The Daily - Sunday Special: This Summer in Culture

Episode Date: August 31, 2025

Welcome to the Sunday Special, running now through the end of the year. Every Sunday, Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, will talk with a rotating cast of Times critics and culture and lifestyle reporters about “the fun stuff”— pop culture, movies, TV, music, fashion and more.On today’s inaugural episode, Gilbert sits down with Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic at The Times, and Madison Malone Kircher, an internet reporter at The Times, to recap their cultural highs and lows of this summer. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Hey, everyone. It's Rachel. I am here with my colleague Gilbert Cruz, the editor of the New York Times Book Review. Hey, Gilbert. Hey, Rachel. Gilbert, you are also, we should point out, the culture editor here for many years. That is true. And now you're here to talk about a new project that you're working on. I am and I will. So starting today and going through the end of the year, every Sunday, you're going to find me here talking with our colleagues who cover culture and lifestyle at the New York Times about. the fun stuff, movies and TV and books and food and art and so many other things. I love that stuff. Do you love that? I love it too. We're calling it the Sunday special. And if you're subscribed to the daily, it will just appear in your feed. You don't have to press any buttons. I love that. I love the idea of not having to press a single button. Okay, great. So you are

starting this project today. Tell us what you have planned. Absolutely. So today I had a conversation with two very fun, very knowledgeable people here at the Times. One of our music critics, our internet reporter, we talked about music. We talked about a couple movies. We talked about obviously Taylor Swift. We talked about some internet memes. It's just three of us mixing up about the things that we really enjoyed over the past few months. Well, that sounds fantastic. Let's hear it. Welcome, everybody, to the inaugural episode of the Sunday. special. This week, I'm here with two wonderful guests, John Caramonica, sitting to my left

music critic, host of the Popcast podcast, John, thank you for being here. Ajoy. Also in the room, sitting right across from me, right over there, is Madison Malone Kircher, who covers internet culture for the New York Times. This means, according to her, she spends way too much time on TikTok. Madison, thank you for being here. Sorry, did you say something? I was scrolling. Great, great start. Great start.

It's Labor Day weekend, and we are going to look back at this past summer in culture. And I'm going to start. Really, I have to start with something that's both the most recent news and arguably one of the biggest things that happened this summer, which was a certain couple got engaged. So, okay, can I say before we talk about that, do you identify as an English teacher or? or a gym teacher, or do you reject that those are non-overlapping categories? Like, do you believe that is one category? I had a gym teacher that was also my English teacher, so we can contain multitudes. That's, I like to hear that. I feel I'm positioned at the exact middle of that then diagram, if I'm being wholly honest.

So, a thrilling day for English teacher rising, gym teacher moons everywhere. As someone who hasn't been to the gym in two plus years, I'm just going with English teacher, respectfully. I heard the news not in a way that you would expect, which is to say, like, looking at the internet, I heard it because my texts started going off crazy as if something horrific had happened. But in fact, it was just everyone trying to tell me that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey had gotten engaged. My group chats began blowing up, and I was sitting in the cafeteria here at the office, just having sat down to eat my salad. and I had this moment of being face-timed by a friend and thinking I was going to enjoy this and then going, oh, no, this is my job and just running towards the elevators.

I've since heard from at least one colleague who does not work with me being like, I heard you were running through the newsroom, like sprinting to get to my desk. This is commitments. This is what we do here. It's the New York Times. It's the New York Times News. Why was this interesting and what did people find most interesting about it?

I mean, I've been preparing for this no joke. since January, truly. Yes, you have. Oh, I thought you were going to say like 2017. The year, the year was 2007. Our song has just hit that, you know, I'm kidding. Look, it was an educated guess that these two people seemed to perhaps be on the train

towards marriage. They are juggernauts, both in their own spaces independently, and you put them together and you sort of get, well, what's bigger than a juggernaut? The people needed to know. The people wanted to know. And I was shocked by the reaction online, both to this news piece I wrote and more broadly, the state of my inbox. Everyone, I think, needed just a little bit of happy news this week.

And it came in the form of the Tavis engagement. Wait, is Tavis what we're calling it? Yeah, that's what we're doing. Get on board. So, Madison, for, I don't know, the 12 people listening right now to this episode who were on vacation and totally missed the news, how did this actually come out? Taylor and Travis posted a joint Instagram post on a Tuesday afternoon. I believe it was 1 p.m. Eastern-ish. It contained a series of photos of them standing in an elaborately decorated garden,

just lots of flowers and arch. I believe there's a candle chandelier covered in flowers. The works. And in the first photo, Travis is on bended knee in front of Taylor. She's clutching his head in her hands. He's wearing shorts, which has been criticized by some, not me, but some. And the caption, your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married also contains a tiny emoji. It's a stick of dynamite, which you might call T&T.

