After putting the nix on retouching, quarterly comparable sales for Aerie were up 9%.
9% for that quarter. The next quarter, Q3 of 2014, up only 3% in comparable sales. But then in the next two quarters? Up 13% and 12%. Coincidence? Maybe. But I like to think it has to do with things like this pic:
Yes, some of these models have what the mainstream already traditionally thinks of as "great" bodies. But for some reason, the usual practice is to airbrush and retouch even THAT.
These photos show that there's no such thing as a "perfect" body; ALL bodies have moments of #realness. And there's nothing wrong with showing that. That's what I love about them and what I love about this campaign.
And to their credit, in case the model bodies don't do it for you, the brand has also posted photos of non-model, everyday women using the hashtag #AerieReal to spotlight the glory that is the unretouched photo on all types of shapes and sizes.
Frankly, no one needs Aerie to tell them that it's OK for them to have a body and to love it without a filter. But if you ask me, more brands could get OUT of the game of body shaming and INTO the game of body positivity like Aerie.
And if Aerie is any example, body positivity is profit positivity.
A couple is spending their retirement stress-free on cruise ships.
The cost of living in the United States has gone up so much in recent years that living on a cruise ship has become a reasonable idea for some retirees. When Nancy and Robert Houchens of Charlottesville, Virginia, retired, they decided to sell almost everything they had and live out their golden years hopping from cruise ship to cruise ship.
"We had a 3,000-square-foot home full of furniture...and everything we own now would fit in the back of a pickup truck," Robert told USA Today.
“We sold all of our estates except for a little condominium we have in Florida, so when we get too old to cruise, we have somewhere to live,” Nancy added. “And we did keep two vehicles, and what we kept is in half of (Robert's mother's storage unit), which is, I don't know, 10x10 or something. We just walked away from everything.”
Life on a cruise ship is stress-free for the couple because their needs are taken care of on the ship. "It's been great. I don't cook. I don't clean," Nancy told the Miami Herald.
The couple has found that living on a cruise ship isn’t as expensive as some may assume. Even though inflation has driven up the cost of travel in the U.S., it hasn’t significantly impacted the cruise industry.
“It's much cheaper than a nursing home or assisted living. It was just a good fit for us. It's a good fit for a lot of people,” Robert told the Miami Herald.
The couple plans their trips differently than someone who is going on vacation. “We look for the best deal, not the destination,” Nancy told Cruise Passenger.
The couple initially planned to spend $4,000 a month living on the ships. “Our original budget was $4,000 a month. This included gratuities. Of course, things are more expensive now, so that budget has had to increase a little. Depending on where we go, we may or may not need the internet,” she told Cruise Passenger.
“Our phone plan covers most everywhere for 25 cents a minute to call with free internet and texting,” Nancy continued. “We have an annual travel insurance plan, and one of our credit cards also has travel insurance.”
For the Houchens, living on board a cruise ship is definitely cheaper than assisted living. According to the 2020 Genworth Cost of Care Survey, the average monthly cost per person to live in assisted living in Virginia is $5,250 a month, which would cost Houchens over $10,000 a month as a couple.
Further, the roughly $4,000 the couple spends a month includes food, and they don’t have to bother paying for a car. They also try to book their cruises consecutively so they don’t waste money paying for expensive hotels when transferring between cruise lines.
Last July, the Houchens celebrated their 1,000th day sailing with Carnival Cruise Line since the 1980s, and they look forward to countless more days at sea with each other and the new friends they’ve made on their never-ending cruise.
“We cruise Carnival because of the people,” Richard told Travel Pulse. “It isn’t the destinations for us anymore, it’s the journey—and the biggest part of the journey is the people.”
People who laud the film are accused of being QAnon quacks, and those who criticize it are accused of being evil pedophiles. Here's how we got to this ridiculous point.
"Sound of Freedom" has made more than $90 million at the box office.
The Angel Studios film "Sound of Freedom," released over the 4th of July weekend, has been a somewhat surprise box office hit, earning more than $90 million so far and earning a top spot at the box office.
If you follow conservative media, you may have gotten the impression that this film is an incredibly important, eye-opening look into the skeevy world of child sex trafficking and a hero who takes on the bad guys who snatch and enslave children into the sex trade.
