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Hello, ladies. Hello, Snowbird. Zach's a snowbird this week. He'll explain. Greetings. I'm Sam Sanders. I'm Saeed Jones. And I'm Zach Stafford. And you're listening to Vibe Check. Vibe Check.

Sundance Snowboard Edition. Zach is out there with the people at the festival. I am. I'm out here with all these predominantly white people at a very diverse film festival, which I will talk about in a second. How cold is it out there? Is it Park City, Utah? Park City, Utah, it is low 30s. And what is wild, I forgot this about.

being in the snow is that when it's in the low 30s that means during the day the ice melts and you're fine and you're walking around and whatever and then as it gets darker it starts to freeze and everyone starts busting their backs like everyone is falling and it's just and all you hear as you walk through the cities of Park City Night is oh shit boom it's just oh right so

Oh my goodness. All right, this week on the show, two big things to talk about. One, our reactions to the recently announced Oscar nominations. They were announced Tuesday morning. We're taping this Tuesday morning. We have thoughts. Oppenheimer led the pack with 13 nods.

And if you haven't guessed already or heard already, we're not the biggest fans of that movie. Anywho, after that, we're going to talk about a very interesting idea that Zach brought to the group chat earlier this week.

And it's the idea that for a few years now, culture and pop culture has been stuck, if not nostalgic, to the point of recycling everything old. You've noticed it. You feel it. The movies are all recycled IP. The songs sound like they used to sound 20 years ago. And the kids are wearing Y2K fashion. Yeah. And it's not just the kids. I would say you're seeing it on the runways as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So we'll talk about that after the Oscars. But first, I want to see how my snowbird sister is doing. Zach, kick off the vibe check. What's your vibe right now? My vibe is just ironic. So as I mentioned already, you know, I love Sundance. I come every year. I get to see so many friends I don't get to see very often. I get to support friends making art and work, which is very fun to talk about today, especially because our friend, Cora Jefferson, has...

has an Oscar nomination, multiple. - Congratulations, Kord. - If you're listening to this episode, you probably saw that there was a bonus episode too, as we've already talked about it here. So it's really, I love supporting friends. I love seeing when art is entering the market and culture's beginning.

My one gripe with Sundance that I realized this year. Only one? Well, I have a few, but one that I'm going to talk about is this year there was a lot of incredible movies about what it meant to be black in America. A movie that came out of Sundance that will come to theaters in February, I believe, is The American Society of Magical Negroes. I saw that trailer. It looked fun.

He got a lot of comments on Twitter because it looks like, what is this? It's actually quite good. And it's about the trope we see in stories that black people are always there to make white people feel comfortable. We're always saying sorry, we're kind of invisible. And this plays into that by saying, you know, there's a group of 100 black people in America that are there to be nice to white people, to keep black people alive, which is really cool. Really cool concept, whatever.

However, I'm in this theater and I look around. It's all white people watching and they're all like emotionally moved by it, loving it. But right as we step into that lobby, they are knocking into me. They don't see me. It's like they didn't even hear the note. They said the magic is over, Negro. The magic is only on the screen. So my thing is like, you know, I think people when we're watching things should really listen to them and take them to heart if they're moving you and like, you know, take them outside the theater.

And that's what my big issue with Sundance is, is that the film industry loves to tout diversity and inclusion, but they do not embody it or care about it when they leave a movie screening. Did it feel similar to you as the American fiction screenings where the white people were laughing too much at the extreme satire of white liberals?

It was even worse because I saw the film in Savannah, Georgia, where it was like, what? There were barely any black people. I'm like, do y'all get the joke? But beyond all of that, I'm doing well. It feels like we're back, was the saying at Sundance with the film industry. And it does feel a bit more back, especially with the Oscar nominations today, which we're going to talk about. So it was just nice to be in the world with people. It was wonderful, in the snow even.

even one question for you before we move to Said and his vibe you know there's all this talk that post-strike there will just be fewer TV shows and movies made and

Does that feel like the case, given what you've seen at Sundance so far? Like, is this next year of films, independent and popular, going to just be fewer films? That's such a good question. So for those that don't know much about Sundance, why Sundance is so interesting at the beginning of the year is that it's a good thermometer of the industry because it's independent films. Meaning these are films that were done outside the studio system that they're buying and bringing them in. And they kind of tell us what the studios are thinking are important.

two. So far this year, this is the first post-strike festival and only one film, I think, as of recording has sold, which is not very many at all. It's a movie with Kieran Culkin and it sold immediately to Searchlight, but nothing else has really moved yet. And there's a lot of great stuff, but something someone said to me

at the festival is they felt like this year everything was really down the middle. Nothing was very daring. They didn't really change anything. They were stuck in a sort of loop, which is what we're going to get into later. A strange loop, one could even say. A strange loop, one could say. And it did feel like this...

Sundance is kind of part of the thesis of the later part of our show is that culture stuck because even what the festivals are programming to sell isn't that daring or new and that's not very exciting. So we'll see. We'll see if this is a good strategy. Okay. We'll stay warm out there. Saeed, what's your vibe?

My vibe is weirdly a callback to my time in Vermont. Okay. An image comes to mind. So I would use my lunchtime every day to have meetings with my students about the rest of the term, how they're doing. And I always sat at the same window in the cafeteria and I had a view of the library. For most of my time there, a huge, beautiful Palestinian flag hanging from one of its corners. And...

It was so interesting that I developed this like potent silent relationship with seeing this flag because people weren't really talking about Gaza. I mean, it, you know, it's like you go to a writing residency. People want to talk about their writing. I talked to some other teachers and they were like, oh, I have students who are writing about, you know, what's going on. And, you know, but that wasn't really happening in my particular workshop. And I wasn't just like hearing it. It wasn't like it was like a buzz necessarily, you know, within hearing range, but,

And increasingly, it started to feel saddening, distancing, uncomfortable. This sense of, I'm looking directly at this flag. It's so beautiful. I don't know who put it there. I don't know the story behind how, you know, but it means something to me, but it's existing in the space of silence. And now I've been back home for two, three weeks. And it's like, we're getting ready to talk about the Oscars.

