Everything on the internet was wild last week. There were wild pants, wild boxing matches, and criminals who act wild on YouTube, so let’s dive in. Oh, and Loki is alive again.
Last week in wardrobe malfunctions: Pants problems plague plutocrats
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It was been a big week for pants problems on the internet, starting with the bizarre appearance of former president Donald Trump’s slacks. The former most-powerful-person-on-earth spoke at a Republican event in North Carolina sporting such strange-looking pants, internet wags began wondering if he was hiding an adult diaper, or if he’d killed his tailor. But the most popular theory was that Trump had put his pants on backwards, perhaps in tribute to 1990s one-hit wonders Kriss Kross.
Sadly, the rumor probably isn’t true. According to the internet fact-checkers at Snopes.com, “photographs taken at the event and published by the visual media company Getty Images clearly show the former president on stage wearing pants with a zipper in the front.”
That really kills the buzz, but it’s still kind of funny that supporters are defending a former president by saying, “See? He does know the fly goes in front.”
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The second pants-related internet flap of the week involved Adam Aron, the CEO of AMC, who seems to have neglected to wear pants at all during a recent video interview. During an appearance on Trey Collins’ YouTube show, Aron’s webcam seems to fall over, giving a brief glimpse below his neat shirt and tie, revealing bare, old-white-dude legs. It’s still not known whether Aron was wearing teeny shorts, underwear, or nothing at all, and so far, the CEO has declined to comment.
Personally, I think the “accidental” fall of the webcam was calculated to draw even more internet attention to AMC. Aron has been pretty enthusiastic about his company’s recent meme-friendly-cash influx, and what better way to keep the meme-dollars flowing in than become a meme yourself?
Last week in meme-sports: Logan Paul vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr.
YouTube celebrity Logan Paul stepped into the ring with retired, undefeated boxing champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. this week, earning 20 million bucks for dancing around for eight rounds in an exhibition match. Despite Paul outweighing Mayweather by 40 pounds and being nearly two decades his junior, the match ended in a draw as there were no judges or scoring and no one got knocked out.
Mayweather, who reportedly took home 100 million for the “fight,” retains his undefeated record, although how much of his legacy as a great boxer remains intact is open to debate.
Boxing has a long history of ridiculous showbiz bouts—Muhammad Ali vs. Japanese professional wrestler Antonio Inoki, Rocky Balboa vs. Clubber Lang—but this one is notable for both its scale (over a million people streamed the pay-per-view fight, presumably, hoping to see Paul knocked out) and the blatancy of the cynicism. No one is even bothering to pretend it was anything but a money-grab. Mayweather summed it up best in a post-fight interview when he said, “They say, ‘It’s not all about the money.’ Well, your kids can’t eat legacy…The patches on my trunks [earned me] $30 million alone.”
“When it comes to legalized bank robbing, I’m the best,” he added.
This week in streaming: Loki comes to Disney+
Marvel and Disney continue their full-frontal assault on all entertainment with the release of Loki, a MCU series featuring the trickster god of the title teaming up with a group of metaphysical cops to catch a temporal criminal who is disrupting the timeline of the universe.
Loki’s high concept—ages ago, nameless gods created a heavily armed, all-powerful bureaucracy to punish anyone who alters the central timeline—helps explain how a character who died several films ago is back, and the light tone is a perfect fit for Loki. I’m not even a huge superhero movie guy, but watching unpredictable trickster Loki confronting the banal oppression of an overbearing bureaucracy makes great television. It’s like going to the DMV armed with an infinity stone.
This week in video games: Battlefield 2024 reveal trailer
Gamers everywhere are flipping the hell out over the reveal video for upcoming shooter Battlefield 2042. The trailer is all in-engine footage and shows off lasers, wingsuits, robot dogs, high-tech hover-tanks, fighter jets, a helicopter being taken out by an ATV driven off a skyscraper, and a battle that takes place inside of a tornado. I’m exhausted just watching it.
Battlefield 2042 will feature online battles with 128 players that can be played across platforms, destructible environments, and dynamic weather like sandstorms and a freakin’ tornado. I think I need a towel and a cold drink. It launches on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles on October 22, just in time for the holiday, buying-everything season.
Viral video of the week: What pretending to be crazy looks like
The almighty YouTube algorithm is feeding just about everyone a fascinating video from JCS- Criminal Psychology called “What pretending to be crazy looks like.” The hour-long crime documentary presents uncut interrogation footage with minimal narration, and if you’ve ever wondered what it looks and sounds like when suspects try to beat their raps by acting crazy, prepare to be taken deep inside the interrogation chambers of three suspects, one of whom was eventually deemed legally insane, and two others who aren’t fooling anyone, least of all their interrogators. It’s a deep dive down a very specific rabbit hole, and as a true crime fan, I’m totally here for it. If you have a spare 20 hours or so, check out the rest of JCS – Criminal Psychology. These are the best things on YouTube, hands down.