As the children of “anti-vaxxers” grow up and become old enough to make their own decisions, some of them are deciding to go a different route.
Ethan Lindenberger is 18 years old. His mother never vaccinated him against any diseases of any kind. In November, Ethan posted on Reddit asking for advice on how to get vaccinated against his parents’ wishes now that he’s a legal adult.
“My parents think vaccines are some kind of government scheme,” Ethan wrote in his post. Like many anti-vaxxers, they also believe that vaccines cause autism.
The Ohio teen said he wanted to protect himself against measles, HPV, and hepatitis. With multiple measles outbreaks across the US in 2019, the issue is on everyone’s minds.
Eventually, Ethan returned to Reddit with a happy update: He’d successfully gone to get his vaccinations. Because he’s a legal adult, his parents didn’t even attempt to stop him.
But for other teens in similar situations, the process isn’t so simple. In response to Ethan’s post, many of them began to share their own experiences and ask for advice.
“I’ve heard from kids my age who don’t want to go behind their parents’ backs and are afraid of getting kicked out or upsetting their parents,” Ethan told Inside Edition.
But for this teen, at least, life at home has gone on peacefully despite his decision to go against the grain.
“My mom and I still love each other despite disagreeing with each other. We’re kind,” he said.
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Linus Tech Tips is a tech review and showcase channel on YouTube co-created and hosted by Linus Sebastian.
History
The channel was created on November 24th, 2008 by Sebastian as an extension and cheaper alternative to his former employer’s channel NCIX Tech Tips, due to its low viewership and high production costs during its initial startup. His first video was uploaded the next day, which consists the results of his overclocking of an AMD processor. The early days of his channel mostly consisted of unboxing various computer parts and peripherals (examples shown below).
His production company, Linus Media Group, was founded by himself, Luke Lafreniere, Edzel Yago, and Brandon Lee in January of 2013. Since then, the channel has gained a larger crew and higher quality in video production, along with more variety on content such as PC builds guides, build logs and tech reviews. Despite these changes, they still occasionally make “classic unboxing” and tech overview videos in their daily upload schedule.
Linus Sebastian – CEO & Host Luke Lafreniere – WAN Show Co-Host & Former CTO Nick Light – COO Yvonne Ho – CFO Edzel Yago – Production Manager Brandon Lee – Cinematographer Taran Van Hemert – Editing Manager Colton Potter – Sales & Business Dev Jon Martin – Writer & Benchmarker Dennis Liao – Editor Jake Tivy – Writer & Benchmarker Pelle Gustavs – Editor Tyler Curry – Writer & Logistics Maxine Tamoto – Camera Operator Anthony Young – Writer & Benchmarker Alex Clark – Writer James Strieb – Writer Alexandre Potvin – Editor Ivan Metelitsa – Writer & Benchmarker
Besides technology-related videos, they also upload vlogs, such as moving vlogs, construction, and other behind-the-scenes content (examples shown below).
The channel recently reached 5 million subscribers on January 8th, 2018, which was announced on Twitter that day.
Quick! 246 people unsubscribe and resubscribe so we can screenshot it at exactly 5 million! 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/0jueDlEDB5
The WAN Show (Weekly Analysis & News) is a regular live stream occasionally hosted by Linus Sebastian and Luke Lafreniere, wherein they discuss tech news and give their own opinions on it. The live stream is hosted via Twitch and starts every Friday at 5 PM PST, and is reuploaded on their YouTube channel. The show also has various errors during the stream (failing intro, late stream times, etc.) The series was first introduced as a “Live Show” on August 31st, 2012, while Luke was first introduced in the show as “Slick” on November 9th, 2012.
The live show was officially renamed to “The WAN Show” on July 12, 2013. As of late December 2017, the WAN show currently has 196 episodes, with its most viewed episode having 763 thousand views (below, right.)
Handy Tech Under $100
Handy Tech Under $100 is a series of videos that showcast various, useful items that are under the price of $100. The series started on December 15th, 2013, and has 17 episodes as of January 2018.
HOLY $H!T
HOLY $H!T is a video series consisting of very exaggerated and expensive tech items and peripherals. The first video was uploaded on January 21st, 2016, featuring a 3.84 TB SSD from Samsung and has more than 1.3 million views (shown below, left). The series currently has 24 episodes as of November 2017.
Scrapyard Wars
Scrapyard Wars is a series wherein Linus, Luke, and other guests (starting in Season 3) build a gaming PC under a specific budget. The first season started on February 14th, 2015 (shown below, left), and ended two weeks after. As of November 2017, the series has six season and 27 episodes, with the latest season concluded on November 4, 2017 (shown below, right).
Online Presence
The channel has gained a large following, as it currently has over 5 million subscribers. The show also has social media accounts on Facebook, where it has over 570,000 likes, and its Twitter account, which has over 615,000 followers. It also has its dedicated subreddit, as well as its own forum site with over 460 thousand members.
