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Department Of WTF?!: Watch Ashton Kutcher Make A Really Bad Career Decision.
Note: The video contains a bit of salty language, but I'm guessing that it's better for you than trans fat and racism.
09.21.12
Science
Levi's CEO settles the debate on just how often you should wash your jeans
There are a lot of diverse opinions on the topic.
04.01.24
How often should you wash your jeans?
Social media has become a fertile breeding ground for conversations about hygiene. Whether it’s celebrities bragging about how little their family bathes or battles over how often people should wash their sheets or bras.
One of the debates that gets the most diverse responses is how often people wash their denim jeans.
Denim atelier Benjamin Talley Smith tells Today that jeans should be washed "as little as possible, if at all.” Laundry expert Patric Richardson adds they should be cleaned “after nine or 10 wearings, like to me, that is the ideal." At that point, they probably have stains and are "a little sweaty by that point, so you need to wash 'em," Richardson says.
Still, some people wash and dry them after every wear while others will hand wash and never hang dry. With all these significant differences of opinion, there must be a correct answer somewhere, right?
The CEO of Levi Strauss, Charles Bergh, has stepped up to set the record straight on when and how to wash your jeans. He caused a stir in 2014 when he said he only washes his jeans once a year, but it was for environmental reasons more than hygiene.
Reading: The Dirty Jeans Manifesto https://t.co/nAQbdbdpn2— Gavin Heaton (@Gavin Heaton) 1405392206
He later clarified his thoughts in a blog post, “The Dirty Jean Manifesto” he posted to LinkedIn.
“I made this provocative statement because I believe strongly in what our brands stand for: quality, durability and lasting products made sustainably. I also said it because I believe we don’t need to wash jeans as often as most people think we do,” Bergh wrote.
"We learned that an average pair of jeans consumes roughly 3,500 liters of water — and that is after only two years of use, washing the jeans once a week," Bergh wrote. "Nearly half of the total water consumption, or 1,600 liters, is the consumer throwing the jeans in the washing machine. That’s equivalent to 6,700 glasses of drinking water!"
To add to the problem, denim jeans are often manufactured in places where water is scarce, such as India, Pakistan, Mexico, China and parts of California.
Bergh recently spoke with CNBC’s Christine Tan and clarified his thoughts on jean cleanliness.
“True denim heads, people that really love their denim, will tell you to never put your denim into a washing machine. So that’s what I do,” Bergh explained. “If I drop some curry on my jeans, I’m gonna clean it. But I’ll spot-clean it. And if they get really gross you know, if I’ve been out sweating or something and they get really gross, I’ll wash them in the shower.”
However, when Bergh washes his jeans in the shower, he does it while wearing them and washing them with soap. The image that the scene conjures is of a cowboy bathing in a cartoon, clothes on and all.
There are a lot of different opinions on how often one should wash and dry their jeans and many of them boil down to personal preference. But the debate on the topic has brought up one very big point we should all consider: when choosing how often we wash our jeans, a big part of the decision should be considering the amount of water we use.
This article originally appeared on 10.12.23
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Internet
Woman's rare antique turned away from 'Antique Roadshow' for beautiful heart-wrenching reason
"I just love you for bringing it in and thank you so much for making me so sad."
04.03.24
Photos by Murat Rahim Caglak and Antoni Shkraba via Canva
Woman's antique turned away from 'Antique Roadshow'
People come by things in all sorts of ways. Sometimes you find something while at a garage sale and sometimes it's because a family member passed away and it was left to them. After coming into possession of the item, the owner may be tempted to see how much it's worth so it can be documented for insurance purposes or sold.
On a recent episode of BBC One's Antique Roadshow, a woman brought an ivory bracelet to be appraised. Interestingly enough, the expert didn't meet this rare find with excitement, but appeared somber. The antique expert, Ronnie Archer-Morgan carefully explains the purpose of the bracelet in what appears to be a tense emotional exchange.
There would be no appraisal of this antique ivory bracelet adorned with beautiful script around the circumference. Archer-Morgan gives a brief disclaimer that he and the Antique Roadshow disapprove of the trade of ivory, though that was not his reason for refusing the ivory bangle.
"This ivory bangle here is not about trading in ivory, it’s about trading in human life, and it’s probably one of the most difficult things that I’ve ever had to talk about. But talk about it we must," Archer-Morgan says.
