Because of accessibility and user-friendliness via cell phone, Twitter has become the social media platform of choice among young people, and those who would otherwise have difficulty accessing the Internet. That brings us to the lazy (and complicated) shorthand “Black Twitter,” a term used to describe a segment of Twitter users who are black and participate in black culture online—though it should be said (and it should be obvious) that not all black people use Twitter in the same way.
 
 
 
 
Today, the fourth cinematic adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic The Great Gatsby (starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, and Joel Edgerton) opens in theaters across the country. (Well, the fifth if you include the 2000 TV movie starring Mira Sorvino and Paul Rudd. Which I don't.) Directed by Baz Luhrmann—the visionary behind Romeo + Juliet, Strictly Ballroom, and Moulin Rouge!—this Gatsby is grandiose, sparkling, well-acted ... but surprisingly ho-hum in places. [My grade: B-] While still often entertaining (unlike the 1974 snooze-fest starring Mia Farrow and Robert Redford), this Gatsby has quite a few changes from the book version. Some of them good; others, not so much.
 
 
 
 
A couple of weeks ago, I was standing in the office of my colleague Jason Sheehan, food editor of Philadelphia magazine. I don't recall exactly what we were discussing, but at some point, I said something to the effect of, "What is with that shit?" Cursing is a regular occurrence in our offices, so this was not unusual. But then I realized that my colleague's nine-year-old daughter was seated behind a divider in his office. It was Take Our Sons and Daughters to Work Day.
Prom season is upon us. A whiff of cologne carries on the warm spring breeze, and before you know it, photos of friends’ kids and younger siblings, draped in formalwear, are popping up on your newsfeed.
 
 
Prom is a generally nostalgic tradition, but like everything else in the lives of teenagers in 2013, it's now a more complicated affair than it was during the Sixteen Candles era.
 
 
The Experience Project launched in 2006, having been inspired by an online MS support group. Rather than focus on a single disease, though, the site allows someone in an asthma support group who's been talking about inhalers with the same 20 people for 20 years, for example, to talk about Kurosawa with film lovers or chicken marinade with at-home chefs--asthma or no. It's an admirable idea in a culture of labels: to be defined by our experiences and interests rather than our illnesses. But something's gone wrong here. It may be that the labels are more flattering than our true selves.
H&M is a retail giant. No, more like retail Goliath. A Swedish company, it operates more than 2,600 stores in 43 countries, employs more than 94,000 people and is the second-largest global retailer. That's one giant corporation. So, you’d think they’d have a pretty sophisticated corporate structure, right? In researching a recent ad campaign, I wanted to get a few facts straightened out so I called H&M's U.S. headquarters in New York. H&M New York oversees 200 stores in the States. Finding a number for them, however, was no easy task. There is none listed on their corporate website so I started with customer service until I got someone to cough up a number. When I called, it rang for a while and then went to this message:
 
 
“The mailbox you are trying to reach is full. Call again later. I’ll transfer you.”
 
 
 
In case you missed it, this is the first-ever International Clitoral Awareness Week. Long overdue, if you ask me. The clitoris has been shafted by the penis since Adam warned Eve: “Better step back—I don’t know how big this thing gets.”
If you want to understand nearly everything that’s both great and awful about modern American capitalism, take a close look at Austin Carr’s story about the creation of Taco Bell’s Doritos Locos Taco—yes, that—in the May 1 edition of Fast Company.
 
 
Gwyneth, Gwyneth, Gwyneth. While we should be spending our precious time worrying about Amanda Bynes’ downward spiral—which, surprisingly, is concerning me more than is natural—we are back to fixating on Gwyneth. In movies, she’s amazing, sparkling, smart: In the new Iron Man 3, just like the previous two, she’s “girl Friday” to co-star Robert Downey, Jr. But then press junkets and magazine interviews and cookbook intros and GOOP happen; she opens her mouth and wham! She says something so pretentious, so self-important that a thousand online articles are born. Don’t believe me? Just type, “Gwyneth Paltrow is…” into Google and see for yourself. (Hell, even us here at Philly Post/Philly Mag can’t get enough of her: here, here, and here.
When we think of steakhouses, we imagine expensive food, lush booths and men in business suits. But it turns out these restaurants are not just for customers who want fine dining but are a favorite place to take your mistress.
 
