Vox - Culturehttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2024-03-28T16:25:00-04:00https://www.vox.com/rss/culture/index.xml2024-03-28T16:25:00-04:002024-03-28T16:25:00-04:00The Bachelor has a notorious influencer pipeline — but only for white contestants
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<img alt="Three women, all with serious facial expressions, stand in a row flanked by palm trees. Rachel Nance wears an ultramarine dress, Daisy Kent wears a baby blue dress, and Kelsey Anderson wears a taupe dress." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9zWc3Ln9_sAh7S-FxBdziMEhYrw=/191x0:2852x1996/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73239894/170473_0510.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Bachelor Joey Graziadei’s final three contestants, Rachel Nance, Daisy Kent, and Kelsey Anderson, during the season’s final rose ceremony. | Disney</figcaption>
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<p>Instagram follower counts indicate Bachelor Nation doesn’t care as much about leads and contestants of color. </p> <p id="GLaL7S">The latest season of <em>The Bachelor </em>concluded with an emotional proposal and an exciting announcement: For the first time in the franchise’s more than 20-year history, there will be an <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/24109178/asian-bachelorette-rachel-nance-jenn-tran-joey-graziadei">Asian lead</a>. </p>
<p id="e8r8VO">While 26-year-old Jenn Tran’s coming tenure as the newest Bachelorette made many fans <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/the-bachelor-bachelorette-jen-tran-b2518799.html">happy</a>, the announcement has others <a href="https://www.the-express.com/entertainment/tv/132384/bachelor-maria-georgas-bachelorette-jenn-tran-reaction">downright furious</a> and some feeling anxious. The anxiety about ABC’s decision has been clear online this week. When one <a href="https://twitter.com/bagelsandrice/status/1772458524519363014">X user wrote</a>, “PLEASE PROTECT JENN FROM THE RACI$M of bachelor nation,” almost 5,000 users liked the post, with one replying that they could “<a href="https://twitter.com/anjanakandhan/status/1772460452166946912">already feel it</a>.” </p>
<p id="5rNykr">Why are die-hard fans of the show already concerned about the treatment of the first Asian Bachelorette?</p>
<p id="g0goFf">“The franchise is problematic. We know that,” said Ashley Tabron, who runs the popular <a href="https://www.instagram.com/ashtalksbach/">AshTalksBach</a> Bachelor fan account on <a href="https://www.vox.com/instagram-news" data-source="encore">Instagram</a>. It took the show 15 years to cast its first non-white lead, and <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemcneal/the-bachelor-racism-matt-james-chris-harrison-rachel-lindsay">interviews with</a> <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-bachelor-race-and-racism_n_5f809b0fc5b6e5c31ffde7c0">former Black contestants</a> have long revealed that the show has a race problem. A <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/3/12/22308108/the-bachelor-racism-chris-harrison-rachael-kirkconnell-matt-james">racial reckoning ousted longtime host Chris Harrison</a> three years ago, and just this season, producers were <a href="https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/bachelor-producers-silent-racial-issues-1235906988/">silent on questions</a> about the show’s embedded racism.</p>
<p id="2zFCSl">However, Tabron says that ABC is at least “attempting” to improve <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bachelor-racist-chris-harrison-rachael-kirkconnell-2021-2">casting</a>, story editing, and <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/how-the-bachelor-missed-an-opportunity-for-representation-4136227/">screen time</a> — production elements that have historically <a href="https://www.lx.com/culture/entertainment/5-ways-the-bachelor-completely-screwed-up-its-first-black-storyline/32795/">favored white contestants</a>. But the problem doesn’t end there, as Tabron explains: “It doesn’t seem like the fan base is responding to that.”</p>
<p id="v90AKH">The massive audience known as “Bachelor Nation” is many things, and it’s hard to paint with a broad brush. It’s a machine that’s eager to boost its favorite contestants or quick to tear down an unruly villain — and it’s <a href="https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/bachelor-recount-racist-hateful-messages-left-by-fans-this-has-to-stop-1203519399/">notorious</a> for its <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/the-bachelor-women-tells-all-calls-out-racist-bullying-from-its-fans">overt racism</a>. New data shows that there’s still plenty of reason to believe that Bachelor Nation is overwhelmingly more supportive of and interested in white contestants.</p>
<p id="QVVDbc">Look no further than the contestants’ social media followings.</p>
<p id="uuzsJV">Before we delve into the numbers, it’s important to understand why social media followings mean so much in Bachelor-world: money. </p>
<p id="nty0AZ">“Now that social media for this show has really seen a comeback, the monetization of social media is key,” said Suzana Somers, who runs <a href="https://www.instagram.com/bachelordata/">Bachelor Data</a>, Bachelor Nation’s go-to data analysis platform. </p>
<p id="WgSJCk">Followers <a href="https://www.vox.com/reset/2020/2/24/21145335/the-bachelor-instagram-social-media-influencers-money">translate into career and financial opportunities</a> for contestants, allowing them to create promotional content for major brands and develop online personas that help them launch their own products and projects. An <a href="https://www.vox.com/influencers" data-source="encore">influencer</a> marketing agency <a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/03/9522674/the-bachelor-contestants-social-media-influencers">estimated in 2020</a> that Bachelor influencers with more than a million followers can earn around $10,000 for a single sponsored Instagram post or story and between $500,000 and $1 million in a year. Bachelor influencers with about half a million followers can bring in an estimated $20,000 to $50,000 per month, the firm found. </p>
<p id="yJEUhw">As much as viewers want to believe contestants go on the show simply to find love — the so-called “right reason” — aspirations of online influence and notoriety are major motivations for contestants. In turn, their hard work and more importantly brand partnerships keep the franchise’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/internet-culture" data-source="encore">fandom</a> alive online. </p>
<p id="Zu8r28">“When a contestant hits a certain milestone, follower-wise,” said Somers, “it can become a very big financial opportunity for them.”</p>
<p id="TeiMZS">Previous Bachelorettes and contestants have been able to unlock high follower counts and opportunities. JoJo Fletcher, a contestant on the 20th season of <em>The Bachelor </em>in 2016 and the lead on the 12th season of <em>The Bachelorette</em> that same year, has 2.6 million followers on Instagram and hosts regular product giveaways through partnerships with home furniture brand Abbyson Home and others. She’s also founded a spirits company, launched home decor and clothing lines, hosted a <a href="https://www.vox.com/reality-tv" data-source="encore">reality TV</a> show for the USA Network, and partnered with brands such as recipe platform Yummly and Walmart. Season 23 contestant and former 2019 bachelorette Hannah Brown boasts 2.7 million followers on Instagram, and has erected an empire with a <em>Dancing with the Stars</em> season win, New York Times bestselling books, a podcast, and recent sponsorship deals with beverage company Flying Embers, cheese brand Athenos, and pharma giant AstraZeneca. </p>
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<img alt="A man in a gray suit and an Asian woman with long, wavy black hair wearing a green satin gown sit opposite one another. A studio audience is visible behind them." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/055lSJLmYoRjGocuImvClG5wex0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25360310/Jenn_Tran.jpg">
<cite>Disney/John Fleenor</cite>
<figcaption>Bachelorette Jenn Tran speaks to host Jesse Palmer at the “The Women Tell All.”</figcaption>
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<p id="B84eA1">Follower count is directly correlated to a contestant’s screen time and the nature of the screen time they receive. More screen time means a greater chance of being known to viewers, although a negative storyline usually hurts follower count (but can sometimes help). Ultimately, though, follower counts reveal who the fan base is excited about. “We fall in love with these contestants when they’re on the show. And when we follow them, we want insights into their lives. We want to live with them,” said Somers. “This is the purpose of reality TV, for us to live in somebody else’s life and experience their stories and find a way to relate.” </p>
<p id="OpM7a1">“Instagram follower counts aren’t everything, but they give us a sense of whose stories we are invested in and whose stories we want to continue to follow,” said Tabron. </p>
<p id="Doul2w">Data across seasons, collected in real time by Somers, supports the idea that Bachelor Nation is not as interested in following contestants of color online. </p>
<p id="JNN9bS">Somers noticed the racial trend when she first began collecting data during Colton Underwood’s 2019 season of <em>The Bachelor</em>. Contestant Tayshia Adams, who is Black and would go on to become the franchise’s second Black lead in 2020 after Rachel Lindsay in 2017, did not gain the kind of following that white contestants on the season did. </p>
<p id="KsUrhc">“The trend was that if you got a one-on-one date, that would translate to more followers. But that didn’t hold with Tayshia,” Somers said. “Even with someone as beautiful and amazing as Tayshia, if you are white, you are going to get more followers than if you are not white.”</p>
<p id="T7KkjI">Though Tayshia has now built her Instagram following to 1.4 million (the only Black lead to have more than 1 million followers), it’s important to view her growth in comparison to her white counterparts in real time. During Colton’s season, the final four women were Cassie Randolph, Hannah Godwin, Caelynn Miller-Keyes, and Tayshia; all three white women had follower counts that fell between about 500,000 and 700,000, while Tayshia had less than 100,000. </p>
<p id="E96RWY">“You will not find a season where a person of color contestant is ahead of all the other white contestants, even if they’re [finalists],” said Somers.</p>
<p id="CdRySx">Some viewers have <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C33lQ3mPEVc/?img_index=1">tried to argue</a> that the contestants and leads of color don’t have as many followers because they’re “boring” or simply not doing enough to grow their audiences. But this is the double-edged sword faced by many women of color on reality TV, including shows like<em> </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2024/3/16/24102420/love-is-blind-netflix-black-women"><em>Love Is Blind</em></a>: be boring or risk being bad for everyone. “As women of color, they have to navigate more when they’re onscreen,” said Tabron. “There are all kinds of stereotypes they’re fighting because they aren’t just representing themselves but their entire communities. They have to be more conscious of how they’re being portrayed.” </p>
<p id="zGHNse">Somers crunched the numbers on Instagram follower counts for the season 28 cast of <em>The Bachelor </em>and found record-setting engagement, challenging the narrative that the “<a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/estelletang/bachelor-influencers-social-media">Bachelor-to-influencer pipeline is dead</a>.” Leading contestants on the latest season surpassed 500,000 followers on Instagram while the show was still airing, a new feat. Still, the social media gains have mostly been shared by the season’s white contestants.</p>
<p id="f6Azq0">This season, Daisy Kent, a crowd favorite runner-up from Becker, Minnesota, became the first to surpass 500,000 followers, and now hovers at around 747,000 days after her hot-seat interview during the finale. Maria Georgas, who gained a cult following for standing up to bullies on the show, is now at 593,000. Winner Kelsey Anderson shot up to 550,000 Instagram followers days after the finale. These numbers are groundbreaking, according to Somers. </p>
<p id="hAWlRI">But contestants of color haven’t fared the same. Though Asian contestants broke barriers in their own right this season when it came to social media and representation on the show, Bachelor fandom isn’t recognizing them with follows — an extension of what Black contestants have experienced since being made leads. </p>
<p id="AOhHU6">Following the finale, Jenn Tran has the fourth-highest number of followers — 164,000 — although she only crossed the 100,000 mark after being announced the Bachelorette. Rachel Nance, one of Joey’s final three contestants who was sent home after the coveted overnight date, is of Filipino and African American descent and has around 90,000 followers days after the finale. On “The Women Tell All” episode, which aired on March 18, Nance opened up about <a href="https://people.com/the-bachelor-rachel-nance-regrets-addressing-racist-bachelor-messages-women-tell-all-exclusive-8610540">receiving racist messages</a> from fans online. </p>
<p id="J4ayJB">Jenn and Rachel’s stunted online growth somewhat mirrors Charity Lawson’s, the franchise’s fourth Black Bachelorette, who despite leading season 27 and making it to the finals of <em>Dancing with the Stars</em>, has fewer than 300,000 followers. </p>
<p id="SIgXJb">These numbers show race is still the elephant in the room for Bachelor Nation. </p>
<p id="b4j1QH">“The leads and contestants of color do so much on their platforms after the show,” said Tabron. “Charity, she’s done so much. Anybody else that would have done what she’s done that wasn’t Black would have a million followers. The only difference is race.”</p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/24114801/the-bachelor-race-problem-influencer-pipelineFabiola Cineas2024-03-28T15:45:00-04:002024-03-28T15:45:00-04:00Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter asks: Who does country belong to?
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<img alt="Beyoncé sitting a white horse, wearing a red, white, and blue Western outfit with a sash reading Cowboy Carter and holding an American flag." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SLwBVqTvs5y2n_UnRd65vYVLOKc=/0x0:1158x869/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73239777/Screenshot_2024_03_28_at_11.21.53_AM.0.png" />
<figcaption>The cover image of Beyoncé’s <em>Cowboy Carter.</em> | Beyoncé/Blair Cardwell via Instagram</figcaption>
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<p>Her new album seems to have roots in her reception at the 2016 CMA Awards, but the country music establishment can’t stop Beyoncé.</p> <p id="KRKIK1">In the lead-up to Friday’s release of <em>Cowboy Carter</em>, Beyoncé gave us a small tidbit about its inspiration. She <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C4s6Zr7rlwA/">wrote on Instagram</a> that the album was “over five years in the making” and “born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t.” Without naming said experience outright, she added, “I did a deeper dive into the history of country music and studied our rich musical archive.”</p>
<p id="XTMT3I">Following the breadcrumbs Bey dropped — an event from more than five years ago, country music, not feeling accepted — led many to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/11/4/13521928/beyonce-cma-awards-controversy-deleted-performance">2016 Country Music Association Awards</a>. There, Beyoncé joined the Chicks for a surprise performance of “Daddy Lessons.”</p>
<div id="abHrcX"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Jj1T7uHdBcY?rel=0" style="top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; border: 0;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" allow="accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share;"></iframe></div></div>
<p id="mtbQZb">To date, it was one of the most <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLB1h-qIS8c">significant performances</a> in CMA history, <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/beyonce-dixie-chicks-cma-awards-website-social-media-7565538/">yet it can’t be found</a> on the CMA’s official channels. That may be the result of a wave of racist and sexist backlash targeting the CMAs for allowing Beyoncé to take their stage. At the time, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/arts/music/beyonce-cma-awards-backlash.html">CMAs said</a> the lack of video was at Beyoncé’s discretion. </p>
<p id="ASY4uy">Why the backlash? It seemed a vocal contingent of fans believed Beyoncé — a Black woman unafraid to share her politics — isn’t what country music is.</p>
<p id="fo9kf0">With Beyoncé poised to reenter the genre with <em>Cowboy Carter</em> this week, it raises some existential questions. What is country music? What should it represent? Who does it belong to? Who gets to make the rules?</p>
<p id="nlZIEC">And perhaps the most pertinent question of all: Is Beyoncé going to change all of that?</p>
<h3 id="erxUGL">Why the CMAs could have inspired <em>Cowboy Carter</em>
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<p id="NZqF4j">The key message in Beyoncé’s Instagram post is that she didn’t feel welcome and it was clear she wasn’t. Given her status, fame, and talent, the many A-list events that welcome her — the <a href="https://www.vox.com/oscars" data-source="encore">Oscars</a>, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/grammy-awards" data-source="encore">Grammys</a>, the MTV Music Video Awards — absolutely overshadow any that wouldn’t. It could easily be argued that Beyoncé is bigger than the CMA Awards themselves.</p>
<p id="aKFPhz">But there’s something deeper here.</p>
<p id="Rxkggn">The CMAs both present and crystallize the identity of country music, as Alice Randall, a Black country songwriter and professor at Vanderbilt University explains to Vox. New stars are born, legends are honored, and legacies are cemented. In front of the genre’s elite, the CMAs determine what is — and, conversely, what isn’t — country music by whom they honor and what performances they spotlight. The backlash Beyoncé has faced is actually part of a larger story about the <a href="https://time.com/6694806/beyonce-country-music/">omission and erasure</a> of Black artists within country music.</p>
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<img alt="Beyoncé, wearing braids and naked except for a sash reading “act ii BEYINCÉ,” holds a smoking cigar." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aQ-1LNGfkwcUKy9VV8lbmG5_ri4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25359528/Screenshot_2024_03_28_at_11.22.26_AM.png">
<cite>Beyoncé/Blair Cardwell via Instagram</cite>
<figcaption>An alternate cover of Beyoncé’s <em>Cowboy Carter</em>.</figcaption>
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<p id="Ekj69t">“I was at the 20th anniversary of the Country Music Association, and it was an absolute turning point for me, because they talked about country music always being a family,” says Randall. “XXX’s and OOO’s,” which Randall cowrote, went to <a href="https://www.countryuniverse.net/2022/03/08/every-1-single-of-the-nineties-trisha-yearwood-xxxs-and-ooos-an-american-girl/">No. 1</a> on the country charts when Trisha Yearwood released her recording of the song in 1994.</p>
<p id="MpPAzY">“But they only spoke of white people, even though many of the people on the stage that night had their career started by DeFord Bailey, the Opry’s first star. He was completely erased from the story. So this gatekeeping has been going on in different ways, and to the present moment, and often crystallizes around CMA performances,” she added.</p>
<p id="TA4v5q"><em>[Related: </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/11/4/13521928/beyonce-cma-awards-controversy-deleted-performance"><em><strong>Beyoncé, the CMAs, and the fight over country music’s politics, explained</strong></em></a><em>]</em></p>
<p id="gK5mmA">The CMA Awards have the power to define mainstream culture’s perception of country music, of that family. Omitting <a href="https://www.pbs.org/show/deford-bailey-legend-lost-npt/">Bailey</a> sets a tone about what this genre looks like and who gets to be a part of it. Erasing his contributions makes country music’s history seem whiter and more homogenous than it is. What about the contributions of Black artists like <a href="https://amsterdamnews.com/news/2024/03/07/why-black-country-matters-and-not-just-because-of-beyonce/">Lillian Hardin Armstrong</a>,<a href="https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/charley-pride"> Charley Pride</a>, and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/linda-martell-black-country-grand-ole-opry-pioneer-1050432/">Linda Martell</a>? Whitewashing the genre and implicitly making it unwelcome and difficult for Black artists to break through is what Randall refers to as the “cultural redlining” of country music, comparing it to the exclusionary tactic<strong> </strong>by which Black people were <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/12/4/20953282/racism-housing-discrimination-keeanga-yamahtta-taylor">denied housing and mortgages</a> through the 20th century. </p>