Turns out the woman had no idea what she had in her possession as she purchased it from an estate sale over 30 years before. One of the elderly residents she cared for passed away and the woman found the ivory bracelet among the things being sold. Finding the bangle particularly intriguing with the fancy inscription around it, she decided to purchase the unique piece of jewelry.
After explaining that his great-grandmother was once enslaved in Nova Scotia, Canada before being returned to Sierra Leone, Archer-Morgan concluded he could not price the item.
"I just don’t want to value it. I do not want to put a price on something that signifies such an awful business. But the value is in the lessons that this can tell people," he tells the woman.
In the end the woman leaves without knowing the monetary value of the item but with a wealth of knowledge she didn't have before visiting. Now she can continue to share the significance of the antique with others. Watch the full explanation below.
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Democracy
'It's all a lie': Woman who returned from Europe shares why life is much harder in the U.S.
Why work harder for a lower quality of life?
04.02.24
Kayleigh Donahue explains the differences between the U.S. and Europe.
American-born TikTok user Kayleigh Donahue is going viral on the platform because of her unflinching take on why it was a mistake for her to move back to the U.S. after spending 4 years in Ireland.
She now lives in the Boston area.
Kayleigh moved back to the U.S. from Ireland to make more money, but that didn’t go as planned. Even though she got paid more, the cost of living was so much higher that she saved less money than she did in Ireland. She also missed the generous number of vacation days she got in Europe as compared to America.
@kayshaynee popping off always #americanabroad #usavseurope #movingabroad #livingabroad #europevsamerica #fyp
“Basically, I really got sucked into the American Dream way of living when I was abroad, which is funny because I loved living abroad,” Kayleigh said. “But you know, making more money, that’s enticing. Good job, that’s enticing. It’s not true. It used to be. It definitely used to be. You could come here and make a ton of money, make a great life for yourself. But the younger generation today, in this country — screwed. It’s literally all a lie that is sold to you. It’s such a struggle, and the older generation doesn’t seem to see how much of a struggle it is for the younger generation here.”
In the end, who wants to work harder for a lower quality of life?
“Needless to say, I will most likely be moving back to Europe where 20-plus days of paid vacation a year is literally the law, and I will make less money, but somehow, you know, the cost of living is lower there and I can save more,” Kayleigh concluded the video.
This article originally appeared on 1.17.24
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Education
The amount of money Americans budgeted for food 100 years ago is mind-boggling
If we think our grocery bills are high now, it's nothing compared to what families spent in the early 1900s.
04.03.24
Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash
Even if we shop at the most expensive stores, we still don't spend as much of our income on food as they did in 1901.
As inflation following the COVID-19 pandemic peaked in the summer of 2022, Americans keenly felt it at the grocery check-out. It seemed as if prices had gone up on everything, and our food budgets took a hit. Even though inflation has eased since then, many of us are still lamenting the amount we're spending on groceries and dining out every month.
A New York Post headline ominously pronounced in February 2024 that "Americans have not spent this much of their incomes on food since the Gulf War," citing a federal statistic that U.S.consumers spent 11.3% of their disposable income on food—a higher percentage than we've seen in the past 30 years.
But as they say, it's all relative. While we balk at spending 11% of our income on food, families in the early 1900s would have been thrilled at spending that little on food.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans spent a whopping 42.5% of their household budgets on food in 1901, nearly four times what we spend now. In real numbers, that means the equivalent of a household with the current median income of almost $75,000/yr spending $2,610 a month on food. And that was the reality for a long time—even a few decades later in the 1930s, people were still spending more than a third of their income on food compared to our 11% today.
And the economy, while different in its nature, wasn't drastically different in terms of numbers at that time. The unemployment rate for Americans in 1901 was 4.0%, approximately the same as March of 2024. The country was between two mild recessions and it would only be two more years before it overtook Britain as the world's wealthiest nation. It's not like there was some huge economic downturn that had caused food prices to soar at that time. Food just cost a whole lot more relative to people's income back then.
Okay, so food budgets were high relative to income back then, but what about housing? Surely, people spent far less of their money on housing at that time, right?
Less, yes, but not by as much as we might assume. In 1901, housing made up 23.3% of the average household budget, while in 2022 it was 33%. Definitely an increase, but not as drastic as the decrease in our food budgets. (Caveat: Those percentages don't speak to everyone's individual situation—some Americans are spending upwards of 50% of their income on rent and utilities.) Our clothing expenditures have also gone down by a lot since 1901, from 14% of income to less than 3%.
