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Real women trying on 'micro shorts' is the comedy gold we didn't know we needed

Proof we don't need to force ourselves to fit into trends…unless we're needing a good laugh.

Prisma Photo via Canva/Bianca Marie Arreola via Canva

Women are trying Free People's 'micro shorts' with hilarious commentary

With every season, comes a new trendy fashion item that retailers push as the must-have piece. But as we know, no trend is universally flattering.

Case and point, last year, when Free People, a specialty lifestyle brand for bohemian styled fashion, released its "micro shorts," which, as you can probably guess, are teeny tiny. They might check off all the requirements for a pair of shorts...except, they appear to be about the length of underwear.

If you're thinking "there's no way those would look good," you're not wrong! And to prove that point, a couple of women bought some to try on so you don't have to. The videos are not only honest but hilarious.

In one video Nicole Walters, a New York Times best selling author and mom to three girls, decided to order the shorts to see how they looked on someone with, "thigh meat." She wears a size 12 and often jokes about being a curvier on the bottom. When she pulled the shorts out, it looked as if she was going to have to perform a magic trick to get them on. They looked to be the size a small child would wear, but they seemed to have gone on easily even though they looked extremely uncomfortable. She looked uncomfortable. The viewers likely looked uncomfortable.

"Oh wow. They're in there and by in there I mean everywhere. There's a lot of thigh meat happening right now in the, this region," Walters says as she gestures at her upper thighs. "There's some thigh meat, um...uh...I feel like they're definitely in some places that I didn't know I had."

Walter's review of the shorts has people in stitches as she jokes about her Christianity falling out of the shorts.

"It’s the Barbie walk for me lol!!! Thank you for your service," one person says.

"The way you warn us that you’re going to turn around almost made me scream with laughter," someone writes.

"I'm just going to go ahead and dial 911 for help bc looks like you may need the jaws of life to come out them shorts...lol!! Your commentary had me dying laughing..lol," another commenter jokes.

In another Free People "micro shorts" try on video, Nicole Story Dent braved the itty bitty shorts to show her audience the summer trend they can look forward to seeing. The first pair of shorts has multiple flaps that appear to be large pockets which inspires Dent to pretend to fly in them before the discomfort sinks in.

"It's kinda giving waitress...if they ever want to make a Waffle House-Hooters hybrid, we have their uniform, "she said. "We have been asking for more pockets so they delivered. Speaking of delivered, you could deliver a baby without having to take these shorts off."

Dent guessed that the shorts would be more like "jundies" or "janties" than jorts, the shorthand term for jean shorts. Commenters couldn't stop laughing at her description of the shorts while others provided her with words of wisdom.

"Do NOT drop it low in these jundies, that kind of contact with the club floor is NOT hygienic," someone wrote.

"'There is nothing vegan about these. There is absolutely a cat being harmed!' I’m cackling! You really should win something from Free People for this! @freepeople we found your next model," another person joked.

"This is the kind of content the internet was made for, it’s just so good. However my thighs started getting chafed just watching this," added a third.

If you're brave enough to give these micro shorts a try, go ahead and stock up on some baby powder for all the chaffing. However, it's all about long Bermuda shorts this year. And since no one can keep up with fashion's rapid pace anyway, why not just stick with what feels good?

This article originally appeared last year.

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Save-it-later app, Pocket, is shutting down. I’m going to miss it.

It's the end of an era.

Photo credit: Canva

So long, farewell, to my favorite web-clipper.

For 18 years, Pocket helped the Internet’s voracious readers—and biggest procrastinators—collect their favorite stories online. Stored neatly in one, easy to access location, as a digital hoarder, Pocket was an indispensable asset. That Forbes article on the “secretive, pay-for-play world of movie trailers?” Pocketed with a single click, thanks to cross-platform integration. Or, a deep-dive on “the unstoppable rise of digital detox retreats?” Intriguing, but not for right now. Pocketed. These articles, along with hundreds of others, that ranged from “Why America has so few carpenters” to “The amazing psychology of Japanese train stations” were kept safe, just for me, in my digital magpie nest.

