Controversial Kamala on Fox News Interview--Corporate Media Collaborated on Coverage? Getting Dumped Via AI Now Brutal Reality, Peaky Blinders Creator Reveals New Show (The Five for 10/18/24)
Plus, Zach Bryan sits down with Bruce Springsteen. Apple TV+ finds another sci-fi hit with DUNE star. Avengers directors re-team with Chris Pratt.
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter.
It’s Friday, so let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
There’s a meme that reads “I don’t want AI writing stories and making art so I can do dishes and laundry, I want AI to do my dishes and laundry so I can write and create art.”
Well, how about AI breaking up with you?
NYC-based software developer Nick Spreen received a surprising alert on his iPhone 15 Pro, delivered through an early test version of Apple's upcoming Apple Intelligence text message summary feature. "No longer in a relationship; wants belongings from the apartment," the AI-penned message reads, summing up the content of several separate breakup texts from his girlfriend.
This summary feature of Apple Intelligence, announced by the iPhone maker in June, isn't expected to fully ship until an iOS 18.1 update in the fall. However, it has been available in a public beta test of iOS 18 since July, which is what Spreen is running on his iPhone. It works akin to something like a stripped-down ChatGPT, reading your incoming text messages and delivering its own simplified version of their content.
On X, Spreen replied to skepticism over whether the message was real in a follow-up post. "Yes this was real / yes it happened yesterday / yes it was my birthday," Spreen wrote. In response to a question about it being a fair summary of his girlfriend's messages, he wrote, "it is."
We reached out to Spreen directly via email and he delivered his own summary of his girlfriend's messages. "It was something along the lines of i can’t believe you just did that, we’re done, i want my stuff. we had an argument in a bar and I got up and left, then she sent the text," he wrote.
Getting broken up with via text is nothing new… relationships ended on keyboard phones before the iPhone existed. But that practice at least held social stigma.
If that sounds horrible, consider our ever-evolving social tolerance for tech progress. Back in the 2000s when SMS texting was still novel, some etiquette experts considered breaking up a relationship through text messages to be inexcusably rude, and it was unusual enough to generate a Reuters news story. The sentiment apparently extended to Americans in general: According to The Washington Post, a 2007 survey commissioned by Samsung showed that only about 11 percent of Americans thought it was OK to break up that way.
By 2009, as texting became more commonplace, the stance on texting break-ups began to soften. "But it has now come to the point where our cell phones and BlackBerries are an extension of ourselves and our personality. It's not unusual that people are breaking up this way so much."
Still, there’s a notable difference in being dumped via text message…and getting the news from a robot on your home screen.
It doesn’t feel like this genie can go back in the bottle. It’s quite possible in the near future you will learn about everything from being laid off to the death of a loved one from AI.
[two]
To say that Jelly Roll (real name: Jason DeFord) is on a hot streak right now is a massive understatement. The convict-turned-underground-rapper-turned-country singer, one of the biggest artists in the world right now, has released…one of the most religious pop albums of all time.
From Saving Country Music:
The album isn’t a hip-hop, rock, or pop album either really, though it certainly includes sounds more indicative of those genres than it does country. In truth, Jelly Roll’s Beautifully Broken is a contemporary Christian album, with a cohesive and continuous religious theme throughout, brought to life with contemporary pop, rock, and hip-hop sounds and treatments.
There perhaps has never been an album released in modern popular music that presents such a monoculture of lyrical content and themes as Beautifully Broken does. Virtually every single song in the droning 22-song track list works exactly the same in a cut and paste template of “I used to be a sinner, but I no longer am, and I now use God to get me through life.” It’s incredible how this album refuses to deviate or diversify itself from this central theme, slavishly pinned to this one single point like a diatribe.
Jelly’s critics have pointed out that while the singer has been a vocal advocate for the the recovery movement, he drinks alcohol and is planning to open a bar in downtown Nashville. However, DeFord has never struggled with alcoholism, but sought treatment for cocaine and pill addiction. He regularly takes the opportunity to speak to inmates and people in recovery while on the road.