<p id="BROsd4">Randall frames Beyoncé’s 2016 performance as a powerful challenge to the status quo of the time, saying that’s why it struck such a nerve: a Black woman on stage with the Chicks (then the Dixie Chicks), who themselves had been <a href="https://ew.com/music/dixie-chicks-blacklisted-ellen-degeneres/">iced out</a> of the genre. “Here was a change they could not control. She was connecting to this audience in such unexpected and powerful ways. I think some people had resistance because it was a power they could not control, had not predicted, and perhaps are not poised to benefit by,” Randall said.</p>
<p id="8MxCbc">Interestingly, since 2016, the CMAs have become more diverse. At the most recent awards in November 2023, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niyJ7JgZOeE">Tracy Chapman made history</a> as the first Black woman to win Song of the Year for “Fast Car,” and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knq-QqsGx3w">K. Michelle was lauded</a> as one of the most exciting artists of the night for her performance of “Love Can Build a Bridge’’ with Jelly Roll. But the show now faces a different criticism: The CMA Awards, and the governing body that organizes them, paint a picture of country music as being <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/09/entertainment/cmas-lainey-wilson-diverse-artists-cec/index.html">more inclusive</a> than the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-11-11/2021-cmas-country-music-mickey-guyton-morgan-wallen">genre actually is</a> today. </p>
<h3 id="JS0b12">Who gets to define country music?</h3>
<p id="KjuwCb">As my colleague Aja Romano pointed out last summer, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23842173/oliver-anthony-rich-men-controversy-morgan-wallen-jason-aldean-small-town-political">right-wing musicians</a> have created some of country’s biggest hits of late. Artists like Morgan Wallen, who infamously <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/news/morgan-wallen-never-make-an-excuse-racial-slur-1235824338/">used the n-word</a>, and Jason Aldean, who made a song that critics say <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/opinion/jason-aldean-try-that-in-a-small-town-worst-country-song-video-column-1235673177/">insinuates lynching</a>, have found a sturdy, loyal audience and chart-topping success. It seems that politically, the genre has been embracing more and more conservative territory.</p>
<p id="1yxKy9">Country music isn’t a monolith, but for artists, it doesn’t exactly pay to be different. </p>
<p id="WNB95u">This was painfully reinforced in the wake of Beyoncé releasing “Texas Hold ’Em” in February of this year, when an Oklahoma radio station <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/14/arts/music/beyonce-oklahoma-radio-station.html">refused to play the song</a> and implied that Beyoncé was not or could not be a country artist.</p>
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<img alt="A red, white, blue, and black graphic shows track names with the text “Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo chitlin’ Circuit, March 29.”" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UdfiL0pnkUS1zopz0F4Z2Al15JQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25359530/Screenshot_2024_03_28_at_11.24.16_AM.png">
<cite>Beyoncé/Instagram</cite>
<figcaption>The track listing for <em>Cowboy Carter</em>.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="mnm7La">Beyoncé coming back to country, and bringing the spotlight and her fans with her, feels less like an exploration of the genre and more like a revolution. Not unlike how <a href="https://www.vox.com/23280445/beyonce-renaissance-house-disco-music"><em>Renaissance</em></a> highlighted the history of people of color helping to create and perpetuate house music, <em>Cowboy Carter </em>offers up the same opportunity for mainstream culture to acknowledge just how much country music owes its sound and history to Black artists.</p>
<p id="6urdCP">Beyoncé is taking up space in a place where she isn’t “supposed” to be — challenging the presumptions of who she is, what music she makes, what country music is, and who gets to make it.</p>
<p id="Aw8ncE">Judging by how unwelcome the genre made her feel in 2016, the right-wing nature of some of its current stars, and the current status quo, that act of resistance is likely going to be met with friction. </p>
<p id="S8imBB">“It’s what I call the metaphorical leash,” says <a href="https://www.uh.edu/class/communication/our-team/faculty/gheni-platenburg/">Gheni Platenburg</a>, a professor at the University of Houston. Platenburg studies race in media, and part of her research has focused on how Black female celebrities and entertainers are portrayed. She tells Vox that across every industry, Black women often find themselves in a trap of sorts where they’re encouraged and even expected to be their authentic selves, but never in a way that threatens the fragility of those in power.</p>
<p id="3OcBQN">“Authenticity is something that we say that we want, but if it goes a bit too far or pushes against the sensibilities of those who were in positions of power, then it’s seen as a problem. And Beyoncé is not the first Black woman to walk this tightrope,” Platenburg notes. She adds that in her and Beyoncé’s native Houston, country and cowboy culture is multicultural.</p>
<p id="6GdDCM">In the sphere of country music, female artists, and Black female artists especially, have found it difficult to ascend to the top of the charts and get plays on country radio. There isn’t just racism, but also inherent sexism within country music’s design.</p>
<p id="HfnXRA">“Country radio has always had a problem with female artists, period. And there’s an idea that the male audience is only listening to male performers. That’s why you are getting so many more of them, because they appeal to a broader audience,” says Randall, the songwriter and professor.</p>
<p id="PGVj2i">The numbers are relative, but Black men have, despite a system that doesn’t work in their favor, made it to the top of the country charts and seen their songs played in a way few Black women have. The likes of <a href="https://apnews.com/music-general-news-17070625c0924cc9b4a2fce665417263">Jimmie Allen</a>, <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/kane-brown-i-can-feel-it-number-1-country-airplay-chart-1235628216/">Kane Brown</a>, and <a href="https://dariusrucker.com/about/">Darius Rucker</a> have held the top spot on Billboard’s country songs chart, but it wasn’t until late February of this year that Bey became the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/arts/music/beyonce-billboard-country-charts.html#:~:text=Beyonc%C3%A9's%20new%20country%20single%20%E2%80%9CTexas,on%20the%20Billboard%20country%20chart.">first Black woman</a> in history to do the same. </p>
<p id="5Usv8C">“And the question is: Who is the audience for Black women?” Randall asks. “Are they willing to see a Black woman as their surrogate?”</p>
<p id="lBLtRU">They should.</p>
<p id="CC6xeP">Country has thematically embraced the ideas of the difficulty of life, family hardships, persevering through self-minded toughness, faith in God, and self-taught rebellion. Wouldn’t an American Black woman be able to speak to those things firsthand? Beyoncé already knows the answer and is ready to show us.</p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/24114603/beyonces-cowboy-carter-cmas-2016-country-music-historyAlex Abad-Santos2024-03-27T16:51:48-04:002024-03-27T16:51:48-04:00We’re long overdue for an Asian lead on The Bachelor franchise
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<figcaption>Jenn Tran, the franchise’s first Asian American lead, will helm the next season. | Disney</figcaption>
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<p>Jenn Tran, a physician assistant student from Miami, has been named the new Bachelorette. </p> <p id="KqtEVe"><em><strong>Editor’s note, March 27, 5 pm ET: </strong></em><em>Jenn Tran has been named the first Asian American Bachelorette in the franchise’s 22-year history. </em></p>
<p id="2awdxL">For the first time in years, <em>The Bachelor</em> franchise had not one, not two, but multiple contestants of Asian descent who were prominent contenders.</p>
<p id="cZTkMy">Historically, there have been a handful of Asian participants who have made it to later rounds in the show. But in most seasons, there are <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/sydney-lotuaco-on-being-the-only-asian-woman-on-the-bachelor/">few — if any — Asian contestants</a> across both <em>The</em> <em>Bachelor</em> and <em>Bachelorette</em>. Those who are cast are often eliminated early, sidelined as supporting characters, or reduced to meek stereotypes. Tammy Ly, a fan favorite from the 24th season, has spoken about how <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/podcasts/here-for-the-right-reasons/tammy-ly-explains-video-about-being-done-with-bachelor-franchise/">she felt “alienated” by the franchise</a> and treated as a secondary character because she didn’t fit a white ideal of beauty. </p>
<p id="R5QdO7"><em>The Bachelor</em> franchise has long <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/3/12/22308108/the-bachelor-racism-chris-harrison-rachael-kirkconnell-matt-james">been critiqued</a> for its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/04/the-bachelor-is-embarrassingly-white/">overwhelmingly white casting</a>, storylines that <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-bachelor-should-be-ashamed-of-what-its-done-to-matt-james">amplify discriminatory tropes</a>, and <a href="https://www.glamour.com/story/garrett-yrigoyen-the-bachelorette">high-profile contestants</a> who’ve made racist statements. In recent seasons, the show has attempted to address these disparities — with mixed results. Notably, ABC cast its first Black Bachelorette, Rachel Lindsay, in 2017, and it has sought to diversify its contestant pool in the years since. As Rachel Lindsay and other contestants have emphasized, however, the changes to casting alone haven’t been sufficient to combat systemic issues the franchise suffers from, onscreen and behind the scenes. </p>
<p id="WBnn1P">The most recent season, its 28th, revealed how <em>The Bachelor</em> still struggles with many of these problems even as it took some small steps forward. In showcasing a diverse group of Asian women, the show introduced new perspectives on everything from growing up in an immigrant household to cultural family traditions, viewpoints that haven’t been highlighted much on its platform. It still fell short, however, in grappling with the discrimination that its contestants of color face and confronting conversations about the need to explicitly call out racism. </p>
<p id="EgsdKa">Five women of Asian descent stayed late into the current season as both popular contenders and villains<strong>.</strong> Notably, a few of these women — Rachel Nance, an ICU nurse from Hawaii, of Filipino and African American descent; and Jenn Tran, a physician assistant student from Florida, of Vietnamese descent — were among the final six contestants, a development that makes it more likely that one of them could get picked as the lead for a following season. (Typically, the show selects its next star based on the women or men who don’t “win” from the prior season.)</p>
<p id="9UX55n">Featuring more Asian contestants on the show — and highlighting them — has not only helped dispel stereotypes, but also enabled portrayals that were more multidimensional and human. Having an Asian lead — a long overdue first for both <em>The Bachelor </em>and<em> The Bachelorette</em> — would bring even more representation to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/reality-tv" data-source="encore">reality TV</a> giant, expand the universe of stories that it tells, and provide new visibility to members of a group that have long been underrepresented in media. </p>
<h3 id="dVjPaT">Telling people’s stories counters stereotypes and humanizes them</h3>
<p id="DXi33x"><em>The Bachelor </em>franchise’s<em> </em>history of quickly dropping candidates of color, <a href="https://screenrant.com/bachelorette-ethan-kang-asian-american-representation-bachelor-lead/">including Asian contestants,</a> is so well-known it has spurred satirical spinoffs like <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/asian-bachelorette-is-back_n_5ba3c84ce4b069d5f9d0ee52">WongFu Production’s “Asian Bachelorette,”</a> in which nearly all the contestants are of Asian descent. </p>
<p id="Lh4HYM">In past seasons, there were usually one or two Asian contestants, though few advanced to later episodes, with Catherine Giudici, Ivan Hall, Caila Quinn, Ethan Kang, and Serena Pitt among the handful of exceptions. </p>
<p id="Qjgqmh">Additionally, if they aren’t eliminated early, contestants of color typically get less screen time than <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/how-the-bachelor-missed-an-opportunity-for-representation-4136227/">white contestants</a>. And when they have appeared, some of their storylines have exacerbated old tropes, including ideas of Asian women as docile or hypersexual. </p>
<p id="IL2Sbn">In season 24 of <em>The Bachelor</em>, for example, Marylynn Sienna is effectively used by <a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/01/10257923/what-did-marylynn-do-victoria-bachelor-fight-racism">a white woman named Victoria Larson</a> to advance her storyline. Larson arbitrarily accuses Marylynn of being “toxic,” forcing her to defend herself in the face of a bully. <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/03/13/470124738/what-would-it-mean-to-have-a-hapa-bachelorette">In Season 10 of <em>The Bachelor</em></a>, a Cambodian American woman named Channy Choch debuted on the show by inviting the lead to have sex with her in Cambodian, later noting that he needed to catch “Cambodian fever.” </p>
<p id="FIHkfC">By putting real time and investment into Asian contestants’ storylines, this season has delivered more nuanced depictions of their experiences and the chance to see more humanized narratives. </p>
<p id="H4JgCZ">Rachel’s hometown date with Bachelor Joey Graziadei, a milestone that takes place near the end of the season when the lead meets a contestant’s family, was a vibrant glimpse of how Filipino and Hawaiian culture have shaped her. Prior to the visit, Rachel informs Joey that he should touch her mother’s hand to his forehead when they meet, a gesture known as <a href="https://opinion.inquirer.net/109755/mano-po-treasures">“Mano po</a>,” which conveys respect. And during the date, Rachel’s family warmly receives him with a roast pig in the backyard and schools him on a Filipino courtship tradition. </p>
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<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@bachelornationabc/video/7342686733139561759" data-video-id="7342686733139561759" data-embed-from="oembed" style="max-width:605px; min-width:325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@bachelornationabc" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@bachelornationabc?refer=embed">@bachelornationabc</a> <p>Joey with the Mano Po </p> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - The Bachelor" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7342686878434380575?refer=embed">♬ original sound - The Bachelor</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async="" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>
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<p id="00haKN">Rachel has also discussed her upbringing in Hawaii as a mixed-race person, offering a perspective that’s rarely been highlighted on the show, and emphasizing how her family has blended different cultures. “Growing up as a mixed girl in Hawaii, there wasn’t many people who looked like me on TV,” <a href="https://people.com/the-bachelor-rachel-nance-regrets-addressing-racist-bachelor-messages-women-tell-all-exclusive-8610540#:~:text=%E2%80%9CGrowing%20up%20as%20a%20mixed,I%20can%20speak%20her%20truth.'">she said in a <em>People</em> interview</a>. “I’m very honored that moving forward, girls can say, ‘Hey, if Rachel can do that, I can do that. If Rachel can speak her truth, I can speak her truth.’”</p>
<p id="qA6Onx">Another moving moment this season centered on Jenn and her description of the trauma she experienced growing up in a dysfunctional household. In one scene, Jenn spoke candidly about the conflict in her immigrant family, prompting what she’s said has been an outpouring from fans who have similar backgrounds. While on a one-on-one date with Joey, Jenn described how her parents often had volatile fights when she was a kid and how her relationship with her father has deteriorated in the years since as a result. </p>
<p id="kkkX9G">“I wanna acknowledge the comments and DMs I’ve been getting from people who say that they can relate to my story and I just want to say that I’m so sorry you can relate,” <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTL2HkRF8/">Jenn said in a TikTok post.</a> “It felt so nice to hear another Viet woman go through the same generational trauma that I went through,” one of the top commenters on the post wrote. </p>
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<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@jenntranx/video/7333040357694835998" data-video-id="7333040357694835998" data-embed-from="oembed" style="max-width:605px; min-width:325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@jenntranx" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@jenntranx?refer=embed">@jenntranx</a> <p>Toxic relationships is something i really want to talk about bc often times we dont know we’re in one bc it creeps up on you but i want everyone to know theyre deserving of love and to not let history repeat itself <a title="toxic" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/toxic?refer=embed">#toxic</a> <a title="toxicrelationship" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/toxicrelationship?refer=embed">#toxicrelationship</a> <a title="emotionalabuse" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/emotionalabuse?refer=embed">#emotionalabuse</a> <a title="abuse" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/abuse?refer=embed">#abuse</a> <a title="relationships" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/relationships?refer=embed">#relationships</a> <a title="relationshipadvice" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/relationshipadvice?refer=embed">#relationshipadvice</a> </p> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - Jenn Tran" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7333040482701888287?refer=embed">♬ original sound - Jenn Tran</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async="" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>
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<p id="1Sg4UM">Both Nance and Tran also received “hot seats,” or special interviews, in the recent “Women Tell All” episode, often a sign ABC is considering them as potential leads. Nance was known on the show for her level-headed energy, commitment to her career, and “slow burn” relationship with Joey, while Tran’s bubbly personality, openness to adventure, and a playful connection were her signature. Both women, who were eliminated in recent weeks, were charismatic contenders and would be compelling future stars. </p>
<p id="tOJjGq">Being able to see an array of Asian women depicted this season was significant as well because it highlighted a wide spectrum of personalities. In addition to Rachel and Jenn, who were portrayed more prominently as frontrunners focused on vying for Joey’s affections, Katelyn DeBacker, a radiochemist from New Mexico of Vietnamese descent, was seen as bringing her quirk and humor to the show, and Madina Alam, a therapist of Bangladeshi descent, was synonymous with her thoughtful and considerate responses to the bizarre drama swirling around her. Lea Cayanan, an account manager from Hawaii who is of Filipino descent, also received what is known in <em>Bachelor </em>parlance as a “villain edit,” in a way barrier-breaking in itself. </p>
<p id="Hb2eQz">After dueling with fellow contestant Maria Georgas — a white executive assistant from Ontario, Canada — Lea became associated with causing drama and coming off as a “mean girl.” While her actions were far from laudable, it was interesting to see an Asian woman embrace the role of the villain after years of other portrayals as submissive sidekicks.<strong> </strong>That said, when you distill that storyline to its essence, she was still used to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/06/asian-women-movies-tv-stereotypes">draw a contrast with a white counterpart</a>, a problematic plot point of its own. </p>
<p id="3nP8wf">It’s uncommon to see Asian women depicted in pop culture in a way that’s more complicated and messy, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/1016968651/never-have-i-ever-complicates-its-asian-american-characters-thats-the-whole-poin">NPR’s Deepa Shivaram</a> previously wrote about Devi, the protagonist of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/netflix" data-source="encore">Netflix</a> show <em>Never Have I Ever. </em></p>
<p id="YhVMvT">Harleen Singh, director of the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, emphasized that representation and the breaking of stereotypes require the chance for people to be their full selves and not just an ideal that’s been set out for them. “It’s ... [the ability] to just be human beings who have errors, who have wants, who are contradictory. Pardon my French, but to f*** up as much as anybody else,” Singh <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/1016968651/never-have-i-ever-complicates-its-asian-american-characters-thats-the-whole-poin">previously told NPR</a>.</p>