Oh. Get it. And the ring. And the ring. So in a subsequent photo, you get a close-up, but very, let's say, wisely selected close-up, leaves a lot of details to the imagination. But a close-up of a just, I believe the official gemologist term is honking diamond ring. speculation is it's an antique cut elongated cushion in some sort of gold I definitely know what that means chunky fascinating look I bought an engagement ring last

year I actually bought two one from you one for my partner so you learned diamond speak and I didn't realize it would become useful but also in that frame is a very flashy Cartier watch best belief she is still bejuled wow why am I even here like seriously like all just Just bars. I, look, I'm not here to tell anyone what to do or how to announce their love or how to announce their engagement or what to wear when they're doing so. But you're mad about the shorts. I am mad, small mad about the shorts. I'm just like, I don't care how warm it is.

These are engagement photos that are going to go around the world. They're going to live in their, you know, in their couple them forever. They're going to be up in every house that they own. And the guy is freaking wearing shorts. I do think that that speaks to Travis emerging, not from the world of true celebrity, Hollywood. It's because he's emerging from the world of athletics. And I just, like, this is no commentary on Travis's legs, you know, two thumbs up. But I do think like that this is a person who likes to bum around in casual wear.

And now he likes to get engaged in casual wear as well. I'm just going to proffer up a third option. maybe he was just hot perhaps it is summer yeah I got nothing on that I got what yeah that's not look it's extremely dangerous to bring me on to a podcast

under the pretense of talking about the culture of the summer and then it veers sharply into short discourse this is this is this is violence you guys don't want to get to like we want to bring up the loafers he's wearing

we should just stop this right here I didn't get the ID on the loafer I thought the loafer was fine It's short's discourse. That's really dangerous. You know, you're right. Let's move away from short's discourse. I would encourage us to step aside.

This is coming, of course, 13 days after, and 13 is a very auspicious number for Taylor Swift. 13 days after another massive bit of news in her world, in their world. Taylor Swift! That intro, Jason. Oh, my God. I've seen this before. Oh, look, his soul has left his body. Just breathe.

She went on her now fiancé's podcast, New Heights. So I wanted to show you something. Okay. What do we got? This is my brand new album. To announce her upcoming album, The Life of the Showgirl, which is coming out this fall. I can't believe this is the moment I finally had to watch a boy podcast. Yeah.

Okay. I make a boy podcast. You've never, you just called yourself out. I absolutely sure. I admittedly do not watch podcast, period. I listened to them. But this one I watched, sat at my dining room table, wrapped? Yeah.

You made an event out of it. I did. I did indeed. But did you, was that a sort of professional rapture? Or was that a personal rapture? Yeah, I was being paid to watch that podcast, John. I mean, as was I. I mean, we all were.

John, how many times did you watch it? And tell us what you thought. I watched it in full, not twice. One full time and let's say 60% of a second time. Here are some takeaways from Taylor and Travis. One, they were having two incredibly parallel but not same experiences side by side. Taylor was there for war.

Taylor was there, eyes on the camera, eyes on the prizes, communicating with the fans. I do think at one point she looked straight into the screen and spoke my name. Is that, yes, by name. Truly. Anyone who's ever bought. I think it was.

Anyone who's ever bought a Taylor album, you were named. Just like donors on the wall at the Met or something. Yeah, exactly. It's like me, the Sacklers, Taylor's. Yeah. Travis and Jason, on the other hand, like, what are, they're like, they're roughhousing. They're like, too-sling hair. Yeah.

They're like, hey, buddy, they're not in the same room, and they're still tussling each other's hair. It's absolute madness. I think that they realized, obviously, the power of having Taylor on the show, what it would draw to them in terms of audience. But I don't think that they understood that Taylor is not there to pod, as podcasters say. She was there to sell. Yeah. And she did.

I bought it. I bought an advance purchase CD. Which one did you buy? A CD. I don't need it. No, no, no, I know. But of the 19 million versions of these albums because Taylor Swift makes a million. No, just original issue.

Original issue, I don't need purple, glitter, vinyl. I have enough of that. Is the briefcase on sale? Because I was interested in the briefcase. The dealer no deal. I'll have one to pull out the vinyl. I'll have one send to Jersey. Thank you.

You're welcome. How do you know where I live? What, Madison? I was watching the show through the lens of a very active group chat of the Swiftsters. Swift sisters. It's not a great portmanteau. And I was struck by, I can't remember who said it, perhaps my literal sister, saying, I've never heard her say this many words in a row before.

