Flipboard Culture Desk
mastodon 4.7.3Welcome to Flipboard’s culture and lifestyle picks. You'll find insightful interviews, revealing reviews and thought-provoking features. Posts are handpicked by Flipboard editors. Boosts do not imply endorsement, but are used to highlight posts we think the community might find interesting. #Culture #Entertainment #TheArts #Food
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Header image: Group of people having fun at concert. Photo by Getty Images
On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against 16-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson, who had been fighting for five years to compete on her school's girls' track team as a transgender athlete. James Dale lost at the same court 26 years ago, after he had been expelled from the Boy Scouts for being gay. Here's an open letter from Dale to Pepper-Jackson, showing his support and admiration for her.
New cars are getting longer, wider, taller and higher off the ground — and that brings multiple problems as big cars are more dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists, take up more parking space, and consume more energy. Car Scoops explains one set of European researchers' "right-sizing" solution.
On the last day of Pride, TODAY tells the story of 101-year-old Robert Clement, a theologian whose photo at West Hollywood Pride Parade in California went viral earlier this month, and who has been fighting for gay rights since the 1970s.
In 1982, there were a mere 22 California condors in existence. That number has jumped to 500 today. The bird is just one of many keystone species photographed in this stunning @NationalGeographic@flipboard.com essay as America celebrates its 250th anniversary. Take a look at these amazing photos and read about the diverse ecosystems that shape our future:
It's Memorial Day in the United States. Here's a story published by @time@flipboard.com in 2020 about the forgotten Black history of the federal holiday.
Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster illegally monopolized the ticketing market, a jury has found. NBC has all the details.
Tim Heidecker and The Onion's "Real Infowars" has launched in full. @AVClub@flipboard.com reviews the 50-minute episode, which included a phone call from Tim Robinson, and the shock revelation that Alex Jones "popped like a balloon" a few months ago.
Tomorrow is Canada Day and the Canadian men's national soccer team is through to its first World Cup round of 16. Here's @TheConversationUS@newsie.social Canada on how this team beautifully reflects the country's multicultural identity.
Rapper Rob Base, best known for the 1988 hit “It Takes Two,” has died at 59. Read more from @Variety@flipboard.com:
Every year since 2022, when Angela Lansbury died, Mendocino, Ca., has held its "Murder, She Wrote" festival in tribute to the British actress who played Jessica Fletcher in the iconic 1980s/'90s TV show. Newsweek's H. Alan Scott went to the town, which stood in for the fictional Cabot Cove, to understand the appeal.
"Artificial," the Luca Guadagnino drama about the few days when Sam Altman was ousted from OpenAI, has found distribution after being dropped by Amazon MGM. The nearly finished film was apparently insufficiently sympathetic to Altman, whose company recently entered a strategic partnership with Amazon. NEON has now picked up the movie, which stars Andrew Garfield as the antihero, and Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk. Here's @AVClub@flipboard.com's take.
https://www.avclub.com/neon-might-release-artificial-amazon-mgm-luca-guadagnino
“Fjord,” Cristian Mungiu’s movie about Romanian parents who relocate to a small Norwegian village and find themselves accused of child abuse, has won the Palme d’Or at the 79th Cannes Film Festival. This marks Mungiu’s second top film honor at Cannes. @THR@flipboard.com has a complete list of all the winners:
Kick-off for the Mexico—England World Cup match in Azteca, Mexico City tomorrow is likely to move from 6 p.m. local time to 12 p.m. based on the weather forecast. It's a boon for U.K.-based England fans, who will get to watch the game at the more respectable time of 7 p.m. on Sunday vs. 1 a.m. on Monday. The 3,000 supporters who have traveled to Mexico, however, may have to quickly change plans. Heres @BBCNews@flipboard.com with more.
Two couple, one dinner party. Sounds pretty banal, right? But “The Invite,” Olivia Wilde’s remake of a Spanish film titled “The People Upstairs,” is an actor-driven piece by “a savvy ensemble (Penelope Cruz, Ed Norton, Seth Rogan, and Wilde) who know when to goose things and when to lay off the gas pedal.” Sounds like the good kind of cringe you can’t take your eyes off. Read more from @RollingStone@flipboard.com:
https://flip.it/iCEPMF
"Heated Rivalry" is a mega hit, while anti-queer hatred rages out of control. What gives? Patrick Dehahn writes for The Nation about this paradox. "There’s this dichotomy of us being desirable or entertaining, or whatever word I want to be filling that blank with … but not being considered fully human,” transgender writer and consultant Maybe Burke told him.
