Thursday marked one of the most important days in congressional history for diversity. A record 102 women took office, 35 whom were newly-elected. They include Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the first Muslim women to serve in the House of Representatives, and Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids, the first Native American women. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, now the youngest congresswoman in history, also took the oath of office. The night before her swearing-in, a nearly decade-old clip of the 29-year-old began to resurface online, where she and other students dance to Phoenix’s then-hit song “Lisztomania.” It was uploaded to YouTube the year before she graduated from Boston University in 2011.

There’s nothing remotely scandalous about the video, but that hasn’t stopped right-wing Twitter users from attempting to weaponize it against Ocasio-Cortez, who is a Democratic Socialist. The New York representative is likely used to these types of attacks. Since winning her election in November, Ocasio-Cortez has been criticized for the clothes she wears, her bank balance, her modest childhood home, and now, apparently, for dancing in college.

But the reason Ocasio-Cortez’ detractors were able to find the video on the internet in the first place is far more interesting than their criticism. The story demonstrates how copyright law is often used to squash free expression on the internet—and sometimes even potentially erase a video featuring a future member of Congress.

The Ocasio-Cortez “Lisztomania” video was inspired by a separate YouTube clip uploaded in March 2009 by a woman named Sarah Newhouse (it has since been deleted; more on that later). Newhouse mixed the song with parts of iconic dancing scenes from 1980s “Brat Pack” movies like The Breakfast Club, which originally featured Karla DeVito’s “We Are Not Alone,” and Pretty in Pink starring Molly Ringwald and Jon Cryer.

“The video itself came as a product of being a creative type with too much time on my hands, having then-recently lost my job, spending time just editing goofy nonsensical videos to keep myself sane,” Newhouse said in a Twitter direct message. “I was also a fan of using YouTube Doubler to play with video and audio, and that combined with Phoenix's then-new album making me dance Molly Ringwald-style in my kitchen.”

Newhouse’s video quickly snowballed into a meme. Dozens of copycat clips were uploaded to YouTube, all featuring people doing The Breakfast Club dance to “Lisztomania,” including Ocasio-Cortez at Boston University. One of the earliest videos is from a group of dancers who filmed themselves on a roof in Brooklyn; their take was uploaded only several months after the original. According to Newhouse, Phoenix thought the video and subsequent mashups were great. “Oh, they loved it, they offered to have me come to a show and meetup, but they weren't playing anywhere nearby at the time, so that never happened,” she said.

This is where the copyright law portion of the story begins, which was first brought to WIRED’s attention by Parker Higgins. Back in 2013, Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law School professor and longtime copyright reform activist, uploaded a video to YouTube of a talk he had given at a Creative Commons event two years prior. It featured several of the Breakfast Club/Phoenix mashups, to help illustrate the point that “remixing” is an important part of culture.

Liberation Music, Phoenix’s record label, soon served Lessig with a takedown request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, demanding the video be taken down for violating its copyright for “Lisztomania.” Lessig quickly filed a DMCA counter-notice, arguing the his video constitutes “fair use,” since the song was excerpted for educational purposes—ironically to teach people about why copyright laws can stand in the way of cultural production. (This wasn’t even the first time a company had gone after the “Lisztomania” mashups. In 2010, Julian Sanchez uploaded a video to YouTube about the cultural importance of “remix culture,” which also featured the Brat Pack/Phoenix mashups. It also received a takedown request.)

Liberation Music threatened to sue Lessig, were he not to retract his counter-notice within 72 hours. Lessig then teamed up with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation to file another lawsuit, which Liberation Music settled for an undisclosed sum the next year. The record label also promised to adopt new policies that respect fair use. In this case, proponents of the freedom to remix, like Lessig and the EFF, won. But were Liberation Music to have gone after less copyright-savvy YouTube users, it may have been more successful in getting clips that featured “Lisztomania” removed. For instance, the video featuring Ocasio-Cortez may have been lost, erasing a small part of the story of an historic congressperson.

