Never News: Guilty pleasures
Hello divas!! It's me, Producer Georgia, greeting you on what must be our third fool's spring in Chicago. At what point does it just become spring? Or am I meant to take away the lesson that spring is simply a season where I am doomed to be tricked into choosing the wrong jacket every time? By the time I figure this out, I fear it'll already be summer.
Now, onto the news.
GQ: On the strange, fruitless ordeal of the celebrity lookalike contest
Most of the coverage of this phenomenon came in 2024, when the popularity of unsanctioned celebrity look-alike contests — a la Timothée Chalamet, or specifically Jeremy Allen White in The Bear — were at their peak. But with the recent-ish debut of the show Love Story, the trend re-established its strange presence in the culture this year, as brunette men with finance jobs flocked together to be publicly judged on who among them best emulated the late JFK Jr. Previous writing about this trend has made huge, weird claims, like the idea that this comes from a desire for the long-searched-for third place. I don't think that's true. I think at its surface, this is just a fun, goofy thing to do together, a la watching someone fold a fitted sheet or any number of other memetic, "unscheduled demonstrations" that have happened in the last few years. But I do think that this lookalike trend has a lot to do with masculinity and parasociality. There are many reasons why femme versions of this don't happen. But I think an interesting part of this dude-centric public aesthetic judgment is one of fantasy building – as if for a moment here in Washington Square Park, you could, maybe, find your Zayn Malik somewhere IRL. And all you need to prove it is a guy with the right hair and the right face. Here, the parasocial extends effortlessly to each other – emulating the personality of any given male celebrity or character doesn't matter. That can – and will – be imagined. What matters is that this guy has the right apron and the right curl pattern to really sell the Carmie vision.
SHOW NEWS: watch our next WIGOH recording on March 31st!
For the beautiful angels who have been regular viewers of our Twitch streaming, you know that we are to be found there on most Mondays. But! I am here to tell you that our next recording stream will be not on a Monday, but on Tuesday March 31st. That day, we'll be recording our WIGOH (What Is Going On Here for the uninitiated), the segment where each of us brings strange, bizarre, or altogether inexplicable things from our various corners of the internet to ask that titular question. And if you have your own WIGOH you want to share, share it in the chat, and perhaps we will investigate it LIVE! ON AIR! We'll be at twitch.tv/theneverpost waiting for ya.
WORKER COLLECTIVE CROSSPROMO: We love Aftermath ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶
This month, we're doing cross-promo for our beloveds at Aftermath. Aftermath is a worker-owned outlet covering video games, tech, the internet, and everything that comes after. They host a livestream and several podcasts, and subscribers can get access to their comments section, Discord, and more. Here's a link to their latest coverage. Like us, Aftermath is a worker-owned collective — a rare thing in a time when media is being consolidated left and right. Supporting places like Aftermath is the most direct way to make sure their work continues to be made. And it's amazing work! So get in there, take a look at their awesome coverage, and if you like what you see, why not subscribe?
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Live Nation Execs Laugh In Our Faces
I've missed out on so many shows because ticket prices are unimaginably expensive, and it's gotten to the point where I don't entirely understand who is even going to these concerts. Who is seeing a $507 ticket in the nosebleeds for an arena show and going "sounds good to me :)"??? Am I living among a sea of Mr. Monopoly guys? You may already know that for the last two years, Live Nation has been in hot water for causing this exact problem. The DOJ and narly 40 states have taken the concert sales giant – which owns Ticketmaster – to court for monopolizing the industry, and for unfairly upping the price of tickets, VIP packages, parking, and everything in between. That suit was first filed in 2024. Jump forward to earlier this month, when the slack messages of two Live Nation execs were made public. In the exchange, they joke about how they "almost feel bad" for bleeding customers dry, and how "these people are so stupid" for falling for it. But that of course begs the question – how stupid are we if we have nowhere else to go? I mostly just wanted to share this to collectively scream with you about how horrible this is, and desperately hope (with decreasing certainty) that somehow, SOMETHING will be done to fix this. Can't a girl go see a concert without selling a kidney first?
Annnnnnnnd that's all from me this week. The earliest daffodil buds are starting to peek out of the ground in my neighborhood, and they have already shrugged off several unexpected snowfalls. Today, it's 60-something degrees, a far more fitting situation for these little guys. But as with every spring, we are given this most direct of metaphors about resilience and survival to chew on as we trudge across the muddy sidewalk. For what it's worth, I appreciate the reminder.
Ciao for now.