Stassie Karanikolaou Regrets Her BBL, Man Runs Cheese Curd Marathon & This WNBA Drama Is Wild

I usually sleep on airplanes.

Something about the dim lights, the steady hum of the jet engine and the exhaustion of waking up at 3:30 a.m. to catch my Uber just lulls me right to sleep. And being blessed with a tiny stature means I can curl up all snuggly in my window seat without any concern for legroom. So, yeah, I can catch a nice nap in the friendly skies.

But not today, friends, not today.

It's currently 6:17 a.m. Central Daylight Time, and I'm certain I share an aircraft with the spawn of Satan himself.

I try not to gripe about babies crying on planes. I know traveling with little ones is stressful, and I have nothing but compassion for parents who are forced to deal with meltdowns at 30,000 feet.

But this kid is no baby. He's at least 4 years old, maybe 5. He is standing up in his aisle seat and screaming at the top of his lungs. The more his mom tries to calm him, the louder he gets. The flight attendant has stopped at least a half a dozen times, asking him to please sit down.

And he's not crying, he's just… yelling and flailing, as if he's doing some hillbilly version of a Maori Haka dance.

Everyone on this plane is daydreaming about throwing this kid out of the emergency exit. But since we can't do that, they're all just staring at their screens, counting down the minutes on the flight tracker. And I'm starting on Nightcaps — two hours ahead of my scheduled shift.

Because that's how dedicated I am to y'all. On the bright side, though, I have a whole row to myself.

Gulf Of America, Here I Come!

I suppose one hour and 18 minutes of the most annoying noise I've ever heard in my life (except for that Beyoncé country album) is a small price to pay for a week at the beach. 

My mom called me last month and said, "Hey, Tabitha (family friend) and I got a room at Margaritaville in Fort Myers. Already paid for. Want to come?"

Say less, mama.

So I left my husband and dog in Tennessee, and I'm off to nibble on sponge cake or whatever else the spirit of Jimmy Buffett inspires me to do for the rest of the week. If, that is, I don't have to spend too much time battling this alleged seaweed monster that is supposedly headed straight for the Florida Coast.

Now, if you've been reading Nightcaps for a long time, you may recall me talking some mad shit about the Fort Myers Beach Margaritaville about six or seven months ago. And I stand by that shit talk.

It's not that I have anything against Buffett or margaritas or boat drinks or even cheeseburgers. I love all of those things. But I grew up going to FMB, and it was one of the last remaining bastions of Old Florida. The locals fought for decades to keep high-rise condos, chain restaurants and corporate mega resorts off the island. Because of that effort, the Fort Myers Beach I had at 30 years old was the same one I had at 3 years old. It was my little nostalgic paradise, perfectly preserved in time.

That is, until Hurricane Ian wiped it all out in 2022. The storm took down all of our favorite restaurants, the old beach bar where we'd listen to music and drink cheap bottled beer every night, the shops and even the little Silver Sands motel where we always stayed — leveled by the hurricane.

So here came Margaritaville with all its millions of dollars, bought up all the land from the business owners who lost everything and built a gigantic resort, complete with wildly overpriced drinks and a fee to use the swimming pool.

Honestly, it feels a little blasphemous staying there. But you can't stop "progress," they say. And if you can't beat ‘em, join ’em.

So I'll enjoy my time at the evil corporate monstrosity this week. But I'll pour one out in honor of the Silver Sands.

(Except not literally, because those drinks are expensive.)

I Am Living For This WNBA Drama

Now that I've dragged you — against your will — up and down memory lane with me, allow me to do it one more time.

In 2009, between my sophomore and junior year of college, I accepted my very first internship. It was in the media relations department for the Indiana Fever. Back then, no one cared about the WNBA. Gainbridge Fieldhouse (then, Bankers Life) was nearly empty for every home game, save for a couple dozen lesbians with season tickets. The rest of the seats were filled with summer camps, church groups and youth sports leagues, who probably got the tickets for $12 and a bag of Skittles.

We practically had to beg media outlets to cover us.

