Sunday Special: This Summer in Culture

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Hey, everyone, it's Rachel.

I am here with my colleague Gilbert Cruz, the editor of the New York Times Book Review.

Hey, Gilbert.

Hey, Rachel.

Gilbert, you were also, we should point out, the culture editor here for many years.

That is true.

And now you're here to talk about a new project that you're working on.

I am and I will.

So starting today and going through the end of the year, every Sunday, you're going to find me here talking with our colleagues who cover culture and lifestyle at the New York Times about the fun stuff, movies and TV and books and food and art and so many other things.

I love that stuff.

Do you love that?

I love it too.

We're calling it the Sunday Special.

And if you're subscribed to the daily, it will just appear in your feed.

You don't have to press any buttons.

I love that.

I love the idea of not having to press a single button.

Okay, great.

So you are starting this project today.

Tell us what you have planned.

Absolutely.

So today I had a conversation with two very fun, very knowledgeable people here here at the Times.

One of our music critics, our internet reporter, we talked about music.

We talked about a couple movies.

We talked about, obviously, Taylor Swift.

We talked about some internet memes.

It's just three of us mixing up about things that we really enjoyed over the past few months.

Well, that sounds fantastic.

Let's hear it.

Welcome, everybody, to the inaugural episode of the Sunday Special.

This week I'm here with two wonderful guests, John Karamonica, sitting to my left, music critic, host of the Popcast Podcast.

John, thank you for being here.

A joy.

Also in the room, sitting right across from me, right over there, is Madison Malone Kircher, who covers internet culture for the New York Times.

This means, according to her, she spends way too much time on TikTok.

Madison, thank you for being here.

Sorry, did you say something?

I was scrolling.

Great.

Great start.

Great start.

It's Labor Day weekend, and we are going to look back at this past summer in culture.

And I'm going to start, really, I have to start with something that's both the most recent news and arguably one of the biggest things that happened this summer, which was a certain couple got engaged.

So, okay, can I say, before we talk about that, do you identify as an English teacher or a gym teacher, or do you reject

that those are non-overlapping categories?

Like, do you believe that is one category?

I had a gym teacher that was also my English teacher.

So

we can contain multitudes.

That's, I like to hear that.

That's I'm not sure.

I feel I'm positioned at the exact middle of that Venn diagram, if I'm being wholly honest.

So a thrilling day for English teacher rising, gym teacher moons everywhere.

As someone who hasn't been to the gym in two plus years, I'm just going with English teacher, respectfully.

I heard the news not in a way that you would expect, which is to say, like looking at the internet.

I heard it because my texts started going off crazy as if something horrific had happened.

But in fact, it was just everyone trying to tell me that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey had gotten engaged.

My group chats began blowing up, and I was sitting in the cafeteria here at the office, just having sat down to eat my salad.

I had this moment of being FaceTimed by a friend and thinking I was going to enjoy this and then going, oh no, this is my job, and just running towards the elevators.

I've since heard from at least one colleague who does not work with me being like, I heard you were running through the newsroom, like sprinting to get to my desk.

This is commitments.

This is what we do here.

What are you right?

Why?

Why was this interesting?

And what did people find most interesting about it?

I mean, I've been preparing for this no joke since January, truly.

Yes, you have.

I thought you were going to say like 2017.

Yeah, the year, the year was 2007.

Our song has just hit the no, I'm kidding.

Look,

it was an educated guess that these two people seem to perhaps be on the train towards marriage.

They are juggernauts, both in their own spaces independently.

And you put them together and you sort of get, well, what's bigger than a juggernaut?

People, the people needed to know.

The people wanted to know.

And I was shocked by the reaction online, both to this news piece I wrote and more broadly, the state of my inbox.

everyone, I think, needed just a little bit of happy news this week.

And it came in the form of the Tavis engagement.

Wait, is Tavis?

Yeah, that's what we're doing.

Get on board.

So, Madison, for, I don't know, the 12 people listening right now to this episode who were on vacation and totally missed the news, how did this actually come out?

Taylor and Travis posted a joint Instagram post on a Tuesday afternoon.

I believe it was 1 p.m.

Eastern-ish.

It contained a series of photos of them standing in an elaborately decorated garden, just lots of flowers, an arch.

I believe there's a candle chandelier covered in flowers, the works.

And in the first photo, Travis is on bended knee in front of Taylor.

She's clutching his head in her hands.

He's wearing shorts, which has been criticized by some, not me, but some.

And the caption, your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married, also contains a tiny emoji.

It's a stick of dynamite, which you might call TNT.

oh

get it

and the ring and the ring so in a subsequent photo you get a close-up but very uh let's say wisely selected close-up leaves a lot of details to the imagination but a close-up of a just i believe the official gemologist term is honking diamond ring

speculation is it's a antique cut elongated cushioned in some sort of gold uh i definitely know what that means chunky fastening look i bought an engagement ring last year.

