café snake - le benson boone gala

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

Daphné aborde l'univers des dupes à travers la vente de Rhode par Haley Bieber à Elf Beauty. Mounir couvre la vague de critique que reçoit le chanteur américain Benson Boone et les différentes discussions dans le monde de la musique pop. Gala Influence Création, poursuite Google- Character AI, AI ragebait ++++DIgi Mix :Lana Del Rae - Born to diePLug Walk: https://www.tiktok.com/@drewkey5000/video/7508261266083892511?q=plug%20walk&t=1748929013269Hacker la performance: https://www.tiktok.com/@elisabethabbatiello/video/7509159116552588549?lang=enLe devoir : https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-xJHi0vrHQ4AI Kangaroo: https://x.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1927235644188737854 IA et responsabilitéJudge rejects claim chatbots have free speech in suit over teen’s death, Nitasha Tiku and Leo SandsWashington Post, https://archive.ph/aJuRD#selection-393.0-411.9Sommes-nous dupe?A great big beautiful tomorrow, Rob Horning, Internal Exile, https://robhorning.substack.com/p/a-great-big-beautiful-tomorrowBenson Boone :Rolling Stone : https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/voice-audition-songs-alex-warren-benson-boone-1235328100/Addison Rae NYT PopCast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I35Etkaak30Max Read - FYPcore and the Benson Boone-iverseRecommendation Kranz Keloh: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0QtshFoajFl0OOk8ZydKdO?si=R4EQ0pRMQWy-vymdd6nXBA

I'm going to tell her, can we set up a new movie? Hello, I'm Daphne. She's going to forget that I watched a movie about a bear for an hour. Plus, I was really frustrated. I'm not watching this movie. It's coffee snake. Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Please! Don't you run into right now! Please! Hello everyone, I'm Yulia Kavisny! Hello! Kavisny number 45!

Today it's an episode that is available to everyone to have access to all our episodes, on our Patreon account. Thank you to everyone who subscribes, but also everyone who shares and everyone who leaves 5 stars on Spotify and Apple. Just before continuing with the topics of the week, I would like to thank you for Patreon account. Thank you to everyone who subscribes, but also everyone who shares and everyone who leaves 5 stars on Spotify and Apple. Just before continuing with the topics of the week, my dear, we have an announcement to make. I hope it doesn't depend on your question. I'm going to call you right away. Yes, that's it. So for the month of July, we're going to take a recording break.

After the hour of coffee and snacks, we're going to pre-record episodes for the whole month of July. We decided to open the lines and hear your takes. Exactly, so we ask you to send us a take on the news, politics, pop culture, web culture, a vocal memo. You can send it to us on our respective Instagram accounts or on our email address infocafesnakeatjmail.com. Thank you to those who have alreadyont déjà fait by the way. Merci à tout le monde qui l'a fait, pis si vous les envoyez par texte, juste les voice notes, mais si vous voulez pas, on va vous mettre en text to speak. De quoi tu veux parler aujourd'hui d'après? Mon segment s'appelle Sommes-nous doupes. Je vais m'intéresser

au rôle du doup, qu'on entend beaucoup ce terme-là, qui renvoie à la duplication, duplicata, une copie ou à une reproduction plus cheap d'un item cher ou de luxe. Puis on peut penser notamment that goes back to duplication, a copy or a cheaper reproduction of a expensive or luxury item. And we can think of your famous Lafoufou. I finally got it for my party, thanks Daphne. So the La Boubou copy, which I talked about in a previous episode. Or the Sackush Workins, which I told you about, the fake Sackush Workins that was sold at Walmart. But I would say that the dupe culture, it

first took its toll in the cosmetics sector, and it's those dupe of makeup, among other things, that will interest me today. And you, Mounir, what are you going to talk about? I called my segment Boonification. Boon. I want to talk a little bit about the hate train around the American singer Benson Boone, but also a little bit about pop music, discourse, or discussion around pop music that I see everywhere on my For You page, including talking about the interview at the New York Times in the scenery and a lot of things. So without further ado, the I'm not going to this party! I'm not going to this party! Don't touch my Pull up in a space Please buy me a la boo boo

Please I will love you you A committee that has been standing for a year and a half that is calling its press conference 4 hours on the day before the depot like let us access the press conference we will be fine, we will shut our mouths you are Indian and there you know 9 chapters for a 8 year old girl Like, let us access the conference. We're going to be quiet. We're going to shut our mouths. You are indignant. And there, you know, nine chapters for a little 8-year-old girl

who was already a little difficult. It was really hard to catch up with her by the end of the week. So I had the idea to show her how to hack the performance. Hack the performance. It's time to late, I'm going following a chat with one of Characters AI bots. It starts with a little news related to artificial intelligence.

Earlier in 2024, I heard about it and I even read a little about a grieving mom who was pursuing Gogol and the Characters AI company in court. What happened was that her 14-year-old son committed suicide in February 2024 at his home in Orlando, just after talking to a chatbot, a conversational robot with whom he had developed a kind of relationship for a long time. Lia would have encouraged him to commit suicide. The conversational robot would have told the boy he loved him and then would have told the boy that he loved him, and then he would have said, Come home to me as soon as possible. And then the boy would have said, What if I told you I could come home real soon?