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The WIRED Guide to Memes

Similar DMCA takedown requests are regularly issued to YouTube users and those of other social media sites. Videogame companies have also issued DMCA takedowns against streamers, for instance. “The real danger of overzealous copyright enforcement isn't usually from targeted attempts to silence speech (although those happen to), it's from the Kafkaesque scattershot approach of just taking things down without caring about the consequences. The Lessig stuff definitely fell into that latter camp,” says Higgins, who worked at the Electronic Frontier Foundation during the time of Lessig’s case and is now at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The problem also extends far beyond just YouTube mashups.

Copyright policy often polices the expression of underrepresented groups, says Higgins, making it more difficult for them to freely create art. For example, judges have previously hindered hip-hop musicians from sampling other music in their work, an integral feature of the genre. “For a decade or so, courts basically put forth an interpretation of copyright law that said this whole art form that was being created and shaped and enjoyed by black communities was basically illegal, and that there was no way to make it legal without getting permission from (largely white) artists and record label executives,” he explains. Three songs on the 1994 Notorious B.I.G. album Ready to Die no longer feature samples after two record labels won a lawsuit in 2006, for example.

Meanwhile, Newhouse, who created the original Breakfast Club/Phoenix mashup, says her entire YouTube account has since been deleted—for copyright infringement. “It was a three strikes rule, I got three copyright claims and poof!”

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Dating in 2018 can be a challenge. I'm sorry, let me rephrase: It suuuuuuuuccckkkkksssss.

Apps like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, Grindr, and others are the dater's tools of choice , and yet hating them is the one thing we can all agree on these days. They're often more hazard than help, and the forced psychoanalysis of every picture and witty answer can shake even the most durable of confidences loose. Why am I not getting more matches? Why didn't they respond? But is it your fault, or the app's? Is it really possible to find true love with just your thumbs? I set out on a journey to find out, and it starts with defining love itself.

The heart of the matter is the heart itself. Like any muscle, it must be worked on to grow. And love for most people seems to emulate that—a laborious growing process. A symbiotic relationship where two people don't just grow together, but toward each other. But how do you decide on the person, the deciding factor of your success? I asked some of my friends that question and got varying answers: Someone that makes me laugh. Someone that's empathetic. Someone that gets me snacks. But how do you filter for that? Will Tinder ever have a checkbox for "level of snack-readiness?"

So if we agree that common interests and values are the types of things we're all looking for in relationships, how can we be expected to find them in an app that sorts for first-glance aesthetics and the ability to write one clever sentence about yourself? It's Romance Roulette. Your filters aren't set for love; they're set for lust, and their equation for it is faulty at best. Your best chance at not getting eliminated before you even start is to conform, in which case you arrive safely in the dating pool without any of the things that make you, you. Dating apps reward homogeneity, sifting everyone into two-dimensional profiles that look the same, sound the same, and in some cases, even algorithmically identify which picture is best to represent you for the largest possible audience.

Of course, people don't love each other for what makes them the same; they love them for what makes them unique. I wanted someone insatiable, someone whose eyes set ablaze when they talked about something important to them. I wanted someone who was a good friend, a motivator, someone who enjoyed being a blessing to those around them. I wanted someone to invest their love in me for exactly the things that make me different. For those looking for a simple standard, a dating app can provide you with a sea of able-bodied mates. I wanted more than a flat photo and a single sentence could provide. So I chose to swipe dating apps right off my homescreen.

Bye Bye, Bumble

Moving away from dating apps sounds liberating—and it is. You'll realize characteristics that only matter inside your phone screen—What picture is best of me? What's one sentence that describes me? Why am I not getting the matches I want?—have been worrying you way too much outside of it. If you try to game love, you can expect love to game you. Hookups and temporary flings can be easy to find on apps, but when deep connections keep evading you, it's not the app you question. It's yourself. It can chew on your confidence to the point where it's no longer raising your chances by widening the pool, it's hurting them by leaving you at half strength during the times that really matter.

