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As we gather together on Memorial Day weekend to honor the extraordinary sacrifice of our nation’s fallen heroes, many of us go full carpe diem with our hard-earned freedom by celebrating with our favorite people and a proper meal. But whether you’re the backyard barbecue, pool party, or picnic in the park type, you can’t go full-send without a crowd-pleasing side. 
Save the pool noodles for someone else’s watery coleslaw. This weekend, we’re riffing on five home-run favorites to tickle your taste buds and serve up a good ol&#8217; plate of U.S.A. And, since they’re easy to prep and simple to transport, you can focus on more important things — like doing a surprise cannonball into the pool next to grandma who already told you several times she doesn&#8217;t want to get her hair wet. Welcome to the unofficial start of summer. But first, food.
Fritos Corn Salad
Don’t even pretend it’s not Fritos Summer. America’s greatest curly little deep-fried corn chip breaks free of its foil-pouch prison to turn creamy corn salad into your new signature dip.
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A spin on the trendy Mexican roasted street corn “elote” you’re seeing everywhere, this salad takes the corn off the cob and gives it the crunchy topping it deserves via crumbled Fritos folded into the mix. Use fresh summer corn, or throw everything together last-minute with the canned stuff, and add a few jalapeño slices for kick. Serve with more Fritos, top burgers and tacos, or eat it as-is with a spoon. Just make a big bowl because this one’s gonna fly off the table. 
Make it: <a href="https://www.southernliving.com/frito-corn-salad-8419985">Creamy Fritos Corn Salad</a>
Garden Fresh Avocado Salad
Harness the five-second window when avocados are perfectly ripe with a fresh salad that puts that creamy, buttery glory front and center. It’s similar to guacamole, but it’s so fresh and tangy you’ll be craving it all summer.
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Cilantro, red onions, and jalapeños keep things feeling just-picked, while cucumber and cherry tomatoes add playful texture. Just chop your avocado when it’s ripe but not mushy if you want a salad that’s camera-ready. Even better, that zingy seasoned lime-and-honey vinaigrette keeps everything from getting brown, so you can fix it and forget it until everyone’s ready to eat. 
Make it: <a href="https://www.loveandlemons.com/avocado-salad/">Garden Fresh Avocado Salad</a>
Saucy Smoky Baked Beans
No one’s trying to step on Aunt Beatrice’s toes with a competing dish of baked beans. But once you try this saucy and smoky baked beans recipe, you might never go back to other baked beans again. 
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Whoever invented sweet and savory vegetables deserves an award. Here, Bush’s Grillin’ Beans, sweet onions, and bacon get a gourmet makeover thanks to Dijon, barbecue sauce, and apple cider vinegar. Like a little smoke? Check out that seasoning with its smoked paprika and chipotle chili powder. Assemble this recipe ahead of time, and cook it on the day. And always feel free to bake your beans with extra bacon on top. America.
Make it: <a href="https://www.howsweeteats.com/2020/05/baked-beans/">Saucy Smoky Baked Beans</a>
Panko Parmesan Mac and Cheese
Plenty of elite mac and cheese recipes boast fancy ingredients and cooking methods, but in real life, the secret to the best mac and cheese is the contrast between rich, cheesy, flavor-packed al dente noodles and a crunchy, seasoned topping. This version checks both boxes without even blinking.
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Another secret is a homemade roux. Once you’ve mixed butter and flour with warm milk until smooth, sharp cheddar and Gruyère pull cheese duty with chewy elbow noodles. But the Japanese panko, butter, and parmesan combo that gets sprinkled on top and baked until golden brown? Chef’s kiss. You can go ahead and add this little number to your regular rotation.
Make it: <a href="https://www.momontimeout.com/best-homemade-baked-mac-and-cheese-recipe/">Panko Parmesan Mac and Cheese</a> 
Tangy Deviled Egg Potato Salad
If you’re unde-side-ed on whether to do deviled eggs or potato salad for Memorial Day, allow me to introduce you to the ultimate mashup: deviled egg potato salad. Start a new tradition by putting your two favorite things in one big, delicious bowl.
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The iconic flavors of each dish come together in harmony for a tangy salad you can customize to be as spicy hot as you like. Creamy mayo holds everything together while fresh parsley and celery add a grassy texture. And don&#8217;t forget the dill pickle relish, yellow mustard, apple cider vinegar, and paprika. 
For anyone determined to peel perfect shells for legit deviled eggs, bless your heart. But on a long weekend, I’d rather not stress over shells that won’t budge and whites that fall apart. Here, hard-boiled eggs get chopped and tossed into the mix (you can even use the pre-peeled kind from the store). The most effort you’ll have to give is boiling baby new potatoes and then moving the fork from the salad to your mouth. Sprinkled with paprika or bedazzled with bacon, deviled egg potato salad is simply delicious.
Make it: <a href="https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/deviled-egg-potato-salad">Tangy Deviled Egg Potato Salad</a>

Friends celebrating and eating at a tailgate party

Move Over, Burgers. These Memorial Day Sides Just Took Over.

avocado salad

baked beans

corn salad

deviled egg potato salad

Fritos

mac and cheese

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American fashion company Everlane is being sold to Shein, according to a <a href="https://puck.news/everlane-is-selling-out-to-shein/">report</a> published Sunday. Millennial darling Everlane was purchased for a reported $100 million after allegedly suffering financial hardships in recent years. The future of Everlane was initially thrown into question after the company’s majority owner began seeking out an interested buyer in recent months. For those who were hoping that the company would maintain its reputation as an ethical, sustainable slow fashion brand, the news that Shein purchased Everlane is disappointing.
Founded in China, Shein is an online retail business that has surged in popularity in the last few years. Valued at <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shein-said-face-investor-pressure-072626679.html">$100 billion</a> in 2022, the company is known for placing profits ahead of ethics, as it has allegedly used sweatshops and child labor to keep its costs low. Shein’s acquisition of Everlane likely indicates the end of Everlane’s pro-consumer production methods. 
Founded by American business partners Michael Preysman and Jesse Farmer, the San Francisco-based Everlane first marketed itself as a direct-to-consumer menswear retailer. Upon launch, it garnered a huge fan base, as many people praised it for countering the status quo of fast fashion. The company’s website had a unique feature that allowed buyers to view the price points for each of the materials used in a piece of clothing so that they could feel confident about the value of what they were buying.
In an era when fashion brands are increasingly resorting to shady offshoring agreements, Everlane’s vow to offer consumer transparency was a welcome change. In contrast, Shein has gained a reputation for having questionable manufacturing standards and allegedly violating labor laws. Last year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an <a href="https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-files-fifth-anti-ccp-lawsuit-four-days-suing-global-fast-fashion-giant">investigation</a> into Shein over its negligent labor practices as well as concerns over the “sale of unsafe consumer products” that contain toxic materials. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg67w73nxqxo">Investigations</a> have revealed that the company has subjected its employees to 75-hour workweeks, poor wages, and unsafe factory environments, while also <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4glzzdd88lo">employing</a> children in its supply chain.
Shein and Everlane couldn’t be more diametrically opposed. While Everlane focused on working with designers and industry professionals to integrate recycled synthetic fibers into its clothing, Shein has typically resorted to using a blend of cheap, low-quality synthetic fibers. In May 2019, Everlane released DayGlove ReKnit shoes, which received acclaim for being created from recycled plastic bottles. Consumers praised the product for being innovative, stylish, and sustainable.
On the other hand, Shein has been criticized for stealing its designs from smaller, independent designers; manufacturing clothing that is primarily made of cheap polyester; and contributing to freshwater pollution through the overuse of microplastics. The sale of Everlane to Shein shows that American fashion companies are being devoured by foreign megacorporations with different ethical standards. 
Many brands that were once based in America have outsourced their production to countries with significantly lower labor costs after facing pressure due to changes in automation and the rapid production schedule of fast fashion. American textile manufacturing was at its peak in the 1970s, but it has since declined by <a href="https://www.globaltextiletimes.com/textile/the-changing-landscape-of-the-us-textile-industry-today/">more than 80%</a>. Although the U.S. is one of the largest markets for textiles, about 98% of the apparel consumed in America is actually produced in a foreign country. 
Between the high labor costs in America and the rise of cheap Chinese manufacturing practices, it is becoming increasingly doubtful that the American textile industry will have a comeback. This has allowed Shein’s &#8220;quantity over quality&#8221; business model to consume the clothing industry.
Since its founding in 2008, Shein has become the largest e-commerce fashion retailer in the world. A portion of Shein’s financial success comes from <a href="https://www.businessofapps.com/data/shein-statistics/">creating</a> its own supply chain in Guangzhou, utilizing a network of hundreds of Chinese suppliers. This allows it to produce massive quantities of products at an extremely rapid pace — quickly enough that it can move in tandem with the micro trends that crop up on social media.
Slow fashion brands don’t have that luxury and often can’t mass-produce affordable products during the short time span when they are in vogue. Shein’s ability to produce cheap, trendy clothing that millennials and Gen Z can afford has given it an edge in the market and a reliable, returning consumer base. 
The rapid growth of Shein and the subsequent consolidation of Everlane doesn’t merely have negative economic impacts for America, but it also has negative cultural implications. Shein is the fast food of fashion. It is low-cost, low-quality, and easily disposable. Disposable clothing is representative of a disposable culture. In the past, people would buy well-made, high-quality clothing with the intention of keeping it for decades. If zippers broke or seams tore, people would fix them or stitch them up, preserving the pieces with the hope that they could wear them for years and eventually pass them down to their children.
The materials Shein uses notoriously rip, tear, or simply fall apart after just a few uses. Its products have no hope of lasting for more than a few months, let alone a few years. Everlane was one of the country’s last slow fashion brands, and its buyout is a sad reminder that we can’t restore American culture if it keeps getting sold off. 
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Brooke Brandtjen is a writer and journalist from Wisconsin who focuses primarily on culture, politics, and religion. She is a senior contributor at New Guard Press, a publication she joined while attending Hillsdale College.

