The out-of-date fashion in question involves a “micro-mini schoolgirl skirt” of the plaid-style commonly associated with elementary, middle and high school outfits. As Fox wears it, it’s obviously intended to be provocative. Keep in mind, this photo was taken in 2003, so there’s  a good chance that the now 27-year-old Fox was then literally a schoolgirl, but the photo raises an interesting question: is there something inherently wrong with the phenomena of sexy schoolgirl outfits?

What could possibly be morally wrong about an outfit (other than, like, KKK robes and Nazi gowns or whatever) you might ask? Well, it could be posited that sexy schoolgirl outfits support the sexualization of youth. By using that which is normally assigned to schoolchildren to look sexy, are you implying that there is something inherently sexy about schoolgirls? Or worse, are you creating an air of sexuality around the outfit of those that should not have an air of sexuality?

I don’t think there is anything wrong with the outfits for a couple of reasons. The first and most important is that people should be able to wear whatever they want. Telling someone an outfit is offensive is trying to destroy that which is most sacred: the freedom to do whatever you want with your body.

On another level, being attracted to someone in a schoolgirl uniform doesn’t mean someone has any kind of perversion about children. I’m not defending this because it’s something I’m into; I’m actually that boorish idiot boy who barely even notices what girls are wearing, in a bad way. I’m not gonna notice your new dress, sorry!

The ‘sexy schoolgirl’ outfit has become so far ingrained in our culture that it just simply isn’t about schoolgirls anymore. Do a Google image search for “schoolgirl skirt” and you won’t find a single picture of an actual schoolgirl. American Apparel (not a bastion of sexual morality, but whatevs) markets their model to those who want to be “sassy but sweet”. I picture a girl whose friends are all sassy but she isn’t and she buys this skirt in a desperate attempt to have some sass but then she gets it and realizes it’s just a skirt and continues to be the only one in her friend group who can’t be cheeky. We are so far detached from the subject matter that the outfit has become something that isn’t even associated with youth in this context. The “sexy schoolgirl” has become a style archetype that has nothing to do with actual schoolgirls, like men’s cowboy shirts or a hipster’s lumberjack uniform.

.And even if a man is attracted to the schoolgirl uniform, I doubt (I don’t speak for all men) it’s part of an ingrained and current attraction to the pubescent, but rather an attempt to emulate the newness of sexual encounter that he experienced in his own youth: he isn’t attracted to 16-year-olds as a current 30-year-old, he is reminiscing about being 16 himself with his 29-year-old girlfriend.

Sexualization of youth is definitely creepy, but if no youth are affected, is it a problem? This is terrible journalism, but I remember a court case I learned about in constitutional law class that I’m too scared to Google: the court (or a lesser court) once ruled on the legality of CGI child pornography. If no children are hurt, isn’t this a free speech issue rather than a sex crime issue? I don’t remember the outcome of the case, and I am too scared to Google “CGI child pornography,” but it raises an interesting question. Also, wouldn’t the existence of such pornography keep pedophiles “off the streets,” so to speak? Likewise, do “sexy schoolgirl” outfits hurt the youth in anyway when worn by adult women?

We want to start a discussion about this on HelloGiggles, so feel free to discuss in the comments, we’d love to hear what you have to say!

Image via HuffPo

The post ‘Sexy Schoolgirl’ Outfits: Creepy, Expressive or Both? appeared first on HelloGiggles.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford (allegedly) fails on both counts. A video of Mayor Ford smoking crack and (allegedly) calling a political rival (or his son) a “f**got” is being shopped around to news outlets.

The sellers, supposedly Somali drug dealers (but that sounds like a generic movie villain so I’m not sure it’s actually Somali drug dealers) are asking for an exorbitant amount of money for the thing, somewhere in the six figure range. News outlets can’t afford that, because unfortunately many of them can barely afford to exist.