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Reputation
Before and during the early days of Linus Tech, he created and hosted the NCIX Tech Tips channel, with videos similar to the Linus’ own channel. He first appeared ino the channel on July 24, 2007 (below, left), and officially announced his leave from NCIX on his last video, posted on December 30th, 2015 (below, right) His reason was to concentrate more on his own channel and its content.
Linus Media Group (LMG) also has two correlated channels: Techquickie, which consists of quick takes and explanations on various technological topics (sample below, left), and Channel Super Fun, which contains other LMG vlogs, pranks, and other extra content (sample below, right).
Besides videos, LMG is also working on a website called Floatplane: a content hosting site that concentrates more on delivering towards the audience, similar and competing sites like YouTube. The website is based on their monthly paid forum subscription “Floatplane Club,” and has been the topic in numerous WAN Show episodes. Luke announced the website’s ongoing construction in the channel on April 21, 2017.
Copyright Claims Controversy
In February 2019, YouTube reportedly introduced changes to Content ID algorithm, leading to a number of tech-related channels on YouTube receiving automated copyright claims on behalf of Linus Media Group. Unlike copyright strikes, copyright claims do not involve penalties for the channel they are filed against with the exception of the revenue for the video the claim was filed against being redirected to the original copyright holder.
Following the automated claims, several YouTube tech channels, including The Linux Gamer (video now deleted) and Carey Holzman (shown below), posted videos accusing Linus Media Groups of trying to harm them, with some confusing the copyright claims with copyright strikes.
On February 15th, Linus Sebastian made a post on LinusTechTips forum clarifying the difference between a copyright strike and a copyright claim and voicing support for derivative content made by the Linus Tech Tips community.
We have noticed a significant uptick in copyright claims in the last couple of weeks, though, with some of them being in really really old content which suggests youtube has made some kind of change to ContentID and we’ve been trying to figure out how to address it. We are generally pretty supportive of the creation of derivative works by our community and we want to make sure that they aren’t being algorithmically claimed, but this change has caused other issues for us too.
On February 17th, Linus Sebastian held a live stream on YouTube clarifying the issue and asking those affected by the automated claims to reach out to Linus Media Group instead of creating negative reaction videos.
On February 19th, 2019, Redditor Feurrado created an appreciation post dedicated to Linus Sebastian on /r/pcmasterrace subreddit. The post gained over 42,000 upvotes in two days. On the next day, Redditor basil78 created a thread in /r/OutOfTheLoop subreddit inquiring about the controversy.
LinusKappa / Troll Linus
LinusKappa / Troll Linus is a graphic emoticon featuring Linus’ face in greyscale. Similar to Kappa, this is used to convey trolling and sarcasm. It has become an in-joke within the community and has been referenced multiple times by the channel itself.
Linus Dropping Things
Linus Dropping Things refers to multiple instances wherein Linus (or someone else) accidentally drops tech items during his videos.
Gekyume’s Circumcision refers to a series of jokes and memes about the circumcision ceremony for late-rapper XXXtentacion’s son, Gekyume.
Origin
On January 28th, 2019, XXXtentacion’s son, Gekyume Onfroy, was born.
The earliest known reference to the child’s circumcision, however, was posted in a meme by Instagram users @cumcell on February 2nd, 2019. That day, they posted an illustrated invitation to the ceremony, receiving more than 27,000 likes in less than one month (shown below).
Spread
The following day, Twitter user @MurraCainan tweeted, “I can’t wait for #Gekyume ‘s #circumcision party.” The tweet included an illustration of XXXtentacion breastfeeding a child (shown below, left).
Over the next few weeks, more people on social media posted various jokes about the ceremony. For example, on February 6th, Instagram user @epicdong posted a series of memes, including one comparing Gekyume’s circumcision ceremony to the inauguration ceremonies of Presidents “Barack Obama”:memes/people/barack-obama/ and Donald Trump. The post received more than 690 likes in one month (shown below, center).
On February 20th, Redditor Invincible_TKD posted a variation of the Pimples Zero meme using the Gekyume’s circumcision as a theme. The post received more than 470 points (99% upvoted) in 24 hours (shown below, right).
It has come to our attention that Vanna White is not only a precious gem of a human, but is also filthy rich.
Vanna White is the co-host of Wheel of Fortune. She’s been touching letters and making them light up for 36 years and counting. She hasn’t done much more than that with her show biz career, and she doesn’t want to.
Also, she doesn’t need to – because she apparently gets paid A LOT of money to be on Wheel of Fortune.
Cosmopolitan dug out all of the fascinating details of Vanna’s income, and some of it may make your jaw drop.
First and foremost, Vanna apparently makes somewhere from $4 to $10 million per year just from co-hosting the show. She’s business-savvy, too: She once won $403,000 in a lawsuit because Samsung aired a commercial with a robot turning letters on a game show.
