Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Celebrity supporters visit the Pet Adoption Center

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Whitney Cummings, Kate Upton and Jennifer Coolidge stop in for a snuggle.
March 15, 2016
Comedian/actress/writer and Best Friends celebrity ambassador Whitney Cummings popped in to visit our Pet Adoption Center in Salt Lake City on a busy Saturday in March, and she brought along a friend -- supermodel Kate Upton unblocked games! The two spent some quality time with the dogs and cats, blanketing social media and sharing their adorable photos and videos with more than 10 million total followers.  
As if that weren't enough, a few hours later actress Jennifer Coolidge stopped by for a quick visit, returning a short time later with coffee for Best Friends staff and volunteers. She also left a generous gift card so everyone could have coffee on her for the rest of the week! (By the time we finished thanking her, there was no time for a photo.)
While it may be a regular occurrence for our Los Angeles team, the Utah program facilities aren't typically visited by celebrity supporters titanfall 2 pc. The staff had fun hosting them, even for a short visit, and reported that all three women were gracious and kind, and truly looking to do all they can for the animals. 
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Thursday, June 9, 2016

Kate Upton is upset and misinformed about golf and that’s great

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It’s not often that supermodels get mixed up in the golf news cycle, but just six months after appearing on Golf Digest’s cover with Arnold Palmer, Kate Upton is back at it again.

Upton tweeted the following yesterday:

Unfortunately for the two-time Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model, she didn’t quite have her facts straight.

LACC General Manager Kirk Reese told GolfChannel.com that it’s not true that women are not allowed to play before noon, and his private club has had female members since 1898.

The good news is that even misinformed mentions of golf by celebrities with Upton’s stature can help make the game more relevant, and a golfing Kate Upton certainly can’t hurt an industry that has lost 5 million of golfers in the last decade and has seen participation of 18-to-34 years olds drop by 30 percent.

Another silver lining in all of this? It appears that Upton has made a new golfing partner as a result of her tweet.
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A Date with Denim + Kate Upton

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I’m wearing all Express in this look. I could not get over the prints on the skorts they were selling, I loved the idea of mixing the print with one of their graphic tees.
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I’m really excited to help host the Express x Kate Upton event Tuesday July 8th in Times Square.
Come hang out from 6-8 on July 8th and get your hands on new jeans and welcome the Express ambassador Kate Upton with refreshments and a 25% discount!
Be one of the first shoppers to spend $200 and get your photo snapped with Kate, can’t wait to see you all there!
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Tuesday, March 8, 2016

kate upton might star in the ‘harry potter’ spin-off movie

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Photo by Rommel Demano/Getty Images for The Daily Front Row

Gather around, Muggles! There’s another Harry Potter movie in the works and casting rumors are a-flying.

J.K. Rowling has officially finished the script for the film adaptation of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The book was originally a textbook Harry studied in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone about, well, magical creatures. Eddie Redmayne is reportedly set star as Newt Scamander, a magizoologist and author, and Kate Upton is rumored to be up for a leading role.

Now, Upton’s no stranger to being in front of the camera, but Hollywood is a far cry from the glossy world of fashion editorials. Fans as devout as Harry Potter’s will likely have many things to say about who gets cast, but we’ve got faith in Upton: She’s been gone for a minute and something as wonderful as Harry Potter could be amazing for her.

But what about all the British people? Well, this here story takes place in New York. So, expect less accents and more, uh, aggression. Good thing most wizards and witches wear black.
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Everything You Know About Boys and Video Games Is Wrong

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Here's what they really think about how women are portrayed on screen

Kids are fed up with Kate Upton.
When the ads for Game of War started showing up on my students’ phones last year—they haven’t stopped—many were annoyed. They hated that it was impossible to close the ad, forcing them instead to watch the video until the end. But what really irritated them was Ms. Upton, in a full-cleavage-baring white flowing dress. The ads are clearly effective for some, but the message is obvious: Game of War is a boys’ game, and Upton is the game’s mascot, walking through battles totally unscathed and doing nothing except looking pretty.

Action games with big battles like Game of War are incredibly exciting to kids. And kids I’ve worked with, both male and female, will put up with a lot to play exciting games. But it doesn’t mean they like the way women are portrayed. Yet the video game industry seems to base much of its game and character design on a few assumptions, among them that girls don’t play big action games, boys won’t play games with strong female characters, and male players like the sexual objectification of female characters.

You can guess what the results are: a gaming landscape that thrusts a hyper-sexualized depiction of women onto the phone, computer and TV screens of millions of boys and girls.

MORE What Boys Really Want
The issue of sexism in video games, long simmering, is sure to bubble up again during the Comic-Con convention this weekend in San Diego. (47% of attendees are expected to be women.) In collaboration with my colleagues, Charlie Kuhn and gaming expert Ashly Burch, we surveyed more than 1,400 middle and high school students from throughout the country last year. We asked them to tell us what they thought about gender representation in games, what games girls play, and more. Our survey was exploratory—we didn’t have the resources to conduct a thorough evaluation—but we believed it was an important issue to study and hope others will follow.
Here are three things we found that may surprise.

Boys believe female characters are treated too often as sex objects

47% of middle school boys agreed or strongly agreed, and 61% of high school boys agreed or strongly agreed. “If women are objectified like this it defeats the entire purpose of fighting,” Theo, an eighth-grader who loves playing Mortal Kombat, told us. “I would respect the [female] character more for having some dignity.”

