These BFFs agreed to watch porn together. It got awkward.
BuzzFeed Video / Via youtube.com
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Showing posts with label BuzzFeed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BuzzFeed. Show all posts
Monday, April 27, 2015
9 Times Tumblr Understood Canadians And Their Love Affair With Maple Syrup
Sweet, sweet love.
When even a Canadian fully accepted how Canadian they were.
Tumblr / Via itsstuckyinmyhead.tumblr.com
When they pointed out that their money LITERALLY smells like maple syrup.
Tumblr / Via itsstuckyinmyhead.tumblr.com
When they hypothesized about the syrup-pocalypse.
Tumblr / Via itsstuckyinmyhead.tumblr.com
When they enlightened the Internet to an unimaginable crime.
Tumblr / Via unfriendable.hollywood.com
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Monday, April 20, 2015
17 Snapchats All Uni Students Have Sent
Snapchat + alcohol = bad decisions.
When you'd rather have money for alcohol than clean sheets.
Nick Wray for BuzzFeed
Or decent meals, for that matter.
Nick Wray for BuzzFeed
When you ask your friends the big questions in life:
Nick Wray for BuzzFeed
When you finally take a look at your assessment tasks for the semester.
Tahlia Pritchard for BuzzFeed
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Meet The Twentysomething Party Promoters Revolutionizing The Concert Business
Like many concert promoters, Sascha Guttfreund, 25, has a gift for managing egos. His job is catering to young rappers, mostly — J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Big Sean, Chance the Rapper; stars of the genre still hurtling toward a peak — but his schmooze mode doesn’t have an off switch. In mid-March, inside an uncharitably small black Kia on a warm Wednesday in Austin, Guttfreund, who is about 6'3" and built like a college linebacker, indulged a chatty Uber driver who happened to overhear what he does for a living. “What’s the deal with Iggy Azalea canceling her North American tour?” asked the driver, a self-described Slacker Radio junkie with Costanza-pattern baldness and a five-o’clock shadow. For reasons unknown, he used the exaggerated vocal inflections of a drive-time radio DJ. “Why is Lil Wayne suing Birdman for millions of dollars?” he asked later, as a follow-up.
Guttfreund parried both questions with admirable sincerity, offering up a number of reasonable and informed theories as if a better use for his time had never occurred to him. “You ask great fucking questions, bro,” he said with gusto. That’s another thing you learn quickly about Guttfreund. He calls everyone — even people he has just met — “bro” or “brother.” To interact with him is to be unwittingly adopted into an ever-extending family.
Guttfreund lives in Austin with his business partner (and, for the last three years, romantic one) Claire Bogle, also 25, with whom he owns a house near the city’s idyllic Barton Creek. Together, they own 100% of ScoreMore, a boutique promotions company that operates in markets across Texas and Louisiana. In the world of concert tours, promoters are like matchmakers, pairing artists of differing scales with suitable venues in a given market. A good promoter knows the ins and outs of her market better than an agent or manager parachuting in from out of town, and maintains smooth relationships with a variety of desirable venues. As touring has remained one of the few consistently growing sectors of the music industry in the 21st century, promoting has become a crucial and lucrative business. The world’s largest promotions company, Live Nation Entertainment, which creates tours for A-listers like U2, Madonna, and Lil Wayne, raked in $4.7 billion in concert revenue just last year.
If Live Nation is Chipotle, ScoreMore is like an over-performing taco truck. The six-year-old company, founded before either Guttfreund or Bogle could legally enter most clubs, now has seven full-time employees, plus dozens more street-level promoters on contract in each of the cities where it operates. It promotes about 150 shows per year, most in underserved markets at venues with capacities ranging from 100 all the way to 6,000 people, and takes an industry standard 15% cut of ticket sales, plus bar returns, after artist fees and expenses. Since it started in 2009, the company has also launched two festivals — JMBLYA in Dallas and New Braunfels, and Neon Desert in El Paso — and seen 22x revenue growth, bringing in just shy of eight figures last year. Its fast rise, based largely on super-serving markets that bigger companies have overlooked, has made it a paragon of the new decentralized music industry.
Those who have worked with ScoreMore say the keys to its success have been identifying promising talent at an early stage, and going above and beyond to keep its clients happy. It promoted some of J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar’s first shows in the South — before either artist had a record deal — and both have remained loyal to the company, even as they’ve gone from the mixtape circuit to the top of the Billboard 200. “Of all the promoters I deal with across the country,” one hip-hop agent told me, “no one has a better relationship with artists than Sascha and his team.”
Back in the black Kia, Guttfreund and Bogle are discussing a small clan of young women in halter tops and minuscule denim shorts walking along the sidewalk. Each wears an array of colorful plastic wristbands stacked from wrist to elbow as in a ring toss. It’s the middle of SXSW — Austin’s annual 10-day music, film, and interactive conference — and the city is overrun by variously credentialed music lovers and industry flacks hoping to rub shoulders with artists at lavish showcases that run day and night. “They’re trying to get chose,” Bogle concludes dryly.
The chatty driver is taking us to St. Elmo Soundstage on Austin’s south side, about five miles away from the central hub of downtown. Starting tomorrow, it will be the site of the Illmore, ScoreMore’s five-year-old SXSW party thrown in conjunction with the hip-hop blog IllRoots, on which both companies have staked their name. Among hip-hop fans in the know, the Illmore is often discussed in near-mythical terms — a hyper-exclusive after-hours pop-up soiree with a reputation for attracting the who’s who of the genre’s new vanguard. Not officially sanctioned by SXSW, the Illmore is like an underground postscript to the conference, usually stretching from 11 p.m to as late as 6 a.m. Performances at the parties, which are somewhat improvised, are always a strictly protected secret and never announced beforehand. Illmore alumni to date include many of the biggest names in hip-hop and dance music: Lil Wayne, Skrillex, A$AP Rocky, Kendrick Lamar, Steve Aoki, Lil Jon, Big Sean, Diplo, Macklemore, and Kid Cudi.
Since it started in 2011, the Illmore has grown from a passion project into ScoreMore’s most high-profile event of the calendar year — the calling card on which it telegraphs its ambitions and growing cachet. At SXSW, where the world’s biggest brands go to farcical lengths in pursuit of buzz, the Illmore is a genuine phenomenon. On the day before this year’s event, a record 22,000 people have RSVP’d online for a chance to gain entry (compare that to the total number of official registrants to SXSW Music this year: 30,000), with fewer than 1,000 slots available for each of three planned nights. When the official Illmore Twitter account announced guaranteed three-night access, +1, to the first person to get a tattoo of the party’s logo, multiple submissions beamed in within 90 minutes.
