Is that Patrick Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?? 

This photographer sure makes it seem like it.

François Dourlen, a photographer and teacher in France, lines up images on his iPhone with everyday scenes to make it look as though cartoon and pop culture characters are living life in the real world.

The photog shares the silly pictures on his Instagram page, where he's generated buzz with more than 51,000 followers to date.  

Dourlen has captured whimsical scenes, from E.T. phoning home to Mario playing a game of bumper cars. He told The Huffington Post that he started the project about two years ago as a joke. While the characters in his photos fit so perfectly with the backgrounds, the photos don't take much planning. The figures he chooses to put in the photos just come to him. 

"I just walk [down] the street. I see something that makes me think about something else -- like an association of ideas," he explained. "It only depends on my imagination."

We have to admit, we're pretty psyched to see Thomas The Tank Engine chugging down the train tracks. 

Check out more of Dourlen's work below.  

 To see more of François Dourlen's work, visit his Facebook page here, or his Instagram page here. 

H/T BuzzFeed

Also on HuffPost: 

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

What does a "perfect body" look like? It depends who you ask -- and where they are.

UK online pharmacy Superdrug Online Doctors recently created a project called "Perceptions Of Perfection" that features 18 photoshopped images of the same woman. The company hired designers from countries around the world to photoshop a stock image via Shutterstock to reflect the beauty standards of their specific countries.  

"Widely held perceptions of beauty and perfection can have a deep and lasting cultural impact on both women and men," a Superdrug press release reads. "The goal of this project is to better understand potentially unrealistic standards of beauty and to see how such pressures vary around the world."

The company asked 18 designers from 18 countries spanning five continents to photoshop an image of a woman to fit their perception of the culture's beauty standards. Below is the original image before the designers photoshopped it: 

The designers photoshopped everything from the size of her waistline to shoe and hair color to mold the photo into the ideal body type of that culture. 

Out of the 18 designers, 14 were women and four were men, according to Superdrug. In order to highlight a woman's perception of her culture's beauty standards, Superdrug asked the four male designers to photoshop the image based on messages women in their countries receive about what an ideal body should look like. 

Some of the images appear only slightly altered, while in others, the original image is barely recognizable. Photos from China and Italy were dramatically photoshopped to have very thin legs and arms. Images from Colombia, Mexico and Peru reflect the traditional voluptuous beauty standards of those areas with tiny waists, large breasts and curvy hips.   

Scroll below to see what the "perfect woman" looks like in 18 countries. 

Head over to Superdrug to read more about the project. 

Also on HuffPost:

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 Taking photos at a military base completely changed how one artist thought about femininity.  

(Story continues below. Some images may be considered NSFW.)

 Photographer Logan Norton is currently raising funds on Kickstarter for Fort Ord: Beauty, a book that celebrates different facets of womanhood and femininity. 

Norton told The Huffington Post that he was originally inspired by the architecture of Fort Ord, an abandoned military base in California. When began to think about models to shoot at the location, he realized how limited his views on femininity were. 

"My immediate response was to have a series of images of young, thin, tall, 'pretty' women in soft, earthy, flowing wardrobe, with long hair, pastel, soft makeup set against the harsh backdrop of the old military base," he told HuffPost. "I began to understand that this concept was a direct result of the popular culture imagery I had been inundated with for most of my life. That was just how I viewed femininity."

Norton sought out 109 women "from all walks of life" to photograph at Fort Ord, encouraging them to express their femininity however they saw fit. 

"I wanted to make this project into one that combated this predisposition through the inclusion of women from all backgrounds with looks that didn't fall into this stereotype," he told HuffPost. 

Norton will be donating 100 percent of the proceeds from Fort Ord: Beauty to No More Tears, a nonprofit that empowers women and families to live safe, hopeful lives. 

Norton hopes that the images will help other people think differently about femininity, but ultimately, he told HuffPost: "It was my own preconceptions about femininity that I am seeking to counter through this project."

 View more stunning images from this series below, and learn more about Fort Ord: Beauty here. 

Also on HuffPost:

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Author Jon Krakauer, who chronicled the 1996 disaster on Mount Everest in his bestselling book Into Thin Air, told HuffPost Live on Thursday that he deeply regrets ever embarking on climbing the mountain. 

"Climbing Mount Everest was the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life. I wish I'd never gone," Krakauer said. "I suffered for years of PTSD, and still suffer from what happened. I'm glad I wrote a book about it. But, you know, if I could go back and relive my life, I would never have climbed Everest."

Krakauer spoke about Everest during a HuffPost Live conversation about the documentary "Meru," which documents the harrowing journey of climbing Tanzania's Mount Meru. When an 11-year-old mountain climber asked for tips for climbing Mount Everest himself, Krakauer urged him to think carefully about whether it's something he really wants to do.

"It's a serious, serious choice," he said. "If you do it, if you go for it, you'll be making really important decisions where your brain isn't functioning because of hypoxia or you haven't had enough to eat. Meru is a much harder mountain to climb, but in some ways Everest is much more dangerous. The dangers are more insidious. They're not as obvious."

Watch the full HuffPost Live conversation with Krakauer and the team behind "Meru" here.

Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live's new morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!