We're talking about the New Hampshire primaries, or really we're not because no one cares, right? It's like listening to Nikki Haley chatter and I'm like, next, next, next. There's a bit of the bite at next, next, next. And yet this huge historical event

Has happened, is happening. Is happening. In between your Instagram stories, click, click, click, click, click, 25,000 dead Gazan. How many journalists dead in Gaza? And yet we're still going about business as usual. Even more than that, just a few days ago, we found out that-

There are no more functioning hospitals in Gaza because Israeli forces have bombed them all. Imagine if there were an American city in which there were no hospitals. Right. It'd be all we could talk about. It'd be all we could talk about. And listen, I fall guilty to this as well. I lose focus. I look at other things. But thank you, Saeed, for reminding us that this thing still deserves our attention. Yeah, it's just...

Bizarre is probably a very euphemistic word to describe. But again, I just keep thinking about seeing that flag. And I'm sure there are many listeners who might feel somewhat analogous. They're like, does anyone even fucking care? And I saw the other day a Palestinian writer who was posting on Blue Sky. And she was like, I just feel crazy. I'm talking earnestly about...

And realistically about what's going on and what's directly impacting her family. And she's like, people are acting like I'm crazy. And it almost feels like another cycle of like COVID where people who are still earnestly masking and talking about getting vaccinated, you know, increasingly there's this like, just move on.

Just move on. So I don't know. That's just kind of where I am. And I just wanted to like voice that because it feels weird not to. And I appreciate you continuing to voice that in the context of this podcast to remind people that you can have conversations about the fun stuff and the heavy stuff. And that in fact, you should probably try both.

So no, thank you, Saeed. No, I appreciate that. And that came up a lot at Sundance this week is that there was one big protest on Sunday or Saturday, I believe. They got a lot of news coverage because a few celebrities like India Moore were there. But it was a moment where the other festival goers were like, oh, right, that's happening. That's still happening. I was like, how did you forget that? So just really, really bizarre. And it's like we do need to be

keep thinking about things outside of our day-to-day practice of looking at culture and art. There are big, huge things going on, for example, in Utah, as we're sitting there watching a lot of films, but there's incredible trans inclusion. The state is about to pass a ban on trans people in bathrooms, adults. And it's a very, many more aggressive adults. So it's like, there's a lot happening outside of our little bubbles, and we have to stay connected to them so they don't go on forever and ever. But Sam, what about you?

My vibe this week, I've been calling it just patience grasshopper. Like everything around me this last week has been saying, Sam, slow down. Namely, this beautiful, wonderful dog has not been in my life for about a week. We talked about Wesley. Wesley. The new pit bull.

But I'm in the process of, you know, giving that dog some home training. And let me tell you something. I have not brought up a puppy in more than a decade. And it requires so much patience. So much patience. This dog is a lover, but he is scared of his own shadow. He was rescued from a dog fighting ring. So there's trauma there. Oh, wow. And it took me three days to get him to not go hide under my bed whenever I said any words. You know? Oh, wow.

We're just now at the point where he can walk through my neighborhood and not be scared of every sound he hears. I'm still probably like a week or two from doing actual formal puppy training 'cause I want him to just feel at home first. But it's just been so beautiful to watch his little journey because every day he opens up a bit more and I'm realizing if you try to move fast with that kind of energy, you go backwards. If you move slowly, you move forward.

And I've just been thinking, like, how can I apply that to, like, my life? And I think particularly starting up this work year when I'll be tackling new work ventures, I'm realizing I will get further with all of these things if I move slowly, not if I move too quickly. So the moral of my week right now is patience, Grasshopper. So, yeah, thank you, Wesley the dog. You're welcome.

You're teaching me so much. And you're cute. It's a cute dog. It is a cute dog. Well, friends, before we get into the rest of the episode, we want to thank all of you who sent us fan mail, who reached out to us on social media. We absolutely love hearing from you. Keep them coming at vibecheckatstitcher.com. And you can leave us a review wherever you're listening. But for now...

This is a messy episode. We got like... But no, don't speak that into existence. I just literally... I just earnestly took a heavy Negro sigh on the mic. Wow! Listen, it's only messy if we make it messy. All right, let's jump in. We're gonna fly above. No, we're not! Bitch, we are about to dive bomb into these segments. Let's jump in. Let's go. Let's go.

All right. First and foremost, the Oscars, baby. The nominations were announced Tuesday morning. And as Zach and I discussed a few weeks ago, not too many surprises here, but still some stuff to unpack. Oppenheimer got the most nominations, 13, including Best Picture, Best Director for Christopher Nolan and Best Actor for Cillian Murphy.

Poor Things, that Emma Stone movie that I loved and told her to go watch, it got 11 nominations. Killers of the Flower Moon got 10. But here's the rub. Barbie, the most successful film of the last year and one of the most acclaimed.

a movie that folks say saved Hollywood for a year. It only got eight nominations, and Greta Gerwig did not get a nod for Best Director, and Margot Robbie, Barbie herself, didn't get a nomination for Best Actress. Meanwhile, Ryan Gosling got an acting nod for his work on the movie. I want to unpack all of this, but first, initial reactions. Well, can we add, too, because, I mean, this was a surprise. I believe America Ferreira also got an Oscar nomination for

And I said, yeah. Well, because my complaint with her character in the movie was I never got enough time. She got one good monologue that was literally a minute long. Yeah. She monologued her way to a nomination. A lot of it just felt weird. And I just don't understand how you can say, all right, Greta, you wrote this genius screenplay. We'll give you a nod for that. You

You're in a movie that's up for best picture. We'll give you a nod for that. But we want to acknowledge you as a woman director who made the most successful film directed by a woman of all time. I don't think Barbie's the greatest movie, but I think Greta did the damn thing. Yeah. Just to add, I forgot this till this morning. This is the first Oscars with the new rules that are inclusion rules where it's like, you know, one of your leads has to be queer, you know.

