A Look at Elton John’s Legendary Career

At 76, Elton John shows no signs of slowing down. This documentary explores his early days in the glam rock era. It highlights his meteoric rise to fame and his reinvention across various musical genres. Elton John: Never Too Late covers his storied career, from creating timeless hits like Rocket Man and Tiny Dancer. It also showcases his ongoing influence in today’s music scene. Gain insight into how he remains a cultural icon after over five decades. This rich exploration sets the stage for an intimate look at his personal and professional journey.

What to Expect from the Documentary

Elton John: Never Too Late hits select theaters on November 15, 2024. It streams on Disney+ starting December 13, 2024. This dual release lets fans watch on the big screen or at home. Expect never-before-seen footage and candid interviews with fellow artists. The documentary highlights his most famous performances and recent farewell tour. It showcases his decision to step back from live performances while continuing to inspire. This film captures the essence of Elton John’s incredible journey and enduring influence.

Why You Should Watch

Elton John: Never Too Late reveals the artist’s extraordinary journey. The documentary showcases his personal and professional highs and lows, featuring exclusive interviews and unseen footage. Witness Elton John’s resilience and impact on the music world. This dazzling musical odyssey celebrates his remarkable career and legacy. Snag your tickets, catch it on the big screen, and feel the magic unfold!

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Reeve’s Impact on the Superman Legacy

Christopher Reeve’s role as Superman is regarded as the definitive portrayal of the iconic superhero. When Superman: The Movie was released in 1978, Reeve’s performance broke ground. He brought a unique depth to the dual characters of Clark Kent and Superman, balancing Clark’s humble, awkward demeanor with Supe’s confidence and strength. This was key to the character’s appeal, his relatability and warmth resonating deeply with audiences.

Reeve’s interpretation of Superman helped shape the entire genre of superhero cinema. It showed that superhero movies could combine action-packed spectacle with emotion, humanity, and moral complexity. Today, his portrayal is a benchmark against which all subsequent interpretations of Superman—and indeed, all superheroes—are measured.

The Human Story Behind the Hero

While Christopher Reeve will always be remembered as the quintessential Superman, his life beyond the cape was equally heroic. In 1995, Reeve suffered a devastating accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Despite the immense challenges he faced, he became an advocate for spinal cord injury research, dedicating his life to advancing the cause of disability rights.

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story captures the essence of Reeve’s resilience and commitment to fighting against adversity. It provides an intimate look into his journey post-accident, showing someone who refused to be defined by circumstances. The film’s exploration of his courage and determination adds a deep, emotional layer to his legacy, reminding us that his greatest heroics weren’t onscreen but in his everyday life.

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What Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story Offers

The film combines previously unseen footage, candid interviews, and new revelations, taking us from Reeve’s early career in Hollywood to his courageous battle with paralysis. A tribute to his enduring spirit, it emphasizes that his true superpower was inspiring others through his hope and determination.

In the end, Reeves’s impact as a person transcended the role that made him famous.

Cultural Relevance and Timeliness

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story revisits the origins of the superhero genre’s appeal through Reeve’s iconic performance.

Given the public’s growing interest in real-life stories of resilience and inspiration, the movie also comes at a culturally relevant time. In today’s world, we greatly need courage and perseverance, making Reeve’s story resonate more than ever.

Conclusion

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is a homage to a true-life hero, reminding us how one man’s strength and character can inspire generations. Whether you’re a fan of superhero films or love inspirational stories, this film is an unforgettable watch for all!

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Swifties, gear up for a chance to win 2 skybox tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert in Miami this October, courtesy of Hollywood.com.

LEARN MORE HERE!

Fearless Era: Country Roots with Glittering Edges

The Fearless era is a throwback to Taylor’s country origins. Picture sundresses paired with cowboy boots, sparkling with DIY rhinestone magic. Add a homemade floral crown for that dreamy, youthful vibe that defined Taylor’s early days. It’s a blend of rustic charm and starry-eyed wonder, a perfect homage to the album that made us all fall in love with Swift’s storytelling.

Taylor Swift’s Red Revolution

The Red era is all about making a statement. Envision yourself in a bold red dress complemented by a sleek black fedora. To emulate Taylor’s iconic red lips, opt for a long-lasting lipstick that stands out. Accessorize with a DIY glitter clutch, adding sophistication and sparkle to your ensemble. This era is chic, it’s daring, and it’s undeniably Swift.

1989 Era: Pop Sensations and Sequined Statements

Embrace the 1989 era with its synth-pop heartbeat. Crop tops and high-waisted skirts are your canvas, and sequined jackets are your statement piece. Don’t forget the oversized sunglasses and a swipe of bold red lipstick to capture the essence of this transformative time in Swift’s career. It’s a celebration of pop anthems and the vibrant energy that defined the mid-2010s.

Taylor Swift’s Reputation Reimagined

The Reputation era brings an edge to the tour. Think black leather pants paired with a DIY studded jacket. Complement this look with bold eye makeup and statement accessories that exude confidence and attitude. This era is all about embracing your inner strength and showcasing it with a style that’s as fearless as the album itself.

Lover Era: Whimsical Romance in Pastels and Hearts

The Lover era is a whimsical journey through pastel landscapes. Flowy dresses adorned with heart motifs and paired with heart-shaped sunglasses set the tone for this romantic chapter. Enhance the look with pastel hair accessories or stunning shades of pastel highlights to fully immerse yourself in the Lover experience. It’s a celebration of love, in all its soft and dreamy hues.

Take a Chance and Win Big!

Seize the moment and join the spectacle of Taylor’s Eras Tour. Enter Hollywood.com’s giveaway for a chance to make these memories last forever. With two skybox tickets to Taylor’s Miami concert up for grabs, this is your moment. Visit Hollywood.com, enter the sweepstakes, and step into a night of unforgettable music and fashion. So what Era are you going to represent? Enter our giveaway, and start planning your outfit now!

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Detroit native Dr. Todd Boyd is a renowned educator, author and media commentator on popular culture who has extensively studied the relationship of music and society. Shining light on the evolution of the rhyming-centered genre that was birthed in New York, his new book, Rapper’s Deluxe: How Hip-Hop Made The World, accentuates hip-hop’s colossal influence in and out of the music industry. Thoroughly analyzing the rise of hip-hop’s prominence, the profusely illustrated 281-page hardcover (Phaedon, 2024) fully explores the burgeoning rap game’s ties to the media, fashion, and sports scenes, to name a few.