En Route to St. Elmo, Guttfreund and Bogle take a call with VFiles, the avant-garde New York fashion boutique and amorphous lifestyle collective, which is hoping to become one of the Illmore’s sponsors this year. A regal blonde in black Audrey Hepburn sunglasses, smoky eyeshadow, and white high-top Vans, Bogle seems more weary than enthused by the call. She leans her head out of the window and smokes compulsively from a vanilla marshmallow vape pen. It’s a cherished vice. Neither she nor Guttfreund drink or take drugs.
Major brands like Beats by Dre, Red Bull, and Bud Light — all jockeying to siphon street cred from a ready-made reservoir — have already signed on to help foot the bill for the Illmore, which, unlike a ScoreMore concert, is invite-only and generates no ticket sales or other revenue. With building costs, security, stage, lights, sound, porta-potties, and insurance, among a long list of other line items, the party costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce.
Guttfreund has a round, boyish face and permanent puffy bags under his eyes that give him the impression of a teenager who missed curfew by six hours. He’s a gleeful negotiator with the useful ability to make you feel like he has nothing but your best interests in mind, even when he’s shutting you down. On the call with VFiles, a representative for the company starts pressing for backstage access in order to film interviews with Illmore guests. Guttfreund’s response is gentle but relentless.
“I just wanna make it clear, Jake,” he says, using the rep’s first name. “The whole reason why the Illmore exists is for artists to get away from everything feeling like a media tent. We’re where they can go without having cameras in their face, so doing interviews and stuff would actually be the opposite of the vibe we’re looking to establish. We’ve gotta be strict when it comes to maintaining the integrity of the vibe.”
After a few moments, Jake seems to have gotten the message. “No, no need to apologize, bro,” Guttfreund tells him.
Claire Bogle and Sascha Guttfreund at the ScoreMore office in Austin.
Photo by Drew Anthony Smith for BuzzFeed News
In 2007, Guttfreund was a freshman at the University of Texas with no particular ambitions in the music industry. He majored in communications and paid his tuition by selling ads in newspapers, or cable door-to-door, or working as a waiter in a ranch-themed steakhouse. He had a reputation around campus for throwing parties — a skill that mostly served to support his fondness for illicit substances, especially weed, and alcohol, with which he first became acquainted at 15. Hip-hop was a passion. “It was conducive to the lifestyle I was living,” he says now. And in 2008 he decided to try his hand at throwing shows, instead of parties, for which he could sell tickets to students like himself. One of the first was with Afroman, a one-hit wonder whose 2000 song “Because I Got High” has had an enduring appeal among stoners.
Bogle, a New Mexico native who grew up preferring Tupac to bows and barbies, came on board shortly after the Afroman show. At the time, she was taking music business classes at Austin Community College and met Guttfreund through his roommate. ScoreMore grew by recruiting an army of like-minded students who were as proficient at selling tickets on Facebook and Twitter as they were on the street.
A half white, half El Salvadorian son of filmmakers from L.A., Guttfreund found that he could gain the trust of his favorite developing rappers by leveling with them, rather than posturing. Instead of promising more money than other promoters, he promised a better experience, and an opportunity to take their music to new horizons. It helped that he was a true believer — an enthusiastic champion and ally — and Wiz Khalifa and Wale signed up with ScoreMore early on. “I never pretended to be something I’m not,” Guttfreund says. “I’m not a gangster or anything, just a kid who loves the culture.”
It wasn’t all smooth sailing. Even as the business was taking off, partying as an occupational hazard was taking a toll. At 20, Guttfreund’s drinking had begun to consume him, and in three separate incidents in February 2009 he was arrested on campus, woke up in a hospital, and came to in his apartment missing his two front teeth — with a gash in his jaw — and no memory of what had happened to him. After a few false starts, he got sober in October of that year. “I just couldn’t live my life that way anymore,” he says now. Bogle, whose father was an alcoholic, followed two years later. She was 22.
“I was really good at getting fucked up and I wasn’t happy,” she says. “I used drugs and alcohol to escape life, rather than enhance it. I didn’t like the person I was. So yes, going sober was a choice, but it was a choice I knew that I had to make. It was, Do you want to be happy? Or not?”
Turning down a desolate, tree-lined road off the highway, we finally arrive at St. Elmo, a sprawling, hangar-like compound with metal siding in an anonymous, grey-blue business park at the end of a long driveway. Compared to the bustle of downtown or the east side, the location is utterly remote — the kind of place where Walter White from Breaking Bad might set up a clandestine meth lab. Guttfreund, cell phone still on his ear, gives me the grand tour.
The first Illmore was in 2011 and took place at a modernist glass and concrete mansion in Rollingwood, a well-manicured sliver of Austin’s hilly west side. Guttfreund and Bogle teamed up with Mike Waxx, then an 18-year-old blogging prodigy who had launched IllRoots four years prior, to rent out the house as a sort of crash pad for their mutual industry friends visiting from L.A. and New York. The living room and backyard pool were converted into ad hoc performance areas, and Mac Miller, Big Sean, The Cool Kids, Khalifa, and Kid Cudi stopped by as both performers and guests. If SXSW had become a circus with brands and media herding artists at the crack of a whip, the Illmore was conceived as the opposite — an off-the-grid no-spin zone where performers and their publics could have organic interactions. “It’s where artists can be fans,” Guttfreund likes to say.
The inaugural Illmore was a smash — and then some. Several days of partying left the mansion nearly destroyed, resulting in $30,000 worth of damage that the undergraduate organizers struggled for months to repay. The dilemma has shaped their thinking ever since: how to arrange for the ingredients of any great party — spontaneity, atmosphere, and a lack of inhibition — in a way that’s sustainable rather than self-destructive?
Last year was the first time the Illmore didn’t take place at a house, descending instead on the Millennium Youth Entertainment Complex, a 55,000-square-foot events center with a bowling alley and a skating rink. The extra space solved the event’s ballooning capacity needs, but many complained that the magic of the old house parties — the all-important “vibe” factor — had been lost in the expansion. During his performance that year, A$AP Rocky felt compelled to raise the ghost of Illmores past, addressing the crowd to challenge the palpable sentiment that the party just “ain’t the same.”
Though he’s reluctant to admit it, Guttfreund knows that the pressure on this year’s Illmore is higher than it’s ever been. He can’t have a repeat of last year, which he acknowledges may have been too big and felt too much like a traditional concert. More than a party, the Illmore is a critical forum for fortifying relationships with existing clients, and a demo tape that helps drum up new ones. A flop would be an embarrassing and costly ding to his reputation. In the music industry, any misstep can turn today’s wunderkind into yesterday’s news.
