You are cordially invited to this week’s brew of High Tea, your dispatch of 🔥 internet culture served piping hot. This week: spooky goes public, Claudia Conway is promoted to Chief of Tea Spilling and AR finds its home in...Home Depot.
Drink up 🐸☕
what we’ve been sipping on
BREAKING: Jason Derulo has fallen down the steps of this week.
*taps mic* cell phones on silent and shut your mouths, the show is about to begin. Err...is everyone okay after this week? Yeah, us neither. These past seven days have given us so much tea to spill that we’re bringing out our Sunday best to serve it. The internet was overflowing with so much of the good stuff, that October 3rd – a national holiday for the Mean Girls community – was reinvented to suit the Big Apocalypse Mood™ of 2020. The holy day of our beloved plastics was overshadowed, in part, by Twitter’s ~brave~ condemnation of wishing for death or harm against *anyone* on the platform, following the news that the star of ‘Home Alone 2: Lost in New York’ tested positive for the hoax of the year.
Of course, Twitter’s announcement comes not a moment too soon after 14 years in operation and countless complaints from Senators, journalists, trans women, BIPOC women, wait...pretty much all women, tbh. Anyway, the good news for misogynists, white supremacists and #ProudBoys alike is that these terms need not apply! And, if near death experiences on Twitter aren’t your thing, maybe you can try your luck with a full page ad in the NYT. Stand back and stand by, homies.
While we’re on the topic of Twitter, we’re safe in saying: never was so much owed by so many to so few. Of course, we’re talking about the memes that were free flowing this week, blessing us and the TL with niche commentary from the eye of political tornado and heart of the zoomer zeitgeist. ‘The meme is the message’ is a particular favorite topic du jour at High Tea, but this week really took the biscuit, as our preferred medium took center stage and provided the connective tissue needed to navigate the tumultuous and downright bizarre events that truly shocked and inspired the online world.
It’s been a week for the history books...so long as they’re not revised *cough cough*. Grab a cuppa and your sharpie as we dive into some of the weird and wonderful internet surprises from this week:
💀 What if we kissed under the giant skeleton 👉👈. Just when 2020 couldn’t get any weirder, Home Depot kicked off spooky season with the sensation that officially marked the end of no simp September. Say hello to the 12ft Halloween skeleton which has taken the internet by storm and been embraced with open arms...well, if you were lucky enough to scoop one before they sold out. Fear not, despite the heartbreaking lack of supply, there’s a surprisingly innovative way to try before you buy...bc, let’s be honest, we all want a litmus test for our future bae-to-be.
Coming to a home near you: AR finally meets its creative match. Who would have thought that Home Depot would be the brand leading the charge on AR’s adoption beyond lenses? Adobe Aero and Magic Leap? Eat your heart out (pun intended).
🎶 Baby, I’m your campaign anthem. What do JoJo, Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus all have in common? Well, they’re here to save 2020 (or at least what’s left of it) ofc. As we spilled last week 🐸☕ , Miley came correct with her ode to Debbie Harry, positively bodying that cover and sending us into full blown losing-our-heads mode. Nevertheless, we the internet persisted, riding on the TikTok Trojan Horse and managing to bully MC (and the industry powers that be) into releasing Heart Of Glass on ~all streaming platforms~ (ugh, that phrase never sounded so good). In the same breath, fellow heartthrob of our formative years (JoJo, who else?), announced that she would be voicing the official campaign anthem for the Biden/Harris camp. It’s the climb? Nah, it’s The Change. Altho ngl, we still think Leave (Get Out) would be the perfect soundtrack for the opposition, don’t you think?
And that’s not all. Just when you thought Christmas was cancelled, in swoops our fairy godmother (and umm Miley’s actual GM) – an underground artist that goes by the name of Dolly Parton, if you’ve ever heard of her. Released on the slowest news day of the year, Dolly’s forty-seventh solo studio album (yes, that’s a real number), ‘Holly Dolly Christmas’, was delivered into the world like a newborn babe in arms. It’s a Christmas miracle!
