Pop Culture Mondays/1.9.23
The “LET’S CATCH UP” Edition
HAPPY Monday and happy 2023, my pop culture junkies. I felt this week warranted a non-Baby Yoda photo to kick things off, and no photo sums up the past couple of weeks more than this one of Katie Porter, the US Representative from the great state of California during the Speaker of the House election madness we all went through. So let’s just start there. If you could see my Notes app where I keep a weekly list of all the things I want to cover each week you would probably be concerned for me but since I took a few weeks off, that list is ENDLESS. It’s IMPOSSIBLE to cover everything, so instead of the normal format, THIS week I am just going to do a laundry list of things. Some of these things you will know, some you will wish you didn’t, and some are not even recent, but I felt you MIGHT be into.
Look, we have all had enough of Harry and Meghan and the royal drama. Like can everyone fucking stop already? Yes, his book is not technically out until tomorrow (it leaked, natch) and we are ALREADY sick of it. Harold as we come to learn he is called, is on a media blitz from ITV to Anderson Cooper to MICHAEL FUCKING STRAHAN? Huh. Ok well, we are all really kind of over it, regardless of what SIDE you are on. A friend of mine said a very astute thing to me recently: “Harry is coming from a place of utter pain and that is blinding him.” But, will he regret it in ten years? THESE two pieces I think are perfect:
SO…with that, let’s jump in. Grab some headphones, maybe a warm cup of soup to feed the soul, and let’s go.
A ROUND-UP OF THE THINGS:
Let me start by saying that it is impossible to get to everything and while I try to curate all the things I think stand out, there may be things you wanted to see here that either I spaced on or missed or just chose to leave out. I will never tell which it is (ok, I likely forgot) but it’s a busy week, and I am flying to the UK in a few hours, so it IS what it is!
- DAMAR HAMLIN. Now, THIS was a story, and a week ago even people like me who do not watch football were glued to the TV to see what was happening. Our hearts were all with Hamlin and every person on the field with him who went through an agonizing experience watching their friend and colleague be resuscitated twice on the field before the ambulance got there. And inevitably there were some errors of judgment by people on socials, and there were some beautiful things that happened as well. And the incredible news today is, Hamlin is alert and breathing on his own, and communicating with fans from his hospital bed. A little summary of things:
This was an ill-advised tweet from sports columnist Skip Bayless. My man needs a BIT of an education on TIMING. While I understand this is a valid question of sorts for the football industry, it was NOT the time or the place for that question. And the tweet is still up despite the backlash, so there’s that. The outrage was swift from fans, his peers, and other players, and less than an hour later he tried to clarify…
The next day, his co-host didn’t do the show with him, and Bayless went on to try to FURTHER explain, but as SO TYPICAL of these sorts of reactions, he made it about him:
BUT, moving on….soon after Hamlin was taken away by ambulance, tweets started going around about his GoFundMe -a fundraiser which was launched through Hamlin’s Chasing M’s foundation, which had an initial goal of $2,500 when it was launched in 2020. As of now, it has raised over $8.5 million, which all happened after he collapsed.
Over 240,000 people and businesses donated, from individuals giving $10 to organizations making hefty donations. It has been incredible to watch. According to the GoFundMe page:
Damar created The Chasing M’s Foundation to use as a vehicle to bring lasting impact to his community. The foundation supports toy drives, back-to-school drives, kids camps, and more. We’re hopeful about Damar’s future involvement in disbursing the incredibly generous contributions.
Hamlin has been very active in his hometown of Pittsburgh and this is just a beautiful thing to see.
And by Sunday, he was live tweeting about his team’s game on Sunday, while still recovering in the hospital. He has unified a divided country, that’s for sure:
- SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. AS we like to say, OY VAY. Now, almost everyone reading this knows very well what unfolded in our capital this past week. If you were like me, you were glued to the TV and obsessed with the CSPAN camera people who were doing an amazing job. Why don't they always get those types of shots? WELL, that’s interesting, actually. Because there was NO elected speaker, there were no HOUSE RULES set, and those rules would limit the CSPAN cameras in terms of what they were able to capture…so that’s why things were SO exciting. There were no rules. So let’s talk about some of the highlights…the lowlights and the utterly despicable.