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The Fashion Company Millennials Loved Just Got Bought By America’s Rival

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She’s southern, stylish, and downright sensational. Ella Langley made history Sunday night, sweeping the 2026 Academy of Country Music Awards with a whopping seven pieces of hardware, marking a win in every category in which she was nominated.
The 27-year-old Alabama native is arguably the hottest name in country music right now. Her hit &#8220;Choosin&#8217; Texas,&#8221; which won song and single of the year, holds the record for the most weeks at No. 1 on the all-genre Hot 100 by a female country artist. She broke the record set by Taylor Swift’s &#8220;We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together&#8221; in 2012. The smash hit also crushed every country chart by being the only country song by a woman to hit No. 1 on the Hot 100, Hot Country, and Country Airplay charts all at the same time.
With records like that, it could be hard to be humble, but the one thing keeping Langley level-headed is her faith.
&#8220;All I gotta say is thank you God for putting me in a room with these three people right here,&#8221; Langley said after winning the award for Song of the Year with &#8220;Choosin’ Texas.&#8221; (The three people she was referring to are her co-writers on the song.)
She would return to the stage several times throughout the nearly three-hour award show for performances and more accolades, but when she took home the biggest honor of the night, she once again stopped to thank the man upstairs.
&#8220;Thank you, Jesus, for letting me do this for a living,&#8221; Langley said on stage after winning Female Artist of the Year.
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In the same speech, she openly talked about her struggles the morning of the award show and how praying helped calm her.
&#8220;Today I was having a strange day,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know what it is about awards. I walked right into Lainey [Wilson]&#8217;s room, and I just got emotional, and she hugged me, wrapped me up, and started praying for me.&#8221;
In a world of award shows where faith is rarely mentioned, Langley&#8217;s language stood out. But her relationship with God is something she doesn’t shy away from in her speeches or her music.
In fact, on her sophomore album &#8220;Dandelion,&#8221; released last month, she sings explicitly about her faith. The track &#8220;Speaking Terms&#8221; is not about an on-again, off-again romantic relationship, but instead a relationship with God.
It eloquently depicts someone who doesn’t talk to God as much as she did as a child, opening up with the line, &#8220;I used to kneel beside my bed at night when I was small. It was easy as breathing, believing wasn&#8217;t hard at all. I knew that you were there close as my next prayer.&#8221;
The chorus focuses on reconnecting with God: &#8220;I&#8217;m waiting on a whisper, just something to confirm that you and me are still on speaking terms.&#8221;
Another song on Langley’s new album that has a faith focus is &#8220;Loving Life Again,&#8221; which the chart-topper wrote after spending some time reading her Bible back in Alabama last year.
&#8220;The last year of my life, 2025, is when it really got intense for me a little,&#8221; Langley told a concert crowd back in March of this year. &#8220;So I took a couple weeks off. I cancelled everything that I had … I got to spend two weeks sitting there with my mom and my daddy. I got to read my Bible and be next to my family in a way that I hadn’t gotten to do since I was 18 years old.&#8221;
Shortly after that message to fans at a show, Langley shared an Easter message to her nearly 4 million followers. On top of a video of her singing “Because He Lives” on her Instagram story, she wrote:
&#8220;Even though I’ve been a believer in Christ my whole life, my relationship with Him has changed drastically over the last year,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I started to have ‘faith.’ I started to view the days we have been given as a gift instead of a chore. I am so grateful for a God who leads with love and compassion. Thank you Jesus for giving me a way to spend eternity with you. I hope everyone had a great day. Happy Easter!&#8221;
While her faith was strengthened this last year, the &#8220;Dandelion&#8221; singer grew up in a small Baptist church just south of Montgomery, Alabama, where she sang before she knew how to read.
&#8220;I sang at church a lot. I learned how to read from singing hymnals,&#8221; she told Theo Von on the &#8220;This Past Weekend&#8221; podcast.
Her family recognized back then that Langley had a talent, and the practice she got in the pews every Sunday prepared her voice for a career in music. But her faith is what keeps her grounded as her skill and popularity grow.

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Country Music’s Hottest Star Keeps Pointing Back To God