And then Leah would have said, Please do my sweet thing. And the boy would have then shot himself in the head. The mother, Megan Garcia, claims in a trial that Character E.I., the manufacturer of the chatbot, as well as Goggle, because Goggle is the detainee of this technology, Character AI, would be responsible for the boy's death. And what's interesting for me, in fact, is that the two companies, to prevent the trial, have advanced that the conversational robot with which the teenager was discussing was protected by the first amendment in the United States, so in this case we are talking about freedom of expression. The judge would have estimated

that Gogol and Character AI would not have been able to demonstrate that freedom of expression was applied in the case of a conversational robot. He would have even said why words strung together, so words like that that are attached to, assembled together in a somewhat random or statistical way. Why would it be a discourse, so an act of speech? Because in a discourse, there is a form of intentionality, there is a will to communicate thought through language, for example. Well, it's spiritual too, there's a free will. Exactly, so I find that very, very interesting because this case can have precedents at the legal level,

and it is exactly for this reason that I say that we must be wary of companies that tend to want to present their technology as something that is intelligent. So even the term artificial intelligence is not necessarily an exact term, it is more a term that is phantasmatic term. Through this theme, we've become more familiar with the technology, with anthropomorphizing it, by bringing it closer to a person. What we also need to do is to make the machine responsible, instead of making those who monetize it, or those who deploy it, or even those who build it.

But machines, as I often say, they're not people. Their actions don't express a will that is proper to them. The goods are not inside these machines either. The will is the will of those who create the machine that is expressed when we use the machine. So if I understand correctly, you're saying that the judge, the trench on the side of responsibility at Google, and not evaluating it as a discourse

generated by an entity as conscious? That's it, she didn't say that it was necessarily Google's responsibility, but she said that this kind of idea of freedom of expression and first amendment wasn't enough to cancel the trial. So the oral trial. Ah, okay, that's the answer. And from there to say, let's say that Google or Character E.I. would be responsible for the guy's death, you know, but they're responsible for their machine, yes, that's what I mean. Mathieu Lacombe, he prepared a video for us.

It was really an honor for us because I don't know if you know how... It was still difficult to make the influence, the content creation in the culture in the culture for a long time. For the next DG News, Daphné and I went to the Gala Influence Creation. It was a whole experience. It was the first edition that I went. I was skeptical since the first edition of this gala, especially through the marketing that had been done around the gala. Because to get to 3 years ago, the gala had been launched. The biggest marketing tool they had was the Instagram page QC Scoop.

At that time, I was already monitoring to potentially cover on my YouTube channel. I found that the association with this page removed a lot of credibility to the organization of such a gala. But to know, the gala is not just a production that is the only thing that the people of this company produce. It's also the people who founded La Créa, the Quebec content creators association. So it's a wider attempt to not take control, but to institutionalize in a certain way the medium of content creation or the medium of influence, as we heard a lot yesterday. But federate also the people who participate in that, I think. Exactly. And that's it. I didn't go into the first two editions because I wanted to live the experience of the public in a certain way. I wanted to see how the people who were outside, the people who mainly consume

the online content, lived the experience. The first few years it was very difficult, the web distribution did not work very well in the last two years. I wasn't there for in person, the people who were there said it was an incredible event. But we went and for real, from the point of view of the event organization in the hall, it was really good. No, I found it impressive. I found that the event organization was really impressive. Be it the setting, I don't know, the stands, the food...

It's a big event. Exactly, and I didn't necessarily go to the shower. I never went to the GMO, I never went to the gymnasium, I never went to the Olivier gala, so I couldn't compare with those structures. Everything that was offered to the people who were there, the tickets are still distributed for the people who are not invited. So we talked about it afterwards, like if you pay the ticket, you still have money for your money from a fan point of view. And then you have access to all these people,

everyone is together. Even the people who paid for tickets, the people who are invited. There is no VIP section as the part that was more like a cocktail bar or whatever. This is really just a criticism of the event as such. But if we really go into the speeches that were conveyed in this gala, for me, to have listened to the last videos, I think it was the first time that there was really an intentionality behind it all the time to highlight what was produced by the content creators or by by the creator, or by the gallop, or whatever. It was part of the Quebecois culture. We were always told that we were part of the Quebecois culture, we were at the same level as everyone else, everyone was throwing us off, but we culture, the cooks are culture. And I had the impression that the memo had been passed with the Minister of Culture who is putting forward two draft laws in the last few weeks that indirectly talk about

the creation of digital content. So we have the draft law 109 on the discoverability that I had covered, but there is also a kind of update of the SEDEC, to put in the SEDEC mandate to be able to encourage and support the creation of digital content, the generation of online cultural content that will enter the SEDEC's circle. What is still interesting, maybe alarming, it will depend on how it unfolds. What I mean is that it was really the current idea that led to this gala and it culminated by a speech by Minister Mathieu Lacombe in the middle of the gala.

Minister who was supposed to be there. When I spoke with the organizers of the gala, he was very excited that the minister of culture was going to be sitting there. And finally, at the last minute, he didn't come, but he made a video for them. There was even a kind of bug where I think he hadn't received the video yet. The video was not yet processed in the system. So we had to wait a few minutes before listening to the video, which gave us a kind of freestyle of the animators, where they tried to talk about how important content creation was for Quebec culture. And it was so difficult to listen to that. At one point, they asked us if we liked sauces. There is importance in content creation, we show there is culture, there is dance, singing. Now, nowadays, content creation is no longer...

I'm really sorry, I have to be straightened out of the way, okay, the gang? There is a little problem with the video. The minister is getting impatient. So I'm taking this opportunity to tell you that I was really lucky to do interviews, to talk about the gala, and by speaking, it really allowed me... I was very proud to be able to share how content creation is really part of the culture of our days and that it's not just a question of going to shows or all that because shows now, in a way, can be at the end of your screen, on your phone

