Pop Culture Mondays/4.19.21
The “GUNS KILL PEOPLE, FULL STOP” Edition
Happy Monday my darling pop culture junkies. I say happy, even though there is so much unhappy out there right now. NOT ALL pop culture is rainbows and butterflies as we have explained here before. But there have been several themes that have been ongoing since I started this newsletter and ONE big one is that we MOST DEFINITELY have a gun issue in this country — and if you are someone I am friends with on Facebook who posts pictures of their “cute” guns that they have a name for and have bedazzled it and THEY ARE FIGHTING FOR THEIR RIGHTS, then please unsubscribe like immediately. And I am not making this up…I HAVE SEEN THESE posts with my own eyes. All of this continues. Asian hate continues. Cops using unnecessary force and killing people continues — this week one CLAIMS to have used their gun INSTEAD of their Taser immediately killing a young man, Duante Wright, who pulled over. People using guns to walk into offices, grocery stores, homes and just kill everyone, CONTINUES. It’s absurd. So yes, not all rainbows and butterflies.
But I do have hope. Which is weird when everything seems to be hopeless. But there is a new gen of kids being raised where the majority believes this is all crazy. You see it on TikTok and you see kids taking stands and having voices in a way I haven’t seen before. SURE you still have some highlighting their outfits of the day and Cartier bracelets their parents got them for turning 12 or whatever…but there is a lot of activism growing and growing and people calling out the bullshit more publicly and visibly than ever before.
SO with that..welcome everyone and to my new subscribers. THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL newsletter but SOMETIMES…sometimes…you have to address the elephant in the room and I could sit here and write all day about funny memes and TikToks but to not address what is actually happening out there felt weird and incorrect to me. SO we have a little serious and a little fun and this was a tricky week to write about so I will need to decompress for the rest of the day!
“RACISM ISN’T GETTING WORSE, ITS GETTING FILMED” —
I BELIEVE this line is attributed to Will Smith, and it is very very true. It’s not like all of a sudden there is racism. We are just witnessing it in ways we never have before. We have video where we see it happening and we can no longer say “I haven’t ever seen racism IRL” because it is now here for all of us to see and be shocked over. Whether it is a video of someone drop kicking an elderly Asian man to the ground or a white drill sergeant who seemingly was DISPLEASED a black man was in his neighborhood, we can no longer say we are unaware. My intent in writing this newsletter is not to lecture or summarize the news we already know….but instead to highlight in SOME way, how this impacting/changing/affecting popular culture in some way. So there have been MILLIONS upon millions of views of videos that are talking about the shooting this past week of Duante Wright and the racist tirade directed at a young black man named Deandre along with videos capturing the actions people took in protest.
So what you see here is happening all over TikTok…people emoting and people telling their own stories or using their platforms to bring awareness. People of all races and ages using the platform to show injustices as well as to EXPRESS their very real emotions.
There is another thing that TikTok is being used for…and that is exposing trolls. There is a lot of “anonymous” hate on socials that is really toxic and can destroy people BUT there is a growing trend of people working to expose these trolls. FOR EXAMPLE, this creator posted this TikTok which has well over a million “likes” and has been viewed by millions more.
I guess my point is that anonymity doesn’t exist anymore…it shouldn’t really. I mean when it comes to people putting out hate…generally behind the guise of anonymity or thinking NO one will see them. We have VIDEO OF COPS killing black men. We have video of WHITE men chasing or accosting black men. We have VIDEO of Asians being brutalized. We have social media outing trolls. You would think this would deter people from behaving this way…but it seemingly hasn’t but maybe over time? THAT’S my hope.
TIMES UP FOR BULLIES:
So, I will say I was MUCH better prepped in life for dealing with bullies than I was with say, sexual harassers, physical abusers and math. I am not making a joke here…like I was not prepared for any of these other things through my upbringing or education. I was taught that guys get Blue Balls before I ever learned that men could rape us. I learned that I could die if I kept a tampon in my body longer than 8 hours but never learned how to protect myself from abuse. I learned if I had sex in high school I was a slut but if a guy had sex he was a HERO. And I learned math the wrong way but that’s another newsletter.
I also learned that EVERYONE has a bully and that’s just the way of life and it will happen no matter who you are or what you look like. THAT WAS the big life lesson. There was this girl growing up who I worshipped…she was everything I was not. She was COOL and had a big family and always had the coolest rope bracelets and Ralph Lauren outfits and she had HORSES and she was SO mean to me it was traumatizing. I mean there were days I was TOO scared to go to school. She didn’t hit me or pull my hair or anything like that, she just mocked me or shamed me or teased me or even worse….IGNORED me and got my classmates to do the same. And when you’re 9…it is THE END OF THE WORLD. And I remember my mother telling me, “There is a Marcia Wesson (I made this name up to protect my bully who I think grew up to be a a lovely woman btw) in every class and in every school. It is NOT about Marcia, but about how you deal with it and ignore it.”
Yeah so this advice tbh, sucked. I am 46 and STILL am haunted by some of the affects that shit had on me as a kid. BUT you hope that being an adult means you CAN ignore it…hopefully being an adult meant bullies didn’t exist anymore but IF they did you can choose to remove yourself from the situation. But it’s not that easy.