So if you had told me back then that the Indiana Fever would be the biggest story in sports, that the team's star player would be inadvertently at the center of a race war and that grown men would be hurling insults at each other's wives on national television over a routine take foul, I'd think you were on drugs.

But here we are.

There are wild takes flying from every direction. Team Angel? Team Caitlin? I'm just Team Drama, baby, my timeline is pure cinema right now.

I know this discourse is toxic. And maybe it's bad for the WNBA and women's sports in general. On the other hand, at least people are talking about the WNBA for the first time ever? And more than just a handful of lesbians are buying tickets.

Maybe all publicity really is good publicity?

Stassie Karanikolaou Regrets Her BBL

It's pretty much expected that most (if not all) celebrities have had some sort of plastic surgery done — their boobs, their face, their butt, their tummies, whatever. Many try to deny it, but I always appreciate the ones who are honest about it.

YouTuber (and Kylie Jenner's best friend) Stassie Karanikolaou admitted on her new podcast, Better Half, that she has breast implants and got a BBL when she was younger. If you're unfamiliar with the procedure, that's when they transfer fat from another part of your body to your butt.

Now, though, she thinks it should be a law that you can't get cosmetic surgery until you're 25 — when your frontal lobe is fully developed. (Someone please tell the gender ideology cult about this.) She wants her BBL gone.

"It is something that I regret and that I've been actively trying to fix for so long," Stassie said. "I literally have another surgery like in a few weeks to try and reduce the size of it even more."

Stassie said she felt pressured to get the surgery and was influenced by a "trend." 

She was probably also influenced by her best friend Kylie, whose whole family might single-handedly be keeping the cosmetic surgery industry alive.

Gotta hand it to the surgeon, though. He/she does great work.

The Jenners are vacationing in Turks and Caicos right now, by the way. Probably staying somewhere much more expensive than Margaritaville.

Performance-Enhancing Cheese Curds

In the most Wisconsin story of all time, a man named Clay (not Travis) ran an entire marathon while eating cheese curds and concrete mixers from Culver's. There are very few instances where fried cheese would not make a situation more enjoyable, but I believe running 26.2 miles is one of them.

Clay runs a TikTok and YouTube account called Far Fetched Fitness, where he is apparently so bored with insanely taxing feats of physical endurance that he purposely makes them suck even more.

What a problem to have.

In another video, Clay ran a 50K ultra-marathon. That sounds awful enough on its own. But Clay ran the whole thing… in a roundabout.

Just round and round and round a traffic circle for 31.1 miles. And you thought the treadmill was boring.

It's truly incredible how some people choose to use their God-given gift of free will.

Glass Smartphone Has Internet Baffled

A video went viral last week of a woman standing in line at a boba tea shop holding what appears to be a clear piece of acrylic glass in place of a smartphone.

This video quickly racked up 50 million views and had the internet buzzing. Is this woman from the future? Is there something on that glass that we can't see? Is this just a stupid hoax to garner TikTok clout?!

Probably the last one. In any event, the woman in question (Cat) hopped on TikTok to clear things up for us.

It is, in fact, just an iPhone-shaped piece of clear glass. Cat calls it a "metaphone" — something a friend of hers invented to help break her smartphone addiction.

"He told me what he wanted to test is if we’re all so addicted to our phones, then could you potentially curb someone’s addiction by replacing the feeling of having a phone in your pocket with something that feels exactly the same?" she said.

Respectfully, Cat, this makes no sense. We aren't addicted to having an iPhone in our pocket. We are addicted to watching dumb videos like yours on TikTok and reading people's online fights about WNBA players.

One More Thing

While I was trying to ignore that screaming child this morning, I stumbled across this TikTok video. And since I had to see it, I feel like you should have to see it, too.

Have a good week, Go Pacers and don't let those Angry Orchards sneak up on ya.

OutKick Nightcaps is a daily column set to run Monday through Friday at 4 p.m.

Follow me on X / Twitter at @TheAmberHarding or email me at Amber.Harding@OutKick.com.