We have all been copied at some point – from our homework to our outfits – and to be honest, most of the time it's flattering. But for artists and designers, copying is an increasingly pervasive issue. Since social media took off and publishing one's work online became a highly effective way of being noticed, many have had to deal with the devastation of realising, while scrolling through a site like Instagram, that someone else is taking credit for their work.

Many choose to use social media to call out the person or brand in question, which can be effective, especially for bigger creatives who've got a legion of followers rallying behind them.

Refinery29 spoke to Laura Sfez, creator of the French clothing brand L'Ecole des Femmes, about her experience with this. Since establishing her brand back in 2005, she claims she has seen "at least 200 brands that have copied" her work. Sfez says she responds by messaging them first, which doesn’t always work out. This has led her to take more drastic steps, including posting her work alongside the copycat for her followers to see.

"I go after them. I message them via Instagram, their website, and then when I don't get an answer I take it to the new court of justice – social media. I let the people decide based on their knowledge of the brand and how long I've been around. One can easily scroll through my feed dating back to 2012 and see the birth of the styles," she states.

Julie Houts, a designer at J.Crew and an Instagram illustrator says: "Occasionally, one of my followers will give me a heads up via DM that someone has posted an image of mine without crediting me. In a few rare instances, I’ve discovered people passing my work off as their own, or redrawing it and passing it off as their own."

@bonlook on the left just out. @lecoledesfemmes on the right since 2012. #unefemmelibre

A post shared by copycatsbeware (@copycatsbeware) on Mar 11, 2018 at 8:54am PDT

Houts finds it annoying, adding that it fills her with "a mixture of wonderment and irritation. Wonderment in the sense of just, 'Wow, who would do this and why? Where do they see this going?' And irritation for all the obvious reasons."

Like Sfez, Houts will also message the person directly and ask them to credit her – but the responses are usually divided. "About half the people are happy to credit me and apologise. They find the image on someone else’s page uncredited, and just repost it, like a meme. I can easily understand how that happens. They’re not intentionally not crediting my work. Those exchanges are friendly and easy."

"Another group [of copiers]," usually a meme account, she says, "never opens my DM, never credits, despite people calling it out."

When Houts is unsuccessful in getting these copycats to stop taking her work, she chooses to block those accounts, which she says gives her more control.

Both Houts and Sfez have found their followers supportive in these cases, but for those with less of a following, would calling someone out on social media still be your best bet? If you don't have your own brand to fall back on, could it affect your future chances of getting work?

Dan Schawbel is a world-renowned career and workplace expert and author of Back to Human, a book which aims to help leaders build stronger team relationships amid our dependency on technology. He said he's often asked what to do if a manager or co-worker takes credit for your work: "People take credit from others regularly but it's rarely talked about publicly because it's embarrassing and frustrating. It happens regularly in hostile work environments that are run by poor managers. When a manager or co-worker is just out for themselves, it makes it really hard to form the strong team bonds, and trust, that contribute to success."

In an office setting this pattern of behaviour will eventually have a negative effect on the perpetrator. "While your manager receives a short-term gain from copying your work, word gets around and eventually no one will want to work for them."

But what about those not in an office setting? What about creatives who deal with the majority of this sort of thing online? Schawbel warns against resolving your private work issues in a public forum and advises: "First, you should share credit when it's due so that you lead by example. Second, if someone steals credit, or your ideas, you should isolate the situation, by talking to them privately."

A post shared by jooleeloren (@jooleeloren) on Mar 8, 2018 at 9:14am PST

He adds that calling out a person or brand could cost you current or potential jobs. Sfez says she’s found the support from her fans overwhelming: "My followers are full of heart and fight. They do not stand for injustice and are so supportive... They will go after the copycat accounts until the images are taken down, these moments are very touching for me." Dan Schawbel suggests that one should "refrain from calling out people publicly for legal reasons, bad karma and retaliation. Instead, I would handle it privately and then move to a lawsuit if necessary."

As an independent creative, there are other methods you could try before an expensive lawsuit. Houts recommends "either watermark or incorporate your handle into the drawing." Paper-based watermarking means including a tactile mark on your work that becomes visible when turning the paper at a certain angle or holding it up to the light. Digital watermarking is much more advanced and lives within metadata. It's associated with hiding digital information in a carrier signal that can verify the authenticity and show the identity of its owner.

Houts has come to accept watermarking as part of the process. "I’ll have someone who outright refuses [to take my image down] and says something to the effect of, 'Its your fault for not watermarking the image'. Or hilariously, one time, 'It's the internet dude. Deal'. Which is maddening but actually, I guess, somewhat valid?"

If you're seeking the next step, Sfez has in some cases sent out cease and desist letters, which she's found to be effective: "Some of these businesses have actually taken down the images of the copied items." A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop (cease) and not to continue (desist) with a particular behaviour. In order to send this kind of letter, your work must be registered and copyrighted. The letter will then cover the following elements: the recipient (who needs to stop the copyright/trademark infringement), the sender (the individual requesting the recipient to stop the unlawful behaviour), details of the behaviour, which should be followed by the legal action that will be initiated if the behaviour doesn't stop, and finally the date. Needless to say, these should not be sent lightly.

Thanks to the internet, ideas are constantly circulating. Similar work turns up all the time. That being said, if there is one design or idea that you're proud of, should you really let it pass? It begs the question: If you don't nip it in the bud now, will you ever?

In the end, it comes down to weighing up how important this work is to you and whether it's worth the effort of gaining the credit. If it is, then stand your ground. As both Laura Sfez and Julie Houts have demonstrated, there is more than one way to call out copycats.

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On Tuesday, Miley Cyrus took back the apology she issued after her June 2008 photoshoot with Vanity Fair, which showed the then-15-year-old as seemingly topless under a blanket. Ten years ago, the photo elicited a flurry of controversy that, in retrospect, has not aged well. It's hard to believe that had the photo been released now the public would have treated it with the same kind of disdain.

"A lot of things have changed and I think the conversation has changed a lot," Cyrus told Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday night. This change is good and necessary, of course, because women are no longer encouraged to be ashamed of their bodies, or immediately sexualised whenever they wear something that shows their midriff. It's people like Kim Kardashian and Emily Ratajkowski who we have to thank for these changing morals, but we can't leave behind the women like Cyrus who fell victim to the shaming because it happened to occur on the wrong side of the revolution.

"Sexualizing Miley: Are Billy Ray and Tish Cyrus Letting Her Be The New Lolita?" one headline read following the release of the Vanity Fair pictures. "The Miley Cyrus Pics: Damage Control" Time Magazine wrote. The New York Daily News described the photos, in which Cyrus' shoulder is showing, as "R-Rated." This backlash, laughable now, mounted into such a thing that Cyrus told Kimmel that she was basically instructed to apologise.

"My goal in my music and my acting is always to make people happy," she told People Magazine that year. "For Vanity Fair, I was so honoured and thrilled to work with Annie [Leibovitz]. I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed."

Now, however, she's singing a different tune — and she should. The shoot itself was tasteful and innocuous, and "it was everyone else's poisonous thoughts and minds that ended up turning this into something it wasn't meant to be," she said.

It wouldn't be crazy to assume that moment in her career ended up informing the transformation she went through the following years.

"So they wanna know why I come on TV shows with no shirt on," she told Kimmel. "Blame them."

Cyrus began deliberately toying with the taboo, going on to do much more than just show her shoulder, including her suggestive performance with Robin Thicke at the 2013 VMAs. She was loud and brash and sometimes problematic, but one thing she wasn't was sorry.

"For me, being a role model has been my free-spiritedness and sometimes my unapologetic attitude for decisions that I feel comfortable with," she told Kimmel.

While we can't go back in time, we can hope that Cyrus' revelation can open up the door for apologies that are overdue for the many other women who were punished over the years for behavior that society hadn't caught up to yet — and let's hope that ten years from now, we won't be making the same reparations.

Watch the full clip below.

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Anyone who knows me knows what an intense, unabashed Kanye West fan I am. So they might’ve found it odd that in the past couple of weeks, I’ve been quiet throughout the constant headlines about his public antics, often keeping my commentary to a couple of sentences and an eye roll before changing the subject, avoiding diving into my actual feelings about it. But no, it’s not that I suddenly just do not care, or that I am no longer a Kanye West fan. What I am is disappointed. In denial. Numb. Exhausted. And heartbroken.

That might sound like a dramatic response to the actions of a celebrity, someone I’ve never met. But since I was 16 years old, West has been the voice in my ear aggressively pushing me to dream bigger, go harder, reach higher. He has quite literally served as the soundtrack to my adult life, from bus rides listening to The College Dropout as an awkward high school junior to The Life Of Pablo nursing me back to happiness after a breakup, to just two weeks ago, when much of Yeezus pushed me across the finish line of my first 10K. The word “Dreams” tattooed on my wrist was inspired by my favourite Langston Hughes poem — but also nods to the mantra I frequently pull from West’s song “I Wonder” on my toughest days: “I’ve been waiting on this my whole life/These dreams be wakin’ me up at night…”

That kind of intimate relationship with an artist’s music goes beyond fandom. It’s emotional. Spiritual, almost. So you can imagine that hearing the Black man who’s inspired you to be a better you utter the words " When you hear about slavery for 400 years...That sounds like a choice " isn’t just crazy, or laughable — it’s devastating. And the irony is that the man who created the music that’s helped me protect and maximise my energy over the years is now draining me of my energy with his words and actions. Every day, friends and colleagues hit me with “I told you so’s” and “I think it’s time you finally let go of Kanye and abandon ship.” Now, I’m left with a personal question: Can I separate the ridiculous actions of this man enough to still be a fan of his incredible music?

