+
Pop Culture

Hilarious TikTok explains what NOT to do for the Lunar New Year

A good excuse to not clean. It's for luck!

lunar new year, year of the rabbit, chinese new year
@thekwendyhome/TikTok

Don't sweep your good fortunes away!

Lunar New Year is one of the most important celebrations among East and Southeast Asian cultures. Unlike the Gregorian New Year, which takes place for one night, Lunar New Year celebrations last for several days and involve centuries old traditions steeped in superstition. Even the most mundane of everyday activities, when done on Lunar New Year, could decide a person’s fate—for better or worse.

Luckily, home decor blogger Wendy has given us a perfect rundown of taboo activities to avoid this Lunar New Year and thwart ill tidings—in the form of one hilarious TikTok.

As Wendy explains in her caption, many customs are based not only in superstition, by a play on words. Washing your hair “washes” away your fortune, for example. Sweeping “sweeps” it all away. You get it.

There’s even caution against items that sound like Chinese words with a negative connotation—buying a book, which sounds like the word “lose” in Chinese, would bring bad luck. Similarly, buying shoes, which sounds like “rough” in Cantonese and “evil” in Mandarin, would be equally bad. There will be no trips to Barnes and Noble or Foot Locker during Lunar New Year. No sir.

While the education is already great, what makes this video next-level is the amazingly cartoonish slow motion chase scene happening the whole time on loop.

Watch:

@thekwendyhome What not to do on Lunar New Year. Inspired by: @thehustlingmama Most of these customs are based in superstition and a play on words! But I’ll take the excuse not to wash my hair or clean any day! Watching our expressions in slow motion really made us laugh out loud. Especially the scene where K runs with the knife and scissors. Which you should neverrrr do. This video took me much longer to edit with the “special effects” but I think it makes it funnier that we are chasing each other in a perpetual loop. #lunarnewyear#chinesenewyear#cny#cny2023#chineseculture#chinesecustom#chinesenewyear2023#yearoftherabbit♬ Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra

Wendy alluded to the video being a time consuming project—what with all the special edits—but man was it worth it. This is TikTok comedy at its finest.

The clip has already garnered over 195K views. Those familiar with the customs found it laughably relatable. One person wrote, “thank you! I was running them through my mind and this was a great mini refresher.”

Others marveled at just how many things could make a year go terribly, terribly wrong. “Well, I’ll just stay in bed and not do anything,” one person joked.


The Lunar New Year for 2023 will fall on Jan 22, transitioning away from the Year of the Tiger and into the Year of The Rabbit, which represents wealth and prosperity in Chinese culture. Hey, if it means becoming rich this year, I suppose we can let the hair washing and sweeping slide for a day.

Finally, someone explains why we all need subtitles

It seems everyone needs subtitles nowadays in order to "hear" the television. This is something that has become more common over the past decade and it's caused people to question if their hearing is going bad or if perhaps actors have gotten lazy with enunciation.

So if you've been wondering if it's just you who needs subtitles in order to watch the latest marathon-worthy show, worry no more. Vox video producer Edward Vega interviewed dialogue editor Austin Olivia Kendrick to get to the bottom of why we can't seem to make out what the actors are saying anymore. It turns out it's technology's fault, and to get to how we got here, Vega and Kendrick took us back in time.

They first explained that way back when movies were first moving from silent film to spoken dialogue, actors had to enunciate and project loudly while speaking directly into a large microphone. If they spoke and moved like actors do today, it would sound almost as if someone were giving a drive-by soliloquy while circling the block. You'd only hear every other sentence or two.

Keep ReadingShow less

Pedro Pascal and Bowen Yang can't keep a straight face as Ego Nwodim tries to cut her steak.

Most episodes of “Saturday Night Live” are scheduled so the funnier bits go first and the riskier, oddball sketches appear towards the end, in case they have to be cut for time. But on the February 4 episode featuring host Pedro Pascal (“The Mandalorian,” “The Last of Us”), the final sketch, “Lisa from Temecula,” was probably the most memorable of the night.

