😇☮️🕊️i cum in peace🕊️☮️😇

Defining a 2020s aesthetic of peace within noise and why horror movies have become focused on the suburbs as the site of hell.

Sep 21, 2025

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This week’s 🦿HIP REPLACEMENT🦿 is a foursome, with Kirstin and Sarah of Best Trends Forever joining Ben Dietz and I to talk why the VMAs were so flop compared to The Emmys, how Perfectly Imperfect maintains such a vibe in real life, and the death of non-Millennial-but-Millennial icons like Baddie Winkle. Listen now on Spotify and YouTube!

Charlie Kirk hailed as 'martyr' by EU far right
Far-right biggest winner in German local elections
Is Japan becoming more 'European'?
“Big up Trump”
“Out of desperation, they blame migrants”
The left’s radical plan to fix housing in Paris
“The deficit-populism doom loop”

It’s my job to point these things out out, as what is happening in America is part of a larger constellation: it’s MEGA (“Make Europe Great Again”), sure, but also making obvious that most places carry the same grievances, based in inequality, of people being poor and turning to the far right for salvation because the far right is promising to anoint heads with homogenous oil. Housing crises from Barcelona to LA, poverty from Jakarta to Buenos Aires: the world is more similar than it is different, hence the right gathering up the aimless yet discontented. Don’t even think about loosening that seatbelt, as these are expressions of “the war.”

J.D. Vance Said Some Pretty Serious Things
White House to take action targeting left groups
Charlie Kirk, Redeemed
Judge orders Mahmoud Khalil deported
Project 2025 is already 47 percent complete
“getting what they were promised”
“Terms right and left are gonna become archaic”
“America for the foreseeable future”

Let us watch the hands of the clock as it approaches midnight. If you missed it, read about the Jimmy Kimmel shit here.

Family of Black student demands answers
Death of student ruled a suicide
“Lynchings never stopped”
Homeless Man Found Hanging From Tree
Dozen hurt in homeless shootings
“This is not normal”

There’s been a lot of misinformation on these, a big one being Cory Zukatis’ identity — and his homelessness. Zoom out, to the shooting in Minneapolis: do you see it? It’s not just that July saw Trump try to clear DC of the homeless or this week a Fox host saying homeless people should be executed or JD Vance suggesting violence to “control” unruly “Blacks.” Whether suicide or hate crimes, these all signal more of the most vulnerable continuing to go uncared for. Celine Song…right yet again.

Kenya: west broke ‘climate blood pact’

To that: the USAid wound continues to bleed. This ties to something we talked about at TRL a few weekends ago: these are such mean times, marked by political isolationism as expressed as selfishness. For example: the Afghanistan earthquake, where femicide pushed deaths into the thousands. But have you heard about that? Does anyone care? Things are bad where you are and where I am — but know that the ripples in the pond are devastating the further out we go. As the Red Cross proclaims, “We take action, not sides.” A call many need to hear.

NASA Sees ‘Clearest Sign of Life’ So Far

It’s always when life is going fucking wild that scientists drop the most insane shit.

Judge dismisses two top charges against Luigi

Sure, why not.

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The sea roars. Wind and waves whip the boat, water swamping the hull. The disciples worry they’ll sink. Their teacher sleeps on a cushion, undisturbed. They wake him with their frantic cries. They think they’re going to die. "Peace! Be still!" their teacher commands — and the seas calm. "Why are you afraid?” he asks them. “Have you no faith?" A miracle occurred, they and we realize, preceding his walking on water by a few days. Painters like Rembrandt depicted this scene as a drama, the disciples scrambling up masts and yanking the rudder, looking forlorn at their savior, who sits quietly, unbothered, face aglow: he is the calm in the storm.

I’ve been thinking about this story and this image all week, for an unlikely reason: Demi Lovato. The former non-binary and current child playing actor is the latest in a long line — Camila Cabello, Katy Perry, Katseye, Blackpink — who are doing their damnedest to channel Charli XCX for a new album. Demi’s approach is different given her sobriety cheapens the act (Yes, Charli’s “drug” use is performative — but it's much more authentic.) which is paired with a strange self-referentialism that continues to break the fourth wall, reminding audiences that she was and always will be a Disney star just like you were and always will be a Disney kid, which is to say: a consumer. But I digress: she dropped the album art for her forthcoming It’s Not That Deep which is…stunning? Many agreed, but the image would be more arresting if it wasn’t so of-a-kind, another copy of a copy — and many pointed out this of-a-kind-ness, which isn’t necessarily an XCX thing but more illustrative of a 2020s aesthetic: a confluence of noise, too much going on, a struggle to get through the mess — but there. There! Our peace, our heaven, our salvation, the eye with which to see the future through. The savior who we will place our hopes in: Demi Lovato.