That time has ended.

While dutifully logging onto the app one day, a pop-up appeared, reading “Pocket is shutting down.” The parent company, Mozilla, went on to explain: “After careful consideration, we’ve made the difficult decision to phase out Pocket—our read-it-later and content discovery app. This includes the Pocket Web, Android, iOS, and macOS apps, as well as the Pocket browser extensions.”

ereader, website, internet, article, clipperPocket says goodbye to the internet. Credit: Screenshot, Kat Hong

They also added,

“Pocket has helped millions save articles and discover stories worth reading. But the way people save and consume content on the web has evolved, so we’re channeling our resources into projects that better match browsing habits today. Discovery also continues to evolve; Pocket helped shape the curated content recommendations you already see in Firefox, and that experience will keep getting better. Meanwhile, new features like Tab Groups and enhanced bookmarks now provide built-in ways to manage reading lists easily.”


So, as of July 8th, 2025, after nearly two decades of faithful pocketing, Pocket is saying farewell. I don’t often feel sentimental about app closures or websites shutting down, but scrolling through my saves, it felt akin to a baby bird being pushed out of its nest before it learns how to fly. It felt like the end of an era.

Pocket and me <3

Pocket’s clean, simple interface (which, could be enhanced or further customized with Pocket Premium, the web-clipper’s paid model) was unique. Not overly fussy, like other websites or apps I tried to use, but functional. Genuinely nice to look at, in an age where aesthetics rules over all else.

via GIPHY

It was also downright reliable, a function that’s increasingly becoming harder to find and thus exponentially more valuable. With a single click, eye-catching articles, deep-dives, or fleeting curiosities were safely secured, saved for a quiet moment to be unfurled. Often, that moment never came. That’s not the point. I had a digital treasure trove, collected and curated by me, that I could return to at times when scrolling on whatever social media app I was currently obsessed with could no longer hold my attention.

Pocket’s demise resounds through the Internet

But Pocket always felt too good to be true. While the Internet rushed toward instant gratification, overconsumption, and unlimited algorithmic feeds, Pocket cultivated patience and intentionality. With their daily collection of “Saves,” seemingly handpicked from the Internet, Pocket was more than a web-clipper—it felt like a genuine part Internet that could almost pass as community. Contributing writer Samantha Cole from 404 Media provides some context noting, “The Mozilla-owned Pocket, formerly known as ‘Read It Later,’ launched in August 2007 as a Firefox browser extension that let users save articles to… well, read later. Mozilla acquired Pocket in 2017.”

She continues,

“As I said, I’m upset! I use the Pocket Chrome extension almost daily, and it’s become a habitual click for articles I want to save to read later even though I fully know I never will. Before the subway had Wi-Fi, back when I commuted to work 45 minutes each way every day, I used Pocket to save articles offline and read outside of internet access. Anecdotally speaking, Pocket was a big traffic driver for bloggers: At all of the websites I’ve worked at, getting an article on Pocket’s curated homepage was a reliable boost in viewers.”

On Reddit, Pocket users are similarly mourning its dissolution, with one person writing, “I’m grieving. I used this feature nearly every day and loved the Kobo integration that allowed me to read saved articles distraction-free on a my Kobo e-ink devices. It’s the end of an era.”

Another wrote, “I’m gutted. I love Pocket…”

User @ThunderDaniel lamented, "Kind of bittersweet. I loved Pocket when I was a broke student that only had access to wifi speeds in the max of kilobytes per second. I’d download long form articles and cool listicles and read that stuff on my phone for hours. Surprised it took this long for Pocket to be shut down, but RIP nonetheless."


Computer, laptop, internet, collecting, pocket, ereadingWhat's next, now that Pocket is through?Photo credit: Canva


Now what?