That’s high praise because it was a strong episode, with a funny “Last of Us” parody featuring the Super Mario Brothers and a sketch where Pascal played a protective mother.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

The far-right is calling this viral Grammy performance 'Satanic.' Don't fall for it.

Sam Smith and Kim Petras' performance of "Unholy" left some calling it a satanic ritual.

K.G/Youtube

Sam Smith and Kim Petras performing "Unholy" at the Grammy Awards.

Depending on which corners of social media you call home, few happenings from the 2023 Grammy awards were as divisive as Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ performance of the song “Unholy.” Was it a historic moment of inclusion or a historic display of a Satanic ritual broadcast to the world?

On the one hand, the pair made music history. After winning the Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, Smith became the first non-binary artist to win the category, along with Petra who became the first trans woman to win the category.

However, not everyone was a fan of their live hell-themed performance, featuring Smith clad in red leather and sporting a top hat with devil horns and Petras dancing in a cage surrounded by dominatrixes.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz took to Twitter to call the act “evil,” and his fury was quickly echoed by other conservative influencers who declared it an example of mainstream devil worship.

“Don’t fight the culture wars, they say. Meanwhile demons are teaching your kids to worship Satan. I could throw up.” wrote conservative political commentator Liz Wheeler.

However, it doesn’t take a lot of research to find out what the artist’s original intentions were behind the song.

Keep ReadingShow less
Celebrity

Philadelphia Eagles player is bringing his pregnant wife’s OBGYN to the Super Bowl, just in case

Kylie McDevitt's OBGYN is packing a bag to join the NFL star's wife, just in case baby Kelce decides to see the game too.

Philadelphia Eagles player is bringing his pregnant wife's OBGYN to the Super Bowl

Having a baby is an intimate, vulnerable experience, so people get pretty attached to their healthcare providers. I've met women who have planned an induction to have their baby with their preferred doctor and not whoever would be on call if they went into labor naturally. So it may not be a surprise to birthing people that Kylie McDevitt, Philadelphia Eagles player, Jason Kelce's wife, isn't taking any chances when she travels to Arizona for the Super Bowl.

Kelce made headlines with his brother Travis recently when it was revealed that the Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs would be facing off for the Super Bowl, making the pair the first brothers to compete against each other for a ring. It seems that McDevitt didn't want to miss the history-making moment, even though she'll be two weeks shy of the standard 40 weeks of pregnancy.

Keep ReadingShow less
Photo by alevision.co on Unsplash/ @camerconstewart_uk/Instagram

"Sometimes it pays to learn a language!"

It feels safe to assume that if money were no object, people would always choose to travel business class over economy. After all, who doesn’t want a fast check-in, fancy food and drink choices and more of that sweet, spacious legroom?

However, at anywhere between four to ten times the price of a regular economy ticket, this style of traveling remains a fantasy for many who simply can’t afford it.

Luckily, thanks to one man’s clever travel hack, that fantasy might be more achievable than we realize.

Cameron Stewart, a British photojournalist and camera operator, recently shared how he was able to score business class tickets at a fraction of the price, simply by switching the website language from English to Spanish.
Keep ReadingShow less

Tater Tots, fresh out of the oven.

It’s hard to imagine growing up in America without Tater Tots. They are one of the most popular kiddie foods, right up there with chicken nuggets, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and macaroni and cheese. The funny thing is the only reason Tater Tots exist is that their creators needed something to do with leftover food waste.

The Tater Tot is the brainchild of two Mormon brothers, F. Nephi and Golden Grigg, who started a factory on the Oregon-Idaho border that they appropriately named Ore-Ida. The brothers started the factory in 1951 after being convinced that frozen foods were the next big thing.

According to Eater, between 1945 and 1946, Americans bought 800 million pounds of frozen food.

Keep ReadingShow less