Differently Able, all these. So it's like all the stacking to where more people who are underrepresented could push through. I don't want to say America Forever got through because of some weird affirmative action that happened at the Oscars. But I do think that that's part of the story is that there's a change in how they're voting. And the fact that Margot Robbie couldn't push through and Greta Gerwig wasn't given something feels like, again, to our point the other day, Sam, feels like they're getting beat up for saving the day, but people don't want to give them credit. It feels very odd.

And I called this months ago and I still stand by it. I think the only actor that will win an Oscar for Barbie is the guy. Yeah, it's going to be Ryan Gosling. And that says everything you need to know about the patriarchy. Saeed, what's your take on all this? Well, okay. Mm.

Say it. Well, let's talk about Ryan Gosling first. I get it. Who I like. Wait, wait, wait. I think you did a great job. Go ahead. I get it. The idea that a male character, particularly a male character who's like an incel, leads a coup, ends up being one of the main characters to get nominated. It's not about the patriarchy. It's about the writing. Greta Gerwig and Noah. He performed the role that was written. Yeah.

And just as I feel, and I'm truly startled that America Ferreira, because I love America Ferreira, the actor, but the character, as y'all pointed out, actually to think about Magical Negroes also comes from that same trope. Yes. And you've talked about that earlier this year, literally driving her around and then the speech that is

objectively interesting, compelling, but not narratively. I would say, you know, with Ryan Gosling getting nominated, I'm like, it's not on the Oscars. Actually, it's on the writing. Write a different type of character. You can diminish and contain a character if you don't want that to happen. They gave Ryan the biggest and baddest musical number.

They gave him a larger plot arc than Margot Robbie's character had. That is true. We talked months ago when Barbie was released. This is a feminist film that ends up in some quiet, subtle ways propping up the patriarchy. Mattel wins. It's run by a man. Yeah.

the male executives in the movie win. Yeah, it makes me think of like Toni Morrison. So one of my favorite Toni Morrison characters is Pilot, who appears in Song of Solomon. She's an incredible character. And Toni Morrison was always very clear about like the work she did to control this character. Because she was like, you are not a main character. You are not taking over the story. So she does all this stuff to like keep, like literally keep Pilot off the page.

You know, she banishes from like all of these things. So I don't know. I think that's actually like a writing issue. Okay. I agree with you. But the one thing that really stands out to me that I'm confused by, but also excited for because I love this person, is the nomination of Sterling K. Brown for Best Supporting Actor. Sterling K. Brown plays the really, really loud,

out proud drug addled gay brother in American fiction. Yes. And while he did a great job, I love that man. I think he's fantastic and everything. I didn't find that character to be even in the book. I find that character to be kind of meh and kind of thrown in and does try to touch on things like sexuality and the black community and not being loved by your family for being who you are. But it really goes deep there. And it was a very campy role. So I'm like,

If he's getting a nomination, why can't Margot Robbie get a nomination? Like, I don't know. I'm just confused by that. That's interesting. Because I didn't find him to be like the most stellar thing. I will say, you know, we can quibble over the role because in some moments you're like, is this good or bad? But Sterling K. Brown performed that role to a T. There are moments where I'm just like, this man is on fire. And I will say, Mikkel Street, a writer I used to work with at Out Magazine, who's really fantastic, he tweeted something really interesting.

I think, and I want to say as the ex-editor-chief of The Advocate, is how did no queer magazine cover Sterling K. Brown playing a gay character in American fiction? Like, we saw no coverage of it. And a very gay character. And I know that he's straight, but we have covered so many other straight men playing queer before, but Sterling got none of that love at all and kind of deserved it, in my opinion. Well, maybe it's a pivot.

You know, after years and years of people saying stop doing it, maybe they stopped doing it. I do also want to talk about, you know, riffing off of Sterling K. Brown getting his Oscar nomination for supporting actor for playing the gay sibling in American fiction. Coleman Domingo made history. He got a Best Actor nomination for Rustin, the biopic about Bayard Rustin.

And Coleman becomes only the second openly gay leading man to get an Oscar nomination for playing a queer person on screen. Because usually when queer roles get Oscar nominations, a straight person is playing them. So Coleman made history. Congrats, Coleman. Congrats, Coleman. He's also incredible as Mr. in the color purple, which I want to talk about. I have a lot of thoughts about.

on how that film was treated by the Oscars. But also, I've been a fan of his since the Scottsboro Boys. And I think if you've been paying attention to like stage and film for like the last...

15 years, you will agree that Coleman Domingo has been like a hurricane just off the coast. Like, it's just like, are we not going to acknowledge the brilliance and the intensity and the love? I got to interview him once. He's a very nice, very warm person. So I'm delighted to see him shining. Well, and also he is the best dressed person of this award. Speak on it. That man is dressing him in Fantasia.

Runway. Runway. And I will say, you know, Rustin as a movie left much for myself to be desired. They felt like a Wikipedia page, but that man made it feel like so much more in how he embodied Bayard Rustin. And I just think there's no one in the world that could have played that role better than him. And I'm so excited the Academy is giving this to him.

Let's go to the color purple. There was only one Oscar nomination for this film, Danielle Brooks for best supporting actress. She was a force in that film. Rightfully so. So many other black women were as well. Yeah. I didn't expect the color purple to get more than one or two nods given the chatter around it, this award season, but I want y'all's thoughts on all of that. When I saw it in the theater in London,

late November, I got to see a screening. I felt that it would be a crime, a cultural crime for Danielle Brooks to not be nominated. So I'm so happy. I'm so happy. And Sophia, it's a very difficult role. Especially after Oprah played it first. How do you step into those shoes? Oprah plays her first. It's a difficult role inherently. And then now she has to add a musical component

There's like all of these things going on and it's just incredible. So I felt walking out of that theater, Daniel Brooks, for sure. Coleman Domingo, probably. And I felt Fantasia Verino was pretty, a strong chance of her getting best actress. I did. Yeah. My take on it, once I saw it, and I loved it. I told y'all, left me in tears. I thought it wasn't going to get a best picture nomination because-

There's really hard choices you make in plot continuity when you take something that is a book, then a movie, then a musical, and say, let's make all of that one film. So I had some plot issues that I won't break down right now. But also, I felt that the only actor in the film that was dynamite

talking or singing was Danielle. There were some moments where Fantasia came the most alive when she was crying and just about to sing or singing. Whereas Danielle Brooks could be like whispering in the prison and it's still, whoa. It's just silent looking down. Exactly. I agree. I will also just add my take to this.

