Entertainment

June 2013 - Posts

  • RED Hearts: Entertainment: Austin's Powers

    By Jessica Goodman, 23, reporting from Los Angeles on why Mahone may be the next Bieber

    When it comes to the next big thing, I tend to be more than a little behind on the trends. I didn’t start watching Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives until they were off the air. Music is a similar story. I didn’t start listening to some artists until they already had a huge following a big a hit, like Asher Roth’s “I Love College” or Kesha’s “Tik Tok.”

    Same with Justin Bieber. The first song of his I really paid attention to was “Boyfriend,” and that wasn’t so long ago, years after he released “Baby.” I mean, the guy practically already had a pet monkey by then.

    However, regarding one particular emerging 17-year-old artist—perhaps a Bieber-to-be—I like to think I found gold a little ahead of the game.

    OK, I admit Austin Mahone isn’t exactly an unknown. A couple of his performance videos went viral, and he has 2.8 million Twitter followers. But if you’re not already a Mahomie, now’s the time: His “What About Love” video, the first single off his forthcoming album, came out this week and showed off his most impressive dance moves yet, with a sound that conjures the best of both Bieber and N’ Sync.

    The boy in the beanie is destined to be an international star, here to stay. Yes, you heard it here (even if perhaps you didn’t hear it here first).

    Just like Justin, Austin was discovered through YouTube and has a fanbase of tween girls who have fallen hard for his pop idol charms. He even comes with memorable hair and rumored ties to Bieber’s ex, Selena Gomez, who he looked pretty friendly with at the 2013 Billboard Awards a few weeks ago.

    Austin Mahone is currently on tour, opening for Taylor Swift and performing some of his irresistibly catchy early songs, like “Say Somethin.” MTV has named him one of their 13 Artists to Watch in 2013. I sure will, while I’m catching up on Carrie and Big. Don’t tell me how it ends.

  • RED Hearts: Entertainment: Love Letters

    By Carey Dunne, 23, reporting from New York, NY, on the power of the proper write, stamp and mail message

    When was the last time you got a piece of real, non-e, snail-type personal mail? A picture postcard, or a letter on a live-forever sheet of stationery that you actually unfold? The sight of an old friend’s handwriting is something special. And how many friends’ handwriting do you even know these days?

    Also, Facebook, email, texts, try as they might, will never outshine the thrill of ripping open an ivory envelope to discover that you have been formally invited to a ball, for instance. There is a reason ball invitations never come by way of Facebook: because stationery is better.

    If I knew all of your addresses, you know I’d invite you that way—especially if I were hosting a ball—but for now, for here, your presence is requested in making this the summer of snail mail love.

    Write to someone, like with a pen, on a postcard or a proper piece of stationery. Lick a stamp. (Stamp shopping in 2013 is no small pleasure, either: Muscle cars and Rosa Parks are forever!) Put it on an envelope. It will get to go in a truck, or on a plane. When it arrives in a friend’s mailbox, it will make their day much better than another email to slog through, or a little red number in their notifications tally. They will send something back to you, and you will thank your postal carrier, guardian of the hallowed tradition of letters.

    I recently received a postcard from a good friend in Oakland, California, after she spent two weeks hibernating alone on a woods excursion. On the front, it had a black-and-white picture of elderly people drunkenly cavorting. On the back, she had drawn pictures of the raccoons she saw. Then I got a postcard from a friend with an illustration by David Shrigley called “The Lecture You Gave Was Not Well Received,” with pictures of little heads in a classroom yelling, “BORING,” “RUBBISH,” and “I WANT TO KILL YOU.” Take that, hyperlinked memes you click every day.

    I’ve started making notecards with my own art by photocopying small (5x7) acrylic paintings on cardstock. Companies like Zazzle.com can cheaply print any image you like. I send sets of them to friends as gifts (which I hope also inspires them to write on them and send greetings to someone else).

    Of course, there’s also every kind of pre-existing postcard and stationery set out there. Some excellent places to start are Polite Cards, publisher of the aforementioned David Shrigley card, along with many other original and funny artists’ work and most museum gift shops (I like this “Greetings from Brooklyn” set, perhaps guaranteed to intrigue a response out of the recipient if you’re sending from somewhere less obvious than that borough).

    If you want to marvel at prices and how seriously some people take this stationery business, check out Dempsey and Carroll’s exquisite designs and engraving. You’ll see a personalized “silhouette: sand” set of notecards for $1,775. Before that drives you to bury your head in Facebook, consider that you can pick up a cheapie postcard with a picture of the beach on it, spring for the 33 cent stamp and wait for your friend to appreciate it on Instagram.

  • RED Hearts: Entertainment: The Art of Emoji

    By Zoe Mendelson, 22, reporting from New York, NY, on amazing, long-form storytelling (Lolita! Beyoncé!) via emoji

    Texting is an unfortunately flat method of communication; it fails at transmitting tone. This is why emoticons are important. “Let me now what you're up to tonight.” and “Let me know what you're up to tonight :P” are completely different messages. The first could come off to a friend as needy or awkwardly bossy, or to someone you're dating as a bit overbearing, even. The second would require external circumstances to read like the first or be misinterpreted. So, I think in the beginning simple smileys served this purpose.

    Then they became something of a cultural phenomenon. There was even a song about them (LOL :) by Trey Songz). By the time emoji came around, smileys had taken on an irony, an element of retro kitsch. Besides, their intended use as shortcuts to replace words seemed senseless. It would take a lot longer to sift through four precariously devised categories looking for a car than it would to type c-a-r.

    So we started using emoji for fun, because they were so random.

    But then something more fun happened: attempts at long-form emoji storytelling. People I text with and I either got very bored or were procrastinating very hard, and we realized the full creative potential of the little ones. We started to construct actual stories with them, in a form of modern hieroglyphics.

    Here's one by my boyfriend (a clearly very serious law student) called “A Relationship”:

    Then we started to animate song lyrics. Here's my best friend's rendering of "Survivor" by Destiny's Child:

    And here's my Lolita in sixty seconds:

    Challenge your friends. Take emoji to the next level. This is a medium a lot more intriguing than Instagram built right into your phone. And even when you hit a moment that calls for some serious emoji compromise or innovation—like who plays Beyoncé?—at least you don't have to cast her as : ).

    Get the full set of RED Hearts posts-in Fashion, Beauty, Entertainment, and News.