It will be a blue Christmas without any Daryl Dixon on your TV screen, fangirls (and fanboys). But…what if Norman Reedus was shirtless on loop, instead?
AMC’s The Walking Dead midseason finale has come and gone and your favorite shaggy-haired, crossbow-bearing (well, not for a while now), and seemingly shower-aversive redneck will not be back on that motorbike until mid-February. Lil Gripes found the perfect medicine for Daryl/Norman (Normaryl?) Withdrawal. For the gentlemen seeking to hook the women in their lives on the gory, zombie-heavy post-apocalyptic drama, here is your answer as well:
Um… Hot damn.
Norman Reedus, for much of his acting career, has starred in numerous music videos with artists of both the indie and mainstream pop variety. Never, though, has he steamily removed his shirt and romped naked in bed in a seductive ode to the art of the orgasm… until “It Just Feels” by NYC singer JiHAE (his lucky costar in the video who also co-wrote the song with Dave Stewart and Leonard Cohen). I mean, she literally is thanking him for his sexual prowess.
Not even many diehard Reedusites (whatever they call their own version of Beliebers) knew about this, so enjoy… and well-done, JiHAE and company 🙂
Never has Norman Reedus steamily removed his shirt and romped naked in bed to an ode to the art of the orgasm… until this music video.
Afterthought: Our other 2 favorite bangers starring The Normski is “Creatures” by Blakhat:
Via submitted fan videos (…from Lil), Lil asks underrated questions about DC’s The Flash, Marvel’s Captain America and AMC’s/Image Comics’ The Walking Dead.
We saw an older Flash played by John Wesley Shipp on last season’s The Flash finale. That made me wonder: Would an older speedster like a 70 year-old Jay Garrick be necessarily slower and/or weaker than a 25 year-old Barry Allen?
Do speedsters age? Obviously, they do in the Greg Berlanti DC-verse because John Wesley Shipp was meant to look his age–a very handsome 61! If so, how much slower than normal humans do speedsters age, if they age differently at all?
RUN ON THAT.
Captain America is just a regular human being at the peak of human regenerative, athletic, and physical capabilities. Causal movie-goers may not know this very important detail but he is, in fact, not a “super”-hero, not technically. So yes, Cap CAN get super-super chunky if he chose to give up crime-fighting and just binge Netflix for a living while exclusively eating Chipotle for the rest of his life.
The question is:How long would that take?
How long would it take Captain America to lose his six-pack (or twelve-pack, really) and acquire a dad body?
And how long before his incredible metabolic rate can’t prevent him from tipping the scales toward a verdict of “morbidly obese”?
“How long would it take Captain America to acquire a Dad Body?”
When I say “stars,” I don’t mean celebrities like Bear Grylls or Dave Salmoni. I mean specifically singers and actors like Beyoncé, Eminem, Tom Cruise, and Jamie Foxx. The artists.
Still, let’s keep in mind that a lot of these superstars came from humble and often-rough beginnings. It might not take as long for them to revert back to basic survivalist instincts as you would think for someone with so-called “champagne problems.”
I HAD HOPED the first entry back from our summer hiatus would begin on a more positive note, but I can’t keep contained any longer the maelstrom of insecurities, self-hatred, and the general detriment to my mental health that I’ve been experiencing since attempting a YouTube career.
Yay I’m back! Sorry for the gripe-y tone of this post.
What happened?
I pride myself on being an above-average writer and I will hold that conviction dearly ’til the day I die. As Lil Gripes™ flourished in theme and followership, I began hearing encouragement from trusted friends and associates that I should begin a vlog extension to the brand. So I did, as the previously blogged-about stream-of-consciousness freakout detailed).
YouTube, as with blogging, is 100% marketplace distinction. What the hell do I have to offer that others don’t already? I am the girl who loooooves fashion, beauty and art as much as I love crude humor and sci-fi/fantasy/superhero films and TV shows. I bookmark WhoWhatWear.com as well as ComicBook.com.
My inaugural video should combine all of those things, I figured. I wore a floral Marc by Marc Jacobs bikini top along with a pair of high-waisted leather Topshop shorts as I enthused about my expectations for the then-upcoming blockbuster, “Captain America: Civil War.” It was all done with a wink, nod, and mischievous smile.
Not so surprisingly in hindsight, I couldn’t please them all.
There were many who watched and supported me and GOD, do I appreciate every single one of you (seriously, big smooches xx), but the whiners are always the most audible for some unholy reason. Many took to my comments section, my blog and my Twitter to complain repeatedly about how the sex appeal was too subtle, as if that was the entire point of my channel.
Just for argument’s sake, I’ll explain the point: Me + bikini was my idea of including me and all other women in on the joke that, in order to reach a male audience, you have to appease their appetite for sexuality. NO SHAME… On either side! Men are visual creatures and that’s totally fine. Women can embrace and empower themselves through their sexuality and that’s totally fine.