But how does one even meet people without an app anymore? Approaching strangers in bars is harder than it's ever been; we leave our dating to our phones, and real life is spent inside the confines of our tightly knit friend circles. Anyone trying to date outside of their phone has the potential to come off, well, creepy.

The New Old Fashion

So to find old-school love I went old-school. I went speed dating for some face-to-face conversations, and it changed everything. I could gauge my interest within 30 seconds of talking to each person, and didn't have to make plans and text awkwardly all week just to get to there. They didn't have to tell me through a text they were passionate, I could see it. I didn't have to endure the difficult work of predicting if they would make me double over laughing; it either happened or it didn't. But—maybe even more importantly—it was a better shot for me.

There were no filters—and therefore no excuses—they were actually getting me. My personality, my humor, my empathy, even my snack-readiness, with no thumb-crafting involved. We know humans crave connection—real, deep, meaningful connection. Yet it's difficult to find that depth over text; it happens with body language. It happens with the dance and tempo of real conversation. The chemistry isn't very complicated if the ingredients never touch.

I went on to take a boxing class, and joined a new gym. I joined a social kickball team. I went to concerts of my favorite artists. I swapped my swipe for a tap into all the social events the internet could offer. Now instead of conforming, I formed it to me. I filtered for the things I liked doing, and indirectly filtered for the types of people I would meet. Add to that the kicker: When I showed up to the online dates I wasn't interested in, I had wasted a night. But if I didn't meet someone while my favorite musician bathed me in a searing guitar solo? It's a win-win. It's not that it's impossible to find love on dating apps—it certainly isn't. But it is a brute force trial and error approach. Instead of taking a route chosen for me, I considered my strengths and chose something fitted to them. For some, dating apps will widen the pool and lead to success. For others, like me, you might be better off on the road not taken. I may not have found true love just yet, but I'm enjoying the journey a helluva lot more.

How We Love: Read More

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Do You Have a Normal Sex Life?

The average person will kiss 21.5 people in their lifetime. And while guys lose their virginities at 16.8 years old, women will hold out a little longer until 17.2 years old. Find out how you stack up between the sheets as we run through the stats of an average sex life, as told with sex dolls.

Let's get this out of the way: A lot of norms were disrupted in the videogame industry this week. There was news of a writer at a top gaming site allegedly plagiarizing reviews, and also reports that the Chinese gaming market is having troubles. Oh, and Diablo III is making the leap to the Nintendo Switch. Up is down, down is up, and a lot of things are out of whack. So let's expect the unexpected and get right to it.

PSA: Do Not Plagiarize Your Game Reviews. Seriously. Don't.

The journalistic side of the gaming industry was positively rocked this week with the news that Filip Miucin, a now very former editor at IGN, one of the biggest gaming sites in the world, allegedly plagiarized a significant amount of his work for the site. The similarities between Miucin's writing and that of others was discovered after a YouTuber posted a video entitled, "IGN Copied my Dead Cells Review: What do I do?" Once the information hit the internet, IGN investigated the matter, removed Miucin's review, and promptly parted ways with him.

It didn't end with the Dead Cells review, though. Further investigations found other similarities between Miucin's work and that on other sites. There are some examples on Kotaku, along with more context on the case. It's possible a plagiarism scandal like this has never hit games, and it served as a reminder the industry needs more mechanisms in the hiring and editing processes to root them out.

