CEO Killer "Fandom" Means Violence Will Continue, Cable Networks Buying Up Podcasts?, This Pop Star Becomes the Unexpected Pro Marriage/Traditional Values Voice (The Five for 12/14/24)
Plus, new Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders) flick utilizes audio used to torture Navy SEALS. Superman actor to star in show about...a board game?!
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter. Let’s dive in.
[one]
After the election, when Presidents Trump and Biden sat down for a friendly discussion in the White House, I had hoped society was starting to lay down it’s impulse for violence, revenge and vitriol…well, maybe not.
Former WaPo “journalist” went on Piers Morgan’s show to be a cheerleader for murder.
Lorenz: I do believe in the sanctity of life, and I think that's why I felt, along with so many other Americans, joy, unfortunately, you know, because it feels like Joy?
Morgan: How can this make you joyful? This guy's a husband, he's a father, and he's being gunned down in the middle of Manhattan. Why is that making you joyful?
Lorenz: So are the tens of thousands of Americans that are being murdered. So are the tens of thousands of Americans, innocent Americans, who died because greedy health insurance executives like this one push policies of denying care to the most vulnerable people.
And I, the many millions of Americans that have watched people that I care about suffer and in some cases die because of lack of health.
Morgan: So should they all be killed then? Should they all be killed, these healthcare executives? Would that make you even more joyful? Uh, no, that would not. Why not? Why are you laughing?
It’s possible to make the argument that Piers’ show is essentially political Jerry Springer, and that Lorenz makes her living being outrageous. Both those things are true, but we’re seeing pockets of rage boil over in everyday life as well, like the viral incident this week when a guy tried to return a Subaru to a dealership in Utah. They refused, and he drove it into the building.
Meanwhile, “CEO Killer” merch has become fast-selling catagory on both TikTok Shop and Etsy according to The Cut:
As of Tuesday, thegoodshirts.com is selling a $29 black T-shirt featuring a collage of photos of Mangione surrounded by bullets that appear to be engraved with “Deny, Defend, Depose” — the words police say were written on the casings of the bullets that killed Thompson and that echo a phrase insurers use to avoid paying claims. You can find more T-shirts, hoodies, and stickers featuring the slogan “Deny, Defend, Depose” all over Etsy. Over on Sivelos, a different shirt takes a culture buff’s approach, referencing Mangione’s Italian American heritage via a memorable line from The Sopranos: “IN THIS HOUSE LUIGI MANGIONE IS A HERO, END OF STORY.” Tee Shirt Palace allows customers to deck their furry friends out in Mangione paraphernalia by way of a “FREE LUIGI” doggie bandana emblazoned with the alleged assassin’s face, or to buy a red wearable blanket with the same design (just in time for Christmas, I guess).
It is a rage that can only be born of privilege…the people who want to destabilize society…have never lived through a society that’s been destabilized. I was just with my extended family over Thanksgiving, some of which are refugees who fled Communism in Laos. Nobody said “you know, I miss Laos, when people were beheaded in the street for not conscripting into the Communist military. We should have more public executions and acts of revenge.”
Look, there are serious issues with American healthcare. And gunning down an executive has fixed none of them. It’s not a solution people are cheering for, but an outlet for their emotions.
Because we are largely a spoiled country that doesn’t know how bad things can get, so some of us are rooting for destruction. As the public continues down this line, we can expect copycats of Luigi to pop up. The first one already did, in Florida this week.
For those looking to speak up, this unknown country singer brought more awareness to the situation with three minutes of singing than Luigi did with three bullets.
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[two]
A pretty major shakeup in the online commentary world happened this week when Brett Cooper announced she was leaving The Daily Wire, the Conservative political juggernaut that was just valued at nearly $1 billion, with $100M in annual revenue, according to Axios.
Not bad for a couple of guys who started podcasting out of a pool house. However, as new media rises and the networks become less valuable…New Media is already starting to act like their dinosaur counterparts on cable TV.
Rumors had been circulating for some time that Brett, one of the Gen Z female voices on the internet, had run into a significant disagreement with Co-CEO Jeremy Boering and would exit the company—either by getting canned or quitting.
On Wednesday, Cooper made the news official (see the video above) with a very amicable split, which different from the public feud commentator Candace Owens and Steven Crowder have had with DW (no easy way to summarize all that—Google is your friend if you’re interested and don’t know about them).
However the end of Cooper’s relationship with the company came about, it’s certainly a financial blow, as the former child actress pulled in more YouTube views—and therefore brought in more revenue— than any other host—Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh or Michael Knowles.
Cooper announced a new YouTube channel on her personal social media, which is already approaching 100,000 subscribers at the time of this writing, despite having no content.