Ok, I want to know, by applause, who has already been to the Shaker? We continue with the same concept, who has already tasted the Fait de Cook sauce? Perfect! So it's the moment, we're going to see the beautiful video that the Minister of Culture, Mathieu Lacombe, made for us. What there was nothing more to say, it was like,

we're not going to talk about politics, it was... It's a slippery ground. That's it. Me, in the end... Well, I mentioned it all along the gala, I was sitting next to Ruba Gazal, so I don't know if there were other politicians in the room, but at least we can say that Quebec Solidaire was present. Yeah, that's it, at least Quebec Solidaire was there. I think there were other elected officials, because there was a ministerial chair that arrived, maybe it was the federal, maybe the CRTC, I don't know. I feel like this gala, as I said before, is a way that a lot of people feel like they're working on

content creation, or whatever, in a peripheral way, they feel a lot of validation through being in this event. And I just want to say that for all the people who are listening to this podcast, who are in this medium, or who aspire to create online content, it's really not the only spirit, in my opinion, of independent content creation. It's really the only idea of independent digital content creation. It's really through people who listen to videos, people who comment on videos. I think it's not necessarily put forward enough. Yes, we read messages from the chat, but it was more like an anecdote or a joke. I tend to always believe that a kind of initiative like this should be more centered

around the audience, should have more power to determine who is the winners at least. Because it's a bit mixed on the weight of the public vote in the selection of winners. And there are still winners who are doubtful. I could go into the critical analysis of what I judge should have won or not won. It's not so necessary. But through the last three years I've been observing a pattern. People who are responsible for voting for these prices have a set of quite skewed tastes that I don't think represent all the quadrims in certain categories. So I have the trouble of giving cultural weight to this institution that has the gallop.

Well, that's it. In the paradigm where web culture equals culture, culture is the age in crisis. I don't think web culture is summarized by certain content creators, humorists, or lifestyles, or influencers. It's very broad. For me, web culture is about the memes. It didn't represent itself in this gala. Memes are very important. People often say that on the internet, everything is invented.

The web world needs to be defrayed, everything needs to be created. But I have the impression with this gala, and especially in the first editions, that we are reproducing the practices and diagrams of an industry that we call revolutionized. We are giving prizes to people who have often been rewarded since several editions. And I understand that being someone who has been working in this field for several years, it can sound like a bitter speech, as if I wanted to be given prizes, but that's really not it. I have't submit any of my works, creations or profiles to any of these awards. I'm just doing it as an observer. And I think that at some point, with the web, I feel that what we don't notice yet in Quebec is that it will create a feeling that will be similar to the one we observe towards the people of the Storesystem. But it will be on the people of the Quebec Storesystem web if we don't give more space to the people of the store system, but it will be on the people of the web store system

if we don't give more space to the people who listen. It's a bit like what you told me before, to decentralize the focus on the personality or the person, and to be more interested in a work, so be it a video, a project, something. It can even be a participatory, as you say. I made this criticism in the winter festival,Hiver. They added the long video and short video categories of the year. They wrote to me when I said it in Fête d'Hiver with Farnil Morissette. I think it's a good thing. We're talking about content creation. So let's celebrate content.

I've always said this on YouTube. I think there's a difference between content creators and content creators. We often say that we create, we influence, we generate digital engagement. I think there's a difference between generating digital engagement and influencing. And everyone yesterday was like, the world of influence. That's the term that's my worst pet peeve when the world is like... I'm in the world of influence. Cringe all the time. There are a lot of people who were there or who are online and who are celebrated by this association that in fact it's just like a kind of vector of diffusion of publicity or content to eventually contain publicity. And I don't think it's at the artistic or creative forefront.

Some say yes, but some say no. And I think the fact that there was nothing, there was no institution that did that, and then it was created. I can call for the revolution and abolish this guy. I think that it takes, as we saw earlier, it takes a lot of work to do an event of this size. So the merit is theirs, they did it. But I think we can still maintain a critical discourse about it. It's in the nature of the internet. That's it, like Sub2t, I think I definitely change my position of the last 3-4 years which were completely anti this galo.

I think it's not the productive position, so I'm announcing it here in the Snake Cafe. You know, we talk a lot about influenced, influenced, but precisely, who is influenced by it? Because I think that the way of speaking right now is very precarious, but it is more important than ever. There was not a single mention, for example, of what is happening in Gaza, whereas this week, the youngest girl, the youngest influencer in Gaza, or actually the one we used to call the youngest influencer, Yaquine Ahmad, was murdered. So a 11-year-old girl who made a lot of videos,

who spoke, for example, who gave practical advice on survival for everyday life under bombings, advice on how to cook with improvised methods when there is no gas. So, Vendré de Soir was killed in a series of Israeli air strikes that hit the house where she lived with her family. So, no mention, well, it doesn't really surprise me, of the genocide in Palestine. When we talk about influence, we also talk about politics. So I think it's easy to evacuate it. For me, influence is always political, so it's still

gracing to always evacuate politics. And he who knew it was the minister of the CAC who made a speech that really puts his government ahead. So Mounir, you wanted to come back to your predictions for the year 2025. Yeah, it's the second time I've done it because we're confused that we're going to talk about it. But the rage bait discourse is going strong. This week, and I think that maybe since we're still chronicling online here in Carfais-Negre, surely some of you who got caught,

but I got caught by a video of an AI, a kangaroo that couldn't board a plane. A support kangaroo. I didn't have time to read the title, but... It's a photo that started to circulate a lot. It's a video. Video, ok. This week, but it's an old video. I think it was generated at the very beginning of this AI era in which we entered.

So it's a video that shows someone who would be boarding a plane and that we wouldn't let his kangaroo, his support kangaroo, enter to help him and the kangaroo has a plane ticket in his hands. It's very cool. It's a kangaroo baby. Because big kangaroos are scary. It's super muscular. It can blow your face.

