Pop Culture Mondays/7.6.20
The “Everyone is Running for President” Edition
Happy Monday my pop culture junkies. I hope for those of you in the US, you had a lovely and restful and socially distanced 4th of July. I assume none of you here were at any of the parties we have all seen that took place this weekend whether on Fire Island or here in LA (and if you were, thoughts and prayers) where we were all confronted with the fact that we are probably doomed. The ’60s and ’70s will be remembered for the incredible change that the young generation brought due to protest (Vietnam, civil rights, women’s rights, etc.) and we in the 2020s can be proud of the youth of today fighting for their right to spread a deadly virus to those more vulnerable than them like their Meemaws and Pop Pops. Yay! OK, I will stop sounding like the old lady that I am because honestly there are people of every generation who have just basically said screw it as witnessed by the countless videos of people losing their minds in public settings when being asked to put a mask on. I just do not get it. There are so many advantages to wearing a mask that go beyond SAVING YOUR LIFE including:
- They hide your jowls and that sagging chin of yours
- You save so much money in lipstick and lip filler and teeth whitening because WHO CARES?
- Makes people what to know “WHAT IS UNDER THERE??”
- There are some really cute masks out there like:
OK, so there’s my crazy old lady rant. Welcome to PCM for those of you new to this whole experience. We try to be as TRUMP-free as possible…AS POSSIBLE in this moment in time. But this is meant to be a place to escape the madness, maybe learn a little thing or two about what’s happening in pop culture currently or a deeper dive into something you didn’t know that much about. Like a walk thru your favorite candy store where sugar and calories DO NOT COUNT!! So…enjoy….
WTF IS CLUBHOUSE??
OMG I REALLY REALLY DID NOT want to write about this as I am sure there are many people outside of the Silicon Valley world or media world who DO NOT care and will forever be less smart now after reading this but alas, it was a big moment and I have received a lot of questions so I am going to attempt to summarize it but I encourage you to read up on the whole controversy vs relying on my sarcastic self to explain it to you.
So a few months ago, a new app came on to the scene called Clubhouse. Still in Beta and invite only, it was a new brainchild of Silicon Valley brains and everyone seemingly in tech and beyond wanted in.
The premise is simple — almost TOO close to those crazy party phone lines that were ALL the rage in the ’80s, long before the founders of this app were even born. But the party line concept was simple, you would dial a number (literally dial the number in the olden days where you had to sit in one place due to the cord connecting the phone, but I digress…) and be connected to dozens and dozens of strangers and just sit and talk to them about whatever (and I am sure this too devolved into badness). But most just sat in and listened and seemingly not getting into too much trouble EXCEPT when that phone bill came and then LORD MERCY, hide yourself.
You see, they (the people behind the party lines) preyed on the young figuring they would have no idea what dialing this number meant…and what it usually meant was hundreds of dollars in fees that would show up on your parents phone bills — parents would then lose their collective shit on you. SO…sort of like that but minus the costing anything part because THIS IS SILICON VALLEY YOU GUYS and everything is free!!
So, Clubhouse. An app that lets you automatically join these, for now, voice-only conversations that you could see who was on the call but not always be allowed to speak — the moderator chooses who is in listen only and who gets to actually participate. A way to foster conversation amongst a diverse group of people. It got a lot of hype, not always for the reasons they wanted to but needless to say people started getting addicted to it and spending hours and hours on it a day. I think maybe being locked away led it to being a way people could feel connected and not so isolated and I am ALL for that. BUT, as for all cool things, generally they get messy real fast.
So the controversy erupted this past week that has now carried over to the mainstream as in NOT JUST Silicon Valley. It’s a whole long story that entails a reporter at the NY Times being called out by a tech investor dude for trying to take down female CEOs. The whole thing actually started on Instagram…where the reporter took a screenshot of a female CEO’s Insta story where she was complaining about the media world (this is a CEO who had a PR crisis months ago and had remained silent it seems about everything including her support of BLM and other things that employees were HOPING she would speak about but instead chose to speak up instead about media but that’s a total side note…) anyway back to what happened…the NYT reporter then TWEETED the pic of the Insta story where she then added her own interpretation and scathing descriptors (which is one thing if you are a non-journalist but being a journalist at a massive publication well it casts a big spotlight on it and raises questions about journalists and their social media voices…) and then the socials erupted. People attacked Silicon Valley dude for attacking female journalist. People attacked female journalist for attacking female CEO. It was like the craziest ping pong game but one where you were like PLEASE ALL OF YOU STOP and no one wins ever.
