Content Consumed: Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift, WGA deal, and more
Hello, hi, hey! How’s your week going? Personally, I’ve had a chaotic, wonderful, sad, perfect, wild past week, and I can’t wait to dive into some content with you all.
In today’s edition of Content Consumed:
🧨 Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift (I can’t avoid it)
❤️🔥 Arctic Monkeys concert experience (!!!)
📬 The (tentative) WGA deal
📚 Book review: Dearborn
P.S. Don’t forget to bookmark the Content Consumed fall cozy-spooky watchlist!
So, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are a thing
As usual, I’m afraid of writing anything about Taylor Swift because Swifties scare the shit out of me. But, the world revolves around her, and this is the biggest story of the weekend.
I think this tweet sums it up perfectly:
I can’t get over the situation Kelce has gotten himself into. He’s faced with:
1. Getting destroyed lyrically
2. Getting called a distraction for the team
3. Millions of women turning on him
4. Absolute glory if it works outI wish him the best
Kansas City superstar tight end Travis Kelce has spent the past month or two publically pursuing the biggest popstar the world has ever seen, and then she showed up at his game (in his personal suite, with his mom) on Sunday.
And ooooh baby, he was swooning on the sidelines. It’s hot! I can’t lie!
And he’s grafting perfectly. Rented out a restaurant for her, all that. The people are loving it, the brands are loving it. Apparently, sales of Kelce’s jersey jumped 400% over the weekend—can’t deny the purchasing power of Swifties. God, they’re scary.
I’m still certainly a Taylor Swift hater and terrified of Swifties and their parasocial insanity. But who can deny the entertainment factor of this circus?
Read more of a Kelce-Swift Sunday football recap from a favorite newsletter of mine, Impersonal Foul.
I love you, Alex Turner!
I saw the Arctic Monkeys live on Sunday, after spending maybe half my life waiting for it. I went alone, which is often how I enjoy concerts most. Especially something as essential/therapeutic to my life as this, where I need to be fully tuned in, not thinking about a single other soul, just healing my own. The thirteen-year-old in me is still screaming, a full 48 hours later.
My big flex from the night: Alex Turner and I made eye contact for a full four seconds while he sang “Arabella” just 15 feet away from me.
God, if I still used Tumblr… the way I’d never shut the fuck up about this…
Anyways, wow. Just wow. The talent of the full band, but especially lead singer Alex Turner, cannot be overstated. I’ve never been to a performance where the singer sang songs just as well—if not better—than the recorded versions. It was stunning, really. Every note was hit. He bounced between the mic, the piano, and the guitar. He switched up pacing, he played with the melodies, and he engaged the crowd.
All my favorite songs were played, from “Arabella” to “Knee Socks” to “Hello You” to “505”. And the crowd was awesome—the GA section was so fun and the energy from the full arena was perfect.
Whew. It’s going to take me a long time to get over it. So. Much. Fun. Perfect, perfect, perfect.
WGA’s tentative deal (no SAG)
As the New York Times reports, WGA guild members will soon vote on whether to accept the deal from the studios’ alliance. The contact actually has much of what they had demanded, including increases in compensation for streaming content, concessions from studios on minimum staffing for television shows, and guarantees that artificial intelligence technology will not infringe on writers’ credits and compensation.
Finally!!!!!
California’s economy alone has lost more than $5 billion from the Hollywood shutdown, according to Governor Gavin Newsom.
We, the content consumers, have also suffered from the strikes. No numerical value, just emotional…
One thing that hasn’t seen any sort of compromise, that could be the only thing stopping a deal for SAG: actors want 2 percent of the total revenue generated by streaming shows, something that studios have said is a nonstarter.
Fingers crossed for a resolution for SAG too. Be sure to check out the Content Consumed guide to the strikes for more details.
Book review: Dearborn
My favorite books are the ones where I can explore and gain a deeper understanding of a culture. In the case of Dearborn by Ghassan Zeineddine, I read brilliant insights into the Muslim community of immigrants and refugees in Dearborn, Michigan.
Zeineddine paints a beautiful and often heartbreaking picture of the relationships, moments, and memories of the people of Dearborn. Mostly middle-aged Lebanese war refugees, but also first-generation young folks. The complexities of the Arab-American community here play out in bathhouses, neighborhoods, and small businesses, between husbands and wives, nosy friends, uncles and nephews. Themes of homeland, rituals, religion, war trauma, American values, sexuality, identity, and the pursuit of the truth dominate the pages.
Zeineddine’s creative risks with each short story pay off, like when he tells one story from a first-person “we” perspective, switching between a group of women and a group of men within the same chapter. But he’s talented and it works.
A beautiful, engaging collection of short stories. An easy five stars for me. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Check out more of what I’ve been reading at my Goodreads profile.
And that’s it for today!
If you need me, I’ll be rewatching Vampire Diaries (and the rest of the Content Consumed fall watchlist), scrolling the endless Kevin James memes on Twitter, and trying to fix my mess of a fantasy football team.
Cheers,
Casey
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👉🏼 Find out what I’m reading at my Goodreads profile.