"The man who created the music that’s helped me protect my energy is now draining me of my energy with his words and actions."

Of course, separating the art from the man is a debate many have grappled with often over the past few years. I still don’t feel okay quoting episodes from my beloved The Cosby Show or watching previous pleasures like Frida and Midnight In Paris. But, unlike men such as Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, or Woody Allen, Kanye West has not committed a crime. Let me be clear: We cannot compare Kanye West publicly stating his opinion to men committing sexual assault. West has not physically harmed anyone, or done anything illegal. And though he has denied it, it’s still very possible that mental illness could be a factor here.

Still, his messages are very hurtful, and warrant the question of how fans can continue to support or defend him. It’s very difficult to remedy the fact that the son of a Black Panther father and noted scholar mother, the lyricist who gave us “New Slaves” — “You see it's broke nigga racism/That's that 'Don't touch anything in the store'" — is now casually mentioning to TMZ that he thinks 400 years of slavery was a choice. It’s equally confounding that the person who once declared on national television (during a Katrina telethon) that George Bush doesn’t care about Black people is now applauding a president who is racist, sexist, and homophobic. (It’s also mind-boggling that a father to two Black daughters and a Black son can support a racist who's also likely guilty of sexual assault.) And unlike, say, Michael Jackson, whose classic music you could arguably dance to without thinking about the child molestation allegations against him (a quandary for another day), West’s persona and opinions are intrinsic to his music. His rhymes have allowed us to watch his life’s journey before our eyes through seven albums — a beautiful but dark, twisted fantasy indeed.

My friends have not hesitated to tell me that I should not be surprised. And maybe I shouldn’t be. Obviously, Kanye West is beyond outspoken — and prone to questionable decisions, whether it was that infamous Taylor Swift VMAs moment or only casting “multiracial models” at his Yeezy fashion show. Still, I always held on strong. While sometimes I was genuinely worried about West’s mental health, I defended him unwaveringly, explaining that the rapper is simply an artist who likes to push boundaries, encourage debate, and spark conversation. And though his execution and delivery may not always be the most on point, there is usually a valid point somewhere in his message. Somewhere...

A post shared by Arianna Davis (@ariannagab) on Nov 1, 2014 at 7:34pm PDT

And in his recent interviews, there were glimmers of hope that some of the “old Kanye” remnants remain. Perhaps most promising was his two-hour sit-down with The Breakfast Club’s Charlamagne The God on May 1. He was calm and thoughtful, opening up honestly about his mental breakdown and opioid addiction. I was surprised that I could even agree with him on one thing regarding Donald Trump — that Trump’s election “proved that anything is possible in America.” But just when fans were getting just the tiniest bit optimistic that Yeezy hasn’t left us completely, then came the TMZ interview, where he rambled and bellowed to the website’s newsroom about everything from his pre-wedding liposuction to, yes, that slavery comment. (Which very quickly inspired the Twitter hashtag #IfSlaveryWasAChoice.)

We may never know what West’s true intentions are with these recent appearances and rants. Perhaps he truly is just speaking his mind and seeking to expand the way our culture thinks. But the problem is that much of this rhetoric — and the wild, thoughtless way it’s being delivered without fact-checking — feels like a publicity stunt. Watching each interview, West has seemingly become a caricature of himself, an uncontrollable egomaniac who either wants to hear himself speak or is attempting to sell records via confusing, inflammatory performance art. But as Van Lathan, the Black TMZ staffer who bravely confronted West in the newsroom after he declared slavery “a choice,” put it: “You’re entitled to believe whatever you want. But there is fact, and real-world, real-life consequence behind everything that you just said. And while you are making music and being an artist and living the life that you’ve earned by being a genius, the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats to our lives. We have to deal with the marginalisation that has come from the 400 years of slavery that you said, for our people, was a choice.”

The light at the end of this endless, twisty tunnel is West’s upcoming album. And the me who has spent countless hours with her sister dissecting ’Ye songs (the two of us, plus my best friend, even once dressed as three Kanyes for Halloween) cannot wait for this album, and hopes that his family and others around him will provide the help and support that he needs. But the bigger me — the woman who is a smart, proud, Black feminist, and the woman who, ironically, Kanye West helped shape — is too disappointed that her favourite artist seems to have no loyalty or respect for his millions of Day One fans. The people who have bought his records and concert tickets and followed him for nearly two decades. The people who have carried him to the very platform he is now abusing. In fact, it seems that he has forgotten about us entirely.

And when it all falls down, that is what hurts most of all.

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A brief hiatus from bad Uber news ended on Monday, when CNN published a new investigation revealing that 103 Uber drivers have been accused of sexual assault or abuse over the past four years.

This is far from the first time Uber has faced issues over its drivers assaulting customers: Last year, an executive was ousted after obtaining the medical records of a woman raped by her Uber driver in India. In 2016, a BuzzFeed investigation of Uber's customer service system found hundreds of tickets tagged as "assault" or "rape". Uber is also facing an on-going class action lawsuit in California which alleges the company hasn't done enough to screen its drivers and ensure the safety of female customers.

The CNN investigation, which involved combing through court records and police reports, is one of the largest in scope. In a statement, an Uber spokesperson acknowledged the report and referenced recent safety changes.

"These stories are horrific and our hearts go out to the victims. We worked with CNN to understand their findings and determined that Uber did 2.4 billion trips in the U.S. in that same period. But even one incident on our platform is too many which is why safety is Uber’s top priority for 2018 and beyond," said Uber in the statement.

On Twitter, many users presented their own solution for in-car safety: Offer a way to request a female driver when scheduling a ride.

We're here to help! The Uber app cannot match you with a specific driver. When you request a ride, your app sends your request to nearby drivers to pick you up at your pickup location.

— Uber Support (@Uber_Support) April 30, 2018

@Uber should allow females passengers to request a female driver PLEASE

— Gem Gossip (@gemgossip) April 30, 2018

Even a former Uber driver weighed in, recounting her own experience listening to female customers who expressed relief when they entered her car.

@CNN reported over 100 #Uber drivers been accused of sexual assault. When i became an #Uber driver back in 2014. IN #NewHavenConnecticut. I had so many females passengers who felt more comfortable with me then a male #Uber Driver. The stories was ridiculous.

— LovinLeeLee (@LovinLifeLee) April 30, 2018

I would personally give my number to those who felt comfortable with me picking them up after the club/bar. It never bothered me to jump in my car to make sure a women got home safe or even a male. I no longer drive for #Uber

— LovinLeeLee (@LovinLifeLee) April 30, 2018

When #Uber had their 1 year anniversary. They had a dinner for the drivers. At that dinner my mom ( who was also an uber driver ) and i suggested to one of the district managers #Uber should have an option, choosing male or female drivers.

— LovinLeeLee (@LovinLifeLee) April 30, 2018

At the time their wasn’t many female drivers in #NewHavenConnecticut. But he said it was a great idea. Well clearly nothing happened. I loved driving for #Uber but things changed.

— LovinLeeLee (@LovinLifeLee) April 30, 2018

The ability to choose a female Uber driver might sound like a good idea when it comes to helping female riders feel safer — and, as noted previously, be a feature riders prefer — but it is not the answer to Uber's problems for a number of reasons. For starters, it would likely be illegal.

"Title VII of the Civil Rights Act allows employers to discriminate on the basis of sex in hiring drivers only when sex is a 'bona fide occupational qualification', or BFOQ, for a job," explains Vicki Schultz, the Ford Foundation Professor of Law and Social Science at Yale Law School. "The courts have construed this exception very narrowly, correctly in the view of almost all employment discrimination law scholars."

Title VII came into play in a key 1981 case concerning an airline's refusal to hire male flight attendants. The court determined airlines could not hire based on gender, since the BFOQ for being a good flight attendant has nothing to do with whether someone is male or female.

If Uber were to add a way for passengers to choose their driver's gender, the users would be the ones making the gendered choice. However, "customer preference is no defence, because it is precisely those preferences, or prejudices, that in many cases civil rights law was meant to overcome," Schultz says. "Here, permitting customers to choose female over male drivers out of safety concerns promotes stereotyped ideas that all or most men are potentially rapists or perpetrators of sexual assault — and that no women are."

Even if the law wasn't the issue, Kafui Attoh, an associate professor of urban studies at the CUNY School of Professional Studies, points out that introducing a way for riders to deliberately request female drivers could have negative implications for the drivers. Female Uber drivers have reported being assaulted by customers, and such a change could put them at greater risk. Basic logistics are also an issue. A gender-picking tool would mess with Uber's algorithm and probably increase wait times.

