my body that the placenta quickly filled with tumors that grew in number and size (“as big as grapes”), and my hormone levels spiked violently.

“That’s why you are going from bad to worse. It's like you’re having 10 pregnancies for the level of hormones you have,” the doctor said. That was the feeling I described for weeks, but no one seemed to acknowledge this as a valid symptom.

Thus began an odyssey no woman should have to endure, because the need and will to have a medically necessary abortion can’t turn someone who was going to be a mother into a criminal.

Faced with our despair and the impotence of Chilean doctors, our physician made a phone call to Tampa, Florida. In perfect English, he told the doctor on the other end of the line that he had a case of a very severe triploidy, and that he wanted to refer me there.

Without a valid visa to visit the United States, and with little money in our pockets, we started to pull every string we could. The U.S. Embassy in Chile helped a lot, and friends and family who knew about our situation lent us some money.

In the meantime, I wasn’t able to grieve or to be sad. I could hardly walk, see or hear. I just dragged myself from one place to another, filling out the necessary paperwork and, of course, vomiting.

Every two days I underwent an ultrasound to check the degree of invasion of the tumors and the condition of the fetus. It was almost crushed, but still alive. What were the doctors waiting for? For the fetus to die so they would not have legal trouble. For me to travel overseas. Or for my life to be at absolutely at risk, so they would have an indisputable reason to “save me.”

The Chilean government was torturing me. It was risking my life by denying my right to an emergency health procedure. What scared me the most was the risk of losing my uterus altogether. In a situation this extreme, many times they perform a hysterectomy in order to prevent the growths and tumors from spreading to the rest of your body.

In the midst of it all, I sat in a coffee shop, and a woman apologized for lighting a cigarette near me without realizing I was pregnant. “It’s just fat,” I lied.

As I walked away I couldn’t help crying my eyes out, telling myself that I would inform everyone about what was happening to me. One by one, I reached out to all my friends, and they replied back to my emails. I was surprised that even my mother in law — a self-proclaimed anti-abortionist who is very religious and a part of the most conservative right wing of Chile — paid special attention to the truth and the absolute need for Chile to pass a bill that would allow abortions when the mother’s life or health is at risk.

I wanted to sue the government over my situation, but the feminist NGOs I approached to do this wouldn’t dare to help me. I collapsed in some kind of shock. An ambulance took me to the emergency room of the clinic.

When the doctor showed up, he explained that the latest blood test exhibited abnormal hormonal levels, and that my condition was lethal.

He told me that the clinic's Ethics Committee had authorized him to do whatever it took to save me, adding, “we may have to do a couple of chemotherapies, but they'll be mild, don’t worry, you won't lose your hair,” as if anyone would even care about hair in a moment like this.

WIthout a single warning, a nurse put a little pill inside my vagina. In 20 minutes, I felt like I was breaking apart. The contractions were so brutal I couldn't even breathe. My heart was pounding so violently that I felt an acute pain all over my body. They were forcing me to expel the contents of my uterus, without preparing me for it.

“Do I still have a uterus?”

All of the sudden, I felt my water break, and amniotic fluid began falling. That's when I finally lost control and gave in to rage. I had been tortured for four and a half months, and now they were trying to make me give birth in a natural way, to stage some miscarriage or who knows what.

Out of control, taken over by anger, I yelled at them. “Don't you make me give birth motherfuckers, I will not be a mother. Don’t do this to me. I will call the police, you sons of bitches, put me under now,” I screamed, while the room filled with health staff and I straightened my arm, demanding general anesthesia.

I was four and a half months into that deadly pregnancy, and I was in one of Chile's best private clinics.

Everything fell apart at that precise moment. I suddenly noticed the lights of the operating room, and the mask over my face. I don’t know how much time went by, but when I woke up, a nurse was caressing my cheek and the doctor by my side whispered, “It's all over, stay calm.”

I could hardly utter a word. As soon as I managed to moisten my lips, my tongue still clumsy from the anesthesia, I asked the nurse about my greatest fear: “Do I still have a uterus?”

I did.

Two thick tears rolled over my cheeks. I closed my eyes and sighed deeper than I ever had, feeling the strongest relief I have ever experienced: It was all over.

Paola Dragnic and Marcelo Araya could finally become parents.