The official Mozilla blog post says that Pocket will shut down on July 8th, 2025, but users will be able to export their saves at any time until October 8th, 2025. On that day, all user data will be deleted.

Premium monthly subscriptions will be automatically canceled before the next billing cycle and annual subscriptions will be canceled on July 8th with users receiving a prorated refund.

Finally, the Pocket email newsletter, Pocket Hits, (which offers readers "daily and weekly curation of engaging content from trustworthy sources") will be renamed to “Ten Tabs,” curated by the same editorial team.


ereader, website, internet, article, clipperInstapaper? Maybe that's the new frontier? Credit: Screenshot, Kat Hong

What platform will fill the Pocket-shaped hole in my digital existence? Well, I’ve been experimenting with Instapaper. People on Reddit seem to enjoy Raindrop.io.

Or, as 404 Media puts it, “404 Media contributing writer Matthew Gault suggests copy-pasting links to articles into a giant document to read later. Now that Pocket is no longer with us, I might have to start doing that.”

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Will Ferrell answers rapid fire questions from Stephen Colbert, and it's delightfully weird

A rollercoaster of unhinged to poetic that only Will Ferrell can deliver.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert/Youtube

This funny man likes to take the window seat while traveling to see all the "dead bodies," i.e. trees.

For those not up to speed with all things Stephen Colbert—during his Colbert Report days, the television host popularized a bit called the "Colbert Questionert," where he asked the same 15 questions (covering the ”full spectrum of human experience") to whichever celebrity guest he was interviewing at the time.

That bit lives on with the Late Show, and during the show’s April 29 episode, Anchorman star Will Ferrell was asked those trademark "ergonomically designed” questions.

His answers were every bit as unserious as you’d might expect…from declaring the “classic” salami and grapefruit on rye with a light sheen of mayo as the “best sandwich” (which, actually, does sound pretty delectable), to naming penguins as the “scariest animal (“you know the old phrase, don’t turn your back on a penguin"). You can definitely tell Colbert is working very, very hard to keep himself together.

And yet, when asked, “What do you think happens when we die?” things took a bit of a profound turn.

“What I know happens…we turn into trees.”

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

He went on to say that once that happens, you’ll still be "experiencing" things, and “contributing to the world,” but…”that’s it.”

“And you know this…how?” Colbert replied.

“I just know it,” said Ferrell before immediately dubbing Sense and Sensibility as his favorite action movie followed by a full-on spontaneous acapella duet with Colbert of Rick Astley’s "Never Gonna Give You Up”— the one song Ferrell would pick if he could only listen to one song for the rest of his life. If that’s not life in a nutshell, I don't know what is: beauty, silliness, and everything in between.

Rickroll Never Gonna Give You Up GIFfrom Rickroll GIFs


Whether you find answers to this ultimate mystery in religion, a spiritual practice, science, or simply accepting that you’ll never know, the one truth of it all is that our bodies go back into the earth in some way or fashion. Some might find this concept unsettling, while others find it deeply meaningful—so much so that they opt for biodegradable urns or pods to house their remains which are then planted with a tree, allowing the remains to nourish the tree as they decompose and it grows.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

So, while Ferrell was obviously taking on the funny man role, he also seemed to pull one of the oldest clown tricks in the book: offering poignant wisdom.

By the way, if you want to host your own little Colbert Questionert, here are the 15 questions:

  • Best sandwich?
  • What's one thing you own that you really should throw out?
  • What is the scariest animal?
  • Apples or oranges?
  • Have you ever asked someone for their autograph?
  • What do you think happens when we die?
  • Favorite action movie?
  • Favorite smell?
  • Least favorite smell?
  • Exercise: worth it?
  • Flat or sparkling?
  • Most used app on your phone?
  • You get one song to listen to for the rest of your life: what is it?
  • What number am I thinking of?
  • Describe the rest of your life in five words?
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