According to Attoh and his colleague Katie Wells, a post doctoral fellow at Georgetown University studying the work life of Uber drivers, the path to a more effective solution begins with data. There is currently no publicly available data for the number of sexual assaults by rideshare drivers — that's why CNN 's analysis is so important. In order for researchers and policy makers to determine the full of scope of these issues, and compare them across companies, it's essential to have this information.

Wells says the question of employment comes into play here, too. Uber has long treated drivers as independent contractors, rather than full-time employees, but this status is increasingly facing challenges in court. "If these drivers were employed it would be much easier to track what’s happening," Wells says. "It won’t solve it — people can be employees and things can still go unnoticed — but it would be easier to make decisions if we know where and when this is happening."

In the meantime, stronger background checks could help decrease the risk of sexual assault for ridesharing companies. Uber has come under fire — and faced fines — for lax background checks in the past, and announced last month that it will put money towards technology that proactively screens drivers for new criminal offences. The company's CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, has made improving safety efforts a key priority for 2018. Schultz suggests requiring drivers to video record their rides as another safety measure.

Ultimately, there is no one clear solution to lowering the number of sexual assaults. But from the numbers, it is clear that this is a problem that Uber and policy makers need to address head-on — and fast.

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“I just had to make sure you were real,” Francoise Isaac, a financial operations manager in Plano, Texas, says when she answers the phone.

Isaac’s concern is legitimate. A day earlier, I reached out to her on Messenger, the same place where she’s received messages from fake accounts masquerading as some of her favourite celebrities. Isaac started noticing a pattern: When she liked or commented on one of the real actors’ posts, she quickly received a message from the corresponding faux A-lister account.

“They would ask me personal questions about myself,” Isaac says. “My concern was, what is their intention? ”

Imposter accounts are nothing new, and that’s part of the problem. The fraudulent profiles have been around for years, and although they fall under the banner of malicious accounts — the kind social media platforms vow to fight — they’re still prevalent. In the past year alone, Chris Pratt, Robert Downey Jr, and Chadwick Boseman, as well as Parkland activist Emma González, have taken to their own accounts to warn fans about imposters who try to get money, spread false messages, or, in Pratt’s case, hit on female fans. As The New York Times reported last week, even fake Mark Zuckerbergs and Sheryl Sandbergs have popped up on Facebook and scammed unsuspecting users out of thousands of dollars.

Celebrities still hold the power to decide where and how they connect with fans. The issue with imposter accounts is beyond being just a nuisance, they threaten to drive A-listers away from the very platforms they helped legitimise. And that's a problem for platforms too: Remember how Kylie Jenner ’s single tweet about not using Snapchat reportedly led to a $1 billion drop in stock value? Whether it's fair or not, users care what celebrities think of social platforms. And for them, fake accounts are a very real problem. According to insiders, it's not crazy to consider the question: What would happen if there was a mass celebrity social media exodus because of fake accounts?

PERVY DUDE ALERT!!! (Not a joke) It’s confirmed: somebody is trying to pretend to be me on Facebook (and maybe other social media platforms) apparently hitting on a lot of different female fans, trying to get their numbers and who knows what else. I’m not joking. Please know, I find this behavior reprehensible. If I find out who it is I’ll have their account shut down and seriously would like to punch them right in the GD mouth. You hear that imposter!? Stop. My message to any fans who are contacted by someone claiming to be Chris Pratt: Look for the BLUE “VERIFIED” CHECKMARK next to the name. If there is no checkmark by my name that person is an imposter. I’m sorry. Tell your siblings. Educate our young ones. It’s probably mostly kids who would fall for this. Makes me sick. It terrifies me to think someone could be hurt, their feelings or much worse, by this imposter/potential predator. I’ve had many, many people tell me about this. It’s not an isolated incident. If anyone is in contact with this person block them immediately. If it’s you doing it, I’m warning you. Stop right now or you will@be very unhappy with the outcome. Go find Jesus. 🙏 praying for you.

A post shared by chris pratt (@prattprattpratt) on Nov 30, 2017 at 10:52pm PST

As the social media manager to several A-listers, LaQuishe “Q” Wright is on the front lines of dealing with imposter accounts on a daily basis. She’s the one responding to fans who DM her clients, asking if another account is real, and reports the imitators to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Wright, who asked her clients not be named, has devoted much more time to the issue since the beginning of the year: One of the actors she represents appeared in a blockbuster movie this winter, and as their star has risen, Wright has had to deal with an unmanageable influx of fake accounts.

“Every day, there are new imposters trying to con people out of money for charities or meet and greets — even to fund the next version of the film,” Wright says. “It’s almost impossible to stay on top of it. It’s everywhere.”

The rapid increase in imposter accounts is alarming, and Wright is frustrated that the social media platforms her clients frequent still haven’t solved problem.

Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat are well aware of the issue: It’s the reason every major social media platform has a version of the verification check. (Snapchat only deviates slightly from the standard blue badge by using emoji to denote public figures.) They were introduced as far back as 2009 for Twitter, and 2014 for Instagram, to fight the imposter problem by helping users differentiate between the real deal and a fake account. Unfortunately, impersonators are getting smarter.

Wright says imitators will claim their account is a celebrity’s private account, and go so far as to find — or steal — photos of an actor’s friends and family, to convince fans they’re real. She’s even seen accounts with fake (but real-looking) verification checks. These accounts usually have the same profile photo as the celeb they’re impersonating, and almost identical posts, with one word changed here or there. Once the set-up is in place, finding fans is the easy part — all you need to do is look at who is commenting on a celebrity’s photos or liking their posts — and Wright says followers are “sitting ducks” for the impersonators who want to exploit them and their desire to connect with a celebrity.

For rising stars, Wright says the fanbase is the most susceptible. “With a new fan set, they’re excited to connect with a celebrity and are getting fooled,” Wright said. “If somebody walked up to them on the street, they’d know, but in the social space they just don’t know any better.”

For celebrities who don't have a social media presence, there are no posts to copy, but online imposters are still a problem for them. Jennifer Lawrence, for example, has been outspoken about not having an Instagram account. Yet, when you search her name, you get more than 20 accounts, together amassing hundreds of thousands of followers. Some are clearly labeled as fan accounts, but many are not, and include posts with captions written as if they are coming from Lawrence herself.

Not all celebrities experience such high levels of impersonation. Allison Peters, a social media manager for Kerry Washington, says she only spends about two hours a week dealing with fake accounts, often finding 10 to 15 new ones at a time. Instagram is a bigger issue for her than it is for Wright, who has the most problems with Messenger, but she attributes the lower total number of impersonators to Washington’s strong, longtime presence online.

“[Fans] have so much interaction with her because of the show, and she’s always on Twitter answering their questions,’’ Peters says. “And these fans have become friends — they go to events together. Because her fanbase is such a community, they’re very sensitive to these new people popping up and pretending.”

Even for fan bases that are communities, the wisdom of the crowd only goes so far. While Wright and Peters both said Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are always quick to delete reported accounts, the onus shouldn’t always be on social media managers and fans to report them in the first place. “When you have verified profiles and someone tries to come in and create a profile with the same name and photos, why isn’t there a higher level of protection where they can’t do that?” Wright asked.

“Every day, there are new imposters trying to con people out of money for charities or meet and greets — even to fund the next version of the film."

The reason likely has something to do with concerns around blocking genuine users. Currently, there are two ways to clean up user-generated platforms like Facebook and Twitter: Manual reviews done by employees hired to look over accounts on a case-by-case basis; and automatic classifiers, software that is trained to pick out certain features indicative of faulty accounts. The latter is a far cheaper, faster approach, but one that comes with more risk of error.

“The problem with automatic classification is it’s never going to be right 100% of the time,” says Pete Hunt, CEO of Smyte, a company that uses machine learning to fight online fraud. “There’s a spectrum, where you’re either going to have high false positives or high false negatives — you’re throwing out a net and trying to get some fish, where the fish are the bad accounts. But you might catch some other stuff in that net in addition to the bad accounts, and shutting down legitimate users is not a great experience."

Hunt compares the experience to using your credit card in an airport and setting off the fraud alert on your own account — it isn’t fun. Because most social networks err on the side of a better user experience with fewer accidental cancellations, more imposter accounts are able to slip through.

In response to requests for comment for this piece, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook each pointed to their respective privacy policies, which expressly forbid impersonators and include instructions on how to report fake accounts. A Facebook spokesperson added reference to an automatic classifer, saying, “At the time someone receives a friend request, our systems are designed to check whether the recipient already has a friend with the same name, along with a variety of other factors that help us determine if an interaction is legitimate. It's an area we're continually working to improve so that we can provide a safe and secure experience on Facebook.”

At the end of the day, this isn't just a story about celebrities becoming annoyed about imposters: It's about fans getting scammed, which is something that affects all parties involved. Moving forward, the question about responsibility is the one that needs to be resolved: Is it up to social media platforms to do a better job? Or celebrity teams to seek out and report fake accounts? Either way, it's the fans who suffer. But platforms would do well to remember that we're living in an era where A-listers have zero qualms about using their star power to take a stand. And if they leave, they may well take their fans with them.

