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Scotsman
10-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Fringe theatre musical Girl Pop! Girlz This Blighted Star Life's a Drag
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Girl Pop! ★★★ Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose (Venue 24) until 25 August Girlz ★★★ Greenside @ George Street (Venue 236) until 23 August The cruel rule of the manufactured pop band is that it's all over once the members ask for more creative control or think that they can do better than the ruthless machine which created them. Girl Pop! follows the eponymous four-piece on the comeback trail, older, wiser and ready to reminisce on the insane intensity of their years in the pop spotlight, weaving personal stories of relationships, both real and contrived, mental health and bereavement into a cautionary tale of music industry machinations. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Girl Pop! Arabella (the talent), Hazel (the party chick), Ruby (the cute one) and Zoe (the token black girl) are cynically sold on their Spice Girls characteristics. Behind-the-scenes, it's all demanding donkey work and divide-and-conquer tactics. Out front, the tabloid and fan scrutiny is harsh even in a pre-social media age, especially when Ruby has the audacity to date a member of swaggering boy band Flame. If the plot of Girl Pop! doesn't feel particularly original, that's probably because it is played out repeatedly in real life. Equally credible are the handful of catchy songs, well delivered by four strong singers, including Bubblegum, a fun pastiche/affectionate tribute to girl gang attitude from a pre-TikTok time. You wait ages for a musical about a girl group and then a rival production shows up. These Girlz are different though - there are five of them, moving in sync, harmonizing impressively as they audition for music industry mogul Colin Cashman. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad They all deserve the gig, they all make the grade. Once again, the trajectory is rise and fall, but there is more acute tragedy and soap opera melodrama in this production. Most of the behind-the-scenes action centres on Nicky's domestic dilemmas and Australian Alex's trauma and addictions, but the show is also peppered with sweet moments of female solidarity, some standard seize-your-dreams musical theatre solo songs and far superior sparky, irreverent girl group numbers. Fiona Shepherd This Blighted Star ★★★ Underbelly George Square (Venue 300) Until 24 August A big screen dominates the stage in this debut solo play by writer and performer Alfie Jones. When Ivan, a promising student, goes missing in a Midlands town, his friend - a local CCTV operator - obsessively plays and replays the footage of his last known moments. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But CCTV, our nameless protagonist tells us, captures only 12 frames per second. It is not the whole story, there is more to be read in the gaps. Rumours spread about Ivan on social media; a mouthy young TikToker spouts conspiracy theories. Jones' play, directed by Alice Harding, is about rather more than a young man turning detective to investigate the disappearance (or it is death?) of his friend. As we learn more about the 'friendship', and about the CCTV operator's home life - he cares for his mother, whose dementia is worsening - we realise that Ivan had opportunities this young man could never dream of. There are times when the plot could be clearer, but this is difficult to do when you want to keep the audience guessing about the reliability of your narrator. This is a highly promising debut which has some interesting things to say about the screens which dominate all our lives. Susan Mansfield Life's a Drag ★★★ theSpace on the Mile (Venue 39) until 23 August On the set of Life's a Drag, a TV competition suggestive of Ru Paul's Drag Race, three drag queens prepare for the season finale. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad There is an unfortunate crossover in the title of the piece, with the show dragging in numerous places – it currently sits at an hour and 15 mins, and it could comfortably run at half that time – but there are biting moments of humour throughout, and they are worth the wait. The three queens have their own personal stories and histories, which are revealed and unravelled by the TV producers who are cooking up a narrative of their own. This is a vital theme, and one easily forgotten when engaging with the reality TV genre, that on-screen events are structured or semi-structured, and information is elicited. Indeed, the term 'reality' is used in the loosest possible sense. The presence of the production team, who are beamed onto a backdrop (ostensibly through a two-way mirror), or buzzing about between the scenes that they conspire to bring about, is a little on the nose and deserving of greater nuance. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But ultimately, the queens themselves, with their queer politics and behind-the-scenes dramas, traumas, hopes and fears, do not disappoint. Josephine Balfour-Oatts Hold the Line ★★★ Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 60) until 25 August In a work environment where having or not having a 'productive shift' can mean life or death, we follow NHS 111 call centre operator, Gary, an upbeat Geordie living in London through just-another-day filled with ringing phones, rigid scripts and raucous characters often as interested in having a chat as discussing their medical conditions. Rattling through the rhythm of standard questions for non-standard situations, writer/performer Sam Macgregor's heightened approach treats everyday comic and tragic moments with the same broad brush. Inspired by Macgregor's real-life experiences in the job, the brightly characterised patients and multi-tiered management structure feels more authentic than an on-the-nose critique of the politics behind the system mid-way. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad As Gary is taken through an investigative process after someone dies, the mounting pressure is evoked by two excellent performances, from Macgregor and Gabriela Chanova, who switch between roles with the exhilarating energy of powering through a busy shift. The sketch-like slicing structure sometimes feels like it gets in the way of something more truthful. But Gary's ultimately 'a proper kind bloke' and that's what this warmly delivered piece focuses on – as well as capturing the best of men and women who fuel the NHS. By the end his 'star of the month' feels well earned and I'm very happy to award him two more. Sally Stott Bing! ★★ Greenside @ George Street (Venue 236) until 23 August Jason Woods' eloquent oration and wonderful wordplay creates a wall of endless alliteration in a seemingly limitless world of fairytale magic, where two brothers go on an adventure to tackle a dragon, source a 'chalice in a palace' and defeat an evil queen. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Playing all of the characters, including a lively New York witch, Woods' talent as an actor makes this episodic, endlessly evolving epic, with its non-stop plot points, more engaging than it would be in lesser hands. But its largely archetypical ensemble of fairytale figures, with their emotions buried in the density of the language, make things difficult to care about, particularly within the challenging one-man storyteller format. Sally Stott Well Behaved Women ★★ Glided Balloon Patter Hoose (Venue 24) until 25 August There's no doubting the sheer professionalism and commitment of the cast of this curious farce by Amy Yeo. Three young women attempting to find their way in Victorian society, faced with the arrival of a horrendously eligible aristocrat, are compelled to lie, obfuscate, assume identities and hold a fake seance — all at a relentless clip. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It's breathless stuff but often the cast look like they're trying to re-inflate a soufflé. Incident piles upon incident with ever decreasing effect. Yeo also wrote the very funny Crash and Burns in 2023, which was also similarly pacey, but this in comparison just seems like a rather hollow pastiche.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Return of Ryn Weaver: ‘I've Waited So Long Now – I'm Ready to Do the Damn Thing'
'I look back at that time, and it was so romantic,' Ryn Weaver tells Billboard, 'and I was so young, and so brave, and so scared, and kind of staying high so I didn't have to come down.' Weaver needs every adjective she can find to describe the personal and professional whirlwind that she experienced a decade ago. In June 2014, the singer-songwriter born Aryn Wüthrich made her debut with 'OctaHate,' a sleek, lightly swaying synth-pop gem with effervescent verses and a hammered-down hook; she uploaded the track onto Soundcloud, and it rapidly took off with pre-TikTok social media shares and critical approval. More from Billboard Don Was Remembers Brian Wilson's 'Mystical' Genius: 'He Explored Creative Territory Where No Musicians Had Gone Before' How LadyLand, the Scrappy Festival That Could, Is Shaping Queer Culture & Live Music In NYC Shooter Jennings Reveals Three Albums of Unreleased Waylon Jennings Songs Are On the Way Pop Twitter noted the song's pedigree — not only did 'OctaHate' boast a co-writing credit from a then-red-hot Charli XCX with Weaver, but Benny Blanco, Passion Pit leader Michael Angelakos and Norwegian polymath Cashmere Cat all helped pen and produce the song. But more immediate were 21-year-old Weaver's dynamic voice and theatrical delivery, adding dramatic heft to each of the song's finely crafted melodies. Combined with the news that 'OctaHate' preceded a debut album that Blanco and Angelakos would co-helm, and that Blanco would release through his Interscope imprint Friends Keep Secrets, Weaver appeared to have the skills and industry buy-in to become an alt-pop star. Weaver's debut, 2015's The Fool, brimmed with promise and personality, debuting at No. 30 on the Billboard 200 and prompting a headlining tour and festival dates over the following year. None of the follow-up singles built upon the commercial success of 'OctaHate,' though, and a follow-up album never materialized. 'It was also very sad, and very heartbreaking,' Weaver says today, 'and I was very lost, even though I was just charging into the night.' In the years since, Weaver's name would pop up as a co-writer on songs like 2019's 'Dream Glow' by BTS and Charli XCX, and 2021's 'Just For Me' by SAINT JHN and SZA; 'Pierre,' the anthemic fan favorite from The Fool, has also been a perennial TikTok favorite, inspiring multiple trends beginning in 2021 and racking up even more U.S. on-demand streams at this point than 'OctaHate' (111.7 million to 63.4 million, according to Luminate). Yet Weaver, whose wit and sincerity once made her a must-follow on Twitter and Instagram, mostly vanished from social media, and years passed between updates on in-the-works music. On Monday (June 16) — the 10-year anniversary of The Fool — that wait finally ended. 