Sascha Guttfreund at the ScoreMore office in Austin, TX.
Photo by Drew Anthony Smith for BuzzFeed News
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41 Things That Taste Like Every British Person's Childhood
Or: “41 Reasons You Have So Many Fillings Now”.
Billy Bear Ham
Mr Freeze Ice Poles
Pink Wafers
Wagon Wheels
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62 Unbreakable Rules All Dubliners Live By
Never, ever make eye contact on the LUAS red line.
Getty Images / BuzzFeed
1. Never, ever make eye contact with anyone on the LUAS red line.
2. And always allow for unexpected delays on the DART.
3. You're never too old to drink cans at the Pav.
4. It doesn't actually matter whether you went to Trinity or not.
5. You'll be in town about 5 minutes before bumping into someone you know.
6. Especially if it's someone you're actively trying to avoid.
7. Going for "a jar" is never just one.
8. St Stephen's Green is lovely, but Merrion Square is quieter.
9. And Iveagh Gardens is the nicest park of all.
10. Temple Bar after dark is never a good idea.
11. Because only bleedin' thicks pay €7.45 for a pint.
12. Saying "thirty three and a third" is the key to any tourist's heart.
13. As is being able to direct them to the Book of Kells.
14. Dublin Bus drivers can be brutal at times.
15. But they can also be the soundest people you'll ever meet.
16. Although you'll never cash their stupid change refund receipts.
17. Pop down restaurants are the new pop ups.
18. Tacos are the new burritos.
19. And Dublin 8 is the new Dublin 7.
20.Burdock's > Beschoff's.
21. When the sun comes out, you should make a beeline for the patch of concrete outside Keogh's immediately.
22. A cone from Teddy's is worth trekking to Dun Laoghaire for.
23. And the vista from Killiney Hill is worth the hike.
24. Going into town on Paddy's Day, however, is a waste of time.
25. You get a better view of the parade on telly, anyway.
26. A toastie from Grogan's always hits the spot.
27. And the beat place to sit is outside, with a pint of plain.
28. It's your only man.
29. Moore Street is the best spot to buy fruit.
30. And the flower sellers on Grafton Street will always give you a good deal.
31. Henry Street at Christmas is where you'll find the best designer knockoffs.
32. It's always a good day when you see Pat Ingoldsby.
33. Don't pay water charges.
34. Do pay water charges.
35. Freshly toasting hops is the scent of the city.
36. So is the Liffey stink on a hot, summer's day.
37. You never need an excuse to start singing Olé Olé Olé.
38. The Nitelink is where many a good romance started.
39. Everyone has a Bono story.
40. Bono is a pox.
41. If you see him in the wild, you must never approach him.
42. Same goes for Glen Hansard. Don't give them the satisfaction.
43. December 8th is the worst day to go shopping.
44. The best view of Croke Park is from Hill 16.
45. A snackbox from Supermac's in Heuston is the perfect train fuel.
46. Coddle shouldn't be delicious, but it really is.
47. So is gur cake.
48. And we'll have a one 'n' one, if you're going to the chipper.
49. Nothing good ever comes of ending up in Coppers.
50. Or Leggs, for that matter.
51. And Johnnie Fox's is only okay if you're bringing tourists.
52. Let's all just call The Point, The Point.
53. Got a problem with that? Ask me bollix.
54. Foreign exchange students completely clog up the city from May to September.
55. Scarleh for them.
56. No, scarlet for their mas for havin' them.
57. Every movie is better in the Savoy's Screen One.
58. The National Gallery is the perfect place to spend a rainy Saturday.
59. The Natural History Museum and IMMA aren't bad either.
60. Nobody really knows where the relics of St Valentine are. But they're around here somewhere.
61. When the sun shines, Dublin the most beautiful city in the world.
62. But it's pretty nice the other 364 days of the year too.
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What’s Going On Around The World Today?
HERE ARE THE TOP STORIES
As many as 700 migrants may have drowned after a Mediterranean shipwreck yesterday. The boat capsized, with many trapped behind locked doors, just off the Libyan coast in what could be the Mediterranean’s worst migrant disaster ever, according to The Guardian. Many of the passengers were refugees seeking to reach Europe to flee ongoing or worsening wars in their home countries. If confirmed, Sunday’s accident means at least 1,500 migrants have died so far in 2015 while en route to Europe, a figure much higher than that of the same period last year, which was also a record year. Sunday’s accident follows a similar accident last week in which 400 others drowned.
Migrants board a ship as they leave the island of Lampedusa, Southern Italy, to be transferred in Porto Empedocle, Sicily, on Friday.
Francesco Malavolta / AP
And a little extra. “A big reason the journey is becoming deadlier is that no one has stepped in to properly replace Mare Nostrum, an Italian coast guard operation for migrants that ended last year,” BuzzFeed News’ Shyamantha Asokan writes. A smaller European-led operation called Triton has replaced it, but doesn’t have the same capacity. Some European countries fear that setting up a big rescue operation would encourage migrants to take on a risky journey, and hence they were reluctant to help Italy with Mare Nostrum or set up a full replacement, Human Rights Watch’s Judith Sunderland tells BuzzFeed News.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called for a meeting of European Union leaders this week. “This is a European tragedy,” Renzi told reporters Sunday. If you want more, we recommend this comprehensive briefing from The Guardian, which outlines the key issues of Europe’s worsening migrant crisis.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi gives a press conference focused on the shipwreck of migrants last night off the Libyan coast, on Sunday in Rome.
Tiziana Fabi / AFP / Getty Images
WE’RE KEEPING AN EYE ON
More than 300 people were arrested in South Africa in connection to the wave of violence targeting immigrants from other parts of the African content — evoking the violence that erupted in the country’s apartheid history, BBC News reports. The Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, also issued a warning to those involved in the violence, which has killed at least six people in the past two weeks, and promised legal retaliation. On Sunday, South African President Jacob Zuma canceled a state visit to Indonesia to focus on alleviating the tensions in the county. Zuma has indicated that he will work to allow immigrants to stay in the country peacefully.
What’s next? The xenophobic violence in South Africa has caused backlash from neighboring countries. Nigerian officials are pressuring South African companies to stop operations in Nigeria, while protests are being held at South African embassies across the continent. In response to the backlash, the South African government hastily called a meeting with ambassadors from other African countries to assure them that their concerns about the security of their people were taken seriously. Many from outside South Africa remain skeptical, given the country’s history with apartheid, according to The Guardian.
A man holds up a sign as South African President Jacob Zuma addresses a temporary refugee camp in Chatsworth on Saturday during a visit marked by hostile reaction of foreign nationals chanting 'Go home, go home' and 'too late, too late'.
