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News anchor has the ultimate response to a man who told her to dress ‘like a normal woman’

"These are my pants. I like them. I bought them."

via KGW-TV / YouTube

NBC correspondent Maggie Vespa

One of the major differences between women and men is that women are often judged based on their looks rather than their character or abilities. "Men as well as women tend to establish the worth of individual women primarily by the way their body looks, research shows. We do not do this when we evaluate men," Naomi Ellemers Ph.D. wrote in Psychology Today.

Dr. Ellers believes that this tendency to judge a woman solely on her looks causes them to be seen as an object rather than a person. "As a result of focusing on their outwardly visible features, we are tempted to overlook their inner states, ignore markers of their intentions, beliefs, and desires, and less likely to empathize with their plight," Ellers continued.

Women in the spotlight are constantly being judged based on their looks rather than their performance in a given field. Serena Williams once won the French Open but all the press was about what she wore on the court.

For example, Hillary Clinton has been constantly being criticized throughout her political life for what she wore or her hair style rather than her accomplishments.

Maggie Vespa, a news anchor at KGW-TV in Portland, was criticized for how she dresses by a male viewer, so she brilliantly took the incident and used it as a way to talk about the double standards women face.

Maggie Vespa, Portland, NBC, Chicago, sexism, twitter, X The sexist message Maggie Vespa receivedTwitter

"Just wanted to let you know that the clothes you've been wearing, especially those crazy pants that ride half way up your torso, are not cool looking, in any way!," Jeffrey, a male viewer, wrote to Vespa on Facebook. You're way too pretty to look so foolish."

The next day, he sent her another message. "OMG, you really looked uncomfortably tonight. Try dressing like a normal woman. Doesn't KGW pay you enough for a wardrobe makeover?" Jeffrey wrote.

Maggie Vespa, Portland, Chicago, sexism, twitter, X Another sexist message sent to Maggie VespaTwitter

Vespa posted about the emails on social media and received hundreds of responses, so she carved out a few minutes to discuss the situation on the news.

"Let's just get this out of the way at the top. This is dumb," Vespa responded.

There was no way she was going to start dressing for the male gaze.

"These are my pants. I like them. I bought them."

Maggie went on to show photos of five different pairs of high-waisted pants that she wore in the week following Jeffrey's messages. Maggie's colleagues also got in on it, donning high-waisted pants to show their support.

Maggie Vespa, NBC, Portland, Chicago, Twitter, sexism Maggie Vespa in her previous newsroom via KGW-TV / YouTube

Vespa said the harassment "hit a nerve" with people on social media who used it as an opportunity to discuss "the pressure women obviously face, especially those in the public eye to embody the epitome of physical attractiveness at all times."

"If we don't, it's somehow seen as a sign that we're less credible or less capable and, by and large, guys don't have to deal with this," Vespa continued. " As my awesome male coworkers can and have attested to."

Vespa then brilliantly spun the harassment into an empowering message for women.

"Our goal here is to send a message, to women, to girls, to everyone: Dress how you want, look how you want, and if anybody tries to make you feel less than because of that, that's their problem, not yours," Vespa said.


This article originally appeared six years ago.

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Snooping mom who thought she caught teen babysitter smoking a cigar was hilariously wrong

"Keep your habits private from the kids!"

via Sarah Holderr/ Twitter

Sarah Holder looking at her phone.

Anyone with a Nextdoor account knows that some neighbors are terribly nosy. There are also a lot of folks who love to complain … about everything. These looky-loos can also be especially suspicious of what the local teenagers are doing.

Sarah Holder, a teenager from Overland Park, Kansas, babysits for her neighbor, Amy. One day, Amy texts Sarah saying that her husband, Randy, caught her smoking while driving her car. First, Randy should have minded his own business. Secondly, if he has a problem with her smoking, he could have talked to her about it personally. There's no need to narc on her to his wife.