Also on HuffPost:

For a constant stream of entertainment news and discussion, follow HuffPost Entertainment on Viber.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

You know when you open a bag of Doritos and so much of it is air? What a chiptease. How about when you keep typing "teh" instead of "the" no matter what you do? You're so unkeyboardinated today. Feel like sipping a beer on your patio? Yeah, we like a good utepils, too. How conceivable is it that people really use these words? Pretty nearfetched, if you ask us.

BuzzFeed UK writer Daniel Dalton started a Twitter account recently to document these weird words that "you didn't know you needed."

Some of these have already been accepted into the English lexicon -- you can find "denouement" in a dictionary. Others come from foreign languages, such as "flâneur," the word for a "passionate wanderer emblematic of 19th-century French literary culture," or "yūgen," a Japanese term for a mysterious, profound aesthetic. English, of course, has an extensive history of vacuuming up words from different languages, using them as it sees fit.

Still other words Dalton shares are new creations, borne out of Internet message boards or from the mouths of creative speakers. "Columbusing," for example, picked up steam online last year to describe the act of discovering something new for yourself that's actually existed for ages. 

Language is, after all, shaped by its users. New words are added to the dictionary every year. New terms are coined every day. Not all of these will last, eventually succumbing to death from disuse. It's up to all of us to decide how we want to speak.

In the meantime, we'll just be curled up in our Internest with some tea and cookies.



Also on HuffPost:

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

After centuries of failed attempts, technology has finally, with the invention of geolocated dating apps, led to the downfall of Western civilization -- or so you might believe if you read a new Vanity Fair article that presents an ugly image of how hookup culture in the age of the smartphone is changing the way young people think about sex and relationships. As you may have heard, dangerous online dating has been destroying and ruining dating, romance and commitment for years. Now that there are apps for that, too, it's time to despair.

Or, maybe not. Something has been lost in the kerfuffle over the Vanity Fair article: what the data says. Specifically, what data from or about Tinder, Match.com and other matchmaking apps or websites could tell us about who is using them, how they're using them, and how many people are actually hooking up or getting married as a result.

Dating sites themselves collect and store a lot of data, but they rarely publish or analyze it. (That's one reason OK Cupid's now-defunct blog was so compelling: It used the company's own data to come to insights about race, first dates, sex and beauty.)

In the absence of good data from dating companies themselves, unfortunately, journalists and analysts often have to rely on surveys to form hypotheses instead.

The Pew Internet and Life Project conducted and published its most recent survey on online dating in May 2013, when it found that 11 percent of American adults have used online dating sites or mobile dating apps. Tinder, which is now one of the most popular apps and the central focus of the Vanity Fair piece, launched in 2012.

Pew found that public attitudes about online dating have become more favorable over time, even though most people have had bad experiences while using these sites and services. (It's worth noting, however, that bad dates certainly predate the Internet.) Seventy-nine percent of users agreed online dating was a good way to meet potential mates, and 70 percent agreed that people find a better romantic matches online than offline.

(There was a notable exception that speaks to the social impact these sites and apps have on relationships: About one-third of respondents agreed with the statement that "online dating keeps people from settling down.")

There's no doubt the number of people using these apps and services has only grown since this data came out -- upwards of 8 billion connections have been made on Tinder alone, according to the company. Digital dating services may be well on their way to becoming the primary means by which we find potential partners, but the extent to which using these platforms is causing changes to our behavior -- as opposed to simply enabling it -- is still uncertain.

Thanks to Pew and the U.S. Census Bureau, we know the number of Americans getting married has been declining for decades. In 2013, 51 percent of the public was married, down from 72 percent  in 1960 -- and as of September 2012, a record number of Americans (20 percent) had never been married, according to Pew's analysis. The research center also tells us the majority of young Americans (61 percent) still want to get married: They're just waiting longer to tie the knot.  

In May 2015, Wired cited a Global Web Index survey of 47,622 Internet users aged 16-64 across 33 countries to report that 42 percent of Tinder users were not single -- about 30 percent were married, and another 12 percent in relationships.  

In a statement to Wired and in a tweet earlier this week, Tinder questioned the methodology behind the Global Web Index data. The company tweeted that it had surveyed 265,000 of its users itself and found that just 1.7 percent of them were married. 

Unfortunately, Pew doesn't have data on what percentage of dating app users are married or how many sexual partners they have.

But there's another place we can find information about how Americans' sexual conduct is changing -- four decades of answers to the nationally representative General Social Survey. A team of researchers led by professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University published a study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior earlier this year that analyzed the GSS to identify changes in the sexual behavior of American adults between 1972 and 2012.

The researchers found that although millennials are more accepting of sex outside the confines of marriage than previous generations -- which is in line with a long-term shift toward more permissive attitudes toward premarital sex -- they are actually having fewer sexual partners than the average member of Generation X.

As Jesse Singal wrote in a piece for New York Magazine, that conclusion effectively torpedoes the Vanity Fair's narrative about bed-hopping -- even though the author of that feature, Nancy Jo Sales, cited the exact same research.

The correspondence between Sales and Twenge also suggests the writer approached this feature with preconceived notions about today's dating scene, Singal reports. The quotes and perspectives shared from the academic experts and authors Sales interviewed for the piece line up with the writer's hypothesis: When mobile dating apps collide with hookup culture, nothing good can come of it.

Interview subjects who gave various colorful observations also supported this premise. While Sales talked to young people in Indiana and Delaware, most of the subjects quoted in her piece are from New York City -- and I don't think it's an accident that especially cringe-worthy quotes come from young men who referred to the concept of having millions of potential mates as a transactional market, an unending game of musical beds.