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***
Call her daddy? More like call her mommy. 
“Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper’s <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DYcNSWLjsjV/?hl=en">pregnancy announcement</a> sent the internet into a frenzy — not because a woman is having a baby, but because this woman is. The host who built an empire telling young women to stay unattached, sleep around, and never apologize for it is now married, expecting, and apparently just fine with all of it. Critics cried hypocrisy. But are they right?
Now, I&#8217;m not here to defend Alex Cooper&#8217;s rhetoric, content, or influence over young women&#8217;s decision-making in any way, but I can&#8217;t help but notice that the criticism of her supposed anti-marriage, anti-motherhood stance misses the point.
Most criticisms surrounding Cooper’s announcement were that she “secretly” dated, decided to get married, and now is becoming a mother after she had told young women to be forever single. So much for a secret! Cooper announced her &#8220;intimate beachside wedding in the Riviera Maya&#8221; in <a href="https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/alex-cooper-and-matthew-kaplan-wedding">Vogue</a>. And her pregnancy announcement was foreshadowed by, ironically, a full episode titled, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TamkxdBiNyY">“I’m Not Ready For A Baby…”</a> in which she openly discussed trying to get pregnant with her husband Matt Kaplan, including going off birth control and questioning whether she was fertile, ultimately concluding the timing wasn&#8217;t right. Hardly the words of someone opposed to motherhood.
Cooper’s podcast has unashamedly encouraged young women to hook up with whomever they want, whenever they want, for however long they want. She has sold a young woman’s twenties as a time to explore any and all desires, party on, and not give an “eff” about what anyone else says. It’s the Samantha Jones philosophy for sex. But unlike the &#8220;Sex in the City&#8221; character, Cooper has chosen monogamy and motherhood — fortunately, as will many other girls who grew up listening to her bad advice.
Millennial women grew up in one of the most &#8220;sex-positive&#8221; moments in history, choosing to not align with traditional timelines for marriage or child-bearing and to &#8220;enjoy their youth&#8221; instead. But this doesn’t mean they’re not getting married or having kids, just like Cooper. Rather, women are delaying these milestones into their late-20s and 30s.
According to a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, Cooper’s pregnancy comes at a, dare I say, “normal” time in her life. Lyman Stone, who shared a study <a href="https://x.com/lymanstoneky/status/2056453849054167132?s=20">on X</a>, says this: 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
For a non-Hispanic white woman married to a non-Hispanic white man with no children prior to marriage where both have a college degree, 48% of first births were between ages 29 and 33.
Since virginity at ages 29-33 is a statistical minority, and even single-partneredness is, we…
— Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬 (@lymanstoneky) <a href="https://twitter.com/lymanstoneky/status/2056453849054167132?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
If Cooper’s timeline isn’t exactly late, and even with her pro hook-up culture rhetoric, she still has the natural desire to get married and have kids, then some may argue, what’s the harm in all of this?
The reality is that women (and certainly men) are using their twenties to party and sleep around — and for some, it might even result in finding the right person. It did for Cooper. But the larger dilemma is that in the name of bodily autonomy, many women find themselves entering a life of adult adolescence, which delays these milestones for a larger portion of the population than in the past. Many women eventually find themselves asking: Where did I go wrong? When in reality, the choices they made may not have been shaping them into the kind of women men envision as &#8220;wifey material,” and leave them feeling like a shell of themselves.
There are many nuances to this theory, but what time cannot change is this: the standards are different for men and women. Society has encouraged young men to “sow their wild oats” and choose to settle down once they reach a place of financial stability that is enough to support a family. Women, on the other hand, even after decades of so-called “progress” and feminism, will still be called slanderous names for having multiple sexual partners.
In season 2 of &#8220;Sex and the City,&#8221; Carrie wrestles this truth: “If you’re a 30-something woman living in Manhattan and you refuse to settle and you’re sexually active, it’s inevitable that you’ll rack up a certain number of partners. But how many men is too many men? Are we simply romantically challenged — or are we sluts?”
The danger in Alex Cooper&#8217;s so-called advice and laissez-faire sexual philosophy is that although she may have ended up in the right place, the question remains: is it working out for the women who have listened to her? It may have for some, as many women desire marriage and motherhood even while playing the field. But for others, they&#8217;re left confused and wondering why, at 30 or older, they still can&#8217;t seem to find a husband.
The truth is, women still want these things, and they are very good things. The best, actually. And rather than empowering themselves by sleeping around like men — without emotion, detached, and &#8220;just for fun&#8221; — many women are turning up feeling left behind, unprepared, and diminished by choices they once thought were liberating. This is the real danger.
Alex Cooper&#8217;s story has a happy ending. The question worth asking is whether the philosophy she sold along the way leads other women to the same place, or leaves them stranded somewhere in the middle, wondering where the script went wrong. Empowerment that only works for the person selling it isn&#8217;t empowerment at all. Call her what you want. Just don&#8217;t call her a role model.
***
Isabella Redjai is a multimedia marketing and senior producer at the Manhattan Institute.

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Alex Cooper Told Women To Delay Settling Down. Now She’s Having The Fairytale Ending.

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***
When I wrote an <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/is-trump-derangement-syndrome-real-a603e4a1">article</a> last fall asking whether “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is real, the reaction was immediate. Within hours my inbox filled with messages that went far beyond disagreement. I was called a fascist sympathizer, accused of defending the indefensible, and told I had blood on my hands. Some messages wished me dead. Others were long, angry rants that barely engaged in the argument at all. These people had effectively proved my original point in the article about their mental state.
A surprising number of those messages came from therapists. The people who talked most about emotional regulation and self-awareness were showing none of it. The outrage seemed to grant permission — to escalate, to attack, to abandon restraint. And it didn’t pass. Months later, after a follow-up piece, the same anger resurfaced with the same intensity, as if nothing had been processed, only reactivated.
At a certain point, it no longer seemed to be about the argument. Instead, it felt like displacement; people needed somewhere to put their anger, and the column provided that target. I see a version of this every week in my office. When people feel overwhelmed or unsettled, they look for something concrete to attach those feelings to. A person, a situation, or a political figure becomes the focus. The anger feels justified because it’s tied to something real.
That dynamic isn’t new, but it’s no longer confined to the therapy room. In my new book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Therapy-Nation-America-Anxious-Divided/dp/1335000658" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/Therapy-Nation-America-Anxious-Divided/dp/1335000658&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1779155109772000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0LWJdKQ3j2lYoP_B1NDiM4">Therapy Nation</a>,&#8221; I argue this mindset has spread far beyond individual psychology and into the culture itself — shaping how people argue, relate, and make sense of conflict. Patients tell me they “had no choice” but to lash out at a partner, cut off a friend, or retaliate at work because they felt disrespected. These aren’t fringe cases. They’re ordinary people who have absorbed a simple idea: If you feel hurt, you’re justified.
That idea quietly reshapes how people interpret everyday life. A difficult boss becomes abusive. A disagreement becomes harm. A social slight becomes trauma. Words such as toxic, narcissistic, unsafe, and triggered get applied to situations that used to require patience or perspective. Once something is framed as harm, the response starts to feel automatically legitimate.
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<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1096781" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Therapy-Nation--200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Therapy-Nation--200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Therapy-Nation--384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Therapy-Nation-.jpg 432w" sizes=" (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></div>
Empathy isn’t the problem. The way we use it is. When discomfort is recast as damage, grievance becomes an emotional permission slip. People begin to believe that because they feel wronged, whatever they do next must be warranted. You can see the extreme version of this when violence is filtered through grievance rather than rejected outright, but the same logic shows up in ordinary life: strained friendships, tense workplaces, families that can no longer tolerate disagreement without treating it as a personal attack.
Social media accelerates the dynamic. Outrage performs well. The more certain and aggrieved you sound, the more attention you receive. Over time grievance stops being a reaction and becomes part of how people see themselves. And once it becomes identity, it’s hard to let go. Patients hold onto slights long after they’ve stopped being useful because letting them go would mean giving up the story that organizes their sense of self. The same pattern plays out in politics, where people define themselves less by what they believe than by what they oppose.
This cuts across ideological lines. I see it in conservative patients who feel constantly targeted and in progressive patients who interpret disagreement as a form of harm. The content differs, but the pattern is the same: Discomfort is treated as danger. Once someone adopts that posture, it becomes harder to question his or her own assumptions.
None of this means emotional pain doesn’t matter. It does. But pain is not the same as injury, and it doesn’t automatically justify how someone responds. A functioning society depends on the ability to feel strongly without letting those feelings trump logic, relationships, and more. We’re losing that ability. When a culture can no longer distinguish between feeling wronged and being wronged, every disagreement escalates and every slight becomes a moral test.
The alternative is emotional clarity. Discomfort is not danger. Disagreement is not harm. Feeling offended does not entitle someone to act without restraint. Resilience means being able to feel something without letting it distort reality. Responsibility means deciding what to do with that feeling.
Right now we are drifting in the other direction. Grievance is becoming a kind of secular religion — one that offers identity, certainty, and, increasingly, permission to be cruel. A culture organized this way doesn’t just become more divided. It becomes more unstable.
***
Jonathan Alpert is a psychotherapist in New York City and Washington, D.C., and author of the forthcoming book “Therapy Nation.” Find him on X <a href="https://x.com/JonathanAlpert">@JonathanAlpert</a>.