If you follow more liberal media, you may have gotten the impression that this film is QAnon propaganda, with a starring actor who spews conspiracy theories about elites trafficking children in order to harvest their blood for youth-maintaining rituals and all manner of unspeakable debauchery.
So how did we get to a place where people who criticize this film are accused of being evil leftist pedophiles, and people who laud it are accused of being QAnon quacks?
As with most things poisoned by conspiracy theories and rank partisanship, the story is a bit muddled. I don't claim to have all of the answers here, but I 've interviewed Tim Ballard (the founder of Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), the subject of the film and the driving force behind it), I've written about other organizations combatting child sex trafficking and I've done my best to debunk the QAnonsense that has unfortunately become entangled with this very real issue. So I'm familiar with the road that brought us here.
"Sound of Freedom" was still in production when I interviewed Ballard in 2018. At the time, he seemed like a full-blown superhero in my eyes, utilizing his Department of Homeland Security training and expertise to root out the traffickers who buy and sell children for sex—the worst of the worst things humans do to one another. I spent an hour talking with him and cried after I got off the phone. Child sex trafficking is horrific, it's a real issue, the industry is bigger and more lucrative than most people might imagine and in order to combat it, someone has to be willing to go into the belly of the beast.
I learned a lot talking with Ballard, but notably missing from our conversation was anything QAnon-related. He mentioned nothing about pizza parlors or Hillary Clinton eating babies (remember Pizzagate?), nothing about Hollywood actors secretly being arrested for some global sex trafficking ring run by elites, nothing about adrenochrome or any of the other QAnon claims that were already well underway in 2018. The industry he talked about was similar to what other anti-trafficking organizations I've spoken to have described.
But in the years since I spoke to Ballard, following Ballard, I've been dismayed to see him and OUR tacitly courting of QAnoners who have completely wrong ideas about what child sex trafficking looks like. I've watched partisan politics play a bigger and bigger role in Ballard's anti-trafficking messaging (and fundraising) and have been baffled by his and OUR's seeming refusal to denounce any specific QAnon kookery—despite the comment sections of their social media accounts being filled with the stuff.
When fake claims that children were being trafficked through the Wayfair website by people ordering furniture with specific girls' names started circulating, I was hoping Ballard would set the record straight. Instead, he tweeted, "With or without Wayfair, child trafficking is real and happening!!!" totally leaving the door open for people who believed the story, despite it being unequivocally false. He also said, "Children are sold that way...no question about it, children are sold through social media and on websites," but that statement could easily be interpreted as him saying that kids are sold through major online retailers' storefronts rather than simply through online channels. That's false and misleading and plays right into the hands of QAnoners.
All I've ever seen from Ballard and OUR are vague statements like, "We don't support conspiracy theories," which is meaningless, because QAnon folks don't see themselves as conspiracy theorists. When the big #SaveTheChildren push came about in 2020, with its skewed statistics and total misrepresentation of the scope and reality of child sex trafficking, neither Ballard nor OUR corrected the widespread misinformation QAnon followers pushed. Instead, they saw the attention as an opportunity.
“Some of these theories have allowed people to open their eyes,” Ballard told the New York Times. “So now it’s our job to flood the space with real information so the facts can be shared.”
That approach belies a naive-at-best and disingenuous-at-worst how QAnon-addled minds operate. No matter how much "real information" and "facts" OUR and Ballard share, by not directly correcting and denouncing outlandish claims about child sex trafficking, they allow conspiracy theorists to conflate the real with the fake. The comments under every OUR post reveals how deep and twisted the misinformation goes, but from what I've seen, OUR has allowed those comments go unchallenged.
The way Ballard and OUR have neglected to set the record straight with their QAnon following has directly led to the extreme reactions to "Sound of Freedom." And frankly, it was totally predictable.
Of course, it doesn't help that the lead actor in the film, Jim Caveizel, appears to have fallen head-first into QAnon quackery himself and that Ballard has fully embraced the right-wing media machine that makes every issue into a partisan, politicized fight between good and evil. I've been watching with interest as Mira Sorvino—who plays the lead character's wife in the film and who has served as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Global Fight against Human Trafficking since 2009—has done damage control, explicitly denouncing QAnon and trying desperately to explain that child trafficking is not a political issue.