Courtesy of Paola Dragnic

Later that afternoon, the nurse broke the rules and allowed me to smoke a cigarette, hiding on the balcony of my room. Wrapped in that unflattering robe, the same you get in any hospital, whether poor or rich, I crossed my legs, attempting to regain my dignity. I sat back in my wheelchair and, as if I were in the Caribbean, I took a drag of the cigarette that marked the end of that nightmare.

A year later, after having blood tests and an ultrasound every Friday to check whether I was back to normal, we put this worn out but strong uterus back to use, and 9 months later I gave birth to little Sofía, 20.5 inches and 6 pounds, 34 ounces. Today she is 7 years old, and she knows perfectly well that her mom had another pregnancy before her, but it didn't work so they had to end it. “That’s what all the interviews are all about, right Mom?” she asks every time a fellow reporter wants to talk about it.

Someday, Sofía will be a woman like me, and I don't want her, or any other woman, to be tortured by a deaf government that makes us suffer in the name of a false morality.

Two years later, I got pregnant again, and that time it was our dear Simón Nicolás, who is 4 years old now. All thanks to an abortion that allowed me to be a mother.

The Great Wall Of China Is Slowly But Surely Becoming Less Great

0
0

Bad maintenance, natural erosion, tourist-made damage, and brick-stealing are taking their toll on the Great Wall.

The Great Wall of China is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an indisputable symbol of Chinese culture.

The Great Wall of China is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an indisputable symbol of Chinese culture.

Dave Morrow / Via Flickr: daves-f-stop

Over the course of 2,000 years, various dynasties built up the military defense project along more than 20,000 kilometers of the country's ancient northern border. Its unique nature attracts millions of tourists each year.

Over the course of 2,000 years, various dynasties built up the military defense project along more than 20,000 kilometers of the country's ancient northern border. Its unique nature attracts millions of tourists each year.

STR / Getty Images

However, various factors have reduced the part of the Wall built during the Ming-dynasty (1368 - 1644) by almost a third, with 1,200 kilometers of 3,900 disappeared, reports local media citing the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

instagram.com

At least another a third is badly endangered, too. (Much like this panda.)

At least another a third is badly endangered, too. (Much like this panda.)

giphy.com


View Entire List ›

10 Life-Changing Things To Try In July

0
0

Because we tried them for you in June!

The BuzzFeed Life editors are always trying new products, apps, tips, and DIY projects, and we decided it was time to start sharing the best of them with you. Each month, we'll post our recommendations for what's actually worth it. For the sake of transparency, items under "Things We Bought" were purchased with our own money and/or were not the result of a PR pitch. Those under "Things We Tried" are items that were provided to us at no cost for the sake of review. Let us know in the comments what sorts of things you'd like us to review next month!

Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed Life

Putting cut flowers in the fridge to keep them fresh — free

Putting cut flowers in the fridge to keep them fresh — free

Fresh flowers are the quickest way to brighten up any space. The only bad thing about spending your hard-earned dough on greenery and blooms is that they start to wilt after only a few days. My favorite flowers, like peonies and ranunculus, have an even shorter shelf-life than most, and they tend to be more expensive. After Apartment Therapy tested out different methods for keeping flowers fresh, I decided to try their super-easy solution: putting cut flowers in the fridge. I put my flowers in the fridge every night and they lasted SO much longer! I changed the water once (around day five), and the blooms were still perfectly white and open after almost two weeks. —Jess Probus

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed Life

An actual fridge at BuzzFeed last week, featuring 14-day-old Trader Joe's peonies:

An actual fridge at BuzzFeed last week, featuring 14-day-old Trader Joe's peonies:

Jess Probus / BuzzFeed Life


View Entire List ›


It Will Be 2017 At The Earliest Before We Have Constitutional Recognition Of Indigenous People

0
0

We now have a path to recognition. But it’s a long one.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten today met with a group of handpicked Indigenous leaders in a historic summit to address the inclusion of Indigenous people in the Australian constitution.

The talks were designed to break the impasse and division around the campaign to recognise the first Australians, and to discuss the timing and possible wording of a referendum question that would be put to the Australian public.

The summit failed to deliver a possible referendum question, but a timeframe was established with a referendum now likely to take place in 2017.