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As A Therapist, I’ve Watched One Dangerous Idea Take Over America

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***
Demi Moore just revealed her most horrifyingly skeletal look yet. But after the <a href="https://pagesix.com/2026/05/12/celebrity-news/demi-moores-toned-arms-take-center-stage-on-cannes-film-festival-2026-red-carpet/">New York Post</a> ran a headline about “Demi Moore’s toned arms,” the internet clapped back at the use of “toned” to describe the severely anatomical detail of her upper limbs. 
It wasn’t “toned”; it was terrifying. A natural beauty now in her sixties, she had morphed into the evanescent incarnation of dark diet culture. And the media were all in. Thankfully, many onlookers pushed back. 
Daily Wire host <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DYS6kdIlkq1/?img_index=2">Isabel Brown</a> posted, “This is equally as damaging to women’s health conversations as normalizing morbid obesity is.” 
<a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DYQwckfSPdP/">Riley Gaines</a> quipped, “Demi Moore actually looks like she’s on the brink of death … Girls, don’t believe the lie that this is what it looks like to be ‘toned.’” 
“That is neither muscle nor healthy. It is phenomenally sad that she looks in the mirror and sees this as a win,” one <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/popculture/comments/1tceaqy/comment/olnr9i2/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">Redditor</a> posted. 
As a society, we’re pretty cool about offering others a wide berth to live life in a variety of possible body shapes, delivering grace when it’s needed. But when does empathy become enabling? Is it kind to let an impending train wreck speed straight off the rails, or do we have a moral obligation to pull the emergency brake? 
Moore’s apparent emotional bedrock, Bruce Willis, has been suffering from <a href="https://www.today.com/health/disease/bruce-willis-health-rcna99998">dementia</a> since 2022. No one would argue that she shouldn’t be afforded the room to grieve. But two things can be true at once, and 63-year-old Moore has previously admitted to punishing her body in the name of beauty.
In 2025, Moore described her new “self-care” routine, telling <a href="https://people.com/worlds-most-beautiful-demi-moore-cover-story-photos-exclusive-11717760">People</a>, “I have a greater appreciation for all that my body has been through that brought me to now … It doesn’t define my value or who I am.” She admitted to once doing “crazy things like biking from Malibu all the way to Paramount, which is about 26 miles. All because I placed so much value on what my outsides looked like.” In the same breath, she said she was “so much more about my overall health and longevity” now.
It was just a few months after she won <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/01/06/nx-s1-5249981/demi-moore-golden-globes-the-substance">her first</a> major acting award: a <a href="https://pagesix.com/2026/05/12/celebrity-news/demi-moores-toned-arms-take-center-stage-on-cannes-film-festival-2026-red-carpet/">Golden Globe</a> for “The Substance,” which is about a black market anti-aging <a href="https://www.flixist.com/review-the-substance/">drug</a>. As part of her acceptance speech, she recalled, “In those moments when we don’t think we’re smart enough or pretty enough or skinny enough or successful enough … I had a woman say to me, ‘Just know you will never be enough, but you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.’”
Maybe Moore allegedly ditched the measuring stick, but it seems she doesn’t live up to her own beauty standard. Still, it’s not unreasonable to redirect the focus to medical professionals who continue to prescribe weight-loss drugs to vulnerable A-listers who are starving themselves and then convince fans to follow suit.
On the jury to select the Cannes festival’s Palme d’Or, Moore first made a red carpet splash in a sequined and sculpted Jacquemus gown, followed by a fuchsia look by French cult favorite Matières Fécales (yep, that’s “fecal matter” in French, for anyone who’s been following along since the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fake-urine-famesick-celebs-and-100k-tickets-inside-the-grotesque-hypocrisy-of-the-met-gala">Met Gala</a>). The pink reflected a rosy glow onto her porcelain skin as her mantis-like frame appeared to be propped up by an enormous bow of intentionally tattered fabric in a fashionable “<a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/a71328540/demi-moore-cannes-matieres-fecales-dress-stylist-interview-red-carpet/">state of decay</a>.” Touché. 
“Let’s say there were no such thing as GLP-1s. Let’s say we were just looking at that. You’d go, ‘Well, that is starvation, that’s an eating disorder, if she was not in a concentration camp,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRZw9B9u3ek">Dr. Drew Pinsky</a> suggested on “The Rubin Report.” “But now we have a drug that causes that … I don’t know where this is gonna stop. It’s gonna hurt a lot of people.”
Despite the backlash, some think Demi Moore and other stars making notoriously waify waves in the industry (such as <a href="https://www.aol.com/articles/exclusive-ariana-grande-sparks-fan-120000082.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACRd0dAGZwPVgIhjtv48zqesOTA31-kW5cruECKW6zT6O4W7512Q7x_yBVbX5vEVAZahqFpyHVYJcuMEx6bh0tXvTQwqUFT1fdm65-YMTuTrf5EuAtSYFNkgWmxq3nf1emuCdSZRJmnop5B9JVgwxv82XyvZKXVh8924zcfBewOJ">Ariana Grande</a>, <a href="https://people.com/kelly-osbourne-slams-critics-for-calling-out-her-dramatic-weight-loss-transformation-11866054">Kelly Osbourne</a>, and <a href="https://pagesix.com/2026/03/15/celebrity-news/stylists-fear-stars-are-blind-to-how-skinny-they-really-are/">Emma Stone</a>) look good. After spending almost two decades in Hollywood, I’m confident that some of these stick-thin stars probably still think they could lose a few pounds. Flattering media certainly doesn’t help. OK! magazine fawning over Olivia Wilde’s emaciated “<a href="https://okmagazine.com/p/olivia-wilde-glows-new-photos-after-health-concerns-unrecognizable-appearance/">glow</a>” helps no one.
Never mind the constant flow of GLP-1 ads we’re being force-fed. <a href="https://www.noom.com/lp/clinical?route=clinical&amp;upv=3&amp;sp=google&amp;utm_source=g&amp;utm_medium=paidsearch&amp;utm_campaign=23234457596&amp;gid=185213649541%7C&amp;type=drug_branded&amp;cid=CjwKCAjw8arQBhB9EiwAfIKdQtLF8op5XSeFixxPU73oE7h3MxZ_HBXDlWMxKmMSYDIt4Vg0lYQnyBoCXUgQAvD_BwE&amp;pos=&amp;step=pros&amp;lang=en&amp;device=c&amp;group=brand-drug&amp;gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=23234457596&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjw8arQBhB9EiwAfIKdQtLF8op5XSeFixxPU73oE7h3MxZ_HBXDlWMxKmMSYDIt4Vg0lYQnyBoCXUgQAvD_BwE">Noom</a>, which used to be about eating smart and exercising, pivoted to “forget it, just do this drug we’re selling.” Serena Williams loves talking about how she’s “healthier” on her own brand, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqXOcRtZoow">Ro</a>. And <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk_ZUYegt14">Wegovy</a> launched a star-studded awards season campaign normalizing doing weight loss drugs, comparing dosing the GLP-1 pill to rescuing kittens in trees. Why wouldn’t you take it? Be a good person!
“In a clinical setting, these changes from baseline are cause for alarm,” celeb nutritionist Jess Baker <a href="https://pagesix.com/2026/03/15/celebrity-news/stylists-fear-stars-are-blind-to-how-skinny-they-really-are/">said</a> of the hollow muscle wasting she sees in GLP-1 overusers. “They can indicate malnutrition, meaning the body isn’t getting enough of what it needs to function.”
That <a href="https://health.ucdavis.edu/news/headlines/uc-davis-health-examines-systemic-impact-of-glp-1based-therapies/2025/12">40% lean muscle loss</a> you’ll likely experience is scientifically proven (this drug-induced weight loss is all-inclusive, y’all). Just focus on the fact that if you stop taking GLP-1s, you’ll likely <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11940170/">rebound</a> to your previous weight. Y’know, minus your <a href="https://www.massgeneral.org/news/article/why-muscle-mass-matters-and-how-to-keep-it">blood sugar-regulating</a>, critically structural muscle mass. Maybe you’ll get lucky and just <a href="https://macularhope.org/ozempic-is-making-some-patients-go-blind-will-ozempic-survive-this-well-see/?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=22624478307&amp;gbraid=0AAAAADmkl5ztW0Ku0pkT0DB3M4vGH5Ihk&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjw8arQBhB9EiwAfIKdQrWfJPl_xJm6cph8z2EFPw5-bPqDhIKyJgTWqYHJE4hfxLFvX83RShoCYuAQAvD_BwE">go blind</a> like some plaintiffs of the <a href="https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/10-dangerous-drug-cases-in-2026-are-you-8925382/">3,000 active lawsuits</a> against these weight loss drugs allegedly have.
Frustratingly, celebrities will never come clean about the massive resources they have at their disposal to set the current standard of beauty, while the rest of us mill around the Walgreens clearance section like Children of the Corn. However this GLP-1 thing shakes out, we can almost guarantee there will be a pharmaceutical antidote we won’t be able to afford.
But as a precursor to societal doom via hot girl pharma, maybe we could stop propping those who are dangerously overweight or devastatingly thin, as a picture of health. We’ve walked way over the line on whether we should or shouldn’t talk about women’s bodies, and maybe it’s time we get honest about what’s healthy. 
Evolutionary behavioral scientist <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/2021/05/28/gad-saad-cancel-culture-idea-pathogens-future-discourse-1593467.html">Gad Saad</a> offers a term for not speaking the truth on the chance it will hurt someone’s feelings: “forbidden knowledge.” Pretending that someone is well when she isn’t is not empowering; it’s dangerous. 
Even if Demi Moore is going through a challenging chapter, is it empathetic for loved ones to let her destroy herself in the name of her own grief? Standing by as someone eats herself to death — or her body consumes its own muscle tissue to survive — is a suicidal mission in both directions. We can do so much better for each other. Let’s shine the spotlight on balanced health and real wellness, not disordered eating in disguise.