Both boys and girls aren’t more likely to play a game based on the gender of the protagonist

70% of girls said it doesn’t matter and 78% of boys said it doesn’t matter. Interestingly, boys care less about playing as a male character as they age and girls care more about playing as a female one.

Girls play a variety of game genres

26% played first-person shooter games like Call of Duty and HALO, 36% played role-playing games like Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto, and 17% played sports games like FIFA and Madden. (19% did not play games, compared to 3% of boys.)

We also asked kids if they identified as “gamers.” Especially in light of the “Gamergate” controversy that erupted last year and revealed intense sexism among some self-identified gamers, would the young people who identified as gamers share any of these sentiments? But very few of our respondents knew what Gamergate was and they had very different responses from what one may expect: 55% of boys who identify as gamers think there should be more female heroes in games, and 57% believe that female characters are too often treated as sex objects.

This all matters because gaming has become an important part of our culture, and it’s sending the wrong message onto our boys’ and girls’ sceens. Our kids deserve better. And it’s what they want.
Rosalind Wiseman is the author of Masterminds and Wingmen (Harmony Books, 2013) as well as Queen Bees and Wannabes (Harmony Books, 2002)
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Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Mariah Carey is replacing Kate Upton as the new public face of Game of War: Fire Age

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Mariah Carey — pop icon, imperfect angel, elusive chanteuse — is replacing model Kate Upton as the public face of Game of War: Fire Age, according to TMZ. Carey's commitment includes a seven-figure pay check; a 30-second commercial filmed by Alan Taylor, the director of Thor: The Dark World and the upcoming Terminator Genisys; and the use of her music in future promotional material.
Upton was the centerpiece of a $40 million advertising campaign launched by the mobile strategy game's developer, Machine Zone, and she made her way into the game itself as the model for its de facto mascot, the goddess Athena. The sheer size of the game's ad budget is dumbfounding at first glance, but it's justified by its status as one of the highest-grossing apps across several platforms. A Bloomberg Business feature published in March noted Game of War: Fire Age hauls in more than $1 million in revenue every day. That's the kind of tremendous cash flow that convinces one of the most successful vocalists in musical history to serve as pitch-woman for a free-to-play fantasy builder on smartphones around the world. Carey's trafficked in "fantasy" before, of course, but never quite like this.
CAREY'S TRAFFICKED IN "FANTASY" BEFORE, OF COURSE, BUT NEVER QUITE LIKE THIS
Her decision to sign on with Game of War: Fire Age comes at a point in her career where she's having more trouble than ever achieving the level of dominance she made look easy 20 years ago. Recent releases like last year's strong LP Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse and compilation promo single "Infinity" have failed to impact the charts in any significant way, and Carey's been forced to turn to unorthodox gimmickry — partnerships with Match.com, an ongoing stint at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas — to grab headlines.
If her work with Game of War: Fire Age is as widely and relentlessly aired as Upton's, it could grant her a level of visibility she hasn't enjoyed for a long time. And she's no stranger to playing a character: she's brought self-awareness and good humor to decadent, demanding diva-hood for well over a decade. I can't help but wonder which of her hits is going to end up being used to promote the game. Maybe she can take a cue from Upton's infamous tagline — "Will you be my hero?" — and find something fitting in her back catalog.
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Kate Upton, “Cool Girl”: How the supermodel conquered Hollywood

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Kate Upton, "Cool Girl": How the supermodel conquered HollywoodModel Kate Upton attends the 2013 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue launch party at Crimson on Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013 in New York.(Photo by Brad Barket/Invision/AP) (Credit: Brad Barket)
Kate Upton’s making her film debut this Friday in “The Other Woman” — that is, if you don’t consider “Cat Daddy” a work of cinematic art.
Before Upton rose to such professional heights that she could sell a movie simply by bouncing in slow-motion during promos, she was a reasonably well-known swimsuit model dancing provocatively in a video shot by Terry Richardson. (That’s here, though for the narrow slice of humanity that has not yet seen it: be advised it’s not safe for every workplace.) Upton had heretofore been a model for Guess and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue — the YouTube clip of her gyrating “Cat Daddy” dance catapulted her to icon status. But the supermodel is considerably more trailblazing than she might seem.
The media has long been obsessed with the idea that Upton is somehow an “unconventional” beauty. The 2013 cover story about her in Vogue began with a set-piece of the model at the gym trying to lose weight, and described her as “curvaceous.” All this is to say that her physical appeal seems to be in line with a male fantasy of what beauty is, rather than the ideals of a fashion-magazine editor.
But Upton isn’t just famous for her appearance. She’s famous for projecting a particular kind of emotional and physical openness. She’s good-humored, amiable and transparent. In the Vogue profile she happily shares her workout regimen; the “Cat Daddy” video makes her seem at once free-spirited and coy.
She’s a perfect encapsulation of that overused trope: the “Cool Girl,” taken from Gillian Flynn’s bestselling thriller “Gone Girl.” In the book, Amy, striving so desperately to be a “Cool Girl,” rants about the particular sort of girl guys love, one who, memorably, never “wants ‘just one’ of your chili fries, because she orders a giant order for herself.” The appellation has recently found itself attached to Jennifer Lawrence, for her breezy navigation of superstardom. But the specific way Upton embodies her “cool-girlness” marks an important difference.
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