As some reactions to Vanity Fair's  article -- which went as far as to use the term "dating apocalypse" -- suggest, some people will always see new communication technologies as inescapable black holes of moral turpitude that enable people to do or try things they might not otherwise be comfortable with.

But young people have always seized on new forms of communication to pursue relationships, and older generations have, since the Victorian era, viewed the new tech with great suspicion.

Once upon a time, gentlemen callers had to literally go to other homes and present a card. By the 1950s, phones were part of American culture, and people went on more traditional dates. The following decade, matchmaking services became an online dating prototype of sorts, as a recent video from FiveThirtyEight shows. The first dating websites cropped up in the 1990s, and naturally led to "guides to cyber dating."

Today, hundreds of millions of people use smartphones to start or end relationships. Texting, "sexting," social media and apps like Snapchat are all part of the mix. It's a safe bet that most of humanity will be using this sort of technology within the next 10 years.

Some people see this kind of article as an example of science fiction made real.

Some psychologists do have concerns about the risks that smartphones, dating apps and matchmaking websites pose to certain cohorts in the population, including their potential to create the shopping mentality Sales describes in Vanity Fair.

"What I'm seeing is people with vulnerabilities who are finding their ways to instant release," said Roni Weiss, an author and senior vice president of clinical development for Elements Behavioral Health, a company that runs a system of rehabilitation centers.

Weiss, who has been developing treatment programs and studying the Internet and relationships for over two decades, told The Huffington Post he has seen an increase in the number of people seeking help for technology-related intimacy issues. The more people have anonymous, immediate and free access to these kinds apps, the more he sees people who are vulnerable are struggling.

"If substance addictions were the addiction of the 20th century," he suggested, "behavioral addictions are those of the 21st century."

But the sad or ugly stories we see playing out upon these platforms reflect existing pathologies and addictive behaviors that were previously expressed in less visible forms or more clunky platforms. And many stories we read about the influence of hookup apps may simply reflect the embedded social changes precipitated by more access to birth control, education and women’s economic power.

It's even possible that societal norms have already adjusted to combining romance and technology in healthier ways than alarmists suggest, despite the inevitable comparisons to imagined golden ages of socializing of eras past.

While there's no single source of current data that I could find, it's more than likely that a growing number of people have found life partners online.

Pew found in 2013 that 42 percent of Americans knew someone who used online dating -- and 29 percent of Americans knew someone who had met a spouse or long-term partner that way. That concept didn't get much play in Vanity Fair, and Pew's research was not cited in the article. 

Will being able to quickly and easily "swipe left" or "swipe right" on pictures of potential mates result in societal changes in how we form or break relationships? Do dating apps exploit an evolutionary predilection for men to objectify women as sexual partners, instead of seeing them as people? Are geolocated mobile apps on smartphones having more of an effect on all of these counts than websites ever did, given widespread adoption?

The answer to any or all of these questions could very be well be "yes" -- but taking a firm position without good data is a risky proposition at best.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Trigger warnings, a means of preemptively alerting an audience to potentially distressing material, have been widely adopted by college professors recently as a way of reducing their liability from possible legal entanglements. This, coupled with a heightened sensitivity to political correctness, is prohibitive to opening up discussion on important issues, according to Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, the authors of recent article in The Atlantic that argues America is "coddling" young minds. The two stopped by HuffPost Live on Friday to discuss their article and how political correctness could actually be stifling to progress. 

Watch Lukianoff and Haidt discuss the problem with trigger warnings in the video above, and click here for the full conversation about the infantilization of America's college students. 

Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live's new morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!

Also on HuffPost:

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Many grooms have attempted a surprise wedding dance for their brides, but few have executed it as impressively as professional dancer Kirk Henning and his groomsmen. 

At his recent wedding, Kirk gifted his bride Valerie Tellmann -- a ballerina with the Richmond Ballet -- a choreographed dance to a medley of hits spanning all genres. They got down to songs like "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, "(You Drive Me) Crazy" by Britney Spears, "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins and "The World" by Brad Paisley, incorporating props like "Top Gun" sunglasses and cowboy hats where appropriate. 

Wedding videographer Ginger Topham captured the phenomenal performance and posted the video to YouTube on Tuesday. 

The bride and groom held their reception at Richmond, Virginia's CenterStage -- the same stage they once shared when they were both dancers with the Richmond Ballet company. 

Valerie's over-the-top excitement throughout the performance couldn't be more adorable. See what all the fuss is about in the video above. 

The Huffington Post reached out to the couple for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication. 

H/T Right This Minute

Also on HuffPost: 

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Looking for your next book club pick? Do like the president by opening up something from his summer reading list. 

According to a memo released by the White House Thursday, President Barack Obama will read the following books while on vacation in Martha's Vineyard: 

All That Is, James Salter
All The Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert
The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri
Between The World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow

Most notable on the list may be Between The World and Me, whose author often writes critically of the way Obama addresses issues of race, especially those tied to recent cases of police brutality. 

Obama left for vacation on Aug. 7, and will return to work Aug. 23.

The White House also noted that it doesn't know if Obama is reading the books in hard copy or on an e-reader.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

These two sisters have transformed the craft of origami into the art of giving.