And it was this illusion that we were getting for maybe the first time since Miss Americana, her documentary, a full picture, a portrait of what Taylor Swift has been up to and what her behind the scenes real life is like. Of course, this is highly manipulated. All of this was, to use your verb, the cell. Yes, highly choreographed. Except, you know, I, as someone who listens to Taylor Swift doesn't necessarily, I don't know that I've seen Miss Americana. I'm not decoding numerology. I'm not doing any of the sort of Easter eggy stuff. I knew that she had perfect lighting. I knew that she had perfect hair. I knew that this was all choreographed to the nth degree.

And she gave me the illusion of realness as well as I've seen in a very long time. I felt like I was there in the room with her, even though at the same time I knew this was highly edited, completely an illusion. It was amazing. So I have a couple questions. One, how were you in the room with her, but Jason Kelsey was trapped in a basement? Because the lighting on his half of the podcast, like we're in here. got four different light sources. Yeah.

So much like Jason Kelsey, like, borrowed under a table, like potting from underneath. Do you think they told him, you're fine? You know, when it was like mic check and all that stuff, they were just like, no, you look great. I think that boy casts don't have lighting budgets. I see. That's my sense.

Surely they can afford it. No comment. I just, he was not seated in front of a stack of art books, you know. Whose books are those? Ruth Asawa and, you know, all of these. No, it's literally, it's just the Barnes and Noble, like, art book table. It's just, like, one of the, there's probably, like, a cause book in there. It's, like, a version of the power broker.

Exactly. And meanwhile, the Swifties are like, Ruth Asawa died at the age of 87. Travis Kelsey is number 87 on the music. A song about Ruth Asala on the new album? Like, my sincerest apologies to the Asawa family and the estate. Are you kidding? Her price is about to go through the roof. It's unbelievable.

Look, there's no real intimacy happening here. I appreciate that you allowed yourself to be swelled. swept away. What is that like? What must that be like? I have no idea. I know it's been a very long time since you were able to, you know, sort of buy into the illusion. Raw cynicism. I wake up every day, dripping cynicism. Let the world in. But how, that is the world. I regret to inform you. That's literally the world. So fine. I am, I am, you know, the sucker here who, who took it for what I wanted it to be. And you were the man who sees through the illusions who took it for what it was. Okay, but only one of you gave her your money, and it's John. I'm a collector. I have an archive to maintain. Also, he's expensive, so it's fine.

Also that. Okay, so let's pivot to music more broadly. Song of the Summer. John, I know that there's some contention over the entire concept of a song of the summer. Talk to me. Okay. It is the position of me and a podcast, for that matter, that the song of the summer is a farce. It's not real.

It's a fallacy. It does not actually exist. Okay. You have declining monoculture, deeply fragmented. Everybody's in their individual silos. They're like, I like K-pop and reality television. I like hip-hop and ESPN. They're like, I'm picking and choosing from the full plate that's in front of me.

And it's very, very hard for one song to really appeal broadly across people who have the option of listening to any song. at any time. There has been a song that's been the number one song as you say for 10 weeks. It's called Ordinary by Alex Warren.

It is, and I say this, it is unbearable, it is unbearable. It makes me physically uncomfortable to listen to. Okay. Ten weeks at number one. Yeah. It makes me wonder who's out there, tapping in, pressing play, absorbing. I don't know.

Is that the song of the summer? If so, it's been a summer of misery. Actually, you do have a question for you about that. How much do you think of it was algorithmically driven? Because I was force-fed that song against my will, not only on TikTok, but on Spotify. Like, I would finish listening to seemingly disparate albums or tracks,

Calbu Carter, and I'm like, and how am I here listening to this TikTok guy, hype house dude? Yes. Fake British. Fake British. Wait, he's not British. See?

Not British. He looks extremely British. And also sounds extremely British. Uh, okay. Yes, I do think part of his algorithmic. I do think part of it is a collective dearth of taste amongst people. So good luck with that.

Grand flame. Yeah. Not really. Pretty straightforward. I mean, the tables just so on my nose is also like, sorry, ordinary. It's called ordinary. The amount of like a wedding and engagement, TikToks that I watched with ordinary. Look, I'm pro love.

I'm pro romance. I'm pro betrothal. Say it loud. I'm on that. Yeah. The amount of, if I come to your way, wedding. October 11th, Brooklyn.

If I come to your wedding, an ordinary is even playing out of an Amazon delivery van that's driving by outside, I'm going home. I cannot be in physical proximity to it. It won't, no. That's a workplace-related injury. Yeah. What was your song in the summer? It's called Can't Go Broke, the remix of Camp Go Broke.

