Before we had smartphones and tablets, we had to rely on our brains to have fun. We’d sit around and play games with our families for hours. A successful road trip included playing the “license plate game,” “car ride bingo,” or our personal favorite, 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon. This one also comes in handy with just about any group of people. The premise is pretty darn simple. You can connect any star in Hollywood back to Kevin Bacon in six people or fewer. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kevin Bacon (@kevinbacon) It’s Easier than You Might Think to Play 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon Kevin Bacon’s been in a lot of movies with big stars. If you can connect him to those stars who have their own far-reaching web of co-stars, it’s not too hard to play. Kevin Bacon posted a hilarious clip on Instagram, realizing the 6 degrees game is about him. “When you realize YOU are the one everyone is 6 degrees away from,” text on the screen reads. Kevin looks up with a perplexed yet excited look on his face. Of course, he’s only joking, but it’s fun to watch him play along. Fans got in on the magic immediately. “Your niece was my student at Emory, so one degree !!” Someone wrote. “My husband was an extra in the movie ‘Flatliners’ (1990). He’s ONE degree!!” Another person claimed. This story made us laugh. “I live in a small town and I’ve always joked that living here was like playing ‘Six degrees from Kevin Bacon’ except without Kevin Bacon. Then someone moved here that knows Kevin Bacon,” another fan joked. This person asked something we’ve never considered, but now we can’t stop thinking about it. “How does it feel to be zero degrees from Bacon?” This story’s featured image can be found here.

Marathon runners are elite athletes who train for months to complete 26.2 miles. The Boston Marathon is reserved for the best of the best. They must complete another race, often called a Boston qualifier, to even be considered to run. The marathon brings together the world’s best runners. The race attracts upwards of 30,000 runners from around the world to Boston each year. Most of them will never actually win the race, but they want to have fun along the way. One runner took a dance break during the Boston Marathon a few years back, making people smile. @espn He took a dance break during the Boston Marathon (via @chaseisonthecase911) #boston #marathon #running #lol #espnsocial ♬ original sound – ESPN The Dance Might Be the Best Part of the Boston Marathon Here’s the thing: we are never going to win the Boston Marathon, but we can bust a move with the best of them. Seeing Bostonians cheering for runners along the route truly makes us smile. When the crowd nears the 11-mile marker, make sure to have tunes playing and high energy to keep the runners motivated. One runner heard Rob Base’s It Takes Two playing and knew he had to show the crowd what he’s working with. Not only can this man dance, but he’s doing it after running 11 miles. We can’t even imagine, and neither could many others. “Imagine being 11 miles in and still having this much energy lol he is a legend,” someone wrote. “After 11 miles I’m staying right TF there,” another person joked. “I’m tiiddddeee.” People loved seeing this Boston Marathon runner dance and not taking his life too seriously. “I love runners who don’t care about their time…just out there living it up,” a comment reads. “If you build a stage the performers will come,” someone else joked. We have no idea where this guy lived, but we know he had fun along the way. This story’s featured image can be found here.

