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More terrifying than Mark Ruffalo on a talk show! Scarier than Tom Holland being interviewed by himself! Marvel’s greatest spoiler threat has struck again! New toys.

Images of upcoming products for Avengers: Endgame have hit the web. They give us a glimpse of many of the characters who will be trying to undo Thanos’ Snap. We’ve expected to see some of them, but others are pleasant surprises. Who will join the fight is not the only secret contained within those collectibles though, and on today’s Nerdist News we’re gathering them all together to unearth what these action figures might tell us about the film.

On today’s (potentially spoiler-filled) episode, host Jessica Chobot looks at how new Endgame toys seem to confirm some of the biggest theories about the film, especially how the Avengers might need to suit up for a special trip–where they’re going could tell us how the Mad Titan’s Great Dusting might be reversed. These figurines and their packaging also reveal some new Avengers, from old characters taking on different forms, to some popular members of the MCU who look like they could be called upon to finally join Earth’s mightiest heroes on their quest to save half the universe.

No matter how much studios, even one as good as keeping its secrets as Marvel, are no match for the leaking potential of new toys. They’re consistently the best way to collect secrets.

But what do you think of these new toys and what they tell us about the film? Don’t keep your thoughts a secret, share them with us in the comments below.

One of 2018’s highlights was getting to attend our first official band meeting in years, because Flight of the Conchords made their long-awaited return to HBO with their fantastic new special Live in London. It had everything we’d want from Bret and Jemaine: fantastic musicianship, a wide range of song styles with hilarious premises, and plenty of banter. The only thing we were missing was a chance to bring their new songs with us anywhere we wanted–until now, because their live special is getting an official album release.

In news we first came across at Consequence of Sound, Sub Pop Records announced that Flight of the Conchords’ Live in London will hit stores and digital release on March 8. The album will feature 22 tracks from their show at London’s Eventim Apollo theater, including versions of two of the band’s best songs ever, “Carol Brown” and “Most Beautiful Girl in the Room,” that were both cut from the live special. The album will have seven all new songs performed during the show, including the duo’s punk track about a messy office affair, “Iain and Deanna.” Sub Pop released a video for the song to go with the announcement. Watch:

This is the second single from the album. Previously they released their not-as-sweet-as-it-sounds duet “Father and Son,” which was not entirely new even if most fans had not heard it before the special. You can see the full tracklist below.

The album will available: digitally ($14), cassette ($10), 2-CD set ($14), and 3-LP vinyl ($27). A special Loser Edition of the LP, featuring clear with blue and yellow colored vinyl, will be available while supplies last. You can pre-order your preferred copy now through Sub Pop.

While we certainly don’t hope we have to wait another ten years for the next band meeting, at least having a copy of this one will help make it feel like Flight of the Conchords are still present.

Featured Image: HBO

1. Father and Son (Live in London)
2. Band Reunion (Live in London)
3. Iain and Deanna (Live in London)
4. Inner City Pressure (Live in London)
5. New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (Live in London)
6. Summer of 1353 (Live in London)
7. Complimentary Muffin (Live in London)
8. Stana (Live in London)
9. Stuck in a Lift (Live in London)
10. Foux du Fafa (Live in London)
11. Seagull (Live in London)
12. Mutha’uckas – Hurt Feelings (Live in London)
13. One More Anecdote (Live in London)
14. Back on the Road (Live in London)
15. Thank You London (Live in London)
16. Bowie (Live in London)
17. Bus Driver (Live in London)
18. Tuning (Live in London)
19. Robots (Live in London)
20. Shady Rachel (Live in London)
21. Carol Brown (Live in London)
22. The Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room)

Rome is burning, yet everyone stays. The past few years have seen a level of backlash to the social media platform Facebook never before felt by the company since its inception in the early 2000s. Looking back at previous scandals feels almost laughable now: remember the outrage when the News Feed first arrived? When Facebook opened its doors to non-college students, including your grandma, or the campaign to omit “is” from following your name on a status update? And when Facebook kept changing its homepage layout to fit its newly intrusive ads? With various decisions that ruined the platform and turned Facebook into the place to find the latest anti-vaccination argument or Obama conspiracy theory, it’s hard to overstate how much Instagram, the company’s 2012 acquisition of $1 billion, is the future of the company.

Sleek, mobile, and addictive, over the last decade Instagram has been the shiniest of the social media platforms, a place where users can show their best lives in simplicity and beauty minus the drag of reality. But is Instagram’s facade beginning to crack? That’s the subject of the latest in a plethora of movies and documentaries that are tackling the increasingly visible consequences of Instagram’s alternative world, a society complete with social rules, politics, and currency.

Like Netflix’s The American Meme, Social Animals‘ message is based on its trust in its audience to understand the personal experience of a few as a microcosm of what they might see to be true of most others. In this case, the film offers a small sample size of only 3 young Instagram users — 2 “Instagram celebrities” and one not — and listens to their experiences on the platform. The 3 featured users are unique in their reasons for using the platform, which offers viewers a choose-your-own-adventure feel to which of them might mirror your own reasons for use.

There is the artist, Humza Deas, who rose to Instagram fame as an urban photographer; Emma Crockett, the down-to-earth every-teen who uses Instagram as a social necessity; and Kaylyn Slevin as the aspiring Instagram celebrity, the archetype of the wealthy, young, white, and vapid, a budding Paris Hilton. The film serves as a nonjudgmental character study of the 3 people who have little in common outside of being young and on Instagram. Indeed, if you’re looking for an overt critique of the platform then Social Animals may not be for you; instead, though, its character study gives you more than enough content to lend itself as a perfect time capture of what it’s like to be a teen in the age of Instagram and come to your own conclusions on its effects on a generation.

Those effects, as you might expect, follow a familiar trajectory. Social Animals begins by setting the stage through the introduction of its cast, most notably the story of Humza as his story has the most recognizable arc, a rise and an impending fall. The fall is the case with two of the features however, with one unexpected fall carrying the emotional heft of the film and its bleakest warning on the impacts of social media on developing teens. In-between are a spattering of teen interviews as they share what Instagram means to them and stories of their experiences. It all combines to create a collage of our shared experience on the platform…only teens are more tuned in to the games we play.

Ultimately, Social Animals presents the state of modern teens as living in an ongoing popularity contest they carry with them everywhere they go. It governs their behavior as the judge and jury of social worth, rendering a “real” life less important than the one the online persona they will be evaluated based on. Whether Instagram is more good than bad or vice versa is up to you to decide, and there’s evidence for both: would an urban explorer like Humza have ever been afforded the opportunities he was given without Instagram as a creative outlet? Likely not. Is that creative outlet worth our attention if it makes Emma Crockett and the majority of us simply feel bad, as studies consistently show it to do? Both seem to be simultaneously true. And is it just the new normal, this marketplace of popularity where a teen girl like Kaylyn Slevin can place her dreams? Maybe. But whether good or bad, it’s a current reality, and one that shows little signs of slowing down in the future.

If it is to slow down, it’ll be due to an increasing understanding and exposure of what social media has become, or perhaps always was. Perhaps facing the effects of Instagram is as depressing as scrolling through it, but Social Animals offers us a personal look into the reality of the fantasy if we’re bold enough for the task. No matter how you feel, Facebook is betting you play the game…whether you like to or not.

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The post ‘Social Animals’ is the Latest Instagram Cautionary Tale appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.