🤑 BT$: Big Hit’s Wonders. If you don’t know, worry. K-Pop band BTS gave us a double whammy of ✨news✨ this week, when it was not only announced that each member was expected to become a multimillionaire (!) as the record label ‘Big Hit Entertainment’ announced preparations to IPO, but the band also topped the US Billboard Charts for their newly released bop “Dynamite” – the first K-pop act with a No.1 song in America. Oh, and did we mention Hope, Jimin, Jin, Jungkook, RM, Suga, and V also smashed the YouTube record for most views in 24 hours in August, racking up over 101.1M? Sorry Arianators, but thank u, next. With their impeccable sense of style, finesse (iykyk), bringing out hit after hit (we’ve got the receipts, sis) this month BTS (and their 48 million A.R.M.Y) is finally getting the credit$ they so deserve.
📈 Robux for days. Make no mistake – we 👏 are 👏 so 👏 excited 👏 for 👏 Roblox 👏 as rumours circulated on Twitter this week that the popular Alpha and Zoomer platform is preparing to IPO. Jumping to over 150M MAU in July in the midst of the panny-d, Roblox has not only been a place for Zs to escape to, but has also supported the burgeoning creator economy by estimating they will shell out nearly $250M to its community developers in 2020 (over double what they paid in 2019). With popular creators, such as Ayzria, making over $150K USD for selling just one item of digital merch in the avatar shop, Roblox has truly cemented itself as a social media staple, dare we say the super app of the virtual world, to get us all through 2020.
💄Beat your face, beat Trump. When we say Biden, you say blenders...right? Listen, get-out-the-vote campaigns ain’t nothing new and we’ve been pleasantly surprised with the continued creative approaches to enfranchise and encourage Zs as they approach their first ever election. Now, we’re truly spoilt with the latest grassroots efforts from a mysterious group of industry insiders, launching Biden Beauty last Wednesday with a single blue makeup sponge priced at $20.20 *chef’s kiss*. They say: “BIDEN Beauty’s goal is to inspire Gen Z to Boomers to get out the vote.”, with 100% of the proceeds being donated to the Biden Victory Fund – though not officially associated with the campaign. As Mic says, “The snarky copywriting is prodigious: ‘Let’s cancel out orange for good, the only way beauty knows how — with color-correcting blue,’”. We’re lowkey obsessed. Keep your eyes (and oranges) peeled for their next drop, which promises to include a Kamala-inspired product. Pls, just take our money already!
kettle’s on: ones to watch
🔮Get ready, things are about to get Jelly. With disenchantment growing for SV star app Clubhouse (after this week’s absolute security and safety meltdown), imagine our delight when founders Alice Ma and Ashita Achuthan announced they were building an audio-first experience with safety as a first priority from the get-go. We reached out to get the full scoop:
We're building drop-in audio hangouts for friends and communities. We're focused on building for Gen Z - where Gen Z isn't boxed in by age, it's a mood. Our name, Jelly, conveys this ethos: fluid, fun, authentic, and just a little chaotic.
Even more exciting, they are looking for beta testers! They’re in the midst of fast experimentation and would love to have High Tea readers (+ pals) in the beta! You can sign up here or slide into the DMs on Twitter @getjellyHQ 🔮✨
🤐everything is totally under control. Nearly 7 months into lockdown and we have our first major media exposé. The aptly named ‘Totally Under Control’ by Academy Award Winner Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, and Suzanne Hillinger, was filmed in secret over the last 5 months to uncover the truth about the U.S. handling of the pandemic. With the trailer sending shivers down even the most spineless of COVID naysayers, with lines such as “it’s time to lay our careers on the line and push back..the scientists sounded the alarm everyday, and the US government was doing nothing” promises to reveal much more than just your average tea.
🙅♀️no one:
absolutely no one:
YouTube: *sends tweet*
Honestly, this was rather a bold (and bizarre) move from YouTube this week. Mocking your creators for making longer vlogs to suit *your* ad models? Twitter erupted with anger and spat that tweet right back at them, causing the platform to hurriedly delete their spew and issue an apology tweet shortly after (here’s the original). As y’all well know, this isn’t the first time they completely misread the room, and we’re guessing it won’t be the last. Want to know how you can really repay your creators? Just that. Depositing $$$$ where it’s deserved. Don’t @ us. 🐸 ☕
Ok you made it. In honor of the longest week of our lives we encourage you to remain horizontal for the rest of the day. This season's antics will no doubt pick up again on Monday...
ttyl,