So where is all of our money going to make our budgets feel squeezed? One spending category that's not even included in the 1901 statistics, which makes up double digit percentages of our spending today, is transportation. In 1901, the automobile industry was in its infancy, still a couple decades away from its first big boom that made cars commonplace. Now we have cars, buses, subways, air travel—and the fuel for all of those things—that people in 1901 simply didn't have to consider.
We also have technology like computers and smartphones now that have become more necessity than nice-to-have. And along with that, of course, we have copious entertainment extras that most of us can't imagine living without.
Another expenditure that doesn't show up in 1901 is healthcare, which takes up 8% of our budgets now. Did people simply not have healthcare expenses back then?
Basically, no, they didn't. According NPR, Americans spent around $5 a year ($100 in today's dollars) on medical care in 1900, primarily because there wasn't a whole lot of medical care to be had. We forget how far our advancements in medicine came in the 20th century, and that those advancements have a cost. Throw in the health insurance industry evolving in the middle of the 1900s, and now medical costs make up a decent chunk of our budgets.
It's fascinating to take a step back and look at the big picture of history when we find ourselves complaining about the price of a banana or a bag of rice. It's not that we can't or shouldn't feel frustrated when our cost of living increases, but when it comes to food budgets, we're living in pretty flush times, relatively speaking. Especially when we consider how much more access we have to different kinds of foods than ever before.
Fluctuations in retail prices have always occurred, of course, due to wars, recessions, etc., and some items have become more expensive while others have gotten cheaper, relatively speaking. But regardless of individual prices, if we find ourselves lamenting our curren grocery bill, it might help to remember how much more of the average budget food used to be. Even if grocery prices were to rise more, we still won't be anywhere near the percentage of our paychecks that food used to take up, and that's certainly something to be grateful for.
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Pop Culture
Matt Damon shared the wildest story about his rescued 'jungle cat' from Costa Rica
"At no point in this story did I have any idea what would happen next," one viewer wrote.
04.03.24
@colbertlateshow/TikTok, Canva
The cat distribution system reaches even the depth of the jungle.
The cat distribution system always works. Even for celebrities. Just ask Matt Damon.
While appearing on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” the “Jason Bourne” actor shared the wildest story about a stray cat he had adopted 10 years ago during a month-long stay at an Airbnb in Costa Rica.
After hearing him describe this next level kitty, you’ll understand why he describes him as “the coolest cat you’ve ever seen.”
“He was living by himself in the jungle…He was hunting. He had two giant holes in his side. He was fighting for his life every night,” Damon began.
Damon and his family fed this tough jungle kitty every night, and by the time came for them to head home, they decided to take their new furry friend with them.
"We decided we gotta take the cat, he's gonna die, now he's relying on us,” Daman joked with Colbert.
Once Damon got the cat home, he figured it would prefer staying out in their backyard. Nope.
"He never went outside, ever again."
Now, this is where the story takes a slightly darker turn. Eventually the cat developed a brain tumor. However, Damon became determined to not “let a brain tumor take this cat out.” After all, this is the toughest jungle cat!
Eventually the Damon family and Jungle Cat moved to New York City. And by this time, the cat had lost a lot of weight and was only walking around in circles (a common symptom of cat brain tumors).
Hoping to find a cure, Damon took his feline friend to a cat neurologist named Chad (which cracks Damon up to share), and Dr. Chad at first tells him to prepare his children and teach them that part of a pet owner’s responsibility is giving them the “dignity” of a humane death when quality of life is too far compromised.
But just when things seem at their worst, this story does a 180 into hilarity.
@colbertlateshow Matt Damon shares an incredible story about the cat he adopted from Costa Rica. #Colbert ♬ original sound - colbertlateshow
“Chad said, ‘I could load him up on steroids. And I go, ‘What do you mean?’ He goes, ‘I mean, I could give him like a BUNCH of steroids.’”
At this point, Damon, Colbert and the audience are all laughing.
Damon apparently asked “are there long term issues?” to juicing his cat, which got an emphatic “YEAH! Massive long term issues with that but we can just see what happens,” from Dr. Chad.
This was apparently two-and-a-half years ago. And not only is Jungle Cat still around, but “jacked like Arnold Schwarzenegger,” Damon joked.
Down in the comments, viewers were begging to see photos of Jacked Jungle Cat.
"MATT WE GOTTA SEE THE CAT!!!" one person demanded.
