Pop Culture Mondays/6.14.21

The 🏳️‍🌈 Edition

Brooke Hammerling
Pop Culture Mondays
10 min readJun 14, 2021

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Welcome to my brain

HAPPY MONDAY my pop culture junkies and happy Pride month and all the celebrations around it and happy JUNETEENTH week and happy almost June 15th to California which like WTF are you doing tomorrow if you live in CA and the world is opening up? I might be hiding under my bed tbh. I mean it is sort of crazy how fast most of us adapt and I know there are people who say “I will never go back to the way I was before” but let’s see how long that lasts. Traffic is back. Lines are back. Colds will probably be back. SOOOOO…under my bed I go. BUT not before I write this monster of a PCM because there is JUST SO MUCH HAPPENING. And I know a lot of you are waiting to hear what I have to say about Jeffrey Toobin (🤡) and I know this because I have heard from SO many people asking, “what are you going to say…?” so here I go because I DO NOT WANT TO add his face to my newsletter because gross and because I do not want to waste more time and energy on him and what this whole thing says but to summarize…

…the Toobs got “caught” masturbating during a Zoom meeting with his New Yorker colleagues 7 months ago. Yes that’s right, during the height of the pandemic, while all of his esteemed colleagues are meeting via Zoom to discuss the topics ahead, the Toobs COULD NOT BEAR it anymore and decided to engage in some frisky masturbation during the call. Problem is he left his camera on. (I mean there are a lot of problems but let’s just focus on this one.) Let us just for ONE SECOND think about his colleagues and what they were confronted with. LOOK, I am liberal AF. I am guy’s girl and a girl’s girl. I am not a prude and I love old fashioned chivalry I am not going to lie. I do not grow AGHAST at all things others might deem as inappropriate and I try not to judge because I AM NO SAINT but I draw the line at a dude pulling his pants down and blah blah blah. I think this is pretty STANDARD response. He was fired by Conde Nast and CNN put him on suspension. WE assumed surely his broadcast days were done. Well, ENTER Jeff Zucker (shocker) who now is all puffed up like a peacock because he has more power than ever due to the Discovery deal and he decides the Toobs (a bro of his) has paid the price and HE IS BACK ON AIR. But even worse, he does an interview which, let’s be clear, you KNOW most CNN anchors were VYING to do because WHY not, and he proceeds to say he has had a TERRIBLE 7 months but he worked in a food bank so YAY he’s paid the price. AND HE IS BACK (CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO). I am not one for cancel culture but surely when we are cancelling young women for tweets they did when they were in high school ten years ago and albeit terrible tweets they have shown they have evolved since then…SURELY a man who proceeds to take his pants off to masturbate in the middle of the day while his colleagues watched…SURELY….no never mind. FORGET it. But I will say it will be VERY hard to see the CNN anchors known for their eye rolls and sarcasm and judgement take that tone moving forward. SO if you are a politician NOW IS YOUR TIME for public masturbation and being caught on camera because at the very least CNN better have NOTHING to say about it. HAVE FUN LINDSAY GRAHAM. GO FOR IT.

And with that, this is PCM. Welcome to my newest subscribers…I am normally not ranting but THIS had to be said. Hopefully the rest is less RANTY but I cannot promise as I write this in real time and have no editor…OBVIOUSLY… (we all need editors tbh).

Enjoy….

I WANT ALL THE COOKIES

CONFECTIONS BAKERY IN TEXAS WINS ALL THE ❤️:

Sometimes terrible stories turn into beautiful ones and humanity comes out swinging in all the best of ways. Last week, a bakery in East Texas posted a pic of their Pride cookies on their Facebook page. They posted about having ‘More Love and less Hate’ which IS A BEAUTIFUL WONDERFUL MESSAGE and how on earth actual human beings find issues with this message is BEYOND me but here we are. The bakery THEN posted that as a result of their Pride cookies and message, they lost a ton of followers AND an order they had already made of 5 dozen cookies had been cancelled out of protest by some irate and hateful patron who left a. hateful message and cost the bakery a lot of money.

Well, HUMANITY SAID “HELL NO” and what was probably a really terrifying and sad day for those who run the bakery as they watched business drop off, turned into an amazing moment. The post went viral. Like it was everywhere on every social platform from Insta to TikTok to Facebook to Twitter. CROSS PLATFORM VIRALITY! People responded by placing a ton of orders — one customer is the brother of one of our favorite people here at PCM Mark Cuban. The support from the community and the world was STRONG. And just a day after they posted, a line around the block for the bakery emerged.

And the owners are so incredible that the money they got in surplus of what they had in inventory — with the customers permission — they donated to animal charities. So this was a beautiful end to a terrible beginning. And restored my faith in humanity.

MAGNET PEOPLE

WE ARE MAGNET — LATEST CONSPIRACY:

YES well congratulations everyone. WE DID IT. We got to the end of the pandemic with a mother of a conspiracy theory making its way around the US. I say US because let’s be clear, it is mainly here because the rest of the world invests in mental health and education. SO….’Merica. PLEASE keep in mind that Sherri Tenpenny is a DOCTOR. Like she is educated though sorry don’t yell at me because I DID JUST SAY I am not judgey BUT she is a Doctor of OSTEOPATHIC medicine. NOT that there is anything wrong with that but just so you have all of the information. ANYHOO…rather than me tell you about her…here you go:

OH Sherri. Sherri SHERRI SHERRI. What is more important than Sherri being a “doctor” (sorry) is that she is a conspiracy theorist who has been known to spew conspiracies LONG before MAGNETGATE but I have no interest in delving into the other theories at the moment.