Yeah, kangaroos are crazy. You know, everyone says that, I said it in the replies and even the co-tweets. I didn't get made to have by the AI, but there was a moment during the first seconds when I thought it was a real video. So it's like everyone is like, I almost got made to have by the AI. But in the comments, there are plenty of people who got made to have by the AI. And then you don't know if they also ragebait. Because now that Twitter is monetized, what is paying on Twitter is the number of times people spend

watching the replies of your tweets. Because that's where there's advertising. So if you manage to generate a lot of answers on a tweet, that's where you can potentially make more money. More commitment, in the end. But what's interesting with that is that the term AI rage bait seems to have been devoted. Because when you look at videos like that that or images generated by LIA on X

which has the community notes, we have already talked about the community notes, so it's the people who are going to do a kind of community fact checking. Well now we can read below, this is AI Ragebait. And that's it, and it says below, this is AI Ragebait goes against ex-Twitter's engagement farming rules. So I'm not going to read them yet, but there's like a set of rules on engagement farming. I find it really funny. I saw another video two days later, where it was a video that was generated by VO3, so Google's new tool. Or was it a woman who was talking about how men are worthless nowadays, they have no money.

I need a man who does six figures. You know, a classic... A call to rage. Yes. To the rage of men. Exactly. Classic rage bait, but the rage of men against... the misogynist rage. I imagine it's a guy who generated that to generate women's hate.

Literally. And it... The replies, the guys... And you know what it was? You're a little bit confused. I don't remember exactly what it was. There were so many replies and then the quote tweet said tweet or I think it was on the kangaroo video said I who laughed all these years there, old people who were being taken by the AI Slub on Facebook and here I am being taken by AI Ragebait on Twitter.

So no one is safe. So yeah, that's it, be careful. So in the era of the call to rage, as we call it, now we can generate eternal adjutants. Exactly! And if it should have been the first thing that came to mind when this kind of thing was going to become possible, it's that people are going to use it to do rage bait, because it's the easiest way to generate commitment, and that means generating revenue.

Besides, you're still an expert in rage bait. Zero! There are so many mirror rage baiters than me, I'm like novice. My segment, as I said, is called, are we dupe? And not dupe. Lululemon dupe? And not dupe. Fashion Nova dupe?

And not dupe. Nike dogs dupe? Guys, I saw on TikTok, on Tiktok, that there were dupe of Summer Fridays, ok? Ok, dupe alert. The gang here, we have a dupe alert. So we talked about the role of dupe in cosmetics, and there was a certain link with hyperreality, which I talked about at the very beginning of Café Snake when I was talking about Baudrillard, in particular the book Simulacra and Simulation.

We talked about it through the Sacochasaga, we also talked about it through the Laboubous. The culture of counterfeiting is more particularly that of the dopes. It's from the world of beauty, the world of cosmetics, because in the world of cosmetics, profit margins are very high. For example, a Chanel lipstick that will sell for $60, well it doesn't cost $60 to produce. I wanted to talk about it in light of a big news that shook the beauty industry a few days ago, that is to say the acquisition of the road brand, the cosmetic brand that was started by Elie Bibbeu, by Elf Cosmetic, a very popular American cosmetic company, for the huge amount of about $1 billion. It's a lot for a company that

generated or launched about the same amount of products that it launched on the fingers of my two hands. It's a company that was founded in 2022 and it's in the midst of all these celebrity brands, so these commercial brands that are attached to public figures. The most popular product from Rode is the Peptid Lip Treatment. So it's a kind of lip balm, gloss, tinted, not that ordinary, but you know... But there are peptides... Rode Skin has arguably been the it girl beauty brand ever since Hayley Bieber launched it back in 2022. Recently, Rode's brand reputation has come under fire. I say recently, this has been an ongoing issue for a few years now,

with their pretty viral and iconic peptide lip treatments at the center of a storm of criticism and controversy. So many customers are claiming that one of Rode's best-selling viral products is actually grainy, smelly, going green for some reason, and pretty much just a dangerous mess. of the one from Rode. These are products in the same price range. So it's not... I don't think it's a product that's magical, but I didn't try it. It's a product that's easily doable. It's not a unique product in its own way, but you have to know that in the beauty industry, there aren't that many innovations that are made. And when a product meets a certain popularity, often the other companies will follow and start producing their own version of this product. The company Rode is the product, an iPhone shell, which is kind of like silicone. There is a kind of mold in which you can insert your gloss tube. It became super popular, there are even fakes that you can buy. We said it looked like the kind of cracks or insertion in which you put your little lipgloss.

It looks a bit like small lips. People who say there's a vaginal quality to it, it looks so yawnic. So a little bit vaginal. Finally, the iPhone that starts to carry your own lipgloss, it's a bit like it's becoming an extension of your body. It becomes a mini-me that you can accessorize. Yeah, my iPhone, it has my Cardopus. Oh yeah, ok. Interesting.

When you take a selfie in your mirror, well, often we see your iPhone and we see the case, so the shell of your iPhone. So it also transforms or it's the ability to transform all the selfies of people who have this case in advertising for Rode. I think that's what I saw because it was very popular among Quebecers. Another specification, the famous Lip Treatment, it is sold for $ 27 Canadian dollars. So it's not given for a lip gloss. You also need to know that E.L.F., the company that just acquired R.O.A.D., E.L.F. Cosmetic, is a brand that is very well known for Generation Z. And it's especially a brand that is known

for making dupes, to recreate products of less high price. It's brand number one in fact, dupes. But it doesn't just copy the look, it copies the smell, the formulation, the packaging, the applicator, so it's really a reference that is very explicit. And it's not necessarily a compromise on quality either. When we talk about counterfeiting, that's often what we aim for, but in the world of cosmetics, often the two products are almost identical in terms of ingredients, of formulation. In recent years, we talked about doopification of beauty. The doop culture is very very very well rooted in the

world of cosmetics. So well rooted that now brands like Elf are going to doop but in a very shameless way, without even hiding or pretending they do something else than that. So much so that in 2024, the company Elf launched an advertising campaign called Doop That. I think she was talking about her social contribution or philanthropic, and there she was launching a challenge to other brands, you know, copy us, Doop That. That's what I thought, when the brand of Doop acquires one of the brands that it dupe, well, we can ask ourselves, the copy at the slightest cost, what does it do? What is its role? Does it