This is where the Daily Wire missteps and goes full Boomer media…the company hired Brett’s producer and Maid of Honor, Reagan, to step in. The rumors about Brett leaving ignited when Reagan started to fill in a little too regularly, and DW employees allegedly leaked that the company had hired an acting coach to teach Reagan to mimic Brett. The YouTube Channel was simply re-branded as “The Comments Section” with Brett’s name removed from it.
That’s an INCREDIBLY sleezy move to come between friends like that (if the alleged rumors are true), but from a macro level…the Daily Wire is now so established, they’re acting like MSNBC. They apparently think they can just slide someone else behind a “news desk,” flip the camera back on…and the audience will continue to tune in.
But that was the broadcast world…this is the internet, where Cooper will regain her 4+ million subscribers back…possibly within a few weeks. And DW will be left holding the bag on a swap out that will probably work about as well as if Taylor Swift got sick, and the record label sent Kesha out to headline a Taylor show, doing all Taylor covers for the Swifties. I mean, they’re both tall, blond pop singers with great voices and #1 hits…so what’s the difference, right?
The difference is…consumers do not build trust with companies. They build with individuals.
But hey, given enough time, almost all successful companies are prone to becoming bloated, slow moving, bureaucratic…and out of touch. The Daily Wire will figure out what I just told you…as they start to bleed cash in the coming months.
UPDATE: Rumors are swirling that Fox News might buy DW…cable TV and podcast companies operate on completely different rules.
On one hand, it makes sense for legacy media to “buy” younger viewers via a new platform…on the other, it seems highly probable that a cable company would just make a podcast company…try to run like a cable company.
[three]
One of the most surprising twists of 2024…is how there’s a pro-marriage, pro-traditional-values movement in…Hollywood.
If you haven’t spent any time listening to Lana Del Rey, she pulls equally from 1940’s Jazz standards as from the likes of Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, and Joan Baez, along with a smattering of other sounds pulled from The Cure, Motown, Emmylou Harris, and even underground hip hop producer MF Doom.
Lana’s whole brand is somewhat vintage…which now includes the values she defends. This week, she made headlines by praising collaborator and producer Jack Antonoff (Taylor Swift, Bleachers, the 1975, Sabrina Carpenter) for his marriage to actress Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Nice Guys).
Most of all, I'm grateful for his example in his marriage to Margaret. I saw the way he looked at her when he met her, and he's a big reason why I waited so long to get married and why I met my amazing husband. I really feel like there's kind of a singer's curse around meeting an honest partner who has no skin in the game, no dog in the race.
It's super nerve-wracking to hold onto an innocent perception of how things could go when you're in an industry where your values and morals might not quite match up with what's going on, especially when people think you probably don't have any morals or values. So it can all get twisted up. Jack, thank you so much for maybe helping other people look at me in a way that's a little bit closer to how I perceive myself. Freud would say that's very important, considering 30% of how you feel about yourself is based on what you hear other people say about you, regardless of whether you care or not—that's just true.
There’s been a lot of discussion about a “vibe shift” since the election…and it goes far beyond the political. Nowhere is this more obvious than a pop star having the guts to speak about traditional values to the music industry… and bucking the Hollywood trend…to marry a Swamp Boat Tour Captain.
This matters, not because pop stars themselves matter that much…but because young people follow pop stars. If Taylor Swift is going to constantly break up with celebrities for 15 years…that kind of behavior is going to be emulated. It’s a good way to keep your name being constantly Googled, but it doesn’t necessarily chalk up to a fulfilling existence.
But if a pop star marries a regular, blue collar guy, stands up for timeless value, and lives a good life that doesn’t make give TMZ anything to write a headline about…those choices will be mimicked as well.
If you want to give Lana a listen, you can’t go wrong with the song she wrote about the party she attended where Jack and Margaret met.
[four]
Unreleased music from Michael Jackson found in a storage unit…will never be heard by the public.
When former California Highway Patrol officer turned stay-at-home dad Gregg Musgrove started “treasure hunting,” the 56-year-old certainly never imagined he’d end up with a king’s bounty — the King of Pop, that is.
A trove of unreleased Michael Jackson tapes were found in a storage unit deep in the San Fernando Valley. Musgrove’s journey to the tapes began when an associate contacted him about a storage unit he’d recently bought in Van Nuys. The unit once belonged to Bryan Loren, a music producer and singer (whose current whereabouts are unknown, according to Musgrove).
“I’ve gone to all the fan sites. Some of them [the songs] are rumored to exist, some of them have been leaked a little bit,” Musgrove tells The Hollywood Reporter. “A couple aren’t even out there in the world.”
Musgrove’s full inventory list, pictured below, shows the collected tracks, along with snippets of other unreleased songs. Jackson, and presumably Loren, can be heard discussing the recording and creative process on the tapes. “I’m listening to this stuff, and I would get goosebumps because nobody’s ever heard this stuff before,” Musgrove says. “To hear Michael Jackson actually talk and kind of joke back and forth, it was really, really cool.”