Demi Moore Doesn’t Look ‘Toned.’ She Looks Like She’s Starving.

Ariana Grande

Bruce Willis

Demi Moore

dr drew pinsky

gad saad

glp-1

isabelle brown

Kelly Osbourne

Olivia Wilde

Riley Gaines

the rubin report

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***
The Rousey vs. Carano <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gina-carano-vs-ronda-rousey-netflix-announces-first-ever-live-mma-event">fight</a> proved that women are capable of being tough beasts and beauties. Despite some being upset that Ronda Rousey masterfully took down Gina Carano in the brief span of 17 seconds, I enjoyed the entire event. The lead-up fights were entertaining, and the headliners, two women, showed the best parts of womanhood.
The Krauss house hosted a small fight night watch party on Saturday night. We often do this, and even our girls like to watch, which was why it was pretty cool to show them that two ladies were the main card for Netflix’s MMA event. We are just a short drive to Intuit Dome, where over 14,000 fans paid top dollar for tickets to watch two female fighting legends face off.
It had been a while since the contenders had entered the Octagon. <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/ronda-rousey-destroys-gina-carano-042520436.html">Yahoo Sports</a> and other critics said the Netflix fights only pull people out of retirement. Maybe that’s true considering the champion of the night, Ronda Rousey, hadn’t fought since 2016. And conservative darling actress Gina Carano had not been in the Octagon since 2009.
Yet the lead-up to the fight was full of hype, probably due to the marketing genius of internet anti-hero Jake Paul’s production company, MVP. In all sports, especially fighting, the promotional lead-up is often full of smack talk and name-calling. But after the bell rings and the winner’s fist is raised, there are handshakes and hugs.
The display of raw emotion and admiration these women demonstrated on Saturday night was really inspiring. I’ve never witnessed a fight night end with open encouragement and support for the opponent. The competitors showed mutual respect that included laughing, hugging, and chatting after the winner was declared — mere seconds after an impressive armbar maneuver that could have broken the bones of the defeated fighter.
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<div id="attachment_1097127" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1097127" class="wp-image-1097127 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/GettyImages-2276641015.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/GettyImages-2276641015.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/GettyImages-2276641015-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/GettyImages-2276641015-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/GettyImages-2276641015-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images for Netflix</div>
In no other fight have we witnessed a loser <a href="https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/story/sports/mma/2026/05/17/gina-carano-ronda-rousey-loss-victory-life-netflix/90134256007/">crediting</a> the victor for her personal and professional change and growth.
&#8220;I have so much love and respect for her,&#8221; Carano said in a post-fight interview. &#8220;This was a victory in my life. She changed it. I woke up every morning at 3 a.m. thinking about her. I took 100 pounds off of my body, which is going to give me a longer life. I fell back in love with mixed martial arts. There&#8217;s so many good things to think about here.&#8221;
And never has a man said after a win that he is going to have more babies while embracing his spouse.
Rousey instantly hugged and kissed her husband, heavyweight fighter <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/ronda-rousey-kisses-husband-travis-180040054.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALw1r4ymPDZffWUd4KjEkUOE9rmEn2hsedvxHcjjDE8umyFb55y4RSExsX3CImfHSjikMBmkFydXqmkuHapd0d4o3DV8Fjq1gZnWOFbjpG4bk2n5UmVnjaXDcSiE0of7LDUASjqhTEOW46MjdW83-cZ8tmGHk26Qy_kEVBjyGaDP">Travis Browne,</a> and said, “There&#8217;s no way I could&#8217;ve ended it better than this. I wanna have some more babies.”
The night also stood out for other reasons. The multiple male fighters preceding the main event showcased the need to protect women’s sports. Nate Diaz or Francis Ngannou would have destroyed the talented Rousey. But, in a woman-to-woman matchup, the fight was fair.
Women in all sports should be lauded and protected because these women prove that they are unique — and fun.
It takes emotional strength to succeed as a woman, wife, and mom. Our ability to nurture is a type of strength. The patience and repetitive challenge of marriage and motherhood take strength. Some mothers fight in the Octagon; others do so in politics, business, ministry, or education. We fight for our kids, for our communities, and for our country.
We can be competitive and kind. We can be loving and tough. We can be smart and sweet. We can be savvy and honest.
Women shouldn’t have to retreat or minimize who we are. We can display our femininity and differences from men, support those differences, and encourage them in ourselves and in the other women in our lives.
All women, even outside of the Octagon, are fighters.
***
Elisha Krauss is a conservative commentator, writer, and speaker who resides in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and their four children. She is an advocate for women’s rights, school choice, and smaller government.

Netflix’s Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano – Press Conference

The Biggest Moment Of The Rousey-Carano Fight Wasn’t The Winning Move

Gina Carano

Netflix

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
A funny thing started happening as I trudged through Lena Dunham’s new memoir, “Famesick.” I started hating her a little less. Like so many conservatives, my thoughts on Dunham were surface-level. She was an insufferable liberal, a narcissistic celebrity, and, as she made clear in her last published work, a person with an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/woman-who-sexually-abused-her-sister-mocks-trump-amanda-prestigiacomo">appalling lack</a> of personal boundaries, even around children.
I watched “Girls” back in the day because I was the right demographic. At that point, I was still figuring out who I was, just like the main characters. The show was sharp, funny, and honest. Much like Dunham, it turns out. It&#8217;s just too bad she spent so much of her life chasing after all the wrong things. 
I never read her first memoir, “Not That Kind of Girl,” which came out in 2014 and inspired so much <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lena-dunhams-first-memoir-led-to-accusations-of-sexual-abuse-so-she-decided-to-write-another">controversy</a>. That essay collection famously included revelations that Dunham “examined” her younger sister’s genitals, and then when she got called out for it, the actress attacked her detractors for thinking it was gross. 
“The right-wing news story that I molested my little sister isn’t just LOL – it’s really f*cking upsetting and disgusting. And by the way, if you were a little kid and never looked at another little kid’s vagina, well, congrats to you,” she <a href="https://x.com/lenadunham/status/528613546108944384">posted</a> in 2014.
“Famesick” is less about the questionable decisions of minors and more about Dunham’s rise to fame and how it never made her truly happy. 
She comes across as deeply insecure (“I still thought that true love was performed with the one-sided devotion of a kicked dog”), obsessed with her reputation, clinging desperately to failing relationships (especially the toxic partnership with “Girls” co-showrunner Jenni Konner), and keen on informing readers how popular she once was and how much sex she was having. Dunham vacillates between bragging and doom spiraling while keeping the focus always on her inner turmoil.
“People on the internet were cruel to me, but nobody was crueler to me than I was to myself,” she says at one point. The whole thing reeks of wanting to be liked, and to be remembered for once being liked. 
Dunham also takes time to reflect on the fallout from her first book, writing, “I was shocked when a conservative media site analyzed the book carefully, pulling choice passages and coming to the conclusion that I had engaged in sexually inappropriate childhood behavior with my sibling.” This referred specifically to the media watchdog site Truth Revolt, where Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro served as editor in chief.
Dunham wrote that she wasn’t too worried about the backlash at first because she assumed “any logical person” would interpret the negative reaction as being “an attempt to cherrypick sections to create a narrative that spoke to the idea that I — and by extension, the majority of feminists — were not crusaders for justice but, in fact, wanton perverts.”
“I didn’t consider what I’d written to be particularly salacious,” the actress went on. “And anyway, what about the things I hadn’t included? I’d decided against describing the time, age four, I announced to a group of near-strangers that my punishment at home for misbehavior was having ‘a fork stuck up my vagina.’ (It was not.) I don’t know where I came up with that, but I’ve always been confused by anyone who doesn’t recognize that children are inherently innocent, and yet their imaginations are endless and deranged.”
“What I had been guilty of on the page, what the internet should have charged me with and given me a short sentence for, was poor phrasing — maybe a second count for TMI,” Dunham wrote, noting how her sister has since started identifying as a boy and going into some detail about their distant, complicated relationship.
“Famesick” is also full of medical drama and, eventually, a raging pill addiction. Dunham is ill for most of the book, in and out of the hospital for various conditions and surgeries, which eventually culminates in her having a full hysterectomy to counteract the painful reality of endometriosis. 
I was surprised to find out that Dunham did originally want to be a mother. She also spent thousands of dollars attempting to have biological children via IVF, only for it all to end in failure.
“I had never had a single doubt about wanting children,” she wrote, mourning the loss of what would never be. It was surprising only because she’s such a devout pro-abortion feminist who had a significant amount of success in Hollywood. The yearning for children doesn’t match the stereotype. It also made her a more sympathetic character. 
Ultimately, Dunham is selfish and flawed, earnest yet delusional, self-obsessed but trying to change. I’ve always preferred memoirs because fiction writers so often fail to capture that nuance of multi-faceted personalities. Watching someone make bad decisions over and over hits harder when it’s all based on true events.
For the first time maybe ever, I found myself agreeing with Slate for pointing out that this book was so readable in part because Dunham is truly skilled at her craft. The progressive website&#8217;s <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2026/04/lena-dunham-book-famesick-review.html">review</a> called it “an ideal celebrity memoir with the added bonus of being written by someone who can actually write.&#8221;
The Atlantic&#8217;s review <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/04/lena-dunham-famesick-memoir-book-review/686799/">praised</a> Dunham’s growth over the last decade, noting that in “Famesick,” she had “actually learned from her garrulous and unfiltered excesses — she&#8217;s got stories to tell in Famesick that blow the roof off, but she&#8217;s wielding them with precision this time around.” 
Dunham is truly lost as a person. She fondly recalls having dinner with Robert De Niro and Bruce Springsteen, mourns President Donald Trump winning the election, and campaigns for Hillary Clinton. She’s about as incorrect on every conceivable topic as a person can be. And yet, my feelings throughout the book weren’t anger. They were closer to pity. 
I began to associate Dunham’s plight with every career-focused feminist who, at around the mid-point of life, is realizing that enduring happiness won’t come from professional success or fickle fans.
Dunham isn’t pure evil, even if she’s not the victim she thinks she is. She’s infuriating and sympathetic in tandem. And ultimately, she’s just another flawed human who, through her warped ideology, made her life a lot harder than it had to be.