The book additionally triumphs for the musical form’s 50th anniversary and many of the figures who made unique contributions to its growth. Among those written about here are Cindy Campbell and her brother, Clive Campbell (aka Kool Herc), NBA basketball legend Walt “Clyde” Frazier and heavyweight boxing great and agent-for-social-change Muhammad Ali, along with artists who created music in genres such as R&B and jazz. such as Millie Jackson, whose extended raps gave female MCs like Lil Kim the power to own their sensuality. It furthermore examines how famed East Coast rapper Nas’s performance with the National Symphony (Nas is himself the son of a jazz musician) ignited a merger between genres that many would’ve never thought could cohabit the same sonic and cultural space.

Rapper’s Deluxe: How Hip-Hop Made The World details hip-hop’s enormous impact on the fashion industry, showcasing the seminal rap group Run DMC, who defined street culture by donning unique clothing like black leather jackets, fedoras and authentic glasses. Nike would later make a lasting imprint in hip-hop attire after basketball player George Gervin did an Ice Slim-inspired photo shoot with the sneaker brand while sitting on ice. Readers will follow the intersection of historical currents and the genre’s rise from its underground roots to global dominance–the Black Panthers, the black power movement, and Kanye West’s involvement in Donald Trump’s MAGA campaign serve as examples of hip-hop both feeding off and infusing American politics as it grew into a major cultural force. Boyd shows how the music made people more politically conscious with songs like Queen Latifah’s “U.N.I.T.Y,” which, for example, allowed women’s voices to be heard

Each chapter documents milestones that positively transformed hip-hop’s once-bad reputation from the 1970s to the present. In cinema, Blaxploitation films would redefine what most would interpret as braggadocious lyrics into powerful declarations about hustling, with scenes of aspiring rappers selling their CDs out of the backs of cars. Along these same lines a movie like Scarface, for all the title character’s less-than-admirable and ultimately self-destructive qualities, managed to capture the same relentless go-getter attitude and mentality that passionate artists relate to and often mirror as they try to make it in the world.

The book notes key moments in the progression of hip-hop culture in America’s consciousness—from Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and 50 Cent joining forces for a stellar performance at the 2022 Super Bowl Half Time Show, to Cindy and Herc’s Back to School Jam party, which put hip-hop on the broad mainstream map. The first rapper to earn a Pulitzer Prize for his album, DAMN, Lamar changed how people saw hip-hop with, in the words of journalist and Pulitzer administrator Dana Kennedy, “affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African American life.”

It’s worth noting that book’s title is a deliberate play on The Sugarhill Gang’s first rap single, “Rapper’s Delight.” Debuting amid 1979’s feverish disco craze, the song was created by Grandmaster Caz’s manager Big Bank Hank (who worked in a Bronx pizza parlor before scoring his own record deal) and his two friends, Master Gee and Wonder Mike. But respectful nod to history that it is, the title only hints at the author’s meticulously comprehensive research and nuanced level of cultural observation. Rapper’s Deluxe: How Hip-Hop Made The World tells the story of the genre’s lasting and pervasive impact on our culture, with striking visuals and bold fonts that illustrate and speak to hip-hop’s truest nature.

***             

Marking the publication of Rapper’s Deluxe during Black History Month, Hollywood.com was fortunate to discuss its inspiration and evolution with the author, who also offers exclusive insights into his writing process … and teases us with some of his thoughts on future projects: 

HW:   What inspired you to craft Rapper’s Deluxe: How Hip Hop Made the World? 

TB:     I was inspired by the opportunity to tell hip hop’s story, a story that has grown and evolved over such a long period of time. Anything that has been around for 50 years has to have substance. There are no 50-year fads, or 50-year trends. Fads and trends come and go, but hip hop has been around for half a century now. The opportunity to tell such a broad and all-encompassing story in ways that were both public and personal was something that very much inspired me.

HW:    How were you able to connect sports, fashion, media & more into hip-hop culture?

TB:     Hip hop to me has always been about more than just music. The music is of course very important, that’s the frame, but it’s the way in which the music came to influence so many other areas like sports, or film, or fashion, that transformed hip hop into a cultural movement. The ideas, the energy, the circumstances embedded in the music ultimately found expression in a wide variety of other cultural forms. Hip hop is pervasive and its influence is broad. As the subtitle of the book says “hip hop made the world.”

HW:   And the hardest part of curating Rapper’s Deluxe? 

TB:     The book’s third chapter, “It Was All a Dream,” set in the 1990s, was the hardest chapter to write because this is the decade that hip hop really blew up. There is so much happening in the 90s that one has to make some hard choices about to include and what to leave out. I like the balance of what ended up in that chapter, but there’s a lot to consider and you can’t cover everything. But I still think it turned out well.

HW:    What do you hope readers take from the book?

TB      My hope is that people understand hip hop culture is Black culture, and Black culture is American culture. The developments that are highlighted in the book tell a 50-year story of hip hop, but also a 50-year story of America. This is American culture and American history.  It is not marginal, it is not niche, it is American culture writ large. It’s like Drake and J. Cole say on “First Person Shooter” it’s “big as the Super Bowl.” This is epic and I want people to understand just how epic it all is.

HW:    Are there any topics you wish you could’ve expanded on further?

TB:    I feel like the book spends enough time and devotes enough attention to each of its topics. It strikes a delicate balance. You could always go more in depth on certain things, but I feel like the book gives you a representative sample that covers a wide range of topics relative to their importance. The book is like a cultural tasting menu so when you get to the end, you’re full, you’re not walking away hungry for more.

HW: Can you tell us one thing that kept you motivated during the editorial process? 

TB:    Working on the first draft for me is all about getting my ideas written down. It’s about this transfer process of getting the ideas out of my own head and out into the world for the first time. Like the Rakim quote that I reference in the book, “I start to think/and then I sink into the paper/like I was ink.” Editing is the process where you mold and shape those ideas, where you improve upon those raw thoughts and then turn them into nuggets of information that the world will eventually have the opportunity to read. It all comes together in the editing so the motivation is to get it right, so that when people do see it, they are able to absorb it as you intended.

HW:   If you could have dinner with one rapper dead or alive who would it be and why?

TB:    There are a lot of rappers I could have dinner with right now, so that’s not something that I need to speculate on really. The people that I would want to have dinner with would be people like Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and Miles Davis. Having dinner with rappers is fairly attainable, but having dinner with people such as the ones I’ve mentioned is something that I can only imagine.