PRETTY sure this can easily fall into the DESPICABLE category. In case you have been living under a rock, this is George Santos, a Republican who was elected to the House of Representatives representing Northern Nassau County. MAN, do I feel sorry for those who elected him for one of the reasons that may have included:
- He was Jewish. (He was not)
- He was a successful banker who had worked at Goldman and Citi. (He did not)
- He was the grandson of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants who survived the Holocaust. (He was not Jewish and his grandparents were born in Brazil.)
- His mom was a victim of 9/11 where she lost her life. (NOT true. She died in 2016.)
- He was a college graduate. (NOPE)
- He went to Horace Mann, a prestigious private school in NYC. (Again, nope.)
- He was bi-racial. (And that’s a no.)
- He lost FOUR COLLEAGUES in the mass shooting at the Gay nightclub, Pulse, in Orlando. (Can you guess? Yeah, that’s not true.)
- And he campaigned on the fact that he has saved thousands of cats and dogs in a pet charity he started and raised money for. (YEAH, no record of it whatsoever.)
So, he’s SPECIAL. He also issued a press release announcing he was sworn in as a member of Congress….except…at the time the press release went out, NO ONE HAD BEEN SWORN IN as there was as of yet…NO SPEAKER. It’s comical, really.
BUT it all stopped being fucking funny when this lying POS (piece of shit), flashed the WHITE POWER sign at his actual swearing-in. One would imagine that since he had been ostracised by his colleagues, he needed to find a group who MIGHT accept him so he tried to cozy up to the best and brightest, Matt Gaetz and others and flashed his love of white power. My fave tweet about this was:
HILARIOUS. 😤
And amazing to see how many people are trying to defend him by saying he is just holding the OK sign because he is happy to be there. Can you even?? In case there is ANY question:
Now let’s go over some of the LOW BROW moments that are JUST above despicable:
I mean look, if I come across Matt Gaetz ever, someone would have to hold me back from slapping that kid too. But in the Capitol on the two-year anniversary of the Insurrection, this was something to see. Rep. Richard Hudson holding Rep Mike Rogers back from losing his shit was something else.
And thanks to the socials for the hilarious takes on lipreading as the CSPAN cameras captured video but NOT audio. Here are some of my faves:
They are TOO good.
And what would LOW BROW BE without our girl, keeping it KLASSY with a K, Marjorie Taylor Green and her call with “DT” lols.
Now let’s talk HIGH BROW. Because, really, there were not many. But the stand out was from the future Speaker of the House or future President without ANY doubt (I HOPE), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Did you watch his speech? Let me start by saying there was NO script. There was NO teleprompter. This was ALL extemporaneous. It is INCREDIBLE. I urge you to watch the whole thing:
BUT in case you just want a highlight, here you go. And MAN, were the Republicans MAD. They couldn't handle it. And, of course, he gave the speech of a lifetime, and Kevin McCarthy’s acceptance speech was a mess…a hot mess. BUT, I digress:
The man went through the ALPHABET. From A to fucking Z. From MATURITY OVER MAR-A-LAGO:
And honestly, we must all applaud the hardest working of everyone during that mad week…..
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle’s GLASSES. Let’s all give a moment of appreciation for them and for how amazing they make us all feel when she holds them in her hands (oh and this interview was fucking EPIC):
Actually, this is just an appreciation post for all things STEPHANIE RUHLE.
OK, moving on….
- WHAT HAPPENED ON TIKTOK? We had a few things go viral the past few weeks so let’s just check them out.
So my least fave trend that happened over the HOLS was one that involved kids telling their parents their fave celeb had died and filmed their reaction. These celebs had NOT in fact died, and it was gross, to be honest. I fucking HATED it and knew there would be backlash because HOW awful is that? But here is a look at the trend so you understand:
WELL, Andy Cohen was having NONE of it and I loved to see it where for the first time ever, he dropped the F BOMB on Live TV:
- And if you have a TikToker at home, you might have heard of TOPHER. This kid had his moment. I am not sure if this was a good thing but here you go:
LOTS of takes on this video have gone around and around:
- THEN there were the daughters turning their moms into them (the moms all seem to be HOT):
I LOVED THIS TREND tbh.
