Yes, You Can OD on Weed, Gen Z Regrets Shacking Up (But Not Traveling), Will Smith's Crazy Wife Butchers Egyptian History for Netflix, 80's Action Movie Stars Are TV Stars Now, (The Five for 04/21/23)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
Well, here it is. My latest project.
After a month of being laid off (and not collecting unemployment, due to Missouri’s error—yay), amazing things are happening.
Remember when everyone stayed home during COVID and people said “the earth is healing” from less pollution?
Yeah, my life is like that.
For one thing, I’m funny again. And I dropped 10 pounds without really being that focused on it.
This video isn’t public (yet, anyway), you can only view it here.
But if you want to learn…
…how I’m “cobbling together” a living
…how millionaires could buy a whole town (and give it back for a tax write-off)
…what my return to the podcast world will look like
…check out the first installment of “How to Get Laid Off.”
It’s Friday…so let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
Graphic via Tripsavvy.
Let’s check in on the kids. They’re (kind of) alright…at least when it comes to valuing experiences over stuff.
Gen Zs — those born between 1997 and 2012 — are traveling more than Gen Xers and baby boomers, and are “on par with millennials, who are currently the focus of the industry,” said Roeschke.
Yet unlike past generations, Gen Zs aren’t waiting until they have high-paying jobs or a nest egg of savings to travel. Rather, “they are finding ways to fit it into their budgets now,” according to Morning Consult’s report on Gen Z travel trends.
Only 11% Gen Zs who travel frequently come from households earning $100,000 or more annually, according to Morning Consult. Most (61%) say they earn less than $50,000 per year, the data shows.
But that doesn’t mean that Gen Zs aren’t worried about travel expenses.
In a survey of 4,000 full-time students aged 18 to 25, some 76% named financial costs as their greatest travel concern. The survey, published in March by the travel tech company StudentUniverse, showed nearly two in three Gen Zs look for the cheapest options when traveling, and nearly half (46%) said they expect to get financial help from their parents.
They are also willing to cut other spending to pay for travel, according to a survey published in March by the Gen Z media company Student Beans. In the survey, 83% of young adults said they plan to cut back on non-essential spending.
Elsewhere, Millennials and Gen Z are shacking up, pre-marriage, to save money. Even more now.
It’s not going well.
With mortgage rates still well over 6% and the national median rent close to $2,000 a month, it’s far more financially feasible for young Americans to get a roommate.
In many cases, this roommate often ends up being a romantic partner.
About 80% of Gen Z and 76% of millennials were motivated to live with their partners due to money and logistics, according to a new survey from Realtor.com.
However, around 4-in-10 said they ended up regretting the move.
“My parents had advised me against it,” Del Rio admits. “But when you're 22, you [think you] know everything.”
Aside from broken hearts, couples have to be prepared for the financial implications of losing a valued roomie who helps you cover the bills.
I can’t remember who said that shacking up is “introducing marriage sized problems without the security of marriage,” but yeah, not suprised here.
[two]
Uhhh, this isn’t a documentary.
Jada Pinkett Smith, known for a minor role in The Matrix and also for being the bat[bleep] crazy partner to husband/hostage Will Smith is a “documentarian” now?
Cause, normally that comes with some…credentials.
Pinkett graduated from performing arts high school, starred in one comedy with Eddie Murphy (The Nutty Professor), before dropping back to supporting cast roles. Which caused her to get bored and found a metal band called Wicked Wisdom, which had such a strong fanbase that their lone TV appearance managed to rack up a massive 22,000 views on YouTube over 11 years (yes, that is sarcasm).
Oh, and the “band” only made it about a year, and “signed a management deal” with what was essentially a shell company funded by husband Will Smith. Before the “Nepo Baby” era (the children of famous actors getting prominent acting roles) there was the “Nepo Spouse” era, I guess.
Wicked Wisdom were so good that they could probably have sold 40 tickets at a bar in Dayton, Ohio without the semi-famous factor.
So, that’s it. That’s everything Jada Pinkett Smith has done. A great sci-fi movie. A forgotten comedy. A REALLY bad band.
Which of course qualifies her to cover ancient history, right?
I’ll go ahead and drop the fact that I hold dual master’s degrees…and one of them is in History, to rebut this trailer.
Cleopatra wasn’t black, but an ethnic Greek, which means she looked like a standard issue Mediterranian European.
Unlike other historical figures, we don’t have to guess…we have surviving busts of Cleopatra’s head carved from marble, which can combine with modern computer programs to show what she probably looked like.
This is…information that’s available on Wikipedia, but somehow Jada missed that?
The whole trailer, about “women in power,” doesn’t strike me as anything but a project that will be riddled with historical holes and teach things that didn’t happen as “fact” since it’s labeled a documentary.