You know, we have to remember that the Oscars is an industry event. This is about like the box offices, the film industry. And The Color Purple did historic numbers when it was released that one day on Christmas. However, it plummeted. So these Oscar voters saw that and they're not seeing the numbers match up with any kind of fervor to make them want to vote for it. So I think it fell for that. And I think they should have been nominated, but, you know, not surprised at all.

Yeah. What I've been thinking about this morning and talking with friends, they're like, what are you? And I'm like, I was like, I'm getting ready to record the podcast. I'll put all my thoughts there. Yeah. But this is not new, right? But what happens when I'm realizing is,

People vote for all kinds of reasons. I think I've expressed this before, right? But when I've been on juries for literaries, I'm interested in what I call the contemporary canon. When we look back at the year 2024,

five years from now, was the book that came out in 2024 that we still think of five years later as kind of defining poetry or nonfiction that year, was it honored in its own time? That is what I'm always kind of thinking about.

But that's just one angle. You know, I think other people go, was it really popular? Or maybe in the case of like a Sterling K. Brown or even America Ferreira, these are television beloved longtime successful television actors who are now making their like kind of future film breakout moments. Maybe it's like an overdue or a way to welcome them to the feature film space.

And what happens a lot, and we see this all the time, it is the reason Denzel Washington was snubbed years ago by Al Pacino. A lot of times the Oscars go to the veteran actor, director, writer who finally deserves it because they didn't get it the other times. Because I thought he should have gotten it for Hurricane.

I mean, Malcolm X should have got it for him. Malcolm X. Oh, good point. Good point. And what you just pointed to, Sam, is why Oppenheimer will reign supreme. Because Christopher Nolan hasn't won yet. And everyone's like, you deserve to win now. And so now the industry is folding to make that happen. One last thought. Then I want to play a little hypothetical game about how we'd make our perfect Oscars. Do y'all remember the year in which the Keen speech happened?

and The Social Network were both up for Best Picture. Yes. The Social Network was Aaron Sorkin written drama that told the story of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. Now he was just a bad man. We still quote that movie. It's so quotable. It like defines an era.

Do we quote it? I do. I'm sorry, go on. I do. Okay. Go on, go on. The film that won is one that no one talks about at all now, The King's Speech. Yeah. But it won because it was a typical Oscar movie. Right. Historical drama with a noble leading white man.

I think the same thing is happening this year. Barbie, as a film, will have the longer cultural impact and will actually define a specific cultural moment. Oppenheimer doesn't, but it's that kind of movie that just gets Oscars. Old, historical, dudes doing stuff. Zach, you're in this world more than any of us. When will we break this cycle? Oscar movies getting Oscar nods. The typical Oscar fare. I'm so tired of it. I truly don't. I mean, we had moments of it. Moonlight, I would argue,

broke the mold, but it didn't sustain the breakage. It kind of returned. And then also, Everything Ever All at Once broke it. So we're seeing moments of it, but if you enter a year where there's a really strong, atypical Oscar-worthy movie, it's going to win. And Oppenheimer hit all of those all at once. So it's like, I don't know. I think there's moments. A24 as a studio has been helping show us a new way. And, you know, there could be a change in the future, but I don't know if there's going to be sustained change, honestly. I think it's kind of like a one year you'll get Moonlight,

Next year you'll get Oppenheimer. I want us to, just as a fun little game, do a hypothetical of how we might make our perfect Oscars ceremony. I don't know if y'all know, but Jimmy Kimmel is set to host the Oscars this year for the fourth year in a row. That's exactly what those white people deserve. Suffer. In a perfect world, who would y'all have host the Oscars? Go. Oh, I have one. Ayo Edebiri.

Oh, that'd be fun. Our queen of TV and film. My answer, I think the Oscar should be hosted by the ghost of Little Richard. And how do we do that?

That's not my problem. That wasn't the question. That was not the question. I gave you the answer. Wow. You're welcome. And you know it would be good if you've seen any clips. It would be hilarious. If you've seen any clips of him at live performances, interviews, even like one award show thing where he tells the audience to shut up. He would get those girls together. My dream host for the Oscars, and you really can't deny it once you see her pedigree and resume, Monique.

She has an awesome fan. Let her host it. She is an amazing comedian, an amazing MC, and she'd have them folks quaking in their boots because she's a loose cannon. Well, they're all afraid of her right now. Yeah. So there definitely needs to be like a little bit of a bully element. And I feel like Monique and the ghost of little Richard. I mean, you know, Ayo actually, you know,

Yeah, you can do it. All right, next question. I personally remember a time when the Oscars had a bunch of musical performances. There was a time when you would hear every song up for best movie song in a ceremony. Didn't Beyonce, is this a fever dream? She did all of them. One year, Beyonce sang all five songs for best song. Sure did, and deserved. I miss those days. So in that spirit, who should be...

the house band for the Oscars? Because I say the Oscars should have a house band. Just music all night. Who would it be? Who should it be? A house band? That's tricky. I mean, I would do Billie Eilish and her brother Phineas. That's cute. They're up for an Oscar. That would actually be pretty great. They play instrument and sing. She's very versatile. People don't realize how versatile her voice really is. So I think she could do a good job. All right. Oh, I like that. I like that. You know, I don't know. I'm in a little demonic mood. So...

Miss Lauryn Hill and her band. I also say that's exactly what they're counting. You won't have a ceremony. That's exactly what they're counting. The Oscars will be on a Tuesday. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Okay, here's my pick for Oscars house band. And I think it's a perfect choice. Silk Sonic.

