Oh, dear God. Don’t turn around. No, seriously, it’s right behind you. This menacing creature can smell fear and has a thirst for blood. I don’t mean to alarm you, but forecasters predict that a Godzilla El Niño will rise up from the ocean and destroy everything you know and love this winter. Goodbye, friends.

Something must have gotten lost in translation. I mean, it can’t be that bad, right? The news media will calm us down!

Wait...

Oh. Oh no.

[thunk, thunk, thunk]

[loud screeching]

It’s no secret that we’re seeing abnormal warming of the equatorial waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean. It’s been in the news for months now. This occasional warm-up, known as El Niño, can alter weather patterns around the world by messing with the jet stream and allowing for the formation of powerful tropical cyclones in the basin.

The warming event comes about when trade winds over the equatorial Pacific calm or even shift direction, allowing warm water to pool up near the northwestern coast of South America in waters that are normally pretty cool. The stronger the warming event, the more effects the El Niño can have on global weather patterns, especially in the southern half of the United States—including California—where the shift in the subtropical jet stream can allow for heavy precipitation and cooler temperatures to persist through the winter.

In order for this abnormal warming to be declared an El Niño, the average temperature anomaly in a certain part of the Pacific Ocean—usually the Niño 3.4 region—has to be +0.5°C for at least five consecutive three-month periods. A small shift in water temperature doesn’t sound like much, but it has the same effect on the environment as a fever has on our body.

This morning’s update is “the strongest forecast NOAA has issued so far this year,” according to the Capital Weather Gang. The agency expects that temperature anomalies will peak late this fall or early this winter, coming in at +1.5°C or greater at their warmest. Average water temperatures in that Niño 3.4 region were 1.9°C warmer than normal as of Monday’s weekly update, and this newest forecast indicates that water temperatures will likely continue at this pace through early next year.

Now, it wouldn’t be a news story if the media didn’t hype the ever-loving hell out of it. From the creators of Derechocalypse 2013 and Polar Vortex Panic of 2014 comes the latest creature straight from the newsroom war chest: Godzilla El Niño of 2015.

This quote, which the media will run with until the merciful blow of a comet finally does us all in, was uttered by Bill Patzert, a NASA climatologist, whom I hope immediately regretted saying that to a reporter.

Quoth the scientist:

“This definitely has the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.

We were so close—so close!—to seeing the media report on a significant natural phenomenon without resorting to cutesy buzzwords or over-the-top hype, and then in one eleven-word quote, a strong El Niño turned into freakin’ Godzilla.

We’ll get there one day.

Meanwhile...

[Top Image: The Simpsons (season 10, episode 23) | Screenshots: NPR, New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, CBS Los Angeles | Map: NOAA]

You can follow the author on Twitter or send him an email.

If you enjoy The Vane (of course you do!), then you’ll love the author’s new book—The Extreme Weather Survival Manual—which is available for pre-order on Amazon and comes out on October 6.

A few weeks ago, a Reddit user was watching a gangbang on Pornhub. Just as one of the men was about to ejaculate onto the chest of the woman on the receiving end, something caught the Redditor’s ear. Was that the familiar whine of...Louis C.K.?

In r/louisck, the user started a thread titled “(NSFW) Did I just see Louis in a porn?” She wrote:

Fuck you louis! I know this is you but I can’t prove it because I can’t see your face, on top of that I CAN’T SHARE WITH ANYONE I KNOW! as a 27 year old female how can I show this piece of gold to my friends and family without admitting to the kind of porn I wantch! YOU GENIUS PIECE OF SHIT LOL!

P.S. nice penis Sincerely, one of your shitty fans

Alas, it wasn’t Louis C.K. in that gang bang. But you can’t blame her for thinking it was. While you never actually see his face, the similarities between C.K. and the anonymous banger—who is chubby and pale, presumably a redhead (his leg and arm hair is red), and wearing a plain black t-shirt—are so acutely perfect that the Reddit thread began to get passed around in Los Angeles entertainment circles.

The video, which is called “Fuck Pussy, Cock Out, Body Shot,” is a crude compilation of faceless men pounding away at women, then pulling out and cumming on the women’s bodies. Almost exactly two minutes into the video, we see a brunette with blue eye shadow and a large tattoo on her back splayed out on a white duvet. At the bottom of the video is a tag that reads “www.westcoastgangbangs.com.”

It isn’t until the second half of the video that we hear from the Louis lookalike. The camera pans out, and the lower half of his body finally becomes visible. He is pudgy and, in contrast to the previous two men who were both nude, wearing a plain black t-shirt. He moans stupid sex things like “awww” and “fuck yeah.” In the Vine below (which is more or less safe for work as long as you have headphones) you can hear audio of his cries, and damn if this random fucker does not sound exactly like Louis C.K.

The other Reddit users who stumbled on this thread were immediately convinced.

Yeah, that’s gotta be him. It’s uncanny!

Wow, it even sounds like him!

Why did I just watch that?

......yeah. Yeah, that’s gotta be him.

that’s definitely him

That’s 100% Louis. Good for him.

Also...Gross.

It’s even the same shitty black t-shirt he always wears!

Oh wow, that’s crazy. Sounds just like him

There’s nobody on the planet that can convince me that’s not him.

watched the video muted: that might be him

watched the video unmuted: HOLY SHIT THAT’S HIM

One even went so far as to make an image that compares the man’s thigh with that of Louis C.K.’s, which appears in an episode of Louie. But as you can see (link NSFW), it isn’t exactly convincing: there are two arrows pointing at marks on each thigh, but they don’t to appear to match up at all.

Quickly, other posters in the thread found other West Coast Gang Bang videos in which the pale ginger with a voice like Louis C.K. actually shows his face. This man, Louis C.K. will be happy to know, does not look anything like Louis C.K, despite a similar affinity for plain black shirts.

