no song of the summer during end times :(

On biblical times ruining our lives and unpacking why we don't have a song of the summer (and what the song should be).

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• This week’s 🦿HIP REPLACEMENT🦿 features Amani Hope, who joined Ben Dietz and I to talk book culture in young people, emojis as language, and Oasis (and if anyone under 30 knows who they are). Listen now on Spotify and YouTube!

• Trend Report Live™ (TRL) is online this month!! Happening August 3 at 7P CEST / 6P GMT / 1PM EST / 10A PST, this is the online version of the irl events we’ve been doing in Barcelona all year. Come recap the month and meet new people (and me too): add to your calendar and RSVP here.

• Copenhagen and Stockholm: this is for you! Bobby Aaron Solomon and I will be in the area for August, the first two weeks in Cope and the second two weeks in Stock. I’ll be doing some CPHFW coverage so, if you’re in town, drop a line and let’s meet up. I’m also going to be holding office hours too, on August 10 and 14 at 5P in CPH and on August 21 and 24 in ARN. See you there!

Officials Feared Flood Risk but Rejected Warning System
3 dead after historic flash flooding hits New Mexico
Western Europe keeps setting heat records
European heatwave caused 2,300 deaths
"Spanish firefighters struggled”
Flood Sirens In Tokyo
Unfortunately there are so many climate disasters happening in a lot of places right now. As we’ll talk about in a moment, this ties into an unfortunate ideology of apocalypse gripping this moment. (Also the whole “We don’t want Biden’s liberal help thing!” says a lot about politics now.)

Tony Blair’s staff took part in ‘Gaza Riviera’
This is such evil shit that may have gotten overlooked in the rush of news this week. To have participated in this project? Bad. But to have made that deck, conceptualizing genocide as opportunity for a resort? A generational evil.

Peruvians outraged after president doubles salary
“approval rating poll: 🔼Approve: 1,8%”
Another thing that may have been missed is the Peruvian president’s insane self-funding that has led to bombing approval ratings. This is camp, if it wasn’t evil — and if it hasn’t been an ongoing theme of her years-long tenure.

Musk forms new party
Tesla loses $68 billion in value
Elon Musk's Grok Chatbot Goes Full Nazi
Over this loser and these insane shenanigans!!

A Marco Rubio impostor is using AI voice
Is this not…really, really concerning?

Erin Patterson guilty of Australian mushroom murders
True crime hive going wild this week, for sure.

TSA to end shoe removal policy
Small win for getting through airport security quicker.

West Africa facing 10% drop in cocoa output
Bad news for chocolate lovers, as climate change continues to make the things you love more impossible to get!!! Prices are already out of control in Europe for these reasons.

First malaria medicine for babies is approved
I had no idea this didn’t already exist? A game changer!

There are plagues in the Bible, unfathomable disasters, horrors that supposedly “happened” thousands of years ago and yet — still — they grip so many. The state murdering children, genocides ordered by leaders and God himself, nations warring over people and places, (sexual) violence against women, somewhat literal human sacrifices: it is a text full of some of the darkest shit imaginable and, somehow, it governs the lives of so much of the (Western) world — or continues to offer inspiration.

Apparently, to be human is to endure apocalypses that moralizes, turns into fables, spins into parables. Now is no different, even if it can be hard to see the story as it’s being written: plagues sweep away entire communities, taking with it complex dimensions of the human experience (Covid, AIDS, Smallpox); disasters that were once uncommon are now a constant (the “once in a lifetime” heatwave happening every summer, intense hurricanes, brutal floods, droughts, smoke and fires, tech enabled ecocide); mesmerizing cruelty enacted by single humans against masses despots like Putin and Netanyahu and Trump), resulting in unnecessary anguish and torture (shuttering USAID, Alligator Alcatraz, Gaza’s forced starvation, the forced separation of families, psychological terror enacted against citizens) while creating castes (extreme restrictions to bodily autonomy, continued anti-queer legislature and action, neverending racism, the plight of the poor); endless greed enslaving and harming innocent persons (for big fashion brands, for big food brands, for big tech brands). One side seeks righteousness and piety, only to commit hate against each other and disallow redemption (no matter the length of one’s apology) while preying upon/praying upon the fall of others. The other side clings to false prophets that rise as quickly as they fall: magical AI tech, conspiracies to explain environmental disaster and mass illnesses, figures like Trump as literal saviours. These behaviors express fantastical thinking that simplify the difficulties of life, Bible stories made in real time to justify our treatment of each other instead of thinking more critically about solutions, choosing comfort over the complexity of caring.

All this sounds hyperbolic and a Christian reading of our time’s tea leaves — but it wouldn’t be so far fetched if this view wasn’t literally governing these times. Example: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson claiming “biblical admonition” for the US to help Israel while Ted Cruz does the same, all of which are acts of rapture prepping as Jennifer Welch observed, which replaces foreign policy with magical thinking. Consider the use of phrases like “jezebel spirit” to cast someone like Kamala Harris as wicked and the rise in “covenant marriages” and “no-fault divorces” and “biblical divorces.” Let’s not forget the ongoing grip of satanic panics, claiming such dark forces control our government and much of Hollywood with puppets like Lil Nas X and Sam Smith and brands like Balenciaga and the joke-and-not of tying Labubus to a demon called Pazuzu.