Isabelle and Katherine Adams are the co-presidents of Paper for Water, a nonprofit that sells paper-folded ornaments to raise money to build clean water wells in impoverished countries. As of this spring, their craft has helped raise over $650,000 to drill more than 70 wells around the globe, Ken Adams, the girls’ father, told The Huffington Post in an email.

The idea to use origami for charity came about in 2011. Adams, who is half Japanese, learned the art at an early age and wanted to teach it to his daughters, now ages 9 and 11. It caught on quickly.  

“[Origami] started piling up around the house so [the girls] decided to have an event at Starbucks and sell ornaments to raise money for a water well,” Adams told HuffPost.

At the event, which took place in November 2011, the girls’ goal was to raise $500 to help partially fund a well in Ethiopia. But donations poured in and the origami ornaments sold out within one night. Just a month later, the sisters had raised over $10,000, according to Paper for Water’s website.

“It’s fun and it’s social and it’s a good way to use your brain to help other people,” Katherine told Good News Network.

The organization partners with the nonprofit Living Water International to identify where a well should be placed and which residents will help maintain it.

“And then a significant amount of health and sanitation training occurs,” Adams said. “Retraining the community and providing them with the equipment necessary to make these changes is essential.”

So far, Paper for Water has helped build wells in Kenya, Liberia, India, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mexico, Uganda, Peru and Zimbabwe. Most recently, the sisters visited a well they helped to fund on a Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, and held an origami workshop.

“If everyone in this world helps a little, it all adds up to a lot,” Isabelle told Good News Network. “Folding origami is an easy way for people of any age to help change the world.”

About 40 percent of the funds Paper for Water raises comes in exchange for origami ornaments, with the rest coming from outside partners and matching donors. To make a donation or get involved, check out the group’s website.

Also on HuffPost:

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

A performance artist and professor in Perth, Australia, always has something up his sleeve: An ear.

For the last nine years, the artist known only as Stelarc has been growing a third ear on his left arm, all in the name of art.

"As a performance artist I am particularly interested in that idea of the post-human, that idea of the cyborg," he said, according to CNN. "What it means to be human will not be determined any longer merely by your biological structure but perhaps also determined largely by all of the technology that's plugged or inserted into you."

Stelarc, who was born Stelios Arcadiou but changed his name 45 years ago, first thought about getting an extra ear in 1996. However, he couldn't find any surgeons willing to hear him out until 2006.

The extra ear was made from a scaffold of biocompatible material commonly used in plastic surgery. Stelarc originally thought of putting it behind one of his real ears, but chose to have it transplanted in the arm where the skin could stretch without requiring the prosthetic to be inflated, according to his website. 

Stelarc's own tissue and blood vessels developed around the ear scaffold within six months. He says the arm ear is now permanently part of his body.

The next step he said is to make the ear look more realistic by making a lobe from his stem cells. Then Stelarc wants to embed a miniature microphone that would be connected to the Internet, ABC.net.au reports.

"This ear is not for me, I've got two good ears to hear with. This ear is a remote listening device for people in other places," he told the network. "They'll be able to follow a conversation or hear the sounds of a concert, wherever I am, wherever you are. People will be able to track, through a GPS as well, where the ear is." 

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

It was the summer of 1999. I went to the mall with my friend Derek, and we ran into one of his friends at Spencer’s Gifts. I browsed the store while they talked. Then I heard Derek's friend ask, "Is that your sister?" 

He was referring to me.

I was 11 years old. I had long hair because I loved pro wrestling at that time, and I was wearing a basketball jersey because it was my favorite sport. My long hair might have confused him, but I think it was the shirt. It emphasized my chest, and what Derek’s friend might have thought were budding breasts.

That's when I realized I was fat. It's my earliest memory of feeling that way, and I don't have a single memory since that day of feeling comfortable and confident in my body.

After I got home from the mall that day, I told my mom I wanted to cut my hair. It was one small thing I could do to fix my appearance. But that didn’t stop me from still feeling fat. I was the kid too scared to swim in public without a shirt. I learned what kinds of clothes hid my belly.

Part of my struggle with my body image is a personal view that I'm failing at achieving my goal of slimming down. It's a cycle: I'm not good enough because I'm out of shape, causing me to lose confidence and motivation to work out, but my exercise doesn't result in feeling skinnier.

Singer Sam Smith explained poignantly this year that being called "fat" hurt more than an anti-gay slur: "I think just because I've accepted that if someone calls me a faggot, it's like, I am gay and I'm proud to be gay so there's no issues there. If someone calls you fat, that's something I want to change."

One of my problems is that when I do change my weight, I fail to acknowledge it.

At 14, I don't remember a single day I felt thin, and yet I was in great shape, playing hockey regularly. It wasn’t until my senior year, when I had put on a few pounds from eating too much fast food, that I could actually see what I really looked like back then. I remember looking at a photo of my 14-year-old self and thinking, "I looked skinny." A high school teacher responded, "No, you look good now. You look underfed there."

I lost weight my first year of college -- about 40 pounds -- all due to counting calories, trying to keep it close to 1,500 a day, and eating a lot of Jimmy John's sandwiches without mayo. At the time, I realized I had lost weight, but when I looked in the mirror I didn't see a skinny person. I still had a knack for doing things like wearing hoodies or ribbed tanks underneath T-shirts because I felt like they covered up my curves. 