I actually bought two, one for me, one for my partner.

So you learn diamonds speak, and I didn't realize it would become useful.

But also in that frame is a very flashy Cartier watch.

Best belief, she is still bejeweled.

Wow.

Why am I even here?

Like, seriously, like all just bars.

Bars.

Look, I'm not here to tell anyone.

what to do or how to announce their love or how to announce their engagement or what to wear when they're doing

i am mad

small mad, about the shorts.

It's just like, I don't care how warm it is.

These are engagement photos.

They're going to go around the world.

They're going to live in their, you know, in their coupledum forever.

They're going to be up in every house that they own.

And the guy is freaking wearing shorts.

I do think that that speaks to Travis emerging not from the world of true celebrity, Hollywood.

It's because he's emerging from the world of athletics.

And I just like, this is no commentary on Travis's legs, you know, two thumbs up, but I do think like that, this is a person who likes to bum around in casual wear.

Uh, and now he likes to get engaged in casual wear as well.

I'm just going to proffer up a third option.

Maybe he was just hot.

Perhaps it is summer.

Yeah, I got nothing on that.

All right.

Yeah, that's not.

Look, it's extremely dangerous to bring me on to a podcast under the pretense of talking about the culture of the summer, and then it veers sharply into short discourse.

This is violence.

You guys don't want to get to.

So we should bring up the loafers he's wearing.

We should just stop this right here.

I didn't get the ID on the loafer.

I thought the loafer was fine.

It's Short's discourse.

That's really dangerous.

You know, you're right.

Let's move away from Shorts discourse.

I would encourage us to step aside.

This is coming, of course, 13 days after, and 13 is a very auspicious number for Taylor Swift.

13 days after another massive bit of news in her world, in their world.

Taylor Swift!

Yeah, intro, Jason.

Oh my god.

I've seen this before.

No, look, his soul has left his body.

She went on her now fiancé's podcast, New Heights.

So I wanted to show you something.

Okay.

What do we got?

This is my brand new album.

To announce her upcoming album, The Life of the Showgirl, which is coming out this fall.

I can't believe this is the moment I finally had to watch a boy podcast.

Yeah.

Okay.

I make a boy podcast.

You've never, you just called yourself out.

I absolutely do.

I admittedly do not watch podcasts, period.

I listen to them, but this one I watched, sat at my dining room table, rapped.

Yeah.

You made, you made an event out of it.

I did.

I did indeed.

But did you, was that a sort of professional rapture or was that a professional?

I was being paid to watch that podcast.

Yes, I mean, as was I.

I mean, we all all were.

John, how many times did you watch it?

And tell us what you thought.

I watched it in full,

not twice,

one full time, and let's say 60% of a second time.

Here are some takeaways from Taylor and Travis.

One, they were having two incredibly parallel, but not

same experiences side by side.

Taylor was there for war.

Taylor was there eyes on the camera, eyes on the prizes,

communicating with the fans i do think at one point she looked straight into the screen and spoke my name is that yes by name truly anyone who's ever bought

i think it was anyone who's ever bought a taylor album you were named just like donors on the wall at the map or something

exactly like

me the sacklers

yeah um travis and jason on the other hand like what are they like they're roughhausen they're like toussling hair yeah they're like hey buddy they're not in the same room and they're still tousling each other's hair.

It's absolute madness.

I think that they realized, obviously, the power of having Taylor on the show, what it would draw to them in terms of audience, but I don't think that they understood that Taylor is not there to pod, as podcasters say.

She was there to sell.

Yeah, and she did.

I bought it.

I bought an advance purchase CD.

Which one did you buy?

A CD.

I don't need it.

No, no, no, I know.

But of the 19 million versions of these albums, because Taylor should have a double colour.

No, just original issue.

Original issue.

I don't need purple, glitter, vinyl.

I have enough of that.

Is the briefcase on sale?

Because I was interested in the briefcase.

I'll bet that she opened the bottom.

Do you have one?

I'll just pull out the vinyl.

I'll have one send to Jersey.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

How do you know where I live?

What?

Madison.

I was watching the show through the lens of a very active group chat of the Swift Sirs, my Swift Sisters.

It's not a great portmanteau.

And I was struck by, I can't remember who said it,

perhaps my literal sister saying, I've never heard her say this many words in a row before.

And it was this illusion that we were getting for maybe the first time since Miss Americana, her documentary,

a full picture, a portrait of what Taylor Swift has been up to and what her behind-the-scenes real life is like.

Of course, this is highly manipulated.

All of this was, to use your verb, the cell.

Yes, highly choreographed.

Except, you know, I, as someone who listens to Taylor Swift, doesn't necessarily, I don't know that I've seen Miss Americana.

I'm not decoding numerology.

I'm not doing any of the sort of Easter eggy stuff.

I

knew that she had perfect lighting.

I knew that she had perfect hair.

I knew that this was all choreographed to the nth degree.