"I would be very disappointed if we aren't able to proceed to a recognition referendum sometime in the next term parliament," Abbott said today. "I've previously said it would be apt to do it on the 27th of may 2017 which is the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum. That's a tight deadline I have to say."

Inclusion of the first Australians in the constitution has had bipartisan support from all Australian political parties for almost a decade, but ultimately it is the Australian public that will decide in a referendum.

Which questions a referendum would ask and what form recognition would take have divided the Indigenous community. All want the clause referring to discrimination against people based on race removed, but that's where the unity stops.

David Moir / AAPIMAGE

The Prime Minister today announced he will establish a referendum council, made up of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who would advise government and spearhead a national engagement campaign with communities.

"There will be a series of community conferences, which will consider what we hope to get out of recognition as a nation, precisely what form of recognition will take. It will be overseen by a referendum council which will be broadly representative of the wholly Australian people," he said.

David Moir / AAPIMAGE

Kirstie Parker, co-chair of the National Congress for Indigenous People spoke on behalf of the group and said that despite a diversity of opinions on the way forward, they all want to see symbolic change.

"This process must bring about substantive reform, we don't believe that mere symbolic change alone is enough," she said. "We know that there have been numerous attempts to get this right. There have been advances, particularly in the last few decades, that have given us a glimmer of hope of what is possible, but we haven't bought it home yet."

Parker said community engagement would be a crucial aspect of winning public support.

"We need to see ongoing engagement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. There must be an opportunity for our people to express our voices specifically in that process."

Patrick Dodson, known as the godfather of reconciliation, said that any proposal for change would have to include a racial non-discrimination clause in the constitution.

"Our constitution has got the inherent racism in it and that's the most difficult aspect because that has to be expunged but how to do that is the challenge we have, without upsetting a whole other range of issues in the constitution," he said today.

"I think people are up for it. I think people are really wanting to get on with the job, fix up the constitution in relation to the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and get rid of the racist underpinnings in that document."

Pat Dodson and Kirstie Parker (Allan Clarke / BuzzFeed)

Outside of the summit around 30 protestors rallied, angry at the process and protesting against constitutional recognition.

Protest leader, elder Jenny Munro said any substantive change needed to come from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and not government vetted groups.

"This is a secret meeting that been organised by the Prime Minister having a secret meeting with a handpicked Aboriginal people who will decide the content of the constitutional question."

"I say this to white people, this is an issue that Aboriginal people are entitled to have a say about and discuss amongst ourselves. That's called real self determination."

Elder Jenny Munro (Allan Clarke / BuzzFeed)


View Entire List ›

Nick Kyrgios's Fans Are Smearing Vegemite On Their Faces And People Are Confused

0
0

Nick seems pretty cool with it, but not everyone else is.

Young Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios has been making a name for himself at Wimbledon by being; 1. Quite good at tennis, and 2. Also a bit of a naughty boy.

Young Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios has been making a name for himself at Wimbledon by being; 1. Quite good at tennis, and 2. Also a bit of a naughty boy.

Glyn Kirk / Getty Images

Kyrgios has no shortage of detractors, but he also has heaps of fans. And like all fandoms, Nick's likes to show its appreciation by smearing condiments on their faces.

Kyrgios has no shortage of detractors, but he also has heaps of fans. And like all fandoms, Nick's likes to show its appreciation by smearing condiments on their faces.

Graham Denholm / Getty Images

It all started with this exchange on Kyrgios's Facebook page.

View Video ›

facebook.com

This, apparently, was enough to drive more people to try the same thing.

View Video ›

facebook.com


View Entire List ›

18 Style Tips That Will Get You Through Queensland's Horrible Winter

These Drug Experts Think You Should Be Able To Score MDMA From Your Chemist

0
0

A new report says a pure form of the drug ecstasy should be legalised and made available in chemists.

A Melbourne pharmacist and the Victorian of the Year say you should be able to get ecstasy from your local pharmacy.

A Melbourne pharmacist and the Victorian of the Year say you should be able to get ecstasy from your local pharmacy.

"Yeah just some whitening toothpaste and six pingers thanks. Future's gonna be massive."