'Odin St' may be Weaver's first official single in a decade, created with a darker tone (courtesy of co-producers Benjamin Greenspan and Constantine Anastasakis) and a more mature perspective. But longtime fans will recognize the idiosyncratic wordplay, loping syllables and ornate hooks that bend toward a major chorus, all as magnetic today as when Weaver barreled into view a decade ago. Now 32 and without a label — she's no longer working with Blanco but describes their parting as amicable, and says that she still keeps in touch with Angelakos — Weaver says that 'Odin St' will lead into the sophomore act that she always knew she had inside of her, but which required time to germinate. 'I went through a very singular, and yet kind of clichéd, experience,' Weaver explains of her early stardom, 'where I didn't feel like I could fully communicate it yet. It was, like, above my pay grade, the language to discuss what was going on. I needed some space from certain experiences to actually be able to write from a place of clarity.' Ahead of the release of 'Odin St,' Weaver discussed where she's been, and where she finally hopes to go next. (Ed. note: this interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.) Where did 'Odin St' come from? Chronologically, the song is where The Fool ended. [The album's final song, 'New Constellations'] ends, 'You can run, if you want to.' I think it's pretty clear that I left my label — I asked to be released — and so I moved to L.A., across the country, and my manager picked out a place for me to stay. It was on Odin Street in Los Angeles, and I didn't know the lore of Odin at that time, but it was this safe haven, bunker, Grey Gardens situation. I hid there, I guess, and waited for some dust to settle. And then later, thinking about the lore of Odin, I just love that he's the god of wisdom, and he represents people who are willing to give up everything on their journey for their acquisition of wisdom. I felt like that was such a poem in and of itself — being on Odin Street, and knowing that was my journey, but it's a very long journey to actually acquiring wisdom. It was also the inverse — I was making the first step, but in reality, I was partying, and hiding, and I was with someone I shouldn't have been with. And so it was kind of this house down the road from wisdom. When did you start piecing the actual song together? I think I started an idea for it like three years later, and then I scrapped that. And then I went in with [producer-songwriter] Active Child, and we started something – but it was almost too joyful in a way, too romantic. I started the verse there, and then we didn't see each other through COVID. And then I was writing with a guy named Constantine, whose artist project is Blonder, and we were writing for a young artist that my friend was managing, in the desert. We got on very well, and we got back home and were talking about working together. He has this very interesting dark guitar tone. We hung out all night, and I think it was 7:00 AM when we started writing it. Funny enough, the song is in the key that it's in because of my throat — I was like, 'It's 7:00 AM, this is where I can sing this song.' And we even tried to change it a couple times, but key characteristics are so important. We lifted it a half [key], and then it sounded like a jingle. I was like, 'We're keeping it where it is, because it's dark, and it's gritty.' 'Odin St' has been rumored to come out for a few years now. Why was now the right time? For my fans, I love the idea of putting something out on the 10-year for The Fool. We never did a re-pressing — we did one pressing, and people constantly ask me, 'Can I get a record?' I don't have any! But this song is literally where I left you, and it's a darker color palette. I like that it's lower — I wasn't really encouraged to sing in a lower register on the first record. So this is also kind of a break-free moment, of I can do whatever I want. And I also just think it's a foray into a darker new chapter, while still being light enough. How close was this moment to happening in the past? Were there starts and stops? There were so many starts and stops. There have been three separate times I was getting ready, and there were different songs, too. There was one that I was like, 'I feel like that's the wrong story to start with.' I would get close, and then pull back. I've had to get to a point of regaining a lot of self-trust, because working with super-producers and then leaving — you have a splash like that, and then you're coming back, and there's this feeling like, 'This is different.' So I think I was scared. I was never lying to anyone. I always thought I would release something, but then the logistics of it come into play. It costs money. I don't want to give away my power and immediately sign somewhere. Maintaining autonomy was also important to me. I think, at this moment in time, I am able to do that. Was co-writing for other artists, or serving as a guest