<h3 id="i6Mje8">Contestants have also forced discussions about racism</h3>
<p id="SfX83a">Asian contestants have also used their platforms to force conversations about racism that would otherwise be left poorly addressed by a franchise ill-equipped to confront them. </p>
<p id="FDlrn0">One of the early examples of this was tied to a mistake that <em>The Bachelor</em>’s social media accounts made in January, when it <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/bachelor-sparks-controversy-tagging-wrong-194447646.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEB-1yAX4zRR2CfYJMxDT4-56nXcc1i7TcuycNtY2WXT2-ax29auWkxhJAul5LOcW9c9dmjn3o7r0H6wUlrzVBpfS6B1D49PsGfBJ1O56NSGqqRFKOIVeSwmcfozA3EZ_Azt5Par27cjAQZaQYzf8vXdokSAbbbi0J6ZSp8ZwVG2#:~:text=The%20mistake%3A%20In%20an%20Instagram,a%20tennis%20player%20from%20Pennsylvania.">tagged the wrong Asian person</a> in an <a href="https://www.vox.com/instagram-news" data-source="encore">Instagram</a> post. In a photo of Jenn kissing Joey, <em>The Bachelor</em> account instead tagged Lea. That mistake then sparked a discussion about how Asian people <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/bachelor-sparks-controversy-tagging-wrong-194447646.html">have been confused</a> for one another in different settings, including the workplace, and how dehumanizing those errors can be. </p>
<p id="iE6Tks">In response to the mix-up, Jenn posted a <a href="https://www.vox.com/tiktok" data-source="encore">TikTok</a> video sharing an experience of how a nurse she worked with wasn’t able to tell her apart from another Asian staff member, despite having known each other for a year. “The issue at hand is not that you can’t tell me apart from different Asians, it’s the fact that you don’t care,” <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8WvFhfc/">Jenn</a> said in the video. </p>
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<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@jenntranx/video/7330691507822824734" data-video-id="7330691507822824734" data-embed-from="oembed" style="max-width:605px; min-width:325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@jenntranx" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@jenntranx?refer=embed">@jenntranx</a> <p>This is why Asian representation on TV is so important. The lack of exposure directly correlates to the ignorance. I’m not saying everyone is guilty of cultural ignorance but it is disheartening to see how many news articles about me have used pictures of other Asian women who clearly do not look like me. Let’s continue to take accountability, learn from others and lead with love always <a title="culturalignorance" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/culturalignorance?refer=embed">#culturalignorance</a> <a title="diversity" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/diversity?refer=embed">#diversity</a> <a title="asianamerican" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/asianamerican?refer=embed">#asianamerican</a> <a title="asian" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/asian?refer=embed">#asian</a> <a title="culture" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/culture?refer=embed">#culture</a> <a title="vietnamese" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/vietnamese?refer=embed">#vietnamese</a> </p> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - Jenn Tran" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7330691550248602398?refer=embed">♬ original sound - Jenn Tran</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async="" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>
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<p id="7ipwXA">It’s a problem that’s so commonplace that designer Linh-Yen Hoang has released a pithy pin that simply reads, <a href="https://twitter.com/nancywyuen/status/1296135071791906821?lang=en">“Wrong Asian.”</a> And while people often brush off such actions as honest mistakes, they essentially suggest that Asian people are interchangeable, reaffirming tropes that Asian people are a monolithic group devoid of individuality. </p>
<p id="DGqoEv">“Whether the person acted without malice, the effect is the same: It erases my body of work for someone else’s, simply because their ancestors were born on the same continent as mine,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/02/shes-asian-female-shes-not-me/?_pml=1">Washington Post reporter Michelle Ye Hee Lee wrote in 2019</a>. “It tells me that my place in journalism — and that of the other Asian reporter they confused me for — is dispensable, interchangeable and indistinguishable.”</p>
<p id="u4zx3C">Jenn’s and Lea’s perspectives were ultimately invaluable in having a deeper conversation about this mishap and in drawing attention to a widespread issue that some may write off as trivial. “Until we have a world stage and a media platform that is representative of the world we come from and the communities that make it up, I think we will always have a ways to go,” <a href="https://www.tvinsider.com/1121406/the-bachelor-lea-cayanan-responds-reacts-social-media-tagging-jenn-tran-racist/">Lea stated in her response</a>. </p>
<p id="aPePmY">During the “Women Tell All” episode, Rachel also spoke about racism she’s faced from viewers of the show, revealing that people have bombarded her with messages calling her the “N-word” and “jungle Asian.” Many of these attacks came after Rachel was chosen to move forward as one of the final three contestants instead of Maria, who has accrued a large fanbase. </p>
<p id="kFoICm">Rachel’s comments have renewed attention to the racism within the <em>Bachelor </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/internet-culture" data-source="encore">fandom</a> and the harassment that contestants of color, in particular, have faced. </p>
<p id="t9I8NM">That conversation showed, too, how much work the show still needs to do to protect its contestants and to thoughtfully handle the subject. Rather than specifically addressing the racism that Rachel experienced, for instance, host Jesse Palmer quickly pivoted to asking the rest of the cast if they had received “hateful” comments in a follow-up to her remarks. In doing so, he glossed over the specific racism she was experiencing and sought to broaden the focus to more general harassment that the cast of women has faced. </p>
<p id="GafidV">“It is part of my Asian culture to remain quiet, always be respectful, and apologize first. No more,” <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C4sFp9suu-b/?igsh=MzY1NDJmNzMyNQ==">Rachel wrote in an Instagram post.</a> “It is time that we speak up. To all my minorities... speak up and speak loud.” </p>
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<p id="xqKYZO">Whether it’s offering viewers a window into their personalities and upbringings, or vocally condemning enduring racism in the franchise, the contestants of this season have brought new voices to a tired show. Leads on the show, in particular, also send a message about who has agency in these relationships, and who’s deserving of this chance to find love. Casting Rachel or Jenn as the next <em>Bachelorette </em>would be a huge opportunity to keep these conversations going — and reframe that narrative. </p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/24109178/asian-bachelorette-rachel-nance-jenn-tran-joey-graziadeiLi Zhou2024-03-26T14:30:51-04:002024-03-26T14:30:51-04:00The sexual assault and trafficking allegations against Diddy, explained
<figure>
<img alt="Diddy wearing sunglasses and a high-collar leather jacket." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rxYee67sa9toKXbv4XFKmy9SDl8=/0x45:3000x2295/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72981559/GettyImages_1747401006.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Sean “Diddy” Combs, pictured at Howard University in October, was accused of trafficking and rape a month later by singer Cassie in a civil lawsuit that later inspired other women to come forward. | Shareif Ziyadat/Getty Images for Sean “Diddy” Combs</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The accusations are part of a larger reckoning in music — one that some say is long overdue.</p> <p id="JGM2oi">Especially in the 1990s and 2000s, Diddy was a figure of enormous power, not just in hip-hop but in the business and entertainment worlds writ large. In recent months, however, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-rape-lawsuit.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-share">multiple people</a> have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/arts/music/rodney-jones-sean-diddy-combs-lawsuit.html">sued him</a>, saying he used that influence and wealth to sexually victimize and, in some cases, traffic them, while avoiding consequences for decades. </p>
<p id="mtKDFo">On Monday, speculation around the accusations escalated as homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach linked to Diddy were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/arts/music/diddy-sean-combs-home-raided.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-share">raided by federal authorities</a>, who revealed that the raids were linked to an ongoing investigation into <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-25/feds-raid-sean-diddy-combs-homes-in-la-and-miami-as-part-of-sex-trafficking-investigation-sources-say">sex trafficking allegations</a>. </p>
<p id="k5iJ6g">Those allegations first came to light in a series of recent lawsuits, several of which include brutal and disturbing details. Plaintiffs state that Diddy — whose birth name is Sean Combs and who has also publicly gone by Puff Daddy, Puffy, and Love — raped them and, in some cases, trafficked them by coercing them to engage in sex with other men. Together, the cases have redirected public attention toward <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-accusations-legacy.html">longstanding allegations of violence</a> against Combs, leading some brands to cut ties with him and Hulu to <a href="https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/sean-diddy-combs-hulu-reality-show-scrapped-rape-allegations-1235837063/">scrap his upcoming reality show</a>. </p>
<p id="tTI3KB">The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-cassie-rape-lawsuit.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-share">first suit</a>, filed in November 2023 by the singer Cassie, who dated Combs and was signed to his label, alleged that he urged her to have sex with male sex workers while he filmed, and that he later raped her. In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-rape-lawsuit.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-share">another complaint</a>, a woman identified only as Jane Doe says that in 2003, when she was 17, Combs had her flown on a private jet to New York, where he and two other men gave her drugs and alcohol and raped her. And in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/arts/music/rodney-jones-sean-diddy-combs-lawsuit.html">a suit filed in February</a>, music producer Rodney Jones Jr., says that Combs grabbed his genitals without consent and forced him to “solicit sex workers and perform sex acts to the pleasure of Mr. Combs.” </p>
<p id="PMWiLZ">Combs has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-rape-lawsuit.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-share">denied the allegations</a>, saying in <a href="https://twitter.com/Diddy/status/1732457807255847165?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet">a December statement</a>, “I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.” After the February suit, a lawyer for Combs <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/arts/music/diddy-sean-combs-home-raided.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-share">called Jones</a> “nothing more than a liar who filed a $30 million lawsuit shamelessly looking for an undeserved payday.” </p>
<p id="Ic1HWE">The cases have captured the public’s attention in part because Combs was such an influential executive and gatekeeper in music and fashion, yet one who had long been the subject of allegations of violence, including <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/09/09/sean-combs-puff-daddy-p-diddy-i-am-fashion">arrests</a>. They are among the first major allegations in years against a major figure in the music industry, which many feel has failed to reckon with abuses of power, even at the height of the Me Too movement. Combs is just one of many powerful men who have evaded scrutiny but whose alleged past conduct is being revisited with fresh and more critical eyes — in some cases thanks to the landmark New York laws that have allowed people alleging sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits past the time period specified by the statute of limitations.</p>
<p id="flEy70">Indeed, Combs is now <a href="https://collider.com/surviving-r-kelly-survivng-diddy/">drawing comparisons to R. Kelly</a>, with <a href="https://www.complex.com/music/a/tracewilliamcowen/50-cent-diddy-2pac-selfie">frequent critic 50 Cent</a> announcing that <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/news/50-cent-diddy-documentary-donate-proceeds-to-victims-1235827607/">he will produce</a> a series about Combs in the style of the bombshell docuseries <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/1/30/18192932/lifetime-surviving-r-kelly-documentary-sexual-abuse"><em>Surviving R. Kelly</em></a>, with the proceeds going to assault survivors. </p>
<p id="RSUPBm">Dream Hampton, producer of <em>Surviving R. Kelly</em>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-accusations-legacy.html">told the Times</a> late last year that an accounting was arriving for the Bad Boy founder. “Puff is done,” she said. </p>
<p id="y11etI">The suits against Combs also show that despite <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23581859/me-too-backlash-susan-faludi-weinstein-roe-dobbs-depp-heard">recent backlash</a>, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/metoo">Me Too movement</a> and the legal and cultural changes that came with it have had an enduring impact. Even if allegations of sexual assault and harassment do not make daily headlines the way they did in 2017, the reckoning is ongoing — and no industry is likely to remain immune forever.</p>
<h3 id="JutxC4">Diddy built an empire across multiple businesses</h3>
<p id="ZmVb3U">Combs is a producer and rapper who rose to be an influential figure across music, media, and fashion. He started Bad Boy Records in New York in 1993, when he was in his early 20s, and soon signed Notorious B.I.G., whose two albums <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/09/09/sean-combs-puff-daddy-p-diddy-i-am-fashion">helped define New York hip-hop</a> in that era. Bad Boy grew into a <a href="https://www.mtv.com/news/okjd4w/p-diddy-no-longer-has-total-bad-boy-control">multimillion-dollar business</a>, and Combs produced iconic ’90s acts from <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/09/09/sean-combs-puff-daddy-p-diddy-i-am-fashion">Jodeci to Mary J. Blige</a>. When Biggie was killed in 1997, Combs released a Grammy-winning tribute, “I’ll Be Missing You,” which “helped inaugurate a commercial boom in hip-hop that lasted until the end of the nineties,” according to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/09/09/sean-combs-puff-daddy-p-diddy-i-am-fashion">Michael Specter of the New Yorker</a>.</p>
<p id="B1BgSS">Combs was also one of the first to blend the worlds of hip-hop, business, and luxury. His fashion label, Sean John, founded in 1998, became <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/09/09/sean-combs-puff-daddy-p-diddy-i-am-fashion">known for high-end menswear</a>. He promoted brands of vodka and tequila and hosted exclusive <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/diddy-white-party-turns-20-pictures-hamptons-8342051/">white parties</a> in the Hamptons with guests like Martha Stewart. Though no longer as central a figure as he was in the ’90s, Combs remains a rich and well-connected celebrity: Within a span of weeks last fall, he held a <a href="https://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/diddy-birthday-party-naomi-campbell">joint album release and birthday party</a> attended by stars such as Naomi Campbell and Janet Jackson, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/08/giggs-diddy-review-potent-chemistry-unites-peckham-and-nyc">performed for a sold-out crowd in London</a>, and appeared at the homecoming celebration for his alma mater, Howard University, where he made a <a href="https://www.ebony.com/diddy-fulfills-1-million-pledge-alma-mater-howard-university-homecoming-2023/">surprise $1 million donation</a>. </p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Diddy performs onstage wearing black clothes, a white jacket, and sunglasses. A Bad Boy Entertainment logo is projected on the wall behind him." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/s-hM4eUYHXNF03mfyT8AJpCzd68=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25173755/GettyImages_1780944974.jpg">
<cite>Samir Hussein/Getty Images for Sean “Diddy” Combs</cite>
<figcaption>Diddy pictured at a performance in London in November.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="34XqwT">As Combs built his empire, however, he was accused of multiple acts of violence. In 1999, he was arrested for beating another executive with a chair, a phone, and a champagne bottle; he had to pay a fine and take an anger management class, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/09/09/sean-combs-puff-daddy-p-diddy-i-am-fashion">according to the New Yorker</a>. The same year, he was <a href="https://nymag.com/news/features/scandals/p-diddy-2012-4/">involved in a shooting</a> at a club in Manhattan, where he was attending a party with his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez; witnesses said they saw him with a gun, but he was ultimately acquitted after a public, much-watched trial. </p>
<p id="l7DFV5">He has also been accused of threats and violence against women. In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-accusations-legacy.html">a 2019 interview</a>, for example, his ex-girlfriend Gina Huynh said he had thrown a shoe at her and dragged her by the hair. But these reports have not received mainstream public attention — until now.</p>
<h3 id="FH52wM">Singer Cassie filed suit against Diddy in November</h3>
<p id="xfxdkT">In November, Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, sued Combs, alleging sexual assault and sex trafficking. In the suit, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-cassie-rape-lawsuit.html">first reported by the New York Times</a>, Ventura said she had experienced years of abuse from Combs, starting soon after she met him in 2005, when she was 19. She said that he beat her repeatedly, at one point kicking her in the face, and that later, in 2018, he raped her. She also said he trafficked her by coercing her to have sex with sex workers in different cities while he filmed and masturbated. She tried to delete the photos and videos afterward, but Combs retained access, she said in the suit, at one point making her watch a video she thought she had deleted. </p>
<p id="IuGaqR">Ventura’s suit also said that Combs and his associates used his power and wealth to intimidate her into silence and compliance, with his employees threatening to damage her music career if she spoke out against him. In one particularly shocking detail, Ventura said Combs threatened to blow up the rapper Kid Cudi’s car because Cudi and Ventura were dating; the car later exploded. “This is all true,” a spokesperson for Kid Cudi <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-cassie-rape-lawsuit.html">told the Times</a> of the car exploding. </p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Cassie smiles in front of signage for VH1’s “Dear Mama: A Love Letter to Moms” event." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lMQllwu4r-beqwpEpNciC6s9PEI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25173772/GettyImages_954469910.jpg">
<cite>Leon Bennett/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Singer Cassie, pictured in 2018 in Los Angeles, sued Combs in a case made possible by New York laws including the Adult Survivors Act, which opened a one-year window to file civil lawsuits in cases of sexual abuse, even if the statute of limitations had expired.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="RVDhnL">Through his lawyer, Ben Brafman, Combs accused Ventura of blackmail. “For the past six months, Mr. Combs has been subjected to Ms. Ventura’s persistent demand of $30 million, under the threat of writing a damaging book about their relationship,” Brafman said in a statement. “Despite withdrawing her initial threat, Ms. Ventura has now resorted to filing a lawsuit riddled with baseless and outrageous lies, aiming to tarnish Mr. Combs’s reputation and seeking a payday.” Ventura’s lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, said Combs had actually offered Ventura money for her silence, which she had declined. </p>
<p id="72rhQB">Ventura’s suit was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/arts/music/cassie-diddy-sean-combs-settlement.html">settled</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/arts/music/cassie-diddy-sean-combs-settlement.html">for an undisclosed amount</a> within a single day. The singer stated that she had “decided to resolve this matter amicably on terms that I have some level of control.” </p>