"Sound of Freedom" is a fictionalized film based on some real events. However, the ethical nature of the raids OUR has been involved in is certainly up for debate, and OUR's tactics and credibility have been called into question multiple times. Certainly, the Rambo-style rescue narrative with the good guys busting in on the bad guys and saving the children can be, and has been, criticized for both sensationalism and shifting the focus away from victims and their stories.
For an excellent, in-depth rundown of the film and its issue, read this Slate article by Molly Olmstead. And if you are interested in learning more about child sex trafficking and organizations combatting it without the controversy, check out:
Man hears stepdaughter call him "Dad" for the first time.
Being a parent is often a thankless job, and being a stepparent is usually even more thankless. But most parents show up and do their best to make sure their kids have what they need and feel loved. So when our kids do or say something to show appreciation, it melts our hearts—but nothing melts it faster than a stepchild calling their bonus parent "Mom" or "Dad" for the first time.
A creator named Shane posted a clip from a longer video showing his reaction to hearing his stepdaughter call him "Dad" for the first time. The full video is about three years old, but when it was reposted as a clip recently, it pulled on everyone's heartstrings.
Shane and his wife, Liana, run the social media pages Shane and Liana where they post silly videos pranking each other. But this video wasn't a prank. His stepdaughter, London, wanted to surprise him after wanting to call him "Dad" for a long time.
She can barely contain her excitement in the clip, squealing loudly when climbing into the back seat. When Shane gets in the car, London knows this is her chance.
"Hi Dad, how was your day?" she asks.
Shane turns completely around in shock as the heartwarming realization of what she just called him sets in.
"Did you just call me Dad? Just made my heart melt to know she called me Dad," Shane says full of emotion.
London and Liana explain earlier in the video that Shane has raised the little girl since she was 2 years old. She didn't meet her biological father until she was 5, and he was only in her life briefly before leaving, so this was a big moment. Viewers under the newly re-uploaded clip revealed that watching the interaction made them just as emotional as Shane.
"This video hits me right in the heart and soul," Sarah Douglas writes. "My 'step' dad raised me from 7 years old. I’ve never met the sperm donor once, but my REAL dad is the one that chose to love me regardless of biology. Forever grateful for the real men that 'step' up to be there for us."
"So true the first time my oldest daughter called me dad I cried she’s not blood but she is mine no matter what," Timothy Evans says.
Country singer Miranda Lambert recently paused mid-song during a show in Las Vegas to confront fans who were taking a selfie during the performance, and no one can seem to agree whether or not she was right to do so.
In a video taken at the Sunday night concert, Lambert is seen beginning her ballad “Tin Man” when she suddenly says, "I'm gonna stop right here for a second, I'm sorry. These girls are worried about their selfie and not listening to the song,” referencing a group of friends somewhere in the front section.
“I don’t like it, at all,” she continues, “We’re here to hear some country music tonight…I’m singing some country damn music,” before motioning for them to put their phones away.
The clip quickly went viral, sparking a heated debate about who was in the wrong. Over on TikTok, most commenters thought Lambert was out of line in her chastising and agreed that the harshness did more to ruin the moment than the girls trying to take a photo.
“Imagine it was their favorite song and they were taking a video and they were excited,” one person wrote.
“They were just making memories,” wrote another.
Another pointed out that even if Lambert were in the right, she could have handled the situation differently, suggesting that “she could have finished her song and just said some blanket statement like ‘let’s try to be in the moment and stay off our phones.’”
One even noted that for folks who “paid upward of $700 to sit up front…they SHOULD be able to take photos.”
It even became a point of focus on “The View,” wherein Whoopi Goldberg defended Lambert against the other hosts, saying that for those willing to pay high prices for front row seats to a show, they should equally be willing to “give respect” by watching someone “do their thing.”
Eventually, one of the women called out by Lambert, Adela Calin, decided to speak up. She assured NBC News that posing for a photo that night took “30 seconds at most” and came from innocent intentions—they had even attempted to capture the image before the show started but couldn’t find proper lighting. They had finally asked a woman behind them to snap a photo when Lambert spotted them.
"We just couldn’t get one good picture," Calin told NBC. "We were so excited because I think we had the best seats in the whole theater."