So, who is this porn guy who dresses and sounds like, but is not, Louis C.K.? He doesn’t appear to be a “porn star” of any repute, though he does seem to be a West Coast Gang Bangs regular. You can see him here in the company’s Twitter avatar—the account, @gangbangparties, hasn’t been active since 2011.

What’s he doing now? Still jumping into gang bangs? Is he doing voice work? He could make decent money pretending to be Louis C.K. Are you this man? Please email me.

Image via Getty. Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

The great state of Connecticut has executed its last prisoner, the state’s highest court ruled today.

Although Connecticut decided in 2012 not to sentence any more prisoners to death, the ruling was not applied retroactively and the state intended to execute the rest of the prisoners on death row before shutting down the execution chamber for good.

Instead, 11 prisoners currently waiting on Connecticut’s death row are dodging an almost-literal bullet after the State Supreme Court determined today that the death penalty constitutes an unconstitutional “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Via the New York Times:

“Upon careful consideration of the defendant’s claims in light of the governing constitutional principles and Connecticut’s unique historical and legal landscape, we are persuaded that, following its prospective abolition, this state’s death penalty no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency and no longer serves any legitimate penological purpose,” Justice Richard Palmer wrote for the majority in the decision.

The decision goes on to say that the adoption of the state’s 2012 law, “when considered in light of the history of capital punishment in our state and other recent legal developments, compels us to conclude that the death penalty now constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the state constitution.”

The prisoners—despite their new court-sanctioned lease on life—will still serve out the rest of their years behind bars, Connecticut governor Dannel P. Malloy says:

“We will continue to look to the judicial system for additional guidance on this rule. But it’s clear that those currently serving on death row will serve the rest of their life in a Department of Corrections facility with no possibility of ever obtaining freedom.”

Image via AP. Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

Like a C-student proudly delivering completed homework to the teacher for the first time all semester, Kristin Cavallari announced progress on her forthcoming book today, the 200th day of Kristin. One hundred days have passed since Defamer last evaluated her work on Balancing in Heels (formerly known as Balancing on Heels, Kristin’s original idea for the title), and today, we can officially state that Kristin has accomplished at least one item during that time period.

She narrowed down her options for the cover image of her book to two.

“It’s finally here!!!” Kristin announced this morning in the caption of the Instagram photo below. “I want you guys to pick which book cover you like better!! This is option 1... #BalancingInHeels”

And “this is option 2...”

Blue outfit or black outfit? Hair parted on the side or in the middle? Balanced or—no offense—a little off balance? Yellow heels or I love the yellow heels, the yellow heels should definitely be on the cover of the book.

Perhaps in another hundred days Kristin will reveal which option she picked.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photos via Getty]

Much to the delight of Franni Bryson, the senator’s wife, the tweet has since been deleted.

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com.

A Colorado state appeals court ruled against Masterpiece Cakeshop Thursday, stating that the bakery could not deny service to a same-sex couple based on the religious beliefs of its owner. The bakery, which plans to appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court, had previously refused service to three gay couples.

Deadspin Straight Outta Compton Celebrates The Day The Bad Guys Won | Jalopnik Why Are Jordanian F-16s Suckling Gas From Israeli Tankers On Way To U.S.? | Jezebel Welcome to Hell: Airline to Begin Weighing Passengers | Kotaku Nintendo Fires Employee For Speaking On Podcast | Kinja Popular Posts

Officials at Yellowstone National Park killed an adult female grizzly bear on Thursday after positively identifying it as the animal that fatally mauled a hiker last week, the Associated Press reports.http://gawker.com/partially-cons...

“An important fact in the decision to euthanize the bear was that a significant portion of the body was consumed and cached with the intent to return for further feeding,” said the National Parks Service in a statement. “Normal defensive attacks by female bears defending their young do not involve consumption of the victim’s body.”

Officials say they used DNA analysis of hair samples to confirm that the captured bear attacked 63-year-old Lance Crosby, whose “partially consumed” body was discovered by a park ranger on Friday. From NPS.gov:

Additional support beyond the DNA evidence that this female was the bear involved in the attack include: the bear and cubs were at the attack site when Crosby’s body was found by park rangers; bear tracks of a female with cubs were found at Crosby’s body; this bear was captured at the fatality site within 24 hours of the body being found; and canine puncture wounds inflicted on the victim are consistent with the bite size of the female captured at the site.

According to park spokesperson Amy Bartlett, the bear was quickly euthanized after being heavily sedated and shot in the skull with a captive bolt pistol.

“If a bear consumes an individual, it’s not allowed to remain in the population,” Bartlett told the AP. “It’s not a risk we’re willing to take.”

Bartlett says the bear’s two cubs, which also fed on the body, are in the process of being transferred to a zoo. If no zoo had been willing to take them cubs, she says they too would have likely been destroyed.

[Image via AP Images]

About 150 crocodilians were removed from a Toronto-area home last week after their owner reached out to a nearby reptile sanctuary for help with his bonkers hoarding problem, CBC News reports.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Bry Loyst, founder of Indian River Reptile Zoo, told CBC Radio on Thursday. “I could not believe that somebody had that many crocodilians and raised them to adulthood. These were not baby little crocodiles. They were adults.”

According to The Toronto Sun, it took more than 20 volunteers four days to relocate all of the alligators, crocodiles and caimans, which ranged from 4- to 11-feet long.

“We rented four 26 foot trucks and loaded a lot of them into sonotubes, which are concrete tubes, and blocked off the ends,” Loyst old Global News.

But while Loyst praised the owner for seeking help, the man who founded his own reptile zoo said he still doesn’t understand the gator gatherer’s obsession.

“Why he wanted that many animals is beyond me,” said Loyst.

[Image via YouTube]

Americans know that the newly empowered “millennial” generation is the greatest threat to our nation’s stability. But did you know that China’s millennial generation has the potential to be even worse?

