So… I’m not just saying this because I’m a huge garage rock/punk fan, but Diarrhea Planet just basically won Hangout Fest 2014 thus far. Three words: “Crowdsurfing on donuts.” Need I say more?

Friday, we issued an unofficial challenge to the boys from Nashville to best Black Lips, their Southern garage rock counterparts, when it came to delivering a hot and spicy, crazy show in Alabama.

And, dudes, did they deliver. Not that the Black Lips were not amazing and wonderful and brimming with joyful menace — it’s just hard to beat inflatable donuts.

So how did a band of guys with the most uncomfortable-to-utter name in music manage to throw a serious gauntlet down in front of the rest of the fest participants?

After busting out blazing singles like “Separations” and “Babyhead,” they tossed a whole mess of Homer Simpson-esque inflatable donuts (read: pink and gnawed-on) into the crowd and urged the assemblage: “Let’s see some people crowd-surfing on donuts.”

The flower-crowned, tattoo’d, sunburned masses obliged, and soon the sea of flesh abutting the stage was transformed into a literal sea, replete with reclining fans floating by on a wave composed of hands and trust.

Just take a look at these snaps and try not to be jealous:

Oh, and the dudes also encouraged the denizens of the crowd to download Tinder and find some quick love (“We gotta turn this sh– into the Olympic Village!” they shouted. “You have three minutes to crowd-surf your way into a ...

While most of the folks here at Hangout Fest 2014 are kitted out in bikinis and flower crowns, The 1975 didn’t even kick off their boots to feel the sand between their toes.

Check out this amazing Vine of the dudes playing leapfrog down here in Gulf Shores, Alabama — in jeans, long-sleeves, boots and TONS of black.

Beach Goths, unite!

Hangout Music Fest 2014: Highlights
	Get The Latest On This Year's Fest Line-up
	Watch How Hangout Performers Prep For The Beach
	See Who's Playing The Festival
	2013 Hangout Fest Highlights

Brenna Ehrlich

Brenna Ehrlich is a reporter for MTV News as well as the senior writer/editor for the O Music Awards. In the past, she served as associate editor at Mashable, penned a netiquette column for CNN and co-authored the blog and book "Stuff Hipsters Hate." She likes trying not to die in moshpits and listening to songs on repeat. Follow her on Twitter @BrennaEhrlich for news on cats and punk bands.

Tattoos and music fests: They go together like sunshine and happy days. How do we know? Well, we’re down here at Hangout Fest 2014 and we are surrounded — surrounded, do you hear!? — with painted flesh.

Friday (May 16) we took on the arduous task of wandering through this bustling music fest — white sand, hot rays, cool tunes, included — to find the best ink this joyful mass of humanity had to offer.

Check out our six favorite tattoos of Hangout Fest, Day One.

Find us tomorrow if you think you deserve to make the cut come Day Two.

1). In Memory…

2). Hulking Out

3). Time: All Over Her Side

4). Because I’m Happy

5). Feathery

6). Back Up

Brenna Ehrlich

Brenna Ehrlich is a reporter for MTV News as well as the senior writer/editor for the O Music Awards. In the past, she served as associate editor at Mashable, penned a netiquette column for CNN and co-authored the blog and book "Stuff Hipsters Hate." She likes trying not to die in moshpits and listening to songs on repeat. Follow her on Twitter @BrennaEhrlich for news on cats and punk bands.

Mere hours after Bleachers revealed the title of their debut record — Strange Desire — Jack Antonoff and Co. took the stage at 2014 Hangout Fest to show us just how varied said strange desire is.

Read: A lot of the songs he busted out seemed to be about love and its resulting emotional turmoil.

When explaining the album title today via a clever Craigslist post, Antonoff wrote: “Strange Desire is something that came to me a few weeks ago when I was working on the last song i wrote for the Bleachers album …. The lyric is, ‘Feeling like I never was young I followed a dream and a strange desire.’”

“It’s the two words that perfectly title what this Bleachers album is as a documentation of my life as I can remember it at this point,” he said. “Or better put, as I see it from this point.”

Despite how specific the record is to his life, however, there seemed to be a lot for us laypeople to relate to when he took the stage decked out in a buttoned-up rugby shirt and cut-off green pants that had us flashing back to our ’80s glory days — plus a snazzy glasses strap — and busted out a litany of new tracks from his upcoming record in front of a sea of girls in flower crowns dancing on the white sand.

