Transcript of Sunday Special: This Summer in Culture

I'm Wesley Morris. I'm a critic for the New York Times, and I'm the host of a brand new podcast called Canon Ball. We're going to talk about that song, You Can't Get Out of Your Head, that TV show you watched and Can't Stop Thinking About, and the movie that you saw when you were a kid that made you who you are, whether you like it or not.

I was so embarrassed the whole time because it's a bad film, and I still love it.

You can find Canon Ball on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast.

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 are also, we should point out, the culture editor here for many years.

That is true.

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. You are starting this project today. Tell us what you have planned.

Absolutely. Today, I had a conversation with two very fun, very knowledgeable people here at the Times. One of our music critics, our internet reporter. We talked about music. We talked about a couple of movies. We talked about, obviously, Taylor Swift. We talked about some internet memes. It's just three of us mixing up about the 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 Caramonica, sitting to my left, music critic, host of the Popcast podcast. John, thank you for being here. Ajoy. 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. 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.

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? Do you believe that is one category?

I had a gym teacher that was also my English teacher. Wow. We can contain multitudes.

I like to hear that. That's actually a very fulfilling thing.

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 which is to say, 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 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 news, sprinting to get to my desk.

This is Commitments. This is what we do here. What did you It's the New York Times. 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.

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 juggernots, both in their own spaces independently, and you put them together and you get, well, what's bigger than a juggernot? The people needed to know. The people wanted to know. I was shocked by the reaction online, both to this news piece I wrote and more broadly, The State 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 what we're calling it?

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: 00 PM Eastern. -ish. It contained a series of photos of them standing in an elaborately decorated garden, just lots of flowers and arch. I believe there's a candle chandelier covered in flowers. The works. 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. 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. In a subsequent photo, you get a closeup, but very, let's say, wisely selected closeup. It leaves a lot of details to the imagination. But a closeup of a just, I believe the official gemologist term is honking diamond ring. Speculation is it's an antique-cut, elongated cushion in some gold.

I definitely know what that means. Excellent.

Chunky, fascinating. Look, I bought an engagement ring last year. I actually bought two, one for me, one for my partner. You learned diamond speak, and I didn't realize it would become useful. But also in that frame is a very flashy Cartier watch. Yes. Best believe she is still bejouled.

Wow. Why am I even here? Seriously, all just 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 so. But you're mad about the shorts. I am mad, small mad, about the shorts. I was just like, I don't care how warm it is. These are engagement photos that are going to go around the world. They're going to live in their couple down 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, two thumbs up. But I do think like that this is a person who likes to bum around in casual wear, 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. I got what? Yeah, that's not. 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 Shorts Discourse. This is violence you guys don't want to get to.

We shouldn't bring up the loafer 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 Shorts Discourse. That's really dangerous.

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.

That intro, Jason. Oh, my God.

I've seen this before.

No, look, his soul has left his body.

Just breathe, Jason. 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'm absolutely sure.

I admittedly do not watch podcast, period. I listen to them. But this one I watched, sat at my dining room table, wrapped?

Yeah, you made an event out of it.

I did. I did indeed.

But was that a professional rapture or was that a personal rapture?

I was being paid to watch that podcast, John.

Yes, I mean, as was I.

We all were. John, how many times did you watch it? 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, Don on the wall at the Met or something.

It's exactly like that. It's like me, the Sackler, it's Taylor Swift.

Travis and Jason, on the other hand, they're roughhousing. They're like, two sling hair. They're like, Hey, buddy, they're not in the same room, and they're still two-sling 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 advanced purchase CD. Which one did you buy? A CD. I don't need it.

No, I know. But of the 19 million versions of these albums, because Taylor Swift makes a million.

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. The dealer no deal with. I'll have one to pull out the vinyl.

I'll have one sent to Jersey. Thank you.

You're welcome. How do you know where I live? What, Madison?

I was watching this show through the lens of a very active group chat of the Swift sisters. Swift sisters, it's not a great portmanteau. I was struck by, I can't remember who said it, perhaps my literal sister, saying, I've never heard her this many words in a row before. 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 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 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. 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.