What makes America’s millennials—a demographic group so broad and disparate that any descriptions of it are useful only for online trend stories that cater to the oafish prejudices of readers—so awful? Well they’re stupid kids, for one, and selfish, and they don’t “keep it real” like we did, and they think they’re so special even though they’re not. On top of that some of them have more money than you which is just enraging and not very fair.

Consider, however, that China has many times more millennials than we do. Thankfully, most of them are confined within the borders of China. I beg you to consider what might happen if 135 million Chinese “90s kids” with the characteristics described in this Ad Age story were to flood the world, multiplying the “millennial effect” on popular culture by orders of magnitude. These Chinese millennials sound real “cool”—yeah right!

They have fewer memories of hardship than their parents, and high hopes for the future.

Cocky.

Western brands were scarce when their parents were young; now people in remote areas can use their mobile phones to order foreign brands off the internet.

Materialistic.

And since they grew up under the one-child policy, many enjoyed the undivided attention of both parents plus two sets of grandparents.

Think they’re so freaking special!!!

We beg the Chinese government to impose strict border controls to keep this kids in their place. We have enough millennials to deal with here as it is. All talking about a hot new restaurant, or whatever. Okay, it has expensive street food, that’s what you’re into now? I’ll just eat this sandwich that I bought at a fair price—thanks though.

They’ll learn.

[Photo: Flickr]

Police in Sweden say they’re dropping the sexual assault charges against Julian Assange, not because he didn’t do it—a question of fact that will never be answered—but because he successfully holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London long enough that the statute of limitations has expired.

(Assange has been accused of coercing two Swedish women into unprotected sex in 2010; Swedish authorities say he purposely tore the condom he was using with at least one of the women. Assange says it’s all an elaborate “honeypot” to lure him to Sweden so he can be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial on espionage charges linked documents published on Wikileaks. I say, why can’t it be both?)

Anyway, Assange took the news well, bombastically speaking, via CNN:

On Thursday, Assange reacted to the news by lashing out at Swedish prosecutors over his legal troubles. “I am extremely disappointed,” he said in a statement. “There was no need for any of this. I am an innocent man. I haven’t even been charged.”

But despite his technical victory, the flaxen secret-leaker can’t leave his diplomatic Swedish rape bunker just yet—according to CNN, the still-pending rape charges against him won’t expire until 2020.

Still, he seems to be making do.http://gawker.com/did-julian-ass...

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

With any given beej, things can deteriorate quickly. Smooth sailing leads to choppy waters in a split second; one minute you’re slurping that popsicle, and the next you could totally hurl.

It’s not your fault. Giving a blow job is an inherently gag-worthy experience—not because it’s gross per se (though it certainly can be, depending on the penis in question, and the person it’s attached to), but because there is a dick going in and out of your mouth straight back to your gag-hole, a.k.a. your throat.

First of all, every other thing that goes back to that same spot in your throat—like a strep test swab, that tonsil depressor thing doctors use, any hair, ever—generally triggers gag time. And some people just have terrible gag reflexes! I did, for the first thirty years of my life. For a long time, giving oral sex—all that motion!—required some mental workarounds to bypass that plateau period. You know that mental wasteland of repetition in between a job’s thrilling start and the buildup to the big finish? For a while, I thought about cold, sweet ice cream, and it worked.

But this was not a satisfactory solution. I wanted to be able to do it and enjoy it, because otherwise, really, what’s the point? And over the years I thought not just of the pleasure it gave, but the pleasure it gave me to give that pleasure, and like so many activities one can pursue in life, as I got better at it, I liked it more.

But even so, this can’t change the fact that sometimes, mid-blow job, you just gag super hard and have to fight your way through it. Even when you like it! Maybe it’s because you’re kneeled on a bed leaning over a dick, and the contents of your stomach feel like pushing themselves out. Maybe it’s because the dick is not hygienic, which can be straight-up sickening. Maybe it’s because you’re going down on a dude post-intercourse, and the concept of consuming your own bodily fluids throws you off-course. Maybe the guy is fucking your face rather than letting you control the speed and depth—often a bad idea. Or maybe it’s something seemingly minor, like getting a hair stuck in the back of your throat (and if anyone here can work through a hair-in-the-throat situation and keep performing, you’ve earned my lifelong respect).

Point is, it can be a real wild card, this blow job business.

But it’s hard to tell exactly how often people are throwing up while doing it. I asked some friends about their experiences with blow jobs and queasiness, and how often they had gagged or out-and-out barfed trying to get the job done—and in case it’s not clear, I mean the accidental barf, not the on-purpose kind featured occasionally (yep) in porn.

Many had almost puked. Wrote one friend:

“I probably have like gagged and been real worried for a sec that I might throw up, but it’s only as bad as when you gag yourself for any reason.”

Another said, “I want to confirm that I am very good at blow jobs. But it’s happened. It’s not an “about to puke” gag and I have to hold it back, it’s more of a throat-clearing gag? Also I have never really been able to make myself throw up, even when I’m sick and really need to.”

A third answered:

“The worst is when you get a hair back there. It’s impossible not to gag at that point. But it’s never really forced me to stop completely. I’ll just pause for a sec.”

“Yeah, exactly, that same kind of thing, like a cat,” chimed in another. “All you really have to do is re-adjust.”

One interesting response that arose among the ladies I spoke with was that, as a reaction to the porny culture wherein gagging on a dick is a thing you do to make your man feel big and powerful, they didn’t want the dude to claim responsibility for their gags.

“It’s like, ‘Don’t be proud of this sound, I promise it is not you,’” one shared. “I gag on my toothbrush too. So basically your dick is like a toothbrush. You are exactly as intimidating as Colgate. This is as fun for me as when I brush my tongue for social reasons. My body is rejecting this act, FYI. It’s kind of like hacking up a hairball, like a cat. So imagine your dick is cat hair.”