HW:    What decade or period in hip-hop did you enjoy researching the most?

TB:      The first chapter, “Right On for the Darkness,” the chapter on the 1970s, was the most fun to write. Hip hop was underground for most of this decade, so being able to write about all the influences that evolved during this era was something that I really enjoyed. Being able to make connections between hip hop and people like Richard Pryor, Angela, Davis, and the Black Panthers, or to establish links to historical circumstances like the Vietnam War and the blackout in New York, this was quite enjoyable to me, because when you normally read about hip hop these are not the type of connections that get made.  People talk about DJ Kool Herc’s legendary party in 1973, but they do not mention that Pam Grier’s Coffy was the number one movie at the box office during that time. Being able to bring all of this cultural history to people’s attention was something that I found really exciting.

HW:   What are your thoughts on hip-hop recently celebrating its 50th anniversary?

TB:    Fifty years is a long time. I love it! Now onto the next fifty!

HW:   And finally, any other book projects you are looking to publish soon?

TB: I’m always in the lab, working on the newest/latest. There’s more to come. The great playwright August Wilson wrote this cycle of plays to cover every decade in the 20th century. I’ve always found that to be an inspiring challenge. I’ve caught the later part of the 20th Century in Rapper’s Deluxe and the early part of the 21st. This book begins in 1973. But how did we get to 1973? What happened before? What’s the prequel? Stay tuned…

You can purchase Dr. Todd Boyd’s book Rapper’s Deluxe: How Hip-Hop Made The World everywhere in stores and online.

The rise of the word’s popularity throughout ‘23 could, for the most part, be credited to singer-songwriter and cultural juggernaut Taylor Swift and her Eras Tour, which she refers to as a journey throughout the various “eras” of her career. Spanning five continents and nearly a full year, the 151-show concert tour can itself be considered a separate cultural juggernaut  partly responsible for unanticipated seismic activity in Seattle, an international  wake-up call regarding large-scale event mismanagement in Brazil, and post-pandemic economy refreshment to boot.

Contrary to popular misconception, however, it isn’t Swift who ushered the concept of “eras” towards a more general vernacular, but rather online “stan” spaces on X and Reddit that refer to distinct album cycles, sonic directions, or even an artist’s stylistic choices in terms of their bodies of work or fashion sense.

Whether this “eras” zeitgeist sprang from a steady crossover of Swift-adjacent terminology and lore from these spaces, or arose in concurrence with it, the upshot’s been a sharp increase of fan-made, or at least unofficial everything Swift: Etsy merchandise (seemingly undeterred by an infamous-turned-memeable 2015 crackdown by Swift and her legal team), cocktails, and even entire AirBnBs — but more on those in a bit.

“Consumption-wise, we are in an era where niches and communities are very important,” Ana Clara Ribeiro, a Brazilian intellectual property (IP) attorney, researcher and independent songwriter, tells Hollywood.com, “so, brands may want to tap into that.”

A lot of Ribeiro’s research and writing explores the intersection between what could be perceived as fandom’s tilt toward creativity-for-profit, and the conversations surrounding artists’ intellectual property–not just in Western or more-U.S.-centric musical spaces, but also Latin and Korean music, both of which are experiencing their own renaissance in the United States and elsewhere. Her work as an attorney, Ribiero says, has taught her that being a fan of a particular artist or celebrity isn’t the carte blanche to infringe on their IP that many of them might believe it is, but also that an artist coming after groups of fans with legal action poses a different set of professional risks–and is therefore less common than one might think.

“It’s always complicated when a company has to take action against a fan, because after all this is the person that you want to reach,” she says. “You want to have them on your side, and some industries are so fan-oriented that the cost of losing a fan over an IP infringement claim might not just be worth it.”

Ribeiro explains that there are notable outliers to this, particularly video game development giant Nintendo. The company is notorious in gamer circles for their near-zero tolerance for fanmade projects that utilize their IP, along with any online streams of such projects.

“I think each case is unique,” she says, having added that she isn’t much of a gamer herself. “Nintendo, and how they deal with commercial properties, are very different from how other companies deal with them, especially nowadays when fandom is such a precious asset, and people invest so much in building fan experiences and in attracting and nurturing fanbases.”

To put it lightly, fan “experiences” are the backbone of careers built by the likes of Swift, Korean pop sensations such as  BTS (along with Korean music’s next generation of acts), and a growing number of musicians and entertainers who — with mixed results — attempt to squeeze every ounce of potential from the foundations of fandom subcultures. Entire news cycles are now built on aggregating content about pop culture’s biggest names, with Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the U.S., recently hiring and onboarding its inaugural full-time Taylor Swift and Beyoncé reporters. The move seemingly takes a page out of sports journalism, where it’s common for beat reporters to cover specific major-league teams or individual athletes full-time.

Chicago-based realtor Michelle Basiorka describes herself as someone who’s big on fan “experiences”. As a result, she created The Swiftie Shangri-La, a Taylor Swift-inspired AirBnB located in Nashville, Tennessee.

“This is before I even knew she was doing an Eras Tour,” Basiorka tells Hollywood.com. Even before acquiring the property, she says, “I wanted to do a bedroom in the style of the bedroom in the “Lover” music video, which we have now come to find actually represents her original eras. And I knew that for the outdoor space, I wanted to pay homage to the “You Need to Calm Down” music video.”

Basiorka anticipated The Swiftie Shangri-La would gain some traction online after it was made available for guests in 2023, but the internet virality and media attention it drew far exceeded her expectations. The property and its specific location, according to her, is something that just makes sense.

“[Taylor Swift] goes hand in hand with Nashville, in my eyes, just as much as Dollywood,” she says, “I think what’s unique about Taylor … is that there’s so much lore involved in her music videos and from her music.”

That, Basiorka feels, is something no other artist has managed to as successfully. “It’s the reason we were able to make an AirBnB to the extent at which its done.”

As far the question of its legality, Basiorka believes she might be safe, considering her project is a labor of love and not directly music-related.

“{Taylor} is obviously not in the business of hospitality,” she explains, “It’s done in a way where it’s tasteful, and there’s a lot of love and a true Swiftie behind it. It’s apparent that it’s fanmade and we’re not trying to pass this off as an official Taylor project. I think if she saw it for herself, you know, she’d appreciate it.”

Dalia Abdelwahab is a music, entertainment and culture journalist based in the NYC Metropolitan Area. Her reporting focuses on identifying the intersections between how entertainment is produced and perceived in all its forms, and the state of our society and culture at every given moment. She also has experience with covering national news and foreign affairs.