vocalist, ever a lane you considered? I've written for other people — I wrote for SAINt JHN and SZA, and I did something for BTS. I've had a lot of random, lucky cuts. If you take this much time off — I'm not connected in the industry through family, I don't have a giant trust fund or anything. I felt like the universe was protecting me, being like, 'Here's this Head and the Heart song, you can keep going.' That was also a really nice way to pull back and de-center myself, especially while I was pulling back the arrow and deciding what this new chapter would look like. I turned down a couple really big features at the time, but I think it was because I wanted to establish myself as an artist with my voice. The music industry has changed, but at the time, I felt there was a bit of a trap in being a features artist. I really wanted for my first big feature for everyone to be like, 'Oh, damn, they're working together!,' not, 'Who the f–k is that?' I was pretty stubborn about wanting to continue to develop my own voice to where it feels like, that is a worthy collaboration, instead of being thrown onto something. I was maybe a little cagey, but I stand by that decision. Around the release of , you were all over social media and constantly online. And then you took a step back for a long time. Well at the time, I wasn't releasing — I don't know how many selfies or how much content the world really needs. But also, I started seeing someone who's wonderful, and who doesn't have social media. And I was like, 'Wow, I want to do that for a minute.' It was like, what am I trying to get here? Am I going to post a snippet? Am I going to react or bandwagon? I was like, 'They don't need me right now. Open up the stage for the people they need right now.' I've been onstage my whole life, since I was four, and was a bit of an overachiever in that sense. I was performing professionally at events, and singing for sports games, and then I was the lead in plays, and I was in bands, and then I got into [NYU], and then I dropped out of school, and then I met Benny, and everything was just like, good, good, good, good. And I didn't understand myself outside of the context of other people, and my value was heavily tied to my ability to entertain or perform. I think the time off has been really transformative, in the sense that you really do have to find what your intrinsic value is. That was a very painful process. And this is the longest I've not been onstage in my life, but it was so crucial to my general development. So I think you have a couple of little ego deaths in there, where you don't need to fight for attention. So what were your areas of interest while you were detached? Did you pick up new hobbies? I traveled a bit. I've gone on weird hiking road trips. I got a sewing machine. I got back into painting. I hung out with my friends and my family a lot. I was a good cat mom. I go dancing, I exercise, I swim in the sea. I was living my life! I do have to acknowledge screens — it's a very depressing truth that we all binge more than we want to, and we all are on our phones more than we want to be, and I'm trying not to do that, but sometimes my nights are that. I was a bartender for a second. I've been in therapy. I'm doing what anybody else is doing. Did you ever consider leaving music altogether? I did, but I didn't. You can talk yourself in and out of everything — I was like, 'Maybe I'll go to school and study semiotics! I'll go write a book!' Or I was like, 'Maybe the industry is too toxic!' I was in a very different industry, pre-MeToo, and women were pitted against each other in different ways. There was a little bit of seeing how the sausage was made, and being there, the industry felt strange. More for the drama of it, I was like, 'Maybe I'll leave.' And I had enough reasons to, and most people would have. But I think I always had that thing that was like, 'It'll be next year.' It was more prolonging the [return], and never like I was actually going to pivot. When you did check in with the rest of the world, how meaningful was it to read fan messages asking about a comeback or hoping you were working on new music? Super meaningful, and also heartbreaking. You take this much time off, some of it is trying to find your next perfect-match collaborator. You'll do some of the speed dating, and someone will want to do 'OctaHate 2.0,' when you're trying to transform. So sometimes I'd get those messages, and especially when I felt so far away from releasing, I was like, 'I want to be there too. I'm figuring it out.' But it also kept me going, knowing that I had such a strong fan base and people that really love me. I also kept in touch with so many of them. I had isolated for a long time, and became sort of hermetic. I like that side of myself, but I also need people. It's like in the Peter Pan play, where Tinker Bell starts dying and needs everyone in the audience to say, 'I do believe in fairies, I do, I do,' to survive. When you're out of the public eye, and you don't know how necessary what you have to say is at all — having people being like, 'We believe, we care, we'll listen,' that matters. How does it feel to be on the precipice of releasing new music? I feel really calm, in a way. I think I was so frantic with 'OctaHate' — it was one of those releases where it was like, 'We're just gonna put this out today!' 