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You know the drill by now. Random people on the internet ask to be roasted, and strangers absolutely obliterate them online. It’s an interesting concept, but the no holds barred nature makes it feel like early internet (which we need a bit of sometimes.)
So without further ado, here’s another batch of folks being roasted on the interwebs.
Enjoy!
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Zach
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Sometimes the internet needs a hall monitor. And that’s exactly where X’s Community Notes comes in.
Community Notes is X’s crowd-sourced fact checks that sometimes rolls up and says, “hold up there pal,” before dropping context like a piano off a skyscraper.
These are the clapbacks that ended potential debates arguments, hopefully humbled users, and turned hot takes into learning moments—one brutal footnote at a time.
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Ty
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Have ya ever had one of those days where you just simply stand there with your arms at your hips and silently whisper: ‘God Damn It…’
Well, these folks certainly have. I normally say ‘enjoy’ but I’m not going to do that today because I just feel awful, so, ‘witness’ some unfortunate souls who’ve had a BAD DAY.
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Hendy
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Life has a funny way of reminding us we are all more alike than we think. We’ve All Been There is a collection of moments, memes, and little truths that hit far too close to home.
From running late and forgetting your keys to that awkward nod when you see someone you kind of know but cannot place, these are the universal experiences that unite us. They are the small stumbles, shared frustrations, and quiet victories that make life feel familiar no matter who you are or where you are from.
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Ryder
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Being a writer, I’ve had more than my fair share of interactions with trolls. But sometimes you just have to tip your hat to them. There are folks out there who have the quick wit and more importantly, the balls to post some of the craziest shit you’ve ever seen.
We’ve compiled a batch of some all-star troll jobs. Break out the lotion, you might need it after these burns.
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Zach
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It’s no secret that Ohio has become the butt of the joke. The only good thing to come out of The Buckeye State, might be the Ohio State University marching band. Other than that, the Cleveland Browns haven’t even been to a Super Bowl let alone won one.
I realize that geographically this makes no sense, but If Florida is the armpit of America, then Ohio is the grundle. So we’ve collected some good old-fashioned memes to bully the midwestern state. Enjoy!
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Zach
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Electronic Arts is laying off 5% of its workforce, or around 670 of the company’s workers. EA employed around 13,400 people by the end of last March, according to a regulatory filing. Sixty-five percent of those employees are located outside the U.S., it said at the time. Notifying impacted employees “has already begun and will be largely completed by early next quarter,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson wrote in a note to staff published Wednesday.
Wilson also said EA is “moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry.” Instead, it’ll focus on “owned IP, sports, and massive online communities.”
“We are also leading through an accelerating industry transformation where player needs and motivations have changed significantly,” Wilson wrote. “Fans are increasingly engaging with the largest IP, and looking to us for broader experiences where they can play, watch, create content, and forge deeper connections. Our industry exists at the cutting edge of entertainment, and in today’s dynamic environment, we are advancing the way we work and continuing to evolve our business.”
No specific games were mentioned in Wilson’s note, although EA is currently developing several games based on licensed properties, like a reported third Star Wars Jedi game, along with Marvel’s Black Panther and Iron Man. EA announced in 2022 that Respawn was developing three separate Star Wars games, one of which was Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. The two others were unannounced; one of those games, a first-person action game, has been canceled, according to Video Games Chronicle. “As we’ve looked at Respawn’s portfolio over the last few months, what’s clear is the games our players are most excited about are Jedi and Respawn’s rich library of owned brands,” EA entertainment and technology present Laura Miele said in a statement to the publication.
The cuts come almost one year after EA laid off around 700 people, or 6% of its staff, in March 2023. Earlier in February of this year, The company also laid off “a small number of staff” earlier this week as it ceased operations on EA Sports MLB Tap Sports and F1 Mobile Racing. (These layoffs may be included in the 670 number announced Wednesday.) Those games are presumably part of the company’s plan to “sunset” several games, as Wilson noted in the letter to staff.
EA expects to spend $125 million to $165 million on these layoffs and other cost-cutting measures. Office space reductions will cost roughly $50 million to $60 million, while $35 million to $45 million is expected to go toward “costs associated with licensor commitments,” according to a securities document filed Wednesday. EA said it’ll spend $40 to $55 million on employee severance, which is on top of the $170 million to $200 million EA spent last year on its reorganization cost-cutting plan. (EA, at that time last year, expected to finish the actions related to those costs by Sept. 30, 2023. This time around, it expects to be finished by Dec. 31, 2024.)
Image: Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts via Polygon
In late January, EA released its recent financial results where it reported earning $7.6 billion in the past 12 months before Dec. 31, 2023. Of that, EA made $5.8 billion in gross profit. EA reported that its net bookings are up by 1% year-over-year — part of that is related to its live service success, where it earned a “record $1.712 billion,” 3% more than last year. “On a trailing twelve-month basis, live services were 73% of our business,” EA wrote. In particular, EA called out EA Sports FC for “outperforming expectations.”
“I understand this will create uncertainty and be challenging for many who have worked with such dedication and passion and have made important contributions to our company,” Wilson said in the letter, adding that the company will do its best to help affected workers find “new roles or paths to transition to other projects.” “While not every team will be impacted, this is the hardest part of these changes, and we have deeply considered every option to try and limit impacts to our teams.”
EA is, unfortunately, not alone in the worrying trend of increasing video game industry layoffs. On Tuesday, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced it was laying off 900 people, or 8% of staff. Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, and Sony’s Technology, Creative, and Support divisions were all impacted. This week alone, people have been laid off from studios like Deck Nine Games, Supermassive Games, and esports company ESL; there was also a production halt at Die Gute Fabrik as funding ran dry.
