Pop Culture Mondays/11.23.20
The “We All Need a Minute” Edition
Well…I would say HAPPY MONDAY to you all but I know there are not a ton of happy people. Schools are shut down in NY but restaurants are open. All restaurants in LA are now closed for any dining even though they were outdoor. Curfews are in place around the US again. And Americans are painfully aware we live in a land of 50 countries…or maybe 500 as each city in each state has their own rules and leadership is not in agreement and no one is working together. I once BOLDLY proclaimed here in PCM I was a proud “CUOMOSEXUAL”. Well, I have handed in that card to the powers that be because the LEAST sexy thing in the universe is a man losing his shit on someone who asks a VERY justified question. For those who don’t know…here you go…but the point is…EVERYONE is confused! Everyone in NY. Everyone in LA. Everyone everywhere. Before I go on…let’s roll the tape of why I have broken up with Governor Cuomo…
I promise you Gov…everyone is confused. I just want the Cuomo brothers to stop yelling at everyone and maybe they can download the CALM app and learn to meditate or watch some sweet sweet Bob Ross to lull them into a calmness we all need them to have right now. Look, fiery Italian men can be SMOKESHOWS…but not right now. Not now boys. Not now.
WHAT WE DO NEED is humanity. And sorry to be all heavy here in PCM but look, it’s Thanksgiving week in the US and many of us are separated from our loved ones, while many are ignoring the guidelines and doing whatever they want and calling it a day but then broadcasting it on Insta or TikTok or IN THE NEW YORK FREAKING TIMES so I think we have all reserved a right to be frustrated. The NYT story that got a lot of attention this week was a miss…it was an Opinion column that maybe would have been better self-published but hey, you tell me. Headline is pretty clear. The conclusion…that the writer is saying fuck it and doing it anyway, well that shit went CRAZY on the socials:
But we had our Rachel Maddow this week who is back on air, from her home, make-up free, where she disclosed the person close to her who had Covid was in fact her beloved wife, Susan. (During election week, Rachel’s Super Bowl, Rachel all of a sudden was not there and it was revealed she was in quarantine due to someone close to her testing positive.) And this few minutes of TV is human. And powerful. And what everyone should watch and is the opposite of being yelled and preached at by angry, frustrated dudes which seem to be A LOT these days:
OK so moving on…there was more amazing television this week around news like the former mayor of NYC’s hair dye dripping down his face but we can find that elsewhere. Leaving that insanity…which is another level entirely, and now let’s focus on some things that captivated us in another way this week. A reminder, we are Trump-free…we are a guilt-free indulgent walk through a candy store where sugar and calories do not count.
PEOPLE CAN BE TERRIBLE:
AT the end of the day, as someone who is not a parent, I feel I can hold judgement regardless and say “WHAT THE FUCK ARE THE PARENTS DOING??” I feel this way about a lot of situations tbh. Like the age-old issue that afflicts a majority of child stars regardless of the generation…these kids don’t end up, for the most part, awesome. Some pull thru, but many do not. And many you can trace the fact there was NO parenting and in many cases the kids were meal tickets for the parents so they were ABSOLUTELY not going to upset the status quo. I mean for every child star who has broken thru and survived and thrived, there are ten who did not. So, we have the rise of TikTok stars and many of them are teens and many of them are making money.
So there is Charli D’Amelio who is 16. SIXTEEN. and her sister Dixie who is 19. They are from an already clearly wealthy family in Connecticut but I digress. Not the point. The point is Charli has ONE HUNDRED MILLION FOLLOWERS ON TIKTOK. 100. MILLION. And as one of my besties said this week…”WTF does a 16 year old have 100 million people following her for??” The number is incomprehensible…I mean that’s more influence if you look at social numbers than the current President of the US and his Twitter feed which also is a lot of Russian bots BUT I digress. Charli’s shotgun to fame came initially from her TikTok dances and she went from 1 million to 100 million in ONE year. It is astronomical fame.
SO, for those of you who are not on TikTok or not a parent or uncle or aunt or some sort of relative of any child basically, here is a compilation of some Charli videos to give you the idea of what 100 million people are watching.
All I know is, if my parents saw me dancing to these songs and all the creepy dudes out there commenting and all the trolls being mean and saying whatever mean things trolls do, my parents would have taken me out of the situation and we probably would have moved to some remote location with no technology as they deprogrammed me or actually nope they would have taken all devices away from me and that would have been that. BUT I digress.
BUT, the thing is the sisters come across as wholesome as you can be when dancing to really suggestive lyrics when you’re 16, buy they are a close knit family and the whole family is now undeniably famous and influential, I mean Dunkin launched a drink named after Charli, which has 36 grams of sugar in it so yeah…everyone is complicit:
BUT, the drama that unfolded this week was a classic example of “Transparency can bite you in your ass…” the family I guess has launched their own YouTube show because these parents are no dummies and are watching Kris Kardashian like a hawk. They had a chef come over and make them dinner along with a mystery guest and nothing controversial should happen at family dinner right? (EVERY DINNER IN MY HOUSE ALWAYS ENDED IN DRAMA BTW). They have a personal chef (because see they are rich and famous now) prepare them a meal and I guess the idea is to watch the family and said mystery guest discuss the meal among other things. SO in this meal, there were snails and the older sister Dixie threw up when finding out and gagged in front of the chef…all of this so CLEARLY a set up but OK.
The socials went wild and branded the girls entitled and rude and even worse, people commented telling them they should die and kill themselves. And let’s be clear, most kids upon hearing they were eating snails would do the SAME thing but just maybe not have it broadcast for the world to see. SO, the scandal erupted and Charli loses one million followers in protest…so then it leads to her having to post a crying video telling people she will not tolerate being told to kill herself! I mean she is 16…this world is hard enough like WTF IS HAPPENING. So, NO no one should be telling these kids to harm themselves…it’s sick and twisted. But also, maybe the parents should be trying to protect and not promote but hey, what do I know.
