WTF happened on the internet this week?
More Charli XCX remixes
As has been the case for maybe too long now, a whole load of this week’s online chatter concerned Miss Charli XCX. If you’ve been living under a rock, it went like this. People thought there was going to be a brat remix featuring a hefty bit of Dua Lipa. People got all Taylor Swift-esque “easter eggs” about that. Turns out that wasn’t the case. Charli drops an album called brat and it’s completely different but also still brat. There’s a remix of “Talk Talk” featuring Troye Sivan on there, and a day prior Charli had taken to her Instagram stories to thank Dua Lipa for “speaking french and spanish on the track”. That got released. It sounds a bit like Dua Lipa’s run to the bathroom, quickly lashed over a voice note to Charli, then headed back outside to do some flamenco dancing (or other gallivanting). It’s the kind of hyped non-event that makes you start to wonder if we’re all going a little bit mad. In other news: there will be features from Yung Lean and Robyn on the upcoming album.
The Harris-Trump presidential debate
In which former US president Donald Trump lamented on “transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison”. On Tuesday night, ABC aired a 90-minute debate between Trump (who is, we might add, the first former US president to be convicted of felony crimes) and Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump’s unsubstantiated claims included (but were not limited to) the notion of immigrants eating dogs and Kamala Harris wanting to do “transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison” — the latter was an attempt to paint the Vice President as a kind of crusader of the woke agenda. Another moment that set the internet ablaze came when Trump was asked if he had a plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. His answer? He has “concepts of a plan”. As will become a familiar theme of WTF happened on the internet this week, all of the above got meme-ified. Scroll X and it will only be a matter of seconds before you stumble across “I have concepts of a plan” being used as a pithy caption for a photo of everyone from Succession’s cousin Greg to The Simpsons’ Lionel Hutz… I do wonder how detrimental it is to the human race that we absorb and cannibalise information in this way.
The VMAs
Sabrina Carpenter tongued an alien and Katy Perry did some performative scissoring. More on that here.
Sabrina Carpenter released (another) horny song
Could it be said that Sabrina Carpenter sings about sex in such a way that it makes you start to wonder if she even shags at all? We think so. This week, the en-vogue sexy Sabrina single was “Bed Chem”, which followed hot on the heels of “Taste”, purportedly about the love triangle between Carpenter, Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes. Considering the lyric “that’s that me espresso” managed to make everyone’s brains go into a state of stupor, there’s a good chance that “Bed Chem” will actually incite some kind of worldwide meltdown. There’s a pithy little line that plays on the similarity between the words “come on me” and the word “camraderie” – very cheeky indeed – and there’s even a bit where she inexplicably goes a bit Shakespeare. People loved that bit, because it’s “clever” and they “get it”. What also makes “Bed Chem” so good (apparently) is that it’s pretty easy to piece together that it’s about Barry Koeghan. “Who’s the cute boy with the white jacket and the thick accent?” Carpenter croons. Thick accent? That’s a little nod to Barry being Irish! Wow, this is what Sherlock Holmes must have felt like. People online have mimed to “Bed Chem”. People online have danced to “Bed Chem”. People online will forget about “Bed Chem” in about two weeks when Carpenter drops an even cheekier song about necrophilia… Or something like that, anyway.
The tradwives had a meetup
This week, the world’s biggest crossover event occurred. No, there’s not another wacky Avengers film coming out. Nope, there’s not a new episode of The Simpsons where someone from Rick and Morty makes an appearance. This week, the couple at the centre of the controversial Instagram page @ballerinafarm got together with none other than Nara and Lucky Blue Smith. Or, at least, a photo resurfaced from when they did. Anyhow, it was essentially a moment of quadruple Mormon power. Why did that send the internet into a frenzy, though? Aside from the fact they’re the two biggest presences in Mormonism and/or the divisive “trad wife” movement, people started to lament that these people, well, aren’t really that trad. “Ah yes, the ‘trad’ wives that spend 40+ hours dedicated to social media posts,” said one user on X. “Meanwhile one of the fathers has on striped khakis and a 9 step skincare routine,” said another. Really, the whole thing was a succinct little learning lesson on why it might be damaging to throw terms like “tradwife” around. A label that would be appropriate for this awesome foursome, however, would be Mormons. We actually wrote about that – and how these kinds of influencers are trying to repackage the religion – back in February.
People weighed in on some chips
If no one else is familiar with this, it’s just a damning indictment of the kind of crud I interact with. Nonetheless, this week X was ablaze with a British guy’s takeaway order — chips (which looked quite nice and crunchy, actually) covered in sliced black olives. The kind you’d only really ingest via a Dominoes or a Subway, where they’re relegated to a sad existence in one of those metal tubs right next to another metal tub of some suspicious-looking tuna… Anyway. People mulled over whether the olives were a substitute for salt. People joked that “British people prolly call this ‘Nuts and Bolts’ or some shit”. It was fun for about five minutes.