<p id="H8nXUT">But Ventura’s decision to come forward publicly opened the floodgates, and more reports of assault and abuse began pouring out.</p>
<h3 id="Qb2u6Y">Other people say Diddy harmed them</h3>
<p id="23x5Fc">Three other women soon filed suit against Combs. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-accusations-legacy.html">In the second suit</a>, Joi Dickerson-Neal says he drugged and raped her in 1991. In the third, Liza Gardner says that in 1990, he coerced her into sex and choked her, causing her to lose consciousness. Jonathan Davis, a lawyer for Combs, said in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-accusations-legacy.html">statement to the Times</a> that Combs denied these allegations as well: “Because of Mr. Combs’s fame and success, he is an easy target for accusers who attempt to smear him.”</p>
<p id="iZAc5v">In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-rape-lawsuit.html">the fourth suit</a>, the woman identified as Jane Doe says she was a junior in high school when she met then-Bad Boy president Harve Pierre and another Combs associate in Detroit. They convinced her to fly on their jet to New York, the suit says, where they and the rapper gave her drugs and alcohol and then violently raped her. </p>
<p id="kKwOaK">“Ms. Doe has lived with her memories of this fateful night for 20 years, during which time she has suffered extreme emotional distress that has impacted nearly every aspect of her life and personal relationships,” the suit says. “Given the brave women who have come forward against Ms. Combs and Mr. Pierre in recent weeks, Ms. Doe is doing the same.”</p>
<p id="Jsvl3G">In response to that suit, Combs released a statement denying all reports of violence, calling them “sickening allegations” made “by individuals looking for a quick payday.” Pierre has also denied the allegations, saying in <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2023/12/08/diddy-bad-boy-president-harve-pierre-lawsuit/">a statement to TMZ</a>, “I have never participated in, witnessed, nor heard of anything like this, ever.”</p>
<p id="Kn8I3B">The women came forward last year because <a href="https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYCadmin/0-0-0-7235">two</a> New York <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2023/11/adult-survivors-act-celebrities-sued-sexual-assault.html">laws</a> — one of which paved the way for <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23717295/donald-trump-verdict-e-jean-carroll-rape-sexual-assault-battery-defamation">E. Jean Carroll’s successful lawsuit against Donald Trump</a> for sexual abuse and defamation — opened limited windows of time in which people can file civil lawsuits alleging sexual abuse, even if the statute of limitations has passed. One of those windows closed in late November, explaining the flurry of complaints.</p>
<p id="JPaJ7l">While the suits mostly describe behavior the plaintiffs say happened years ago, the February filing by Rodney Jones Jr., known as Lil Rod, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/arts/music/rodney-jones-sean-diddy-combs-lawsuit.html">says that Combs</a> subjected him to unwanted touching and attempted to “groom” him when they worked together on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-the-love-album.html"><em>The Love Album: Off the Grid</em></a> in 2022 and 2023. Jones says that at a party in 2023, he was forced to drink tequila mixed with drugs, then woke up “naked with a sex worker sleeping next to him.” He says that Combs offered money and threatened violence to get him to solicit sex workers and perform sex acts with them. </p>
<p id="n4L5PO">Combs has denied Jones’s allegations. In a statement, Shawn Holley, a lawyer for Combs, said, “We have overwhelming, indisputable proof that his claims are complete lies.”</p>
<p id="WBkTqE">In the wake of these civil lawsuits, raids in Los Angeles and Miami Beach in March have pointed to an apparent criminal investigation. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/arts/music/diddy-sean-combs-home-raided.html">According to the Times</a>, the raids on homes connected to the rapper were part of an inquiry by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and agents with the Department of Homeland Security. Few details were available in the immediate aftermath, and lawyers for Combs have not yet responded to requests for comment from Vox or the Times. However, the raids suggest a potential new level in the Combs case, with law enforcement sources also <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-25/feds-raid-sean-diddy-combs-homes-in-la-and-miami-as-part-of-sex-trafficking-investigation-sources-say">telling the Los Angeles Times</a> they were linked to sex trafficking allegations. </p>
<p id="njEobd">Combs was rumored to have left the country on Monday after his private plane traveled to Antigua, but he was <a href="https://people.com/sean-diddy-combs-private-jet-reportedly-in-caribbean-amid-homes-raids-8620274">later spotted in the Miami-Opa Locka airport</a>. Regardless of his whereabouts, the investigations in Los Angeles and Miami Beach have once again placed the rapper under intense public scrutiny. </p>
<h3 id="C1lkdF">Is this the music industry’s Me Too moment?</h3>
<p id="nT6Qj7">The growing number of reports, and their chilling details, have led companies and influential people in media and business to distance themselves from the rapper. Diageo, the beverage brand with which Combs partnered on vodka and tequila, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-accusations-legacy.html">removed his image</a> from its website. Capital Preparatory Schools, a New York charter school network Combs helped expand, <a href="https://www.complex.com/music/a/markelibert/diddy-charter-preparatory-schools-partnership-ended">posted a statement</a> on the school’s website saying it was cutting ties with him (though the statement was later removed). Combs also <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/28/1215600691/sean-diddy-combs-temporarily-quits-chairman-revolt">stepped aside</a> as chair of Revolt, a TV network he helped start in 2013. </p>
<p id="yr85lx">The cases against Combs are coming to light against a backdrop of other accusations against major figures in music. In November, a woman <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/arts/music/neil-portow-grammys-rape-lawsuit.html">sued Neil Portnow</a>, former head of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/grammy-awards" data-source="encore">Grammy Awards</a>, saying he had drugged and raped her in 2018. The same month, a former employee <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/arts/music/la-reid-drew-dixon-sexual-assault-lawsuit.html">sued music executive L.A. “Babyface” Reid</a>, saying he sexually assaulted and harassed her, leading to irrevocable damage to her career in the music industry. </p>
<p id="QvS9CY">They also occur at a time when <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23398795/kanye-west-ye-antisemitic-bigot-white-lives-matter-tucker-carlson-art-vs-artist">Ye</a>, a music and fashion mogul whose career has parallels with Diddy’s, has lost many of his brand partnerships after public antisemitic and racist statements as well as what many say was a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/business/kanye-west-adidas-yeezy.html">years-long pattern</a> of verbal abuse and harassment, which may have been kept quiet in part because partnering with him was so lucrative for brands.</p>
<p id="IGLgTR">While the Me Too movement forced reckonings around sexual assault and harassment in industries from film to other media to restaurants in 2017 and 2018, many in the music business felt that its biggest players were relatively unscathed. R. Kelly, for example, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/1/30/18192932/lifetime-surviving-r-kelly-documentary-sexual-abuse">faced few consequences</a> until Hampton’s widely watched 2019 docuseries drew renewed attention to the accusations — despite repeated allegations that he’d had sexual contact with underage girls, several lawsuits, and even a 2008 criminal<strong> </strong>trial over child sexual abuse material. <a href="https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/7/21/16008230/r-kelly-surviving-sex-cult-abuse-john-legend-chance-the-rapper">Many argued</a> that the reason Kelly was given a pass for so long was that the women coming forward to report abuse by him were Black. In 2021, he was <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/4/25/17248084/r-kelly-sexual-misconduct-allegations-timeline">convicted of sex trafficking</a> and sentenced to 30 years in prison; a second 20-year sentence was added the following year, with all but one year to be served concurrently with the first sentence.</p>
<p id="CuXCbk">Three women <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/arts/music/russell-simmons-rape.html">stated publicly in 2017</a> that another influential music industry figure, Def Jam Recordings co-founder Russell Simmons, had raped them. Like Kelly, he was the subject of <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2023/12/russell-simmons-graham-bensinger-interview.html">a documentary</a> focusing on the allegations, though he has not faced charges. </p>
<p id="581vNH">Now, Ventura and the other people filing suit are reporting violent rape, intimidation, and abuse by one of the biggest names in music, someone who symbolized the movement of hip-hop into both mainstream and high-end culture. Combs in his heyday was an icon of power and influence in music, fashion, and business, and the lawsuits represent a new willingness to call that power to account. </p>
<p id="uDRHIv">They also serve as a reminder that the Me Too movement has made enduring changes, including influencing law and policy and creating a road map for survivors of assault to come forward and share their stories.</p>
<p id="ZhCBiG"><em><strong>Update, March 26, 2:30 pm:</strong></em><em> This story, originally published on December 20, 2023, has been updated to reflect recent developments, including the federal raid of two homes connected to Sean “Diddy” Combs.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/24006759/puffy-diddy-sean-combs-cassie-rape-lawsuitAnna North2024-03-26T08:00:00-04:002024-03-26T08:00:00-04:00Connections, the most fun (and sometimes frustrating) game on the internet
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<img alt="The Connections welcome screen, featuring a Play button and the text “Group words that share a common thread.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xUFF4Q2YUl3mAoyU0nFotBV4Kh4=/107x0:1814x1280/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73233339/Connections_Vox.7.png" />
<figcaption>Vox; NYT</figcaption>
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<p>Why a really great word game makes you feel smart, and also stupid.</p> <p id="fpNHUO">What do the words “loo,” “condo,” “haw,” “hero” have in common? Unless you’re extremely into ornithology, it’s impressive if you were able to pick out the fact that if you added another letter to each of them, you’d spell the name of a bird. But if you’re a regular player of the New York Times game <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections">Connections</a>, these four words have another significance: They make up one of the puzzle’s most notoriously tricky categories of all time.</p>
<p id="pmU6wT">Connections — an often frustrating but integral addition to a morning routine that might also include the Times’s daily crossword, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html">Wordle</a>, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/puzzles/spelling-bee">Spelling Bee</a>, or offshoots like the geography quiz <a href="https://worldle.teuteuf.fr/">Worldle</a> and the GDP guesser <a href="https://games.oec.world/en/tradle/">Tradle</a> — debuted last summer. Over the past nine months, it’s become the second-most played game at the Times, after Wordle, but it’s captured social media in a way that a simple five-letter word-of-the-day puzzle never could. </p>
<p id="ekCKVB">Connections is played like so: There is a four-by-four grid, and each box has a word in it. Your job is to group them into sets of four that make sense on levels that go from easy (say, synonyms or simply defined categories) to difficult (the bird one). When submitted, the easiest group will show up in yellow, the second-easiest in green, the second-hardest in blue, and the hardest in purple. </p>
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<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@darasprivstory/video/7348675776197283118" data-video-id="7348675776197283118" data-embed-from="oembed" style="max-width:605px; min-width:325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@darasprivstory" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@darasprivstory?refer=embed">@darasprivstory</a> <p><a title="greenscreen" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/greenscreen?refer=embed">#greenscreen</a> <a title="nyt" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/nyt?refer=embed">#nyt</a> <a title="connections" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/connections?refer=embed">#connections</a> <a title="nytconnections" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/nytconnections?refer=embed">#nytconnections</a> <a title="wordle" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/wordle?refer=embed">#wordle</a> </p> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - dara" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7348675977863645995?refer=embed">♬ original sound - dara</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async="" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>
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<p id="tRYs70">You can see how this might make people feel angry or, as one woman <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@am_burger_/video/7348035219720555806?q=nyt%20connections&t=1710945491182">posted on TikTok</a>, like she’s “immediately ready to fight” the game’s editor. That’s because Connections, even more so than crosswords, whose difficulty ratings are usually made clear from the outset, or Wordle, which relies heavily on luck, has the unique ability to make people feel either really, really smart or really, really stupid. </p>
<p id="sQel2U">In a post titled “<a href="https://www.raphkoster.com/2023/09/02/why-nyts-connections-makes-you-feel-bad/">Why NYT’s Connections makes you feel bad</a>,” game designer Raph Koster suggests Connections is “fundamentally elitist” because it requires players to have a broad education to find possible categories, and then punishes them for making guesses (players have only four tries before they fail the game). Some puzzles may be easier for certain folks — in order to know that “emerald,” “radiant,” “princess,” and “baguette” go together, you’ve got to have some knowledge of jewelry — and be extra difficult for those frustrated by potential overlap.</p>
<p id="7mvuXK">One recent puzzle included five answers that could work for the yellow (easiest) category, “seen at a sports stadium”: “astroturf,” “jumbotron,” “scoreboard,” “skybox,” and “kisscam.” Only the last one works for the purple (hardest) one, which was “starting with rock bands.” But there’s no way to tell whether a puzzle will be easy or hard until you’re playing it — thereby leading to the kind of near-conspiratorial thinking and Connections shaming on Reddit, Twitter, and TikTok. <a href="https://twitter.com/starkeysfilm/status/1761727792541315264">Complaining</a> on Twitter about how hard that day’s Connections was is a risk in itself, and it more often than not ends with other people smugly commenting how “<a href="https://twitter.com/fvigeland/status/1762316507801907578">maybe word games aren’t for you</a>” and posting memes that tell the poster to “<a href="https://twitter.com/lilgrapefruits/status/1762511275584881036">take your sensitive ass back to Wordle</a>!” They do have a point, however: The point of doing puzzles <a href="https://twitter.com/smhrbst/status/1770838586616578430">is to feel puzzled</a>. </p>
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<p lang="zxx" dir="ltr"><a href="https://t.co/Sn2IpGORCG">https://t.co/Sn2IpGORCG</a> <a href="https://t.co/Gb6CrQh94a">pic.twitter.com/Gb6CrQh94a</a></p>— zou bisou bisou where are you (@lilgrapefruits) <a href="https://twitter.com/lilgrapefruits/status/1762511275584881036?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 27, 2024</a>
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<p id="MbHULe">According to Everdeen Mason, the editorial director of the Times’s Games section, these theories about Connections suddenly “getting harder” based on social media discourse are both hilarious and wrong — mostly. “We see everything, and we think pretty much all of it is funny,” she says of the people livestreaming their games and teasing each other over their results. “Connections in particular has felt really special, in part because of TikTok. I don’t know that any of our other games have really taken off in the same way. The game itself is pretty witty, and people can feel that and want to riff on it. It just makes it really memeable.”</p>
<p id="vIeVvS">The idea that the Connections editor, Wyna Liu, changes the difficulty in response to social chatter is untrue — games are programmed about a month in advance — with the exception of one period last October, before the Connections team started using official testers. Testers, who are paid and selected by Games staff, are used for all Times games to help look out for potentially incorrect or offensive puzzles, or grids where there could be multiple correct solves. “There were a couple of weeks where the solve rates were really low, and we were like, ‘We need to do something about this.’”</p>
<p id="CN86Wq">“It’s pretty much always the purple category that people are crankiest about,” Mason says. She points to the bird category and another purple set in February made of words beginning with instruments (“bassinet,” “cellophane,” “harpoon,” “organism”) as particularly frustrating for solvers. Of course, the frustration is part of the fun, and it’s why Connections was an immediate hit from its 90-day beta release last summer. Its full release, however, caused a small controversy because of its similarities to the British quiz show <em>Only Connect, </em>which also asks contestants to group a grid of 16 words into four sets of four. The game’s host, Victoria Coren, responded to the launch of Connections on Twitter, <a href="https://twitter.com/VictoriaCoren/status/1668765486056718339">asking</a>, “Do you know this has been a TV show in the UK since 2008?! It’s so similar I guess you must do?” The Times <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/06/bbc-victoria-coren-mitchell-accuses-new-york-times-clone-only-connect-1235417841/">has denied</a> copying the format. </p>
<p id="yyeKtt">Connections is also, crucially, much easier to solve than <em>Only Connect</em>’s grids, and audiences got obsessed quickly. It’s a similar story to Wordle, which debuted in 2021 and went viral in 2022, its characteristic colored block emojis making for the perfect shareable signature. More than that, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22891192/wordle-game-what-is-wordle-why-is-it-so-popular-how-to-play">Wordle avoids a common problem</a> with games — playing too much too quickly and burning out — by only releasing a single game per day, which is also the model Connections and Spelling Bee use. None of these games has the power to take over your whole life in the way that, say, a super engrossing new video game might. And even though you’re technically only in competition with yourself, they’re fundamentally social games: Grids and scores are easily shareable online and make for solid conversation starters with pretty much anyone.</p>
<p id="bfpL0Y">Liu has responded to the conversations on TikTok by <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@mynytimes/video/7348084079247576363?q=nyt%20connections&t=1710945491182">posting her tips</a> on how to play. Most importantly, she says, don’t guess unless you’re pretty sure you have a category. Second, look for words that don’t belong anywhere else. Last, think flexibly — “my job here is to trick you,” she says.</p>
<p id="sp8Z3P">Games have been a hugely successful bet for the Times. The company <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/01/29/wordle-nyt-games-news-media-layoffs">told Axios</a> that its puzzles, which were played more than 8 billion times in 2023 (including 2.3 billion Connections successes), have contributed to subscriber growth in a tough media market. Up next: a word search called Strands that’s currently in beta mode. Judging from the discourse it’s <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/search?q=nytstrands%20&t=1711400150207">already sparked online</a>, it seems to be yet another puzzle for solvers to argue about in comments sections and Reddit threads. In other words, a hit.</p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="kpp0DU">Though the New York Times debuted and then shuttered the math game Digits last year, something about word games seems to stick. “It’s our main medium of communication,” Mason says. “They make people feel engaged and intelligent, but they’re also accessible. You can take something away: a new vocab word, a new perspective, new connections between things.” Personally, I’ll never look at the word “kisscam” in the same way again.</p>