The Chinese Game Market Is Having Some Problems Right Now

News broke this week that the Chinese game market is essentially at a stand-still thanks to regulatory shakeups with the agencies responsible for granting licenses to new games. How'd this happen? Basically, every game released in China has to pass through regulatory bodies before it can be released. (This makes it a tough place for foreign developers who want to tap the country's huge market but always run the risk of getting rejected, especially since foreign games receive heavy scrutiny.) And in the last four months, as reported by the South China Morning Post, the approval of licenses in China has completely stopped, affecting all games on all platforms. The situation is too dense to properly explain in detail here, but it seems that instability in the regulatory agencies, along with concerns about gambling-esque mechanics like loot boxes and other potentially objectionable content, is motivating the freeze. Stay tuned.

Diablo III Is the Latest Game to Make the Leap to the Nintendo Switch

You won't need to hack your Switch to hack and slash (hehehehehe), because Diablo III, the latest in Blizzard's series of fantasy-based action/adventure games. First released in 2012, the game has seen a number of re-releases, expansions, and updates, giving it a pretty long lifespan. And in the grand tradition of Hey, why don't we put that on the Nintendo Switch? they're putting it on the Nintendo Switch.

Naturally, there will be exclusive Nintendo-ified goodies within. Ever wanted to fight the god of all demons as Ganondorf? Now's your chance.

Recommendation of the Week: Doom (2016)

Recently, Bethesda announced Doom: Eternal, the sequel to id's inventive reboot of the epochal shooter franchise, and it's convinced me to spend some time revisiting it. And, frankly, it's still stunning. What gets me the most, on this particular playthrough, is how much personality there is in every little moment. The game has a distinct set of attitudes and aesthetics, epitomized in the quietly mocking, rebellious and wrathful silent hero. Even some of the best games skate by with barely half as much attention to tone and mood as this title. It's a little unfair, really.

Good morning, friends, and welcome to another edition of Replay. This week's videogame news includes a, um, battle royale between Fortnite and Apex Legends, another weird gaffe by Steam, and Nintendo sneaking a big surprise into an unassuming package. Press Start now.

Nintendo's Using Its DIY Cardboard Platform to Get Into VR

Remember Nintendo Labo? The cardboard thing, where you could build little models and robots and stuff and animate them with the Switch? It was part Lego robotics kit, part mini-game generator, and it was a fascinating experiment on the part of Nintendo. It was pretty kid-friendly, to boot! Well, now it's gonna do VR. The main VR kit will cost $80 and will feature VR goggles as well as several cardboard kits to build, while a $40 set will feature the goggles with only one kit, a blaster.

It's an interesting mixed-media approach to VR, the basic tech of a Google Cardboard merged with fully meatspace models that attach to the goggles and make them a bit more spatially vibrant for the kids to latch onto. As Nintendo's first foray into VR since the Virtual Boy, this is definitely a surprise. Testing the waters, maybe? We'll see if Nintendo's interest in VR continues into the future. But if not, at least we've got a neat cardboard laser out of the deal.

Fortnite Has Finally Been Pushed From Its Twitch Throne

For the past 11 months, Fortnite was the most-watched game on Twitch, which is one of the best barometers of a game's success the internet has to offer. If it's being watched, it's being talked about, written about, and just about everything else. A watched game is a big game. And for almost a year, Fortnite was easily the biggest.

Is Fortnite still the biggest game in general? It's hard to say for sure, but one thing is certain: It's no longer the most watched game on Twitch. Last month, that honor went to Apex Legends, the hottest new battle royale on the block. Will Apex Legends be able to keep up that momentum? Only time, and Twitch views, will tell.

Steam Blocks a Pretty Upsetting Game for a Pretty Flimsy Reason

Big ol' content warning for this one, folks. OK? OK.

So Steam, as we know, has questionable moderation policies, as exemplified by the game Rape Day, a real title that its developers attempted to release on the platform. The game, if it can be called that, is a visual novel in which you commit terrible acts of violence against women. Steam, a few days after Rape Day went viral for its untold horrors, announced the service would not be allowing it on the store. That seems good, right? Well, read on. "Much of our policy around what we distribute is, and must be, reactionary—we simply have to wait and see what comes to us via Steam Direct," Valve said in a statement. "We then have to make a judgment call about any risk it puts to Valve, our developer partners, or our customers. After significant fact-finding and discussion, we think Rape Day poses unknown costs and risks and therefore won't be on Steam."

