Birthday Hangover + Phetasy Digest
America Lost The World Cup | Russians Getting Engaged On The Empire State Building | Why The Internet Is Already Dead | Bridget Explains ‘The Odyssey’ Uproar | Literacy Rates Are Rough
The day after their birthday, kids love to ask, “Do I feel different now that I’m older?” As Americans stumble out of our post-birthday haze, through a wall cloud of fireworks and Blue Angel contrails, this question is what’s waiting for us to catch our breath: Do we feel older, now that our nation is 250? When we were 249, our soccer team still had the gleam of a squad that could win the World Cup. Now we know better. The sting of finding a wall in the American spirit, the shock of realizing that our miraculous power has limitations.
All the summer fanfare served as a much-needed distraction from the midterms. Now we have to reorient ourselves toward the political spectacle of this fall’s elections. The nagging voices that fuel them will only get more plangent. Not that any of this is bad. It’s a feeling. The afterglow of a historic event, a landmark that always seemed so far ahead. Back to ordinary time. And we’re Americans, so we’ll devote the entire year to the celebration of having reached a quarter of a millennium. The weird thing about getting older is that life always remains new.
As for our soccer team, they did a hell of a job. Even a single moment of excellence is an accomplishment. And they had many. They prayed before and after games and sang “The National Anthem” with their eyes closed and evinced the lovable American eagerness to dream big. And they did it all with dignity and humility. They won our hearts, and that’s more than most Americans expected.
DUMPSTER FIRE - EPISODE #330
Most American Reaction to Losing the World Cup
The US men’s soccer team got knocked out of the World Cup by Belgium 4-1, and America responded by immediately going back to not caring about soccer. Bridget breaks down the Balogun red card, Trump calling the president of FIFA, and all the reasons why America will truly never care about soccer the way the rest of the world does. Also: two Russians illegally climbed the Empire State Building, got engaged at the top, and got arrested on the way down. She was raised in the circus. Obviously.
WALK-INS WELCOME - EPISODE #398
Why The Internet Is Already Dead | Kat Rosenfield
Bridget sits down again with novelist and Free Press columnist Kat Rosenfield to talk about the rise of death doulas, the death of YA fiction, and how the internet is quietly erasing itself. Kat digs into how YA fiction collapsed into “romantasy” and smut, the dead internet theory and vanishing digital archives - including Bridget’s own lost Playboy articles and Kat’s MTV News work. They also cover the Kennedy Center controversy, why Gen Z treats Trump as their political “factory settings,” why woke isn’t dead, it’s hibernating, and how people are substituting politics for personality now. Kat’s new thriller, How to Survive in the Woods — pitched as “Basic Instinct with bears” — just hit The New York Times summer reading list and is in development at MGM Amazon.
DUMPSTER FIRE - EPISODE #331
You’re Going To Hate My Odyssey Take
Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey hasn’t even come out yet and it’s already the most disliked Hollywood trailer since Snow White. Bridget breaks down the casting controversy, why Elon rage-tweeting about a movie he hasn’t seen is just as annoying as woke casting, and why the script is a downstream effect the collapsing literacy rates of our youth.
THE SPECTATOR
The internet is dying and so are we
There is a lot of proof that the internet is dying. People aren’t burned out of politics, although that’s part of it. They are burned out from going “is this real?” No one has the bandwidth to become an investigative reporter for each post.
A Love Letter to the Sane Women Holding It Down
Mar 22
I’ve been wanting to write this for a while because, more often than not, I find myself doomscrolling, screaming “NOT ALL WOMEN!” It seems like most of the women represented in media are, for lack of a better word, insane. I blame the algorithms for elevating the craziest of us. So this is for you—the woman reading this who has been quietly holding it t…
THE DAILY WIRE
America Tried To ‘Fix’ Men For Two Decades. Here’s What It Got Instead.
America spent two decades trying to “fix” masculinity. It nearly broke the country — and the guys who complained the loudest about it turned out to be the ones with the least ability to fix it. America needs manly men — not men who are afraid of their masculinity, and not men who only talk about it.
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Nice take down on the film.