I’ve previously covered how the “rational atheism” of the 90’s and 00’s has been fading in the 2020’s as younger people show renewed interest in religion.
[three]
The story of a man who killed his daughter’s alleged rapist after a kidnapping hit national news this week, and is worth unpacking.
Aaron Spencer, the 36-year-old father of a 14-year-old girl, was arrested in Arkansas in connection with an October 8 shooting that left 67-year-old Michael Fosler dead, according to the news outlet Law and Crime.
The Lonoke County Sheriff's Office reportedly said that the shooting occurred during a confrontation after Spencer found Fosler "in a vehicle" with his daughter.
Spencer's wife Heather reportedly started a crowdfunder on GiveSendGo. The campaign is no longer available to view, but it reportedly said that the couple's daughter was "targeted, groomed and ultimately raped by the boyfriend of a family friend," who was identified as Fosler in the post.
The family also had a "no contact order" against Fosler, the post reportedly said.
According to Heather's campaign, as reported by Law and Crime, Fosler initially attacked their child several months ago, and was awaiting trial on related charges.
Heather Spencer also posted about the case to her Facebook page, writing of Fosler, "He was looking at the rest of his pathetic life in jail, and our daughter was the only witness. We 100% in the moment thought he had taken her to kill her."
Fosler was arrested in July and released on bond, according to USA Today. He was due in court in December.
According to Law and Crime, Heather wrote that the couple reported their daughter missing on the night of the shooting, and Spencer went to search for her, eventually discovering her in a vehicle with Fosler.
"As soon as the predator knew my husband was behind him, he ran," she reportedly wrote. "The chase ended in an accident. Aaron was able to retrieve our child alive, but in the process he was attacked and did what he had to do to protect himself and our minor child."
Observations:
A) First off, we should note that the Sherriff had to make the arrest but “is not recommending any charges” against Aaron Spencer, according to a video released by the department.
B). Which means that unless we are missing a big piece of this story, the District Attorney is taking a VERY activist role here, trying to push a murder conviction on pretty clear-cut self defense.
C). There’s an election coming up…go check on your LOCAL candidates. And choose wisely. This miscarriage of justice is probably because some local moron got elected when no one was paying attention.
[four]
For the most part, the reactions to Kamala Harris on Fox News were…expected.
Most social media and internet commentary focused on Kamala’s lack of clarity in answers, and downright awkward moments, while The View praised Harris for “going into the belly of the beast and being in command of the facts.” (Well, that’s certainly…an opinion).
What felt off was how strangely similar the headlines were, with the NPR, The Guardian, Business Insider, The Chicago Tribune, CNN and The Associated Press all using the word “testy” to describe the contentious interview.
Now, there are certainly content licensing deals (i.e. Yahoo pays other sites to re-run their original news pieces), but these are supposed to be COMPETING news outlets.
It’s not uncommon for two outlets to run similar headlines…but SIX?!
I can’t tell you with any certainty whether there is some sort of back-door collaboration between all these sites or if they are copying each other…but to borrow Kamala’s favorite word…this is weird.
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup:
OFFICIAL RECCOMENDATION: It’s very rare that I get to watch something quickly enough to write about it (in this stage of my life, I see a lot of…Bluey and Paw Patrol), but I got to burn through the new Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft on Netflix when Amanda was in emergency surgery to remove her appendix (it’s been a loooong week).
A spinoff of a 30-year-running video game series, the plot is pretty much what you would expect from this sub-genre, spanning continents in search of blah blah artifact that will change everything. Obviously, the bad guys want the thing too. The show borrows quite liberally from Indiana Jones (the pilot alone features an almost shot-for-shot remake of the traps guarding the Holy Grail in the third Indy film mixed with the missing-kids plot of Temple of Doom).