This is a phenomenon where focusing so much on a particular body part can make it bigger in our imagination, said Aaron Blashill, Ph.D., a Harvard University psychology professor.

David LaPorte, a psychology professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, recalled a doctoral student he had a decade ago who studied the image perceptions of guys at the gym, and discovered that 1/5 of men considered to be in shape were uncomfortable taking their shirts off. "And things have not gotten better since then," LaPorte said.

What made the study all the more interesting was that it only looked at guys who were confident enough to go to the gym in the first place, he continued, many of whom were walking around wearing those muscle-man shirts to show off they had just worked out. I responded with a memory of the athletic guys wearing hoodies and sweats to class when I was in college, while I always felt I needed to dress up for class to compensate for my lack of an impressive body. "Compensating in different ways, I guess," LaPorte told me.

About half of all men don’t like having their picture taken or being seen in swimwear, according to an NBC Today Show/AOL Body Image survey from last year. Research from the University of the West of England found a majority of guys felt part of their body wasn't muscular enough, and more men than women would sacrifice at least a year of their life in exchange for a perfect body.

Sometimes I complain about my weight to my close friends, but they say they don't see it. Some tell me they think I have an athletic build. Others say I'm skinny. I don't believe it, and I grab my flab to prove it. I see my body bulging out of my shirt in the mirror. I don’t see an athlete. I don’t see skinny.

Three years ago, my first year in New York, a female friend asked me to the beach. I said yes, but secretly prayed for rain so I would have an excuse to back out. It didn’t rain, but my "scheduling conflicts" saved me from going. I sacrificed a beautiful day at the beach with friends all so I could avoid taking off my shirt in front of them.  

"When we avoid situations in the short-run -- that can help reduce negative or difficult emotions, but in the long-run it actually serves to reinforce those thoughts that prevent us from doing something in the first place," Blashill said.

One reason I avoid those situations is my fear of being in the vicinity of more attractive men on the beach, which makes sense because according to Blashill, "folks with body image concerns tend to engage in social comparison," usually "upward comparison."

When I mentioned this fear to Dr. Edward Abramson, a psychologist in California and author of the book Emotional Eating, he asked me a question: What am I afraid of?

It's ridiculous to think my friends might see me shirtless, and suddenly become repulsed as if they'd discovered a Nazi-style swastika tattoo. So then, what exactly scared me? I realized I was afraid of what they might be thinking. It freaked me out to think people in my life would file in their mind that their friend Tyler is a fatty.

"The theme there generally is one of social anxiety," Abramson said. "That other people are going to look at me in a certain way. I encourage people to look around them at other people and recognize that they're far more accepting of other people's imperfections than they are of their own." 

I've had trouble reaching this point, where I can openly admit I'm uncomfortable with my body. I never thought I had a problem because I wasn't bulimic, wasn't anorexic and, in my opinion, wasn't doing anything extreme. After all, is it so bad if I feel compelled to spend 45 minutes four times a week at the gym? LaPorte said probably not, unless I'm sacrificing social interactions for it.

I found this same issue with a colleague who I consider to be in great shape, and works out six days a week to maintain that. When he takes his shirt off, he said, "I feel as though all eyes are on me and no one is liking what they see." While he finds friends supportive when he discusses his insecurities, he said, "There's a pervading sense of, 'Dude, you have it pretty damn good.'" 

A lot of guys I interviewed around the office had similar reservations, even among those I thought looked better than me. Height was another big image problem they mentioned, which is something we can't change. Many said that when they spoke about their issues with friends, it often goes something like this:

"Dude I feel fat"

"Look man, you're not fat"

"But I feel fat"

"Honestly, I don't know what to tell you, it's not a problem."

Contemporary masculinity does not permit a man to admit his physique is less than ideal. But if men could be more open about their own insecurities, without fear of violating the unspoken rules of masculinity, we'd do better at accepting our flaws in our bodies. And maybe then we could get closer to doing what Blashill recommended: "acknowledging there are many ways to be healthy." 

I spent the past few months thinking a lot about this, and reflecting on my own insecurities. After talking to friends, psychologists and men around the office, I did something I avoided for years: I went to the beach.

My first day at the beach was with some close friends. In a modern romantic comedy-style plot twist, they ended up inviting someone who I'd recently been messaging on OkCupid that happened to be a mutual friend of theirs. In spite of that, I spent the day without a shirt on, in front of friends, strangers and dating profile matches, and somehow managed. No one insulted me; I still have friends; I am still able to go on dates; and I found $10 on the ground. In other words, the world didn't end.

Abramson was right: I looked at other people, noticed their imperfections and recognized my opinion wasn't changing of them. Maybe then those thoughts I have that someone can see my belly or love handles, or it looks like I have man boobs, are just my thoughts. I'm not cured, but I've made progress. 

Men don't face the same unrealistic expectations as women, but they still feel pressure to look better, and they're behind where women are in discussing insecurities. All it takes to change that is one guy opening up to his friends. As one colleague said, "Once one friend starts sharing, it sets the space for everyone else to do so as well."

_____

Tyler Kingkade is a senior editor and reporter at The Huffington Post, and is based in New York. You can contact him at tyler.kingkade@huffingtonpost.com, or on Twitter: @tylerkingkade.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

New York actor-singer Joshua Warr is offering a sneak peek at his upcoming cabaret show with a spirited cover of Jason Mraz's hit, "I Won't Give Up."