There are few things in life as unfair as childhood cancer. It is never easy to battle this ugly disease, but seeing children suffer is truly unbearable. The younger they are, the more difficult it is to understand things like hospital stays, medication, and hair loss. Brave parents fight this daily, and we salute each one of them. A mom named Jen shared a video of her two young children’s reunion in the hospital while their young daughter undergoes treatment. The sheer joy these siblings feel will bring tears to your eyes. @supertiredparents When you haven’t seen your brother in 9 days since you’ve been on isolation (no more comments about my sons iPad. He walked in with it to show her a new game and didn’t know she could touch him. He put it down on the couch at the end of the video and jumped in bed with her to play for the next hour. I can’t believe people focus on that. Enjoy the video or be a troll somewhere else thanks bye #leukemiawarrior#cancermom#childhoodcancer#cancersucks#leukemia#momtok#cancer #houston #katytx ♬ Bundle of Joy (From “Inside Out”) – Piano Version – Clavier & your movie soundtrack We’ve Never Seen a Hospital Reunion Quite Like This When we see hospital videos online, they’re typically of kids meeting new siblings. Very rarely do you see a hospital reunion like this one. We’re warning you, it’s emotional. “When you haven’t seen your brother in 9 days since you’ve been on isolation (no more comments about my sons iPad. He walked in with it to show her a new game and didn’t know she could touch him. He put it down on the couch at the end of the video and jumped in bed with her to play for the next hour. I can’t believe people focus on that. Enjoy the video or be a troll somewhere else thanks bye,” Jen wrote in the caption. “Idk how to articulate what I felt when I saw her pink nails. It made me cry. She deserves all the girliest things life has to offer,” someone said. “Awww she closed her eyes when she hugged him, she missed him such a beautiful bond they have,” another person wrote. Many noticed all the little girl cared about was the hug. “’Bubba come here’ she dont care about the toys he brought she just wanted to love on him,” a comment reads. We positively adore this sweet sibling reunion at the hospital. These parents are raising kids who truly love each other. You can’t ask for much more than that. This story’s featured image can be found here.

There’s nothing more deflating than getting a bad haircut. You show the stylist a photo of how you want to look, sometimes inspired by a celebrity or fashion model, but when it translates to your head and face, it just doesn’t look right. Ultimately, much of the blame falls on the stylist for failing to execute the style or for not admitting it wouldn’t work. Run Zhang of England shared her bad-haircut journey on TikTok, and millions of people have followed her transformation from disaster to a look that is cute and matches her upbeat, quirky personality. In the first video, she said she was excited to get a “cool girl…spiky” short haircut, similar to a “wolf” style. However, after the haircut, she didn’t look cool at all. @fluffapple IT DIDNT GO WELL AT ALL I look like geum jan diiii #haircut #transformation #nightmare #haircutfail #worstnightmare ♬ original sound – Run Zhang After the haircut, Run had to go straight to work and had no idea how to style her hair. “This is not right at all. And I have to go straight to work. I’m driving three hours to go straight to work to look like a small fruit,” she joked while prepping herself for a day of embarrassment. Maybe the haircut is…French? “Why don’t hair stylists just say they don’t know how to do a cut?! It’s not even close!” Masdelaselva wrote in the comments. Others joked that the hairstyle may be “French,” referencing an inspired scene from Fleabag in which Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character tries to convince Sian Clifford’s Claire that her haircut isn’t terrible. @primevideo It’s FRENCH. #fleabag #phoebewallerbridge #sianclifford #hair #haircut #badhaircut #badhairday #french #funny #primevideo #amazonprime ♬ original sound – Prime Video Others joked that Run looks like comedian Jimmy O. Yang. Comedian Jimmy O. Yang. Photo credit: Fung Bros/Wikimedia Commons & Wikimedia Commons In a wonderful example of taking lemons and turning them into lemonade, Run enlisted her sister, Yun, to make her hair presentable. “Yun’s been fixing my hair like a magician or an angel or perhaps a saint,” she said while revealing her new ‘do, which features a semi-slicked-back look held in place by old-school metal clips. Strangely, the new haircut kind of fits Run’s fun-loving vibe. @fluffapple IT WAS SO BAD #haircut #transformation #nightmare #haircutfail #worstnightmare ♬ original sound – Run Zhang “Holy sh*t, your sister nailed that! I thought it was unsaveable, but I didn’t realize you had a team behind you,” Amy wrote. “Your sister is a miracle worker!” Harmony added. Run and Yun did a fantastic job of turning a tragedy into a style that looks great until her hair grows back. One wonders whether Run will try to find another hairdresser who can get the wolf cut right or lean into her new ’90s-girl throwback hairstyle. Until then, Run is still having trouble because she doesn’t know how to style her hair without Yun’s help. @fluffapple WILL IT EVER GET BETTER? #hairstyle #haircutfail #haircut #hairtransformation #transformation ♬ original sound – Run Zhang Run’s bad-haircut saga started as a sad story about a woman who was destined to feel bad about her looks for a few months. But in the end, with a little ingenuity and help from her sister, she proved that she could turn a bad haircut into something that reflected her true personality. It’s a great reminder that nothing is impossible when we have people who can lift us up when we’re down. The post Woman who crashed out after awful ‘wolf’ haircut is saved by ‘angel’ sister’s amazing styling appeared first on Upworthy.