"WHERE CAN I DEMAND A PICTURE OF ARNOLD SWAGGERCAT?" echoed another.
Others were just enamored by Damon’s storytelling skills.
"Matt Damon always delivers the funniest stories," one person wrote, while another said that he “needed a podcast.”
And perhaps the best comment goes to the person who said, "At no point in this story did I have any idea what would happen next."
While Dr. Chad might have seemed a little out there in his methods, it’s fairly common for pet oncologists to try incorporating steroids like Prednisolone to treat the inflammation associated with brain tumors. However, that’s normally low doses, not using a bunch and seeing what happens. But hey, it seemed to work! And Damon got a really great story out of it. Not to mention more time with a pretty awesome jungle cat.Keep ReadingShow less
Family
‘Against their beliefs’: Parents won't let daughter go to boy’s Taylor Swift birthday party
“Like what religion is out here saying, ‘Thou shalt not listen to Taylor Swift?’”
04.03.24
via Jolene Dolo (used with permission)
Popular TikTokker Jolene Dolo.
A TikTok video by the mother of a gender non-conforming son is a masterclass in refusing to be baited into a confrontation, no matter how tempting it may be. It all started when TikTokker Jolene Dolo’s 8-year-old son, Sam, sent out invitations to his Taylor Swift-themed birthday party.
Jolene told Upworthy that Sam doesn’t have a favorite Swift song, but his favorite album is “Lovers.”
“My 8-year-old Sam is having a Taylor Swift birthday party, and yesterday I received a text message from a parent of a child who was invited letting us know that their child will not be attending because it is against their beliefs,” Jolene began.
“I'm not exactly sure what belief system you have, like what religion is out here saying, ‘Thou shalt not listen to Taylor Swift?’” she continued.
Even though Taylor Swift is probably the closest thing to being America's Sweetheart, a quick search on the internet reveals she is a threat to some with extreme religious and political views.
Top 5 Taylor Swift conspiracy theories:
1. She’s secretly a queer woman in love with model Karlie Kloss.
2. She’s working to swing the election for Joe Biden.
3. She’s a Pentagon psychological operative manipulating the minds of Americans.
4. Her success as an unmarried businesswoman in her 30s is a bad example for girls and young women.
5. She performs witchcraft on stage.
Even if the parents aren’t conspiracy theorists, they may think that an 8-year-old boy having a Taylor Swift party is wrong because young boys shouldn’t be into “girly” things.
@jolenedolo They are allowed to have their beliefs and i’m allowed to have feelsing about their beliefs. I didnt try to change their mind, i just wanted to talk about it on MY page. Tha ks for listening ❤️ #taylorswift #gendercreativeparenting #taylorswiftparty
After reading the cryptic text, Jolene and her husband could easily have let curiosity get the best of them and asked the parents why a Taylor Swift-themed birthday party was against their beliefs. But they were strong and didn’t take the bait.
"Me and my husband talked about it and we decided that their text message seemed a little confrontational because they could have just said 'No, thank you, we will not be attending.' It seemed like they probably wanted a response from us and we didn't want to give them what they wanted," Jolene said.
Further, the declined invitation was better for everyone involved. Who wants someone at a Taylor Swift party who doesn’t like her or what she may or may not stand for? “We do not want anybody coming to our party who is going to be feeling uncomfortable or making us feel uncomfortable so you know it's a good thing,” Jolene continued.
On a deeper level, the story touches on an important topic. Why is it okay for young girls to look up to men, but young men can’t look up to women? No one would bat an eye if a young girl had a Jonas Brothers-themed birthday party, but many people are shocked by a young boy loving Taylor Swift.
“Are little girls not allowed to listen to male artists, or is it just like certain male artists who give off like, masculine vibes? Because I've always found it kind of weird that we don't want boys liking women like that or looking up to women. What's the problem in boys liking women?” Jolene asked.
The TikTokker believes the double standard is rooted in misogyny. “Society tends to see women as weaker or less than men, so a boy looking up to a woman is essentially below him in their eyes,” Jolene told Upworthy. “That's why most people wouldn’t bat an eye at a girl who likes Spider-Man or had a Harry Styles-themed birthday. Meanwhile, boys are shamed for even participating in women-dominated hobbies and interests.”
The good news is that, in the end, the party went off without a hitch and the decorations were fabulous.
@jolenedolo Taylor swift birthday party for my 8 year old son #taylorswift #taylorswiftparty #gendercreativeparenting
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