It's by Zetti Will, who is a internet-conservoir. comedian, meme artist, and also emerging rapper. Shit, I guess with that many jobs, I can't go broke. I don't think it's possible, well, I like to stay up out to mix. I don't want it. I don't think it's possible, where I can't go, bro. I like to stay up out of a song. Okay.

And it makes a tremendous. It's performed. It's comic. It's lighthearted. It's youthful. I'm allowed to switch. Really time of being in the stoo, where I'm about to quit. Somebody call my A&R now.

Tell them get me out of here because I'm about to fuck. I'm jumping in the pool. We're going to get in the pool. It's not really in discourse with like what's happening on rap radio. You know, it's not there. It's very viral on TikTok. When I think of my summer and how I encountered music, I encountered so much music through the phone.

I encountered a lot of music in the context of, Does it make sense on a video? How does it interplay with all the other media that I'm consuming? And so for me, the song of the summer is a song of multimedia consumption. Yeah. And it's that. Madison, what is your song in the summer? My song of the summer is a live performance of Addison Ray's Diet Pepsi by Ben Platt at a fake award show.

I have worn it out. My boy's a winner. He loves the game. Madison, this is something. that sort of like bubbled up over the last few weeks of August. Sure. So, Las Cultures, this is a podcast hosted by Matt Rogers,

Bowen-Yang, and for several years now, they've run this very funny, wonky, fake award show. This evening's ceremony will be, just to use some technical terms, random sauce. Cuckooloolooloolooloo, Shigar. Here we award the film The Substance, but also the spirit tunnel

from the Jennifer Hudson show. And this year it kind of went more mainstream. It's on Bravo, if we just assumed that to be mainstream media. Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the acts was Ben Platt of Dear Evan Hansen fame, singing with all the earnestness and seriousness that won him the Tony Award for Dear Evan Hansen, Addison Ray's Diet Pepsi. Untouched X-O. Young Lust, Let's.

It is incredibly catchy. It contains a little ad lib in which that man sings, I like it from the fountain. I like it from the fountain. It just scratches the inside of my brain in a nice way. I like it from the fountain. Y'all love a meme. Unbelievable.

Y'all are the problem. Speaking of Diet Pepsi, speak of sodas, not the di-doctor pepper that you're drinking right now. It's full test. It's full test. You talked to Addison Ray earlier this year. Sure did. Yeah.

Yeah. You know what Addison Ray said? Taste is a privilege. I saw that. Taste as a privilege. And what did you think of her saying that? I thought that it was one of the most elegant, self-aware things that a pop star has ever said to me in an interview. She was locating herself as a person who, when she was 16, 17, 18, did not have access to a lot of cultural product outside the very obvious.

mainstream, didn't know how or where to dig, and had this kind of life force urge to get out of the circumstance that she was in. And in moments like that, you can't necessarily be like, I want to be artful. I want to be weird. I have unusual perspective. You're just like, how do I get out of here as fast as possible? The speediest route. And for her, becoming a TikTok star and kind of being very relentless about like, I'm

on every trending audio, anything that's viral, I'm participating in. That was her speed run through the internet. And now, she's like, now I can have taste. It can happen for all of you. I'm just saying the hype house birthed us both at us as a guy and Alex Warren, ordinary. Taste is a privilege.

Taste is a choice and a privilege. Can I talk about my favorite song in the summer? It's rude we didn't ask. actually. It is Rudy didn't ask, which is why I'm budding in. Dillard, your song of the summer was. Thank you for asking Madison. My song in the summer, John's second favorite is all of the summer, is Golden.

The song Golden from the movie K-pop Demon Hunter. Have either of you watched this movie? No, because as John said, we all experienced. It's culture in our own fun little silos. All right, well, let me tell you. Let me tell you about the movie before you talk about your love, your shared love for the song golden. This is a movie that came out earlier this year on Netflix. It's an animated film.

It is, it sort of imagines a world in which there are demons, much like the real world. Yeah, I was going to say it. Demons have always haunted our world. Stealing our souls and channeling strength back to their king. Timon, until heroes arose to defend us. There's always a group of three women that are responsible for keeping evil at bay. And in modern times, those women take the form of pop groups. Let's go, Huntress!

We love Huntress! And in the movie, we're catching up with the sort of the present-day pop group, a K-pop group. They are called Huntrix. And they are out there singing songs. And then the demons, they say, well, what if we come up with a band? It's time for a new strategy. We fight the hunters where they least expect it. Go after the very thing that powers the hon moon, the fans.

A demon boy band? And it's Alex Warren. And we can steal people's soul. So it's Addison Ray versus Alex Warren. And they do. So there's Huntricks, the ladies, and then there's Saja Boy, the guys. Just for clarity, I'm supposed to be rooting for the girl group. You're always.

