CNN Says Podcasts "The New Establishment," Millennial Pop-Punk Resurgence Defeating Social Media Addiction?, Will 2025 Be a Huge Movie Summer? (The Five for 05/27/25)
Plus, Jason Momoa's historic Hawaiian epic is a can't-miss. Linkin Park saluted for contributions to hip hop. Evan Bartles just released one of the best country projects this year.
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter, but don’t always make the front page.
This was supposed to drop Friday, but due to 12+ hour days covering press conferences and social content for clients helping with the St. Louis tornado disaster relief, this issue was delayed.
One quick note before we jump into Culture & Commentary. Each year around Memorial Day, I share photos from The Atlantic for Private Aaron Toppen, one of the final combat deaths in Afghanistan. I had the honor and responsibility of coordinating the military and media with Aaron’s family’s wishes on a heartbreaking June Day in 2014. If you blew past the holiday yesterday catching up on errands, Netflix or at a cookout, I hope you take the time to click that link and reflect.
With that being said…let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
One of the more interesting pop culture events of 2025 has been the resurgence of 00’s All American Rejects…which may prove that it’s not AI that’s the next big trend…it’s tech-free experiences.
Can you turn the lights down for a minute? I want to show you something... The All American Rejects are ditching stadium tours for backyard parties. It's a brilliant marketing play because it appeals to the next generation of mass consumers. No, not Gen Z. Millennials .
Yes, believe it or not my generation is the next mass market audience. We can't afford a house, so we're just gonna relive the late 90s/early 2000s. And a giant part of that is shared experiences paired with nostalgia. I've made posts before about what appeals the most to each generation so don't get all mad that I left you out. (Looking at you Gen X)
We've grown sick of technology, in large part. It's progressed at a rate far faster than any of us thought. All of us are craving human connection and closer events more and more. Pair that with the nostalgia we constantly try to live in and you've got a marketing gold mine.
No ai, no social media AR games to get tickets, no fees, just a good ol backyard party with a band that was wildly popular when we were in high school. Millennials are the next big market spenders.
So if you're wondering how to market to us, start looking here. Guerilla marketing, in person. Not more ai. Pay attention to what you see and I guarantee you'll notice this more and more in marketing.
Just as there was a massive uptick on spending on concerts/sports events/vacations after the COVID restrictions lifted…the 00’s pop punk resurgence may prove that (at least some of us) are revolting against Mark Zuckerberg’s future of having AI “friends.”
“The average American, I think, has fewer than three friends, three people they'd consider friends, and the average person has demand for meaningfully more, I think it's like 15 friends.”
-Mark Zuckerberg
You don’t fix loneliness with more software…you fix it by showing up in a backyard in Columbia, MO and connecting with the liked minded people who are jammed up next to you due to the huge crowd.
[two]
Uber-popular comedian Tim Dillon agreed to go on CNN, where the legacy news network tried to get him to “own up” for aiding in the loss of Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, claiming that podcasts now have “an enormous amount of power” and are “the new establishment.”
If you’re not familiar with Dillon, he’s a gay, perhaps mildly right-of-center comedian who’s supportive of free speech and limited government authority.
But he didn’t endorse Trump, and has been quite critical of Republicans as well.
When pressed on if podcasts determined the fate of the 2024 election by CNN:
"So to hang this defeat all on a few podcasts and to say that they were the problem, I never, I don't buy, I just don't buy the narrative. So I don't think I'm a new establishment. If you weigh, again, a few comedians with podcast verse.
All of the people that supported Kamala Harris, you know, Democrat, donors, billionaires, big people. If the idea is that me and a few comedians have more power than multi-billionaires, huge media institutions of whole political party apparatus, I just don't think most people are gonna buy that."
When pressed if large podcasts wielded significant influence, Dillon elaborated.
"I didn't say that we didn't have any power or that audiences weren't powerful. But when you use the term establishment, I think that that's more than just having an audience—that's having an institutional component that I don't think we have. But I think legacy media does. I think the government and the intelligence communities do.
I think Hollywood certainly does, and I think all of those power factions have worked together for a very, very, very long time. So to say that a few comedians with podcasts equal that seems crazy to me."
The strangest part about this interaction? The idea CNN is pushing…is that CNN is now obsolete.
