Welcome to my brain…
Hello my darling pop culture junkies and welcome back to many of you from a long holiday weekend. I would say Happy Monday, but it is with a heavy heart that I write this as I think about all the families who have lost everything this past weekend due to the flash flooding in Texas. We are well-versed as a society with tragedy, whether from school shootings to natural disasters. When kids are involved, it’s just so much harder to get our heads around it. And little girls who were kicking off their dream summer with their friends in their sleepaway camp in their bunks. It is all too much to bear. So this newsletter is dedicated to them….though we will not cover it here, despite there being so many TikToks and social media posts about it, it is best served for others to discuss.
And we need an escape.
SO an escape I shall give you, but I felt it necessary to acknowledge what has happened and how absolutely heartbreaking it is.
I must say, I did my best to escape the news as much as possible this weekend. One thing I did with my friends Heather and Michael was to see the F1 movie, starring Brad Pitt, and it was a great escape. I loved it. I mean, I am sure that serious F1 fans were able to spot flaws, but it definitely turned me into a fan, and it was a fun summer blockbuster, and Brad Pitt is VERY pretty. VERY VERY PRETTY. My lord.
But really…the movie was even better for me because right before the lights went down in the theatre, two women walked in looking for their seats and within 1 millisecond I clocked one of the women as Jane Fonda. And their seats were just below us, but we were separated by a wall/railing, which was probably a good thing because I would have spent the whole movie watching Jane Fonda WATCH the movie. Which incidentally is what I did at Wimbledon two years ago, as I found myself sitting a few rows behind Brad Pitt. I just watched Brad Pitt watch Wimbledon.
But I digress.
The energy in the theatre shifted for all of us, even those who didn’t know she was in the room with them. It just felt different. Electric. We were in the presence of greatness….
It took everything in my power to pay attention to the movie…not the movie’s fault…Like I said, it was great. The ONLY issue I had with the movie was the product placement, like it was SO distracting. You already get that with F1 with all the logos and company names all over the place – and while I am fine with that and even all the signage from the race track like you had Salesforce, Workday, Crypto.com and so many more plastered all over the raceway, it was the stuff off the racetrack purposely put into the film that annoyed me. Because Apple was behind the movie, it placed A LOT of Apple products, and clearly Ninja was too, since the team was sponsored by Ninja. But Brad Pitt was rarely seen without his Apple AirPods Max headphones, which were often covered in stickers, much like a 15-year-old might do, not a 61-year-old man, I’m sorry. And then weirdly placed Ninja products were placed like you were in an infomercial like it realllllllllly annoyed me. ALSO, he wore them in an ice plunge bath and they are not remotely even water-resistant…
ANYWAY….I kept thinking, “What is JANE FONDA THINKING??” But then I just decided, she was thinking how damn pretty Brad Pitt is.
This week, we have a few things to discuss:
- The DO IT LADY moment in time explained
- Every year, Silicon Valley gets its pop culture moment. This year, it’s about a guy named Soham Parekh.
- Ritz Carlton has a new boat and launched it with influencers, yawn.
- A drama unfolds on TikTok around a holiday BBQ, explained
- EM DASH BACKLASH explained
- OASIS
Grab your comfort snacks, whether those are gummy bears or carrot sticks, and enjoy.
DO IT LADY!
First of all, a hat tip to Britt Morgan-Saks, who introduced me to this trend before I recognized it as one myself. And secondly, never have I seen something take off so quickly, there is already a huge line of merch being sold online, whether t-shirts, hoodies, hats, stickers, or everything in between.
Let me explain what this is all about.
Allow me to introduce you to Chit AND Linda, who have found massive fame in the last week or so.
Chit is the brainchild of actor/comic/Groundling Jay Renshaw. In what feels a bit like the Office, he has these comic sketches on YouTube and TikTok where he plays a very awkward employee, and Linda is his foil, much of the time. He works in the back office as a number cruncher, and I cannot explain it, but they just sit with you and make you laugh, and the more I watch, the funnier they get.