Gawker, equally a purveyor of gossip and bastion of ‘real journalism,’ wants to buy the tape (Gawker writer John Cook has seen the video) and publish it. But they want your money to make it happen.

The newsblog has put together an Indiegogo (the Pepsi to Kickstarter’s Coke) .to gather funds to purchase and publish the video. The attempt has been called ‘Crackstarter‘, even though it’s not even on Kickstarter. I guess it’s kind of like when you call all tissues Kleenex. As of the morning of the 20th, they’ve raised $73k. The project he has raised lots of questions about the legitimacy of using crowdfunding for this type of thing.

Recently, Zach Braff had the Internet’s hate rained down upon him when he put up a Kickstarter for his new movie – some kind of followup to Garden State where he’s forlorn and stares a lot again – because why should the public give millions of dollars to a man who doesn’t need it so he can further his creative aspirations, while many that do need it don’t get that same help? The concept of deepening Braff’s already deep pockets, only to further deepen those pockets when the film is released in theaters and you spend 14 bucks on a ticket is appalling to many.

Conclusive proof that the Mayor of North America’s fourth largest city smokes crack is probably more valuable than another Zach Braff movie, is it not? But then again, Gawker is set to make a lot of money from the release of the video; it is sure to get bajillions of page views (page views it’s surely already gotten a large fraction of just for positing the Indiegogo). But then again again, the public would be ostensibly giving money to Somali drug lords.

I don’t think the Indiegogo is necessary. Several reputable journalists have already come out saying they’ve seen the video, and in politics that should be enough to ruin Mayor Ford’s career. When you put “Rob Ford” into Google, it suggests “Rob Ford crack.” Other than the bizarreness of seeing a public figure lighting a crack pipe, what value does the video serve? Many justify spending the money by saying that Mayor Ford has been doing a bad job as Mayor, and this is a good way to oust him, but it looks like he’s already been ousted.

The great thing about Kickstarter and Indiegogo is that donating money is voluntary and you can donate to whatever you want, so really there are no “bad” Kickstarters. Complaining about a wasteful Kickstarter is silly: Zach Braff isn’t at your door demanding five bucks and then shoving an exclusive early soundtrack in your face after you hand him the money. Sure, ‘bad Kickstarters’ dilute the good ones, taking away opportunity from the deserving, but won’t the public filter these out?

In the end what we can really take from this is this: is Zach Braff actually a Somali drug lord? I’m looking at some documents here and it all checks out.

The post Crowdsourcing Scandal: Kickstarting Video of A Crack-Smoking Mayor appeared first on HelloGiggles.

1. Anthrax

This one was legit scary., Pretty much immediately after 9/11, a bunch of important people got letters in the mail containing white powder: the anthrax virus. People died. It was bad.

Around that time, I got a mysterious envelope from Nickelodeon Magazine (remember that?) with a dollar in it, I think it was thanks for filling out some survey, and my Mom wouldn’t let me keep it ‘cuz she thought it was suspicious! But then she gave me a different dollar ‘cuz my Mom is dope.

We had a few suspects, but we never had definitive proof of the culprit.

2. Mad Cow Disease

One time I was eating a hamburger while intoxicated and suddenly got a terrifying vision of myself at 60, gone crazy due to Mad Cow begotten by this very burger. I threw it out. I then stared at the thrown-out burger and was like, “Ugh, I totally wanted to eat that.”

Mad Cow has only killed 210 humans worldwide, but affects a bunch of cattle each year. There are fears—based on animal studies—that consuming beef or beef products containing prion particles can also cause the development of classic CJD – CJD being the manifestation of Mad Cow in humans. The scary part is that it takes years for CJD to show up once you’ve been infected, and CJD ”is incurable and invariably fatal.” Scary stuff.

3. and 4. Flus Bird and Swine

Remember these guys? I’m pretty sure I got swine flu but the I was just okay because I slept a lot and watched a bunch of Rocko’s Modern Life reruns. Swine flu’s been dead since 2010 (humans won!) but bird flu is supposedly still a problem.

