EPISODE 1014: THERE BETTER BE A SECOND TREE WITH 28 DOLLS
Also, who's gonna light the white smoke?
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Hi and welcome to Pop Culture Spirit Wow, the newsletter that puts the -ulture in Culture. (I don’t know, it sounded funny in my head.)
Marvel had a movie open this weekend, Sunday was Star Wars Day, Saturday was Free Comic Book Day, they’re going to elect a new pope this week, and here’s the Wownd Up!
THE WOWND UP
Undeterred in his bid to be the world’s weirdest and most disliked human being, the current President of the United States announced this week that one effect of his tariffs may be that US children will “have two dolls instead of 30 dolls” for Christmas next year.
That lead to this amazing rant from SNL’s Colin Jost on Saturday night (at 1:30):
Tech writer Mike Masnick this also week noted that the way the president answers questions is actually scarily like the “hallucinations” (aka bizarre wrong answers) of early ChatGPT, which is the first time ever I’ve felt like a criticism of ChatGPT might be unfair.
Elsewhere, Nike is now selling sneakers that they say get cleaner the more you wear them. The new dotSWOOSH x Nike Air Force 1 Low Dirty Triple Whites—because I guess more words is better when it comes to shoes?—actually appear dirty when purchased, but supposedly get cleaner as you wear them.
(Checking the fine print, these new shoes don’t actually self-clean. Instead the smudges that they come with scratch away, making the shoes look cleaner at first, until you scrape them into something again. Then you’re on your own.)
And in the world of Star Wars, this week the animated series Tales of the Sith revealed that Jedi apparently have the power to both speak and understand every language. While some may rail against this powers creep—What’s next, they’re all genius-level hackers, too?—I think the world of Star Wars needs a long slow clap for the fact that we’re almost 50 years on from the creation of Star Wars and for most of that time Jedi powers have been mostly limited to “anticipate other people’s actions,” “leap high,” and “push stuff (including brains).”
ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR (AND CANADA TOO)
Reelected Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with his son and fiancé.
In the wake of pretty much every crazy thing the U.S. government has done in the last 100 days, this week Australia and Canada both refused to give political power to conservative-leaning opposition parties, reelecting their currently-in-power progressive parties instead. In Canada’s case it was a qualified win, with the party in power forced to form a minority government. But in Australia, to pretty much everyone’s surprise, the Labor Party absolutely wiped the floor with the Liberal National Coalition, delivering a historic win to a Labor government that actually has been kind of floundering for at least the last year, maybe two.
One of the interesting aspects of the trouncing of the Coalition is that many of the most toxic culture warriors of the Coalition have now lost their seats (including the opposition leader himself). A number of people have been wondering what might be possible if the Parliament is not dominated by the misogynist, racist, “anti-woke” nonsense that has been so central to the Coalition for at least the last 15 years. As someone trapped in the opposite of that—or as I like to call it, “The Bad Place”—I look forward to peering into a truly alternate universe and begging someone to let us out, like General Zod in Superman.
THE NON-POPE POPE PHOTO
Speaking of the Bad Place, one of the strangest stories of the week has got to be the U.S. President posting an AI image of himself dressed as the pope.
SNL’s Colin Jost, who was on fire this weekend, pretty much hit it on the head when he noted how downright weird it is for someone to respond to the death of another person by posting a photo of themselves dressed like them. Who does that?
His people are saying LOL, you snowflakes have no sense of humor. But really, though, who does that?
THE OTHER NON-POPE POPE PHOTO
While I was looking for a photo that was definitely not the photo of the U.S. president dressed as a pope to put with that story, I came upon a whole set of wild photos and videos. They’re all about Pope Francis’ dog Esteban and how he would not leave Francis’ bedside or grave.
Which sounds like a sweet story, except it’s totally false. And the videos are legit insane. So for instance we have this video of a supposedly sick but looking pretty great Francis-ish person basically sniffing his dog’s fur for a while?
Or there’s this “photo” of a dog who I’m guessing is named “Uncanny Valley,” because he is clearly AI and his eyes are terrifying.
Or there’s this HOUR LONG video supposedly showing the Pope’s dog Esteban beside his gravestone and discovered by Cardinal Tagle of the Philippines, which is nuts both because Francis was not buried outside in a cemetery and because ten thousand people have watched it.
Stay tuned for more about this bizarre YouTuber trend.
CONCLAVING IN
Speaking of the Pope, the Cardinals are meeting in Rome this week to figure out who gets to light the white smoke. You know the pope gets to light the white smoke, right?
(Sample of the crazy untrue things we’re going to hear people saying this week.)
One thing I’m seeing a lot is people saying that most of the Cardinals are Francis men, which is true in the sense that they were appointed by him. But I would not read that to mean that they all have exactly the same set of doctrinal stances, or want Francis 2.0 for the next pope. I would say what most of them share with Francis is a view that a leader in the church should be caring and pastoral first, you know, like that Jesus fella.
Who knows who will get elected. (My guess: Not a reactionary conservative. Not someone in their 50s. Not an American.) But I would imagine the one thing most of them will be looking for is a pastor, someone who like Francis has a way of making people feel welcome and close to God.
For those that are interested, there’s a website called AdoptaCardinal.org which will give you a random cardinal to pray for during the conclave. I kind of love it.
Keep your eyes peeled for white smoke! It could be anywhere!