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@elonmusk Why are they using real people for this analogy? Do you think Helen of Troy, daughter of Zeus, was an actual person?

A glaringly obvious double-standard

@SCORPIONXASTRO @FilmUpdates Cool but why is him being English relevant?

@FilmUpdates Hero Fiennes Tiffin is right there. English, young and a Scorpio = he oozes sex appeal. Cast him already !!

Casting director Nina Gold says the next James Bond actor she’s looking for must "ooze sex appeal." He should also "be young enough to play him in three or four, or more pictures." (deadline.com/2026/05/the-ne…)

@RigelXii @Noahpinion Two of the last three Best Picture winners featured all white casts. So I’d say yeah moviemakers are free to do that

@Noahpinion People should be free to make whatever art they want to: if that includes reimagining Helen of Troy as a Black African woman that’s fine by me. The question is: are moviemakers in Hollywood today really free to make big blockbusters *without* doing that kind of reimagining?

Ironically, there is at least one ancient Greek mythological figure who was explicitly black -- Andromeda -- and I've never seen her depicted as black in movies

@Independent He’s kind of like boxer who was KO’ed but then got back up in the empty ring and started taking swings at air. It’s really quite sad to see.

But as much as he lashes out at fake friends and traitors – and at the people who scrambled to side with Lamar during their 2024 beef – Drake continues to be his own worst enemy. the-independent.com/arts-entertain…

@AceyFlamez I mean… this should really be credited to Jay-Z who Kendrick was quoting/ paying homage to

“I was gonna 💀a couple rappers but they did it to themselves, everybody suicidal they ain’t even need my help.” - Kendrick Lamar (King Kunta) ✊🏽🔥

@MBjoernhagen @MenkDa23947 @NiohBerg Is the Odyssey historical? You seem to be saying because 300 wasn’t strictly accurate it’s ok they completely misrepresented actual people but not ok for Nolan to do so with fantasy characters?

@MenkDa23947 @NiohBerg I feel like I stepped it in now, I was just being lighthearted.. Yes, you’re right(!), but the damn Greeks are half-naked too and it’s All very ahistorical from start to finish. But fine, I do take your point.

The Greeks now feel the same anger that Iranians have felt for 20 years.

@FT Voters in this constituency have the opportunity to do the funniest thing

Breaking news: Great Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has been given a route back to Westminster after Labour MP Josh Simons announced he was standing down. ft.trib.al/J4tkrae

@BBCBreaking @BBCNews The voters in this seat have the chance to do the funniest thing.

Labour MP Josh Simons says he will stand down to allow Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham the chance to run for Parliament Follow live: bbc.in/42TTd0V

@DaSpaceWitch @TheTitanBaddie Nelson and Winnie Mandela were not your ancestors.

@TheTitanBaddie Girl we have AFRICAN ancestors… Black Brit’s don’t have black American ancestors.. wtf are you talking about?

You don't get to boycott something you also participate in.

@otokyo__ What if you die and find out the Muslims were right all along?

Dear atheist, What if, after you die, you find out that God is real all along? You lose.

@Hotchkiz @IMAO_ Clone Wars did a lot of things right! :-)

@IMAO_ One thing clone wars did right was having armored Jedi that actually kinda look like knights.

The Jedi shouldn't have all dressed like Obi-Wan. He only wore that brown robe to look like a hobo on a desert planet.

@abjectbaby @Aella_Girl Huh? So if I call an early human who tilled the land and had livestock a ‘farmer’ you say ‘no because his job wasn’t an administratively legible social contract’? Also how do you know when the first socially acknowledged prostitutes came about or their circumstances?

@Aella_Girl No. You’re collapsing the meaning of prostitution to the point where it is meaningless (“sex exchanged for something”). Sexual exchange as a practice ≠ the emergence of “the prostitute” as an administratively legible social category. The latter is a historically specific object.