Amy's big problem was that there were a lot of children on the street, and she didn't want Sarah to set a bad example for them.

smoking, teenagers, nieghbors, babysitters, driving, text messages, A text sent to Sarah Holder.via Sarah Holderr/ Twitter

]In the text, she refers to a "a cigar of some sort," which seems like she was accusing Sarah of smoking a blunt—a cigar with marijuana rolled into it. This makes sense because it's rare to see a teenage girl smoking a cigar, especially these days when teenagers are a lot more fond of vaping than smoking cigarettes.

Even though Amy was accusing her of an illegal act, Sarah responded with good humor, admitting that, in fact, she was only eating a taquito, which from a distance, could look like a cigar. "Hey, it was just a taquito, no bad habits here," she responded to Amy with a happy face emoji.

taquitos, sarah holder, x, cigars, funny texts, kansas, habitsSarah Holder showing a half-eaten taquito.via Sarah Holderr/ Twitter

"I feel bad because in my opinion [my neighbor] is crazy nice and I get where she's coming from," Sarah told BuzzFeed News. "She hasn't responded, I'm assuming out of embarrassment."

Sarah told the Daily Mail that she was quick to defend herself because she didn't want people to think that she was a smoker. "'I didn't want all my neighbors and friends to think I was setting a bad example. I do not smoke," said. "'My family does know and my mother was excited about my 'fame.' My neighbor has not replied and I have not seen them since."

Sarah posted the interaction on a since-deleted Twitter post, which completely blew up, earning over 280,000 likes. And, of course, the folks on Twitter had a lot to say about Amy and her nosy hubby. A lot of people in the comments thought that Amy and Randy need to butt out of other people's business.


All in all, the story is a great reminder to all of us to be careful about making assumptions about people, especially when we see them from a distance. Sometimes, what seems like a nefarious act—a teen smoking a cigar—is really just the neighborhood babysitter enjoying a delicious snack.

This article originally appeared six years ago.

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Irish hitchhiker reacts to learning he's a big reason why Dave Grohl started the Foo Fighters

For nearly 30 years, no one believed his story.

via FoosDublin/Wikimedia Commons and

Dave Grohl preforming in Dublin, Ireland and Lorcan Dunne.

When Kurt Cobain died by suicide in 1994, the world lost a songwriter who was one of the most important artists of Generation X. The surviving members of Nirvana lost their friend, band and sense of purpose.

“When Kurt died and it all ended, I didn’t know what to do with my life,” Nirvana’s drummer, Dave Grohl, told “The Graham Norton Show” in 2021. “I couldn’t listen to music anymore because it hurt too much so I tried to escape and went to Ireland to soul search.”

To grieve his friend's death, he visited the Ring of Kerry in Ireland and disappeared to the “most remote place on Earth.” There, a chance encounter with a young Irishman would change the trajectory of his life and career.



Why did Dave Grohl start the Foo Fighters?

“I was driving around in my rental car on a country road and I saw this hitchhiker kid. And I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’ll pick him up’. And as I got closer to him, I saw that he had a Kurt Cobain t-shirt on,” Grohl said. “It was Kurt’s face looking back at me…in the middle of nowhere!”

The drummer had traveled to the other side of the world to get away from his grief and realized his past was inescapable.

“I realized like, ‘Oh. I can’t outrun this’. So I need to go home and f**king get back to work. And so I did,” Grohl recalled. When he returned home, he started recording the first album of his new band, the Foo Fighters.

Who was the Irish hitchhiker who inspired Dave Grohl to start the Foo Fighters?

Nearly thirty years after Grohl encountered a stranger in a Kurt Cobain t-shirt who would change the trajectory of his life, the hitchhiker, Lorcan Dunne, has come forward to share his side of the story. His cousin, Eoin Tighe, shared a video on Twitter of Dunne telling his story, which his sister, Claire Tighe, edited together.

“We were down on the Beara Peninsula on a holiday and we hitched up to this place to go swimming. I was running and I saw a car there, so I thought I’d run up and hitch. When I was hitching, I looked into who was sitting in the passenger seat – but it was David Grohl,” Dunne shared in the video.