TikTok’s primary user demographic skews heavily towards Generations Z and Alpha, but the app, and the #Fashion tag by proxy, have recently experienced a boom (pun somewhat intended) of influencers who belong to the Generation X and Baby Boomer cohorts. Those individuals are often affectionately referred to by the portmanteau granfluencers, a play on combining the words “grandparent” and “influencer”.

The grandmother of Chicago-based content creator Julia does not necessarily fit the bill of a “granfluencer” — for one, she keeps a very low profile and opts not to show her face in any of the videos Julia features her in. She still, however, has managed to become a cornerstone of Julia’s account and amass quite a fascinated fanbase, and it’s all thanks to the unconventional way she’s fulfilled what was once perceived as a long-lost dream: Having her fashion sketches and designs come to life nearly eight decades after she dropped out of fashion school.

Julia, who does not give out her last name publicly on the advice of law enforcement, says it all started with a situation that has ironically become a catalyst behind so many social media juggernauts’ careers: COVID-19 lockdowns.

“[While in lockdown], my grandmother was going through her house, because what else is there to do?” Julia tells Hollywood.com in an exclusive interview. “And she uncovered some of her sketches from when she was in fashion school.”

Before that, Julia had only heard about her grandmother’s fashion school endeavors in passing, and had never really been exposed to her grandmother’s artistry outside of an occasional dining nook doodle. This made the unveiling of grandma’s sketches, along with a plot she’d hatched for them, quite the mind-blowing surprise for Julia.

“She was kind of gloating about that,” Julia recalls, “Because she is up there in years, she was like ‘when I pass on, I would love for these to be displayed at my funeral or sent out to magazines so that people know that I did this, that this was something in my life that was really important to me at that time’.”

Julia did not know how to contact or reach out to magazines, but there was something she proved very good at: Making a social media post despite having no experience in content creation aside from maintaining a private, personal Instagram account. She got to work that same night (“[because] why would we wait until her funeral for her to get recognition for this?”), posting a simple TikTok slideshow of some of her grandmother’s sketches, along with a blurb of her grandmother’s backstory as a woman who went to fashion school in the 1940s and ended up dropping out to care for some older members of her family that had developed health complications–and also to start a family of her own, as women were highly dissuaded from pursuing those sorts of career paths at the time.

The next day she woke up to over three million views of the slideshow accompanied by a myriad of comments pleading for a real-life recreation of the sketches. Once again, Julia did not have any fashion design or sewing experience. But once again, she knew how to use Google and YouTube, and she had a background in upcycling and thrifting, the latter  a skill she says she naturally developed out of financial necessity rather than fashion-forward vanity. Now, almost two years into her quest to honor her grandmother’s old dream, Julia is capable each month of bringing approximately two of grandma’s sketches to life, which she sews based on her own body measurements and showcases on TikTok by wearing the outfits herself, often accompanied by her grandmother’s commentary and critiques.

“She’s just being a proud grandma at that moment,” Julia explains. “She is also well aware of my skill level. … It would be different if she saw these kinds of designs on a professional runway, and I’m sure she would have a different reaction. She’s critiquing me at the skill level she knows I’m at.”

Pride appears to be a sentiment that is also shared by Julia’s (and her grandmother’s) audience base, considering that she still receives pleas in the form of comments and direct messages to make some of her grandmother’s designs available for purchase on a larger scale as a ready-to-wear collection — pleas in the process of partially materializing by way of an upcoming collaboration with Jillian Von Beyer of the sustainable swimwear line JVBSwim.

“Grandma [already] had a few different swimwear designs, but she and I wanted to create some new designs for this collection,” Julia says. “So, there’s one that is inspired by a ‘grandma design’ that’s more 1940s, 1950s-inspired. There will also be a bikini that I designed that’s more 1980s, and then there will be a wrap skirt that is inspired by my background in ballet and some of the creations I’ve made in the past.”

Aside from the line incorporating a mix of her own and her grandmother’s designs, part of Julia’s excitement for the collaboration springs from the prospect of a “grandma design” that people finally would be able to buy and wear. However, that same prospect might be a lot trickier to secure for other “grandma designs”, particularly her couture designs.

“I’m someone who doesn’t have a lot of money to just throw at a company,” Julia says. “I’m a content creator, but not necessarily someone who’s personally rolling in dough in my private life. So in order to get a clothing company off the ground, I would have to cut a lot of corners in terms of the quality of the items to [put] it out in a certain size range. And I just don’t want to do that. Of course one day I would love to be able to bring more ‘grandma designs’ to fruition, but right now with my budget constraints, I don’t want to cut corners just to push a product to market.”

Another thing Julia expresses concerns about is the potential for contributing to the fashion industry’s increasing carbon footprint, adding that the reason she agreed to the JVBSwim collaboration has to do with the brand’s claims that it ethically makes its products with deadstock fabric. In fact, she maintains that she typically attempts to be mindful of promoting the idea of sustainability in fashion — a medium she says is notorious for encouraging overconsumption– in more ways than one, including repurposing the fabric she uses to bring her grandmother’s sketches to life.

“One, it’s therapeutic,” she says. “By the time I’m done, I don’t even want to look at them. Yeah, I come down the stairs [in my videos] smiling, but inside, I’m like, ‘Oh, God, I can’t wait to get this off’. There is a therapeutic element of destroying your work and being able to start again, but it mostly is so that I can repurpose the fabric. I will oftentimes also take thrifted pieces that I find, deconstruct them by ripping their seams, and make them into something else. Then I’ll take them apart again, kind of like LEGO bricks.”

Those tuned into Julia’s platform to watch her bring these sketches — along with reused fabric, deadstock fabric, and upcycled thrifted attire – haven’t necessarily seen her grandmother beyond her occasional video appearances. During all she is strategically positioned with her back facing the camera and maintaining a low profile. This has prompted curious (albeit well-intentioned) entreaties for grandma to appear on-camera in her own designs, something Julia knows really amounts to her audience yearning for a happily-ever-after for her grandmother. But she won’t be participating in a fairytale ending of that sort.

“We have to remember that she has her own emotional and physical boundaries,” Julia says. “If you spend a lot of time around people in older generations, they sometimes can have boundaries or limitations that might not make sense to younger people, and we have to respect and be okay with that. She’s the designer. She wants her focus to be on the work. When you go to a runway show, the designer might peek out at the end kind of sheepishly and wave at the audience or something, but they usually aren’t front and center.”