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14th December 2016 was a good day for Instagram users. Why? Because that was the day the app added a "Saved" section to every profile, instantly giving all of us the ability to secretly catalogue any post.

For beauty lovers, this was big. Gone were the days of screenshotting a notable makeup look or palette to buy, only to lose it in the mess of photos in our camera roll. Now, if we spy something we love, we can simply click "save" and add it to our private vault of inspiration images.

That being said, there's no denying the fact that inspiration can be hard to find when you're inundated with hundreds — nay, thousands — of images daily. That's why we decided to share the photos we've archived in the past month. Hopefully, it'll get your creative juices flowing for the next. Ahead, check out 31 looks to try this May.

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In the last seven days, 24-year-old Grace Forrest has visited three continents and crossed countless time zones. She’s discussed revising the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the UN, launched a report on the state of modern slavery in the Commonwealth, and given a speech at the Commonwealth Women’s Forum about the debilitating effect of forced marriage and commercial sexual exploitation.

I didn’t even make it to the gym.

It’s obvious, upon meeting Grace, that she’s no ordinary young woman. The eldest daughter of Australian billionaire businessman Andrew Forrest, she is the cofounder of the Walk Free Foundation, an organisation created to abolish modern slavery across the globe. This is a woman who decided, very early on, not to be defined by her privilege.

"It’s just genetic lottery that I was born in Australia where I can drink from the tap, where my education is valued and where I am safe to dream about what I want to be," she tells me. "But at the flip of a coin, another girl is sold off at the age of 6 to the child sex industry."

At age 15 she went, with her own hard-earned money, to visit an orphanage in Nepal. She returned two years later, with her family in tow, and discovered that the girls she had been working with had been re-trafficked. "I was so angry," she tells me. "It was an overwhelming experience and I wanted to do something about it."

So she did.

Meet our founders ✨ Andrew & Grace Forrest, who together have made a commitment to do everything in their power to fight & end Modern slavery in their lifetimes.

A post shared by Walk Free Foundation (@walkfreefoundation) on Feb 26, 2018 at 1:20am PST

In 2012, aged 18, she decided to create the Walk Free Foundation with her father, himself a tireless activist and the founder of Australia’s Minderoo Foundation, which works on philanthropic projects across the globe, as well as specific initiatives to aid Australia’s indigenous communities.

"I think there is great power in our collaboration," she says. "He brings this very pragmatic, economic discussion about ending slavery and I represent the more cultural discussion." Their partnership has spawned brilliant initiatives, both global and domestic. At Grace’s insistence, they took nine refugee families from the Syrian crisis into their Australian home last year.

There are an estimated 40.3m people worldwide subject to modern slavery. The term comprises forced labour, forced marriage and human trafficking, all symptoms and causes of extreme poverty. Yet this is not just an issue facing the developing world. Recent findings defined over 5,000 people in the UK as modern slaves.

Women are disproportionately affected, taking up 70% of that total global estimate.

Child marriage not only pulls girls out of school, denying them an education, but also makes them more vulnerable to pregnancy and domestic violence. Pictured here, girls participate in Karate in the Giridih district of India, where 6 out of 10 girls are married before their 18th birthday. Read our Insight Series on forced marriage in our bio 📸 Prashanth Vishwanathan RG @glblctzn #WalkFree

A post shared by Walk Free Foundation (@walkfreefoundation) on Feb 7, 2018 at 6:17pm PST

"As a woman, it’s really hard to not see that gender aspect and want to prioritise it," says Grace. "We work across all forms of slavery, and in all forms, bar one, women are overrepresented. In forced labour women and girls represent 51%, forced marriage 84%, commercial sexual exploitation 99%."

The issue is a complicated one, with the greatest barrier being entrenched cultural and social norms. On the ground, she works with local grassroots organisations to ensure that change is sustainable. She details her work with women rescued from sex trafficking in Nepal, where she lived for a year before university, and the stigmas they face when attempting to rehabilitate their lives. She tells of women she has met, born into slavery in remote rural areas of India due to the (now outlawed) caste system, who are hidden by their families to avoid sexual assault from the landlords who own them, and of meeting families in Lebanese refugee camps who have no choice but to marry their young daughters off to prevent them from being raped.

"Unless we address a woman’s right to be free and to choose when and whom she will marry, how can she ever meaningfully participate socially, economically or politically in her society?" Forrest asks before outlining one of her foundation’s biggest campaigns: to criminalise forced marriage. "Besides the human rights aspect of it, this is just a really good economic choice. How can any society sustainably grow and develop with 50% of the population systemically held back?"

Since its inception, her foundation has freed 16,047 people from slavery and helped get 36,231 at-risk children back into school. Yet she tells me of feeling overwhelmed by the work they still have to do. Even I feel emotionally drained by the gravitas of her job. What does she do, I wonder, to relax?

"Oh, THAT!" she laughs, momentarily confused by the concept of free time. "I don’t have a lot of balance, but I love the ocean and the beach, and cooking for my family. I have an amazing group of friends who are all over the world and I spend as much time as I can with them."

What works? A review of interventions to combat Modern day slavery by #WalkFreeFoundation Link in Bio. (Photo by Grace Forrest)

A post shared by Walk Free Foundation (@walkfreefoundation) on Dec 8, 2017 at 1:12am PST

She’s also been watching the recent surge in social activism with keen interest, gushing so much about the March for Our Lives that she says she is "trying very hard not to use swear words".

I can’t help but wonder if she sees herself in them: young people affecting huge global change.

"My generation and their generation are going to start implementing change," she agrees. "The people that are going to, in the next 20 years, start going into parliament and becoming very successful, are going to feel a weight on their shoulders to try and make the world a fairer, safer place."

And with that she’s off to another continent, to try and make the world a fairer, safer place.

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Picture the scene: It is approximately 11.04am on a Sunday and you have, emphatically, Got A Hangover. Recently roused from sleep by the headache hammering at your temples, you roll over and look at your phone to inspect the damage of the night before. Nothing too weird, thankfully – a message from one friend that says "shots???" and an open Note into which you apparently typed "tOto africa – pls?" in an (unsuccessful) attempt to get the (terrible) DJ to play your karaoke song. So far, so bearable.

Then your attention turns to Instagram, and specifically, your Story, where you know you have posted at least one video of yourself lip-syncing to Britney Spears. You tap to see who’s viewed it and, inevitably, as always, the list is a veritable seance, haunted by the presence of Ghosts of Hookups Past.

I’ve found myself in this position quite a few times. You probably have, too: for millennials in the dating game, social media breadcrumbs (also known as "haunting" or "zombie-ing") are a growing and baffling phenomenon. It seems to be increasingly common for people you’ve dated who’ve later ghosted you or lost interest to continue engaging with your social media presence, whether that means unexpectedly reacting to a Facebook status now and then, or looking at a Snapchat soon after it’s posted. It’s a hot button issue that’s fuelling group chats far and wide – one very courageous journalist even contacted her past ghosters to ask why they still watched her Instagram Story – but it also highlights a uniquely stressful aspect of dating right now.

Because of the prevalence of dating apps, and all the different ways we have to chat to one another, our relationships can feel throwaway. When fates are decided with a swipe to the right or left, and we can turn down a date we don’t feel like simply by failing to respond to a direct message on Twitter, we’re no longer forced into the confrontations that daters of the past faced. Where once you might have had to tell a work colleague you’d gone for a drink with that you weren’t interested in pursuing anything more, the internet has widened our dating pools exponentially. This means that if you’re no longer interested in Sara, 25, from Tinder, you could break it off with her simply by ignoring her messages, because it’s unlikely you’ll bump into her any time soon.

We’re in a hyper casual era, and though in many ways that’s great – it’s never been easier to sample as much as you like from life’s tasty and varied buffet of humans, if that’s what you want to do – in others, it means that knowing where you stand in your dating relationships can be more difficult than University Challenge. Being ghosted leaves you with no sense of resolution, and if you’ve felt particularly emotionally invested in a person, it can be hurtful and confusing if, a few months later, they return to leave you a long, winding, Hansel and Gretel-style trail of social media breadcrumbs, but no actual explanation or apology.

I spoke to a number of people who, due to their firsthand experience, agree. Amy*, 28, tells me that in her experience, breadcrumbs are mostly left by "people that I’ve had a casual thing with, maybe for a couple of months or so." These relationships have, she says, invariably ended with a halt in communication rather than being actively broken off, and she thinks that the motivation behind leaving breadcrumbs – particularly likes and speedy Story views – is that "there’s a loss of what you’ve been giving them that they’ve been taking for granted, and then they feel the need to get it somehow, just by absorbing you in other ways." Sadie*, 24, adds: "It can actually be quite upsetting if someone who’s ghosted you starts liking photos or statuses, because it’s as if they don’t realise that they hurt your feelings with the ghosting."

I think it’s pretty natural for us to maintain interest in people we’ve dated, or even just had sexual encounters with, but social media has made our doing so much more visible and obvious, and the continued, silent engagement can be frustrating to those who’ve been ignored. As Amy puts it: "If you’re not speaking to me, why are you looking at my social media at all? For someone to completely ice you... and then all of a sudden, their interest is piqued again, that’s weird, especially if I’m not looking at their stuff."