And she gave me the illusion of realness as well as I've seen in a very long time.

I felt like I was there in the room with her, even though at the same time, I knew this was highly edited, completely an illusion.

It was amazing.

So I have a couple of questions.

One, how were you in the room with her, but Jason Kelsey was trapped in a basement?

Because the lighting on his half of the podcast, like we're in here, I've got four different light sources.

Yeah.

So much light.

Jason Kelsey, like

burrowed under a table, like potting from underneath.

You think they told him, you're fine.

You know, when it was, when it was like mic check and all that stuff, they were just like, no, you look great.

I think that boycasts don't have lighting budgets.

I see.

That's my, that's my sense.

Surely they could afford it.

No comment.

I just, he was not seated in front of a stack of art books.

You know, whose books are those?

Ruth Osawa and, you know, all of these.

No, it's literally

it's just the Barnes and Noble like art book table.

It's just like one of the, there's probably like a cause book in there.

There's like her version of the power book.

Exactly.

And meanwhile, the Swifties are like, Ruth Osawa died at the age of 87.

Travis Kelsey is number 87 on the show.

A song about Ruth Asawa on the new album?

Like my sincerest apologies to the Asawa family and the estate.

Are you kidding?

Her prices are about to go through the roof.

It's unbelievable.

Look, there's no real intimacy happening here.

I appreciate that you allowed yourself to be swept away.

What is that like?

What must that be like?

I have no idea.

I know it's been a very long time since you were able to, you know,

sort of buy into the illusion.

Raw cynicism.

I wake up every day dripping cynicism.

Let the world in.

That is the world.

I regret to inform you, that's literally the world.

So fine.

I am, you know, the sucker here who took it for what I wanted it to be.

And you're the man who sees through the illusions, who took it for what it was.

Okay, but only one of you gave her your money.

And it's John.

I'm a collector.

I have an archive to maintain.

Also, he's expensive, so it's fine.

Also that.

Okay, so let's pivot to music more broadly.

Song of the summer.

John, I know that there's some contention over the entire concept.

of a song of the summer.

Talk to me.

Okay.

It is the position of me and of popcasts for that matter that the song of the summer is a farce.

It's not real.

It's a fallacy.

It does not actually exist.

Okay.

You have declining monoculture, deeply fragmented.

Everybody's in their individual silos.

They're like, I like K-pop and reality television.

I like hip-hop and ESPN.

They're like, I'm picking and choosing from the full plate that's in front of me.

And it's very, very hard for one song to really appeal broadly across people who have the option of listening to any song at any time.

There has been a song that's been the number one song, as you say, for 10 weeks, called Ordinary by Alex Warren.

It is, and I say this with,

I say this zestily, but with no zest.

It is heinous.

It is unbearable.

It makes me physically uncomfortable to listen to.

10 weeks at number one.

It makes me wonder who's out there tapping in, pressing play, absorbing.

I don't know.

Is that the song of the summer?

If so, it's been a summer of misery.

Actually, I do have a question for you about that.

How much do you think think of it was algorithmically driven?

Because I was force-fed that song against my will, not only on TikTok, but on Spotify.

Like, I would finish listening to seemingly disparate albums or tracks covering it.

And how am I here listening to this TikTok guy, hype house dude?

Yes.

Fake British.

Fake British.

He's not British.

See?

Not British.

Looks extremely British.

And also sounds extremely British.

Okay.

Yes, I do think part of it is algorithmic.

I do think part of it is a collective dearth of taste amongst people.

So good luck with that.

Grand claim.

Yeah.

Not really.

Pretty straightforward.

But it was already.

Sorry, ordinary.

It's called ordinary.

The amount of like a wedding and engagement TikToks that I watched with ordinary.

Look, I'm pro-love.

I'm pro-romance.

I'm pro-betrothal.

Say it loud.

I'm on that.

Yeah.

The amount of...

If I come to your wedding.

October 11th, Brooklyn.

If I come to your wedding and Ordinary is even playing out of an Amazon delivery van that's driving by outside, I'm going home.

I cannot be in physical proximity to it.

It won't, no.

That's a workplace-related injury.

Yeah.

What was your song this summer?

It's called Can't Go Broke, the remix of Can't Go Broke.

It's by Zeddy Will, who is a internet comedian, meme artist, and also emerging rapper.

Shit, I guess with that many jobs, I can't go broke.

Look,

I don't think it's possible, or I can't go broke.

I like to stay up out the mix.

I don't want.

I don't think it's possible, or I can't go broke.

I like to stay up out of the mix.

It's almost like a great Nickelodeon skit of a rap song.

Okay.

And makes a tremendous.

it's performed.

It's comic.

It's lighthearted.

It's youthful.

I'm allowed to switch.

Somebody call my ANR now.

Tell them to get me out of here because I'm about to fit.

I'm dropping in the pool.

We're going to get in the pool.

It's not really in discourse with like what's happening on rap radio.

You know, it's not there.