If anything, according to Julia, grandma is already living her fairytale ending, having people show love for her designs on several platforms, including New York Fashion Week — a full-circle moment for a woman who never thought she’d see her designs walked down an actual fashion runway (although she had to tune in via livestream due to her age and health issues).

“That’s how grandma wants to be,” Julia says. “She wants the focus to be on her sketches. She wants the focus to be on her work. She doesn’t want it to be on her as a personality. Also, she’s up there in years, and physically getting in and out of these designs would not be enjoyable for her whatsoever … She’s very happy being the designer and not being the model.”

Julia and grandma both seem quite content with keeping a low profile, to the degree that Julia asked Hollywood.com to refer to grandma in this piece as just that — “grandma”.

“We call her grandma, and everyone online just calls her grandma,” Julia says, beaming. “Even when she calls up Papa John’s for pizza, she’ll be like, ‘Hi, it’s grandma’, and they’ll be like, ‘Okay!’”

Dalia Abdelwahab is a music, entertainment and culture journalist based in the NYC Metropolitan Area. Her reporting focuses on identifying the intersections between how entertainment is produced and perceived in all its forms, and the state of our society and culture at every given moment. She also has experience with covering national news and foreign affairs.

It didn’t t take long for singer Britney Spears’ much-anticipated 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me, to top the New York Times’ coveted Bestseller List. In fact, the book surpassed the 1.1 million sales threshold needed to reach that spot within a week of its official October release–a feat notably achieved without traditional press tours or promotion outside a handful of social media posts and the publisher teasing out some exclusive excerpts to People magazine (Spears wrongly claimed at one point that her book was the highest-selling celebrity memoir “in history,” despite its coming in second to Prince Harry’s Spare as 2023’s bestselling celebrity tell-all).

Spears’ ghostwriter-assisted tome had been on many readers’ to-read lists since her deal was inked in February 2022, and with good reason: it was, in a way, a reclamation of her life and career narrative following a prolonged, highly-publicized and, some would say,  tedious legal battle to terminate a 13 year-long conservatorship imposed by her father, Jamie Spears. The court battle coincided with a number of documentaries about the legal process’ impact on Spears’ life, persona, and public image, even prompting a fan-initiated #FreeBritney movement at its most visible.

Spears would ultimately prevail in a November 2021 decision by an LA superior court judge.

With the book’s momentum as a cultural juggernaut came a wave of predictable reactions on social media, ranging from lighthearted jabs at some of those named-and-shamed in its pages to full-on analyses of some its juicier revelations.

Julie Theis, an influencer with a master’s degree in psychology, isn’t one of those Spears memoir analysts (despite having posted about the singer). But her splashy camera-friendliness aside, part of what’s gained her a dedicated following on Instagram and TikTok is content that uses pop culture figures like the Kardashian-Jenner clan to illustrate psychological concepts that have made their way into laypeople’s consciousness and vocabulary, including phrases like narcissistic tendencies and gaslighting. According to Theis, psychoanalyzing other people — celebrities included –- can be a gateway to understanding oneself.

“I think we … psychoanalyze outside of ourselves as a way to understand ourselves because that gives us a sense of control,” Theis tells Hollywood.com. “I’ve definitely gotten comment[s] … and hate back that to psychoanalyze is not the right thing to do, because you don’t actually know these people’s lives. For me, though, in grad school, {we’re} all given … one piece of paper and it has different personality traits [on it], different scenarios, and so we’re taught to pick up on patterns.”

Although she runs a life coaching practice alongside social media, Theis isn’t a licensed therapist. Fellow psycho-educational content creator Amanda E. White is, however. Specifically she’s a licensed professional counselor (LPC) based in Pennsylvania.

“I have a lot of clients who are Taylor Swift fans and they were talking to me in session about the songs that they related to and the lyrics that they love,” White tells Hollywood.com. “And that became just like really helpful in sessions as we were talking about it. And I started noticing different themes … [within her lyrics].”

These sessions inspired White to create a TikTok series she calls “Taylor Swift Therapy”, in which she delves into the emotions or memories Swift’s songs can evoke in listeners. And these feelings aren’t necessarily exclusive to her followers. BuzzFeed reports, for instance, that Bigger Than the Whole Sky, a track off the 3AM Edition of Swift’s 2022 album Midnights, has resonated with many women who have experienced miscarriages and/or pregnancy loss–and later decided to open up about their feelings on internet message boards.

White emphasizes, “With my videos, I try to really focus on general themes. I don’t psychoanalyze Swift herself or anything, because I don’t know her. I’m not her therapist, and I can’t diagnose her or anything like that. My videos are a lot more focused on … why someone may connect with certain songs. So, I’m really focusing much more on the music and why I think a certain person may relate to her music. That’s definitely distinct from other times where people will psychoanalyze celebrities or diagnose them or things like that.”

The American Psychological Association’s standards and guidelines are yet to include any explicit clauses on social media’s use of therapeutic practices, especially when it comes to  psychoeducation on public platforms. Because of this, professionals who produce psychology-adjacent content for Instagram and TikTok, have established their own set of unofficial boundaries and standards that they attempt to uphold. White understands the appeal of psychoanalyzing celebrities or public figures, but remains cautious for what she says are ethical reasons – as well as to avoid being perceived as exploiting others’ pain or trauma to create content.

“I think that Britney Spears, like Taylor Swift, a lot of people feel like they grew up with her,” she says. “I think they feel really connected to her. And I think that people try … it’s human nature to want to understand why someone is the way they are.”

White’s Swift-success has led her to expand her TikTok pop culture-adjacent psycho-education by adding yet another, nearly identical series to her page — albeit focused on the pop starlet often seen to be the carrier of Taylor Swift’s torch (in the teenage heartbreak department), or maybe Avril Lavigne’s torch (in the teenage angst department): Olivia Rodrigo. Julie Theis has also widened her lens to include videos and other tidbits not necessarily tied to pop culture. But she’s proud of  her original concept.

“I’ve gone viral on many celebrities, many different series,” she explains. “There have been people who have thanked me for, number one, seeing the parts of them that they need to change … people who have said they’ve left an abusive relationship because it can be easier to see behaviors in another person if you’re in denial about your own. On the other side, though, I’ve gotten [feedback] like ‘why do you care? You’re so obsessed with celebrities. You don’t know these people, how could you diagnose their life?’ But my content is not meant to be judgmental. If I say someone has this insecurity, an insecurity doesn’t have to be bad — we all have them.”