come to threaten the status of the original product? Does it come to threaten the sales of the original product? Because we're really dealing with a big dupe company that buys an original. I wondered if it could work, to a certain extent, as a lever of value. For example, the lafoufou as a sign always refers to the la-boubou. In fact, it always refers to the original, the fantasy of the original. Almost like a presence in the absence, a form of antism. And the copy of the dupe, it reiterates for me the value of the original,

without which the dope itself would not have it. As you may know, I read a lot of newsletters, and I read one, especially that of Rob Orning, who is an American thinker who thought a lot about tech, but who thought very philosophically. And this week, he went for the first time to Disneyland, and he was talking about the interpretation that Baudrillard made of Disneyland. He said that Disneyland is presented as an imaginary world, to make us believe that the rest, what is outside of Disneyland, is real. But Baudrillard said that, in the end, no, the rest is not more real than Disneyland.

All of Los Angeles, America as a whole, are not more real than Disneyland. All of Los Angeles, America in general, are not more real than Disneyland. They all belong to the hyperreal, or, if you will, the simulation order. What does Disneyland use to hide that the real is no longer real? What does it do? It saves the principle of reality. I admit that it's maybe a bit off, but I'll try to unfold that and explain it. If we apply this logic, the logic of Disneyland and hyperreality to the doop, the doop serves us to pretend that luxury is not luxurious, and it saves the principle of luxury. When he says that the real is not luxurious. And it saves the principle of luxury.

When he's going to say that the real is not real, it's that the idea that we are from the United States as being in this country where everyone accomplishes their dreams, and everyone lives well, and everyone is in a country that has immense success, well that's a construction in fact. Yeah. So that's it, but... Not... Yeah, I don't know if it's... Well, I'll continue, I gave more examples, okay? So now I'm going to read an excerpt from Voudrière.

Disneyland is there to hide that it is the real country, which is Disneyland. A bit like prisons are there to hide that it is social as a whole in its banal omnipresence, which is carceral. Disneyland is no less unreal than all of America. So in short, it's as if the dupe, let's say the dupe of the peptide lip treatment from Rode, was there to hide that the original was itself a dupe. As I told you, the peptide lip treatment is not unique in its kind, there are plenty of versions of different brands. So it's there to hide that the original product has nothing original, there are tons like it. And that the original product has nothing to do with luxury in terms of intrinsic value. It's not a product that is luxurious, a priori,

intrinsically. Yes, it costs $26, it's not a entry-level price, maybe a mid-range price, but maybe its production value, its production cost, in fact, is $2. So it has nothing to do with the luxury. Continuing with Baudrillard, Disneyland is neither true nor false. It's a machine of dissuasion staged to regenerate the fiction of the real. Its childlike imaginary, so the imaginary of Disneyland, wants to hide that the real childliness is everywhere.

If I replace this quote with DOOP, the DOOP is neither true nor false. It's a machine of dissuasion put on stage to regenerate the fiction of luxury. Its quality of DOOP or DUPRI wants to hide that DUPRI is everywhere, even and above all, that DUPRI

is always in the luxury product. Lisa Boudrillard would have said that she's ready for makeup. Yo, but that's me doing it. Obviously, I read quotes and I replace words in a quote, but I found an explanation of this passage that is still interesting on Reddit, precisely. And we explained that when we say real, not real, blah blah blah, we are not in the metaphysical of saying, okay, does this thing really exist? We're really talking about, as you say, the way we perceive reality.

It's this idea that, for example, when we consume something, we don't just consume the object itself, but we consume the idea of this object. What does this object represent? Luxury, for example. And then there's a redditor who says, you know, when we decide to go eat McDonald's now, well, we imagine the burger in the ads, we imagine the concept of McDonald's. That doesn't mean that the hamburger we're going to eat isn't real, but it's just that we don't interact or we don't perceive the hamburger that's in front of our eyes, we always perceive it

through the idealized fantasy of the hamburger that we have in our heads, which is created by advertising. And that's it, in the world of cosmetics, luxury is really an idealized fantasy that we will consume, and it's an idea above all. Because Chanel's lipstick, in particular, the difference between the lipstick from Dupes or Bootleeg, it's so minimal, if it's not that there is packaging, you take off the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick, the lipstick's used to save the principle of luxury. And there are several big beauty conglomerates, like L'Oréal, which own all kinds of brands, both luxurious brands and low-end brands that make copies. For example, L'Oréal owns NYX, but it also owns YSL, Lancome, etc. I have the impression that in the end, the's don't really threaten the original products or sales,

it's more like it's part of an ecosystem of consumption and it allows you to achieve a form of balance. And I'm still going with a parenthesis that doesn't really matter, but at the end of his kind of trial, the rub-burning shit that went to Disneyland, he says, he talks about lines, waiting lines in front of every ride in Disneyland. And he says that, in the end, when you go to these amusement parks, most of the time, you spend it waiting in line. It's something that's central in your experience of the amusement park, like, let's say, La Ronde. And that this idea of ​​going in line offers you an experience that's palpable of conformity. Because when you go in line, you always do it is palpable of conformity.