That would be fun. They're a party band. I saw them live in Vegas. They're amazing. Their whole energy when they're doing live is like wedding reception, bar mitzvah, big party. It'd be perfect for the Oscars. And they dance too. I think I like them more than Billy and Phineas because they would be great, but they're not a house band. Those guys will make you get up and start dancing. There you go. I'm like, the Academy doesn't deserve to dance. They don't deserve a party.

They need to sit there in silence while they're waiting for Miss Lauryn Hill to come on stage and think about what they did. If we program our perfect Oscar ceremony, that means we get to be there in the front row. So what kind of party do you want to be at? I don't want to be there. So I will be not there. I will be skipping. On that note. All right. All right. We're done with the Oscars. Next year, Monique's hosting. Silk Sonic is performing. And it's going to be FUBU, baby. FUBU.

All right. Going to break. Don't forget to check out our conversation with Oscar nominated director and screenwriter, Cora Jefferson, right behind this episode in your vibe check podcast feed. All right. Time for break. BRB.

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands. I

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z, but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors everywhere.

at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, We Are Golden.

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Alright listeners, we are back and now we're talking about how the culture seems maybe a bit frozen right now. So last week, as a lot of you know, we talked about musicals and how hard they are to roll out to mass markets. Most people seem to hate them and some of them sometimes pop through. And last week we focused a lot on Mean Girls the musical, which is an adaptation of the 2004 movie Mean Girls run by Tina Fey.

that we on this podcast grew up watching and have loved since the beginning. And I didn't see the musical till this movie really. So this musical came up a lot at Sundance weirdly, because I was talking to a lot of Gen Z young people, producers who were there. This was their first Sundance. And I was like, what do y'all think about movies? What's going on? And a lot of them were very connected to this new cast of Mean Girls in ways that we weren't because they know them from TikTok or whatever.

And something one of them said to me was, isn't it weird how their dress is the exact same as how you were dressing back then? And as we dove into it, we both realized that since 2004, nothing doesn't seem to really have changed in culture. You can't tell the difference. And it's not because they're referencing Y2K. It's that we haven't seen huge strides in fashion. And fashion is a great thermometer for change. Every decade, I remember growing up in the 90s,

You would say that's 270s, that's 280s, and you couldn't wear all of that all at once. Now, today, you look at a red carpet, people are wearing styles from every era, every time period. It doesn't really matter about specificity, which has led us to this moment in the beginning of this conversation of this bigger question of has culture just stopped evolving since the 2000s and are we stuck? So with that, I want to go to Sam Sanders, who I know has a lot of big thoughts on this because we talk about it a lot. Sam Sanders

I was so excited, Zach, when you brought up this topic for discussion because one of the big North Star questions of all of my journalism the last maybe five years has been like the loss of monoculture and what it has done to us. And I think it's tied a lot to...

the big questions you bring up about culture being frozen. I think there was this initial thought when the internet and streaming took over and I lumped them together. I lump internet, streaming, and social media apps as all part of the same beast. It's basically, it opened the Pandora's box of all culture. We have access to all of it all the time on demand. The idea was that this new era would...

democratize cultural creation and bring a new abundance in cultural creation because we all could do it now, right? But what we've gotten is that either all of our cultural consumption and creation is used to an algorithm that's different and unique for each of us or this ability for everyone to make everything has us all quietly reverting to a mean, a norm that is usually nostalgic, right?

I find that so fascinating. There's an essay that we'll share a link to by a composer and conductor, Russell Steinberg. He references a book by Kurt Anderson called Evil Geniuses, The Unmaking of America, A Recent History.

And basically the thesis in this essay in the book is this idea of frozen cultural stasis that they've termed, quote, mass nostalgia. And that's, I think, what you're getting at, Zach, this idea that there really hasn't been new cultures since the internet democratized everything. What we got in this era of democratization is…

was a look back, one big look back. And I sometimes think it's because we can look back more than we ever could before. I have Spotify and I can spend all day finding new music or I could just play Fleetwood Mac's Rumors over and over and over again, which I do, right? It's been this weird outgrowth of the ability to have everything all the time. We go back to the things that we know. And then even when we think that we're making new things, we're making Y2K fashion, which is a recycling of things that we know.

That's my first big take. Yeah, no, I love that take. And it reminds me, this weekend, of course, I've been in the snow. Kim Kardashian went viral because she wore all leather on the ski slopes of Aspen. It was very chic. People were so excited. And then everyone was like, wait a minute. Victoria Beckham did this in 2006, the exact same outfit. So nothing is new. What are you talking about? But with that, Saeed Jones, your hot take on this. Yeah, I'm going to comment this from a lot of different ways. It's very Whitman, very like, so I contradict myself. But so one...

One way of interpreting this conundrum, the sense that nothing is happening or that we're frozen in nostalgia, is that if we think of good culture, and by good culture I mean rich, it's a rich text. There's a lot going on. There's a lot to talk about, right, which is really exciting. I think people have such strong feelings about the Barbie movie, for example, because it's a rich text.

The phenomenon of it just gave us 5,000 angles. And it's just, we don't have that very often anymore. So it's really exciting to get a text like that. But the thing is, outside of film and everything, I think culture as a rich text requires isolation or privacy to germinate. And what happens now, I think, is because of, like you mentioned, the democratization of the internet, or rather, the discoverability of culture.

of culture because of the internet is that the moment just a little sprout of culture comes up,

It's too easy to go viral and then be everywhere. So on a Monday, a black girl somewhere in the United States with green braids can record a video in a grocery store doing a dance. On Wednesday, a white bodybuilder on the other side of the country is doing the dance. And a week from now, there'll probably be some Korean kids mimicking her dance.

And here's the thing with that life cycle. We also don't have a time to pause and reflect. We must react immediately. So you see a new piece of pop culture on the internet. The impetus is to respond to it right away. Not to take a day or two, sit with it, think some deep thoughts and then share that. So this life cycle also, it doesn't just erode the creation of pop culture. It erodes the conversation around pop culture because it moves so fast. And so like an example of contrast, I would say is...