I have a couple of questions. One, how were you in the with her, but Jason Kelsi was trapped in a basement because the lighting on his half of the podcast, we're in here, I've got four different light sources. So much like Jason Kelsi, borrowed under a table, like potting from underneath Do you think they told him, You're fine?

When it was 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 sentence.

Surely they could afford it.

No comment.

I He was not seated in front of a stack of art books. Whose books are those? Ruth Asawa and all of these incredibly curated.

No, it's literally... It's just the Barnes & Noble art book table. It's just one of these. There's probably a cause book in there.

There's a version of the power broker.

Exactly. Meanwhile, the Swifties are like, Ruth Asawa died at the age of 87. Travis Kelsi is number 87 on the Tuesday.

There's a song about Ruth Asawa on the new album?

It's a song. My sincerest apologies to the Asawa family and the estate.

Are you kidding? Her price is about to go through the 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 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 the sucker here who took it for what I wanted it to be, and you were 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 a podcast 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. 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. It's called Ordinary by Alex Warren.

It is, and I say this, I say this zestily, but with no zest.

It is heinous. It is unbearable. It makes me physically uncomfortable to listen to. Ten 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 of it was algorithmically driven? Because I was force-fed that song against my will, not only on TikTok, but on Spotify. I would finish listening to seemingly disparate albums or tracks of Choubi Carter, and I'm like, And how am I here listening to this TikTok guy, Hypehouse dude. Yes.

Fake British. Fake British guy.

Wait, he's not British?

See?

Not British. He looks extremely British.

And also sounds extremely British.

Okay.

Yes. I do think part of his algorithmic... I do think part of it is a collective dearth of taste amongst people. Good luck with that.

Grand flame. Yeah.

Not really. It's pretty straightforward. The title is just so on the nose.

But it is algorithm. It's also like, sorry, ordinary. It's called ordinary.

The amount of wedding and engagement TikToks that I watched with ordinary. Look, I'm pro love. I'm pro romance. I'm pro betroval.

Say it loud.

I'm I'm on that. The amount of... If I come to your wedding.

October 11th, Brooklyn.

If I come to your wedding, an 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. No, that's a workplace-related injury.

What was your song in the summer?

It's called Can't Go Broke. Broke, the remix of Can't Go Broke. It's by Zetdy Will, who is a internet comedian, meme artist, and also emerging rapper. Shit, I guess with that many jobs, I can't go broke. It's almost like a great Nickelodian skit of a rap song. Okay. It makes a tremendous It's performed, it's comic, it's light-hearted, it's youthful. I'm really tired of being in the school, where I'm about to quit.

Somebody call my A&R now. Tell them, get me out of here because I'm about to feel.

I'm driving in the pool. We're going to get in the pool. It's not really in discourse with what's happening on rap radio. 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 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? For me, the Song of the Summer is a song of the summer is a song of multimedia consumption. Shit. 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.

Oh, jeez.

At a fake awards show. I have worn it out. My He's always a winner.

He loves the game. Madison, this is something that bubbled up over the last few weeks of August.

Sure. So, Lost Culture: A Sister is a podcast hosted by Matt Rogers, Bowen Yang, and For several years now, they've run this very funny, wonky, fake awards show.

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

Sheegon.

Here we award the the substance, but also the spirit tunnel from the Jennifer Hudson show. Matt, I'm realizing we haven't- This year, it went more mainstream. It's on Bravo, if we just assume that to be mainstream media. Absolutely. 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 X It is incredibly catchy.

It contains a little adlib in which that man sings, I like it from the fountain. I like it from the fountain. It just scratches the inside of my brain in a nice way. I like it from the fountain, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You all love a meme. Unbelievable. You all are the problem.

Speaking of Diet Pepsi, speaking of sodas, not the Diet Dr. Pepper that you're drinking right now.

It's full-test.

It's full-test, yeah. You talked to Addison Ray earlier this week.

Sure did. Yeah. You know what Addison Ray said? Taste is a privilege.

