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Behind the viral push to save one of the most inclusive shows on TV.

If Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher can do it, so can Hollywood's biggest names.

The good news: A really funny, awesomely diverse sitcom wrapped up work on its second season. The bad news: You might never get to see it.

Any Seeso subscribers in the house? Likely not, and that's kind of what's causing this predicament. On Wednesday, the NBCUniversal-backed comedy streaming service announced plans to shut down after about a year and a half in operation.

It's sad news, too, because Seeso was home to "Take My Wife," a critically acclaimed sitcom from IRL married duo Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher. The show follows the slightly fictionalized lives of Esposito and Butcher as they try to find personal and professional success. The premise — comedians just trying to make it in the real world — is well-worn territory, but you've almost certainly never seen it done like this.

The show's second season recently finished filming, but with Seeso calling it quits, there's no telling if and when it will ever air.

It's an important show, and it's absolutely worth saving.

In case "Take My Wife" never finds a home (hopefully it will), Esposito tweeted a few important stats about the second season's production — specifically, the demographics of the cast and crew.

She urged followers to retweet her original post and help spread the message using the #TakeMyWife hashtag.

People of color, women, and members of the LGBTQ community are under-represented both in front of and behind the camera. "Take My Wife" set out to change that.

A report from the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA looked at 200 top-grossing films and more than 1,200 TV shows between 2014 and 2015 and found that women and people of color were underrepresented on screen and in production. GLAAD ran a similar analysis with similar results about the role of LGBTQ people in entertainment media.

Photo by Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images for Los Angeles LGBT Center.

With "Take My Wife," Esposito and Butcher made a concerted effort to involve members of historically underrepresented communities in the show's production. They hope this proof of concept sends a message to Hollywood execs — but if there's hope of persuading industry power players to change how they cast and hire, it probably helps if, you know, the finished product actually airs somewhere.

Creating a world where people can see themselves in the media they consume has an effect beyond just this show.

Riley Silverman, a trans comic from Los Angeles, landed a role on "Take My Wife." In a series of tweets, she nailed why diverse, representative media is important.

More than just characters on a screen, representation is about not feeling alone in the world. "It would have meant the world to me to see myself represented," Silverman says via Twitter direct message. "We didn't talk about any of this stuff when I was a kid so I spent years of my life thinking I was just broken. The first time I heard anything trans related was as a punchline in a Cracked magazine parody of Batman, and yet it still made me realize there were others like me out there and I wasn't alone. And maybe I would be okay."

Pop stars Tegan and Sara, who appeared in the "Take My Wife" holiday special, tweeted, "I wonder what my life would have looked like if I'd seen thoughtful + positive #LGBTQ representation on TV when I was young."

A handful of the show's writers and actors got in on the action, heaping praise on Esposito and Butcher's work and support...

...as did the show's fans, celebrities, and media figures, bringing the #TakeMyWife hashtag to Twitter's list of trending topics.

Travis McElroy of "My Brother, My Brother and Me" (which was also on Seeso and has been saved by a different streaming platform), joined the fight.

Hopefully, a network or streaming provider will realize that there's a really great show ready for the world to see and give it the audience it truly deserves. You can get involved in the push to save the show by tweeting using the #TakeMyWife hashtag.

Family

Korean mom has a perfect response to the teacher who called her son's lunches 'disgusting'

Good for her for standing up for her child's culture.

via Roman Harak/Flickr

A Korean mother and her son

A recently posted story on Reddit shows a mother confidently standing up for her family after being bullied by a teacher for her culture. Reddit user Flowergardens0 posted the story to the AITA forum, where people ask whether they are wrong in a specific situation.

Over 5,600 people commented on the story, and an overwhelming majority thought the mother was right. Here’s what went down:

“I (34F) have a (5M) son who attends preschool. A few hours after I picked him up from school today, I got a phone call from his teacher,” Flowergardens0 wrote. “She made absolutely no effort to sound kind when she, in an extremely rude and annoyed tone, told me to stop packing my son such ‘disgusting and inappropriate’ lunches."

