Millenials Are Never Having Kids, The Mainsteam Media Hates Jews More than Kanye, Twitter Employees...Don't Do Anything, Adele Quits Music (The Five for 10/28/22)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
Apologies this one is a little late.
Let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
In light of Kanye West’s antisemitic rants…I thought it would be worth seeing how much his views differed from the corporate press, civic leaders and other voices allowed to stay on social media.
The New York Times ran this cartoon, featuring then-Israeli President Netenyahu as Trump’s dog, wearing the star of DAVID:
The “paper of record” apologized, but then ran this cartoon within the week:
Ok, we’ve beat up on the times tonight. Surely government officials, like Kendra Lara of the (very progressive) Boston city council aren’t blatantly antisemitic:
They are?
Well, surely Twitter doesn’t allow the Ayatollah of Iran to use the platform to deny the Holocaust?
Oh, that’s cool too?
So, it seems the mainstream press and corporations just really hate Kanye in particular then?
For the record, this is not a full on defense of West, who inspired literal Nazis in LA this week.
But the double standard here…is nearly beyond belief.
[two]
Well, Millennials don’t want kids.
In an age when a significant portion of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, there’s still no federal paid parental or sick leave, and many women face professional and financial consequences for being mothers, it’s not entirely surprising that many younger people are forgoing kids.
A significant portion (44%) of nonparents ages 18 to 49 say it’s unlikely they’ll have children, according to a 2021 report by the Pew Research Center. That’s up by about 7 percentage points from the 37% who reported the same in 2018.
And the majority of these adults feel good about their decision: Nearly two-thirds of nonparents (65%) agree that the freedom that comes with not having kids brings them happiness, according to a survey of 1,950 U.S. adults conducted by the Harris Poll on behalf of Fortune in October. Among millennials without kids, 73% agree with that sentiment, according to the survey.
The economic factors are certainly at play here…but it’s more a lack of desire than a lack of finances keeping Millennial non-parents from becoming parents.
I’m certainly not one to lean on the idea that everyone must have children…I know plenty of happy people who decided not to, and know it was the right decision for them.
But…such a huge number of adults remaining childless is going to have significant impact on society.
For one, elementary schools are going to have to start shutting down from lack of students, which is a trend we’re already seeing.
The U.S. is going to look pretty different due to this trend in a few years.
[three]
As the evidence builds (at this point, it’s fairly certain) that COVID-19 was made in a Wuhan lab rather than a mutated virus from bats (read the very long Vanity Fair investigation)…Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is being accused of conspiring with NIH Director Dr. Fauci to suppress the story.
"Soon thereafter, Dr. Fauci participated in a conference call with scientists and science-funding authorities intended to discredit and suppress this lab-leak theory," the Landry and Schmitt state in their brief. "After the conference call, influential individuals signed public statements that were placed in science journals in attempt to discredit the lab-leak theory."
At about this same time frame, Fauci allegedly "communicated with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg directly regarding public messaging and the flow of information on social media about the government’s COVID-19 response."
According to court documents, Zuckerberg invited Fauci to coordinate on COVID-19 messaging to "make sure people can get authoritative information from reliable sources," and suggested including a video message from Fauci because "people trust and want to hear from experts."
Zuckerberg proposed including this content in a "hub" that "we’re going to put at the top of Facebook" to reach "200+ million Americans, 2.5 billion people worldwide," which Fauci said was a "very exciting" prospect, according to an email cited in the attorney generals’ court documents.
Zuckerberg also made headlines this week for his "metaverse” (virtual reality) failing miserably.
We often see tech companies as bulletproof, but they do fall. Once the most popular site on the internet, Facebook now feels like it’s headed towards the tech dumpster alongside Netscape and AOL if Zuck can’t quit bleeding money and reinvent the core product.
[four]
Elon Musk took over Twitter yesterday and fired a bunch of people.
Probably because, as evidenced by TikTok, most people at Twitter…don’t actually do anything.
Seriously, that place looks like a vacation spa.
[five]
As always, let’s round out the weekend with a pop culture roundup:
Christian Bale (The Dark Knight, Ford v. Ferrari) in an 1830 murder/mystery?
Based on Edgar Allen Poe?
I’m in.
Hugh Jackman (X-Men, Les Mis), Laura Dern (Jurassic Park, Star Wars) Vanessa Kirby (The Crown, Mission: Impossible - Fallout)and Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs, Hitchcock) are teaming up for some sad-sack divorce movie.
Will probably win awards, and it looks good.
I also think this is the wrong movie to release during economic recession, hyper-inflation and potential global conflict.
People tend to watch sad movies in happy times, and avoid them when the actual reality is a bit grim.
Despite the fact that characters like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman have bee popular for (checks notes) nearly a century, Warner Brothers has been struggling over over a decade to create a connected-film-universe to print money from DC Comics characters in the same way Marvel spits out billion-dollar-earning-projects.
Now, James Gunn, best known for helming the Guardians of the Galaxy movies for Marvel, will try his hand at VERY large level storytelling, as he’s taking over all DC movies and TV (now dubbed the “DC Universe”).
Oh, and Gunn is a St. Louis native. I always root for the hometown kid.
Gunn’s official title will be “Co-CEO” to lead the DC project with producer Peter Safran.
Another “Marvel makes money machine go brrrrrr” first look at the latest Ant Man movie…I’ve been pretty apathetic to this particular character, but this one looks like a compelling sci-fi romp.
MUSIC NEWS: Adele is quitting music until…TBD. She’ll be earning a bachelor’s degree in English Literature.
NEW MUSIC:
Shane Smith & the Saints rose from obscurity to being a (fairly) high profile group thanks in large part to the smashing success of Yellowstone, which has featured their songs liberally over four seasons.
The band’s new single fits the fall weather quite well, and (if I had to guess) will be featured in season 5 of the hit Western, which returns 11/13.
The social media embargo has lifted for Black Panther: Waukanda Forever and the internet buzz is strong with this one. The movie will deal with the death of the fictional T’Challa, written out of the Marvel Universe due to actor Chadwick Bozeman’s death from cancer.
It’s supposed to be a heavy affair for a comic book movie…and I’m not sure Rihanna quite stuck the landing on the lead ballad.
Finally, I haven’t called Flatfoot 56 frontman Tobin Bawinkel has an excellent new song from his side project, 6’10.
Until the next one,
-sth