I saw that.

Taste is a privilege.

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 life force urge to get out of the circumstance that she was in. 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. For her, becoming a TikTok and being very relentless about, I'm on every trending audio. Anything that's viral, I'm participating in. That was her speed run through the internet. 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 Addison and Alex Warren. That is ordinary. That is true. That is true. Taste is a privilege.

Taste is a choice and a privilege.

Can I talk about my favorite song in the summer? My song in the summer?

It's Rude We Didn't Ask, actually.

It is Rude We Didn't Ask, which is why I'm budding in. Dillard.

Yes. D. H. 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. The Out. The song Golden, from the movie K-Pop Demon Hunter.

Have either of you watched this No.

Because as John said, we all experience culture in our own fun little silos. All right.

Well, let me tell you. Let me tell you about the movie. Please do. 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 imagines a world in which there are demons, much like the real world.

Yeah, I was going to say it.

Demons have always haunted our world, stealing our souls and channeling strength back to their king, Tima, until heroes arose to defend us.

There's always a group of three women that are responsible for keeping evil at bay. Also, all such a- In modern times, those women take the form of pop groups. Let's go country. We love country. In the movie, we're catching up with 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 Honmun, the fans. A demon boy band?

It's Alex Warren.

We can steal people's souls with the power of our music, and they do. There's Huntrix, the Ladies, and then there's Sasha Boy, the Guys.

Just for clarity, I'm supposed to be rooting for the girl group.

The Girl Group. The Girl Group. You're always... Thank you, Metis.

Because the other group sounds pretty lit to me.

Yeah, the demon pop group. I bet the music's better.

Yeah, probably. Okay.

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. In mid-august, early to mid-august, three or four of the songs from K-Pop Demon Hunters hit the billboard charts. That might be because there was 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. 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. I love it. I love the way it goes up, up in the middle. I think it's very catchy.

All right, John. It's fine. Okay, it's fine. It's fine. Here's the thing. No.

I love John Caramanica saying it's fine.

It's fine. 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 what I think of as big tent K-pop in these songs, where they are all tempered with the 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 denuted, 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 It's maybe a little bit prior to what's happening now. It's broad and chaotic and nuclear-powered. This feels like, what if we just made it smile?

You're just like, no.

No, let's hear the other guys.

You want to hear Sasha Boyz? Soda pop. You're my Soda pop, my little Can two things be true at the same time? I also like this song. This is wonderful.

This, to me, is a better song. It's a better approximate, I think, of K-pop. Yeah, I'm more pro this.

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

I'm Jonathan Swann. I'm a White House reporter for the New York Times. I have a pretty unsentimental view of what we do. Our job as reporters is to dig out information that powerful people don't want published, to take you into rooms that you would not otherwise have access to, to understand how some of the big decisions shaping our country are being made. Then painstakingly, to go back and check with sources, check with public documents, make sure the information is correct. This is not something you can outsource to AI. There's no robot that can go and talk to someone who is in the situation room and find out what was really said. In order to get actually original information that's not public, that requires human sources, and we actually need journalists to do that. As you may have gathered from this long rift, I'm asking you to consider subscribing to the New York Times. Independent journalism is important, and without you, we simply can't do it.

Madison, something that I feel like broke through all algorithms because it was everywhere and gross was Coldplaygate. Is that what we're calling it? What are we calling it?

We're calling it Coldplaygate. Coldplaygate was a Coldplay concert at which a man and a woman who should not probably have been at the Coldplay 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 have this very shy.

We all knew who they were by the following morning, thanks to the magic. That is the surveillance the state we currently live in.

These were two people who were, in fact, not married to each other. I think at least one of them was married to someone else. How did that make you feel?

Terrified. Look, frustrated because this is a story with so many deliciously easy villains. You've got cheaters, Coldplay fans, Gwyneth Paltrow's ex-husband.

You didn't identify Coldplay itself as a villain.

Oh, yeah, sure. Coldplay, Chris Martin. Absolutely. Any other easy marks in this that I'm missing?