The 2026 Met Gala Celebrating “Costume Art” – Arrivals

Lena Dunham Chased Every Progressive Fantasy. Then Everything Fell Apart.

Books

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This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Ladies love the 1995 and 2005 film versions of &#8220;Pride and Prejudice.&#8221; Their timelessness has inspired a dedicated base of fans who prize the romantic, heartfelt relationships that have the time to build through character development and genuine affection. 
Both beloved films had very little kissing and zero sex scenes, as pro-life activist Lila Rose recently <a href="https://x.com/LilaGraceRose/status/2042280067758494013">noted,</a> yet they managed to become wildly popular. The 2005 &#8220;Pride &amp; Prejudice&#8220; starring Keira Knightley was a box office success, grossing $121.6 million over a $28 million budget. The 1995 &#8220;Pride and Prejudice&#8221; BBC miniseries starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle drew in about 10-11 million views per episode, selling 12,000 VHS copies within the first two hours of its release. 
But Hollywood’s latest attempts to take on 19th-century romance have repeatedly resulted in historically inaccurate, hypersexualized cinema that fails to hold up against the established classics.
The smutty Jane Austen knock-off show &#8220;Bridgerton&#8221; brags an expensive budget of $7 million per episode, but the sparkle of the show seems to be dwindling. Though the viewer numbers are still high, season 4 streams <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/02/11/bridgerton-season-4-viewership-drops-the-lincoln-lawyer-spikes-in-new-report/">dropped</a> 12% from season 3 as the repetitive “will-they-won’t-they have sex” plot becomes predictable to audiences.
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<div id="attachment_1096799" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1096799" class="size-medium wp-image-1096799" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/BRIDGERTON_406_Unit_11438R-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/BRIDGERTON_406_Unit_11438R-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/BRIDGERTON_406_Unit_11438R-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/BRIDGERTON_406_Unit_11438R-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/BRIDGERTON_406_Unit_11438R.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Liam Daniel/Netflix</div>
In &#8220;Bridgerton,&#8221; the highlight of the season is often a dramatic sex scene for the main lovers, reinforcing in women’s minds that satisfying and steamy sex is the reward one should be looking for in a relationship. According to the show, a good love story is all about physicality and satisfying lust. But in faithful Jane Austen adaptations, physical touch is rare. 
Romance is Darcy offering his hand as Elizabeth gets into the carriage, palms meeting during a dance, and, ultimately, the good character of Darcy slowly being revealed, leading to a mutual declaration of love after recognizing one another&#8217;s character flaws. Physical chemistry means little without the quick-witted interactions, brutal honesty, and the realization that Darcy is willing to go to great lengths to protect Elizabeth (and her family’s) reputation, even after she rejects him. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Mr. Darcy&#8217;s hand flex after holding Elizabeth&#8217;s hand 🥰<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PrideandPrejudice?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PrideandPrejudice</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JaneAusten?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#JaneAusten</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/romance?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#romance</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/film?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#film</a> <a href="https://t.co/XJfdGi4Vse">https://t.co/XJfdGi4Vse</a> <a href="https://t.co/7FirXtmTqb">pic.twitter.com/7FirXtmTqb</a>
— Anonymous Galore / AG 🌺 (@AnonymousGalore) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnonymousGalore/status/1815717963175272450?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 23, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The works of Jane Austen demonstrate a much deeper sort of love than what is seen on screens today, which is why those renditions have a longevity few modern series will have. While the wave of Austen adaptations produced in the &#8217;90s and &#8217;00s evoked the maturation of characters and realistic proprieties of the day, today’s pieces such as &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hollywood-promised-a-love-story-what-it-delivered-was-something-else">Wuthering Heights</a>&#8221; or &#8220;Bridgerton&#8221; and its many copycats, prioritize graphic sex scenes and flashy costumes over story quality and true romance.
All of Jane Austen’s heroines have their own flaws, but there is character growth, usually brought about by the love interest of the heroine. Darcy highlights Elizabeth’s wrongful assumptions about him, and Elizabeth reprimands Darcy for his arrogance and pride. Austen understood that real love meant a willingness to call out one another’s misgivings and hold relationships to a higher standard. In the best relationships, both parties are bettered by each other. 
In &#8220;Pride and Prejudice,&#8221; Austen illustrates not only what good character in a man can look like, but also the type of love interest to avoid. Elizabeth’s younger sister Lydia causes a scandal when she runs away with the deceitful Wickham, thinking marriage will soon follow. How many young women today let themselves follow a man with the promise of a “one day” that is never to come?
Running off with a man you aren’t married to isn’t the scandal it was in the 1800s, but Austen seems to tell her readers they can hope for better than Wickham. A man may be charming, handsome, and flirtatious, but that’s not what makes him worthy. A worthy man recognizes his flaws, seeks to redeem broken situations, and protects the dignity and heart of the woman he loves. 
In an age where loneliness is on the rise and women are feeling disenchanted by dating and marriage, it’s time to evaluate what expectations are being promoted within our culture that may be leading them to feel unfulfilled or heartbroken. 
A &#8220;Bridgerton&#8221;-style relationship based on lust will not lead modern women to satisfying romantic relationships. Women need men with good character; they need men like those written by Jane Austen. The more we show healthy relationships in media, the better we are as a culture. Perhaps there’s a chance for life to imitate art?
***
Ali Holcomb is the communications adviser at Advancing American Freedom Foundation. Julia Jensen is the communications assistant at Advancing American Freedom Foundation.