The fun. guitarist likened the scene to the Jersey Shore, then noted, “Then you see the white sand and you’re ...

Who out there is currently packing for Hangout Fest? Show of hands? Well, while you’re trying to cram one.more. pair of fancy shorts into your duffle, might we suggest a few additions to your luggage sitch?

Back in January — when the sun was a distant memory — we asked a cadre of Hangout performers what they planned to bring to the beach. The results ranged from the practical (“Don’t dress too much, because it’s going to be hot,” according to Zedd) to the “Okkkk, suuuuure” (“I’ve never been to a beach party before,” Portugal. The Man singer John Gourley said. “We have gravel-pit parties in Alaska”).

This time around, we dug deep down into our brains — before they get fried by sunshine and awesomeness — to bring you the 11 essentials you must have at Hangout 2014.

Better factor in another carry-on.

Brenna Ehrlich

Brenna Ehrlich is a reporter for MTV News as well as the senior writer/editor for the O Music Awards. In the past, she served as associate editor at Mashable, penned a netiquette column for CNN and co-authored the blog and book "Stuff Hipsters Hate." She likes trying not to die in moshpits and listening to songs on repeat. Follow her on Twitter @BrennaEhrlich ...

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“Divergent” and “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” cleaned up at the box office, and “The Fault In Our Stars” is already getting us lathered up into a foam of excitement and tears.

Yup, YA is definitely having a moment — or, rather, 90 minutes, since it’s been a de facto breeding ground for blockbuster films these past few years.

Still, there are a lot of kids out there that aren’t seeing themselves splashed across the silver screen — or on the pages that inspired those films.

The lack of diversity in media isn’t a new topic by any means, but, recently, YA authors and industry folk alike have been calling for more variation when it comes to books for teens and their ensuing films.

Most recently, that call was heard via a campaign called “We Need Diverse Books,” which launched after Book Expo America failed to include any writers of color — or any women — on a YA panel.

MTV News spoke with a cadre of authors who support the ethos of that campaign, asking them which diverse books they want to see turned into movies right now — so that all kids, no matter their race or sexual orientation, will be able to see themselves in the flickering pitch black.

1). “The Living,” by Matt de la Pena

“Cruise ship-meets-every natural disaster you can think of. It already reads like a movie! It’s a past-paced page-turner that leaves you breathless until the ...

YA fans: The moment you’ve been waiting for is finally here. Kylie and Kendall Jenner’s upcoming debut book, “Rebels: City of Indra: The Story of Lex and Livia,” is available for pre-order.

The book, which is primed to drop on June 3, was penned by the two sisters along with writer Maya Sloan, who recently co-wrote “Rich Kids of Instagram: A Novel.”

According to Amazon, the book is “a thrilling dystopian story about two super-powered girls who embark on a journey together.”

“In a world of the far future, the great city of Indra has two faces: a beautiful paradise floating high in the sky, and a nightmare world of poverty carved into tunnels beneath the surface of the earth,” the description continues. “Kendall and Kylie Jenner, the youngest sisters in the Kardashian dynasty, have written a gripping tale of air, fire, and a bond of blood.”

Gripping.

Sidenote, the cover of the Jenners’ jam looks pretty similar to the art gracing Tahereh Mafi‘s amazing “Shatter Me” series. Maybe pick those tomes up to sate you in the meantime?

Brenna Ehrlich

Brenna Ehrlich is a reporter for MTV News as well as the senior writer/editor for the O Music Awards. In the past, she served as associate editor at Mashable, penned a netiquette column for CNN and co-authored the blog and book "Stuff Hipsters Hate." She likes trying not to die in moshpits and listening to songs ...

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Happy Birthday, Lena Dunham! You are now 28 years old and therefore still eligible for all of those “30 Under 30″ lists. Congrats! We are sure you will top them all!

Incidentally, Lena-Cakes, you are also still eligible to be our best friend (all of MTV News collectively) — if you would have us. (Did you get all the handmade cards and dolls that we sent? Oh, well, we’re sure they’re just lost in the mail.)

We even made you the below collage of the 28 Instagrams (because you’re 28!) that make us yearn for you to be our compadre.

We’ll be waiting over here with frozen yogurt and matching charm bracelets until you finish perusing. Can’t wait to plan a road-trip to Atlantic City in which zany high jinks ensue!

KISSES.

1). This Joie De Vivre

2). This History Of Being Rad

3). This Shared Secret

4). This Dog Impression

5). This Pup We Could Pet

6). This Eye Makeup ...