But sometimes there’s no holding it back, and barf you must—which makes sense if you’re in the midst of a drunk hookup. Here’s the story of one woman who fully threw up mid-blow job during her freshman year of college:

“I really had a crush on this guy and wanted to hook up with him. Drank way too much at the pregame, and continued to drink way too much throughout the night. We started hooking up, and I definitely had the spins and knew I was going to puke but thought it could wait (I was wrong). Right at the end of the BJ I just started puking. I tried to pretend I wasn’t, but, I mean, you can’t hide that. Then he turned on the lights and saw the scene, and ran to the bathroom to puke. We were both simultaneously puking. I ended up hooking up with him on and off for the rest of the year, so...I guess he liked it?”

And it’s not just freshman n00bs who puke on dicks. The mother to your children might do the same thing, and what’s more, roll with it:

“When you’re 35 with two young children and a live-in sibling, finding time to keep things hot in the bedroom can be somewhat of a challenge. One afternoon, we achieved the holy grail of parenting: both kids were napping at the same time! We snuck out to the garage, closed the door, and I crouched down behind a marble table to perform my wifely duties–I know, how romantic. I think we were going for hot and risky. There I was pleasuring my husband when I started to gag. Gagging happens, though. You finish the job. Imagine my surprise when the gagging turned into honest to goodness vomiting…right there on his member. “Oh my god. Did you just puke?” he screamed. “Geezus. I think so. What do I do? What do I do?” I said. “Keep going!!” Raciest thing to happen to our sex life in quite some time. Luckily, we are both still laughing about it.”

If this seems horrifying to you, it’s probably because you don’t have a kid with someone, and so you haven’t yet reached that point in which previously appalling levels of grossness no longer faze you.

Jezebel managing editor Erin Ryan spoke with her friend Drew Grant, who had barfed on not one dick, but several, and who offered a great deal of insight into the experience. Here is their conversation:

Erin: ‪very weird question

Drew: ‪yes!

Erin: ‪HELLO yes this is very very weird, but have you ever barfed on a dick

Drew: ‪yeas. weird. i just answered this question last week in union hall. how did you know?

Erin: ‪oh perfect. i didn’t know

Drew: ‪i’ve barfed SEVERAL TIMES. on SEVERAL DICKS‪. it’s not like BARF barf, but come on. it’s literally a penis trigger in your throat! that’s how girls make themselves throw up so it’s totes natural that as soon as we feel a fleshy digit that far back, our body’s responses quick in.

Erin: ‪makes perfect sense

Drew: ‪but i guess. it’s just that girls know about it and are more sensitive to it

Erin: ‪also men fuck faces like they are totally unaware that a gag reflex exists

Drew: ‪most dudes don’t know about gag reflexes (unless they suck cock or have bulimia) well they LITERALLY DON’T. they have no concept of it. most have never made themselves barf or sucked a cock. so they don’t understand that even if it’s not choking us, it triggers a reaction of vomiting

Erin: ‪what about puke n rally

Drew: ‪nah. that’s when they’re naturally sick

Erin: ‪that’s a good theory

Drew: ‪i think guys know how to do it. most are VERY squeamish

Erin: ‪oh yeah men are wimps. 100% wimps.

Drew: ‪it’s like butt stuff: they don’t wanna think about it

Erin: ‪it is unfathomable to them that their dick could make another person sick

Drew: ‪it’s like “girl shit”

Erin: ‪”but dick for good! dick feel nice!”

Drew: ‪look, i don’t even think it’s a male privilege issue. i just think it’s male ignorance. like they don’t understand what it could feel like

Erin: ‪true

Drew: ‪and even if they did. i mean, probably not that second?

Erin: ‪do you think porn saturation has anything to do with it

Drew: ‪maybe we should get a clockwork orange thing where like, every time we feel sick or they face fuck someone they get REALLY ill. that would work.

Erin: ‪like they believe that because porn ladies like it then all ladies like it?

Drew: ‪yes, porn has def upticked it. but again, just because it’s not something they normally think of. and they see it and are like “oh! that’s a sex thing!”

Erin: ‪like how can it be pleasurable to shove their dicks down a person’s throat

Drew: ‪oh i bet it feels SO GOOD. come on. it’s like super tight and wet and contracting. it’s probably just like a pussy

Erin: ‪haha

Drew: ‪since your throat is all muscle membrane, right?

Erin: ‪oh right. of course it’s just orgasm nerves. those orgasm nerves that all ladies have in places where dicks can go

Drew: ‪right, which also happens when someone is trying to breathe, say, or vomit. so that spasm, which signifies “great job!” in the pussy means something TOTALLY THE OPPOSITE in the throat.

Perhaps some men will chime in and help us understand what’s going on from their perspective —are they really unaware that blow jobs are so dangerously gag-alicious, simply thinking “dick for good! dick feel nice!?” Do they actually want us to gag and/or puke?

For what it’s worth, there are a number of tips out there to help blow job-givers not gag as much during oral, and they are good ones, like using your hands more, controlling the position, and employing other body parts. And the pros seem to employ an astonishing number of moves with their hands, saving their mouths a lot of trouble. Whatever it takes, right?

Illustration by Jim Cooke.

Forty soldiers in Army Ranger training were hospitalized on Wednesday after they were struck by lightning. “The students were learning lightning protection protocols at the time of the incident.”

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TLC is trying to make lemonade out of 19 Kids and Counting’s Josh Duggar revealing he molested his little sisters as a teen. Although leaving the Duggars on the air would have been terrible PR, featuring Jill and Jessa Duggar—two of Josh’s victims—in a documentary special about child sex abuse strikes the perfect balance between acknowledging the problem and milking a big, troubled TV family for publicity. http://gawker.com/duggar-daughte...