Rajesh Jantilal / AFP / Getty Images
ISIS may have carried out its first major attack in Afghanistan. On Saturday, a suicide bomber killed 33 people and injured more than 100 others in Jalalabad, a city in eastern Afghanistan. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has said ISIS claimed responsibility. If that’s verified, it would mark the militant group’s first “significant step in its expansions into South Asia,”according to Reuters. The Taliban has also strongly denounced the attack, BuzzFeed News’ Felipe Araujo writes.
What’s next? The Taliban may be an important element in ISIS’ attempts to become a prominent force in Afghanistan. ISIS could benefit from Taliban in-fighting, according to Borhan Osman, an analyst who studies the country. “[ISIS] has not built a solid, actual political presence in Afghanistan so far,” Osman told The Guardian, “but if the Taliban quasi-monopoly is broken, that will help [ISIS] to build networks and their brand.”
DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS?
Today is the Boston Marathon and about one million fans are expected to be cheering on the sidelines. About 30,000 people will run the 26.2-mile course, making this year’s marathon the third-largest in the event’s history, according to CBS Boston. Jurors in the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial were told not to attend the marathon ahead of the sentencing phase, which will kick off tomorrow, to avoid anything that could influence their emotions on the case, according to CNN.
Nearly every examiner in the FBI’s forensic unit gave exaggerated testimonies during trials conducted before 2000, the FBI and the Justice Department have formally acknowledged. The admissions come as the government conducts an on-going review of wrongful conviction cases — 32 of which involve defendants sentenced to death. It highlights the decades of failure by American courts to prevent false scientific information from influencing jurors, according to the Washington Post.
Meet Hoda: a 20-year-old woman from Alabama who ran away to Syria and joined ISIS. BuzzFeed News’ Ellie Hall was able to track her down on the internet and interviewed her over Kik, the messaging app, to find out why an American college student would become an ISIS member, bride, and now, a widow. “Life has much more meaning when u know why ur here,” Hoda told Hall.
Via Twitter: @yallahAlJannahh
A huge company in the lucrative but little-known privatized foster care industry has closed its Illinois operations after a scathing government investigation found a “culture of incompetency” at the firm. The investigators found that the company, National Mentor Holdings, did not care for its children adequately and recommended the state stop dealings with the company. A company spokesperson has denied these claims, and insisted the company’s closure in Illinois had nothing to do with the investigation.
The Federal Trade Commission wants to hear what the public has to say about the so-called “sharing economy.” Through a workshop to be held in June, the agency will gather information and solicit public opinions about the business models of companies like Airbnb and Uber, which it will use to inform future regulations and reports on the industry. It’s the latest sign that the regulators are taking on-demand tech companies more seriously as part of the economy — and as a potential threat to consumer and labor rights.
Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / Getty Images
There’s an app that lets doctors share and discuss graphic photos of their patients — and allows the public to gawk at them. Many experts say that the app, called Figure 1, raises substantial legal and ethical risks, particularly since a tenth of its users are non-healthcare professionals, BuzzFeed News’ Virginia Hughes writes. But Figure 1’s founders maintain that the app is a strong educational tool for the medical community. (Be warned: the post contains graphic images.)
Quick things to know:
-
Afghan courts are failing women who are victims of domestic violence, a U.N. report finds (BuzzFeed News)
-
Oklahoma says it will now use nitrogen gas as a backup method of execution (BuzzFeed News)
-
Researchers can now identify online trolls from normal internet users based on just five posts (Quartz)
-
Norway will be the first country to turn off FM radio in 2017 to complete its transition to digital radio (Gizmodo)
-
Photos show Kim Jong Un after climbing North Korea’s highest peak but the authenticity of the claim is doubtful (And a BuzzFeed News bonus: Make your own Kim Jong Un caption!)
HAPPY MONDAY
It’s been a tough start to the week, but here’s something to keep your chin up: An 8-year-old boy in Durham, North Carolina, got a big surprise last week when his father, Corporal James Bass, returned from a year-long deployment in Kuwait and photobombed his school picture. The boy, Joshua, didn’t quite understand what was going on at first — until he was given a tip to turn around. *wipes tear off cheek* Wonderful.
via abc11.com
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25 Times Gilbert Blythe From "Anne Of Green Gables" Melted Your Heart
Jonathan Crombie died last week at the age of 48, but as Gilbert Blythe in Anne of Green Gables he gave us many memorable moments.
When Gilbert first met Anne and was clearly delighted.
CBC
And was so impressed when she and Diana beat him in a three-legged race that he GAVE HER THIS ADORABLE WINK.
CBC
When Anne sat near him in class and he couldn't take his eyes off her.
CBC
And then he GAVE HER ANOTHER WINK when she looked his way.
CBC
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Gone Girl: An Interview With An American In ISIS
In her first tweet from Syria, “Umm Jihad” uploaded a picture of four passports — American, Canadian, U.K., and Australian — being held by hands garbed in the black gloves worn by the most conservative Muslim women. “Bonfire soon, no need for these anymore, alhamdulliah [thanks be to God],” she captioned the image. Now that they were living under the Islamic State, no other nationality mattered.
Using her account @ZumarulJannah, which has now been suspended, Umm Jihad expressed contempt for the United States. “Soooo many Aussies and Brits here,” she tweeted. “But where are the Americans, wake up u cowards.” If other American ISIS supporters couldn’t make it to Syria, she said, “Terrorize the kuffar [derogatory term for non-Muslims] at home.”
“Americans wake up!” she tweeted on March 19. “Men and women altogether. You have much to do while you live under our greatest enemy, enough of your sleeping! Go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood, or rent a big truck and drive all over them. Veterans, Patriot, Memorial etc Day parades..go on drive by’s + spill all of their blood or rent a big truck n drive all over them. Kill them.”
BuzzFeed News has confirmed this anti-American ISIS member is a 20-year-old American citizen named Hoda who ran away from her home in Hoover, Alabama, in November to become an ISIS member, bride, and, now, widow.
After BuzzFeed News identified Hoda and found her family, she agreed to give a series of exclusive interviews from Raqqah, Syria, over the messaging app Kik, on the condition that no images of her uncovered face would be published.
The family requested BuzzFeed News not use Hoda’s last name, or the names of her mother or siblings due to concerns about their safety. In addition to the Kik conversations with Hoda, BuzzFeed News spoke at length to her father, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Mohammed.
A naturalized U.S. citizen who fled Yemen with his wife more than 20 years ago, Mohammed watched from across an ocean as his country descended into civil war. As each of his five children was born, far away from falling bombs and tribal violence, he thanked God for their lives in the United States.