And this is not to romanticize the time period, but house music or ballroom culture, they thrived and became the rich texts that still can define and change and accommodate culture because they happened in such isolation. Now, that isolation was happening because of mass death.

racism, violent, anti-trans, anti-homophobia, you know, politics, right? But because there wasn't TikTok. So I guess I would argue like if some peer kids in New York in 2024 started voguing, like for the first time it didn't exist, I'm telling you, it would be a dead trend by March. Well, and then here's the thing. Imagine if voguing had become a trend in the era of TikTok. Immediately,

Voguing would have been flattened to become accessible to everybody. The moves would have gotten easier. It would have been whitewashed. It would have been sanitized. It would have been dequeered to appeal to the masses. You can see the same phenomenon happen with the arrival of TikTok face. There's been some writing about this. The algorithm slowly suggests and figures out what the ideal woman's face is and gives you filters to get your face to that ideal.

The ideal is a boring, sanitized face that looks a little Asian, a little white, and entirely forgettable. One of the problems with creating culture and discussing it in an era of algorithm is that the algorithm was usually flattened.

It either will shatter monoculture or flatten your experience to culture. And I find that to be a big problem. And I also don't want to lean too heavily on TikTok. Let's talk about Pitchfork, which was just effectively shuttered by Kanye Nast. But significantly, it was actually Anna Wintour.

Like, it's interesting to have, like, the same gatekeeper who for a long time was, you know, at one point in her career doing actually a very good job of championing people like a young designer by the name of Rick Owens.

and now is like shutting down music criticism. And I say that because, again, the privacy, the isolation allows people close to the music scene, the independent rock scene, for example, to become experts. They get to define what the culture is and what it isn't and what the stars is and what the sellouts are well before those of us who live hundreds or thousands miles away even know what's going on. And so by the time it arrives to us,

on the radio, on MTV, we're the students. And we are consuming a thing that has been fully realized before it got to us. I want to reference one more essay that we're going to share in the show notes for this episode. It's a George Stalapa essay in Medium called Why the 2020s Don't Have Style. There's one line that kind of sums it all up. He wrote, quote, over the span of the last 10 to 15 years, culture has become a multi-channel stream of everything modern.

to everyone. And he basically argues that the era of cultural gatekeepers had ended.

So he argues in the essay that MTV in the 80s was what Instagram became in the 2010s, is what TikTok became in the 2020s. But what's the biggest difference between these three things? If you're comparing MTV to Instagram to TikTok, when MTV said we're playing Michael Jackson videos all day, every day for six months, that's all we all saw. And that's all we all talked about. And we were able to gather around that thing.

And there was a benefit in a handful of cultural gatekeepers saying, this is the thing that we're consuming right now. Now, I don't want to act like there weren't problems with this because before MTV played Michael Jackson videos, they were racist and refused to, even as he topped the charts. It took an almost boycott to get them to play black music videos, right? So I want to acknowledge that. But when you move into an era in which the container in which the culture is contained is ruled by algorithm and a specific experience for each of us,

You don't get that. MTV can bring you macro culture.

Instagram and TikTok increasingly bring you microculture and micro influencers. And that makes it different. Yeah. I love how you're framing that because it helps us. I think us as millennials make sense of the fact that, you know, you look to the 90s and Madonna was reigning supreme, but Madonna's rise didn't block Nirvana from taking off or grunge taking off. Like you saw pop culture in Prince, but then you saw something else that was entirely different. And people were able to eclipse each other and keep moving because of that sense of monoculture. Exactly.

But this micro influence at global scale doesn't allow that same kind of synchronicity to hit. Something I want to return to, and I think I've talked about on the show, is this theory that the chef David Chang wrote about in Wired in the 2000s, actually. And I think about it a lot. It really shaped me as a young writer when I read it. And he writes this thing called the unified theory of deliciousness.

And it borrows from Hofstra, the philosopher that created the term a strange loop, which is based off the musical I produced about the idea and a hierarchy in which power structures are kind of in the strange loop. And you keep returning back to the beginning over and over, chicken or egg or Boris, the snake eating a snail. These are examples of a strange loop.

And what David Chang argues is that food is a great place for us to see that nothing is actually new. Everything is nostalgic. When we talk about sauerkraut, we're also talking about kimchi because cultures all kind of gravitate naturally to producing similar things, but naming them differently. And I think that's like for me where I'm stuck in this frozen culture moment is that

recycling, which is a very human part of cultural production, of going and returning and producing similar things. But I felt like I grew up and saw new things, and I haven't seen a lot of newness yet. What do y'all think of this? I want to speak to that, because this is maybe a contradiction of what I was saying before, as I mentioned. It's not a coincidence that one of the, I would say, preeminent

culture news websites is called vulture as in culture vulture i i wonder if part of what we're seeing is that culture now if culture is what's happening what's being done around us it's this understanding that one instinct that internet culture hones is the ability to mine the archives and

And, you know, the early 2000s can be the archives and know how to deploy it, whether that's a meme, whether that's a look Victoria Beckham wore a decade ago on the slopes, you know, like I do want to push back against the idea that just because what we're seeing doesn't look or feel new doesn't mean that culture is happening. I think it's like a different question.

way and significant the last thing i'll say is and i've never thought of the early 2000s or you know the last 10 years of this maybe this is our throwback to a time of innocence and possibility the internet was free you could do what you want it felt like the world was opening up we were learning about a lot of new cultures and accessible ways so maybe we're throwing back to a time when it felt like the internet wasn't trying to kill us oh i do think the demise of twitter is

And the continuing decrease in relevance of what used to be the big social media platforms is taking us back to a time of hopefully nicer internet. The internet is nicer, maybe, if you are accessing it through Reddit threads or group chats or sharing what you like with like-minded groups of individuals and not talking to the masses. That might be good for us.