@abjectbaby Pretty sure prostitution existed before people invented chains or chambers

@badgirlcrown The right answer

Final results are in. We have a winner ladies and gentlemen. Human Nature

Michael Jackson’s fans ONLY. Dirty Diana, Human Nature or Earth Song?

@EliotNace @DTheKingpin Ironically when they did start playing him it was incredibly popular and boosted the channel. It was a poor decision not to, whatever the reason!

@ZoSoJade @DTheKingpin It’s very curious. It’s hard to imagine anyone not wanting to play Michael Jackson.

One of my favorite stories in the music business. MTV notoriously refused to play music videos by Black artists in its early history and when they refused to play Billie Jean, Walter Yetnikoff threatened MTV, saying “I'm pulling everything we have off the air, all our product. I'm not going to give you any more videos. And I'm going to go public and f——— tell them about the fact you don't want to play music by a black guy.” MTV relented and the rest was history. They weren’t the only outlet doing this nonsense. Rolling Stone infamously refused to put Michael on the cover of the magazine in 1980 because of their erroneous (and racist) view that Black people on the cover of magazines don’t sell copies. The ironic thing is that the eventual Michael Jackson boom of the 1980s boosted outlets like Rolling Stone and saved MTV. I always say this: no matter what color you are, generally speaking either the audience likes your product or they don’t. Yeah there’s some weirdos complaining about Black people in commercials and cartoons but for the most part the average person is not like that. The real world isn’t X.

@EliotNace @DTheKingpin Hmm I’d struggle with how Madonna was more rock-adjacent than Thriller-era Michael Jackson. MJ had EVH playing guitar on his album. If MTV was playing Madonna and not MJ then that weighs heavily towards there being a race issue IMHO.

@ZoSoJade @DTheKingpin Perhaps…? Their music might be seen as appealing to “middle America”. Also they’re pretty close to a rock adjacent sort of pop. It looks like mtv played Madonna straight from her debut album.

@EliotNace @DTheKingpin A baffling assumption given the American music charts had featured black artists quite dominantly for years/decades by that time. I note there was a strong anti-disco/ pro-rock movement around that time (some of which was race-driven) and this may have played into it.

@DTheKingpin @ZoSoJade The funny thing is that mtv producers are basically being racist against less metropolitan whites; thinking they aren’t accepting or sophisticated enough to enjoy black music. Which obviously turned out to be an incorrect assumption.

@DTheKingpin @EliotNace Thanks. I’ve seen this and think Bowie’s challenges were great… but this isn’t the data analysis I said would be interesting to see. It’s anecdotal views from two men (who disagree) If MTV were routinely playing (say) Lauper and Madonna then it would undermine their explanation

@ZoSoJade @EliotNace x.com/dthekingpin/st…

@EliotNace @DTheKingpin The idea is they were a rock channel. I’ve seen a lot of anecdotal info on this topic but I’d be interested to see a sober analysis of data on how much they played white non-rock artists (eg Cyndi Lauper and Madonna) to conclude on what was really going on at MTV.

@DTheKingpin Hmmm. I wonder what mtv’s stated reasons were. It’s not like they were putting on white country artists either. Right?

@megbasham Misleading. None of those people are writing Kendrick’s lyrics, but rather the background music. Some arecredited because a short sample was used in the song, a core part of hip hop since the beginning. You don’t think Michael Jackson came back to life to write a Kendrick song?

On the left is how many people Kendrick Lamar needs to write a song. On the right is how many people Billy Joel needs to write a song. Enough said.

@mattyglesias They are good examples to use for people who don’t understand the complexities of business and think ‘to make a billion you must steal it from someone else’. The celebrities give a simple example that this statement is false, from which you can progress to more complex examples.

I think it’s interesting that going back at least as far as Nozick and Wilt Chamberlain the go-to examples for this argument are always celebrity entertainers when obviously the vast majority of extreme wealth is either successful founders, successful investors, or their heirs.