Behavioural psychologist Jo Hemmings confirms that leaving breadcrumbs is "associated with the 'loose ends' nature of ghosting, especially after a casual relationship," stating that some ghosters might ease their own consciences by "continuing to show you a social media presence for a while." She also notes that with modern dating, "it’s simple to become transitory moments in someone’s life, much harder and more awkward to spell out that we want something more or admit that the end of a brief or passing relationship has hurt us." Certainly, it’s true that dating while millennial can be aggressively casual, and puts pressure on us to act as though we didn’t really care ("Cool Girl", anyone?), rather than stating our actual feelings.

Though for some, breadcrumbs (which, at the very least, show that a ghoster is still paying attention) provide an oddly satisfying confidence boost, for others they can be pretty upsetting. Jo suggests that if a ghosting and subsequent breadcrumbs have left you feeling particularly tender, it’s best to avoid ambiguity simply by going cold turkey: "If you’ve been really hurt then I think it’s better to delete or block numbers and social media relationships. If you don’t then perhaps it leaves the impression that you weren’t really hurt and it was all quite casual, so it’s okay to keep a degree of contact," she tells me. "I always suggest sweeping up those breadcrumbs to those clients that have been hurt and blocking or unfriending them to help them get over it without reminders."

It’s easy to accept ghosting and breadcrumbs as facts of modern dating, as simple collateral caused by the way we navigate the world right now – that’s what most of us do when we’re largely not bothered by how a relationship has met its end. But if we’ve been especially emotionally impacted, by tolerating breadcrumbs we can end up suffocating our real feelings and prolonging toxicity in our lives. I guess the moral here is that seeming "chill" is much less important than your own peace of mind; if breadcrumbs are making you genuinely sad, just hoover them up. It’s a much better option than seeing a name you’d rather avoid every time you post a world-class Britney lip sync, that’s for sure.

*Names have been changed

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I don’t think my mother really believed that my best friend Sarah and I were writing a book until she had the finished product in her hands. "What’s it about?" she would ask, and I would fob her off with, "Ah just this character we made up years ago. We’re writing a novel about her. A funny one." And that was that. When I gave up my job to work on it full-time she asked again, a little more concerned and more than a tad dubious: "How’s that book coming along?" And in the great Irish tradition of wanting to be left alone, I said it was "grand".

I didn’t quite know how to tell her that I was writing our family’s story. The worst thing that had ever happened to us. I could barely talk to them about it but here I was putting it all in a book and I wasn’t even going to warn them.

My dad died on 25th May 2008. He was 60. He had lung cancer, which spread to his brain. He got sick, and then he got better, then he got sick again. They said it would be six weeks and, exactly six weeks later, he died, on a Sunday evening. We – me, my brothers, my mother, my aunts – were crowded around his bed in his little nursing home room. A room meant for old people. He hated it there and during his more lucid moments he would ask us to take him home. As he drew his last breaths I remember joking to break the tension. "Come on Dad, you’re having us on. Get a move on," I said. He hadn’t been conscious for days, so I doubt I hurt his feelings, but I suspected that deep down he was smiling and watching us all waiting. He was the king of truly terrible jokes and it might have just been the ultimate last laugh.

When I handed my mother a copy of my book, Oh My God, What A Complete Aisling, I knew she’d recognise Dad right away. Aisling’s dad pretends to hate the cat but is routinely found with the animal asleep on his knee. Aisling’s dad knows about the importance of "minding a house" when there’s a funeral on in the locality. If someone doesn’t sit in and mind the house then enterprising criminal gangs will be in like a flash, looking to see what they can thieve while everyone is off grieving and drinking. Aisling’s dad puts a few quid of petrol into her car when he takes it out for a spin and tells her not to tell her mother. Aisling’s dad gets sick. And then he gets better. And then he gets sick again.

I was afraid to let my family see how I had poured all my sadness out on the pages for tens of thousands of people to read.

I was afraid to tell my family I was writing our story because I was afraid to let them know how sad I still am about it. I was afraid to let them see how I had poured it all out on the pages for tens of thousands of people to read (although in my defence, I never thought that many people would read it). I was afraid that it would upset them. I was afraid that we’d have to talk about those awful feelings that come with losing a parent, a husband, a friend, and the inevitable tears would come and we’d all have to admit how sad we still are. So I said very little, and I let them have their books, and I waited, nervously.

They weren’t angry, they were proud. My mother could see him on the pages immediately. She could see herself too, in the way Aisling’s mother hides the good biscuits and is extremely suspicious of Wi-Fi. She could see herself and Dad, "fond of their walks up to the top of Reilly’s lane and back down again". Of course, the book is largely a work of fiction. It’s about a young woman who decides it’s time for a change when she doesn’t get a ring on her finger and her dream hen party with more willy straws than she can shake a stick (or a willy) at. It’s an amalgamation of our imaginations, our upbringings, our observations and our experiences. It’s a comedy with a few tragedies and heartaches thrown in, because what is life without a few tragedies and heartaches?

I’m glad I wrote our story. I’m glad because of the dozens and dozens of people who’ve contacted me to say thank you for putting into words what they went through, from those duo packets of custard creams that are so prevalent in hospitals, to the unbearable sadness when your mother loses her best friend. I’m glad we can remember him like this.

Oh My God, What A Complete Aisling by Emer Mclysaght & Sarah Breen is available in hardback from 3rd May 2018, published by Michael Joseph.

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When we discovered Betty Bachz on Instagram, the first thing we noticed was her mega eyewear collection. Cat-eyed, tinted, bejewelled, angular, rounded, and every shape and colour in between, it's fair to say that Betty knows how to work her sunnies.

It comes as no surprise, then, that she traded in her job as a hedge fund analyst to cofound her sunglasses brand, MØY Atelier. "I struggled to find eyewear that I loved which also lasted more than a season and had a brand aesthetic I could align my values with," she explains. "There was nothing in the market combining unique design with premium quality, and independent eyewear brands were scarce at that time. We wanted to create a unisex brand that dared to have a feminine expression – creating truly unique designs with the best materials and hand-craftsmanship out there."

Her love for statement eyewear started young. "Over the years I bought a lot of different eyewear to fit different moods and occasions. By 2015 I had an enormous eyewear collection, from vintage pieces to contemporary pieces from all the big brands," she tells Refinery29. "I don’t believe in sunglasses just for their practicality, I’ve always believed in an eyewear wardrobe. Putting on a piece of eyewear should be just as important as putting on a piece of clothing."

Amen to that. With sunnier climes just around the corner, take a look through Betty's best pairs to inspire your summer style.

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Craving some sparkling conversation and refreshing perspectives? We've teamed up with Diet Coke for a brilliant new series that’s flipping the script on the hot topics our readers care about most — from confidence and culture to fashion and friendships. 2018 is the year of “A Diet Coke Break With…” hosted by London presenter and DJ, Yinka Bokinni. Trailblazing influencers will join Yinka for eight must-watch episodes packed with fun, lively and thought-provoking banter, inspiring ideas, and soul-baring confessions. It’s raw, it’s authentic, and it’s unmissable.

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Update:Hawaii lawmakers just made history: As of May 1, Senate Bill 2571 is officially in effect. Starting January 2021, the sale of sunscreens containing oxybenzone will be banned throughout the state of Hawaii, making it the first in the U.S. to enact such a law.

Update (April 2018): Although you can largely blame underwater heat waves for the majority of coral reef bleaching, evidence shows that enough of the damage comes from the hazardous chemical ingredients in sunscreen. Last year, lawmakers at the state and county levels in Hawaii proposed legislation to ban oxybenzone-containing sunscreens due to the mass amount of damage to the oceanic ecosystem, but were ultimately unsuccessful. Now, they're trying again — and this time, it might actually work.

On April 18, lawmakers gathered to support Senate Bill 2571, which aims to ban chemical-based sunscreens starting July 1, 2019. This includes regulating the sale, offer of sale, or distribution in the state of Hawaii of any sunscreen containing oxybenzone or octinoxate, or both, without a prescription issued by a licensed healthcare provider.

The bill is yet to pass, but if it does, it Hawaii will be the first state to ban sunscreen with toxic chemicals.

This story was originally published July 13, 2016.

In case you haven't noticed, we take sunscreen very seriously around here. If you want to avoid skin cancer and delay the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, you and your SPF should be in a loving, committed partnership. But, as with any relationship, you have to go through a vetting process first. That's because all sun protectors aren't created equal. In fact, one of the most common ingredients on sunscreen labels is seriously jeopardizing the health of the world's coral reefs.

A study published in October 2015 showed that oxybenzone, a popular UV-filtering ingredient, is threatening coral — especially in tourist-heavy areas such as Hawaii and the Caribbean. Not only does the chemical kill coral, it also causes early DNA damage that stunts the growth of the organisms living in it.