It's a fitting choice, because Warr says the song became a personal anthem during his split from a longtime boyfriend that, in turn, inspired him to write "Love & Warr," which plays New York nightspot 54 Below on Aug. 20. 

"I was fighting so hard for someone who wasn't fighting for me, at all. I had to wake myself up and change the way I was thinking," Warr, whose acting credits include "The Americans," "Law & Order: SVU" and "Hunting Season," told The Huffington Post. Mraz's lyrics, he said, "became a promise to myself that, no matter what, I remember the little boy with the big dreams and the big heart, and nothing is going to stop me trying to accomplish what I've set out to do with this life. And certainly no one, too."

But quiet musical moments such as these are just one aspect of "Love & Warr," which debuted at 54 Below in April. Warr bills the show as a "thrilling, fun, bold, emotional roller coaster ride," featuring a set that runs the gamut from 1960s girl-group pop to Broadway show tunes. Back once again for the return installment is Warr's drag persona Stormy Weatherz, whom he jokingly describes as his "inseperably close friend and confidante."

The April performance of "Love & Warr" featured Warr and Weatherz "facing off" in a spirited rendition of the classic Frank and Nancy Sinatra hit, "Somethin' Stupid," with the help of modern technology. If the name sounds familiar, it's because Warr was featured in a side-by-side photo shoot with Stormy Weatherz in New York photographer Leland Bobbé's stunning "Half Drag" series, which was seen on HuffPost Gay Voices in 2012. 

"She's melting everyone's heart," Warr quipped. 

As he awaits news of whether or not a third season of "Hunting Season" will be produced, Warr is slated to direct a new short play, "Haywire," for the Manhattan Repertory Theatre's fall short play festival.

"Other than that, I'm still waiting for a phone call from Ryan Murphy," he joked. "I think he might have misplaced my manager's phone number."

More on HuffPost: 

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Can someone just sound the bell on the casting for "Captain Marvel"?

In a recent Reddit AMA, MMA fighter Ronda Rousey said she'd like to "vie for Miss Marvel" when asked which superhero she would want to play. And those hoping it actually happens don't need to wait until the movie comes out in 2018 to get a look at Rousey donning her superhero uniform.

After posting the comment, Rousey says she received plenty of "badass" Ms. Marvel/Captain Marvel pictures, and she shared some of her favorites on Instagram:

So could Rousey actually play Captain Marvel in the upcoming film? Other actresses, including Emily Blunt, have already been rumored to be talking with Marvel about the role, but, given Rousey's track record and popularity, it'd probably be silly to start counting her out.

The UFC bantamweight champion has already showed off her acting chops in a number of movies including "Furious 7" and "Expendables 3." Also, her knockout of Bethe Correia in 34 seconds makes it seem like she'd be able to beat down bad guys a lot quicker than the extra-long movies Marvel keeps sending out. 

Whether she gets the role or not, fanboys and girls should probably just remember to keep the fighter's own advice in mind: 

Also on HuffPost:

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

"Our house was always a little messy and chaotic," artist Stephanie Calvert explained. "Both my parents worked full time, and it was common to see scattered toys and art projects. It wasn't until we moved to the schoolhouse that I really noticed how much stuff we had started collecting."

"Messy" and "chaotic" are the polite enough terms we often attach to homes of obsessive collectors. And, more drastically, to the living spaces of individuals prone to hoarding. Calvert's parents fit not-so-neatly into one or both of these categories, having hoarded belongings in a refurbished schoolhouse in Colorado since the artist was 11 years old. 

"I didn't know what the term 'hoarding' meant, much less understand the reasons why people hoard," she said in an email exchange with The Huffington Post, recounting how, after two deaths in the family, her mother began taking in truckloads of stuff from loved ones' estates, holding onto their objects as a way of keeping those people alive. "I didn't have the desire or the language to talk to people about it, so I internalized a lot. I felt like a freak."

It's only recently -- years after Calvert lived in her family's isolated home without traditional plumbing, comprehensive electricity or garbage pick-up services -- that she began transforming the remnants of her childhood living with hoarders into a sculptural project, dubbed "Shame to Pride."

Calvert returned to the Colorado town of Thatcher last year, shortly after her mother suffered brain damage from a bicycle accident. By then, her parents had relocated to the nearby town of Trinidad, but Calvert found herself traveling back and forth from the old schoolhouse to her mother's side, exploring the artifacts of a past she thought she'd left behind. 

"It was an emotional trip to begin with," she recounted. "The doctors told us [my mother] was probably going to die. I was confronted with a lot of emotions and thoughts -- some of them triggered by the accident, but many of them surfacing after decades. It was a revelation to me that I was still holding onto a lot of negative emotions and that I have a limited time on this earth with even less time with my family."

In an effort to deal with unresolved aspects of her history, and "come to a place of peace," she embarked upon a two-month stay at the schoolhouse. Working there without cell phone or Internet access, she turned the detritus of her past into stunning multimedia tributes, from works on paper to three-dimensional installations. "I was overdue to explore this part of my life, and I realized making art from the objects there would be a powerful transformational rite," she said. "I was also excited by the idea of living in the schoolhouse and using the space as my parents intended -- as an artist’s retreat."

