Even as a young boy who loved baseball, I never had the urge to mob or harass my favorite players when opportunities presented themselves to meet one of them. It always felt awkward and I always felt bad for the besieged celebrity in question.

I know—why feel bad for people who are paid millions to play a kids game, right? Well, I am not saying that I lost sleep over it, but it has always made me feel uncomfortable to watch such spectacle. And that’s not how I wanted the (perhaps) only meeting with someone I admired to play out.

When I was about ten years old, my father brought me with him to a charity event that I assumed was some form of twisted punishment (as I was compelled to wear a suit and clip-on tie). What he didn’t tell me was that #3 on my list…

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Hilary Duff, who recently filed for divorce, is sounding a cynical note about marriage.

“I don’t want to sound bitter because I’m definitely not,” Duff told Cosmopolitan, “but I don’t know if people are meant to be together forever.”

“Things happen over a long relationship that you can’t always fight,” she elaborated. “A marriage of 20 years, the accomplishment of that must feel really great, but there are also huge sacrifices. I just always want to fight for happiness.”

Duff, who separated from her husband Mike Comrie last year, married when she was only 22. It was a decision that solidified how Duff, who rose to fame in the Disney channel series Lizzie McGuire, wasn’t the typical former child star. She wasn’t a crazy party girl, and she never seemed to feel she had to appear risqué to emphasize she wasn’t a child anymore.

Which…

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When it comes to box-office success, Will Smith has most definitely taken it on the chin in recent years. The Golden Boy of Summer Blockbusters, the former Academy Award nominee, and (most importantly) the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has made some odd career and life choices as of late, including the inexcusable partnership with the worst living director in the known universe – M. Night Shyamalan – on 2013’s pitiful After Earth.

Shame on you, Big Willie!

But I love Will Smith. I really do. I enjoy and celebrate his entire catalog (After Earth, excluded). I want him to succeed, even if his kids seem a bit weird and he went to Burning Man last year riding a Segway, donning a gas mask.

My penchant for the Fresh Prince is why I was so nervous as I headed to the theater to see Smith’s latest endeavor, the heist-and-caper flick Focus. Not only…

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Silly me. No sooner did I write an article telling people not to take babies to fashion shows, then Dolce & Gabbana goes and makes its entire spring collection about babies at fashion shows. Though, whereas Kim and Kayne’s screaming toddler writhing in the front row was unfortunate, the D&G “Viva la Mamma” collection is amazing. Here are five reasons to love it: Stylish pregnant ladies are always a good thing. The image of Italian model, Bianca Balti, strutting her bump in black heels, draped in a rose-colored sheath, is a blessed alternative to the usual frumpy images of pregnant moms we get from Hollywood. Women need to feel inspired by pregnant women. The same goes for stylish moms. Nothing pains me more than women talking about trading out glamour for puke-covered rags from the thrift shop once they have kids. It doesn’t need to be that way. It also doesn’t need to be Dolce…

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Remember when, in his hit single Kiss, Prince sang, “women not girls rule my world,” and then told women to “act your age, not your shoe size”? That was a rare gem of wisdom from Prince, and it’s the kind of gem that seems lost on many of today’s young celebrity starlets.

Pop culture is currently witnessing a very strange trend—many young women, some barely old enough to drink, are right now trying really, really hard to look even younger. 20-somethings are trying to look like teenagers, and teenagers are trying to look like little girls.

Pop culture is having a very uncomfortable Lolita moment.

Take singer Selena Gomez, who just posed topless for V magazine but appears eerily and disturbingly childlike. Her dollish make-up, the little bow in her girlish ringlets, and her wide-eyed, innocent gaze make the 22-year-old look barely 12. She doesn’t have pigtails…

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“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”— Lao Tzu

Fashion Police veterans Giuliana Rancic and Kelly Osbourne were engaged in crossfire last week when Rancic disparaged Zendaya Coleman for her choice in hairstyle—worn in traditionally African style “locks”—at the Oscars. Despite Osbourne’s plea to spare her friend from Rancic’s casual insult during the taping, the comment was approved by the show’s producers and aired without much reflection. Rancic joked that Coleman’s locks probably smelled like “patchouli oil” or “weed,” prompting Coleman to issue a stern public denouncement of the remarks on Instagram.

A photo posted by Zendaya (@zendaya) on Feb 23, 2015 at 8:20pm PST

 More troubling were…

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There was a time, before college became accessible to all and the computer revolution transformed our economy, when all American schoolboys were required to take shop class (the girls took home ec.). But today, “shop class is dead,” declares Forbes, “and so are the potential tradespeople that would be born out of that early exposure to a tool or machine.” One celebrity understands how far-reaching is the impact of that loss, and he has undertaken to revive shop class and the spirit of self-reliance that it fostered.

Actor John Ratzenberger may not be a household name, but as Cliff Clavin, the trivia buff mailman and Norm’s bar buddy on the long-running Cheers, he was a still-familiar face on one of the most-loved sitcoms in television history. That was just one role in Ratzenberger’s very lengthy acting résumé that more recently includes voiceover work in literally every Pixar animated film to…

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Without a doubt, 2014 was the Year of Chris Pratt. The Parks and Recreation star took the well-earned opportunities Hollywood presented him and hit each and every one out of the proverbial ballpark.

There was his vocal performance as the lead in The Lego Movie. There was his turn as a space hero in the memorable summer blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy. He was even a GQ Man of the Year. He kept up his goofy role as Andy Dwyer in Parks, even after other celebrities of his stature would have left and never looked back.  And this fall we were treated to the exciting new trailers for Jurassic World, featuring a trained-pack-of-velociraptors-wielding Pratt, set to drop later this year.

But for every professional notch in his increasingly formidable belt, there seems to be a personal story or anecdote that causes the average consumer of pop-culture to wonder if Chris Pratt…

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The hoopla surrounding Fifty Shades of Grey has brought BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Dominance, Submission, Sadism and Masochism) out of the shadows and into mainstream conversation. Do we like what we see?

We’re subtly – and not so subtly – reminded at every turn that everyone is entitled to her own sexual choices. We are expected to be cultural libertarians, withholding judgment about others’ sexual appetites. It’s one thing to say we shouldn’t waste public resources policing every adult who buys handcuffs for home use — absolutely — but what about impressionable teenagers?

What happens when someone’s choice, or experimentation, is harmful? Must parents and other concerned adults remain silent? We live in a nation

where one in five women will be raped within their lifetime, according to the CDC; where nearly 40 percent of those rapes will happen to women aged 18 to 24; and where troubling evidence of casual…

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The results are in for our annual Celebrities Behaving Well Award! It was a tight race among Angelina Jolie, Kevin Durant, Pope Francis, Taylor Swift, and Kate Middleton—but the winning celebrity, according to a poll of our readers, is . . . . Pope Francis!

We praised Pope Francis a few months ago here for a major move he made in the marital arena. Back in the fall, he officiated over the wedding ceremonies of 20 couples, including a woman with a child out of wedlock, a divorced man, and numerous cohabitating couples. The love and grace the Pope showered on these couples was refreshing to see.

Coming in second in our competition, by a margin of a few votes, was Kevin Durant for beautifully thanking his mother during his NBA MVP award acceptance speech.

Each year, Acculturated donates a cash prize to the charity of the winning celebrity’s choice.  This year, we will…

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