'Oh, we are?' It was horrifying. I threw up that day. I was like, 'Oh God, this is happening.' But I've waited so long now that I feel ready to go. We have a couple more songs coming down the pipeline, and then I think we're going to do an announcement for… other stuff. But as of now, I just want to focus on this. I'm also actively in EMDR, which is really cool. I'm really preparing myself to come back to the industry from every angle, and feel really like secure and stable coming back. So it's like, a nice summer, getting me ready to to do the damn thing. Are you thinking about playing shows? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's kind of my favorite part of it. I love writing, but being onstage in that communal heartbeat thing — where someone can be attached to the work for a completely different reason [than someone else], but everyone's singing it at each other — it's just this electricity. I remember before I first went on tour, I was doing radio promo and all this stuff that made me feel disconnected from what I was doing. And as soon as I went on tour, I was like, 'Oh my God, this is it — I'm a road dog, I am a sailor.' I grew up doing theater, show after show, and it's always different. And getting to interact with people, hanging with them after the show — I had people coming on the bus and doing shots with me, and it was just so fun and free. I will be a better girl this time! I mean, you can only pull that off at 22. But, yeah, that's the best part of it, to me. What do you expect to feel when you return to the stage and start performing songs from ? I mean, hopefully no one is the same person as they were a decade ago. I want to say something in defense of The Fool, though. I feel there was a while where I couldn't listen to it — almost like, 'What was that? Oh, my God.' There's a lot of things that I was embarrassed about when I was younger, like doing theater and this and that. But to me, they're like, these beautiful baby pictures. And I was just so brave and young, and there was no thought about anything, other than 'I only have this many days to write an album, so I'm gonna do it.' And it was high-pressure, high-stakes. I was living a very exciting life. And I just have so much love for that album. I'm sure we'll reimagine some of the instrumentation, but for some of them, we won't. It's a chapter that literally gave me the ability to be talking to you right now, and gave me the ability to have fans and have opportunities. I re-listen to it now, and not to toot our horn, but with Benny and Michael and me, it was a sound that's got legs, and it feels timeless. The songs are strange, but still big. And I feel like that is the way I write. I do feel like these two albums are going to be companion pieces — the first one is very bold and bright, and there's a lot of darkness in what I wrote, even if the energy isn't. And the newer stuff is a bit of a photo negative. Different colors, but it's not like I'm not a romantic, theatrical, intense person still. I've just matured. 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Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Everything You Need to Know About the 3rd House in Astrology
You've made it through the front door (1st House) of your birth chart, walked through the foyer (2nd House), and now here you are—welcome to the living room. In astrology, the 3rd House is associated with communication, your immediate environment, siblings (and sometimes cousins), early education, and short-distance travel. ICYMI, your birth chart is divided into 12 sections called houses, and each house rules over different areas of life. The 3rd House represents socialization that occurs quickly and without much thought. It's where social interactions unfold effortlessly, akin to the living room's role in a home. 'Member the viral challenges of the 2010s, from the Cupid Shuffle to the Harlem Shake? These pre-TikTok sensations mirror the 3rd House's essence: Quick to catch on, easy to share, and reflecting the mirroring nature of relationships. In the 3rd House, wisdom and wit passes between peers and family as easily as comments on the latest viral dance. Your birth chart's 3rd House thrives on this dynamic interplay, echoing the ongoing dialogue between us and our immediate world. Any drop of wisdom, trendy catchphrase, or backward wisdom falls into the 3rd House of astrology. You're going to need your birth information: Your date of birth, time of birth, and location of birth. Once you have that information, you can go ahead and download one of your favorite astrology apps to figure out what's going on with your 3rd House. If you want to make your life even simpler, use the astrology calculator below and keep reading for more information. Look at the way your birth chart is divided into 12 numbered sections, then see which zodiac sign corresponds with the 3. This birth chart calculator was created by in collaboration with astrologer Narayana Montúfar. Learn more about Narayana's work on her website The 3rd House of astrology, ruled by fast-moving Mercury and vibrant Gemini, is a playroom of basic communication and interaction. Imagine it as a lively living room filled with a diverse mix of games—from the tongue-in-cheek jest of Cards Against Humanity to the strategic negotiations of Monopoly and the fast-paced decisions of Uno. This House is where we pick up the