📰 🥗 Media Diet 04.15.26

What I’ve been reading, watching and listening the past week (or two)

These influencers really lucked out that the two week ceasefire aligned with Coachella Weekend 1 and the Masters. Unfortunately the blockade might dampen the mood for Weekend 2. Let’s get into it!

📖Book: Phases: A Memoir by Brandy

Checked this new memoir out from the library and if the book is as entertaining as the book event/concert clips then I have a lot to look forward to

🌐Digital News: Vox - The Soft TACO Theory of Trump

TACO = Trump Always Chickens Out. True but his words still cause a lot of damage. This Vox article puts this theory behind Trump’s negotiation tactics to the test.

📸Instagram: Kosas - Rob lip plumper ad

Some people are saying this ad (LINK 1, LINK 2) is too male-centered (LINK 1, LINK 2) for a beauty brand but can’t a girl have fun? This campaign was created by a Black woman social media marketing extraordinaire Tyra Booker after all. What happened to women supporting women (supporting a man)? And I’m sure Fabio didn’t read the romance books he was on the cover of but those sold millions of copies or Paris Hilton wasn’t eating Carl’s Jr. cheeseburgers.

👠Magazine: The New Yorker - Rate Your Happiness by Catherine Lacey

Great short story from the author of Pew and Biography of X.

🎬Movie: The Drama (2026)

My favorite movie of the year so far! I definitely want to see it again while it’s still in theaters.

🎵Music: idea 1 by Kelela

Inspired by Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler this new Kelela single feels like it’s from another planet. Very futuristic and glittery production.

✉️Newsletter: Service95 - Dua Lipa x London Literature Festival

The singer/book club tastemaker is curating the London Literature Festival scheduled for October 2026. Curious to see what “curating” entails but her and her team. They have done a great job at featuring an array of books that highlight international stories, especially nonfiction.

📰Newspaper: Washington Post - Why Catholicism is Drawing in Gen Z men?

Catholics have been up this year. First the new Pope is American then we have a podcast with nuns who play ultimate frisbee with their sisters and now Gen Z is going to church? Well not exactly but this article is pointing to an interesting albeit slightly stretched shift in the changing demographics of NYC Catholic churches but service members are still in a deep decline overall.

🎤Podcast: Channel 5 - Clavicular Interview

Brief bio for the uninitiated: Clavicular a content creator and live streamer focused on “looksmaxxxing” a trend where men try to get more physically attractive. Stay with me. Some see lookmaxxers as right wing adjacent as they use a lot of misogynistic vernacular from the manosphere and various underground blogs and reddit forums. However in this interview host Andrew Callaghan, who made the documentary This Place Rules (2022), explores how Clavivular’s views are more nuanced than what the NYT or GQ profiles would have you believe.

📻Radio: The Angie Martinez Show - Offset Gambling Debt

I actually caught this segment while listening to the radio in the car (woah, what a concept!). Hearing about Offset’s shooting over gambling debt opened the flood gates to digging into the history of the rap group the Migos (Offset, Quavo, Takeoff) and what the members have been up to the past 10 years. Has anyone written a book on the Migos? It’s quite a tragic story. But John Caramonica better back off and keep chugging along on the Kanye West biography.

⏰TikTok: NBC News - LA’s Most Tasteful Burgular Furniture Stealer

There’s a Bling Ring 2.0 running around Los Angeles stealing mid-century modern from folks in the vintage furniture scene including TikToker Victoria Paris. Watch it here.

📺TV: Netflix - Temptation Island (Season 2, Episodes 1-6)

This show is wild and really flips the script on “women crying television. The men are the ones in tears this time around and the women are letting lose!!!

▶️YouTube: Sally Darr Griffin - I Tested My Relationship By Building a Bookshelf

Honestly could see this vlog easily being turned into an artsy A24 horror film ala If I Had Legs I’d Kick You but instead of the catalyst being a hole in the ceiling it’s DIYing bookshelves that destroys your psyche. Luckily this story has a happy ending.

🎉🥳1 Fun Thing: I’m in the Courtyard Marriott in Westbury, NY