If you've ever been snorkeling, you know how magnificent coral is. Looks aside, some varieties are considered keystone species in our aquatic ecosystem, meaning many animals' lives are dependent on the colorful organism. Coral reefs are crucial to recreational fisheries, the tourism industry, and medical research. Coral has provided advancements in the treatment of certain cancers and HIV, so who knows what we could learn from it in the coming years — that is, if we don't run the reefs into the ground first.

Luckily, doing your part to minimize the damage couldn't be simpler: Carefully read your sunscreen labels and screen your potential purchases for oxybenzone. Instead, opt for mineral-based varieties that use zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, which protect without any guilt.

Click through this comprehensive list of the best oxybenzone-free sunscreens and find the right one for your lifestyle, whether you're into extreme sports or just need some daily protection for the commute to work.

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Women may not discuss masturbation habits much, but most of us do it. According to a new survey, 78% of British women masturbate, although this figure is far lower than the proportion of men (96%).

Sex toy manufacturer TENGA surveyed 13,000 people aged 18-74 in 18 countries for its 2018 Global Self-Pleasure Study to coincide with international Masturbation Month (yep, apparently a real thing). Globally, women masturbate less often than men. More than a third (34%) of women said they do it a few times a month, while around a fifth (22%) do it weekly, and the average woman does it 4.1 times per week.

The research also revealed some interesting findings about women's "masturbation routines", namely, their preferred way.

Using our imagination

The most popular way for women to get their rocks off? Fifty-four percent enjoy immersing themselves in a sexual fantasy to get themselves in the mood, compared to just 44% of men. According to a separate piece of research conducted in the US last year, the most common fantasies are having sex with multiple people and sex with a famous person.

Porn

Sexual fantasies were closely followed by porn, with 35% of women saying they "view adult content" as part of their masturbation routine. It's a good thing there's now a better variety of ethical and feminist porn available online. Men were almost twice as likely (66%) as women to watch porn when they masturbate.

Sex toys

More than a quarter (28%) of women use a sex toy meant for penetration, which includes both vibrating and non-vibrating varieties, while a further 22% claimed to use a toy "meant for penile stimulation". Men were much less likely to use sex toys, with just 12% saying they incorporated any kind of toy into their routine.

Thinking about a past experience

Men and women are similarly likely to think about a past sexual experience when they masturbate (26% and 24% respectively), the research suggests.

Erotic stories

Women are more likely (15%) than men (10%) to read an erotic story as part of their routine. It helps that there's so much high-quality erotica available for free online.

Looking at pictures

Men seem to be more visual creatures than women when it comes to masturbation, with more than a quarter (26%) looking at pictures, compared with just 9% of women. The survey didn't specify what kind of pictures women are perusing, but we hear there are some popular Tumblr accounts out there...

Listening to music

Music was the least common way for people to get themselves in the mood, with just 4% of women and 3% of men putting on some sexy vibes.

Why women masturbate

Among respondents who said they masturbated, the reasons why across genders were similar: to achieve pleasure by themselves (29% of women and 26% of men), to relieve sexual tension (23% of men and 18% of women), to achieve sexual pleasure when a partner is unavailable (17% of men and 13% of women), and to relieve stress (14% of both genders).

However, women in the UK were far more likely than men to say they masturbate to help them sleep (8% compared to 3% of men), to explore their sexual preferences and desires (4% compared to 2%), and to feel comfortable with their bodies (4% compared to 2%).

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‘Tis the season for beach body stress. But we’re not here for it. Catch us on the streets of London today ✌️ pic.twitter.com/FxNQ8z8Kx4

— navabi (@navabiFashion) May 3, 2018

Three summers ago, Protein World caused uproar with a woefully misguided advert showing a slim, bikini-clad woman next to the question: "Are you beach body ready?" The advert didn't just objectify women; it also perpetuated the myth that swimwear is only acceptable on a certain type of slim female body. After receiving more than 360 complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) duly banned the advert from London Underground.

Now the "beach body ready" slogan is being reclaimed, brilliantly, by a plus-size fashion brand. Navabi's new billboard, which goes on display in London today, deliberately mimics the font and colour palette of Protein World's original, but features three plus-size models proudly rocking swimwear.

The models in the campaign are the brand's social editor Bethany Rutter, blogger and brand consultant Stephanie Yeboah (aka NerdAboutTown), and fashion brand manager Lauren Talulah Smeets (aka Curvy Roamer).

Weeeeey! Love my beach body! 👙 thanks for letting me get my chub tattooed body out, @navabiFashion! pic.twitter.com/XuA6XiVtHx

— Bert (@bethanyrutter) May 3, 2018

"The original Protein World campaign was exclusionary and pushed the ideology that in order to be 'seen' on the beach, you had to lose weight and conform to society’s standards of beauty first," Yeboah says.

"The truth is that every body is a beach body and that is why I’m so happy to be a part of this Navabi campaign. It’s important for everyone to know that our bodies are fine as is, and that we don’t need to conform in order to be seen as desirable, or beautiful."

Smeets adds: "As a 28-year-old woman with a social media presence and voice, it’s my job to make sure young girls or other women don’t feel pressured to look the way we’ve been conditioned to believe is 'the perfect body'. Every woman is different, every body is different and we need to champion that."

The campaign is already prompting positive reactions online. "I love this. Makes me feel so much less anxious about my own 'flaws'," one person tweeted.

"You all look incredible! I absolutely love this shot. The exuberance, the joy, the beauty," another wrote.

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Let's talk about off-the-shoulder tops for a moment. They look cool, and they're everywhere. But, wearing them hasn't been all fun and games. When it comes to practicality, they prevent you from lifting your arms and get really weird when you have to wear a backpack. Also, strapless bras? They're kind of the worst. So why are we still wearing them, especially when we've found the perfect alternative to replace it?

Is it just us, or has the tie-front crop top been all over Instagram? After doing a little e-commerce deep-dive, we found this shirt style at most of our favourite retailers — and it makes sense. The little front-knot allows you to hide the centre of a bra (or, you can even go braless if it gives you enough support); the cut is just plunge-y enough to feel sexy without feeling too exposed; and the best part? They're just not off-the-shoulder tops. Ahh, we like summer '18 already.

Click on to embrace the trend, and feel free to let go of your off-the-shoulder fixation once and for all.

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Back in February, Donatella Versace, Anna Wintour, and more of fashion’s elite arrived in Rome to join Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Catholic Church’s Council for Culture, in offering the media a glimpse at a selection of vestments, headdresses, and ecclesiastical accessories that will be featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s upcoming exhibit, "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination." The launch of the exhibit marks the annual, celebrity-packed Met Gala.

The New York Times ’ reporting of the preview noted that Wintour’s red and black outfit matched the colour scheme of Cardinal Ravasi’s ensemble, as if it was an intentional nod to the worlds of religion and fashion coming together. But what might have seemed like a comically incongruous photo op actually makes plenty of sense right now: Between pop culture’s perennial fascination with Catholicism and the world’s first "woke Pope," the Catholic Church is perfectly poised for this moment — at least in terms of its aesthetics.

Anyone who’s set foot in a Catholic church has observed the opulent visual language of the institutional Church. The stained glass windows, endless rows of votive candles, embroidered priestly vestments, and vaulted ceilings all send a clear and reverent message to the visitor: You are now in a divine space.

That feeling of transportation, of immersion, only increases if you stay for Mass, in which the heavy scent of incense fills the air and attendees (practicing Catholics, at least) are asked to imbibe the body and blood of Christ. Diane Winston, MS, PhD, professor of media and religion at University of Southern California, calls Catholicism a sensual religion in the most literal sense. To experience Catholicism is to experience not just a religion but an aesthetic, too — and that’s hardly accidental. "[Catholicism] is all about beauty," she says. "The Catholic Church has been very wealthy for a long time, so they’ve been able to accumulate amazing artwork, beautiful religious vestments, [and] amazingly built cathedrals."

Dr. Winston explains that the physical beauty displayed in Catholicism, from its churches to its services to its ritual clothing, is meant to convey the Church’s overall authority and proximity to God. As a result, a very specific, ornate aesthetic came to be associated with (if not directly linked to) holiness.

That’s why, when filmmakers, writers, and other artists and pop culture creators wish to tell a religious story or convey someone’s devout religiosity, they tend to employ Catholic imagery, says Erica Andrus, PhD, professor and senior lecturer specialising in religion in America at the University of Vermont. "That’s a visually rich repertoire to draw from… It’s dramatic and visually pleasing," but it’s not so unfamiliar that it will go over an American audience’s heads, she explains.

Just this year, we’ve seen a TV revival of Jesus Christ Superstar and heard serious rumours of a The Passion Of The Christ sequel. Both depict the crucifixion and their respective plots hinge upon the events of Holy Week (the days leading up to Easter Sunday). While Christians of any denomination can observe Holy Week, it’s usually observed more strictly within Catholicism. And, as Dr. Winston points out, the crucifix is a uniquely Catholic symbol: "The Catholic crucifix [shows] Jesus on the cross. Seeing the body, seeing the physicality of his suffering, is very different than many Protestant churches, [which] use just the cross, without Jesus." Jesus’ sacrifice is heavily emphasised in Catholicism — as it is in Jesus Christ Superstar and The Passion Of The Christ.