It's very viral on TikTok.

When I think of my summer and how I encountered music, I encountered so much music through the phone.

I encountered a lot of music in the context of: does it make sense on a video?

How does it interplay with all the other media that I'm consuming?

And so, for me, the song of the summer is a song of multimedia consumption.

Yeah.

And it's that.

Madison, what is your song of the summer?

My song of the summer is a live performance of Addison Ray's Diet Pepsi by Ben Platt

at a fake award show.

I have worn it out.

My boy's a winner.

He loves the game.

Madison, this is something that

sort of like bubbled up over the last few weeks of August.

Sure.

So

Lost Cultural Assist is a podcast hosted by Matt Rogers, Bo and Yang, and for several years now, they've run this very funny, wonky fake award show.

This evening's ceremony will be, just to use some technical terms, random sauce.

Cuckoo Lulu, Shigog.

Here we award the film The Substance, but also The Spirit Tunnel from the Jennifer Hudson Show.

Matt, I'm realizing we haven't.

And this year it kind of went more mainstream.

It's on Bravo, if we just assume that to be mainstream media.

One of the acts was Ben Platt of Dear Evan Hansen fame, singing with all the earnestness and seriousness that won him the Tony Award for Dear Evan Hansen, Addison Ray's Diet Pepsi.

Untouched, XO,

young lust.

Let's.

When we drive in your car, it

is incredibly catchy.

It contains a little ad-lib in which that man sings, I like it from the fountain.

I like it from the fountain.

It scratches the inside of my brain in a nice way.

I like it from the fountain.

Y'all love a meme.

Unbelievable.

Y'all are the problem.

Speaking of Diet Pepsi, speaking of sodas, not the Diet Dr.

Pepper that you're drinking right now.

It's Foltas.

It's fascinating.

It's full task.

You talked to Addison Ray earlier this year.

You sure did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what Addison Ray said?

Taste is a privilege.

I saw that.

Taste is a privilege.

And what did you think of her saying that?

I thought that it was one of the most elegant, self-aware things that a pop star has ever said to me in an interview.

She was locating herself.

as a person who, when she was 16, 17, 18, did not have access to a lot of cultural product outside the very obvious mainstream, didn't know how or where to dig, and had this kind of life force urge to get out of the circumstance that she was in.

And in moments like that, you can't necessarily be like, I want to be artful, I want to be weird, I have unusual perspective.

You're just like, how do I get out of here as fast as possible?

The speediest route.

And for her, becoming a TikTok star and kind of being very relentless about like, I'm on every trending audio.

Anything that's, anything that's viral, I'm participating in.

That was her speed run through the internet.

And now she's like, now I can have taste.

It can happen for all of you.

I'm just saying, the hype house birthed us both Addis Wow

and Alex Warren.

Extraordinary.

Taste

is a privilege.

Taste is a choice and a privilege.

Can I talk about my favorite song in the summer?

My song of summer.

It's rude we didn't ask, actually.

It is rude you didn't ask, which is why I'm butting in.

Your

song of the summer was.

Thank you for asking, Madison.

My song in the summer, John's second favorite song of the summer, is Golden.

Yeah.

The song Golden from the movie K-Pop Demon Hunter.

I was a ghost, I was a low.

Have either of you watched this movie?

No, because

as John said, we all experience culture in our own fun little lives.

Silos.

Yeah.

All right, well, let me tell you.

Let me tell you about the movie

before you talk about your love, your shared love for the song Golden.

This is a movie that came out earlier this year on Netflix.

It's an animated film.

It sort of imagines a world in which there are demons, much like the real world.

Yeah, I was just saying.

Demons have always haunted our world,

stealing our souls and channeling strength back to their king, Timoth.

Until heroes arose to defend us.

There's always a group of three women that are responsible for keeping evil at bay.

And in modern times, those women take the form of pop groups.

And in the movie, we're catching up with the sort of the present-day pop group, a K-pop group.

They are called Huntrix.

And they are out there singing songs.

And then the demons, they say, well, what if we come up with a band?

It's time for a new strategy.

We fight the hunters where they least expect it.

Go after the very thing that powers the honmoon.

The fans.

A demon boy band?

And it's Alex Warren.

And we can steal

of our music.

And they do.

So there's Huntrix, the ladies, and then there's Saja Boy, the guys.

Just for clarity, I'm supposed to be rooting for the woman, always.

You're always

because the other group sounds pretty lit to me.

Yeah, the demon pop group.

I bet the music's better.

Yeah, probably.

Okay.

So this movie came out in late June on Netflix, and it has risen over a month and a half to be the number one most viewed movie on Netflix of all time.

And in

mid-August, early to mid-August, three or four of the songs from K-pop Demon Hunters hit the billboard charts.

And that might be because there wasn't a lot of other good stuff out there.

But this one song,

Golden, in addition to songs like Soda Pop and Your Idol, have gone up there.