Which, OK, cool. But a couple of things. First, that's the reasoning? It might put your bottom line at risk? That's a weak reason to remove a game from the store, when "because it's about really upsetting things for no good reason" is right there. That's not to say I want Steam to be moralizing on its storefront, but—and this is my second thing—it seems as though the company has no standards outside of keeping an eye on what people are most upset about, which is no way to run a market that sells pieces of interactive expression. I'm not sure how to curate a marketplace like Steam, but I'm fairly certain this is not it.

Recommendation of the Week: Black Mesa on PC

Half-Life is one of the greatest games of all time, a classic first-person shooter that set the mold for what those games could be. It's also, well, pretty old, and maybe you want to satisfy that Half-Life craving but with a more modern twist. For that, you gotta try Black Mesa, a full remake of the game created by fans turned creators in the newest version of the Source engine. It's impressive, works to fix some of the biggest problems the original had, and is almost—very nearly—entirely finished. Check it out.

It’s time once again to turn on The Monitor, WIRED’s roundup of the latest in the world of culture, from box-office news to release-date announcements. In today’s installment: Adult Swim dreams of electric sheep; Netflix's anime push continues; Disney’s Artemis Fowl teaser soars; and Jordan Peele conjures up Candyman (Candyman, Cand … ice Bergen. Sorry, we still can't bring ourselves to do it).

Back to the Future

Last year’s WIRED-beloved sci-fi sequel Blade Runner 2049 is being replicated in anime form: A new 13-episode series, Blade Runner-Black Lotus, is set to arrive on Adult Swim (and stream on Crunchyroll) at some unspecified point. Though it’s not clear which characters from the film will be appearing, Black Lotus will be set in 2032, and will involve Shinichiro Watanabe, who worked on a series of Blade anime prequels released last year. In the meantime, Blade Runner 2049 is streaming on HBO Now, and it’s really majestic and rad, so go rewatch that while you wait, K?

Netflix’s Next Moves

The streaming service announced a slew of new adaptations this week, starting with a live-action Cowboy Bebop, the adored future-set series. It’s the latest anime entry for Netflix, which is also adapting Avatar: The Last Airbender, and has set a Pacific Rim spinoff and a new Ultraman for next year (the mechs-and-match Ultraman trailer is below). The company also announced plans to create animated versions of several classic books by Roald Dahl, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG, and Matilda. What? No Danny, the Champion of the World? That’s a Matil-don’t.

An Unfortunate Moni-turn

WIRED would like to apologize for that last Matilda-adjacent pun. We promise to do better—at least matilda next time.

Playing Hooky

Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions will add to its creep-heavy development slate —which already includes Twilight Zone for CBS All Access, horror film Us, an HBO Lovecraft Country adaptation, and more—with a reboot of 1992 horror hit Candyman, about a hook-wielding killer who can be summoned by looking in the mirror and saying his name five times (or, presumably, by playing this song non-stop). Peele, who cowrote the script with Win Rosenfeld, will produce the film. Nia DaCosta, whose debut feature Little Woods has been a festival hit this year, will direct.

Fowl Play

Finally, Disney released its first look at next year’s Artemis Fowl, the delightful story of a wayward chicken who … sorry, I’m being told Fowl is actually an adaptation of the beloved multi-volume fantasy series by Eoin Colfer. Directed by Kenneth Branagh, the long-awaited epic stars newcomer Ferdia Shaw as the titular young criminal mastermind taking on a race of fairies. Opening next August, the movie features Judi Dench, Josh Gad, and Hong Chau.

