Pop Culture Mondays/7.25.22
The “Oh HEYYYYYYY Elon” Edition
Happy Monday my darling pop culture junkies. And wowzers…do we all come together on Mondays now totally FULL of vim and vigor, as our grandparents used to say? I mean, all the best stuff drops these days on a Sunday, so Mondays are the best really. And this week did NOT disappoint. We are going to just jump in as there is a LOT to cover.
I know I know, most of you are on your “boats” in the Med or the Aegean, taking your tenders (if you know you know) to a quiet lunch at Anjuna or to a more boisterous one at Club 55 or you’re in Greece chilling in your understated, perfectly designed villa in Antiparos OR you’re spraying your friends with champs at NAMMOS on Mykonos. Look, I don’t judge.
JUST know that I see you.
And I hope you realize what’s happening around you…all of us:
But ok, let’s move on to MAYBE less depressing stuff. If you’re new here, welcome. We are a brief escape into the world of pop culture and what people are talking about where I break down whatever viral moment we are living in this week. Grab your headphones and we are and always…Trump free…
And if you missed last week’s pod…it is a really great one!
THIS IS ELON’S WORLD. AND WE ARE PLAYING RIGHT INTO IT:
Look, before yesterday’s bombshell Elon gossip (that’s coming), this pic was what everyone was talking about. The youngs on TikTok, the olds on Twitter…everyone was having a field day. Some people got criticized for body shaming Elon…but some made the point that he did the very same thing to others…ahem like Bill Gates. I mean we are in a world where the richest people on earth (men) are mocking each other on Twitter…but we have been here a while already so I guess this is normal now.
BUT THIS PHOTO. This is Hollywood super-agent & CEO of Endeavor, Ari Emmanuel HOSING Elon down post dip in the salty Aegean Sea. And side note for anyone who has not been on big boat…the best part of being on a yacht, in MY humble opinion, is when one of the deckhands in his crisp white polo shirt hoses ME off after I get out of the water, so this photo makes perfect sense.
But this is pic of Elon looking rather….BEEFY shall we say. It also went viral for how amazing Ari Emmanuel looks.
Your man is 61 and that body is giving everyone A LOT OF THOUGHTS. While I was trying to lull myself into the belief that he just has good genes, I was in bed eating a cheese plate (look guys, we will blame JETLAG ok), Dylan Byers of Puck, published Ari’s daily schedule:
Ari wakes up everyday long before sunrise and takes an hour-long ice bath. This is followed by a session in his private sauna and deep meditation, which is in turn followed by a hard, intensive workout in his private gym around — save for Mondays, when he does not work out because he fasts for 24 hours. On the other six days of the week, he fasts for roughly 18 hours, skipping breakfast, taking lunch at noon and eating dinner at six. His diet is heavily though not exclusively lectin-free vegan, and includes a highly specific, bespoke kale-chard-spinach-avocado smoothie (I have the recipe, it’s quite long). The final ingredient is a regular ingestion of bacteria-eating microworms, which he takes “for longevity,” a source said. On days when he is not flying, he works from a treadmill desk. Many people in the industry have stories of watching Ari roll calls on the treadmill desk.
To have that sort of discipline is just not something I would ever be able to do. I would do the microworms thing though that sounds fun. But this man wakes up when I am basically going to sleep so it’s never gonna be attainable for me. BUT I ADMIRE HIM GREATLY.
There were lots of funny tweets about both of them but in classic Elon fashion, he jumped in on the fun:
Now, if I wrote this newsletter a few days before publishing, this would be the last of the Elon post. But alas, things seem to happen on a daily basis on that front so let’s get to the news that stopped people on Sunday to actually READ. WALL STREET JOURNAL article (ok, I kid…most actually I know seemingly read the Daily Mail articles — and then texted me -which was based off the WSJ article but I digress…) I am not completely sure why a business-focused newspaper does an entire expose on the private lives of the tech guys to be perfectly honest. It was fun for us, but seems weird for a newspaper like the Wall Street Journal. Though they have done it before with others including the other subject of their scoop, Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
SO…the “news” comes out about Elon allegedly having a brief dalliance if you will, with Sergey’s wife. The scandal being that they were long-time friends and Sergey in fact had apparently helped Elon out financially at one time. So a scandolo. BUT IS IT? Sergey and his wife were estranged at that point (and getting divorced) but let me be clear about all these people….they are all very fluid and I think open marriages, and the like, tend to be the lifestyle of many.
AND WHO ARE WE TO JUDGE. I agree with this tweet:
I have no issues with whatever decisions adults make tbh as long as no one is being hurt maliciously etc etc. BUT…I do care about the fact I have not gone a week without being forced to imagine Elon’s sex life. And that is not a place I want to be. These Silicon Valley Sex Scandals always involve the same few people and it is SO BORING let’s move on shall we? This tweet says it all:
BUT, just for shits and giggles, I did put a poll out on Twitter and so far, the results are not surprising. Of a total of 2,669 (a very ELON-esque number btw) — 37.6% of people (that’s over 1000 people) have responded NOT YET when asked if they have slept with Elon. SO we have a lot more sexytime news in our future:
And then you think we would be done for a bit envisioning Elon having sex right? NOPE. You would be incorrect on that because Elon responded to the hoopla…in classic Elon fashion he responded…here is the first one:
So, could this huge WSJ investigative piece be BS? Possible. Do I hate them for making Elon tweet the below….yes, yes I do:
And with that…we are done here.