We’ll have to wait and see how the Passion sequel fares, but NBC’s live broadcast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera chronicling Jesus’ final days (with pop/R&B singer John Legend in the title role) drew 9.4 million viewers. "Religion can be good business," says James Martin, Jesuit priest and author. He adds that it’s actually part of the pop culture cycle to see Catholic motifs crop up: "These things come in waves."

Perhaps the greatest wave in fairly recent memory started with Madonna’s cross-laden accessories in her 1984 music video for "Like A Virgin" and hit a crest five years later in her "Like A Prayer" video, in which she lounges around a chapel in a negligee, makes out with a Black Jesus/saint figure, invokes stigmata imagery, and, most iconically, dances in a field of burning crosses. Controversial? Yes. Sexy? We mentioned the negligee, right? No matter how you feel about Madonna’s willingness to turn elements of her religious upbringing into accessories, there’s no denying that she popularised the use of Catholic themes in pop-artistic works consumed by millions of fans.

Fast-forward a decade or two, and you have the overtly Catholic look and feel of The Boondock Saints, Romeo + Juliet, and even Lady Gaga’s music video for "Judas." From their settings to their costumes to their props, these works employ the Catholic aesthetic not just to suggest a belief system, but to cultivate an air of extravagance and excess that borders on fanatical. In all three cases, they’re remembered in no small part for their iconic religious imagery.

“The primary image of the Catholic priest in 2002 was the pedophile. The primary image of the Catholic priest in 2018 is Pope Francis. That’s a sea change.”

So, no, it isn’t new to see Catholicism appear in pop culture, and it has proven to be both popular and stylistically effective. The question is: Why has it taken until 2018 for Wintour and her ilk to plan "fashion’s biggest night out" around the Catholic aesthetic? Despite the long-standing place of Catholicism in mainstream storytelling, there remains something unique about this moment in the Church that makes paying tribute to its visual legacy especially palatable, even appealing, to a mainstream audience. And, yes, Pope Francis and his rise to wokeness has something to do with it.

Argentina-born (he is the very first Pope from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere) Pope Francis came as a surprise to Catholics and non-Catholics alike, Dr. Andrus says, citing his openness to interfaith communication and his willingness to recognise such global issues as poverty and climate change. In the five years since his appointment, Pope Francis has publicly discussed family planning, the Church’s acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community, and the important role women play in the Church. Granted, he didn’t call for any radical changes to how these issues are already viewed within Catholicism (he opposes gay marriage, does not believe women should be priests, and approves of the Church’s ban on contraception). But, the simple fact that he willingly speaks on these topics (and shows even a little leniency) reflects a desire to engage a larger public. "[He] gave Catholicism more cache [with a wider audience]," Dr. Andrus says. "[Under his leadership,] the Catholic Church doesn’t just represent something old, traditional, and musty-fusty."

Pope Francis’ progressive approach is thrown into even sharper relief when you consider what the Catholic Church was best known for prior to his appointment. "The primary image of the Catholic priest in 2002 was the pedophile," Rev. Martin says. "The primary image of the Catholic priest in 2018 is Pope Francis. That’s a sea change." Would a Met exhibition and gala based on the Catholic imagination succeed in the early aughts, at the height of the Church’s global sex abuse (and cover-up) crisis? Not without an uproar from the secular and non-Catholic public.

Only a month into his papacy, Pope Francis called for swift action against Catholic officials accused of abuse. In 2017, he acknowledged that the institution was decades late to addressing its sex abuse problem. Of course, our current pope’s modern sensibilities don’t magically clear the Church’s record of all scandal. Just this week, it was announced that Vatican treasurer Cardinal George Pell will stand trial for a history of abuse. According to CNN, he’s the most senior official in the Church to be charged.

Nevertheless, Rev. Martin says, "It’s really hard to overestimate [Pope Francis’] impact on people’s feelings toward the Catholic Church." Rev. Martin suggests that, were it not for Pope Francis’ reputation as the "people’s pope" and the changes he set into motion from within the Church, Cardinal Ravasi might not have posed for photos with Wintour and Versace at the Vatican-hosted preview: "It’s not simply that people like the Pope, and that makes them more open to Catholicism — it’s that the Vatican is more open to events like this because of Francis."

(And, given Wintour’s political bent, we’d highly doubt she’d be keen to pose so publicly with people too far from her progressive circles.)

Of course, to say that the Met and its institutional heads were waiting around for Pope Francis to arrive on the scene would be a gross exaggeration. "There’s always an efflorescence of curiosity about the Church when things change," Rev. Martin says. In other words, this isn’t the only time in history that the Met could have chosen to celebrate the Catholic imagination, but now, when the Pope is interested in not only connecting with the larger world but actually reflecting it in the Church’s values seems like as good a time as any. What better way to ride the latest wave of pop culture’s interest in Catholicism?

Whatever your opinion on the Catholic aesthetic (and the Catholic Church, for that matter), come May 7, mainstream stars like Rihanna and Kendall Jenner will attempt to interpret biblical tropes at their most baroque via red carpet fashion. This particular spectacle has been a long time coming, but that won’t make it any less transporting: The looks are sure to be lavish, architectural, and injected with at least a hint of danger, a glimpse at the eternal fight between good, evil, obedience, and temptation. The Met wants to take us to church — and that invitation is hard to resist.

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Molly Goddard, the 29-year-old British designer best known for her over-the-top tulle pieces, just can't be stopped. On Wednesday evening, the Central Saint Martins graduate was named the winner of the 2018 BFC/British Vogue Designer Fashion Fund prize, the prestigious award that, similar to its American counterpart, the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, "aims to discover new talent and accelerate growth over a twelve-month period through mentoring and awarding a cash prize of £200,000." Competition included Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida of Marques Almeida, Huishan Zhang, Rejina Pyo, Samantha McCoach of Le Kilt, and David Koma.

“Molly Goddard is an original, she has a singular vision that has propelled her label to an international level,” Edward Enninful, the editor-in-chief of British Vogue and chairman of the fund committee, said. “She is the definition of talent and what Britain does best in our creative industry.”

Goddard launched her namesake label in 2014; it was picked up almost immediately by Dover Street Market and quickly gained fans in Bjork, Rihanna, and Comme des Gar ç ons' Rei Kawakubo. In 2016, Goddard won the British Emerging Talent award at the 2016 Fashion Awards, and was a finalist for the 2017 LVMH Prize, so it's no surprise she's (finally) taken home one of the UK's biggest fashion accolades.

Of her brand's aesthetic, Goddard told Interview magazine in 2015: "I’ve always liked being really girly, but I’ve always been a massive tomboy. I think that’s just something that comes quite naturally. My main thing is I like women to be comfortable. It was kind of lucky; I managed to make dresses that make you feel really special, but you don’t feel like you’re corseted up and constricted in any way. You can still move and be natural and free. I think that’s maybe what makes them feminine above everything else; you can totally be comfortable, rather than the dressmaking transforming you into something. It becomes part of what you wear because they’re often sold as just a sheer dress that you then have to choose what you wear underneath. I think that’s an important part of it. You still keep quite a lot of your character."

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It's difficult not to feel disheartened by the average women's swimwear ad. Too many campaigns feature over-sexualised imagery that seems designed to pander to the male gaze, even though men aren't the people spending their hard-earned cash on bikinis and one-pieces.

Other campaigns show photo after photo of very slim, very toned models rocking swimsuits that are generally very skimpy. The implicit message can be incredibly damaging: "Only women who look like this should wear these items," they seem to say.

So it's awesome to see that Weekday have rejected the traditional glossy swimwear ad and asked 'ordinary' women to create their own campaign. The Swedish fashion brand sent 25 women items from their new swimwear collection and asked them to model them in whatever way they saw fit. The women were given complete creative freedom and sent back as few or as many snaps as they wanted.

The result is a glorious set of photos that emphasises the fact women's bodies come in loads of different shapes and sizes. All of them are beautiful, and all of them are suited to whatever swimwear item their owner chooses to wear.

"As a fashion brand, we feel that it is our responsibility to present an accurate portrayal of women," says Weekday's head of marketing Nadine Schmidt. "We hope this campaign gives women the power and opportunity to tell their truth and depict their body the way they want."

Weekday also say they devised this campaign, which they've named "My Body My Image", to reflect the fact that its swimwear range has been "created by women for women".

"New fit-focused separates come in multiple flattering colours with details such as high waists, asymmetrical lines, full bottom coverage, thin straps and high necklines," they explain, adding that the collection aims to "celebrate the diversity of the female body".

Weekday's new swimwear collection will be available from 3rd May.

Click through to see some of the photos from the campaign...

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At a quiet urgent care centre in Manhattan, a classroom of about 40 people broke off into groups to sketch drawings meant to answer one question: What might physical signs of anxiety look like? Several groups drew out what it might look like for someone to have difficulty breathing, dizziness, and headaches. And they talked through what mental distress might look like in other people. Recognising those signs, after all, is the first step in being able to help someone.

The enlightening exercise is part of an eight-hour session meant to address something we don't discuss enough: mental health first aid.

