Loss of Blue Checks
Rarely do we ever experience such an abrupt class change. What was once a mark reserved for celebrities and people who used to work for Buzzfeed (RIP) is now a symbol of a very different kind of annoying person. One who can’t see the writing on the wall, or the fact that once you pay for something you used to have earn by an unknown metric of “notability”, it is meaningless. Or not meaningless, because the people give a meaning to their symbol. It means you’re stupid enough to pay $8 for something that simply denotes you paid $8 for it. I will miss this little drama but I will not be sentimental about it. We’ll find something else to amuse us in the coming days. New trash can fires to warm ourselves by.
Alec Baldwin in Hilaria’s Arms
Don’t bet against a Baldwin baby!! I think this incident proves that we will never ever rid the public consciousness of Alec or Hilaria. We’re stuck with them forever. We’ll call Hilaria by her chosen name and point and laugh, for as long as we can. It almost feels like we’re building a culture again. It’s not just persona-less nepo babies anymore. We have real dyed-in-the-wool characters returning to our media landscape. I can only ask for what any good consumer wants: More!
Austin Butler as Feyd Rautha (Bald)
Speaking of the return of culture! Dune’s back!! The meta narrative surrounding Dune fascinates me. An anointed one narrative surrounding both the main character and the lead actor in the prime of their lives. It feels true that anyone else playing a role in the film is somehow playing into a prophecy for their future career. Both Zendaya and Florence Pugh feel like appropriately big stars that their casting equally precariously prophetic as the real life boy prince Timmy. It rings true that his foil is Austen Butler. It’s Greta Gerwig’s Laurie versus Baz Lurhmann’s Elvis. Both icons in their own right but it feels right that Timmy is the beloved heir from a matriarchal culture and Austen is a weird uncle’s nephew. It’s also so fun that Austen Butler is scarred by all of his roles in some way. He’s walking around Hollywood with no hair and an Elvis voice he can’t get rid of. Can’t wait to see what he does next! I could talk about this for hours and hopefully I get to! In case you forgot, culturally we’re all in on Dune. It will be nothing but Dune for the next EIGHT MONTHS. Keep the memes coming!
TikTok
Francesca Stugot
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I LOVE Franny Stugs. Francesca Stugot is a character made up by a girl to prank call boys she meets in bars. It’s a girlboss slay from top to bottom. Great bit, great nickname, great work overall.
Frick This Is Going To Be A Problem Isn’t It
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This sound works best when it’s about adults looking back on their childhood not about actual problems. We all remember when we found out the sun would explode in 2 billion years. We couldn’t even conceive of a billion years but we all thought, we’ve got to do something about this. Climate Change, The Iraq War, Nuclear Disarmament, the problems of the world were on all of our minds and we all knew we had to do something about them. Even if we couldn’t do something about them, we knew it was coming up and we would have to work on a solution. Those videos let out a sensible chuckle from me and bring me back to a time when my anxiety was unwarranted.
Foods I ate growing up in [x]
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I believe this trend is an offshoot of the “Foods I can’t wait to eat when I’m back in the US of A” trend that the study abroad kids make every spring. While I sympathize with their no iced coffee plight, I find those videos incredibly annoying. They prove the Europeans right about us, and we usually do so well dunking on them on tiktok. This trend exists so people who aren’t studying abroad can talk about their local favorites. I hate that genre of trend. I hate when a trend is expanded to include everyone, especially when It’s something boring like this. I don’t want to hear about any more regional delicacies for five years. It has lost its charm! I don’t care how you eat your pizza!!!
Okokokokok/Lalalalala
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We find new ways to invent the gender binary every day. In this iteration we have a boy singing and a girl singing and people have taken it upon themselves to categorize everything as either one or the other. They use different words and sometimes the stereotypical girl thing is the okokokok but we all know what they’re doing. As we learned last year, no binary is complete without a secret third thing. There’s so many categories now, why stick to just two that are, when boiled down to it, boy and girl. Give us a challenge.
Wes Anderson
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I love Wes Anderson. So does every other bitch with a camera. This trend is quickly becoming watered down, copy of a copy of a copy. We’re losing the things that make Anderson’s style unique and interesting and instead going for the obvious. Symmetry, pastels, Futura font, and the color yellow. Some of them can’t even get that much. Some evoke a feeling of nostalgia, and make me want to watch a Wes Anderson movie, some evoke a feeling of annoyance and make me want to watch the better ones. Neither feel like they have captured his touch or impress me.
When I first saw the Francesca Stugot videos I thought she was pretending to be Francesca from "Too Hot to Handle" lmao