Victoria Police

Melbourne pharmacist Joshua Donelly and Professor David Penington are pushing for law reform that would see the legalisation of ecstasy and a pure form of the drug sold in chemists,The Age reports.

They propose having chemists sell pure MDMA, the drug which is found in ecstasy pills. The Australian Drug Foundation says drugs sold as ecstasy can often contain other substances such as ketamine, PMA, amphetamine and fillers such as household cleaning products.

The authors of the report, published in the Journal of Law and Medicine, say regulating the production and sale of ecstasy will lead to a more safe experience for users.

The authors of the report, published in the Journal of Law and Medicine, say regulating the production and sale of ecstasy will lead to a more safe experience for users.

Thinkstock

Professor Penington says this would allow health professionals to educate users on the potential risks from taking the drug.

He believes most of the harmful side effects from taking ecstasy actually come from the other substances that MDMA is being cut with, as often happens when it is sold on the black market.

It's not the first time the respected doctor has proposed this. In an Australia 21 paper in 2012, he wrote "I propose decriminalisation for
possession and use of cannabis and ecstasy for people aged 16 and over who are willing to be recorded on a national confidential user's register, who will then have access and permission to purchase them from an approved government supplier (probably a pharmacist)
in regulated quantities with careful record keeping."


View Entire List ›

14 Wedding Hairstyles You Can DIY For The Occasion

0
0

Curling irons aren’t the only way to style your hair for some nuptials.

Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

10-Minute Fancy Updo

10-Minute Fancy Updo

What You'll Need:
- Mini hair elastics
- Bobby pins
- Hair clips
- Hairspray

Step 1: Separate your hair into four sections: face-framing pieces in the front, one section on each side from your ear to your temple, and the rest of your hair in the back.
Step 2: Separate the largest section of hair in the back into two more sections: top and bottom. Clip the top section up to keep it out of the way for now. Secure the bottom section into a low ponytail at the nape of your neck with a mini hair elastic, then put another elastic about two inches from the bottom of the ponytail.
Step 3: Roll the ponytail up into a bun and secure with a bobby pin at the nape of your neck.
Step 4: Take the clip out of the top section of hair and smooth it back and down. Loosely secure it into a half-up ponytail with a mini elastic.
Step 5: Twist the tail of the ponytail into its base and pin the twist down above the bun. See the GIF below for a closer look at this technique.
Step 6: Braid the section of hair on the left and secure the braid with an elastic at the end. For a thicker look, gently tug the braid apart from top to bottom.
Step 7: Wrap the braid around the back of the head and secure with a bobby pin just above the bun.
Step 8: Repeat Step 6 on the right side.
Step 9: Repeat Step 7 on the right side.
Step 10: Use hairspray to secure the style in the back and fix any face-framing pieces in the front to fall however you'd like.

Lauren Zaser / Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed

Here's a detailed look of Step 5 for this hairstyle:

Here's a detailed look of Step 5 for this hairstyle:

You can pin any stray ends from the ponytail underneath the bun to hide them.

Lauren Zaser / Via BuzzFeed Life

A Crown For Curls

A Crown For Curls

What You'll Need:
- Bobby pins
- Mini hair elastics
- Tail comb
- Hair clips

Step 1: Using a tail comb, create a front section of hair all the way around your head from ear to ear. Clip back the rest of your hair to keep it out of the way for now.
Step 2: Beginning at one side of your head, French-braid the front section of hair along the hairline.
Step 3: Continue the French braid, adding more hair to each strand as you go.
Step 4: Once the braid is at your ear, continue with a traditional three-strand braid to the end of the hair.
Step 5: Secure the braid with a mini hair elastic at the bottom.
Step 6: Make the braid a bit thicker by gently tugging apart each strand so the weave isn't too tight.
Step 7: Lift the braid up and over your head, flush against the French-braided section, until the end of the braid reaches the opposite ear. See the GIF below for a more detailed view on this.
Step 8: Pin back any extra hair in the front that wasn't woven into the French braid. This piece can be used to cover up the end of the braid if your hair isn't long enough to reach the opposite side of your head.
Step 9: Unclip the rest of your hair and tousle it forward.
Step 10: If you need to secure any parts of the braid, use a bobby pin to do so.

Lauren Zaser / Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed


View Entire List ›

Viewing all 214923 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images