But people got more and more enraged and took to whatever social media app they find solace in. And then there was Clubhouse which has become exactly what its name suggests…an exclusivity and US vs THEM feeling. So a group of people on the app came together to talk about their outrage over this NYT reporter and the whole topic of tech journalism and how outrageous it is that they all want to write negative take down stories (I am in the business of helping tech companies get press so this is a particularly relevant topic for me…) and Clubhouse is an app where people maybe lose themselves and forget that they are being listened to by many. That’s the point I guess, to make people forget that this is not a small little clubhouse conversation and that people they may not know, likely do not know, ARE listening. And someone recorded this conversation and they published it. QUELLE HORREUR!!
I am not going to write more about the whole moment but here’s the thing. My mother grew up in the ’40s and ’50s in Washington, DC. Her parents were New Dealers and were founding members of the SEC (TRUE STORY!). Their friends and neighbors were ambassadors, Senators, other public service people and they had kids. And one day one of the kids told another friend on the phone that a certain Ambassador smelled funny and she hated when he came over to the house. AND THIS BECAME A STORY in the press because the operator was listening in and shared it with reporters.
THIS IS NOT A NEW STORY. If you don’t want to see something you say (or write) on the pages of a newspaper or anywhere, then I encourage you to NOT say it in a public forum (or in email or a phone call). It is not a new 2020 thing we should all be shocked over. IT just is the way it goes. So to be shocked that someone recorded a group chat with big names talking about something controversial, is naive. Anyway, I glossed over a lot A LOT of topics here because there is a lot to unpack so here you go with a starter kit….
An explainer on the app itself:
NO, NOT QANON….BRITNEY IS SENDING US CODE:
This is two weeks in a row where we cover Brit Brit and I am guessing this is NOT the last time. We all know Britney has been facing a great many personal challenges over the years clearly suffering from mental health issues that should never be laughed at or exploited or mocked. BUT why she is trending is not because she has a new album coming out or a court case where she is fighting for her independence, but instead is due to her increasingly odd social media posts that have people thinking not only is something wrong, but that perhaps she is sending SOS via her posts. Her latest one that has kicked this whole thing up a notch is this (originally on TikTok):
So seemingly it is about the flowers her “florist” sent her but they only appear for a split second and the rest is a mesmerizing video of her walking back and forth on and off camera showing off her yellow crop top and bopping her pony tail around. It left people baffled and then that’s where the controversy takes a sharp turn into conspiracy. So, there have been conspiracies for a while about what’s happening with Britney who as an adult lives under the control of her parents who seemingly have authority over EVERY decision she makes from who she dates to when she sees her children. But apparently UNLIKE Claudia Conway situation (Claudia, a MINOR who’s crazy ass parents took away her phone so she would stop publicly calling out Trump, her mother’s boss and father’s nemesis but I digress…..) Britney still has control of her socials.
The fact is, conservatorships are there to protect people who cannot take care of themselves (think elderly with dementia) so someone close to them can protect them. Britney is still making money and making albums and touring so that shows she can still actually function as a human so it leaves a lot of questions and a movement #freebritney was created. It has existed for a while but taken on more steam recently. AND HERE IS THE THING: There is LOTS AND LOTS of talk on TikTok that she wore the yellow top as a sign as in her last video a fan asked if she was OK and if she was NOT OK, to wear YELLOW in her next video. AND THEN SHE DID. So for all of it and more here you go:
2020 Y’ALL:
The thing that really comes up this week is how there needs to be much more money spent on mental health in this country. SO much of what we are seeing trend these days is due to people with mental health issues. Whether it is a crazypants politician who is part of the QAnon madness (all mentally unwell people) who claims that Beyoncé is in fact NOT Black, but instead is an Italian woman pretending to be a black woman…this is A REAL TWEET from someone running for CONGRESS:
To the lady everyone was talking about who could not for the life of her figure out her gas tank situation…I know everyone laughed at this (and I have actually had this happen to me when I was a teenager) but the fact is there might actually be something wrong with her maybe?