Enter the talk of Hollywood at the moment, Scott Rudin, a producer of Broadway shows and films and blah blah blah. People in the industry have spoken about it for years…the fact that this guy was abusive. TORMENTED his staff, the talent, seemingly everyone. In the land of ME TOO he seemed to be top of the list of getting cancelled. BUT he did not. MAYBE I guess because his abuse was of the bullying kind but NOT of the sexual kind so he was pushed to the side. AND there is that mindset, like my mother had, that if you are being bullied, just leave. Ignore it or leave it. It’s not that easy especially if you’re young and fearful that your entire career is centered around that job. Or if you’re talent and you’re afraid of being fired, or stopping production that would impact people’s paychecks. BUT that all stopped this past week when an exposé came out on Scott Rudin and he then decided to “take a step back and apologize for his actions…’’ actions that are part of his whole day to day life. So, if you missed the article, it is below….but then people took action. Most tragically and hauntingly, the brother of a former employee’s of Rudin’s who took his own life. The video is something to see:
And then Sutton Foster who is basically the second coming of Christ to theatre junkies everywhere → and if you do not watch her on “YOUNGER” then you are missing out BIG TIME it is such a great show…but Sutton, who stars in the “Music Man”, a Rudin-produced show that’s coming when Broadway re-opens, has spoken out. She explains why SHE DID NOT turn to socials to voice her thoughts as she personally didn't feel that was the right format for her (lots of people disagreeing with her) but she did address it on an Insta Live and she says, “the only positive out come was this outcome,” seemingly suggesting the outcome of Rudin being out. She goes on to suggest she had never encountered someone like him.
Before Sutton, MOST people have stayed silent. But Megan Ellison, a young woman I knew when she was a child who has ALWAYS had a point of view and a fearlessness in expressing it but also a woman who remains very reserved and out of the limelight and had not tweeted in YEARS, actually spoke out ON this topic in a tweet:
So for those who wonder why people didn’t just quit…there are many reasons. And for those who have not ever been abused…it does something to your brain where you begin to wonder if you deserved it or provoked it or would never be able to survive without the abuser. You WOULD NEVER EAT LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN. Well, that’s changing.
THE THR exposé:
TIKTOK TREND OF THE WEEK:
OK SO switching gears to what will now be a FUN AND LIGHT PCM…I am trying to highlight a trend on TikTok each week so if nothing else you will know when you hear a certain song playing fro your kid’s phone what they are probably watching…or something they reference at the dinner table you will now MAYBE sort of get it. And frankly, there are sometimes more than one trend happening so I will either pick one I like or showcase a few. WHATEVER I FEEL Monday morning!
Remember on your favorite show or reality show they freeze on the character and give an update on where they are at the moment? Whether at the end of a movie like Legally Blonde of Maid in Manhattan (SOME OF THE BEST MOVIES YOU GUYS) or at the end of Real Housewives of whatever. THAT”S the new trend this week but highlighting silly things people didn’t end up completing and using this very upbeat music. IT IS SO HARD TO EXPLAIN so here you go:
It actually started from what ic an tell a few months ago where black creators created endings for all black characters in movies as a classic stereotype:
AND JUST A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS (AND SOME DESPICABLE ONES TOO…)
YES I have skipped over the funeral for Prince Philip and the whole drama around the brothers reuniting and the fact that tabloids have hired LIP READERS to try to tell us what was said between the two. JUST NO. Not here. I am ignoring it all. OTHER than the Queen, sitting alone, at the funeral. THAT was very sad to me and a beautiful photo.
OK SO in other totally different news:
- UGH I cannot believe this but PETE DAVIDSON is really starting to make sense to me. Like I get why he is a lothario at the moment…an unlikely one for sure with a ton of issues and who my mother would have locked me in a basement to keep me from BUT I GET HIM. He is SO smart and so transparent and just tells it like it is. LIKE this weekend. There is a YouTuber, Jake Paul who is really actually a terrible person and has done countless shameful things ON camera so indisputable and he’s also currently being accused of Sexual assault…just an all around disgusting guy. Who has now decided he is a boxer and had a “fight” with some unknown to me MMA fighter. And some manager thought “let’s give Pete Davidson some money to HOST this thing…” And Pete doe not hold back on what he thinks of the whole thing. I mean SURE possibly they are friends and it was all part of the schtick…but he DID ask Jake about the accusation of sexual assault in a locker room interview which I am guessing was NOT planned. ANWAY, here is his intro to what became a fight that lasted less than 2 minutes with the YouTuber winning and I assume wining a lot of money:
- EVERYONE is talking about canned fish. WHAT??? TRUTH. Have you heard of FISHWIFE?? IT is glorious.
This brand is genius…and co-founded by two women who JUST REALLY LOVED CANNED Fish…a modern day take on a classic and they just launched a new product of rainbow trout this week. I cannot lie…I love NOT only the fish but the look and feel and the product comes with STICKERS which YES, I am 46, but it still thrills me. And today, Dan Frommer, wrote all about THIS TINNED FISH START-UP it in his MUST-read newsletter:
- I never thought I was a STEAK-UMS kind of girl until now. Frankly I did not know what Steak-ums was until the brand started using its Twitter account in a very clever way. CALLING shit out they did not like including Neil deGrasse Tyson for bullshit tweets and people LOVED it:
- JASON MOMOA HAS LAUNCHED A MINIMALIST FLIPFLOP. That’s the post. There is nothing more to say other than I obviously will buy Jason Momoa minimalist flip flops.
I mean….I love him.
- Caterpillar Cakes. GUYS, there is a war brewing across the pond over caterpillar cakes and retailers Marks & Spencer and Aldis are at war over competing CATERPILLAR CAKES:
Colin the Caterpillar and Cuthbert are at WAR and the socials has had fun.
- SXSW will continue thanks to Penske Media which is cool because I love SXSW and everyone complaining will stop complaining the minute they get back to Austin and crack open a cold Shiner Bock, listen to a great live show and eat some BBQ everyone will be thanking Jay Penske.
That is IT my darling POP CULTURE JUNKIES. May this be a beautiful and healthy and wonderful week for everyone.
Be safe, be kind.
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