Pop Culture

Popular culture is constantly changing. It is not rigid and doesn't fit into a box. As such, !popularculture@hexbear.net is a place where we can post entertainment/culture events that we are each interested in, but are not necessarily news stories.

Because popular culture changes with time, that means the content of this community will also shift with those changes. Currently, a lot of pop culture today is internet-related.

Examples:

• Ben Cohen (co-founder of Ben and Jerry's ice cream) is a pro-Palestine activist. He's been arrested at multiple pro-Palestine protests.
• Roger Water of Pink Floyd is another activist for Palestine.
• Pedro Pascal (actor) wore a t-shirt supporting transgender people. It said "protect the dolls", with dolls meaning transgender women.
• Ishowspeed (an internet celebrity) did a tour in China, which was promoted by China's government.
• Ms. Rachel (an internet celebrity who makes children's shows on YouTube) advocated for Palestinian children. This past week, she did some modeling in fashion magazines.

Not everything happening in pop culture is good. There could be dunk threads.

Examples:

• Jerry Seinfeld being a Zionist and donating money to Zionist students on college campuses.
• Quentin Tarantino lives in Israel and has fully embraced Zionism; his wife is a vocal Zionist.
• Thom Yorke, lead singer of Radiohead, is massively Zionist and regularly crashes out about people's criticisms of him.
• REM (a 90's rock band) did a fundraiser supporting US/CIA propaganda.
• More recently, Martin O'Donnell, the producer of the Halo game soundtrack, has been supporting ICE on social media.
• Dr. Phil going on ICE raids.
• Dean Cain (the actor playing Superman on TV in the 90's) said he would become an ICE agent.

Sometimes in popular culture, the drama between two popular figures isn't politically or ethically clear, but entertaining or interesting to talk about regardless.

Examples:

• Like the beef between Bill Maher and Larry David. Bill Maher is nonreligious, a Zionist, and very islamophobic. Larry David is Jewish and doesn't speak much about Zionism, but probably Zionist (?). Larry David wrote an essay where he compared Bill Maher to a Nazi after Bill Maher had dinner with Trump.
• The pope's brother is a chud and met with Trump and traveled with JD Vance to meet with the new pope. This pope is supposedly not a chud.
• Bill Burr has said things in recent time that seem left leaning, like supporting trans people and lifting the embargo on Cuba, saying that billionaires should be "put down", but also last year he defended land lords. He very recently went on a comedy tour in Saudi Arabia, where he was required to tailor his act per the Saudi Prince's demands while getting paid handsomely for it. He doubled down, saying he was doing it for "the people" but historically has mocked and cursed Beyonce for doing the same thing, saying she was taking "blood money". As a result, he has recently started losing numerous podcast listeners.

Other Examples:

• Elon's transgender daughter, Vivian Wilson, is kind of a radical liberal. She said something about hating tankies. Also, it's funny because she talks shit about Elon. She was also on Hasan's live stream. Etc.
• Luigi Mangione recently said that he's listening to music by Taylor Swift and Charli XCX (the musician who made the Brat album, which was very popular) in prison.
• Destiny Orbiters have been trying to smear and slander popular streamer Hasana Piker for all kinds of things, including recently, fabricating claims that he shocks his dog based on a very uneventful clip of his dog yelping, to the point where JD Vance refrenced this event in a recent interview.
• Streamer culture and drama broadly.

These are some examples of events and happenings that are culturally relevant but also do not fall into a specific category of entertainment.

We all have our interests; we're all fans of some brand or figure who might do or say cool or stupid shit or get into beef or drama with other figures. There is no one topic from popular culture that this community is about. I don't understand what "girlypop" is, but that doesn't preclude you from posting about it, especially if it's something you're interested in.

This extends out to things like "hobby drama" as well. You're probably very invested in that drama if you're aware of it, and someone might be truly interested in reading about it. Just because your niche hobby isn't living in the same stratosphere as Talyor Swift doesn't mean it isn't jucy and full of good drama.

Someone (maybe even you) might be reading this and think, "Isn't pop culture vapid and a waste of time?". Some of it, yes. However, each user should try to post things they are interested in. Even something they are invested in. Something they might even be able to info dump about.

As readers, try to upvote and post on things that you also think are interesting. Then the vapid things will fall out of the algorithm if posted at all. Obviously, if you are not interested in this kind of content, feel free to block the comm from your feed.

PS: I have to give credit to @dead@hexbear.net for most of this write-up; I simply cleaned it up and expanded on it some.