But I do want to just reference one more essay before we close because I've loved this piece for over a year. When we think about this era of nostalgia and this era of feeling like there's nothing new, if you want to experience that in its fullness, look to pop music. There's a wonderful essay in the Washington Post by Chris Richards from last year, and it's called –

how Beyonce, Drake, and Taylor Swift landed on pop's permanent A-list. And he argues that for like two decades now, the biggest pop stars have been those three. And that's it. And we love them, but is that good? Right? I want to just quote one graph of his essay, then I promise we'll close. I'm really doing a, what is it when you like cite all your sources? A lit review? Sorry. Do a lit review. Do a lit review.

A little of you? Okay, go on. Just go on. Annotated bibliography. A bibliography? I don't know, girl. It's been years. A little of you? Anywho, let me read a graph from this Chris Richards essay. And he says of Taylor, Drake, and Beyonce, the phenomena of their unrelenting ubiquity is hard to quantify, but we can try. Since 2010, every solo studio album Drake has issued has gone number one. Since then,

Same for Swift since 2008. Same for Beyonce since 2003. Wow. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but it's definitely a weird thing, especially if you squint back at the transformative early 90s moment when their superstar forebears, Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, were each semi-obsolest by the rise of N.W.A. and Nirvana.

Gangster rap and grunge. Of those four, only Jackson took a new album to number one in the 90s. As for today's permanent A-list, its blessed few remain impervious to insurrection. The riddle of their invincibility consecrated by massive sales, endless streams, and heaps of trophies. And this, I think, gets to the core of what I'm missing.

In this era of internet streaming, algorithmic cultural consumption,

We increasingly have less chance for a knockout cultural force like grunge. I want a Nirvana moment again. Do you remember when all of a sudden we were wearing flannel and singing Nirvana and you're like, whoa. You were angry and yelling. It was a shock to the system that was invigorating. We increasingly don't have moments that big.

That's what I miss. That's what I miss. Yeah, I agree. I just think a lot about back to Mean Girls. I was in high school. Mean Girls was huge. It was a moment. Mean Girls was a moment for me, myself. Taylor Swift was in high school about to release her first album. She releases her first album. And ever since then, she's dominated. And Mean Girls is now being remade. Why is that? What's why we're beginning?

conversation yeah so anyway what's i say thank you so much for that thank you for helping me think deeper about this i love this stuff i think i love this so interesting this segment is like why i think we created the show is to be like there's something happening what is it yeah well and the beauty of these conversations is that we don't have to land on answers we're going to ask

interesting questions and keep talking about it. So listeners, let us know, do you think culture is stuck? If so, why? Share your theories, share some links. Let's keep the annotated bibliography lit review going. I want to keep reading about this. Share your stuff. Professor Jones is going to send you an email after this, Sam, because I'm like, words mean things. I don't know words anymore. I know feelings. I know feelings. Sam is just vibing. All right. Well, listeners, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back. So stay tuned.

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We are back. And of course, before we end the show, we'd love to share something that's helping us keep our vibes right. And I would say I definitely need the vibe correction spirit. Like, help us adjust to all of this chaos out here. And I'm really excited about Sam's recommendation. Can you get us started? Yeah. I want to recommend Game Nights. I grew up in a household that was extremely conservatively religious. And I was a big fan of Game Nights.

And a lot of card games weren't allowed. Like we really didn't do card games. They were kind of secular. I did not grow up in a board game family either. So I never really had game nights as a part of my life. But a few weeks ago, a dear friend who lives down the street was like, I have this new game of Rummikub. I played it before. I want to play again. Let's do a game night. I went. It was super fun. I learned Rummikub. Yeah.

I've never even heard of that. With friends. It is Think Mahjong with a little dip. Okay. So that happened. And then I was like, I want to have another one. So last weekend, I had a few friends over to my house and we had a spades game night. And for the first time ever, I learned how to play spades. Our dear friend, Brandon Sharp, taught me.

And it was really fun. We're going to have another game night at another friend's house in a week or two. We'll probably do dominoes, I think. But, oh, my God, I cannot recommend to y'all enough. Listeners, have a game night with your friends. I love that. It is so awesome to gather and commune and conversate with the secondary activity going on in the background. Mm-hmm.

Something about having a conversation while you're also playing cards, also playing dominoes, also playing whatever. It just makes it all easier and looser and you end up just feeling more connected. That's it. My rec is game nights. Listeners, do it. At Bennington, another black faculty member, Toya. Hey, Toya. We hosted like kind of mixers for students of color.

And it's only like 45 minutes. It's like 45 minutes before you're supposed to go to dinner and then like some reading or whatever. And she was like, why don't we play in space? And I was like, girl, are you crazy? That's hours. You need hours. Are you?

I'm like, the whole point is for people to meet each other. Spades, it's not how you meet people. It's how you have fun and make fun. It's how you lose friends. Yeah. You got to have some context before you play Spades. I'd play with y'all. That'd be fun. Also, you know, I talked a few episodes ago about, you know, conflating boredom and loneliness and understanding when your boredom is actually loneliness. Tease.

Gathering your friends for a game night is such a low stakes way to go community as opposed to let me get this dinner reservation so we can spend way too much money. Let's go to this club and drink way too much alcohol. Let's get this Airbnb that costs way too much money. Nah, girl, come on by the house. Bring some snacks. I got the cards. And less pressure too. It's more affordable. You don't have to be like, oh, I have to host a whole dinner. You ain't got to dress up. It's great. I love it. Game nights. Not a new thing, but a good thing. I love it. Zach, what about you?

So, I'm still getting through all the movies at Sundance, so I'll have a better report once I'm done seeing everything. But I've seen, I think, eight or nine movies so far in the past few days. How many movies a day do you see at Sundance? I think it's averaging three a day. Wow. That's six to seven hours, plus talkbacks, plus parties after, plus it's like literally from like 8 a.m. to 2 in the morning every day. It's like a lot.