popular slang, vibe-defining catchphrases, and stumble upon unexpected wisdom amidst giggles and debates. Studying the astrological living room is like shuffling through a mixed bag of fun facts, jokes, and life hacks, where learning comes through the fun exchange of ideas rather than the meticulous study of rules. The 3rd House prefers the engaging TL;DR (too long, didn't read) summaries instead of getting too deep. Think instinctual thought vs. intuitive knowledge. Basically, the 3rd House is a living room of interesting ideas, where every brief chat, new dance, and funny phrase has the potential to catch on as an inside joke or social trend. Just keep in mind that just because an idea is passed with confidence—from an older brother or a charismatic friend—doesn't guarantee its truth. In this ever-evolving living room setting of the mind, visitors learn the art of communication, entertainment, and simplistic social bonding. As I mentioned, the zodiac sign and planet associated with the 3rd House are Gemini and Mercury! Mercury is literally the fastest-moving, bittiest, and most susceptible planet within our solar system. In fact, Mercury is only a little bit bigger than the Earth's Moon. Can you imagine being on Mercury? The Sun shines at least seven times brighter on Mercury than it does on Earth; retinol never stood a chance. Mercury's sensitivity to the Sun's influence can be compared to a summer's day–on the schoolyard. As you astro-experts know, in astrology, the Sun represents our ego, and Mercury represents communication. Philosophically speaking, without social expression, our egos or sense of self may cease to exist! The 3rd House represents how we begin to feel united with others, our instinctual icks, and our intuitive preferences. As the Sun of our siblings, peers, and early childhood figures shine their light on us, our sense of self and how we communicate is funneled through their social differences and similarities. Being associated with the zodiac sign Gemini places further emphasis on the swiftness in which we develop our 3rd House's tricks, treats, and quirks. Oh yummy, you have planets within your 3rd House of astrology? The planets within your 3rd House represents how you receive and comprehend rapid information. See it as a prompt to consider how nimble you are. For example, if you have Saturn in the 3rd House, perhaps you could benefit from considering how quickly you decide to adopt new catchphrases and behaviors. Accidentally saying a phrase out of context and inappropriately could cost you major cool points! With Saturn in the 3rd House, the astrological message might be that as astonishingly swift as Mercury is, you gain wisdom from slowing down the process. Have you ever heard the question 'if all your lil friends jump off the bridge, are you going to jump too?' (please tell me this isn't just a Black Mom thing, lol). The moral of that question outlines how Saturn in the 3rd House can be an absolute strength. Some of your friends or haters might call you 'slow' or joke about how you live under a rock, but you received the universal gift of critical thought. You're not going to dive into a bad situation just because everyone else is doing it. Another planetary example is the Sun in the 3rd House, which basically means that *you* are the subject of quick trends and communication. Perhaps you're frequently copied or are the trendsetter of your friend group. Popular, much? To have planets transiting your 3rd House is to have the universe take you by your inner child and say, "Hey, dude, remember that cringy moment when you thought mustaches were cool? Yeah, so you put mustache stickers on everything, because everyone was doing it, you kept doing it after everyone stopped and no one gave you the memo. Creeper!" A transiting planet within your 3rd House is akin to having a visitor chilling in your living room. You know they're going to leave eventually, but while you're there, you start picking up and potentially appreciating their vibe. For example, let's say you know that Venus is coming over. If you're an introspective cosmic cutie, then you know you should probably clean up your astrological living room by observing 3rd House themes unique to you and getting yourself in order. When studying planetary transits within your 3rd House it helps to know about the planet paying you a visit. Venus is the planet associated with beauty and love, therefore, once she enters your living room, you can expect to reflect on how you've learned to flirt, ideas gained from siblings that inform your perspectives on dating, and that hot little thing you do with your face because you casually picked it up during locker room talk. As the planet comes and goes from your living room, the themes associated with that planet will cause you to reflect on how you picked up certain patterns, behaviors, and habits. Maybe this transit is urging you to stop using your tongue to tie cherry stems into knots, because this you're not in undergrad anymore. You Might Also Like Here's What NOT to Wear to a Wedding Meet the Laziest, Easiest Acne Routine You'll Ever Try
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
I Can't Stop Thinking About How Weird These 5 Millennial Trends Were