Mohammed never imagined that his youngest daughter would grow to hate the country that had given the family refuge, or that she would run away from home to a battlefield in the Middle East.
Driving through Hoover, located roughly 20 minutes outside of Birmingham, Alabama, it’s impossible not to notice the yellow and red flags attached to every other light pole and signpost. “Hoover: Voted Top 30,” they display. “Out of 550 cities, Hoover ranked in the Top 30 as one of the Best Places To Live in the US.”
The suburb has a significant Muslim population and three mosques. Locals say this is due to the town’s proximity to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, or UAB, a school that attracts students from around the world through international recruitment and education programs, some of which are in Middle Eastern countries. Hoda studied business here before she left for Syria.
At the heart of the community is the 25-year-old Birmingham Islamic Society, which has on its homepage “An Open Letter Condemning ISIS Ideology” and “Our stand Against Terrorism.” Citing the Qur'an, the society states in no uncertain terms that they and their members oppose ISIS and, in the 23-page letter, lays out all of the ways that ISIS has violated the tenets of Islam.
Each week, two police officers are dispatched to direct traffic in the overflowing parking lot of the town’s central mosque for Friday prayers. At the service on the first Friday of April, the imam delivered a sermon about how parents are responsible for guiding their children and leading by example.
Hoda’s father, a deeply religious man, said he cannot understand how he failed to do this with his youngest daughter, and guilt weighs heavily upon him. “I want to apologize for what my daughter did,” he said.
Mohammed is a compact man, with wispy graying hair and haunted eyes behind glasses that filled with tears throughout the interview. He speaks English with a heavy accent and a slight tremor, due more to his emotional state than his command of the language.
The father of five said the only reason he agreed to talk to BuzzFeed News is because he hopes that by sharing his family’s story, it will save another family from losing a child to ISIS.
“I believe she been brainwashed,” Mohammed said, when first asked about his youngest daughter. “She’s not that kind of girl. They brainwashed her.”
“Everyone’s parents or family members says that about those who have come here,” Hoda said of her father’s accusation. “To that I say, 'Fear Allah, fear Allah with what you accuse us of.'”
Mohammed said that he and his wife permanently moved to the United States from Yemen before their first child was born in 1992. All of his children were born in the United States, Mohammed said, and all the members of his family are American citizens. Like many in the Hoover community, the women in his family dress modestly and wear the hijab whenever they leave their home.
Many people, including Hoda during her Kik exchanges, described her parents as “very strict,” a fact that Mohammed does not dispute. “I'm sure that every family controls their kids like I do, and like I did to Hoda,” He said. “But [ISIS] found somehow, some way to go through.”
Ellie V. Hall / BuzzFeed News
Mohammed was the person who gave Hoda the device that would ultimately let ISIS supporters get through to his daughter — her smartphone. Hoda received hers in May 2013 after graduating from Hoover High School. Mohammed explained that his children did not have phones until after graduation.“Their present from me is a cell phone,” he said.
The use of the phone, however, was limited by the family’s conservative rules. “When [Hoda] get a cell phone, she went on it like any teenager happy with a phone, and she opened Facebook and I saw some of her pictures, herself, and I told her, ‘No, that's not acceptable,’” he said. Although Hoda’s brothers and Mohammed himself have Facebook accounts — with pictures of themselves visible — the women of the family were not to have social media accounts or use messaging apps to communicate with anyone besides family members.
To enforce this, Mohammed would often check his daughter’s phone. When Hoda would object, claiming that everything on her phone was hers, and private, Mohammed said he would respond, “Yeah, you're private but I am a father; I need to know what you do.”
“When I get the phone from her,” he said, “Sometimes she scared, and I thought, What do you have?”
What Hoda had on her phone, Mohammed said, were Islamic apps. “Nothing but hadiths, Qur'an, suras. Nothing suspicious that makes me worried about her actions. Nothing.” If anything, he and his wife were concerned that Hoda might be secretly talking to boys.
Although she had been a practicing Muslim all her life, over the year and a half before she left for Syria, she had visibly become more devout, due, in part, she said, to scholars and interpretations of Islam she found on the internet.
“I started getting interested in my deen [religious life] around 2012,” Hoda said on Kik of her religious awakening. “I felt like my life was so bland without it. Life has much more meaning when u know why ur here.”
She explained that she started watching scholars lecture about Islam on YouTube.
These internet scholars influenced her faith more than her local religious influences, according to Hoda. “I didn’t like my Islamic community far too much.”
Hoda’s newfound dedication to her faith was a source of pride to her father, particularly her commitment to memorizing the Qur'an. Mohammed said that she would write out the words of the holy book in English and Arabic to help her memorize, filling many books. He was particularly proud, he said, when Hoda memorized one of the most important chapters of the Qur'an, Surat Al-Kahf, which tells the story of the societal backlash against the first adopters of Islam, who were forced to flee their homes and seek shelter in a cave. According to Muslim teaching, people who recite this surat on Friday will be forgiven their sins until the next Friday.
Mohammed said that he had no idea that her devotion would lead her to ISIS. “When I heard her memorizing one of the biggest suras — Surat Al-Kahf — I was comfortable because she’s a true Muslim, disciplined, but I didn’t know she’s going to go that far. Honestly. Nobody knows.”
Hoda said that her parents saw her change over time as she deepened her faith. “I dressed and behaved more modestly,” she said. “It helped me with my temper and made me a better person overall. They liked the change until they saw me getting ‘jihadi.’”
Unbeknownst to her father until after she ran away, Hoda’s “jihadi” evolution was both influenced by and supported by social media. In the fall of 2013, she secretly set up a Twitter account and, over time, gained thousands of followers. Online, she “met” known ISIS members and supporters, like Aqsa Mahmood, who ran away from her home in Scotland to join the militant group. She would post religious and activist posts freely, under many different usernames, among them @AhlulDhikr and @ZumarulJannah.
A former classmate and casual friend of Hoda’s was one of her few followers who actually knew her in real life. The woman, who wears the hijab and is an active member of the Birmingham Islamic Society and UAB’s Muslim Student Association, asked not to be named because she did not want to be associated with Hoda’s actions. She said that Hoda was “very different” on Twitter than she was in person.
“She was kind of an activist, but it didn't show in person,” she said. “She would post really controversial issues on Twitter, sometimes, or like, religious issues.“ Hoda’s friend said that she was confused by this change. “You would never have thought that she was anything other than a quiet, shy girl,” she said.