Mental health first aid is exactly what it sounds like — a response to a mental health emergency. And since last year, the National Council For Behavioral Health has organised trainings alongside the Born This Way Foundation, a non-profit organisation started by Lady Gaga and her mother that helps young people find mental health resources. Together, the organisations help people recognise when someone is in mental health distress — whether it's a panic attack, a depressive episode, or substance use challenges — and they teach them how to talk to someone who's going through a hard time.

The Born This Way Foundation invited me to sit in on a training on behalf of Refinery29, and as someone who frequently writes about mental health, I wanted to learn everything I could. But, Shadille Estepan, a program associate at the Born This Way Foundation, says these sessions aren't meant to turn you into a mental health professional. They can be helpful for anyone with a friend or family member going through a crisis, or anyone who just wants to know what to do when their friend posts a concerning Instagram.

"We’re constantly exposed to people who experience mental health concerns, and knowing the proper ways to go about helping them is one step towards getting them to seek professional help," Estepan says.

Whether you want to be a parent, a friend, or a romantic partner to someone, it's a valuable life skill.

During the training, we learned about symptoms and risk factors for mental health disorders in others, and went over the best ways to talk to someone who might be going through distress. One of the most biggest lessons of the day involved the acronym ALGEE, which stands for: Assess the person's risk of suicide or harm; listen non-judgmentally; give reassurance and information; encourage professional help; and encourage self-help and other support strategies. It's a convenient mnemonic device that helps you remember key steps you can take to reach out to someone and offer support.

Clay Reed, an attendee who works in a New York City hotel, tells me that he felt the training could help him interact not only with guests, but also with anyone who might be having a hard time.

"If anxiety and stress isn’t part of the human condition, I don’t know what is," he says. "It’s good to think about it, bring it out in the open, and know as much as we can about it."

Reed is right: Anxiety and stress are very much a part of the human condition. And, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, approximately one in five adults in the US experiences mental illness in a given year (in the UK this goes up to one in four adults). Given that statistic, it's more than likely that you or someone you know will experience a mental illness at some point in your lifetime, and it's important to know how to help. And with Mental Health Awareness Month in May, there's no better time to be discussing how we can step up when someone is having a mental health problem.

"Mental health first aid is first aid," says Peter Gudaitis, an ex officio executive director at New York Disaster Interfaith Services (the organisation leading this particular training). "Whether you want to be a parent, a friend, or a romantic partner to someone, it's a valuable life skill."

If you are experiencing anxiety and are in need of crisis support, please call the Crisis Call Center ’s 24-hour hotline at 1-775-784-8090.

If you are experiencing depression and need support, please call the National Depressive/Manic-Depressive Association Hotline at 1-800-826-3632 or the Crisis Call Center ’s 24-hour hotline at 1-775-784-8090.

If you are experiencing depression and need support, please call Mind on 0300 123 3393.

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In the early aughts, Paris Hilton invented a new type of celebrity: famous for being famous. Hilton became a regular character in the tabloids in 2001 and was deemed New York’s Leading It Girl, but most of us know Hilton from her stint on The Simple Life, a reality TV show that tracked her and fellow socialite Nicole Richie’s experiences doing manual labour on a farm. The reality show was, in its own way, an invasion of privacy, but it was a contract Hilton willingly entered into. “I basically created this character that was basically what I thought the audience wanted, like, ‘Oh, she’s rich, so she needs to be a spoiled airhead’ — basically what the producers told me to do,” Hilton said during a recent screening of The American Meme, a new documentary that tracks the rise of influencers like Hilton, at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.

A week before The Simple Life debuted in 2003; however, Hilton became associated with a far more damning invasion of privacy than reality TV. The tall, blonde heiress who people loved to hate was now the star of a sex tape that leaked on the internet. Three years earlier, when Hilton was 19, she and her then-boyfriend Rick Salomon filmed their intimate moments. Now, those moments would define her forever.

The tape itself – dubbed 1 Night in Paris by its distributor — became an instant sensation, and later, a pop culture relic. It was a legitimately newsworthy item, covered on news broadcasts and mocked on late-night TV. In 2005, the video won the AVN Award for “Best Selling Title of the Year,” “Best Renting Title of the Year,” and “Best Overall Marketing Campaign.” The fact that 1 Night in Paris won Best Marketing Campaign is suspect, considering the movie was sold on a campaign based off of exploitation and curiosity. After all, did Hilton happily allow the tape to be released? Did she want people to see her having sex? No; but people could anyway, and so they did.

This was hardly the first time that a celebrity sex tape was released to a viral audience. In 1995, a 54-minute sex tape (and home video) of Pamela Anderson and her then-husband, Tommy Lee, was released by their jilted electrician, Rand Gauthier, who stole a safe containing the video. And it was hardly the last time this occurred. Former Hilton bestie and relative unknown Kim Kardashian’s tape with Ray J came out in 2007. According to a Page Six oral history of the tape, Kardashian initially sued over the tape’s release, and then later settled with the distributor. In an interview on the Tyra Banks Show, Kardashian dismantled rumours that she leaked the tape herself. “Why would anyone want to put that humiliation on their family, like that? That’s something that I’m going to have to live with the rest of my life and have to explain to my children one day,” she said.

As with Hilton’s tape, Kardashian’s tape was released soon before the debut of her own reality TV show. Since Hilton and Kardashians’ rise to fame is chronologically linked to the release of their sex tapes, the common myth is that sex tapes were responsible for their fame. Even Gauthier thinks Tommy Lee owes him something. "I made his career, is what happened," Gauthier told Rolling Stone.

Recent comments from Hilton about her experience, however, force us to radically rethink the narrative that tapes increase celebrities’ public profiles and ultimately are a boon for their careers. In the screening for The American Meme, Hilton likened the experience of the tape’s release to extreme violation. “ It was like being rape d. It felt like I’d lost part of my soul and been talked about in such cruel and mean ways,” she said. Hilton resented that the tape would be associated with her forever — which it would be. “I literally wanted to die at some points. I was like, ‘I just don’t want to live,’ because I thought everything was taken away from me. I didn’t want to be known as that.”

It took a documentary made 14 years after the incident for Hilton to express how she really felt about the experience. Perhaps no one had asked before because her answer almost certainly would have spoiled the gleeful carnival of coverage surrounding the video. “Doing [ The American Meme] was the first time I’ve ever talked about it. I’ve never talked about it like that with anyone, not even my friends,” Hilton said during the Q&A. “It’s one of the most painful and humiliating experiences that could ever happen to anyone.”

What 1 Night in Paris was, and what so many celebrity sex tape leaks are, was an act of revenge porn and extreme violation. In many instances, people once close to public figures will exploit their former intimacy to make a profit — a potentially huge profit. Anderson and Lee’s tape made £55 million (in legitimate sales) in less than a year. “It’s one of the most personal moments in your life, and for somebody you trusted to try and profit off of you is just so wrong. Nobody should ever have to go through that,” Hilton said.

But it’s not 2004 anymore. The attitude toward celebrity sex tapes seems to be changing. Perhaps the change stems, in part, from the famous 2016 verdict in Bollea v. Gawker. A jury ruled that the gossip site Gawker’s decision to post a video of Hulk Hogan — real name Terry Bollea — having sex with his friend’s wife wasn’t “newsworthy,” as Gawker’s editors had claimed. It was a violation of privacy. Gawker was ordered to pay £100 million in damages. After declaring bankruptcy, Gawker shut in 2016.

Kevin Hart’s recent brush with a sex tape underlines the takeaway in Bollea v. Gawker and shows we really might be in a new era. In 2017, Hart publicly admitted that someone was attempting to extort him with video of him having sex with another woman. At the time the footage was taken, Hart’s then-fiancée, Eniko Harris, was pregnant.

Rather than pay off the extortion fee, Hart came clean with an Instagram video in which he apologised to his wife and children. “I just simply have got to do better. But I'm also not going to allow a person to have financial gain off of my mistakes. And in this particular situation that's what was attempted. I said I'd rather fess up to my mistakes,” Hart said. It was recently revealed that the alleged extortionist was a close member of Hart’s entourage; he now faces four years in prison.

Hart’s emotional confession video was a reminder of the personal repercussions of a sex tape. He seemed to be saying: This isn’t entertainment; this is my life.

Realistically, celebrities are more likely to have their photos hacked than have their sex tapes sold to a porn distributor. On August 31, 2014 — a day that would later be known as the “Fappening” — a hacker released 500 nude and suggestive photos of A-listers to Reddit. This violation, and ensuing similar instances, prompted a dialogue on the ethics of looking at photos not meant for you. “Anybody who looked at those pictures, you're perpetuating a sexual offence and you should cower with shame,” Jennifer Lawrence, whose photos were shared, said in a 2014 interview with Vanity Fair. Essentially, just because a photo or a video is of a celebrity does not indicate it should be immediately be available for the public’s consumption.

In some ways, celebrities’ lives are much more public than they were when Hilton first got famous, pre-social media. We’re now privy to moments of their daily lives, and sometimes to their scantily clad selfies. The difference? We see what they choose to share, not what their exes or extortionists release, knowing a rapt audience awaits.

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