We then have a nurse who decides to follow suit in this testimony and well that does not go according to her plan:

They point to proof of the conspiracy in the form of ALL the videos on the Internets of people sticking metal objects on themselves post vaccine. I mean you guys have ALL seen all the videos all over the internet right??? WE ARE ALL MAGNETS NOW. Well, at least we are now thanks to the genius of all the creators out there. For example:

For more on this:

The world held its breath

WE WERE ALL WITH DENMARK:

I have chills writing this and I admit I have cried a lot over this and the videos I have seen. I am not a football/soccer fan. Not that I have anything against it, I just never connected with the sport. But I understand the hold it has over people and nothing in America comes CLOSE to the absolute passion most of the rest of the world has for their teams and their players. So when news on socials started coming out about a player collapsing on the field I wanted to understand what was happening. I learned quickly that a star 29 year old Danish player named Christian Eriksen had collapsed…I was hearing this in real time so it was the belief he had probably died. A cardiac event. As someone who was born with a heart problem and had massive open heart surgery in October, I know very well how things can go south fast. And how fragile we all fucking are. I was sobbing while I was watching everything I could on it.

BUT a miracle happened and due to the fast thinking of his team and people on the ground he got CPR immediately. His teammate kept him from swallowing his tongue. They had a defibrillator there within seconds…and he was revived and is recovering from what I can ONLY guess is a heart valve/aorta issue he didn’t know he had. ANYWAY, I got all the news from Twitter and TikTok and I will say despite being told TikTok is a gateway into China controlling my brain and having access to all my info, the price is wroth it because TikTok brings a lot of good. This has been used as a moment of awareness for people to learn CPR and I am here for it:

For some beautiful and hard to watch videos of what happened please watch these to understand the pain and fear and horror everyone was experiencing:

OH there I go again. Sobbing.

From his team circling around him to protect him and who are undone by what is happening to Christian’s partner being kept away and comforted to the fans in tears. What a moment and what a joy that he is alive. He probably has a big journey ahead of him but it’s so incredible he is here. We need to all learn CPR. We need to.

And then there is this TikTok of someone’s dad who works at the company which made the defibrillator that saved him:

And then lastly…while there is mounting controversy over officials having the game continue a few hours later, during that time the massive stadium filled with fans came together. Finland and Denmark, rivals on the field, united in love and support off the field. Again….chills:

For more:

AND JUST A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS (AND SOME DESPICABLE ONES TOO…)

There are SO many things this week I want to show you but like it would be the world’s longest newsletter so I am picking and choosing a few and apologies if you follow me on the socials you probably have seen one or two of these. BUT there was a LOT of stuff…

  • In the “I cannot believe TikTok is free” department, I got a lot of entertainment from this video and all the videos from ENKYBOYS and please for the love of god if you are a Hollywood agent or run a studio…GET THIS KID SIGNED UP ASAP. I mean…
  • And then there is sad news from the TikTok world. George the Monkey who was a 12 year old Capuchin monkey who had like 18 million followers on TikTok died due to complications from anesthesia having a procedure on his teeth WHICH by the way is more common than you might think and that is why POTATO the dog gets his teeth brushed manually. NO I do not brush them because I am ill equipped for such things but I GET THEM DONE. Anyway, RIP George. TikTok is in mourning.
  • Chrissy Teigen has written a beautiful Medium post. LOOK…Chrissy was cancelled recently. She had done some bad things ten years ago it turns out. BAD, bad tweets telling a teenage girl to kill herself. AMONG other things. And ironic for a woman who had others cancelled for things. So Chrissy was cancelled and a store in LA called Kitson had a sign in their windows #SurvivingChrissyteigen and what was once her happy place, social media, had turned on her. And rightfully so. BUT….again, this was ten years ago and the woman who tweeted those things I believe can change as her actions as a mom seemed to point to and UNLIKE THE TOOBS who went on air to give some crazy cringey interview and talk about FOOD BANKS (I will never get over this), Chrissy wrote a very honest and beautiful post today. Here:

This is the way you come back explaining yourself.

  • MY FAVORITE VIDEO EVER MAYBE EVER. Also I will never be as good at ANYTHING as this guy is at surfing. This is from a couple years ago but thanks to the socials it is now on my radar and I have chills watching it…YOU MUST WATCH TIL THE END. WITH SOUND!
  • And lastly, the Internets went crazy criticizing new mom actress/model/entrepreneur/activist Emily Ratajkowski for how she held her baby. I mean the minute I saw the pic I knew she would get heat and maybe she should have posted a different pic but the world needs to ease up BUT I thought this TikTokker made the most fun of it the best way:

THAT IS IT. Sorry I skipped over the crazy NYC Mayoral race where one candidate apparently has been lying about where he lives and he LIVES IN NEW JERSEY (CLICK LINK) but like I need emotional space from NYC at the moment. PLEASE understand. ALSO, I skipped over WHALE guy and like do you believe him and I skipped HIGH HEELED CROCS from Balenciaga because NOPE. But click the links if you care.

Be safe, be kind. BE PROUD.

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