Pop Culture Mondays/2.1.21
The “STONKS” Edition
Happy First Day of February my darling pop culture junkies. I don’t know about you but last week totally exhausted me. I mean I was delirious by this weekend — so much so I ended up getting my dog’s face tattooed on my body but I digress…but I think I need another day or two to decompress but that isn’t happening and now I am just buckling up for what this week, this day, this hour holds. NEVER in my life did I think the stock market would be pop culture but here we are. WE DID THIS. Whether it is SPAC SPAC SPAC or it is GameStop or the madness of the CEO of Robinhood who LITERALLY LOOKS LIKE THE SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM who, SPOILER ALERT, is not a good guy….FINANCE MEMES ARE NOW leading the trends around the world. I mean is THIS actually the beginning of the end? Is this 1999? Or 1987? I don’t know but MAYBE start buying Bitcoin so when the dollar becomes irrelevant and used to wallpaper bathrooms, you are SORTED. No no no…do not take investment advise from me and again this shit should not even be in this newsletter…we are meant to talk about silly TikTok trends and memes of the moment. BUT WE HIT A CROSSOVER last week and we are now officially living in the Upside Down world. But there were a few other things going on…really? Really I think. was it just a week ago sweet innocent Bernie and his mittens were consuming our brains. OH HOW WE HAVE FALLEN.
But alas, this is meant to be fun. Welcome to my new subscribers and don’t hate ME, hate the GAME as I am not the one dictating what becomes a phenomenon…I just try to piece it together. But the good news here is…we are TRUMP-FREE not JUST because that’s our mandate but because…like WHO?? So for that, let’s be grateful….
GAMESTOP: WTF IS HAPPENING YOU ASK?
PLEASE. DO not use this post as the definitive CLIFF’S NOTES version of what happened because A. I am not a finance person so if you are, you will only be infuriated by my explanation and opinions and if you aren’t you will probably become LESS clear after reading this. And frankly, I am so bored with talking about this because it is the only thing we have talked about for days. I mean, when I picked up my salad at Sweetgreen last week, the person asked me what I thought about GAMESTOP and if they should buy. But to be honest, one of the better explanations came today in the Daily podcast when you have Taylor Lorenz talking about what happened which is important here as Taylor is an INTERNET CULTURE REPORTER not a FINANCE REPORTER which indicates to you how this story has gone. So don’t turn to me for an explainer…listen to this:
BUT in case you were under a rock, a retail biz called GameStop which used to be a BIG business when you had to go to a store and buy games but over time has become less necessary because most games are online among other things. And as a result, people who make a business of making money off of failed businesses by shorting stocks, shorted this stock. The Hedge Funds expect to make BANK. But then something happened that was unexpected and had never been seen. The stock started going up. And up. Which was a direct result of a huge community of people ( like more than 6 MILLION PEOPLE from this sub-Reddit group) from Reddit who did not take kindly to Wall Street being the ones who decided whether a company survives or not and they decided to buy and buy and buy and make the price go up meaning the Hedge Fund lost money. A lot of money. And most were doing this via a trading app called Robinhood which caters to day traders and many may not have been sophisticated investors and some borrowing money to make these purchases but needless to say it seemingly was the start of a revolution. The little guys (I am using “guys” here as a general term NOT as one sex over the other) rose up to take the money from the big guys which the big guys DID NOT like it ONE bit. So that was ONE big story. Then a SUB-story happened and that was when Robinhood stopped allowing their users to BUY GameStop stock — but they could sell sell it — -which was a BAD move and a bad look that then left conspiracy theorists abound but ultimately it was because Robinhood had a liquidity issue but VLAD THE CEO could not say those words…couldn’t say them!!!! I would recommend therapy tbh as it can help with such things. ANWAY…there are lots of people who don’t believe it was JUST THE POWER of the little guys and that of course there were some BIG guys…aka other hedge fund people behind the Reddit scene helping manipulate this. But this is all I am going to say on this because again, I think many others have explained it and continue to explain it better. THAT said, there are some POP CULTURE-y things that have come up you MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT and that my friends, is why we are here. As for the DISASTROUS interviews VLAD the CEO gave…that’s another newsletter tbh because I could talk for days and days on this. But for now, we stay focused on POP CULTURE:
LIKE THIS:
Popeyes Chicken got in on the whole story by offering Free Chicken tenders which is BECAUSE the Redditors have taken the term “tender” and turned into the word “tendie” and tendies are what they refer to as financial gains. HENCE Chicken TENDIES. So now, a meme is born so if you hear your 19 year old saying they got somer TENDIES it really COULOD be they have chicken tenders coming OR it could mean they just made tuition money trading stocks with their allowance.
Then you have Ja Rule who did NOT go to prison for the Fyre Festival debacle and is now the voice of the stock market so if that’s any indication for how crazy this has all gone. And well….here we are thank you CNBC, the now VOICE OF POP CULTURE:
And explained here by James Corden:
THEN THERE IS THE STONK meme.
A stonk is a funny way obviously to say stocks and has taken off but here is an explainer from The Insider of how STONK MAN meme came to be:
The actual, visual “stonks” meme features a face known as “Meme Man,” a smooth, bald facsimile of a 3D human head that reportedly emerged on 4chan and spread online in the latter half of the 2010s. The stonks meme gussies Meme Man up in a suit, places him against a blue background of assorted percentages, arrows, and numbers, and juxtaposes him against the word “stonks” with an orange arrow vaguely pointing up.
So that is why you have likely seen at least one of these floating around your socials.
