Sweatshop (or sweat factory) is a negatively connoted term for any working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for very low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage. Child labour laws may be violated. Sweatshops may have hazardous materials and situations. Employees may be subject to employer abuse without an easy way, if any way, to protect themselves.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office defines a sweatshop as an employer that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, worker’s compensation or industry regulation.

While many workplaces through history have been crowded, dangerous, low-paying and without job security, the concept of a sweatshop has its origins between 1830 and 1850 as a specific type of workshop in which a certain type of middleman, the sweater, directed others in garment making (the process of producing clothing), under arduous conditions.The terms sweater for the middleman and sweating system for the process of subcontracting piecework were used in early critiques like Charles Kingsley's Cheap Clothes and Nasty, written in 1850, which described conditions in London, England. The workplaces created for the sweating system were called sweatshops and variously comprised workplaces of only a few workers, or as many as one hundred or more.

De Staat is a Dutch alternative rock band, formed in Nijmegen in 2006.

De Staat were started as a one man project by leadsinger, Torre Florim, who later brought the band together. Their first demo was made in 2007 and recorded in Florim's apartment. Before they were even signed they were already a full grown band, because of their well received live performances in the Netherlands. They were also the supporting act of the popular Belgium band dEUS. De Staat were signed by Excelsior Recordings in 2008 and they released their debut album Wait for Evolution early in 2009, all the songs were written and produced by Torre Florim. He wrote the album as a graduating project for a "Music Production" course. Not only did Florim produce his own album, he also produced the debut album EP of another Dutch band Go Back To The Zoo in 2008. Within a year De Staat's popularity rose and they were performing at festivals such as Dot to Dot,Glastonbury,Sziget and Lowlands. When they performed at Lowlands, they were spotted by Chris Goss, a music producer. Goss introduced them to Mascot Records, which released Wait for Evolution internationally in the spring of 2010. After their international debut, they toured extensively. Machinery the band’s second album was released in 2011.

Shane Dawson (born Shane Yaw; July 19, 1988) is an American YouTube actor, comedian, and musician. Dawson is known for making comedy videos featuring many recurring characters (such as Shananay, Ned the Nerd, S. Deezy, Mom, and Aunt Hilda), impersonations (such as Paris Hilton, Miley Cyrus and Sarah Palin), and spoofs of popular music videos and television shows. As of September 2011 his main YouTube channel is the fifth most subscribed channel of all time, behind Ray William Johnson, Nigahiga, Smosh, and Machinima.com. Dawson has since expanded on YouTube by adding his second channel (twelfth most subscribed) where he posts video blogs and the series "Ask Shane", which moved to his main channel February 26, 2011.

Dawson's career began when he and several friends would turn in videos instead of homework in high school. Dawson's first videos on YouTube were old assignments that he turned in during high school.

In November 2009, Dawson was featured on Attack of the Show! In 2010, Forbes magazine named him their 25th most famous web celebrity.

Unbelievable Truth were a British rock band, led by Andy Yorke, with Nigel Powell, Jason Moulster and Jim Crosskey. Their sound has been described as "slow, melancholy, country-tinged ballads, wrapped in a soft blanket of acoustic guitars and minor chords".

The band was formed in 1993 in Oxford, England, and named after Hal Hartley's film, The Unbelievable Truth. A crisis of confidence led to a split in 1995, during which time Yorke took to exile in Russia. Upon his return in 1996, the band released their first single, "Building" in February 1997 on Shifty Disco, a record label based in Oxford. They released their first album, Almost Here, in 1998 on Virgin, and although being subsequently dropped by Virgin, the album had some success. In 2000, the band released their next album Sorrythankyou on Shifty Disco, the first from that label to be pressed in vinyl.

The group parted ways in 2000, due to Yorke's decision to leave the band. In 2001 Unbelievable Truth released a double album, self-published, called Misc. Music. Disc 1 contained b-sides and unreleased tracks, while disc 2 was the live recording of their farewell show held at the Zodiac in Oxford on 16 September 2000.

John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founder members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Together with Paul McCartney, he formed one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.

Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved as a teenager in the skiffle craze; his first band, The Quarrymen, evolved into The Beatles in 1960. As the group disintegrated towards the end of the decade, Lennon embarked on a solo career that produced the critically acclaimed albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine". After his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969, he changed his name to John Ono Lennon. Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to raising his infant son Sean, but re-emerged with Ono in 1980 with the new album Double Fantasy. He was murdered three weeks after its release.