Jordan Howlett (aka Jordan the Stallion) in his new role as Chief Gordon. – Photo credit: via Jordan the Stallion/TikTok (used with permission) and State Farm Insurance (used with permission)
Jordan Howlett, 27, is known by his 26 million-plus followers on TikTok and Instagram as Jordan the Stallion (a play on singer Megan Thee Stallion). He’s attracted a massive following for his fast food recipes, life hacks, smooth voice, deep research, kind heart, and iconic “come here” camera zoom. Not bad for a guy who shoots most of his work staring into his bathroom mirror.
Now that he’s reached the pinnacle of TikTok popularity, he’s branching out as an actor. Specifically, he’s taken a role as Commissioner Gordon in State Farm Insurance’s new Batman-inspired commercial. Upworthy talked to Howlett about his new role and how he creates his incredibly popular videos.
The new State Farm commercials feature actor Jason Bateman as “Bateman,” the last person you want at a crime scene when you could have had the real thing, Batman, show up. In the spot’s opening, Bateman meets Commissioner Gordon, played by Howlett, who closely resembles Jeffery Wright, who played the role in 2022’s The Batman.
“As I began to fill out, I started to resemble Jeffrey Wright, and I think it was just a perfect pairing. I love the work that Jeffrey does,” he told Upworthy. He also channeled Wright’s gritty performance for the State Farm spot. “My mind immediately went to Jeffrey Wright’s version of Commissioner Gordon, where he talked with a grungy whisper.”
Even though TikTok videos made him famous, Howlett couldn’t avoid catching the acting bug after this role. “I have been fully immersed and infected with the acting bug,” he told Upworthy. “I’m the embodiment of a fan and a student of acting and film and TV, and I have such tremendous respect for that art. And as much as I love having these opportunities, they’re due to the work I’ve done in the bathroom. I’m happy that those created these opportunities, and I don’t take them lightly.”
Howlett felt the “aura” surrounding his co-star Jason Bateman and tried to define that type of rare charisma. “I think it stems from people feeling as though they’re represented by that person on screen,” he said. “If you watch people that you really admire, it’s like they speak to you in a certain way, right? Their art embodies something that really speaks to me. It’s almost surreal because it’s like you feel you know them on a molecular level.”
In his videos, Howlett just tries to be himself. “It really is me,” he shared. “I don’t have the bandwidth to try to put a mask on in any way. It really just is authentically myself. And I’m just happy that people can relate to that.” He also works quickly so that his videos feel natural. He records most of them in one take, but spontaneity has drawbacks. “The one downside is, after you posted, you think, like, ‘Oh, would have been funny if I said this.’ But, sorry, it’s too late because I was just doing it one time,” he said. That authenticity comes from a life where he has battled homelessness and depression and started a new life after being a Division 1 college baseball player.
Because of his ability to overcome his struggles, Jordan is seen as a role model or big-brother figure by some of his Gen Z followers. It’s a big responsibility that he takes seriously. ”I feel like there’s a responsibility to people who see me in that way, to make sure that I do the best I possibly can to make them proud,” he told Upworthy. “I don’t tell people to do something or use something that I wouldn’t do or use myself, and make sure that I stay true to who I am and continue to do that out of respect for them. I’m honored.”
In March 2023, after months of preparation and paperwork, Anita Omary arrived in the United States from her native Afghanistan to build a better life. Once she arrived in Connecticut, however, the experience was anything but easy.
“When I first arrived, everything felt so strange—the weather, the environment, the people,” Omary recalled. Omary had not only left behind her extended family and friends in Afghanistan, she left her career managing child protective cases and supporting refugee communities behind as well. Even more challenging, Anita was five months pregnant at the time, and because her husband was unable to obtain a travel visa, she found herself having to navigate a new language, a different culture, and an unfamiliar country entirely on her own.
“I went through a period of deep disappointment and depression, where I wasn’t able to do much for myself,” Omary said.
Then something incredible happened: Omary met a woman who would become her close friend, offering support that would change her experience as a refugee—and ultimately the trajectory of her entire life.
Understanding the journey
Like Anita Omary, tens of thousands of people come to the United States each year seeking safety from war, political violence, religious persecution, and other threats. Yet escaping danger, unfortunately, is only the first challenge. Once here, immigrant and refugee families must deal with the loss of displacement, while at the same time facing language barriers, adapting to a new culture, and sometimes even facing social stigma and anti-immigrant biases.
Welcoming immigrant and refugee neighbors strengthens the nation and benefits everyone—and according to Anita Omary, small, simple acts of human kindness can make the greatest difference in helping them feel safe, valued, and truly at home.
