Pop Culture Mondays/2.7.22
The “MEDIA SCANDOLO” Edition
HAPPY MONDAY my darling pop culture junkies! AND wowzers…we are still here. I mean really, pat yourselves on the back for making it another day despite all the drama-rama going around. REGARDLESS of where you stand on the whole Rogan/Spotify sitch (I am done covering this subject as there is nothing more to say on MY end) or Zucker/CNN sitch (more on that later), it’s like SO boring at this point right? Like, come on…we have way more important things to focus on like TIKTOK TRENDS am I right? Anyway, I find myself falling into old lady tropes where I long for a simpler time. I mean I KNOW the ’80s were not perfect. We had Reagan. We had AIDS. We had the Cold War. But we also had station wagons where we were thrown in the back to survive on our own…our first SINK OR SWIM lesson perhaps. We had summer days where we were outside from dawn to dusk. We made DIORAMAS out of our Buster Brown shoeboxes and learned to play Chinese jump rope and got smacked in our faces with the hardest Dodge Ball balls ever. Red Rover Red Rover send the ’80s BACK OVER am I right?
But alas we cannot put the genie back in the bottle and instead we live in a world where trolls live on their screens and attack people online and where billionaires have fights with one another on Twitter and newscasters spend their precious airtime defending their former boss for doing the same thing they attack their enemies for…IT IS SO BORING. So instead, come here for a few laughs. Grab your headphones and enjoy…I don't cover everything that has happened this week…just a few of the fun and not-so-fun ones.
XO…
BREAKING NEWS: BOSS MAN GETS FIRED FOR NOT DISCLOSING“AFFAIR”
See what I did there? CNN literally has BREAKING NEWS in their chyron basically 24/7. BREAKING NEWS…it is windy! BREAKING NEWS…Santa is running late….BREAKING NEWS…democracy is falling (ok that’s a worthwhile one.) But here are a couple of examples:
Anyway, you get the idea. And certainly not exclusive to CNN. They all do it. No longer does BREAKING NEWS mean anything anymore except…stick with us and watch our low-rent ads until we tell you exactly WHAT is breaking which isn't actually breaking which isn’t even actually news….BUT I digress.
Social media has turned our newscasters into personal brands and celebrities in their own right. I mean think about it….time stood still when a news exec suddenly “resigned” and the news of the day stopped to cover it and media ON camera began weighing in with their personal opinions and entire segments are spent on this. This is why America has NO idea what’s happening in the rest of the world. BUT LOOK….as I tweeted, schadenfreude is a HELL of a drug. Zucker was the guy who helped create Trump and even though CNN was obviously anti-Trump, Zucker has Trump to thank for a lot of his success. And people love to see that shit fall.
I have no idea whether he really was forced to resign over lying about his intimate relationship with his colleague which BY THE WAY was clearly going on for years as I sat next to them and Chris Cuomo poolside at the Hotel du Cap during Canne Lions YEARS AGO and they were openly gossiping about everyone including the then governor’s girlfriend at the time, Sandra Lee. Jeff and Allison were very COUPLE-Y. I thought she was his wife initially. AND Jeff told Allison to make sure they loaded their corporate jet with ALL the smoked salmon from the hotel before they left for NY whilst Chris Cuomo rubbed oil on himself and flexed.
MOVING ON…SOME seem to believe there is MORE to the story meaning the relationship is just the red herring and another shoe shall drop. All I know is that everyone has lost their fucking minds. I find hypocrisy boring so that’s where we are. Though I do find it wild that a network who didn’t fire a guy caught for MASTURBATING ON CAMERA during a work Zoom is now dealing with this but what do I know.
Honestly, the best take on this was Trevor Noah:
EVERYTHING he says is what I wanted to say but he is way more eloquent. Basically, it is just a bummer to see everyone give the Trump peeps and their crazy disciples SO MUCH AMMO.
I admit back at the beginning of the PANNY as the kids call it, I was a CUOMOSEXUAL which really does make sense if you look at my dating track record. I am drawn to the WRONG GUYS so never ever listen to me on that front. I renounced my CUOMOSEXUALITY ages ago. I am guessing Zucker WISHES he did too…or wishes he had just given Chris Cuomo his $20 million because MAN, did Chris burn the house DOWN.
ANYWAY, JEFF ZUCKER SMASH OR PASS? DEFINITELY PASS. (This will make sense if you read down towards the end!)