Dalia Abdelwahab is a music, entertainment and culture journalist based in the NYC Metropolitan Area. Her reporting focuses on identifying the intersections between how entertainment is produced and perceived in all its forms, and the state of our society and culture at every given moment. She also has experience with covering national news and foreign affairs.

At least one Sunday a month, my husband and I go to the central plaza of the Santa Maria la Ribera neighborhood of Mexico City where a group of senior citizens dressed in their slick and flashy best dance to cumbia sonidera, tropical son, danzón, and salsa tracks spun by a DJ named Sonidero Sincelejo. We go to watch and dance and generally to soak up the joy.  

The old people who dance in the park are happy and they are gorgeous and they are incredible dancers. Each one of them is old enough to have been beaten bloody by grief at some point or many, and still, they’re dancing. It gives me hope that when I’m old, I’ll be dancing, too. It gives me hope that doing things I love will still make me smile huge and feel alive. People stop and sit and watch for periods and they smile and clap and whistle in admiration. And they’re OK. While the old people dance, everyone in that corner of the plaza, every person with all of their pain and sorrow is just fine, at least for that moment. The whole scene is a testament to the human capacity for sharing joy in the face of life. And I can’t think of anything people need reminding of more than that. Especially now.

This weekly gathering has been happening for 13 years in the same place. It’s a sacred scene: popular culture taking place in public space. And it’s under threat, along with all of the similar gatherings in plazas all over the city.

One may assume the threat is that the dancers are primarily very old. In many places around the world, traditions die out as younger generations prefer global culture––TikTok dances to tarantella or tango. But no. Actually, cumbia and sonido culture is experiencing a resurgence in popularity.

Sonideros aren’t just DJ’s. They bring lights, signage, and have a particular culture of talking over the tracks, shouting out their people, their community. They create sonidos, which are a whole event. In Mexico City, starting in the 1960s, sonideros would travel all over South America and the Caribbean bringing records to Mexico. They were responsible for much of the spread and mixture of many genres of Latin American music. In the 1970s, they started throwing huge sonidos. They would close off streets or set up under overpasses for entire days and hundreds of people would come to dance. 

By the 1990s, Mexico City police started shutting them down, often violently, in full riot gear. But the culture survived, and sonidos are back in style. Young people are carrying on the tradition. The federal government even planned a series of events to promote sonido culture over the last few years, and this year, officially recognized it as immaterial cultural patrimony. Young sonideros proliferate, carrying on the tradition. These days they’re even playing bougie events like Art Week. 

So why, at a time of renewed interest in this culture, is a group of old people who dance in a plaza on Sundays under threat? The answer is long, complicated, and reflective of the many dynamics at play in modern Mexican culture.

That time the borough president sent in goons to stop old people from dancing in a park… 

Last February, the right-wing borough president, Sandra Cuevas, who’s now running for mayor, ordered Sonidero Sincelejo and the dancers out of the park for good and cut off electricity to the park to prevent Sincelejo from playing music. The following Sunday, February 19th, there was a protest. I was there and it was quite peaceful. It was … old people dancing. Cuevas responded by sending in violent goons––paramilitary, narco-adjacent thugs called porros that have been used by the Mexican government to put down strikes, protests, and force evictions for decades. They showed up, punched people, pushed people, threatened people, and stole Sonidero Sincelejo’s equipment and entire record collection. (The same thugs followed protestors out of subsequent protests to intimidate them.) 

Sonidero Sincelejo’s name is Joel. When Joel left the military, he began to collect rare records, making pilgrimages to Colombia, Venezuela, and Monterrey. Over 15 years, he built an irreplaceable archive of about 250 vinyls. It cost Joel about $350,000 pesos or about $20,000 dollars to assemble but the cultural asset it represents is invaluable. 

On March 17th, a judge ordered Sandra Cuevas to return the equipment and records and guaranteed the Sonidero and dancers their right to the use of public space. Cuevas returned only one piece of equipment, which had been destroyed, and zero records. On March 24th, another judge reversed the decision. 

Lawyers are now working pro bono to appeal the case. This process could take many more months and may not be successful. While there is a possibility a judge eventually orders the records returned, it’s likely Cuevas will not return them anyway or return them incomplete or damaged. There is a second legal process playing out about the violence inflicted in shutting down the Feb 19 protest. In response, Cuevas embarked on a smear campaign, falsely claiming there were drugs and alcohol being consumed during the dancing. Still, Joel and his wife continued returning to the park, first DJing with bluetooth speakers, then with repurchased equipment and the dancers kept returning to dance. Cuevas has continued making threats and sending goons to loom around the plaza. But she hasn’t been able to shut it down––yet.

Why on earth would anyone want to get rid of the old people dancing in the park? 

Cuevas’ stated reason for wanting the dancing out of the park was that neighbors had complained about the noise. But when journalist and TV host, Carmen Aristegui, challenged her to produce the complaints, she could produce only two, and they were from before her administration was in office. Turns out Sandra Cuevas lives in the fancy condo building on the corner of the  plaza. Perhaps she was the neighbor that didn’t like the noise. Maybe it was too loud for her. But it’s more likely that it was too … Mexican.  

People really hate Sandra Cuevas, but she did not invent her ideology. In Mexico, it’s called malinchismo, after Cortés’ right-hand woman––his enslaved, trilingual, indigenous translator–– La Malinche. She went down in history as a traitor for facilitating the conquest, so they named the widespread Mexican tendency to hate Mexican things after her. It’s the internalized white supremacy left in the wake of colonialism. Cuevas represents Mexico’s right wing, which mostly represents its ascendant upper middle class. This class tends to idolize all things North American––there’s a department store here called Suburbia––and view all things natively Mexican as lesser. For aspirational Mexican people, becoming part of global culture dictated by the commercial culture of the United States is a status symbol; it’s progress. 

Two years ago Cuevas ordered all street food stand owners in her borough to paint over their beautiful hand-painted signs called rotulos and replace them with her administration’s logo. The colorful signs, painted in playful, ornate styles that have been passed down through generations are distinctly Mexican. Cuevas called their erasure “an important measure toward order and discipline.” I think Sandra Cuevas wants the music and dancing out of the park for the same reason she ordered the erasure of the rotulos: she sees it all as profane, grotesque, poor-people stuff. 