A warm welcome
Dee and Omary's son, Osman
Anita Omary was receiving prenatal checkups at a woman’s health center in West Haven when she met Dee, a nurse.
“She immediately recognized that I was new, and that I was struggling,” Omary said. “From that moment on, she became my support system.”
Dee started checking in on Omary throughout her pregnancy, both inside the clinic and out.
“She would call me and ask am I okay, am I eating, am I healthy,” Omary said. “She helped me with things I didn’t even realize I needed, like getting an air conditioner for my small, hot room.”
Soon, Dee was helping Omary apply for jobs and taking her on driving lessons every weekend. With her help, Omary landed a job, passed her road test on the first attempt, and even enrolled at the University of New Haven to pursue her master’s degree. Dee and Omary became like family. After Omary’s son, Osman, was born, Dee spent five days in the hospital at her side, bringing her halal food and brushing her hair in the same way Omary’s mother used to. When Omary’s postpartum pain became too great for her to lift Osman’s car seat, Dee accompanied her to his doctor’s appointments and carried the baby for her.
“Her support truly changed my life,” Omary said. “Her motivation, compassion, and support gave me hope. It gave me a sense of stability and confidence. I didn’t feel alone, because of her.”
More than that, the experience gave Omary a new resolve to help other people.
“That experience has deeply shaped the way I give back,” she said. “I want to be that source of encouragement and support for others that my friend was for me.”
Extending the welcome
Omary and Dee at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Vision Awards ceremony at the University of New Haven.
Omary is now flourishing. She currently works as a career development specialist as she continues her Master’s degree. She also, as a member of the Refugee Storytellers Collective, helps advocate for refugee and immigrant families by connecting them with resources—and teaches local communities how to best welcome newcomers.
“Welcoming new families today has many challenges,” Omary said. “One major barrier is access to English classes. Many newcomers, especially those who have just arrived, often put their names on long wait lists and for months there are no available spots.” For women with children, the lack of available childcare makes attending English classes, or working outside the home, especially difficult.
Omary stresses that sometimes small, everyday acts of kindness can make the biggest difference to immigrant and refugee families.
“Welcome is not about big gestures, but about small, consistent acts of care that remind you that you belong,” Omary said. Receiving a compliment on her dress or her son from a stranger in the grocery store was incredibly uplifting during her early days as a newcomer, and Omary remembers how even the smallest gestures of kindness gave her hope that she could thrive and build a new life here.
“I built my new life, but I didn’t do it alone,” Omary said. “Community and kindness were my greatest strengths.”
Are you in? Click here to join the Refugee Advocacy Lab and sign the #WeWillWelcome pledge and complete one small act of welcome in your community. Together, with small, meaningful steps, we can build communities where everyone feels safe.
This article is part of Upworthy’s “The Threads Between U.S.” series that highlights what we have in common thanks to the generous support from the Levi Strauss Foundation, whose grantmaking is committed to creating a culture of belonging.
Dead Poets Society was one of the most popular coming-of-age films of the late ’80s, showcasing Robin Williams’ acting range and launching several young actors into their Hollywood careers. But according to Ethan Hawke, who played the timid Todd Anderson (the student who stands on his desk first) in the film, the famous comedian didn’t make his own job easy.
Hawke shared on The Graham Norton Show what working with Williams was like after Norton said he understood their on-set relationship to be “a bit fractious.”
“Well, he was incredibly funny, right?” said Hawke. “And he was very relaxed and very inventive…and he would just improv constantly, all day long, and the more the crew laughed, the more he would go.”
Despite Williams’ hilarious antics, the film wasn’t a comedy. Hawke struggled with the constant improv in light of his own acting work.
“I really wanted to be a serious actor,” he said. “You know, I had read Stanislavski, and I had what was supposed to be in my pockets, and I really, really wanted to be in character, and I really didn’t want to laugh. And the more I didn’t laugh, the more insane he got. And he’d make fun, ‘Oh, this one doesn’t want to laugh,’ and the more smoke would come out of my ears. He didn’t understand I was trying to do a good job…so I thought he hated me, because he just constantly would lay into me.”
"but, poetry, beauty, romance, love; these are what we stay alive for".
After filming, Hawke went back to school thinking Williams “hated” him. Then one day, he got a phone call.
“It was from a big Hollywood agent. This guy says, ‘I’m Robin Williams’ agent, and he says that you’re gonna be somebody, and that I should sign you.’ And I was like, really? And so he got me my first agent, who’s still my agent now.”