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https://www.vox.com/culture/2024/3/26/24111847/connections-nyt-game-hint-word-puzzlesRebecca Jennings2024-03-26T07:15:00-04:002024-03-26T07:15:00-04:00Beyoncé’s country roots
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<img alt="Beyoncé in a cowboy hat and a sparkly jacket." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8G9XuHVXZj4b47zQ5hTAVI0IOE0=/187x0:2403x1662/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73233306/2010103535.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Beyoncé spotted during New York Fashion Week on February 13, 2024, in New York City. | James Devaney/GC Images</figcaption>
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<p>A century of history of Black country music, explained by Alice Randall.</p> <p id="rqooTd">If you somehow haven’t heard: Beyoncé’s <a href="https://pitchfork.com/news/beyonce-reveals-cowboy-carter-artwork-shares-statement-on-new-album/"><em>Cowboy Carter</em></a>, her eighth studio album and the much-anticipated sequel to <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/beyonce-renaissance/"><em>Renaissance</em></a>, drops on Friday. Its lead single <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=238Z4YaAr1g">“Texas Hold ‘Em”</a> made history when it <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/beyonce-texas-hold-em-number-1-hot-country-songs-chart-1235610582/">debuted</a> at the top of the country charts last month.</p>
<p id="OO52EZ">“I feel honored to be the first Black woman with the number one single on the Hot Country Songs chart,” Beyoncé wrote in an <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C4s6Zr7rlwA/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link">Instagram post</a> last week.</p>
<p id="G8lHF9">With this album, she’s not just racking up downloads and inspiring <a href="https://www.vox.com/tiktok" data-source="encore">TikTok</a> dances, she’s also drawing attention to the whitewashing of a genre that has long silenced its Black voices — and, predictably, drawing <a href="https://www.billboard.com/culture/tv-film/rhiannon-giddens-beyonce-cowboy-carter-slams-backlash-1235638538/">backlash</a> from country music gatekeepers.</p>
<div id="IgPH6h"><iframe frameborder="0" height="200" scrolling="no" src="https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=VMP3631864966" width="100%"></iframe></div>
<h3 id="jDCj3r">The century of Black country that led to <em>Cowboy Carter</em>
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<p id="VR0WVr">For over a century, Black artists have been central to country music — and for just as long, their work has been overlooked or under-compensated by the predominantly white country music establishment.</p>
<p id="VbbgrE">Just ask songwriter, educator, and New York Times bestselling novelist Alice Randall. She’s the first Black woman to co-write a No. 1 country song, with Trisha Yearwood’s 1995 hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT50v7GVGi8">“XXX’s and OOO’s,”</a> and has written many other country hits ... all of which were performed by white artists.</p>
<p id="avHwSX">“I thought I was going to retire from country and never see” the day a Black woman would hit the top of the charts, she told Vox.</p>
<p id="ASt0br">Randall, who teaches about the Black roots of country music and has <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/My-Black-Country/Alice-Randall/9781668018408">a book coming out on the subject</a>, told <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7uTJmYpVcQzBU20estJ0R6?si=uCMCSggzQjSXMQy84T6VeA"><em>Today, Explained</em> host Noel King</a> that Beyoncé’s success was an effort nearly a century in the making.</p>
<p id="qOklfV">Let’s dig into some of that century’s highlights!</p>
<p id="yM4klc">Randall traces Black country’s recorded origins to DeFord Bailey’s 1927 harmonica performance of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjlR8eS0YPM">“Pan American Blues”</a> onstage at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. </p>
<p id="QyaE7L">Despite Bailey’s popularity, he <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/tennessee/articles/2023-05-18/nashville-to-name-street-after-harmonica-wizard-opry-founder-deford-bailey">endured racism</a> while touring the Jim Crow South with white Opry performers.</p>
<p id="EhaEPl">“DeFord was able to defy and evade the structural obstacles created to keep his voice off the radio and to keep him out of the public. But he never did have the same opportunities that his white contemporaries had,” Randall said.</p>
<p id="n9KUbH">The next great to know, she says, would be Memphis-born Black pianist, Lil Hardin Armstrong, for playing on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieq5bzQuo-s">“Blue Yodel #9”</a> with her husband Louis Armstrong on trumpet and Jimmie Rodgers on vocals. Only, at the time, you wouldn’t have known either Armstrong was behind the work: Only Rodgers’s name was put on the 1930 record, and many listeners considered it a white song.</p>
<p id="wBCKPV">“Often they took the exact same recording and marketed it, one to a white audience and one to a Black audience, sometimes changing the name of the group,” Randall said. “There’s a lot of cultural redlining that is actually separating things that are not intrinsically separate.”</p>
<div id="UWhsP7"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ieq5bzQuo-s?rel=0" style="top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; border: 0;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" allow="accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share;"></iframe></div></div>
<p id="3sDNOD">Then in the 1960s and ’70s, Black country stars tried to make their mark — with differing levels of success.</p>
<p id="RIhAQF">Charley Pride became a breakout country superstar with 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. He had a remarkable rise from a Negro Leagues baseball player to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPAPsDr2Vp8">appearing at the Grand Ole Opry</a> in 1967 (the first Black performer to grace its stage since DeFord Bailey’s last appearance in 1941) to winning Entertainer of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards in 1971. </p>
<p id="N0EnZk">But when Pride’s debut album was released, the label deliberately omitted any mention of his race and didn’t put his face on the cover.</p>
<p id="mYNihl">“They wanted people to fall in love with the voice in the records first,” Randall said.</p>
<p id="UW8lyB">Linda Martell didn’t share the same success. Her one and only album, <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/linda-martel-color-me-country/"><em>Color Me Country</em>,</a> was released in 1970 on Plantation Records, and she was the first Black female country artist to perform at the Opry.</p>
<p id="IdanSA">“It’s an extraordinary album,” Randall said. “She’s on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETQTDgZA9Vo"><em>Hee Haw</em></a>, she’s on the Opry, but she never goes incognegro. The very first time she comes out as a Black woman, there just isn’t the traction. She experiences myriad micro and macro aggressions navigating Nashville. She is not allowed in this space.”</p>
<p id="83uda1">Randall says Ray Charles’s 1962 blockbuster record <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgWmP-F0RTPOl1OjguwDkKwjFFiMmQZs5"><em>Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music</em></a> is arguably the most important country album, and certainly the most important Black country album, until this moment. </p>
<p id="osBrY1">“It was constructing and deconstructing country music,” she said — something of a spiritual predecessor to <em>Cowboy Carter</em>.</p>
<aside id="kSYrxw"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"vox_sentences"}'></div></aside><h3 id="Z4qq3I">Black country’s time has come</h3>
<p id="zWLGST">Black artists have made more inroads into mainstream country music in recent years, but not without challenges. </p>
<p id="tCpm0G">Darius Rucker has won a Grammy and scored 10 No. 1 hits since leaving Hootie and the Blowfish, but <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/darius-rucker-was-told-people-wouldnt-accept-a-black-country-singer/">was told</a> that audiences “would never accept a Black country singer.” </p>
<p id="6p1Esf">Country fans <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/6/5/18653880/lil-nas-x-country-music-billboard-wrangler-old-town-road">accused</a> “Old Town Road” singer Lil Nas X of “cultural appropriation” for wearing a cowboy hat — even though Black cowboys have a long history in the American West.</p>
<p id="kCJGgD">Other <a href="https://foxy99.com/listicle/after-beyonce-here-are-other-black-women-in-country/">Black women country musicians</a> with massive songwriting and vocal talents have struggled to break through to mainstream success.</p>
<p id="tBk4Ls">Beyoncé herself weathered backlash after performing <em>Lemonade</em>’s boot-stomping country hit “Daddy Lessons” with the Dixie Chicks (now known as The Chicks), at the CMA Awards in 2016. </p>
<p id="QOloZF">While evolving the genre in her own way, Beyoncé is “preserving and spotlighting past genius, while manifesting her own present genius, and creating a path forward for further innovation,” Randall said. </p>
<p id="7h9nfq">She links Beyoncé’s second single off the album, “16 Carriages,” to other iconic country songs: the Carter Family’s mournful “Can the Circle Be Unbroken,” Tennessee Ernie Ford’s rendition of the coal miner’s lament “Sixteen Tons,” Deana Carter’s ode to lost innocence in “Strawberry Wine,” and Randall’s own “XXX’s and OOO’s” about the balance between love and money.</p>
<p id="C02jeJ">“No one again can say a Black woman can’t chart. No one again can say — which is a thing that was unfortunately said around town — ‘Bring me the right Black woman, bring me the one that’s pretty enough, who sings well enough and has some songs, and we’ll make her a star.’”</p>
<p id="Hct7ae">Instead, Beyoncé’s star power is bringing in audiences outside the typical country fan base “because some music is being served up that is just irresistible.”</p>
<p id="UKe1WI">If you’re feeling inspired to keep listening, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0I33m6zpf2KPfmQh8EaDn5?si=ffc57d76e4c04982&nd=1&dlsi=316a6d609422469e">check out this playlist <em>Today, Explained</em> pulled together on Spotify</a>:</p>
<div id="jNZrck"><iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/0I33m6zpf2KPfmQh8EaDn5?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe></div>
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<p id="sUgtmP"><em>This story appeared originally in </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/today-explained-podcast"><em><strong>Today, Explained</strong></em></a><em>, Vox’s flagship daily newsletter. </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/pages/today-explained-newsletter-signup"><em><strong>Sign up here for future editions</strong></em></a><em>.</em></p>
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https://www.vox.com/2024/3/26/24111978/beyonce-album-cowboy-carter-black-country-historyAvishay Artsy2024-03-22T14:36:30-04:002024-03-22T14:36:30-04:00The story of Kate Middleton’s disappearance is haunted by Meghan Markle
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<img alt="Kate Middleton is in the foreground, wearing a mint green long-sleeved dress and a large matching hat with white flowers, while Meghan Markle stands behind her in a pink off-the-shoulder dress and matching hat." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/33bTWHDxgoKinlGgAyVKd8L_MSc=/0x17:835x643/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73224084/GettyImages_972331406.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Kate and Meghan stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace during the annual Trooping The Colour on June 9, 2018, in London, England. | Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>And Diana, too.</p> <p id="X2i1E8">On March 22, <a href="https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal/status/1771235267837321694">Kate Middleton announced that she has been diagnosed with cancer</a> and will be undergoing preventative chemotherapy. The news comes amid fevered speculation over the Princess of Wales, after <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/24087565/princess-kate-middleton-disappearance-rumors-explained-abdominal-surgery-kensington-palace">she disappeared from the public eye for multiple months</a>, the only trace of her a heavily <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/24098724/kate-middleton-editing-photo-explained">Photoshopped picture</a>. In the midst of the turmoil, British-owned tabloids directed their ire toward a familiar target: Meghan Markle.</p>
<p id="eXZVPt">To an unpracticed observer, it would be difficult to blame the disappearance of Princess Kate from the public eye on her sister-in-law, but the tabloids are nothing if not resourceful. <a href="https://pagesix.com/2024/03/11/royal-family/sources-close-to-meghan-markle-mock-kate-middleton-photoshop-fail/">Page Six reported</a> that Prince Harry and Meghan’s inner circle were mocking Kate’s botched Photoshop and sneering that Meghan would <em>never</em> have made such a mistake. Meanwhile, Meghan and Harry, <a href="https://twitter.com/MailOnline/status/1767710415130145247">alleged the Daily Mail</a>, were nothing but a pair of hypocrites. They had used Photoshop on their own pregnancy announcement pictures, and so had no leg to stand on when it came to criticizing Kensington Palace for Photoshopping Kate’s Mother’s Day/proof-of-life picture. </p>
<p id="k73uY3">Harry and Meghan swiftly went on the defensive and denied it all. The only alteration they had made to their photo was to render it in black-and-white, they announced, and they never said Meghan wouldn’t have made that kind of mistake. (Though let’s be real: with the amount of time Meghan spends curating her <a href="https://www.vox.com/instagram-news" data-source="encore">Instagram</a>? She wouldn’t have.) The couple has otherwise declined to comment on the controversy, which is probably wise. There’s little chance of a win for them in getting themselves involved.</p>
<p id="Z6lIcl">In a sense, though, they always <em>were</em> involved. The story of Kate’s disappearance took off to begin with because very online fans of Meghan sat up and took notice. <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/03/this-is-just-weird-buzzfeed-news-former-royals-reporter-on-kate-middleton-palace-press-and-distrust-in-the-media/?src=longreads">As royals reporter Ellie Hall laid out in Nieman Lab</a> at the beginning of March, early conversation about Kate’s disappearance from the public scene was driven by pro-Meghan and Harry accounts in the royal-watcher internet communities where royal haters and fans alike watch and discuss the movements of the royal family with avid fascination. </p>
<p id="I6BWSa">“It’s one of the points that keeps coming up in the online discourse — the apparent hypocrisy between the palace and the UK media’s treatment of each woman,” Hall explained. “People are comparing the hands-off, privacy-first stance that the press is taking toward Kate with their attitude toward Meghan and the stories that <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7234597/Meghan-Markle-mom-shamed-holds-baby-Archie.html">were written about her</a> while she was on maternity leave. ... There’s also a definite feeling among some people that Kate should have to go through this social media and press speculation because Meghan went through it, it was worse for Meghan, and when she complained, people told her to suck it up.” </p>
<p id="aaeolO">Meghan is part of the story of Kate’s disappearance because Meghan and Kate have been treated as each other’s opposites and foils ever since Meghan and Harry first got engaged. Their shifting treatments at the hands of the monarchy and the press has come to symbolize the question of what Britain’s values and priorities should be. Kate and Meghan themselves have come to symbolize different ways of being women, different ways of being royal, different ways of being famous — and, most fraught of all, different ways of responding to the problem of what happened to their husbands’ mother, Princess Diana.</p>
<p id="mZWN8V">Since her death in 1997, Diana has symbolized the best and the worst of the British monarchy. She symbolizes the possibility of making real connections between subjects and people, of moving away from stultifying tradition toward something more grounded and emotionally open, all the while embodying a glamorous royal ideal. She symbolizes, also, a dangerously destabilized monarchy marred by tawdry tabloid gossip, and a human sacrifice killed partially by the public’s unending appetite for her, partially by the indifference of the stolid royal infrastructure.</p>
<p id="zu3nFu">“<em>It</em> could never happen again,” writes Tina Brown in her 2022 book <em>The Palace Papers</em> of the royal consensus after Diana’s death. The <em>it</em> that could never happen was Diana: not another celebrity royal stealing light away from the institution; not another woman eaten alive by the torments of her position. Kate and Meghan were, in one way or another, supposed to ensure that <em>it</em> would remain forestalled. It was always an impossible task.</p>
<h3 id="GdOnu3">“A small clash of styles”</h3>
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<img alt="Two women, Kate and Meghan, sit smiling at each other on a set of bleachers. On the left, Kate has her hair down and smooth and is wearing a polka dot dress. On the right, Meghan has her hair in a loose bun and is wearing a striped shirt." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7hR6nMWSJI8aYtWWkeWLt-mkhKk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25347956/998534018.jpg">
<cite>Steven Paston/PA Images via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Kate and Meghan at Wimbledon, 2018.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="EJwdRN">As soon as Meghan Markle and Prince Harry got engaged in 2017, observers started to keep an eye out for the ways in which Meghan and Kate would get pitted against each other in the tabloids. It felt inevitable.</p>
<p id="XV7qab">“I anticipated that the narrative would change to ‘sisters at war’ after a honeymoon period,’ <a href="https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/royal-women-pit-against-each-other">royal biographer Andrew Morton said of Meghan and Kate’s relationship in 2018</a>. “Why was it predictable? Because young royal sisters-in-law, as it was with Diana and Fergie [Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York], are set up for failure. They’re compared to one another incessantly — in what they wear, how they behave — in a way that never happens to royal men.”</p>
<p id="rqmZiK">In his memoir <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23550867/spare-review-prince-harry"><em>Spare</em></a>, Harry describes the moment he first realized that his future wife and his sister-in-law would be set up for a feud. It was shortly after the first public appearance of the four hot young royals — Harry, Meghan, Will, and Kate. The event was thought to be successful at first, Harry writes. </p>
<p id="ZIMLp1">“Days later, controversy. Something about Meg showing support for #metoo, and Kate not showing support — via their outfits? I think that was the gist, though who can say? It wasn’t real,” he says of the ensuing tabloid coverage. “But I think it had Kate on edge, while putting her and everyone else on notice that she was now going to be compared to, and forced to compete with, Meg.”</p>
<p id="Bxg2ao">Harry allows that there was a real difference in personality between Meghan and Kate. At their first meeting, Meghan was barefoot in ripped jeans, while Kate was “done up to the nines.” Later, backstage before their group event, Meghan asked to borrow Kate’s lip gloss, and Kate acquiesced but “grimaced” at the overfamiliarity. “Small clash of styles, maybe?” Harry suggests. “But it left a little mark. And then the press sensed something was up and tried to turn it into something bigger.” </p>
<p id="K8zRfh">The “small clash of styles” Harry identified between Meghan and Kate became the basis for the binary that would become bigger than both of them: warm, casual Meghan who does not know her place versus cool, restrained Kate who knows protocol inside and out. </p>
<p id="Div7lS">“Witness how she [Meghan] and Harry were utterly at ease with the crowd, high-fiving, hugging, happy and relaxed,” <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5137917/PLATELLS-PEOPLE-Kate-cope-Meghan-mania.html">wrote the Daily Mail in 2017</a>. “I hesitate to say this, but they made William and Kate look a mite formal and po-faced in comparison.” </p>
<p id="a3Lc7m"><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8363199/RICHARD-KAY-Kate-Meghan-snobbish-claims-sparked-palace-fury.html">On the other hand, per the Daily Mail in 2020</a>: “A froideur descended between the two women, one [Meghan] determined to do things her way, regardless of the rulebook, the other [Kate] finding her offer to help and be a guide firmly rejected.”</p>
<p id="RbKq3g">Every possible biographical fact about the pair was dispatched to reinforce the binary. There was the issue of their professional backgrounds. Meghan entered the royal family coming off a successful career as an actress, while Kate had put her own career on hold after graduating from university to allow her the flexibility to date William: Being a member of the royal family has been de facto her job since college. Depending on who was talking, this made Meghan either refreshingly independent or entitled, and Kate either a well-seasoned royal or a passive unfeminist throwback.</p>