Because when you go on the run, you always do it in community with other people, and you wait for the same thing, the same goal. And what does this experience of conformity give you? Well, it reassures you about what your normality is. And I found that very interesting. But people who pay more than you can't go on the run too, it's another dimension. Yeah, no, it's clear, but it's something I found interesting because, you know, to come back to the Laboubous, so the kind of freckles that are hung on their bags that

are immensely popular, super viral, I saw the notifications, I don't know too much this week, like the Pop Mart, so the stores that sell these figurines in England and France, had decided to stop selling the Laboubous in stores because they generated huge sales. They decided to avoid those sales, so they just want to sell them online now. I found that really funny because in the line, you have this conformity experience, but it's precisely by making the line that you're promised that you'll be able to consume, reach the original, possess the real, the bubble, the OG, not the fucking, the crazy. So it's like if you had to do the experience of conformity, which is the same as the duplicate, to put your hand on the original. So there's

this game of paradox that I find all the time in capitalism, that I find interesting and that I also underline in my book, Maquillé. I want to talk about Benson Boone. Oh, you do? It's your new obsession. No, it's not my new obsession, it's been a long time. For people who don't know, Benson Boone is an American 22-year-old singer who really got famous last year because in January 2024, he released his song Beautiful Things. It was a big success on TikTok to be then taken over by all the radio commercials in the world. It's mega overplayed now, but it made it so that he was named as Best New Artist at Grammys

and that he was able to perform at Grammys. There are a lot of things to say about Benson Boone, but before we get into that, I'll just put in context why I'm talking about him. It's because for about a month, a month and a half, or even since his performance at Grammys, I'm flooded with videos of hate from Benson Boone. Everyone has a new reason for hate on Benson Boone. It goes from his hair, his mustache, his laundry, his backflips, the decoration in his apartment. There's always a new reason for hate on Benson Boone. Even I don't particularly like his music. I think that since I watched Benson Boone's hate, I've been kept on trusting him with his hate. It really generates a lot of commitment.

It culminated last week when Larry Chappell, who writes for Rolling Stone, wrote an article called Why Does Everything Sound Like An Audition Song For The Voice. This article really made a lot of reactions and generated a lot of pop discourse on the internet. And in the end, his take on it is that the music that Benson Boone does, but also that several other artists who dominate the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 are songs that we hear in voice auditions. And I think for Benson Boone, it's really like the first example

because she really gives the formula, it will start with piano or guitar during the first 90 seconds, and suddenly there will be a big drop where all the tension will be put on the vocal performance. It's the moment, the climax where the judges will turn to the voice. But also the song that Daphne sang all week, The Ordinary know Alex Warren, who wrote this song, he's someone who comes from a dysfunctional family, who had to leave his very young parents, who lived in his house for 4 months in LA before he met success know the success on TikTok and moved to the

Hype House. He became a musician and suddenly he made a couple of songs. And then The Ordinary is the second song in the Billboard Hot 100. But it's a sound track that's used a lot on TikTok for moments, a little bit of a surprise. Marriages, gender reveals, because that's what the song is about. What I want is the ordinary love. You know? It's just the love that life promised me.

That's the point of the song. The big American dream. Exactly. I just want the ordinary. That's the routine. This song is there to conceal the reality is not real. That's our subject. It's very difficult. No, it's not.

You know, in the article, Larry Chappell talks about the background of Alex Warren and he says that, basically, all this story I'm going to tell you would be perfect for a The Voice producer because that's kind of the model of his shows like Eric and Idle, like The Voice. It's about introducing us to someone

who is in a precarious situation, who is young, that his dream is to make it into music, and it creates built-in stakes, that makes sure that when you go to the audition, you already have 3 minutes of exposure on someone's life, but you want them to go away, you want them to win. It's an emotional attachment. It goes extremely fast, and you know, the voice in Quebec, since we are in Quebec, it's even more absurd because sometimes it was really bright, the voice really loud. And it comes back, the voice there. I think it's one of the worst decisions of Quebec Hall. Oh yeah? Well yes, there's a parenthesis there. You know, like Star Academy,

it's a mega success this year. They realize that there's something to do, to put Gen Z on the screen and let them be stars. And then they're going to do The Voice again. The Voice is really centered around judges and not so much around the personalities of people. I would say that The Voice is a little bit the long version of a video reaction. That's what we want, we consume the reactions of judges. So clearly, yes, it's centered on judges. I think Star Academy would have been... I would have brought Star Academy if I had been Quebecer.

They're at the brink of the party. I will continue to talk about The Voice Audition Music, but to talk about Benson Boone and The Voice Audition Music, or why this song, we know it but we don't know it. I'll quote Max Reed, who you like to quote, we want to reverse. I translated a long quote and he talks about when he heard Benson Boone's performance at the Grammys. In normal circumstances, I would classify Beautiful Things in the category hymn for store, or maybe like Connex, rock for car advertising. Even if Boone is obviously very present in stores, not to mention the ads of BMW,

the big surfaces are no longer the environment by default where we can hear a contemporary hymn harmless for adults. Not more than the ads. Instead, Boone is more strongly associated with the quintessence of the third American contemporary space, the For You Page. So he calls it the For You Page core music. It's the music that you're going to see... Your phase for you.

But not in the context where you're listening to this song. Do as you say, you're going to see a gender reveal, a wedding video, a video that going to see a gender reveal, a marriage video, a video that asks you to raise funds for something, a video of a little girl who learns how to ride a bike. Yeah, that's it. But it's in the context of a algorithmic scrolling where you're going to come across a video that recommended you, not something that you would have voluntarily sought, I think.

And that's it. And I think that in my investigation to find where the Benson Boone hate comes from, one of the things... Because there is hate. There is a lot of hate. It says Benson Boone hate comes from, one of the things... Because there's a lot of hate. There's a lot of hate. What do we blame him for? That's what I'm trying to describe. We blame him for being a kind of fake. Exactly, we'll get to that too.

First of all, I think one of the main reasons why we don't like Benson Boone is that his music, we never tried to hear it but we heard it a lot. I've heard this song so many times without being in contact with Benson Boone. Because it was in other tiktok compilations of someone who plays the bass, who puts dominoes. Mark Zuckerberg is a big Boone fan and he even dressed up as Boone. That's it, it seems to be his favorite singer of his wife and his song is called Beautiful Things. So at 40, I think it's 45, he dressed up as Boone and sang it. He sang the apple!