In honor of its effort to raise awareness of child sex abuse (along with its effort to raise awareness of the television network TLC), TLC has decided to run Breaking the Silence commercial-free, Perez Hilton reports. The network has also partnered with anti-abuse orgs RAINN and Darkness to Light in the interest of adding credibility to its attempt to repent for the sexual abuses suffered by the Duggar girls and former TLC star Honey Boo Boo’s sister Anna.http://gawker.com/horrifying-rep...

The one-hour documentary, “built around the personal and emotional stories of brave survivors who have found the courage to come forward,” will air August 30.

[h/t Perez, Photo: Instagram]

This month and next, millions of American youths are going to do something that most of us never have to ever again: Step into a classroom, and write down the most tortured prose that they and their hormone/flakka-addled brains can manage. So in the spirit of solidarity and self-loathing, let’s relive those angsty days of our youth, together.

Whether it’s in the form of actual paper buried in the back of your closet or a file sitting safely on your hard drive, odds are you have something deeply, horribly, painfully regrettable and written in a time when earnestness was all you knew. So why not dig ‘em up, bare your teenage soul below, and then thank god we never have to do this ever again.

Here, I’ll start.

Age: 17

Class: 1960s (?)

Title: The Graduate and the American Dream:

Age: 15

Class: English

Title: Huck’s Battle for Morality

Age: 15

Class: English

Title: Gospel Response Journals

Age: 16

Class: Intro to Sociology

Title: None.

And last but not least, a poem.

Age: 16

Class: Poetry: A Survey

Title: Very, very bad.

Now it’s your turn. And then let’s never speak of this again.

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com.

Last week, the popular Christian vlogging couple Sam and Nia posted what’s become their second most viral video ever: a pregnancy announcement where—twist—Sam “surprised” his wife Nia with her own positive pregnancy test after stealing some of her urine from the toilet. The video has garnered 13 million views and counting, despite the tearful update that came just three days later: Nia miscarried.

Though their public ordeal has captured the attention of millions on the internet (even Ashton Kutcher!), Sam and Nia are not the first young vloggers to go viral by sharing what many would choose to keep private. The couple is part of a subculture of Christian moms and dads online who share every personal moment of their lives on YouTube for the sake of bringing more followers to Jesus.

They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share... [1 Timothy 6:18]

Sam and Nia’s decision to share their pregnancy news on YouTube was not a novel one, but their story—dramatic, emotional, tinged with a Christian pro-life sensibility—set off many a viewer’s bullshit detector. There is, first of all, the highly condensed timeline. Then, there’s the couple’s admission that they never saw a doctor about the pregnancy or the miscarriage (“I’m a nurse so I know the signs of a miscarriage,” Sam told People); their tendency to talk about their unborn child in terms of views and social media engagement and Sam’s announcement, directly after the videos went viral, that he quit his job due to the success of their YouTube channel. The couple has even admitted to fabricating some parts of their story, like the unborn child’s sex. Nia has been referring to the baby as a girl, despite the fact that she had no way of discovering this information. (“We wanted to give her an identity,” Nia explained on Twitter. “She served a purpose and we love and bonded to her immediately.”)

Despite skepticism from commenters and doctors alike, Sam and Nia have welcomed all new viewers of their videos as friends. In one of the first vlogs the couple posted after the pregnancy reveal video went viral, Sam addressed his new followers directly and thanked them for making his transition to full-time YouTuber more comfy:

I see all you guys—the new viewers—as the people our little girl brought into our family. I’m so proud of her, and so thankful that she did this. She just changed our life. I put my two-week notice in before you guys got here, but now that you’re here, it makes it a lot easier than I imagined it was going to be.

Buzzfeed notes that Sam and Nia are likely now making $9.60 per thousand non-skippable ad views, “which could easily lead to a six-figure salary for the channel if they can maintain even just a fraction of their recent numbers.”

If the idea of parents profiting off of a (real or imagined) pregnancy seems immoral, know that Sam and Nia are not the first good Christian vlogging couple to do it. Plenty of young, attractive mommies and daddies with Jesus in their hearts and expensive cameras in their hands have been live-vlogging their reproductive successes for years now. Babies are a gift from god, these vloggers will tell you, and they are also the most surefire way to rack up views and subscribers on YouTube.

He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. [Proverbs 18:22]

Successful Christian vlogging often starts with an attractive, heteronormative young couple in the process of growing their family. Sam and Nia realized this quickly; in their first viral video from last year, a practiced lip sync of a Frozen song, they christened themselves the “Good Looking Parents.”

Watch the video and the formula becomes clear: “funny” dad, attractive wife, kids in the background acting natural. This is the dynamic that’s worked so well for YouTube’s first insanely successful Jesus-loving family, the Butlers, who are better known by their YouTube name “Shaytards.” (The dad, Shay, once wore a unitard on camera, prompting the family to adopt the moniker.)

The Shaytards are a Mormon family of seven from Idaho who post daily vlogs about their suburban activities with vague, exclamatory titles like “CHEERLEADING MOM!”, “BRIBING CHILDREN”, and “YOU BETTER STOP THAT!” Shay estimates their channel brings in $771,ooo per year.

In an interview with Variety last month, Shay described the family’s “content strategy” thusly:

I believe intrinsically family is our greatest source of happiness. My wife is prettier than most moms, and I’m probably funnier than most dads—that helps—but ultimately, it’s the family. What viewers really want to see is my wife and kids together. We get happiness from families, because people need that hope.

It’s a strategy that Sam and Nia and hundreds of other Christian vloggers are desperately trying to mimic, right down to video title construction. (Some recent Sam and Nia hits: “OUR HOUSE JUST GOT FUN!”, “SPICING UP OUR MARRIAGE!”, and “SISSY GOT HURT!”)