Comedian Pete Holmes isn’t just funny. He’s a deep thinker who digs so far beneath the crust of your average every day “observational” comic that he might just touch the lava. He takes an aerial view on everything from parenting to science to sex to faith, and all of the tiny minutia that comes with them. His rise as a beloved writer and stand-up has barreled through the atmosphere from tiny gigs to podcasts to TV shows. Holmes and I have a mutual friend who put us in touch for this Upworthy interview. And although we had never met, I immediately felt like we were long lost friends upon answering his call. He was ready to break down not only the rules (or lack thereof) of comedy, but to deconstruct human thought and how the most sensitive people might navigate the world. What especially stood out in this half hour chat beyond his quick wit, was his deep commitment to supporting other talented people. He seemingly laughs as easily as he makes others laugh, and that alone is a gift. Photo credit: Neal Brennan/YouTube – Comedian Pete Holmes. Upworthy: I must tell you there’s a podcast interview you did on You Made it Weird with Gareth Reynolds about Doritos where he did a Jay Leno impression. Do you remember this? Holmes: “Of course!” Upworthy: I legit look at this once a week when I’m having a bad day and need to laugh. Is there something that you come back to often when you’re in a bad mood and need to laugh? Holmes: “Oh my God, first of all, I love Gareth so much. What a funny person! In fact, people come up and say, ‘I love your Doritos thing!’ Which is funny because I have a lot of jokes about Doritos, so I’m never sure what they mean. View this post on Instagram To answer your question, what do I watch when I’m in a bad mood? I watch Nirvana the Band the Show. They just had their movie come out, and I think the whole second season is on YouTube. I think Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol are just two of the funniest people in the world, and I just watch clips from that show sort of endlessly if I’m looking to laugh. The ones that really get me are the ones that are a little bit over the line, and that’s what I like about them. They’re just two friends finding fun together, and it just makes me so happy. So it’s not just the content, it’s the medium. It’s how they made it, and it really captures the feeling of two just free people, two people that realize that we’re in this weird reality, we’re in this weird world, and we’re only here for a little time. And one of the things we can do is be really funny and make each other laugh, and they just go at it with this innocence that I really admire.” Upworthy: To that end, who would you say back in the day and now are your major influences as a comic? Holmes: “I love that question. When I read the book SeinLanguage—which is I’m just so sure that Jerry Seinfeld regrets calling it. I don’t know him. I’m not basing that on anything that you don’t also have access to, just his comedy and his show. I’m just so sure that he is like, “Why did I call it SeinLanguage?“ But I read it because I didn’t really have control over our TV in our house. When a comedy special came out in book form, I could get the book and I could read it privately and re-read it. And he actually talks a bit about comedy theory in it as well. Anyway, I read this book and I just couldn’t believe that the kind of thoughts I was already having were not that different from the thoughts of a professional comedian. I just didn’t feel like I had that tour de force, wild, loud guy Boston energy, if that makes sense. I felt way more in line with Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen and Ray Romano. These sort of like 7 p.m. show guys. Okay, I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember, that was the fringe. In the ’90s, comedy was sort of for pirates. And a lot of my best friends are pirates. I’m just saying they hooked up late night, you know, freewheeling lunatics. And I just didn’t see myself up there. So Jerry Seinfeld once said about Robert Klein that he was the first comedian that he saw that was like, ‘Oh, it just seemed like me.’ And when I saw Seinfeld I was like, ‘Oh, this is like me, this is like a guy I know.’ So the book SeinLanguage and the fact that it was clean was really important to me.” View this post on Instagram Upworthy: I read there was one point you had plans to be a youth pastor. Was that a real thing you were considering or just what your parents thought you would do? Holmes: “No, it was my idea. You could look at it two ways: one, my parents were sort of detached in a way that you were like, ‘Shouldn’t you be more involved?’ Or you can be like they really were letting me find my own way, and I actually look at it more the latter. It was as serious as when you’re in high school you want to be a teacher, you know what I mean? You just don’t know any other jobs. So I knew teachers that I admired, and I knew my youth pastor and my pastor that I admired. And this is a Steve Martin thing: he said, ‘Teachers are in show business.’ Pastors are too. And that doesn’t mean to say they’re phony or false. It just means if you’re up in front of a crowd holding their attention, you’re putting on a show. Teachers and pastors are doing something substantial, but they’re doing it in the style of a show.” Upworthy: I saw a clip where you were talking about the idea of saying ‘Yes, thank you’ to the universe. It seems very Stoic. Are there other elements of that that help you in your daily life? Holmes: “I would say that my understanding of ‘Yes, thank you’ has deepened a little bit. There’s a couple different altitudes you can look at that. One of them is just very basic—basic doesn’t mean bad—it’s just basic psychology. Meaning suffering comes from seeking and resisting. I know that’s sort of spiritual terminology, but it’s also psychological terminology. If you’re suffering, you’re by definition seeking a different experience. And there’s pain or there’s discomfort, but suffering really comes from building a story. And anybody that has kids knows that that’s true. My daughter won’t go to bed, let’s say. And that really is, if we can pause and just be on a planet in outer space in these finite spaces, that is just so insignificant. So when we’re resourced and with friends and rested and fed and all these things, we can see that. But often when your kid won’t go to bed, you’re not resourced and you start spinning out. People love talking about catastrophizing. You’re just making a story, and it’s never in your favor. You go, ‘She won’t go to sleep. Why is this happening to me?’ You start thinking about what you would be doing if she was asleep. ‘I can’t watch that show, I can’t relax. My whole life is just being a parent.’ None of that is really happening, your brain just sort of is torturing you. It’s important to recognize that your brain doesn’t always have your best interest in mind. So giving it another path to take, which is ‘Yes, thank you.’ So the flight delayed is a good example, and just about the right temperature of spice for this exercise. You know it can be deeply upsetting when a flight is cancelled until you realize, you know, you don’t resist it, you just go with it, and you realize all you have to do is sit in your chair.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dan Harris (@danharris) Upworthy: Sometimes it just takes a little packaging, but just hearing you say that honestly reframed my thinking. Holmes: “Me too! But it has to be simple. It can’t be like the Buddhists or whoever would say, ‘Don’t resist,’ right? That’s a little too conceptual. I want to get right to the phrase that’s easy to remember, that when you’re stressed you can go to it. To talk about the deepening of that, you can look at yourself. You are what’s aware of your experience, right? You haven’t always been this body, you haven’t always been this age, your name, your country. All of these are concepts that you sort of reinforce by thinking them over and over: ‘My name is Cecily. I live in America.’ All these are things. But what you really are is this space-like aware presence that encompasses your body, encompasses reality, your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, your perceptions, right? So ‘Yes, thank you’ isn’t just a life hack. It’s actually your nature, meaning awareness or consciousness. This is almost over, by the way.” Upworthy: Are you kidding? This is amazing. This is therapy. Holmes: “Awareness is like a mirror, alright? So it’s like a mirror indiscriminately reflects what is in front of it. And you are like that. My voice is being recognized by you completely effortlessly. The feeling of your phone in your hand or your butt in your chair, all of that is just being registered completely defenseless. It just enters, it just comes in. So thinking ‘Yes, thank you’ isn’t just a trick. It’s actually more in line with your nature. You do say yes to everything. I’m driving down the highway right now, every nanosecond this is just being embraced by my awareness. So when I can get my mind in line with my true nature, which is just free flowing, it’s spontaneous, it’s like jazz. Like my daughter wouldn’t go upstairs two nights ago. She just wouldn’t even go upstairs to go to bed. And look, I can’t always do this, but in that moment I was able to go, ‘What is 10 minutes?’ And not 10 minutes where I’m trying to get her to go upstairs, 10 minutes where I just sit on the stairs with her, and now I’m looking at my stairs and I’ve never even seen them from that angle. I’m really just dropping the entire agenda. And I really think kids energetically can pick up on that. And I think grown-ups can pick up on that. Like a good date that you’re on is somebody that’s just awake and aware and spontaneous. Why do we love spontaneity? Why do we love humor? Because it’s so alive and so accommodating and so fresh, right? You are alive, you’re accommodating, you are fresh. Those are aspects of you. I don’t mean you, Cecily, or me, Pete. I mean the thing that’s running the whole show. It’s ‘Yes’ to the whole thing. So when we get in tune with that ‘Yes,’ even when you’re miserable, even when you’re having a bad situation, a bad experience, if you can just sort of go with it. You know the Stoics are like, ‘Control what you can control.’ You can get on another flight, and if you can’t, so they’re proactive, and I’m all about being proactive. But there is something about like, you know, a 40-minute delay where you don’t really need to look for another flight. You know what I mean? That’s really the right level for this practice.” Upworthy: Do you find when you travel that you’re freer? I find I am when I’m out of my element and just going with the flow and not making a whole lot of plans. Holmes: “Well, because when you’re home you have a lot more expectation for how things have gone. That’s why people like traveling, you know? And that’s an Eckhart Tolle thing. It’s like people like traveling because it forces them to be present. I would say when you’re being present, you’re actually being yourself. What you are is present, right? And everything else is mind activity. Why does it feel so good to not think about anything? Why does it feel so good to just be? If you can stop the anxiety or the fear or the chattering thoughts, if you can just be still, it feels really good. That’s because the present moment and your true self, the nature of awareness, those are the same thing. People are just pointing to it using different words. And when you travel, you are forced to go with the flow because you don’t even know what’s normal. ‘Oh, in Barcelona, they eat dinner at 10 o’clock.’ You’re completely out of control, so you surrender. And people are much more likely to say ‘Yes, thank you’ when they’re in Spain than they will at their home.” Upworthy: Back to comedy, would you bill yourself as a ‘clean comic?’ And what are your thoughts on the concept of punching up or punching down? Holmes: “I think a good entertainer should always be surprising, right? So like I think people that aren’t real fans of mine that just might come to a show, they might be surprised. There might be more swearing. There might be more sex stuff. But, to me, that’s sort of my job. I don’t want to just deliver what you’ve already seen. View this post on Instagram Like my new special that just came out (Silly Silly Fun Boy) people have noticed that I’m swearing a little bit more in the beginning. And I’m like, yeah, it was the late Friday show and people weren’t there yet. There were huge sections of the crowd that were empty, and I’m filming a special, so I wasn’t asking. I was going out with a knife between my teeth like Predator. I was going out to insist that I do very well and that we get somewhere that we all want to be. Other shows, the crowd—and by the way, the crowd was great—it was just kind of chunky up top. Other shows, you know, that’s not required. But I’m not doing a routine. It’s like what we were saying, I’m being present and fresh and alive for that crowd. And to answer your question more directly… the hour that I’m touring now (which isn’t the hour that I just released) also has what I would call dirtier jokes. Meaning they’re not ugly, but they’re jokes that are sort of a little bit outrageous, I guess.” Upworthy: So you feel like it’s not that you’re making a choice to be edgier? You’re just doing you. Holmes: “Oh yeah, and that’s how material shows up too. I always liken it to if you’ve ever gotten an Amazon package on your doorstep and you don’t even remember what it is. That’s how the material shows up. I’m not trying to be a flashy artist like, ‘Oh I’m just the vessel.’ I’m just saying I’m living my life and certain things come up. I write them down, I perform them, people like them, and then you have about an hour and ten minutes of that and you have a show. I’m not Marvel. I like Marvel, but I’m not Marvel thinking like, ‘Okay, we need a female-led 20-something that has…’ you know, like they’re trying to guess what people want and give it to them. They’re very good at that, but that’s not what I’m doing. I’m much more like a weather vane or a lightning rod. I’m just waiting to see what happens. But to finish my point: I’ll do these jokes—could be considered dirty, meaning I’m swearing, I’m talking about dicks, I’m talking about sex, whatever that might be. And then after the show, literally, this isn’t just something I’m making up, little old ladies will come up and tell me that they love how clean I am.” Upworthy: The bar has changed, right? The line has moved. Holmes: “Well, I think it’s the medium, going back to medium and message, right? I think it’s very possible that someone does what’s considered clean comedy, meaning they’re not talking about their penis, or sex, or about drugs, and they’re not swearing. They’re not saying the seven words, right? And that comedy can be toxic. It can be ugly. It can be encouraging really backwards thinking and harmful ideologies, right? By the way, I’ll defend someone’s right to be able to do that, I’m just saying what I see sometimes. And then I think it’s quite possible to talk about your dick, talk about drugs, acknowledge the existence of sex, and say all of the seven words and do a joke that is really beautiful. In fact, I think that’s part of the message. I talk about this in the special. I am demonstrating to myself and to them: this is what it looks like to be ‘unembarrassingly’ human. I’m not ashamed. I don’t choose my thoughts. I don’t choose my feelings. I’m here to report on them and laugh at them, and thereby take away some of their power. View this post on Instagram And that’s what you’re doing by laughing with me, you’re recognizing yourself in me and you’re laughing at yourself, and everybody leaves feeling a little bit lighter. Now did I say ‘f–k’? Yes, but if that’s your line in the sand, whether or not a comic says ‘f–k,’ that’s fine. That was me for the first 28 years of my life. It’s not my line anymore, and I’m happy to say that there are lots and lots of people that are nuanced, that are lovely, compassionate, generous, interesting, interested people that aren’t turned off by the full human experience. By the way, I love clean comedy too. It’s just like I don’t think clean necessarily means it’s not going to be mean or ugly or somehow harmful, and I don’t think ugly means you swear. I think it’s completely what are you saying and how are you saying it? And I’m proud that even the jokes that I have that are about me letting myself down or making some sort of mistake, there’s something beautiful in the message. We can still laugh at that, and we can still not take ourselves too seriously, and we can get better.” Upworthy: There are a lot of comics who have been punching down these days, and I’m hoping that becomes unpopular soon. Holmes: “It’s always a pendulum, and it always goes back and forth. I will defend my fellow comedians whom I don’t agree with, their right to share their experience. That being said, it’s kind of like you wake up one day and every movie that’s in the theater is a horror movie, and you’re like, ‘When did this happen?’ And there can be a parallel there. Like Chris Fleming’s special was probably one of the best specials I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and it couldn’t have been more beautiful, but also deeply hilarious. So it’s not—nor has it ever only been—one thing. Like look at pictures from 1972. It would look like everybody was a hippie. My dad was alive in 1972, he was not a hippie. These things get painted in these broad brushes, and you see certain trends in comedy, and it can start to feel like it’s been taken over by a certain perspective, but that’s not my experience. When we look at the bird’s-eye view, you’ll go, ‘Oh, every perspective was always being represented the whole time.'” Upworthy: It’s an algorithm thing, you know? Holmes: “I really feel like there’s room for everything. I don’t think there are any new groups. I don’t even think there are any really new perspectives. It’s just this constant fluctuation. But everybody was there the whole time. What it looked like, I can’t say, and nobody can. You can just live your life and make a difference where you can.” The post Pete Holmes makes it anything but weird in conversation with Upworthy appeared first on Upworthy.