These flus are scary, but they’re never as serious as the media makes them out to be.

5. SARS

SARS is a fine memory of the early 2000s: the weird gas masks people started to wear, the constant media coverage. And it was a bad one, but not as bad as it could have been: it killed about 775 and infected a total of 8,273 (that’s about a 9% death rate). It mostly affected China and Hong Kong, and people under a certain age we’re pretty much safe.

6. SARS II: Return of the SARS

A new “deadly cousin” of SARS is on the rise now – it’s already infected 14 and killed 8 people. The Coronavirus strain is mostly focused in the Middle East, and is only worrisome for people with respiratory problems… for now.

7. Trans Fats

One day everyone decided that the trans fats they’d been shoving down their throats might not be very good for them. They were right: trans fats increase the risk of heart disease. New York City banned trans fats from all its food, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg continued to ban all sodas above a certain size.

8. All of our stuff

There have been health scares about many common ‘ingredients’ of household goods and foods: melamine, lead paint and BPAs (common in water bottles) have all come under fire for being dangerous, and they most likely are. Cheaply made things from China were usually the culprit.

9. Kids These Days

Every couple of months, there is a new scare for clueless adults about the drug or twist on a drug or sexual perversion kids are doing: eyeballing vodka, enema-ing vodka, tamponing vodka, bath salts, Jenkem (scroll down for an explanation of what Jenkem is. It’s gross, don’t want to make anyone read it) synthetic weed, those sex bracelets, drinking hand sanitizer, ‘rainbow parties,’ and so on. Usually like, four kids do it and then the adults and the news get all in a huff and introduce it to a whole new crop of kids by telling them not to do it…

*Jenkem is (supposedly) a street drug made by fermenting human poopoo and peepee together in a bottle, allowing the fumes to inflate a balloon, then inhaling the contents of the balloon. According to Snopes, Jenkem is a total myth.

The post Society’s Hypochondria: 9 Health Scares That Keep Us Awake At Night appeared first on HelloGiggles.

While he was swimming to her house, it’s unclear if he was swimming through the ocean or a bay or what, Rhode Island has both, he noticed he’d been spotted and turned around, but to no avail, he got caught anyway.

This is pretty funny, but also this dude is (likely, this is speculation) someone with serious mental issues: the mental health of this guy, and the physical safety of Taylor Swift probably shouldn’t be joked about. But come on, he was trying to swim to her house!

The motives of these people always confuses me, like Beatlemania, or Elvis Fever, or Lisztsomania (“the intense fan frenzy directed toward Franz Liszt [a now obscure 19th century musician] during his performances.” It’s a real thing, Wiki it.) Look at the girls who tweet at Justin Bieber, or shout at his concerts, or send death threats to Selena Gomez; do they actually think that A. Bieber cares that they exist, and B. That he plans to fall madly in love with them?

I guess I’ve never really been a big fan of anything, I like stuff without being obsessed, but I’m also not crazy.

Before you shrug off crazy fans as silliness, don’t forget: it was a rabid Jodie Foster fan, John Hinckley Jr, who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan in a bizarre attempt to impress Foster. Hinckley was so obsessed with the movie Taxi Driver, Foster’s performance specifically, that he tried to emulate it to impress Foster, a twisted version of the plot of that very movie. That’s demented, he tried to copy the plot of a movie about a crazy dude. But I won’t lie: I’ve often wanted to get get a mohawk and army jacket and dress like DiNiro’s character:

Taylor Swift’s number one fan was charged with trespassing, he ended up swimming over two miles in 60 degree water! Swift purchased her home, the one the dude almost swam up to, just a few weeks ago. It has 8 bedrooms. It is unknown if she was home at the time, but luckily her security detail was.

Featured image via Shutterstock

The post Psycho Swiftie Tries to SWIM to Taylor Swift’s House, Fails appeared first on HelloGiggles.