GettyImages-56013323

What ‘Bridgerton’ Gets Wrong That ‘Pride And Prejudice’ Got Perfectly Right

Hollywood

Movies

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***
“Can I read the ingredients list?”
That simple question is one I’ve awkwardly asked almost since I knew how to read. As a child, I grew up with an unfortunate host of food sensitivities that meant understanding labels had to become second nature as I navigated elementary school snacks and sleepovers. This was long before the days of shelf-scanning apps, label-busting influencers, and the MAHA powerhouse. Instead, all I had was a food-savvy mom, a memorized list of no-go ingredients, and my reading skills.
If a seven-year-old can stare unflinchingly at the unpronounceable words on back-of-packaging labels, any adult can navigate the grocery store with confidence. A bit of knowledge and patience is all it takes to judge a label faster than any app or ChatGPT can ask. Here’s how.
To start at the top of the label, it’s always worth glancing at the serving size information to see how much (or little) is one “serving.” A pint of ice cream may be two (or one) servings to some, but the label may disagree and demand four tiny portions. For those of us counting calories or cutting down on sodium, these serving sizes matter, but for those of us just concerned about ingredients, it’s just another handy data point.
Similarly, unless you’re counting macros, it’s safe to ignore the table of grams and daily percentages of protein and vitamins. The <a href="https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-101/subpart-A/section-101.9">requirements</a> around which vitamins need to be reported are convoluted, and the percentages are based on a 2,000-calorie diet. Depending on your height, age, sex, and activity level, that may not be your actual caloric needs. Plus, many nutrient numbers are boosted by the addition of synthetic vitamins, particularly in boxed cereals or white bread.
Past the white box of numbers is where most of the key information hides. A quick skim of the “contains” or “may contain” list below the ingredients can reveal any major allergens, and most foods will proudly advertise if they are gluten- or dairy-free. However, the full ingredients list is where the dirty secrets of food manufacturing are buried.
Even seemingly simple products can have a surprisingly long list of preservatives, fillers, and mystery components. By now, most of us have heard that long ingredient lists are a red flag, and we know that if we can’t pronounce an ingredient, it’s probably worth avoiding. However, even the pronounceable ingredients can have some spooky secrets.
“Artificial flavors” is a natural bogeyman, with a host of lab-made combinations encompassed under such a vague term. But “<a href="https://thepaleodiet.com/what-do-natural-flavors-really-mean/">natural flavors</a>” and variations like “natural vanilla flavor” or “natural raspberry flavor” can be just as opaque when it comes to information on the actual contents or origin of the flavoring agent. And as the University of Wisconsin <a href="https://nutrisci.wisc.edu/2021/07/26/natural-and-artificial-flavors/">explains</a>, “the science of flavoring is so advanced that many artificial flavors actually have the exact same chemical structure as the naturally occurring ones.”
Food dyes like Red 40 or Yellow 5 have gotten ample press for their <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23026007/">link to cancer</a>, and many of them are banned or require warning labels in <a href="https://www.womenshealthmag.com/food/a63606676/food-dye-additives-united-states-vs-europe/">other countries</a>. Derived from petroleum (like gasoline), they have also been <a href="https://publichealth.berkeley.edu/articles/spotlight/research/new-report-shows-artificial-food-coloring-causes-hyperactivity-in-some-kids">linked</a> to hyperactivity in children. Yet, even some natural dyes can have disturbing origins. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/carmine">Carmine</a> is all-natural and has been used for hundreds of years to produce beautiful shades of crimson and pink in everything from fabrics to cosmetics. Today, you can find it in red-colored foods like <a href="https://www.yoplait.com/products/original-single-serve-strawberry">strawberry yogurt</a>. Its source? The dried bodies of cochineal insects.
In short, skip the unidentifiable and unknown ingredients. We don’t have to know the name of every strange component to know what doesn’t sound edible.
Beyond the names of food (and food-like substances) on the nutrition panel, the qualifiers that come with some ingredients are worth a second glance. For example, flour is rarely listed as a single-word ingredient. Instead, it’s typically paired with “enriched wheat” or “whole wheat.” Words like “whole,” “organic,” and “brown” signal a less processed component, while “white,” “enriched,” and any unfamiliar terms usually equal a food that Mother Nature wouldn’t recognize.
Certainly, it’s an exercise in patience to pay attention to each word on the label, but food companies have ample incentive to keep their recipes a trade secret while conversely highlighting any high-quality inclusions. Each word can provide important information into what’s hidden or where the brand is stepping up their MAHA game. Even the parentheticals that give sub-ingredients of chocolate chips, spices, or “contains 2% or less of” can have a surprising number of strange substances.
Finally, at the very end of the ingredients, manufacturers are <a href="https://www.fda.gov/food/agricultural-biotechnology/how-gmos-are-regulated-united-states">required</a> to reveal if their product contains genetically modified organisms or bioengineered foods. Soy and seed oils are often the source of GMOs, and shopping certified non-GMO or organic will cut out the lab-made foods.
Once you’ve gone through the full list, take a closer look at the order of the ingredients. Each item is written in descending order of quantity, so if the first food is sugar, you’re in for a roller-coaster and crash after you indulge. As a bonus, this is also a handy way to know whether your purchase will be only a little spicy, very salty, or pack a punch of sour.
It’s a slog to get through the text wall of hyper-processed mystery ingredients at first. But soon, key terms will start jumping out, and a skim will reveal just how honest the front-of-box advertising is. And in the end, checking labels is not about making perfect choices. It’s about choosing to be a more informed consumer. For food manufacturers to offer healthier options, we need to demand better options. That starts by voting with our wallets — and giving each label a leery look. 
***
Jordan Jantz is the assistant editor at IW Features as well as a freelance writer, editor, and website designer.

GettyImages-2063263155

What’s Actually Hiding In Your ‘Healthy’ Grocery Store Food

Food

MAHA

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
There are few annoyances worse than when a nice young man flips around a tiny virtual tablet that reads &#8220;add tip&#8221; after he did all the work of rotating his body 75 degrees to grab you an $18 beer from a fridge.
It&#8217;s true: Tipping culture has gotten out of hand in the United States. I try to tip generously because I used to work as a delivery driver. I know the struggle of trying to scrape together some cash at the mercy of strangers who are tasked with making up the difference between the cost of living and your poverty base wage.
That only applies to actual services, though: waiting, bartending, delivery, etc. There are plenty of cases (such as the stadium beer kiosk) where the expectation of tipping is wrongly bleeding Americans dry.
And don&#8217;t get me started on communal tipping. I can&#8217;t think of anything more demoralizing than getting a fat tip due to your excellent service, only to be forced to pool it with the rest of your coworkers who didn&#8217;t do a thing to earn it.
My disdain for this excess of American culture changed, though, when I recently took a trip to Ireland.
In Ireland, like much of Europe, they don&#8217;t do tipping the way we do. You can tack on 5 to 10% for your waiter or bartender if the service is particularly good, but it&#8217;s not expected. And a service charge is often already included. You don&#8217;t get sideways looks for just paying the tab and leaving like you would stateside.
My initial reaction to this was relief. Finally, some simplicity in this life. The meals may be a bit more expensive because the labor cost is factored into price, but simply being able to pay and go without doing extra math and giving a performance review at the end of the meal would be nice.
Things began to change with each passing day. When we had our first sit-down dinner of the trip, I couldn&#8217;t help but notice how inattentive the waitstaff was. No refills of water. Twenty minutes passing by between being seated and having our order taken. Want to get some extra condiments on the side after the food arrives? Good luck.
I thought it may be an anomaly, but then the same experience kept repeating itself every single time we had dinner during the trip. I will say this didn&#8217;t extend to bartending service — I&#8217;m talking strictly about sit-down meals here — but without a single exception, the service was just dreadful, inattentive, and slow.
It was the type of experience that makes one pause and reflect on the bigger picture. I&#8217;m not saying that Europe&#8217;s poor table service is a direct consequence of a culture that stifles innovation and snuffs out the ambition of the individual for the good of the collective, but it is striking that we don&#8217;t have this issue in hyper-capitalist America.
Now, you may be thinking this was my fault somehow. Maybe my Americanness was an affront to the waitstaff&#8217;s European sensibilities. I don&#8217;t think so. I wasn&#8217;t acting visibly foreign, and the staff were very polite and personable in every interaction. I gathered no sense of disdain whatsoever — only indifference.
My only conclusion can be that these workers did not put an American-level effort in because they didn&#8217;t have to. There was no incentive to give me good service, so they didn&#8217;t. The system failed.
The experience has certainly changed my perspective on tipping culture. Yes, it remains excessive in certain American contexts. But there&#8217;s a wisdom to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_fence">Chesterton&#8217;s fence</a>: If something has been around a while, it just might serve a purpose you&#8217;ll miss when it&#8217;s gone.

(Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

I Left America Mocking Tipping Culture. Europe Changed My Mind Fast.

Europe

Ireland

&#8220;Weekend Plans&#8221; is Upstream&#8217;s exclusive lifestyle feature where we highlight the real off-duty routines of the most exciting people in culture. 
This weekend, “FOX &amp; Friends Weekend” host Rachel Campos-Duffy tells The Daily Wire about life with nine kids, her mom’s secret to getting dinner on the table, how to carve out family time everyone enjoys, and why her new book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/All-American-Patriotism-Celebrating-Greatness/dp/006351527X">All American Patriotism: Celebrating 250 Years of America&#8217;s Greatness,</a>” spotlights stars-and-stripes spirit at the perfect moment.
Let’s be honest, Rachel Campos-Duffy never really goes “off duty.” She sat down for our virtual chat at her home looking like relaxed luxury in a denim button-down and delicate jewelry. Admitting she threw on a little makeup (she looks stunning, of course) after dropping her daughter off at the bus, she says she’s usually fresh-faced and wearing leggings and a ponytail when she’s hanging out at her New Jersey home. 
I ask about the piano in the background. She laughs as she tells me it came with the house. “I had this fantasy that all the kids would take piano lessons, and of course that didn&#8217;t happen,” she says. “No one plays it other than Valentina who bangs on it.” 
As Campos-Duffy’s youngest daughter, six-year-old Valentina steals the show with her unfiltered joy. “You get to the last one, who ends up having Down syndrome, and she turns out to be the cherry on top, the family favorite. She brings us all together. It&#8217;s just awesome.”
Campos-Duffy hopes her kids grow up to love their country, something that&#8217;s not a given for kids today. Just in time for America’s big two-five-oh, Campos-Duffy hopes her latest FOX News Books release, “All American Patriotism: Celebrating 250 Years of America’s Greatness,” will inspire families to revel in Americana. 
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<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-1095671" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/All-American-Patriotism-Book-Cover-448x576.jpg" alt="" width="448" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/All-American-Patriotism-Book-Cover-448x576.jpg 448w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/All-American-Patriotism-Book-Cover-233x300.jpg 233w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/All-American-Patriotism-Book-Cover-768x987.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/All-American-Patriotism-Book-Cover.jpg 1167w" sizes=" (max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px" /></div>
Stacked with personal essays from Campos-Duffy and other FOX News hosts, it has photos and candid stories from all across our nation. It’s this tradition of storytelling that Campos-Duffy hopes will right the ship. “I think it&#8217;ll inspire moms and dads and grandparents and aunts and uncles to start telling their own American dream stories to their kids,” she says. “Sadly, our kids have been getting a message that they should be embarrassed of who we are as a country, that our founding was a bad thing. Our founding documents had <a href="https://fedsoc.org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/harmful-language-in-the-u-s-constitution">trigger warnings</a> on them at the archives at one point a few years ago.”
There’s a reason why American citizenship retains unprecedented demand. “It&#8217;s the lottery ticket that everyone in the world wants,” she says.
“America has been so good and generous to so many of us,” Campos-Duffy shares. “I dedicated the book to President Trump because I feel like he saved us from the woke nightmare we were in where statues of Washington and Lincoln were coming down and flags were being burned.” She attributes the president’s reelection to teaching us “to serve, love, and fight, fight, fight for America.”
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<div id="attachment_1095673" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1095673" class="size-large wp-image-1095673" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_4979-864x576.jpeg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_4979-864x576.jpeg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_4979-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_4979-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_4979-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_4979-2048x1365.jpeg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_4979-1800x1200.jpeg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_4979-1200x800.jpeg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Rachel Campos-Duffy and her family visit President Trump. Photo courtesy Rachel Campos-Duffy</div>
On-camera versus off-duty
Campos-Duffy’s upbeat personality shines from the FOX weekend curvy couch. But she’s just as genuinely kind without set lights and cameras in the room. When I ask about what contrast stands out to her most when it comes to her work-life balance, she doesn’t hesitate.
“At work, people get me coffee. At home, I&#8217;m getting everybody everything,” she jokes. Adding a little color to the picture, she says of domestic life, “I&#8217;m ordering people around to help me with all the pickup, the cleanup, and everything. I am the CEO here, but I&#8217;m also the person who&#8217;s serving everyone.” She sees the humor in the dueling mom roles. “I&#8217;m the intern and the CEO.”
Cooking for a crowd
Campos-Duffy says her husband, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, cooks family meals on days when she works: barbecue ribs or smashburgers. But this devoted mom happily takes the reins for the rest of the family’s meals.
“I love to cook, and my family loves when I make Mexican food. I make lamb, salmon, chicken, everything. My kids literally call me on the way home from school to ask me what I&#8217;m making for dinner that day.”
She welcomes her kids home from school with a neat house and a warm, satisfying meal instead of snacks. It’s a strategy she picked up from her mother, who once commented about the afternoon snack-before-dinner situation, “‘This is the dumbest thing ever. What are you doing? You&#8217;re making so much work for yourself.’”
Loving the efficiency of an afternoon dinner schedule, Campos-Duffy says, “You feed them as soon as they come home, you clean up or they clean up, and then you&#8217;re done, and they can move on. It changed my life.”
Getting the whole family together
The Duffy gang loves cooking together, but they share another kitchen-centered tradition that they could probably do in their pajamas. 
“When we&#8217;re all together on a Saturday, we love to just get up and have coffee together,” Campos-Duffy describes. “Everyone loves to just sit around, and the older kids come during vacation. At night they&#8217;ll go, ‘OK, meet you downstairs for coffee in the morning,’ and we all just like to sit around and hang out together. I mean, genuinely do nothing but sit around and talk.”
If this sounds too perfect to be true, she claims they’ve tried other, less successful attempts at family bonding: movie nights. (Totally relatable.) “What happens with a big family is we spend about an hour arguing about what movie to watch, and then someone&#8217;s always pissed off that their movie wasn&#8217;t chosen, and then they&#8217;re like, ‘I&#8217;m not watching.’” That’ll be a no on board games, too. She adds, “Monopoly and movies end in fights or isolation.”
Carving out time to relax
With her filming schedule locked into Saturdays and Sundays, Campos-Duffy’s “weekend” happens during the week. But she’s got a quick fix if she needs a little time to herself.
“I love a good bath. There&#8217;s nothing like a hot bath by yourself, you know, playing music or a podcast, no one bothering you,” she shares. “We have a sauna in our house, and that&#8217;s also a great way to relax. The only problem is the sauna shortens the life of the Botox.” 
Advice from a seasoned pro 
It’s no secret that Campos-Duffy’s life revolves around her kids. And while she acknowledges that she started her family “the Catholic way,” looking back, she has no regrets. 
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<div id="attachment_1095679" style="width: 853px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1095679" class="size-large wp-image-1095679" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/1-1-843x576.jpg" alt="" width="843" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/1-1-843x576.jpg 843w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/1-1-300x205.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/1-1-768x525.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/1-1.jpg 1280w" sizes=" (max-width: 843px) 100vw, 843px" />Photo courtesy Rachel Campos-Duffy</div>
“Somebody told me a long time ago: Don&#8217;t think about how many kids you want right now because you&#8217;re so busy or you don&#8217;t have enough money — Think about how many kids you want around the table 20 years from now.”
As their 27-year-old daughter, Evita, prepares to welcome her own baby girl, the Duffys’ holiday table will probably need a few more chairs. But even though the dynamics are ever-changing, this mother’s love only gets stronger with time.
“I love every single one of them,” Campos-Duffy says. “I love watching them bond with each other, and I love all the different ways that they contribute to the family with their personalities and their energy. It&#8217;s literally the one thing in life I don&#8217;t regret. I can&#8217;t imagine my life without them.”

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