All the people maybe that's turned this into various memes.

Right. It's super fun online, right, to have somebody who's clearly in the wrong, that people like to punch at and mock and A tech CEO makes for a real good fit for that role these days. But honestly, it's a warning shot to all of us, you should be scared.

Okay, a couple of things. One, are we entirely sure this isn't a sci-up by Coldplay's marketing team to draw attention to how many people are at Coldplay concerts? Are we entirely sure? That's number one. 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 have to disagree. I think we've normalized this way too much. I've written many stories about scenarios like these. I can think about a woman in a restaurant being like, Girl, your bridesmaids actually hate you. Oh, yeah. Like, your roommate 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 over Sure.

Unfortunately, as we have just laid out, that was one of the bigger things on the internet this summer. Now, arguably not great. Bad for everyone involved. Were there any less depressing internet trends this summer, Madison?

All I have to say is nothing, and I do mean nothing, beats a jet to holiday.

Nothing beats a jet to holiday.

This is an advertisement for a British touring company. The ad goes, Nothing beats a jet to holiday. Starting right now, you can save 200 pounds off a family effort. Pretend I'm British. I'm not doing that to our listeners, but pretend.

We have an AI filter for that.

That's you.

Fantastic. All the while, Jess, Glenn'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-to-holiday, and it's a picture of you just experiencing something deeply awful. It's a jet-to-holiday, and Right now, you can save £50 per person.

That's £200.

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 Jétu holiday meme, which is I feel like There's always conversation of, how do we make something go? It's like there's people in offices higher up than our floor. We're on the 28th floor right now. We're pretty high. There's people on the 30th floor, the 40th floor, the 50th. I don't know them.

There actually isn't.

There are buildings, 50th, 60th floor. There's people in rooms being like, How do we make something go viral? We just stole 20 kids from a college, and we put them in a room, and we forced them to tell us what was viral. 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 be working on 50th floor all over this country.

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

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

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

Mubi Mascarine crumble Cookie.

Benson Boon. He did a crumble cookie, and in case you're not familiar with crumble, it's a wild- The Alex Warren of Cookies? 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. 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 a little pizza cutter to cook, to cut these cookies into relatively reasonable by the FDA or formerly FDA portion size.

They're gross. No, don't tell RFK Jr. About these cookies. Don't tell him. No, no, no. You're going to shut them down.

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 Boon crumble collab cookie, which was a Moonbeam ice cream cookie. There were lines at 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 Moonbeam 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?

It's a great question. In Jersey, the crumble you go to, is there a lot of square footage?

Yeah, the crumble in Austin. They're pretty big. I mean, that's what the suburbs allow.

There you go. Backflipping. Look, a cookie connoisseur myself. Crumble comes along. I see all the TikToks, people in Irving, Texas, with a six pack of six different flavors. Again, as Madison said, all flavors that should not be in Congress with each other. 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 combines that you could possibly have. Just give me the six strangest cookies that are available here. Each one tasted like a pack Post-it notes. It was unbelievable how for something with seven flavors in it somehow still tasted like spiced cardboard. How can I... I'm running out of negative things to say about Crumble Coats.

You're listening to this podcast and not watching it. What you can't see is I was 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 Boon and Crumble came together? Absolutely. Yeah, he was the right person.

It was wildly effective. How did we get talking about this? We got talking about it because Jetu 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 a grimace shake, duo lingo 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.

We did it on podcast. I went to the one on seventh Avenue. Got it live, live. We could have collapsed. We squeezed it right out of grimace.

In the field. Yeah. Yeah, field recording is over here.

We 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 is a movie called Materialist. I saw this, too. Okay, good. Oh, my God. We got a three-way conversation going on.

John saw a film. He saw a movie. He saw a movie.

This was Céline Song, who was her first picture Passed Lives was nominated for Best Picture. This is her follow-up. It stars Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal. It was sold as a rom-com. Definitely not a rom-com, more of a rom-drom.

I have a thought on that.

Do you think it's funny? 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 performances.