Thank you, Madison. Because the other group sounds pretty lit to me. Yeah, the demon pop group. I bet the music's better. Yeah, probably. Okay. So this movie came out in late June on Netflix, and it has risen over a month and a half to be the number one most few movies.

on Netflix of all time, and in, you know, mid-August, early to mid-August, three or four of the songs from K-pop Demon Hunters hit the Billboard charts. And that might be because there was a lot of other good stuff out there, but this one song, Golden, in addition to songs like Soda Pop and Your Idol, have gone up there. And I'm going to tell you straight up, I was introduced to this movie by my child. He heard Golden while he was on the school bus to a camp field trip he brought it back we played it for days we watched the movie we've seen it six seven eight times it's been on loop and i can't get out of my head and i love it i love the way it goes up up up in the middle i think it's very catchy we're going up up it's our moment you know together

we're going to be going to be going on it all right john it's fine wait okay it's fine it's Fine. Here's a thing. No. I love John Carabonica say that's fine. It's fine. I've been writing about K-pop's entree into the American marketplace for a decade or more. I'm aware.

I read every article. There are so many gestures of sort of what I think of as Big Tent K-pop in these songs, but they are all tempered with the kind of impulses of children's music. music. And maybe a casual listener would say, oh, pop and children, there's not that much gap between children's songs and pop songs. And in many cases, there aren't. But when I hear the singing here, what I hear is a denuded, desiccated version of the vocals that I think mark the best K-pop. I also think the production is so optimistic. K-pop is about, or at least the generation of k-pop that this feels like it's referencing it's maybe like a little bit prior to what's

happening now it's broad and chaotic and kind of like nuclear powered um and this feels like what if we just made it smile and you're just like no no let's hear the other guys you want to hear sasha boys soda pop can two things be true at the same time i also like this song um this is wonderful this to me is a better song it's a better approximate i think of k-pop yeah i'm more pro this on that positive note let's take a quick break you my suit about gotta take every drop everywhere in sort of gross was Coldplaygate? Is that what we're calling it? What are we calling it?

We're calling it a Coldplay gate. Yeah. Coldplay gate was a Coldplay concert at which a man and a woman who should not probably have been at the Coldplay concert together were spotted on the Jumbotron, looking mighty comfy. Oh, look at these two.

All right, come on. You're okay? Oh, what? Trying to jump out of frame. Didn't really work. Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy. And we all knew who they were by the following morning, thanks to the magic. That is the surveillance date we currently live in. And these were two people who were, in fact, not married to each other.

And I think at least one of them was married to someone else. How did that make you feel? Terrified. And I, look, frustrated because this is a story with so many deliciously easy villains, right? You've got like cheaters, Coldplay fans, Guineathletro's ex-husband. You didn't identify Coldplay itself as a villain. villain. Oh, yeah, sure. Coldplay. Chris Martin. Absolutely. Any other easy marks in this that I'm missing? All the people, maybe that's turned this into various memes. Right. And so it's super fun online, right, to have somebody who's clearly, quote, unquote, in the wrong that people like to, you know, punch ad and mock and a tech CEO makes for a real good fit for that role these days. But honestly, it just, it's just a warning shot. Like to all of us.

You should be scared. Okay, a couple things. One, are we entirely sure this isn't a sigh-up by Coldplay's marketing team to draw attention to how many people are at Coldplay concerts? Are we entirely sure? That's number one. No, no, no, no, don't answer that. Don't answer that.

Okay, that's the first thing. Number two, look, we should be scared. I totally agree. We should be scared. But also, you shouldn't be cheating on your wife. You shouldn't be doing it in a public place. You shouldn't be doing it where there's cameras and phones. I don't disagree.

we've normalized this way too much, right? I've written many, many stories about scenarios like these. You know, I can think about a woman in a restaurant being like, girl, your bridesmaids actually hate you. Oh, yeah. Like, you know, your roommates secretly hate you. Don't you want to know, though. No, they do hate me.

That's why I don't have any bridesmaids. Oh, okay. But we've normalized a culture where this is not just happening in a place where you're correct. You're at a concert. There are jumbotrons. There are cameras. Everyone is literally holding a camera.

turned on the entire time. But you can draw a direct line between that and you on the New Jersey Transit being overhurt. So unfortunately, as we have just laid out, that was one of the bigger things on the Internet the summer. Arguably not great. Bad for everyone involved. Were there any less depressing Internet trends

of summer medicine? All I have to say is nothing. And I do mean nothing. beats a jet two holiday Nothing beats a jet two holiday So this is an advertisement for a British touring company The ad goes,

Nothing beats a jet two holiday Starting right now You can save 200 pounds Of a family of fort pretend I'm British I'm not doing that to our listeners But pretend just We have an AI filter for that That's kind of you

