Tag: internet culture

Joe Buck continued his play-by-play of random videos on John Krasinski’s new YouTube show

Joe Buck’s play-by-play of a race to empty the dishwasher is so good.

In these scary and uncertain times as people are hunkered down in their homes (as much as possible) during the coronavirus pandemic, John Krasinski has been bringing some fun and heartwarming moments to the internet with his new YouTube show, Some Good News.

It’s exactly what it sounds like with The Office actor posing as a news anchor who definitely doesn’t take himself too seriously and sharing positive stories about people. In previous episodes, he hosted the cast of Hamilton for a virtual concert and chatted with Steve Carell.

And in his latest episode, legendary sports broadcaster Joe Buck — who our Andy Nesbitt previously deemed the GOAT announcer — continued his hilarious run of offering play-by-plays for everyday moments and random “sports” invented by people at home.

Krasinski’s shift to sports in this episode begins just after the 5:20 mark, while Buck joins in about two minutes later, impressively calling a woman playing a version of pop-a-shot with her laundry and some guy racing to empty his dishwasher in less than a minute.

After Buck’s delightful appearance, Kransinski went on to talk about why, in this world without sports, he misses baseball so much.

“For me, and I’m sure a lot of you, the calendar year just really doesn’t feel the same until that Opening-Day pitch is thrown out,” he explained while introducing highlights of kids playing baseball.

Krasinski also celebrated the people in healthcare who are tirelessly working during the COVID-19 outbreak. And he even brought in David Ortiz, the Red Sox and people around Massachusetts for a surprise during a trip to Fenway Park.

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Of course, Simone Biles took the handstand challenge to a totally unbelievable new level

We’d expect nothing less from the GOAT.

Actors Tom Holland and Jake Gyllenhaal first made the handstand t-shirt challenge go viral after Holland put a shirt on while doing a handstand, shared a video of it challenging others to try it, and Gyllenhaal obliged. It’s a pretty impressive feat, which was then one-upped by Olympian Lolo Jones, who not only performed the challenge but put on two t-shirts while upside down and in between sips of wine.

Naturally, as this challenge escalates while people are social distancing and staying inside when possible, superstar Simone Biles took it to a whole new level, as GOATs do.

Forget the t-shirt. Biles — one of countless athletes all over the world impacted by the 2020 Tokyo Olympics being postponed until next summer — did a prolonged handstand while taking off a pair of sweatpants and hilariously offered a little commentary as she struggled with that second leg.

With a move seemingly only she could perform, we’d expect nothing less. She’s great at everything. And amazingly, in the replies to Biles’ video, some people are actually attempting it.

Meanwhile, others — including Ryan Reynolds, who was first part of Holland’s challenge — want nothing to do with it.

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Lolo Jones hilariously one-ups Jake Gyllenhaal, Tom Holland in handstand t-shirt challenge

Lolo Jones: handstand t-shirt challenge champ.

Three-time Olympian Lolo Jones is a rockstar who appears to be handling the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics relatively well, all things considered.

When USA TODAY Sports broke the news that the International Olympic Committee was planning to postpone the Games — one day before it officially did — because of the global COVID-19 outbreak, the American hurdler and bobsledder made a joke about ordering a pizza and delaying her retirement from the track for another year. And while quarantining, she’s been posting funny videos to social media about how she’s killing time and working out — like bench pressing her couch.

So not only did her boredom lead her to try the handstand t-shirt challenge, but she also one-upped the people who made the challenge go viral: Tom Holland and Jake Gyllenhaal. The Spider-Man actor shared a video of him doing a handstand while putting on a shirt and challenged Gyllenhaal, among others, to do it. And he did.

But like an elite athlete, Jones took it a step further. She put on two t-shirts while upside down on her hands *and* did it while having a glass of wine.

Brava, Lolo.

Here are Holland’s and Gyllenhaal’s versions:

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Here’s how to make yourself look like a potato (or Joe Exotic) on Zoom video calls

Here’s how to do it.

It’s the photo that went mega-viral recently that hopefully you’ve all seen.

A picture of a Microsoft Teams call in which someone’s boss used a filter that turned her into a talking potato, but she can’t turn it off, “so she was just stuck like this the entire meeting.”

It’s hysterical, it’s amazing, and now a lot of people want to know how they can do it on Zoom or Google Hangouts, perhaps to pair with hilarious backgrounds.

Well now, you too can be a potato! It’s all thanks to a program called Snap Camera, which uses SnapChat filters and lenses on video chat programs.

Here’s a step-by-step on how to pull this off:

1. Download Snap Camera

2. Open whichever video platform you use

That can be Zoom, Teams, Skype, Google Hangouts and others. It can be used with YouTube, too.

3. Find your video input settings in your platform and set it to Snap Camera

4. Choose your filter

You can be a potato:

Or Joe Exotic:

Or some of these:

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Tom Holland’s quarantine social media challenge looks incredibly hard

Probably best not to try this one at home!

People across the world have been hunkered down in quarantine for an extended period of time, which means boredom and anxiety have most certainly set in. To pass the time, there have been a flurry of coronavirus social media challenges. Those challenges range from the mundane, like shooting hoops with laundry, to the skilled, like showing off your dance moves =, to the downright ludicrous, like the handstand t-shirt challenge.

If the name wasn’t already a tip-off, the handstand t-shirt challenge involves putting on a t-shirt while doing a handstand and it sounds like a great way to get seriously injured. Marvel actor Tom Holland might have started it, I don’t honestly know.  He did post a video on his Instagram of him huffing and puffing his way into a t-shirt while upside down.

