Originated and widely used in certain communities, yes...but the reason I specifically used the term “popularized” is because her on-air appropriation of it took it beyond LGBTQ+ Black communities and into the mainstream.

I’m in the same age range and grew up around the corner from his high school alma mater in Chicago. Trust me, I know.

If you’re in an actual physical theater, yes. We are not.

You have to have rights to photos to include them. At this point, we unfortunately did not.

It’s a literal we, since more than one writer here has written about it.

Oh, we’ve talked about that, too...repeatedly.

Thanks for noticing, as we are human and fallible too. It’s been corrected.

From yesterday’s coverage... https://www.theroot.com/the-tale-of-the-testicles-continues-trinidad-and-tobag-1847682176

Here’s our own link. We wrote about it yesterday, and mentioned it in the above story. https://www.theroot.com/the-tale-of-the-testicles-continues-trinidad-and-tobag-1847682176

Thanks for the grace there. Also, after an exceptionally strange year and a half, I think the “mixed feelings” takes might be par for the course. Collectively, we’re both longing for a simpler time when we could shamelessly enjoy the frivolity of events like the Met Gala and perpetually feeling some kind of way, at…

Well, we should all be able capable of acknowledging more than one truth at once, and the existence of contradictions within the same space. We can also both enjoy something while holding space to critique/cringe at it.

I would’ve preferred seeing him play Iago to Othello. This is just...such an aching loss to the culture, in myriad ways.

One of my favorite films—and yes.

I do. That said, I also live in Chicago, so... 

Yes, they would have been—and had they been available at the time of the post, they would have been included.

Good point, and would be especially fitting because his son is already there.

Nope. Spot on.

https://www.theroot.com/rihanna-to-the-rescue-pop-superstar-reportedly-donatin-1842439218

To be clear: I think Hot Girl Summer is whatever you make it, and the reason I chose to write so much of this from a personal context is because I am not feeling my hottest, mostly due to overwork and inactivity (which is why I referred to projection). This is simply one of those “if it don’t apply, don’t absorb”…

Okay, the cackle I just let out...