And enter, “DO IT LADY”…
We IMAGINE that Chit was thinking of, “YOU GO, GIRL!” but because he is CHIT, he got it wrong. But this has a chokehold on the socials now.
And now, a little on the cast…
And with that….
We have officially become DO IT LADY SUMMER.
TWITTER NERDS
Like I said in the intro, it seems to happen once a year when the Silicon Valley nerds get their pop culture moment. It might miss mainstream people for the most part or, at the very least, annoy the F out of them. However, we must give them their moment when it arises.
And this past week was their moment. It started with this tweet from the founder of Playground AI and Mixpanel, both YC (Y Combinator) companies, Suhail:
For those of you who do not live 100 percent online,a YC company stands for a Y Combinator company, which is a startup that was part of the very prestigious and competitive Y Combinator accelerator program.
Y Combinator is a Silicon Valley-based startup accelerator/incubator that provides seed funding, mentorship, and a network in exchange for equity, which I have seen reported to be anywhere from 5-8%. YC is SUPER competitive, and if your company is selected, becomes a massive badge of honor and indicator to other investors you are worthy of investment. YC typically invests a ballpark of $500K depending on the terms. And some VERY well-known companies that started as YC companies include:
- Airbnb
- Doordash
- Dropbox
- OpenAI
- Stripe
- Instacart
And yeah you can guess that MOST founders are male. Stats show that somewhere between 6-10% of companies have a female cofounder, and only 1% of companies have a sole female founder. EL SIGH.
I digress.
Let’s go back to Soham Parekh. This tweet took off and created a meme of memes for the constantly online peeps. Some really were up in arms about it, others found the humor in it, and others found humor in the humor being found, and on and on we go! The AUDACITY of a guy who was signing exclusive deals with multiple companies really took Twitter by storm.
And here are some of my faves:
And leaning into the storyline of Zuck offering crazy packages to get people to leave AI companies like AI for Meta:
And even LinkedIn’s founder, Reid Hoffman, got into it:
The media had fun with it, too:
And Mike Isaac of the New York Times was one thousand percent correct on this:
And then there were memes INSIDE of memes like this meme of the wealthy family that has had a few moments:
And this one KILLED me…
And of course, the parody account started:
He should launch a consultancy at this point.
Anyway, when this crosses over into other platforms, it’s like when different animal species become friends. Like when a lion adopts a puppy. LOVE IT.
A LITTLE OF THIS & A LITTLE OF THAT
Breezing through this week since I have to compress a million meetings into 3 days because….I LEAVE FOR JAPAN ON THURSDAY. And while I am stressing about being on such a totally different time zone, I am also crazy excited to finally get to the trip of my dreams.
SO, are we cruise people? I think a lot of you reading this are probably NOT but then again, the Ritz Carlton wasn’t a cruise line before the last few years, so now it really is anyone;s guess.
Apparently, the brand has a few ships, but it is their newest, the LUMINARA, which is their largest ship, which went on its maiden voyage last week, that has the socials all a buzz. This ship can host 452 guests but all with the luxurious vibes of the Ritz-Carlton. No Carnival vibes for this boat.
Meanwhile, I am sure you have all seen the trailer for this doc streaming on Netflix at the moment? I cannot escape it whenver I turn it on and frankly, I want to escape it. It’s a no for me.
So compare this hell on the high seas with this….
And Ritz decided to hire the MOST BORING creative team, in my opinion, because they chose to unveil the ship, which admittedly got a lot of impressions but also a lot of backlash with a good old-fashioned INFLUENCER CRUISE. Yes…let’s fill the boat with the privileged like Kate Hudson and Kendall Jenner and Naomi Campbell and…Alix Earle? Ok…groundbreaking…
And voila…
I will give it to this guy, though, who is a travel writer/influencer whatever:
And with performances from people like Sting..
The comments were about what you would expect:
Look, I’m all for enjoying yourself and luxury; if you have it, then you should be able to spend it however you wish.