(On the contrary, the Federal government’s left-wing and equally fascist but more populist party, Morena, embraces popular culture. Where Sandra Cuevas wears Armani Exchange, Claudia Sheinbaum, the city’s Mayor and Morena’s presidential candidate, often wears traditional embroidered tops. That’s why the Federal government has put institutional support into the resurgence of cumbia.) 

Public space and popular culture are anti-fascist 

But there’s another, darker layer: Fascists love destroying culture and controlling public space. They have done so throughout history. Sandra Cuevas is definitely a fascist. Besides her use of goons to put down protests, she was also suspended from office last year for multiple counts of corruption and abuse of power after she tried to sell a public building and also kidnapped a pair of police officers and had them beaten mercilessly for not following orders to remove some street vendors from a plaza. After her suspension, she refused to step down, saying they’d have to kill her to get her out of office. So it’s on brand that Cuevas would have it out for popular culture and use of public space. 

I grew up in an over-policed city where parks closed at 8pm and you’d get a ticket for staying any later. In 2007, the City of Chicago planned an all-night street festival called Looptopia downtown and many more people showed up than expected. I remember being deliriously happy, running fast figure eights around The Bean as part of a chain of maybe fifty-something strangers holding hands and chanting, “F**k New York! F**k New York!” This now seems like a funny encapsulation of that giant chip Chicagoans have on their collective shoulder. But also, we were all laughing so hard together, howling, falling down and picking each other up, people of lots of different ages, and it was perfect until the cops came and shut us down. Looptopia was supposed to go til dawn, but around 2am, the City decided it was out of hand, and sent hoards of bike cops to round people up and close the entire downtown. “City’s closed, go home!” It did not phase me.

I learned the concept of the Right to the City as an urban studies major in college but I did not feel it in my body until one morning in 2016 when I watched the sun rise over Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Thousands of mostly naked people dancing in the streets with no fear whatsoever that any authority would intervene. I thought, “I can’t believe this is allowed.” And then I was struck by a follow up question: allowed by who? Why would anyone intervene? 

The streets belong to the people of the city, so of course they could dance down them. They had a right to use their space however they wanted, and what they wanted was to celebrate together. I thought about Looptopia and how what we’d all been high on without realizing it was that––a rare chance to feel collective ownership of our park and to celebrate our beautiful city as A People. I cried. The Right to the City, the free use of public space––to protest or to celebrate (so often one in the same, just look at the history of the suppression of Samba and Carnival)––has felt nothing short of sacred to me since.

This is why it’s important that Sincelejo rebuilds his record collection and brings that music back to the park and the people every week until forever. It’s why preserving a cultural visual language like rotulos isn’t just a matter of maintaining a cute aesthetic but of cultural identity itself––of the social cohesion necessary for the preservation of collective rights in the face of fascism. Popular culture and public space bring people together. They enable collectivity through joy and proximity and provide arenas for protest and revolution. 

These days Rich Tech Dudes talk about rockets and AI and “human achievement” and “human potential.”  But the single greatest human achievement I can think of is to endure an entire life in this batshit unequal world, and to reach the end of it and to be able to be a fountain of joy for your whole community. The Rich Tech Dudes are lost. The old people dancing in the park have already found peak humanity. And it’s free! All we have to do is make sure they keep dancing.

Zoe Mendelson is a writer, researcher, and information designer. She is the co-founder and editor of the Webby-winning, bi-lingual, inclusive, illustrated encyclopedia Pussypedia.net, author of the bestselling book Pussypedia: A Comprehensive Guide and of the Substack, How to Have Fun in the Apocalypse. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter at @youngzokeziah or see more of her projects at youngzo.com.

The concept of the Metaverse has puzzled many, and perhaps because so many people are still perplexed by it, it’s hard to justify the fact that Facebook invested $13.7 billion in it by the turn of 2022.

The idea is simple, yet the conversation around the idea often makes it seem complicated. The original pitch of the Metaverse was basically an enhanced, immersive edition of Second Life — town squares, shopping malls, social activity centers and more that can be enjoyed by users in the comfort of their own homes via Facebook (hoped Mark Zuckerberg) with their in-game avatars.

It’s curious that Zuckerberg and company haven’t yet approached the concept from the angle of video game development, almost as if they’ve been deliberately trying not to admit this is what it requires. Their focus therefore floated over to just how we can make conversation in their ethereal world, seemingly before they considered what could be done to make the Metaverse a viable environment for conversing in the first place.

The game folks, meanwhile, had other ideas.

Although the concept of a Metaverse is still in disconnected fragments, some figured out that, since video game communities have been bustling since the advent of online gaming, we’re closer to a virtual town square than the Silicon Valley overlords presume they can reach. Now these creative developers are getting the jump on the giants.

Which brings us to Minecraft.

Say what you will, a total overhaul mod of the core Minecraft game with the intention of bringing short films to people across the globe is undeniably ambitious, and even kind of daring. But the mere fact that it takes place in the game’s building-block universe does an awful lot to draw the experience into the realm of the bizarre.

Loading into the World of MyMetaStories

When actually loading into the world of MyMetaStories, you’re met by a vast town plaza designed solely for the festival experience and populated with cinema workers, film critics, and directors for you to interact with … and to complete quests for. That’s right, quests. The game-ification of the festival is immediately clear. When extended out into the rest of the experience, it feels particularly segmented.

The twelve movies shown are on hourly rotations, meaning players have to jump in at the right time to catch the films they’re intent on seeing. It drip-feeds in a similar atmosphere to that of a standard film festival, echoing the from-home workarounds that the London Film Festival, for instance, came to employ during the pandemic. But the question here is whether, and just how much, these films can be taken seriously in that environment.

One shining example is the beautifully shot and sorrowfully told story of Scrap. The short follows the relationship of two Irish boys as one distances himself from the other to save face due to his itinerant Pavees heritage. It’s a film that takes itself mighty seriously, and has every right to in its examination of Ireland’s social classes and ingrained prejudices. But sat in the virtual cinema, transfixed by the concept of being there alone, I turned to my left and right to see other Minecraft players in their square-headed glory, and felt like it was undercutting the sincere work of director Jamie O’Rourke.

Asking the other users in the game’s chat what they thought of the film, I was met with, well, nothing. They were either completely un-immersed following the short film or disinterested in engaging in the social aspect of the film festival at large (or possibly bored by me as an individual player!). Either way, it became clear all in an instant that players weren’t here for the films. They were here for the novelty of being in a film festival in Minecraft.

