So I was doing one of those random, time-wasting searches on YouTube, when I stumbled across a video on how to apply makeup to look like a particular star (notice I failed to mention which one I stumbled across). In this video was this smiley, unassuming girl with a funny little accent, who was very natural on camera, and very skilled at makeup application. I saw that she had tons of makeup tutorials on YouTube, so I spent a good couple hours watching them.
Turns out this friendly face was Lauren Luke, who has been putting these videos up online for over a year now. Lauren (panacea81), 26-year-old mother of one, got tired of her job and decided to do something she loved. She started selling cosmetics and makeup brushes on eBay, and instead of putting pictures of the say, mango-orange eyeshadow, she took pictures of herself wearing said eyeshadow. Then she began to get requests for tutorials. Her videos became more and more popular, and she soon began getting requests on how to look like Leona Lewis in her new music video, or say, Britney Spears in the video for Toxic. Now she’s one of the most well-known makeup artists in the world, and her videos are some of the most viewed on YouTube, with over 8 million hits.
Lauren was completely self-taught, a lover of makeup and crazy colors (much like myself) and experimenting with them. She’s recently began taking beauty school classes, to ‘brush up on the basics’. Off camera, she is quiet and timid, and admits to having few friends.
I think she came up with a million-dollar idea that has global appeal for women who want to learn how to use makeup. YouTube has recently begun a partnership with its most popular channels, and through this Lauren could potentially bank. Not to mention that her viral popularity has caught the eye of cosmetic brands like MAC, Stila and Barry M Cosmetics, the latter of which has her making videos for their own website, reviewing their products and using them in her tutorials. She is such a personable, humble girl to be such a huge YouTube star-one of the most popular channels in the UK. And myself being of the ‘non-stick-sized’ variety, it is so refreshing to see someone real succeeding in the cosmetics/beauty industry.
I personally want to thank Lauren, not only for setting an example for people afraid of pursuing their dreams, or for being a role model for the real girls out there, proving that you don’t have to look the way movies or magazines tell you to look in order to be happy and/or successful, but most of all, for bringing a little color into the world, and helping others feel beautiful and confident. Girl power, rar!
Waiting for the #72 bus after work today, an ad at the bus stop caught my eye. It was an advertisement for Tru:Blood, a “synthetic blood nourishment beverage”. I was taken aback that there might actually be an alcoholic beverage that catered to freaks like me who have an obsession with interest in vampires. With a tagline like “friends don’t let friends drink friends”, I had to get a closer look. Upon further inspection, I saw that the ad was actually part of a marketing campaign for the new HBO show, True Blood.
Alan Ball, “Six Feet Under” creator, returns to HBO with True Blood, a series based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries books by Charlaine Harris. The show details the fictional co-existence of vampires and humans in a small Louisiana town after Japanese-made synthetic blood – “TruBlood” – becomes available for purchase. Anna Paquin stars as Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress at a diner who falls in love with one of the vampires, Bill Compton, who is played by Stephen Moyer-yeah, I don’t know who that is either. But hey-check out this giant piece of man. He plays Liam. Not that I know who that is, but apparently he’s a tattooed, sex-addicted vampire, so consider me interested.
The show’s premiere on September 7th has been prefaced with a viral marketing campaign, based at BloodCopy.com. This has included setting up multiple websites, encoding web addresses into unmarked envelopes mailed to high profile blog writers (I’ll assume my unmarked envelope got lost in the mail), a wikipedia entry collating info, and even a MySpace account (username: “Blood”) complete with video postings.
Author Harris admits that her vampire is a metaphor for minorities, and how they are perceived in society. In the show, vampires have decided to ‘come out of the coffin’ (their terminology, not mine), upon the advent of TruBlood. This is where the show seems be different from other vampire shows and movies-the focus is not on becoming a vampire, but the integration of vampires into everyday society, and the distrust and racism (mortalism?) that inevitably follows.
So…I’m pretty sure the marketing campaign is going to end up being more interesting than the actual show. Although I did learn a new word researching the show: Fangbangers–women who sleep with vampires. Loves it!
Eh, I’ll still watch it, I’m sure. But if it’s super lame, I’m gonna be pissed that it got picked up, and a second season of Moonlight didn’t.
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This video just reminded me to change my party affiliation back to Independent (I registered Democrat only for the Primary). I think joining either team guarantees that you are rolling over to take a corporate sponsored dildo up the ass. I can’t vote neither so at least I’ll vote for the one who talks about helping the environment, women’s rights and marriage equality; even if they never really do anything about it.
Two great things together. Kittahs and Theremins. These cats are adorable, is Japan getting an especially cute strain of kitties?
To the uninitiated Leon Theremin was almost as important to electronics as Tesla and Edison. Beyond inventing the Theremin which was the first instrument that you didn’t even touch to play, he also invented a few dozen other gizmos that are now the basis of synthesizers and electronic music. Theremin also created the “Buran” eavesdropping system which recorded conversations in French and American embassies by measuring the window glass vibrations using a low power infrared beam from a distance. But really anyone could have done that right?
And he probably invented untold hundreds of spy-sci while working for the KGB.
Lee Spievak lost the tip of his finger to a model airplane’s propellor. His brother just happens to be involved in Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine. So like any good bro he sent him some magical pixie dust made from pig guts (like so many other magical pixie dusts are made from). Within a month the rest of his finger grew back… including his fingerprint.
I’m totally sickened that I’m even writing about this. Then again, I am pretty sick. And quite frankly, after the VaginaCam post, I needed a bit of fluff. Oooh, Miley Cyrus and her jailbait-y goodness! Her poor parents, they seem to be rivaling the Lohans in the “selling out our kids at the risk of their dignity/sanity for a buck” contest. Actually, I don’t think said picture is really worth all the controversy.