The entire situation reflects a larger exhaustion many people are having with the tech that is now the cornerstone of every aspect of our lives. According to a survey published by Fast Company, an overwhelming number of Americans (including those from Gen Z) long for a pre-plugged-in world, when life didn’t revolve around a 24-hour news cycle, constant content and a barrage of screens. It seems like many would prefer to return to simply being at a concert and trusting that the memories will be made through the feelings felt in the moment, rather than posting something online and then never thinking about it again.
There’s also the recent uptick of concertgoers literally abusing performers by throwing their phones and other objects at them, as with Bebe Rexha and Harry Styles. This is, needless to say, dehumanizing and dangerous, and most likely something that influenced Lambert’s reaction. Even Calin acknowledged this.
However, Calin added that while she might understand Lambert’s concern, her determination to make her group look “young, immature and vain” was unfair.
“It felt like I was back at school with the teacher scolding me for doing something wrong and telling me to sit down back in my place,” Calin said. “We were just grown women in our 30s to 60s trying to take a picture.”
There isn’t a clear-cut solution to this modern-day dilemma. Selfie-taking is a deeply embedded part of our contemporary culture and like any social trend, there are pros and cons to that. Probably the only thing that we can count on not changing is the value of keeping to kindness while discussing the topic.
Dog refuses to walk with Mom, but her legs work with Grandma.
What gives dogs the right to have such big and hilarious personalities? It seems like these dogs have found a way to make their humans laugh while also annoying them until they're ready to come apart. It's truly a skill that only dogs and toddlers seem to possess in great quantities.
Zoe is a pit bull with a bombastic side-eye that makes it clear that she only tolerates her mother, Raven, but adores her grandmother, Yonika. There is no confusion about who her favorite person is, and Zoe's grandmother only seems to encourage the behavior. The two of them are the best of friends, and Mom...well, she's the third wheel.
Sure, Zoe likes her mom a little—she does feed her, after all—but the verdict is still being determined if love can be claimed. Raven can't even convince the sassy pittie to go on a walk with her.
Zoe lays on the ground like a chubby little pancake any time her mom tries to take her for a walk. Raven has even pulled on her leash, slowly dragging the dog down the hallway, but Zoe insists that her legs do not remember how to work. But as soon as Grandma takes the leash, a miracle occurs. Suddenly Zoe is a spry whippersnapper with four working legs and a happy tail.
"She refuses to walk whenever I take her outside," Raven explains. But that's just not the case for Grandma, and there really doesn't seem to be an explanation for it other than preference.
"When I'm around, she is an absolute angel. She listens," Yonika says.
In fact, Raven says when Grandma is around, Zoe completely ignores her so she can continue getting Grandma cuddles. This dog has mastered the side-eye, and Grandma is only assisting in her snubbing her mom in the cutest way. It's something you have to witness for yourself to fully appreciate, so check out the video below.
Few instruments in this world are as universally loved as the drums. For thousands of years, humans in virtually every culture have used drums to raise energy, be it for ceremonial purposes or good old-fashioned celebration. I mean, have you ever listened to a really bangin’ drum solo and not been immediately revved up? It’s pretty much impossible.
So when a masterful drum player aces an instrument that already gives such a visceral experience, you know you’re in for one hell of an auditory ride. Twenty-six-year-old Timothy Fletcher gave “America’s Got Talent” audiences just that.
Hailing from Baltimore, Maryland, and armed with only a single drum, Fletcher mesmerized the crowd with a personality-filled hip-hop routine that not only had a fantastic array of rhythms, but fun dance moves and impressive tricks. It really was a whole show in itself.
Watch:
Fletcher shared with the judges that he started playing drums in high school, but stopped. However, he took up the passion once again thanks to the encouragement of a friend who said he had a gift with the instrument, even predicting that one day he would be on the “AGT” stage.
After that friend was tragically killed, Fletcher decided to really take that message to heart by sharing his gift with the world. And yes, coming to compete for the winning title.
Fletcher is clearly well on his way to doing so, earning an enthusiastic “yes” vote from all four judges. Heidi Klum called it a “perfect first audition.”
We don’t always see our talents for the gifts that they are. But that changes when we receive support from a loved one. Their affirmation can carry us to surprising, exciting and wondrous places even after they’re gone. Love really is a magical thing.