Hey, tiger. Long week, huh? Between the Jeff Bezos vs. National Enquirer dustup and the acting attorney general of the United States testifying before Congress, there's been a lot of back and forth. But last week also saw the premiere of Ariana Grande's new video and a cat that miraculously came back to life after being frozen in the snow, so it's not all bad. Happy Year of the Pig, everybody!

The State of the Union Is as Boring as Ever

What Happened: After all the shutdown drama, last week President Trump was finally able to give his 2019 State of the Union address. Was it worth waiting for? It depends on how much you were looking forward to bad writing and flat delivery, but at least the audience was interesting.

What Really Happened: Welp, after a lot of political rigamarole, President Trump gave his State of the Union speech last week—and what a speech it was. Clocking in at 82 minutes, it was the third longest State of the Union speech ever. (Unable to break the record for the longest speech ever? Sad!) But journalists aside, nobody really cares about the runtime except for the poor people who had to sit through the whole thing. We'll get back to them later. In the meantime, let's look at what Trump said.

As should be expected, fact-checkers were busy pointing out falsehoods and misstatements, but even they couldn't make people take the speech as anything other than a damp squib, judging by the reaction online.

OK, we meant those not already on the Trump train, as Twitter was all too eager to demonstrate.

Of course, we can't just blame the writing in this case. After all, it is a speech delivered by Donald Trump, and that brings certain … shall we call them perks? Sure, why not.

It's also worth noting what the president didn't mention during the speech.

But let's get back to that lengthy run time. Just how long was the speech this year? More importantly, how long did it feel? Well, let's consider the case of one of the special guests at the speech, brought there by the First Family.

It was a heartwarming story with a twist ending.

So, yeah. It was a pretty bad speech. So bad that a lot of the post-speech discussion online didn't actually focus on Trump's oration, but on people the world was actually interested in. Of particular interest, as is becoming increasingly common these days, was the presence of representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Even among other congresspeople, she was a star.

People were obsessed with what she was wearing (especially as she was one of many women of Congress dressed in white for symbolic reasons)—

—and people were obsessed with how she behaved during the speech itself, with her responses drawing different reactions depending on what side of the political divide they came from.

The speech also launched a meme that put KKK hoods on AOC and the other Democratic women wearing white, but, as ever, Ocasio-Cortez rose above the cheap shots with a blunt, honest response.

To be fair, she may have already won even before the State of the Union thanks to this preview tweet:

Who would have thought that the Twitter President would run too long, and be brought low by someone else keeping to 280 characters or less? Is that … irony?

The Takeaway: This feels like an appropriate summary of what happened during the State of the Union, sadly. More sadly, this could describe so many State of the Unions before this one.

Nancy Pelosi Is All of Us Watching the SOTU

What Happened: Not content with winning people over by standing up to the president during the shutdown, last week speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi became the internet's avatar for State of the Union responses.

What Really Happened: Officially, the Democratic response to Trump's State of the Union speech came from Stacey Abrams, who delivered a short speech that seemed to go over well, triggering talk of a possible presidential run and panic at Fox News. But neither Abrams, nor even AOC, provided the most popular and widely shared Democratic rebuttal to the president's speech. No, for that, the internet turned to Nancy Pelosi. Madame Speaker?

Sure, we all know what a "hell no" look is, but if only there was a perfect example of just how wonderfully passive aggressive Pelosi's clapping looked…

Everyone immediately understood what was going on in the image, and so, a meme was born.

The internet was in love.

It was the clapback seen around the world, and was soon the subject of a number of news stories the next day. When sarcastic applause gets as much coverage as a speech, that’s when you know that nobody was really listening to what was being said.

The Takeaway: There’s one person who recognized exactly what Pelosi was doing: her daughter.

Investigate This

What Happened: As if to reinforce that no one was paying attention to the State of the Union, lawmakers responded to Trump's demand not to be investigated by announcing a new wide-ranging investigation into his administration and campaign.

What Really Happened: One particular line of Trump's SOTU speech would appear to be particularly prescient, given what happened the very next day—and not just because it was an awkward, tortured rhyme.