Fantastic, yes And all the while Jess Glens hold my hand plays In the background And this It underscored just an incredibly comedic trend on TikTok right you would use the video to be like it's a jet two holiday and it's a picture of you just experiencing something deeply awful it's a jet two holiday and right now you can

save 50 pounds per person it also came with a song people already like in a summer where we've described this absolute hunger for decent tunes and this tiny little TikTok audio which I believe originated at the beginning of the year like January of maybe even last year, just took off, like wildfire. One thing about the Jetty Holiday meme, which is, I feel like there's always conversation of like, how do we make something go about? It's like, you know, there's people in offices higher up than our floor. We're on the 28th floor right now.

We're pretty high. There's people on the 30th floor, the 40th floor. I don't know them. There actually isn't. There are buildings, 50th, 60th floor. And there's people in rooms being like, how do we make something go over? And we got like, we just stole 20 kids. from a college and we put them in a room and we forced them to tell us what was viral.

It's like, it's not that hard. You have a lightly funny thing that anybody can participate in. Everybody has been humiliated. Everybody has at least one video on their phone of an absolutely either traumatic or sad thing. You can be like trauma with funny audio, viral champion. Easy. What are you doing as a music critic? You could be working on 50th floor

is all over this country. Can I say now that if anybody has an office for me on the 50th floor of any building, I'm accepting DMs. We should talk about the Benson Boone Crumble Cookie then because that actually sits kind of at the intersection of what you're talking about, which is like a highly, highly curated internet moment.

Okay, I'm going to try my own crumble cookie today. Movie mask cream, crumble cookie. Benson Boone. He did a crumble cookie. In case you're not familiar with Crumbull, it's a wild. The Alex Warren of cookies. It's a wildly popular. That collab is in the works already.

It's a wildly popular. It's a wildly popular bakery chain that sells cookies that contain. And this is not to shame anyone for eating more calories than a human being needs in a week in a single cookie. I believe they actually sell like a little pizza cutter to cook. To cut. To cut these cookies. to like relatively reasonable

by the FDA or formerly FDA portions. And they're gross. No, don't tell R.F.K. Jr. about these cookies.

Don't tell. No, no, look. You go shut them down. I think this is like he and I, like,

handshake meme aligned. Oh. These cookies are my nemesis. I wandered around New York City trying to try

the Benson Boone crumble collab cookie, which was a moonbeam ice cream cookie and there

were lines at the door at all of the crumbles I went to, both for the cookies in general, but because people around the country had turned going to get this cookie into a trend. I'm here for the moonbeam ice cream cookie. You walk into a crumble and you backflip. Yes, you can backflip for a free cookie. All right.

Let's see it. Woo! Is there space in a crumble to backflip? It's a great question. In Jersey, the crumble you go to. Is there a lot of square footage? They're pretty big. I mean, that's what the suburbs allow.

There you go. Back flipping. So, look, a cookie connoisseur myself. Crumble comes along. I see all the TikToks, people in, like, Irving, Texas with like a six-pack of six different flavors. Again, as Madison said, all flavors that should not be in Congress with each other. And I'm like, I'm hitting crumble. Next time I see crumble, wherever it is, I'm hitting it.

There are more than a thousand locations across the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada. This thing is taking over. It's a blight. Well, I found one. and I said, I'm going to get just the rawest combos that you could possibly have. Like, just give me the sixth strangest cookies that are available here.

Yeah. Each one tasted like a pack of Post-it notes. It was unbelievable how for something with seven flavors in it somehow still tasted like fried, like spiced cardboard. How can I even? I'm running out of negative things to say about cromocos. You're listening to this podcast and not watching it. So what you can't see is I'm scraping my teeth against the top of my tongue

as though to remove some film. that is still there from this cookie that I ate six weeks ago? So do you think it was appropriate then that Benson Boone and Crumble came together? Absolutely. Yeah, he was the right person. And it was wildly effective. So how did we get talking about this? We got talking about it because Jettoe Holiday was not meant to be this hyper viral moment on TikTok

and it blew up anyway. This, they were hoping was going to hit. They wanted like a grimace shake, duo lingo owl. They wanted a moment. Where were you in 2023? Where were you? Because I was at the McDonald's. on 42nd Street,

drinking purple shakes for journalism. And we did it on popcast. I went to the one on 7th Avenue. We got it live, live. We could have a clap. We squeezed it right out of grimace. In the field. Yeah.