Many stories of Williams’ behind-the-scenes acts of kindness have come to light after his passing, so the fact he recommended Hawke unasked isn’t too surprising. Knowing the context from Hawke’s perspective, however, makes it all the more delightful.
Hawke spoke to Vanity Fair about his experience observing Williams and director Peter Weir interact on the Dead Poets Society set:
“I’m watching [Weir] direct Robin Williams, not an easy thing to do, ’cause Robin was a comic genius,” Hawke said. “But dramatic acting was still new to Robin at that time. And watching that relationship like, in the room—I was four feet away while they’re talking about performance—and that was something you don’t unsee.”
Williams taught Hawke that a script isn’t always set in stone.
“Robin Williams didn’t do the script, and I didn’t know you could do that,” Hawke recalled. “If he had an idea, he just did it. He didn’t ask permission. And that was a new door that was opened to my brain, that you could play like that. And Peter liked it, as long as we still achieved the same goals that the script had.”
“They had a very different way of working, but they didn’t judge one another or resist one another,” Hawke continued. “They worked with each other. That’s exciting. That’s when you get at the stuff of what great collaboration can do. You don’t have to be the same, but you don’t have to hate somebody for being different than you are. And then the collective imagination can become very, very powerful, because the movie becomes bigger than one person’s point of view. It’s containing multiple perspectives.”
The lessons Hawke learned from watching and working with Robin Williams have followed him through more than three decades in film. It’s delightful to see how Williams’ influence lives on in many small ways the world may not be aware of. His is an incredible legacy.
Generation X (those born between 1965-1980) grew up eating classic Americana meals. During the 1970s, comfort meals like tuna casserole and salmon roquettes were popular meals.
Gen X also grew up eating some pretty unhinged (but all the more yummy) sandwiches. These meals are steeped in childhood nostalgia.
And to this day, Gen Xers are still fond of their favorite dishes they grew up eating. Together, they discussed on Reddit their most-loved home-cooked dishes that they still whip up, starting with sloppy joes.
Here are 17 iconic Gen X comfort meals to keep in mind the next time you make dinner:
“Breakfast. We will have a ‘breakfast for dinner’ at least a couple times a month. Yum!” – fadeanddecayed, KddKc
“Pizza bread! My mom would cut Italian bread into pieces, put butter and garlic salt on them, then pour some spaghetti sauce on them, cover with mozzarella cheese, and broil for like ten or fifteen minutes. Super easy and quick to make and so tasty. I’m sure my mom loved that I was so into something that took roughly zero effort for her to make.” – hornybutired
“Grilled cheese and soup.” – reincarnateme
“Meat loaf. I use 2 pounds ground beef, replace bread crumbs with minute rice, add 1 pkg beef soup flavoring, chop an entire onion for it, and mix BBQ sauce into mixture. Oh, important: do not overmix! Place all ingredients into bowl, then mix quickly 10 or 12 swirls of a large spoon. Grease loaf pan, carefully place mixture in, pat down & bake about an hour. (Extra info: for even better flavor, mix the night before, pat into loaf pan, cover with plastic, put into fridge overnight. Remove from fridge about an hour before baking. BE SURE TO REMOVE PLASTIC WRAP! [Esp. If in Pyrex glass loaf pan])” – jehardt, AbbyM1968
“White guy tacos.” – najing_ftw
“Skillet dinner. Kielbasa, bell pepper, onion, spuds in a cast iron pan. One dish. Easy peasy.” – UnimportantOutcome67
“Chicken pot pie or chicken ala king.” – sattersnaps
“Fried catfish, greens, and red beans and rice.” – User Unknown
“Shepherds pie, technically cottage pie if it’s ground beef. Homemade enchiladas, usually made as a layered casserole instead because I don’t have time to roll them. Pork chops with mashed potatoes and veggies.” – XerTrekker
“Fried rice with chicken or pork leftovers.” – AlternativeResort181
“Hot hamburgers: hamburger patty open face on Texas toast thickness bread, cover with fries then cover that with brown gravy. Wife’s variation is hamburger patty over rice with brown gravy.” – EnricoMatassaEsq
“Stuffed peppers. I make it much more easily by cooking it all in one large frying pan ‘deconstructed’. Sauté onions garlic and ground beef, add cut up peppers, tomatoes or tomato sauce, sometimes a little spinach, then add separately cooked rice, salt and pepper and serve. It comes together pretty quickly and tastes just as good as stuffing and baking peppers in the oven.” – Affectionate-Map2583