“Why does everything look like this now,” someone asked of the artwork. “They’re the center of attention amidst all the…..shit?” a now deleted Tweet stated. For the unfamiliar, It’s Not That Deep is of a specific music mood board, evoking covers like Rose Gray’s Louder, Please, Caroline Polacheck’s Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, Oklou’s Choke Enough, Angèle’s Nonante-cinq, and — obviously — Charli XCX’s Crash, among others. The pictures are high-contrast and busy, full of drama and anguish: someone somewhere is in pain, there is tension in the over-packed square, things are breaking or about to ruin — but there, unbothered: a pop star. Our light! All that we’ve longed for, this person who has found peace and might be able to bestow such a state upon you before they’re crucified for being mid. This imagery descends from the mind of David LaChapelle (and even Spike Jonze), who used the lens of the masters to create pop art, crowding frames with scenes of modern life with pop stars at the center in the same way the Baroque and Renaissance masters did with Biblical life and the one who was believed to be God. “Let me be the calm in your storm,” this canon says. “These times are terrible, the world is hard but, for a one time payment of $9.99, I can heal you.” You won’t be shocked that this visual gesture is sweeping the whole of media, from the latest British GQ cover to a new New Yorker cover, from Everything Everywhere All At Once to English Teacher, from Glenn Martens’ Diesel campaigns to the whole of Alessandro Michele’s Gucci tenure, from Marine Serre to Moschino, from Cody Critcheloe to Yana Van Nuffel, from “Jump” to “This Is For.” “You look lonely,” Ana de Armas’ Joi says in Blade Runner 2049. “I can fix that.” That .gif of Florence Pugh in Thunderbolts, walking down a crowded street, a building exploding behind her — and she doesn’t care. “this is what i imagine people who arent interested in politics are like,” someone Tweets. Such is the reward for following such saviours.

It would be foolish to think this aesthetic was strictly visual, that Demi Lovato was some sort of psycho-spiritual savant instead of a compost heap of recent trends: these are the times of the storm and the fight for the soul of states, nations, and the world. To succeed, a public figure or brand must position themselves as the calm for the masses. Just ask AI, the solution to our fallible human-ness that promises to calm the noise! It’s also Trump and his whole brand of US shit but Netanyahu and Putin and Modi and Xi too, along with Farage and Weidel and Meloni and LePen and Abascal and Milei and Kamiya: the chaos of the immigrants, the noise of transgenders, the unrest of the left, the makings of this terrible world. “The evildoers responsible for my husband’s assassination have no idea what they have done,” Erika Kirk proclaimed over the still warm body of the father of her kids. “If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea what you just have unleashed across the country and this world”: from chaos to calm, all powered by white rage. Climate disasters and sexual predators, economic insecurity and political violence, microplastics and god damn tech billionaires — but also the Rizzler! Labubus!! Ballerina Cappuccina!!! Katseye!!!! HUNTR/X!!!!! SAVE US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There’s something refreshing that this visual style has recurred during much of history’s most distressing times. This maximalism isn’t new, as the Hiëronymus Boschs and Jan Van Eycks and Pieter Bruegel the Elders and Albrecht Altdorfers used the technique as they navigated even more difficult eras. From The Garden of Earthly Delights to Guernica to 2 de Mayo, the chaos is as much a reflection of the literal as it is the mental: same then as it is now. Demi Lovato like the artists before and after her make physical all of our feelings, in the same way as every fashion brand and every magazine cover is doing too. When we consider the 2020s, we’ll remember this expression, the fittest form of this era’s spiralling psyche. Dragging along “dopamine dressing,” taking with us maximalist interiors, carrying piles of Toiletpaper, we will remember these times for its messiness — but also remember the people, the places, and things that were the bright light, pulling us toward some form of temporary or long lasting salvation. Amen.

“Russian manipulation of Facebook”
Foreign disinformation seeks to widen divisions

The first is an interview with cybersecurity expert Alex Stamos, formerly of Facebook, by comedian Daniel Tosh. Something really fascinating happened in their chat: Stamos explained how during the 2016 election Russian interference intended to “divide Americans,” which he thought Facebook did a good job of countering. Interesting, given the second story is about the past two weeks, which echo a 2010s theme. Thus: foreign actors have been very successful in sowing division, right? Have they not won this war, filling the room up with noxious fumes then forcing us to witness acts of public violence as the walls close in?