It’d be silly to assert that Minecraft-based film festivals are any kind of norm. Users can’t embrace it in their lives in a way that can approximate their regular trips to the cinema or get-togethers with friends. It was clear by the introduction of PvP arenas and creativity games in the server that mods were trying to keep players engaged via Minecraft’s most foolproof methods, but the vastly slim sum of fellow players willing to interact with them proved they were inclined to get this kind of entertainment elsewhere. Which begged the question: What exactly were we all doing here?

The Missing Key

It’s impossible to say right now if what’s drawing players to MyMetaStories is the experience’s oddball novelty or any kind of sincere interest, but it feels as though the former is the real decider here. Short film festivals are traditionally a clubby thing for the short film director community, and roping ordinary moviegoers into them is a tough proposition. If we’re looking for ways to get people in the door, why shouldn’t curators use the digital landscape of a Minecraft server to get them there? The game has been around for over a decade now, after all, and still holds communities of fans firmly in its hands. Exploring Minecraft’s sandbox world full of fetch quests and mini-games through this lens certainly helps to make sense of the idea.

In theory. But in practice MyMetaStories does the opposite of what it wants to do — it brings short films to Minecraft fans, rather than a Minecraft world to short film fans. And there’s the rub. It’s hard to see how the format will take off, even allowing  that Zuckerberg’s dreams of the Metaverse may someday come true. There’s Interactivity, yes. But with limited native communications players don’t have many ways of experiencing the festival with friends in a meaningful way without using third party chat systems like Discord. The missing key, then, is an organic, natural-feeling means of connecting, networking and being present alongside other festival attendees. And so far, the virtual festival simply can’t replace the physical act of showing up to a local theater and being part of it all alongside other flesh-and-blood moviegoers. With the Metaverse still seeming too much like the flighty brainchild of Silicon Valley billionaires who’ve never smelled the rewarmed snack bar popcorn with the rest of us, that kind of real, palpable connection might be a challenge that just can’t be surmounted.

Tomorrow might not come today, or ever, for MyMetaStories or the Metaverse at large, but we can now say the experiment’s been made. Which itself is arguably worthwhile. If it someday happens that the London Film Festival finds its new format in a game that lets players punch each other with free will and travel to alternate dimensions to kill otherworldly dragons, then we can at least say we saw the groundwork being laid.

From this we learn.

Netflix has always been an innovator when it comes to home entertainment. From its beginnings as a DVD-by-mail rental service, something that completely changed the game from the brick-and-mortar rental stores like Blockbuster Video, it went on to launch the first successful streaming service in 2007. Since then, it has remained a leader in the streaming video industry, producing a plethora of original movies and shows. And it continues to introduce fresh ideas, such as interactive programming in the form of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Trivia Quest, and more. However, there’s been one major addition to Netflix’s services that has gone largely unnoticed by its subscribers since its introduction in 2021: mobile video games.

For the past couple of years, anyone with a Netflix subscription using the app on a mobile device could see there were a large number of games available to play at no extra cost. That is, unless they happened to scroll right past the gaming section, which is not a difficult mistake to make. But the crux of the problem is that more than three-quarters of all streaming subscribers use their services on a television set rather than on a mobile device, according to video analytics firm Conviva. Since the games have thus far only been available on mobile devices, many Netflix users have remained completely ignorant of the fact that they could be enjoying free video games on their phones and tablets.

Of Netflix’s 248 million subscribers, less than 1% play the service’s games on a regular basis. This is an unfortunate state of affairs for the company, as it has steadily ramped up its gaming division over the past two years to attract more subscribers at a time when the streaming service business has become saturated. In the past year alone, Netflix has grown its selection of games from 24 to 77–and many of these titles aren’t just half-measures to attract the casual gaming crowd, but full-blown high-quality experiences that have become hits on other platforms.

For instance, Immortality, the latest game from pioneering developer Sam Barlow and his company Half Mermaid was released for Xbox Series X/S and PC in August 2022 for full price and was made available to Netflix subscribers a few months later in November for free. This is a highly acclaimed indie darling that won a BAFTA Games Award for its narrative. Netflix went on to acquire Night School Studio, the developer of Oxenfree and Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals before the latter was even released so that Netflix users could play it on Day 1. Both titles have earned much critical and consumer praise and have done well financially on consoles and computers. Other lauded games in Netflix’s library include world-building simulation Terra Nil, story-driven adventure Spiritfarer, and surreal interactive story, Before Your Eyes.

Combined with a large selection of more casual games and titles based on Netflix properties such as Stranger Things and Love Is Blind, the gaming library Netflix has curated is actually quite impressive and warrants more attention than it’s presently receiving from subscribers. However, the lack of interest in the streamer’s gaming offerings has not deterred the company’s efforts in the slightest. As described by Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters regarding the company’s games on a pre-recorded earnings call, “This trajectory is not dissimilar from what we’ve seen before. When we’ve launched a new region — or when we launched new genres, like unscripted [we had to] crawl, walk, run, but we see a tremendous amount of opportunity to build a long-term center value of entertainment.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, plans are in the works to adapt even more of Netflix’s hit programming into game form, including Wednesday, Black Mirror, and Squid Game. These are meant to provide fans of these shows with something to do in between seasons, and keep them from abandoning Netflix for other streaming services.

Additionally, Joseph Staten, the Creative Chief behind Xbox’s Halo Infinite joined Netflix to develop a brand-new IP into a AAA multiplatform game. Ubisoft is also apparently working with Netflix on a new Assassin’s Creed entry to take advantage of the hype surrounding the live-action series that the two companies are producing.

The question ion remains, how will Netflix garner more interest and attention from its subscribers toward its gaming efforts? Well, as most customers utilize television as the primary (and often only) method of using streaming services, Netflix has strategized a method to make its games available for play on the small screen.  The company has already begun testing this system, first with some select subscribers in Canada and the UK, and now in America. Players will install and use a special app on their phones (below) that will turn the devices into controllers for the games on the television. While there is some worry about bandwidth usage and lag, Netflix seems confident that this will be optimized to make its games the new revenue stream it’s been looking for.

Image courtesy Netflix

In the meantime, gamers with a Netflix subscription should really check out the offerings on their mobile devices. There are titles there that people paid full price to enjoy on other platforms and original games that fans of Netflix shows will surely like. Paying for a subscription and not experiencing and enjoying all the content provided is an unfortunate waste of money and entertainment value.

Jason Robbins is a features editor and writer, attorney, computer scientist, bio-exorcist and inventor of the piano key necktie.