“Macaroni and cheese with cut up hot dogs. Seriously, that’s what I ate tonight.” – Dazzling-Walrus9673
“Homemade Stroganoff casserole. Ridiculously easy to make. Ingredients:
1.25-1.5 lbs. Ground Beef 1 each of large white onion, green pepper, and red pepper 1 can mushroom pieces, drained and rinsed 12 oz. Bag of wide egg noodles 1 can cream of mushroom soup 16 oz. Sour cream Worcestershire Sauce Louisiana Hot Sauce White or Black Pepper Panko bread crumbs
To Make: Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Worcestershire, hot sauce, garlic powder, and pepper are all to taste, depending on how much flavor and punch you want it to have. Cook noodles per instructions. Drain. Peel and slice onion (not diced), core and cut peppers into strips Brown meat, onions and peppers along with liberal amount of Worcestershire; garlic, pepper, and hot sauce. Add mushrooms. Cook until meat is fully brown, onions are translucent and peppers are tender. Drain. Combine drained meat, etc. with whole can of soup, half of the sour cream. Gradually add noodles into the mix. Add sour cream as needed to maintain consistency. Add Worcestershire, hot sauce, and pepper to taste. Dump into large, deep Corning dish or whatever. Cover too with bread crumbs. Cover and bake for forty minutes.” – CynfullyDelicious
This article originally appeared [time-difference] ago. It has been updated.
Few individuals have had an impact on the childhoods of millions and the imaginations of people of all ages like Jim Henson. From Sesame Street to The Muppet Show to The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, Gen Xers grew up with Henson’s magic being a familiar and comforting presence. And to this day, over three decades after his death, the characters he created are still household names.
For those of us who were raised on Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, Kermit, and Miss Piggy, Henson’s creatures feel as real as any living, breathing performer from our childhoods. But it’s not just because we were kids when we were introduced to them. Even adults who met the Muppets found themselves transported into Henson’s imaginary world, and after seeing interviews of the puppeteer with his creatures, it’s easy to see why.
Watch:
What's so amazing about Jim Henson as a puppeteer is that he could literally be explaining that Kermit is made out of felt and ping pong balls and yet Kermit still feels alive the whole time he's doing it! pic.twitter.com/Lt109Cvr51
Henson didn’t even pretend to not be controlling Kermit. He didn’t bother with ventriloquism. And yet, Kermit feels truly alive and separate from the person animating him. It almost feels surreal. Or perhaps just…real.
Henson’s characters even convinced film crew members
Both guests and crew members alike found themselves pulled into Henson’s world, even while fully understanding that the puppets were being controlled by people. The crew would sometimes move the boom mic to a puppet instead of the puppeteer. Directors would sometimes give stage directions directly to the Muppet instead of the human animating it. Dick Cavett, who interviewed Henson with his Muppets, said, “No matter how much you know about this, it’s completely convincing.”
Even when a Muppet would explain the fact that the person was speaking to a puppet, it still seemed like a sentient being. Case in point:
(This may be the one time you see Henson swear, but in context, it’s brilliantly wholesome.)
Frank Oz shared what it was like to work with Henson
Of course, Henson didn’t work alone. Bringing his characters to life in all the ways he envisioned took the work of many people, but none were more aligned with Henson himself than his partner-in-puppetry, Frank Oz. Oz was the Miss Piggy to Henson’s Kermit, the Bert to his Ernie, the Animal to his Dr. Teeth.
Oz started working with Henson when he was just 19 years old, and for 27 years the duo created unforgettable magic together. It wasn’t just the puppets. It was the voices, the comedic timing, the way they could make you laugh in one moment and well up with tears in the next. Their creatures entertained us but also taught us about being human, which was a truly remarkable feat.
Oz shared what it was like to work with Henson with Gene Shalit after Henson’s death in 1990:
Like Fred Rogers, Jim Henson is remembered for being a distinctly decent person in addition to his creative work. He brought the ancient art of puppetry into the modern world, touching every generation in his lifetime and after in a way that remains unmatched. As the tribute song “A Boy and His Frog” by Tom Smith says:
“They say, ‘Oh that’s foam and a wire, attached to a green velvet sleeve. Anyone can do that.’ Well, that’s true, I suppose, but who else can make them believe?” (Grab a tissue before listening to this song, Henson lovers. It’s a doozy.)