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parenting
Pop Culture

Mississippi meteorologist paused for a 'human' moment while reporting on devastating tornado

"Oh, man. Dear Jesus, please help them."

WTVA 9 News/YouTube

Meteorologist Matt Laubham prays for the people in the path of a deadly tornado.

Broadcasters who have to report on tragedies as they are happening have a tough job. On the one hand, they have to maintain their professionalism and inform the public of what's happening in a factual way. On the other hand, they're still human and sometimes humanity trumps the traditional perception of what's "professional."

Such was the case for WTVA meteorologist Matt Laubhan, who found himself live on the air staring at a radar scan of a deadly tornado as it moved towards the small town of Amory, Mississippi. He, more than anyone, understood the severity of the situation, and he did his best to convey that to his viewers.

"This is a strong, life-threatening tornado that's going to move either extremely close to Amory or in through the northern part of the city of Amory."

He added, "Y'all trust me too much," explaining that people sometimes take his predictions of where the tornado will go as hard fact, but the reality is that tornados can change directions at any time. "So Amory, we need to be in our tornado safe place," he said.

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humanity
Family

Dad found out his son bullied a kid at school and came up with a brilliant teaching moment

"I told him that we have the opportunity to make things right."

@thehalfdeaddad/TikTok

Dad on TikTok shared how he addressed his son's bullying.

What do you do when you find out your kid bullied someone? For many parents, the first step is forcing an apology. While this response is of course warranted, is it really effective? Some might argue that there are more constructive ways of handling the situation that teach a kid not only what they did wrong, but how to make things right again.

Single dadPatrick Forseth recently shared how he made a truly teachable moment out of his son, Lincoln, getting into trouble for bullying. Rather than forcing an apology, Forseth made sure his son was actively part of a solution.


The thought process behind his decision, which he explained in a now-viral TikTok video, is both simple and somewhat racial compared to how many parents have been encouraged to handle similar situations.
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fatherhood
Pop Culture

Rick Astley covered Foo Fighters' 'Everlong' and it's shockingly great

Consider yourself Rick-Grohled.

Rick Astley/YouTube

Rick Astley rocking his Foo Fighters 'Everlong' cover.

Rick Astley has to be the luckiest '80s musician on the planet. The whole "Rickrolling" phenomenon has given his hit song "Never Gonna Give You Up" a reach far beyond its natural life span, and kept the guy a household name far longer than he probably would have been.

(For those who are unfamiliar, Rickrolling is when you make someone think they're being sent to a website, but the link goes to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" video instead as a joke. It's a silly viral bait-and-switch gag that's been going since 2006.)

But what people may not realize, because his most famous song has become an internet joke, is that Rick Astley is actually a really freaking great musician. The man can saaaang and it seems he's only gotten better with age.

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Education

People are raving about how much easier it is to read with 'bionic reading' font

This viral tool could be a game-changer for some.

Photo via Canva, @WhattheADHD/Twitter

The 'bionic reading' font is designed to help keep you focused and read faster.

Reading is a fundamental tool of learning for most people, which is why it's one of the first things kids learn in school and why nations set literacy goals.

But even those of us who are able to read fluently might sometimes struggle with the act of reading itself. Perhaps we don't read as quickly as we wish we could or maybe our minds wander as our eyes move across the words. Sometimes we get to the end of a paragraph and realize we didn't retain anything we just read.

People with focus or attention issues can struggle with reading, despite having no actual reading disabilities. It can be extremely frustrating to want to read something and have no issues with understanding the material, yet be unable to keep your mind engaged with the text long enough to get "into" what you're reading.

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Joy

Airbnb host wakes his guest up in the middle of the night so she wouldn't miss the northern lights

Best. Host. Ever.

@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

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nature
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