10. ‘This Is Freaking Awesome’

Twenty dollars may be a lot of money for the average 9-year-old, but for mini-rap-star Sophia Grace and hype girl Rosie, it’s just another day at the “Thrift Shop.” The duo first stole hearts and took names with their Nicki Minaj “Super Bass” tribute on Ellen and have returned to take on Macklemore.

The twerking-induced suspension of 33 high school students in San Diego has brought the crazy, sexy, coolness of butt-jiggling to center stage. As the booty-shaking storm heats up, some are still scratching their heads with one simple question: What is it?

The Wikipedia definition of twerking is, oddly, perfect. “Twerking is a dance move that involves a person shaking their hips and bottom in a bouncy up and down motion causing it to shake, wobble, and jiggle.”

Who would win in a fistfight between pop superstar Justin Bieber and fictional King of the Iron Throne Joffrey Baratheon?

Too difficult of a question? Never fear, our new Tumblr obsession, Joffrey Bieber, lets both tow-headed annoyances live as one, together. The Tumblr page, which features photos and GIFs of the Game of Thrones’s character morphed with the head of tween heartthrob Justin Bieber, boasts the slogan: “Where fiction's biggest brat and real life's biggest brat become one!"

“I’ve been on Conan O’Brien like 47 times, and you don’t know who I am, right?”

Marc Maron says this to his veterinarian the opening moments of the first episode of Maron—premiering on IFC tonight at 10 p.m.—in an attempt to impress her as she takes a look at his cat. However, this statement isn’t a fictionalized or even exaggerated part of his new scripted show; Maron has been on O’Brien’s shows more than any other comedian. A veteran in the comedy game, he’s performed stand-up around the country and has recorded specials for HBO and Comedy Central Presents. With a strong cult following backing his popular podcast, a new TV show based on his life, and a memoir, Attempting Normal, released earlier this week, it’s safe to say Maron isn’t an unknown.

“WHAT HAPPENS when a man turns 40?” asks Matthew McConaughey, rocking back and forth in his chair at a hotel suite in downtown Manhattan.

The megawatt Texan grin and good ol’ boy twinkle in his eye—A-list ammo that landed him a string of himbo roles in cookie-cutter romantic comedies like The Wedding Planner, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Failure to Launch, and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past—has metastasized into a penetrating stare. McConaughey is getting existential, y’all. The rocking stops. He leans in.

After a week like this, one gets nostalgic for the days of a cheesy jingle, a dancing cartoon, and a slogan with a smile.

A jarring amount of advertisements in recent days have either been pulled by the companies that commissioned them or incited controversy for offensive content—including glaringly racist lyrics, mockery of suicide, and attempts to make violence against women funny. Here’s a quick tour through the hall of shame.

When The Americans debuted on FX earlier this year, the Cold War–set espionage drama, which became as much about the arranged marriage between its main characters Elizabeth (Kerri Russell) and Phillip Jennings (Matthew Rhys) as about their undercover activities, felt like a welcome replacement for Homeland, Showtime’s war-on-terror drama, which started off strong and spun into implausibility in its second season. The Americans could suffer the same fate in its own second season, falling prey to sappy and unconvincing romances and escalating and improbable spy plots. But for now, The Americans’s strong first season offers some potent lessons for how Homeland can recover its footing in its third year.

Most television shows about geopolitics depend on the idea that someone really is trying to destroy the world, and the hero is the only person who recognizes the threat, and who knows how to stop it. It’s a recipe that makes for excellent television drama, but a rather paranoid approach to the world at large, and one that generally makes the case for giving the government more power rather than less to fight the enemies that are all around us. Homeland juiced that equation by making its main character, CIA agent Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), bipolar so that the people around her saw her erratic behavior and then her mental illness rather than her insight, and doubled her—and our—sense of vindication when her suspicions about Marine turned terrorist Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) were proved right.

Gwyneth Paltrow has a movie coming out this weekend, the sure-to-be blockbuster Iron Man 3. Naturally, that means it’s time for the media to obsess over how much they hate her.

There’s a veritable encyclopedia of quotes those who are annoyed by her can cite to prove what they perceive as her unconscionable lack of self-awareness and apparently unstomachable pretentiousness. Perhaps, as Star magazine quoted when naming the Oscar winner the year’s Most Hated Celebrity, it’s when she said, “I’m really fucking good at my job. People who are interesting and good know that, and that’s all that matters,” that irks these malcontents the most. Maybe it was when she proudly asserted, “I am who I am; I can’t pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year,” or “I would rather die than let my kid eat Cup-a-Soup,” that this exceptionally passionate faction of people decided that they just can’t with Gwyneth anymore.