According to her friend, Hoda portrayed herself on social media to be more religious than she actually was. “It was like a different personality,” her friend said. One example she gave was the fact that Hoda claimed online that she had only worn the modest robe-like dresses called jilbābs and abayas in public since the eighth grade. “But like, she would only wear pants,” she said. (Hoda said that she never claimed to have dressed modestly from such a young age and struggled with her dress until "late 2013.")
Hoda's friend said she guessed Hoda lied because she had gained thousands of followers by tweeting in this conservative, religious persona. “I really think that her Twitter was her alter ego,” she said. “What she lacked in her personality she would make up for on Twitter.”
Increasingly, Hoda’s alter ego supported radical interpretations of Islam. “She posted a lot of really weird things” that were “radical” and “religious extremist,” her friend said. “Things that aren’t average Muslim women views.”
Hoda would tweet about the stupidity of nationalities and nationalist identity, her friend said, or “call out” other Muslim women for not wearing the hijab “properly,” stating that all Muslim women should wear the niqab, a conservative covering that shows only a woman’s eyes.
As soon as BuzzFeed News started asking the friend about Hoda’s Twitter account, she guessed that Hoda had left to join ISIS. “I just kind of expected it from her,” she said.
Hoda’s classmates and her father both described her as someone who didn’t have any friends in real life. According to her, this was a conscious choice on her part.
“I literally isolated myself from all my friends and community members the last year I was in America,” she said, explaining that she didn’t want to associate with anyone who didn’t share her interpretation of Islam, an interpretation that she said demanded every Muslim move to ISIS-controlled territory. “As I grew closer to my deen, I lost all my friends, I found none in my community that desired to tread the path I was striving for.”
Hoda told BuzzFeed News that she had been planning to move to Syria since November 2013. “People are nice [in Hoover] but they’re all about the dunya (the material world), which I didn’t like,” she said.
Hoda said that her parents weren’t entirely in the dark about what their daughter’s newfound religious interest might lead to. “They didn’t know I was leaving, but they had an idea,” Hoda said. “They’d see news reports about girls who have made it [to Syria] and say things like, ‘Hoda would probably do that.’’’
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21 Things Every True Comrade Will Appreciate
Memes are the opium of the people.
This revelation.
This refreshing drink.
This video that clearly needs to happen.
"Marxism-Leaninism"
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Taylor Swift's Mum Presented Her With An Award And Gave A Moving Speech After Cancer Diagnosis
“For many years I was her constant companion, and I witnessed a young girl with very few friends become a young woman with many.”
Sunday night, Taylor Swift received the Milestone Award at the American Country Music Awards.
Ethan Miller / Getty
Taylor announced the news via her Tumblr, telling fans that Andrea wanted her news to be made public in order to potentially help other families. She said:
"She wanted you to know because your parents may be too busy juggling everything they've got going on to go to the doctor, and maybe you reminding them to go get checked for cancer could possibly lead to an early diagnosis and an easier battle."
Cooper Neill / Getty
She said:
"I've watched this milestone artist from the time she was a tangled-haired little girl growing up on our farm, full of imagination and creativity until right now, as she prepares for her next world tour, and ever since then, her favorite thing in the world to do has been to write a song, tell a story, play a guitar, or piano, and I've seen those things carry her through every emotion, every experience in her life, good or bad. Now, every once in a while her dad, her brother or I find ourselves to be the subjects of those songs. Sometimes we're merely the inspiration. Like the time she was 17 years old, and her dad and I strongly disapproved of a certain young man, and rightfully so. But she was mad. She was real mad, and she went to her room, and she closed the door, and she came out about an hour later with a song called "Love Story.'"
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26 People Who Failed So Hard At Tinder They Almost Won
In an alternate universe, these people are killing it.
This Tinder user who played off their match's name.
This punslinger who was way off target.
Life tip: Dressing up as a taco duck won't get you many dates.
Neither will being a truck.*
*Travis is not a truck.
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19 Struggles Only "Game Of Thrones" Fans Understand
I got 99 problems, and Twitter spoilers are one.
Being attracted and simultaneously repulsed by certain (unnamed) characters on the show...
I... no, I can't, but... OK, you win, you gorgeously terrifying man beast.
HBO
Deciding whether to eat before or during the show, based on the amount of violence you *think* you'll see in the episode.
Oh, Gregor Clegane is in this episode? ::: puts pizza slice down :::
HBO
Being filled with rage when a beloved character dies, but also loving the show so damn much.
All men must die, but... THIS MAN?!
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Wanting to use Game of Thrones phrases IRL, but also not wanting to sound like a crazy person.
HBO
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Start Lifting Weights With This Dumbbell Arms Workout
Warning: Side effects include a sudden urge to flex in front of every mirror you see.
Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed
Dumbbell Floor Press
Lower the weights slowly, let your elbows rest on the floor for one second, and then press up explosively.
Do 10 to 12 reps.
Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed
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Justin Timberlake Just Posted The First Picture Of His Baby And He's Adorable
No, seriously, he’s beyond cute.
Justin Timberlake's baby just made his social media debut with mother Jessica Biel and unsurprisingly, he's ADORABLE.
LOOK AT THOSE BEAUTIFUL EYES.
After welcoming their bundle of joy into the world this April, the married couple named their baby boy Silas Randall Timberlake.
Belly love.
We're over the moon for you both.
True love <3.
Keep being great with your ridiculously beautiful family.
Justin + Jessica forever.
50 mn Inside / Via laineygossip.com
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16: Mackensie Is Pulling Out Her Hair
Every morning, Mackensie fills in her eyebrows with eyeliner — the beginning and end of her daily makeup routine. It’s uncomplicated. Usually, it’s enough. But on this late Saturday afternoon, she’s gone unexpectedly HAM in a makeup store.
She tears polishes from a wall, painting every nail a different color. She angles to see herself in the corner of a mirror, wielding a flat Q-tip soaked in black liquid. After eyeliner, bronzer. After bronzer — two shades too dark — red, red lipstick.
“I look so different,” she says, gleeful and skittish.
The Lenox Square Mall Sephora can inspire this sort of behavior in the uninitiated. Mackensie explains that her trips there are usually limited to a few minutes, tagging along with people who know exactly what they want. She’s never actually tried stuff on.
“You could literally come here and do your whole makeup for your wedding!” she says. “I hope we don’t run into anyone I know.”
Suddenly she’s done. She looks at the mirror again, braces flashing, unruly curly hair piled into a bun that covers slivers of her bare scalp. She laughs, raising a pale hand to a much darker cheek. She does look different. She decides that feels good.