As river guide Paul Templer could tell you, getting eaten by a hippopotamus isn’t fun, so why would a game as sick as Hungry, Hungry, Hippos be fun? Like the Candyland scenario above, living in Hungry, Hungry, Hippos, (as a ball, like Templer) would be a terrifying existence, full of bouncing around and being devoured.

What other board games would be terrible to live in?

1. Chess

While we by no means live in a post-racial society, ‘Chess’ takes place in a world where people with different skin color are in a perpetual state of war with each other.

The unjust universe always allows the white side to go first, and forces pawns to be… pawns of their own fate.

The dichotomy between the queen and the king is either anti-man or anti-woman: the Queen is all powerful, more or less, but the neutered King is the whole point of the game. There’s some kinda gender inequality in there, but I’m not sure which is the disadvantaged one. I’m gonna say the King, because men never get to be disadvantaged.

And the bishop works for the army? What about the separation of church and state?

2. Snakes and Ladders

I hate climbing ladders, and I’m scared of snakes. What about Puppies and Elevators instead?

3. Scrabble

If we lived in a Scrabble world, writers would be the richest people in the world, as the more valuable a word, the more ‘points’ you would have, and points are the lifeblood of the universe. However, writers or ‘wordsmiths’ or ‘point miners,’ as they’re called, begin to have existential crises: just because a word is worth more points, why is it better? What makes ‘za’ a better word than ‘ant’? What value does my work have? And what is the significance of points anyway? But after, at the end of a game, as their letter tiles, their work, is poured back into the letter bag, they’d forget their existential worries, forget all their memory actually, and start a new game, fresh-minded, a blank slate (or blank tile, if you will), only to immediately descend into the same existential quandaries.

4. Monopoly

The Monopoly world would be hellish because some people would have an unfair advantage after getting lucky the first few rounds and seizing control of the board, crafting the parameters of the board so they can prey on those less fortunate… oh wait.

5. Trivial Pursuit from 1970

In order to advance in life – and by that I don’t mean like ‘move up the corporate ladder’ but simply advance forward as in move from point A to point B or point B back to point A – one most answer trivia questions in the Trivial Pursuit universe. But while the board grows older, spending time in Grandma’s TV room, the questions become more difficult as the last few people to know the answers die out. What was once common knowledge starts to fade out among the generations. The entirety of humanity drags to a standstill, stuck on an outdated bit of sports trivia, or a question about the Soviet Union, their pies forever unfilled, the center forever unreached.

So yeah, those would be crappy board games to live in. What’s your favorite board game?

Images via ShutterStock, NebNews, Jumanji

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Days before her admittance to Betty Ford, Lohan was interviewed by Piers Morgan, kind of a last statement before her upcoming 90-day rehabilitation. The interview was anything but normal: Lohan opened up, but peppered her answers with lies. Morgan asked weird questions and was barely respectful.

Lohan’s top three weirdest or most revealing answers were:

The inconsistencies:

She says, “I’ve never been a huge drinker,” before continuing to say “I was definitely going out too much and I was drinking too much.”

The revelations:

Lohan has serious issues with her father, is a confirmed heterosexual, denies drug and alcohol abuse, likes pills and wants to focus on her career instead of booze and men.

The blaming and rationalizing

Lohan has a tendency to blame what’s going on in her life – “I was trapped by my probation requirements in the worst possible place I could be” – and rationalize, saying, with regard to Adderall: “But I eat all the time. I just take it to stay calm. It works well for me.”

But even weirder than Lohan’s answers were Morgan’s questions:

“Does fame screw you up?… Is it like a drug?”

By phrasing this in this manner, Morgan was trying to force a metaphor onto Lohan’s life, and add to the narrative of her life that the public ‘demands.’

When did you start going off the rails?