The yellow-and-black smiley face is ubiquitous now. One of the earliest uses of it was in 1963, when insurance company Worcester Mutual Fire Assurance wanted to improve morale after they cut a tenth of their staff. "An ambitious upstart in marketing named Joy Young — can’t make this stuff up! — pitched a smile button, to make employees smile. Instant greenlight," writes Playboy's Bill Shaner. Here's his story of the smiley's connection with "the exploitative tendencies of a new free market economic regime." We want to know, what do you think of when you see the smiley?
https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/the-dark-history-of-the-smiley-face
The moment that Sir David Attenborough encountered a group of mountain gorillas in Rwanda in his 1979 "Life on Earth" series for @BBCNews@flipboard.com is one of the most remarkable in his decades-long career. A new documentary, "Making Life on Earth," in honor of Sir David's upcoming 100th birthday, looks at the story behind that meeting,
The winner of the men's downhill race in the annual cheese-rolling contest in Gloucestershire, U.K., is a German YouTuber called Tom Kopke. It's a third consecutive win for the 24-year-old known online as Tooleko, who will take home a wheel of Double Gloucester. The first written record of cheese rolling dates back to 1830, but the tradition is believed to date back centuries, to a heathen spring festival. Nowadays, the event is classed as an extreme sport. Here's more from @BBCNews@flipboard.com.
Actor Tom Hardy has been fired from the Guy Ritchie-produced Paramount+ crime series “Mobland,” according to multiple reports. The show boasts an all-star cast that also includes Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren and quickly became one of the streamer’s top performers. At issue was Hardy’s frequent clashes with producers, which reportedly resulted from the actor’s tardiness on the set. The Independent has more:
What are the details of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding? Here's a @Flipboard@flipboard.social Storyboard with all the "important" rumors and facts. But does anyone in the fediverse care?
"Parks and Recreation" should not have been made according to the powers that be at NBC, and it certainly shouldn't have lasted seven seasons. @IndieWire@flipboard.com shares this extract from a new book, "Parks and Rec: The Underdog TV Show That Lit’rally Inspired a Vision for a Better America," by Jennifer Armstrong. Here's a question: Which of the shows that Mike Schur created or co-created is your favorite?
There have been five "Scary Movie" films up to now, but only the first two involved the Wayans family, who left in 2001 due to conflicts with Harvey and Bob Weinstein. Now, the Wayans are back on board, along with Anna Faris and Regina Hall, and a new "Scary Movie" will hit theaters on June 5. Writer, producer and star Marlon Wayans talked to @Variety@flipboard.com about how they resurrected the comedy horror franchise.
"Rose of Nevada" is a new time-travel movie from British auteur Mark Jenkin. He spoke to Far Out magazine about shooting on film, his unique approach to sound design, and whether the movie is science fiction. We want to know, what do you think is the best time-travel movie/franchise ever made?
Ooops. Host Jeff Probst makes major mistake during live "Survivor 50" broadcast by spoiling challenge result.
"Once the show returned from commercials, Probst attempted to explain how the mistake happened," @people@flipboard.com reports.
The World Cup generates oodles of money — for FIFA. @TheAtlantic@flipboard.com reports on how cities, states and provinces will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on hosting the event, with no real clarity on who should really bear the cost. "Figuring out who pays for what among the different local players has been like finishing a big meal at a bar: The bill comes, and everyone has to go to the bathroom," writes Henry Grabar.
A new movie app, Binge, warns you of upcoming jump scares in real time. Here's more from @Sarahp@mastodon.social. (Boo!)
A new U.K. Member of Parliament has caused a bit of a hoo-ha after highlighting the attitude to alcohol in the House of Commons. Hannah Spencer, a Green Party M.P., appeared on the Politics Joe podcast and told the host that some politicians even drink between voting on key issues. "I can't imagine if a cleaner did that or someone working in a bank. Like, had a few drinks and went back to work, smelling of alcohol," she said. Some of her colleagues pushed back, with one pointing out that "drinking at work" can sometimes take the form of taking visiting constituents for a drink on the building's terrace. Here's more from @BBCNews@flipboard.com. What do you think?
When you try out a guitar in a store, what do you play? Guitar Center recently carried out a survey of all stores to find out which were the most popular riffs. Here's @RollingStone@flipboard.com with more. Which do you think topped the list?
The much vaunted Enhanced Games, in which athletes were allowed to use performance-enhancing drugs, seem to have been a bit of a damp squib. Three athletes who were competing drug-free won gold medals, and while Kristian Gkolomeev swam 50m in less than the world record time, subsequent reports have suggested that timing apparatus may have been inaccurate. The Guardian also reports that, while organizers claimed to have changed the world, there was a lack of excitement about the event, and one weightlifting contest "had a whiff of school sports day about it" as Canada's Boady Santavy was allowed to have another go at breaking the world snatch record.
The Tour de France begins on Saturday, July 4, with a Team Time Trial in Barcelona. Patrick Redford writes for @Defector@flipboard.com about the route, rating each stage a number of radishes to indicate how exciting it will be.
It may have been called the BET Awards 2026, but Sunday night’s show turned out to be a “three-and-a-half-hour spectacular that went extra heavy on performances from everyone spanning Kehlani and Don Toliver to Cardi B and Baby Keem,” Steven J. Horowitz writes for @Variety@flipboard.com. Read more on the event in the first link, then check the second for the best red carpet looks from @TheRoot@flipboard.com:
![Is Neon brave enough to release Luca Guadagnino's Artificial? [UPDATED]](https://img.pastemagazine.com/wp-content/avuploads/2025/05/29191517/sam-altman.jpg)