GOOD AFTERNOON!

This is the POP CULTURE CHEAT SHEET, your weekly intel to fuel your water cooler conversations, delivered to your inbox every Monday. If someone forwarded you this email, be sure and subscribe here. 

LUNCH BREAK

five consumption recs for the time between meetings

1. GO-TO-MARTY STRATEGY. Timmy Tim’s meta marketing stunt landed not only with Club Chalamet, but with the culture at large.

2. IT’S SO NEKRAS-OVER. Podcaster-turned-actress Dasha Nekrasova blew up her career over a podcast op with white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.

3. NOT-SO-SOUND TAKE. NPR Tiny Desk defenders assembled to refute a claim that the premise is a nightmare for artists.

4. CHANGE IS CHANGING. Making cents wasn’t making sense.

5. DIVINE RESURRECTION. Vine, the forerunner of short-form video, is making a return.

who will have their next brat?

Charli XCX tunneled her way out of the Khia asylum with a plastic spoon, scraping away at the confines of second-string stardom for nearly two decades before her mainstream breakout. After a culture- and politic-defining two years, she finds herself remitted on Brat behavior, using her newfound liberty to experiment with darker sounds, a silver screen debut, and Substack musings. 

With Charli reveling in the Brat-green grass on the other side of the asylum walls, it’s time we ask ourselves: who is the next most likely escapee? Or, in other words, which pop star on the fringe of the culture is poised to dominate?

Some candidates for consideration:

Slayyyter’s sound is boisterous, irreverent, and addictive, and she’s been trucking along under the zealous adoration of gay fans (another Charli hallmark) with the discipline of someone who knows their time is coming. Her pop maximalism is exactly right for the moment without coming off as derivative – in no small part because she’s been living that life (Von Dutch) for years. She's got the catalog, the long-suffering stans, and has really found her footing with her last couple drops.

Cortisa Star has the it-girl sound and Charli signoff to pick up the Brat torch, and she's been getting her flowers accordingly. Only trouble is, she might not have the mileage yet to qualify. A Khia asylum breakout requires time served, years of paying dues in the underground. Give her a few more years of cult status and she'll be primed.

Ethel Cain arrived on the scene with a fully fleshed-out mythology and a distinctive Southern Gothic/doomed Americana vibe. She's been toeing the line of mainstream, entrancing cultural tastemakers from Real Housewives to NYT writers, but just might be too esoteric for a Brat-style breakout. Her work oscillates between accessible moments and dense art project territory, and you can’t help but wonder if a mainstream moment would even suit the world she's building. Sometimes the asylum isn't something you escape – it's something you choose to haunt.

The Khia asylum is a fertile cradle of superstardom, allowing artists to marinate in cult devotion and develop their signature sound in the echo chamber of fans who get it. Right place, right time, right sound, and that IYKYK factor has the potential to fast-track careers; time will tell who its next beneficiary will be. 

TREND RAPPORT

viral vocab of the week 

KHIA ASYLUM (n.) –  An imagined repository for niche celebrities who have not quite found their footing in the mainstream.

GET ONE’S FLOWERS (phr.) –  Receiving deserved recognition or appreciation.

FRUITIONIZING (n.) –  Bogus buzzword coined by marketer-to-watch Timothee Chalamet.

SEE YOU NEXT MONDAY!

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