How can you ask this question of someone and expect them to have a reasoned answer? No one has good enough perception of themselves to be able to pinpoint when they ‘started going downhill,’ because life isn’t a perfect story with pinpointable changes of pace. Nonetheless, Lohan did have an answer:

“I think when I made the move to LA  in my late teens. I got arrested for my first DUI (Driving Under the Influence) when I was 20 and they found me with drugs (her Mercedes struck a kerb outside a club on May 26, 2007, and she was charged after police found cocaine in the car). And from then on the press were on me all the time. It was the first time I’d taken drugs; I was out in a club with people I shouldn’t have been with, and took cocaine, and got in the car. It was so stupid.”

Do you think she’s being objective here?

“How many times have you taken cocaine?” (not many) “Really?” (yes, she’s only done if a few times. It reminds her of her dad. She doesn’t like it.) “Did it make you feel good?“ (I’ve paraphrased Lohan and quoted Morgan here.)

Is this line of questioning about an ostensibly arbitrary 20-something’s drug use really necessary? It’s like trying to get a confession out of her, which is understandable because we all assume she does hard drugs, but if we all know she does drugs, why do we have to make her say it instead of letting her go to rehab in peace? Why do we do this to our famous people?

By so strongly focusing on their lives, making them seem bigger and more significant than regular people and forcing a narrative onto them, are we actually dehumanizing them to the point where we don’t care about them because we view them as demi-fictional characters whose lives don’t matter because they are there for our entertainment? Morgan says, in an attempt to sound emphatic, “Whatever you’ve read or heard about her, the Lindsay Lohan I met seemed to me to be a damaged, vulnerable young woman struggling to find normality in her often tormented life,” but isn’t this just further building the character we’ve designed for her, the persona that this interview feeds on? Yes, I know writing about it and analyzing the article just adds further scrutiny, and the need to lessen the actions of gossiphounds is obvious, I just felt compelled to say something.

The post The 3 Weirdest Questions & Answers from the Morgan/Lohan Interview appeared first on HelloGiggles.

Do you remember high school projects? Middle School? Elementary? When your teacher would claim to be grading you on the quality of your information and intelligence, but would really be grading you on your glue stick aptitude? It stank.

In retrospect, the ability to make a pretty tri-fold board never really became helpful in ‘real life,’ as much as, say, learning how to balance a checkbook or be careful with debt management would’ve been.

My school projects were always terrible because I never respected the whole concept of making your information look pretty, valuing the quality of the information instead, but my projects were never as bad as the ones in this here slide show. I have a strong feeling that some of these science fair projects are fake, but whatever science is probably fake anyway, evolution’s just a theory, right? Check out this slideshow and have a laugh.

The post 11 School Projects and Essays Gone Awry appeared first on HelloGiggles.

But my saving grace, like a drug addict’s rehab, was Stayfocusd, a Google Chrome extension that has increased my productivity and ability to sit at a computer without distraction greatly.

Stayfocusd works like this: you input your ‘bad websites’–sites good for nothing but wasting time (mine are reddit, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter [but I allow myself Tweetdeck because sometimes I have to Tweet for productive reasons]. Goodreads, Gawker and RedHotPawn, my online chess site of choice [challenge me on it sometime! Twitter me for my username],)–and a time period; mine is set to 15 minutes at work, and 60 minutes at home. The extension then only allows you to use those websites, combined, for that period of time in a one-day period. If you try to access the sites after that you get this lovely page:

It works really well for me, forcing me to avoid procrastination.

Sure, there are work-arounds that defeat the purpose: using a different browser, or just turning the damn thing off, but all-in-all it prevents procrastination very well.

They also have a thing called “The Nuclear Option,” a single button press that bans you from your fun/bad websites for a period of time (I’ve gone nuts and set it to 24 hours before, I think I had delirium tremens,) it works well.

Download it, be productive!

The post Stayfocusd for Google Chrome: The Cure to Internet Procrastination appeared first on HelloGiggles.