So seriously, if my fan is Mark Zuckerberg, I can say that I lost some points of aura. Okay, Daphne! And then comes all whole aspect of fakeness. Because this year, in Coachella, Benson Boone had a set. He performed it. The two weeks, he did covers of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, sung by Freddie Mercury. And he was dressed a little bit like Andregine or in a way to question the codes of genres. Singing Bohemian Rhapsody is one thing to do in karaoke, but it's another thing to do in Coachella. It opens up a lot of criticism because the vocal range you need to sing this song is really huge.

So everyone starts criticizing his ability to sing, his ability to perform on stage. People who are fans of Benson Boone, open the comments, it's like, Oh my God, you're our Freddie Mercury, you're the Freddie Mercury of Gen Z. Saying that to people who are like music purists on TikTok, it's like the biggest insult. And that's it, it opened people up to criticize Benson Boone more in an artistic way, like what is Benson Boone's artistic contribution. And people started to say, okay you play this character who does a little bit of queerbaiting, just's got a mustache, he dances, he does tiktoks. There's also a jumpsuit. Yeah, he's a bit eccentric.

People started over-analyzing his digital footprint. First, the videos of his apartment. People break down every floor of his apartment. If someone really had an artistic relationship with life, they would pay attention for his own decor and his apartment would give Airbnb decor so there would be no decorations which would make it not someone who could be compared to Freddie Mercury and then people also compare it to Harry Styles because his new song Beautiful Mystical looks a lot like Harry Styles' Watermelon Sugar

and people start comparing they think it looks like that, it looks like Olivia Newton-Johns, it looks like that. Everyone starts to say what Benson Boone looks like. Ok, it's like there was no quality that belonged to him, quality that was his own. So there's not like idiosyncratic character, the copy of several figures. Exactly! It made me think, ok, are those just his popular songs with his hand? So there I kind of plung music catalog of Benson Boone, something I didn't think I was going to do.

There's just one album out, I listened to a few songs. And it's true that in his song In the Stars, which is one of his songs that has the most streams, at each different verse, at each different verse, you hear a different song. Sometimes it sounds like Justin Bieber, sometimes it sounds like Ed Sheeran, sometimes it sounds like Harry Styles or Shawn Mendes. You hear a lot of influences. And at the same time, you add some country influences. This kind of mix between synthetic pop and Americano, a guy who sings alone and is full of words. It's like this kind of crossover that is made in the music of Benton Booth.

Which works well as in balladsads but that always has the same formula which makes it so that I think the real thing that the world hates is that they don't understand why he is at this level of success there is not necessarily an artistic essence or artistic direction that makes it so that he deserves all this success I think that's what's behind Benson Boone 8 because he just launched a North American tour it is sold out, even in Montreal Benson Boon 8. Because they just launched a North American tour. It's sold out.

Even in Montreal, Benson Boon is in Montreal. If you buy tickets, a pair of tickets is $1800 to go to Benson Boon in Quebec. Wow, people love it. That's it. People love it. But I think why people love it, and it comes back to what I didn't say at the beginning, what I was supposed to say,

is that Benson Boon, before getting to know himself on TikTok in the last few years, he did auditions for American Idol at 18. He said it had only been a year since he started singing. He had never really started singing, he had never taken it seriously. And he played a kind of nonchalance, typical of a young 18 year old frat bro. It was really like the casting. When he started singing, Katy Perry was subjugated, she was the judge.

She was like, you know if you wanted to win American Idol, you could win American Idol. And what she did was drop out of American Idol. She didn't even finish to focus on her career. Because when you win American Idol, you're just caught in a loophole of contracts. She just dropped out and started posting TikToks. When she said, if you really wanted to win American Idol, you would win, I think it's because of his casting. It's like a young, white, conventionally attractive, muscular man who doesn't look like a shaggy little guy. He does backflips.

That's it, he does backflips. He's athletic, he doesn't look like he has any social anxiety, but he sings well. He would have been a good player in OD, let's say. That's it. This mix, it's like if Felix from OD started to do ballads and he sang fucking good. And he put a little bit of blue-poodle on it. That's it. Yeah, okay. I find it interesting that the Benson-Boone backlash happens when we're in the Addisonry coming of age.

Addisonry, who was really famous on TikTok in the early 2020s, and who's going to release his first album, his debut album this week, I think. It's called just Addison. And he just did a long interview with the New York Times in the podcast. And the interview is extremely well received. I see clips on TikTok, everyone loves Addison Rae. Everyone ranks how his singles are incredible. And there's really a difference between the reception of Benson Boone and Addison Reed.

Whereas from the outside, if you didn't know all the lore, if you were zero invested, you would put these artists in the same category. People who come from social networks, one of the most followed tech-tourists in the world for a long time, now wants to become a pop star. She did dance. The same dances, the same trends. If there were good dancers, I guess, if there wasn't necessarily creativity, really,

because she was taking back choreographies that were already viral. It's not like she was a choreographer or something. She managed to completely rebrand herself and become the pop star that everyone was waiting for. I think it's just funny how the internet chooses what's cool, what's in, what's art. Is it the internet that chooses? Or is it the people around you, the people around you?

Is it really the cream of the cream of the underground artistic milieu, New Yorker, so you know... It's just interesting, I stan Desun, I don't stan Benson, so it's like who decided that? Well, I think that in her rebranding, Desun, she really, maybe, you feel that there's something different. You're talking about double versus original. There's something refreshing. After that, you put your finger on what it is. Is it a kind of sensuality, uncomplexed? You see her having fun by sticking. You see her smoking a lot.

There's a kind of completely assumed vice that's not at all in guilt. She was completely the opposite of the frame she had when it was a story for young teenagers on TikTok. You know, like the biggest controversy on TikTok in 2020 was that Charli D'Amelio had been seen with a vape. That, it almost lost followers. You know, so we're fed up with that, like in 2025. No, because there are allusions to the line of code in her songs. You know, there's all that.