Enter Kanye. While many of us were basking in Hamilton joy (more on that in a minute), Kanye announced he is going to run for President. Of the United States. Now, he has not filed any of the paperwork to do so (formalities are BORING). This is not the first time actually so really, none of us should be surprised. Back in 2015, he announced he was running for President in 2020. But then he got all MAGA on us so we filed that far far far away. But he has now resurfaced his claims…also PERFECTLY timed with his announcement of a new album called God’s Country so hard to think it’s not just a publicity stunt to draw attention to his album. But many people believe he is really a serious candidate and I have heard from many people who really believe this is a serious presidential campaign announcement. And then patron saint of PCM, our human BABY YODA, Elon Musk, got in on the action:
I think when women in the spotlight suffer from mental health issues, we watched in anticipation and excitement of the next meltdown. When it’s a man…we elect them president. 🙃
HAMILTON CONTROVERSY:
So, no one who reads THIS newsletter regularly will be surprised that I woke up and watched the Hamilton movie at the crack of dawn. And I sang every lyric — badly — grateful no one else could hear me though I apologize to my neighbors and my dog. My socials were filled with everyone capturing the moment of watching the film. Many seeing Hamilton for the first time. Some loving it. Others, maybe NOT so much.
I totally understand how it is a personal thing and not everyone is going to be a Hamilton junkie. But then it took a turn I was not expecting…maybe naive of me BUT since almost everyone in the Hamilton production is a person of color and SPOILER ALERT: George Washington was not Black, nor was Hercules Mulligan or Madison or Jefferson or Aaron Burr for that matter…so the whole thing is a creative interpretation BUT I digress.
We are in a hyper-woke moment so everything is ON the table. Even our beloved Lin-Manuel Miranda and his masterpiece. It IS true, the founding fathers were not all good people…I mean they treated Blacks, Native Americans and women like SHIT. They are credited with being forward thinking- but if SO FORWARD thinking maybe they could have predicted guns going from being muskets to AUTOMATIC WEAPONS and therefore should not be protected by the Constitution but OK whatever…we ask for SO little. (I am being sarcastic here BUT there’s a point to all of it.) That said, many people have criticized Miranda and Disney as being racist and complicit by sugarcoating an awful time in history and making slave owners and others into heroes. #CancelHamilton became a trending topic.
But this morning, Miranda has commented on it:
It’s a tricky situation with lots of complexities but embracing the conversation is the right approach by Miranda IN MY opinion.
AND THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS….
Congrats on making it this far. I appreciate you finding the time to go thru some of these things in a more thorough fashion as I can only scratch the surface. Below, are some fun things that we saw this week, but for a second a not fun thing to share and one that has broken our hearts collectively and that is the death of Nick Cordero who lost his battle to the coronavirus this weekend.
A young father in picture perfect health with his future ahead of him who got knocked down early and hard by this virus and who was kept going by his wife, Amanda Kloot’s amazing energy and spirit who kept all of us in the loop with her in real time, passed away this weekend. A tragic reminder at how much damage this virus causes and one we all witnessed in real time as his wife was so transparent with everything and we all want to hug her right now:
But there were some bright moments so here you go:
- Get this kid an agent stat. Who am I kidding, I am sure he has one by now. But this is creativity at its best:
- The Navy should make this their Ad forever and for always:
- Doritos logo has the socials shook. Apparently, the logo that was the logo when you were 14 is the one you choose as your fave:
Until next week, my Pop Culture Junkies. If you have ANY FEEDBACK or suggestions please lmk and as always please share this with EVERYONE!
Anyway, please stay SAFE. Wear 😷 when you are out in public and be kind to one another.
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