So the movie I'm going to pick, and I'm only going to pick a movie for my vibe rec this week that is actually coming out. Because there's no use for me to tell you to watch a movie that you may not see for years or ever. But the movie I really enjoyed is a movie called Love Lies Bleeding. And it stars Kristen Stewart and it's by H24. It is the gayest thing I've ever seen Kristen Stewart do. I've never seen her seem so happy. I know. This is like the gayest thing. Okay. Better than Twilight was secretly.

And it was just, it's a story about a woman who falls in love with a bodybuilder. The bodybuilder starts taking steroids and she becomes kind of Hulk-like. That doesn't ruin anything for you. But they have to cover up an incident that occurs. So it's a love story mixed with a crime story mixed with like a fantastical thriller. If you loved everything ever all at once, you're going to love the ridiculous campness of this movie. Plus Kristen Stewart is, again, so gay in it. And at her talk back, she seems so happy.

And she had a few movies here. The other she didn't seem as excited. This one she was like riled up and excited, which we love. The other thing, and I know this is breaking my rule, but I'm pretty sure it's going to get sold this week. So cross your fingers. Is I got to see the documentary about Luther Vandross. The first one ever made. Ooh.

that the family was a part of, something music made. And it was really good. It was really good. They talk about asexuality. They go there. They talk about why the family was so hesitant to do it. They talk about the accusations that he was HIV positive. They go there. And it was really wonderful. And I sat next to an older black woman

And she was crying. She was dancing. And she looked at me. She said, sorry, I'm showing my age, honey. And it just kept going. And it was just, it felt so wonderful. And at the end, they invited his background singers because they're all still alive. And Luther should still be with us here today, but he died from complications from a stroke in his 50s. But his background singers came out and sang songs. And it was really beautiful. Wow. It was really beautiful.

I mean, obviously, I'm very excited. I hope this movie gets sold. It has to. It has to. I would love to show it in a double feature with the recent Little Richard documentary for obvious reasons, if you know my work. But if you want to read about Luther's life in the meantime, Craig Seymour has an excellent biography of Luther. Could have gone further on sexuality, for example, but...

It's called Luther, The Life and Longing of Luther Vandross. And there are just so many gems. One little detail that I remember from the book, Luther was still in high school when the Supremes broke up so that Diana could go solo. And his grades dropped. He was so stressed out. He was so stressed out. His grades dropped. He was like the first Stan. The first Stan. So, all right. I love it. That's incredible. Those are mine. All right. And

All right, and my recommendation this week is from a Pulitzer Prize winning book, a poetry collection that won the Pulitzer in 2022 by Diane Seuss. The title of the book is Frank Sonnets. And the reason I chose this is Diane Seuss is...

I like sometimes when a poem sets up its concept, it sets up its music, and you know where it's going as a listener or a reader, and you just kind of ride it. I also like it when I have no idea what's going on, and a poem feels like a physical act, like something is happening to me as I'm reading or hearing it, and I feel like this is the case. None of the poems in the book have titles. The problem with sweetness is death. The problem with everything is death.

There really is no other problem if you factor everything down, which I was no good at when studying fractions. They were always using pi as their example. Rather than thinking about factoring things down, I wondered, what kind of pi? And here I am, broke, barely able to count to 14. When people talk about math, they'll say you need it to balance your checkbook. What is a checkbook? And what, indeed, is balance?

Speaking of sweetness, for a time I worked in a fudge shop on an island. After a week, the smell of sweetness made me heave, not to mention the smell of horses. It was an island without cars. Shit everywhere. When I quit, the owner slapped me.

That again is from the book Frank Sonnets by Diane Suess. I believe she has a book coming out in a couple of months, but it was fun to revisit it today.

When I said I need a glass of water. Yes. At 11 a.m. Oh, man. Yeah. We love it. Another, and this appears later in the book. And also, this is clever. Sonnets are 14 lines. And so she mentions, you know, counting to 14. Count to 14. But later in the book, and Diane Seuss, I should say, she grew up.

very working class, poor, rural in Michigan. And this book is very, I would say as close as we've gotten to kind of like an autobiographical look at her life. But another sonnet in the book begins, the sonnet, like poverty, teaches you what you can do without. So it's just like,

Really interesting what she's using this for. And like when I was introduced to the sonnet, it was like the Shakespearean sonnet and you know, like that feel. So I just love seeing whether it's like Terrence Hayes and like, let's see what a black former basketball player does with the form or Diane Sue, some Midwestern kind of vibe. I love it. All right, friends. Well, what are you feeling or not feeling this week? What's your vibe? You can check in with us at vibecheckatstitcher.com.

And that's our show. We did it. We did it. We did it. As always, thank you for tuning into this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast listening platform, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, and leave a review. And most importantly, tell a friend. Also, we hit 1,000.

Thank you. We did it. A thousand reviews. A thousand reviews. Wow. Look at us. Thank you. That was incredible. That's like platinum for a podcast. I'm into it. Deserved. Hey, good credit. Good credit. Now I want to go double platinum. Come on, baby. Come on. Well, huge thank you to our producer, Chantel Holder, engineer Sam Kiefer, and Marcus Holm for our theme music and sound design. Also, special thanks to executive producers, Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp from Agenda Management and Production.

I owe an extra note of thanks to Brandon Sharp for teaching me and a few friends spades. He was long suffering. I was about to say, you'd be very patient. Spades is like number theory. What in the world? I did it once and got cursed out by an old relative and never again. I was like, oh, it's not that serious. Yes. Yes.

Listeners, we always say it all the time, but we want to hear from you. Let's talk about your Oscar thoughts. Let's talk about your favorite card games. Email us anytime. Vibecheck at Stitcher.com. Vibecheck at Stitcher.com. Also, we're on Insta. I'm at Sam Sanders. Zach is at Zach Staff. There's an H on that Zach. And Saeed is at The Ferocity. If you post about us or the show, use the hashtag VibecheckPod. Until then...

Go play some cards with your friends. See y'all next Wednesday. Bye. Stitcher. At Amica Insurance, we know it's more than just a house. It's your home. The place that's filled with memories. The early days of figuring it out to the later years of still figuring it out.

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