The Underground — Issue #110
Everything you need to know about in this weekly series: The Tinder app is challenged by a social experiment, Ricky Gervais eats the hottest of hot wings, the safety net for humanity if everything crumbles, and if winning the lottery would make you happier.
At Social Underground we go beyond the mainstream stuff and see what’s underneath the surface. What should we get into, listen to, read, eat or watch? If there is something in our culture that needs attention that’s our job: Show you the underground things that you need to know about: Books, music, television, movies, comedians, art, and whatever else we can find to get you into something you never knew about. That’s The Underground.
1. See what happens when Tinder dates surprise matches with a different look from their profile pictures. Tinder can be the worst or best dating experience if you’re single. You can meet someone, go out, and then possibly hook up. You can also find someone on Tinder, look at pics and personality, schedule to meet up, and then notice that the person you’re meeting looks nothing like their photos. Not only that, but they love to talk about their ex or how many times they unsuccessfully tried to kill themselves with prescription drugs (that happened).
In a social experiment, these two videos test men and women on how they react when their Tinder match is slightly different, but it’s fun watching it all play out. Check the two videos below to watch how people react to meeting the not quite love of their lives.
2. Comedian Ricky Gervais takes the Hot Ones hot wings challenge. Gervais is a comedy genius. When he’s not making funny movies or television, he’s touring the planet doing interviews and stand-up. He doesn’t care about trashing rich celebrities because who cares about rich celebrities? Going to an award show and trashing millionaires? Poor babies.
Being a vegan, Gervais had to have the crew of Hot Ones change the dish to vegan chicken wings. I don’t even want to imagine what cocktail of chemicals went into creating those wings.
It’s nice seeing one of the most sarcastic people on the planet have to eat some super hot wings during the challenge. Considering he says he’s vegan in the video, but has also been called out for being a part-time vegan, I will just go ahead and believe he’s vegan here. I mean, he’s eating hot wings and never goes for the milk. A vegan can’t eat or drink anything from an animal, so I guess he’s hardcore 0r maybe it was almond milk. This is all hot wing speculation.
Watch Ricky try to get through the Hot Ones challenge below.
3. Futurism gives us the “Doomsday Vault” which hold all the seeds of the word in case of apocalypse. Social media has been talking about World War 3 and the end of the world ever since January 20th happened. The nuclear clock is only 3 minutes to midnight, and that’s a very bad thing. Luckily if most of humanity dies, the rest of the survivors know that they or their ancestors will be able to replenish the land because of the Doomsday Vault, which holds around 860,000 seed samples from all over the world.
I used to believe that this place was just sitting there being manned by security guards playing cards, but I was wrong. After the devastation in Aleppo, Syria, the vault opened its doors to replace the ones destroyed in their seed bank.
The astounding thing is that this place only cost around $9 million to build. It looks like a bunker that would cost at least $100 million since they had to burrow into a mountain and build a complex. Either way, check out this interesting infographic on the Doomsday Vault. It’s an interesting thing you can bring up in conversation or where to travel to after it’s all over for humanity.
4. Would winning the lottery make you happier? We’ve all dreamed about what it would be like winning the lottery. When we’re younger, we think we can win, buy a huge house, cars, a boat, and a private jet. The problem with that thinking is you’re already digging yourself in the hole with the lottery winnings. A huge house needs lots of maintenance, expensive cars have expensive insurance and upkeep, a boat needs to be maintained, and a private jet burns money when you’re using it or not. Could having all of that make you happy? Of course, but what about in 5-10 years?
Many lottery winners lose their fortune because they blow it all when they get it. I know what it’s like. There’s a saying that no one spends their money faster than a poor person on pay day. It’s kinda true. When I would get paid, all of that money was gone pretty quickly. It would get the point where after I blew it all, I’d have to live on my last 20 bucks for a week. I could maintain that, but it was completely miserable. That week of penny pinching comes after the happiness I had spending the money. Now imagine you do that with millions of dollars… You’re going to be auctioning off all those cool things you bought when you thought your money was infinite.
Here’s a video that shows you that money isn’t the key to happiness if you don’t know what you’re doing with it after winning the lottery. If I won the lottery, I would buy a normal sized house in a good area, a nice car, and maybe finish the basement of my new house. Other than that, I’d probably buy my parents everything they’d ever want. Buying presents or doing good things for others is more rewarding anyway.
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com