But everyone knows these people are being given this trip, and in some cases, being paid to be there and to post. And it just feels like that moment in time is over. It gives people a sense of ick, and sure, there is a subset of people that will be like I want to go where Kendall Jenner and Alix Earle went, but like, how many and how many of those will be able to afford a luxury holiday like this? It just feels lazy to me.
But not all agreed, I will say!
And here is Alix Earle, who rose to fame by being this relatable kind of girl. Yes, she is beautiful and privileged and has become famous, but it was her no-nonsense style that built her OG fan base and was wildly relatable to many. And TikTok has been following along with her on her epic European holiday, showcasing her and her friends struggling to get their bags around Europe and trying to catch ferries and Easy Jets…but this is where things took a turn:
And I started seeing some videos like these:
But she has her defenders, too:
AND MY SUMMARY?
I would definitely take the Ritz-Carlton cruise….if someone else was paying for it!
And speaking of things unfolding on TikTok….
This is VERY inside baseball for those who LIVE on TikTok, but in case you overhear your kids debating this topic, you can be fully versed!
Let me set the stage:
A young mom posted a TikTok where she was in tears and gave a rather long, emotional story time. Basically, she had been invited by the family of her son’s new friend to a 4th of July party at a neighbor’s house. SO friends OF the friends.
She and her son were new to the neighborhood, so she was grateful to be invited and meet new people. She asked what she could bring, and she brought an antipasto salad she made, which was a big deal for her financially and so forth. She explains she got to the house of the people she did not know and with a weird detail, she walked in with ONE BEER, which is weird, but I digress…and the story time gets into where she was treated terribly by the homeowners, Jake and Stasia.
AND the internet has done its thing and they have gone after Jake and Stasia making their lives hell regardless of their side of the story which admittedly seems weak…(A cookout they claim is not a party but whatever….) it shows how small little moment in our lives can go viral with social media.
And everyone has thoughts…
And let’s end the Hicks COOK OUT drama with the picture of the antipasto salad they definitely ate after the woman who was made to feel like trash left…
And what would a PCM be without AI drama?
And in this post, we are specifically speaking about the EM DASH: The em dash (—) is a long dash used in writing to create emphasis, show interruption, or set off elements in a sentence, like this.
Like something I used MULTIPLE TIMES throughout PCM, the EM DASH is my BFF — You know??
Well, apparently, it is also a red flag to those in ACADEMIA who seem to believe that if someone used an em dash, then they used ChatGPT to write their term papers or essays, and so forth.
This guy’s argument to me is meaningless because everyone knows it’s a hyphen – typed TWICE — OBVIOUSLY.
JUSTICE FOR THE EM DASH!
And lastly, we have LIFT OFF WITH OASIS! They are on tour… They have managed to make it through the first series of shows, and we are happy to hear it.
And according to KLARNA which released this data: Purchases OF BUCKET HATS have jumped 79% year-on-year (2024-2025), with a whopping 89% in the last 3 months. And the credit is going to OASIS.
Because this look was ICONIC:
THAT IS IT, my darlings…
Thank you for helping me escape the sadness of the world at the moment. From the tragedy in Texas to ICE raiding local businesses (My local car wash was raided on the 4TH OF JULY, where long-time employees with no criminal history were hauled away) to actual elected federal officials like MTG are posting conspiracy theories that the weather in Texas was manufactured by political opponents, to wars impacting children around the world….
Sometimes, a little escape before we get back to trying to help things…is necessary.
And speaking of escaping, as I mentioned, I am off to Japan later this week and will NOT have a newsletter next week. TRY TO MAKE IT WITHOUT ME!!
I am hoping my trip goes better than some of these using the bargain-holiday provider, JET2HOLDAYS ad as their sound:
Have an amazing next couple of weeks and see you later in July!
And if you’re not a subscriber already, please click ‘Subscribe’ to receive this in your inbox every Monday.
Xx,
Brooke