The ultimate goal in sharing these mundane but sometimes intensely private moments with the world is, the vloggers say, giving as many people as possible “hope.” Or, more directly, bringing them to Jesus. Sam explained this philosophy in a new vlog this week:

Welcome, guys. We call our fans here on the Sam and Nia channel “fanBASIC”. It’s a play on words with fan base. BASIC is an acronym for Brothers and Sisters in Christ. We understand that not all of you are believers in Christ, but we do this because this is what we want for you. Here on our channel, this is a part of our mission for god. In order to have the most fulfilling life possible, you need to have Christ in your life.

The quickest way to gain followers and convert them, Sam and Nia have discovered, is to have a baby.

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. [Psalm 127:3]

The most popular Christian vlogging families have three, four, or more children. Kids who were lucky enough to be born after their parents’ foray into YouTube will one day be able to watch their entire lives—from the discovery of conception through puberty—on the very public internet. This is because a “pregnancy announcement” video is a guaranteed viral success. The Shaytards’ last pregnancy announcement in 2013 racked up over 2 million views: a new standard.

A well-done pregnancy reveal video can catapult mildly popular vloggers to Shaytards-level fame. Sam and Nia played this game and won. They’d been flirting with the pregnancy reveal idea for at least a year, based on their archives, which contain fake-outs like “WE HAVE A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!” (not a pregnancy), “GUESS WHO’S PREGNANT?!” (not Nia), and “THE PREGNANCY RESULTS ARE IN!” (negative).

Sam and Nia aren’t the only ones. Popular Christian vloggers Sam and Jennika, known together as “Samika Vlogs”, announced in May that they were just thinking about having another child. The video instantly racked up 60,000 views.

The next best thing to actually being pregnant is talking about being pregnant.

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold. [Proverbs 22:1]

After a Christian vlogger mom confirms, for real, that she is with child, there is still plenty more to announce. The unborn baby’s sex, for one. And, if one is chosen prior to birth, the child’s name. Below, Christian vlogger Missy Lanning of “The Daily Bumps” announces the name of her new baby to the tune of a quarter million views. (It’s Oliver.)

And here is Tiffany of the Christian vlogging family “The Daily Davidsons” announcing the name of her third child by spelling it out in baby blocks. (It’s Carter—for a girl.) 190,000 views.

Gender reveal videos tend to be even more popular. The Shaytards’ last gender announcement, in 2013, clocked in at almost 900,000 views.

(It’s a boy.)

The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, “Glory!” [Psalm 29:9]

Once vloggers have shared every personal detail about their pregnancies with the world, there is nothing left to do but bring the camera into the delivery room.

Or the wading pool they’ve set up in their living room for a home birth, as Christian mom Jessica, of “GabeandJessss”, did last year.

Aside from pregnancy reveal videos, birth vlogs are the most likely to go viral—Jessica’s water birth got over 2 million views. Viewers see almost all of her labor, including the exact moment her baby Landen enters the world, mom screaming, camera rolling. A lifetime of involuntary surveillance just begun.

If Sam and Nia are so blessed, they’ll get to do all this one day, too: the (confirmed) pregnancy announcement, the gender reveal, the naming, the live birth. But why?

Sam admitted it plainly to Buzzfeed yesterday: “I’ve always had a dream to be famous.” He’s on his way. In Sam and Nia’s latest vlog, they reveal that a production company is “very interested” in turning their lives into a reality TV show.

Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples!

Image by Jim Cooke, screencap via YouTube. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

An old cat—can you imagine? Little glasses. Sitting in a chair while he reads a book. You see him in a bar having a drink by himself and it makes you sad for a minute, rudely—probably he isn’t even sad. Congratulations to Corduroy, the oldest living cat.

On August 1st, Corduroy, a cat from Sisters, Oregon, turned 26 years old. He is now a Guinness World Record holder. Incredible. If you’re wondering whether or not 26 is old for a cat—it sounds kind of old, but those jerks seem to stick around for a long time—I’ll tell you that it is, in fact, old for a cat. According to Google.com, “average cat death age” is 10-14 years.

However, if you’re wondering whether or not 26 is an impressive age compared to the age the oldest cat ever lived to reach, I’ll tell you—it isn’t really. That cat was named Crème Puff and she lived to be 38.

Regardless, congratulations to Corduroy. You’re still alive.

Image via Guinness World Records. Contact the author at kelly.conaboy@gawker.com.

“Do you have anything you want to say?” I asked Dylan Thomas on a recent sunny afternoon. We were having lunch together at New York City’s famed White Horse Tavern, and I had ordered a cheeseburger. Nothing for Dylan Thomas, however. (He is a ghost.)

The White Horse Tavern, located in the West Village, was established in 1880 and, according to the White Horse Tavern’s website, is “the 2nd oldest continuously run tavern in New York City.” To me it sounds like “continuously run” and “tavern” might be used in this description to make the boast sound like more of a thing than it is, but who am I to judge? (No one but a simple seeker of ghosts.)

In any case, the White Horse Tavern needs no padded boasting—it’s already, aside from being the 2nd oldest continuously run tavern in New York City, a major “thing.” Lots of famous writers, poets, and musicians who considered themselves poets hung out under the Tavern’s tin ceiling—the very same tin ceiling that terrible NYU students hang out under today—in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Here are the names of some of them that I am quite certain you will recognize: Bob Dylan, Mary Travers, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac. Lots of celebs. There are more: Norman Mailer, Jim Morrison, etc. Also the Village Voice was conceived there, apparently. And they said “White Horse Tavern” on Mad Men once. But the bohemian most closely linked to the White Horse Tavern is, as you may know, Dylan Thomas. Why is Dylan Thomas the bohemian most closely linked to the White Horse Tavern? Well, I’ll tell you.

It’s because some say...

—he never left.