AND THEN you had AOC in on it and she took to Twitch (not Clubhouse interestingly enough and more on that later) to talk about it and at one point over 300k people were tuned in to see her talk about wtf was happening with people like Chamath Palihapitiya, candidate for CA governor and SPAC KING and POKER champion and part owners of the Warriors…THOUGH Chamath actually didn’t end up going on and AOC had some major technical difficulties resulting in a lot of people — me included — tuning out. WHAT IS TWITCH? ANOTHER PLATFORM YOU GUYS…this one is a live-streaming platform meant for gamers but AOC has made it one of her go-tos in communicating to the people and a reason why AOC is connecting with SO many people:
And late night has tried to get in on it though missing the mark a lot but nevertheless amusing at times:
But of all of the memes and posts going around, this is my fave…watch with sound:
For more on this whole storyline and sub storylines:
And Chamath on CNBC about this moment is GOOD TV:
PS: FULL disclosure…I advise a company in this space called PUBLIC.COM.
ANOTHER SOCIAL PLATFORM HAS ITS MOMENT:
Most of you, by now, have heard of Clubhouse, the first of its kind AUDIO social network. You may not even know you have heard about it but it is being talked about all around you. It came blasting onto the scene in the early days of lockdown and was and is still “invite only” though if anyone is on it the know how fast it is growing. I get like 50 notifications a a minute it seems offering to welcome someone new in my network who has recently joined the platform. For those who have no idea what it is or have heard of it but don’t get it, here is the simplest way to explain it. Clubhouse is an audio-based social network. YOU LISTEN. It’s an app you download and like Twitter you can follow people and people can follow you. You then get to see based on who you follow (or themes you follow) what clubhouses are going on you might want to join. Whether you join as a listener and hear the selected speakers talking about a topic, or you are invited to be a speaker (or you set up your own clubhouse and invite people in as speakers). I mean the topics are endless from people playing music to conversations around AI to celebs like Oprah leading the conversations. And while it is still a BABY social network less than 10 months old, it is growing SO fast and it is not without controversy. These things are only as good as the people behind each clubhouse are so when you have people with racist or sexist belief systems leading a clubhouse with no moderating in place, it will cause problems. There has been bullying, and secret recordings, and people hosting conversations who are clearly inebriated BUT there are also some incredible moments happening with a real mix of people having really important conversations. But it is MOST DEF the wild west right now. To ME, it’s more like listening to a live podcast than anything else but it has room to grow. Programming will be key and I IMAGINE they will need to figure out a revenue stream for its own “creators” a la TikTok and YouTube. BUT I DIGRESS.
On Sunday afternoon, Elon Musk, patron saint of ALL THINGS at the moment including DOGE COIN which I did not even get into in the GAMESTOP post because I AM TIRED BUT HERE (https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/364537) announced he would be on Clubhouse on Sunday night. The socials went wild…pandemonium ensued and people were showing off on the Twitter how many CLUBHOUSE invites they had by offering them to followers and so therefore if you had CLUBHOUSE invites to share assuming it meant you were really TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL or something like that. (PS: I have Clubhouse invites so just hit me up…🤙 😂 .)
I will admit I did not listen in to this Clubhouse though the other speakers were all people I like and admire…THIS girl was long asleep after having a VERY STRONG GUMMIE since I am up before 5AM on Mondays to write this stupid thing…so I missed it. But following the stories and tweets closely I was able to surmise that Elon was being Elon and talked about Elon stuff from Mars to Tesla but then a surprise guest….! VLAD THE IMPALER I MEAN CEO joined and Elon turned interviewer which I am not totally sure works yet in the Clubhouse setting but for the 5,000 people allowed into the clubhouse, I assume it was interesting just in the newness of the concept. For more on this event, this explains it all perfectly:
So it is all really meta to me tbh as tech and start-ups have once again taken NUMBER ONE POLL POSITION in the news which hasn’t been that common in the past 4 years as the number one story was always WTF DID THE PRESIDENT DO NOW? So we are back in tech dominated news cycles now. WE ASKED FOR THIS though.
So for those of you who have no intention of ever downloading Clubhouse, here is a video showing what it looks like/sounds like. You literally join a clubhouse…and listen to the speakers talk/banter/drink/make music…whatever they fancy.
For more on Sunday With Elon:
And more on Clubhouse:
AND FOR SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS….
OK so I really had nothing left even though so much happened beyond these things I just don’t have the brain capacity to go on. BUT, here are a few more fun things for your amusement:
- I tweeted another video that highlights why I love TikTok and this one was bigger than my GREATEST SHOWMAN one and has already racked up something like 200K views. I mean it was just s illy thing I shared over the weekend of a band performing Sweet Child of Mine and it took off…I hope the band gets ALL the love:
The band is:
- JEWISH SPACE LASER. Yeah so this one is a doozy and for you non-Americans, yes we have a NUT JOB new member of Congress which is just par for the course these days. BUT I CANNOT bring myself to write her name because she is trash. But here for an explainer:
- And lastly, there is dog shampoo guy. Now full disclosure, as a girl who now has her dog’s face tattooed ON HER ARM, it should come as no surprise that I spend more money on products for my dog than I basically do for myself. Dove shower wash for me is FINE, all I need. But the PRINCE, Potato the Dog, uses AESOP DOG SHAMPOO which is RIDICULOUSLY expensive and like the price of TEN gallon sized DOVED Shower Washes. Here is the regular shower soap for humans:
And then for DOGGOS:
Same bottle. BUT THE DOG LABEL IS CLEAR AS DAY to tell me that this is for DOG. I AM NOT CONFUSED. SO this confuses me:
And people had THOUGHTS:
- And FOR REAL lastly, if you haven’t watched this film yet…do so immediately.
Well, that is it my darlings. I need a drink! But before I do…HAPPY BIRTHDAY to PCM LOYAL READER Cindy fucking Gallop!!!
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