How his legacy lives on
Henson’s children, Lisa, Cheryl, Brian, John, and Heather, have carried on his work by running the Jim Henson Company and Jim Henson Foundation, performing themselves, and continuing to advocate for the art of puppetry. They’ve also kept Jim Henson’s Creature Shop running, creating puppets, animatronics, and even digital puppetry. The shop designed and built the full-size animatronic puppets for the 2023 Five Nights at Freddy’s movie and works on television, commercial, and themed projects as well.
In 2024, renowned director Ron Howard released a documentary about Henson’s life and work, Jim Henson: Idea Man, which can be found on Disney +.
Some Olympic sports are obviously difficult and, clearly, inherently dangerous. You can’t watch a snowboarder twirl upside down in mid-air, 17 feet above a 22-foot halfpipe wall, and not admire the heck out of the effort it takes to reach that level of courage, skill, and athleticism. Watching skiers barreling down a mountain at 60 to 80 mph with nothing but a thin suit between them and the ground, expertly avoiding obstacles as they do it, is objectively impressive to the average person.
But the challenge of other sports isn’t as immediately appreciated. Curling may be hard, but it doesn’t look that hard.
And bobsledding might take some level of athletic ability, but other than a 5-second run before you jump into the sled, it’s really just about momentum and steering, right? Sure, they go fast, but bobsledders sit inside a protective metal casing, so it looks more like a thrilling roller coaster ride than a physically challenging and dangerous sport, right?
That’s what Saturday Night Live‘s Colin Jost thought. Then he tried it, and thankfully, he took us all along with him.
In a clip from NBC Sports, Jost describes his bobsled ride in Lake Placid, New York, as “by far, the scariest experience I’ve ever had in my life.”
Jost rode along with an experienced driver and didn’t even have to do anything but feel it. And, boy, did he feel it. We can see how his body was violently jostled from the physics of flying down the track. As the driver said, astronauts take off in a space shuttle at about three Gs. In the bobsled, they did about 5 Gs, which means he was feeling five times his body weight pushing down on him.
We can see and hear the shift from “Wow!” to “Holy ____!” as Jost’s thrill turned to terror on the track.
“I was in no way prepared for that,” Jost said. “I truly thought my body was going to break apart. I’m not exaggerating. It was so much more intense than I expected.”
Jost told NBC’s Mike Tirico that he was “not prepared for the level of terror of this bobsled.”
“I swear to God, I thought I was going to die,” he said. “I thought my back was gonna snap in half. I thought my bones were gonna fly off my body and be littered all up and down the bobsled track.”
People loved seeing an average person partake in an Olympic event, especially someone as honest about the experience as Jost was, as evidenced in the comments:
“Now THIS is the kind of commentary I want!”
“Huge thank you to whoever put Colin Jost in a bobsled.”
“Can we have him do every event for a reference point?”
“This is what we’ve been asking for – an average person participating so we can get a real account! Thank you for your service, Colin Jost!”
“He was so horrified he couldn’t even be hilarious about it 💀”
“He completely lost his composure, 😂 you could tell he was scared, and it did look like the fastest thing anyone would ride.”
“You know what… his explanation really helped me understand how scary bobsledding is and now I’m more interested in watching. Keep this guy on the air. That second scream shows me he’s telling the truth 😂“
The video really does offer a whole different perspective on how difficult bobsledding actually is.
Jost was just trying to keep his body together. Imagine having to focus and steer on top of handling those G-forces.
Retired NFL player and popular podcaster Jason Kelce also tried out the bobsled in Park City, Utah, and had a similar “holy ____” experience. He seemed to enjoy it a little more than Jost did, perhaps more accustomed to his body taking a beating as a professional football player, but he said it was far more intense than it looked. It didn’t feel like a roller coaster, he said. The 1,400 pounds of pressure pushing him into the metal bars of the sled bruised his hips, and, at one point, it got so loud he couldn’t hear his own screams.
Seeing how careening down an ice track in an aerodynamic sled feels really does lend a whole new level of wow to a sport that some might mistakenly see as glorified sledding. It also lends more weight to 41-year-old Elana Meyers Taylor’s monobob (single-person bobsledding) run that earned her her first Olympic gold medal in her sixth Olympic Games in Milano Cortina. She had earned three silver medals and two bronze medals, making her the most decorated U.S. female bobsledder of all time.
Seriously, nothing but respect for the bobsledders from here on out.
If you opened Gabriella Carr’s red notebook, you might expect to find a diary, a grocery list, or her homework. Instead, you’d find an organized, numbered list of failures.
That’s one way to see it. Gabriella views it differently, though. To her, every entry in that notebook is a victory.
