Dinosaurs get a bad rap, man. I mean, just because every movie in the Jurassic Park franchise ends in dinosaurs escaping and eating people doesn’t mean that, if someone did decide to open an IRL dinosaur park, that kind of ancient reptilian carnage would happen exactly the way Michael Crichton has led us to believe.
Then again, in our never-ending quest for the perfect selfie, some dummy might climb into the dino pit for better lighting and wind up some dilophosaurus’ dinner. After all, Instagrammers hopping fences happens at regular zoos all the time! How can we possibly be trusted to have dinosaur parks when we can’t even properly visit gorilla exhibits?
Must Read
“What It’s Like to Be a Lifelong Bachelor”
When we think of the perpetual bachelor, we often imagine them as either very cool, or very sad, and rarely anything in between. But in talking to men who are actually living commitment-free lives, lifelong bachelorhood is a spectrum. Some wouldn’t trade their freedom for the world; others are reckoning with all-consuming loneliness. But regardless of their situation, men who choose to be single for a very long time have more in common than you’d think. READ MORE
How ‘Man Therapy’ Is Saving Working-Class Men
No demographic is at a higher risk of suicide than men working a physically-demanding, financially-insecure blue-collar job. It’s a crisis the state of Colorado knows all too well, and one they’re now attempting to solve with “Man Therapy,” a unique, state-run mental-health program with two clear aspirations: 1) To ease the stigma and embarrassment of having mental health issues in the first place with humor and wit; and 2) to not lose the audience with clinical or touchy-feely mumbo jumbo. Against all odds, it’s working.
One Knuckle Sandwich, Comin’ Up
There are times that, despite our better judgment, religion, ethics and legal situation, we encounter someone with a face so punchable it seems impossible to resist. But is that the moral thing to do — even when it feels completely and utterly deserved? Mike Rampton asked a priest, a lawyer and a special-forces veteran how to navigate the situations where hitting someone seems more right than wrong.
The Tea on Iced Tea
Nothin’ like a nice glass of iced tea on a hot summer day. Just some water, tea, sugar and maybe a splash of lemon, right? Pfft, wrong. Unless you’re some sweet old grandma from the South, the iced tea you’re drinking is probably loaded with a buncha horrifying bullshit:
Yikes… Lipton’s doesn’t even list “tea” in the first six ingredients. In fact, there’s far more sugar and preservatives than actual tea in this tea-based product.
Outsmarted by STIs
America has an STI problem. Like, a big one. Case in point: Since 2013, gonorrhea transmission has increased 67 percent, and syphilis cases have almost doubled. (Hawt.) Which is to say, we’re at an all-time high for recorded cases of STIs. But the really scary thing is that STIs keep morphing and growing stronger at such a rate that scientists aren’t capable of producing vaccines fast enough.
Bringing Hacky Sack, Uh, Back
Where have all the hack sackers gone? It’s hard to say why this simple sport beloved by Phish phans and uni kids alike has all but disappeared, but there are a few sackers committed to keeping the pastime alive. In fact, at colleges across the country, a sack renaissance is afoot.
Magdalene Taylor
Magdalene Taylor is a staff writer at MEL. She covers internet culture, sex and the online adult industry. She lives in Brooklyn but is from God's Country, Western Massachusetts.
