New Zealanders can't call their kids 'Fanny' anymore, a pigeon accused of being a spy has been released after 8 months & Dragons’ Den hacks invest in medical scam
The best cringe news of the past week according to yours truly.
Hello friend,
Happy New Season of Vanderpump Rules, to those who celebrate. We’ve got issue 6 contributor and writer Oscar Pimlett answer our Would You Rather today, and a long list of memes, headlines and tweets that will hopefully serve as a nice palate cleanser from all the Nicki and Megan drama.
Now without further ado, let’s get into this week’s newsletter:
Georjia: One is messing up a moment your friend wanted to capture and treasure for the rest of their life and the other option could be detrimental to your health. I would feel honoured to be asked to film but my friends should know me well enough to know I get distracted easily. And of course I would get distracted seeing a raccoon are you kidding me?! Using a carpet scraper thinking it’s a tongue scraper is your own stupidity. Look at the size of the bloody thing! And wouldn’t it hurt more than a regular tongue scraper? Can’t even fathom it! I think in the end my friends would appreciate me messing up the video is what they should’ve considered. I’ll try filming the video.
Annika: Usually I would avoid the ‘going viral’ option at any cost, but I wonder if failing to film my friend’s wedding proposal would make me feel more guilty and ashamed than earnestly and accidentally mistaking a carpet scraper for a tongue scraper. The internet loves authenticity, and sure, the error would haunt me for quite some time, forever, possibly, but I can always delete the video and then hope no one recorded it or will ever bring it up again. Being tasked with documenting what is to many people one of the most emotional and meaningful events of their lives and then messing up because I couldn’t help myself but turn the camera to film a raccoon instead?? What kind of friend would that make me. How would I feel at the wedding? I’d rather embarrass myself than let down my friend.
Oscar: For me this one is cut and dry with minimal thinking. Recorded proposals are almost always horrendous whilst raccoons seem pretty great, so I don’t think I’d feel too bad messing it up. Obviously, there’d be some guilt if my mate wanted me to record it, but I reckon my mates would see past that since he’s so cute. So, really, I think the racoon is more of a blessing than a curse. Plus, the carpet-scraper video is mortifyingly embarrassing, so it’d have to be an opponent much stronger than that racoon to trump the scraper vid. I mean, the carpet scraper is so huge I can’t understand how anyone could ever imagine that it was for your tongue, plus the fact that I would have to accept that, and accept that other people will realise that, I have ingested all of the foul carpet gunk that would be stored on the scraper. It’s a hard ‘Yes please Mr. Racoon’ as the answer to this WYR, and now I don’t think I’ll ever use a tongue scraper just to be safe.
Oscar Pimlett is a writer and primary school teacher from the North, now based in SE London. He enjoys writing in his spare time, and usually successfully manages to shoehorn his favourite topics; play-based education and food, into any conversation. His work aims to bring positivity and remind readers of the joy that can be found in an otherwise miserable world, and he hopes that his work inspires people to eat good food and play at any opportunity. In issue 6, he wrote about how something as simple as beans on toast became his comfort food and the mixed feelings this brings up about perceptions of pleasure and taste.
WATERCOOLER CHATS
Are you celebrating the end of January? Want to know how the Internet has marked the beginning of February? Need some conversational fodder for all the social events you can afford to attend now that January is over? No worries friend, we got you.
Here are our favourite headlines you can bring up during conversations you’d rather not have:
The context for this week’s Would You Rather needs hardly any explaining, really, but in case you want to see the videos here’s
someone’s friend failing to film a proposal because they got distracted by a raccoon.
a TikToker documenting their first experience with a tongue scraper… that was actually a carpet scraper.
New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs has released a list of baby names that were turned down by the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in 2023, including ‘Fanny’. Other names that were also on the chopping block are Kingkillah, Messiah and XIX.
Remember when everyone joked that pigeons are actually government drones? Someone took it a little too far when they detained a pigeon on suspicion of being a Chinese spy, which has now been released after 8 months. To be fair, there is a precedent here: Sky News reported that “in 2016 another pigeon was detained after it was allegedly found with a note that threatened Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.
As if it wasn’t delicious enough that Drag Artist Crystal won the libel case against Laurence Fox, who called her and Stonewall trustee Simon Blake 'paedophiles', she also showed up on Sky News as Elle Woods to talk about her victory.
Would stop reading now if you’re a hypochondriac: Daisy Ridley’s recent interview with Inverse reminded us that her anxiety was so severe by the time The Last Jedi hit the theatres, that she developed holes in her stomach wall. (Watch us googling: Can you get holes in your stomach from sending an email askingforafriend)
If you think you’re having a bad day, at least you’re not Bob Odenkirk finding out that he’s related to King Charles: "I’m an American. I’m not a monarchist. I don’t believe in that. You know, I feel like it’s a little twisted.”
Everyone’s likely thought about who they’d like to be played by if they were famous – and for most people, Lego doesn't usually enter that equation. Pharrell Williams however, is excited to collaborate with The Lego Group on his biopic:
“Uninterested in making a traditional film about his life, Pharrell set out to tell his story in a way that would set audience’s imaginations free. Developed from his singular vision, ‘Piece by Piece’ defies genres and expectations to transport audiences into a Lego world where anything is possible.”
Have I seen Despicable Me 3? No. Excited for Despicable Me 4? Friends, I didn’t even know there were any sequels to the first one. Still funny though that people are trying really hard not to think about Gru having sex since it was announced in the trailer that the film is welcoming Gru Jr:
The BBC recently came under fire for allowing a Dragons’ Den contestant to make unchallenged claims about alternative Chinese medicine helping her recover from myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), for which there is no cure as of yet. Her product proposal, which is based on Chinese herbs and ear seeds, got investment offers from all members of the panel, but she ultimately went with Steven Bartlett because she had previously been told that she would “meet a man called Steven and that he was going to be really important”.
Weekly palate cleanser: Sarah Jessica Parker talking about how much she loves the tube.
Do you remember our WYR from a few newsletters ago, when we referenced a TikToker’s story about how they were shook by a customer who mistook them for a mannequin? Well, it’s happened again! This time, a man punched a 4 year old.
Chloë Sevigny said your Lululemons and dogs are cringe in an interview with Rolling Stone which has since gone viral.
Shoutout to whoever’s leading on the marketing campaign for Griselda (a Netflix original series about a Colombian woman who ran one of the most profitable drug cartels in history) and their genius idea to get a Griselda-themed truck to “sniff” lines of coke through a giant straw while driving.
Speaking of great marketing teams:
Peaky Blinders star Paul Anderson (who plays Arthur Shelby with a notorious coke problem) has been fined for drug possession, including crack cocaine, amphetamines, and two prescription substances, diazepam and pregabalin. His lawyer’s best argument was to imply he was simply “in character to please his fans”.
To end on one last palate cleanser, here’s the story of how Colman Domingo met his husband of 19 years.
CRINGE MEME
Huge fan of how Twitter trauma dumped on Elmo this week; exhibit A:
That’s it for this week! Feel free to let us know what cringe content, memes, and headlines you’ve been enjoying lately. Until then, we’ll see you in your inbox next Sunday!
Your Cringe Team x