Gabriella, a content creator and actor, is embarking on a fascinating experiment she calls “The 1,000 No’s.” Her goal: to face rejection 1,000 times in a year. While the rest of us spend our days avoiding the word “no,” Gabriella is hunting for it. She asks for opportunities she feels unqualified for. She puts herself in situations where rejection is likely.
Something unexpected happened on her quest for failure: she started to succeed.
In seeking “no’s,” Gabriella stumbled upon a life filled with unexpected “yeses.” Her journey offers a fresh perspective on risk and rejection, and she’s not alone in discovering the surprising power of failure.
The notebook that changed everything
Gabriella began her challenge in September 2025. As a creative, the sting of rejection was familiar. Casting directors passed on her self-tape auditions. Brand partners left her emails unread. The constant silence and dismissal started to take a toll on her self-worth.
She switched up her approach. Instead of striving for a “yes” and dreading denials, she set “no” as the goal.
When Gabriella shared her rejection journey on TikTok, it resonated with hundreds of thousands of people. They recognized their own fears in her red book.
“My daughter shared your account with me, and it inspired me to apply for my dream job! I haven’t heard back yet, but yes or no, it felt good to be so daring!” read one comment. “I need to get an internship for spring, and I’m so scared,” shared another. One viewer said that Gabriella’s courage inspired them to apply for a federal job.
Users across the Internet are following her lead. TikTok user @theplanistobefamous tracks his outrageous haggling on Facebook Marketplace. Others record similar experiments—renegotiating lease agreements, asking strangers for fashion advice, pitching themselves to major brands for sponsorships.
Gabriella’s experiment has led her to a powerful realization: what holds us back from our greatest dreams isn’t a lack of talent or opportunity—it’s the fear of asking.
Embracing the “no”
Gabriella follows in the footsteps of innovators who saw fear as their sole obstacle.
Jason Comely, a freelance IT specialist, first developed the concept of “Rejection Therapy” in 2009. After his wife left him, Jason felt isolated and hesitant to socialize. His fear of rejection had morphed into a psychological barrier, a self-imposed mental prison that prevented him from forming meaningful connections and living a free life. He recognized the trap he was in—and knew he needed to find a way to confront and overcome his fears.
To toughen up, he modeled his training after Russian special forces. He created a game with one rule: get rejected at least once a day. Accepted requests didn’t count—he had to continue until he got a “no.” This simple but powerful game became more than a personal experiment, resonating with people worldwide and blossoming into a global movement.
Jia Jiang took the challenge publicly as well. After a difficult rejection from an investor, he decided to try Jason Comely’s “Rejection Therapy” experiment for 100 days. Jiang began recording his quest for no’s, expecting to document a long string of awkward failures.
On day three, he strolled into a Krispy Kreme and asked an employee to make him doughnuts shaped like Olympic rings.
Jiang braced for laughter and a curt “no,” but the employee caught him off guard as she began to sketch a design. Fifteen minutes later, she handed him a box of Olympic ring-shaped doughnuts, free of charge. This encounter went viral, touching millions with its heartwarming display of unexpected kindness.
In 2017, Jiang gave a TED Talk titled “What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection,” which garnered over six million views—one of the most popular lectures released that year.
Why rejection hurts (and how to overcome it)
If these experiments yield such positive results, why do we remain terrified of putting ourselves out there?
The answer lies in our biology. Psychologists have discovered that social rejection lights up the same areas of the brain as physical pain. In other words, hearing “no” triggers a reaction in your brain—the same one that activates when you slam a finger in the door or douse yourself with freezing water by accident.
Social rejection feels just like physical pain to the brain. Photo credit: Canva
From an evolutionary perspective, this makes perfect sense. In the beginning, our ancestors relied on social groups for survival. Being a part of the tribe meant access to shared resources, protection from predators, and aid in child-rearing. Outcasts faced starvation and predators solo. Although we no longer live in small, nomadic tribes, your brain is still wired with that ancient software. It perceives modern rejections, like an unanswered text or a chilly response during a job interview, with the same primal panic as banishment from the group thousands of years ago.
This is why Gabriella’s challenge works—it’s a form of exposure therapy.
Exposure therapy is a well-established psychological method used to help people overcome phobias. The core idea is to gradually expose someone to the object of their fears in a safe and controlled way. For instance, if you have an intense fear of spiders, a good therapist won’t place you in a room full of tarantulas. They’ll ease you into it. The process might begin with something as simple as looking at a cartoon drawing of a spider. Once you’re comfortable with that, you might move on to realistic photos, then to a video of a spider. By the end, you could end up in the same room as one or hold a harmless spider in your hands. This logical, step-by-step approach teaches your brain that what you fear isn’t a real threat.