I was watching to see if I could let Ava (age 6) be introduced to the character through the show, as Croft is a pretty great role model for young girls, but the show better fits the 7-12 age range…and it’s a great family watch if you’ve got little ones in elementary school. (Trailer).STREAMING: If you’re an Android user, you can now subscribe to Apple TV+ through Prime Video.
MOVIES: Uhh…I think Mattel learned the wrong lesson from the smash success of Barbie, becaues they’re now doing a View-Master movie. A whopping 45 movies based on toys are also in development, including projects based on UNO, Monopoly, Polly Pocket and the Magic 8-Ball (that one is supposed to be a horror comedy).
This one is a ways out, but the Russo Brothers (Avengers: Infinity War, Extraction) are dropping a big-budget sci fi project, The Electric State next March on Netflix with Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Terminal List), Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things, Enola Holmes)…in what might be described as a “sci-fi/western? An orphaned teenager traverses the American West with a sweet, but mysterious, robot, and an eccentric drifter in search of her younger brother. (Trailer).MUSIC: Liam Payne, a former member of the uber-popular boy band One Direction, died at 31 this week from falling from a hotel balcony in Argentina. Bruce Springsteen and Zach Bryan sat down for a pretty epic conversation about songwriting.
TV: The DUNE spinoff, DUNE PROPHECY will hit HBO Max November 17th (trailer). Tom Hardy (Venom, Lawless) is navigating a special forces docu-series for Paramount+. Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge, The Amazing Spiderman) discussed the recent death of his mother with Elmo on Sesame Street…one to bookmark if you’ve got preschool aged kids and are faced with a death in the family.
GEAR: If you’re an e-reader user, Amazon’s latest Kindle models dropped this week, (including one with color, and one that allows handwritten notes).
The creator of Peaky Blinders is doing a show about boxing in London circa 1900? I’m. So. In. It doesn’t release until sometime in 2025. Ugh.
Taron Edgerton (Kingsmen, Rocketman) as a TSA guard going head-to-head with Jason Statham (Fast & Furious, The Beekeeper), who is forcing him to choose between letting an airport get blown up via a carry-on bomb, or letting his own family die.
This looks fun, if forgettable. In theaters 12/13, so it’s a good flick that will probably appeal to your 12-year-old nephew and octogenarian great aunt if you need a family outing around the holidays…and there aren’t many of those.
Rebecca Ferguson (The Greatest Showman, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning) is becoming the go-to actress for sci-fi, after the smash success of Dune. She’s following up with a second season of SILO on Apple TV+.
Romance movies have come back in a pretty big way in 2024, thanks in part to Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria, The Handmaid’s Tale) and Glen Powell (Twisters, Top Gun: Maverick) raking in a suprising haul in January with Anyone But You.
Andrew Garfield (The Social Network, Hacksaw Ridge) and Florence Pugh (Dune: Part 2, Black Widow) are both pretty skilled at their craft, and it looks like this one has something to say about mortality, rather than just the typical genre story beats.
[new music]
Coldplay released their debut, Parachutes, when I was a junior in high school, which probably makes the Welsh/Scottish quartet U2 for Elder Millennials like myself. I hadn’t paid much attention in a decade, but the band’s performance on Saturday Night Live (watch here and here) was interesting enough for me to give their latest album, Moon Music, a spin…and it’s great.
It’s pretty incredible for a band that first hit the charts when Bill Clinton was President to still be atop the pop culture heap. In their interview for Apple TV+ with Zane Lowe, the band hinted that they don’t have many albums left. But hey, most bands don’t put out 10 solid albums…so whatever comes next, their legacy has been cemented.
[read & learn]
Sean McLachlan is an archeologist and award-winning war correspondent turned author. The Masked Man of Cairo series has been described as “Indiana Jones meets Agatha Christie.”
I bought the first novel in the series months ago, but finally got a chance to read it while deer hunting this weekend. It’s great. I can’t wait to dive into more of this author’s work. (He has a couple free books on his website, if you want to start there).
Until the next one,
-sth