And I'm going to tell you straight up, I was introduced to this movie by my child.

He heard Golden while he was on the school bus to a camp field trip.

He brought it back.

We played it for days.

We watched the movie.

We've seen it six, seven, eight times.

It's been on loop, and I can't get out of my head.

And I love it.

I love the way it goes up, up, up in the middle.

I think it's very catchy.

We're going up, up, up.

It's our moment.

You gotta get it.

We're going.

Gonna be, gonna be going.

All right, John.

It's fine.

Wait, okay, it's fine.

It's fine.

Here's the thing.

as no, I love John Karabasco.

Say that's fine.

It's fine.

Be great.

I've been writing about K-pop's entree into the American marketplace for a decade or more.

I'm aware.

I've read every article.

There are so many gestures of

sort of what I think of as big tent K-pop in these songs, but they are all tempered with the kind of impulses of children's music.

And

maybe a casual listener would say, oh, pop and children, there's not that much gap between children's songs and pop songs.

And in many cases, there aren't.

But when I hear the singing here,

what I hear is a denuded, desiccated version of the vocals that I think mark the best K-pop.

I also think the production is so optimistic.

K-pop is about, or at least the generation of K-pop that this feels like it's referencing.

It's maybe like a little bit prior to what's happening now.

It's broad and chaotic and kind of like nuclear-powered.

And this feels like, what if we just made it smile?

And you're just like, no.

No, let's hear the other guys.

You want to hear Sasha Boys?

Soda Pop.

My little soda pop.

Can two things be true at the same time?

I also like this song.

It's wonderful.

This to me is a better song.

It's a better approximant, I think, of K-pop.

Yeah.

I'm more pro this.

On that positive note, let's take a quick break.

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The New York Times app has all this stuff that you may not have seen.

The way the tabs are at the top with all of the different sections.

I can immediately navigate to something that matches what I'm feeling.

I go to games always.

Doing the mini, doing the wordle.

I loved how much content it exposed me to, things that I never would have thought to turn to a news app for.

This app is essential.

The New York Times app.

All of the times, all in one place.

Download it now at nytimes.com slash app.

Madison, something that I feel like broke through all algorithms because it was

everywhere and sort of

was Cold Playgate.

Is that what we're calling it?

What are we calling it?

We're calling it Cold Playgate.

Yeah.

Cold Playgate was a Cold Play concert at which

a man and a woman who should not probably have been at the Cold Play concert together were spotted on the Jumbotron looking mighty comfy.

Oh, look at these two.

All right, come on.

You're okay?

Oh, what?

Tried to jump out of frame, didn't really work.

Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy.

And we all knew who they were by the following morning, thanks to the magic.

That is the surveillance state we currently live in.

And these were two people who were, in fact, not married to each other.

And I think at least one of them was married to someone else.

How did that make you feel?

Terrified.

And I, look,

frustrated because this is a story with so many deliciously easy villains, right?

You've got like cheaters, Coldplay fans, Gwyneth Paltrow's ex-husband.

You didn't identify Coldplay itself as a villain.

Oh, yeah, sure.

Coldplay, Chris martin absolutely yeah any any other easy easy marks in this that i'm missing all the people maybe that

turned this into various memes right and so it's it's super fun online right to have somebody who's clearly quote unquote in the wrong that people like to you know punch at and mock and

a tech ceo makes for a real good fit for that role these days But honestly, it just,

it's just a warning shot, like to all of us, you should be scared.

Okay, a couple things.

One, are we entirely sure this isn't a psyop by Cold Play's marketing team to draw attention to how many people are at Cold Play concerts?

Are we entirely sure?

That's number one.

No, no, no.

Don't answer that.

Don't answer that.

Okay, that's the first thing.

Number two, look, we should be scared.

I totally agree.

We should be scared, but also you shouldn't be cheating on your wife.

You shouldn't be doing it in a public place.

You shouldn't be doing it where there's cameras and phones.

I think we've normalized this way too much, right?

I've written many, many stories about scenarios like these.

You know, I can think about a woman in a restaurant being like, girl, your bridesmaids actually hate you.

Oh, yeah.

Like, you know, your roommates secretly hate you.

Don't you want to know, though?

No, they do hate me.

That's why I don't have any bridesmaids.

Okay.

But we've normalized a culture where this is not just happening in a place where you're correct.

You're at a concert.

There are jumbotrons.

There are cameras.

Everyone is literally holding a camera turned on the entire time.

But you can draw a direct line between that and you on the New Jersey transit being overheard.

So, unfortunately, as we have just laid out,

that was one of the bigger things on the internet this summer.

Arguably not great.

Bad for everyone involved.

Were there any less depressing internet trends of summer medicine?

All I have to say is

nothing, and I do mean nothing, beats a Jet 2 holiday.

Nothing beats a jet 2 holiday.

So

this is an advertisement for a British touring company.

The ad goes, nothing beats a jet 2 holiday.

Starting right now, you can save 200 pounds off a family of four.

Pretend I'm British.

I'm not doing that to our listeners, but pretend.

We have an AI filter for that.

That's kind of you.

Fantastic.

Yes.

And all the while, Jess Glynn's Hold My Hand plays in the background.

And this...

It underscored just an incredibly comedic trend on TikTok, right?

You would use the video to be like, nothing beats a jet 2 holiday.

And it's a picture of you just experiencing something deeply awful.

It also came with a song people already like in a summer where we've described this absolute hunger for decent tunes.

And this

tiny little TikTok audio, which I believe originated at the beginning of the year, like January of maybe even last year,

just took off like wildfire.

One thing about the Jetu holiday meme, which is

I feel like there's always conversation of like, how do we make something go?

It's like, you know, there's people in offices higher up than our floor.

We're on the 28th floor right now.

There's people on the 30th floor, the 40th floor.

I don't know them.

There are buildings, 50th, 60th floor.

And there's people in rooms being like, how do we make something go?

We've got like, we just stole 20 kids from a college and we put them in a room and we forced them to tell us what was was viral.

It's like, it's not that hard.

You have a lightly funny thing that anybody can participate in.

Everybody has been humiliated.

Everybody has at least one video on their phone of an absolutely either traumatic or sad thing.

You can be like trauma with funny audio,

viral champion.

Easy.

What are you doing as a music critic?

You could do a great job.

50th floor is all over the country.

Can I say now now that if anybody has an office for me on the 50th floor of any building, I'm accepting DMs.

We should talk about the Benson Boone crumble cookie then, because that actually sits kind of at the intersection of what you're talking about, which is like a highly, highly curated internet moment.

Okay, I'm going to try my own crumble cookie today.

Newbium ice cream crumble cookie.

Benson Boone.

He did a crumble cookie.

And in case you're not familiar with Crumble, it's a wildly cookie.

The Alex Warren of cookies?

It's the Alex Warren of cookies.

It's a wildly popular.

That collab is in the works already.

It's a wildly popular, it's a wildly popular bakery chain that sells cookies that contain, and this is not to shame anyone for eating more calories than a human being needs in a week in a single cookie.

I believe they actually sell like a little pizza cutter to cook.

To cut

these cookies into like relatively reasonable by the FDA or formerly FDA portion 76.

And they're gross.

No, don't tell RFK Jr.

about these cookies.

Don't tell RF.

No, no, no, no, listen.

I think this is like he and I like handshake meme aligned.

These cookies are my nemesis.

I wandered around New York City trying to try the Benson Boone

crumble collab cookie, which was a moonbeam ice cream cookie.

And there were lines out the door at all of the crumbles I went to, both for the cookies in general, but because people around the country had turned going to get this cookie into a trend.

I'm here for the movie ice cream cookie.

You walk into a crumble

and you backflip.

Yes, you can backflip for a free cookie.

All right, let's see it.

Is there space in a crumble to backflip?

Great question.

In Jersey, at the crumble you go to.

Is there a lot of square footage?

They're pretty big.

I mean, that's what the suburbs allow.

There you go.

Backflipping.

So, look,

a cookie connoisseur myself.

Crumble comes along.

I see all the TikToks, people in like Irving, Texas with like a six pack of six different flavors.

Again, as Madison said, all flavors that should not be in Congress with each other.

And I'm like, I'm hitting Crumble.

Next time I see Crumble, wherever it is, I'm hitting it.

There are more than a thousand locations across the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada.

This thing is taking over.

It's a blight.

Well, I found one.

And I said, I'm going to get just the rawest combos that you could possibly have.

Like, just give me the six strangest cookies that are available here.

Yeah.

Each one tasted like a pack of post-it notes.

It was unbelievable how for something with seven flavors in it, somehow still tasted like card, like spiced cardboard.

How can I,

I'm running out of negative things to say.

If you're listening to this podcast and not watching it, see what you can't see is I'm scraping my teeth against the top of my tongue as though to remove some film that is still there from this cookie that I ate six weeks ago.

Do you think it was appropriate then that Benson Boone and Crumble came together?

Absolutely.

Yeah, he was the right person.

And it was wildly effective.

So how did we get talking about this?

We got talking about it because Jet Du Holiday was not meant to be this hyper viral moment on TikTok and it blew up anyway.

This, they were hoping was going to hit.

They wanted like a Grimace Shake, Duo Wingo, owl.

They wanted a moment.

Where were you in 2023?

Where were you?

Because I was at the McDonald's on 42nd Street drinking purple shakes for journalism.

And we did it on podcasts.

I went to the one on 7th Avenue.

Got it live.

Live.

Squeezed it right out of Grimace.

In the field.

Yeah.

In the field recording.

Squeezed it right out of Grimace.

Can we talk about another movie?

Yes.

Okay.

Would love to.

Madison, you and I both saw a movie that at least I loved, even though it got a lot of crap on the internet this summer, which was a movie called Materialism.

I saw this too.

Okay, good.

Oh, my God.

We got a pretty great conversation going on.

Unbelievable.

This was Celine Song, who was her first picture of Past Lives, was nominated for Best Picture.

This is her follow-up.

It stars Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal.

It was sold sort of as a rom-com, definitely not a rom-com, more of a rom-drom.

I have a thought on that.

You think it's funny?

And I went in.

I was late to the movie.

I had heard a lot of negativity about it, and I actually had a great time despite the performance.

Great Twitter about this movie.

Yeah.

How much of the film did you miss?

Oh, you weren't literally late to the movie.

You were culturally late to the movie.

You saw it.

I did see it.

And I thought it was quite beautiful.

It was one of those, you know, warm, lush New York City films that makes you go, man, I wish I could live in that city where I ostensibly live.

I was infuriated by this movie.

Infuriated.

Perhaps not for the reasons that

the discourse was.

Where you lose me is Dakota Johnson's character, Lucy.

Lucy.

lucy yeah lucy takes great pains at one point to disclose her salary i make 80 grand a year before taxes do you make more or less than that more

i know

finance right she's a matchmaker she's a matchmaker and she makes eighty thousand dollars a year is what she tells pedro pascal's character who Does not disclose what he makes, but we are led to believe it is $81,000 a year.

It's 81?

Pedro Pascal plays a very rich man.

He plays someone in finance.

I think I've got him from where like 82.

82, 5.

And the movie is about Dakota Johnson, who's a matchmaker, ostensibly having to choose between Pedro Pascal's very rich guy and Chris Evans's broke actor

guy who lives with three

Brooklyn somewhere.

Look, there.

I'm not going to pay $25 to park this piece of shit for an hour.

That's the cheapest we'll ever get.

We'll find street parking on the next block.

John, it's been 20 minutes.

I'll just pay for it.

You're not paying.

Dakota Johnson makes $80,000 a year.

She has a wonderful apartment.

Everything's great.

Everything's great.

She's out here wearing Kate and Peranza and Bottega, and that drove me just...

Clearly of the real rail shopper.

Nonetheless.

I think there was a lot of stress.

Sticking points.

There's a lot of stress about the $80,000.

I mean, I think we wrote it on.

Did you write that article?

I didn't write that article.

No, we wrote it.

So you can just merch it if you'd like and find it.

But there are a lot of articles about, like, oh no, $80,000.

Like,

it's a movie.

It's like, it's going to get a couple things.

It's literally fiction.

I agree.

It's literally fiction.

I agree.

Here's the thing.

You, when you introduced this movie, you said a rom-com, but not a rom-drum.

And a lot of the 1.0 discourse on Twitter about this movie was like, no human beings actually talk like this to each other.

But you must know a lot about love.

I know about dating.

What's the difference?

Dating takes a lot of effort,

a lot of trial and error, a ton of risk and pain.

Love is easy.

Is it?

I find it to be the most difficult thing in the world.

That's because we can't help it.

It just walks into our lives sometimes.

Are you kidding on me?

Definitely not.

This is not how people who are falling in love or trying to feel each other out, what?

It's a business deal.

Right.

It's a transaction.

So here's a question.

Are these terrible lines?

Are they terrible actors delivering good lines?

Are they terrible actors delivering terrible lines?

Are they good actors delivering?

Here's my thing.

Yes.

It's actually on paper, everything's fine.

But if the whole thing was delivered as like a slapstick romantic comedy from the early 2000s, the kind of like, what is it, like 10 things I hate about you or whatever.

If it was delivered in that manner, almost identical script,

a film.

Yeah.

But because everybody was so busy, just like having a serious, like.

You're saying it's too stately.

For no reason.

It's got the physical comedy baked into it.

Every like romantic interaction,

Lucy, that's her name, ends, has a handshake.

It's like, we're just banging you over the head with the fact that this is a business deal.

We are shaking hands.

Me and Pedro Pascal in the kitchen as we break up.

Shake hands.

I'm going to marry Chris Evans.

Spoiler.

Shake hands.

Yeah.

That would be very funny.

I think

genuinely, like, I was excited.

I have very rarely been so excited by negative discourse about a film.

So much so that it made me want to see it.

The Twitter conversation was so angry about this movie.

And at the end, I'm like, it's almost there.

But no one involved in making the movie had a sense of humor.

And it is fundamentally a funny film, but no one there knows how to laugh.

Well, let's turn to something now that

I'm pretty sure the two of you are going to find hilarious.

We are going to have the two of you take a summer pop culture quiz.

There's a quiz?

I feel like we should have been allowed to cheat a little.

What's the quiz?

So let's take a break.

We'll do that when we come back.

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Welcome back.

I'm Gilbert Cruz.

I'm here with John Karamatica and Madison Malone Kircher.

We are closing out the Sunday special this week with a pop culture quiz.

I've got a bunch of trivia questions here about other pop culture happenings from the summer.

I'm going to read out a question, and the first person who buzzes in with the correct answer gets a point.

The most points win.

Is this Jeopardy Rules?

You got to get through the clue first before we're allowed to do it.

That's a good question.

Madison Wright.

I think for the sake of our listeners, I should ask the full question before you.

But who determines when the question is over?

When the sentence ends.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Fingers on buzzers or spacebars or mouse pads.

Ready?

Let's go.

Number one.

What stand-up comedian and actor announced this summer that he'd be ending his long-running interview podcast?

Mark Marin.

Correct.

What seminal American film set over the 4th of July weekend on Martha's Vineyard celebrated its 50th anniversary this summer?

Big chill.

Great movie.

Wrong answer.

The answer is Jaws.

TikToker Lil Bulls Official claims to have the world's only 24-karat gold version of what viral...

Addison, you ragged it too early.

What viral plush toy?

I have the world's only 24-karat laboo boo.

Laboo boo!

The answer's laboo boo.

That is correct.

According to a single from singer Addison Ray's album, Addison, released this summer, what is fame?

Madison.

Fame is a gun.

Fame is a gun.

This is a multiple-choice question.

One of the top-grossing films of the summer was the newest installment in the Jurassic World franchise.

What is the title of that film?

Was it A, Jurassic World Dominion, B, Jurassic World Rebirth, or C, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom?

Madison.

Jurassic World Dominion.

Incorrect.

That's a real movie, right?

That is a real movie.

Next.

Tralalero Tralala, Ballerino Cappuccina, and Bombardiero Crocodile.

Italian brain rot.

I did not finish the question.

Next question.

In what video game released this summer for Nintendo's new Switch 2 console might you see a cow shoot a blue shell at a giant ghost?

Bro, what?

Neither of you play video games.

Video games are one of the biggest things of the world.

All right, the answer is Mario Kart World.

The pop star Justin Bieber got a lot of attention this summer for his seventh studio album Swag, but also for a viral video clip in which he berates Paparazzi for not clocking that Bieber is doing what?

Standing on business.

He was standing on business, as we all know.

Is it not clocking to you that I'm buzzing before you finish the question?

All right, next question.

This is a lightning round.

The summer of 2025 was full of blockbustered movies about teams.

I'm going to give you the names of the members of a team.

You tell me what movie that team is from.

Number one, Mr.

Fantastic.

Fantastic.

Next movie, Luther, Benji, Grace, and Ethan.

Give me the full names.

What is this?

If I gave you the full names,

you would not have gotten that one.

This is Mission Impossible, the final reckoning, the eighth Mission Impossible movie.

Ethan, Tom Cruise.

Rumi, Ginu, Mira.

K-pop Deven Hunters.

I just talked about this.

All right.

And finally, a trivia question for two people who claim to think a lot about Taylor Swift.

As we discussed, she announced her album on Travis Kelsey's podcast.

She talked about baking bread.

What did she identify as the best sourdough variety that she bakes?

Ooh,

that's a good question.

That's a good question.

You have five seconds.

She puts sprinkles in it for the Kelsey kids.

That's not it.

No.

The answer is cinnamon swirl.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what?

Yeah.

I'm going to admit defeat.

We're both defeated.

No, no, no, no, no.

I just want to say, I should have known that.

Fair enough.

I accept that.

And all the Swifties out there who are listening, who are going to drag me for whatever I write about the Taylor album.

Yeah, they feel free to come for me.

I am getting a note from our wonderful producer that tells me that the person who won our inaugural quiz is John.

Would you like to see what your prize is?

I have no choice.

Okay.

Alex Warren emerges from under the table.

We're going to award this every week.

Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to, here we go.

It is, it is a Gilby.

This is a trophy with my face on it.

Yes.

Oh, I'm keeping this.

I'm sorry, Madison.

I really hope you didn't actually win.

Can I read what it says?

It says the Gilbert Cruz Award.

Also known as the Gilby.

The Gilby Libri Pellicule Televisio Musica, which I assume is Latin

for

books, movies,

something music.

TV shows and songs.

Yes.

Gilbert,

this looks cheap, but it is.

Okay, so now you have to invite me back.

I can't hear eye roll.

Because

by the end of 2025, my desk covered in these.

I love it.

I love it.

Covered in these.

John, thank you for appearing on today's episode, looking back at this.

This has been a different culture.

This has been a blessing.

Madison, thank you so much for being here.

Anytime.

Gilbert, it was a joy.

I appreciate you.

I appreciate your patience.

patience.

I got thrown by your sincerity.

This episode was produced by Luke Vanderplug with help from Alex Barron, Tina Antellini, Kate Lepresti, Franny Cartoth, and Dahlia Haddad.

It was edited by Wendy Dorr and Paula Schuman and engineered by Sophia Landman.

It features original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Diane Wong.

Thanks for listening.

See you next week.

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