Great Twitter about this movie.

How much of the film did you miss? You weren't literally late to the movie. You culturally late to the movie.

You saw it.

I did see it. I thought it was quite beautiful. It was one of those 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. But perhaps not for the reasons that the discourse was. Where you lose me is Dakota Johnson's character, Lucy. Lucy. Lucy. Lucy takes great pain 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 $80,000 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 He plays someone in finance.

I think I've got him for more like '82.

Yeah, 82. 5.

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

Bushwick residing actor.

No, he lives in- He lives in- 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 Proenza and Bottega, and that drove me just- Clearly of the real, real shopper. I, nonetheless.

I think there was a lot of stress. That's your worst sticking point. There's a lot of stress about the $80,000. I think we wrote an article. Did you write that article?

I didn't write that article. So you can besmirch it if you'd like in front of me.

There were a lot of articles about, Oh, no, $80,000. It's a movie. It's going to get a couple of things. It's literally fiction. I agree. It's literally fiction.

I agree.

Here's the thing. When you introduced this movie, you said a rom-com, but not a rom-drom. A lot of the one 2. 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. But I do think- This is not how people who are falling in love or trying to feel each other out. It's a business deal. It's a transaction.

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 the whole thing was delivered as a slapstick romantic comedy from the early 2000s, the like, What is it? 10 Things I hate about you or whatever. If it was delivered in that manner, almost identical script, a film. But because everybody was so busy, just having a serious...

You're saying it's too stately.

For no reason.

It's got the physical comedy baked into it. Every romantic interaction, Lucy, that's her name, ends, has It's 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. That would be very funny. I think genuinely, 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. 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. Welcome back. I'm Gilbert Cruz. I'm here with John Caramonica 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 buzz?

Can we just buzz in at any point? That's a good question.

Addison Wright.

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

But who determines when the question is over?

When the sentence ends. Okay, Okay. All right. Okay. Fingers on buzzers or space bars 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 Maron.

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

Big Chilf.

Great movie. Wrong answer. The answer is Jaws. Tiktokeer Lil Bull's official claims to have the world's only 24 carat gold version of what viral... Madison, you ragged too early. What viral plush toy?

I have the world's only 24 Carat Laboohoo.

Laboohoo. The answer is Laboohoo. 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?

That's incorrect.

Rebirth. That's a real movie, right?

That is a real movie. Great. Next. Tra-l'a-r-o-tra-l-la, Balerino Cappuccino, and Bombadero Crocodile.

Italian Brain Rod.

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 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 blockbuster 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 Four.

Fantastic Four.

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

Give me the full names.

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.

Roomy, Jean-Lou, Mira. K-pop, Diven Hunter. I just talked about this. All right. And finally, be 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?

That's a good question. That is a good question.

You have five seconds.

She put sprinkles in it for the Kelsey kids. That's not it.

No.

The answer is Cinnamon Swirl. Yeah.

You know what? I'm going to admit defeat. We're both defeated. 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.

Alice Warren emerges from under the table.

We're going to award this every week. Oh. Here we go. It is a Gilby. It is a trophy with my face on it. With your face on it?

Yes. Oh, I'm keeping this. I'm sorry, Madison. I really hope you didn't actually win. Can you read what it says? It says the Gilbert Cruise Award.

Also known as the Gilby.

The Gilby, Libre, Pelicule, Televisio Musica, which I assume is Latin for books, movies, movies, TV shows, and songs. Gilbert. John. This looks cheap. It is. But I Okay, so now you have to invite me back. You can't hear I roll. Because-imagine. By the end of 2025, my desk covered in these. I love it.

Covered in these. I love it. Covered in these. John, thank you for appearing on today's episode, looking back at this summer and 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.

I got thrown by your sincerity. This episode was produced by Luc van der Plug, with help from Alex Baron, Tinaini, Kate Lepreste, Franny Khar Toth, and Dahlia Haddad. It was edited by Wendy Dore and Paula Schumann and engineered by Sophia Landman. It features original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Diane Wong. Thanks for listening. See you next week.