<p id="PK2dNo">“I think there was always a sense that Meghan felt she was a self-made woman whereas Kate hadn’t really had her own career,” <a href="https://pagesix.com/2023/12/04/royal-family/meghan-markle-felt-more-right-to-speak-on-charity-than-kate-middleton-source/">an unknown source told Page Six</a>, in a 2023 article suggesting that Meghan hadn’t understood that she was supposed to “play second fiddle” to William and Kate, since they outranked her in precedence. </p>
<p id="IBLh50">The two duchesses’ clothes, too, became part of the binary. Both Meghan and Kate are tall and thin and conventionally attractive, with upscale tastes in fashion, but their tastes are different enough to feed the narrative. The new story became that Kate was either classy or drab, while Meghan was either glamorous or trashy. </p>
<p id="zvqO03">In the classy versus trashy column: “Kate’s dress sense oozes sophistication,” <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/5010683/meghan-markle-kate-middleton-differences/">explained the Sun in 2017</a>. “She’s rarely seen in dresses with hemlines that fall above the knee, but she does enjoy wearing garments that are structured and fitted.” On the other hand, “Meghan Markle has worn an array of racy clothes for her acting roles, including figure-hugging dresses and shapely leather skirts. Despite this, the actress is often seen in casual attire. Loose T-shirts, denim and trainers are among the clothes she can be seen in on a day-to-day basis.”</p>
<p id="3V6pld">In the drab versus glamorous column: The same year, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5137917/PLATELLS-PEOPLE-Kate-cope-Meghan-mania.html">the Daily Mail compared</a> a “tired” Kate, at the time pregnant and struggling with hyperemesis, with “the bedazzling Meghan.” Kate’s “blue-and-white frock was pretty but mumsy, as if it had come from a 1989 Laura Ashley catalogue.” Meanwhile, Meghan’s “chic” white coat “accentuated her gym-toned slim figure as her mane of black hair shone in the winter sun.”</p>
<p id="8pjpw7">As time went on, coverage of Meghan grew ever more inflected with racist overtones, and the tabloids positioned Kate ever more steadily as the winner of the imagined war between the pair. As the narrative was set, it became possible, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/meghan-markle-kate-middleton-double-standards-royal">as an article by Ellie Hall showed</a>, for Kate and Meghan to perform the exact same actions and still fit the now-established binary. Kate “tenderly cradles her baby bump,” while a pregnant Meghan has experts wondering if her hands are always on her bump out of “pride, vanity, acting — or a new age bonding technique?” Kate “requested her favorite scented candles and toiletries from luxury fragrance brand Jo Malone be delivered to scent the Abbey” at her wedding, while “‘Dictatorial’ bride Meghan wanted air fresheners for ‘musty’ 15th-century chapel” at her own. The binary has a life of its own now, and it doesn’t need to rely on anything so precious as the way the individual people who it is ostensibly about actually behave.</p>
<p id="CAQqSF">That’s because this tabloid narrative has less to do with who Meghan and Kate actually are than it has to do with what the public has decided they symbolize. Kate means the monarchy carrying on as the shiniest and most polished version of its conventional self, a clear line from Queen Elizabeth through to the future Queen Kate, always smiling, always dutiful, always there. Meghan means the monarchy changing, evolving, in potentially threatening ways. Embracing a princess of color. Embracing Hollywood-style celebrity, with its attendant informalities and intimacies. Talking about your feelings in public. Getting a little California. </p>
<p id="iGmedu">Both imagined futures for the monarchy have their strengths, but for the tabloids’ purposes, what’s more important is that they both have their weaknesses, too. There is always a way for one of the women in the binary to be losing — to be too progressive or too conservative, too boring or too flashy. It is impossible to ever truly win. We can tell that from looking at history.</p>
<p id="xPGJj9">Before Meghan, the promise of a newer, warmer monarchy used to be the one embodied by Princess Diana. Diana’s innovations, <a href="https://airmail.news/issues/2024-3-16/the-deformative-years">as a review of her brother Charles Spencer’s new book put it</a>, were at the heart of “the central story of Britain in recent years” — namely, “the clash between the wounded, Californian inclinations of Diana ... and of Meghan and Harry, and the unswerving Keep Calm and Carry On of Queen and Crown.”</p>
<p id="P8tuqf">Kate, it goes without saying, is a Keep Calm and Carry On sort of lady. Which is why before Meghan and Harry ever met, Kate’s primary foil was the ghost of her dead mother-in-law.</p>
<h3 id="PHpDcY"> “She appears precision-made, machine-made”</h3>
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<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/AMUZkeLKnsKw4mX_IKeU19ToBHQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25347963/headshots_1711037583203.jpg">
<cite>Left: Julian Finney/Getty Images. Right: Steve Parsons/Getty Images.</cite>
<figcaption>On the left, Kate on her wedding day in 2011, wearing Diana’s sapphire ring. On the right, Meghan on her wedding day in 2018, wearing Diana’s aquamarine ring.</figcaption>
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<p id="WcUVKQ">Diana was, for a time, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21593569/princess-diana-explainer-crown-netflix-marilyn-monroe-britney-spears-innocence">the most popular member of the royal family</a>. She was also the messiest. Her divorce from Prince Charles shattered royal precedent. She openly spoke about Charles’s affairs, her own eating disorder, and her history of self-harm. The heat of her celebrity made the royal family look stiff and cold; the scandal of her mistreatment made them look tawdry. The public’s fascination with her was so intense that, in the end, it killed her. Diana died in 1997, at the age of 36, after her car crashed while she was being tailed by paparazzi. </p>
<p id="oPPFMp">William and Kate married in 2011, 14 years after Diana’s death. At the time, there was still a palpable sense of guilt to the way people wrote about Diana, a feeling that she had been done<strong> </strong>wrong by. Kate was to be her redemption.</p>
<p id="sP3WJT">“The future Queen Consort,” wrote Tina Brown in <em>The Palace Papers</em>, summarizing the queen’s view on William and Kate’s marriage, “was, unlike the child-bride Diana, road tested in resilience as well as royal life.” Kate could not be destroyed by royal life as Diana was because Kate was coming into it as an adult. She knew what she was getting into, and she had proven she could bear up under the pressure.</p>
<p id="k8EJGq">For some onlookers, Kate’s evident suitability for the role of future queen consort, her dissimilarity to Diana, was its own sort of tragedy, suggestive of a vicious repression of personality. “Kate seems to have been selected for her role of princess because she was irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character,” <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies">wrote Hilary Mantel in 2013</a>. “She appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture. Diana was capable of transforming herself from galumphing schoolgirl to ice queen, from wraith to Amazon. Kate seems capable of going from perfect bride to perfect mother, with no messy deviation.” </p>
<p id="K8t7zR">Meghan and Kate each have one of Diana’s rings. Kate has her engagement ring, the massive sapphire sparkler that appeared to be so pointedly missing from the altered Mother’s Day photo. Meghan has the ring Diana got to replace her engagement ring after she divorced Charles and left royal life behind: an aquamarine ring, with the stone a present from a friend of hers. Another way of saying this is that Meghan got the ring of freedom and Kate got the ring of duty — or, perhaps, that Meghan got the ring of royal disillusionment and Kate got the ring of royal promise. </p>
<p id="jCR52p">Meghan was a perfect foil for Kate in part because <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22323456/harry-meghan-markle-diana-oprah-interview-cbs">she could be made to embody the parts of Diana that were messy and human</a>: both her warm way with a crowd and her emphatic insistence that life in the royal family was too cold to be survived. Kate, in turn, could be left to embody the dream of Diana as the public at first believed she would be. She was a princess standing perfect and untouchable in her enormous wedding gown as she tumbled out of the carriage in front of Westminster Abbey. Kate could embody the fairy tale because she was never going to complicate the happy ending. </p>
<p id="bkHzTt">The theories and speculation that flared over Kate’s disappearance were startling in part because they were Diana all over again, and not the fairy-tale sapphire ring Diana. The meta-story of Kate’s disappearance spread to include <a href="https://www.etonline.com/rose-hanbury-denies-prince-william-affair-rumors-report-221887">William’s alleged affair with Rose Hanbury</a>, a sinister echo of Charles’s years-long relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles when he was still married to Diana. There are other similarities, too.</p>
<p id="QxCM9P">An inner-circle royal reporter drew parallels on GB News <a href="https://twitter.com/QueenRMade1/status/1749520679123448220">between Kate’s health ailments and Diana’s mental health struggles</a>. “He [William] goes back to his own mother, when he became what she called the man of the house, and he had to deal with her mental illnesses,” said Angela Levin, Queen Camilla’s official biographer, with somewhat ambiguous implications. “Here, he’s a mature man, and he will know that his priority is to look after his wife.” </p>
<p id="qBau09"><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8363199/RICHARD-KAY-Kate-Meghan-snobbish-claims-sparked-palace-fury.html">An infamous Tatler profile of Kate from 2020</a> noted that “it seems that with years of scrutinising public pressure Kate has become perilously thin, just like — some point out — Princess Diana.” Diana suffered from an eating disorder, and the Tatler profile sparked rumors that Kate did, too; rumors which caught fire as the public speculated over Kate’s health in the wake of her surgery.</p>
<p id="eJ5kgx">These rumors are in a way a development of the cracks in Kate’s glacial composure that some observers were beginning to observe as early as the royal wedding. “In [Kate’s] <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/display/2013/hrh-the-duchess-of-cambridge">first official portrait by Paul Emsley</a>, unveiled in January, her eyes are dead and she wears the strained smile of a woman who really wants to tell the painter to bugger off,” <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies">Mantel wrote</a>. “One critic said perceptively that she appeared ‘weary of being looked at.’”</p>
<p id="BD6pG6">If the controversy of Kate’s disappearance proves anything, it is that members of the royal family are not allowed to become “weary of being looked at.” That is the deal they have made: The taxpayers fund their lives, and in exchange royalty provides a royal spectacle, a parade of prim frocks and demure hats at hospital openings and tennis games forever and ever after, amen. </p>
<p id="PSY16x">Diana and Meghan both found this bargain unbearable in the end, but Kate — the thinking was — could withstand it. Kate walked into the bargain an adult woman with her eyes open, after 10 years of vicious paparazzi coverage to steel her to the rigors of royal life. Surely she would never crack under the pressure. </p>
<p id="SNhrXe">In the end, the most shocking thing about the disappearance of Princess Kate was that it suggested the faint possibility that her weariness had well and truly developed into a downright refusal to be looked at, a desire to break the bargain of the royal family. Which is unsettling for a number of reasons, not least of which is: If even Kate Middleton couldn’t withstand the horrible scrutiny and the pressure of marrying into the royal family — well then, who could?</p>
<p id="agmGyK"><em><strong>Update, March 22, 2:35 pm</strong></em><em>: This story was originally published on March 21. It has been updated to include news of Kate Middleton’s March 22 statement.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/24107796/kate-middleton-meghan-markle-diana-controversy-disappearanceConstance Grady2024-03-22T14:29:56-04:002024-03-22T14:29:56-04:00The disappearance of Kate Middleton, explained
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<img alt="Princess Kate, in a royal blue coat and hat, bends down to accept a bouquet of red roses from a little girl amid a crowd of onlookers." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/r3Rxp_A7LmaHjg8JxF88a3D7_t8=/645x0:5808x3872/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73175779/1874660179.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Princess Kate the last time she was seen in public, greeting the crowd after attending a Christmas morning service at Sandringham Church on December 25, 2023, in Sandringham, Norfolk. | Stephen Pond/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Princess of Wales issued a statement on March 22 saying she is being treated for cancer.</p> <p id="wCGQ7K">The mystery of Princess Catherine’s disappearance has been solved.</p>
<p id="fhQYa9">On Friday afternoon, the Princess of Wales, formerly Kate Middleton, <a href="https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal/status/1771235267837321694">announced in a recorded statement</a> that she had been diagnosed with an unspecified form of cancer, which she would be treating soon with preventative chemotherapy.</p>
<p id="7ktPMM">“I am well, and getting stronger every day by focusing on the things that will help me heal in my mind, body, and spirit,” Kate said in the statement. </p>
<div id="I3CATx">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">A message from Catherine, The Princess of Wales <a href="https://t.co/5LQT1qGarK">pic.twitter.com/5LQT1qGarK</a></p>— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) <a href="https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal/status/1771235267837321694?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 22, 2024</a>
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<p id="fx40lN">Kate’s statement comes after months of increasingly fevered speculation regarding her health and well-being. The princess’s last formal public appearance came on Christmas Day, when she was photographed attending church with her family. Then she apparently vanished from public view.<strong> </strong></p>
<p id="E8vaLz">On January 17, <a href="https://www.royal.uk/news-and-activity/2024-01-17/a-statement-from-kensington-palace">Kensington Palace announced</a> that Kate had entered the hospital the day before for planned abdominal surgery. “The Princess of Wales appreciates the interest this statement will generate,” the announcement read. “She hopes that the public will understand her desire to maintain as much normality for her children as possible; and her wish that her personal medical information remains private.” It added that she was “unlikely” to resume her public duties until Easter, which falls this year on March 31. On January 29, <a href="https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal/status/1751938452721996034">it was announced that she had returned home</a>.</p>
<p id="A2Mu7b">Although Kate stuck to her schedule, the long pause in her public appearances and the lack of concrete information about her health created a fertile breeding ground for conspiracy theories. When <a href="https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a46986618/kate-middleton-update-prince-william-misses-memorial/">Prince William canceled a planned appearance</a> of his own on February 27, citing a “personal matter,” rumors began to fly.</p>
<p id="IedlAr">Something, some people theorized, had gone terribly wrong with Kate’s health. Perhaps her marriage to William was on the rocks and she was in hiding. Perhaps she’d been killed and would be replaced by a body double. As the story took off, the joke theories began to take up more space: Kate was waiting for bad bangs to grow out, or to recover from plastic surgery; she’d become the villain in the viral <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2024/2/28/24086217/willy-wonka-glasgow-scotland">Willy Wonka experience</a>.</p>
<p id="x3XuUp">Meanwhile, responses from Kensington Palace failed to set the public’s mind at ease. At first, <a href="https://people.com/kate-middleton-doing-well-recovery-surgery-prince-william-pulls-out-memorial-service-8600805">all the Palace would say</a> was that Kate “continues to be doing well,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/style/princess-kate-middleton-health.html">and that her condition was “not cancerous.”</a> (In her March 22 statement, Kate said that, when she entered surgery, it was believed her condition was not cancerous, but doctors determined that it was shortly thereafter.) </p>
<p id="drYfnr">In the absence of any official narrative, all pictures of Kate took on the quality of a conspiracy. On March 10, Kensington Palace <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/picture-agencies-pull-kate-photo-214600346.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHC97tmmo87KJOEm7YLrtZPfWYUeiEdxu2M0I_5TFSPzME8LtpX4vswH1EqzcAK6_RwwS8ag2Qdm4tWLp3fuQDbonpf_Ee4KLPdbqkVTfdeei8gbv9Jm8zaIlYiRzswOIGJFS2VTEzG-MfUl-wuMwOa2XoVsBNHRVvJodV4Jj64S">circulated a picture</a> of the Princess of Wales smiling with her children in honor of Mother’s Day in the UK. The picture would have marked the second of only two public appearances by Kate since Christmas Day — but shortly after the picture came out, it was marred by scandal. Multiple major photo agencies, including the AP and Reuters, concluded that the image had been “manipulated” and issued a kill notice for it. </p>
<p id="eiaiiD">The next day, on March 11, the X account for the Prince and Princess of Wales <a href="https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal/status/1767135566645092616">posted an apology</a> reading, “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day.” It was signed “C,” for Catherine. Later that same day, she was reportedly photographed leaving Windsor Castle, according to the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2024/03/11/royal-family-photo-kate-princess-of-wales-live-latest/">Telegraph</a>. The picture shows Prince William in a car next to a brunette woman, with her ear and a bit of cheek visible.</p>
<p id="C4XL1x">For months, the rumors roared on. Most of the conspiracy theories were silly, but they were all reacting to a real issue. Kate has long been a reliable pillar of the British family, showing up and smiling at every public event at which she was asked to appear, reacting to the Sturm und Drang of royal drama with an air of determined normalcy. Then she did something decidedly out of the ordinary: She disappeared.</p>
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<h3 id="C7o4ms">Why some people thought Kate’s cover story was fishy</h3>
<p id="Eisuz1">Officially, Kate was in the hospital for planned abdominal surgery. Still, skeptical onlookers pounced almost immediately on an apparent discrepancy in <a href="https://www.royal.uk/news-and-activity/2024-01-17/a-statement-from-kensington-palace">Kensington Palace’s first statement about her health</a> on January 17. If Kate’s surgery was “planned,” the onlookers demanded to know, then why had the Palace also said that she was “postponing her upcoming engagements?” How far in advance could this surgery really have been planned?</p>
<p id="FZ254J">Also raising eyebrows was the detail that Kate would be recovering from her surgery for “10 to 14 days.” Some abdominal surgeries can be minor, like an appendectomy, but those procedures don’t come with such lengthy in-patient stays. What kind of surgery was Kate undergoing that she wouldn’t be able to go back home for two weeks afterward?</p>
<p id="cUrLzT">The speculation only increased when Buckingham Palace announced the same day that King Charles would be receiving treatment for an enlarged prostate. For two such high-ranking royals to be undergoing medical procedures at the same time was unusual, almost shocking. Royal watchers speculated that <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/royals/king-charles-protected-kate-middleton-31937497">the palace was trying to cover something up</a>.</p>
<p id="kxQvAt">As the weeks went by, Kate’s condition remained mysterious, while Charles was almost pointedly transparent about his own health. In February he announced that <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/king-charles-cancer-diagnosis-health-update-undergoing-treatment/">he had been diagnosed with cancer</a>, that it had been caught early, that he was doing well, and that he had begun treatment. As for Kate, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/style/princess-kate-middleton-health.html">Kensington Palace would only say tersely</a> that her condition was “not cancerous.” Why, royal watchers demanded, was Kate’s condition so much more mysterious than the king’s was?</p>