‘Golden’ No. 1 on Billboard for Fifth Week

Unfortunately for us, the summer belonged to children as the continued dominance of Kpop Demon Hunters illustrates how the film was the 2025 summer moment, straddling online and offline worlds — but you had to be 6 to 14 to “get” it. Yes, adults are frazzled that “nothing brought us together” but children were out here vibing to Kpop. Reassuring, in some way!

When Artists Are Too Old to Be “Emerging”

I love this story because, despite my shitposting about it, I know one day I’m going to get the “emerging” treatment while my ass is like 42. Speaks to the broken system in “rewarding” working artists. Exciting that some institutions are changing the rubric!

Why Are There So Many Aesop Stores?

There are too many Aesop stores, point blank. And it’s too expensive! I stopped buying their shit! The story is interesting, as it relates to the brand “not clicking” in certain cities at certain times, which clearly isn’t the case anymore.

When did New York Fashion Week get so boring?
Can New York Fashion Week offer anything new?
Laura Kim, Fernando Garcia Depart Oscar de la Renta
“inspired by Robert Rauschenberg”

I asked Rachel Tashjian about the lack of innovation in fashion a few days ago, which she pointed to Ralph Lauren and Kors as decent examples. But, given the departure at Oscar de la Renta paired with the Jason Wu Rauschenberg thing, something else is apparent: the big boys are boring while the smaller people are making sponcon. NYFW was mid, at best! Eckhaus Latta did have the most incredible show and, while a bit of a recycling of Marine Serre via Demna, the Area debut offered hope — but I’m not optimistic about the rest of the month, especially given CPHFW’s sputter of a start. While nice, the Actively Black civil rights showcase and Sivan Apparel’s diversity show and Vivian Wilson’s presence “are good” but not that interesting as far as fashion — or politics. The fashion recession continues, as brands fail to meet the moment, perhaps proving their adoration of capitalism over meaning.

Labubu Frenzy Wipes $13B From Pop Mart
Every 17-Year-Old Has This Lululemon Keychain
furry robot ‘mirumi’ clips on bags

Labubu fulfilling its landfillcore final destination is unsurprising, as it’s a stop on the seemingly long journey of bag charms. Next stop is the Lululemon “I’m a mom! But I’m actually 12 ;)” keychain, which will likely end before my dumb baby angel robot Mirumi debuts.

Forgive me, readers, for I finally watched both Weapons and (technically not-horror but by a horror auteur) Eddington, two films that unlocked something that I know is obvious but it must be said as I haven’t seen enough people talking about it, as they are a reflection of “these times”: horror has become the domain of the suburban, of the country.

These two movies occupy a distinctly anti-city space. Weapons’ town-gone-wrong paints picket fences with blood, creating easy allegories about gun violence and the use of children for agendas. Eddington, by contrast, holds up a funhouse mirror to the 2020s to reveal divisions based on the leak of digital brain rot, harming everyone everywhere but coalescing and congealing in the worst ways possible within the communities that need saving most. “The house becomes a scary place,” Weapons director Zach Cregger told Vanity Fair of the film and the influence of suburban drugs like fentanyl. “You can go to school and act like everything’s cool, and then you come home and you hide from a zombie parent. That felt so real to me.” The home as horror, the film suggests. “We have become totally atomised and cannot reach each other,” Eddington director Ari Aster said in The Guardian. “And as long as that persists – which a lot of people have a lot invested in – nothing can change.” Division as horror, the film suggests. (By the way: don’t read that Guardian story unless you’ve watched the movie. Go into Eddington knowing as little as possible as it is…my pick for best movie of the year.) (SO SUE ME!!)

Cregger and Aster have a knack for this though, a subject that is stuck in their maw: Barbarian is a last-house-on-the-left creeper critique of the American housing crisis enabled by tech and the rich while Hereditary sees the home as a space of intense sacrifice in the name of belief, which can be extended to “the country” in Midsommar while becoming a home of a different horror in Beau Is Afraid. But in thinking about the horror breakouts this year — 28 Years Later, Final Destination: Bloodlines, The Monkey, Sinners, Bring Her Back, Together — they all take place in non-cities, despite the presence of things like a wannabe Space Needle for dramatic effect. Consider the whole of The Conjuring universe, a 2010s and 2020s franchise constructed around objects in spaces like a baby’s nursery, rooms of suburban expressions of privacy and peace becoming a portal for the devil and other evil spirits to enter: what happens in your house not only ruins you but the world, this suggests. Outside of the lesser horrors of something like Apartment 7A, monsters aren’t “in the city” but out of town — and the monsters that are “in the city” are often associated with real people doing bad acting or gimmicky pivots (Jason Takes Manhattan, Scream VI, MaXXXine, A Quiet Place: Day One, The Purge: Anarchy).