OK, wow there were a lot. There was this sound as a trend that people then put to other videos of celebs dancing whether from movies or videos or ads…these are my two fave:
- This is Christopher Walken from a Fatboy Slim video like 13 years ago but with the TikTok viral sound applied:
And because I tweeted this one…this KILLS me. It is from a Daniel Craig ad for Belvedere Vodka but holy Jesus I watched this 7421 times and I now drink Belvedere.
And this creator went viral for doing these videos:
- AND, we had SEATTLE ICE STORM. It feels like a lifetime ago (it was two weeks…):
- And lastly, on TikTok, we have BUTTER CANDLES. HELP ME LORD:
LET’S MOVE ON FROM TIKTOK.
We cannot forget ANDREW TATE and climate activist, GRETA THURNBERG and the ACTUAL REAL pizzagate. We have talked a lot about Andrew Tate here and I am one of those VERY happy people that the man has been arrested and is sitting in a Romanian prison as I write this. It started with this tweet:
SHE responded brilliantly:
SDE (SMALL DICK ENERGY) BABY. This is the theme of 2023…men with SDE. HERE for it. Well, Tate could not handle it. SO he responds….of course he does:
AND then…..?
Because of the pizza box, authorities were able to establish where he was in Romania and the man and his brother were arrested for human trafficking, among OTHER things.
AND again, Greta nails the response:
And let us end with some EXPLAINERS that might be helpful!
BUCCAL FAT:
This is the fat in your cheeks that some people have more of than others and gives people rounder faces. REMOVING said buccal fat is now VERY popular and more and more are having the surgery and thanks to TikTok:
And this first-person account on THE CUT:
TAKING L’s:
This is an expression the kids use now that means TAKE A LOSS and refers to people obviously losing like ANDREW TATE taking an L. 😍
ALMOND MOMS:
This came about from an OLD clip from like 10byears ago when Yolanda Hadid was a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills, and we didn’t yet know her now world-famous model daughters Gigi and Bella. She tells Gigi to eat 2 almonds and this led to this term:
She ended up joking about it:
And people have come out with their own experiences:
Look, my mom was a size ZERO and lived on a diet of one piece of cheese, chardonnay and Capri cigarettes so I GET IT.
A STANLEY CUP:
Yeah, so no this is not THE Stanley Cup aka the massive trophy you win as the NHL Champion. Nope. Your teen is asking you for THIS viral must-have which is….a CUP:
And let’s end on this:
NEPO BABIES:
Again, we have talked a lot about this here. Nepo Babies stands for NEPOTISM BABIES meaning children or relatives of famous people. And yeah, it’s controversial. I mean, doctors tend to have a kid who becomes a doctor. Lawyers are the same. Teachers and athletes. Not always, but a lot. So, one imagines actors and models are the same. MY personal belief is the backlash has been sparked because of a lot of now-famous people famous for really no reason other than having famous family members. Like the kids of Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna.
And many other “influencers” and TikTok stars who don’t seem to have the natural talent their family members have. But plenty of ACTUAL nepo babies if we must use that definition, are incredibly talented. Whether George Clooney or Carrie Fisher or Julia Roberts. But NEW YORK Magazine did a bonkers story that was really a stretch connecting some to family members who was like a cameraman in the 80s. I mean COME ON:
And I love this tweet by the beautiful and brilliant Eve Hewson, daughter of Ali Hewson and Bono, calling out NY Magazine. I know Pam too, and she is SO lovely, but this was a very, very fair point:
THAT IS IT, my darlings…
OH MY that was a beast and as I said…missing a TON OF stuff. AND…I didn't get to content omg. I mean there is so much I am SORRY I will make up for it in the podcast this week so check it out THURSDAY. And if you aren’t already a subscriber (PLEASE PLEASE SUBSCRIBE!!! ) and please do SHARE this with all your friends as I am trying to grow this little thing…BUT IF you want this in your inbox, please send an email to:
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OR subscribe directly on Medium. OK, I am off to LONDON, my favorite city…
Xx,
Brooke