<p id="159FsB">The more time went by without so much as a single blurry telephoto lens shot of Kate, the more the rumors built. <a href="https://people.com/prince-william-visits-kate-middleton-hospital-after-abdominal-surgery-8431213">William was photographed visiting the hospital</a>, but no one saw Kate make her way out of the hospital and back to her own home in Windsor Home Park.</p>
<p id="AMN9Z4">Under normal circumstances, the lack of photos of a woman recovering from a medical procedure would be recognized as a reasonable respect for someone’s privacy. However, the life of a future queen of England is not normal circumstances. In a country with a <a href="https://www.rd.com/list/why-british-tabloids-are-more-extreme-than-americas/">notoriously ruthless tabloid press</a>, royals are considered to be fair game as much as anyone. </p>
<p id="wwLL0P">Royals are expected to keep the public informed on their well-being, to play the game with <a href="https://www.vox.com/media" data-source="encore">the media</a>. The royal women, particularly, are expected to meet nearly impossible expectations: to be always beautifully groomed, always pleasant, always available to their public, no matter the circumstances. Kate has traditionally done so with reliable goodwill. <a href="https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a19674665/kate-middleton-post-birth-appearance-differences-comparison/">After the birth of each of her three children</a>, Kate appeared dutifully in front of the hospital in full hair and makeup for a photo op for the paparazzi within 24 hours, and she did it with a cheerful smile each time to boot. What made this particular procedure different? What had kept Kate from wanting to show her face, and kept the press from demanding to show it anyway? Why did the palace eventually feel driven to release an apparently manipulated photo of her?</p>
<p id="V0fgPs">“You’re telling me that Kate Middleton—the same woman who posed outside the hospital like a freaking supermodel mere hours after giving birth—suddenly requires months of recovery before showing her face?” <a href="https://twitter.com/MRSFVenom/status/1762128060185219379">posted one onlooker on X, summing up the skepticism</a>. “And the British press now magically respects privacy? This feels…sinister.”</p>
<p id="jHet8u">“Kensington Palace made it clear in January the timelines of the princess’ recovery and we’d only be providing significant updates. That guidance stands,” <a href="https://people.com/palace-responds-kate-middleton-conspiracy-theories-online-surgery-recovery-rare-statement-8602191">palace representatives said in February</a>.</p>
<h3 id="HDBe3H">A brief history of Princess Kate’s reliability</h3>
<p id="pyIyjW">Kate’s disappearance seems to strike people as odd because it is so counter to her brand. For as long as she has been in the public eye, Kate has been dependable, reliable, and always there. Constancy is so clearly central to Kate’s public image that the press has made it at various points her most heroic trait and her only liability.</p>
<p id="LR9EzM">Even early in her relationship with Prince William, during which the press granted her the humiliating nickname of “Waity Katie,” Kate was polite to the paparazzi. She didn’t cultivate a chummy relationship with them, as the late Princess Diana did at certain parts of her career, but she also didn’t try to outmaneuver them. She knew what they wanted and she was matter-of-fact about it. In <em>The Palace Papers</em>, royal journalist Tina Brown describes how the paparazzi would show up outside the midmarket fashion line where Kate worked while she and William were dating. Her boss would ask if she wanted to sneak out the back, but Kate would reply, “To be honest, they’re going to hound us until they’ve got the picture. So why don’t I just go, get the picture done, and then they’ll leave us alone.” She was right.</p>
<p id="U1miTG">After Kate and William married in 2011, Kate enjoyed a brief honeymoon period as one of the most popular members of the royal family. With her famously shiny hair and demurely polished wardrobe, she had, like Diana before her, a dash of the kind of glamor that could make the dowdy Windsor brand feel new again. At the same time, she was so sensible, so straightforward, so clearly walking into her fate with open eyes and a cool head. She was not the kind of woman who would be destroyed by the pressures of royal life. She would be, as Brown writes in <em>The Palace Papers</em>, “unlike the child-bride Diana, road tested in resilience as well as royal life.”</p>
<p id="dzNQIa">When <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22323456/harry-meghan-markle-diana-oprah-interview-cbs">Prince Harry married Meghan Markle in 2018</a>, Kate and Meghan became each other’s foils in the press, and once again, Kate’s constancy was her defining feature. When Meghan was popular, Kate was the drab and conservative duchess of yesterday compared to Meghan’s exciting progressivism. When Meghan was unpopular, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/meghan-markle-kate-middleton-double-standards-royal">or the British press was feeling particularly racist</a>, Kate was the steadfast maternal icon who could be counted on to lead the British in times of trouble, whereas Meghan was troublingly mercurial and far too trendy to be trusted.</p>
<p id="dzy1wQ">The royal family has contracted over the past few years, with <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2022/9/8/22846451/queen-elizabeth-ii-death-96-obituary-reign-monarchy">the older generation dying off</a> and members of the younger generation <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/1/8/21057103/meghan-harry-step-back-royal-duties">drawing back</a> or <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/17/20969336/prince-andrew-epstein-bbc-interview-statement-news">becoming mired in scandal</a>. Yet as her press coverage fluctuates, Kate has continued performing her duties, almost always with her signature public smile: cheerful, reliable, the face of a woman pleased to be doing what’s right. She is a star player for the royal family in a dangerous time of transition. She is always where she should be. </p>
<p id="wM2ybk">“The inescapable truth is that in the unlikely event that the Cambridge marriage [between William and Kate] ever becomes troubled, the whole Windsor house of cards could come tumbling down,” writes Brown in <em>The Palace Papers</em>. “Kate has become a cherished national icon of flawless motherhood.” </p>
<p id="07CfRr">Under these circumstances, Kate’s disappearance went from benign oddity to near scandal: something totally out of the norm for a very public and very reliable figure. </p>
<p id="IRx9IJ">“We hope that you’ll understand that, as a family, we now need some time, space, and privacy while I complete my treatment,” Kate said in her March 22 statement. The public may have to get used to a much less visible Princess Catherine. </p>
<p id="thCiLm"><em><strong>Update, March 22, 2:25 pm ET</strong></em><em>: This story was originally published on March 1 and has been updated multiple times, most recently to include Kate’s video statement.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/24087565/princess-kate-middleton-disappearance-rumors-explained-abdominal-surgery-kensington-palaceConstance Grady2024-03-22T11:00:00-04:002024-03-22T11:00:00-04:003 Body Problem, explained with the help of an astrophysicist
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<img alt="A still from the movie shows rows of hundreds of people holding white square banners, standing before a large, ornate temple with a domed roof. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Qh152zC0YWqeGNWCdDibeYciMy8=/779x0:2822x1532/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73225828/3_Body_Problem_n_S1_E3_00_30_33_11RC.jpg_3_Body_Problem_n_S1_E3_00_30_33_11RC.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>The epic virtual world of <em>3 Body Problem</em>. | Courtesy of Netflix</figcaption>
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<p>Netflix’s new adaptation of Liu Cixin’s famous sci-fi series shows us what quantum mechanics might look like in real time.</p> <p id="2sPuXC"><a href="https://www.vox.com/netflix" data-source="encore">Netflix</a>’s <em>3 Body Problem</em> premiered March 21, and there’s a lot of science! The new Netflix series from screenwriter Alexander Woo and <a href="https://www.vox.com/game-of-thrones"><em>Game of Thrones</em></a> shepherds David Benioff and D.B. Weiss adapts a bestselling <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34569357">sci-fi trilogy</a> by Chinese writer Liu Cixin, an engineer with a high-level understanding of physics. The story that unfolds over <em>3 Body</em> and its two sequels, also known as the <em>Remembrance of Earth’s Past</em> series, won acclaim for its vision of a future based on a variety of ideas about quantum mechanics and how they might impact a future interstellar existential crisis. In <em>3 Body</em>’s fictional universe, far-flung theory plays out in real time in the lives of a far-away alien species and its attempts to both interact with and influence humans here on Earth. </p>
<p id="kPNp82">Fortunately for audiences who aren’t Einsteins, the Netflix series shifts much of the drama away from the skies and onto humans — it even creates a bunch of entirely new characters to give us people to care about in between all the physics. Liu’s series includes two more books following the first novel; the Netflix series follows the first book, then spins off in its own direction for a while before setting us up for book two. What they both have in common is a zoomed-out view of quantum mechanics and astrophysics underlying all the cool space stuff. Our heroes and villains are all scientists whose decisions and conflicts dictate humanity’s course both now and in the distant future. With the assistance of an actual astrophysicist, let’s go through the basics you need to know to understand what the heck is happening in this show. </p>
<h4 id="Jr8guB"><strong>What is the three-body problem, and why can’t anyone solve it? </strong></h4>
<p id="gnHzPa">The three-body problem has existed ever since humans began to understand gravity and how it works. You probably know that the Earth rotates around the sun because the sun’s gravitational field is <a href="https://sciencing.com/earth-rotates-around-sun-8501366.html">exerting a pull</a> over our planet and all the others in our solar system. We’re able to interact with the sun in that way because as planets, our individual gravitational spheres are all less powerful than the sun, and none are powerful enough to exert a hold on each other. It’s the same with our moon — <a href="https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/ess05.sci.ess.eiu.moonorbit/why-doesnt-the-moon-fall-down/">it’s caught</a> in Earth’s gravitational field, so it floats along hanging out with us. </p>
<p id="khKTtK">In other words, two objects whose gravitational fields interact will always form stable orbits along a predictable, unchanging path. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/13/newtons-universal-law-of-gravitation">Newton figured this out</a>, along with the formula for predicting their orbits, in 1687. It’s sometimes called “the two-body problem.” If you were to introduce another star into the mix, you’d probably wind up with <a href="https://www.space.com/22509-binary-stars.html">a binary star system</a> — where both stars form stable orbits around a gravitational center. The most common sort of star is one with a stable binary partner, which makes our sun, a solo star, fairly rare. Binary star systems can have <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-discovery-of-planets-with-two-suns/">stable planets</a>, too, and these types of systems can often be mapped and plotted and predicted by astronomers and physicists.</p>
<p id="dvGO1J">But that only works with two objects with gravitational forces. When you add a <em>third</em> object into the mix, all bets are off. Instead of stabilizing, <a href="https://gravity.byu.edu/gravitational-chaos">the third element creates chaos</a> and causes the objects to fly around and interact in completely unpredictable ways — spinning off into space, crashing into each other, or bouncing off one another’s gravitational spheres and careening in completely different directions. </p>
<p id="IomJiO">To explain why this happens, I turned to astrophysicist <a href="https://physics.indiana.edu/about/directory/all-faculty-scientists/horowitz-charles.html">Dr. Charles J. Horowitz</a>, who told me that the key here is the law of conservation of energy — <a href="https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/conservation-of-energy/">that’s the one</a> that tells us that energy in a closed system can never be created or destroyed. “Conservation of energy implies that a planet will orbit a single star forever and can never escape to infinity,” Horowitz wrote in an email. In other words, once a planet becomes trapped inside of a star’s gravitational field, it can’t create the additional energy it would need to propel itself out of it. </p>
<p id="mi0MmF">“Two stars, on the other hand, can exchange energy and possibly eject an orbiting planet,” Horowitz said.</p>
<p id="fS5fPq">This, then, is “the three-body problem:” How do we stabilize three gravitational objects or predict what their orbits might be?</p>
<p id="f2BuvD">For centuries, scientists were unable to find any starting point from which the three objects could form stable orbits in relationship to one another. In recent decades, scientists have come closer; increasingly, using <a href="https://www.space.com/mathematicians-unsolvable-3-body-problem-12000-solutions">computational algorithms</a> and, in at least one instance, modeling their predictions <a href="https://www.livescience.com/three-body-problem-solution">on intoxicated humans</a>, we’ve found multiple solutions to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2661357">create stability</a> among our three hypothetical objects. But the majority of these solutions are difficult if not impossible to model in reality, so it’s not clear how well they work out of the realm of theory.</p>
<h4 id="8Ox18P"><strong>What are some possibilities for any civilization unlucky enough to be living on a planet within a three-body star system?</strong></h4>
<p id="mgMMGJ">The central conceit of <em>3 Body Problem</em> is exactly this scenario — an alien species on a distant planet has evolved the capacity to become a technologically advanced civilization — but its planet exists within a solar system with three different suns. </p>
<p id="3lpHqb">Because of the three-body problem, these suns are constantly exerting gravitational chaos over one another, flinging each other to and fro across the cosmos and in the process wreaking climate havoc on the planet caught in the middle. The alien race, called the Trisolarans, has thus had its civilizations wiped out and destroyed, over and over, for millennia.</p>
<p id="awKA3L">I asked Horowitz how likely this scenario would be, and he essentially backed up <em>Three Body</em>’s author, Liu Cixin. “In the short term it might be fine,” Horowitz said. “Over very long times (say, billions of years) many orbits of planets around two stars are thought to be unstable.”</p>
<p id="Ufz2lU">“If life takes billions of years to evolve (as it did on Earth) then such a planet may not provide a suitable environment. However, there may be certain configurations of the three bodies that are stable for long times and could be suitable for life. Or life could develop or colonize the world more quickly,” he added.</p>
<p id="XiobjR">This is precisely the situation the Trisolarans face: From time to time, their three bodies stabilize for long periods, giving their civilizations enough time to rapidly advance and flourish. Inevitably, though, the stable eras give way to “chaotic eras,” when their suns resume their volatility. </p>
<p id="TVlujy">The existential problem of the Trisolarans — which a select group of Earthlings eventually devote themselves to solving as well — is how to know and prepare for a chaotic era when you can’t predict one. In essence, they’re living out the three-body problem in real time.</p>
<h4 id="jPQtXR"><strong>Is it possible for two particles situated across the universe from one another to act as one body and receive/transmit information simultaneously?</strong></h4>
<p id="GFBsxH">This scenario might sound improbable, but it’s actually not — and it’s a crucial part of the plot of <em>3 Body Problem</em>. In the show, we learn that the Trisolarans are able to essentially spy on Earth through the use of a proton that’s been transmitted to Earth to act as a simultaneous receiver and transmitter for its twin proton, which remains on Trisolaris. </p>
<p id="MxWDNX">This is possible through a mind-bending phenomenon known as <a href="https://www.space.com/31933-quantum-entanglement-action-at-a-distance.html">quantum entanglement</a>. Scientists have observed this property in subatomic particles which essentially operate as one entity, <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2018/light-ancient-quasars-helps-confirm-quantum-entanglement-0820">even when they’re separated</a> by billions of light years. In fact, notes Dr. Horowitz, “[It’s] perhaps better to say the two entangled particles share the information rather than receive and transmit it.” In other words, they aren’t so much <em>communicating</em> with one another as simultaneously receiving information from both locations — even though they’re on completely different planets.</p>
<h4 id="BNmPNP">
<em><strong>3 Body </strong></em><strong>posits a scenario where scientists line up a thousand nuclear bombs in space and then set them all off in order, like dominoes. If you tried this in reality, wouldn’t you have to deal with some kind of giant radioactive space cloud?</strong>
</h4>
<p id="SjvqxQ">This may sound like the most unbelievable part of the <em>3 Body </em>series — even in the show, when our plucky cosmologist, Jin Cheng, presents the idea to her colleagues, they laugh at her and dismiss the idea as a silly game rather than real science.</p>
<p id="C7GOJ5">In fact, Cheng’s idea is based on a real phenomenon known as <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/tdm/space-nuclear-propulsion/">nuclear thermal propulsion</a>, sometimes called nuclear pulse propulsion. As it turns out, nuclear propulsion produces very little radiation if the engines using it are activated in space instead of on Earth — and the benefits include reduced energy use, reduced exposure to cosmic radiation, and speedier rockets. The Department of Energy even <a href="https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/6-things-you-should-know-about-nuclear-thermal-propulsion">has a web page</a> devoted to touting the benefits of nuclear propulsion. </p>
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<p id="ke3ngw">Although the series presents Cheng’s domino effect idea as far-fetched, the US has a history of experimenting with nuclear thermal propulsion. As Horowitz explained, “Project Orion, early in the Cold War, tried to develop a rocket powered by small atomic bombs.”</p>
<p id="mUEiyH">However, if you’re wondering about all that radiation, you’re not alone. The first version of Project Orion was <a href="https://www.ans.org/news/article-1294/nuclear-pulse-propulsion-gateway-to-the-stars/">ultimately canceled</a> because mid-century scientists were unable to solve the big problem: the near-certainty of deadly nuclear fallout that would result from any attempt to launch a nuclear-powered rocket into space from Earth. </p>
<p id="vlBqgh">A shame, really. “It would have been a very good rocket,” Horowitz said. Modern iterations of Orion have focused on launching similar rockets from within space and <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/orion/scientists-and-engineers-evaluate-orion-radiation-protection-plan/">limiting astronauts’ exposure</a> to radiation. </p>
<h4 id="NpVtUc"><strong>Is it really possible to expand something tiny and point-like, like a proton, into multiple massive dimensions in space?</strong></h4>
<p id="58543r">Perhaps the most difficult aspect of <em>3 Body </em>to conceptualize involves exactly what the Trisolarans do to the aforementioned proton before they shoot it off into space: They unfold its multiple dimensions into a massive, planet-sized amount of space, inscribe a giant super-computer onto its planes, and then re-fold it back into its original microscopic size. </p>
<p id="0MnrJp">This is a difficult feat to imagine, much less conceive in reality. Yet this practice exists, at least in theory, as an idea of <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unfolding-dimensions-journey-from-abstract-math-quantum-ayman-nassri-muhbe/">multidimensional unfolding</a>. Imagine this the way you might imagine creating <a href="https://scoutlife.org/hobbies-projects/funstuff/166945/how-to-make-a-paper-fortune-teller/">a simple paper fortune-teller</a>. The paper shape starts out almost fully flat, on a single plane — but it can be uncompressed to reveal more and more layers, until you have a neat schoolyard divination tool. </p>