Now, this might be a gift for the Holland stans, but it’s also really freaking extra. Holland tagged his Spider-Man Far From Home co-star Jake Gyllenhaal in the challenge as well as Ryan Reynolds and a few others.

Gyllenhaal took the bait and tied up his long hair so he could also show off his ripped abs and upper body strength.

Ryan Reynolds though had the most reasonable response, which was a decided “hell no.”

Anyway, the handstand t-shirt challenge should be left to trained actors or possibly skilled gymnasts, otherwise, it seems like a great way to take a trip to the emergency room.

The hottest new thing in quarantine life is hosting a Netflix Party

Another way to have fun without being in the same room.

While researching my list of fun games and activities you can do on Zoom or Google Hangouts or other video conferencing services while you’re stuck at home, I found out — via a friend’s invitation — that there was an easy way for us to watch Netflix together virtually as isolation and social distancing continues.

There’s a Chrome extension called Netflix Party you can install and use to share with your friends and family to watch shows on the popular streaming service.

The useful thing here is you can all watch the same thing at the same time without having to start the same show at the exact same moment, or have it streamed through those aforementioned video chats (although you COULD do this on video, it’s better to have a chat typed out than people interrupting the sound from what you’re watching).

So here’s what you can do (only if you have Chrome on a desktop/laptop AND only if everyone in your group has a Netflix account):

1. Install the extension.

2. Open what you want to watch and start it up.

3. There will be a red NP in your address bar. Hit it, “start party” and share the link with your friends. You can also select “only I have control,” which allows the host to pause, rewind or fast-forward.

4. Have your friends click on it. Then, chat n’ watch!

That’s it.

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9 fun games and activities to do with friends on Zoom or Google Hangouts

From Jackbox to yoga to charades.

In the constant search for social interaction and fun during isolation due to the coronavirus pandemic, people have taken to video conferencing to catch up and have fun.

They’re using services like Zoom and Google Hangouts, which we’ve reviewed to tell you which ones are best. But it turns out you can do a lot more than chat on camera.

There are fun games and activities you can do (besides putting a funny background on in Zoom) to have a laugh or two to pass the time. So here are a few ideas we’ve seen put into action over the last few weeks:

1. Jackbox Games

We’ve been over this one. If someone has purchased Jackbox, he or she can share their screen and allow others to remotely log in to play. As long as everyone can see the screen, they can use their phones to play along.

2. Charades

An easy one with people on camera.

3. Crossword puzzles

They should take no time at all!

4. Watching television together

I just got invited to my first Netflix party using, well, Netflix Party (which is a Google Chrome extension that allows people to watch a show/movie at the same time with a chat attached).

5. A talent show

Shout-out to my family for suggesting this one for our next big call.

6. Karaoke

Obviously!

7. Pictionary

H/T to Elite Daily for this idea. You can use a Zoom whiteboard for it:

To use Zoom’s whiteboard, you’ll want to click the share screen button located in your meeting toolbar, select the whiteboard, and click share. You should then see annotation tools that will let you use your mouse to draw as you would for Pictionary. You can take turns sharing the screen’s whiteboard depending on who’s turn it is, and you can put some in charge of keeping time for the person who is drawing.

8. Yoga

Have one person share screen on a YouTube class, and there you have it.

9. Trivia

There’ this Random Trivia Generator that will help.

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The ‘me on March 1 vs. April 1’ meme sums up how we all feel right now

What a month it’s been.

Well. March was quite a YEAR — not a month — wasn’t it?

As my colleague Nate Scott detailed, a lot of stuff happened in March that we probably forget because the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing and isolation and quarantine and EVERYTHING has become our new reality.

At least it’s April 1 — and please, no April Fool’s jokes, thanks — and that’s led to a new meme sprouting up. People are posting photos of how they or celebrities or athletes might have looked March 1 and how they look now. I attempted an example with Julian Edelman above.

Here are a few other examples we saw:

Then there’s this punchline:

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The reporter escaping a herd of bison in Yellowstone National Park is the meme we all need right now

LOL!

NBC Montana reporter Deion Broxton was just trying to do a shoot from Yellowstone National Park when he looked over and saw a herd of bison heading in his direction.

So he did what anyone would do in that situation: he uttered, “Oh no, I ain’t messing with you,” packed up and bolted. Smart man.

He then uploaded the footage to Twitter — by the way, he did end up with a shot of the bison in question! — and became a viral star, and of course that means he became a meme.

Here’s a sampling, including some sports takes on the video, starting with the original footage:

The GIF is the best:

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How to use Jackbox to play virtual games over video chat with your friends

A good way to have fun while you’re doing social distancing.

The other day, while on a video chat with a pair of my friends, one of them mentioned that we could totally do a night of trivia for our next conference call by using something called Jackbox (which made it to our super-helpful list of 34 video games you should be playing to get through quarantine).

I had so many questions, and it seems like a lot of other people do, and that’s where this comes in.

It’s a series of trivia games put out by Jackbox Games that you can play, and by using Jackbox TV, you can actually connect and have the host screenshare the game on a video meeting service like Zoom or Google Hangouts. Here are the steps:

1. Someone needs to have purchased a Jackbox title

Let’s call that person the “host” to make it easy to describe. That person should launch the game on their computer.

2. The host should share their screen on their favorite video meeting service

Hangouts, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, whatever. If you’re the host, find the button that shares your screen with the other people on your call.

3. Go to Jackbox.TV and enter the code you see

It’s a four-letter code for your specific room, and you enter it using your phone.

4. Start playing!

That’s it!

And if none of that made sense, well, fine, here’s a video from Jackbox Games:

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