Sunday Reads: ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ Sugar-Daddy Scams and the Alt-Right’s Infiltration of Architecture Twitter

Personally, I only got through one episode of Game of Thrones before I got bored. I think I saw an Avengers in high school, but I was too busy making out to remember any of it. Shockingly, I’ve never seen Star Wars; I thought about watching it, but then I just carried on living my life. All of which is to say, I’m not a subscriber to any popular fandom, and not being “in the know” is perfectly fine with me. Besides, going back and consuming all that crap would feel more like homework than fun. More importantly, though, it’s just plain fun to hate on things that are actually massively popular and mainstream. Now, if you need me, I’ll be watching Vanderpump Rules.

Avengers Everything

The Movie Marathon From Hell
Fifty-nine hours. Twenty-two movies. Two naps. Zero concern for his own well-being. Brian VanHooker posted up at a New York City movie theater playing a marathon of every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie ever, beginning with Iron Man and concluding, of course, with Avengers: Endgame. It is, in essence, a glimpse into what it’s like to collapse into a shell of a man.

The Other Set of Stars
Chief Astrology Officer Erin Taj broke down which zodiac sign corresponds with each Avenger based on their personalities and superpowers, and according to her, Hulk smash like astrological bull!

The Real Heroes Among Us
Movie spoilers are the absolute pits, but with internet terrorists like Buffalo Bills running back LeSean McCoy throwing Endgame spoilers around like grenades, they’re hard to avoid. Not all heroes wear capes, though, and a special few are keeping fans who are still in the dark about Endgame safe from ruined endings — particularly on Reddit.

Ants in (Thanos’) Pants
I haven’t a clue what happens in any of Marvel movie, but I do love the theory that Ant-Man could kill Thanos by shrinking down, crawling up his ass and expanding. We had an MIT biophysicist explain the science of how — and if — that could happen.

No Pains in the Neck
One thing about Endgame we will spoil: Its run time is more than three hours. And so, to help you prevent a stiff neck, sore back and restless legs while sitting in the theater for all that time, we had a chiropractor offer his tips on how to stay loose among such epic superhero action.

The Week in Features

Playgirl’s Biggest Fans Aren’t Women
Since launching in 1973, Playgirl has always, perhaps stubbornly so, been marketed toward women. Yet it was mostly young gay men who hid the nudie mag full of hairy male bodies under their beds. So just as many a straight man’s sexual awakening was sparked by a smuggled copy of Playboy, many gay men’s first exposure to gay erotica came through Playgirl.

Innovating the Colonoscopy
Colon cancer should be an entirely treatable disease. The problem is, people aren’t getting tested early enough. Part of the issue is how invasive a colonoscopy is — fasting and then having a camera shoved up your butt isn’t as easy a sell as, say, getting a flu shot. But what if a colorectal screening was as easy as a flu shot?

Architecture & The Alt-Right
The latest seemingly normal corner of the internet to get infiltrated by the alt-right is — *spins wheel* — Architecture Twitter! Since the fire at Notre-Dame, there’s been an uptick in posts regarding the value of classical Western architecture and “tradition” (read: old buildings in old European countries designed by old white men), splitting it, like everything else these days, along rigid conservative and progressive lines.

Sugar Dad Give Me The Cash
An anonymous “sugar daddy” account on Twitter is making waves (and racking up hundreds of thousands of followers) by offering five-figure sums of cash to the first follower willing to retweet his posts. But there’s growing evidence that seems to indicate that the entire account is an elaborate scam, and the only one actually getting free money is the account itself.

The Stigma of “Crossing Over” in Porn
In the adult industry, “crossover” actors are any males who do gay, trans and/or bi porn in addition to straight scenes. By doing so, though, these men are heavily stigmatized, particularly because of a pervasive belief that they carry a higher risk of transmitting HIV. But the thing is, they’re no more likely to contract the disease than anyone else in porn.

The Week in Money — In Three Parts

• Why older people are more susceptible to scams.
• Why some people spend so much money on rent.
• Why choosing the cheap college won’t always leave you without debt.

The Worst GIF Used In Our Slack Channel This Week

New York Bureau Chief Cooper Fleishman dropped this tongue-tastic GIF on us in response to the news that Sammy Hagar and Guy Fieri are releasing a tequila together. The vomit in our mouths still hasn’t subsided.

But Don’t Just Take Our Word For It…

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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.