[three]
The second hard rock band has topped the Billboard charts this year…even if you have no interest in the genre, hang with me…there’s a bigger cultural trend going on here.
From the USCD Guardian:
Following in the footsteps of Slipknot — arguably the most famous masked metal band — Sleep Token embraces spectacle. Since its formation in 2016, the band has cultivated a genreless, cinematic storytelling style that centers emotional vulnerability, intense spiritual devotion, and an ethereal brand identity. The main vocalist and primary composer, known to the world as Vessel, embodies this ethos fully. Stripped of a name or face, Vessel’s lack of persona centers his vocals, dissolving any artificial barriers between his art and audience and allowing us to experience the band’s music freely, unrestrained by surface-level preconceptions.
Over the years, Sleep Token has gathered a fervent and diverse fan base due to its unwavering commitment to both music and mystique. Each of the band’s first three albums, culminating with “Take Me Back to Eden” in 2023, builds upon a sweeping mythology. Framed as offerings to the deity Sleep, each song on the album is part of a grander story: one that follows a dark, toxic, and spiritual relationship in which Sleep promises Vessel glory and redemption in return for his devotion. “Take Me Back To Eden,” now a modern metal classic that propelled the band into the metal mainstream, was a discographical climax and emotional closure to a long and turbulent relationship with Sleep.
“Take Me Back To Eden” defined the sound that people now know Sleep Token for: genre-pushing experiments that stitch rhythm and blues, trap percussion, rap cadences, and atmospheric metal together into songs that are both disorienting and hypnotic. Vessel’s distinct voice and delivery make even the most abstract or whimsical lyrics sound like gospel. While the metaphors and imagery may not always immediately make sense, his delivery carries an emotional weight that lingers, and fans have grown to love taking the investigative, impassioned journey through each new release. Of course, one does not need to be immersed in the lore to appreciate these tracks’ musical and lyrical power; Vessel has made it clear that he wants people to engage with the music on their own terms — there is no right or wrong way to listen.
Observations:
A). I like the album. I’m not much of a metal listener, but this is melodic and cool…for running and the gym. It’s also pretty…Christian? with several references to Scripture in the lyrics (breakdown here).
B). Sleep Token teased the albums via constant clues delivered by a fan—a weatherman in North Carolina. So, metal works when it rips several pages out of…The Taylor Swift playbook (her last two albums are garbage, but her promotion is always on point).
The brands who win in this decade, from products to entertainment, are the ones who dive deep with fans, rather than just putting out a lot of surface level schlock. And, as a bevy of true crime podcasts can attest, there’s nothing we love more than using the internet to uncover a mystery…even if it’s just an album release date.
C). Even if you don’t like this genre, the rise of Sleep Token matters…because it signals yet another blow to postmodernism…and more people looking for sincerity and meaning in the content they consume.
Which is refreshing after we were so beaten down with irony in indie rock/bad movies and TV shows for the 2010’s and early ‘20s.
D). Finally, the fact that Atlanta trap beats and modern R&B sonics have worked their way into the biggest metal album in the world…tells you just how much cultural power those respective genres hold.
[four]
One of the most popular left wing streamers was suspended from Twitch this week for blaming the murder of two Jews in D.C. by a Pro-Palestinian terrorist…on the Jews.
From the New York Post:
Piker, 33, claimed his account, which has more than 2.8 million followers, was suspended because of his “critical examination” of the manifesto of suspected terrorist Elias Rodriguez, who was charged with executing embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim outside the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday night.
He said the attack had all the hallmarks of a “false flag operation,” a term used for an action that is staged to look as if it was carried out by a different group to pin the blame on them.
Sick conspiracy theorists have claimed that the shooting at the Jewish museum was staged to discredit the pro-Palestinian movement, although Piker said he did not explicitly believe Wednesday’s shooting was one.
“I’m not ‘Mr. False Flag’ at all, but, like, every single thing that [Rodriguez] did in the aftermath of the shooting is so f–king crazy that it’s like, you could not have designed a f–king incident like this. You could not have decided a better false flag incident like this,” he said in the live stream, which was also shared to his 1.6 million YouTube followers on Friday.
The victims were Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were going to get engaged next week, before they were gunned down…for walking while Jewish.
Whatever you think of the Israel/Hamas war, killing a couple who are *WALKING DOWN THE STREET* is absolute madness. That’s not a “resistance” tactic…it’s terrorism, full stop.