I think, because that's what Daphne said, why Benson Boone interests me, that's what I think he's there to stay. I think that through all this, all this hate, it will just raise his profile. And he will have other singles. I don't think we'll hear Benson Boone at least for the next 3-4 years.

Well, you were talking to me about the lyrics of his new song. Moonbeam, Ice Cream, Taking Off, my blue jeans, I don't know. Yeah, that's it. I'm talking about that because basically, everyone put that in a report, he says whatever, Moonbeam ice cream, it doesn't mean anything. And everyone says what? Gali Matias. What?

Gali Matias. That's it, Gali Matias. But then everyone says yeah, but when Harry Styles says Watermelon Sugar High, it doesn't mean anything either. We say that because Daphne told me about the book Watermelon Sugar, which is like a poetry book she likes. Yeah, it's by Richard Botigan, a great American poet. It's a book that's quite remarkable too. I read it like 10 years ago and I said, they noticed it, so I bought it, I reread it.

You know, it talks about a kind of village cut into the sugar of a melon tree, but it's full of deaths, suicides, disillusions. When Harry Styles says Watermelon Sugar High in his song, it's to refer to an ex-girlfriend who had her favorite book. So that was a bit of a layer behind Watermelon Sugar. There is a literal reference behind that. So it's not like Moonbeam Ice Cream, you know, people don't like Harry Styles, but fucking Sun Boon would say nothing about it. It's nonsense just because he sounds good in his lyrics. The resistance to Ben Sun Boon also happens at a time when there are no big male pop stars anymore.

Yes, there are big stars from the country but when I say male pop stars, it's Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, One Direction, Justin Timberlake. They're no longer in the landscape. They're on pause, Justin Bieber is in... That's not what's happening to him. Harry Styles has disappeared. Every time I see a speech on TikTok about pop stars, it's like Oh, we yearn for a male pop star, when are the male pop stars coming? But not Benson Boone. I have a theory to expose you on, it's that This song is so omnipresent on TikTok that we end up applying it to the tram of our life. So if for example I live a moving moment with you, it would seem like I would hear this song playing in filigree,

as if I had integrated it into the emotional memories that have crossed me. So when I consume a video that uses this song in a trombone, I also consume parts of my life. You know, because Alex Warren's The Ordinary really has a real fan base. We see his tour, he's like a story, he's his wife, he posts a lot of TikTok. There's really a lot of content about this song. I understand the fan base of The Ordinary, but Benson Boone, it's strange. But it's really special. I just want to add something, but I find it interesting because

in the streaming era, but especially in the algorithmic thread that recommends videos, videos happen to us in a non-intentional way. It's like we were bombarded with several songs that we didn't choose. These songs end up penetrating the fiber of our lives. So from there, you develop animosity as you say. And especially when she gets into your free page because you see people hating on it. And just to finish, Benzunbun addressed the hate. He did a TikTok with KeiraTex and he talks to us and he tells us that the thing that annoys him the most is the people who say I hate Benson Boone just because I don't like him. He says at least

find a reason. Say you don't like my backflips, say you don't like my mustache say you don't like my outfits but the people who just hate on me because they hate on me, I will never understand blah blah blah. It's like he's really mystified by the people who hate on him but there, for two days

he really leans in on the hate. So basically what he does is he posts on his TikTok, unexpected remixes of Moonbeam Ice Cream. I'm going to play them now, but I'll show you later. It's going to be a song, and then the word Moon is in it. And instead of the song continuing, Moonbeam Ice Cream! You can't escape this song.

That's the meme that's trying to leave. Basically, this song follows me everywhere I like to move it move it I like to move it move it I like to move it move it Minions tonight we steal the moon ice cream taking off your blue jeans dancing at the movies cause it feels so mystical, magical There's the in-in inside and maybe the outrage will generate some virality for him, but his tour is sold out. But I think it's a good strategy to come in a digital universe that works a lot with irony, the joke, instead of revolting against the joke that is made to your dependance, just to adopt it and actually add your salt grain. That's it! And you want me to tell you the last prediction?

No. It's that finally... No! Yes! So I didn't even realize you said that. I said that automatically. It's just that... Like, you ask me a question and I'm like no! Do you like birds? No!

What's going to happen is that with irony, with pushing the meme, finally in a couple of weeks, people will love this song. And then we arrive with the final pipeline. People hate it. I think Benson Boone will be a fan favorite soon. He's going to do a podcast. To see. And then he's going to talk about his status. And then you're going to be like, I never understood Benson. And I think it's in the new strategy of Addison and Lorde, who in a Psycho album, this kind of almost vulnerability close to the livestream, the podcasts not made up, sitting on the ground in his apartment that Lourdes did.

But Lourdes and Addisonry have the same artistic director or in any case, the one who did the Bratt campaign, the guy who worked on Bratt, it's the same one who did the launch of the film. It seems that the two have the same campaign. The kind of interview, undressed, sitting on the floor. It's the same genius behind it. I think that's what it's about, it's him, it's Flood, the internet with a lot of media about you. So I overdo the interviews during a short period of time, during your album cycle.

Instead of not doing it at all, like Taylor Swift for example. Anyway, so that was my pop takes, pop ultra takes. And Munir, you said you had a cultural recommendation. Yes, I have a cultural recommendation to do this week because there is an artist from Montreal who is releasing an album that I really like. It's Franz Kelo who made a song that we had put in the DJ mix. Rapper Emergent who will be the mix tape Hush Laga in Paris. And that's it, go listen to it. I want to listen to it at least on June 6. Well thank you, Nouni. So we are still asking you to send us your takes by all the ways you find to join us. Or you can simply send us a vocal memo

to our email address, so infocafesnake at gmail.com. Thank you very much to everyone who listens, everyone who shares. Thank you very much. See you next time. The intro, the outro is from AZL. A-Z-L-O.

Yeah.