Lena Dunham's brat summer, Starmer removes 'unsettling' Thatcher portrait from no. 10 & TikToker interviews Sabrina Carpenter not knowing she's famous
Your weekly Cringe edit
Hi friend,
Apologies for the radio silence last week – we had to put the newsletter on hold for personal reasons but are back now! Hope you’re ready for this week’s recap:
Group chat fodder
Annie’s favourite headlines
Downing Street draws up plans for announcing death of ‘chief mouser’ Larry the cat
We don’t usually like linking to the Daily Mail, but there’s unfortunately not a better headline to mark Oasis’ comeback: The Gallagher brother who won't be making £400m from Oasis comeback - and couldn't be happier! Inside the very normal life of Liam and Noel's little-known older brother
Pop Bitch shared some anecdotes of the previously feuding brothers, including one time when Noel returned to a hotel (where he stayed separately from Liam) and went to the bar for a lime cordial, signing the bill ‘Mr Frosty’.
One of my favourite video genres online is TikTokers interviewing celebrities without knowing they’re famous. This week’s victim: Sabrina Carpenter.
Say goodbye to spontaneous hookups and making friends in the smoking area: Keir Starmer considers banning outdoor smoking at pubs
Georjia’s favourite headlines
Starmer removes ‘unsettling’ £100,000 Thatcher portrait from 10 Downing Street
The brat has spoken! Lena Dunham has written a guide dissecting Brat Summer.
A Lana Del Rey fan found out that her favourite singer is dating her dad on Twitter/X
WYR have your portrait taken down in the office because it made your colleague uncomfortable or think a group of fans showed up for you when they didn’t?
Context: This week’s Would You Rather is inspired by Keir Starmer removing a portrait of Margaret Thatcher from 10 Downing Street because he found it ‘unsettling’ (honestly so real of him), while the second half references this incredibly embarrassing video of Jared Leto waving to what he thought were his fans… when they were actually just there for the Love Island USA panel.
Georjia: Why would my colleagues be uncomfortable with my portrait? What did I do wrong? Am I ugly or is it a bad painting? So many questions! I think I wouldn’t be too offended if a colleague took it down but my ego might take a hit. My ego would take an even bigger hit if I thought a large group of fans were for me but they were really there for Love Islanders. I appreciate the delusion that would make me think that they are there for me. For me, this question is do I want to be Gina Rinehart or do I want to be Hailey Bieber in that one video? I’ll have my portrait taken down – I’d rather get on with my colleagues than make them uncomfortable.
Annie: The portrait option reminds me of a headline we’ve included previously about Gina Rinehart who demanded to have her portrait taken down from the National Gallery of Australia because she was offended by how ugly it was. In this case, you can probably to a degree blame the artist, so I’m going to pretend that my colleague wanted my picture taken down because it has an uncanny or creepy quality to it, not because they hate me. If I got excited by a bunch of people looking like they came specifically to meet me only to find out they were there for someone else… I don’t think I could dig a hole deep enough to bury myself in shame. It’s like waving back at someone who you thought waved at you, when actually they were saying hi to someone behind you – just 10,000 times worse. Take my portrait down instead, I’d prefer a passive-aggressive sign that someone dislikes me than getting humbled by a huge crowd of people.
Weekly palate cleansers
Annie: May I introduce you to Twitter’s favourite grandpa gardener in case you’re not acquainted already:
Georjia: This TikTok about what is the right way to wake your dog up.
Meme of the week
Thanks Keir:
That’s it for this week, see you next Friday!