The Jackson estate has declined to purchase/release the demos to the public. You know what…good. In general, record labels put out WAY too much unpolished music from artists after their deaths, and it’s almost always a cash grab.
Jackson worked on this material decades before his death…if he wanted these songs heard, he would have released them. It’s not “honoring” to an artist to dump their half-finished ideas on streaming platforms.
I’ve featured this before, but singer/songwriter Anderson Paak went so far as to tattoo himself with a message NOT to release any music posthumously.
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup:
OUT NOW: Lord of the Rings animated prequel War of the Rohirim is getting so/so reviews…some of which mention Warner Brothers had to rush a project out to avoid losing the rights to the books. The Netflix thriller Carry On, about a TSA agent trying to stop an airport bomb, starring Taron Edgerton (Kingsmen, Rocketman) and Jason Bateman (Ozark, Juno) is getting solid reviews.
MOVIES: Ugh. For some reason, Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, The Barbie Movie) has been given the keys to make The Chronicles of Narnia movies for Netflix. Gerwig describes her vision as “a new take. Very rock and roll.” Uhh…why? The novels have sold a combined 120 million copies since 1956, and deal heavily with the childhood fear and trauma of living in London during the Nazi bombings…why do we need “a new take” on this? The overrated Christian Bale serial killer flick American Psycho is getting a remake starring Austin Butler (Elvis, The Bikeriders)…yeah, I have no interest, but I suppose that could be big.
TV: Rob Schneider, best known as a long-running sidekick to Adam Sandler, is launching a women’s comedy talk show on health and wellness. Schneider described the show as “the opposite of ‘The View’ because it will be entertaining.’” Henry Cavill (Man of Steel, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) will star in an adaptation of…a sci-fi board game?! Warhammer 40,000 is kinda like chess except…I dunno, read the Wikipedia article. Prime Video is clearly hoping to continue the trend of video-game-to-tv adaptations like The Last of Us and Fallout being huge hits…to the board game space?
VIDEO GAMES: The trailers dropped for both for Borderlands 4 dropped, and Witcher 4—both look really cool. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is getting rave reviews as one of the best games of the year, mixing vintage trilogy storytelling with action and Uncharted/Tomb Raider style puzzles.
Woah. Miles Teller (Top Gun: Maverick, Whiplash) pairing up with Anya Taylor-Joy (The Queen’s Gambit, Peaky Blinders) for a sci-fi/horror/romance?
Two spies guard the literal gates of hell. And fall in love. Then fall in. To hell, that is. Sounds weird, but this looks like one of my most anticipated 2025 releases. It’s certainly a non-traditional Valentine’s Day flick…catch it on Apple TV+ 02/14.
Before Cillian Murphy was a mega star thanks to Peaky Blinders, he was the lead in two of the most revered sci-fi/horror films of all time—28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, which came out in 2003 and 2007, respectfully.
The trailer for the third entry, 28 Years Later, uses a 1915 recording of Rudyard Kipling reading his poem “Boots”, audio that’s infamous in the Navy SEAL community for being used in SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) training to emulate psychological torture.
The film features an absolutely stacked cast, including Ralph Finneas (Harry Potter, Schindler’s List), Jodie Comer (The Last Duel, The Bikeriders), and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (The Fall Guy, Bullet Train). Out 06/20/25.
UPDATE: If you’ve never seen the original 28 Days Later…the movie is somehow not on ANY streaming services, nor are new copies available on DVD/Blu Ray…which has pushed the used price of the 2003 film to $200 on Amazon. Insane. This is almost certainly a legal/copywrite issue…it’s gotta be fixed before the third film releases, right?
If you’ve complained that there are “no original ideas” in movies these days…prepare to eat your words. Survive is a sci-fi epic in which a family survives a horrendous storm at sea on a small vessel…only to discover that they’re in a desert. Turns out, the North and South Poles have reversed, flooding the continents and killing everything there…and leaving the seas empty.
[read & learn]
President-Elect Trump’s first post-election media appearance…is a must watch. Kristen Welker for Meet the Press certainly holds her own, pressing Donald pretty hard on healthcare and tarrifs. It’s a back-and-forth that’s worthy of your time because so much potential policy for the next 4 years is covered.
A bit of an unconventional “Christmas read” for the season of hope and redemption… Night Driving: Notes from a Prodigal Soul is the memoir of a pastor who’s life (and career) fall apart after an extramarital affair.
He begins making a living the only way he can—as an over-the-road trucker…and on the long night drives, asks the big questions about how he got there…and how he might be redeemed. Even if you’re just faith-adjacent/curious, it’s a heck of a good read about the human condition. Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Until the next one,
-sth