BUT LET’S SWITCH GEARS FOR A SECOND. For there was a beautiful TikTok viral moment this week that happened…to an adult…that took over our hearts and is the perfect counter point to this other story:
Funny, not funny, but perfect and heartbreaking and uplifting all at the same time. This is where openness and honesty serve well. And for comic Robyn Schall, her story since this video went viral, has been amazing. Stars went mad for her because, yeah, she summed up 2020 perfectly for all of us:
So, the socials aren’t all bad.
A PROMISED LAND:
I have had the great fortune of meeting President Obama ever so briefly a few times. The last time I met him, it was just after he left the White House, a cold and snowy and dreary March day in NYC. We were all on edge with what the future was going to hold (we were SO innocent in those days) and when the President walked in, the entire energy in the room shifted. It was only 4 of us in the room but the moment in time stood still for all of us, like we were all in slow-mo but the President was in normal speed and like that dream you have when you cannot move even though you try with all your might. Literally, that’s what happened. I did finally breathe and immediately started crying and I tried to hold it together but it was like everything seemed terrible but his mere presence signified we are going to be ok. The man has an affect on the energy in a room…like even if you didn’t see him or even knew he was in the room you would know the energy had shifted.
There are a few people who have that…Bono for one. He literally changes the actual energy so you know something is different and happening around you even if you had no idea Bono was in the same building as you. Madonna has that too. OPRAH HAS IT. I am sure JFK had it, Elvis…the star power that is just transcendent. It’s true star power.
SO with that, we have maybe the perfectly timed media blitz to promote his new book. I mean thank god for the sake of Obama the election went the way it did this year because I am not sure the media blitz would have landed the same if not. But there he is on the cover of InStyle Magazine with the headline bringing us back to when he had that incredible shot on the basketball court the other week and told us “THAT’S WHAT I DO”:
So his new book is out…and as many reminded us on socials…a book like this, you can buy from your local bookstore….all books should be bought from your local bookstores. A lot of people took to the socials to remind people to do this:
But, I will admit I turned to Amazon not for the hard copy, but because they own Audible and this is a book I want to be read to me by President Obama. It’s 19 hours. I will take 100 hours to listen to it and take a break from falling to sleep to Benson & Stabler on SVU or the Sleep Stories on Calm…I shall now fall asleep listening to sweet sweet Obama reading his book…
And speaking of QUEEN OPRAH. Did you see her interview with President Obama?? This was some crazy magical tech shit that I was HERE for. THEY ARE NOT IN THE SAME ROOM or any room resembling that set up. Send your people to space, I am all for it. But THIS IS THE STUFF THAT BLOWS MY MIND and my shitty Zoom background needs to up the game here.
And with that, I thank you Mr. President…
A STAR IS BORN:
To be fair, Lukas Gage was already doing a pretty good job making a name for himself as an actor with a pretty stirring role in HBO’s “Euphoria”. But methinks Lukas is now in another stratosphere due to viral fame that happened this week due to a Zoom audition he was doing for a British director. Said director did not realize he was NOT ON MUTE and was caught mocking Lukas’ small apartment. WHICH by the way does NOT look bad to me I mean he has moldings and a flat screen TV that is MOUNTED ON THE WALL which I cannot have imagined doing in my 20’s but I digress…Lukas handled it like a pro and was super classy about it (while wearing a Bad Brains sleeveless t-shirt so the whole thing felt very punk rock as he was busting the establishment as he THEN released the exchange on socials because stealing from Obama for a second…THAT IS WHAT WE DO. And viral magic was born.)
But he just handled it so beautifully and professionally and PROCEEDED with his audition when I would have been crying and totally thrown…and the world noticed and now he will hopefully be hired by everyone and move to a bigger apartment. But a moment was born. Thank you Seth MacFarlane (who I incidentally sat behind all during our Sophomore math class and had I not been miserable every second of that class maybe we could have gotten to hang and would have been friends with him or anyone really but I was not cut out for boarding school, but I digress…)
And his community responded and supported him:
Anyway, this is the dream really to be able to have this moment caught on tape and shown to the world. I LOVE IT SO MUCH and we all love Lukas now and I cannot wait to see what he does next. WITH ALL THE JOBS.
AND THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS….
I got to go back to my day job and compress 5 days of work into 2.5 so forgive my brevity here. But there was so many moments this week that deserve a mention but I cannot fit all of them in but here’s my attempt at picking my faves:
- I will always and forever love Brad Pitt. “Legends of the Fall” Brad Pitt. “Fight Club” Brad Pitt. “Ocean’s 11” Brad Pitt. And now and forever, grunge dad Brad Pitt. Always. And forever.
- The Rockefeller Center tree is always a THING. A spectacle spectacular! This year, it all felt very VERY 2020, from the tree looking REAL rough, to them finding a beautiful little owl in it who is probably now in deep therapy after being wrapped up and transported for miles and miles while wrapped up in his beloved home. THANK GOD THEY SAVED THE OWL.
- There is a new TikTok trend to the classic RunDMC song “It’s tricky.” People write two options at top of screen and then they go to the left or right depending on which one they follow. Like I prefer blondes or brunettes…you get it? No? OK, here is a comprehensive compilation:
- And last but not least we have the pig couch which is actually not a couch but there is a whole sub-culture around this couch which has been the center of online scams for a while. HERE IS SAID COUCH:
AND here is the story:
Ok my darlings, that’s it for me. PLEASE stay safe out there and I know for those in the US, the holiday this year is TOUGH…stay home, watch a lot of content, read Obama’s book, listen to music, eat all the food…And remember…we are almost thru this.
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