Less than 24 hours after the president complained publicly that there "cannot" be an investigation into his administration, the House Intelligence Committee—now under Democrat control for the first time in the Trump era—made a couple of big announcements.

No, that wasn't one of the big announcements, although the reason given seemed somewhat curious… Well, until the following two announcements were made, at least.

OK, that was kind of big. (Only kind of, because the Republican-controlled Intelligence Committee voted to release some of those transcripts last year, so it's not as if they were entirely hidden.) Even that was, however, the lesser of the two pieces of news announced by Rep. Adam Schiff on Wednesday.

Yes, the House will really for serious investigate the president and potential wrongdoing, unlike what happened under Republicans, which was clearly not intended to be a serious investigation. Oh, and that's not all: Everyone in America will get to find out exactly what the investigation reveals.

So, you know, that's kind of a big deal. How did the president, who just finished declaring he shouldn't be investigated, respond to the news that he was actually going to be very investigated? The answer is pretty much, "as you'd expect."

That was just the start of his tailspin; the next day on Twitter, he shared how he really felt.

So, the tenor of his reaction seems to be "clearly terrified," then. The next few months clearly aren't going to be boring, at least.

The Takeaway: How best to sum up this week in terms of the volleys between the president and the House Intelligence Committee? This seems pretty accurate, considering.

Bad Yearbook Photos

What Happened: Apparently, every politician of a certain age in Virginia has a personal connection to blackface in their past.

What Really Happened: It's not all about Washington this week, though! Let's take a moment to consider the horror show that is Virginia Governor Ralph Northam's response to the discovery of a photograph that may, perhaps, have featured him either dressed as a member of the KKK or in blackface. After initially apologizing hours after the photo went viral last Friday, he shockingly walked back that apology a day later.

Oh, but it got worse. Much worse.

Yes, that's right; Northam's argument that it wasn't him in a photograph showing someone in blackface was, essentially, "Don't get me wrong, I did get dressed up in blackface, but I didn't look like that." And that's saying nothing about the fact that he almost moonwalked at the press conference, only to be talked out of it by his wife. Let's just say that it was far from the most convincing pushback.

This really didn't go down well with other Democrats.

As of this writing, a full week after the photograph originally came to light, Northam has not resigned—indeed, he reportedly refuses to do so in case that meant he would be branded as "racist for life," as if that's not a done deal already—but the heat has been inexplicably taken off him by the fact that a second Democrat in Virginia came out as wearing blackface last week.

Unsurprisingly, the Republican Party swiftly moved to take advantage of this.

But, guess what? Spoiler alert: It's exactly what you're worried about.

Oh, and then there was this, too.

The Takeaway: What's genuinely shocking about the following tweet is that it doesn’t actually seem over-the-top or out-of-bounds considering what's actually been happening this week.

Liam, No

What Happened: Actor Liam Neeson said some fairly racist-sounding things. Lots of people noticed.

What Really Happened: In what might be an almost-impressive feat of career suicide, Liam Neeson decided to share something that he really shouldn't have last week.

It almost sounds like an Onion joke, but it really wasn't; Neeson did indeed give an interview wherein he admitted to wandering around wanting to attack a person of color after a friend had been raped.

The writer of the Independent story took to Twitter to talk about her experience.

Some people tried to see the funny side of the what was happening—

—but more people couldn't quite see what was worth laughing about.

The interview prompted much discussion across the media. A day later, Neeson attempted to tamp down the controversy, with a second interview on the topic.

People weren't convinced by it, and the backlash continued as public events got cancelled. Would no one stand up for Neeson, preferably with a ridiculous statement that you can't quite believe was shared publicly?

There we go. Celebrities! They're just like us, only they say really stupid things and everyone hears about it!

The Takeaway: Man, remember when Liam Neeson wasn't an embarrassment? You know, like a week ago?