Need a mood boost to help you sail through the weekend? Here are 10 moments that brought joy to our hearts and a smile to our faces this week. Enjoy!
1. How much does this sweet little boy adore his baby sister? So darn much.
Oh, to be loved with this much enthusiasm! The sheer adoration on his face. What a lucky little sister.
2. Teens raise thousands for their senior trip, then donate it to their community instead.
When it came time for Islesboro Central School's Class of 2021 to pick the destination for their senior class trip, the students began eyeing a trip to Greece or maybe even South Korea. But in the end, they decided to donate $5,000 they'd raised for the trip to help out their community members struggling in the wake of the pandemic instead.
Read the story here.
3. Radio DJ rallies community to help a man he saw walking 6 hours a day to and from work.
After veteran Chicago radio personality "Ramblin' Ray" Stevens noticed Braxton Mayes, 20, walking during his commute from work several times, he offered him a ride. Then, when he found out Mayes walked 3 hours each way to and from work because his car broke down, he called on the community to help him get his car fixed. Read the full story here.
4. Just for the sheer adorableness of it, this red panda noshing on snacks while getting weighed.
Stop it. How cute can a video get? It doesn't even look real. Gah. Now desperately feeling the need to find a red panda.
5. Speaking of adorable animals, this wild Canada goose couple is winning hearts all over the place.
Arnold is a Canada goose that lives near the Cape Wildlife Center with his life partner, and after he was taken to the center to be treated for injuries, she showed up at the door looking for him. The staff let her see him while he was getting oxygen after his surgery, and they both calmed down as she started grooming him. Goose love is real, folks. Read the full story here.
6. This dedicated dad wanted to surprise his Moana-loving kids, and The Rock made it happen.
We love The Rock. It's hard not to when you see videos like this one. (And kudos to the dad for keeping up with his rap. Not easy, even when you're a parent who's heard the soundtrack a million times.)
7. Mama cat introducing her kitten to her best doggo friend.
This is what we call "Pupworthy" content. You can almost hear the dialogue happening. So dang sweet.
8. A little perspective—our beautiful home planet viewed from space.
There are more than 7 billion of us here on this little rock hurtling through space, and while we definitely have our issues to work out, this short video is a stunning reminder that we're all one people, part of one earthly home.
9. This joy-filled commentary of Friday feeding time at Caen Hill farm is a perfect timeline cleanser.
Caen Hill Countryside Centre is a charity in Devizes, United Kingdom that helps young people and rescues animals, and we would like this gentleman to narrate all of the happenings in our daily lives, please.
Greetings and good morning it’s the Friday rush #rushhour #farmrushhour #FridayThoughts @caro_painter https://t.co/vmpHtMPqZ6— caenhillcc (@caenhillcc) 1627022993.0
10. If you still feel like you're stumbling instead of sailing into the weekend, don't fret. You're not alone.
We hope perusing these stories lifted your spirit, but if it didn't, that's okay. Sometimes we just need to just flop down and rest on our faces for a while. Thanks, doggo, for the solidarity.
Some doggos aren’t built for the obstacle course. Wait for it… https://t.co/M50Y3jOBFc— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@Rex Chapman🏇🏼) 1626879852.0
Have a lovely weekend, everyone.
Men try to read the most disturbing comments women get online back to them.
If you wouldn't say it to their faces, don't type it.
This isn’t comfortable to talk about.
Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault and violence.
A recent video by Just Not Sports took two prominent female sportswriters and had regular guys* read the awful abuse they receive online aloud.
Sportswriters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro sat by as men read some of the most vile tweets they receive on a daily basis. See how long you can last watching it.
*(Note: The men reading them did not write these comments; they're just being helpful volunteers to prove a point.)
It starts out kind of jokey but eventually devolves into messages like this:
Awful.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
These types of messages come in response to one thing: The women were doing their jobs.
Those wishes that DiCaro would die by hockey stick and get raped? Those were the result of her simply reporting on the National Hockey League's most disturbing ordeal: the Patrick Kane rape case, in which one of the league's top players was accused of rape.
DiCaro wasn't writing opinion pieces. She was simply reporting things like what the police said, statements from lawyers, and just general everyday work reporters do. In response, she received a deluge of death threats. Her male colleagues didn't receive nearly the same amount of abuse.
It got to the point where she and her employer thought it best to stay home for a day or two for her own physical safety.
The men in the video seemed absolutely shocked that real live human beings would attack someone simply for doing their jobs.
Not saying it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Most found themselves speechless or, at very least, struggling to read the words being presented.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Think this is all just anecdotal? There's evidence to the contrary.
The Guardian did a study to find out how bad this problem really is.
They did a study of over 70 million comments that have been posted on their site since 2006. They counted how many comments that violated their comment policy were blocked.
The stats were staggering.
From their comprehensive and disturbing article:
If you can’t say it to their face... don’t type it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
So what can people do about this kind of harassment once they know it exists?
There are no easy answers. But the more people who know this behavior exists, the more people there will be to tell others it's not OK to talk to anyone like that.
Watch the whole video below:
.This article originally appeared on 04.27.16