But again: zoom in on this, where a movie like 28 Years Later almost certainly connects a fictional UK self-isolating due to a “zombie problem” to Brexit and other current brain rots of far right and anti-immigration movements: a country’s approach to a problem falls the whole. What was once the whims of big business eating neighborhoods (Poltergeist) has evolved so far beyond the suburban gothic that now life in the non-city is a torture of stalking (It Follows), where your surroundings create internal horrors (I Saw The TV Glow), where one is subjected to a game of evils and torture (The Cabin in the Woods), and where one finds true evil in abandoning the real world, leaving “civilization” for the remote (The Menu, Oddity, Abigail, Companion). The whole of modern horror is focused on the areas outside of cities and within homes as the site of the most evil occurrences, positing that your neighbors (Paranormal Activity series) are being tortured, or taking off their masks off to reveal the true evils that are rotting the country (Get Out). “You never know what someone is doing in their home,” goes the trending comment on videos of domestic absurdity, the suggestion being that a closed door harbors hilarity — but evil (hence the social media panoptic state).

This is an age-old trope in the genre — Halloween! Nightmare on Elm Street! Psycho! — reflective of both filmmakers reflecting on childhoods, on Los Angeles as a setting that playacts the suburban, and audiences and wider sales belonging to those who live in not-cities: the suburbs-as-horror is less a trend and more a statement on the difficulties of (American!) life outside of the city, of struggling to connect with people, of communities so disparate and divided that you could hide piles of dead bodies without anyone ever knowing (Silence of the Lambs, The People Under The Stairs, Longlegs). But it wasn’t always like this: the aughts and the 1990s had a brief period when most breakouts in the horror through sci-fi and thrillers focused on the city. From Philly’s The Sixth Sense to Barcelona’s REC, New York’s American Psycho and Cloverfield, London’s Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days Later, Seattle’s The Ring and Chicago’s Child’s Play, there was a period of cities being “where the scary things happened,” spaces of emerging cultures and technologies (Terminator, Predator 2), where evil but mostly human masterminds played games with people (Se7en, Saw). These briefly contrasted the horrors of being “out there,” in spaces that were the city’s opposite, the best venue for death, a la: Blair Witch and Arachnophobia and High Tension and Wolf Creek and Cabin Fever and The Descent and Misery, a subgenre of horror about being lost but found by evil. Modern “city” horror films exist but they are more critiques of industry — and largely the camera itself, as is the case of the transcendent features Smile 2 and The Substance, where the world of entertainment is knife that you use to kill yourself.

If our art and expression is a window into our collective conciousness, what most films are saying is “the country” is evil, as in both the place outside of cities but also the whole of the land: Weapons and Eddington are about “specific” fictional places in America but they’re also about the whole of the country. They’re speaking of problems not just here but there, and in many places worldwide, both critiquing and reenforcing the idea that your neighbor is evil. They are a fitting contrast to the “Conservative Guy Scared of Cities” meme: the idea of “cities are scary” is a misdirect, propaganda created by people like Trump and Farage manufacturing fears of crime, of “aliens” run amok when “home is where the” horror is. This is a smoke and mirrors game, designed to distract, to make you see regular people as a shadow version of yourself — no matter where you are. The world then becomes a nightmare when we are all “the horror” we fear instead of specific people and specific thinkers who introduced the rot that is ruining us all. Such is the case of Us, right?

“there is no satire”
“I hope they get to do all three”
“Democrats take off gloves”
“Another ‘No Kings’ march”
“I’m not gonna lie”
“as a cautionary tale”
“Charlie Kirk x Neo”
“RAW”
“twerk fest flyer”

Some great posts about “these times.” The Gen Z “We are all Jimmy Kimmel.” thing is great too.

“Top 10 Funniest Days on Twitter”

This is long debated but I’m curious what everyone’s thoughts are. I would also add: the boat fight, Dream face reveal, Luigi Mangione, Patty Harrison for Nila Wafer, and the slap. And I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: things like these days and shit like this are a reminder of why Twitter always will have the sauce. No other place like it, unforch.

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