Tighe told Upworthy that his cousin was 15 years old at the time.

“I didn’t recognize him firstly, but I saw this look of shock on the guy’s face… and I had a Nirvana t-shirt on with Kurt Cobain on it,” Dunne continued. “It was black tie-dye, the one with Kurt where he has the mascara on his face. I saw the look of shock and the next thing, the car just tore off, away. And I turned round like, ‘That was David Grohl, lad!’ Nobody believed me!”

Two weeks before the video was filmed, Dunne came across a video of Grohl talking about his experience in Ireland. Dunne had no idea that he had played a role in the birth of the Foo Fighters and finally had confirmation from Grohl himself that he met the drummer all those years ago.

“So you made the Food Fighters!” a friend of Dunne’s screams at the end of the video, to which Dunne responds emphatically, “Yeah!”

Grohl released the Foo Fighters' eponymous debut album on July 4, 1995. He played every instrument on the album save for one guitar part by Greg Dulli of The Afghan Wigs. The album would go on to be a hit, selling over 3.3 million copies, and now, as a Foo Fighter, Grohl would go on to enjoy one of the greatest second acts in rock history.

As of the time this article was published, Tighe told Upworthy that Grohl has yet to respond to the tweet.

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Americans are known for being great salespeople. People have some theories about why.

What is it about American culture?

via LinkedIn Sales Solutions/Unsplash and Kindel Media/Pexels

American sales people making deals happen.

Americans are known as some of the best salespeople in the world. The country has been the home of some of the most influential business communicators of all time, like Steve Jobs of Apple or filmmaker Walt Disney. America is also the birthplace of people who became legends for their ability to excite people with their incredible, audacious promotional skills, such as P.T. Barnum or Muhammad Ali.

There’s also a dark side to the uniquely American gift of gab. Americans have the reputation of being masters of BS. Hunter S. Thompson, a writer with a fondness for exaggeration, once referred to America as a “nation of 220 million used car salesmen.”

An X user named Alz, born in Hong Kong, was curious about why Americans are so great at sales, presenting ideas, and (less favorably) BS-ing than people in other countries. The tweet went viral, receiving over 1.4 million views. Nearly everyone agreed that Americans are the world's best salespeople, but there were many different answers to why.

“Why are Americans, on average, so incredibly good at presenting/selling/ (you could uncharitably call it) BS-ing? Is it something about early/middle/high school education? Culture? Parents teaching their kids?” Alz asked.

“I troll, but this is an incredibly important skill, and for some reason observationally, America, which has an early education system few are generally jealous of, seems to systematically produce ppl with a much higher distribution of presentation ability than anywhere else,” Alz continued.

Some respondents believe Americans are great at sales because so many work in the service sector. Over the past 50 years, globalization has altered the labor landscape, with many jobs moving from manufacturing to the service sector. Thus, Americans have learned to place a significant value on those who can communicate one-on-one, such as people who work in hospitality, retail, or personal training.

Others believe Americans have the gift of gab because its education system highly values communication skills, which are favorable in the business world. However, some believe this emphasis comes at the expense of STEM skills, which are seen as more important in other countries.

Many people think Americans are great communicators because it's crucial to be able to sell and persuade in a competitive, free-market capitalist system. If you aren’t able to sell the goods and services you provide and produce, then it doesn’t matter if you’re in business at all. Further, American business culture is also seen as more relationship-based than in other countries, where buying and selling is merely transactional.

It could be that it’s all part of a culture that values openness and confidence which bleeds over into other aspects of American life. Persuasion and sales come a lot more naturally to people who've been raised with zero fear of calling attention to themselves. Outside the business world, Americans are also seen as friendly in social situations and have no problem engaging in small talk with strangers. Americans’ extroverted nature can sometimes shock people who travel to the U.S. on vacation.

Or, it could be that Americans just have a ‘rizz that’s the envy of the world.

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