當地時間25日，有人在美國請願網站change.org上發起了“更改美國國旗和國歌”的請願。短短兩天內，該請願便獲得一百萬多網民的支持。
現行版本的美國國旗自1960年沿用至今，旗上13個交替的紅白條紋代表了北美最初的13個殖民地，藍底上的50個白星則代表了50個州。請願發起人表示，這個國旗已經過時了，不僅沒有傳遞正能量，而且不好看。為聲援“黑人的命也是命”運動（Black Lives Matter），國旗左上角原本藍色的底色被修改成黑色；而像徵50個州的白色星星則被改為卡通人物曼尼·赫夫利（Manny Helffley），該形象來自美國喜劇作品《小屁孩日記》（Diary of a Wimpy Kid）；星條旗的紅色橫條被改成黃色，因為黃色象徵喜悅、樂觀、智慧、正能量等等。
請願還提出，既然國旗都黑黃相間了，那國歌也要與之匹配，呼籲把美國國歌改成美國說唱歌手維茲·卡利法（Wiz Khalifa）的《黑與黃》（Black and Yellow） 。
Kurt Cobain’s Nirvana released just three full-length studio albums from 1989 through 1993, but their music is still inspiring audiences today.
That influence is sure to reach even greater heights when HBO airs its Cobain doc “Montage of Heck” on May 4.
So, how has Nirvana maintained its importance more than 20 years after Cobain’s passing in ’94?Wiz Khalifa might have the answer. As he put it, Cobain’s work continues to inspire because it’s simply timeless.
“I’m only 27 so when they were poppin’, I was really, really young,” Khalifa told MTV News. “But him as a writer, how he put his stuff together, it reaches so many people and so many ages. It’s just timeless.”
Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump agrees, but notes that he didn’t fully appreciate Cobain’s greatness until it was almost too late.
“In the era, I remember being like, ‘Eh, I don’t like Nirvana. I don’t like this. This isn’t for me,’” Stump recalled. “Toward the end, I started to realize, this is awesome. I was one of those jerk-little kids that was like, ‘Eh. Whatever’s popular, I don’t like that.’”
“I realized almost too late that that was exactly what Kurt was into,” he continued. “He was like, ‘No, I don’t want us to be this big popular band.’ They came to kill hair metal. He was like the ultimate anti-rock star.”
more: Here’s Why Kurt Cobain Isn’t That Different From Your Dad
Over time, Stump saw himself in Cobain because of that “anti-rock star” quality.
“That related to me a lot, and kind of informed a lot,” he said. “It’s hard to relate to musicians who act like gods. You know? It’s way different when they’re real people and you know that and that kind of comes through. And then, they’re kind of amazing in their own way. He’s like the ultimate of that hyper-relatable [star].”
Rock fans weren’t the only ones who could relate to Cobain. DJ Drama also found himself in awe when he first heard Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
“[It] was like nothing I had ever heard before,” he said. “I remember it was like the coming of Nirvana was the transition from heavy metal to grunge.
more: Frances Bean’s Favorite Part Was The End: Everything We Learned From The Director Of Kurt Cobain’s Doc
“When you think about the ‘90s, Kurt Cobain is one of those symbols just as [Tupac Shakur] is,” Drama, who’s joining Wiz and Fall Out Boy in their “Boys of Zummer Tour” this June, added. “So outspoken. And just through the music, even the harmonies of Nirvana and his song patterns touched everybody. It crossed genres in so many ways.”
That influence remained strong even after Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994.
“I remember going to school in high school the day after he passed away,” Pete Wentz said. “There were kids who had Ks written on their hands. I remember where I was. Kurt and Nirvana was one of those few moments in music that we got live through where everything was different after Nirvana.”