Gabriella’s experiment works in a similar fashion. By seeking out small, manageable rejections—like requesting a song on the radio—she began to retrain her brain. With each mini-rejection, Gabriella’s fear of hearing “no” faded, making it easier for her to take bigger risks, like signing up for that pageant.
Gen Z and the gamification of failure
This trend has seen a major resurgence with Gen Z viewers at the forefront. It’s no surprise given today’s challenges. Data shows Gen Z may be the “most rejected generation” in history. By February 2025, the average job posting received 244 applications. Young people sent out hundreds of resumes—and faced a wall of silence or boilerplate automatic rejections.
When life feels out of control, turning challenges into a game can help you regain a sense of agency. Instead of passively waiting and dreading rejections, people like Gabriella are making “no’s” the goal. This shifts everything. This powerful reframing tool protects your self-esteem and spins a helpless situation into a conquerable hurdle—you can win the game by participating in life.
Ready to start your own rejection challenge?
You don’t need to aim for 1,000 rejections or a “no” every day to benefit. If you want to strengthen your own “rejection muscle,” here are some simple strategies to get started.
Begin by asking for something minuscule, like the time from a stranger. The goal is to feel that jolt of anxiety—then realize you’re okay.
Know when to stop
Pushing your comfort zone is healthy, but remember to stay safe. As psychologist Dr. Elisabeth Morray explains, forcing yourself into situations that feel unsafe can yield traumatic outcomes. Know your limits—the goal is growth, not distress.
Track your data
Take a cue from Gabriella and use a pen and paper to record your rejections. Writing them down by hand helps externalize the experience, turning an uncomfortable memory into banal data entry.
Reframe the outcome
Remember what Jia Jiang learned: the worst thing someone can say isn’t “no.” It’s that you never even asked. When you stay silent, you reject yourself by default. Keep in mind that with every brave request, you open the door for the universe to say “yes.”
The beautiful truth about “no”
We spend an obscene amount of time trying to be perfect and dodging the embarrassment of disapproval. But people like Gabriella Carr, Jia Jiang, and Jason Comely show us the vibrant, exhilarating world that awaits on the flip side of fear. Rejection is an inevitable part of being human, but there’s no shame in asking.
Every “no” in Gabriella’s notebook marks an act of courage—an opportunity to embrace possibility over comfort. Within those possible 1,000 rejections lie the “yeses” that will shape her life: the plays, the pageants, and the moments she would have missed if she’d chosen to stay silent.
Buy your red notebook. Approach a neighbor with the favor that’s been on your mind. Apply for the job that seems out of your league. The worst outcome? “No.” And as Gabriella has shown, hearing a “no” isn’t the end of the world—it’s proof that you were courageous enough to take the leap and try. Each attempt, no matter how disastrous, is a step forward. You’re proving to yourself that you are willing to endure uncertainty to pursue what matters to you.
There are a lot of nail salons out there, and without word-of-mouth recommendations from people you trust, it can be impossible to know which salon to visit. Thanks to social media, many businesses can advertise their services without spending much on traditional marketing like television, billboards, and radio. Using pictures and videos of their amazing work to market can help maintain a steady flow of customers, but one Canadian nail salon is taking a slightly different approach.
Henry Pro Nails which started in Toronto, Canada, is leaving the Internet in stitches after creating a viral ad for his nail salon. The video uses the beginnings of several viral clips, but instead of the expected ending, Henry pops in to complete the viral moment in hilarious, unexpected ways.
HenryProNails takes viral videos and turns them into funny marketing
It opens with a familiar viral video of a man on a stretcher being pulled by EMS when the stretcher overturns, flopping the man onto the ground. But instead of it ending with the injured man on the ground, Henry seamlessly appears, lying out on the floor of his salon and delivers his first line, “Come to my nail salon. Your nails will look beautiful.”
In another clip, a man holds his leg straight up and somehow flips himself into a split. When the camera cuts back to Henry, he’s in the splits on the floor of his nail salon promoting loyalty discounts. The ad is insanely creative, and people in the comments can’t get enough. Some are even planning a trip to Toronto just to get their nails done by the now Internet-famous top nail artist in Canada. This isn’t Henry’s first rodeo making creative ads, but this one is, without a doubt, his most popular—and effective.
People love Henry’s videos
“I will fly to Canada to get my nails done here just because of this hilarious video. You win this trend for sure,” one woman says.