Her father, she notes, has been incredibly supportive of the project. While Calvert has helped her dad take care of her mom's everyday health needs, he has helped Calvert bring supplies out of the house and clear space for her to work. He's even shared her project and campaign with people. "It seems like he is in a place now where he is ready to let go of some of these physical objects as well as the past, and he acknowledges that it was a challenging environment for us kids," she said. "Taking care of my mom is a full-time job that requires a lot of mental and emotional strength, and I see my dad wanting to make his life easier by having less stuff to think about."

It's harder to say how Calvert's mother is reacting to the project, largely because the damage to her brain has affected the way she processes memories. "She often thinks it's a different year or place and isn’t grounded in reality," Calvert explained. "But the times when my dad or I explain what I'm doing, she says she’s glad someone is using the stuff. She has always told me that she’s proud of me and that she thinks I'm talented and should pursue making art if it brings me joy."

Calvert is still unsure of whether her mother would have considered herself to be a hoarder.

Calvert's newly created objects are collage-like in their appearance, crafted from broken ornaments and old mirrors, scraps of wood and old papers. One work is titled "1000 Prayers For My Mother," made from gold, orange and white fabric strips, while another bears the name "Value in Decay." An Indiegogo campaign outlines Calvert's hopes to present the diverse array of art in a solo show in her new home, New York City.

On the role art can play helping individuals cope with trauma, she concluded:

"Well, everyone’s artistic process is different, but art has been invaluable for me as a healing tool ... Art gives us a space to explore and forge news ways of thinking. If you allow yourself to work creatively with a difficult past, it not only gives you a different perspective on that past, but can also create peace, acceptance and love where it didn’t seem possible before."

See a collection of Stephanie Calvert's "Shame to Pride" project here:

Also on HuffPost:

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

What goes together better than ice cream, sunshine and neighborhood camaraderie? Ice cream, sunshine, neighborhood camaraderie and public art, that's what.

Thanks to Mike Perry -- the illustrator extraordinaire responsible for the "Broad City" intro graphics we've all come to know and love -- public art is getting the neighborhood treatment in New York City.

The artist, working with Pacific Park Arts, recently commissioned the creation of 10 murals near the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Prospect Heights and Crown Heights, where Perry's studio is located. Painted in one marathon session along Dean Street (between Vanderbilt and Carlton) this past weekend, the vibrant murals brought not only crowds of illustrators and street artists but a whole block party's worth of onlookers, vendors and community organizers.

Muralists included artists Hisham Akira Bharoocha, Morgan Blair, Josh Cochran, Thomas Colligan, Archie Lee Coates, Jennifer Maravillas, Eddie Perrote, Naomi Reis, Edward Ubiera and Mike Perry himself. Together, their works take over the 820-foot fence, behind which the development Pacific Park is set to take form. Along with the artists, retailers and organizers flocked to hand out free ice cream, host a fitness clinic, DJ a few sets, conduct a demo at Brooklyn Metal Works, sample a Double Dutch jump rope team's talents, enroll volunteers in a bike crime prevention registry, among many, many other things.

Pacific Park has been dubbed "Brooklyn's newest neighborhood," consisting of 15 soon-to-be-built buildings destined to include affordable homes and condos, open space, retail, restaurants, hotel accommodations, a public school, day care facilities, a senior center and a health care center. It sits adjacent to Barclays Center, the home of the Brooklyn Nets, and -- did we mention? -- famed architect Frank Gehry oversaw the entire development plan. 

Crown Heights, an ever-changing neighborhood with increasing rents, plays home to what many have characterized as fast-paced gentrification. The development of Pacific Park will no doubt be another important topic of discussion for the long term middle- and low-income borough residents who live in and around the new Brooklyn hotspots. Whether or not the structures stand to be truly affordable (at market-rate rental) will undoubtedly be up for debate.

For artists now residing in or around Prospect Heights or Crown Heights though, the murals outside of Pacific Park are meant to signify the surge of creativity happening near Dean Street, the home of several studios and workshops like Brooklyn Art Hive. “Brooklyn’s artists have inspired legions of followers with their singular, relentless commitment to innovation and creative integrity,” Perry explained in a press statement. “This project will both inspire and inform artists, art lovers, Brooklyn-philes and pop culture enthusiasts of all stripes.”

At the festivities on Saturday, Perry explained that the murals are set to be on view for the three years of Pacific Park construction. At the end of their display, Perry guesses he and the artists will take a bandsaw and distribute the fence pieces amongst themselves, maybe fans too. Until then, the colorful artworks are up for passersby to ogle -- hopefully reminding us all that public canvases can do a lot more than brighten a wall or narrow street. They too can spark a conversation about innovation -- both in art and in the community.

Take a look at photos of the murals and party below:

Also on HuffPost:

For a constant stream of entertainment news and discussion, follow HuffPost Entertainment on Viber.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

They say the eyes are the window to the soul. These eyes are like a gateway to another dimension. 

Canadian artist Alex Garant uses patterns, duplication of elements, symmetry and image superposition as key elements of her imagery. In her latest series of work, "Queen of Double Eyes," she makes it purposefully difficult to home in on the face of each central figure.

But therein lies the journey.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

The ancient city of Norcia in central Italy is known for its wild boar sausages and black truffles, but now it’s known for something else: Its singing monks.