But mostly, Vanna is just delightful. She’s a homebody who owns her own line of yarn! She’s had the same exact job since 1982! This woman is an inspiration.
Congrats are in order for Ariana Grande! The young songstress recently achieved an impressive (and rare!) music industry feat.
Billboard announced on February 19 that the singer had claimed all top three spots simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart. That’s a major accomplishment in its own right, but what makes it even more historic is the fact that Ariana is the first artist to achieve this feat since The Beatles did for the first (and last) time in 1964.
The legendary music group held all top three spots (for “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Twist and Shout” and “Do You Want to Know a Secret”) for a whopping five weeks in 1964 — March 14, 21, and 28, and April 4 and 25. The week of April 4, 1964, The Beatles actually held the entire top five with their various singles.
“7 Rings,” Ariana’s second single off of her new album Thank U, Next, has topped the Hot 100 for four weeks straight. Her latest single, “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored,” debuted and is holding at #2, while title track “Thank U, Next” is currently sitting at #3 after previously spending seven weeks in the #1 spot.
The pop star was, understandably, stunned. She responded to the announcement by tweeting, “wait what,” soon followed by another tweet that read, “what the f*ck is going on.” As it turns out, she genuinely didn’t believe she’d accomplished this feat.
“I laughed when I saw this bc i thought y’all edited it. thank u from the bottom of my heart. for so many reasons. first time since the beatles huh. that’s wild. i thought this was a joke when i saw it i’m not kidding. i love u. so much. always have n will. thank u for everything,” she later explained via Twitter.
Of course, Ariana’s recent string of successes hasn’t been without controversy. Earlier this year, she faced accusations of racial appropriation for “7 Rings” and its accompanying music video. Check out the video to see how Ariana responded to that backlash.
Winter 2019 has not been kind to the city of Chicago. January’s brutal and record-breaking polar vortex dropped arctic-cold temperatures onto The Windy City residents.
The Ahmed family is a family of five that lives in the suburbs of Chicago. When the polar vortex hit, they were immediately concerned about their ailing 95-year-old neighbor. That concern led them to worry about their other neighbors who may be sick, elderly and/or unable to function normally in the sub-zero temps.
With no hidden agenda, Sabeel Ahmed and his family came up with a plan. He and his wife spent hours hand-delivering copies of letters to 40 homes throughout their neighborhood. These letters listed a variety of selfless gestures — offering to pick up groceries, fill prescription medication orders or shovel snow from driveways of those who couldn’t or needed an extra hand.
“As temperatures dip way below zero, neighbors are the ones to help each other,” the letters read.
The family of five continued to go above and beyond by extending an invitation into their home for hot tea and snacks.
“We hope and pray each person seeing this letter that they would write something similar and not just for winter this should be a lifelong activity for all neighbors every city of this state,” Sabeel told reporters.
In the clip below, the Ahmed family is honored for their incredible act of kindness.
Kim and Tripp Morgan gave birth to a beautiful son named Murphy. It wasn’t long after his arrival that his bottom lip swelled up like a balloon, leaving him with discolored skin on his chin.
At first, Kim wasn’t too concerned. The mother from Little Rock, Arkansas figured her son’s swollen lip would eventually return to normal size.
But the older Murphy grew, the larger his lower lip became. Doctors struggled to find the root cause while Kim and Tripp struggled with the emotional ramifications.
When taking Murphy out in public, people would often stop and stare at his face in judgement, thinking the baby had recently been injured.
Murphy was ultimately diagnosed with a venous malformation, a “non-cancerous cluster of improperly formed blood vessels,” as InsideEdition.com reports.
Doctors thought injections, mostly used to treat varicose veins, would reduce the swelling. While the injections were effective, Murphy’s lip remained excessively large.
In the end, doctors told the Tripps that Murphy’s only option was a very special type of surgery.
Sure, we might be a few months deep into the new year, with the holiday season firmly in our rear view. Does that mean Christmas is a completely off-limits subject? Not if you’re Ron Burgundy. In fact, if it were up to him, Christmas would be discussed all year round!
Ron and producer Carolina reminisce about their most cherished holiday memories: favorite gifts, favorite seasonal commercials, and of course favorite songs, including a few Ron Burgundy originals that are sure to become future classics.
They also go head-to-head over “Die Hard” and its categorization as a Christmas movie. Admittedly, it’s less of of a debate, and more just Ron repeating the film’s most notable catch phrase over and over, but you get the idea.
They’re ultimately joined in the studio by Andrew, a self-proclaimed “Christmas expert,” who helps to keep the spirit of Christmas alive with both Ron and Carolina.
So if you’re looking for ways to keep the spirit of Christmas alive all year long in your heart, start with your ears and give the latest episode a listen right now.