The field recording is over here. Squeezed it right out of grimace. Can we talk about another movie? Yes. Okay. We'd love to. Madison, you and I both saw a movie that, at least I loved,

even though it got a lot of crap on the internet this summer, which was a movie called Materials. I saw this, too. Oh, okay. Oh, my God. We got a three-way conversation going on. Unbelievable. This was Celine Song, who was her first picture, past lives, was nominated for Best Picture.

This is her follow-up. It stars Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal. It was sold sort of as a rom-com, definitely not a rom-com, more of a rom-drom-drom. I have a thought on that. You think it's funny. And I went in. I was late to the movie. I had heard a lot of negativity about it

and I actually had a great time despite the performances. Great Twitter about this movie. How much of the film did you miss? Oh, you weren't literally late to the movie. You were culturally late to the movie. You saw it. I did see it.

And I thought it was quite beautiful. It was one of those warm, lush New York City films that makes you go, man, I wish I could live in that city where I ostensibly live. I was infuriated by this movie. Infuriated. Perhaps not for the reasons. that the discourse was.

Where you lose me is Dakota Johnson's character, Lucy. Lucy. Lucy. Yeah. Lucy takes great pains at one point to disclose her salary. I make 80 grand a year before taxes. Do you make more or less than that? More.

I know. Finance, right? She's a matchmaker. She's a matchmaker, and she makes $80,000 a years, is what she tells Pedro Pascal's character who does not disclose what he makes, but we are led to believe it is... $81,000 a year.

It's $81? Pedro Pascal plays a very rich man. He plays someone in finance. I think I've got him from her like 82. Yeah, 82.5. And the movie is about Dakota Johnson, who's a matchmaker, ostensibly having to choose between Pedro Pascal's very rich guy

and Chris Evans' broke actor. Bushwick, Resider. Guy who lives with three. No, he lives in... No, he lives in... Brooklyn somewhere. Look, there. I'm not going to pay $25 to park this piece of shit for an hour.

That's the cheapest we'll ever get. We'll find street parking on the next block. John, it's been 20 minutes. I'll just pay for it. You're not paying. Dakota Johnson makes $80,000 here. She has a wonderful apartment. Everything's great.

Everything's great. She's out here wearing Kate and Perenza and Botega, and that drove me just... Clearly of the real, real shopper. I, nonetheless. I think there was a lot of stress. sticking points. There's a lot of stress about the $80,000. I mean, I think we wrote an article. Do you write

that article? I didn't write that article. So you can besmirch it if you'd like in front of me. There are a lot of articles about like, oh no, 80,000 not like, it's a movie. It's going to get a couple things. It's literally fiction. I agree. It's literally fiction. I agree. Here's the thing. You, when you introduced this

movie, you said a rom-com, but not a rom-drum. And a lot of the one point of discourse on Twitter about this movie was like, No human beings actually talk like this to each other. But you must know a lot about love. I know about dating. What's the difference?

Dating takes a lot of effort. A lot of trial and error. A ton of risk and pain. Love is easy. Is it? I find it to be the most difficult thing in the world. And that's because we can't help it. It just walks into our lives sometimes.

Are you kidding on me? Definitely not. But I do think... This is not how people who are falling in love or trying to feel each other out. It's a business deal. Right. It's a transaction.

So here's a question. Are these terrible lines? Are they terrible actors delivering good lines? Are they terrible actors delivering terrible lines? Are they good actors delivering? Here's my thing. Yes. It's actually on paper, everything's fine,

but if the whole thing was delivered as like a slapstick romantic comedy from the early 2000s, kind of like, what is it, like, 10 things I hate about you or whatever, if it was delivered in that manner, almost identical script, a film. Yeah.

But because everybody was so, busy just like having a serious like you're saying it's too stately for no reason it's got the physical comedy baked into it every like romantic interaction lucy that's her name ends has a handshake it's like we're just banging you over the head with the fact that this is a business deal we are shaking hands me and pedro pascal in the kitchen as we break up shake hands i'm going to marry chris evans spoiler shake hands yeah that would be very funny i think genuinely like i was excited i have very rarely been so excited by negative discourse about a film, so much so that it made me want to see it. The Twitter conversation was so angry about this movie, and at the end, I'm like, it's almost

there, but no one involved in making the movie had a sense of humor, and it is fundamentally a funny film, but no one there knows how to laugh. Well, let's turn to something now that I'm pretty sure the two of you are going to find hilarious. We are going to have the two of you take a summer pop culture quiz. There's a quiz? I feel like we should have been allowed to cheat a little. What's the quiz? So let's take a break.

We'll do that when we come back. Welcome back. I'm Gilbert Cruz. I'm here with John Caramotica and Madison Malone Kircher. We are closing out the Sunday special this week with a pop culture quiz. I've got a bunch of trivia questions here about other pop culture happenings from the summer. I'm going to read out a question and the first person who buzzes in with the correct answer gets a point. The most points When, okay. Is this Jeopardy rules? You've got to get through the clue first before we're allowed to buzzes?