We visit two malls over two days, and Mackensie adores them both: the pristine tile, the organization, the food courts. Inside stores, she walks with one arm outstretched. She flattens her hands against Vera Bradley bags, drops Claire’s rings onto her small fingers. At Macy’s she clutches tops with phrases on them, reading each one out loud: “‘I’m actually really smart.’ That describes me! ... ‘To bae or nah to bae.’ I hate the word bae.” A boatneck shirt in purple ombre printed with two faded palm trees is “so Tumblr.” She says her ideal style is “schoolgirl chic.”
But the thing is, Mackensie never buys or even tries on anything. She hates spending money. When not bound to her school’s navy-polo, gray-skirt uniform, she wears old souvenir T-shirts with denim or stretchy black pants and sneakers. Her winter jacket is pink fleece. The mall never appeals to her functionally — it’s just a bounty of stuff to see and touch and imagine herself wearing.
Photo by Bryan Meltz for BuzzFeed News
When she was in fifth grade, Mackensie began pulling the hair from her eyebrows. They were thick, and she was self-conscious, so she used her fingers to thin them out. The summer before sixth grade, she began pulling from her scalp. A large bald spot formed on the back of her head, so over winter break, her dad cut off all of her hair. She started wearing a wig. By now — 10th grade — Mackensie’s wild, wiry curls have grown back, and she uses her bun or a hairpiece to hide her bald spots.
According to the national Trichotillomania Learning Center, 2-5% of the general public have the hair-pulling disorder. It’s a BFRB, or body-focused repetitive behavior. Another BFRB is skin-picking, which many people with trichotillomania — and 5% of the general public — also do.
Trichotillomania — trich (pronounced “trick”), for short — is listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but according to the TLC, the five criteria associated with the official diagnosis don’t always present themselves in every person with trich. You can feel pleasure or relief while pulling (one criteria), but not necessarily tension before you begin pulling (another criteria). Some don’t realize they’re pulling until another person points it out, or, as the TLC explains, until “he/she discovers of pile of hair, scratches on the skin, open scabs or bleeding fingers.” Examining the damage after a pull is often part of the process, which can mean anything from twirling a loose strand of hair around a finger, to, for some, tasting or swallowing it.
Some people with trichotillomania identify their behavior as self-harm. But the TLC says pulling isn’t like cutting — though people who suffer from BFRBs, including Mackensie, do often suffer from anxiety or depression, too.
While trich typically emerges in people between the ages of 11 and 13, experts have found that more women began pulling in puberty than men. This imbalance continues into adulthood, with women making up 80-90% of reported cases. A widely held theory is that men just don’t report trich as often as women — that shaving their heads can easily minimize the problem.
"It's an interesting question we talk about all the time," says Leslie Lee, TLC's program manager. "Because these are 'women's issues,' right? Hair and skin. I got an email the other day from a 22-year-old man who said, 'Do I have a women's problem?’”
When Mackensie pulls, she’s “looking for a coarse hair, kind of,” she says. “I don’t think it feels good necessarily ... Some people are like, ‘Oh, I love the feeling.’ I guess I do, but I started pulling from the wig too, so I guess just the feeling of getting rid of a hair, then playing with it and feeling it, which I really like.”
She’s tried different “fiddle toys” — like Koosh balls — but she says nothing provides her the same relief. She’s gone through four therapists, including her current beloved one, whom she sees once every other week. She’s tried hypnosis. She can’t recall all the drugs she’s been prescribed — among them Prozac and Naltrexone, often prescribed to recovering drug addicts or alcoholics. These methods and medications have helped others curb their trich, but Mackensie says she’s never been “pull-free” for more than two weeks.
Photo by Bryan Meltz for BuzzFeed News
Mackensie doesn’t have a job or an allowance, but she does make money. From September to January, she says, she collected about $200 through the Buckhead Exchange, a Facebook group for buying and selling in her affluent Atlanta neighborhood. There’s a group for teens, but Mackensie spends most of her time in the group for moms, who buy the childhood clothes and toys and books she lists for sale. She’s also obsessed with getting free products and gift cards and subscriptions through sites like icravefreebies.com — recently, she accidentally subscribed her white Jewish family to Essence.
Mackensie isn’t particularly interested in sports or the arts. Her short-lived stints in band playing the French horn and trumpet are spoken of with mock horror by her mom, who recalls spending one recital in the audience slunk low in her seat, hand over her eyes. But Mackensie has found her extracurricular joy as the varsity football mascot. She’s a lion, packing all her 5-foot enthusiasm into an overheated costume.
But the thing Mackensie really loves, more than malls and freebies and mascotting — miles ahead, in fact — is, and of course it is: One Direction.
On display in Mackensie’s room are three life-size cutouts of 1D members and north of 60 posters on her walls. She has One Direction–branded bracelets, books, Barbie dolls and figurines, socks (which she won’t wear because they’ll get dirty), pillowcases (which she won’t use because they might get lost or ruined in the wash), first-row ticket stubs, wrapping paper, balloons, and temporary tattoos. The worst question you could ask her is which member of 1D is her least favorite. Instead, she’ll diplomatically put them in order: Harry, Niall, Louis, and Liam. (Zayn was fifth even before he left the band.) Her love for them is unconditional and earnest.
“Sometimes I'll be pulling, and I'll think, Harry wouldn’t want you to do this, so I’ll stop for a few minutes,” she says. “A lot of people don’t understand that. I usually keep it to myself or tell my therapist. They’ve helped me a lot and that’s why I like them so much. My goal in life is to meet them and thank them. I know this sounds totally weird, but I want Harry to kiss my bald spot or something. I’m like, that’ll help me stop pulling.”
Taped to her bedside table is a list she made of reasons she doesn’t want trich, with entries like “eyebrow makeup sucks” and “hair piece is annoying.” But also: “Harry would be proud (heart emoji).”
“I have a theory,” Mackensie says about the reminders. “Once you've had trich for a long time, you get so far and deep into it that it's, like, taken over you — you feel like there's no help and that nothing you can do will help it. And you get brainwashed, in a way, into thinking that you like having it and that you don’t want to stop. So I'm kind of in that hole right now.”
Photo by Bryan Meltz for BuzzFeed News
To know Mackensie is to know she loves attention. She’ll remind you of this, too, whenever she says something particularly spotlight-hungry (like “I love the spotlight"). It's simple: Attention, she says, makes her happy, and she's channeled that into a one-woman trichotillomania-awareness campaign.
Last fall, she emailed several media organizations, including BuzzFeed, introducing herself as a 15-year-old from Atlanta. It worked; over the next four months, Mackensie appeared on the websites of MTV, Gurl, and Cosmopolitan, and in J-14's iconic congested pages, talking about her experiences with trich.
