Pop Culture Mondays/6.21.22
The QUEEN B Edition
Happy TUESDAY, my darling pop culture junkies. I hope you all had a magical weekend and spent Monday learning all you could about JUNETEENTH and its history, but we can always know MORE, so I got you. Here are some great things to watch:
OK…I urge you to watch all of this…some are short, some take time…all will fascinate you, and we all need to keep learning, and content like the above can help.
Monday was ALSO #worldrefugeeday which trended online as refugees take front and center this year due to the war in Ukraine. But there are refugees worldwide, and there have been since the beginning of time…I was told that in many refugee situations (not Ukraine), the average time someone stays in a camp is 11 years. ELEVEN YEARS. I will work and meet with refugees in a couple of weeks with my friends at the organization CHOOSE LOVE so I can see the different situations people are in around the world. It’s a beautiful organization, so if you want to get involved, please check them out here:
And if you want the awesome t-shirt by beloved artist Charlie Mackesy then you can find it HERE:
OK, so let’s get INTO the mind-numbing, less important sugar-free escape of the pop culture world this week. If you are new here, then welcome. We usually are on Mondays and silly and always Trump-free. AND in case you missed last week’s GUESTLESS pod…we cover a LOT of ground in the most fun of ways.
BREAK MY SOUL:
Queen B has dropped a single, and when news broke that it was COMING, the Internet basically stopped. Everyone was counting down until she dropped it. And it dropped last night. There is NO video yet, but more than 2 million have already just watched the lyric video, so here you go:
Beyoncé is telling us to QUIT OUR JOB, and people have reacted. Here are some:
And Drake released new music too, which seemed less popular, but the Twitter spoke:
AND in other news….just to make you question time and the universe. Blue Ivy, Beyoncé and Jay’s oldest child, is a pre-teen, just like that…WTF IS TIME??
And I am sure this makes dads everywhere feel a BIT better about always seemingly embarrassing their kid…I can still FEEL my eyes rolling at my dad whenever he did something cringe, in my opinion, whether he was making a dad joke at the deli counter (always), when he would pick me up still in his golf outfit, shoes, and all, or when he would ask me literally ANYTHING. I would roll my eyes and be like, “DAD UGH!!!!’ How I wish I could tell him I didn’t mean it. But alas, even JAY-Z gets the UGH DAD:
WHAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK:
There are those moments that everyone remembers and which seem to create global conversations. You MIGHT remember some of these TOP ones:
OR WHAT ABOUT THIS ONE…
Or Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston:
Or…
or…
or even…
SO….what do we have currently? I would say the thing this past week that shocked and horrified many but also delighted MANY..was THIS photo released by Warner Bros. teasing their feature film “BARBIE” coming out NEXT SUMMER, and starring Margo Robbie AND….AND….Ryan Gosling as Ken. IN case you missed it:
But the memes were OUTSTANDING:
SERIOUSLY I could post dozens more; they are all so funny.
NOT to be outdone; we had major drama in BTS world. For those of you unaware, BTS is a K-pop band (Korean Pop) and perhaps the biggest band in the world. I talked about them the other week when Tucker Carlson inexplicably went after them, only for the BTS Army to go and destroy Tucker online (heroes). And a couple of months back, when I went to their concert in Vegas in a stadium filled, I mean FILLED with 65,000 screaming — and I mean SCREAMING — fans who were dropping $$$ on ALL the merch anywhere they could find it. I have never seen SO much merch. The band’s members range in age, with some of them nearing 30 and their whole lives are super controlled. They are not allowed to date. They are not allowed to be seen out and about. They are basically held captive by the management label that produces them. There is big money in this band, and the company behind them reportedly lost over $1 BILLION in market cap when the news of their hiatus broke. The way it came out makes you wonder if their management had any idea of their plans. This shows the whole thing plays out:
So while we are in an economic crisis with a recession apparently coming and the economy tanking as inflation goes nuts…the real thing to bring us to an economic wasteland — certainly South Korea — is this news. For an example of their music, this recent video has over ONE HUNDRED MILLION VIEWS on YouTube:
Now the skeptic in me believes all this hiatus talk was coordinated with releasing their new anthology, which is now NUMBER ONE, but I suppose they didn't need any help with that!
OK, moving on, and I say this with deep regret because I WAS SO HAPPY last week to NOT have to talk about Amber and Johnny, but…BUT...Amber has put the conversation RIGHT BACK, FRONT AND CENTER. She did a sit-down interview with Savannah Guthrie where she doubles… tripled down on her abuse allegations. But then things took an even weirder turn when she was asked about the claims Johnny’s lawyers made about her acting:
Yes, I always wondered how Johnny Depp could play guitar when he had scissors for fingers. And how could he play a pirate when he had scissors for fingers? The reactions were amazing:
The thing is…all mocking aside. The whole fiasco is so terrible, and no, and no one wins here.
But let’s have a LITTLE happy now. ANY guesses on the last BIG internet sensation this week?
If you guessed Harry Styles AGAIN…you are correct. Harry has kicked off his tour in the UK and some mega moments happened for the pop star who people are trying to brand a rock star, and I don't understand because he is a GREAT pop star, but I digress…He is DARLING, and that all there is to say about it. In this TikTok, Harry is captured, finding his schoolteacher in the massive crowd and thanking her for all she did for him as a child. CAN YOU EVEN??
And to understand the scale of his fan base…this is his show in Manchester. There is also a hotel where guests are lined up on their balconies to watch. WHAT A THING:
And this is even a better look:
And then finally…HARRY in the rain. Now, I have been on a few rock show tours in my day I shall not lie. And when it rains, it is HARD. Sometimes impossible. From equipment to all the people filming and recording and the artist themself finding it impossible. BUT DOES RAIN STOP HARRY?
IT DOES NOT.
AND NOW FOR SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS (OR SOME OF THE DESPICABLE ONES…)
- So I can say I have FIRST-hand experience of what is happening with the luggage in Heathrow at the moment. My friend arrived on Friday from London, but her bags did not come. This is not the airline issue but apparently a LUGGAGE SYSTEM issue at Heathrow. The pilot announced as they were boarding that 60 percent of luggage would not make it on, and either they canceled the flight or left it behind…they left it behind. My friend was notified her bags didn’t arrive and then NOTHING. Other than leaving the address for where they should go, she heard NOTHING. Only after I personally DMed United did we find out the bags would be delivered late Sunday night. Kind of a miracle they arrived at all when you see these:
- This kid and his amazing hips are everywhere on TikTok.
And the creators have so much fun with it…
- And everyone realized they didn’t need to be a yogi to do a complex handstand move. So this went viral:
- And remember the DRESS? We have discussed the MARILYN dress that Kim K wore to the Met Gala at length both here and in the pod? Yeah, well, the Internet exploded at a report that she had utterly destroyed the dress due to a disgruntled SOMEONE posting images of the damage:
And naturally, people had fun:
BUT alas, the reports from the owners of the dress dispute the claims the dress was damaged, and the outrage was PUT TO REST.
- THIS was an incredible documentary, and my level of respect for JLo is higher than I ever thought possible. A MUST WATCH and a heartbreak, tbh. Also, Billy Bush can go fuck himself, and I really mean that:
- Remember our Jiggle Jiggle obsession? WELL, here you go…what a story. Also, Louis Theroux IS related to Justin Theroux, although they pronounce their names differently
- And ending on this badass moment…students protesting their Christian college's anti-LGBTQ policies took a stand at their graduation.
THAT IS IT, my darlings…
Have a wonderful week, my darlings. Make sure to check out this week’s POD, which will come out Thursday…my guest…well, she is simply AMAZING.
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