Now, the risque ones she took of her and her friends that have been popping up on the internet left and right-those are naughty. In all fairness, what 15 year old girl didn’t take naughty pics with her friends? (or was that just me?) But then again, I wasn’t Disney’s cash cow at the time.
Many people in the public eye felt the need to weigh in on the situation-Bill O’Reilly, Ellen, the ladies from The View…I didn’t give a shit until Stephen Colbert said his piece on it. Oh Stephen Colbert, never again will you win a gem of a role like the closeted history teacher on Strangers With Candy. I miss that show. Best after-school special ever. Anywhoo, this pretty much sums up how I feel about it:
The cliffsnote’s version of Colbert’s viewpoint: Who gives a shit? Am I right? I guess it’s a little hypocritical that I am writing about it, a fault of mine, I admit it. But the poor girl, being a teenager is hard enough without the media scrutinizing every move you make, innocent or otherwise. Oh wait, she’s worth a billion dollars, therefore I am physically unable to have sympathy for her.
Oh yeah, here you go, sickos. You know you want to.
I admit it, I enjoy porn. I don’t buy it, I don’t rent it, I don’t keep a stash of it, but I watch it. I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff. Mostly because one of my former roommates (you know who you are) used to ask us, “Hey wanna see something fucked up…” And whether we wanted to or not, our curiosity would get the better of us and we would watch. And what would usually follow would indeed be very fucked up depending on how JAPANESE or GERMAN it was. The kind of thing that you wish you could CNTL + Z and UNDO out of your brain. What is it about the axis powers anyway that makes their porn so crazy now? Is it maybe that after seeing the Holocaust and Atomic Bombs that everything else is completely tame and harmless in comparison? Well it seems that it has taken the British to trump them both with THIS EXCERPT from “A Girl’s Guide to 21st Century Sex” where apparently when thinking outside of the box they did the opposite. I warn you now, THIS VIDEO is Very Educational and VERY NSFW.
Its sad that using these words is going to spike my daily visitors. I’ll throw in another one for good measure, Bukakke. Good luck erasing this from your brain, suckers.
Take 7 minutes out of your day and watch this adorable shit.
There’s no pride in the world like watching your 4-year old drop in like a big boy. That’s it-my kids are gonna have a guitar in one hand and a skateboard in the other. Straight outta the womb. Screw that. They can use my uterus as a half pipe.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about what kind of parent I might be. Kinda weird, but my brother Jason just had his 4th, and my brother T.C. is about to have his 1st, so yeah, it’s on my mind a little more than usual. But that’s all, I have no clock ticking in my head or my fallopian tubes or anything. For a long time, I didn’t think I wanted kids. Now I think I only do in that vain “I wanna see a little version of myself running around someday” type of way.
I myself was kinda force-fed a lot of extracurricular activities starting in grade school. It could be pretty awful at times, but I also think I’m kinda better off for it. So I don’t know what kind of parent I’d be. Mine did a pretty good job, but then again, they had like 8 chances to practice getting it right before they got around to me. I’m actually pretty lucky that I have my parents to use as an example, a lot of people I know have at least one parent who are an example of how NOT to parent.
So here’s what I want in life:
-I want people to have to complete and pass an IQ test before being allowed to breed. (That kid is BACK on the escalator!)
-I want to be the ‘cool mom’, the one that all the neighborhood kids like and treat more like a friend than a parent, the one that some of the other parents are maybe a little freaked out by.
I know I’ve been quite the useless author these days, but between working, moving/unpacking/building Ikea furniture and being sick, this is all I got. But it made me giggle, so here you go.
Only in this video is Hillary able to fuck Obama, here in the real world, its the other way around. Just the thought of 2 bitter rivals going at it is pretty hot though, right? All of that anger and tension from over a year of arguing, debating, lying and ass-kissing wiped clean in a few quick thrusts. (Thats how I roll) Maybe it would inspire other enemies to put down their guns and turn out the lights. Why be fighting when we could be fucking? I think we need to get Israel and Palestine together with an empty warehouse full of Ecstasy. It should all fall into place after that.
I’d heard about it before but it took a co-worker to show me this creepy shit. After playing around with it for the better part of 10 minutes it was concluded that with enough activity she should hurl. (thats right I used the term hurl, it’s a Wayne’s World reference, wanna deal with it?) I think she should have a prehensile tongue that comes out and eats your cursor froggie-style.
To me, this is an anti-marijuana ad just waiting to happen. “Don’t do drugs kids, or you’ll be reduced to THIS!”
Jesus visited me in the night and left chocolate eggs in Zero’s litter box. So here is my easter treat to you! A photo from 2005 from when AliUptown and I found a bunch of Zyklon-Bunnies behind an army reserve building. They had all died within 10 feet of each other and didn’t have a mark on them. We fear now that they were victims of CIA waterboarding. Hey Jesus, when will it end?
Turns out this friendly face was Lauren Luke, who has been putting these videos up online for over a year now. Lauren (panacea81), 26-year-old mother of one, got tired of her job and decided to do something she loved. She started selling cosmetics and makeup brushes on eBay, and instead of putting pictures of the say, mango-orange eyeshadow, she took pictures of herself wearing said eyeshadow. Then she began to get requests for tutorials. Her videos became more and more popular, and she soon began getting requests on how to look like Leona Lewis in her new music video, or say, Britney Spears in the video for Toxic. Now she’s one of the most well-known makeup artists in the world, and her videos are some of the most viewed on YouTube, with over 8 million hits.