On Twitter, Mackensie routinely tweets at reporters and searches for the word "trichotillomania," sending strangers who tweet about their disorder links to TLC's website and stories about her. She urged the combined 5,600 followers of her One Direction fan Twitter and Instagram accounts to buy the J-14 that featured her. She doubles these efforts on her Facebook page. She used to have a Tumblr, until the mother of a girl at her school saw it and contacted the school. It was “just a hipster Tumblr” with about 3,100 followers, Mackensie says — she learned basic HTML so she could customize her page. But there was also an “about me” section that described trich and her past experiences with depression and cutting. The title of the blog was Sugar-Coated Whore.
The school contacted Mackensie's mom, who made Mackensie shut it down. "She didn't know it was that bad," Mackensie says. "I was really upset. It was good to let out my feelings, because I learned through the trich community that it's good to share your story."
That's not to say Mackensie's family isn't supportive — their two-story brick home in Buckhead is warm and silly, particularly when Mackensie's younger sister, 13-year-old Reagan, is around. It's just that raising a kid with trich has been hard. What do you do when your fifth-grader comes home with no eyebrows because she tore them all out?
"As a parent, I was literally like, I want to die," Mackensie's mom, Faryl, says, driving to pick Mackensie up from school one day.
Faryl is an accountant. Mackensie's father, Kevin, is an ophthalmologist. When Mackensie began pulling, they understood it was a medical issue — not all parents do. That didn't make it any easier; this wasn't a rough two-week adjustment period. When Mackensie relapsed in seventh grade, pulling out every last eyebrow hair, her parents rushed home early from one of Reagan’s soccer games. For a long time, Faryl says, she and Kevin would wake up in the morning thinking, "Another shitty day!" They became the self-described hair police, busting into Mackensie’s room to see if she was pulling, telling her to put a hat or gloves on.
"That's the worst thing to do, but you can't help it,” Faryl says.
Cutting off her hair entirely was a big, messy decision — Kevin and Mackensie were on board, but Faryl was resistant. It ended up being a turning point, though. It helped them get past the shock — to realize Mackensie could only stop on her own.
"You feel bad about it,” Faryl says. “But it was just easier to look at."
Photo by Bryan Meltz for BuzzFeed News
The social event of the year for freshmen and sophomores at the tony Lovett School in Atlanta is the pre-debutante cotillion, or PDC, a version of Sadie Hawkins with upper-crust rules. Before girls can invite boys, they must first be invited by a hosting committee. There is a required manners class — for girls only. If a girl wants to attend as a sophomore, she has to have attended as a freshman. This year, Mackensie went with a football player; she asked him with a note written on a $1 football from Target.
Mackensie's classmates have known about her trichotillomania since the sixth grade, when Mackensie gave her blessing to the PE teacher to explain the disorder to the class. She isn't ostracized for it; open bullying isn’t tolerated at Lovett. But that doesn't mean Lovett is paradise, socially. Once last year, the administration called an emergency assembly after Yik Yak — an anonymous social network, incidentally co-founded by a Lovett alum — had been flooded with vile messages about students and faculty members.
"Everyone says Lovett isn't cliquey, but it is," Mackensie says.
Photo courtesy of Mackensie
"Lovett is SO cliquey," her friend Josephine chimes in. It's Friday night, and the girls are out to dinner at Flip, a burger bar that calls itself a boutique. Josephine is outspoken like Mackensie, but in a more grown-up way — where Mackensie has unfiltered enthusiasm, Josephine plays it cool. Mackensie says she doesn't spend much time thinking about her generation, while Josephine can go off about Vine and people her age not being able to carry on conversations with adults. Their worlds within school are different, too. Mackensie worries most about keeping up good grades. Josephine worries most about being able to stand up for herself.
"Like, if someone disagrees with or a good amount of people disagree with you, being able to not give in just to be like them and to have their acceptance,” Josephine explains. “A lot of my guy friends drink, and I don't want to.”
"I'm, like, out of the loop," Mackensie says. "I didn't even know that was going on."
"Oh, yeah. Silly boy stuff," Josephine replies. She has a boyfriend who she's gone to two PDC dances with now. Mackensie says she doesn't like anyone right now — and she's fine with that. Her PDC date was just a friend; she spent slow dances asking what he thought of the Spanish exam.
Before leaving the restaurant, they pose for a photo that will later become one of the thousands Mackensie has uploaded to Facebook. It’s been hard for Mackensie to find a group of friends in high school. She knows she tends to over-apply the term "best friend."
"A best friend invites you over to places,” she explains. “I don't really get invited places much."
Photo by Bryan Meltz for BuzzFeed News
Mackensie has a new psychiatrist — Dr. Eric Fier, an animated, comradely doctor with an exceptionally hip office in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward. During Mackensie’s second appointment, the doctor spends about an hour alone with her before bringing in Faryl. All together now, they talk about whether there have been any obvious differences in Mackensie’s pulling.
“As Mackensie will tell you,” Dr. Fier says, “she's not going to really stop until she makes a commitment to stop … And she's not there.”
“You’re not at that point?” Faryl turns to Mackensie.
“I don’t know!” Mackensie says.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Dr. Fier asks.
Mackensie goes into her theory about trich and brainwashing.
“So, she has a relationship with trich,” Dr. Fier says, facing Faryl now. “Trich really is a relationship. It's like any addiction, whether it's drinking, whether it's coming home and smoking some weed, whether it's pulling your hair when you're stressed out. And like many relationships, you know, it's got certain elements about it that, even though you know we're not going to stay together forever — this isn't really a good long-term relationship, I'm not sure that I like myself most when I’m in this relationship — it still sometimes feels pretty good, and it is pretty familiar, and the thought of stepping out of this relationship and just trying to see who I am without being in this relationship is a little bit scary.
“I have this conversation with kids all day long,” Dr. Fier continues. “I asked Mackensie straight out, ‘At what point in time, what day, what month, what year, what age, do you think you're ready to stop trichin'?’ She said, ‘I'm not sure yet.’”
“[My therapist] and I are working on that, trying to get to that feeling,” Mackensie says.
The focus of their work, the doctor says, should be getting her anxiety down, but also nudging Mackensie out of her familiar world, building her confidence through new friendships and interests outside trich.
“I just don't want you to think that what stands between her and stopping trich is magic or anything. Mackensie is what stands between Mackensie and stopping trich.”
Later, in the waiting room while her mom schedules her next appointment, Mackensie admits this stressed her out.
“I don’t really want to do new things,” she says, solemnly — unusual for her. “I’m happy where I am. I just don’t want it to influence my parents so that they completely change, like, how they do everything.”
Photo by Bryan Meltz for BuzzFeed News
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