Pop Culture Mondays/5.24.21
The “LOCUSTS FROM THE HEAVENS” Edition
HAPPY Monday my pop culture besties. This is the countdown to Memorial Day weekend in the US where we can all actually gather together (If YOU ARE VACCINATED and if not….GET VACCINATED) and eat all the hamburgers and hot dogs and make jokes about how you NEVER eat this stuff (but you know you do but I GET you I am the same) and celebrate that we are together and healthy and just have an AMAZING weekend. This week get all your busy stuff done so you know you can REALLY enjoy that 3 day weekend.
THAT IS UNLESS YOU LIVE IN CICADA WORLD. More on that later, but thoughts and prayers to you who are having them fall from the heavens. In OTHER news, I must do something here I have YET to do and that is apologize for pointing you to something I thought was going to be great and I WANTED it to be great and it was NOT great. “Halston.” Last week I told you to watch it. This week I am apologizing for it. I mean it was visually beautiful. And look, all the sex is fun but it just ultimately didn’t work. This is for the MANY of you who reached out to tell me they watched it and were annoyed with me for telling them to . 😇 (SORRY.)
OK, welcome to all the new subscribers. Please note, I am not a journalist or a writer really of any kind. I just got sick of being asked the same question all the time by friends so I decided to just summarize what I think this week’s top pop culture moments are, mixed in with some of my fave TikToks so you can at least keep up with the kids at the dining room table a bit. “WHO IS OLIVIA RODRIGO? WHAT IS THE DRAMA AROUND TARGET DRESSES? AND so much more…
Oh and ONE more apology. UGH. Last week I invited you all to my NEW PCM home on Geneva which launched last week. But because I can only do so much before everything breaks down, I put the wrong link. HOPEFULLY this is the right one and you can come join me!
Sit back and enjoy and as always….we are TRUMP-FREE!
FOOD FROM THE HEAVENS???
OK so here is the deal. A cicada is not a locust. I saw something on the Interwebs that made me laugh: “When is a locust not a locust? WHEN the locust is a cicada,” WHICH DOES NOT HELP ME UNDERSTAND ANYTHING AT ALL. But in case you have been living under a rock, the East Coast is being pummeled by BILLIONS of Brood X Cicadas, these suckers that come once every 17 years and cause nightmares. OR in some cases…a delicious new meal. Before we get to that trend…I have this very weird vivid memory of being a kid and this phenomena happening but that would have been 1987 when I was 13 and in my brain I was MUCH younger and scared and had nightmares and clearly I was just NOT a cool 13 year old. BUT I digress….I will say if I woke up to these guys all over my backyard, I would move for a bit. They are just NOT my thing.
But they are definitely SOME people’s thing…and Cicada TikTok has become a thing. YEP. Lots of people talking about how to eat these little nasty suckers. articles being written about all the tasty things you can do with them. Or whether doggo can or SHOULD eat them. It’s like everyone is STARVING and I don’t understand why do we need to turn everything into something else. JUST LET THE CICADAS BE…..
But since you asked…or you didn’t but I am still going there:
FYI here is a great recipe to add cicadas to things like TACOS. TACOS!!!
AND for those of you still unsure what the story on cicadas coming out now is, this is a good tutorial:
And then my fave…SLUT shaming the cicadas because all they come here to do is have sex.
OK so you just made it thru Cicada TikTok. YOU ARE WELCOME. For more fun below are some links:
IF YOU HAVEN’T HEARD OF OLIVIA RODRIGO, YOU SHOULD HAVE:
Let me first start this by saying, you have more than likely heard Olivia Rodrigo even if you don’t know who she is. Her song, “Driver’s License” is played every second of the day on every radio station and in every store you have been in this Spring. Gas stations, grocery stores, hair salons…wherever you have been out and about to lately. JUST in case you need a reminder, here you go:
Over 200 million views on YouTube means YOU HAVE HEARD THIS SONG. And Olivia is like all you need to understand about Gen Z in one person…kind of like T Swift is to Millennials is how I see Olivia to Gen Z. She is a beautiful singer and songwriter who has written THE breakup album of breakup albums. And the interesting thing about her is she is VERY verbose..like this is not pop music with a fun line or two…it GETS INTO details..it is actual storytelling from start to finish which I think is exactly how the Gen Z brain works and I WHOLEHEARTEDLY appreciate it.