“We sing the praises of God nine times a day. So if you add all that up, it’s probably five hours every day, rain or shine, 365 days a year,” said Cassian Folsom, the American-born priest who leads St. Benedict’s Monastery in Norcia.

People no longer need to travel to this birthplace of St. Benedict to hear the monks, because their chants and hymns are on a CD that’s topped the Billboard charts this summer in classical, traditional music.

“There’s a great hunger and thirst that people have, even non-believers, for something or other which they generally call spirituality,” said Folsom, 63. “If the CD can respond to that need, then we’d be very pleased.”

Across the USA, such monastic music is experiencing a renaissance. The Benedictine Sisters of Mary Queen of Apostles from Gower, Mo., topped the Billboard charts three times in the past two years with their recordings. The Dominican Sisters of Mary from Ann Arbor, Mich., released a CD. And an increasing number are celebrating milestones with CDs, such as Mount St. Scholastica Monastery and St. Benedict’s Abbey, both in Atchison, Kan., for their 150th anniversaries.

The gentle tones of a Gregorian chant — and the many voices singing as one — creates a calming, ethereal quality that at its core is not a performance — it is prayer.

“You have to believe in what you’re singing,” said Folsom, who studied voice at Indiana University when he felt the call to life in a monastery.

The monks’ CD, Benedicta, is music based on Scripture, especially Psalms and the life of the Virgin Mary, plus passages from the 1,500-year-old guide for monastic living, The Rule of St. Benedict.

“Some of these are very, very dear to us and very familiar prayers,” said Basil Nixen, 33, an Arizona-born priest and choirmaster of the monastery. “I simply hope that the beauty, the order and the peace of the music will lead all who listen to it to seek the source of that peace.”

Christopher Alder, a Grammy-winning producer from England, traveled to Norcia to oversee the recording sessions.

“The chant that we record means something to them,” Alder said. “You can hear that in the sincerity of their singing. It does have something in the best sense that’s hypnotic, or meditative. It has something eternal to it.”

Although Norcia is a centuries-old city nestled beneath the mountains of Umbria, no monks had lived there for nearly 200 years — until they moved back 15 years ago.

In the early 1800s, the monks were evicted under Napoleonic laws in a wave of anti-clericalism. About 15 years ago, nearly everyone in the city — about 5,000 people — signed petitions asking the global leader of the Benedictines to bring them back.

Of the monastery’s 17 monks, 12 are American.

“The townspeople, they look to the monks if they have problems, if they want to talk to somebody about their family life,” Folsom explained. “To have the monks back after almost 200 years helps to complete the identity of the town.”

The monks also have to be self-supporting, so when they aren’t praying or singing, they brew beer — called “Birra Nursia,” the Latin name for the city.

They learned brewing secrets from Belgium’s Trappist monks, who are famous for their ales. A renovated garage below the monastery serves as a brew hall and the basement as a bottling room. Five monks are assigned to a “brewing team,” but all the monks work shifts at bottling time.

Birra Nursia was served at the papal conclave in 2013 that elected Pope Francis. And yes, the Norcia monks occasionally toss back a few cold ones.

The beer is more of a “drawing card for evangelization” than the music, Folsom admitted.

“Even if people are not churchgoers, everybody likes to drink beer,” he said. “So they come to the monastery for the beer and pretty soon they start talking about other things, other more important things.”

That matters to Folsom. The monk was recently diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer, multiple myeloma, which he first battled in 2006 and thought he had beaten. It’s currently in remission again, but he has been told it could return and may be fatal the next time.

“As anybody who is diagnosed with cancer, it changes your life,” he said. “I think it’s given me greater patience, greater tolerance.”

His diagnosis has also brought him closer to the people of Norcia.

“Anyone nowadays who gets diagnosed comes to me, because there is an immediate kind of bond,” Folsom said. “So what it has done, aside from the acceptance of death, is makes me more compassionate to those who suffer similar things.”

Also on HuffPost:

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Fun. Goofy. Gorgeous.

These are just a few words you might use to describe Cara Delevingne, the model-turned-actress who's loved for constantly poking fun at herself and the industry that is often accused of taking itself too seriously. 

But Delevingne, who recently left modeling to pursue an acting career, has a much more complex story than just rubbing elbows with A-listers and being cheeky on social media. In a new interview with The Times, the 23-year-old opened up about the darker side of both her career and childhood. 

Of her earlier modeling days, Delevingne explained she was pushing herself too hard. "I was working too much, I didn’t say no to anything, and that is obviously my own fault, but … people should have stopped me at some point," she said.  

Being the child of an addict had its own difficult consequences, including a battle with depression in her teens. “I was hit with a massive wave of depression and anxiety and self-hatred, where the feelings were so painful that I would slam my head against a tree to try to knock myself out,” she said. 

Now, after making the decision to switch careers and focus on the things that are important to her, Delevingne has a more hopeful tone. "I have regained respect for myself, in a weird way, and on a movie set is where I feel like I belong. If that makes any sense," she said. 

Also on HuffPost Style:

Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Wearing your (feminist) heart on your sleeve never looked so good.

From riot grrrrls to feminist killjoys, girl power tattoos are a badass way to show off your fight for gender equality and the values or ideas that carry a special meaning. To celebrate feminist body art (or give you some ideas for your next ink), we rounded up 15 awesome feminist tattoos.

Scroll below to see 15 of our favorite feminist tattoos.

Also on HuffPost: 

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.