AND JUST A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS (AND SOME DESPICABLE ONES TOO…)
GUYS….sometimes it’s all too much. So let’s just focus on stuff like memes and TikTok trends and CONTENT.
- Here’s a GOOD EMOJI tutorial so if you are the parent or colleague of a GEN Zer then THIS IS FOR YOU:
- I cannot explain why other than I LOVE THE MUSIC…but I love this ENCANTO TIKTOK trend so much.
And for those “Emily in Paris” fans…this is DEAD ON:
- MENTY B TIME! OK my Boomer and Gen X LOVES, here is a quick new lingo lesson for you in case it needs explaining. Gen Z is very open in talking about mental health and frankly, I am HERE for it. And leave it to them to make cute names for real problems which may actually take the stigma out of it all so I am also HERE for it. For example, a Mental Breakdown which we were never allowed to talk about having is now called a MENTY B and we are encouraged to discuss them:
- Jessica Higgs deserves all the job offers and all the awards. This Instacart shopper saved lives and she tells the story and it is beautiful and sad all in one:
- THIS SHOW, “ADULTS ADOPTING ADULTS” IS BONKERS. And I am obsessed with it. Is it low brow? HELL YEAH. IS it better than watching the news? YOU BET. I would like to state that I am totally up for being adopted so HIT ME UP.
- RIRI. Riri announced her pregnancy last week and it took me a week to process why it set off my anxiety SO much. She is gorgeous. ASAP Rocky is gorgeous. Her naked belly in February in NY is gorgeous. BUT…her jeans…her jeans gave me SO much anxiety. And many others experienced this same feeling:
- Cheslie Kryst. This brilliant and beautiful woman took her own life despite seeming to have it all. A former lawyer, she became MISS USA in 2019 and went on to have a successful career on TV where she was a correspondent for EXTRA. But tragically, she jumped to her death on January 30th. She was 30. And shortly after, I began noticing her TikToks on my FYP. Like a lot of her TikToks…an eerie look all of a sudden being served to me of a beautiful and happy-seeming woman, doing her thing. Like:
Pretty tragic to have just read about her death and then to have these show up. At first, it felt random and then…then it didn’t. It felt very very purposeful and I was wondering why. Well, it comes down to TRUE CRIME on TikTok. There is a reason True Crime pods are so popular…and now it has made its way to TikTok. But this isn’t a true crime, but TikTokkers have begun trying to find signs or clues in all her TikToks and use that for content and it is really icky and heartbreaking and there are many many new comments to her TikToks. It also raises awareness that not everything is as it seems. She wasn't one of the creators talking about her mental health struggles on the platform and instead used it perhaps to escape from her struggles and to showcase a different side. Like for real, I am generally not posting videos about how I think about how my dog will die ALL the time or those moments I still struggle over the loss of my parents a lifetime ago. No, I post the moments I am NOT in that space. But it is a signal I think of how people are blending these two worlds → the social media one vs the real one.
- Whoopi Goldberg? NOT A JEW as Adam Sandler should include in an updated version of truly one of the greatest things ever:
BUT you MAY have heard that Whoopi went on some really cringey rant about the Holocaust NOT being about race which is OBVIOUSLY wrong and the scandal grew from there and she was suspended without pay for 2 weeks from hosting gig on “THE VIEW” (which seems to have drama every other week!). And we are in a time where everyone is being canceled regardless of what side of the fence you are on. And sure, there are some very worthy contenders tbh but then there are others that make us think like guys let’s take a deep breath. I thought this was incredible and makes you think, doesn’t it?
- Confirmation that February IS the worst month (in places like NY):
- SMASH OR PASS? Look, it’s funny. NOT funny if your 12-year-old is in on this trend or if they ask you to play at the dinner table but GOOD for you to be aware of what it is and what’s happening! (I assume we all know what SMASH refers to? If not, DM me lols.) Here is the original video, meaning the sound everyone is using comes from THIS video:
And creators took it and made it their own:
- And finally, looking for a quick fix in content? Then “THE TINDER SWINDLER” on Netflix is for you! This is bananas. We are used to CATFISHES being hard to wrap our heads around because it involves people never meeting and we all think like HOW can someone fall for this. But THIS is different.
THAT IS IT my darlings.
Some days I just am bored with all the pop culture news so let’s see what happens NEXT week!
Stay safe and healthy my beauties. Stay kind. Stay funny AF.
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