Yeah, can we just buzz in at any point? That's a good question. Addison Ray. I think for the sake of our listeners, I should ask the full question before you. But who determines when the question is over? When the sentence ends. Okay. All right.

Okay. Fingers on buzzers or space bars or mouse pads. Ready? Let's go. Number one. What stand-up comedian and actor announced this summer that he'd be ending his long-running interview podcast? Uh, Mark Maron. Correct.

What seminal American film set over the 4th of July weekend on Martha's Vineyard celebrated its 50th anniversary this summer? Uh, big chill. Great movie. Wrong answer. The answer is Jaws. Tick-Tocker Lil Bulls official claims to have the world's only 24-carat gold version of what viral... Madison, you ragged too early.

What viral plush toy? I have the world's only 24-carat. La-booboo! The answer is Lebooh, that is correct. According to a single from singer Addison Ray's album, Addison, released the summer, What is Fame? Madison.

Fame is a gun. Fame is a gun. This is a multiple-choice question. One of the top grossing films of the summer was the newest installment in the Jurassic World franchise. What is the title of that film? Was it A, Jurassic World Dominion, B, Jurassic World Rebirth, or C, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom? Madison. Jurassic World Dominion?

Incorrect. That's a real movie, right? That is a real movie. Great. Next, Tra la Lera, Tra la La La La La. Ballerino Capucina. and Bombadiro Crocodillo. Italian brain rod.

I did not finish the question. Next question. In what video game released this summer for Nintendo's new Switch 2 console? Might you see a cow shoot a blue shell at a giant ghost? Bro, what? Neither of you play video games. Video games are one of the biggest things of the world. All right, the answer is a Mario Kart World.

The pop star Justin Bieber got a lot of attention this summer for seventh studio album swag, but also for a viral video clip in which he berates paparazzi for not clocking that Bieber is doing what? Standing on business. He was standing on business, as we all know. Is it not clocking to you that I'm buzzing before you finish the question? All right, next question.

This is a lightning round. The summer of 2025 was full of blockbuster movies about teams. I'm going to give you the names of the members of a team, you tell me what movie that team is from. Number one, Mr. Fantastic. Fantastic Four. Next movie, Luther,

Benji, Grace, and Ethan. Give me the full names. If I gave you the full names, you would not have gotten that one. This is Mission Impossible, the final record of the eighth Mission Impossible movie. Ethan. Tom Cruise. Rumi, Genu, Mira. K-pop Demon Huntress.

I just talked about this. All right. And finally, a trivia question for two people who claim to think a lot about Taylor Swift. As we discussed, she announced her album on Travis Kelsey's podcast. She talked about baking bread. What did she identify as the best sourdough variety that she bakes? Ooh, that's a good question. You have five, six.

seconds. She puts sprinkles in it for the Kelsey Kids. That's not it. No. The answer is cinnamon swirl. Yeah. Yeah. You know what?

Yeah. I'm going to admit defeat. We're both defeated. No, no, no. I just want to say I should have known that. Fair enough. I accept that and all the swifties out there who are listening who are going to drag me for whatever I write about the Taylor album. Yeah.

Yeah. They feel free to come for me. I am getting a note from our wonderful producer that tells me that the person who won our inaugural quiz is John. Would you like to see what your prize is? I have no choice. Alice Warren emerges from under the table. We're going to award this every week.

Oh, I'm going to, here we go. It is a Gilby. It is a trophy with my face on it. With your face on it? Yes. Oh, I'm keeping this. I'm sorry, Madison. I really hope you didn't actually win.

Can you read what it says? It says the Gilbert Cruise Award. Also knows the Gilby. The Gilby Libri Pelicule Televisio Musica, which I assume is Latin for books, movies, movies, movies, TV shows, and songs. Yes. Gilbert. John. This looks cheap.

But I, here's, okay. So now you have to invite me back. You can't hear eye roll. Because. Imagine. the end of 2025, my desk covered in these. I love it. I love it.

Covered in these. John, thank you for appearing on today's episode, looking back at this Southern culture. This has been a blessing. Madison, thank you so much for being here. Anytime. Gilbert, it was a joy. I appreciate you. I appreciate your patience.

I got thrown by your sincerity. This episode was produced by Luke van derplug with help from Alex Barron, Tina Antalini, Kate LaPresti, Franny Cartoth, and Dahlia Hadad. It was edited by Wendy Doer and Paula Schumann and engineered by Sophia Landman. It features original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Diane Wong.

Thanks for listening. See you next week. Thank you.