Le Sigh–I guess satire is world-famous for soaring over some’s heads.
When people are screaming in your face, “WTF? I came to see this girl in her bikini and not babble on about superheroes[despite that being the clearly stated M.O. of my channel]” and “your videos are better on mute,” you pause for a sobering self-evaluation of your vlogging capabilities. It’s funny how criticism has a way of registering way deeper than compliments do. I had prepared myself for the inevitable scrutiny projecting yourself out into the Youtube-sphere will bring but I lost more than just my confidence… Two full-time corporate gigs perfectly suited to my skill set sought me out because of my blog and I’m 99% sure they both cut me loose during the last stages of vetting due to my vlog.
I lost a step or two after that setback. I hadn’t been actively seeking any fulltime 9-to-5 jobs so it was like this great beam of hope shined on me without me even reaching for it and then it got snuffed out right between my fingers because of my stupid little channel.
On top of all the negative vibes flowing my way the past few months, it just so happens that summer is a notoriously huge lull in the superhero show/movie calendar and the well had seemingly dried of topics on that front.
Now, as I’ve cathartically purged this through my keyboard with my dog mid-snooze on my lap, I’ve realized it’s not all over. I can come back from this:
Summer is still Superhero Season. Tis the season for those passionate about it comme moi to weigh in on the casting news pouring in. Marvel’s Doctor Strange just confirmed Mads Mikkelsen‘s much-anticipated villainous role, Arrow on the CW cast two exciting new supporting characters and DC’s Justice League movies have been continuously adding interesting faces to its payroll. More on these in subsequent posts…
I’m a friggin’ amazing writer. I have defined myself by the title of “writer” since I was a wee tween listening to both Britney Spears and Jim Morrison religiously.
Rejection always makes me push harder. I don’t know the precise fate of my YouTube channel, but the more people tell me I can’t, the harder I always push back, like it just became my sole mission in life to prove them wrong.
…is the predominant thought running off-and-on through my head the past two weeks since I’ve posted my inaugural video on https://lilgripes.com/video/
~
YOU SEE, I never had aspirations for myself or Li’l Gripes to be the next PewDiePie or Jenna Marbles. Making it on YouTube, given the mounds of talent (and clutter) amongst which one can easily get lost, seems as much of a pipe dream as making it in Hollywood. At multiple friends’ and associates’ suggestions, however, my initial reservations about making my brand vulnerable to the indiscriminate scrutiny of a platform like YouTube mutated from “never gonna happen” to… “screw it, let’s give it the ol’ college try!”Li’l Gripes prides itself on its devotion to both geek culture and the power of aesthetics… It is difficult to make the case that it should not have a visual streaming component, as well.
WHY YOUTUBE IS HARD
So here we are, 1.1K-and-some-change views later, and YouTube has been… stressful… hella stressful.
There is a good reason why only a select few percolate to the top of the class on the ‘Tube. The recipe for YouTube success is a complicated, layered mixture of hard work, talent and luck…Just as it is in La La Land. That hard work entails a lot (like, buttloads of “a lot”) of time spent on writing, storyboarding, and editing your material outside of the time you simply spend shooting. Every channel attracts its viewers for unique reasons but one common denominator in retaining audiences is the craftsmanship behind each video. Originality and creativity can’t be faked or copied but it also requires dogged devotion and dedication for anyone to use natural-born talents to create cohesive storytelling in a single YouTube. I.e. that translates into hours of preparation (and perspiration insert sweat emoji) and post-production for minutes of finished footage.
“Making it on YouTube seems as much of a pipe dream as making it in Hollywood.”
MOMENTS OF DOUBT AND PANIC
Welp, this is all to say nothing of the internal struggles I’ve had over the past few weeks about the content I choose to release. Turning a camera lens on oneself and having the confidence-slash-hubris (is there a difference, really?) to post it with the expectation of an audience is… bold on anyone’s part.
In a way, one would have to be narcissistic and/or egomaniacal to have his or her own YouTube channel. Who am I to demand someone else’s time and attention span in such a way? What do I have to offer? How far do I have to go to make it worth everyone’s while? -WHY DOES MY HEAD HURT- Ain’t I a disappointment enough to my parents as it is? Ok, relaaaax… Wait, should I be twerking? Why am I not twerking in a bikini? Wouldn’t that only be fair? I’M HUNGRY AND I NEED INTERNS!!!
…On the plus side, I learned I do have a great/maniacal smile:
If you enjoy Lil and/or LilGripes.com, please subscribe and give us some calming encouragement! Our episodes will be more and more tightly edited as we continue doing what we do best: bringing sexy geekiness to your phone/tablet/computer screen.
LIL GRIPES loves selfies and LIL GRIPES loves superheroes.
Why not marry the two pastimes? The slick and fun app, MSQRD (“Masquerade”, get it?), currently has “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” features, like the following. GET IT NOW!
“Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” coming March 25, 2016:
