This week’s out-of-touch guide is a snapshot of a sleepy week in youth pop culture. Nothing too groundbreaking went on, just a great new show about an all-Muslim, all-female punk band, a debate over popcorn buttering, and an Xbox branded mini-fridge.
This week in streaming: This is Lady Parts
I don’t know if it’s a trend or what, but all-female punk rock bands are popping up all over lately. There’s the awesome The Linda Lindas, the less-awesome Tramp Stamps, and now the all-Muslim band in Peacock’s We Are Lady Parts.
The six-episode British import take us inside both Muslim and punk rock cultures and upend the expectations and stereotypes of both. Main character Amina’s parents don’t want their daughter to drop punk rock and her studies to get married. The Parts’ mysterious manager Momtaz wears a full nijab with spiked bracelets and works in a lingerie store. The band’s songs that actually sound like punk rock and have titles like “Ain’t No One Gonna Honour Kill My Sister But Me.” Check out the This is Lady Parts trailer here, then download Peacock for the whole shebang. It’s delightful.
Are you buttering your popcorn wrong?
Have you been buttering your movie theater popcorn wrong all these years? TikToker Colleen Lepp thinks so, and she has a solution. The problem, according to Lepp, is that the butter is only distributed over the top of the corn, leaving most kernels dry. The solution: Stick a straw in the bucket and send that butter to the bottom.
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Over six million people have viewed Colleen’s corn-hack, with commenters praising her or pointing out that positioning the stream of molten butter into the straw can be messy. I like this video because it indicates that people are allowed to go back to the movies and have silly arguments about popcorn again.
Hashtag of the week: #2018vs2021
Only young people would make #2018vs2021 a trendy hashtag. The point of it is to imagine your 2018-self fighting your 2021-self by comparing pictures. Personally, I’m a tiny bit fatter and a little bit balder than I was a few years ago, but essentially the same basic, old white dude. But kids really are different! They have a different idea of how time passes too—to me, 2018 just happened, but the time between 16 and 19 was a lifetime.
Anyway, check out the videos and project yourself back to a time when three years seemed like forever, and you were confident/deluded enough to think anyone would care about the changes you’re going through.
This week in video games: It’s E3 week...It just doesn’t feel like E3 week
This is E3 week, but you might not even know it. With large gatherings still verboten, the video game world can’t get together in a convention center to show off new games and products, so the hype isn’t what it used to be. Still, there were some cool announcements of upcoming games and products delivered through streaming video, of course.
Nintendo showed off the first footage of the next Zelda game. The sequel to Breath of the Wild is slated for release in 2022. Square Enix announced a Guardians of the Galaxy game coming out on October 26. There’s a sequel coming to my personal favorite game of 2019, Plague Tale: Innocence. Plague Tale: Requiem will be released at some point in 2022. The biggest video game announcement this E3, by far, is the Xbox Mini-Fridge. Playing on their new console’s blocky look and slogan, Microsoft promise gamers “the world’s most powerful mini-fridge” that will feature “Xbox Velocity Cooling Architecture” and will no doubt hold all the Monster energy drink you need. Also: It’s not a joke. I mean, it is kind of a joke, but you’ll really be able to buy one this holiday season.Viral video of the Week: Lumberjack
This week’s viral video comes from rapper/virtuoso Tyler, The Creator, a musician whose work I do not understand. I’m way outside his target, but I recognize a genius when I hear one. In the just-over-a-minute LumberJack video, Tyler raps about…something (I’m not really sure what) over provocative images that look like super-8 film and depict…something.
A true product of the online world, Tyler has been creating unique and not-aimed-at-me art since the days of MySpace, and I’m happy he’s out there doing whatever it is he does, and I’m happy that millions are still sharing and enjoying his videos. Tyler, The Creator is proof that the online world’s unrelenting quest for likes and shares doesn’t always result in bland, terrible, lowest-common-denominator art; it sometimes leads to inexplicable awesomeness like Lumberjack. If you’d like to try to understand Tyler, check out this feature length explainer video. But if you’re anything like me, you still won’t get it.