Roughly 8,000 people have been laid off in the first two months of the year in a worrying trend that’s quickly outpacing 2023, where around 11,000 people were laid off, per industry trackers. Why are these layoffs happening? A comedown after the pandemic is part of it, but not the whole story that includes increasing interest rates on loans, how expensive it is to make games, and a shift in video game industry business models. One important failure to consider is that executive leadership expected the engagement built during the pandemic to continue and grow; executives expanded their companies recklessly without a realistic long-term plan.
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Nicole Carpenter
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Eldridge Williams, the Chicago restaurateur behind Wicker Park’s lively Mississippi-style restaurant the Delta, is setting himself up for a bustling 2024 with two new dining and drinking spots coming this spring and summer to River North: The Pink Polo Social Club and Bar, a coffee shop and co-working space by day and ambitious cocktail bar by night; and Red River Dicks, a country-western saloon and barbecue spot touted as the only Black-owned venue of its kind in the Midwest.
These major moves from Williams and G.O.O.D. Pineapple Hospitality partner Robert Johnson will begin in late spring or early summer with the debut of the Pink Polo inside the Chicago Collection hotel at 312 W. Chestnut Street. Then they’ll unveil Red River Dicks in late summer at 1935 N. Sedgwick Street, the former home of long-vacant sports bar Sedgwick’s Bar & Grill.
Despite the sizable chasm between the venues’ styles and cuisines, both represent an ethos Williams holds dear. “I have this theory that for me to be able to get behind an idea or project, it has to have a story,” he says. “It has to have substance, something that’s more tangible than just food and beverage.”
In the case of Red River Dicks, that story is a powerful one, inspired in large part by the life and legacy of 18th-century African American cowboy Nat (pronounced “Nate”) Love. Born into enslavement in 1854 in Tennessee, Love — also known by his nickname, Red River Dick — was among the first and most famous Black cowboys of the Old West. Historians estimate that from the 1860s to 1880s, around 25 percent of cowboys were African American, though media portrayals have largely obscured their roles.
A Memphis, Tennessee, native and a rare Black restaurant owner in Wicker Park, Williams has engaged head-on with the disparities BIPOC (Black, indigenous, and people of color) hospitality operators face on Chicago’s North Side. He’d long harbored a desire to open a country bar, citing his love of a scene in 2008 comedy Soul Man where Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac portray soul singers who find themselves onstage in a White-dominated honkey tonk saloon. “They were singing soul music, but it was like they bridged cultures and blended with this country aesthetic,” he says. “Everyone started line dancing, it was beautiful. I want to bottle that energy.”
The pieces began to come together when Williams learned about Black cowboys from Netflix documentary series High on the Hog and, after deeper research, encountered Love’s story. The barbecue menu will be based on the famed cowboy’s travels with representation from Tennessee, Kansas City, and Texas. Though the lineup is still in development, the team teases options like Crusted Cowboy beef ribs and a Tennessee smokehouse duck sandwich. Williams also promises a selection of “world barbecue” for those looking to expand their palate beyond the classics. Given his Memphis roots, he feels confident that barbecue fans will be satisfied. “There won’t be any half-stepping here, we’re going to do it right,” he says.
As in any Western watering hole, the bar at Red River Dicks will be a focal point, reaching almost the entire length of the 110-seat space. There, the team will offer an ample selection of whiskies and bourbons but hopes that patrons won’t overlook a lineup of “exciting, ambitious” cocktails, including group-sized concoctions that reflect the bar’s upbeat energy. Williams promises intricate custom woodwork, reclaimed tabletops, and a rustic Western aesthetic buoyed by a 15-foot cast iron hood (a relic from the previous tenant) that will hang overhead as a chandelier, as well as a soundtrack of both classic and modern country tunes.
“I want [customers] to feel as if they have been placed in a time capsule and they’re sitting in a bar from the 18th Century,” he says. “I want it to feel like a legitimate saloon that is somewhere in this old country-western town that you just stumbled across.”
Chicagoans can expect a very different scene at the Pink Polo, a chic replacement for shuttered snack spot Drop Shop Coffee. Williams and Johnson envision the space as a hub for remote workers and organizations with the atmosphere of a private club sans a hefty membership fee. At the Delta, Williams has worked with groups that don’t have a permanent space to gather and he plans to replicate that approach in River North with meeting spaces, coffee, and espresso drinks. The space bears a mix of industrial design and softer elements like Persian rugs and leather seating, as well as a dining room space that seats up to 60.
Once the workday is over, the Pink Polo will transition into a cocktail den equipped with a marble tile bar that seats around a dozen. But Williams has bigger plans than humdrum after-work drinks — he aims to unveil an “extremely ambitious cocktail program” that channels the over-the-top energy of 2000s cocktail culture. Though he’s keeping his cards close to his chest for now, “We’re not going to hold back,” he says. “I want [the Pink Polo] to be globally recognized for its cocktail program.”
While drinks are the star, the team will also offer a selection of small plates such as butter-poached ceviche and a Peruvian spin on nachos, tapping into the cuisines of South America, where the sport of polo is popular, says Williams. It provides a lively counterpoint to the intentionally preppy, country club implications of the venue’s name, which the founders drew from a lyric in Kanye West’s 2007 track “Barry Bonds.”
“I took my favorite social club and I took my favorite cocktail bar and imagined they had a baby, but I raised it,” says Williams. “That’s what the Pink Polo is going to be.”
The Pink Polo, 312 W. Chestnut Street, Scheduled to open in late spring or early summer. Red River Dicks, 1935 N. Sedgwick Street, Scheduled to open in late summer.
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Naomi Waxman
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