<p id="VfxyvH">Now imagine this happening on a grand scale, and with even more dimensions than the three we experience here on Earth. There are <a href="https://indico.cern.ch/event/107747/contributions/32645/attachments/24317/35000/blobel.pdf">multiple processes</a> for how to do it, and multiple ways to try to illustrate what examples might look like in reality. The most famous example is an object that mathematicians and physicists call a hypercube or a tesseract (no, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/11/29/16714604/avengers-infinity-war-trailer-breakdown">not that one</a>) — a cube equivalent that exists in at least four dimensions. Here’s <a href="https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/hypercube-or-tesseract/82951">one attempt</a> to imagine what one might look like: </p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="An animation of what looks like a cube within a cube, changing shape. " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aGwd9gWlkaPJ51zRd-SqkbIqc18=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25349639/hypercube.gif">
<cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/diff-arch/activity/portfolio" target="_blank">Marc Differding</a></cite>
<figcaption>A hypothetical hypercube</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="Wma7Fj">Humans have devoted considerable time to trying to capture the essence of this; one famous early work of science fiction, <a href="https://www.americanscientist.org/article/a-forgivably-flat-classic"><em>Flatland</em></a>, was published in 1884 by Edwin Abbott Abbot as a satirical attempt to introduce Victorians to the whole idea of higher dimensions by positing the existence of a society of people who existed in two planes only. Today, we can find equivalent thought experiments in places like <a href="https://www.vox.com/youtube" data-source="encore">YouTube</a>:</p>
<div id="ZrfidW"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_4ruHJFsb4g?rel=0" style="top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; border: 0;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" allow="accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share;"></iframe></div></div>
<p id="F77KGv">Of course, none of this fully explains whether it would be possible to unfold a proton into the size of a planet and then inscribe a super-computer onto it. When I asked Horowitz about this, he replied with “??” </p>
<p id="Tj7mA7">And honestly, that might be a fair way to respond to many of the scientific ideas we find in Liu’s expansive series. Ultimately, it’s built less on what’s real, and what we definitely know, than what’s possible given the incredible advances we’ve made in theoretical physics — emphasis on <em>theory</em>. </p>
<p id="372Hjb">In other words, <em>3 Body</em> collides science and fiction like two protons. The result is a wild, unique ride that’s worth suspending a little disbelief.</p>
<h4 id="Umvvyl">
<strong>Bonus: If I dehydrate myself, can I rehydrate myself later and be fine?</strong> </h4>
<p id="7UGBrD">No. Do <em>not</em> try this trick at home. Thankfully, some parts of <em>3 Body</em> remain purely in the realm of the fantastic.</p>
<p id="EJ2tpS"></p>
<p id="2wgPBM"></p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/24108638/3-body-problem-science-physics-theory-explained-how-real-is-itAja Romano2024-03-22T08:30:00-04:002024-03-22T08:30:00-04:00Why March Madness is all about Caitlin Clark
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<img alt="Caitlin Clark wears a white team uniform accented by a black stripe bordered in yellow down the side. She is pictured mid-run, holding the basketball and punching the air with her free hand, wearing a triumphant expression. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JUEjL3JCFpqZ2tDJlwNSP335L_U=/0x0:3749x2812/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73225346/2073856145.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Caitlin Clark and Iowa won the Big 10 Women’s Basketball Tournament earlier this month. | Adam Bettcher/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most exciting player in college basketball, explained.</p> <p id="AynkTu">For the uninitiated, college basketball may seem like a complicated sport. Nearly every second is packed with plays, screens, cuts, and defenses that can be hard to follow. Commentators spray you with names and phrases that you’re supposed to already know. (<a href="https://msuspartans.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/coaches/tom-izzo/616">Izzo</a>? <a href="https://uconnhuskies.com/sports/womens-basketball/roster/coaches/geno-auriemma/599">Geno</a>? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDeMqcpGbhI">The 1-3-1</a>? <a href="https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/39760815/pac-12-womens-march-madness-ncaa-usc-juju-watkins-stanford">Pac-12</a>?) And let’s not even get started on advanced metrics, unless you can explain <a href="https://resources.wolframcloud.com/FormulaRepository/resources/Basketball-Usage-Rate#:~:text=Usage%20rate%20estimates%20the%20percentage,all%20divided%20by%20the%20possessions.">usage rate</a>.</p>
<p id="dgpTqD">But if you’ve ever wanted to see basketball beautifully simplified — as clean as putting a ball through the hoop — all you need to do is watch Caitlin Clark, the 22-year-old superstar making headlines with the Iowa Hawkeyes.</p>
<p id="viy3vF">In both the men’s and women’s college game, there has never been a more prolific scorer than Clark, no shooter as flashy. She’s the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qm446EqVn0">record-breaking</a> scoring leader among all Division I college basketball players in NCAA history, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/caitlin-clark-scoring-record-iowa-basketball-rcna140836">smashing</a> “Pistol Pete” Maravich’s more than 50-year-old record this season. Clark’s gaudy numbers and the manner in which she scores — pulling up from anywhere in the gym, no matter how distant from the basket — have brought mainstream attention to women’s college basketball, a sport historically eclipsed by its men’s counterpart.</p>
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<img alt="A decal on the court floor reads “22 Clark.”" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/u2VHm_U6K5E8VINPr1SBeLx07Xs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25347983/2045199151.jpg">
<cite>Matthew Holst/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>The spot where Caitlin Clark broke the NCAA women’s scoring record at Carver-Hawkeye Arena</figcaption>
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<p id="43xUNd">Her impact is being called the Caitlin Clark Effect. The Hawkeyes <a href="https://hawkeyesports.com/news/2023/08/14/cha-sold-out-iowa-wbb-sells-out-2023-24-season/">sold out their season tickets</a> for their entire home schedule for the first time in school history, and <a href="https://www.hawkcentral.com/story/sports/college/iowa/basketball-women/2024/02/23/caitlin-clark-big-ten-womens-basketball-tournament-sold-out-first-time-ever-iowa-hawkeyes/72715010007/">Iowa’s road games</a> have set attendance bests for opposing schools. Tickets for Iowa’s first two March Madness games, which begin on Saturday, <a href="https://theathletic.com/5350909/2024/03/18/iowa-ncaa-tournament-tickets/">sold out in 30 minutes</a>. Earlier this month, her game against Ohio State — in which she broke Maravich’s aforementioned record — was watched by <a href="https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/39659782/caitlin-clark-record-draws-top-season-tv-rating-99">nearly 4 million TV viewers</a>, the highest for a regular-season women’s basketball game (i.e., no championships involved) since 1999. </p>
<p id="EKQPx6">Clark is the exception among her exceptional peers, and it isn’t just because of her incredible long-range shot. It’s that she knows what makes basketball exciting. She sees the spotlight and the pressure, the wins and the heartbreaks as a privilege, and she has embraced being both a hero and a villain. That’s what allows her to be the most thrilling player in college basketball.</p>
<h3 id="X7up5E">How Caitlin Clark changed women’s basketball</h3>
<p id="0XrQA8">Over the past four years, Caitlin Clark has scored <a href="https://apnews.com/article/caitlin-clark-scoring-record-stats-16528f3863be82ace94532d7c687093f">3,771 points</a> — the most for a player of any gender in Division I college basketball. That list includes male Hall of Famers like Maravich and Larry Bird as well as <a href="https://baylorbears.com/news/2024/2/16/womens-basketball-new-baylor-original-film-bigger-than-life-to-chronicle-brittney-griners-career-at-baylor.aspx">Brittney Griner</a>,<a href="https://uconnhuskies.com/sports/womens-basketball/roster/maya-moore/5624"> Maya Moore</a>,<a href="https://bluehens.com/sports/womens-basketball/roster/elena-delle-donne/15656"> Elena Delle Donne</a>, and<a href="https://wbhof.com/famers/chamique-holdsclaw/"> Chamique Holdsclaw</a>, some of the best women’s players of all time. </p>
<p id="MoZ0nh">Beginning her freshman season in 2020, Clark <a href="https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/player/_/id/4433403/caitlin-clark">averaged</a> 26.6 points per game and has upped that number each year to reach her current 31.9 as a senior. That stunning stat goes along with 8.9 assists per game and 7.3 rebounds. She’s currently shooting nearly 50 percent from the field, 38 percent from three, and 86 percent from the free throw line.</p>
<p id="kAKnGC">Those numbers are stellar, but basketball is a team sport, and Clark’s play elevates the Hawkeyes as a whole.</p>
<p id="LrG5l8">Clark is a scoring point guard. That means she touches the ball virtually every single time Iowa comes down the court on offense. Whether it’s shooting or setting up her teammates, getting points on the board is her responsibility. Opposing teams know this and go into each contest with the goal of shutting her down, playing Clark with lots of physicality and throwing double and even triple teams at her.</p>
<p id="jgspyb">Yet all season, she’s been scoring at a high clip and doing so with efficiency. Her gravitational pull has also freed up her teammates: When opponents double-team Clark, it leaves at least one of her fellow Hawkeyes open, allowing them more space for cuts to the basket.</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">With this assist Caitlin Clark of <a href="https://twitter.com/IowaWBB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IowaWBB</a> becomes the <a href="https://twitter.com/B1Gwbball?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@B1Gwbball</a> all-time leader in assists with 902, passing Samantha Prahalis of Ohio State. <a href="https://t.co/dKyHg9hmfr">pic.twitter.com/dKyHg9hmfr</a></p>— angieholmes (@angieholmes) <a href="https://twitter.com/angieholmes/status/1741194531276476633?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2023</a>
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<p id="7nCPoU">Clark’s offense has changed the Iowa program, bringing the team close to an NCAA championship. </p>
<p id="8865cD">Three years ago, during her freshman season, Clark and the Hawkeyes overachieved to make the NCAA Sweet 16 as a No. 5 seed, upsetting Kentucky before losing to UConn. Two years ago, Clark helped Iowa win the Big 10 tournament and clinch a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. </p>
<p id="3Z71FG">Last year, she made program history and brought Iowa to the national championship game, beating the overall favorite South Carolina before losing in the final game to LSU. After a remarkable 2023–2024 season and another Big 10 tournament win, Iowa’s women’s team got a No. 1 seed for March Madness — just the third time in program history — and is ranked <a href="https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-women/d1/associated-press">second overall</a>. </p>
<p id="Cui1Oe">Taking the Hawkeyes to the national championship last year and getting them poised for another deep tourney run is an especially remarkable achievement when you consider the composition of the Iowa squad. </p>
<div id="nSAN7X">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">CAITLIN CLARK FROM THE LOGO‼️ <a href="https://t.co/KVkXZPtVnO">pic.twitter.com/KVkXZPtVnO</a></p>— The Players' Tribune (@PlayersTribune) <a href="https://twitter.com/PlayersTribune/status/1642003810405982209?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 1, 2023</a>
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<p id="M0UnA6">Clark’s teammates weren’t highly ranked All-Americans in high school, the primary evaluation of how good an incoming college player is compared to her cohort. While ESPN ranked Clark herself <a href="https://www.espn.com/high-school/girls-basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/225153">fourth</a> in the 2020 class, her next-best teammate, Hannah Stuelke, was <a href="https://www.espn.com/high-school/girls-basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/242309">ranked 45</a> coming out of high school and averaged 6.5 points per game in the 2022–2023 season. Clark is the only five-star recruit on Iowa’s roster. </p>
<p id="doKjT2">By comparison, South Carolina, the top-ranked team heading into the tournament, is littered with highly rated players. Sophomore <a href="https://gamecocksonline.com/sports/wbball/roster/player/raven-johnson/">Raven Johnson</a> was <a href="https://www.espn.com/high-school/girls-basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/235773">ranked second</a> and named the Women’s Basketball Coach’s Association high school player of the year going into college. There’s also senior <a href="https://gamecocksonline.com/sports/wbball/roster/player/kamilla-cardoso/">Kamilla Cardoso</a>, who was ranked fifth on recruiting lists and was later named Freshman of the Year in her conference. There are many other stars, including <a href="https://gamecocksonline.com/sports/wbball/roster/player/te-hina-paopao/">Te-Hina Paopao</a>, <a href="https://gamecocksonline.com/sports/wbball/roster/player/bree-hall/">Bree Hall</a>, and <a href="https://gamecocksonline.com/sports/wbball/roster/player/milaysia-fulwiley/">Milaysia Fulwiley</a>. </p>
<p id="JCjdIH">To be clear, Clark isn’t a perfect player. Her defense is improving, but she and Iowa would much prefer to outscore their opponents than lock them down defensively. Iowa gives up around <a href="https://www.ncaa.com/stats/basketball-women/d1/current/team/113">72 points per game</a> to its opponents, while teams like South Carolina, UConn, and Texas don’t let their rivals hit 60. Plus, coach Lisa Bluder’s failure to find Clark a blue-chip teammate or two throughout her college career is probably the reason why Iowa didn’t win the championship last year and still isn’t the favorite to win this year.</p>
<p id="sStw6N">But Clark is special because her massive offensive talent makes her team better and allows Iowa to compete with more talented rosters. As Iowa has shown us this year and last, anything can happen with her on the floor.</p>
<h3 id="dz3Rxq">Caitlin Clark isn’t afraid to be a star (or a villain)</h3>
<p id="8VMaPH">Clark makes you feel like you’re watching magic. That’s why so many people, even some women’s basketball naysayers, are so interested.</p>
<p id="eI7Wvg">Women’s basketball is often <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/christinebrennan/2021/03/21/march-madness-treat-ncaa-women-same-men-call-spring-sexism/4790316001/">negatively compared</a> to the men’s game. With the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/2016/03/31/elena-delle-donne-doubles-down-on-defense-of-lower-rim-height/">rim at the same height</a> regardless of gender, men can make more athletic plays (dunks, putbacks, alley-oops) closer to the basket due to their<strong> </strong>height and strength. In the paint and on fast breaks, women’s basketball isn’t going to look as glitzy as the men’s. But physical advantages don’t have a bearing on shooting and court vision, and that’s where Clark excels. </p>
<p id="CaUxBZ">Clark regularly pulls up from beyond the 3-point line, sometimes even a step or two over half court (the vaunted <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaw/bigten/2024/02/03/caitlin-clark-loves-logo-3s/72439546007/">“logo” three</a>), and sinks them. The farther she shoots from, the more spectacular the basket. Her shooting range has inspired <a href="https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/39499676/caitlin-clark-iowa-ncaa-scoring-record-inspires-generations">the next generation</a> of women’s basketball players, and helped her ink lucrative <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/02/21/what-is-a-nil-deal/">NIL</a> (name, image, and likeness) deals <a href="https://www.si.com/fannation/name-image-likeness/news/caitlin-clark-nil-paycut-misinformation-highlights-wnba-shortcomings-noah9">with brands</a> like Nike, Gatorade, and State Farm. Clark and Iowa, as the Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/sports/basketball/caitlin-clark-march-madness-ncaa-tournament-b3989ba2">discussed</a>, have been part of the most-watched women’s basketball games on <a href="https://twitter.com/bigten/status/1762870042977317279?s=42&t=7TkSu-si3KCUNUXrk8n9yA">six different networks</a>. </p>
<p id="zjLj0Z">Her countless fans also include Steph Curry, arguably the best <a href="https://www.nba.com/watch/video/v2what-makes-steph-curry-greatest-shooter-of-all-time">men’s shooter of all time</a>. “When you watch them play, she just adds the element of surprise that you can’t really game-plan for,” <a href="https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/35873024/caitlin-clark-womens-ncaa-tournament-march-madness-steph-curry">Curry told ESPN</a> last March.</p>
<div id="RE3ykA">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Caitlin Clark is ridiculous. Logo shot and another monster game.<br><br>46 PTS<br>10 AST<br>4 REB<br>3 STL<br><br>(via <a href="https://twitter.com/IowaWBB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IowaWBB</a>)<a href="https://t.co/mkMj4wTjRn">pic.twitter.com/mkMj4wTjRn</a></p>— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) <a href="https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1490499744472317953?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 7, 2022</a>
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<p id="VYhWsn">In a sport where women are told they can’t do the things men do, Clark defies expectations. Not that <a href="https://ftw.usatoday.com/lists/march-madness-best-3-point-shooters-reed-sheppard-dalton-knecht">many men’s college basketball stars</a> shoot from where Clark does and with her confidence. </p>
<p id="dX3pZO">That belief in herself adds to the spectacle of her games. Like other greats before her, Clark is unafraid to be both the hometown hero and the visiting villain. She’s extremely fun to cheer on, especially if you’re an Iowa fan; she’s also extremely fun to root against and beat if you’re not.</p>
<p id="hKnBWH">Last year during the NCAA tournament, Clark employed John Cena’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef-X1EN2JtE">You can’t see me</a>” gesture in a <a href="https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/boxscore/_/gameId/401528022">win over Louisville</a>. Clark tallied a triple double — 41 points, 12 assists, 10 rebounds — and sank eight 3-pointers, suggesting that Louisville, in fact, did not see her. In her Final Four win against South Carolina, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aES3r4-pUJg">Clark waved off</a> an opposing player, daring them to shoot. Said player didn’t shoot. </p>
<p id="yIhaAb">That clip went viral, with some fans calling the play disrespectful (positive and funny) and others calling it disrespectful (negative and unfunny). In the championship game, LSU returned the favor by <a href="https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/boxscore/_/gameId/401528028">sinking 64 percent of its 3s</a>. Angel Reese, the LSU star who goes by the nickname “Bayou Barbie,” gave Clark some of her own medicine and <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2023/4/3/23668696/angel-reese-caitlin-clark-taunt-ncaa-womens-basketball">taunted her</a> as the game came to a close. Clark had nothing but compliments for Reese and LSU after the game.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Clark practices shots from the midcourt logo before the game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/S5AgYG9q9F_gsTSoTIVBdtxRNtA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25347993/1996031886.jpg">
<cite>Steven Branscombe/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>When Caitlin Clark walks into the building, she’s in range.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="FHGmvK">Clark and Iowa’s NCAA tournament bracket isn’t easy this year, as Kansas State — a team that <a href="https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/game/_/gameId/401582218/kansas-st-iowa">beat them</a> in the regular season — looms as a potential Sweet 16 matchup. Defending champion LSU and a resurgent UCLA team are also in Clark’s region.</p>
<p id="wxRdu8">Whether Clark finishes the season with a loss or a national championship, it’ll be her last one as a college player. She announced that she’ll move onto the WNBA despite having one year of eligibility left for college ball. Experts have already weighed in on <a href="https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/39631450/wnba-mock-draft-2024-clark-iowa-indiana-fever-brink">how valuable</a> she’ll be as a pro. If she continues on her current trajectory, barring injury, she’ll likely challenge for a WNBA championship and Olympic gold. Her professional career hasn’t even begun, and there’s still so much to be written. </p>
<p id="F81ll7"><em><strong>Caitlin Clark’s next game: Sweet 16 Iowa vs. Colorado at 3:30 pm on March 30, 2024</strong></em></p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2024/3/22/24107807/caitlin-clark-basketball-iowa-march-madness-statsAlex Abad-Santos