“Get yourself a passport and make a road trip! My bf and I are legit getting ours, and it’s only a 4 hr drive from where we are in Pennsylvania. Their prices are a lot better than other places I’ve been too,” another person says while convincing a fellow American citizen to make the trip.
“Omg, where are you located? I would fly to get my nails done by you,” one person writes.
“The pedicure I had at Henry’s was the best I have ever had. Unfortunately, it made all other places disappointing, and I don’t live close enough for Henry’s to be my regular spot,” someone else shares.
In another hilarious video, Henry urges a woman not to divorce her husband for not cooking her dinner, but instead to come get her nails done so she’ll feel a lot better.
It just goes to show that creative advertising can get people to go just about anywhere, but great service is what keeps them coming back. If you’re ever in Canada and find yourself needing an emergency manicure, Henry’s Pro Nails is apparently the place to be.
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
We can all be sure that as society evolves, many things that seem normal today will be cringeworthy to people in the future, whether it’s our fashion, politics, civility, or our treatment of the environment.
If we look back just 30 years ago, same-sex marriage was illegal, people routinely smoked in bars and restaurants, and it was fashionable and cool to vogue.
So, when we look back on the world of the 2020s, there are bound to be many things that we’ll be embarrassed about in 30 years, especially when we are forced to live with the repercussions of the decisions we make today. On a lighter note, we’ll all also have clouds full of photos of ourselves wearing hairstyles and clothes that look utterly ridiculous in hindsight.
In the summer of 2024, we asked the Upworthy community to share their thoughts by asking a big question on Facebook: “What’s something that’s accepted now that we’ll be embarrassed about in the future?” Our readers responded with funny takes on current fashion and concerns about technology use and how we treat our fellow human beings.
Here are 21 things we accept today that we’ll probably be embarrassed about in the future
More than a few current fashion trends will look silly in the coming years
“Yoga pants. I love them to death, but I can easily see them as the parachute pants of tomorrow.” — Deborah
“Barn doors in your house.” — Joyce
“Tattoos all over the body.” — Vicki
“People wearing socks and sandals.” — Jeremy
“Wearing pajamas in public.” — Ivy
“Huge, over-sized false eyelashes.” — Patricia
Hopefully, people in the future will be more considerate when using technology than we are today.
“Walking around with your eyes locked on your phone. Or eating at a table with 4 people looking at their phone. One day, we will either fall off a cliff or realize life is what is happening off the screen.” — Elise.
“Texting in the presence of another person.” — Kate
Three women on their phones not paying attention to each other. Canva Photos
We can also hope that in the near future, we will be able to solve many of today’s pressing public policy issues so that the next generation will live happier and healthier lives.
“Lack of healthcare for everyone.” — Sharon
“Making the planet unlivable for human beings.” — Karen
“Spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money to build a sports arena for a billionaire. Then charging the taxpayers outrageous amounts to attend events there.” — Stacy
“How the US is systematically clawing back women’s rights to decide what they do with their bodies. It’s beyond shameful.” — Jason.
Some people are concerned about the way students and their parents behave in modern-day America.
“Parents trying to run schools: yelling at teachers for their child’s poor performance, yelling at principals when their child gets in trouble, book banning based on an individual’s religious ideologies, etc.” — Beth.
“Entitled children talking back to their parents and teachers.” — Connie
“Cry rooms at universities where students can go and work out their anxiety and cry and be upset if their professor uses words that are too difficult for them. Universities are institutes of higher learning, not institutes of babysitting. That will be an embarrassment in the future, as it is an embarrassment to me and many others now.” — Della
In 30 years, we may be embarrassed to look back on the level of general civility in 2024.
“Panic buying of toilet paper during the pandemic.” — Tony
“Ageism. It’s everywhere, all the time, and no one seems to mind. No one is defined by the amount of time they’ve spent on the planet but it’s used as an identity and as a weapon (ask any teenager, 40-year-old woman, or retiree…). I can only hope that one day it will be a source of embarrassment that we were all so dismissive and judgmental.” — Rosy.
While this list may seem like a litany of complaints people have about living in the modern world, it should give us hope. If we’ve overcome past embarrassments, today’s can be fixed as well.
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it’s when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There’s no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
It’s unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
“The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you’re a man, you could feel it.”
“Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr.”
“The boys took a beating on that one.”
“That guy needs a hug.”
“Those are the moments that change your life if you’re a man, I tell you what.”
“When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it’s gonna hurt and it’s going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark.”
It’s not the Winter Olympics without watching this clip (sound on) at least a hundred times
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can’t say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There’s a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn’t happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it’s the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn’s harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand’s return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn’t stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.