BUT the Millennials who are NOW considered OLD in social media world (Geriatric Millennial trend is funny AF) but it also means I am basically considered SO old and I should be put on a raft and set out to sea, but I digress. The Millennials are being roasted by their GenZ comrades for all of a sudden discovering Olivia and for “Stanning” her (again, if you do not remember what STAN means click here). So there are a lot of funny memes about this:
And then this is my fave…. the gay community has embraced the whole Olivia Rodrigo moment because they are the best tastemakers and trendsetters and this tweet made the rounds and was sent to me by more than 10 people…
AND the girl in this pic then came forward identifying herself and it’s all so perfect for the moment:
FOR more on Olivia, these are really great:
TIKTOK TRENDS!!!
Yes yes I know there is a lot to cover thats way more important, but there are some hotbed issues happening that I am definitely not the person to try to analyze or review. The fact is: Hate is BAD. Anti-semitism is BAD. Islamophobia is BAD. And there was a social movement that happened over the past few days where people posted blue squares on Insta to show their support of Israel and their intolerance of anti-semitism, but on the flip side there were a lot of people showing support for Palestinians and how difficult living in Occupation is and then people on all sides are being cancelled and and innocent people are being attacked on the streets in these horrible anti- Semitic attacks and it’s all bad and I AM NOT THE PERSON TO WRITE an analysis on this. Love and support of LOVE is what I hope we all achieve.
THAT said, I am here to bring a little levity to our pretty heavy lives these days. SO with that, I have decided to do a round-up this week of some of the funniest TikTok trends. Enjoy….
TARGET DRESSES:
Woo boy, talking about people being divided….Target did a fashion drop with summer dresses and TikTok is very divided. People love them. People LOVE to hate them. People love to show them off and create drama around where people stand on this VERY IMPORTANT ISSUE.
MARISSA WHO?? OMG….
So this TikTok went viral when this TikTokker posted a video letting someone named Marissa know they had a horrible friend group as they overheard them talking about her. He asked TikTok to find Marissa to let her know that her friends suck:
Well NYC came together you guys. They SURE did. Marissa was FOUND! Marissa can now enjoy viral fame AND get some better friends.
Here is Marissa stitching the original video above:
God I love this app. Here is the guy who made the OG video WITH Marissa after TikTok founder her:
And then finally…this woman says exactly what I feel:
I’M GOING TO GET RIPPED TONIGHT
OK…so there are a ton of people doing this very funny trend where they basically stand in the camera and sing this line:
“Im getting ripped tonight. R.I.P that….” and then they stop and go into reciting their favorite quotes from elsewhere. Lost? Here are some examples:
THIS is referencing a famous line from “Jersey Shore”.
Then you have this incredible Lin Manuel Miranda impersonator:
Or this Harry Potter one:
The trend started from this song which IS NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK OR ANYWHERE REALLY…but the RIP is in reference to someone’s HOO-HA aka “pussy”. You are WELCOME.
The Best Stitch of the week
Let this restore your faith in humanity. One of the coolest parts of TikTok is that you can use someone’s TikTok to build off of or “stitch”. Like all of the talented people here who stitched off of a TikTok to build this incredible viral moment:
AND JUST A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS (AND SOME DESPICABLE ONES TOO…)
OK OK so I will not live the “Halston” thing down for a while. I get it. But hopefully you have not lost all faith in me!
- THE LINDA LINDAS are everything. These incredible girls..I mean I think one is 10 years old, are punk goddesses who turned a racist, sexist, hateful comment into PURE GOLD. MAY I PRESENT: “RACIST SEXIST BOY”
BUT not to worry. These guys git SIGNED!
- The documentary on PINK on Amazon is VERY good. I mean it is just very very good and makes me feel very unaccomplished as she does more before 7AM than I will do in a week. It is not like other rock and roll docs as it really focuses on her as a mom. It shows her on tour with her family in tow and how to manage that as they count down to WEMBLEY. I have seen Pink in concert a few times and OMG SHE IS AMAZING. HIGHLY RECOMMEND this doc:
- SNL had its season finale and there were some stand outs like Pete Davidson calling out Chrissy Teigen but it all seems like people being mean about people being mean so it is what it is. But for us olds, this was my fave skit in a while. As Kara Swisher said, “ALL HAIL CECILY”
Be safe, be kind. Don’t GET CANCELLED this week.
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