The story of Dylan Thomas’s White Horse Tavern embedment goes like this: One night, after drinking 18 whiskies, Thomas collapsed outside of the Tavern. He was taken to the Chelsea Hotel, where he fell into a coma, and was admitted to St. Vincent’s Hospital late that night. He was pronounced dead the next morning. Legend has it Thomas’s last words were, “I’ve had 18 straight whiskies; I think that’s the record.” Not terrible last words, really, considering anything you say throughout the day could be your last words. (“Can you throw this away?” “Why are you being such a prick?” “Sure, I’ll take one but only if you’re already getting one.”)

Some dispute this story, saying he died of pneumonia, or something, but—whatever, it’s not important. What’s important is: He died. What’s also important is: Maybe his ghost is here still, at the White Horse Tavern. The Tavern is often listed as one of the “most haunted” places in New York City, and many have claimed to see Thomas (see-through version) either seated at his regular corner table, where he was seated on his final night as a corporeal being, or walking around outside of the building. His table is also reportedly often found in disarray by members of the White Horse staff. From the National Paranormal Association, which is a BlogSpot:

If he happened to be doing both drinking and writing, he would twist the table slightly in order to make it easier to access the paper. And according to the staff, they find this one corner table slightly twisted every morning, even if they make sure to line it up before closing.

Still writing, even in death? Take a break, my man. I called the White Horse to confirm these claims and spoke with a very nice woman who laughed and then told me this: “We do have to straighten a lot of the table and chairs in the morning, but that’s mostly because the floor is crooked—it’s not just the one table. But I guess [whether or not it’s due to the ghost of Dylan Thomas] is subjective, depending on what you think.”

Very open-minded and understanding. But, hmm, is the floor crooked because of a ghost? I hoped to find out.

When I entered the White Horse Tavern, I was greeted with a “hello” but could not tell which person at the bar said it to me, which was unnerving. A ghost who sounds somewhat unhappy to see me—already?

No. A living lady who sounded somewhat unhappy to see me already.

She told me to choose any seat I wanted—a patron’s dream—and I chose a seat in a dark corner directly across from what is known to be Dylan Thomas’s table. Was this because I made a last-second decision that I later somewhat regretted? No, not just that. It was because I wanted to be able to monitor Dylan Thomas’s table in case something ghostly happened, like a chair moved, or maybe the ghost of him appeared.

In my ghost-hunting kit, I had my very loud EMF ghost meter, given to me for keeps by the ever-generous Taylor Berman, along with the various blinking iPhone applications I purchased with lightly-earned money last time. In honor of Dylan Thomas, I added one new trick to my ghost-hunting repertoire: Automatic Writing. (Dylan Thomas was a poet, you see.)

Automatic writing, I learned from various online sources including GhostlyActivities.com and Ghosts.org, is the process of opening yourself up to the spirit world so that a spirit might enter your body (which is what she hoped would happen) and use your hand as if it were their hand. “To...” you’re wondering suggestively, acting as if I’m the horny one, when in fact you are. No—to write (“automatic writing”) with a pen that you, the non-spirit, are lightly holding to a piece of paper.

Here’s how you do it, according to Ghosts.org, which, if you ask me, is as good a source as any:

1) Seat yourself in a comfortable environment, a comfortable chair at a table should suffice.

2) Keep a stack of paper handy in the event your spirit is talkative.

3) Grip the pencil or pen lightly in the hand. Many practitioners of Spirit Writing suggest using your non-dominant hand. (If you are right-handed normally, use your left hand to hold the pen/pencil)

4) Gently place the tip of the writing implement onto the blank sheet of paper. Do not apply pressure.

5) Announce that you are opening yourself up to the spirit world and invite clean spirits only to use your hand to communicate.

6) Close your eyes and relax and if contact is made your hand will start moving the pencil across the paper.

Sounds easy enough: Close your eyes; hold a pen; wait for a ghost.

After taking an initial EMF reading (3.4 mG—no ghost), my waitress (whom I will call “Kelly,” named after me) came over and asked if I would be drinking. Of course I would—it was nearly noon. She then asked to see my ID, which I found odd. Would a person under the age of 21 be brave enough to have lunch with a ghost? I doubt it, personally, unless they were unusually brave.

I’d planned to order a whiskey, because of Dylan Thomas, but Kelly informed me that they had a Lambrusco sangria that afternoon, and, to me, whiskey tastes like rotten banana vomit, so I decided to get the Lambrusco sangria instead. “If you weren’t going to get a whiskey, couldn’t you have forgone an alcoholic beverage entirely?” you might be wondering. Wow—please mind your own business.

Two women came in soon after I placed my order (I also ordered a cheeseburger, as I mentioned before) and I was very worried that they would sit at Dylan Thomas’s table, which would screw up my entire plan of watching Dylan Thomas’s table. “Ahh, I should have sat there,” I thought. “God fucking damnit, fuck.” “FUCK!!!!!!!!!,” I thought. But—whew—they didn’t sit there. They sat a few tables down.

Still, I was worried another group of straight-up assholes (or very kind seeming women) would come in and sit on my ghost friend, so I took a video quickly. Do you see a ghost in this video, its terrible quality due to sunlight or maybe a mistake that I made? Please let me know:

I found that I got a slightly higher EMF reading when I held the EMF detector over the bench to my right, which I took to mean that Dylan Thomas, if he were anywhere, was sitting on the bench to my right.

(Do you see him?)

None of my other iPhone applications and the little tests within them showed any ghostly activity, save for the EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) (if you remember from last time, this tells you words that ghosts are trying to tell you), which turned up these nonsense words:

• seashore
• eyephone
• jail
• Brittany
• taken

Seashore? “Eyephone?” Jail? Brittany? Taken?! Just a bunch of bullshit, no offense. It made me begin to doubt the trustworthiness of my iPhone app’s EVP. Is a ghost even saying these words? “Eyephone?” At that point, I decided to move onto my new thing: automatic writing. I read on a website that you should begin by drawing a circle over and over to loosen up and get ready, so I did. And then I waited.