Now that most of us are over 30, a lot of us millennials have found that we are a little... uncool. In fact, you might even say that we are – and were – cringe. Personally, I am a huge proponent of being cringe-but-free. I don't mind that I am mortifying to my younger Gen Z sisters and I know that I will always have a little bit of twee embedded in my DNA. However, there are some trends I look back on from the 2010′s that were just a bit... weird? Most of which were before things got really weird, so I'm not sure what our excuse is to be honest. There was a period of time that we just... started planking on random parts of our hometowns and cities, then uploading the photos to social media. According to the BBC. while the fad took off in 2011, the earliest practitioners were Gary Clarkson and Christian Langdon in 2000, who started lying down in public places in Taunton in order to be photographed. They called it the lying down game. I honestly don't know why we did it but it was very, very silly. Speaking of silly... For a pre-TikTok era, this was a very TikTok vibe. The meme started when YouTube comedian Filthy Frank took 'Harlem Shake' by producer Baauer and played off a dubstep drop 15 seconds into the song. The 'dance' involved an otherwise calm environment with one singular person dancing breaking out into dance, often with costumes on, once the beat dropped. Then... It blew up. Everyone was doing it. Offices, diving teams, even the Norwegian Army joined in. There was something about it that was so addictive. Just watching it happen again and again across the world united us in a strange way. Briefly, of course. This 'challenge' was exactly what it sounds like: stand still like a mannequin, no matter what you're doing. It started in a US high school before going viral and even making it onto the Late Late Show. Weird, but a fun reminder of what it used to mean to 'go viral'. I will be honest, I think about this one more than any other. If you weren't around in this era or simply, somehow, don't remember, people genuinely did get pedicures done by fish. The pampering treatment involved dunking feet in tanks filled with Garra rufa fish that can nibble away dead skin. This usually was done in the middle of shopping centres for some reason. It was huge! People loved it! They went out of fashion very quickly but according to PETA, the treatment is still legal in the UK despite being illegal in many other countries. Ick. This is a trend I will defend with my LIFE because yes we were so cringe but it's actually very cute to look back on. 3D glasses from the cinema with lenses poked out, t-shirts with the word 'GEEK' or even just moustaches on them, not to mention the moustache finger tattoos people got... Yes, it's cringe and yes, extremely twee but you know what? Bless us. 20 Ways Millennials Used The Internet That The Gen Z Mind Couldn't Comprehend Millennials Are Sharing Phrases They Heard All The Time As Kids, But Gen Alpha Will Never Be Told Why Do Millennials Appear To Be Ageing Slower? Here's The Answer.
The Independent
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Singer-songwriter Chloe Moriondo: ‘I've been embarrassed by my online past selves – but most kids are cringy'
When Chloe Moriondo was born, her mother made her dad go and buy fresh oysters from her favourite restaurant. They were eaten gratefully in the hospital room. Those weird little sea molluscs came back into the 22-year-old alt pop star's life after a bad breakup. Moriondo kept thinking, sadly, 'My world is my oyster,' like if she repeated it enough times she would believe it, and then magically she did. Oyster was the perfect title for her new album about love, loss and turning suffering into beautiful art to present to the world. Its floaty songs are the sort of soft, glitchy pop that I imagine mermaids might make. We're facing each other on a Zoom call, both with a plate of oysters in front of us; I'm in London, she's in her label's New York office, framed by a backdrop of skyscrapers. An oyster is tossed down her throat elegantly, then she winces: she put too much horseradish on it. 'I need to lock in on my ratio,' Moriondo laughs, fluttering her long, fake eyelashes. She styled herself like a freshwater pearl for the interview: in all creamy white with a big scalloped collar top and giant pillowy purse. Across her eclectic pop output so far, she's been fond of aquatic imagery. 'I grew up in Michigan, which has lakes, not oceans, but I've always really loved the water,' she explains. 'I was lucky enough to have had a swimming pool in my backyard; my Grandma told me I was going to grow gills one day.' She still lives in Detroit, Michigan, to be close to her mother, friends and creature comforts but is considering a move to New York when her lease ends in August. Moriondo launched her career on YouTube as a 12-year-old heavily involved in its musical covers scene; she uploaded content at the tail end of a pre-TikTok world when record labels looked to young kids performing cover songs (sometimes with an acoustic guitar or ukulele) like Justin Bieber, Charlie Puth and Halsey, as future stars. In Moriondo's case, it was the latter, since her small fingers couldn't stretch to bar chords on guitar. 'I did not get much feedback for a very long time,' she smiles of her cover videos. 