Weekend Rewind: Snapchat and Other Scary Stories

WEEKEND REWIND is LadyClever’s round-up of important events and stories happening around the country over the weekend. Catch up on what you might have missed while you were sleeping in. Because a clever lady always stays informed, even when she’s relaxing. This week’s ghoulish Halloween season brief includes some of the most hair-raising scary stories in feminism news, as well as tales of the most brave among us. snapchat

For F*ck’s Sake, 4chan: Allegedly, a reported 200,000 photos and videos shared in private by unsuspecting Snapchat users were leaked and posted to 4Chan this weekend, “where they were quickly downloaded and shared,” according to Refinery 29 and other sources. According to sources, 4Chan users are developing a database of the leaked photos that will be searchable by Snapchat username, and have affectionately dubbed this leak “The Snappening.” R29 notes that — if the scandal is real and not a hoax designed to spread a virus, as some people claim — given that much of the app’s user base consists of middle and high-school-aged children, many of the stolen images are likely to be of minors and are therefore illegal for circulation.

#notallghostbusters: Ernie Hudson, one of the stars of the iconic 80s Ghostbusters movies, blew devotees of the franchise away last week with a blast of old-man misogyny, suggesting that fans probably wouldn’t be into an all-female reboot of the movies. “I love females,” he assured. “I hope that if they go that way at least they’ll be funny, and if they’re not funny at least hopefully it’ll be sexy.” Well, in the absence of good screenwriting, directing, and acting, what do female-led movies have to fall back on if not sex appeal? Jezebel quipped that the star’s sexist comments are “his way of masking his insecurity and FOMO.” Meanwhile, patron saint of all things awesome Bill Murray has endorsed the idea and offered up his dream casting suggestions for the reboot: they’re not real, but they’re spectacular. Get it together, Ernie.

Hillary Who? Elizabeth Warren 2016: In a Salon.com exclusive yesterday, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke frankly on topics ranging from economics to college tuition and student loan reform, as well as President  Barack Obama: “They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. And it happened over and over and over,” she lamented. To those who cite the current state of our country as proof that democracy doesn’t work, she says: “Or the other way you can look at that is to say, ‘We have the opportunity. The moment is upon us.’ We push back hard enough, we’re pushing for America’s agenda. Not an agenda to help a small group of people, an agenda to build a future for this country. And I believe we win. I believe it.”

Fame-inist Agenda: Emma Watson, Jennifer Lawrence, Beyoncé and many other stars proudly wear the feminist badge these days, but essayist and Bad Feminist author Roxane Gay explained in a piece for  The Guardian why famous ladies borrowing the label to flaunt on their lapel is its own issue.”This is the real problem feminism faces. Too many people are willfully ignorant about what the word means and what the movement aims to achieve. But when a pretty young woman has something to say about feminism,” she writes, “all of a sudden, that broad ignorance disappears or is set aside because, at last, we have a more tolerable voice proclaiming the very messages feminism has been trying to impart for so damn long.” Don’t be a bandwagoner, folks. Feminism is so much more important than a trend of the week.

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