However, despite Piker’s idiotic views…let the moron speak. There’s no evidence to back Piker’s ramblings about a false flag operation, and I trust the public to figure that out. Censorship only gives credibility to bad ideas. Let Piker be defeated in the marketplace of public expression and debate, not by a tech company.
[five]
As always, let's close out this issue with a pop culture roundup:
[movies]: The first trailer for the prequel to IT Pt 1 and 2, Welcome to Derry, dropped this week. I never saw the pt 2 of the movie…but this looks decent, if stereotypically Stephen-King-ish. || The Jurassic World movies have gotten pretty same-y, but the latest trailer for Jurassic World Rebirth looks like it could rise above mediocrity to become one of the bigger summer movies. || The live action Lilo and Stitch and the 8th (yes, 8th) Mission Impossible movie raked in a collected $328M over the weekend, p[possibly kicking off a blockbuster summer movie season.
[shows] Apple TV+ comedy hit Ted Lasso is filming a 4th season. The last time we saw the American football coach heading up British pro soccer, it was 2023. || If you haven’t watched season two of The Last of Us, maybe don’t. The HBO mega-hit is getting torched for a very substandard second season.
This looks like it could be one of the best streamers of the year. Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones, Justice League), who’s an ethnic Hawaiian, plays a historical chief resisting colonization.
Despite the fact that it’s set on tropical islands…this feels more like a Dances With Wolves/Last of the Mohicans Western…very cool.
Plus, he rodeo’s a shark?! See it 08/01.
Sydney Sweeney (Anyone But You, The White Lotus) teams up with pop singer Halsey and Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Jewell, Cobra Kai) for a western/heist movie that looks like an absolute blast.
Sweeney’s character aspires to leave South Dakota for Nashville, to become a country star. But you know, she makes waitress money. So, why not steal a Lakota Ghost Shirt from a rich idiot, and sell it on the black market for half a million dollars? (Well, because the tribe wants it back, for one.)
I’m down for any movie where a compound bow is used as an offensive weapon. See it 08/22.
Austin Butler (Elvis, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) finds himself in the middle of a heist in 1990’s New York, after he an his girlfriend (Zoe Kravitz—The Batman) offer to cat-sit for his neighbor (Matt Smith—House of the Dragon).
Yep, this will work. See it 08/29.
One of two Predator movies to release this year (and the first animated IP in the franchise) gets a full trailer. Alien fights Viking/Samurai/WWII pilot…sounds like a conversation 4th grade boys have on the bus ride home…in the best possible way. Hulu 06/06.
[new music]
With just a pair of EP’s to his name (and no new music in four years) Evan Bartles is a relative newcomer to the Americana/Roots scene. But holy cow, these six songs are billiant. Hit play on this if you like Isbell/Childers, etc.
Heartbreaking stuff. But beautiful.
[read & learn]
The Drink Champs podcast is the 2025 version of VH1’s iconic 90s docu-series Behind the Music.
The Linkin Park episode does not disappoint…diving deeper into the band’s hip hop influences than any other interview with the California five piece so far.
After becoming arguably the biggest band in the world in the early 2000’s, with back to back smash albums Hybrid Theory and Meteora, LP fell out of favor in the hipster dominated 2010’s music scene, only to be reborn in 2024 with a new singer. Diving into the hip hop side of a band that has mainly toured with hard rock acts shows just how wide Mike Shinoda and Co.’s sonic influence has reached.
We’ve been listening to the Way of the Warrior Kid book series as a family in the car. It’s a middle-grade reading level, but the audio book is perfect for younger kids as well…and one you should read before it gets the movie treatment this December, with Chris Pratt (Avengers, The Terminal List) and Linda Carldellini (Freaks and Geeks, The Founder).
Penned by Iraq Veteran Navy SEAL Jocko Willink (who’s a popular podcaster, consultant and business author as well), the series follows Marc, and 11-year-old with typical 11-year-old problems, until Marc’s Navy SEAL uncle shows up to help him build self discipline, confidence and strong values.
It’s very after-school-special-ish, but not at all corny. Willink’s Instagram is mainly just pics of his Timex watch, as he arises each morning at 4:30am to work out. The former SEAL is sharing the values with kids that drive his own life.
Until the next one,
-sth