'There was one subscriber I remember who would comment on every video and, to this day, I still see them sometimes in my [Instagram and TikTok] lives, which is crazy because it's been 10 years.' Everything changed in 2017 when she posted her first original song, the soft and playful ukulele-accompanied ballad 'waves'. It's reminiscent of Billie Eilish and written about a family holiday she spent dreaming about a girl she had romantic feelings for back at home. At the age of 17, she signed with Elektra/Fuelled By Ramen, the home of Paramore, Panic! at the Disco and Fall Out Boy, which was extremely exciting for her as someone who grew up on emo and pop punk; that quirky pop confidence is apparent in her own music. She starts to laugh about how much she loves the first Panic! at the Disco album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out: 'The burlesque, the weird cabaret situation – it makes me freak out, it's so cool. The lyrics were so wacky, I don't know how anyone could come up with that.' As someone who came of age as a child online, especially as a content creator, Moriondo has reams of images and videos of all her phases for every fan or hater to see – and she admits she's had many vivid phases. 'I've had a lot of feelings about the different versions of myself that are permanently online for people to either love or scrutinise. I've been embarrassed of my past self a lot because I was cringy – I was a kid. Most kids are cringy; that's kinda how we start,' she explains. 'But now I think I've kinda accepted that this is how it works if I want to make things and live off it. I was definitely a little more insecure at points.' Now, in oyster mode, she's got a newly girly look, her bottle blonde shoulder-length hair neatly curled up at the ends. 'I always felt like I was not like the other girls, but not in an 'I'm special way', in an 'I'm bad' way',' she says carefully. 'I thought I wasn't pretty enough. I was definitely less feminine and [more] boyish back then, and now I'm enjoying being feminine and thinking about beautiful art like The Birth of Venus. The ocean in general is a feminine space.' A few years ago, her fledgling career was in a positive place, off the back of 2021's pop-punk album Blood Bunny, straight into 2022's hyper-pop SUCKERPUNCH. Then, suddenly, she pretty much disappeared on the internet. That break was self-imposed: after she got back home to Detroit from the SUCKERPUNCH tour, she experienced a 'life-ruining' breakup with her childhood best friend turned girlfriend, Samantha, a visual artist who works under the name Virtual Flesh and namesake and inspiration for Moriondo's song 'Samantha'. They had been in each other's lives for 10 years, collaborating intensely across Moriondo's visuals, merch and creative direction. 'I started living alone for the first time – I was feeling depressed, lonely, I wasn't eating right, I wasn't sleeping right. I definitely needed time,' she says, temporarily leaving her food to one side. 'My manager and entire team could tell at that point without me even saying anything that I needed a break. I took one until I was ready to start writing about what the hell I'd been going through for the past two years.' It took time to process the difficult feelings and listen to the friends who told her she needed to be out of a relationship that had been unhealthy for both parties. 'In some ways I still don't feel super normal. It was very complicated. That's not an easy thing to let go of,' she says of her ex and former best friend. 'Eventually, I kissed some strangers and got over it, at least enough to write some songs.' Moriondo wallows deeply on piano-led autotuned ballad 'pond' and unpacks her nuanced experience of heartbreak on pulsing single 'shoreline'. Writing about what happened has been cathartic, she says, adding that even making joke TikTok videos about her pain has been fun. I watch one in which she faints to the floor; the caption overlaid on the screen says: 'How i feel when someone requests the love song i named after my ex while i'm promoting the one about our break up'. It has also been enjoyable to be fully in charge of the visual elements of her work for the first time: she crafted her own Pinterest boards with the more feminine oyster visuals and styling, collaborating with Japanese artist Tetsuhiro Wakabayashi for the album cover. 'We had so much creative entanglement,' she says of her ex-partner, who she's now able to reflect on with positivity. 'We worked really well together, and I'm grateful for the time we had together, but it was important for me to do this on my own and learn to be more confident in talking to my team in what I want and like.' Though plenty of artists over the last few years, from Phoebe Bridgers to Chappell Roan, have taken to criticising their bossy, scary or presumptuous fanbases, Moriondo feels so grateful for hers who have stood by her during this hiatus that she starts welling up. 'I started from YouTube – I would be nothing without these people,' she says in tears. Besides, Moriondo adds, her fans are really polite, shy and sweet – this is where I think: quite like her – the sort to meet her for the first time carrying tiny gifts. 'I'm going to be having a lot of oysters this week,' she says, speculating about possible gifts, with a pause to look at her record label-supplied oyster lunch, and a laugh when I express concern that accepting oysters from fans might not be a bright idea. Her fans' generous behaviour in all guises gives her hope, she says. 'They show me that people can just be normal sometimes.'