Hmm.

Hmmm.

A little splotch.

It seemed Dylan Thomas wasn’t feeling like writing at the moment, which is crazy to me, since, from what I’ve heard, he is very into writing even though he is dead. Maybe, I thought, he just needed a prompt. So I wrote “Hello.” Then I wrote “How are you?” Then I closed my eyes, put my pen to my notebook, and loosened up my arm. Come into me, Dylan Thomas. (TWSS.)

This got my arm moving and gave me more of a response, if not an entirely coherent one:

Hmm. What are you trying to tell me, Dylan Thomas? That squiggle squiggle squiggle line? That old man face, if you can see the nose right there? That the White House Tavern floor slopes to the right? Inconclusive.

I thought a more specific question might pique his interest.

In the 1996 film Independence Day, President Bill Pullman adapted Dylan Thomas’s most famous poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” in a rousing speech to his alien-plagued constituents, shouting, “We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!” Why did he adapt it rather than quote it outright? I’ve always wondered.

My guess: He didn’t want to look like a dork, especially right then.

Although I have to admit that it worked—“We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!” is certainly less dorky than if he were to have shouted, “Do not go gentle into that good night! Rage, rage against the dying of the light!”—I wondered if Dylan Thomas was mad about how President Bill Pullman chose to adapt his poem, rather than quote it outright. So I asked him if he was mad:

Hmm. A line steeply down and to the right, and then a little bend, and then a line less steeply down and to the right. Maybe he didn’t know what I meant, so I clarified:

Hmmm, apologies for my thumb. A line sloping down and to the right, and then a bend going the opposite direction, and then more of a line sloping down and to the right. “Interesting.”

Each of these responses seemed like they took roughly 45 minutes to complete, due to the shame of having to act like what I was doing was normal when a member of the White Horse staff passed, la la, just closing my eyes to think while writing, but they probably took more along the lines of, hmm, three minutes each. Still—a very slow process.

Impatiently, I asked Dylan Thomas if he had fucking anything he wanted to say:

At this point, in either a startling bit of afterlife evidence or a startling coincidence, the Ghost Meter (the handheld non-phone one, which had up until this point remained silent) started to beep wildly, which is the only way it beeps:

Beebeebeepbeepbeebeebeepbeebeebeepbeepbeebeebeepbeebeebeepbeepbeebeebeepbeepbeebeebeepbeepbeebeebeepbeepbeebeebeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT?

DO YOU WANT?

It was in my purse, and when I took it out of my purse, it stopped beeping. Ghost in my purse? Excitedly, I held my iPhone EMF detector to the spot where the Ghost Meter went crazy—the very same bench that registered the slightly higher EMF reading earlier. I was expecting it to register a normal, low reading, as I have come to not trust the Ghost Meter and its beeps, but, would you even believe, the iPhone EMF was going crazy, too:

18.02? That is much higher than something like 2.01, or 3.04! I took a picture of the spot quickly—once normal, once in green—hoping to capture an image of my friend:

I don’t really see him. (Do you?)

I don’t know what to tell you about why all of my ghost hunting instruments went crazy at this moment. I wish I did! If you came here for answers, do remember that we are both just trying to figure out this realm and our access to it—together. I have only questions. (Like, “Why wouldn’t Dylan Thomas want my blog post to be good?”) But if you want my guess, here it is: they turned on some sort of appliance on the other side of the bench, like a big battery, or something, and this led to a falsely positive but technically correct EMF reading.

Or maybe—

it was the ghost of Dylan Thomas.

In the case of the latter, I didn’t want to be rude to my new famous friend seated to my right, so I said goodbye:

Hmm.

Maybe the lines were pointing to him the whole time?

White Horse Tavern by the Numbers:

• Ghosts Perceived: 0
  
• Ghosts Allegedly in Residence: 1
• Lines Drawn by Maybe Dylan Thomas, Maybe Pointing to Dylan Thomas: 6
• Crooked Floors: 1
• New Ghost Hunting Techniques Tried: 1
• Disgusting Whiskies Sipped and Hated: 0
• Lunches Enjoyed: 1

Previously: Specter Detector: Looking for Ghosts in New York’s Most Haunted Building

GIF by Jim Cooke, photos by Kelly Conaboy. Contact the author at kelly.conaboy@gawker.com.

The Republican presidential primary campaign is, to a large extent, a convention of white male fantasy enthusiasts. You say you can double economic growth, with magic? Well I can... triple it!

The conventional wisdom among mainstream economic forecasters is that economies like ours are entering a period in which low annual growth is the new norm. Many say that growth in the ballpark of 2% a year is what we should be expecting as we set our economic policies in the future.

Jeb Bush, who at least looks like a man who might have read some books with numbers in them before, got himself some attention for promising that, if elected president, he would raise the economic growth rate to 4%. (It is telling that part of his prescription for this doubling of expectations included Americans just, uh, working more hours every day.) Bush’s promise was based on the purely magical idea that lowering taxes can send growth shooting through the clouds—a theory that, Noah Smith points out, was chiefly promoted by the same guy who predicted the Dow Jones industrial average would skyrocket to 36,000 right before the tech bubble collapsed.

Oh well, embarrassing economic lie by Jeb Bush. How can his opponents top this already overly optimistic promise based on fantasy? Mike Huckabee, who looks somewhat less like a man who has read many math books, has found a way: he has promised that he will make the US economy grow at 6% a year! He says this will be achieved by instituting a flat tax and, haha, abolishing the IRS, the institution that collects the government’s money. A 6% growth rate has not been seen since 1966.

We’re definitely gonna have to at least start another Cold War, and preferably another land war in Asia. But “Anything to fulfill a campaign promise by a radio preacher,” as the founding fathers famously said.

Do I hear 8%? Anyone? Bobby Jindal?

[Photo: AP]