In fictional series, I have basically no opinion on “race swapping” characters, such as Ariel not being white in the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, or diversifying the cast of Bridgerton. The latter is a mega-hit for Netflix and the audience connects with it, so that’s cool that some non-white actors have the chance to play some big parts.
Jada had pretty much dissappeared off the cultural radar until she had an affair with her son’s friend, R&B singer August Alsina, and then forced her husband/hostage Will Smith to go on her internet talk show and discuss it.
And for that little stunt, Jada now gets to butcher the history of the Egyptian people.
Yaaaaaaaay fame.
I'm not normally in the business of celeb bashing…but in this case, it is the story. A D-Lister got a documentary deal by throwing her husband under the bus after cheating on him, and got renewed attention.
And attention, positive or negative, turns into opportunities in Hollywood.
I’ll just close this story out with this meme, which is actually more factual thank Pinkett’s documentary.
[three]
In honor of the unofficial marijuana holiday of 04/20, yes, you can OD on weed.
And it’s becoming more common for people to visit the ER with side effects from excessive consumption.
According to the World Health Organization, around 2.5% of the world’s population, or 147 million people, consume weed. If you think you’re the only one who took a trip to the hospital after smoking or consuming too much cannabis, you’re wrong. As more and more states legalize the drug, cases of cannabis toxicity, or the overuse or abuse of cannabis products, may result in more hospital visits.
A 2022 study that looked at more than 35,000 people in Canada found that people who reported using cannabis in the past year were more likely to have an ER visit or hospitalization than people who didn’t use cannabis.
In 2017, a research team led by Adrian Bravo at the University of New Mexico published a study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs that found that college students had a tendency to smoke more often, and greater amounts, on April 20, or 4/20, the date weed enthusiasts celebrate the drug because of its slang name. In the survey of 59 college students, about 50% of students said they smoked on 4/20 compared with 28% on weekdays in general, and 37% on weekends.
I’m pretty open about the fact that I use Cannabis medicinally (read: enough for pain, but I’ve never been “high” in my life), and I strongly believe the drug has a place in the medicine cabinet…but I find elements of legalization to be pretty troubling.
The PR around weed for years has been that you “can’t overdose.”
It’s not true.
[four]
Saturday brings one of my favorite holidays…Record Store Day, a magical moment once a year when rare and limited albums are released to indie record stores across the country.
According to the data, it’s also the reason vinyl is back in such a big way…because records got their own special day to drive traffic.
This year, Taylor Swift is doing an RSD exclusive, which is expected to drive Gen-Zers out in droves, hopefully bringing them into the hobby.
You can learn more here to find out what’s being released and locate indie record stores near you.
If you’ve never bought an album on wax…tomorrow’s a great day to check it out.
"I don't think the vinyl revival would have happened without Record Store Day, and sales data over the past 15 backs up what I'm saying. There was almost no vinyl business to speak of before Record Store Day." — Michael Kurtz
[five]
Well, I’m normally one for a WWII epic, especially one based on a Pulitzer winning novel, but the first look at All The Light We Cannot See looks…dull.
I hope I’m wrong. This seems like a great part for Mark Ruffalo (Avengers, Thor Love and Thunder), who’s no doubt angling for an Oscar nod, given the Q4 release date.
I’m guessing this one will have a brief stint in theaters before hitting the streamer…to make the film eligible for more awards.
And the exact opposite of an avant garde “meaning of life” style is FUBAR, an Arnold Schwarzenegger thriller/comedy TV show about a retired spy who has to work with his daughter, who’s recently entered the CIA. Now that
I’m so down for this. Arnold’s comedy movies, like Kindergarten Cop (seriously, go re-watch that one) are highly underrated.
It’s also interesting that the biggest action stars of the 80’s are all current TV stars, including Stallone (Tulsa King), Costner (Yellowstone) and now Arnold.
Wait, we’re missing one. Somebody get Chuck Norris a TV deal, ASAP.
Hitting the internets 05/25.
Suspsense/horror hybrids are either really good or really bad, depending on how the material is executed. In this case, Matthew Hirsh, who directed the highly unnderrated Van Helsing in 2004 returns to the world of monsters with The Rise of The Dementer, a Dracula retelling on a pre-industrial-revolution ship.
Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton, The Walking Dead) and Liam Cunningham (The Onion Knight from Game of Thrones) bring some familiar faces to the project. Looks like great fun.
In theaters this August.
A gritty cop drama—set in a civil war within the FBI, starring Kate Mara (House of Cards, Megan Leavy) and Brian Tyree Henry (Joker, Bullet Train).
I’m pretty down for this one.
And more spy stuff. Sydney Sweeney (The Handmaid’s Tale, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) stars in a very HBO-y true espionage story.
Reality is based on a true story, and feels like a hit already.
NEW MUSIC: This week belongs to the Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl wrote about losing drummer Taylor Hawkins and his mom in a very short period of time.
Until the next one,
-sth