 
A popular feature on the iPhone 5 (also available as an app on older models) is "Do Not Disturb," a program that blocks texts, emails and phone calls. Yes. An app that does the same thing that, well, the user can. My friend Janel said they should have called it "Will Power."
Ask any Penn student holed away in the bowels of the library this week for finals: There’s nothing quite as anxiety-inducing, in student life, as the fear of being unprepared. I still remember it. Listening to neighboring pencils scratch through pop quizzes while I sat there, shaking my knee and gnawing at my fingers like the answer to number four was surely written somewhere under this cuticle.
Catherine Zeta-Jones, who has bipolar disorder, has checked herself into the hospital for treatment. Her publicist has explained this a proactive visit, and a source told TMZ the hospital stay is "maintenance." As a result, the National Alliance on Mental Illness' medical director has commended Zeta-Jones: "It's great that she is getting help for herself and serving as a role model."
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is pushing for legislation to ban retailers from selling violent video games to minors without their parents' permission—a plan that flies in the face of a 2011 Supreme Court decision that shot down a California law of similar context.
For those of us trying to guess how The Following would wrap up its first season, creator Kevin Williamson shared a clue with Entertainment Weekly. “People live, people die,” he told the mag, coyly. But the real hint was in his explanation of what makes for a good TV ending. “I loved finales as a kid. Knots Landing had the best finales.” And so it should be no surprise that, in the tradition of those campy 80s soaps like Knots and Dallas, we’ve been left with a whopper of a cliffhanger. Williamson had suggested that the Joe Carroll story would draw to a close, and it did. Or did it? The only thing I’m sure of is that the season is over, Kevin Bacon will be back, and my eye is still twitching from that interrogation scene.
Thank God for weekends. If there weren’t weekends, my house would never get clean. I’d never get to the post office. And I’d never get to catch up with the Wall Street Journal, a.k.a. the paper of record for White People’s Problems. Friday's Journal brought a shining example in the form of a long story, in the Fashion section, called “Is It Tee Time, or Martini Time?” Because, uh, for the Wall Street Journal, those are the only two choices, I guess?
The first time I saw the ad I thought it was joke. Surely it was merely a composite photo — put together for some failed movie pitch — that accidentally got released somehow, right? After all, how could the insipidly titled The Big Wedding ever attract Oscar-winners Robert De Niro or Susan Sarandon? Sure, Katherine Heigl is believable (she of the 27 Dresses debacle), but Diane Keaton? And Robin Williams playing a priest in a wedding movie, again? Come on! The poster's designers must have simply cut him out of a production photo for the 2007 travesty License to Wed and plopped him in this one. Right?
 
 
Mayor Nutter’s initiative to get 10,000 Philadelphia teenagers hired for summer jobs—beating last summer’s number of 6,000 working teens—is admirable and ambitious. Teen employment means much more than pocket money; summer work has a direct correlation to future employment. Not only do learned skill sets transfer to future jobs, more nebulous traits like work ethic are developed.
 
 
Today, the first guns will go off for the Penn Relays, which each year draw the country's top high school, college, professional, and masters track and field athletes to Franklin Field. Penn, considered one of the great incubators of the "relay" as a regular track and field event, has built an illustrious tradition through this competition over the decades. Here are some of the most memorable moments over the years.
 
 
1895: Just-dedicated Franklin Field hosts the inaugural Penn Relays Carnival. At the time, there were just bleachers, and no locker rooms. Tents were set up on the perimeter of the track, and...
I was at a bat mitzvah a few years ago, and when the music started, the eighth-grade boys awkwardly grabbed the girls from behind and started grinding, and the girls were pushing right back as though they expected to feel something (later, girls, later). It seemed very music video-inspired and enormously embarrassing for them—as they'd learn 10 years later when they'd unearth the DVD. Some adults were disturbed by the pretend-adult sexuality in the dancing, but it just made me laugh.