“They’re preparing for a future that is really apocalyptic,” Naomi Klein explained this week of companies profiting off the destruction of Gaza. She was in conversation with United Nations lawyer and whistle blower Francesca Albanese. “This kind of apocalyptic imaginary has gripped many of the players involved,” Klein continued. “I'm wondering, if you're seeing [...] an end times imaginary — whether it's religious or secular — that is powering some of this.” “The use of the term ‘apocalyptic’ is something that I realize carries a religious weight,” Albanese said. “The political forces who pride themselves of a religious identity are not salivating right now while Gaza is being destroyed because this is what is preparing for the return of the Messiah…I can't believe how it's possible on Earth that there are human beings, mothers and fathers, who see what's happening to the children of Gaza and not have the urge, the impulse to stop it. So it's this: it's thinking that this is like a sacrificial moment where, yes, it's bad, but it is to happen because there is something else that waits for us, a post-apocalyptic scenario. This is how it feels sometimes.” As if to prove the point of our apocalypse now, Marco Rubio has placed sanctions on Albanese for her work.

Much of this is a “right wing” thing — but know that so many of us are gripped by the same heavenly text and behaviors which is why progressive movements always seem to self-fracture under ideological weight. From believing people in Texas “getting what they deserved” by voting for Trump to resisting calls to stand up in the face of terror to the “Are any of these words in the Bible?” meme, even the left cannot let go of the good (Bad.) book. “[It’s] repackaged rapture ideology with the façade of a ‘leftist politic,’” a TikToker explained of this tension, of this hangover of past beliefs into the present. “These are argumentative positions that are a part of the same puritanical values of the United States, which state that suffering brings about virtue. It is important for all of us to unwork that.”

Despite the advances in technology, these patterns show how we’re still the same simple people corralled by the same mental infrastructure, who cling to ways of being and ways of harming each other that are uniquely human: whenever you’re alive, there you are, Bible in hand. This also presents many of us who are recovering religious persons with an ability to understand these belief systems while recognizing the need to undo them. When I talk about undoing the conservative within you, I’m talking about this. When I talk about our desires to stand up and (physically) fight back, I’m talking about this. For a lot of us with such a history and such religious pattern recognition, this moment can feel helpless but perhaps “this” is our calling: as I’ve mused over the years, maybe our spiritual malaise is because our histories feel useless when instead this understanding of the past, present, and future Biblical world is a means to stop them. Perhaps we have been taught to see how they see so that we can untie them from “The Word” which in turn makes the world a bit more free (and, even more pressing, perhaps the more progressive from the inside can help build such a bridge). It’s difficult, aspirational even, but it’s nice to think that our histories in faith can be used to combat the trend in human existence of faith being weaponized to justify evil. If we can break our shackles, who is to say our keys cannot free so much of the world of such limited magical thinking?

I’ll leave you with a quote from Charles Darwin, who carried a similar tension between losing his religion and digging deeper into thinking (which I came upon via The Ideological Brain). The rest is history.

Nor must we overlook the probability of the constant inculcation in a belief in God on the minds of children producing so strong and perhaps an inherited effect on their brains not yet fully developed, that it would be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a monkey to throw off its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake.

Sweden’s Secret to Well-Being? Tiny Urban Gardens.
Babe, wake up: a new “this is how you live forever story” just dropped. Alexa, play the Blue Zone fraud story!

Denmark to give people copyright to their features
This news came out some weeks ago and I feel like…this went over a lot of people’s heads: Denmark is moving to give people the copyright to their own image and voice, to prevent their image and voice to be used by AI. Finally, some good news!!

Veo 3 Is Spawning Icky AI Slop Coaches
I don’t think we fully understand the extent of AI slop videos now that Veo 3 has arrived. See also: the AI ASMR trend, which is very dark-sided!

'Sinners' Used Costumes From a Scrapped 'Blade'
Fascinating recycling story, which is real sad considering what could have been.

What Makes Someone Cool? A New Study Offers Clues.
You don’t need to read the full study but this recap of it is fascinating, drawing lines on how cool people aren’t necessarily “good” and that the title may not exactly be aspirational. Unfortunately for these scientists, I am the exception given that I am both cool and good.

How to Share a Vacation House With Friends
As someone who has planned and done a lot of group trips, this T story is very good and I agree with most of the tips.

BBC won't broadcast 'high risk' performances
We talked about this at the last Trend Report Live™ but, as obvious as it sounds, it’s important to note that things like the Bob Vylan (and Kneecap) censorship speaks to conservatism but also double standards tied to media’s respectability politics and racism.

Is Jeff Bezos Buying Condé Nast?
First reactions to Glenn Martens’s Margiela
Robert Wun Fall 2025 Couture Collection
Is this why Lauren Sanchez covered Vogue recently? Who knows, but what I do know is Glenn Martens’ Margiela and Robert Wun’s recent couture presentations (and perhaps even Iris van Herpen’s too) offered hope that all isn’t lost for modern fashion. As I saw someone say on TikTok, shows like Glenn Martens’ make the rest of the presentations look like “tourist clothing.”

