The Oscars, Siri, and What It Means to Applaud

If you somehow missed it, the 2017 Oscars were a mess. A blessing for thinkpieces, memes, and Moonlight but, still, a mess. La La Land producers gave full speeches. Moonlight barely got to celebrate on stage, with director Barry Jenkins only able to make a few short statements instead of the speech he planned to make. But, even, with Moonlight’s glorious win, not all the Oscars handed out were seen as quite so well-deserved. Manchester by the Sea’s Casey Affleck, who has been accused of sexual harassment by numerous female coworkers, took home the statue for Best Actor. Cosmopolitan weighed in on what it means to reward actors like Affleck.It’s no secret Donald Trump and the press do not get along. Only recently, the White House blocked news outlets such as CNN and The New York Times from a press briefing. It should come as no surprise then, that Trump will be the first president in 36 years not to attend the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which honors journalists as well as drawing a crowd of celebrity guests. Will Alec Baldwin show up in his place?When the media influences so much of how we view and reflect on Trump, it is easy to lose sight of opinions outside of the press. Take this tweet from entrepreneur and former member of the Obama administration, Brendan Friedman, where he does a comparison of Twitter reactions to Trump’s “Navy SEAL moment” during his first address to Congress. On the left are tweets from people in the media. On the right are tweets from veterans. The stark contrast is worth a closer look. The New York Times examined Trump’s obsession with applause during this same moment, in which the audience gave a standing ovation to the widow of a fallen Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen.A Wall Street Journal op-ed looks at why all our personal tech assistants are female. Is it time Siri, Cortana, and Alexa had some company? Why do they need a gender at all? Are we all going to end up like Joaquin Phoenix in Her?Kellyanne Conway loves alternative facts. So she must be great at spinning some of literature’s worst anti-heros, right? The New Yorker imagines her take on everything from The Great Gatsby to Moby-Dick. Her thoughts on Gatsby: “Regarding his tax returns, the American people clearly do not care about them, so Mr. Gatsby will not be releasing those…Also, Mr. Gatsby has many beautiful shirts. Why doesn’t the press talk about his many beautiful shirts?” Images via and via