Relationships become more challenging to balance with our hectic day-to-day lives as we age. One of the hardest relationships to maintain can be friendships. Between the hustle and bustle of keeping a job and other essential adult tasks, it’s easy for social calendars to fall by the wayside when life is too much to handle.

Although life happens to all of us, some loyal people show up for their friends, no matter what they have going on.

There’s the friend that attends every birthday party, baby shower, divorce party, you name it. And then there are the friends who seem to find something else to do when it’s time to celebrate their pals’ wins.

Finding out that most of your friends are the ones who can never celebrate with you is undoubtedly a punch to the ego. One woman on TikTok realized she probably should rethink her friend group after her celebratory dinner left her heartbroken.

Nearly everyone hosting an event for themselves has at least some fear that no one will show up to their party. There wouldn’t be TV or movie scenes about the horror happening if it wasn’t a valid concern for most of us. However, in many cases, the fear doesn’t come to fruition, and the people invited to the event show up to support their friend or loved one. Unfortunately, that wasn’t TikTok user Big Day’s (@dar.kiee) fortune.

In December 2023, Day planned a dinner at a Mexican restaurant to celebrate getting a new job. She said in her TikTok that she invited 12 of her “close friends” to the dinner and had even brought some balloons to make the table more festive.

The Gist:

• Andrew Luck retired from the NFL at just 29 years old, and explained at the time that he no longer enjoyed football.
• Andrew elaborated on that answer in 2022, saying that he didn’t like the person he became when he was focused on football, and that repeated injuries had taken a toll on his body.

After just seven seasons as an NFL quarterback, Andrew Luck shocked the world when he announced that he was retiring at just 29 years old in 2019. Andrew had already broken some franchise records for the Indianapolis Colts, and he had been to four Pro Bowls as well. He had had plenty of success, and was good enough that some have wondered whether he would make a comeback.

Ultimately, though, it seems that Andrew is retired for good. Even years later, though, there are still plenty of people who wonder what Andrew’s exact reasons were.

Andrew announced his retirement ahead of the 2019 season, and at the time, he cited his history of injuries as the primary reason for his decision.

“I’ve been stuck in this process. I haven’t been able to live the life I want to live,” he said at the time. “It’s taken the joy out of this game. The only way forward for me is to remove myself from football. This is not an easy decision. It’s the hardest decision of my life. But it is the right decision for me.”

In an interview with ESPN from 2022, Andrew went into more detail about his decision, explaining that he went to extremes during his time in the league in part so that he felt like he had some control over the outcome. That meant getting involved with offensive schemes and becoming a sort of shadow coach for the team, and also simplifying his life so much that all he had was a flip phone.

“To play quarterback, you’re not allowed to worry about anything except the task at hand,” he explained. “And that seeps into other areas of life. It’s not the healthiest way to live.”

After injuring his shoulder in 2015, Andrew also explained that he played several seasons with the injury, even when both he and the Colts owner were assuring the public that he was perfectly healthy and ready to play.

Andrew added that his focus on recovery and football alienated him from his wife.

“There were some things that when I looked in the mirror, I did not like about myself,” he said. “I was self-absorbed, withdrawn, in pain, and feeling pressure.”

When Andrew injured his ankle in 2018 and began withdrawing into himself again, he realized that he didn’t actually like playing football anymore.

Ultimately, Andrew said that he went to therapy and learned that he may never have perfect clarity on every aspect of his life. “I doubt I will ever find the answers,” he said. “All of them. Or any answers.”

In the years since his retirement, Andrew has surfaced occasionally, and it seems like he’s much happier than he was while he was playing.

The Gist

• Rumors circulated online in November 2023 that Bård Ylvisåker from the duo Ylvis — of “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” viral fame — passed away.
• Folks who saw a VGTV televised “funeral” for the singer, which shows him laying down in a casket, led many to believe he was dead.
• Singer Maria Mena led a choir in a slowed-down and sad performance of the viral hit track.
• Bård is not dead, however, and the video was just indeed a staged performance.

The phenomenon of viral one-hit wonders from artists who seemingly come out of nowhere and gain massive popularity on the internet are an interesting phenomenon: for a few weeks (or months, even), these tracks are seemingly everywhere. About a year or two later, playing the track at a party seems like an insult, until the appropriate “throwback” threshold has been reached.

Ylvis (a comedy duo composed of brothers Bård and Vegard Ylvisåker) is one such artist, but fans became worried in November 2023 that Bård may’ve passed away. But what really happened? And what has Ylvis been up to in the years since their hit 2013 track?

And while neither Mena or any of the other singers ever once cracks a smile throughout the performance, the same can’t be said for the folks who were in attendance for the artist’s funeral.

Which probably means one of the following:

• (A) A few people at the funeral who were happy to see the singer dead
• (B) A testament to how much of a bop “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?) is
• (C) Norwegians either have strange funeral customs or a sick sense of humor
• (D) The funeral was staged, Bård is still alive, and the video was a bit of dark humor in action

Of course one could add to the final aforementioned multiple choice selection that Ylvis could be making a wider statement on the life cycle of viral one-hit wonder tracks in general.

Bård is indeed still among the living; after the performance, he even stood up, exited the coffin, and conducted an interview afterward.

While it’s difficult to imagine that anyone would see the video and so many of the laughing folks watching and recording the performance, and think that Bård legitimately died, there are some images that could’ve been lifted from the video that would lead folks to think he actually passed away.

And it wouldn’t be just pictures of him in his coffin that could convince folks he died; Marina Mena shared some photos in a multi-picture Instagram upload that shows just how far the video production went to replicate the look and feel of a legitimate funeral.

In her post, she features a snapshot of a memoriam pamphlet showing Bård’s face along with his birth and fake death year and in another photo she’s holding up the same exact image on a funeral portrait style painting.

Again, however, the jovial nature of the other pictures in the post don’t exactly scream “rest in peace.”

After their 2013 mega-hit, the brothers continued to put out music, releasing their first album in 2014. They also continued to appear on Norwegian TV (where they first grew to fame) and even released a documentary series in 2018 that took stories from Norwegian news and turned them into musicals. And in 2022, they began making content for VGTV.

The guys also post a slew of funny social media posts, interspersed with clips of musical performances, and even some extended love for the track that was a global phenomenon. A great example would be the somber instrumental version of “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” set to this brilliant clip of a lost McDonald’s cheeseburger’s globe-trotting journey back home to their McFamily.