The X Factor
How to become brand X. Barbenheimer and Biden see pink. It's this week's news.
Hey Friends,
This week may have been hard, but nothing compares 2 the Universe taking Sinead O'Connor away from us. Sinéad died at the age of 56.
Sinéad was all heart and no hair. She was hotter than July, and the same wouldn't have pulled off a shaved head as well as she did anyway. The feeling of the loss to me is eerie, simply because it actually has been 7 hours and 15 days since I last listened to her biggest hit song. Tell me, baby, where did I go wrong?
Sinéad, may she rest in peace, was a quintessential icon of Generation X. With the passing of one X-er, another enters, perhaps only to exit just the same.
I'll get to that in a minute...
But first, let's get to The News.
Hot Takes
Week 30 of 2023
Barbenheimer
The biggest thing you probably didn't miss (based on the premier weekend numbers) is the release of two blockbuster hit movies, Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie's 'Barbie' and Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer'.
The movement around the two films, which has been a boon to theatres and has broken countless premier weekend records, has been dubbed "Barbenheimer." By the numbers, Barbie was the big winner. The two movies, Barbie and Oppenheimer, earned $337 million and $174 million, respectively, in worldwide ticket sales.
The Barbie brand is a reminder that even women can have jobs, as demonstrated by Kamala Harris and Lauren Boebert. Barbie has long been an icon of female empowerment, highlighting woman's power and potential while normalizing age-defying female figures made entirely of plastic.
As the Barbie craze swept across the country, many politicians jumped aboard as well, including Matt Gaetz, who showed up to a Washington reception with his wife, both donning all-pink outfits. From what we understand, Gaetz has been a fan of Barbie because many of his dates had Barbie dolls with them when he picked them up from daycare. Still, the Gaetz's left the "pink carpet" event with political ammunition, as seen in his wife Ginger's post on X (formerly known as Twitter) criticizing the cultural commentary of the 2023 release.
In the White House, the President is now "Dreamhouse Biden" as he was seen holding his arms stiff as paddles with the bend in his knees limited to one or two clicks. According to one source, his aides insisted that this limitation was not a special occasion, regardless of whether it fits the Barbie theme.
Here at The Lorem Ipsum, we're celebrating the wild success of the Barbie movie too. We'll be releasing Dream-newsletter Barbie, who comes with her very own newsletter, a plastic replica that is proportionally way larger than it should be if scaled up to real people-size newsletters.
Here's more about the Barbie movie.
Please Plea Me
Hunter Biden's plea deal to wrap up an investigation against him is on shaky ground after a judge questioned it, effectively blowing up the deal. Hunter Biden, who is currently not the President of the United States, has been accused of leveraging his father’s title for personal benefit, treating his business deals like a Harvard University admissions application.
This has brought the topic of an impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden to the fore amongst Republicans in the house, especially after two IRS whistle-blowers testified before the House oversight committee that Hunter Biden had received special treatment and their investigations had been blocked by the DOJ. To top it off, they didn't even check to see if he had updated the antivirus scanner on his laptop, which some believe was his real crime, not counting drugs, guns, and tax delinquency. (more)
Oh Buoy
Governor Greg Abbott of Texas wanted to float some ideas by us to prevent illegal immigration, like stringing a line floats across the Rio Grande, to block swimmers and signal that the USA is, as they say, The Deep End. But the move did not buoy the Biden administration's spirits. Instead, the fed sued the state because these floaters, they say, violate federal law. (more)
Watch Dog
A conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch is watching an actual dog right now. According to emails the group has obtained, Biden’s dog Commander has bitten secret service agents at least 10 times. One agent (who, by the way, I've heard is a snack!) was sent to the hospital after being bitten by the German Shepherd. The white house has downplayed the matter and has asked the press not to hound them about it. (more)
Mitch
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell froze in front of the press, unable to speak for as much as 19 seconds, roughly the amount of time it takes windows to shut down. Analysts compared the look on his face to that of someone playing an invisible obo. McConnel, who is 81, took a fall recently, which resulted in a concussion and fractured ribs. After a hard reset, he returned to the press to answer several questions and to say he was fine. (more)
Interested
The Fed increased the interest rates by a quarter point this week, bringing rates to levels not seen since Baha Men asked Who Let The Dogs Out. According to experts, the rate of inflation is lower than the alcohol content of a Bud Light but still more than the fat content of a glass of milk.
Quickly
- Legal charges against Trump are mounting, and a new indictment is pending.
That's it for the news. Now here's this week's Feature.
Brand X
Feature Story
Elon Musk decided to ex the Twitter brand off the internet. He used an actual X, his favorite letter, according to people familiar with the matter. The logo makes history for being enormously boring and easy to draw, but as we often notice with all brands, all of them are boring until they are made into something. So before we pass judgment on Elon's abysmal brand decision (I say this as a brand expert with a lot of mileage).
What is a swoosh? A circle with a dot in it? A bite out of a gray apple? A yellow shell? The answer is they are the biggest brands on earth, and they are what somebody made them, just shortly after being boring.
But for most of the media, not to mention many other commentators, no matter what Elon did, they would criticize him for it. And on that note, I will leave you with this excerpt from an article by Jack Shaeffer and a link to it below:
The best policy for the press would be to detach itself from Twitter the way a drinker who overenjoys his nightly bourbon should when he starts to view everything through the bottom of his glass. So what if Musk is destroying Twitter? That would be a fine response for the press corps to whatever novel or nutty thing he’s done with the site this week. Let him spend his billions and concede that in becoming X, the destroyer of Twitter, he just might be doing us all a favor.
That's it for this week.
Thanks for being here and sharing around the world.
Have a great weekend!