Hate to say I told you so but this summer is going down as one of the weirdest and cruelest — and proof of this aimless malaise is our lack of a song of the summer. Typically we have something “chosen” at this point, which I typically ruminate on, offering theories and explanations for why it will include an Ice Spice feature or that it will take great force to topple Sabrina Carpenter.

This year? We are droughted — and people are starting to notice. “It’s July and we STILL don’t have a song of the summer,” a very viral Tweet went this week. “Pop music is in a summer slump — and fans can feel it” declared Business Insider this week, which went on to trace how there are a lot of repeat customers shopping songs (Sabrina, Charli, Doechii) which feel a bit boring and stale, as smaller fish (Addison Rae, Pink Pantheress, Lorde) try to capture the glory of the immediate past. There’s also a strong white cloud emerging of the vanilla and impressively forgettable (Benson Boone, Alex Warren, Morgan Wallen) which is being met with the surprisingly algorithmic and fictionally based “music” content for children that is technotainment propaganda (Saja Boys, HUNTR/X). There are certainly many wild cards — Justin Bieber’s transracial psychosis album, whatever sombr is, the grandpadinal wheezings of Oasis, the Camila XCXcore that is Katseye’s “Gnarly” which dovetails into the K-Girlie Pop Wars of 2025™ ft. BLACKPINK and TWICE — but I wouldn’t count on any of them playing a winning hand.

To the point of the very first sentence, we know “why” this is all happening: political chaos breeding a loss of mass cultural identity which is complicated by the dissolution of both entertainment industries and our collective lack of a “source” for entertainment, which increasingly is stumbling to find footing as global soft power wars and hyper-drive capitalism turn something as simple as a fun song you listen to all summer into another arm of the machine that is killing us all. Neat, right?

If I were to put money on what I think the song of the summer will end up being, I don’t actually think it’s a song — nor is it new. It’s a jingle from over a decade ago: the Jet2 holiday song from 2015, which uses Jess Glynne’s “Hold My Hand” of the same year and has been used in advertising for years. If you’re unfamiliar, the song has been slow building summer over summer on TikTok but finally “hit” this year as the tune is being used to express holidays gone awry, summer heatwaves, and the general disasterscape that is summer 2025. It's becoming a brainworm because it is catchy but also because it has come to represent the “dream” of summer 2025 actively being stolen from us, be it by one’s own incompetence or by the state or a merging of the two. There’s also something to be said of old commercial songs having a moment now, given that the Cher and Future’s 2017 “Everyday People” cover for Gap had a hugely viral moment last month: the machine has eaten culture which means culture is now the machine too, to the point of the commercials being the show. “Real” music has become a product of corporations and tools like AI which means commercials are now music: all art suffers as a result. Try as you might, Saja Boys, but you may not have as much swag as a literal advertisement — and that means a good portion of society has been lobotomized, or are so far beyond nihilism that they’ve realized nothing really matters anymore.

“SONG OF THE SUMMER”
To the above, which I acknowledge is going to sound random as hell: Las Culturistas dropped their song of the summer nominees as a part of their 2025 awards — and it includes all old songs, like Vitamin C’s “Graduation (Friends Forever).” Funny! But: is anyone reading this connected to the pod, Bowen/Matt, Bravo, etc.? I ask as…Vitamin “Colleen Fitpatrick” C is my aunt and I have been her hype person all my life and am trying to book her a new gig 🤭

“January is a Monday”
This woman should be charged with inventing a new calendar.

“How old are you?”
“How old are you?”
This is the perfect example of what we talked about on this week’s HIP REPLACEMENT, that the internet is a language, where a Canada’s Got Talent clip from 2024 can become a meme about age which turned into an absurdist meme mishmash that can bear things like this. That’s what the internet is good for: culture making that layers the history of media in seconds!

“labubu”
“the 102 year old”
“the new LaRuRu”
”labubu rave”
To the above: Labubu culture has entered the deep abyss of meme rot too, which is great. (Also, as I noted on TikTok, the Labubu grandmother is an advertisement for Peter Thomas Roth skincare.)

“The Mel C wig”
I’ve been thinking about this video and all the wigs since last Sunday.

“on the new season of Stranger Things”
“second part of Wicked”
“song with Benson Boone”
“song with Billie Eilish”
I cannot get enough of this man’s impression of Bad Bunny. The first one is the original and nothing beats it. (Meanwhile, Bad Bunny is in Puerto Rico fighting off GHC.)

“water being filtered in a brita”
Best performance by a man pretending to be Brita that you’ll ever see. But best supporting actor? A printer in 2025.

“my sister’s first husband”
“get that one for myself”
Nicole Daniels’ new craft shop character is killing me. The breath work!!

“singer faints”
Without a doubt, the video I watched most this week, laughing until I cried. I’m sorry to this woman but what is that noise?

And, finally, a glimpse into the kind of big brained mind games I play.

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