TRENDS & VIRAL MOMENTS THIS WEEK:
There were a lot of them so I decided to just put them all under one heading so as to not pick and choose. And to help you understand maybe some of the things you’re late to or some things you wanted to know more about. Also, so I can kill some of your brain cells!
Let’s start here:
We have CLARK KENT OF THE JANUARY 6TH HEARINGS! Just as we were wrapping up SEASON ONE of the hearings, they did in fact drop a bomb. Oh yes sure, Secret Service deleting texts and Josh Hawley running for his sweet little life were all important BUT what really brought us together as a nation was THIS MAN. Now, I know the gay community went nutso for him…I first saw this unfold from Andy Cohen on Twitter (love how he tweets a screen grab of a screengrab but I digress):
But this went beyond Gay Twitter and it took over everywhere. And they were good. Here are some of my faves:
And someone did raise a good point though it seems like people were willing to OVERLOOK shall we say said political allegiance:
Anyway, the dude did not want the hoopla and he switched his socials to private so I am not going to call attention to him personally here. But he is a 23-year-old medical school student and that’s all we need to know!
Moving on…
You most likely saw these pop up in your socials somewhere last week, whether it was Facebook or Instagram or Twitter it was everywhere. Again, it seemed to grab a hold of a few different generations! This became the perfect meme for people to showcase their perceived imperfections or issues or red flags in people. Where did it come from? Well, according to THIS EXCELLENT MASHABLE article:
How “Little Miss” started in the first place
The illustrations of the Little Miss memes date all the way back to 1971 when Hargreaves (UK illustrator) was asked by his son Adam to describe what a tickle looked like. Mr. Tickle, a yellow, squiggly man donning an adorable blue top hat, spearheaded the Mr. Men series which went on to sell over 100 million copies worldwide, including the spinoff series Little Miss in 1981, along with multiple TV shows on the BBC. Roger Hargreaves died in 1988 with his son Adam taking over Mr. Men with new drawings and stories.
It is hard to pin down who actually started this, but it became a trend when viral Instagram account, “juulpuppy” began highlighting them:
Thought they definitely claim ownership to the trend:
There were so many good ones across the socials…..the guys got some hits too:
I could to this forever but we must move on to the next trend!
FILTERS. There are so many filters being used by everyone these days whether movie stars to reality stars to everyday people to teens to people putting them on BABIES. It’s too much. It is frying our brains. I used to think it was bad my gen was made to believe HEROIN CHIC was the way we needed to look which launched a billion eating disorders…that’s still the case but the filters making people want different faces and eye colors and it’s just too much. So there is a filter (ironic I know) on TikTok showing you what you look like with a filter, and without. I made one…it’s shocking:
I love what some of the creators have done with it:
You get the idea.
Speaking of creators…there was a killer story this weekend by Taylor Lorenz of The Washington Post on how creators are increasingly more interested in building community vs follower counts. It focuses on Geneva, a company I have been passionate about since it started and I am an advisor.
EMMANUEL DON’T DO IT.
And now let’s back to another Emmanuel…not Ari, but let me introduce you to the viral sensation, Emmanuel Todd Lopez…the EMU:
This creator and her emu have warmed our cold, dark hearts:
And here is the best compilation of all the times Emmanuel chose violence:
But people really got into it:
FIVE THINGS Trend.
Professionals are posting 5 THINGS THEY WOULD NEVER do if they were on the other side. Like a Doctor telling us what they would never do based on the injuries they see time and time again. Here are a couple:
I assume MANY of you are REAL HOUSEWIVES fans and we can debate which one os the best (it’s Beverly Hills btw) and this week’s viral clip comes from that very franchise. Dorit, the Israeli European from Connecticut (great accent) really fell in love with everything Jamie Lee Curtis was bringing on hear appearance:
The CHICEST WIND CHIME. I am here for it.
And lastly, we have our beloved Drew Barrymore who went mega-viral for her TikTok last week. A woman who has really gone from wild bad girl from the ’90s to the nerdiest mom we utterly adore. LOVE IT.
AND NOW FOR SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS (OR SOME OF THE DESPICABLE ONES…)
- WAKANDA FOREVER. Guys…this trailer is EVERYTHING. I cannot wait until November.
- Earlier this summer, I had the absolute privilege of attending the nuptials of Sophia Bush and Grant Hughes, two humans I have known separately for years. Their wedding was a 3 day extravaganza in Tulsa, Oklahoma and it was something. While Grant is from Oklahoma, they chose Tulsa as they knew they would have a spotlight on them and chose to turn that spotlight onto the incredible history (and lack of knowledge) around the Tulsa Massacre and the history of Black Wall Street and what’s happening today in Tulsa. Read about the wedding here:
And this just came out from our most beloved actor, Tom Hanks…and it is incredible:
- We have another horrible TikTok moment from someone we have talked about here before. Lance, aka The Modern Warrior, who is the Native American creator who was at the center of a shitstorm a few months ago. Well he is back. And the community has gone nuts…
They have come out with an attempt at an apology but they claim they were having words put in their mouths…we aren’t even going to show that here because it’s too terrible.
- For many of you I am late to the party. But if you don’t know…THE BEAR is maybe one of the best new shows in a while. You must watch it.
- And lastly, I ALSO watched this amazing documentary, “The LAst MOvie Stars” that includes all our fave stars including George Ccooney and Laura Linney and made by Ethan Hawke…on Paul Newman and and Joanne Woodward. I LOVED IT.
THAT IS IT, my darlings…
Have a wonderful week, my darlings. Stay cool out there. Stay healthy.
Have sex with Elon, don’t have sex with Elon…I do not care.
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